Rumors of a 7- to 7.85-inch iPad have been swirling around for a long while now. We’ve seen reports get killed moments after they initially break, only to be sneakily resurrected weeks or months later. The rumor simply won’t die.
The problem, however, is that this one in particular is a tough nut to crack. When you take all the evidence both for and against a little iPad, you’re still left with no real conclusion.
So conclusion aside, here are some of the reasons Apple may, or may not, introduce the little iPad: → Read More
In a few weeks, Apple will unveil the next generation iPad, John Packowski of AllThingsD confirms today. If history (and carrier code) is any indication, it should go on sale shortly after that. Maybe even just a few days later. And that’s interesting because it doesn’t give developers a lot of time to prepare. And they’ll want to prepare for the higher resolution “Retina” display that the device will pack.
The situation is similar to the Summer of 2010. That year at WWDC, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4, the first device to feature a Retina display. That conference took place on June 7. The iPhone 4 first went on sale on June 24 — two and a half weeks later. That timeframe allowed some developers to get their apps Retina-ready, but for many it took quite a bit longer. Again, this year, the window may be even more condensed. → Read More
Shocking news of the day: Apple is preparing to announce the iPad 3. Crazy news, I know. That announcement, if AllThingsD is to be believed, should come in the first week of March. The next-gen tablet itself is reportedly an upgraded version of the iPad 2, featuring a dual-core CPU and a higher-resolution display. But then again, that’s to be expected. Of course the iPad 3 will have better specs than the year-old iPad 2. → Read More
Call it a sort of a bear hug: Sprint, the also-ranniest of the also-rans in the carrier world, lost money selling phones that, on the aggregate gained them subscribers. It’s also Catch-22, a blindside, and a mess.
According to Sprint, the company reported a net loss last quarter while still selling 1.8 million iPhones and increasing their subscriber base by 1.6 million. How? The costs associated with provisioning and supporting these new phones drove operating losses to $438 million, up from $139 million in Q4 last year. → Read More
On Saturday, February 4, something strange happened to Qihoo 360, a security software company. Their apps, at least the ones in the Apple App Store, were missing. After reaching out to Apple, the company learned that Apple had removed their apps based on “unusual user rating activities by unknown sources on certain Qihoo 360 applications.” There was no further explanation.
However, today Apple has reinstated Qihoo 360′s iOS apps, without asking the company to modify any of them. Seems fishy, right? → Read More
There has been much debate about what the post-PC era is, when it will arrive, or whether it’s already here. But key pieces of new data, emerging last week, are making the case that we crossed the imaginary line from the “PC” era to the “post-PC” era at the end of 2011. According to analysts at Canalys, two major computing milestones were achieved at the end of this year: smartphone shipments outpaced PCs for the first time ever, and Apple became the world’s largest PC maker, if you count iPads as PCs (as well you should).
Combined, what these numbers tell us is that the post-PC era is happening now. Right now. And maybe we need to think about how we define “PC.” → Read More
According to new research from the NPD Group, Apple passed LG and Samsung to become the top-selling U.S. handset brand in Q4 2011. Combined, the three available models of the iPhone (iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS) accounted for 43% of the U.S. smartphone market.
Android, however, continued to see larger market share at 48%. → Read More
Apple’s all-in-one physical flat-screen iTV is coming, make no mistake. And, when it does, it will represent Apple’s attempt to reinvent the television experience in much the same way it did for music. But, while media execs were hopelessly naive in Apple’s presence back then, they feel they are ready this time. They are determined not to let Apple rule the premium online video world like they did (and still do) for online music. The question is, do they have the will? → Read More
Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
Clay is moulded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.
Thus tools come from what exists,
But use from what does not.
- Tao De Ching
There’s a carousel in a small Cape Cod town that we visited this summer and the kids rode it a few times. The carousel is quite old and quite handsome and it makes a great diversion of an evening. I’m reminded now of trying to take pictures of the kids while they rode the carousel. For a while I’d wave and try to get their attention as they roared past, their laughter dopplering around the edge of the curve, and then, after four or five tries I’d give up and just watch. It’s a wheel, an endless circle, designed to delight and enthuse and distract. → Read More
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a website called Apple.de. And on this website, in historical Deutschland, there lived three iPhones and an iPad. They were a happy bunch: some wise but slow with old age, others quick and lean, but they all had one tragic flaw in common.
According to a court in Germany, all four of them are infringing on Motorola patents related to embedded 3G/UMTS wireless technology, FRAND standards essential patents to be specific. This means that the technology within the patents is now a standard across the industry, and the company that owns said technology is required to license it to competitors under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.
That said, the Mannheim Regional Court has enforced a permanent injunction on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and the iPad 2 3G. → Read More
Yesterday, Gizmodo ran a story about a supposed bug in iOS, specifically related to iMessage. The title: The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy on a Total Stranger’s iPhone. Essentially, Gizmodo got ahold of an iPhone that was receiving iMessages not intended for that phone. The fact that some of these messages were quasi-sexual in nature and that the phone belonged to a teenage boy made the story more salacious. But here’s the thing, fear mongering aside, this “bug” is something that is so convoluted that it’s almost not worth even addressing. Almost.
Here’s what happened: a kid was having trouble with his iPhone. His mother took that iPhone to an Apple Store. When there, an Apple Store employee screwed up. Rather than following protocol and using a test SIM to debug the phone (Apple has test SIMs in their stores for this exact purpose), he oddly used his own SIM. This essentially turned the kid’s phone into the retail employee’s phone. The employee probably thought this was fine since it would only be temporary while he fixed the phone. The problem — which one has to assume he didn’t realize — is that even after you take the SIM out of the phone, the pairing leaves behind an imprint of that SIM. In this case, the iMessage account. → Read More
When Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in 1998, he did something unusual. For the first time in any presentation he had ever given, he ended with a slide reading, “Oh, and one more thing…” This phrase would of course enter the Apple lexicon in the subsequent years. But what was it that was hidden behind this first “one more thing”?
“Think Profit.”
You see, Jobs had just been named interim CEO in September 1997 after successfully pushing out the man who brought him (back) in, Gil Amelio. And he had good reason to do that: under Amelio, Apple had lost $1.04 billion in the prior year and was less than ninety days from being completely broke. Just a few months later, as he announced on stage, Jobs had the company back in black: a $45 million profit — the first profit the company had seen in more than two years.
→ Read More
Two weeks ago, the excellent Building Windows 8 blog posted an in-depth look at the upcoming operating system’s new file system, ReFS. It reminded me of the promise of so many years ago that OS X would be changing its file system from HFS+ to ZFS. Not a promise many remember or even cared about at the time, but it was, in fact, important.
ZFS support was dropped amid development and legal problems, but Don Brady, who was heading up the file system transition team at Apple, left to pursue it independently. And now he’s releasing a piece of software, Zevo, which finally adds ZFS support to any Intel Mac running 10.6.6 or later. → Read More
Welcome, kids, to TIL – Today I Learned. Today’s TIL is “Don’t post your correspondence with AppleCare representatives or Apple will totally tell the government on you.”
David Boles had a nice Apple monitor that died on him. He had a little trouble transferring AppleCare coverage to his new monitor after it pooped out and so he posted some advice on his blog. Nothing major, just “don’t forget to connect your AppleCare accounts.” Very innocuous.
→ Read More
According to the latest report from Strategy Analytics, Apple has now overtaken Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume. Apple achieved 23.9% market share during Q4 2011, narrowly beating out Samsung’s 23.5% share.
In addition, Apple shipped 37 million units in Q4, again going neck-and-neck with Samsung and its 36.5 million units shipped during the same time. → Read More
The New York Times has published a long article on Foxconn which, while it doesn’t provide much in the way of new information, does act as a sobering reminder of just how companies like Apple can make so very much money. When our own John Biggs visited Foxconn, he focused on the company itself, its scale, its intentions. When I wrote about Apple’s suppliers failing to meet environmental standards, it was more about the laxity of regulators within China. Today’s NYT piece depicts Apple as prime mover and potential catalyst of change — but its actions and information from insiders suggest that it is simply unwilling.
There is a certain genius to negotiating down the price of every screw and wire, and never paying a yuan more than is absolutely necessary. As in design and build quality, other companies aspire to Apple’s accomplishment in this area. → Read More
7 of the world’s most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy to suppress the compensation of their employees by entering into “no poach” agreements. Today, a San Jose judge heard a motion to dismiss a class action civil lawsuit in which former employees seek damages from defendants Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.
The damning evidence against the defendants from a 2010 Department of Justice investigation and the plaintiffs’ statement indicate there is more than sufficient evidence for the case to proceed towards trial. If the defendants lose to or settle, tens of thousands of full-time employees of these companies could be compensated. [Update 4:30pm PST : The judge says “This case is going to survive the motion to dismiss”, meaning she’ll almost surely deny the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case when she soon files her official ruling. → Read More
Apple’s iPad reigns supreme from whatever angle you choose to look at the tablet market (profits, apps, quality, market share, mindshare, you name it), but research firm Strategy Analytics this morning said Android did manage to capture a record 39 percent tablet OS market share in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Apple maintains the lead with 58 percent market share in Q4 2011 (down from 68 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010).
Peter King, a research director at Strategy Analytics, says global tablet shipments (the research firm explains that these refer to ‘sell-in’ and not over-the-counter sales) reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010. → Read More
$46.33 billion in revenue. It’s a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It’s a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it’s ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it. Ever.
Until yesterday.
I’ve already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they’re still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers. → Read More
Modern day video editors can be daunting. While it’s better than the literal cut-and-paste practices of yesteryear, opening a new video editor can feel like stepping into the cockpit of a spaceship. Unless you’re trained to fly spaceships, in which case this analogy is broken (and also, you’re awesome.)
Looking to distill video editing down to its simplest form — a game like experience, they say — is Game Your Video, a new iOS app from Global Delight. → Read More
