Ed Sutherland - page 32

Despite the iPad 2 introduction lacking a lower price, analysts Thursday view the updated tablet as a ‘critical catalyst’ helping Apple maintain its lead in the tablet marketplace.

“We believe the iPad 2 introduction and the June iPhone refresh will serve as critical catalysts in the coming months,” Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope told investors. Although Goldman Sachs had assumed a lower selling price would also be unveiled, the analyst firm still believes Apple will maintain – or even grow – its current lead.

Details of the next-generation iPad “are in line with expectation,” however an early shipping date caught some analyst off-guard, one prominent Apple analyst told investors Wednesday afternoon.

The additional news that Apple had sold the 100 millionth iPhone also mirrored Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s outlook for 16.2 million sales of the iconic handset during the March fiscal quarter.

The lack of any price change or “evolutionary additions” to the initial iPad likely means the first tablet will be phased out quickly, ABI Research analyst Jeff Orr noted. Although the addition of video cameras, a dual-core processor and HDMI video output keeps the iPad 2 in the running with other tablets, it is really Apple’s ecosystem and integration with other Apple products that differentiates the company, Orr said.

The absence of a lower price is because Apple “feels they have a lack of competition,” Orr told us.

Reactions are mixed on Apple’s iPad 2 announcement. Although the new iPad held some surprises, what most caught the eye of analysts we talked with was that CEO Steve Jobs, out on medical leave, showed up to unveil the next-generation tablet. The announcement “started as an A+ for Steve Jobs presenting and the testosterone contained within the presentation,” Giles Nugent, instructor at the SAE Institute, said by e-mail.

The announcement of front and back cameras, dual processors, faster graphics and more movement sensitivity, also matched Motorola’s recently-released Xoom tablet feature-for-feature, Nugent adds. “In terms of the iPad, I would say it met expectations, but didn’t necessarily surprise anyone.”

We start the day with more deals on iPhone applications, including “Dr. Seuss Senders,” a collection of 100 cheery quotes to share. We also take a look at a free iPhone and iPad app, “Mad Skill, Motocross.” Finally, if you (or your significant female other) are an iPhone (or even iPad) owner, why not check out this “Slide to Unlock” women’s babydoll t-shirt?

Along the way, we take a look at more iPhone cases, as well as a desktop iPod dock and radio from Yamaha. As usual, details on these and many other items follow the jump.

Just ahead of Apple’s upcoming iPad 2 announcement, Random House has begun populating the iBooks Store with such titles as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The news comes just after the larger publisher announced it had agreed to the Cupertino, Calif. company’s “agency model” for pricing e-books sold to iPad and iPhone owners.

Earlier this week, Random House said it had adopted Apple’s pricing method for e-books partially at the request of book stores hoping to sell more electronic books to support lagging sales of physical titles. The tech giant has required publishers to adopt the “agency model,” where booksellers receive a 30 percent cut. Some publishers had objected, instead preferring Amazon’s tactic of selling e-books at a loss, hoping the increased demand for electronic reading material would boost its Kindle e-reader.

As everyone awaits Apple’s announcement about the next-generation iPad, the Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly is gearing up to sell 6.5 million of both the new tablet and the initial product during the first quarter of 2011. The tech giant could ship 40 million of the popular devices during the full calendar year, the Wednesday report adds.

Possibly preparing for heavy demand and hoping to not repeat shortages seen for the first iPad, Apple has between 300,000 to 400,000 iPad 2 units for the initial San Francisco, Calif. launch, slated for today at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. The company has reportedly already ordered between 1.7 million and 2 million iPads during the first two months of the year. Apple in March is expected to order more than 2 million of the iPad 2 devices.

We start March with two iPhone app deals and a MacBook bargain. First up is a new crop of free iPhone applications, including “3D Pool Master.” We then move onto “Slingo Supreme,” a free casino bingo game for the iPhone. We wrapup the spotlight deals with a 2.1GHz 13-inch Macbook for just $570.

Along the way, we also check out iPad cases and warranties, along with a $849 27-inch LED Cinema Display. As always, details on these and many other Mac items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Add another potential announcement to the already long list of items we are expected to hear from Apple Wednesday: iBooks. Random House, one of the largest publishers of physical books, is now ready to accept Apple’s “agency” pricing model for ebooks sold through the Cupertino, Calif. company’s iBookstore.

The publisher, the lone holdout, said starting today, it will change its pricing to meet Apple’s requirement that booksellers get a 30 percent cut of the e-books’ retail price. The shift toward Apple’s position is hoped to increase e-book sales from iPad owners. The Apple tablet is competing with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook, among other e-readers.

Wednesday’s Apple announcement, widely expected to include an updated version of the Cupertino, Calif. company’s wildly-popular iPad tablet, will be “crucial” for the tech giant to maintain its lead against rival products, one analyst said Tuesday.

“We believe Apple must make a convincing case for why the iPad 2 is better than the plethora of competitors coming to market, while at the same time persuading iPad 1 buyers to upgrade to iPad 2,” Ticonderoga Securities’ analyst Brian White told investors in a note. Why the importance? The tablet provided 17.2 percent of the company’s revenue during the first quarter of 2011 – and the figure is rising.

There’s an old saying which allowed Mac computer users to sleep while Windows fans dealt with swarms of pesky malicious hackers : security through obscurity. However, now that you can’t go a day without hearing or reading about Apple, that maxim may be wearing thin. Security researchers now report hackers have a way to remotely send commands to your Mac OS X computer.

Although security research firm Sophos wants to call the Trojan the “OSX/Musminum-A”, hackers involved prefer “Blackhole” RAT, or Remote Access Trojan. Whatever the name, the security exploit could allow hackers to control your Mac, even displaying a fake “Administrator Password” window. However, before you hit the defcon-3 button, there are some details you might want to know.

We start another week and the last day of February with deals for your iPhone and Mac. First up is a new crop of reduced prices on Apps from the iPhone App Store, including “Cartoon Wars 2.” Next is the iPhone Puzzle game “LetsTans Deluxe – at free, it is a $3 price cut, Finally, another chance to get the game “World of Goo.” Fast becoming a classic on gaming platforms such as the Wii, now there is a version for your Mac.

Along the way, we’ll take a look at various iPhone docks, bumpers and cases for your iPad. As usual, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

As expectation builds that Apple will soon announce a new version of its original iPad, one financial house projects the overall tablet market will become a $35 billion business by 2012, with more than a third of the devices reducing demand for netbook and notebook PCs.

“We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments,” JPMorgan Securities analyst Mark Moskowitz told Reuters Monday. More than 35 percent of the tablets will cannibalize the market for low-cost netbooks and notebook computers.

The old joke about technology is that if you want to setup that new gizmo, go get yourself a 10-year-old. We saw electronics retailer Best Buy follow that bit of wisdom with its consumer-oriented Geek Squad, an army of white-shirt and clip-on bow tie experts that could install that wireless router or a flat-screen television for a price. Apple is doing something similar by exporting its retail Genius techs for small business. The Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly will unveil Wednesday Joint Venture, a $500 per year service with the motto: “Get Setup. Get Trained. Keep Running.”

Sunday retail employees reportedly received word of the new service, which could be launched along with Apple’s much-rumored next-generation Apple iPad 2 during a San Francisco, Calif. media event. The new service would be offered to businesses purchasing a Mac, covering five systems with more unit support costing an additional $99 per year.

Maybe its a need for Silicon Valley to compete with the Oscar ceremony this weekend in Los Angeles. Maybe its just a slow news day. For whatever the reason, people have gone through Apple’s SEC Form 8-K and discovered almost 4.8 million votes against keeping Steve Jobs on the Cupertino, Calif. company’s board of directors.

Although the Apple co-founder kept his chair, a relative unknown outvoted Jobs as perhaps the most popular board member. Despite not appearing all in black or unveiling some of the sexiest technology, Ronald D. Sugar garnered the most share votes for re-election to the Apple board of directors.

Analysts began to weigh-in on the import of Apple’s update of the MacBook line. Along with more powerful processors and the souped-up Thunderbolt connection, the Cupertino, Calif. company may also get a boost – on Wall Street.

“Every incremental 100,000 portable Mac units would add about two cents per share in EPS in [the second quarter of the fiscal year], assuming a slightly lower gross margin,” UBS analyst Maynard Um wrote. There are six weeks remaining in the second quarter.

We start the day off with Apple’s five just-introduced MacBook Pro laptops. The units each included the new 10Gb Thunderbolt i/o port, as well as Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors. The machines start at start at $1,199 for a 13-inch 2.3Ghz i5 product. We also take a look at the latest batch of iPhone App Store freebies, including “Fruit Slayer,” a fruit-slicing game. We wrap up the daily deals spotlight with more price cuts from the iPad App Store, including “Lars,” a ‘retro-platform’ game.

Along the way, we take a look at hardware deals and more apps for the iPhone and iPod nano. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

In the flurry of commentary about Apple’s release of its long-awaited update of the MacBook Pro, along with talk of new graphics and the FaceTime HD camera is word of a next-generation data transmission technology, known as Thunderbolt. The new port comes with a lighting-bolt icon, providing data speeds of up to 10 Gbps.

The first hint of use for the fast-lane built by Intel and Apple is the FaceTime HD camera, offering 720p video chats and triple the resolution of previous MacBook Pro cameras. However, there could be more uses for Thunderbolt.

After hints China engineers had ‘jailbroken’ the Verizon CDMA iPhone to operate on that nation’s networks, now comes word China Telecom may offer customers the new iPhone as soon as June. A key breathrough appears to be the decision to “burn” subscriber identification onto the unit instead of a SIM card, lacking in the Apple CDMA iPhone.

The iPhone 4 first undergoes testing in Guangdong then will be available to Beijing consumers, according to news agency Xinua, citing unnamed sources. Instead of visiting China Telecom offices, subscribers will be able to activate the handset over the air. Photos of a working CDMA iPhone 4 connected to the carrier’s 3G network were also published.

We start off with deals for the iPhone and iPad. First up is a batch of free iPhone applications, including “The Thumb,” which claims it will help you increase your typing speed. Next is a number of iPhone applications with reduced prices, such as “National Parks HD,” a database of trail maps. Also, there is a bit of hardware for your iPad gaming. The JOYSTICK-IT comes in a two-pack and sticks over the on-screen control pad.

Along the way, we also take a look at other Apple gadgets, including cases for your iPhone and iPad, as well as software for your Mac. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Although the public is used to seeing Steve Jobs as the face of Apple, a growing number of consumers are comfortable purchasing products from the Cupertino, Calif. company even if the iconic iPod salesman is not at the helm. That’s the finding of a recent survey comparing consumer reactions to questions surrounding Jobs’ health.

Some 93 percent of people questioned in a RBC Capital Markets and ChangeWave survey said a change of Apple leadership would either have no impact or would not alter their buying choices. This compares to a June 2008 survey finding 18 percent of people would be less likely to purchase Apple products if Jobs left the CEO position.

Despite Apple’s recent 6.8 percent drop in share prices, the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone and iPad maker has a bright future, one bullish analyst told investors Wednesday. “We believe a sustainable 25-30 percent growth rate in earnings could be achievable through 2015,” writes Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster.

Why? He believes the iPhone will grow at 35 percent a year, selling 200 million handsets in 2015 – with the iPad expanding at an even faster pace. Backing up his claim, the analyst offers the iPhone’s dramatic audience increase since bursting onto the smartphone scene in 2007.

We start with some free apps for your iPhone. The iTunes App Store is offering a number of new iPhone and iPod touch apps for free, including “uClock,” a binary clock. Also on tap, as speculation swirls Apple is readying a revamp of its MacBook Pro, the Cupertino, Calif. firm is offering several MacBook Pros, starting at $999 for a 2.4GHz model. We wrap up the spotlight with AT&T selling 8GB iPhone 3GS handsets for just one cent — plus the $36 activation fee.

Along the way, we check out more iPhone 4 cases, deals on iPod touch cases and software and accessories for the iPhone and Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The rumor mills are spinning about what many expect to be a new MacBook Pro appearing this week. Now comes hints (although couched in qualifiers) that the iMac may also get a face-lift, concentrating on its screen. The all-in-one desktop unit was last updated in July 2010, when Apple unveiled the addition of Intel’s i3, i5, and i7 family of processors, along with ATI Radeon graphics for a starting price of $1,199.

Tuesday, Taiwan-based industry publication Digitimes cited “supply chain sources” that the Cupertino, Calif. company “may also launch its new iMac along with its MacBook, and the company may also make some changes over the screen size allowing panel cutting to reach its optimization.” In December, the publication reported a new iMac could be released in the first half of 2011.

Amazon has released a new series of television advertisements continuing to stress its Kindle e-reader is the future – not the Apple iPad. You may remember in our last episode, we left the pair on a beach where the Amazon device was played by a gorgeous woman and the iPad a nerdy guy. When we return, the Kindle is still the happy-go-lucky successor to the printed book and the iPad is still a bulky gadget with a screen full of glare.

Although the Kindle is a one-trick pony (albeit done very well) and the iPad can tackle a multitude of tasks, the Seattle-based Internet book-seller is taking advantage of the current tiff between Apple and publishers, as well as growing signs readers are moving towards the e-reader. In the new 30-second commercial, Amazon highlights the Kindle’s portability, its 30-day battery lifespan and its light weight.

We start off another week with a new crop of price cuts from the iPhone App Store, along with an iPad app and a bargain on a 27-inch LED Cinema Display for your Mac.

Along the way, we also check out some music accessories for your iPod, a carbon fiber skin for your iPhone 4 and software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.