“Data driven insights; user recommendations; big data services and all the other buzzwords of the pre-Singularity techno-dystopia some say we’re hurtling blindly toward are in Apple’s sights, as evidenced by recent deals,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“Apple wants to unleash the power of its ecosystem, and wants to ensure that when it does it isn’t merely penetrating new markets but also packs more rock ‘n’ roll inside existing ones,” Evans writes. “Strikes one and two on the Cupertino playing field aren’t hard to identify: its deals with Beats and IBM both put different elements of crowd-infused intelligence in reach: Beats for curated intelligence for music sales [and] IBM for big data analysis.”
“This isn’t the end, of course. Apple’s recently disclosed acquisition of Concept.io is also part of the play,” Evans writes. “While this deal is being discussed as part of the company’s attempt to take a larger role in streaming music services, I think the most important element to the takeover is the acquisition of a good algorithm for content analysis.”
Read more in the full article here.
As long as you can turn it off I’m all for it. Oh wait. That’s not going to happen, is it? For a company that purports to be so worried about the user’s experience…
It’s something nice, different, and unusual. But most importantly, it’s innovation…something Google or Microsoft never heard of. If you like old, and boring, than Windows 8 is for you.
Nice inflammatory post, “Bob.” You opinion might carry more weight if you included the following:
1) Specifics as to how Apple has failed in promoting and advancing the computing experience for users
2) Specifics in how Apple has failed to promote and advance customer privacy
3) Identification of *any* company that is doing a better job, and specifics associated with their superior approach
Otherwise you are just tossing duds.
I would like to see Apple also make a play for IBM’s chip factory.
IBM would never sell that… they still make their own POWER CPUs, which are beasts – each core in the POWER 8 can run 8 instructions per clock cycle and those cores are running at 4GHz+ and they come in up to 12 core configurations!!!
It’s already up for sale. They were in talks with GlobalFloundaries. But IBM didn’t accept their offer.
When I saw how the Beats music app works, by telling the app what you’re doing at the moment, I thought Apple could fairly easily deduce what you’re doing by taking data from your calendar, location, time of day or night, purchased iTunes music and when you tend to play certain tracks etc and use all this to decide what you want to listen to.