If Sprint’s new “network enhancements” were designed to quiet complaints by iPhone 4S users, the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier may need to return to the drawing board. Following tweaks for peppier 3G downloads, many Sprint customers still complain of turtle-like connections while lusting after Verizon’s faster network.
New York State regulators are investigating whether Apple got a ‘sweetheart deal’ when it leased space for its largest store in the city’s Grand Central Station. Reportedly, Apple paid the city’s MTA $60 per square foot for space that normally leases for more than $200. Did Apple throw around its marketing muscle to gain preferential treatment? Politicians are up in arms as Apple preps the the location for a Saturday unveiling.
Despite early grumbling about how it was unveiled, users of Apple’s iPhone 4S are overwhelmingly satisfied with the smartphone, ranking the Siri voice-recognition system as their favorite feature. At 96 percent satisfaction, the iPhone 4S is Apple’s most popular handset, besting even the iPhone 4.
Here comes more evidence Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is Apple’s first serious rival in a tablet war so far strewn with the corpses of the iPad’s Android-based victims. In the first skirmish between the two tablets, the Kindle Fire is outselling the 16GB iPad on Best Buy’s website.
Not even the threat of costly early-termination fees are enough to keep many consumers from jumping ship for the newest iPhone. Some 45 percent of cell phone owners have broken their carrier’s contract in order to grab Apple’s iconic smartphone, according to a new survey showing just how loyal many people are to the Apple brand.
Yesterday, Corning announced that weak tablet sales have caused the glassmaker to cut by 25 percent its forecasted fourth-quarter sales of the tough material used to protect mobile displays. Now one analyst estimates Apple could account for up to 88 percent of Gorilla Glass sales.
Apple could offer three versions of its popular tablet in 2012 by repeating a tactic seen with the iPhone. The tech giant may introduce the iPad 3 with a high resolution screen, while also unveiling the iPad 2S for customers wanting more speed, and converting the iPad 2 into a lower-cost entry-level model.
The company making ‘Gorilla Glass,’ the tough material used by iPhones and iPads, today announced a 25 percent drop in sales due to lower demand for tablets. Corning cut its outlook after saying it will increase LCD glass production by just 5% to 10% instead of the expected 20% or more.
Our opinion of the government has never been lower, and every day there is ample proof why. Take the FAA, for example. Despite the absolute lack of evidence that your iPhone can knock a plane from the sky, passengers are still told to turn off their phones. The reason why such a Luddite-like rule exists without any proof? Because there’s no proof iPhones won’t hurt planes, either. Don’t get whiplash shaking your head in utter amazement.
Research in Motion — roundly clobbered in the smartphone and tablet market — is now trying to hang onto its core enterprise customers. It’s formula is to concede defeat by Apple and Android, then sell its rivals’ victory as a reason to stay with the Waterloo, Ont. company.
Despite being caught in Apple’s vise-like iPad and MacBook Air grip, Acer continues on with the belief there must be a market somewhere remaining for netbooks – maybe China. Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. On Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. In other words, everyone else may think netbooks suck, but they’re still good enough for those third-world citizens who don’t know any better.
If you have a teen, you know getting gift suggestions can vary somewhere between monosyllabic and “hand over the credit card”. So you don’t stroke out aimlessly wandering the malls, we offer as a public service this tip: get thee to an Apple Store. According to a new survey, Apple products are among teens’ top three most wanted gifts with almost 10 percent of teenagers.
Here’s a cautionary tale that should turn you into a hoarder: a contract of a nearly bankrupt tech company in the mid-1990s is now headed for the auction block with a $150,000 price tag. The company is Apple and the document is the tech giant’s founding contract with signatures of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne — who must be kicking himself at this very moment.
It’s probably good that Apple is in the gadget creation business and not jobs. Turns out, the $1 billion data center the tech giant built down in North Carolina created just 50 full-time local jobs, working out to around $200,000 per spot. Although iCloud and other services likely to come from the site have plenty of tech fans, you won’t find too many “I Love Apple” bumper stickers in a town with double-digit unemployment.
How did you spend your day after Thanksgiving? If you worked at any of Apple’s 358 retail locations, it was likely just a blur. Some rather outstanding statistics emerged from Black Friday sales of Apple gear, including the sale of 14.8 iPads every hour per store, and 89 every minute around the US – or 1.5 tablets each second. Stacked together, consumers bought almost a mile of iPads on the first day of holiday shopping, or a tower 900 feet taller than the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
For the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the saying about death and taxes being life’s only certainty probably rings true — particularly taxes. Laurene Powell Jobs learned she must pay $867 million in capital gains taxes and is being advised to unload millions of Disney and Apple shares worth nearly $7 billion.
Apple has a tendency to make businesses nervous — just ask the CD folks assimilated into the iTunes universe, or the companies swept aside by the iPhone in 2007. A similar nervous tick is growing in the television set manufacturing business, already skating on razor-thin margins. TV makers reportedly are snooping around for details on an Apple-designed iTV that could start production in February, but is it too late for them to do anything besides be bulldozed by Apple like so many industries before them?
It’s the crown jewel of Cupertino’s 10th anniversary in retailing: Grand Central Apple, a backdrop for the tech giant’s largest site that’s flooded with history. Although the site isn’t complete, images are leaking out, including an homage to the setting — a huge ticker above the main passageway like those from yesteryear. Instead of arrivals and departures, however, the sign urges visitors to grab an iPod for that long commute. So cool!
When it comes to huge investors who buy mammoth blocks of Apple stock, there’s only one question: what have you done for me, lately? If you want to know why product launches are so important to Apple, it’s because the launch of a new product is critical to investors who believe Apple isn’t worth a plug nickel without its latest and greatest products.
For months now, we’ve all read reports Apple’s iPad 3 will feature a Retina Display. Now we’re seeing proof pop up that an iPad 3 with a 2048×1536 display is already being tested and manufactured. But is a higher resolution screen really likely in with a device touted as slimmer than the iPad 2?
In 2012, Apple will roll out Near Field Communications technology (NFC) to their devices, allowing the iPhone 5 to finally function as an e-wallet. Big whup. Everyone’s already had that idea, even Google.
Here’s what will turn the mind-numbing technology into something that will blow your mind: NFC in the iPhone 5 will finally allow Apple to go live with their ambitious NFC-backed remote computing strategy which will totally blur the line between iOS devices and Macs.
It’s time once more to prepare for the onslaught of sales targeting Black Friday shoppers, those courageous souls able to lift themselves out of post Thanksgiving induced sleep to grab the most outrageous bargains. As a public service, we present a running account of Apple-related deals offered by retailers nationwide. We’ll be updating it through the week, so if you know of any deals we’ve missed, please let us know in the comments or better yet, email us!
If you’ve wondered why AT&T recently increased the price of the iPhone 3GS from free to 99 cents, you weren’t alone. One of the best explanations so far involves the minimal price reducing a growing amount of fraud.
Yes, the iPhone design is sleek and sexy – and the Apple device is full of jaw-dropping features. But while that may convince some, what really puts the cash in Cupertino’s pockets are those boring, unexciting carrier agreements. Indeed, 50 percent of cell phone growth comes from adding new carriers. Although Apple has inked deals with 230 carriers, that is just 30 percent of the nearly 800 global service providers.
Described as an “explosive development in the tablet market,” the holiday season could finally see a two-way race for consumers’ attention as the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire vie for nearly 90 percent of sales. In a survey of North Americans intending to buy a tablet, 65 percent said they plan to buy an iPad, while 22 percent said they would pick the Kindle Fire, according to ChangeWave Research results released Monday. Those percentages may look disparate, but the Kindle Fire is still proving to be a shot across the bow of iPad… and it could soon become a full broadside.
