News tagged ‘Lion’

Mike Abramsky, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets, expects that Apple might offer the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year contract after the iPhone 5 launch; that step will obviously attract mid-market buyers.

"While a $49 iPhone is already available (AT&T), psychologically a $0 iPhone provides a compelling offer," Abramsky wrote in a note to investors. "Proprietary survey data... suggests 14% are very/somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year contract, exceeding buying interest for the iPad (13%) and original iPhone (9%)."

Abramsky suggest that free iPhone 3GS will increase iPhone numbers to more than 150 million smartphones. That will be unusual for Apple, because the company always discontinues its two-year-old smartphones. For example, after launch of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, first released in 2009, was dropped to $99, and the iPhone 3G was discontinued. Noteworthy to say that despite the fact that the iPhone 3GS was first released in 2009, it will be compatible with the iOS 5.

DigiTimes reports that Apple is planning to increase significantly the iPad 2 shipments for the third quarter of this year. The company is going to ship about 12-14 million devices over that period. These numbers are obviously larger than the 7-9 million units reportedly shipped during the previous quarter.

In order to significantly increase its shipments in the third quarter, Apple has been piling up its inventory of iPad 2 components such as panels in the second quarter to minimize the risk of facing component shortages.

Now it is quite difficult to forecast the iPad’s shipments due to production constraints and the transition from the original iPad to the iPad 2. Moreover, Apple didn’t come up with forecasts of some analysts suggesting that Apple's total 2011 iPad could reach 40 million units and sold in the first quarter only 4.69 million units, though, these numbers include a few initial weeks of official iPad 2 sales.

On May 27 the iPhone 4 was officially put on the market of India with the price starting at 34,500 Indian rupees (around $760) for version of 16 GB with a two-year service agreement. But the price for iPhone as high as $760 (which the government is not satisfied with) makes the iconic item out of reach for the 41.6 percent of the India’s population that lives below the poverty line of $1.25 a day.

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On January 9th 2007 Steve Jobs presented the first ever Apple iPhone to the world. The Apple CEO started off the epic keynote by saying the famous lines, "This is a day, I've been looking forward to for 2 and a half years. Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything…".

The iPhone launched on June 29, 2007. In its 4 years of existence, the device has changed a lot, starting from iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS and now it is iPhone 4. All these devices were truly revolutionary.

2011 has been an interesting year for the iPhone. In February Apple introduced the Verizon iPhone, ending AT&T 3 year exclusiveness in the US. In April we finally saw the white iPhone 4.

Apple sold close to 20 million iPhones last quarter and the rate is still quite amazing. The company is expected to sell 100 million units of its next-generation iPhone that will be probably released this fall.

Apple indeed "reinvented the phone". The iPhone completely redefined how a "smartphone" should look and act.

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According to Business Insider analyst Chris Whitmore reports that Apple plans to release not only the iPhone 5 this fall, but they will also release a cheaper version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S.

This means that Apple will release a minor update to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, as well as a major update called the iPhone 5.

"With Nokia and RIMM struggling," he writes, "the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300-500 category) to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share."

As Whitmore sees it, an iPhone 4S that is unlocked, priced around $349, and comes with a pre-paid voice plan would "drive significantly greater penetration" into an addressable market that has grown to include 1.5 billion potential customers in 98 countries, two thirds of whom prefer pre-paid plans.

The rumors about cheaper iPhone have been reports floating around for a long time. It's a pity that Whitmore only offers us his prediction without any evidence or inside knowledge.

Here is a summary of what we have in mind right now:

iPhone 5:

• 4" screen
• new design
• dual core
• 8MP camera
• possible dual LED and/or dual camera
• 64GB
• 1080p video

iPhone 4S:

• 3.5"
• old design
• single core
• 5MP camera
• 4GB Storage
• 720p video

WiFi sync with iTunes is working and requires iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and OS X 10.6.8 or Lion. Take a look at the video:

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Apple has released iOS 5.0 beta 2 today. As usual it is for developers only, and for those who have activated UUID.

New firmware is available for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3G, iPod Touch 4G, iPad 1, iPad 2 and Apple TV.

The most interesting new features one can find are: wireless syncing (works at least with iTunes 10.5 beta 2 on Mac OS 10.6.8 or Lion), new UI for notifications and silver iCloud logo in Setting. Apple also added functionality that let's you wirelessly restore your iDevice from an iCloud backup.

The recently unveiled iCloud service, which will help to share content between different devices, is seen by a leading analyst as even better evidence that Apple is readying to release a high-definition TV set in late 2012.

On Thursday Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray repeated his long-time stance that Apple is developing its own full-blown television set, instead of just set-top box like the Apple TV.

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We’ve heard rumors that Amazon is planning multiple mobile devices and their chief Jeff Bezos teased us to “stay tuned”.

Besides, they cut the Kindle’s price by $60 and made the device open for developers in reaction to original iPad release.

As DigiTimes reports, Amazon is readying to launch the tablet PC powered by Android at some moment from August to September, which is the narrowest time frame of possible release given by the market sources:

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CNET reports that Apple is going to launched revamped Mac Pro and Mac mini in late July or early August. Details, as usual, are unclear, though, according to the previous 9to5Mac reports, the devices may get a smaller, rackmountable design that can hold multiple solid-state-drives

My sources tell me ALL NEW Next-Gen Mac Pros and Mac Minis will launch either end of July first week of August.

The Mac mini models that are now short on supply, will reportedly receive the Thunderbolt technology and Sandy Bridge processor, the same as implemented in  the MacBook Pro and iMac families launched earlier this year. Both devices will have preinstalled Lion software.

August more likely, Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt on both. NO details for specs or configurations given. DO NOT BUY! WAIT for the new Macs!

An interesting report from Asymco estimates that it costs Apple $1.3 billion per year to run the iTunes store.

Asymco analyzed recently announced numbers like the total number of songs, movies, TV shows, apps, download rate, iTunes accounts and how much Apple has paid out to developers. They put these numbers in a complex formula and estimated that Apple's monthly content margin cost for iTunes at $113 million, which is more than $1.3 billion per year.

That's a lot. It looks like all the iTunes profits go right back into its maintenance and expansion.

Nokia announced that it had entered into agreement with Apple, and now the prolonged legal argument between two corporations is coming to an end with two parties withdrawing their complaints to the International Trade Commission.

A press release that announced the signed patent license agreement was issued by Nokia early Tuesday. Agreement stipulates that Apple have to make a one-time payment to Nokia as well as ongoing royalties. But exact details of the agreement are kept in secret. The statement also reads that Nokia has put about 43 billion EUR into research and development in the course of last 20 years, creating a patent portfolio that consists of  10,000 patent families.

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Today we mentioned that Apple may release revamped MacBook Air soon. A Wall Street analyst Chris Whitmore from Deutsche Bank believes the release of new netbooks along with the launch of Lion may boost sales of MacBooks Air to 1.5 million orders per quarter.

In case that will come true he concludes that Apple's thin-and-light notebook may eventually represent nearly 50% of the company's total notebook business.

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As you remember, last month an explosion at Foxconn plant in Chengdu, China, took life of three people and at least fifteen were injured. But the consequences of the tragedy affected not only people, but also Foxconn's profits. Here is what DigiTimes reported today:

Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) had non-consolidated revenues of NT$200.561 billion (US$6.95 billion) for May dropping 2.14 percent on month due to the impact of an explosion at its plant in Chengdu City, western China, according to the company.

The iPad plant went on fire on May 20 after the ignition of flammable aluminum dust. The production on the facility was resumed ten days ago. Previously we also reported SACOM warned Foxconn that its plant is Chengdu is dangerously explosive because of low damage control mode.

Last year we told about Greg Hughes, who created the "Wi-Fi Sync" app, which allows to synchronize your iOS-device with iTunes wirelessly. After Apple's rejection the developer sent it to the Cydia Store instead. Since then the app was sold over 50,000 times. But as you know, this week Apple unveiled that it made Wi-Fi Synchronization with iTunes an inbuilt feature in iOS5. In response Hughes decided to accuse the company in ripping his work.

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