Another analyst Monday joined the growing chorus voicing caution about how the economic downturn may finally be catching up with Apple.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mie Abramsky downgraded Apple shares to “sector perform,” shaken by last week’s numbers indicating consumers were holding off purchasing Mac laptop and desktop computers.
Abramsky also trimmed his target price for Apple shares to $140 from $200 and cut his fourth quarter expectations. The analyst said Monday Apple is likely to report earning $32.8 billion, slightly off of $33 billion previously projected. The RBC analyst also lowered his prediction for 2009 to $40 billion from $42.5 billion once expected.
Nitrozac is an artist and co-founder of GeekCulture, a high-tech humor web site, thriving online community and, according to the artist, purveyor of fine propeller beanies. She says she’s always wanted to take contemporary technology subjects and render them in old style media, and has been offering her acrylic and oil paintings on canvas by auction since December 2007. “I love working with digital images on my Mac, but there is something extremely satisfying about creating with paint and a canvas,” she adds, and describes her paintings as “based on my work at the The Joy of Tech. The subject matter will usually be geeky and techy; the people, places, and things that make up geek culture.”
Her latest work is titled, “The Introduction,” a painting of Steve Jobs unveiling the MacBook Air at Macworld 2008, shown above. Click through in the gallery below to see some of her past work.
On Sept. 20, Apple opened its North County store in Escondido, a San Diego suburb. Reader Scott Bernard writes in to let us know that the event had a very special guest: a quite convincing “PC” impersonator who posed for pictures with the gathered Mac faithful as he distributed “Mac Unfair to PC” leaflets.
Not everyone got the joke. Notes Scott:
We couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, because there was one of those actual CRAZY Apple people in line behind us, yelling in the direction of PC. Crazy guy had NO IDEA that PC was an actor, and he was apparently completely unfamiliar with the “I’m a Mac” ads. Scraped from my week old memory:
Crazy guy: “W- w- w- Windows SUCKS!”
*everyone in line ignores crazy guy, who we thought was just trying (and failing) to be funny*
Crazy guy: “WINDOWS SUCKS!!!”
*we start wondering if this guy is crazy, because he actually sounds angry now*
Crazy guy: “In 1997, Jeffrey Dell said he would shut down Apple, and, and…”
*now we all KNOW he is crazy, especially since it was MICHAEL Dell who he is apparently trying to refer to*
Crazy guy: “Jeffrey Dell said-!”
PC: *walks over to Crazy guy* “Sir, sir, it’s OKAY. I’m playing a CHARACTER. I’m really a Mac guy. It’s OKAY.”
As Scott notes, he doesn’t have the exchange on video, largely because the iPhone has no video recording capability. You hear that, Apple? Think of what you’re denying your base!
Apple also recently opened a shop in nearby Carlsbad, but PC didn’t make the trip. Apparently, lovers of sensible ties and cheap hucksterism prefer Escondido. Click through for a shot of the North County T-Shirt and another pic of PC on duty.
An apparent shift by iPhone 3G buyers to lower-priced 8GB models reportedly prompted Apple to trim by 4 million the number of handsets it will build for the rest of 2008. Cupertino will order 14 million to 15 million phones instead of 18 million analysts first projected.
Pacific Crest’s Apple analyst said Friday “supply-chain checks” found since mid-September Apple is not meaningfully resupplying AT&T stores that have sold down their inventory of 8GB iPhone 3Gs.
Just days before Apple is to present its fourth quarter numbers, another analyst is trimming its revenue estimates. BMO Capital’s Keith Bachman said Thursday “the weak economy has started to take a toll on Apple’s system’s business.”
Bachman lowered the target price for Apple shares to $180 from $190.
Read more about the target cut and how other analyst appear to agree after this jump.
Apple reaffirmed its intent to control what programs may legitimately run on its iPhone this week when the company revoked ad hoc distribution authority from a developer whose application it previously barred from distribution through the iTunes AppStore.
Last week, when Podcaster received official notice from Apple that the AppStore would not be carrying its application because the company had determined it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes, the developer decided to use Apple’s ad hoc distribution method to get the program into the hands of users who were willing to make a $10 ‘donation’ for the privilege of becoming beta-testers.
Tuesday, Apple revoked Almerica’s access to creating ad hoc licenses for the podcast downloading tool, prompting howls of protest from developers and consumers, many of whom have been skeptical of Apple’s intentions and critical of its business practices involving the AppStore from the very beginning.
Follow me after the jump to learn more about what’s behind the dispute and why Apple could be standing on shaky legal ground.
Aside from Christmas, the back-to-school market is one of the most profitable times for computer makers. Apple’s MacBook has virtually disappeared from Amazon’s top-selling notebook list during the period, according to ThinkEquity analyst Vijay Rakesh.
Instead, ‘netbooks,’ those ultra-small PCs from Asus, Acer and Dell, now dominate the list. This is an abrupt change from the past, where Apple had been a mainstay.
“While Mac desktops and 3G phone sales have been doing well, the notebook market could be impacted in the peak back-to-school season,” Rakesh wrote in Wednesday.
Apple should not be concerned about Google’s new phone knocking its stellar iPhone sales projections off stride, Piper Jaffray’s industry analyst said Tuesday.
Using a baseball analogy, Gene Munster wrote in a research note that the T-Mobile G1 was only an incremental change in the mobile landscape.
“When Apple comes out with a product, they try to hit homeruns, but Google’s Android strategy is swinging for base hits,” Munster wrote.
Apple fans are speculating madly about a new product code-named ‘brick’ that could be anything from a fat Mac Mini to an entirely new product category.
The word ‘brick’ has Apple fans speculating particularly fervently. It goes against the company’s traditional code-naming practices, and evokes images of a very un-Apple object, although the Apple mouse is kind of a brick and the iPhone is, too. Websites and forums are lit up with speculation– not that Apple fans need anything in particular to get the speculative juices flowing. It’s become almost de rigueur… as soon as a product is officially out, the rumor mill starts up about the next one, like clockwork, every quarter. Indeed, it’s part of Apple’s business model by now.
The ‘brick’ rumour started circulating when the Apple-oriented website 9to5 Mac spoke to an Asia-based tipster, who said next month’s ‘Big Event’ will be “all about ‘the brick.'” 9-to-5 says the tipster is “reliable” — as the source had previously made the early call on this month’s ‘rainbow colored’ Nano, though the initial interpretation among Apple fans led to expectations for a single ‘rainbow colored’ device rather than the device eventually delivered in a ‘rainbow of colors.’
On MacRumors forums, readers are speculating Apple might be taking a page from Gateway’s playbook and will bring us a standalone input hub like the one pictured above
ComputerWorld writer Seth Weintraub posits the brick is a wireless USB hub similar to one already on offer by Belkin:
iPhoneSavior thinks it’s possibly a redesigned Mac Mini:
The Mac scientists at MacEnstein wonder if we can simply look for a Windows-killer. Hint: How do you break windows? With a brick.
As Apple fans digest T-Mobile’s announcement of its G1, analysts say the handset starts with an immediate deficit: brand awareness.
“I think the most important point is that although Google is a familiar name for many consumers the brand power is not the same as Apple,” Gartner research director Carolina Milanesi told Cult of Mac Tuesday.
Milanesi said most people don’t know what Android is or G1. “You sure cannot say that about Apple,” the analyst said.
American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu says Apple’s Friday recall of iPhone 3G ultra-compact power adapters is a “minor speedbump” and affects “only a small number of users.”
In an advisory to clients, Shaw writes a check with supply chain sources finds “little disruption” in sales of the iPhone 3G 8GB. In fact, some AT&T stores are running out of supply, he said.
Shaw said Apple faces a “headline risk” from negative publicity surrounding the potential danger of defective USB power adapters. However, Apple retains its positive customer support image by offering free exchanges.
The reaction from the recall will further be lessened because many iPhone users opt for a USB cable to charge their device, much as they do to sync content with iTunes.
The analyst said he maintains a “buy” rating on Apple of $205.
In a related development, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster increased to 5 million his estimate for iPhone sales during the quarter ending Sept. 30. Munster had previously expected Apple would sell 4.1 million handsets.
Apple will sell 5 million iPhones by the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, Sept. 30. That’s the word from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster Monday. The new estimate is higher than the 4.1 million handsets Munster had previously projected.
The analyst told clients he is “incrementally more confident” in Apple sales after market researchers at NPD Group said earlier this month Apple had a 32 percent jump in growth. Wall Street had predicted growth of around 25 percent.
However, Apple CEO Steve Jobs may not get his wish of 10 million iPhone sales by the end of the calendar year. Adding the 5 million Munster expects for the fourth quarter with the 2.4 million iPhones sold earlier in the year, Apple would reach 7.4 million handset sales, according to Fortune.
Along with boosting his outlook for iPhone sales during the fourth quarter, Munster also raised his estimates for other Apple products. Some 2.8 million Macs will be sold during the period, an increase from 2.5 million projected earlier. IPod sales will also top out at 11 million, a raise from 10.8 million in sales the analyst had predicted.
In a sign of the growing importance of the iPhone to Apple’s bottom line, Munster said the phone will account for 21 percent of Apple revenue, a jump from just 4 percent during the third quarter.
Apple has issued a recall for the ultracompact USB adapter that shipped with iPhone 3Gs sold in North America, Japan and certain countries in Latin America. The rectangular metal prongs that insert into a wall socket have shown enough of a propensity to break off, exposing users to the risk of electric shock, the company was spurred to offer redesigned adapters free of charge.
Web replacement forms went up on the Apple support site Friday; replacement adapters are expected to begin shipping on October 10. You can also exchange adapters at Apple Retail stores beginning October 10, according to the Apple communication.
Replacement adapters will feature the distinctive green dot shown below.
UPDATE: Initial analyst reaction to the recall news indicates this is more of a tempest in a teapot than a black eye for Apple. Shaw Wu of American Technology Research commented that while the threat of electric shock is a “negative” with the potential for “headline risk,” the number of people likely to be affected by the faulty adapters is believed to be minimal. The recall can also be viewed as a customer service coup for the company, which keeps its standards high by “doing the right thing” and offering free replacements.
The humorous side to this development, if there is one, was highlighted by a commenter on the MacRumors forum, who wrote, “I thought the sparks meant it was working.”
Apple has denied AppStore certification to a third party developer’s mail application that the company says “duplicates the functionality” of the iPhone’s built-in Mail app. Angelo DiNardi’s MailWranger app claims to let users check multiple GMail accounts without manually logging in and out and to provide functionality unavailable through the iPhone’s native mail application, including support for threaded views, access to Google contacts, and support for easy mail archiving.
The dispute here recalls last week’s brouhaha over Podcaster’s denial of service based on similar claims the app would “duplicate the functionality” of the podcasting functionality of iTunes. Whether MailWrangler will follow Podcaster creator Alex Sokirynsky and resort to ad hoc distribution is uncertain at this time.
By any analysis, however, Apple’s gatekeeping behavior with the AppStore seems increasingly capricious. If “duplicating the functionality” of native apps is a standard, for example, can someone at Apple explain why there are nearly two dozen tip calculators in the AppStore?
UPDATE: The t-shirts are a protest from Murderdrome, the digital comic Apple banned from the iPhone App Store. As reader Alan notes in the comments, the t-shirts were handed out as protest by infuroiuscomics.com, the Northern Irish outfit behind the banned Murderdrome digital comic.
What is this t-shirt everyone is wearing at the grand opening of Apple’s first store in Northern Ireland?
The overnight camping, high-fives and excited whooping are very much a part of grand openings in the U.S., but oddly, there’s one weird difference: Few people are wearing Apple shirts. Instead, half the crowd seems to wearing the same skull and bones shirt in either red or black.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak became fabulously wealthy using minimal resources beyond their own time and talent, working out of Job’s garage. Today, Jobs and the company he and Wozniak founded are making similar rags-to-riches stories possible with the iTunes AppStore and applications created by third party developers for Apple’s iPhone.
Steve Demeter, developer of a popular $5 iPhone game, Trism, announced he made $250,000 in profit in just two months, according to a story by Gadget Lab blogger Brian Chen. If his profits continue at their current rate, Demeter will earn $3 million by July 2009.
Demeter by no means tried to reinvent the wheel. Trism is basically a version of Bejeweled that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to good advantage, giving the game what Demeter believes are the fundamental requirements for success at iPhone app development: unique gameplay and high replay value. He also designed support for an online leaderboard that creates community and says applications with great content sell themselves, something the developer of another popular game, Tap Tap Revenge, agrees with.
Bart Decrem was one of only four people who originally worked on Tap Tap Revenge, a free application that hit a milestone of 1,000,000 downloads just two weeks after its launch. Decrem’s company recently began inserting advertisements in the game, and it also has plans to release a premium version that will cost money in addition to the free app. He says iPhone development is “reminiscent of the early days of the web in terms of the amount of green fields and opportunity,” according to Chen. “You really don’t need a huge amount of capital. You need attention to detail and product, and that’s going to keep increasing.”
Flickr user LuisDS discovered metadata on the creative copy of the “stereotyped PC user” and other photos appearing on Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” website that reveal they were produced using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3.
Microsoft code monkeys scrubbed the identifying information from the website stills overnight.
I was intrigued when I read my colleague Johnny Evans’ post about 7digital and its 4 million DRM-free tracks available in 320k MP3 quality, so I went to the site to pick up a copy of the classic Harry Nilsson album, The Point, which I’ve been wanting to buy.
I found the site easy enough to navigate, with a pleasant balance between text and graphics that seemed a refreshing change from iTunes’s hevavily-graphics-oriented interface. I located The Point quickly, listened to a couple of preview tracks and thought, hey, why not? Signing up for an account was even relatively painless and straightforward, and when it came time to give my address, I put in that of a friend who lives in London, which is when the deal started heading south. See how after the jump.
For years, Microsoft and others have attempted without much success to shake Apple’s tight grip on the digital music scene. From subscription services to the Zune, companies have searched for the winning alternative to the iTunes, iPod bundle. Analysts now believe Finland’s Nokia may have a good shot of chipping away at Apple’s dominance.
More than 80 percent of people would pay for Nokia’s ‘Comes with Music’ service – particularly when it feels like they are getting tunes for free. Nokia says it will launch the handsets Oct. 17 in Britain.
Strategy Analytics said cost and selection trump brand – even ones so tightly woven as Apple, iPod and iTunes.
“Nokia Comes With Music effectively bundles a year’s subscription of music downloads (PC and mobile) into the price of a handset,” analyst Pitesh Patel told Cult of Mac.
Patel said Nokia – the largest handset maker – could overwhelm Apple’s iPhone.
“Nokia’s strong distribution and handset marketshare means that it currently sells more music playing devices than Apple,” the Strategy Analytics wireless analyst said.
However, we are not likely to see a head-to-head battle between the two companies in the United States. Nokia instead will challenge the iPhone in Europe and Asia – areas where Apple’s name awareness gives way to the handset maker.
The key point in this dust-up is that digital music fans care little about the name on their music player.
“It turns out that brand is irrelevant,” said Patel.
Much is made of the Apple ‘halo’ which helps sell products based just on brand. However, brand consultants Interbrand Thursday put a value on the halo: $13.7 billion.
Although Microsoft again beat Apple in most valuable brand ($59 billion), the Cupertino, Calif. company had a 24 percent jump in brand value — second only to Internet giant Google.
Apple’s position rose to 24th place compared to 33rd in 2007, according to the ranking of global brands.
“The latest iPods, iPhone and MacBook Air strike the perfect balance between coolness and mass appeal,” Interbrand said in its report.
The consultancy cites Steve Jobs coming aboard as CEO as another reason for the brand’s rise in value.
Software giant Microsoft may have reasons to look over its shoulder. Although its brand value is steady, its ratings are falling.
The Redmond, Wash. company ranked in third place this year, down from its second-place showing in 2007. Rival Google, on the other hand, turned in the largest gain in brand value, leaping from to 10th position from 20th last year.
Erroneous MacBook Pro Mock-Up Courtesy Ars Technica
This has been a gangbuster summer for Apple. First came the iPhone 3G announcement in June, alongside OS X iPhone 2.0 with the AppStore, Mobile Me, and HD video in iTunes, then came a new round of incremental but strong new iPods, and amazing news about a major uptick in Mac sales during a down economy. In spite of some software issues, Apple is coming out with huge new gains in multiple markets and is healthier than just about any other tech company.
And yet, unless Apple rolls out rumored new Macs next Tuesday, all of that will start to look suspect. To find out why, click through!
Apple increased its share of notebook computers sold in North America during the second quarter to 10.6 percent, moving it into fourth spot and posting the largest jump among top computer makers, researchers said Wednesday.
The numbers compare to the 6.6 percent market share registered during the same three-month period in 2007, according to DisplaySearch. The four-point jump is the largest of the top five PC makers. Dell led the market with 21.9 percent of North American notebook sales.
After the jump, read how the Apple ‘halo’ effect is boosting business interest in Mac notebooks.
Emulating Apple’s propensity for using media “events” to unveil new technology, T-Mobile sent an “invitation” to technology press Tuesday, encouraging attendance at a New York City event on September 23rd that will mark the debut of Google’s Android smartphone and the software it’s powered by.
The event sets up the first public challenge to Apple’s domination of the touch-screen smartphone market, with the thoroughly-leaked and publicly previewed phone, once known as the HTC Dream but now called the G1. Reportedly tricked-out with features including a slide-out display that exposes a full keyboard, as well as a BlackBerry-like trackball, the phone has been rumored to be the launch device for T-Mobile’s nationwide 3G network and may also boast GPS navigation, a tilt sensor and Wi-Fi connectivity.
We hope that Wi-Fi rumor proves true if the G1 hopes to go toe-to-toe with iPhone.
The LinkedIn profile of a senior manager on Apple’s chip architecture team appears to confirm Apple is developing its own ARM processors for the next generation of iPhone, according to a report in the New York Times.
While current iPhones feature a Samsung chipset according to many analysts, Apple was rumored to have acquired chipmaker PA Semiconductor in April for $300 million to engineer custom low-power chips to meet the specific needs of iPhone and iPod design. Wei-han Lien, a member of the PA Semi team who came to Apple in the deal, lists his current project as “Manage ARM CPU architecture team for iPhone” on his profile at the popular social networking site, an indication Apple will soon quit outsourcing iPhone processors.
By developing its own ARM configuration, Apple could create a processor with support for software accelerators or a graphics engine, according to former AMD chief technical officer Fred Weber. In addition, disposing of an outside chip supplier would allow Apple to maintain tighter controls on who knows what about its future products.
As one might expect, Apple declined to comment on matters related to PA Semi, which it operates as a subsidiary.
