The PlanetRecruit Blog

Making niche technology mainstream

Apple could be about to do for the cloud what it did for the MP3 player and the tablet computer – make previously niche technology mainstream.

For most, the first MP3 player was the first generation iPod, released in 2002 – when in fact they had been around since 1998. Most recently, since the release of the iPad manufacturers and people alike are falling over themselves to release and buy tablet computers. However, the concept of tablet computing has been around for some time, with Microsoft trying it as far back as 2001.

These innovations have hugely changed the way we think about and consumer media. Take music, for example. Many swore never to give up their CD collections and to continue buying CDs after the iPod release. Compressed music doesn't sound as good – true – and nothing beats owning a real CD or record, yet most music lovers will now have extensive digital collections. The same holds true for books, with research indicating more digital books than paper copies were purchased last year.

Just don’t mention the torrents

It was never going to last. Earlier this week, Apple pulled an iPhone app from its app store after approving it only a week before. But why all the fuss over the harmless-sounding IS Drive app? Probably because it could be used to manage BitTorrent downloads, which some ruthless individuals apparently use to engage in illegal file-sharing.

Despite past refusals from Apple to approve similar apps, IS Drive (note the lack of the word ‘torrent’ in the title) appeared in the app store last week, labelled as a tool for managing downloads from image-hosting website ImageShack – a perfectly legal process. However, if so inclined, a user could adapt the app’s functions to manage illegal downloads via peer-to-peer file-sharing enabled by the BitTorrent protocol, entering the murky yet massive world of internet piracy.

Unsurprisingly, Apple weren’t impressed. Not only is this, well, illegal, but it could be argued that giving iPhone users the key to a universe of free music and film wouldn’t do iTunes any favours either.

Another big hit for Apple with Ping?

Steve Jobs and Apple might have done it yet again. The plaudits are not unanimous (when are they ever?) but the balance of ‘informed’ opinion seems to be in favour of Ping, Apple’s new iTunes social networking app.

Reports over the weekend indicate that over one million users of iTunes are now using Ping which is, inevitably, a cross between Facebook and Twitter. The feature is part of the new version of  iTunes, v. 10, which already has 3 million downloads with one third of those immediately using Ping, says Apple.