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Holy crap: Microsoft bids on Yahoo!

By Nick, February 1, 2008

Wow, who saw this coming?

MSNBC reports that Microsoft has made a $44.6 billion takeover bid for its search rival Yahoo! Inc. Now why would Microsoft want to do something like that? To take on Google, of course!

Yahoo has been struggling as of late. Granted, both Yahoo and Microsoft are well behind Google in the search engine market; MSNBC reports that Google’s market share is in the neighborhood of 60%, while Yahoo and Microsoft have a combined 33% share.

Some questions naturally arise from this buyout proposal. Will regulators allow Microsoft to buy Yahoo without without messy antitrust issues? What will happen to MSN and Windows Live Search? Will this really do Microsoft any good in the end? And what about other Yahoo properties such as Flickr? Is Microsoft overpaying?

Me? I’d be surprised--nay, shocked!--if this deal goes through without Microsoft being forced to give up quite a bit. That is, if this deal goes through at all. Time wil tell. I’m sure we’ll have more to say about this proposed buyout in the coming days.

As of this writing, Google’s share price is down nearly 8%, Microsoft is down over 6%, and Yahoo is up nearly 86%.

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Crazy Apple Rumors goes on hiatus. Seriously.

By Nick, January 31, 2008

Mac geeks looking for a bit of humor will have one less option. Crazy Apple Rumors Site, AKA CARS, announced on Monday that it’s going on hiatus.

Why, John Moltz? Why??

CARS is the site that brought our attention to Artie MacStrawman (I hate that guy), leaked keynote outlines (OMGGG!!!), a name change for a popular Mac site, and Phil Schiller’s tendency to wear thongs.

Actually, that last one was my doing ( ), but without a doubt, CARS is a strong influence on my occasional ( and sometimes lame) attempts at humor here at DT.

John, thanks for the laughs. Hopefully you’ll be back soon.

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The iPod Touch January Software Upgrade

By Liam, January 30, 2008

At this latest Macworld Expo, iPhone firmware 1.1.3 was announced, with features such as “customizable home screen,” “Webclips,” and a new interface for Maps. It was then announced that these enhancements, along with five applications previously only on the iPhone, would be coming to the iPod Touch in $20 “January Software Upgrade.”

Fast-forwarding past all the “it’s sooooooo unfair why Apple why?” aspects of the move, we must direct our attention to the applications themselves. In addition to the applications, the new features of iPhone firmware 1.1.3 (Webclips and Icon Layout on Springboard chiefly among them) were also included in the software upgrade. For iPhone users, the following rundown/review will say only what you already know. I’m providing this information for those of us who don’t have $60 to spend on phone service each month, no matter how functional and sexy and fingerprint covered the phone happens to be.

Mail and Maps

Mail is a light and decent email client, especially for a mobile device. With support for both POP3 and IMAP, Mail has preset configurations for several popular mail services, such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, as well as Apple’s own .Mac mail. Mail works with any other service supporting either of the two protocols mentioned above, of course, but settings will have to be obtained and entered manually.

Mail maintains the same folders you’d expect from an email client, like Inbox, Sent, Drafts, etc. Messages can be moved between folders, but new folders cannot be created directly in the…
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My on again/off again relationship with Deep Thought

By Nick, January 29, 2008

This is a short one today…

It’s official: I’m a Deep Thought loyalist.

It’s funny. No matter how frustrated I get trying to encourage people to write for DT, to read DT, and to take part in discussions on DT, I keep coming back.

No matter how many times I want to give up--or tell myself that I want to give up or that I should give up--I keep coming back.

No matter what, I keep coming back.

Why, do you ask? Maybe it’s because I’m the last of the original staff still active here. Or maybe it’s because I’ve poured so much of my time and effort over the past three years into trying to make DT a success. Or maybe it’s because this is my home online. Whatever the reason, I keep coming back.

I hope you do too.

I’m not in this for the money. None of here are. If we were, we would have given up long ago. I’m in this because I want to make Deep Thought work. I am committed to making Deep Thought the best it can be, as is the rest of our team (and we have some very exciting things we’ve been working on that you’ll see in the not-too-distant future). I don’t give up that easily. I want Deep Thought to work. I hope that some of you feel the same way too. After all, this isn’t my site. This isn’t just my place to get on a soapbox. This is…
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Why the iPod’s low sales growth isn’t worth losing sleep over

By Nick, January 23, 2008

Apple announced their financial results today, and they’re impressive for the most part: a $1.58 billion profit on $9.6 billion in revenue. Think about that. Not long ago Apple couldn’t even pull in $9.6 billion in a year; now they can do it in a quarter. My, that’s quite a change.¹

There is one thing that everyone seems to be talking about: iPod sales were up a wimpy 5% year-over-year.

OMG!!! T3H I-POD IS DOOMED!!1!!1!1!1!!!

Or is it? Is there really something to this relatively small sales increase? Is it a sign that the iPod has lost its luster and will now begin to fall? Or is something else in play here?

Consider this...

Apple sold over 2.3 million iPhones last quarter. Apple also sold over 22 million iPods last quarter.

Are other music players finally gaining ground?

The answer is no.

During the financial results conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer noted that, according to data from NPD, the iPod’s US market share in the October-December quarter was “consistent” with the same period in 2006 (although Apple said it is gaining share in international markets). In other words, there was no real change in Apple’s US market share. It’s possible that there was a slight loss (or slight gain), but such variations don’t mean a whole lot unless a trend starts to develop over consecutive quarters.

To me, this is telling. To me, this says that it isn’t so much that the iPod is failing or losing ground, but that…
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