Archivio di 3 luglio 2010
Apple Store Opera aperto a Parigi
3 Lug
Ieri è stato inaugurato l’Apple Store Opera di Parigi, uno dei più belli ed affascinanti tra gli store della mela.
Malgrado la pioggia battente, migliaia di persone sono accorse Rue Halevy per ammirare da vicino il nuovo Apple Store Opera.
A presenziare c’era anche Steve Cano, Senior Director Apple Retail International, che ha definito questo nuovo Apple Store come “speciale”, dato che si tratta di un edificio del 1853 ristrutturato nei minimi dettagli.
Lo Store è a due piani, molto grande e con una serie di eleganti colonne greche. L’edificio ospitava una vecchia banca, di cui sono rimasti alcuni elementi come il caveau, prontamente ristrutturato da Apple.
Tech&Hack
Apple Store Opera open at Paris
3 Lug
Set in a restored bank across Rue Halevy from the gilded Palais Garnier — longtime home of the Opera de Paris — the store eschews the usual bland Apple retail ambiance in favor of the site’s original architectural detail — the mosaic tile floor, the marble columns, the curving balustrade, the wrought-iron spiral staircases, the long narrow skylight.
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The story of Microsoft Kin
3 Lug
Since our piece on Wednesday, we’ve had more trusted sources step forward to fill in some blanks and clarify the story behind the amazingly swift fall from grace that Microsoft’s Kin phones have experienced since their launch just a few weeks ago. It’s a fascinating tale, and we wanted to share everything we’ve learned.
Project Pink — the initiative that would ultimately become Kin — began life under the direction of free-spirited exec J Allard even before Microsoft had acquired Danger in early 2008, though the company knew full well that it would ultimately need Danger’s cloud computing expertise to execute on the vision. As it turns out, Danger’s intellectual property was more important to Microsoft than its manpower, which might go a long way toward explaining stories we’ve heard in the past of Danger’s Palo Alto headquarters looking like a ghost town not long after the purchase. Initially, both ODMs and carriers were tripping over each other for the opportunity to be involved and launch the product; ultimately, Sharp and Verizon were selected as the headline partners. Knowing Allard and his track record, the vision was probably grandiose and easy to fall in love with — and needless to say, no one had been quoting a mid-2010 launch back then.
So with Danger filling in the last piece of the puzzle, Allard and his team got underway, completely separate from the Windows Phone (née Windows Mobile) team led by senior vice president Andy Lees. Bear in mind this was before the so-called “reboot” that led to the Windows Phone 7 that we know today; at that point, Microsoft was still cranking on an older vision that would ultimately be scrapped. Whether the initial plan in Pink’s earliest days was to use Danger’s legacy Java-based platform is unclear, but apparently, that plan ultimately evolved: Allard’s intention had still been to avoid Windows Mobile’s underpinnings, but he’d wanted to pull together bits and pieces from across the company — presumably mostly from Zune, which was his baby — to create a new Kin platform that suited the product’s needs, not to share a platform with anything in Lees’ department.
To get anywhere, a project inside Microsoft needs an executive sponsor, and for Pink, Allard had been that guy from day one. It was his baby. Of course, Allard was a visionary, an idea man; Lees — like most Microsoft execs — is a no-nonsense numbers guy, and to put it bluntly, he didn’t like that Pink existed. To quote our sources, Lees was “jealous,” and he was likely concerned that Kin was pulling mindshare (and presumably resources) from Windows Mobile’s roadmap. With enough pressure, Lees ended up getting his way; Pink fell under his charge and Allard was forced into the background.
Having Lees in control changed everything, if for no other reason than he didn’t care about the project at all.
Having Lees in control changed everything, if for no other reason than he didn’t care about the project at all. This was right around the time that Windows Phone 7 was rebooting, and Pink didn’t fit in his game plan; to him, it was little more than a contractual obligation to Verizon, a delivery deadline that needed to be met. Pink — Allard’s vision of it, anyhow — was re-scoped, retooled, and forced onto a more standardized core that better fit in with the Windows Phone roadmap, which in turn pushed back the release date. Ironically, because they had to branch off so early, Kin would ultimately end up with an operating system that shares very little with the release version of Windows Phone 7 anyway.
At some point prior to launch, the Kin team knew it was screwed. We’ve confirmed that Verizon did, in fact, pull the rug out from under them — the planned data pricing had changed and become much more expensive, which was supposed to be one of Kin’s top selling points. Voices on the team about huge, critical missing features like an app store fell on deaf ears, ostensibly because Lees just wanted to get the product out the door to meet the contract and wash his hands of it. The departures of Allard and Bach — which our sources would not blame on Kin, at least not alone — were just what Lees needed to finish Kin off, and that’s exactly what he did earlier this week. We’re told that Kin has sold fewer than 10,000 units in total, and the future of its support — planned software updates and the like — rests largely in Verizon’s hands, since it’s the one and only carrier that will ever have offered it.
While it’s hard to argue that Kin is an awful product, the saddest part of the story is that many of the people responsible for it knew it was — they were largely victims of political circumstance, forced to release a phone that was practically raw in the middle. Though Microsoft’s official stance is that the group is being integrated with the Windows Phone 7 team, it’s a major culture clash — the two groups operated completely independently from one another — and unofficially, Lees’ intention is to keep them out of the first release. In other words, many, if not most Kin staffers are literally twiddling their thumbs at their desks, and it’s unclear who will get to keep their jobs in the long term. No decisions have yet been made about what elements of Kin will find their way into future Windows Phone releases; though Kin One and Kin Two were fatally flawed, there’s no arguing that they’d brought some really great concepts to the table (notably the Kin Studio) that it’d be tragic to see fall through the cracks of a Microsoft conference room.
Tech&Hack
New York Times: Apple Working on New Apple TV
3 Lug
The Apple TV was once revered as the device that could potentially change television for the better. Today, many people say the Apple TV is a product that is on its death bed. Often called a “hobby” product by it’s maker (until the Google TV was announced), the Apple TV could be making a comeback if a new New York Times article is correct.
According to the blog article, people familiar with the upcoming revamp said the new device has a redesigned interfaced based around iOS (you know, the renamed operating system for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad). Also noted was that Apple had recently hired several people for the project with background in television broadcast design.
If Apple does go with an iOS designed Apple TV, it could lead the way for third party applications on the device (i.e. Hulu and Netflix) without the need to hack it to get those features.
Of course, there have been rumors circulating the Apple TV for a few years, and while the Apple TV has remained the same since it’s initial launch, it could be the right time for Apple to change things up. One recent rumor was that a new Apple TV could go on sale for as little as $99.
This is still very much wait and see, but if the New York Times article and other rumors are any justification, you may be seeing a new Apple TV in your living room sometime in the near future.
Tech&Hack
Windows live messenger su AppStore ITA
3 Lug
Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, l’applicazione per iPhone dedicata all’omonimo servizio di messaggistica istantanea, è finalmente disponibile anche nell’App Store italiano. Il download dell’applicazione è gratuito e di seguito andiamo a riepilogare tutte le funzionlità principali dell’applicazione.
Per scaricarlo cliccate nell’immagine sottostante
Ecco tutte le caratteristiche di Windows Live Messenger:
Chat:
Scambia messaggi istantane con i tuoi contatti Windows Live Messenger! Resta sempre connesso anche in movimento con le persone più importanti della tua vita. È anche possibile ricevere notifiche di IM quando l’applicazione è chiusa in modo da non perdere mai un messaggio.
Sociale:
Windows Live Messenger permette di visualizzare gli aggiornamenti dei tuoi amici attraverso lai più famosi social network come Facebook, Flickr, MySpace e altro ancora.
Foto:
Carica le foto direttamente dal tuo telefono cellulare per condividere i momenti più belli con le persone più importanti. Crea album, aggiungi didascalie, e lascia che i tuoi amici e familiari commentino le tue foto.
Hotmail:
Accedi al tuo account di Hotmail senza chiudere l’applicazione per leggere, rispondere e scrivere email. Ricevi notifiche e-mail all’interno dell’applicazione in modo da sapere quando sono disponibili nuovi messaggi.
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