Just discovered this great iPhone app — it does filters and effects, what I was looking for in iMovie but which iMovie for iPhone didn’t deliver. Looks like they have a range of interesting filter and effect apps. Link here.
Jul 272010
Jun 022010
The reaction to AT&T revising data plans for the iPhone and iPad as of Monday, June 7 has been met with mixed reactions on the web today, but generally positive, I would say, given that most people don’t use 2 GB per month. Plus, on the bonus side, AT&T will (finally) introduce tethering to the U.S., and it can be purchased on a month-by-month basis, which makes traveling with a laptop much more palatable.
One thing I’m unclear of is whether I could tether an iPhone to an iPad- I haven’t heard this question addressed directly, although I remember Steve Jobs emailing a month or two ago that iPad wouldn’t tether.
What I really wanted to talk about were two points that I haven’t heard that much about today. First, I have heard a few people talk about the new North Carolina data center coming online this summer. This data center is reputed to be able to transmit over 4 times the data that Apple’s current data center does. This would be the data center that runs iTunes and serves up a LOT of content. Multiplying that by 4 times seems to imply that they are coming out with a new service that is data intensive, and common consensus seems to be around streaming media, usually, the ability to stream any content you have purchased via iTunes to your computer or mobile device. The ability to stream (purchased) iTunes collections is going to put a lot of pull on AT&T’s network.
Secondly, the extorted iPhone had a front-facing camera as well as a rear facing camera with an LED flash. Standard reasoning is that the front-facing camera is there to support video chat, allowing people to video-conference rather than just telephone. With many current iPhone owners ready to upgrade this service might start small, but I think as it grows it will put a lot more bandwidth in play.
In short, we’re about to see data use on AT&T’s network go way, way up. I think overall, for current usage, the new plans seem fairly priced and don’t penalize people unduly for overages. The question remains how much the new services will actually impact the data rates of average to slightly high-usage users.
Feb 232010
The New York Times published an article today, Networks Wary of Apple’s Push to Cut Show Prices. It includes some more quotes from generally unnamed network execs, but doesn’t address the problem I did the other day of how DVDs and Blu-ray are undercutting the iTunes pricing model with accelerating frequency.
The article makes mention of the fact that viewers can choose to watch television shows for free on Hulu, but doesn’t mention that Hulu is still a money-losing venture, or the rumors that it will be subscription-based on the iPad.
Meanwhile, Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes a piece today that graphs the growth of movies and television shows on iTunes, and breaks down the relatively slow growth of both media from statements Apple has made in financial conference calls. In a nutshell, compared to the rate that iTunes sells music, movie and television sales are practically non-starters (although it is worth noting that when Apple bundles rentals and sales together, the numbers jump a lot. Apparently, the iTunes rental model is more popular than sales.)
Also, don’t forget about Apple’s 500,000 square foot data center that is due to come online in 2010. I haven’t been able to find an exact date, but don’t forget that’s five times bigger than their existing data center in California (this is apparently a video from a North Carolina realtor taken on Feb. 19):
Obviously, the construction has been going at a very fast pace from its announced construction just last summer. My opinion? That the target of that Data Center is Netflix streaming.
References:
Networks Wary of Apple’s Push to Cut Show Prices – New York Times, February 21, 2010
Apple’s new pitch to Hollywood – Apple 2.0 (Fortune), February 22, 2010
Apple Data Center Maiden NC – YouTube
Interview: Apple’s Gigantic New Data Center Hints at Cloud Computing - Cult of Mac, August 16, 2009
Feb 192010
Warner Music’s CEO recently admitted that the variable pricing the record labels fought so long and hard for with Apple over the past few years wasn’t a rousing success. In fact, he admitted that “maybe raising prices in a recession wasn’t the best idea.” Whether it’s Jeff Zucker, the CEO of NBC who removed his shows from iTunes in favor of Hulu because he wanted to both charge more and lump shows into bundles (essentially using marketing and selling strategies from the last century), or Warner’s Bronfman, it seems like the CEO’s of these companies are incompetent morons who have no idea what they’re doing. And I’m not even talking about the whole Leno/Conan O’Brien debacle.
From recent news, it seems like the book and magazine publishers are the newest content industries that aren’t listening to Apple when it comes to pricing and distribution, with potentially overpriced books, magazine, and newspaper subscriptions threatening to limit the possible success of the new iPad distribution model. We’ll have to see how this turns out; what I really wanted to mention today was the pricing of TV shows on iTunes.
In the past couple of days the rumor has appeared that CBS would be amongst the first to offer $.99 television shows; the rumors aren’t clear if this would be some or all of their content, and if so, what. I am presuming that this would be $.99 standard definition and $1.99 high definition. I really hope this is the case, as my recent research into this shows quite a disparity in pricing and iTunes overall guilty of charging quite a premium, particularly for HD content.
Blu-ray discs and players have, up until the last holiday season, been prohibitively expensive for most consumers. This high price wasn’t the “bag of hurt” that Steve Jobs so famously referred to a few years ago; he was referencing the expensive and complex licensing of the technology for playback and authoring. The movie studios are still trying to gouge people for the HD quality, with the Blu-ray discs usually costing $10 more than the regular DVD release, but in many cases they have been including the regular DVD and an iTunes digital copy along with the Blu-ray package, adding reasonable value for the extra expense.
But let’s look at TV pricing for a moment. For example, season 5 of Lost lists for $79.99 and sells for $48.49 on Amazon on Blu-ray. This is for 1080p content, which is higher resolution than is broadcast on ABC. In contrast, iTunes charges $49.99 for 720p resolution and $34.99 for standard definition. However, note that Amazon is selling the standard definition DVD set for $24.99. (There are 20 episodes in this season).
Let’s look at another example. I’ve been watching through the first couple seasons of Supernatural, a show I came across a few months ago because iTunes was giving away a free episode. Season 1 costs … on iTunes, and is available on DVD from Amazon for $14.99. Supernatural started shooting in HD with its third season, and here the value proposition is even more disparate. Season 3 is available on Blu-ray from Amazon for $27.99 (list price:$69.98). On iTunes, the cost for the 16 episodes of season 3 is $46.99 HD, $30.99 SD. (On Amazon, episodes cost $1.99; the whole season is available for $18.99, however.)
DVD retailers seem to be discounting both Blu-ray and DVDs pretty aggressively in some cases, and I think the sooner that Apple can lower the prices of its television show offerings the better. Meanwhile, 1080p and an updated Apple TV might be nice, as well as the rumors of a subscription service.
See also:
iPad Surprise: Lower TV Episode Prices in iTunes? – Wired, February 12, 2010
iTunes New Pricing Structure is a Band-Aid – Wired, April 7, 2009
Music Industry Still Not Thrilled with iTunes Control - Ars Technica, Feb. 2, 2009
Despite iTunes Accord, Labels Still Fret – New York Times, Feb. 1, 2009
So, I bought Inglourious Basterds on Blu-Ray with Digital Copy. This is my second Digital Copy purchase, the first having been Wall-E last summer. At that time I noted that everything was failing because I started out trying to import the digital copy with iTunes running — it only worked then if iTunes was not running, and then it worked.
Today the experience was different, but still problematic. I happen to be running Parallels with Windows XP for some work I have to do occasionally, and it was running. I purposefully turned off iTunes, expecting a replay of last time, but found that nothing happened — I was in the Mac OS, not using the Parallels that I have set to Spaces 2.
So, what happened was this: Parallels took control of the disk, and for the 3 or 5 minutes I was waiting the Windows version of the “activate” window was waiting. Once I disconnected that drive from Parallels it showed up in the Mac, and double-clicking on the install drive launched iTunes.
File size, 1.92 GB. Am I surprised that there were problems? Not really, DRM is usually a problem.
This Christmas season it seems like the studios are trying to really throw value in, I’ve seen in the advertisements 3 or 4 disc combinations with BluRay, DVD, digital copy, and extras. Seems kind of like a stopgap measure, but as far as consumer value goes it’s all a plus.
Jul 072009
A lot more information has come to light regarding how video works on the iPhone 3GS so I thought I would spend a little time summarizing things.
I. In-camera editing is destructive
This unfortunate “feature” looks as though it will be remedied with the OS 3.1 update, which has been reported to have the option of saving a copy before trimming.
II. The iPhone recompresses videos uploaded to YouTube or for email
Full quality iPhone 3GS video is 640 x 480 encoded with H.264 video and AAC audio; according to Robert Mohns, the data rate averages 3700 kbit/sec (this varies with program content). By my math that averages to 27 MB per minute. CamcorderInfo estimates an average of 25 MB/minute.
When emailing, the video is scaled down to 480 x 360 and recompressed at 800 kbit/s, resulting in a file size that is around 5-6 MB/minute.
III. Battery life
From CamcorderInfo.com:
We ran the battery test on the iPhone 3G S with the phone in Airplane mode, which disengages all wireless and cell-phone network connection activity. In this mode, the phone recorded video for 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 9 seconds before the battery died. This is a very good battery life and it is better than most ultra-compact camcorders are capable of. In our test, we also noticed the phone stopped recording video after roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes of straight recording. This must be due to the phone having a maximum clip length restriction of some sort.
This gives people some good tips on increasing battery life if you’re trying to record an event with a less than ideal battery situation, but what I find confusing is the file size limit, which appears to be around the 2 GB mark. Earlier in the review, however, CamcorderInfo says the clip limit is 10 minutes, however, this is disputed in one of the comments, so I don’t think it is accurate. Again, I suspect that the file size limit is 2 GB.
IV. The 3GS camera chip is capable of 720P HD
The RapidRepair teardown reported that the camera chipset (SoC S5PC100 from Samsung and thus confirm an ARM Cortex A8 running at 600 MHz (operates at up to 833MHz though)). Still resolution is 2048 x 1536 (3 megapixel). This HD feature is not enabled – it is uncelar whether from battery drain concerns, inconsistent framerate, or increased storage demands. It will be interesting to see if any 3rd party apps are able to take advantage of this possible feature, although I’m not holding my breath for Apple to make hacking into the camera very easy.
V. The lens:
The lens is the 35mm equivalent of a 37 mm lens, giving a 49 degree view angle, compared to the Flip Ultra HD’s 42 degree angle. Aperture is f2.8
VI. Autofocus
Autofocus is locked once recording begins. I would like to see this be updated in 3.1 or a future update.
Links of Interest
Robert Mohns iPhone 3GS review on Macintouch
Camcorder Info iPhone 3GS review
Chris Pirillo iPhone 3GS video upload test – link
Review from the Hawaii Blog. Includes a comparison of full-size and emailed videos.
iPhone Savior article with “Save a Copy” screenshot – link
People seem to be in love with the new iPhone camera, which is quite an improvement over the camera used in the first generation and 3G. I haven’t seen that many video comparisons of what its video looked like compared to the inexpensive video cameras out there such as the Flip so I thought I’d do a brief comparison. [Update - for more info on the Flip Ultra, see here (Camcorderinfo review) or here (Amazon page with user reviews). By the way, I purchased my Flip Ultra 30 minute on sale from Amazon for $60 a couple months ago.]
First, the iPhone 3GS:
Second, the Flip Ultra:
A couple of notes. Since these get transcoded by YouTube, what this test shows is how the video from these cameras look like on YouTube. This is perfectly fine, since that’s how we’re uploading and watching our videos more and more. I think I might next upload a phone video to compare YouTube to MobileMe, but that will be for next time. But be advised that this transcoding process softens up the images of both a bit.
The most obvious difference between the two is the color cast: the iPhone’s is cooler, the Flip Ultra’s is warmer. It also seems as though the Flip Ultra’s exposure is a bit brighter, maybe a a half-stop, maybe a little more.
Both videos have the visible CMOS artifacting at times (the jelly rolll), but nothing that’s not to be expected with this technology and nothing extreme at all.
Conclusions? I think I prefer the full size video from the iPhone on the computer, but maybe give slight preference to the Flip Ultra on YouTube, perhaps for its slightly brighter exposure.
One last note: the famous video editing on the iPhone is destructive. I haven’t heard this mentioned many places, so user beware before trying this feature on footage you don’t want to throw away.
Jun 092009
Pretty cool piece – from TechCrunch.