News tagged ‘Lion’

Joanna Stern from ABC News claims that not only the MacBook Pro family but also the iMac line is set to gain ultra high-resolution "Retina" displays.

The laptop will see the introduction of the “Mac Retina Display,” which is said to have a very high resolution. ABC News has similarly heard from its own sources that both the next MacBook Pro and the iMac would be getting very, very high-resolution displays. Apple refreshed its new iPad with a Retina Display in March.

It seems natural that Apple wants to move all its displays to the retina standard. But, it’s unclear, how Apple will implement the increased resolution given that most Macs already approach Retina resolution at typical viewing distances.

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AppleInsider’s source claims that Apple is said to be negotiating to acquire Loewe AG, a manufacturer and distributor of televisions, audio components and integrated entertainment systems. Loewe "has been advised by its financial advisor to accept the offer and a final decision is scheduled to be announced internally before 18 May 2012."

This person said Apple is confidentially offering 87.3 million euros (about $112 million U.S.), a slight premium over the firm's last closing share price of 4.519 euros (giving it a market cap of 58.79 million euros or $76 million U.S.). Loewe's primary shareholders currently include Sharp (28.83 percent) and LaCie (11.17 percent).

Loewe entered the TV market in 1929, and now employs around 1,000 workers worldwide in 50 countries. The company has seen its sales fall by 11 percent over the last year, generating a loss of 10.5 million Euro ($13.57 million USD) in 2011.

HP attracted a considerable amount of attention when it initially wanted to find its niche in the tablet market with webOS, which was acquired along with Palm in 2010. HP introduced its TouchPad running on webOS in early 2011 and launched it on July 1 last year only to exit the smartphone and tablet business six weeks later.

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Fortune has recently published its annual ratings of the 500 largest corporations in America and placed Apple on the 17th place. That means that the company managed to leap 18 spots from the last year 35th place.

According to Fortune, the iPhone maker's performance in the "Computers, Office Equipment" industry was topped only by Hewlett-Packard, which finished 10th overall. HP's revenue totaled over $127 billion compared to Apple's $108 billion, however the percent of change from 2010 was a stark contrast between the two companies which grew 1 percent and 66 percent, respectively. Apple's profit skyrocketed to nearly $26 billion representing an 85 percent change from 2010, while HP saw negative growth of 19 percent with a little over $7 billion in profits.

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Apple is rumored to launch a $799 MacBook Air model in the third quarter of 2012 to compete with new "Ultrabook" laptops. Last month, it was said that Intel hopes to see shipments of as many as 30 million Ultrabooks this year. The company designed the Ultrabook specification after Apple found great success with its new MacBook Air.

Apple's plans are reportedly to counter second-generation Ultrabooks, based on Intel's specifications for thin and light notebooks, which PC makers hope to price around $699. If PC makers are unable to reach the $699 price point with their second-generation Ultrabooks, Apple could have a significant competitive advantage with an aggressive $799 price point for a new MacBook Air, the report claims.

Currently the cheapest Apple’s laptop is the 11.6-inch MacBook Air, which is priced at $999. The company is expected to begin revamping its Mac lineup in the coming weeks with Intel's latest-generation Ivy Bridge processors. The product is expected to begin with new MacBook Pros, starting with a 15-inch model.

NPD, market research firm, suggests that Apple’s tablet market share will drop to just over 50 percent by 2017. Android and Windows-based devices will, obviously, have a hand in it, and, as NPD expects, will begin continue to eat into the iPad's overwhelming lead by 2014.

The overall tablet market will swell from 81.6 million units in 2011 to 424.9 million units by 2017, and tablet shipments will surpass those of notebooks by 2016.

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Dr. Atakan Peker, who discovered and developed the formulation that later became Liquidmetal, said in an interview with Business Insider that Apple would need investment of $300 million to $500 million and over three years to ready the technology for mass-production of its electronic devices. He also mentioned that there is "no suitable manufacturing infrastructure yet to take full advantage of this alloy technology."

"This is a technology that has yet to be matured and perfected both in manufacturing process and application development," Peker said. "I should note that this is a completely new and different metal technology."

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According to MacGeneration, Apple's Mac App Store reached a milestone of 10,000 apps that are available for free download or purchase via the marketplace.

Apple distributes its own major software titles for the Mac platform and OS X Lion itself through the store that was launched in January 2011.

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Apple announced the company results for Q2 2012. Apple has $110 billion in cash reserves, which is up from $81.5 billion in September 2011. Apple was also up in every other segment with $18.4 billion in short-term marketable securities (up from $16.1 billion) and long-term marketable securities at $81.6 billion, which is up from $55.6 billion in the previous six-month period ending September 2011.

Here are some interesting numbers that Apple reported for the quarter:

iTunes and App Store:

• $1.9 billion in iTunes revenue (a 35 percent YOY increase)
• 600,000 apps (200,000 iPad specific apps)

iOS devices:

• 365 million iOS device sales
• $22.7 billion in revenue from iPhone and accessories
• 6.6 billion in revenue from iPad and accessories.
• 7.7 million iPod sales
• 94 percent of Fortune 500 and 75 percent of global 500 testing or deploying iPad

iCloud:

• 125 million iCloud users—up 25 million from February

Retail Stores:

• $4.4 billion in retail store revenue, up 8 percent
• 363 Apple Stores
• 826,000 Macs sold in store—half to new customers
• $12.2 million average revenue per-store (up from $9.9 million)
• 85 million visitors to retail—18,000 per store, per week

Here is official press release:

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Ming-Chi Kuo, research analyst from KGI Securities, has issued a new report saying that Apple may discontinue the 17-inch MacBook Pro due to weak sales.

Also he expects that Apple will introduce new MacBook models that will combine power of the MacBook Pro and portability of MacBook Air models and dropping of 17-inch model will be part of this revamp.

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New rumors claim that Apple's next-generation iPhone will replace its glass back with the super-durable Liquidmetal alloy.

The claim was published on Wednesday by Korea IT News, which said Apple's sixth-generation iPhone will be made of zirconium, titanium, nickel, copper "and so forth." It also said it will have a "surface smooth like liquid."

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Chinese web portal NetEase claims that Apple plans to launch a smaller "iPad mini" in the third quarter of this year.

NetEase claimed that the device will be released around the third quarter of this year to "counter attack" the upcoming Windows tablets, although smaller Android tablets such as Amazon's Kindle Fire have also been viewed as targets for Apple. The report further claims that the devices will cost anywhere from US$249 to $299 and that there will be an initial 6 million units ready for launch.

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Apple on Friday released version 1.0 of its "Flashback malware removal tool" which will scan a user's computer and erase known iterations of the Trojan that some are calling the worst the Mac platform has ever seen.

About Flashback malware removal tool

• This Flashback malware removal tool that will remove the most common variants of the Flashback malware.
• If the Flashback malware is found, a dialog will be presented notifying the user that malware was removed.
• In some cases, the Flashback malware removal tool may need to restart your computer in order to completely remove the Flashback malware.
• This update is recommended for all OS X Lion users without Java installed.

600,000 Macs were reported to be infected by Flashback and connected in the botnet, which harvested personal information and web browsing logs from affected machines. The Trojan was first discovered last year and installed itself through the guise of an Adobe Flash installer. This version of the malware is able to install itself automatically after visiting an infected website.

According to IDG News, Sharp reports that it has started mass production of new high-resolution IGZO displays. Early rumors have suggested that Apple might include the IGZO displays in iPad 3, but due to some reasons the company elected not to do so.

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Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has recently announced his estimates of Apple sales for the first calendar quarter of the year 2012 ahead of the earnings call set for March 24.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s numbers differ from the average expectations on Wall Street. He expects the company sold 33 million iPhone that is a bit higher than the Street's forecast of 30.5 million handsets, while his forecast of 12 million iPads is slightly below the Street's 13 million. He also suggests Apple will report on 4.3 million Macs sold in the three-month span from January to March.

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