Leander Kahney's Blog, page 1524

October 24, 2011

International iPhone Sales to Boost December Quarter [Analyst]

Photo by Ahmad Nawawi - http://flic.kr/p/6Nxjh4

The growing importance of international iPhone sales, along with demand for Apple's latest smartphone, should remove any Wall Street doubt that the fourth quarter was only a fluke. One analyst Monday announced bullish expectations for the first quarter of 2012, forecasting 42 million iPhones will have sold in December – more than double that of last quarter.

Investors, disappointed that fourth quarter iPhone sales of 17 million units were below expectations, will likely cheer UBS analyst Maynard Um's projection, which he terms "conservative." By comparison, Wall Street consensus forecasts Apple will ship between 25 million and 30 million units during the December period. Um credits the launch of 70 new international markets for the iPhone amid Apple's current distribution giving international sales 72.5 percent of sales versus 27.5 percent for the United States.

"A similar 27.5 percent U.S./72.5 percent international split from this quarter would imply 42.5 million units in the [calendar year fourth quarter] or an upside of 14.5 million iPhones," Um told investors.

Apple's first fiscal quarter of 2012 will likely also be boosted by iPhone 4 sales, which registered just one week of sales before the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011. Given that Apple sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S units in the first weekend, Apple CEO Tim Cook's statement he is "very confident" of a record-setting December quarter seems all the more probable.

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Published on October 24, 2011 07:46

Out With the Orange, In With the New: Apple Updates iPad 2 Smart Covers

[image error]Apple's MacBook Pro family wasn't the only product lineup to get an update today. The Cupertino company has also issued a refresh to its iPad 2 Smart Covers, which has seen the orange cover discontinued in favor of a new dark gray model, and interior lining that's colored to match the exterior.

In addition to discontinuing the orange Smart Cover for a dark gray one, sources for MacRumors say that the polyurethane models are now more vibrant. Apple has also adjusted the color of its leather Smart Cover in navy to make it "more navy" than the original, and colored the cases' interior fabric so that it matches that of its exterior.

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The Smart Cover page of Apple's website is yet to reflect these changes at the time of writing, and some of the links to Smart Covers in the online store seem to be broken, but we're expecting an update to this page shortly.

Smart Cover prices remain the same, with polyurethane models at $39 and leather models at $69.

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Published on October 24, 2011 07:20

Apple Pilot Program Will Allow You to Collect Online Orders From Your Local Retail Store

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Apple is set to launch a new pilot program that will allow customers to make orders through its online store and then collect their purchases from their local Apple store, according to a new report. The program has reportedly been given the name "Sherwood" and will cover any product available online, including custom-build computers, third-party accessories, and products which have been gift-wrapped an engraved.

What's great about this program is that if you order a product which is in stock in your local store, you can go and collect it the same day, according to sources for MacRumors. For those that aren't in stock, you'll need to wait a few days until they're delivered.

The program will prevent you from missing parcels while you're away from home during the day, and means that when you're buying gifts for those at the same address — particularly during the holiday season — you can keep them a secret.

To collect your order from your local Apple store, you'll need to take both your proof of purchase and some kind of identification, according to the report. However, if for any reason you cannot collect your purchase personally, you can specify one additional person who will be collecting it for you.

The rollout of the Sherwood program will also see Apple retail stores taking returns for purchases made online, finally streamlining the whole returns process, and making online shopping a much more attractive prospect for some.

The pilot program will be initially available in a select retail stores only, with plans to extend the service to all stores in future. It's unclear at this point when the Sherwood program will begin.

What do you think of Apple's new collection service?

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Published on October 24, 2011 06:59

Apple TV Sets Are 'In the Works' [Analyst]

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The belief that Apple will enter the TV set market appears too good to let drop. One high-profile Apple analyst tells investors Monday the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant already has prototypes of a device worth $2.5 billion next year.

Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, following the Apple Television trail since 2009, points to comments made by late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in an authorized biography just released. "I finally cracked it," Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson. According to Munster, prototypes of an Apple Television are already being made with Apple also "investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supply for LCD displays."

Apple has also patented technology that could enable what Jobs described as a device that "seamlessly synced with all your devices and with iCloud." In January, October and May of 2011, Apple filed U.S. Patent & Trademark Office applications for "patents related to software for browsing and recording live television," features not available with the company's Apple TV console, the analyst writes.

So, how might an Apple Television appear? The screen-size could range anywhere between 3.5-inch to 50-inch, based on Munster's Asian meetings earlier this year. Additionally, Apple patents refer to a device that could include "a set-top box with or without a digital video recorder." Top it off with a system which uses the Siri voice system to enter show titles or actors' names and you have a product worth $2.5 billion in 2012 and $6 billion by 2014, according to Munster.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard Apple's entry into the cut-throat and commoditized TV set market was a done deal. Early this summer, a report cited a former Apple executive claiming the company would introduce a device "this fall" that would "blow Netflix and all those other guys away."

Aside from the fact that every new TV-related product comes with the "blow Netflix away" claim, that report suggested AirPlay — the hot new Apple technology of the day — was the final piece of the puzzle that would produce the holy grail. Now comes along the latest tidbit, this time arguing it is Siri that will launch the Apple Television revolution.

Pardon me if I yawn.

The one kernel of information worth following, though, is Munster reporting "a contact close to an Asian component supplier" saying prototypes of an Apple television are being produced. If similar reports begin emerging, there might be more to the rumors.

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Published on October 24, 2011 06:30

Mac OS X 10.7.2 Gives You Better Spaces Arrangement Options [OS X Tips]

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Apple has fixed an issue with Mission Control's All Windows mode in Mac OS X 10.7.2 that will make a lot of people happy. You can now rearrange the desktop spaces and full-screen applications by dragging. The Dashboard and the first desktop space remain fixed in place at the first and second places in the desktop spaces and full-screen applications list.

Although dragging these objects around is new, the trick to getting it to work is similar to a previous tip.

By default Mac OS X will automatically rearrange spaces based on the most recent use. If you want to manually manipulate your desktop spaces and full-screen apps follow these steps:

Open System Preferences Click on Mission Control Un-check the Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use

You will now be able to manipulate your desktop spaces and full-screen apps to your heart's content. The only exception as mentioned above is that the Dashboard and first desktop space cannot be rearranged.

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Published on October 24, 2011 06:00

The Many Fruits Of The iPod Family Tree [Infographic]

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iPod 10th Anniversary: To celebrate the iPod's 10th anniversary on Sunday October 23, we've been running several special features which we hope will allow our readers to look back at Apple's most iconic product with fun and fondness.

Over the last ten years, the iPod has gone from a single device designed to hold your MP3s to a family of devices that have literally revolutionized the music industry.

As part of our iPod 10th Anniversary Celebrations, we put together this family tree infographic so you can look back at all of the iPods that have come before, and helped get us to where we are now: the future of digital music.

Feel free to repost this graphic, but if you do, please make sure to link to Cult of Mac. Thanks!

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Published on October 24, 2011 05:47

October 23, 2011

The iPod Was My Gateway Drug

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image: flickr/wicker_man

[image error] I arrived at this party pretty late — I'm probably the junior member here at the Cult of Mac, as far as Apple adoption goes. I haven't discussed it directly with the entire staff, but I'm almost certain everyone else here had been using Steve's gadgets long before I started.

My wholesale defection from PC to Mac finally happened in 2005, when I walked out of the Stonestown Galleria Apple Store, beaming, with a 12-inch iBook G4, never to return to the world of Windows. But the journey began two years earlier, when I met and fell in love with my first Apple product.

Yes, it was an iPod.

I had just driven down the coast from San Francisco to L.A. that summer when my CD player crapped out on me. MP3 players were in their ascendency, but they were still fairly primitive, expensive, and low on memory – but I'd had it with CD players.

I'd been exposed to the iPod only briefly at that point; I'd seen them in stores, but I had a Sony laptop. The iPod was Apple-only — I was forbidden. Besides, wasn't Apple stuff expensive and kinda funky?

Then while scanning the row of MP3 players in a big-box electronics store, I saw it — a third-gen iPod, the one with the solid-state buttons. At $300, Its sexy, 10-gigabyte form was only $50 more than some crappy-looking MP3 player next to it with a fraction of the storage capacity. And — here's the key — it was the first iPod that would easily connect to a Windows machine.

This was a huge turning point. "Holy crap," I thought. "No brainer."

A few weeks later, as I drove with my brother, his newlywed wife and their little minpin across country as they migrated from east to west coast, I was shocked at how easily more-or-less instant music gratification could be had. Out on the road, I'd suddenly get these cravings to listen to a song I han't heard in years; then when we'd settled in for the night at a motel, I'd fire up my laptop and pluck the song from peer-to-peer service Kazaa (remember, these were the dark days before the iTunes Store) and listen to it the next day while cruising down the I-80. It was like magic; I was enthralled.

All through the drive, a thundering conclusion was forming in my mind: If Apple could make a music player as fantastically cool as my little iPod, what were their computers like? Maybe I was wrong about Apple; maybe I really should take a good look at a Mac.

But I was still hesitant. How hard would it be to switch? The interface looked really funky. And was there really a dearth of software available, as I'd been told?

Then I hatched up a semi-devious idea. My mom had been growing increasingly frustrated with a variety of Windows laptops she'd been let down by over the last year; I thought I'd encourage her to switch, which would help her out — and give me a way to check out the Mac system at the same time, without fully committing.

But Apple didn't have the superb resources they do today to help new Mac owners. My mom foundered, and the silver MacBook Pro was quickly returned (sorry, mom. A few years later, after I bought my first MacBook, I helped her switch and she's been happy with her own Mac ever since).

Still, the experience was enough to convince me that I wanted a Mac. A year later, my Sony laptop was stolen, and I walked into the Stonestown Galleria intent on walking out with a new iBook. One MacBook Pro, two MacBooks, three iPhones, an iPad and an iPod Mini, Nano and Shuffle later, I'm a firm believer in the Cult of Mac. And it was all because of that little iPod.

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Published on October 23, 2011 22:37

Wow! Jony Ive's Tribute To His "Best Friend" Steve Jobs Is Truly Great

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If you want to hear a really great, revealing and insightful tribute to Steve Jobs, tune into the Celebrating Steve video Apple posted earlier and go to the 48.30 mark.

Here Apple's long-time head designer Jony Ive starts talking about his "best and most loyal friend."

Ive's tribute to Steve is by turns funny, touching and insightful. Unlike a lot of the negative stuff we've heard about Steve over the last few weeks, Jony describes Steve's passion and enthusiasm, his sense of humor, and his great joy in doing things right.

I'd love to post the video here, but it's streaming only for the moment. Here's a snippet of what he said:

Now while hopefully the work appeared inevitable. Appeared simple, and easy, it really cost. It cost us all, didn't it?

But you know what? It cost him most. He cared the most. He worried the most deeply.

He continues:

… He constantly questioned, 'Is this good enough? Is this right?'

And despite all his successes, all his achievements, he never presumed, he never assumed, that we would get there in the end. And when the ideas didn't come, and when the prototypes failed, it was with great intent, with faith, he decided to believe we would eventually make something great.

But the joy of getting there. I loved his enthusiasm. His simple delight. Often, I think, mixed with some simple relief. Yeah, we got there, we got there in the end and it was good. You can see his smile can't you? The celebration of making something great for everybody.

Enjoying the defeat of cynicism. The rejection of reason. The rejection of being told 100 times, 'You can't do that.'

So his I think, was a victory for beauty, for purity. And as he would say, 'For giving a damn.'

He was my closest and my most loyal friend.

We worked together for nearly 15 years — and he still laughed at the way I said 'aluminium.'

For the past 2 weeks, I think we've all been struggling to find ways to say goodbye.

This morning, I simply want to end by saying 'thank you Steve.'

Thank you for your remarkable vision which has united and inspired this remarkable group of people.

Tor all that we have learned from you and for all that we will continue to learn from each other, 'thank you Steve.'

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Published on October 23, 2011 22:34

Steve Jobs Biography Now Available in the U.S. iBookstore

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The official Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson is now available in the U.S. iBookstore. The book officially goes on sale tomorrow, but it has been popping up early on Amazon Kindle stores and iBookstores around the world.

Simply titled "Steve Jobs," the biography takes a thorough look at the many sides of Jobs and the stories surrounding his rise to becoming one of America's greatest innovators and CEOs.

Walter Isaacson was interviewed on 60 Minutes about his biography of Jobs. Many profound revelations about Jobs were discovered by Isaacson during the process of compiling the biography.

"Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing."

The book is available now in the U.S. iBookstore for $16.99. There's also an audiobook version available in iTunes for $29.95.

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Published on October 23, 2011 20:34

60 Minutes Interview About Steve Jobs Contained Three Profound Revelations

I thought the 60 Minutes interview broadcast just now with Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson was great. Absolutely great.

It covered a lot of ground I was familiar with and is familiar to most other Apple fans too. But it fresh and fascinating because of the accumulation of small details and revelations. Like the fact that Jobs rarely locked his back door in Palo Alto, and that anybody could have walked in off the street, because he didn't want to pervert his life by being rich. Alternatively, he looked his childhood friend Daniel Kottke in the eye and denied him the shares in Apple that would have made him a millionaire. So many contradictions.

But there were three profound revelations for me, which really shed light on Jobs' life and work:

1. Jobs' adoption as a baby made him feel special, not abandoned. Jobs told Isaacson about an occasion when a childhood friend learned he was adopted and asked him, in the brutal way that children do, if he was abandoned. Distraught, Jobs ran into the house and asked his adopted parents the devastating question. To their great credit, his parents had the perfect answer: No, he wasn't unwanted. Quite the contrary, he was special because they had chosen him specially. Isaacson says this had a profound effect on Jobs and made him feel blessed, special. It goes a long way explaining Jobs' amazing life and career, his outsized ambitions and confidence, his sense of mission.

2. Jobs' infamous "reality distortion field" applied to his own cancer. One of the biggest revelations from Isaacson's book was Jobs' reluctance to get his cancer removed as soon as he learned about it. Instead of being operated on immediately, Jobs' sent nine months seeking alternative treatments, before finally having his cancer surgically removed. The delay may have allowed the cancer to spread and cost him his life. Isaacson said Jobs later regretted this and may have been indulging in "magical thinking" about the cancer. If he ignored it, perhaps he wouldn't have to deal with it. This strikes must people as crazy, especially from a rationalist like Jobs. But earlier, Isaacson discussed Jobs' famous "reality distortion field:" the ability to make coworkers believe almost anything through the force of his own persuasion. He could generate a ring of charm so powerful it could bend reality itself. Jobs often used it to push coworkers and underlings to perform impossible feats of work or creativity, like banging out three months of code in less than a month. Isaacson said Jobs was able to do this because he himself was convinced they could do it, even if it was magical thinking. But a month later, the work would be done, and he would be proved right. His thinking was no longer magical because it had come true. And he did this throughout his career, over and over. But what happens when happened when you apply magical thinking to cancer? As Isaacson noted, Jobs "could drive himself by magical thinking. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't."

3. Jobs hated on/off switches because they reminded him of death. Towards the end of his life, Isaacson asked Jobs if he believed in God. Jobs said no, not really, he kinda hoped there was a 50/50 chance of life after death. But then Jobs added that life and death was probably like an on/off switch. "Sometimes I think it's like an on off switch: click and you're gone." Jobs felt it a terrible waste of accumulated experience and wisdom, and that's why, he said, he didn't like on/off switches on Apple products.

What else did you think was fascinating? (You can watch the whole interview with Walter Isaacson here, btw)