1983 Steve Jobs Predictions about Computing

It's pretty amazing.


He predicted that people will be spending more time interacting with personal computers than with cars. Remember he said this at a time when few people owned a computer. 

He talked about the personal computer being a new medium of communication, before extensive networking and and at a time when 300 baud modems were state of the art.

Jobs talks about early e-mail systems, and how, at some point, portable computers with radio links would allow people to walk around anywhere and pick up their e-mail. 

He says Apple’s strategy is to “put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes."

He thought that the software industry needed something like a radio station so that people could sample software before they buy it. 

He believed that software distribution through traditional brick-and-mortar was archaic since software is digital and can be transferred electronically through phone lines. He foresees paying for software in an automated fashion over the phone lines with credit cards.

Free Skype WiFi Has Retail Promotion Angle

Free Skype WiFi has been launched by Wicoms and Skype in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Businesses can purchase the service at skypewifi.wicoms.com.

Skype users can access any available Free Skype WiFi location using their Skype ID and the Skype WiFi app. If a user doesn’t have such an ID, there is a simple single step procedure that involves gaining access using an email address.

The upside for retail sponsors, aside from offering the amenity, might include the ability to supply instant offers,  coupons or other information to shoppers in the stores.

T-Mobile Looking at MetroPCS Buy?

Deutsche Telekom AG is nearing a deal to buyu MetroPCS Communications and create a public equity for the new company, Bloomberg reports. That would be a switch. T-Mobile USA earlier in 2012 had said it had “no need” of such an acquisition.

Deutsche Telekom is said to be considering a stock-swap deal with MetroPCS to would give Deutsche Telekom control over the combined U.S. entity. As a byproduct, such a public vehicle would allow Deutsche Telekom to gradually monetize its investment in T-Mobile USA, an original impetus for the decision to be acquired by AT&T.

Separately, Sprint had contemplated its own deal to buy MetroPCS. Either way, many observers expect a new round of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. mobile industry.

Raymond James analyst  Ric Prentiss predicts that both Sprint and T-Mobile USA will engage in a rather furious wave of acquisitions in 2013 and 2014 to bulk up.

“We do think M&A in the U.S. wireless space will occur over the next 12 to 18 months," says Pentiss.

“We think the September 19 announcement of the new T- Mobile USA CEO hired externally and the $2.4 billion tower sale to Crown Castle on September 28 are strong indicators that T-Mobile USA, and its owner Deutsche Telekom, are not interested anytime soon in network sharing or merging with Sprint," Prentiss says.

"We believe T-Mobile is more likely a competing bidder against Sprint for smaller M&A deals that bring spectrum, cash flow, synergies, and the potential for public currency,” he says.

In EU, 4G Frustrates Apple Device Users

The European Union’s Commissioner For The Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes argues that the EU needs to invest about $64 billion in 4G networks, in the form of loans, to overcome current spectrum incompatibilities that affect use of Apple iPhone and iPad devices.

At the moment, both devices have only limited connectivity in the EU, where spectrum differences and, in some cases, no 4G networks, force the LTE-capable devices to use 3G connections.

There are larger issues. If Europe remains a region where LTE and 4G are "problems" for suppliers such as Apple, they won't drive their decisions by European concerns. 

Browser News Content Consumption Surges

There has been movement over the last year toward using the browser rather than apps for tablet news consumption, the Pew Research Center has found, despite the new popularity of mobile apps.

Fully 60 percent of tablet news users mainly use the browser to get news on their tablet, just 23 percent get news mostly through apps and 16 percent use both equally. In 2011, 40% got news mostly through a browser, 21 percent mostly through apps and 31 percent used both equally, the Pew Research Center says.

But as was revealed in the 2011 survey, app news users-and those who use both apps and the browser equally-remain in many ways more engaged and deeper news users than those who mostly use their browser. The browser is preferred on the smartphone as well (61 percent get news mostly through a browser, 28 percent mostly through apps and 11 percent use both equally).

60% of Mobile Users Research Purchases from Their Phones

Six out of 10 people who own a mobile device use it to research products, while an additional 44 percent use it to purchase goods, a research study published today by digital publisher SAY Media has found.

Users aged 18 to 24 do so at slightly-higher rates. Some 64 percent of users 18 to 24 research products from their mobiles and 58 percent purchase from their phones.



 

Mobile Consolidation is Coming in U.S. Market in 2013, 2014

Raymond James analyst  Ric Prentiss predicts that both Sprint and T-Mobile USA will engage in a rather furious wave of acquisitions in 2013 and 2014 to bulk up.

“We do think M&A in the U.S. wireless space will occur over the next 12 to 18 months," says Pentiss.

“We think the September 19 announcement of the new T- Mobile USA CEO hired externally and the $2.4 billion tower sale to Crown Castle on September 28 are strong indicators that T-Mobile USA, and its owner Deutsche Telekom, are not interested anytime soon in network sharing or merging with Sprint," Prentiss says. 

"We believe T-Mobile is more likely a competing bidder against Sprint for smaller M&A deals that bring spectrum, cash flow, synergies, and the potential for public currency,” he says.