News tagged ‘Lion’

Apple reported surprisingly low iPad shipments of only 4.69 million units for the first quarter. DigiTimes reports that the last quarter iPad 2 shortages were caused by production issues with displays and built-in speaker of the device. LG Display was one of the primary sources of iPad supply issues, experiencing problems with light leakage on displays produced by its manufacturing lines that scaled back shipments. The issue is said to have been resolved.

. . .Samsung Electronics shipped a total of four million 9.7-inch panels for iPads in the first quarter, outpacing rival LG Display (LGD) as the largest tablet PC panel supplier for Apple, the sources indicated. LGD's iPad panel shipments reached only 3.2 million units in the first quarter.

LGD was forced to reduce its shipments in the first quarter due to light leakage problem for panels produced at its 6G production lines. The company reportedly has fixed the problem and will resume shipment momentum to Apple in the second quarter, said the sources.

HardMac reports that  that the latest iMac family released this week support up to 450 Mbit/sec Wi-Fi. Apple first brought the 450Mbps WiFi features in the 2011 MacBook Pro family, but they haven’t been actively advertising it. Apple changed their Airport card and also installed 3 antennas (instead of 2 before), something indispensable to be able simultaneously to use 3 channels of 150 Mbits/s. Each antenna is capable of a data rate of 150 Mbit/sec. Combined, the three antennas achieve the 450 Mbit/sec speeds using the multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) wireless standard.

As noted by AppleInsider, the newest iMacs and MacBook Pros must be running a developer build of Lion to take advantage of the 450 Mbit/sec speeds. And MacRumors notes that in order to actually take advantage of the 450 Mbit/sec speed, you'll need to have a compatible wireless router, such as the latest AirPort Extreme or TimeCapsule.

Apple continues to hold second place among the world's top smartphone manufacturers with 18.7% market behind Nokia, with unit sales up 114% year-over-year. Although market-leader Nokia's smartphone share declines, Apple’s share is rising by three percentage from the year-ago quarter.

Apple reached a new record shipment volume in a single quarter, and inched closer to market leader Nokia with fewer than six million units separating the two companies. The company posted market-beating year-over-year growth and recorded triple-digit growth in two key markets: the United States, with the release of its CDMA-enabled iPhone, and Greater China. Additionally, the company enlisted South Korean Telecom and Saudi Telecom as carrier providers of the iPhone.

Last month, we reported that Foxconn plans to invest $12 billion to start producing and assembling mobile devices in Brazil throughout the next five years, including Apple’s iPad — currently assembled by Foxconn in its Asian facilities. Whilst the original reports claimed Foxconn was planning to start building iPads in Brazil this November, Reuters reports today the company has moved the estimated date to July.  Reuters also reports Foxconn will initially import components from Asia to assemble devices in Brazil, shifting the manufacturing chain to local production in the next few years.

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Apple is rumored to be negotiating with Nuance Communications, the speech recognition company behind the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine that powers a number of popular applications for Mac OS X, iOS, and other platforms.

Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we've heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.

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Yesterday Fortune released its annual rating of 500 American’s largest companies by revenue. This time Apple landed at 35th place with over $65 billion in revenue.

Apple climbed 21 slots into the top 50 of the Fortune 500 this year. How'd it get there? The company not only continues to expand its reach in existing markets, it also keeps creating new ones. Take the iPad, which showed the world the power of tablet computing when it was introduced last year. iPad 2 followed, and was one of the most highly anticipated electronic products this year.

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A new report from DigiTimes claims that Apple is in discussions with two Taiwan-based integrated circuit design firms, Integrated Memory Logic (iML) and Capella Microsystems, for sourcing of components for the company's iOS devices. Capella is said to have already delivered new ambient light sensors to Apple for testing and verification. The ambient light sensor is used in mobile devices, in conjunction with software, to determine the automatic screen brightness and optimal settings depending on external light conditions. Apple intends to implement these sensors in the next-generation iPhone, set to be announced in September.

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Recently Apple has made changes to its app policy and focused on making the iOS App Store the most attractive rather than simply the biggest.

Lately the company has banned the idea of "incentivized app installs", which was used by certain game developers to prompt players to install other apps if they want to continue playing. Because of the incentives some apps become artificially popular and don’t reflect the actual situation in top games chart, for instance.

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This week Australian site MacTalk reported that Apple will build a new retail store in Brisbane, Australia. An application filed with the Brisbane City Council reveals the company is going to renovate the MacArthur Chambers building, which was built back in 1930s and used by U.S. general Douglas MacArthur during World War II as South West Pacific Area HQ of the allied forces.

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This Friday Apple has released a second update for Preview 2 of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. A 1.22GB download is recommended for all users running Mac OS X 10 Lion Developer Preview 2 and is available via Software Update. The version of the latest build is reportedly 11A444d.

So what's new?

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Six months ago Apple’s quarterly revenue for the first time in approximately 15 years was higher than the Microsoft’s one. But Microsoft was unbeatable with its high profit margins that the company achieved thanks to its software sales. The situation changed in the past fiscal quarter.   Today Microsoft has announced net profit of $5.23 billion for the first calendar quarter (third fiscal quarter) of 2011. Apple last week reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which corresponded to the company's second fiscal quarter of 2011. It seems that Apple finally surpassed its longtime rival in almost all position. Moreover Apple’s market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft's.

Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga, believes the delay in the white iPhone’s release and its “mystique and scarcity value” could drive sales to 1-1.5 million units per quarter. White said:

The purchase of consumer electronic devices is not always a completely rational decision, and people buy Apple products for many different reasons, including status, aesthetics, functionality, quality and the ‘cool factor.’ In our view, this delay has created a certain mystique and scarcity value around the white iPhone 4 that we believe could drive incremental iPhone 4 purchases in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter until the iPhone 5 potentially comes to market in September.

GigaOM reports that Apple has acquired the iCloud.com domain, used for online data storage, for $4.5 million.

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn't responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

The purchase of iCloud.com could be a sign confirming Apple’s intention to rebrand MobileMe. With Apple’s new cloud services preparing for launch, the purchase of iCloud.com could indicate that new services from Apple may be arriving sooner than later.

Recently Fortune discovered that according to Form 4 filing with the Securities Exchange Commission Bob Mansfield, who is Senior Vice President at Apple, sold 38,863 shares of Apple stock. Average price stock was $351.89, thus he got almost $13.7 million. Currently Mansfield owns 501 shares of Apple, which is roughly 1% of his Apple portfolio.

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After a week of discussions around the discovery that the iPhone has an inbuilt algorithm of keeping track of users' locations in unencrypted file, Apple finally shed light on the subject.

Before we repost the company's official statement, here is a short summary. Apple says it's not tracking the location of iPhone users. It maintains a database of celltowers and Wi-Fi hotspots that allows to calculate your location when requested much more quickly than it can be made with the help of GPS only. The location data is being sent to Apple in anonymous form, and users' iPhones download only the necessary part of the database.

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