Ed Sutherland - page 34

Yet another Wall Street analyst has weighed in with a prediction on sales of Verizon’s iPhone, which becomes available to everyone Thursday. Apple and Verizon will top the 1 million mark during the first week, RBC Capital Markets’ Mike Abramsky told investors Wednesday.

Despite the iPhone 4 being available for 8 months with AT&T, the Verizon launch could threaten Apple’s estimated 1 million to 1.5 million unit initial inventory, the analyst warned. Between 3 million and 4 million iPhone 4 handsets will be sold by Verizon and its partners during the first quarter after the units become available, Abramsky adds.

Is embattled cell phone pioneer Nokia preparing to join the wave of Android followers? Some see such a move a distinct possibility following a candid memo by Nokia CEO Stephan Elop to employees. In the internal message, Elop admits Apple changed the smartphone landscape and the Finnish mobile phone maker must either join or create smartphone eco-system.

“Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we wither build, catalyze or join an ecosystem,” Elop wrote.

We start the day with a deal on an iPhone that is about as close to free as you can get. AT&T Wireless is offering a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3GS for just a penny – not counting the $36 activation fee. Also on tap is a number of cases for your iPad, including the Merkury cases and sleeves. We wrap up the spotlight with another 2-year iPhone warranty to protect your handset against drops and spills.

Along the way, we also take a look at some accessories for your iPod and iPhone, as well as 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.

If you seek a stark picture of the smartphone landscape, look no further than this graph (above) released by Asymco analyst Horace Dediu. Never mind the RIMs and the Nokia’s, the battle is down to two players: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The two platforms, each around two years, collectively have 50.2 percent of the market.

“The conquerors came with new business models and a focus on computing not telephony,” Dediu writes Tuesday. As a result the two companies have led “the most competitive technology market on the planet.”

Remember the heady days of music sales, when Apple beat the stuffing out of traditional music labels, even besting retail giant Wal-Mart as the No. 1 seller of music? Well, the Cupertino, Calif. company still leads, but the growth of music is slowing and appears to be giving way to video.

Revenue from digital music sales for the last three months of 2010 were up just 1.6 percent for Apple, falling 5 percent from the previous quarter, according to a Tuesday report. Although Apple’s digital music sales are slowing, Warner Music Group appears even further along the S-Curve; the publisher’s last quarter sales fell 14 percent, the company announced. For Apple, the next thing is digital video, where one research firm says the tech giant controls almost 65 percent of the sales.

Verizon Wireless may have sold 500,000 iPhones on the first day the Apple handset became available on Feb. 3, a JPMorgan analyst told investors Tuesday. The estimate is based on the carrier’s statement it had sold more iPhones in the first two hours than were sold on any of its previous first day events.

Analyst Phil Cusick said Verizon’s previous one-day sales record was when Google’s Droid handset became available in 2009. If Cusick’s estimate is correct, Apple is on path to break its previous first weekend sales record of 1 million sales set with the last two iPhone versions.

We start another week with deals for the iMac, iPad and iPod. First up is an iMac bundle. This Core i3 desktop machine runs at 3.06GHz and includes a 22-inch screen and 16GB of RAM. Also part of the bundle is a three-year AppleCare contract — all for just $1,497. Next is a pink faux leather iPad case with screen protector, magnetic closure and more. We wrap up today’s deal spotlight with 83 percent off on select iPod touch cases.

Along the way, we also take a look at other cases for the iPhone, 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.

It’s not often Wall Street analysts use farming analogies to explain technology stocks. However, Needham & Co.’s Charlie Wolf Monday points to the growth rate of hybrid corn to explain the rocketing popularity of Apple’s iPad tablet. Indeed, the analyst expects 35 million of all sorts of tablets will sell in 2011 – 90 percent carrying the Apple logo.

Like the growth of hybrid corn in the 1920s, outlined in Everett Rodgers’ The Diffusion of Innovations, Wolf sees the iPad as only the latest technology following the “S-Curve” of slow early growth, followed by faster expansion, then slowdown. Computers followed this growth pattern in the 1980s, as well as the iPod.

More evidence that the mobile world is smarter. Sales of smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android-based handsets, reached 100.9 million units during the fourth quarter – an 87 percent increase over the same period in 2009. Global smartphone shipments reached more than 302 million in all of 2010, a 74.4 percent rise over 2009. According to IDC, Google’s mobile operating system played a large role.

“Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market,” said Ramon Llamos, senior research analyst for IDC’s Mobile Phone and Trends unit. Android is now the “cornerstone” of many vendors’ smartphone strategies and is threatening cell phone giant Nokia.

We close out another week with hardware deals in the spotlight. First up is a batch of iPads, starting at $429 for a 16GB Wi-Fi tablet. Next is an 8GB iPod nano for just $120. We finish the top deals with a number of MacBook Air laptops, beginning with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo model for just $849.

Along the way, we take a look at some iPad cases, a bargain on a 27-inch LED Cinema Display, and more. As always, details on these items and more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

The post-mortem of Verizon Wireless’ iPhone pre-sales has begun. The carrier sold as many as 100,000 iPhone 4 handsets in the first 17 hours, one analyst projects. The early ‘sold-out’ sign “affirms the strong pent-up demand for hte Verizon iPhone, and bodes well for initial sell-through,” RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky told clients Friday.

The carrier could sell 2.9 million iPhones by March and 11.6 million Apple handsets for all of 2011, according to Susquehanna analyst Jeff Fidicaro.

The iPhone Effect. AT&T learned of it in June, when demand for the iPhone 4 sent Web sites crashing and executives apologizing. Thursday, it was Verizon Wireless’ turn. The carrier halted sales after what was described as historic demand. Even more “incredible” was the timing: 3 am to 5 am.

“It was a very good day,” Verizon Wireless president and CEO Dan Mead announced Friday. “In just two hours, we had already sold more than any first day launch in our history,” he added. This from a phone 7 months old and likely to be replaced by a newer model later this year. This at a time of day when most people sleep and just two hours after pre-orders began. This when only Verizon customers were eligible.

AT&T apparently is offering its iPhone customers free 3G Microcell service if they don’t move to Verizon. That’s the word from one of our readers, who told us a relative received the e-mail offer.

The free service is “our way of saying ‘thank you’ for your continued loyalty,” according to the AT&T ad copy. The reader was received the service immediately, a reports there were no hidden charges with the deal.

We start with a deal on a 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad for just $670. Then there is the UrbanFlip Leather iPad case. We wrap up the deal spotlight with a 1.4GHz MacBook Air for just $949.

Along the way, we’ll also check out an 8GB iPhone 3GS from AT&T for just $9 plus activation. Details on these and other bargains (such as 93 percent of on select iPhone 4 cases) can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The iPhone is only a gadget made of wires, metal and glass. However, as Verizon is learning, the Apple handset — and its enthusiastic fans — can also be a force of nature. Despite its planning and words of assurance, Verizon is being hard hit as the carrier’s Website takes a pounding from wave after wave of iPhone 4 pre-orders.

By e-mail and Twitter, buyers are reporting pages loading slowly and various errors. The dominant theme: Verizon is getting slammed. Potentially bringing a knowing smile from AT&T (remember the carrier’s formal apology over a round of pre-order snafus?), press accounts Thursday recall a fateful statement from Verizon made a year ago: “We are not going to have any flaws on the execution of the iPhone launch,” the president and CEO of the carrier’s telecom and business department said at the time.

Most in the tech world for months have expected today to arrive, as Verizon Wireless begins accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 4. However, AT&T – although it has known about the potential impact of losing exclusive rights to the Apple handset for an equal period, is still offering a flurry of last-minute reasons why iPhone owners should stay where they are.

Attempting to reach the price-conscious, AT&T has doubled the amount of data iPhone owners can consume while paying the same rate. AT&T is also offering a wireless hotspot service, similar to Verizon’s, for smartphones – at the same price of tethering to a computer. No matter this feature was first provided Android users. However, like some late-night pitchman, wait, there’s more.

Verizon has just begun taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4, and already there is concern the carrier may clamp-down on owners of the Apple handset, notorious for their use of data. The carrier reportedly is ready to reduce the bandwidth on the top 5 percent of its subscribers.

“If you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users” during peak demand, according to a policy paper obtained by a tech blog. The note surfaces amid early reviews, citing the Verizon iPhone as stable, but slower than AT&T.

We’re on the iPad’s case today — literally. We start of the day with two cases designed for the iPad. The first is the colorful iLuv case with Tatz Graphics. Next is a faux leather case. We round out the iPad accessories with a five-piece kit either for the the Apple tablet or the iPhone.

Along the way, we also check out a sportswrap for the iPod nano, an iPhone wall charger and an Apple TV media receiver. We also look at some software for your Mac, including Microsoft Office 2011. As always, details on these and many other products can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

In an ironic twist, Apple is preparing to co-host unveiling an iPad-only newspaper that could save publishers, while also releasing guidelines limiting publishers’ app subscription options. The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant – which owns iTunes App Stores for the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac – is telling publishers to stop circumventing paying Apple’s 30 percent cut on sales.

The requirement to begin March 31 – which Apple spokespeople stress is not new – forbids companies such as Sony, Amazon and presumably others with ebook reader apps – from only initiating book sales outside the iTunes ecosystem. Others, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times also offer apps but use only private billing systems.

It seems only appropriate News Corp.’s iPad-based “newspaper”, The Daily, will be officially unveiled today at the Guggenheim Museum, a repository of Post-Impressionistic artists. Like Cezanne and Manet, News Corp.’s Rupurt Murdoch and Apple’s Eddie Cue hope the application ushers in the age of Post-Print and Post-PC.

The ceremony is set to begin at 11 am Eastern, where reporters and analysts will gather to hear details of the project. So far, we only know there will be a $0.99 per week subscription cost. Will The Daily be a digital version of an actual newspaper, with staff, competition, ads and the rest? Can Apple finally find a subscription model that works both for the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant and the beleaguered print industry? Can the iTunes’ Eddie Cue really stand-in for the ailing Steve Jobs?

We start of with one of several cases available for Apple’s iPad. The TabletFlip case comes in a two-pack for just $30. Next is a deal on a Core 2 Duo MacBook running at 2.4GHz and with a 13.3-inch screen – just $910. We wrap up the spotlight with a 500GB hard drive coupled with an iPod dock (but no sync) from Buffalo.

Along the way, we’ll also check out a way to enlarge your iPhone’s screen, a two-year warranty for your iPhone and some software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deal” page right after the jump.

For some time, makers of components required to build today’s headline-grabbing electronics, such as touch-screen phones and tablets, have been eclipsed by big-named electronics firms. The times have changed and Apple is the prime example. The latest instance is a report suggesting the Cupertino, Calif. company wants to corner the market used to build high-resolution “retina” displays for the next generation of smartphones and tablets.

Apple has inked agreements with LG Display, Sharp and Toshiba Mobile Display, the three suppliers one analyst firm says makes the technology behind the new display. Competition for display components “has reached a fever pitch” straining availability, according to iSuppli.

In normal times, ARM would have headlined Apple’s use of its chips in some of the most iconic electronics sold. However, the Cupertino, Calif. iPad and iPhone maker has assumed the role of a black hole for component suppliers: felt, but unseen – and unspoken. As such, when ARM announced a 72 percent increase in fourth-quarter profits from chips destined for tablet computers, Apple was mentioned only as an “influential market leader.”

ARM’s fourth-quarter net income reached $46.7M, up from around $27M a year ago, the chipmaker told reporters Tuesday. “ARM continues to sign licensees with influential market leaders in an increasingly digital world, and as the industry chooses ARM technology in a broadening range of products, it further drives our long-term royalty opportunity,” the company announced.

Samsung may have helped Android attain the top spot in smartphone sales, but the open-source operating system from Google hasn’t done the same for the handset maker’s attempt to rival Apple’s iPad tablet. According to one analyst firm, 16 percent of Samsung Tab devices are being returned.

“Consumers aren’t in love with the device,” ITG Investment Research analyst Tony Berkman told the New York Post recently. ITG tracked sales of the Tab between its November debut through Jan. 15. By comparison, the iPad sold through Verizon, reportedly has a 2 percent return rate.

We start a new week and the last day of January with deals for the iPhone, the MacBook and the iPod. First up is the latest batch of price drops from the iPhone App Store, including “Slingo Supreme,” a game that combines slots and bingo. Next is a group of MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $999 for a 2.4GHz 13.3-inch unit. We wrap up the spotlight deals with an 8GB iPod nano (current model) for just $120.

Along the way, we also check out a deal on iTunes gift cards, including a $100 card for just $85. We also have some bargains on iPod touch cases, a mobile iPod stereo speaker and some 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.