Ed Sutherland - page 33

We wrap up another week with more iPhone applications. A number of apps are available with lower prices, including “Paperboy,” a port of a 1980s arcade game. From the absolutely free bin comes several other apps, such as the value comparison application “Comp and Save.” We also take a look at some iPod touch deals, including one 8GB unit for just $149.

Along the way, we also check out some discounts on iPhone 4 cases, some travel charges and software for the Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

They are labeled geniuses, they surround themselves with the coolest gadgets pushed by a tech giant who’s CEO has become a Silicon Valley rockstar. But does working at an Apple retail location match all the hype? An anonymous Apple retail worker gives a magazine interview, where he says “sometimes the company can feel like a cult.”

“They give us a little paper pamphlet, and it says things like — and I’m paraphrasing here — ‘Apple is our soul, our people are our soul,’ the employee tells Popular Mechanics. “There was this one training session in which they started telling us how to work on our personality, and separating people into those with an external focus and an internal focus. It was just weird.”

Apple once again may be the focus of federal regulators. The Cupertino, Calif. company’s recent decision to require publishers to offer subscriptions through the App Store — providing a 30 percent cut for the tech giant — has prompted an initial antitrust investigation by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Although publishers seeking to sell magazine, newspaper and music subscriptions to owners of iOS devices can pitch services on outside websites, the new rules require companies offer iTunes as an alternative at the best available price. Traditionally, publishers offer tiered pricing based on where products and services are sold.

We start the day with some deals on iPhone and iPad applications. A new crop of iPhone app freebies includes the Talking Dragon, an interactive character. For the iPad is a new selection of applications with price reductions, including “Mad Skillz Motocross.” We also take a look at a number of iPad bargains, including a 16GB Wi-Fi tablet for $459.

Along the way, we also check out some Macs, including a 6-core Mac Pro running at 3.33GHz. The bundle also comes with 8GB of RAM and software for $4,081. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The Apple halo. Once seen as a way to boost products, the magnetic power of Apple’s complete iOS family – the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad – are now helping the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant blow past anemic PC sales. The latest evidence: Mac shipments in December 2010 rose 23.5 percent – seven-fold the PC market’s 3.4 percent. The iPad, again, gets the credit.

“The halo effect emanating from the iPad will be even stronger than the iPhone halo effect in the business market if only because the iPad is a kissing cousin of Apple’s family of notebook computers,” said Needham analyst Charlie Wolf. Just how strong the halo has become is glaringly obvious when you break down Apple’s success in various markets.

Apple reportedly has 60 percent of touch panel components under contract, potentially resulting in a “tight supply” for rivals of the Cupertino, Calif. firm’s iPad. As a result, companies such as HP, Research in Motion and HP are muscling out “second-tier” tech firms and prompting a potential 2011 shortage of glass capacitive touch panels for the tablet PC industry.

Hoping to not repeat slow iPad sales due to tight supplies, Apple is taking a new strategy to guarantee the parts are available to meet demand. “In 2011, Apple’s strategy of taking up most of the capacity should help the company quickly expand its sales, while reducing its competitors’ shipment growth,” writes industry publication DigiTimes.

We start the day with a new crop of App Store deals. First up are several applications marked down to $0, including “Piggy Woogy,” a puzzle game for your iPhone or iPod touch. Next are several iPhone apps which have been marked down in price, such as “Camera+”, a photo-taking utility. We wrap up the spotlight with an iMac bundle which includes a 27-inch i7-based desktop machine running at 2.93GHz, together with 16GB of RAM for $2,449.

Along the way, we check out another iMac (2GHz and 17-inch screen), along with more iPhone apps and assorted accessories and software for your iPhone, iPod and Mac. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Increased demand for the iPad helped Apple push past HP to become No. 1 in mobile PC shipments with 17 percent of the market during the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a research report released Wednesday. Apple shipped 10.2 million notebook and tablet PCs combined, almost one million units more than the market-leading PC maker, DisplaySearch announced.

“While we anticipate increased competition in the tablet PC market later this year with the introduction of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, Apple’s iPad business is complementing a notebook line whose shipments widely exceed the industry average growth rate,” Richard Shim, senior DisplaySearch analyst, said in a statement.

Although Apple designed its CDMA iPhone for the U.S. market and carrier Verizon Wireless, workers for China Telecom say they’ve ‘jailbroken’ the domestic iPhone 4.

The “CDMA iPhone 4 has made its first call in China,” a group of employees at the carrier’s Guangdong branch writes on a blog, according to the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. The blog post is accompanied by a photo of a Verizon Wireless iPhone apparently jailbroken by the Mac version of Greenpois0n.

Although many see problems with Apple’s new in-app subscription policy, some Wall Street experts view the mandate handed down as a boon both for the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant and businesses looking to attract iPhone, iPad and iPod users. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White sees the subscription rule as an “incremental positive” while increasing the value of Apple’s “ecosystem.”

Subscriptions, White writes, will “extend the reach of [the] Apple ecosystem.” The new policy, requiring publishers to provide iTunes as an in-app subscription option, “offers content providers a deep customer base and a more innovative way to transact business.”

We start today with a number of deals on unibody MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $999 for a 2.4GHz model. Also on tap: a MacBook Air laptop powered by a Core 2 Duo chip running at 1.86GHz for $1,318. We wrap up the daily spotlight with the Otterbox Defender case for the iPhone 4. The case includes a belt clip and access to the camera lens, dock connector port and home button.

Along the way, we’ll also check out other bargains, including a faux leather iPad case, plus software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

One analyst firm brings up an interesting reason why HP may want its TouchPad to succeed: tablets are reducing the need for printers and profit-rich print supplies. That’s the word from a Wall Street research company predicting tablet could shrink corporate and business printing demand by two percent to five percent in 2012.

“Printing behavior is structurally changing; we expect a reduction in enterprise and commercial printing,” according to a Morgan Stanley report on tablets. HP is one of the printing firms expected to be most affected by the move to tablet. Other printer makers facing cuts due to the influx of tablets: Lexmark and Ricoh.

Remember when AT&T made bundles of cash hawking the iPhone, which only ran applications designed for Apple’s mobile platform? That appears to be a distant memory now that the carrier losts its iPhone exclusivity to Verizon. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson Tuesday told a crowd in Barcelona, Spain all apps should run on all smartphones. Additionally, carriers should have their own app store as an alternative to Apple’s, Android’s and RIM’s.

“You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, you have to buy it again,” the AP reports Stephenson saying in a keynote speech at the Mobile World Conference, a gathering of mobile phone industry players. “That’s not how our customers expect to experience this environment,” he adds.

We start off another week, this time with the iPhone in our deal spotlight. First up is a new crop of price cuts on iPhone apps, including “Fotopedia Nat’l Park,” a photo database of U.S National Parks. Next is a Google Apps Browser, an unofficial application for the iPhone and iPad, giving you access to the various applications, such as Gmail, Google Reader and Google Voice. We then wrap up on the featured bargains with N.O.V.A. 2 (that’s Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance for the uninitiated) for the iPhone and iPod touch.

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

More deals from the supply front, as Apple reportedly inks a deal worth $7.8B with tablet rival Samsung to supply components for the upcoming iPad 2 and other mobile devices created by the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant. The report follows earlier talk the tablet maker had signed agreements with several manufacturers in a bid to corner the supply of parts required for a high-resolution ‘retina’ display.

This latest agreement reported by the Wall Street Journal would make Samsung Apple’s largest supplier, something which has raised eyebrows. Samsung makes the Android-based Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet, which are alternatives to Apple’s MacBook and iPad.

It’s not often Apple and the corporate boardroom are mentioned in the same sentence, but an increasing number of analysts say the Cupertino, Calif. company’s iPad is a big hit with business. As CEO Steve Jobs puts it: “We’ve got a tiger by the tail…”

Apple’s secret weapon in what Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes calls “the consumerization of IT” is the infiltration of the iPad, iPhone and other products not originally aimed at the enterprise. And as for the iPad, the tablet is “running far ahead” of competitors, making competition for corporate dollars Apple’s game to lose, according to the analyst.

We close out another week with an iPhone extravaganza in the spotlight. First up is the latest crop of iPhone application price cuts, including “Toy Story Mania.” Next is a new batch of freebies from the iPhone App Store, such as “Garmin Pilot My-Cast Aviation,” a weather and flight-planning tool. We wrap-up with a deal on Verizon’s iPhone 4, which began sales to the general public Thursday.

Along the way, we check out cases for your iPad, deals on MacPros and iMacs, along with software and accessories. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Nothing like a fresh round of recriminations from the music industry against Apple’s dominant digital delivery platform, iTunes. The latest round comes from Sony, which hints it may pull the likes of Bob Dylan and Beyonce from Apple following a dust-up over the Cupertino, Calif. company’s rejection of Sony’s ebook reader application.

In an AdAge interview, Sony executive Michael Ephraim charges music publishers are looking for alternatives to iTunes. (Sony just happens to own one of those alternatives, “Music Unlimited”, which the company plans to launch.) In addition, Ephraim asks and answers whether the music giant will continue selling titles at Apple.

What does Nokia’s decision to junk Symbian for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 mean for Apple? The view on Wall Street is that the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone maker will stay strong – and its strength only increase the longer the Finnish cell phone maker waits to release handsets.

“The more time it takes for [Nokia] to launch their product, the tougher it will be for them to compete against iOS and Android-based devices,” ISI analyst Abey Lamba remarked Friday. Lamba expects Apple “will remain the leader.”

Apple is among only two notebook makers in early 2011 experiencing strong demand, with the Cupertino, Calif. firm doubling orders for some “hot-selling” MacBooks, according to a Friday report. The news follows indications the Apple notebook was “flying off the shelves” during the holiday buying period.

HP was the only PC notebook brand seeing first-quarter demand amid a flaw discovered in an Intel chipset which depressed production levels. HP could ship 10 million notebooks during this year’s first quarter – down from 11.13 million units shipped last quarter. The chipmaker says its Sandy Bridge chips won’t return to full production until April. (MacBooks should see an update of the Intel chips in June, other reports indicate.)

We start off the day with a deal on the MacBook Air. The Apple Store is offering a number of refurbished MacBook Airs, starting at $849 for a 1.4GHz 64GB SSD unit with 2GB of RAM. Also on tap are several refurbished iPads with price cuts up to $100 from the Apple Store, starting at $429 for a 16GB Wi-Fi model. We wrap up the day’s deal spotlight with an iLuv iPod docking speaker for just $27.

Along the way, we’ll also take a look at other speaker units, a flip case for your iPod touch, as well as software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

As Verizon begins the first day of iPhone sales to the general public, a noted Apple analyst is projecting the carrier could sell more than 1 million handsets in the first three days, including 250,000 pre-orders from Verizon subscribers. The addition of Verizon to existing iPhone sales from AT&T “marks an important battle in the war for smartphone market share,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told investors Thursday.

Noting the Verizon iPhone sold out twice during the pre-order period, the demand outstrips both Apple’s and the carrier’s expectation, Munster writes.

Can a former Apple executive help HP’s sputtering webOS gain some respect? That may be the goal of HP’s hiring of Richard Kerris, who headed Apple’s global developer relations. The news followed a Wednesday announcement that HP is “embarking on a new era of webOS” with plans to bring Palm’s webOS (now a HP unit) to Windows PCs. In an ironic twist, the message came from HP senior vice president Jon Rubinstein, also a former Apple executive.

Kerris, who reportedly spent 2001 to 2007 at Apple managing special projects and served as the company’s senior director of worldwide devloper relations will become HP’s VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. The hiring was reportedly announced during a gathering of developers following Rubinstein’s statement.

We start out with several iPad cases, including a leather item from UrbnFlip, as well as a hard case from Philips. We also check out a number of refurbished iPod touch MP3 players, including an 8GB model for $149.

Along the way, we’ll also take a look at a number of other gadgets and software titles for your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod. As always, details on these and much more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

An obstacle blocking some publishers adopting the iPad may be just a minor issue, if a compromise offered by Apple is accepted. The Cupertino, Calif. company is now telling publishers they can send subscribers to a newspaper or magazine web site, so long as customers are given the option to sign-up through iTunes.

“Apple is basically saying, ‘Let the subscriber decide,’ knowing full well they will choose iTunes. After all, it’s simply easier for consumers to subscribe to digital publications from one place,” according to TechCrunch, citing unnamed sources.