Apple issued a curious statement today with the headline of “Apple Statement” (I interpreted this cryptic title as Apple’s way of saying “don’t read this,” which of course made me want to read it even more as I was sifting through press release feeds.) Apple announced that its mouth-watering iPhone will ship in late-June, as promised, but only at the expense of its next Mac OS-X upgrade called Leopard.
Here’s what Apple said:
iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.
Leopard will ship in October instead. The statement, attributed to no one but written in a distinctly personal voice, concluded by saying “We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.”
I know little about the Mac market aside from the fact that Mac people are fanatic loyalists. If I were calling the shots at Apple, and I had to make a tradeoff between getting the tasty iPhone out the door in tip-top shape or upgrading the Mac OS, I’d make the same decision. The fanatics will wait (and may even be glad to wait, judging from the Mac publications I have perused), but the iPhone could change the course of communications.
The evidence attesting to the iPhone’s hotness keeps mounting. Earlier this week, Piper Jaffray released its annual survey of teenage buying habits and one surprising finding leaped out of the usual adolescent consumer pulse-taking: 25% of teens who said they know about the iPhone would be willing to pay $500 for it.
Perhaps even more startling is that 84% of teens say they’ve heard about the iPhone. With this kind of buzz — in the right demographic, no less — the iPhone will definitely dominate summer headlines.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:29 PM | Print | Comments (1)
(Back after an unanticipated blogging break) The Wall Street Journal’s Brooks Barnes reports today that broadcast network CBS is preparing to announce a slew of web video distribution deals, none of which involve Google-owned YouTube. (Reuters report on WSJ article here for those who can’t get behind the firewall.)
CBS is apparently planning to make its most popular content, including CSI, NCIS and The Evening News with Katie Couric, available in full-length form on a host of web portals including MSN and AOL. CBS is also gearing up to announce a deal with Joost. Finally, the broadcast network is also purportedly interested in joining the NBC-U, News Corp. venture aimed at putting video everywhere on the Internet — except for on YouTube, of course.
Although YouTube won’t be getting the 10% of ad revenues CBS is willing to share with all these new partners, CBS doesn’t seem to bear quite the grudge against the top video-sharing site that its sister company Viacom does. Not only has Viacom slapped YouTube with a big copyright infringement suit, but two days ago it all but punched parent company Google in the face by giving a fat web ad deal to Yahoo!.
Update: Joost just announced that it does indeed have a deal with CBS, marking the first “broadcast network” to strike a deal with the still-in-beta video site. The deal also extends to CBS-owned Showtime Networks.
Update: It’s official. CBS announced this morning the creation of its Interactive Audience Network, consisting of an impressive array of sites and affiliates, including AOL, Microsoft, CNET Networks, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Brightcove, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh. If this venture doesn’t make dough for CBS, it won’t be for lack of coverage.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:16 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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