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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
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iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
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  • Spanks for the Memories

    • 8 out of 10
    • Asylum Street Spankers
    • The Asylum Street Spankers are...well...The Spankers. Hailing from Austin, where I saw them live dozens of times, the band played entirely acousti

  • The Dresden Dolls

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Dresden Dolls
    • The energetic duet of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione that make up the Dresden Dolls have created a wonderfully haunting sound in their self-titled album. They have been able to construct an imme

  • How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

    • 6 out of 10
    • U2
    • U2's latest entry is a mostly underwhelming collection of songs that does very little to sound any different from its equally pedestrian predecessor, 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." While

  • Abnormal Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Congo Norvell
    • Very few albums manage to capture snapshots of a quality of life in the manner that Congo Norvell's sophomore record, "Abnormals Anonymous," does.

      Comparisons to the Velvet Underground are

  • Rift

    • 8 out of 10
    • Phish
    • This quasi-concept album (the only of its kind) from these Vermonters finally showcased their ability to convey a message with a studio album, whereas previously they only succeeded in doing so live.

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Column: Competitors Show No Signs of Duplicating Apple’s iPhone Business Model

A detailed examination of Apple’s iPhone business model for the iPhone shows that Apple has completely understood the economics of the mobile phone industry and exploited them fully. Moreover, Apple’s competitors are showing no signs of either extracting themselves from their plight or producing a phone that can compete with Apple’s, according to Daniel Dilger at Roughly Drafted on Wednesday.

Mr. Dilger outlined the five money making elements that give Apple a competitive advantage over the competition. Those revenues can be used for technology development that the competition just cannot equal.

Those five elements are: 1) Manufacturing profits, 2) Retail profits, 3) Carrier revenue sharing, 4) Accessory sales, and 5) Software and media sales.

Essentially, Apple has created a broad in scope financial engine that generates a considerable cash flow. Most analysts have appreciated this cash flow engine, and investors, seeing that, brought Apple’s stock to the US$200 range in late 2007.

Mr. Dilger’s broader point, however, is that the financial leverage will allow Apple to climb the ranks of cell phone sales and seriously challenge the competition. For those observers who think that competitors will be able to conjure up an iPhone killer, Mr. Dilger suggested that, almost a year after the iPhone introduction, no one has been able to create viable competition not just for the phone itself, but Apple’s revenue model. He pointed to the continuing success of the iPod as an example. Making a small MP3 player is not all there is to this business.

"Of course, over the last decade no hardware maker has been able to offer a popular iPod replacement either, which should cause at least some pundits to rethink their fantasy position on the imminent arrival of a far more complex product to take on the iPhone, and by extension, its sophisticated iPod Touch cousin, both of which make the original, unrivaled iPod look like a rather simple gadget," Mr. Dilger concluded.

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