Abhishek Tiwari

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Thursday’s announcement from Apple was pretty impressive. I never expected to see such a complete execution of the SDK program. Apple really looked at this from a 360 degree angle and nailed almost everything:

• App Development
• Testing and debugging
• Deployment, distribution and discoverability
• Business model
• VC funding for developers
• Rich developer program and support

Apple’s approach to this makes anyone else look pretty pale. Compare this to Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile or any carrier’s development program. Almost everywhere else one has to deal with various parties and many restrictions before they can get their application on the phone. Apple has really offered a one stop shop to the eager developers.

However for me the fun part kinda stops there. The early excitement has somewhat waned at this point. I am sure you all know what I am talking about. The fact that Apple will not allow 3rd party background processes to run on the iPhone. This means that users cannot switch back and forth between applications seamlessly. Once you switch applications the previous one shuts down. This is a very realistic scenario where users can receive calls, text/email messages while using an application. Read more »

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In fact this time around it sounds like an all out war. A month ago I posted about NBC Universal breaking ties with Apple, which I got a lot of heat for. However it is all coming true now. Last time it was just them severing ties. This time they are planning a total attack.

At the helm is one of the most powerful execs in the music biz Doug Morris (Chairman and CEO, Universal Music Group). For this war he is enlisting help of unlikely allies, Sony BMG Music and Warner Music Group. Together the trio will control 75% of the music sold in US. Their plan is to loosen Apple’s stronghold on the digital music business. They want to offer services, which take the music beyond the iPod / iTunes ecosystem and proliferate in other (aka not so successful) portable devices and mobile phones

According to Business Week, the new service will be called “Total Music”. The plan of attack includes a deep partnership with device manufacturers, whereby they can offer “all you can eat” models to the public. The business model includes absorbing the $5 subscription fee in the device costs, hence making the ongoing music cost for free. Morris is basically trying to beat Apple at its own game by taking it to the maximum level. You can catch all the details on Business Week or catch the conversation at TechMeme.

Now quite frankly this has been brewing for some time now. However, I wasn’t expecting a total offense from these guys and frankly such a joint initiative is impressive. I am sure the music execs have been thinking about this for some time now. They haven’t been happy about Apple controlling their online fates by mandating the $0.99 model.

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By now you must already know that Amazon has launched its MP3 download service to contend with the likes of iTunes. This has been a much anticipated move by Amazon, who is looking forward to displace iTunes from its leadership position.

So what would Amazon do to take on the goliath (iTunes)? Build the Earth’s Biggest Selection of a la Carte DRM-Free MP3 Music Downloads. With this selection they plan to offer cheaper, DRM free high quality music (256 kbps) to its users. The beta service boasts over 2 Million DRM free songs as part of their portfolio. These songs are available for direct high quality MP3 downloads, which allows them to compatible with “Any” device in the market.

Now, I am not going to review this service again for you. I am sure you can read Om Malik’s or Paul Stamatiou’s great posts or play with the service yourself. Although I am taking a critical look at the service as a consumer to see if it convinces me to move away from iTunes. So the intent here is to use the service as a user would and offer my verdict.

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Few weeks back I wrote about NBC breaking up with Apple in order to sell its content elsewhere. The popular knowledge at the time was that NBC will leverage Amazon’s Unbox service to sell their TV shows. In addition NBC also announced partnership with FOX to launch a new web video distribution service called HULU. Not to mention that NBC.com itself hosts videos of all its shows and users can access episodes for the whole season.

In that post, I predicted that NBC may dabble into alternate business models. They may offer access to free content purely based on ads, something which Apple does not provide. Following were my exact words:

I believe many more media networks will go down this path and explore their own delivery methods. Many (including NBC) will leverage ad based model to inherently make the content free.

Lo and behold, today NBC made a press release, announcing a new service called “NBC Direct“. The idea is to offer ad supported free downloads to users for its popular shows. The service will launch its beta program in October and will offer downloads on windows PC. The content will be available for viewing for 1 week after download and will expire after that.

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Few weeks ago, I reported about Universal severing its ties with Apple. Universal had disagreements with Apple around the pricing structure, which led to refusal to renew its contract. Universal then teamed up with Google and gBox to bring DRM free music to the masses via the Google AdWords program.

Well, the hate for iTunes is spreading further. Following Universal, NBC announced that it will no longer utilize Apple iTunes to deliver its content. NBC’s portfolio includes popular shows like Heroes, The Office and My Name is Earl.

This comes right after NBC’s announcement of its online video service (in partnership with NEWS Corp), named Hulu, where they are planning to offer hit shows from both NBC and FOX. They are still in private beta. Apart from Hulu, NBC also offers streaming video on its own website.

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