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Переслать - Fiat's 500C the Makings of an Apple iCar
Back in 2007, the Mac web rumor mill was abuzz for a while about a reported September meeting in California between Steve Jobs and Volkswagen CEO Winterkorn over possibly integrating the iPod, iPhone, and other Apple products into an automobile — with blogosphere speculation about possibly even an Apple/VW joint venture “iCar” project.
However, by late November, the German site Capital was reporting (Google translation) that Apple/VW discussions, although confirmed by Volkswagen, had ground to a halt.
Steve Jobs as Auto Exec.?
Fast-forward two years. It’s an understatement to say that the automobile industry has been turned on its head by the global recession. Apple, however, is doing considerably better, which has led to speculation as to what Steve Jobs would do were he running an auto-making firm — say beleaguered General Motors. Last fall the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman mused, “Somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn't need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he'd like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I'd bet it wouldn't take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.”
Fiat Chrysler a More Logical iCar Partner
Steve Jobs of course has had other challenges to contend with over the past year, but the ideal of an Apple iCar still tantalizes some of us crossover auto-buff Mac and gadget fans. I think a rather more promising candidate for an Apple automotive venture joint partner would be Chrysler, rather than GM or VW.
Why? Well for one thing, Chrysler is now controlled by Italy’s Fiat S.p.A., currently in the hunt to re-enter the U.S. automobile market after a nearly two-decade absence, building the brand from the ground up, as it were, and the CEO of both companies, Sergio Marchionne, is reportedly a big fan of the Apple business model.
Last June, TIME magazine noted that, “Since he took over as chief executive of Italy's Fiat in 2004, the chain-smoking Canadian-Italian has used Apple as a model, focusing on the way Steve Jobs transformed it from an also-ran computer company into a global icon of cool. He encourages Fiat managers to take a close look at Apple's branding prowess and even asks them to benchmark their activities against the company.”
The TIME piece also cited Carlo Alberto Carnevale, professor of strategic management at Milan’s Bocconi University’s business school, observing, “The challenge for Fiat Chrysler is to move away from popular products and into ‘pop’ products, full of cool environmental technology and on the right side of history. In that sense, it’s the same bet as Steve Jobs’. That’s why Marchionne uses that metaphor.”
Why Not an iCar Version Too?
But what if it became more than a metaphor? I say this because the iconic Fiat 500C (“Cinquecento”), which has been a rip-roaring sales hit in Europe and elsewhere (currently sold in 59 markets), is expected to anchor the brand’s re-entry into the North American car market, with Road & Track magazine reporting that at least four Fiat 500 versions will be gracing showrooms here for the 2011 model year, including hatchback, convertible, wagon, and sporty-hatch versions. Why not a fifth, “iCar” version?
The Fiat 500 seems to me an ideal base for an iCar treatment. Unveiled at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, the new Fiat 500C version is like the VW New Beetle, the BMW Mini, and arguably even the Ford Mustang, a retro-interpretation of an automotive icon from the ’50s or ’60s, in this instance the original 1957 fabric roof Fiat 500, but with thoroughly modern mechanicals and engineering under the classic-appearing skin. Fiat notes that the new Cinquecento was developed by the Centro Stile Fiat design center using an IT industry-esque “open-source approach,” continually evolving on the basis of input from users and enthusiasts.
Environmentally Friendly and Uber-Cool
The Fiat 500, available with a variety of what the company says are “environmentally friendly engines,” has reconfirmed its status as an Italian style icon, winning more than 30 awards, and with upwards of 11 million internet users visiting its website. Fiat affirms that is sees the Cinquecento to be a “platform upon which Fiat Automobiles is building a whole family of cars with advanced technology and high attention to detail.” It’s not at all an extravagant stretch to imagine that an iCar version of the Fiat 500C could quite harmoniously be included in that vision.
A Cinquecento-based, Apple co-branded iCar would have both the timely characteristics of small size and light environmental footprint, which, combined with the uber-cool Apple “i-factor” that could at least conceivably make it the iPhone/iPod/iMac of the automobile world. Perhaps I’m wildly fantasizing, but it sounds like a workable plan to me.
Переслать - TV, YouTube and iTunes: Change in the Wind
Would you buy a show on iTunes that you could stream at any time to YouTube? The way that most people answer that question could be crucial to the fortunes of both Apple and Google in the coming months. Google is apparently following up on its plan to offer streamed movie releases for rent with another to do essentially the same thing for current television shows.
As Ryan at NewTeeVee reports, Google is in the process of convincing the TV industry to allow it to stream the kind of new, copyright-protected content that now gets pulled down for a reasonable fee, say multiple sources close to the issue.
Streaming vs. Downloading
The idea would be to do what iTunes already does, which is offer commercial-free first-run TV shows to users for the price of around $1.99 per episode, on or around the first day of their airing. The difference, of course, would be that unlike Amazon and Apple’s download-and-watch services, YouTube would be sticking to its existing streaming video formula, so users couldn’t keep the files on their computers for later viewing. There’s no official word on whether or not users would be able to go back and stream shows after the initial viewing, but I doubt TV content providers would agree to such terms.
YouTube execs think that isn’t necessarily a game-ender, but they acknowledge that it is a problem:
Executives at YouTube and TV insist that the disparity is simply a perception problem and cite studies showing that most people who download TV episodes only watch them once, anyway. But that's a tough sell.
I know I’d rather have something I can store and potentially rewatch, even if I never actually do. A lifetime subscription arrangement might make me more comfortable, but the opportunities for misuse on the consumer side are too great for the television industry to take that risk.
YouTube Mobile Support
The key factor in whether or not YouTube’s TV efforts will be successful, though, lies not with the way it delivers the content, but the places it delivers said content to. YouTube is accessible on any number of platforms and devices, including computers, Blu-Ray players, video game consoles, televisions, and cell phones.
If mobile content usage trends are any indication, the last delivery route will be the most significant going forward. If YouTube TV rentals extend to YouTube’s mobile apps on Android and iPhone devices, I foresee users more than willing to accept the trade-off of not having any downloaded content in exchange for quick and easy instant accessibility anywhere they have a data connection.
Переслать - True Visual Voicemail: PhoneTag, Google Voice and AT&T's New Voicemail to Text Service
In case you didn’t realize it, listening to voicemail is a colossal waste of time. Humans read much faster than they can listen, so AT&T’s entry into the Voicemail to Text field is welcome, but it’s a bit late to the party. Other services have been quietly providing this for years; some less expensive and some more expensive.
PhoneTag
Personally, I’ve been a PhoneTag (formerly Simulscribe) subscriber since June 2007 and love the service. PhoneTag replaces your carrier’s voicemail service with its own. PhoneTag will text and/or email you a transcription of your phone messages along with optionally attaching an electronic copy of the voicemail in a variety of formats.
iPhone users who use PhoneTag will lose the ability to use AT&T’s Visual Voicemail, since PhoneTag supersedes the built-in voicemail. Because I can read all my voicemails via email and text, I don’t really mind not having Visual Voicemail.
PhoneTag costs $30 a month (free 1 week trial and other pricing plans available) for unlimited transcriptions and you can forward any number of phones to their service for transcription and the transcriptions go to any number of phones you specify. For example, I have multiple phone numbers for my business and they all forward to that same unified voicemail. When I’m out of town or otherwise inaccessible, the transcriptions go to one of my technicians. Best of all, since the voicemails come in as attachments, I can save every voicemail I’ve ever received right to my computer for daily backup. The transcriptions are nearly flawless, especially if you upload your contacts to the system so you can help it recognize proper names.
Google Voice
On the other end of the spectrum is Google’s free Google Voice service. If you can get an invite, the entire service is free and it also provides transcription of voicemails. Similar to PhoneTag, you’ll need to forward your busy or no answer calls to Google’s phone number.
The transcriptions Google Voice provides border on the ridiculous and I found the service too unreliable for serious business use. Forwarding the messages to multiple phones was difficult and archiving the messages to my computer required manual download of each message. PhoneTag was simply a more elegant and scalable solution when compared to Google Voice. However being free, Google Voice makes a great way to find out if a voicemail to text service is right for you.
AT&T’s New Service
AT&T’s new service costs $9.99 per month — priced squarely in the middle between PhoneTag and Google Voice. Nuance, maker of well-known transcription software Dragon Naturally Speaking, provides the transcription services. Because Nuance is a well-known provider of voice to text services, I suspect it will be much better than Google Voice’s option. While I haven’t tried the service, AT&T claims you can still use your existing voicemail system and similar to PhoneTag and GoogleVoice, makes it easy to archive old messages. Obviously, the service will only work with your AT&T phone.
I’ll stick with PhoneTag due to the quality of its transcriptions and the flexbility of working with multiple phone systems. AT&T’s service is an attractive option for those that don’t need all of PhoneTag’s features.
Now iPhone customers have three options in three different price ranges to avoid listening to voicemail messages and get “true” visual voicemail; voicemails they can read and see without putting their phone up to their ear.
Why are you still actually listening to your voicemails?
Переслать
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