Archive for April 28th, 2011

Ina Fried of The Wall Street Journal yesterday published a telephone interview with Apple's executives Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall. CEO of the company again explained Apple's further policy related to recently found algorithm of collecting anonymous data about iPhones' locations.

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Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga, believes the delay in the white iPhone’s release and its “mystique and scarcity value” could drive sales to 1-1.5 million units per quarter. White said:

The purchase of consumer electronic devices is not always a completely rational decision, and people buy Apple products for many different reasons, including status, aesthetics, functionality, quality and the ‘cool factor.’ In our view, this delay has created a certain mystique and scarcity value around the white iPhone 4 that we believe could drive incremental iPhone 4 purchases in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter until the iPhone 5 potentially comes to market in September.

We still don’t know whether Apple realizes or not the iPhone 5 until September or early fall.  But we’ve tried to sum up all possible reasons why Apple might officially launch the iPhone 5 this fall. First of all, Apple announced Verizon iPhone only in February and the white iPhone’ has stared selling today. An October shipping date of new iPhone would give Verizon and the white iPhones time to enjoy their purchases without temptation from the next model of Apple’s smartphone. The second reason is that Apple typically updates the iPod line in late summer/early fall. This encourages back-to-school sales and jump-starts the all-important Holiday shopping season. By bringing the iPhone into line with its iPod refresh cycle, Apple could better position new iPhone sales so that giving an iPhone for Christmas doesn't feel like you're committing to last year's technology. And the last reason is firmware update. The iPhone 5 and iOS 5 may be presented simultaneously showing us more revolutionary than evolutionary changes.

GigaOM reports that Apple has acquired the iCloud.com domain, used for online data storage, for $4.5 million.

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn't responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

The purchase of iCloud.com could be a sign confirming Apple’s intention to rebrand MobileMe. With Apple’s new cloud services preparing for launch, the purchase of iCloud.com could indicate that new services from Apple may be arriving sooner than later.

A third party iOS developer FutureTap has posted a tweet where he reveals he got a crash log from a device running iOS 5.0 and then published a screenshot (above). The image indicated Apple is testing its new version of iOS using third party apps.

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Apple has finally begun selling the rumored white iPhone 4 after a 10-month delay since the original unveiling at the WWDC 2010. Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller told in an interview to Mobilized’s Ina Fried that the white iPhone was really “challenging” to make because of “unexpected interactions” of the white color with several internal components. Moreover, the white model of iPhone 4 indeed has a different proximity sensor than the black one.

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Recently Fortune discovered that according to Form 4 filing with the Securities Exchange Commission Bob Mansfield, who is Senior Vice President at Apple, sold 38,863 shares of Apple stock. Average price stock was $351.89, thus he got almost $13.7 million. Currently Mansfield owns 501 shares of Apple, which is roughly 1% of his Apple portfolio.

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