Paul Lopez Unwired

The HTML5 Video wars have settled into two camps. Microsoft and Apple support H.264. This video codec was recently freed by the MPEG LA but only for video free to view by end users ("Internet Broadcast AVC Video"). Google open sourced its VP8 video in May under the WebM open Web media project with a BSD-style, royalty-free license­. Mozilla and Opera support WebM. I think H.264 is a short-term solution for Apple given the fact that the MPEG LA can change the fee structure in 2016. There is a possibility in the mean time that a pass-through fee could be imposed for protected video content running over iTV. Apple needs to get moving quickly on the follow-on to H.264 - HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, aka H.265). HEVC aims to reduce bitrate requirements by half through increased computational complexity. Targeted at next generation HDTV systems with progressive scanned frame rates and scalable from QVGA to 1080p, it will fully replace the H.264. Apple also needs to make sure that its processors will be able to handle the future compression (3x or more) while preserving battery life and reducing device heat dissipation. Video standards can't be "free to roam or make a home out of everywhere they've been." It's too costly for content creators to publish to conflicting standards.

A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments. Tech-savy consumers have a natural ability for assigning rubrics when purchasing entertainment or media. The trade-offs in accessibility, content quality and cost have become problematic in $69.8 billion U.S. TV subscription market. Apple is expected to introduce the new iTV service platform during their event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco this week. Internet online video did to cable TV what cable did to network TV. The industry has accelerated the unbundling of content from its transport. It's happened in music, newspaper publishing and book publishing.  While the Comcast/NBC merger continues to come under FCC scrutiny, Apple is negotiating with ABC, CBS and Fox for 99-cent streaming TV show rentals. Google is also negotiating with Hollywood for Pay-per-View service on YouTube. On the fringe, you have Xbox and Hulu. Microsoft recently increased its Xbox subscription rate, and why not? Hulu is trying to sell a $9.99 monthly subscription (with advertising) to its users. The consumer can assess their needs layer by layer, just like solving the Rubix cube. Once you decide on the content, you can decide how best to consume it. Leveraging existing in-home appliances like a Blue-Ray player or Xbox, provides the Codec, streaming processor & local cache needed for HD 1080p. People will not want throw away their existing investment, despite what Apple or Google may do. 

Apple's recent change to its developer rules requiring their approval to collect and send device data to third parties for aggregation, analytics or processing, has created a firestorm in the mobile blogosphere. If Facebook had a mobile operating system, they would not qualify as "independent" according to the new rules and hence could be blocked. Recent legislation, such as the draft privacy bill from Rep. Rick Boucher, seeks to define and require opt-in approval for "sensitive information." That could be your exact geographic location or something similar. Of course users comfortable with geo-location applications shouldn't have a problem providing their approval, not many people read those fine print in pop-ups anyway - but they should.  We are seeing inconsistent privacy notices and policies in use across desktop and mobile applications. Apple justifies their approach under the "privacy" banner, but could attract the scrutiny of the FTC. The recent leak of AT&T ICC-ID data to obtain user email addresses brings Apple's privacy concerns up front and personal. While not necessarily Apple's fault, they still require an email address for iTunes. Mobile advertising has evolved from the desktop space with some innovation, although there have not been many break-through ideas. Apple's iAd experience is very clever in that users clicking ads are presented an HTML5 container without leaving the app. Delivery and bundling of iAds via iTunes supports their cash engine. By forcing developers to use HTML5, this further drives the standard away from Adobe. Perhaps Apple could use iTunes as a repository for user opt-in status thereby eliminating interruptions in the application itself. 

Where Apple had a proprietary approach to TV, Google looks to introduce a set-top box based on Android, dubbed "Smart TV," at the I/O conference this week. Smart TV is in collaboration with Sony, Intel and Logitech and allows users to switch easily between TV shows, YouTube or home videos on your own set. The Apple TV, introduced in 2007, requires iTunes so users can buy or rent movies, TV shows, songs or podcasts. The Apple TV was a living room extension of the iTunes Store, that's about it. No major networks got on board with Apple.  Although earlier this year, we thought Disney and CBS were interested in Apple's offer of $2-$4/month per subscriber. That is much higher than networks get today. The only catch was Apple would sell a subscription without ads as a $30/month bundle. I doubted the networks would get on board because their source of reach is cable networks. Those cable MSOs do not want to compete with Internet TV served up by Apple. Google on the other hand, with Smart TV, would enable Google to control navigation of content through the TV set. They've been testing a search service to help consumers find shows on the Dish Network already. Intel provides the Atom chips, Sony provides the consumer brand and Logitech would provide a specialized remote with a built-in keyboard. On the video front, I think Google is about to open up the VP8 video codec acquired with their purchase of On2. The lack of an appropriate universal codec for the HTML5 video element has made it difficult for standards-based video to reach critical mass. H.264 compression still rules and so do its patents and license fees. VP8 is said to be highly sophisticated and competitive with H.264. If Google makes VP8's underlying intellectual property available under royalty-free terms, it could propel HTML5 video as the de-facto standard. Think HD Internet video in a browser from your 62" set! The wildcard is if they can keep the Android kernel for TV from fragmenting. Open Source is a two-edged sword as I've pointed out many times.

The news surrounding Intel's recent announcement of the Atom Z6xx (aka Moorestown) System-on-a-Chip (SoC) tends to focus on the uphill battle the company is facing in the ARM-centric smartphone ecosystem. Intel has claimed idle times of 21-23 milliwatts for the Z6xx series compared to 25 mW for a 1GHz Snapdragon. That is 10 days of standby time with a 1500 mAh battery. What is more interesting is the move to port Windows Server to multi-core ARM processors manufactured at 40 nm, such as announced by Marvell Technology Group. The chips will bring more than a five-fold reduction in power consumption in data centers and cloud environments compared to the x86. Think of the headroom an ARM implementation in servers would be when comparing an Intel Xeon at several hundred dollars versus a $35 ARM quad-core running virtualized Windows Server 2008. Om Malik brings up in a recent post that it was "too bad Intel sold its StrongARM technology to Marvell." I agree; Marvell did what Intel didn't have the heart to do. We think of virtualization in data centers as smart economics in hardware utilization and power consumption but what happens when server hardware processor cores decrease by a factor of 10 and power consumption by 5? Do we throw hardware at the problem again? Analysts should model the financial scenarios factoring in VMWare licensing costs, power consumption/footprint of rack space and application-specific-servers vs. general purpose power-hog blades running VMWare.

Developers explain that using Xcode tools from Apple for Objective-C results in more efficient code and power management for the iPhone & iPad devices. This also ensures some consistency in the way the finished application looks and behaves. Even though Obj-C is not managed code like Microsoft .Net (e.g., with garbage collectors), developers have no problems releasing memory to fulfill the performance requirements imposed by Apple. If your program takes more than 20 seconds to respond to the user or tries to access more memory then is available, the OS shuts it down. I don't see Apple attempting to create a monopoly or impose unfair trade practices. They do not have the desktop market share that Microsoft had during the Internet Explorer DOJ actions. It's not Apple's concern what developers have to do to their app for another platform. Adobe can set up an Apple mobile devices group to develop Xcode libraries for their mobile application developers. This is no different than what Microsoft does with their Apple division where they have MS Office 2008 running very well on Snow Leopard. No need for the government to get involved.

Kevin Kelleher of GigaOM posits in his article that Apple will eventually give up control of the iPhone & iPad environment, the application process, and limiting content to what is "appropriate" for its customers.  While I agree with his analogy of comparing Apple to WalMart in terms of being a retailer, I do not believe their walled garden limits innovation. The reason is during the early phases of technology adoption, it is better to have this type of control to preserve the brand experience. Apple could not afford to have sloppy applications or serve up what their customers might deem inappropriate. Very soon, customers will be able to experience unrestricted HMTL5 applications accessible over the web that will approach the current UI experience from fat client apps on iTunes. The same goes for iPad.  Apple is not only a "platform," it is a Brand and above all, that is what the company will preserve. Gadgets will change but the brand remains the same.

There's a lot of commotion lately about Twitter launching its own client applications of what I would call "house apps" for platforms like the iPhone, Blackberry and today the Android. While many developers have outstanding Twitter clients, the better ones come with a price. Now that Twitter has introduced more of its own client apps free of charge, those early third-party apps quickly lose their value proposition. Some believe the trend could hurt companies like Seesmic or Twitterific. Developers will need to come up with ways to structure their applications to offer other benefits besides just connecting APIs. This is no different than what Microsoft did in the early days. Microsoft grew to domination in the desktop market on the backs of third party developers. Old applications like Harvard Graphics, WordStar, VisiCalc and dBASE were the early pioneers before we had MS Office. No one should be surprised with Twitter's actions, it's part of the software growth lifecycle. Developers will adapt and Twitter will do what fuels its own business growth. I see no problem with that.

Most industry observers credit HP's acquisition of Palm as a good move to get back in the mobile business. I see it as potentially bending the Android developer growth curve. Programmers have to write Objective C for the iPhone, JavaME for Blackberry, Java for Android and Symbian for Nokia. That didn't leave much room for Palm webOS development, until now. Even though they already knew what they needed for webOS:  HTML(5), CSS and JavaScript, there just wasn't enough critical mass because developers couldn't get to it. This acquisition is about software and I believe the Pre and the Pixie will become collector items. The webOS is much lighter than HP's Touch Smart for Windows so I expect to see it powering the new HP Slate. In fact, webOS is better suited for places where Android doesn't work well like e-readers and web tablets. The issue is the open source Android device orphan. Remember, the Nexus One had new features not available to the Motorola Droid via a software download. When you get an Android, you are tied to the device, not the OS. With webOS, your phone improves when the OS is upgraded, just like the iPhone. I wished RIM had been bold enough to consider buying Palm. They certainly needed it. Now HP can come after RIM in the enterprise. HP can offer a mix of Android and Windows Mobile 7 for consumers or corporate users. Palm webOS gives them something of their own and a developer community waiting in the wings.