That’s according to Piper Jaffray analyst Chris Larsen, the latest to weigh in on the mounting speculation that carriers beyond AT&T and Verizon Wireless will get the next iPhone. Last week, [...]]]> Sprint and T-Mobile USA customers may not have to wait that long for a shot at the next iPhone.

That’s according to Piper Jaffray analyst Chris Larsen, the latest to weigh in on the mounting speculation that carriers beyond AT&T and Verizon Wireless will get the next iPhone. Last week, Citadel analyst Shing Yin said he believed Apple would begin selling the iPhone for Sprint later this year.

“While we remain uncertain regarding the next-generation iPhone’s specs and features, we believe the most noteworthy change could be the device’s ability to run on more networks, specifically Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S,” Larsen said in a research note today.

A move to all four national carriers would greatly expand Apple’s ability to reach the masses, critical at a time when smartphones running on Google’s Android software have overrun the market. Adding Sprint and T-Mobile would increase Apple’s addressable market by 30 percent, Larsen said.

The next iPhone is expected to be a universal device. Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in April that the next iPhone will be a global device, suggesting that Apple will sell one device to both carriers. Larsen said there are few technical hurdles to ensure the phone is compatible with both Sprint and T-Mobile.

The current Verizon iPhone 4 already contains the Qualcomm chip that is compatible with the CDMA network used by both Verizon and Sprint, as well as the GSM network used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

“Our belief is that if Apple is already going through the trouble to make a device that has the ability to work on both major network technologies, why not include all the necessary spectrum bands to make one device work on all carriers,” Larsen said.

While T-Mobile customers were likely to eventually get the iPhone by virtue of the carrier’s pending deal to be acquired by AT&T, the real winner is Sprint, which would benefit from lower customer turnover and increased growth, Larsen said.

Google [...]]]> Apple is going to reveal an Internet-based media and storage — aka “cloud” — strategy next Monday, and it better be one mother of a program.  Not only does the company have the audacity to call their network “iCloud,” but the competition is already hot and getting hotter.

Google and Amazon are out in front with their streamed bring-your-own-music services. Apple not only must match their offerings, but one-up them with a bigger, better system, one that caters to both phones and tablets. The stakes may well be the future of its mobile platform.

Cloudy term
The term “cloud” is overused to the point of non-meaning. It’s frustrating. I’ve heard nerds say “‘Cloud’ is what idiots refer to as the Internet.” I wouldn’t go that far: Cloud is best defined as “anywhere” access to users’ own media, documents and apps, with increasing emphasis on mobile devices. That is, while we’ve long had services that streamed music and movies over the Internet, and even occasionally backed up files to drives out on the Internet, the idea that it can even happen when we’re walking down the street is fairly new.

So while marketers can (and do) use the term “cloud” to refer to almost anything, from banking to Facebook, we’re talking about media and file storage, and — at the moment — we’re talking about three companies: Amazon, Google and Apple.

The combatants enter
There are two traits that make a company competitive in this corner of cloud computing: a strong mobile platform and a strong retail presence. Google has the No. 1 most widespread mobile OS in the world, but it’s not much of a retailer. Nevertheless, in the development of YouTube and other media services, it has gained experience in media distribution and — more importantly — rights management.

Two weeks ago, it launched a beta of its cloud-based Music service, which allows participants to upload up to 20,000 songs to stream anywhere. That’s more than my entire music collection; probably more than 99 percent of Americans’ entire music collections. Best of all, in the grand tradition of Google, it’s totally free.

Amazon is a retailer which has lately come to the mobile game, by way of its successful e-reader. It’s not building its own mobile OS — in fact, it’s all but confirmed to use Android for its coming wave of full-color readers — but it’s threatening Google already with its ambitious Android app store.

On top of that, just a month or so ago, Amazon launched the Cloud Music Player, which lets people upload their own songs. Amazon handed out 5GB (room for up to 700 songs) free to everybody, but purchasing a single album, including something cheap from the bargain bin, granted the user 20GB for a year at no extra charge.

Microsoft talks a big cloud game, but it’s not yet set to compete in this particular arena, as its new mobile platform hasn’t yet taken root, and its media distribution is inherently tied to the success of its mobile devices, unlike Amazon. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Bare knuckles vs. kid gloves
It’s a fact that Google and Amazon play rougher than Apple when it comes to dealing with Hollywood. Google is notorious for shooting first, asking for forgiveness later, and Amazon tends to use its leverage as a major retailer of CDs and DVDs to do some surprising things with digital media pricing, including offering cheaper albums and TV episodes, and launching its cloud music service without the express written consent of the music industry’s legal departments.

Apple, on the other hand, has been working on its iCloud service for years, at least as far back as late 2009, when it bought Lala, a business with strong technology and rights deals in the streaming music area. But it’s apparently taken a long time because, unlike Google and Amazon, Apple wanted to have explicit deals with all of the major music labels before launch. This may ensure a smoother take-off, but it may also mean fees and restrictions on storing music you already “own.”

If you have trouble understanding why Apple would play so nice with the old copyright holders, it’s because it’s in their DNA. Don’t forget that Apple’s CEO used to own Pixar, and sits on the board of Disney.

Moving beyond music
Speaking of Disney, the real tricky part of cloud evolution is what happens after music. Music files are fairly small and now sell without digital rights management, so they’re very easy to move around and play on any device. If a cloud service allowed you to upload and stream home videos and other personal content, the door would be open, and soon ripped DVDs and pirated movies could make their way in.

For the movie industry, the good news is, the cost of movie storage alone is prohibitive, and not-so-private services like Google’s YouTube serve personal video needs fairly well. Video is huge, and comes wrapped tightly in the latest content security. That’s why the Netflix streamed model has been so popular: We don’t want to carry video around, we just want to have access to it. On that token, Apple may very well offer a pay-per-use streamed video service to iPhones and iPads, but it might be limited to Wi-Fi, and likely won’t involve personal videos.

So what does the cloud agenda contain, beyond music and video? Apps are easy — Google, Microsoft and others already have cloud apps, and Google’s whole Chrome platform is built around the idea of Web-based software. Personal file storage and back-up is old hat — who doesn’t offer some kind of “locker” for your stuff?

Sadly, the answer may not come from tech innovators but from the utilities that provide Internet access. The more that shifts to the cloud, the more reliance there must be on Internet connectivity — at home and out in the woods. That’s where Verizon, Comcast and AT&T have more to say than Apple, Google and Amazon. But innovation has a way of sneaking past the old guard.

As you probably already know, the maestro will take the stage at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference [...]]]> Though there probably won’t be any never-before-seen phones or tablets on stage, today’s Apple news, presented by Steve Jobs himself, will be the biggest news of the year for the company.

As you probably already know, the maestro will take the stage at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to unveil its Internet-based media service, iCloud, and a significant overhaul of the iPad and iPhone operating system, iOS 5. He’ll also give details on the upcoming Mac OS Lion release.

And guess what? I’ll be covering it live, here and on Twitter. (The event starts at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern, but we’ll start ramping up about an hour before that.)

The rumor mill is rampant with speculation about the new cloud service, especially following impressive bring-your-own-music service launches from Google and Amazon. Apple has to one-up the competition while keeping its iTunes Music Store the top retailer that it is — this is no easy feat.

While we’re almost positive that iCloud will allow us to stream music we already own from the Internet to our mobile devices, rumors and constructive speculation suggest that iCloud just might:

• Cost $25 annually
• Sync personal files between Macs and iPhone/iPad, says Electronista
• Involve Time Machine backups over the Internet, says Cult of Mac
• Include an update to the Time Capsule back-up server/router
• Be “the next iTunes,” says Daring Fireball

It’s a little hard to see the elephant using only these blind gropes, but it’s exciting, and could very well change the way we use our devices, and manage our files. If Apple can pull it off, that is. The company’s track record for online services is a bit grim, especially when compared to its success with devices.

As for iOS 5, little is known here as well, though for the past year there has been a need for iOS to come up with an answer to Android, not to mention the rise of social networking. Google’s mobile OS uses homescreen widgets to show current status of email, Twitter, Facebook and plenty of other apps — without launching them. It may chew up battery life, but the time-saving functionality justifies the added processing.

How Apple will respond to this is a mystery, though TechCrunch Sunday ran a fake-looking image showing an elegant Twitter alert on an iPhone home screen. Even they doubted its veracity, but cited a source saying it’s the “right idea.” Deep Twitter integration is already high on the list of iOS 5 speculations, so it’s not a total left fielder.

So, for iOS 5, the educated wish list tends to include:

• Widgets and improved notifications
• Tweets from within apps
• Improved app switching
• Something better than those annoying app folders
• And perhaps wireless syncing

This kind of under-the-hood improvement is worth more than incremental hardware news. While we’ll at the very least see an incremental update to the iPhone this year, the iPhone 4 is in no need of aesthetic improvement, and is still plenty powerful for most normal human users.

The good news is, the actual hard news from Apple will be revealed soon enough. And you’ll have nearly an hour to savor its paradigm-shifting, game-changing, reality-distorting awesomeness before the rumor mill turns into the hater farm, to explain why all the new stuff sucks.

Steve Jobs took to the stage for the WWDC 2011 keynote this evening and announced the service.

iCloud will indeed store [...]]]> Although it’s been rumoured for years that Apple will somehow finally fully embrace the cloud, it’s only lately that it feels Cupertino’s moving in the right direction.

Steve Jobs took to the stage for the WWDC 2011 keynote this evening and announced the service.

iCloud will indeed store your content and wirelessly push it to all your devices. Apple says it’s serious about the cloud and even showed pictures of the company’s third data centre during the keynote.

There’s an ecosystem of major labels and radio and physical distribution based on ripping off acts.  Will this sustain when the cost of production is [...]]]> I’d say worst to first, but more accurately it’s nowhere to triumph.  Could this happen in the record industry? Not only can it, it will.

There’s an ecosystem of major labels and radio and physical distribution based on ripping off acts.  Will this sustain when the cost of production is essentially zero and physical distribution is almost dead and radio is moribund? Look at it this way.  Could Simon Cowell leverage “X Factor” into a whole new label, a powerhouse he could build upon?

Of course.  If he was smart.

In other words, Simon Cowell is leaving money on the table.  But the twentysomethings who are going to take over this business will not.

Just like the iPhone looked nothing like a RAZR, the new record industry powerhouse will look nothing like Sony, where Doug Morris is wooing L.A. Reid to overspend like it’s still 1999.

The new powerhouse will be more like a manager, an agent on steroids, who takes twenty percent for maximizing revenue using new tools.

What are the new tools?

1. iTunes

Anybody can sell on an equal basis.  Just pay a low flat fee price to Tunecore.

2. YouTube

It’s completely free.  Not only that, if you can generate views, you can make money.

3. Bandcamp/Topspin

It’s fascinating that the major labels did not think of this and do not own this.  Doug Morris and Universal build the money-losing Vevo that doesn’t generate enough cash to cover costs and pisses off consumers with advertisements and these two entities succeed based on fulfilling customers’ desires.  Yes, consumers want product, a plethora of it, just not what the major labels think they do.  They want t-shirts and vinyl and books and autographed merchandise, there are a zillion price points and a ton of revenue.  You know how you know Topspin is good?  The majors labels use it when they pooh-pooh almost all technological innovation.  But Topspin and Bandcamp do not limit their infrastructure to those with big bucks and relationships, they’re open to everyone.  The majors won on exclusivity, controlling distribution, those days are completely through and that’s why the major label ecosystem is dying.

Exhibition is still in flux.  Is it Pandora or Spotify from the cloud or a new service?  Rights holders have held back development by insisting on insane payments but at some point in the future a new service with new music might develop or the rights holders might become so desperate they make equitable deals…or an unknown with an unknown product akin to MTV may come by and sideswipe everybody.

Artists want two things.  Exposure and money.  Can you get them heard and seen and can they get paid.  If you can deliver this, they sign up.  And smarter younger artists will sign with someone new, their own age, as opposed to the forty and fiftysomethings tied in with the old system.

Want to make it in the new music management world?  Be honest, be trustworthy and deliver.  And acts will flock to you.

The iPhone was a better operating system.  The app market didn’t flourish until down the line.  There were stumbles along the way, like how to pay for the device, but people flocked to it.  It was a hit.  All we need is a hit act which doesn’t make a deal with the usual suspects and we’re off to the races.  Just like Wal-Mart exclusive deals killed superstars signing with majors, a new hit act doing it for itself will kill the major labels.

Arcade Fire is a start.

But the breakthrough will be something more popular, something easily consumed, something with Top Forty appeal.

The labels should be very afraid.  They’ve already lost fifty percent of their record sales in a decade and now they’re about to lose just about everything.  This is what happens when you refuse to see the future.  This is what happened to Nokia.

Apple has a problem.  Android penetration.  I could mention RIM/BlackBerry, but if you think that company and its devices still count, you’re Canadian.  Android sales have superseded those of iPhones.  How to [...]]]> A great day for Apple. Not such a good day for Amazon, Google and the recording industry.

Apple has a problem.  Android penetration.  I could mention RIM/BlackBerry, but if you think that company and its devices still count, you’re Canadian.  Android sales have superseded those of iPhones.  How to beat back the tide?

Software.

Software is harder to sell than hardware.  You can’t see it.  It’s the difference between admiring someone from afar and getting to really know them.  They may look beautiful from a distance, but up close and personal you might find nothing to converse about. Software is the conversation.  And no one’s software works as well as Apple’s, because of device integration.

Sure, the iPod looked cool.  But Apple won because of iTunes and synching and…  Software.  People eventually get the message.

And they’re gonna get the message about iCloud and when they go to their mobile carrier they’re gonna pay extra for an iPhone, just like they pay extra for Apple laptops and desktops.  They’ll buy iPads, not Android devices.

This is a huge win for Apple.

Google finds itself lost in the wilderness once again.  Trying to do everything, Google does nothing well other than search and e-mail.  Google is the new Sony.  If someone ever comes up with a better search engine, which is not impossible, Google is toast.

As for Amazon?  Music and consumer cloud storage is an afterthought.  Amazon would like to win here, but if it doesn’t, it can shrug its shoulders.  Amazon still owns retail in so many categories, and is the king of server space rental.

As for the music industry…

Unlike Apple, the music industry is very shortsighted.  There is no tomorrow, only today.  Steve Jobs is seriously ill and he’s looking to tomorrow, the labels still haven’t pulled their heads out of yesteryear.

How do you make music pay in the future?  How do you get a ton of revenue for recordings?

By getting everyone to pay.

Think about that, it’s not a hard concept.  The outline has already been drawn by the mobile companies.  You drop the price until everyone buys in, then you slowly raise the price under the rubric of adding new features, i.e. texting.  Twenty five years ago a cell phone was a grand and calls were a buck a minute.  Now plans are dirt cheap and cell phones are free, even ten year olds possess them.  I can legitimately posit that not a single person reading this is without a handset.

That’s penetration.

How do we get everybody to pay for music?  By dropping the price and making it easy.

You call that subscription.

Cable TV is a subscription.  As is Netflix.  As is your cell phone plan.  Don’t say people hate subscriptions, that they don’t want them, it’s about offering a great service at a fair price.

The record industry refuses to do this.

Don’t point to Rhapsody and Napster, that’s like trying to sell a 2001 computer, or a Vanilla Ice record.

How can you get everybody to buy a mobile subscription?

We can debate that all day long, but it’s become almost irrelevant.  Because today, Apple killed subscription.

Yes, iCloud scan and match is subscription.  But the concept of renting your music, like you rent cable TV, that’s kaput.

And what did it cost?

$150 million.  For approximately $40 million to the bottom line of each recording company, you know they’re not going to share the revenue with artists, the labels sold out their future.

It’s like Nintendo being paid a bunch of money to never develop the Wii.

It’s like Electronic Arts being paid to never develop mobile games.

It’s a denial of the future.

Who in the hell is going to buy a music subscription for even $3 a month when for $25 a year you can have everything you own, even stole, at your fingertips via iCloud.  That’s if you scan and match, if you bought the stuff on iTunes, it’s FREE!

Spotify, MOG, Rdio, they were just trumped by Apple.  By an industry looking for short term profits unaware of the future.

This is not hard.  Like I said, subscriptions are everywhere.  But like Wimpy, labels would rather have a hamburger today instead of owning a McDonald’s tomorrow.

How cheaply they were bought off!  $150 million is nothing to Apple, look at its cash hoard!  Apple gets an opportunity to dominate with its iPads and iPhones for this paltry payment.

It boggles the mind.

Yes, few people are paying for subscriptions today.

But right now Spotify and MOG, even the aforementioned Rhapsody, synch your playlists to the handset wirelessly, almost instantly, 2000+ tracks in the case of Spotify, but almost no one knows about this, because almost no one has used these services.

It’s like Amazon trying to compete with Apple selling music.  People would rather pay twelve times the price to Apple for the GaGa album.  Apple has retail stores throughout the world.  Apple’s infrastructure is so great, no one can compete.

Steve Jobs stands on stage and says it’s all about mobile and the music industry is too stupid to get this.  Afraid to make a free desktop offer to ensure a healthy subscription model in mobile, the record industry just shot itself in the foot.

You’re selling dope here.  Spotify is free on the desktop.  But you’ve got to pay on the mobile handset, handsomely, don’t you get it, that’s where the growth is!

Where’s the growth now?  Certainly not in digital track sales.  And for a measly sum you can put everything you’ve STOLEN in the cloud.  The labels made this deal for a percentage of $25 a year, for a service most people won’t even use?

This is so dumb it’s almost incomprehensible.

The labels have been snookered by Steve Jobs, who could sense their ignorance and preyed upon them.

Let me ask you, how come Steve Jobs believes in renting movies and not music?  Isn’t it funny that the scan and match service is a subscription?  Apple could have an all you can eat music subscription in the future, but why?

If people have the history of recorded music at their fingertips for one low price it doesn’t only benefit the labels, but the artists, the promoters, everyone in the music ecosystem.  Because the barrier to checking out new music is so low that people will do so and spend money in music.  Now we’ve ensured the future of a last century model, where you’ve got to buy it to hear it.  Huh?

Unbelievable.

The company said it would launch iCloud, which it [...]]]> Apple took the unusual step Tuesday of pre-announcing what it would discuss at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, but it made an even more out-of-character move by revealing a new product before Steve Jobs had a chance to unveil it.

The company said it would launch iCloud, which it described as “Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.”

Jobs will shed more light on iCloud during a keynote that will kick off Apple’s annual WWDC conference on Monday at 10 a.m. PT in San Francisco, but digital media experts are already abuzz about what iCloud might offer.

Analysts say one thing is for sure: Apple’s new service will have to be more than just an online media locker a la Amazon Cloud Drive or Google Music.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has been rumored to be working on developing a cloud music service for years, but it was beaten to the punch by Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), which debuted their own online music services earlier this year. Those services allow users to stream their entire libraries over the Internet to any device, but they require people to upload their music to the companies’ servers. That can literally take days.

“Apple has to play the classic early follower strategy of seeing the mistakes made by others and learning from them,” said Mark Mulligan, an independent music industry analyst. “Amazon is limited in scope and doesn’t offer a groundbreaking user experience. Apple will err on the side of great user experience first and rich functionality second.”

So what will that look like?

Scan and match: Analysts believe Apple’s iCloud will offer several added benefits, including so-called “scan and match” capabilities. Apple is reportedly negotiating licensing deals with record labels so that iTunes can scan users libraries and match those songs with online versions hosted on Apple’s servers. That will allow users to stream any song in their library without uploading their music.

Apple will probably allow users to listen to their entire libraries online, analysts predict, not just the music they purchased on iTunes. Just a quarter of iTunes users download music regularly from the iTunes music store, according to Mulligan. Most music stored in iTunes comes from ripped CDs or peer-to-peer networks.

“If it’s restricted to just iTunes purchases, it wouldn’t be a viable proposition,” he said.

Subscription service for a fee: The downside is that those streaming licenses don’t come cheap, and iCloud will likely charge a subscription fee. Amazon and Google, by contrast, offer their cloud music products for free.

Most analysts think the price will likely be about the same as Apple’s current cloud service offering, called MobileMe. That service, which is available to customers for an annual $99 subscription, allows users to upload content to Apple’s servers, sync data with multiple devices and access content via the Web.

MobileMe never really caught on with customers. It has been plagued by bugs, and Fortune reported that Jobs lambasted the development group for its failure. Analysts widely believe that iCloud will replace MobileMe as Apple’s cloud offering.

That $99-a-year price point would put iCloud’s cost on par with other music subscription services like Napster, Microsoft’s (MSFT, Fortune 500) Zune Pass or Rhapsody, which typically cost between $10 and $15 a month. Those services have deals in place with record labels, which allow users to stream millions of songs — considerably more than exists in individual iTunes libraries.

More than just music: Many pundits believe iCloud will eventually — if not at launch — allow users to stream TV shows and movies as well.

“Just offering music wouldn’t get a lot of iTunes subscribers interested,” said Mike McGuire, analyst at Gartner. “It would have to be a multimedia subscription service, including movies, TV shows and music to create a more compelling experience than what’s already out there.”

McGuire said the conundrum Apple will likely face is whether to run an unlimited media streaming subscription service that competes with Netflix or to license deals with movie and TV studios so that users can watch only video content that exists in their iTunes libraries.

As services like Netflix (NFLX) and video on demand become increasingly popular, fewer people are buying individual videos and TV shows, so most iTunes video libraries are looking pretty thin. But competing with Netflix directly could prove difficult for Apple. That’s why McGuire believes Apple will extend its Apple TV model to the iCloud service, offering one-time streaming rentals for under $5.

Just iOS: A common criticism of Apple is that it offers a “walled garden” approach to technology: The user experience is great, but you have to stay inside the Apple ecosystem to make it work. That’s why you’ll probably need an iPod, an iPad or an iPhone to make iCloud work.

“What is the reason they’re doing this? To make the experience around their devices better so they sell better,” said Mulligan.

One rival said that’s why iCloud won’t kill off the competition.

“Even if it’s a huge success, Apple will only care about Apple products,” said Daren Tsui, CEO of cloud music service mSpot. “They don’t care about other platforms like BlackBerry or Android. But we’re the Switzerland for media, because we work on all platforms.”

TUAW tested the keyboard [...]]]> The iPad Bluetooth keyboards and keyboard cases that exist now are clunky at best, and heavy and unusably bad at worst. The Adonit Writer, however, seems like a pretty quality solution for the problem of typing on an iPad for extended periods of time.

TUAW tested the keyboard + iPad case + outer sleeve and found that not only is it crafted very well from quality material, it’s also quite “flexible and secure.” The case (not counting the iPad) is 1.1 pounds, so in total, you’ll have a carrying weight of about 2.4 pounds—similar to a netbook. TUAW also says the keyboard, which isn’t quite full-sized, still feels great.

Adonit Writer was a Kickstarter project that managed to raise $27k (they only aimed at $10k), and will be soon selling iPad 1 models for $100 for the first month, and $110 thereafter. The iPad 2 models are coming soon.

Whether or not an iPad is a better mobile-writing device than a netbook is unclear, especially when you factor in the fact that multitasking on the iPad is clunky needs you to swap back and forth between full-screeened applications. But for those of you who already take your iPad everywhere and want something better for text entry, this seems like a good compromise.

The iPhone’s regular clock can handle the change and automatically steps back one hour. However, the alarm goes off one hour late. People who set the alarm for 7 a.m. found [...]]]> A bug in the iPhone’s operating system resulted in alarms going off an hour late as Europe changed from daylight saving time.

The iPhone’s regular clock can handle the change and automatically steps back one hour. However, the alarm goes off one hour late. People who set the alarm for 7 a.m. found that it actually sounds off at 8 a.m.

iPhone users seem to have managed fine, with lots of short showers and quick breakfasts: “The iPhone gave me a nice sleep-in. Luckily a friend called me four minutes before the lecture started, and I managed to get there reasonably on time,” said one user on MacWorld Sweden’s site.

The change from daylight saving time happened early Sunday in many places in Europe.

This isn’t the first time that the switch has caused problems for iPhone users. At the end of September and the beginning of October, the change caused alarms in New Zealand and Australia to go off one hour early.

Apple representatives contacted on Monday did not say when the issue will be fixed. Parts of the U.S., Canada and Mexico that observe daylight saving time are scheduled to set the clocks back at 2 a.m. Sunday.