November 6, 2013

“Our business does not depend on collecting personal data”

Foremost, the document explains Apple’s philosophy on customer privacy. “… Our business does not depend on collecting personal data,”* the report said in an obvious poke at Google, Facebook and others. “We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.”

This is why I love and use Apple’s products and services. It is a huge contrast to other companies such as Google, which rely heavily on user data to sell advertisements.

Charter CEO ‘Surprised’ Users Want Broadband With No TV

Charter losing 27,000 TV subscribers down from 71,000 last year. The company also managed to add 86,000 broadband subscribers, and broadband revenues jumped 23% to $575 million courtesy of price hikes.

“I would say that the one thing that surprised me…is that our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be,” said Rutledge.

I am not surprised to see the increasing trend of customers getting sick of the traditional TV business model. This is a reason why streaming services such as Netflix are skyrocketing. People would rather just have unlimited bandwidth and faster download/upload speeds and watch what they want, when they want. Hopefully, Apple is able to disrupt the television industry like they did with the music one.

The Movie Deal Netflix Wants to Make

While releasing those titles day-and-date with cinemas would be a tall order, Sarandos wants them 45 days or even 30 days after their theatrical bow.

This would definitely rock the industry. There subscription rate would increase even faster.

Microsoft Is Making An Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties

This money, says Sherlund, helps Microsoft hide the fact that its mobile and Xbox groups are burning serious cash.

For the past few years, Microsoft reported the revenue and operating losses of Entertainment and Devices, which was the group that housed Xbox, Windows Phone, and those Android royalty payments.

That group always seemed to be profitable, but Sherlund says it’s largely because of the Android money.

Sherlund says that if you back out the Android profits, Microsoft is probably losing $2.5 billion on Skype, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform.

That’s some serious royalty dough. And an awesome photo of Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer. Maybe he didn’t do such as horrendous job after all.

Burger King’s Big King: A Big Mac By Any Other Name? 

Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King’s Chief Marketing Officer for North America insists the new burger is different than any other because of “the unique fire-grilling” for which Burger King is known.

If imitation is a form of flattery, then McDonald’s is basking in adoration from its much smaller competitor. Like McDonald’s, Burger King has rolled out salads, fruit smoothies, frappes, chicken nuggets and wraps in recent months.

Burger King is pretty much like the Samsung and Google or the fast food industry.