The Great Debate UK
from MacroScope:
The iPod – the iCon of Chinese capitalism
Walking past Apple's sleek shop along London's Regent Street on Sunday, my wife asked me what I wanted for Father's Day.
"An iPad?" I ventured, half-jokingly.
"Are you sure you want one? Don't you care how they're made?" came her disapproving reply.
She was, of course, referring to the rash of suicides among Chinese workers at Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer of Apple's much desired iPads and iPhones.
The deaths prompted the company to raise salaries and cut working hours but lingering concerns over conditions for its over 1 million workers in China were underscored by a plant explosion last month that killed at least 3 people.
from MediaFile:
Apple and Twitter: A New Power Duo?
One big winner coming out of Apple’s developers’ conference on Monday is Twitter.
Apple announced that the Internet microblogging service will be integrated directly into future versions of the iPhone and iPad software.
from Business Traveller:
Travelling through the cloud on a tablet
John McHugh, VP and Chief Marketing Officer, Brocade
As technology and business travel become ever more inextricably connected, I talk to a man whose life is a symbiosis of both worlds
John McHugh, VP and Chief Marketing Officer of networking infrastructure firm Brocade, proudly sits on both sides of the buyer-seller fence. On one hand, a WiFi-less or WiFi-jammed hotel will not be seeing his custom again in a hurry; on the other, his company offers hotels WiFi deployment.
from Reuters Investigates:
When will the tipping point come for printed books?
Mark Egan's special report "Dumping print, NY publisher bets the ranch on apps" focuses on one man who believes the end has come for printed books.
Since 1980, Nicholas Callaway has made the finest of design-driven books, building a publishing house and his fortune on memorable children's stories and on volumes known for the fidelity of their reproductions of great art. But the quality of paper, ink and binding mean nothing to him now.
from Breakingviews:
iPad’s destructive reach extends further faster
The iPad's destructive reach seems to be extending further and faster. Apple's tablet is taking off at a breakneck rate. Analysts now predict up to 40 million will be sold in 2011. With personal incomes and spending stagnant, it's looking like a zero-sum game in consumer electronics. Forget PCs and netbooks. The iPad will eat into camera and GPS device sales too.
How well the touch-screen gadget is really doing will become clear later this month when Apple reports its next set of quarterly results. But there are growing signs the company is selling way more of them than anyone outside Apple, or maybe even among Steve Jobs' inner circle, had been anticipating. It's clear the mini notebook computer market is being throttled. Netbook unit sales had been growing at more than 30 percent annually before the iPad was unleashed. Sales are now shrinking, according to market research firm NPD Group.
Apple iPad: danger or opportunity for mobile operators?
-Ken Denman is CEO of Openwave Systems. The opinions expressed are his own.-
With the launch of the iPad 3G, the industry is holding its collective breath to see the impact that the device will ultimately have on already overtaxed networks.
The iPad is expected to be a home and WiFi-centric, coffee-table device that people use for reading newspapers and browsing the occasional email. But until users get their hands on the 3G device and start to use it how they want to use it, it is all speculation. What is not speculation however, is that usage of the device is going to put more pressure on networks that are already creaking under the strain of the mobile data overload.
from MediaFile:
No-nonsense, and no names, at Apple iPad event
Apple has a reputation for developing hit products.
But the company also has a rep for maintaining an iron grip on its image and its message. Wednesday’s launch of the iPad, a product whose details have been closely guarded by Apple for months ahead of the launch, showed Apple’s operation at its best.
To the surprise of many, Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned up at the demo room after the main event and appeared to be casually hobnobbing with Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg.
