Edible Apple

Apple today released earnings from the last quarter and posted revenue of $35 billion and a profit of $8.8 billion. Overall, EPS came in at $9.32 a share. In the same quarter a year-ago, Apple posted revenue of $28.6 billion, a profit of $7.3 billion, and EPS of $7.79 a share.

The Company sold 26.0 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 28 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 17.0 million iPads during the quarter, an 84 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.0 million Macs during the quarter, a two percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.8 million iPods, a 10 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Apple’s Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $2.65 per share of the Company’s common stock. The dividend is payable on August 16, 2012, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on August 13, 2012.

“We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.”

via Apple

Nearly three months ago, the US DOJ curiously decided to sue Apple and a host of other publishers alleging that the parties conspired togeter in an efort traise the price of eBooks.

Apple, along with the publishers in question, have vhemently denied the allegations while explaining that their pricing agreements actually serve to further competition in a space currently dominated by Amazon. Specifically, Apple has said that it simply wants to sell as many eBooks as possible and that it’s therefore in their interest to have the price of eBooks be as low as possible. And as has been raised before, it’s interesting, if not downright dumbfounding, that Apple is being taken to task here when Amazon effectively has a complete monopoly in the eBook market.

In light of the DOJ’s investigation, US Senator Charles Schumer – who is typically rallying against Apple for one thing or another – penned an article in the Wall Street Journal articulating why the DOJ needs to drop its suit against Apple. Schumer comes out guns a’blazin, stating that the DOJ could destroy the publishing industry as we know it today.

The reason? The suit will serve to keep Amazon as the top retailer in the eBook market, creating an environment where consumers will simply have to accept whatever pricing scheme Amazon comes up with.

… They could allow their books to be sold at the prices Amazon set, thus undercutting their own current hardcopy sales and the future pricing expectations for digital books—or stay out of the e-books market entirely. In an increasingly digital age, the latter was simply not an option.

Then the market changed. Apple entered and negotiated an agency model with publishers, in which the publisher could establish a retail price and Apple would take a percentage cut. The result was increased competition. Amazon’s market share quickly eroded to 60%, and consumers had multiple platforms through which to purchase digital books. Amazon was forced to expand its catalog, invest in innovation, and reduce the prices of its Kindle reading devices.

Most importantly, the average price for e-books fell to $7 from $9, according to a filing in the case.

The Justice Department has ignored this overall trend and instead focused on the fact that the prices for some new releases have gone up. This misses the forest for the trees. While consumers may have a short-term interest in today’s new release e-book prices, they have a more pressing long-term interest in the survival of the publishing industry.

Schumer goes on to say that if Amazon is allowed to effectively control 90% of the market, both consumers and authors will be held hostage to the whims and business decisions of the company.

“Choice is critical in any market”, Schumer writes, “but that is particularly true in cultural markets like books. The prospect that a single firm would control access to books should give any reader pause.”

via WSJ

Apple will release its earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2012 tomorrow, and per usual, analysts are scrambling to update their projections for Apple’s earnings and sales figures for the quarter.

While Apple has an impressively consistent track record when it comes to beating Wall Street earnings estimates, some analysts recently lowered their projections for Apple’s earnings this past quarter citing weaker than expected iPhone demand.

I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how iPhone sales performed over the past 3 months, but one relevant talking point is the reportedly unprecedented demand for the iPhone 5. Put differently, with folks eagerly awaiting the iPhone 5, what with its reportedly larger 4-inch screen and support for 4G LTE, iPhone 4S sales may be a bit lukewarm

In a survey conducted by ChangeWave and released on Monday, the research firm found that a record number of respondents are likely to buy Apple’s next-gen iPhone.

“Advance demand for the ‘iPhone 5’ is strikingly higher than we’ve seen for any previous iPhone model,” Changewave VP of Research Dr. Paul Carton said.

“Overall smartphone sales should spike to an all-time high this fall, and of course Apple is going to be the number one beneficiary. But besides Apple, and to a lesser degree Samsung, no other manufacturer is likely to benefit from this coming wave of demand.”

But Apple isn’t the only smartphone manufacturer with bright prospects ahead.

Changwave also found that consumers are also interested in purchasing Samsung models in the weeks ahead, with 19% of respondents indicating that they plan on buying a Samsung device in the next 90 days. Notably, Samsung recently released the Galaxy S III which has reportedly moved over 10 million units in less than two months.

AppleInsider adds that “interest in Motorola devices was down two percentage points to 4 percent, HTC was unchanged at 3 percent, and RIM remains stuck at its all-time low of 2 percent.”

With the resounding success of the iPhone, Apple’s iPod line has been languishing over the past few years. So while iPhone growth continues to increase by leaps and bounds, Apple’s iPod sales have been trending downwards for a few quarters now.

But the iPod still generates a few billion bucks for Apple each quarter and it’s not as if they’re going to give up on the device that helped drive the company back to relevancy and prominence anytime soon. On the contrary, word is that Apple is planning a significant iPod refresh this fall.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has a solid track record with respect to Apple rumors and MacRumors recently relayed a report from Kuo claiming that Apple is set to release brand new iPod Toch and iPod Nano models this Fall. Notably, a Macotakara report from a few weeks ago said that Apple’s next-gen iPod Nano will have an iPhone-esque design, complete with a home button. Peep the rendering below.

As for the iPod Touch, it will reportedly feature the same in-cell touch display technology Apple is reportedly also using on its next-gen iPhone.

The Wall Street Journal described the technology a few days ago:

The technology integrates touch sensors into the LCD, making it unnecessary to have a separate touch-screen layer. The absence of the layer, usually about half a millimeter thick, not only makes the whole screen thinner, but the quality of displayed images would improve, said DisplaySearch analyst Hiroshi Hayase…

For Apple, the new technology would also simplify the supply chain and help cut costs as it would no longer have to buy touch panels and LCD panels from separate suppliers.

That said, Kuo anticipates that iPod sales in the Fall quarter will be robust, driven primarily by sales of the iPod Nano.

Though all new design iPod touch and iPod nano will be launched, growth momentum will mainly come from the latter. The new iPod touch, like iPhone 5, uses in-cell panel, whose availability is limited in the initial stage. Shipments will therefore be hindered.

And fleshing out some of the details of the rumored iPod Touch upgrade – which hasn’t seen a significant refresh in nearly two years, Macotakara is reporting that the next-gen iPod Touch, much like the rumored iPhone 5, will come with a larger 4-inch screen and a “buffed aluminum” back, in contrast to the glass back Apple currently uses on the iPhone 4S.

As for the insides, the CPU and other specs are said to be similar to the current iPhone 4S.

According to asian source, new iPod touch (5th generation) will have 4 inch LCD which is the same size with the coming iPhone 5.

CPU or other spec is considered to be same with iPhone 4S, and the back case has a different design, which will not be mirror polished but buffed aluminum. And it seems to be prepared black and white color model.

Below is a rendering from Macotakara.

Somewhat oddly, the report notes that the device has a hole at the at bottom of the device -evident in the render above – but that its function or purpose remains unknown at this point.

Over the past few quarters, Apple’s iPod sales have been decreasing as the entire lineup has effectively been carried by the iPod Touch. As such, it will be interesting to see if these two new models will be able to inject some much needed life into Apple’s iPod lineup.

Take this with a grain of salt, but the French language blog App4Phone claims to have received an inside tip from a prominent source “that specializes in the manufacture of accessories” alleging that Apple’s next-gen iPhone, perhaps to be called the iPhone 5, will be released on September 21.

Supposedly, the September 21 launch date will encompass the US, parts of Europe, and China.

Now the 21st of September is a Friday which does align with Apple’s preferred launch day of choice. Also, there have been quite a few reports over the past few days claiming that production of Apple’s next-gen iPhone has already commenced. That said, and September 21 rumors aside, the iPhone 5 will likely launch in either late September or early October.

Also note that if the September 21st date is, in fact, accurate, expect Apple to have an unveiling of the device about 10 days before launch. You know, just enough time to build up that patented Apple hype machine.

via App4Phone

With the demand for tablets growing, Amazon is looking to beef up their own offerings in the coming months. A recent report from Reuters claims that the nation’s largest online retailer has plans to expand its tablet lineup beyond the Kindle Fire to include up to 6 separate tablet SKUs.

Naturally, the tablets will come in varying sizes, though interestingly enough, one will be a 10-inch model presumably positioned to compete with Apple’s iPad.

Amazon is making its own tablets to help the company sell more digital goods, such as MP3s, movies, TV shows, apps and games. Physical versions of these products, such as CDs and DVDs, were a big business for Amazon, but they are now in decline.

Having its own devices sitting atop a software platform that offers digital content to more than 100 million, credit-card-wielding customers already programmed to buy, could help Amazon become a major mobile platform player, challenging Apple, Google, Microsoft Corp and Facebook.

Since launching the Kindle Fire this past September, Amazon has seen some solid success – sales wise – with the device. Word on the street, though, is that Amazon actually loses money with each device sold but ultimately recoups its investment via content sales and Amazon Prime subscriptions. Either way, the bottom line must be looking good for Amazon if they’re willing to go all in and expand its tablet lineup.

via Reuters

Corroborating a report that first surfaced this past March, Reuters is reporting this morning that Apple’s iPhone 5 will utilize a smaller dock connector. So instead of the 30-pin connector we’ve all grown to know and love, the iPhone 5 will implement a noticeably smaller 19-pin connector “to make room for the earphone moving to the bottom.”

Yep, another change is that the headphone jack is moving to the bottom of the device, which may sound like a big adjustment, but it’s how things have been on the iPod Touch for some time now.

The report adds:

That would mean the new phone would not connect with the myriad of accessories such as speakers and power chargers that form part of the ecosystem around iPods, iPads and iPhones, without an adaptor.

That means new business, analysts say.

So what was the impetus for a smaller dock connector?

Well the simplest and therefore most likely explanation is that space inside the phone is at a premium and anything Apple can do to save space, and thereby make the battery as large as can be, is worth the effort.

As we explained a few months back

Notably, a number of rumors have pointed to the iPhone 5 not only housing a larger screen, but also support 4G LTE networks. These two factors, even by themselves, but especially when taken together, demand outstanding battery life. The current lineup of 4G enabled Android handsets sport notoriously poor battery life.

The current 30-pin dock connector is by no means terribly large, but when you have a device as advanced and capable as a modern day smartphone, every piece of real estate, no matter how small, is incredibly important. Also, remember that when commenting on Apple’s patience with respect to rolling out 4G equipped iPhones, Tim Cook stated that 4G chipset designs were too bulky to meet Apple’s stringent design objectives.

And what might this smaller dock connector look like? Well take a gander below.

The image above is a still (courtesy of MacRumors) taken from a video of what purports to be an iPhone 5 back cover.

via Reuters

Steve Jobs held Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in high esteem, in part because he admired Zuckerberg’s vision and determination to make Facebook the best company it could be, and more importantly, because Faceboko wasn’t looking to sell out for a large payday. This, of course, stands in contrast to some startups whose ultimate goal is seemingly to get big enough to warrant a lucrative buy-out from a larger corporation – a type of business plan Jobs didn’t entirely care for.

So while Apple and Facebook may have mildly butted head in the past, Jobs liked the fact that Zuckerberg was intent on building a long-lasting a company, a much more challenging feat that simply guiding a company to a point where it’s sufficiently deserving of an acquisition.

Recently, Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson appeared on stage with Washington Post CEO and Facebook board member Don Graham.

When the topic turned to Jobs and Zuckerberg, Graham recounted:

Jobs meant an enormous amount to the education of Mark. Mark will talk about that until the cows come home.

What’s more, Graham recalled that he once asked Jobs who he admired most in Silicon Valley and that Zuckerberg was the first person Jobs mentioned.

Jobs admired Zuckerberg for his “intuitive feel” for what Facebook needed next, for his passion and willingness to “do stuff that allows him to be on shifting sands—his willing to cannibalize old things. He felt an odd kinship to Mark.”

Jobs, it seems, also admired Facebook for its complete dominance in the social media space. Indeed, Jobs once scoffed at the idea that there was any competition in the space, pointing out that it’s effectively owned by Facebook.

Apple, of course, hasn’t really jumped on the “social” bandwagon, and its effort with Ping was underwhelming to say the least. Interestingly, Isaacson asked Jobs why the company didn’t give social another go.

Jobs responded:

Maybe because Mark did it so well. There’s not a need for a whole lot of social networks and  Facebook has got it licked.

And as you might expect, the level of admiration between the two CEOs was mutual.

Following the passing of Jobs, Zuckerberg said in a statement:

Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.

One month later, Zuckerberg appeared in an interview with Charlie Rose where he explained in more detail the connection he felt with Jobs.

Mark Zuckerberg: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, he — he’s amazing. He was amazing. I mean, he — I had a lot of questions for him on –

Charlie Rose: Like what?

Mark Zuckerberg: How to build a team around you, right, that’s focused on building as high quality and good things as you are. How to keep an organization focused, right, when I think the tendency for larger companies is to try to fray and go into all these different areas. Yeah, I mean a lot just on the aesthetics and kind of mission orientation of companies. I mean, Apple is a company that is so focused on just building products that — for their customers and their users. And — and that’s like — it’s such a deep part of their mission is build these beautiful products for their users. And I think we connected a lot on this level of, okay, Facebook has this mission that’s really more than just trying to build a company, right, that has a market cap or a value. It’s like we’re trying to do this thing in the world. And I don’t know, a lot of it I just think we connected on that level.

Lastly, Zuckerberg, like Jobs before him, has a $1 salary as CEO.

via BusinessInsider

It’s sometimes possible to gauge the direction Apple is headed in by taking a look at some of their recent hires and acquisitions. While hindsight is always 20-20, some examples include Apple’s acquisition of Fingerworks in 2005 for their multitouch technology and the slew of map related acquisitions Apple made in the 2 years preceding the unveiling of their homegrown Maps app in iOS 6.

To that end, AppleInsider points us to an interesting hire Apple made recently when it brought in AMD chip architect John Bruno. Bruno’s current LinkedIn profile says that he’s a “System Architect at Apple” and his summary reads:

Results driven Platform Architect and ASIC Design expert with extensive experience in bringing complex new architectures and their accompanying platforms to market. Have a proven track record of managing large ASIC engineering teams and cross functional efforts to deliver cutting edge, complex designs with multi-billion dollar revenue streams. Highly meticulous and hard working, motivated by designing industry leading products.

AI adds:

Bruno’s management of AMD’s second-generation APU project, dubbed Trinity, is well known and it is speculated that he may take a similar role at Apple. As a side note, Apple was rumored to be using the original AMD Fusion APU in its Apple TV in 2010, but the final product ended leveraged the proprietary ARM-based A4 processor.

via AppleInsider

Digitimes is reporting that iPhone 5 production is already underway in Shanghai.

Pegatron has begun production of a new version of the Apple iPhone at its factory in Shanghai, eastern China, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Pegatron is expected to see ODM shipments of notebooks decrease sequentially in third-quarter 2012, and orders for the new version iPhone are enough to make up for decreased revenues from the notebook segment, the sources indicated.

This follows a previous report from Macotakara which also intimated that iPhone 5 production had commenced.

The iPhone is expected to come with a longer form factor and a 4-inch display. 4G LTE is also expected to be a major selling feature for the device.

This coming Tuesday, Apple is set to announce its earnings from its third fiscal quarter of 2012, encompassing financial data from April through June.

During Apple’s third fiscal quarter of 2011, the company reported revenue of $25.87 billion for a net quarterly profit of $7.31 billion and EPS of $7.79. During that period, Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones and 9.25 million iPads, representing a 142% and 183% increase respectively year over year. Mac wise, Apple sold395 million Macs, representing a 14% increase from the third fiscal quarter in 2010.

And by way of comparison, Apple in 2010 during Q3 of 2010 Apple posted revenue of $15.7 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion.

In any event, Apple’s guidance for the quarter checks in at $34 billion and an EPS of $8.68.

Following news that Apple, on its UK website, needs to publicly acknowledge that Samsung did not copy any Apple products, the always enterprising and creative folks over at Joy of Tech came up with this gem.

You might remember that UK Judge Colin Birss, about a week ago, ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy tablet designs don’t infringe upon Apple’s iPad design because consumers aren’t likely to get confused between the two, nothing that Samsung’s products aren’t as cool as Apple’s.

The Galaxy tablets, Birss explained, “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.”

Victory in defeat, maybe?

via GeekCulture