New forecast published by iSuppli on Friday revealed that approximately 14.4 million iPads will be sold in 2011 and 20.1 million - in 2012. This year won't make a sales record because most of the consumers will buy it for its unique touch-screen. By 2011-2012 the device will become more popular with the increasing number of App Store applications, declining prices and improved functionality, so people will more clearly understand its possible purposes.
But iSuppli claims the research to be "conservative", because it doesn't take into account unforeseen features that Apple can quickly add to iPad to boost sales (for example, integrating Adobe Flash support). However the numbers rely on a patented multi-touch technology that will mainly define the popularity of a new device.
iSuppli director of monitor research Rhoda Alexander admires iPad:
There are 30,000 games on the iPhone and this number is growing. People pay for games, but exactly how much do they pay? A new report from mobile app analytics company Flurry gives some impressive numbers. Flurry estimates that users spent $500 million on games in the US AppStore during 2009. This is up from $115 million in 2008. Compared to the overall U.S. console and portable video game market, the iPhone/iPod Touch now represents 5% of total video game sales. In just the portable videogame market, the numbers are even more exciting - Apple has 19% of portable games revenue.
The numbers are especially painful for Sony who had four times as much revenue as Apple in 2008 which dropped to just over half of Apple's revenue in 2009. With the iPad coming soon the iPhone OS will grab even more of that Portable Gaming revenue.
In a week after the story about the lawsuit Oppenheimer analyst Yal Reiner wrote a research note, where it is said that Apple started warning Motorola and HTC in as early as January 2009. The Cupertino's company was not so happy to see that rivals' new products look like iPhone (or at least use the same concepts).
Apple COO Tim Cook even commented on this situation:
"Apple will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal".
The words were presumably about Samsung, LG and Nokia (Palm is not mentioned as its sales numbers are not so considerable).
Penguin, one of the biggest publishers, gave a very interesting presentation in London. Penguin CEO John Makinson spoke about eBooks, iPad Books and Apps.
Penguin is not using the ePub format for books, rather building the applications in html according to Makinson:
"We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about".
"So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs".
"We don’t know whether a video introduction will be valuable to a consumer. We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error."
Makinson sees ebooks hitting 10% of book sales next year (up from 4%). Take a look at the video:
Analyst Peter Misek from Canaccord Adams had issued a report about Apple. It says that iPhones sales are better than expected, but the iPad production has some "manufacturing bottleneck", that can cause a delay of the sales start.
"An unspecified production problem at the iPad’s manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision, will likely limit the launch region to the US and the number of units available to roughly 300K in the month of March, far lower than the company’s initial estimate of 1,000K units. The delay in production ramp will likely impact Apple’s April unit estimate of 800K as well. It is also possible that, given the limited number of units available in March, the launch will be delayed for a month".
He also thinks such a delay won't affect iPad sales in 2010 and 2011 (approximately 1,2 million and 3.5 million units respectively).
Since only one month remains to iPad's launch, such hardware manufacturers as SDI Technologies, Gelaskins Inc., Sanho Corp. and Griffin Technology gear up their production of chargers, sticker covers and other accessories for a new device. And it is not surprising - according to Poper Jaffray & Co, overall sales of iPod and iPhone accessories in 2009 were about $3.7 billion.
But while these companies want to release their products as soon as possible, some other accessory manufacturers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Jonathan von Rentzell, a representative for Blue Microphones commented on this:
"If you're making it for a product, you want to make sure there's a market."
Steve Jobs already showed 2 key accessories for the iPad - a case and a keyboard dock with charging function. Both of them are created by Apple and will be sold separately with iPad.
According to AppleAdvice forecasts the pre-orders of iPad can probably start on February 25. Initially only Wifi iPads will be pre-ordered, and only in the US. They vaguely cite some reliable source familiar with the issue that puts Friday as a traditional day for a new Apple product launch. Taking this into account, March 26 seems to be the actual day of iPad’s release.
One last thing to be done by Apple is to receive the official approval from the FCC prior to iPad’s sales in the US. If AppleAdvice forecasts are true we'll witness this approval next week.
We're back on reporting about the apps and gadgets presented on the MWSF 2010. Now we'll talk about iV Plus - the solution to turn your iPhone into remote; FloTV - the service to watch TV in the USA; Square Up service to pay for everything you need only with your credit card and iPhone; and Wissair's USB DisplayDock Set will get the screen from your laptop to the HDTV-set wirelessly.
U-Socket turned to be out a very interesting solution, but FastMac was found to offer something more. The thing on the pictures below is called The iV Plus. It helps to manage a set of your home devices and consists of IR Remote, Battery Pack, Flash LED and case that wraps around the iPhone. FastMac will also provide free Universal Remote software to work with this creation. The iV Plus will be shipped expectedly in the second quarter of 2010 for $130.
This video was found on one of the Korean sites. And its pretty hard to describe the feelings you experience when watching this movie. The first question to ask yourself is probably why he uses sausages instead of his fingers? But here is an explanation:
According to the Korean portal Hani.co.kr the sausages are the best substitutes of human fingers for iPhone. If your fingers are too sweaty for continual touchscreen use then sausages are the only solution for your problem, because neither gloves nor stylus will work on the capacitive iPhone screen.
We don't know about how many Koreans have sweaty hands, but we have an information that sausage sales in that country increased by 39% over the same period last year. Obviously, the sausages become a usual practice in Korea.
The software company RATP gave an interesting presentation called "How to successfully market your iPhone application". This presentation gives advice to AppStore developers how to increase sales and learn new marketing strategies.
Apple today announced financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2009. Apple posted revenue of $9.87 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, compared to 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter's revenue.
The numbers represent the most profitable quarter in Apple's history and include record-breaking Mac and iPhone quarterly sales.
We mentioned this in our previous sales update, but Firemint's Real Racing (AppStore link) has now dropped its price from $9.99 to $6.99 and is expected to remain there for this weekend only. Real Racing is considered one of the most technically impressive racing games on the iPhone:
Here are a few interesting sales over the past couple of days:
Silent Hill: The Escape ($7.99 -> $0.99, AppStore link) – Konami's first person shooting game set in a creepy environment has seen a massive price drop from $7.99 to $0.99. So, if you've been curious about this title, now's a good time to try it.
Resident Evil 4 ($7.99 -> $2.99, AppStore link) – The mobile edition of Resident Evil 4. There was some very split opinions between those who loved the game and those who felt it paled in comparison to the original console version. Regardless of your position, a $5 price drop certainly makes it easier to pick up.
Dirt Moto Racing ($4.99 -> $0.99, AppStore link) – A solid off-road racer that's easily worth $0.99.
Crash Bandicoot ($5.99 -> $2.99, AppStore link) – One of the original kart racers for the iPhone, it seems they are starting to feel the pressure with Konami's Krazy Kart Racing and the upcoming Shrek Kart.
And, we've heard of one major game that will be holding a sale soon. Firemint's Real Racing (App Store link) will see its first sale this weekend dropping from $9.99 to $6.99 temporarily. The sale should be live by Saturday morning, so keep that in mind if you've been holding out.
Brando has just opened its new sales of the Mini Microphone Capsule for iPhone. This is a small accessory, to be entered into the headphone jack, which allows you to record sounds 10 better than the internal microphone. As you can see in the image, the microphone is flexible and adjustable, improves the sound by 25 dB and also works on iPod Nano 4G and iPod Touch 2G. The accessory costs $14. Here is a link to the manufacturer.