Posts in news

Apple Enters $3.9 Billion Dollar Component Supply Deal

At Apple’s financial report yesterday there was an interesting revelation by Tim Cook that Apple had recently begun entering agreements with suppliers of key components. The agreement is presumed to be around $3.9 billion dollars and would secure the key strategic resources used in Apple’s products going into the future and there are suggestions it’s for high resolution displays.

As to what components are being secured, Cook didn’t elaborate but did say the deals were similar in nature to the flash memory deals of late 2005. That deal, and subsequent deals around flash memory secured supply for many of Apple’s portable devices including the iPhone and more recently the iPad.

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Apple Releases MacBook Air Software Update 2.0, iDVD 7.1.1

Earlier today Apple released a Software Update for the MacBook Air (late 2010 model) which resolves an issue with some units that prevents system from sleeping. The update is available in Software Update or on Apple’s website. In November, several new MacBook Air owners reported of graphic issues and kernel panics when using the machine.

Apple also released a minor update to iDVD:

This update improves overall stability and ensures compatibility when sending slideshows from iPhoto ‘11 to iDVD.

This update is recommended for all users of iDVD 7.

iDVD 7.1.1 is available here, or in Software Update.

Apple Q1 2011 Financial Results - $26.74 Billion Revenue, 7.33 Million iPads Sold

Apple just posted their Q1 2011 financial results. The company posted a record revenue of $26.74 billion with 7.33 million iPads sold, 16.24 million iPhones and 4.13 million Macs. The company posted record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. 19.45 million iPods were sold during the quarter.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

“We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.90.”

In the last quarter, Apple posted record iPhone and Mac sales with 14.1 million iPhone sold, 3.89 million Macs and 4.19 million iPads. The company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion. In the year-ago quarter, Apple posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion. 3.36 million Macs were sold in Q1 2010, together with 8.7 million iPhones and 21 million iPods.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2011 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and we’ll update this story with the conference highlights.

Full press release embedded below. Unaudited summary data available here.

Notes from the call:

  • Revenue $26.7 billion, increase over $11 billion over year

- Income $6 billion, over $1,7 billion from year ago quarter

  • Strong demand of new MacBook Air

  • Strong sales of Mac Pro

  • Mac App Store available in 90 countries, doing well with over 1000 apps available

- iPod share remains at over 70% in market, iPod top selling in most countries

  • iTunes: $1.1 billion revenue

- iTunes users are renting over 400,000 TV show episodes, 150,000 movies per day

  • Enterprise: 88 of Fortune 100, 60% of Financial Times Europe testing or deploying iPhones

  • Fortune 500, Wells Fargo, Dupont, Staples, Starbucks made iPhone available to employees

  • iPad now available in 46 countries

    • - 160 million iOS devices sold to date

    • Over 80% of Fortune 500 are deploying or piloting iPad

  • Apple retail: revenue $3.85 billion

  • 851,000 Mac sold at Apple retail stores, half sold to new customers

    • - 323 stores worldwide, 87 outside US

    - 75.7 million customers in Apple retail stores

    - Four stores in China with highest traffic and highest revenue

    • Apple has $59.7 billion in cash now

    - $22 billion in revenue expected for next quarter, 38.5% expected gross margin

    Quotes From Q&A

    Tim Cook: “Very happy with the Mac App Store so far”

    TC: “We believe the results from the Verizon iPhone will be huge”

    TC: “We are working around the clock to build more iPhones”

    TC: Revenue from Greater China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) last quarter was $2.6 billion, up 4 times last quarter

    TC: 15 more countries to start selling iPhone in January

    TC: “Commodities – going into March quarter. Key metals pricing increasing but other commodities such as batteries and RAM we expect to fall.”

    TC: “Apple is doing its best work ever. We are all very happy with product pipeline and the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth that Steve has driven in the company, and excellence has become a habit. We feel very very confident about the future of the company. I would also note that we’ve done outstanding job in our Mac: 19 straight quarters of outgrowing market, but still have a very low share. It would seem like still enormous opportunity there.” [via]

    TC: Apple is not doing a 7-inch tablet, which would be a scaled-up smartphone. It’s a bizarre product.

    TC: “Put Android & Windows tablets side by side with an iPad and an enormous percentage will choose iPad.”

    TC: “Next generation Android tablets - there’s nothing shipping. They lack performance specs, they lack pricing, they lack timing - so today they’re vapor.”

    TC: ” We’re very confident for entering a fight with anyone.”

    Tim Cook on iPad sales Vs. Mac sales: “Yes, I think there is some cannibalization”

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    How Many iPhone Apps Are There? 306,554 - And 60,000 iPad Apps

    Looking at the “All-Time Top iPhone Apps” charts Apple updated earlier today, I noticed two interesting numbers worth to be shared: Apple is listing the actual number of free and paid iPhone apps available in the App Store. There are 306,554 iPhone apps available, and 201,635 of them are paid apps. These numbers are noteworthy as Apple rarely provides official stats of the iPhone App Store: they announced the 300,000 apps milestone on November 22 with the release of iOS 4.2 but there never was an easy way to instantly check on the exact number of apps available in the Store. Read more

    Ahead of 10 Billion Downloads, Apple Updates “All-Time Top Apps” Page

    The clock’s ticking on the 10 billion app downloads countdown, and Apple has updated its “All-Time Top Apps” page to reflect the changes that have occurred in the App Store in the past 12 months. The iTunes pages that showcase “All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps” and “All-Time Free iPhone Apps” are available here and here, respectively.

    Unsurprisingly, games are among the top paid apps. And by games, we mean Doodle Jump, Angry Birds, Pocket God and Flight Control. Actual “apps” in the top paid list include SoundHound (the music scanning / discovery tool), I Am T-Pain from Smule, Air Sharing from Avatron and Awesome Note. The list is huge as it basically sorts any iPhone app ever released by popularity and sales in the App Store. It is nice, however, to see gems like 1Password, Convertbot and Hipstamatic in the first page.

    As for free apps, the usual Facebook, Pandora, Google and Shazam are the most downloaded apps of all time. Paper Toss, Bump, Skype and AroundMe are in there, too, together with dozens of other games in the first page.

    These charts give us an idea of the trends in the App Store, and the kinds of apps that people want to buy or download for free. Where by “apps” we mean games. [via iSpazio]

    iPad Pinches Almost 90% of Third Quarter Tablet Shipments

    The world’s media tablet market grew an astounding 45% in the third quarter of 2010, says the International Data Corporation (IDC). And what magical device is getting the credit? The iPad of course. Apple’s iPad was the force behind the growing demand.

    According to IDC’s figures, vendors shipped almost 5 million units worldwide in the third quarter of 2010. The second quarter shipped over 3 million units, with the iPad steering almost 88% of tablets shipped. Read more

    White iPhone 4 To Make Its Debut Feb. 27th? Best Buy May Be Telling

    The White iPhone 4 was at first rumored to suffer from a series of problems with color, but it was later rumored to be delayed thanks to issues with the camera sensor. As the glass is white, light leakage was affecting the camera sensor. While Apple has kept quiet about the latest White iPhone 4 developments, there were some signs of life in Apple Stores thanks to a 9 to 5 Mac reader spotting a Spring 2011 launch date. Today, MacRumors has a sneak peek at Best Buy’s inventory system (which has been a leaky faucet for numerous tech rumors).

    The white iPhone is speculated to have a launch date of February 27th, and the SKUs are identical to the previous white iPhone listings last year before they were pulled. There’s no doubt that there will eventually be a white iPhone, and the question of when may be sooner than later. With a large pool of white iPhones on hand, however, would Apple launch a new series of white iPhone 4s with the next generation iPhone arriving in the Summer on AT&T? Or is this an early indication that Verizon will feature the iPhone 4 for the next year? (And let’s not forget the White iPhone 4 on Verizon snafu.)

    [via MacRumors]

    Quick! Download AirView Now, It Turns Your iOS Device Into An AirPlay Receiver

    AirView is a universal application available for free in the App Store that does something iOS users have been asking since the original release of AirPlay: it turns any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into AirPlay receivers capable of playing videos streamed from another device. With AirView, in fact, video can be streamed from iOS device to iOS device (iPhone to iPad, iPhone to iPhone) or from iTunes, something that Apple only does with the Apple TV 2nd generation.

    AirView must be running on a device in order to show up as receiver on a local network. The app doesn’t enable music streaming, a feature we managed to activate in the past with a jailbreak hack. Photos aren’t supported either.

    AirView is a neat little app that we guess Apple will soon remove from the App Store. When used in combination with Erica Sadun’s apps that extend AirPlay’s functionalities, it can become a quite powerful tool. Go grab it here now.