Apple Racing to Include Movies and TV Shows in iCloud Service?


Earlier today, Apple announced that Steve Jobs will anchor the keynote at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, also taking the unusual step of pre-announcing that Jobs will introduce the company's "iCloud" streaming service at the event.

While virtually all of the recent discussion about iCloud has been about Apple securing agreements with music labels and publishers to allow users to store their purchased songs on Apple's servers for streaming to a variety of devices, CNET reports that Apple may also be racing to secure agreements for movies and TV shows in time for the service's debut. The most specific information seems to be regarding movies:

In the past several weeks, Apple executives have stepped up their attempts to convince some of the major Hollywood film studios to issue licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers' movies on the company's servers, two sources close to the negotiations told CNET. Apple began discussing a cloud service with the studios over a year ago.
The report notes that talks with film studios are ongoing, but one stumbling block appears to be the "HBO window", an agreement between the cable channel and studios Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and NBC Universal that requires those studios to temporarily stop sales and distribution of their content while it is being aired on HBO. Enforcement of such an agreement on cloud services may not be acceptable to Apple and its users who expect to be able to watch their content at any time.

The studios, led by Time Warner, do however seem to believe that cloud distribution is fundamentally different from other mechanisms and thus exempt from the HBO window, although it is unclear if the issue can be cleared up in time for next week's iCloud introduction. But even without such an agreement, Apple could launch the movie portion of the service with other major studios such as Disney, Paramount, and Sony that do not have blackout arrangements with HBO.

Information on potential TV content for iCloud seems to be based on speculation at this point, with the report pointing to Apple's existing "Multi-Pass" and "Season Pass" features that have allowed users to purchase bundles of content as foundation upon which a cloud-based service could be easily built, but it is unclear what the status of any discussions to that end might be.

Rumors of Apple looking to include movies and TV in a cloud-based service are not new, but sources have generally been silent about the negotiations as attention has focused on getting music deals done.


Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/31/apple-racing-to-include-movies-and-tv-shows-in-icloud-service/

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Android 'fee' malware hidden in legitimate apps

Several months after Google pulled a long list of titles from the Android Market to help protect users against Malware, the platform has reportedly been targeted by a fresh scam. Security software company NetQin claims to have found malware contained in over 20 Android apps, causing devices to auto-dial phone numbers or send text messages that lead to unwanted fees....

Source: http://feeds.macnn.com/click.phdo?i=e6401f1319fd9443f00a008466fe3b79

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Apple may offer free iCloud services with aggressively priced Mac OS X Lion

Apple next week is likely to announce that all Mac owners who run the latest version of the OS X operating system, Lion, will also receive at least some of the services from iCloud for free, sources have told AppleInsider.

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Source: http://feeds.appleinsider.com/click.phdo?i=eb9765309a4f525e313895ac13a2a28f

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First day of hurricane season means new Hurricane apps

Today is the first day of hurricane season in the Atlantic, and Kitty Code has pushed updates to its popular Hurricane and Hurricane HD apps.

Hurricane for iPhone allows users to track hurricanes in real time. Not only can you track speed, direction, pressure, and your distance from a current storm, you can also browse historical hurricane data all the way back to 1851. Additionally, text bulletins give you all the latest warnings about storms in your area. Hurricane costs US$3.99.

Hurricane HD is the iPad version of the Hurricane app. It's just been updated to version 2.0 and sports a major UI change with added features including the ability to plot multiple storms (past and present) on interactive tracking maps, track hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones world wide, and offers push notifications for newly formed storms. Hurricane HD 2.0 is US$3.99.

First day of hurricane season means new Hurricane apps originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/01/first-day-of-hurricane-season-means-new-hurricane-apps/

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Apple "Just" Renewed Maps and Search Partnership with Google


During Eric Schmidt's interview at AllThingsD 9, he revealed that Google had just renewed their Map and Search agreements with Apple. Quote per Engadget:
"We just renewed our Map and Search agreements with Apple, and we hope those continue for a long time."
This confirms rumors that Apple would be continuing to use Google Map data in iOS 5. There had been a number of Apple acquisitions and hirings that have suggested that Apple is actively working in this area. The news also suggests that Google's search remains the default choice rather than Microsoft's Bing which was said to be under consideration at one point.


Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/31/apple-just-renewed-maps-and-search-partnership-with-google/

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Why Apple Won?t Be Flying Solo on Maps Anytime Soon

Former Google CEO and current Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Tuesday that Google recently reached a deal with Apple that will ensure Google search and maps products continue to appear on the iPhone. Apple, then, likely isn't taking over iOS Maps app duties.

Source: http://gigaom.com/apple/why-apple-wont-be-flying-solo-on-maps-anytime-soon/

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Report indicates iOS users stick with platform due to 'lock-in effect'

Citing a report from research2guidance, GigaOM notes that Apple's market share of app downloads reversed the backward slide that began in 2009 and recently increased by 2 percent. This is a far cry from the doom n' gloom predictions many pundits have been espousing for Apple's platform, and it shows that Google's Android Marketplace still has a long way to go before unseating Apple's App Store.

The report speculates that a "lock-in effect" is partially responsible for users sticking with Apple's platform. iOS users, whether they're iPhone, iPod touch or iPad owners, tend to download a large number of apps, with a fairly high percentage of those apps being paid versions. The higher number of paid apps a user downloads, the more likely it is that user will stick with the same platform. This makes perfect sense; if you're like me and you've got a couple hundred bucks worth of apps on your various devices, that's a lot of inertia to overcome if you decide you want to switch platforms.

When you flip it around and look at things from the Android perspective, things don't look as rosy. GigaOM recently cited research from Distimo that showed paid downloads represent a truly minuscule proportion of total app downloads from the Android Market. 79.3 percent of paid apps on the Android platform have been downloaded less than 100 times, and only 4.6 percent of paid apps were downloaded more than 1000 times. A 2010 Distimo report (again cited from GigaOM) noted that Android users download a disproportionately large number of free apps compared to the iOS platform, and that trend doesn't appear to be reversing.

The end result is that for all we hear from various tech pundits about Android's ascending smartphone market share being the only metric that matters, other numbers are showing that not only are users more likely to stick with iOS due to app 'lock-in,' Apple's App Store also remains a more attractive market for app developers who actually want to make money with paid apps. CNNMoney's analysis of the same Distimo report paints a very stark picture: of 72,000 paid apps on the Android platform, only two have sold more than 500,000 (but less than one million) copies over the history of the platform. Contrast that with six paid applications generating 500,000 or more downloads just in the US version of the iPhone's App Store in March and April alone.

How many paid apps have you downloaded for your iOS device, and do you consider that an impediment to switching platforms? Let us know in the comments.

Report indicates iOS users stick with platform due to 'lock-in effect' originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/01/report-indicates-ios-users-stick-with-platform-due-to-lock-in-e/

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7 iPad Habits of Highly Effective Remote Workers

The use of the iPad by mobile workers is on the rise, and that brings with it both boons and challenges for productivity. Here's how you and your remote staff can stay on top of iPad usage, lest iPad usage controls you and your organization instead.

Source: http://gigaom.com/collaboration/7-ipad-habits-of-highly-effective-remote-workers/

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