News tagged ‘AT&T’

Steve Jobs answers a question from the audience about whether AT&T's service for the iPhone will get better anytime soon.

Gene Munster, who is an analyst at Piper Jaffray, told yesterday that Steve Jobs won't allegedly make a surprise with presentation of the next generation iPhone at the WorldWide Developer Conference 2010. Because of numerous prototype leaks everybody expects the iPhone 4G to have thinner design, front-facing camera, improved battery and 5MP rear camera. But Gene claimed people should not expect that a Verizon-compatible model will be presented.

"We believe that it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch; rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the U.S. at launch".

He also said Apple may start selling iPhone 3GS for $99 instead of iPhone 3G and provide a "limited demo" of new version of Mac OS X (10.7), that has all chances to support multi-touch technology as a key feature. But as we wrote before it looks like WWDC2010 will focus mainly on iPhone OS 4.0 so the preview of Mac OS X 10.7 will not allegedly happen.

Gene is assured that the presentation of iPhone 4G will have a positive influence on Apple's stock.

"...the new iPhone will likely drive unit sales beyond Street expectations, providing a positive catalyst for shares of AAPL in the coming months."

According to CNNMoney Walmart will sell 16 Gb version of iPhone 3GS starting today only for $97. The price reduction refers to a Memorial Day weekend. But such a deal requires a two-year contract with AT&T.

New price for iPhone 3Gs is more than $100 lower than Apple's one. Senior category director in Walmart  Mehrdad Akbar explained it:

"It is our commitment to always lead on price".

The price reduction may be explained by iPhone 4G presentation that will expectedly be held on June 7. Last year Apple lowered the price for 8GB-version of iPhone 3G to $99 because of iPhone 3GS release.

Recently Billboard published a report that reveals new information on Apple's share on music sales market. When the first generation iPhone was presented, iTunes had only 12,7% of American music market. In 2008 Apple almost doubled it and made 21,4%. 2009 reveals five percentage points increase - now iTunes has 26,7% of music sales.

Such mobile providers as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless on the contrary lose their positions, downing from 6,6% to 4,9% in 2009. Partly it is explained by lower priced ringtones in iTunes and its free tools for making custom ringtones. Both of these factors eventually attracted more people.

Physical media music in turn loses its popularity from year to year. Numbers reveal its share fell from 57,5% in 2008 to 49,3% in 2009. That means that iTunes actually makes a half of all digital music downloads overall.

iTunes' closest rival Amazon also increased its sales. But in digital MP3 sales the company's share grew from 0,8% in 2008 to 1,3% in 2009, which is not even close to Apple's 26,7% share. Such results, according to Billboard, were "still well short of where major labels had hoped Amazon's download store would be by now, dimming earlier expectations that it will be able to significantly reduce the labels' heavy dependence on iTunes for digital sales."

It is interesting to look forward for Google which recently acquired Simplify Media to expectedly turn it into iTunes rival for Android users. But for now the company's subsidiary AdMob reveals the amount of media bought or even downloaded by Android users is still so small that it cannot be compared with iTunes success.

Today Apple released iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4. New firmware is available for download at its developer's center. There is no changelog, but we already have some information about new features in it.

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Recently The Wall Street Journal had reported that Verizon collaborates with Google to create new tablet device that will compete with the iPad. The information was confirmed by Lowell McAdam, who is a Verizon CEO, in his interview to the paper.

"What do we think the next big wave of opportunities are? We're working on tablets together, for example. We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

Still there were no information revealed about the device's hardware and its manufacturers. McAdam said that collaboration with Google has already led to success in company's efforts to combat the iPhone with Android-based handsets, so he's looking forward for the same result in creating new tablet device.

Verizon CEO also told that the company now will close the gap with AT&T which offers exclusive only 3G data plans for the iPad in the USA. In early 2011 Verizon will present 4G-capable device along with its new high-speed network, which by the end of 2010 will cover 25 to 30 cities. It is planned that there will be more price plans for every selling device, and it may be more expensive than current offers of other carriers who have 3G network.

AT&T seems to not support such policy (at least the company have been repeatedly denying such information), though its CEO Randall Stephenson thinks the industry will be proposing variable pricing once.

"For the industry, we will progressively move towards more of what I call variable pricing. The heavy consumers will pay different than the lower consumers."

NPD Group had recently revealed their new study, which shows that iPhone OS became the second most selling OS last quarter in US. To be precise 28% of all handsets sold were Android phones, and iPhones made only 21%. Research In Motion's Blackberries hold 36 percent of market.

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Multiple sources from AT&T told Boy Genius Report resource that their company has prohibited taking vacation in June for all of its employees. It is obvious that such an order indicates the launch of iPhone will be in June.

"Same story as last year and the year before, but we've confirmed with multiple AT&T sources that the carrier has now put a block on employees taking vacations in June. The only time AT&T does a straight block like this is for iPhone launches."

Last years Apple showed new versions of iPhone at Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Few weeks later the device was selling in the U.S. This time the date for WWDC has still to be announced, but a number of rumors and hints points that event will be in late June, so we may expect a short interval of time between device introduction and its shipping date.

The Wall Street Journal has information about two iPhone models coming this summer. The only difference between them is a CDMA capability:

"The people briefed on the matter said one of the new iPhones is being manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which produced Apple's previous iPhones. The model that has CDMA capability, used by Verizon Wireless, is being manufactured by Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan's ASUSTeK Computer Inc., said these people."

Pegatron reports they plan to start mass iPhone producing in September. An AT&T spokesman claims there is a lot of incorrect information about CDMA iPhones and only Apple has the most reliable information.

Last week comScore released a poll of 2,176 consumers who were asked about how they will use their iPads. At least 37% of device owners will read books on it, and 34% will read magazines and newspapers. It is interesting, that only 26% of respondents reported that they will download apps from the App Store. So what will do another at least 8% of customers, who want to read books from the iBookstore that must be downloaded from the App Store (as it won't come preinstalled on the iPad)?

The poll also reveals that every customer who has already had an experience of working with Apple products, the so-called "iOwners", is more likely to purchase apps and newspapers than any other.

"These findings suggest that those who are already familiar and comfortable with making digital content purchases via iTunes may have a relatively higher receptivity to making similar purchases for the iPad".

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Today Apple began selling iPhones without AT&T plan. Apple's new policy is that anyone can walk into an Apple Store and pick up an iPhone 8GB for $499, 16GB for $599 and 32GB for $699. They allow one unit per customer per day, up to 10 iPhones.

The iPhones are still locked to AT&T's network. Of course, these devices will be sold with the latest baseband which is not yet unlockable; however, you can use RedSn0w to perform a tethered jailbreak.

California-based company MicroUnity System Engineering filed a lawsuit against Apple, Acer, HTC, LG, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, Samsung, Spring, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and AT&T. It accuses these companies in infringement of 14(!) separate patents about mobile processors.

The lawsuit was filed few days ago in a District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, a place where patent complaints are filed commonly in hopes to get a favorable outcome. The devices named in the document are iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch (32 Gb and 64 Gb versions), Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One, Palm Pre and Nokia N900.

The patents that were named in the suit are listed below:

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Whatever the outcome of Apple negotiations with Verizon will be, estimated sales of iPhones will equal 33 million devices in 2010, analysts say.

Moreover, Scott Craig, the analyst from Merrill Lynch, claims iPhone sales in 2010 won't be affected by the outcome of Apple and Verizon negotiations.

One way or another, Credit Suisse analysts reported of 75% chance of AT&T remaining iPhone exclusivity carrier also for the next year.

Site 9to5mac posted several interesting screenshots with iPad's Network System Preferences. These settings even  include Tethering via Bluetooth or USB. Do you think AT&T will allow this?

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TellTale Games finally released Tales of Monkey Island for Mac. One married couple creates armpockets with its own hands. From now on you can create and order your own customized case for iPhone. Location browser for urban discoveries is called Flook. To know more read the rest of the post.

TellTale Games released a Mac version of Tales of Monkey Island! The latter is a 3D adventure game that was released for PC and WiiWare in 2009. The game is available for purchase for $34.95 or you can download a free demo.

Telltale Games also announced the next games to release on Mac will be Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, Sam & Max, and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.

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