• The white iPhone IS the Verizon iPhone
• Apple’s Carolina strategy: Thin client computing networked out of the box. It’s the new MobileMe. Content creation will take place on solid state drive MacBooks/iMacs and content consumption will take place on iPads and iPhones.
• Apple buys Time Warner Cable
All of Cringely’s 2011 predictions (so far) are here.
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And here I was thinking they’d by Comcast.
I really do know how to spell that word.
As a long suffering subscriber of Time Warner Cable, I would LOVE for them to be acquired by Apple. But really, Cringely is just blowing gas out of his ass on that one just to get publicity and page views. It ain’t gonna happen.
Apple is going to change the media industry but not by buying anything.
@ArchtMig
Have some friends who are also greatly dissatisfied w/ TW and surely Apple knows that buying TW would be buying..to quote Jobs on BlueRay…a “bag of hurt”.
@Wingsy
A true pirate. No need to start now but it’s buy. Just kidding.
Buy Time Wanker?
I’m stuck with them, they suck, so anything could be an improvement.
The best TV-market related prediction, or at least my favorite, was the one that referenced the price for a network like HBO to produce a show (they used Boardwalk Empire) and basically pointed out that Apple could take their revenue from just one quarter (never mind the billions in the bank) and produce a handful of their own shows, available ONLY on iOS devices (or iTunes).
The problem is that Apple, as I see it, generally target “most” people or the “average” person, and the average person isn’t watching cable TV, they’re watching Two & Half Men, Jon & Kate or whatever CBS puts on during the evenings.
Apple would likely burn their bridge with content providers (networks) if they started to produce their own shows, and if The Office and Glee are what’s driving iTunes store sales and rentals, why risk that by producing their own content?
I would LOVE it if Apple could somehow make a deal with the major sports leagues (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) or even just one or two and the networks to allow live broadcasts of sporting events… even with the commercials.. but I imagine that’s a lot more difficult than it seems.
I think ultimately Apple is going to have cut ties with a large group – whether it be the content providers, the telcos/ISP, or something else – to make a big splash and really change things and I’m confident that they’ll figure out how, it just seems like a tough field to navigate.
Even as a joke I would like this series of events to unfold:
Ahem.
1. Apple buys Adobe.
2. Apple announces it is either making the creative suite Mac only, or severely cuts development and support of windows versions of everything in the Creative Suite.
3. Scan the Interwebs and laugh at all the ‘sploding Windows guys throwing apoplectic fits of rage and despair.
4. Steve Jobs keeps the Adobe CEO on, but forces him to dress up like an Umpa-Lumpa.
Apple buys Sprint. That makes more sense than TWC. TWC sucks and Apple wouldn’t weigh down their brand with that boat anchor.
Cringely’s #7, Microsoft is the new IBM, is what I’ve been saying for years
http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/2011-prediction-7-microsoft-is-the-new-ibm/
Can I get a job writing MDN Opinions now?
Given Disney’s close ties to Apple through a joint shareholder and common director I would imagine that content would be the least of Apple’s problems.
Apple’s forté is being a game change in technology – a disrupting force to the status quo. Given the highly regulated nature of telecommunications and cable provision to what extent can Apple apply its strength of hardware design and software integration to behemoths that value size over innovation.
Ah, nice to see that Cringely is smoking crack cocaine again!!
WTF is this loser lunatic talking about?!
It would make NO SENSE AT ALL for Apple to purchase a REGIONAL cable company that doesn’t reach across the entire nation. It makes LESS THAN ZERO SENSE.
This Cringely character clearly doesn’t listen to Steve Jobs when he is being interviewed at events like All Things Digital.
As a Time Warner Cable VICTIM, I would very much enjoy having Apple take over the company and sanitize it.
However:
1) Cringley never impresses me as anything more than yet-another TechTard journalist. Therefore, I don’t recommend betting on Cringley “I Predict!” proclamations.
2) Going into the cable TV, cable phone, cable alarm, cable ISP, cable blahblahblah business has anything to do with Apple’s interests or strategy. IOW what orifice did Cringley pull this stooopid idea from?!
3) No fit between the Time Warner Cable work culture (which is Marketing-As-Management driven and Marketing Moron dominated) versus Apple’s polished and sterling entrepreneurial work culture. It’s like dumping the output of Montezuma’s Revenge into a crystal mountain spring. I DON’T THINK SO.
Time Warner is dying – Unless Congress betrays us by ending net neutrality, all will be downloaded. But than, Congress will probably, as usual, betray us.
@Macromancer: Read my #3 above and substitute ‘Sprint’ for Time Warner Cable, etc. I have even less respect for Sprint than Time Warner Cable. Both are off the rails and driving wreckfully into the black forest of customer disrespect and gouging. You don’t take venomous and self-destructive companies and graft them onto sane and insightful companies. The result is consistently the GOOD business being fatally poisoned by the BAD biznizz. Apple are consistently too smart to let that shite happen.
I’m a TimeWarner Cable user for almost 10 years and Apple shareholder for 7 years. Apple is a great company, but unless they buy TW right away and update the service I’m switching to FiOS as soon as they get my neighborhood wired. I hate TimeWarner’s crappy upload speeds and their crappy SA cable boxes but I had no other choice. I hope Apple does buy TW and improves the service.
I’ll go along with whatever decision Apple makes for acquisitions because I’m sure they’ll have thought long and hard about spending any of their war chest. It looks to me like good way to get into consumer’s homes and may lead up to their own line of HDTV sets that will be truly converged with the internet, major movie studios and TV networks. Even if Apple doesn’t build whole TVs, I’ll bet they could build some pretty awesome cable boxes with a really good user interface.
@Tflint: I thoroughly agree and would enjoy elaborating to the nth degree upon the Corporate Oligarchy that rapes all things good in the USA. But this is not a political forum. The PoliTards here have been turning this honorable Apple information source into a cesspool of ignorance and deceit. Just drop the politics and enjoy MDN.
Nope.
That’s Disney’s job.
There is no reason under the sun for Apple to buy Time Warner Cable. None, zip, zilch. TW doesn’t control content; it’s basically relegated to a pipelayer.
If Apple were to buy any service, it would be Dish Network. Far greater reach than TW, but even that doesn’t make sense for Apple. It simply doesn’t fit into Apple’s business plans. Being responsible for maintaining TW’s physical network would not be a good investment.
I don’t know who would want to buy all those copper lines and then have to maintain and upgrade them to glass. Huge expense. Very long pay off.
Apple needs a satellite based system. Or no pipeline system at all. There was a reason the phone companies were legal monopolies. Someone had to do it.
Maybe we need another kind of monopoly for distribution of the internet which is a dumb pipe, not a content provider.
In the US, we built an interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s. Why not an interstate fiber optic system today?
Apple’s cash. Let it continue to pile up.
Whew…the boy must be hiiting the bong extra hard these days cause that’s some crazy sh!t he’s talkin’….
I do not know about Apple buying Time Warner Cable. But, Steve Jobs could buy the controlling share of it. Who holds the controlling share of Disney? Steve controls / influences the decisions of a major network channel and media source. Why not control Time Warner Cable too?
I do not believe that Apple would consider purchasing a networking system that is predominantly hardwired to the customer. If Apple ever moves into this area, my opinion is that it would be wide area wireless of some type. I believe that Apple would prefer to focus on its core competencies and not venture into the area of “dumb pipelines.” So I don’t see this happening unless the “next big thing” depends on functionality that existing network providers refuse to provide.
Cringley is a dumbass, does not know his head from his anal sphincter. Apple is not buying this turd.
Well, give him credit for not making meek, wussy predictions like “new MBP in 2011.”
As far as the how accurate his predictions are……
the reason for apple to buy time warner is to fight comcast.
Cringe.
That’s the only part of his name you need to know!
Why on earth would Apple buy something like that??
Such a great track record. Let’s review:
2006
• A huge expansion of .Mac to one TERABYTE per month of download capacity per user
• 2 new Intel Macs with huge plasma displays, but with keyboards and mice as options — literally big-screen TVs that just happen to be computers, too.
2007
• Apple releases iTV, a bunch of flat-panel MacTV’s that contain Mac Minis.
• The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can’t really deliver.
2008
• Microsoft will indefinitely extend the life of Windows XP.
• Not only will Bill Gates be retiring from Microsoft in 2008, CEO Steve Ballmer will, too.
• Apple will introduce a subnotebook/tablet computer/media player
• Along the same lines look for OS X to bifurcate clearly into two lines — Mac OS X and plain OS X (for devices like the iPhone) with Apple licensing (non-Mac) OS X to a few companies, including Sony.
• Apple will build into some Macs support for the Windows API, allowing Mac and Windows apps to run side by side with no need for virtualization software except to run Linux.
2009
•The next Yahoo CEO will dismember the company and sell it piecemeal, made possible by the fact that only the Internet companies have much real cash. The Yahoo name will survive but the company will not.
* Intel will buy nVIDIA
@Bubbles: Cringley is not on crack. He’s on hallucinogens. Syd Barrett triposaurus. Tripping out man. Gotta lay off that stuff and get your head together. Come back to Earth. Get a job.
Thin client computing only works when all users are on the network at a decent bandwidth. That so does not describe most of the geographical US. A pretty substantial portion of the population may be covered, but a lot of ground is not. Will Apple eschew serving those dispersed citizens of the hinterlands?
TW Service is just rubbish. I had no choice in NYC for many years and I jumped to FIOD 6 months ago and I love it. Why would Apple with the best customer service buy a company that has a very crappy customer service is part of the culture? PLEASE NO
I would love it if Apple starts to create it’s own content and create iTunes iChannels. I use NetFlix but finding shows is so long winded, Apple can do so much better.
what is this? I know Apple has made tons of profit. but come on. it won’t happen. it is more likely if MS would have a plan. not Apple, man. I don’t want CNN to be a part of damn Apple. who is this guy to write this kind of shit? just don’t make assumption, or trouble, will you? leave them alone. they know better than you idiot.
They could I guess.
A dysfunctional company can almost never be turned around, because it’s the internal, ingrained culture which makes it that way.
Apple forges its own path, and would never be sucked into the nightmare of trying to do the impossible.
Cringely, Cringingly wrong. Again.
@Foris sez: “A dysfunctional company can almost never be turned around, because it’s the internal, ingrained culture which makes it that way.”
‘Tis so. One thing Apple’s work culture points out is the value of historical precedence. Apple was founded and run for years as an innovative, entrepreneurial culture company. That spirit stuck with them, if only down in the guts of the company employees, all through the dire Marketing-As-Management era that started the day Sculley was hired. Consistently there was always something remarkable going on at Apple.
Similar to Apple’s history is Sony’s and Adobe’s. I could see them climbing out of their current Marketing-As-Managment hell with a sufficient evisceration of their current leadership replaced with a return to entrepreneurial leadership catalyzed by their historical precedence.
Compare that to Microsoft where almost never was there any spirit of innovation. The entrepreneurial spirit was demented into an exploitation spirit: Exploitation of the innovative work of other companies and exploitation of their victim customers. This is what I call an ‘aberrant’ business model that works only while there are victims to parasitize and psychopathic executives and employees to perform the suction. Therefore, they don’t fit into the Entrepreneurial vs Marketing-As-Management cycle.
I believe most people find it difficult to comprehend the thought systems of psychopaths. Thus the consistent misrepresentation of Microsoft in the press, the misplaced loyalty to their bloodsucking and the fact that they have flourished in various computer markets despite their detrimental effect.
Microsoft is kind of like the TV show “V”. Notice how that lame plotted sci-fi monstrosity has been raised and reversioned from the dead, a zombie, and that this it is again popular. Perhaps it serves as an archetype representing a massive blind spot in human perception.
Or maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those mushrooms today.
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