Category: Internet Stuff

David made an interesting point in a comment recently about the ridiculous prices people are paying for ring tones and how this may be encouraging news for more sophisticated content (like video). If people are willing to pay 50p or more for a few seconds of music in a ringtone, how much might they be willing to pay to see a key goal scored in a football match or an important news story?

Of course Mazingo tried pocket video stories a while back using a system like avantgo. I think it worked by syncing a pocket pc or palm unit with a server somewhere. Then you got video clips pushed to the unit. The costs eventually got the better of them because the company isn’t really doing that anymore. I think the most likely reason for failure was because they had difficulty charging for a service that was extremely expensive to provide.

Video over 3G networks has two crucial advantages over Mazingo. The first is that the people operating the system have a proven solid billing and payments system. Ring tone buyers have been useful guinea pigs for more sophisticated products and Vodafone has been running it’s Vodafone live service for some time now. So the payment side of things is working. The other key advantage is people seem willing to pay for services on mobile phones that they wouldn’t if they were buying the service via the internet and a regular PC (Or even to sync to a Pocket PC or Palm device). Somehow the networks have managed to convince users that their mobile phone is something different (and more expensive) and that they should expect to pay. Whether this view can be sustained is difficult to guess, but I suspect that it will probably last a little while yet.

I don’t know whether this means that 3G services will be sucessful or not. I suspect that eventually people will realise that the wider internet offers more scope and lower prices. The mobile networks may have to accept that their product is really just a commodity.

How long this takes is the key question though. It makes the difference between recovering the billions spent on 3G licenses and not. I suspect the networks will be paying very close attention to this indeed.

AppleInsider is saying that a new iMac is coming soon, while Think Secret is saying that there won’t be an iMac at the wwdc which starts next week.

So what (apart from the fact that it is probably a bad idea to belive everything you hear) does this tell us. Currently I’m tending towards the appleinsider view that something will happen soon, because they have evidence that retailers are not being restocked. You don’t restock if if you’re replacing the product next week, it’s bad for retailer morale and worse for their profits.

Think Secret on the other hand is saying that no iMac will turn up at the wwdc. This might be true as well, Apple might ship a new iMac just after conference, but why? It doesn’t make that much sense.

Who knows?

One thing that is essential however is that the new iMac must be cheaper than the current one. It might just about get by at the current price, but when you compare the current units against offerings from Dell as I did only yesterday, the Apple machines tend to look overpriced. This makes me sad to some extent, but it shows how a company like Dell that essentially doesn’t innovate can offer lower prices. The inovative companies tend to charge higher prices (Intel,Microsoft,etc).
The eMac is probably the right way to go. It’s a common thought but if Apple offered an eMac without the screen for $50 or $100 less I would probably buy one immediately. Even if it only had a G4 processor. The bottom end of the market is where I and quite a lot of other people permanently sit. So it’s worth making sure that there is something there for them to buy.

I only hope that people will learn to appreciate their macs more and be willing to pay the premium for the stuff.

I have sucessfully managed to make a purchase from the iTunes music store. Oddly enough I didn’t enter the start date for credit card and things went much better. I have no idea why that might make a difference. It could even be that there was previously a technical problem that has been resolved.

Anyway good news for me 🙂

Annoyingly there are technical problems with the iTunes store. I’ve made several attempts now to buy music but I always get a form inviting me to re-enter my payment details. Completing the form and clicking OK then either takes me back to the main page (without any music being purchased) or a box pops up stating that the purchase didn’t complete.

The whole thing is odd. However it looks like I’m not the only person to be experiencing issues. Comments on Apple’s discussion boards suggest that the problem is happening to others, particularly with switch cards but also in some cases with credit cards too.

It’s unfortunate that Apple didn’t test the system better, but this is something that seems to have been happening a lot with new Apple stuff recently.

However I’ll give them a few more days to get over the teething problems before I write off the whole thing. Difficulties often happen during the first few days.

Fun thing to do:

Try a search for “photoshop” on ebay.

I was looking to see whether it was a realistic way to buy a copy but it really isn’t.

Most of the auctions are fradulent or offering pirated software. There are the usual collection of “bid and get information on where to buy for £20” kind of auctions. Then there are the ones selling manuals or something but appearing initally to be the real product.

Finally there are the pirates who are selling copies of software in various formats, sometimes with a disclaimer that the customer “should only buy if they already own a copy of photoshop”. Then why bid on the auction?

Overall not impressive. I feel sorry for the few genuine sellers who are offering boxed and sealed copies or older versions. They are being honest, most of the sellers are not.

Ebay really needs to clean up its auctions because the current situation is getting really bad.