News from category ‘Official’

Apple’s current generation of MacBook Air is very popular with customers. Apple sells up to 500,000 units per month. MacBook Air’s success has drawn the interest of “Ultrabook” models’ manufactures whose aim is to compete with the MacBook Air. Intel and Windows PC seem to test the waters, limiting initial shipments to a combined 50,000 units.

First-tier notebook brand vendors Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and Asustek Computer, understanding that demand for notebooks is unlikely to recover in the fourth quarter, while Apple's products are taking up all the glory in the market, will limit their initial Ultrabook shipment volume to below 50,000 units for testing the water, according to sources from notebook makers.

Intel planed that Ultrabook pricing will start under $1000 but the company faces difficulties trying to bring costs to the point where they can compete with the MacBook Air.

A new report claims that Apple has made a deal with Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical to build and supply 8-megapixel camera lenses for the company's forthcoming next-generation handset.

“The two companies are reported to continue supplying lenses for Apple’s newest iPhone 5 with an 8-megapixel camera. With relatively higher production yield, Largan, commanding nearly 20% of the global market, will reportedly garner a big order from Apple.”

Both companies were previously responsible for production of 5-megapixel lens modules for the current-generation iPhone 4. Today’s report claims the two companies will compete and work together as they continue to share Apple has one of their largest customers for the upcoming next-gen iPhone. Last year both companies covered 27.5 percent of global market share and it could move even higher as iPhone sales continue to grow. It’s not surprising that Apple continues to source parts from multiple suppliers. This is a move that is common for the company in an attempt to create competition amongst suppliers, drive down prices, and increase production quality while reducing risk.

Apple has decided to make previous version of Final Cut Studio available for purchase, following several months of customer backlash against the radically redesigned Final Cut Pro X.

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Today San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield has confirmed that four officers “assisted” two Apple investigators in searching the house and car of Sergio Calderòn, who was claimed to have found the prototype of the iPhone 5.

Dangerfield says that, after conferring with Apple and the captain of the Ingleside police station, he has learned that plainclothes SFPD officers went with private Apple detectives to the home of Sergio Calderón, a 22-year-old resident of Bernal Heights. According to Dangerfield, the officers “did not go inside the house,” but stood outside while the Apple employees scoured Calderón’s home, car, and computer files for any trace of the lost iPhone 5. The phone was not found, and Calderón denies that he ever possessed it.

Apple found out through GPS signal that the lost phone was in Calderón’s house. Calderón told that one of six men, who came in his house in order to find the iPhone 5 prototype, gave him his phone number. Later this man was identified as an investigator employed by Apple.

The visitors also allegedly threatened him and his family, asking questions about their immigration status. “One of the officers is like, ‘Is everyone in this house an American citizen?’ They said we were all going to get into trouble,” Calderón said.

Apple is planning to open three more stores this week in three different countries. So, with these stores, Apple will open 14 new retail stores for four weeks moving toward its goal to open 30 stores during the July-September quarter.

• Mapleview Centre (Burlington, Ontario, Canada): it will be the 21st Apple’s store in Canada. The store will be the eighth in or near the "Golden Horseshoe" region of Ontario wrapping around the western end of Lake Ontario.
• City-Galerie (Augsburg, Germany): City-Galerie will be Apple's sixth German store and the second in Bavaria in the southeast of the country.
• Campania (Caserta, Italy): Apple's seventh retail store in Italy which locates approximately 25 km north of Naples.

By the letter sent by Steve Jobs to Apple's Board of Directors he has resigned as CEO of Apple. But he remains Chairman of the Board and appoints Tim Cook as his successor. The Board of Directors has approved his request.

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

United Airlines has recently announced that it is going to use iPads as electronic flight bags to replace bulky and heavy flight bags full of navigational charts and other materials and rolling out 11,000 iPads to its pilots. The iPad offers quick and easy access to required data at all times and will streamline work of pilots.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold--it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

This Saturday Apple plans to open other three stores, continuing its push to open a total of 30 new stores between July and September. Two stores will locate in the United States and one – in France.

• Carré Sénart (Paris, France): The store is Apple's fourth in the Paris and eighth overall in France.
• Northlake Mall (Charlotte, North Carolina): The store will be the second in Charlotte and fifth in North Carolina.
• The Promenade at Chenal (Little Rock, Arkansas): The new store is Apple's first in Arkansas.

After the opening will leave just six states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming) without Apple Stores.

Research firm NPD has recently announced results of its Mobile Phone Track report for the second quarter of 2011. Android is still leading the U.S. smartphone with 52% of the market; Apple's iPhone has 29% while BlackBerry devices only 11% of the market. But the 14-month-old iPhone 4 is continuing to lead the market in sales, and the 8 GB 26-month-old iPhone 3GS takes the second place, perhaps, because its that price now dropped to $49.

Here are the top five best-selling phones during Q2, via NPD’s Mobile Phone Track service:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. HTC Inspire 4G
5. Samsung INTENSITYII

Yesterday Apple released iTunes 10.4.1 with bugs fixed, including media keys on third-party keyboards, artwork addition, movie purchasing, responsiveness, and VoiceOver.

iTunes 10.4.1 provides a number of improvements, including:

• Fixes a problem where the media keys on some third-party keyboards work inconsistently with iTunes
• Addresses issues with adding artwork to songs and videos
• Resolves an issue which may cause iTunes to become unresponsive when purchasing an HD movie
• Fixes a problem where iTunes may take longer than expected to open after waking your Mac from sleep
• Addresses issues with VoiceOver support

Samsung claims that Apple has once again submitted doctored evidence related to their claims of design patent-related infringement by Samsung, this time to a court in Netherlands. Apple has been “manipulating visual evidence, making Samsung’s devices appear more similar to Apple’s.” This time   the report claims Apple doctored images of the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone in comparison to the iPhone 3G.

“It surprises me that for the second time incorrect presentations of a Samsung product emerge in photographic evidence filed in litigation,” said Mark Krul, lawyer and IP law specialist at Dutch firm WiseMen. “This is not appropriate and undermines Apple’s credibility both inside and outside the court room.”

Apple has today asked a Dutch court to ban all Galaxy series devices, including Samsung's  Galaxy S II, which has seen some success in Europe.

Apple’s complaint, seen by Webwereld, a Dutch IDG publication, seeks an injunction for the entire Galaxy series. This includes smartphones — the Galaxy Ace, Galaxy S and Galaxy SII — and tablets: the Galaxy Tab 7 and Galaxy Tab 10.1. Other Galaxy devices, like the Gio, Nexus, 551, Europa, Apollo and Mini are also involved, albeit only in a footnote in which Apple states, “It is expected that these devices are also covered by one or more of the patent rights invoked.”

The trial will take place in The Hague, Netherlands September 15th. If the judge grants any injunctions, they would take effect no sooner than October 13.

Yesterday Microsoft affirmed that it is going to integrate its own app store into Windows 8. A post on the Building Windows 8 blog reveals that Steven Sinofsky presents App Store as one of the teams for the future OS.

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This week AT&T has revealed that the sales of the first LTE devices, AT&T USBConnect Momentum 4G and AT&T Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G, will start on August 21st. All customers will be able to utilize 5 gigabytes of data for $50 every month and after the limit will be exceeded 1 gigabyte of data will cost 10$. It is also known that AT&T USBConnect Adrenaline which is LTE-upgradeable will receive an update to LTE on August 26.

AT&T has also told about its plans to sell 4G LTE using five market places later this summer, which are situated in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. All customers with 4G LTE-consistent devices will have access to 4G LTE speeds as AT&T's 4G LTE service will be already available.

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Digitimes suggests that Apple has increased the orders for their iPhone line by about 12-13% from 50 million units to 56 million units. The iPhone 5 in particular will reportedly account for 25.5-26 million units in the second half of 2011. In the 3rd garter the iPhone 5 orders have been decreased from  7 million units to 5.5-6 million units, but in the 4th quarter they have been raised from 14 million units to more then 20 million units. But Apple declines the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 orders from over 20 million in the 3rd quarter to 8 million in the 4th quarter. These numbers, however, are not surprisingly, because, if you look at the history sales graph, these times of the year do represent major jumps in sales for Apple.