Spotify’s Head Of Business On iTunes and Music Labels →

Spotify’s Head Of Business On iTunes and Music Labels

Spotify, the European-based music streaming service, is having a hard time trying to launch its product in the United States. Once expected to become available in a self-imposed December 2010 deadline, the service failed to launch due to the lack of deals with major music labels that, as you can guess, have to guarantee Spotify access to their music libraries. Two weeks ago, All Things Digital reported Spotify managed to close a deal with Sony, as a first step to bring the service to the United States. In the past months, rumors surfaced detailing how Apple was subtly playing against Spotify to convince labels that the service wouldn’t be a good source of revenue like iTunes.

Spotify’s head of business Faisal Galaria told Strategy Eye:

Q: But aren’t the labels eager to break iTunes’ monopoly?

A: If you’re the digital team [at a label] and 80% of your revenue was coming from one place, how much are you going to p*ss them off until someone else can guarantee all that revenue from a new source?

Put yourself into their shoes for a moment – you’re a nice, fat big executive at label X, Y, Z. You’re getting half a million dollars a year as long as you hit your bonus. Your bonus means that 80% of your revenues comes from iTunes. Are you going to tell iTunes where to go? Because your half a million dollar bonus has now gone.

According to various reports, Apple may be blocking Spotify from launching in the States because of a similar music streaming service they are building on top of iTunes, based on the data center in North Carolina. [via Cult of Mac]

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This Front Row Mockup Is Totally Gorgeous

By Federico Viticci

Designer Zach Forrester tried to imagine what would Front Row look like if Apple updated its interface with new shiny pixels, animations and a visualizer. The result, a series of mockups available here, is impressive: Zach took the basic concept underlying Front Row’s UI and the Apple TV’s browsing experience and re-imagined them with a bit of artistic sense and pixel perfection in mind.

I’m not sure about the keyboard as-you-type he designed, but everything else looks great: from the Movies view with larger poster art and slide-in animation for a single item, to the music player that includes a subtle visualizer on top of the Cover Flow navigation and next to the Now Playing album art.

More screenshots are available here, and there’s a limited web demo for you to play around as well. [via Beautiful Pixels] Read more

Android Gains 22% Of Tablet Market, Becomes #1 Smartphone Platform by Shipments

By Federico Viticci

According to two different reports surfaced this morning, Google’s Android mobile operating system has gained 22% of the tablet market share and has become the world’s leading smartphone platform with 33.3 million shipments in Q4 2010.

The first report, as noted by The Loop, details how Android-based tablets grabbed 22% of the market in the fourth quarter of 2010, and while the iPad is still “dominant”, the Samsung Galaxy Tab drove sales of tablets running Google’s OS.

Strategy Analytics sees continued growth for Android-based tablets in 2011 with the release of Motorola’s Xoom and other high-profile devices. The company expects that as more Android devices hit the market, media developers in the United States and elsewhere will increasingly support the devices with content.

Mac App Store: Miro Converts Videos for iOS, For Free

By Federico Viticci

Available for free in the Mac App Store, Miro Video Converter is a little utility that converts almost any kind of video to formats compatible with iOS and other Apple devices, Android handsets, WebM, Theora and a variety of other platforms. As you can guess, Miro Video Converter comes from the creators of Miro, video player and torrent downloader.

The app doesn’t offer all the control and customization possibilities seen, for example, in the popular Handbrake video conversion tool, but it’s got a nice and simple interface where all you have to do is drop a file, select the output and hit Convert.

Miro Video Converter is available here. Check out the list of supported formats and devices below. Read more

Netgear CEO Makes A Few Predictions on Apple, Steve Jobs →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Netgear CEO Makes A Few Predictions on Apple, Steve Jobs

Netgear CEO Patrick Lo doesn’t get it:

At a lunch in Sydney today, Patrick Lo said Apple’s success was centred on closed and proprietary products that would soon be overtaken by open platforms like Google’s Android.

Lunch was not the main point. Here it is:

Lo said Apple’s closed model only worked because, in many product categories like MP3 players, “they own the market”.

“Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform,” said Lo.

This is a common mistake: thinking that Apple’s integrated model is somehow linked to Steve Jobs’ personality or physical presence at Apple. But there’s more:

Right now the closed platform has been successful for Apple because they’ve been so far ahead as thought leaders because of Steve Jobs,” said Lo.

Wrong again. They have been successful because they predicted what consumers wanted, not because of Jobs’ personal tastes.

Eventually they’ve got to find a way to open up iTunes without giving too much away on their revenue generation model.

What does this mean, exactly? This is business lingo. I think he wants Apple to accept any kind of app. The real gem is about Flash:

What’s the reason for him to trash Flash? There’s no reason other than ego,” he said.

Or maybe – but you know, I’m just guessing here – it was a business decision.

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Marco Arment’s MacBook Pro Speculation →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Marco Arment’s MacBook Pro Speculation

Marco Arment predicts a new MacBook Pro 15” inspired by the success of the new MacBook Airs:

And I’m guessing that the 15” will undergo its most significant change in a very long time: it will adopt the wedge shape of the Air, losing its thick, uncomfortably sharp front edge. Removing the optical drive will free up a lot of space inside, leaving room for a rearrangement that can enable the wedge shape without giving up a significant amount of battery volume.

No glass and SSD by default may end up on the new MacBook Pro as well. The problem with a wedge design is that it leaves small room to “big ports” like FireWire and Ethernet, something users are really used to have on the MBP 15-inch. I agree with Marco when he says there’s little sense to keep the 13-inch MacBook Pro in the line-up now that the 13-inch MacBook Air is so portable and powerful.

Also, Apple’s homepage says it all: MacBook Air is the next generation of MacBooks. We just have to wait to see where do we go from here.

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Windows Phone 7 Theme Coming to iPhone

By Federico Viticci

If you have an iPhone but you’ve been keeping an eye on the devices running the promising Windows Phone 7 operating system, I guess you know one of the biggest selling points of Microsoft’s mobile platform is the concept of “Springboard” that’s entirely different from those seen on iOS and Android. Instead of presenting a background with app icons, Windows Phone 7 offers “live updating tiles” with real-time information for third-party apps and default software like calendar and weather.

Theme creator Wyndwarrior thought it’d be nice to port the Windows Phone 7 experience to the iPhone, so he designed a theme that replicates Microsoft’s homescreen on the iPhone, live tiles and application list included. The theme is in pubic beta and more details will be added come the final release, in the meantime check out the demo video below. [ModMyI via AppAdvice] Read more

Woz Says White iPhone 4 Will Be Released Soon

By Federico Viticci

The white iPhone 4 has become the mythical beast in Apple’s product line up. First expected to launch alongside the standard black iPhone 4 last year, the device got delayed multiple times and never came out. At the latest Engadget Show that aired tonight, Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak confirmed Apple has fixed the problems with the painting of the white iPhone and that the device is coming out soon. He also said he got custom white parts from the kid who used to sell them online, and indeed those parts lead to light leakage issues and washed-out pictures.

A report surfaced last week suggested a new Japanese paint has fixed the issues with the white iPhone, and the unit was spotted on various international carrier websites. Back in December, another report pointed to the iPhone 4 becoming available in “Spring 2011”.

At this point, we’re pretty confident the white iPhone 4 is real and its production woes a thing of the past. We also believe, though, that a white iPhone 4 on Verizon’s big launch day next would have been perfect.

Mac App Store: Developers Make App Free, Gain 24,000 Downloads in 48 Hours

By Federico Viticci

Todolicious is a neat todo app for the Mac we originally previewed ahead of the Mac App Store launch. The app was priced at $4.99 and, since the new Store’s grand opening, has been selling hundreds of copies, slowly sliding to lower sales numbers due to new apps taking over the Top Paid and Category charts. That’s what usually happens after the launch of a new app, when new apps are released and you’re not Angry Birds.

The Mustacheware developers, however, tried to make the app free for two days to see how would the experiment play out. It turns out, making a simple and useful app like Todolicious free for 48 hours over the weekend brought in more than 24,000 downloads. See the graph above to see the difference between paid vs. price drop.

We have heard several stories of success in the Mac App Store in the past weeks. Autodesk announced the new Store doubled a year’s sales of Sketchbook Pro in just 20 days, Pixelmator grossed $1 million in the same amount of time and another developer went from 7 sales a day to 1,500. Given the youth of the Mac App Store, it’s too early to say “free apps do better than paid apps”, because Pixelmator and Sketchbook Pro are here to remind us paid software can do great as well. It also needs to be mentioned, though, that Todolicious was sold at $4.99, not exactly the “premium” $29.99 you would spend for a graphic editing app. As strange as it sounds, many users are willing to pay a premium to download a pro app rather than “yet other 5 bucks” to download a simple Mac app. Still, the numbers are in and they are surprising: 24,000 downloads aren’t bad for a small indie development studio that’s seeking to build a user base for the future iPhone version of the app, and whether or not these 24,000 people will stick around the exposure provided by the Mac App Store and Top Free charts is incredible.