CBS and Disney – two television networks with strong ties to Apple – are considering a plan by the Cupertino, Calif. company to revamp how Americans receive TV programming, according to one report. Apple would like to expand its iTunes service to offer consumers major television content via the Internet.
The proposal would “offer access to some TV shows from a selection of major U.S. television networks for a monthly fee,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
With the official start of winter, we look at the few remaining days until Christmas. We start the week with three hardware deals, including a free one-day shipping offer that could rival the Macs being sold. First up is a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook for $870 from PC Connection. Next, are two more deals from the Apple Store, each offering free next-day delivery. If you still want a Mac under the tree, but have been waiting for lower prices, this may be your day. Apple has a number of Macs, starting with Core 2 Duo iMacs for $849. There are also offers on MacBooks, MacBook Airs, Mac Pro desktops and Mac Pro Xeon servers. An 8GB iPod nano for $99 from the Apple Store rounds out our top trio of deals.
As always, for details on these deals and more more, check out the CoM “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Apple seems to have been caught off-guard by the success of its App Store. Launched around one year ago, the online store for iPhone and iPod touch applications recently topped 2 billion downloads. Now an iPhone investor says Apple would have been satisfied with a fraction of the current demand.
“We had no idea there would be 2 billion downloads by October,” Matt Murphy, a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, venture capitalists that helped fund the first iPhone developers, told the Financial Times.
A widening gulf appears to be growing separating iPod touch and iPhone owners’ willingness to run the latest Apple operating system software. Only 55 percent of iPod touch users have upgraded to OS 3.0 or higher, in stark contrast to around 95 percent of iPhone owners, a survey indicates.
At the heart of the disparity appears Apple’s decision to charge iPod touch users for upgrading, while OS 3.x is free for iPhone owners. Also, many features in OS 3.0 and higher are targeted toward the iPhone, rather than the non-cellular iPod touch.
We close out this week before Christmas with more hardware deals. A 24-inch iMac with 3.06GHz Core Two Duo processor for $1,399 and a 15-inch 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, for $1,989 from ExperCom. The Apple Store is offering MacBook Airs, starting at $1,099 for a 1.60GHz 13-inch model. If you’re still looking for a deal on an iPod touch (and who isn’t?), the Apple Store also is selling an 8GB version for $149.
There are a couple deals on iPod and iPhone cases, including 80 percent off on iPod touch cases. If you haven’t upgraded to 10.6 yet, there is a bargain on a Mac Box Set with 10.6, iLife and iWork for $129.
As always, for links and details to all of these bargains and many others, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
The image of Apple’s marketplace being only within the shores of the United States appears as valid as Microsoft’s claims about Vista. The United States was tenth in the countries experiencing the most growth in demand for Apple’s handset, a new survey found Friday. Instead, Japan, France and Australia are Apple’s top three markets for its iPhone and iPod touch.
The Mobile Metrics report from AdMob said sales to Japan in 2009 grew 350 percent, while France saw a 300 percent jump with Australia close behind. The U.S. and Canadian markets showed more than 100 percent growth this year. Although U.S. growth lagged far behind the leaders, 50 percent of all iPhone and iPod touch users make the U.S. home, according to AdMob.
If Apple is preparing for a New Year’s bash, it may be with some nervousness. Android, the Google software powering Verizon’s Droid and other smartphones, may be a party-crasher, a new report says. Internet measurement firm comScore announced 17 percent of people intend to buy an Android phone within the next three months compared to 20 percent for Apple’s iPhone.
“While iPhone continues to set the bar with its App Store and passionate user base, and RIM remains the leader among the business set, Android is clearly gaining momentum among developers and consumers,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile.
The iPhone now has more than 46 percent of Japan’s smartphone market, unseating the previous most-popular smartphone in under six months, according to a report. The iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS now are the No. 1 and No. 2 smartphones in the country.
The iPhone 3G has 24.6 percent of the market while the iPhone 3GS owns 21.5 percent of the smartphone market, Japan analyst firm Impress said Friday.
We launch into today’s list of deals with MacBooks from the Apple Store starting at $749 for a 2.1GHz C2D version. The Apple Store offers free shipping on all items until Saturday, Dec. 19. Next up is the iHome iP3 studio series speaker system for the iPhone or iPod touch. The 100-watt system includes 4-inch glass-fiber woofers, 1-inch silk dome tweeters and a remote control for $239. Our last top-tier deal is a new batch of lowered prices on iPhone applications from the App Store, including Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
We round out our deal-watch with a boatload of software bargains, plus the usual assortment of Apple accessories. For details on these and many other items, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page.
Apple has always benefitted from the iPod’s “halo,” which also spurred purchases of other devices, including the iPhone and the Cupertino, Calif. company’s line of Mac computers. Can Internet bookseller Amazon do the same for ebooks? “The Kindle has definitely established itself as the iPod of the book world,” a Citigroup analyst told investors Thursday.
The Kindle, an e-book reader drawing the most attention beside Apple’s rumored tablet, could earn Amazon $1.6 billion in 2010, according to analyst Mark Mahoney. The analyst said the Kindle is having “greater than expected traction” and expects the company to sell 2 million Kindles in 2009 – up from 1.5 million previously forecast.
If you’re thinking of a flash drive for a nice stocking stuffer, you might want to pre-load it with some cool Apple-oriented ebooks. Take Control, which publishes many technology titles, is having a 50 percent off sale on its ebooks through Dec. 31, 2009.
Some of the titles include: iPhone ’09 Visual Quick Start Guide ($15), Macworld iPhone & iPod touch Superguide, Third Ed. ($12.95), and Macworld Total Snow Leopard Superguide ($12.95). All ebooks are DRM-free.
Here’s the link, which includes the coupon code for the 50 percent discount.
Apple has filed a patent application that might replace today’s mouse and keyboard with a 3D display created through tracking your head movements. The technology could permit more realistic interaction with a computer’s data or map your image onto an object.
The technology would hinge on a camera or “sensing mechanism,” according to the Apple patent recently filed.
The iPhone now has more U.S. users than Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, new research shows. Apple’s iconic handset had an average of 8.97 million users in October, compared to Microsoft’s 7.13 million. This is the first time the iPhone has led Windows Mobile cell phones in actual user numbers.
Microsoft has admitted Apple’s iPhone “caught us all napping.” Windows Mobile 7 is not expected until the end of 2010. Morgan Stanley recently said Apple has a two- to three-year lead on its competitors.
If you’re looking for a sleek and tiny external hard drive, LaCie Wednesday unveiled the Rikiki, a USB storage device able to hold up to 640GB of data. Named after the French word for “tiny,” the drive measures 4.3 inches x 2.5 inches by .5 inches and weighs just 5.5 ounces.
LaCie claims the drive is one of the smallest on the market. According to one review, the storage device beat Seagate’s FreeAgent.
As we reach midweek, we offer a variety of deals for the Mac lover. To while away the time, the Apple Store is selling a number of Mac Pro Workstations with Xeon processors, starting with a $2,149 deal on a 2.66 GHz version. For the mobile Mac fans, Apple has 8GB iPod nanos for $99. You can take that nano to a coffee shop where you can listen to a variety of MP3 songs from your free iTunes Starbucks sampler.
Along the way we also have a new batch of App Store freebies, as well as iPhone cases and other gadgets. As always, for details on these and other bargains, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
The iPhone may be the face of the future. Smartphones like Apple’s iconic handset are on target to take 55 percent of the cell phone market value in 2010, analysts said Wednesday.
Despite a faltering general handset market, smartphones will comprise 27 percent of all handsets purchased in 2010, according to the UK analyst firm Informa. Because carriers can sell smartphones at a higher price and require expensive data plans, smartphones will grab 64 percent of mobile phone revenue, the analysts said.
The connection between Apple and Disney keeps appearing, the latest link coming with news the animation giant will begin selling its classic comics via the iPhone. “We expect it to become the gold standard for comics in a digital world,” a Disney executive said Wednesday.
The Digicomics will be sold through the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as other platforms in the U.S., UK and other English-speaking nations.
Apple has a two to three-year lead over its rivals with adoption of the iconic iPhone and iPod outpacing other technology giants by up to eight-fold, Morgan Stanley analysts announced Tuesday.
Using a 92-slide presentation, a team of 27 Morgan Stanley analysts presented a seminar on “The Mobile Internet” with the stars being Apple and its users. “Apple has a two or three-year lead,” analyst Katy Huberty told reporters gathered on a conference call. That head start comes with Apple’s 57 million iPhones, 100,000 App Store entries and 200 million iTunes customers.
With 10 shopping days left before Christmas, we have a bonanza of Apple hardware bargains, ranging from MacBook Pros to iPod nanos. We start off with the Apple Store, offering more than a dozen refurbished MacBook Pro laptops, including a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo machine with 13.3-inch display for $1,299. A slightly slower (2.26GHz) C2D MacBook Pro from Expercom is bundled with 4GB of RAM and iWork ’09 for $1,317.
If iMacs are more your style, Apple has a number of the popular desktop computers, starting at $849 for a 20-inch 2.66GHz version. A faster (3.06GHz) iMac with bigger display (27-inch) from Expercom also includes 8GB of RAM and 3 years of Apple Care for $1,897.
For iPod lovers on your list, there are deals on 8GB and 16GB iPod nanos, as well as 160GB iPod classic. Along the way, we also check out the latest App Store price drops and software for your iPhone or iPod touch.
For details, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Apple was named one of the top 10 U.S. Internet brands for November, according to ratings analysis firm Nielsen. The umbrella of Apple sites or applications attracted 62.1 million people, placing it in tenth place. People spent one hour and 18 minutes on average using Apple sites, according to the research.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were ranked in the top 3, pulling 155.5 million, 137.2 million and 131.4 million Internet viewers, respectively. At more than six hours on average, fourth place Facebook had the longest-lingering audience.
Apple’s delays shipping its newest iMacs increasingly point to the Cupertino, Calif. company having trouble pushing the desktop machines out the door fast enough to meet demand. “I can’t imagine in their wildest dreams they would have thought they would sell like this,” one report quoted NPD analyst Stephen Baker.
Debate over why Apple called Monday for a two-week waiting period centered on a rash of reports of buyers experiencing defective iMac displays, ranging from yellow-tinged screens to cracked hardware. In a statement, the Cupertino, Calif. firm apologized for delays due to the iMac being “a huge hit.” The company’s announcement was devoid of any specifics, however.
As we come down to crunch time to find the perfect presents, here are a few deals that would make perfect stocking stuffers. Along with being cool, they’ll save you some hard-earned cash along the way. If you haven’t nailed down that hardware purchase, we have a $1,750 MacBook Pro featuring a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo and 17-inch screen. Every indication points to the iPod touch being another popular gift this year. To protect that investment, we have a crystal hardcase (for 2nd gen touches) for just 39 cents. After all that clicking and wrapping, how about a present that costs zilch? Apple has unveiled their latest batch of App Store freebies, including JingleToe, a Mistletoe simulator.
For details on all these gift suggestions and even more deals, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs is a finalist for Time Magazine‘s Person of the Year. Jobs, who returned to lead Apple after a liver transplant, is in third place, just two votes behind U.S. President Barack Obama (2008 Person of the Year) and trails Iran protesters.
If he won, the title would follow Jobs’ win in November as Fortune‘s CEO of the Decade. Jobs is the single business person on the annual list for Time’s year-end cover.
Apple may have back-to-back record sales for its iconic iPhone. The company is on track to sell 10 million handsets for the quarter ending late December, according to a Monday report. If correct, the sales would top the record 7.4 million iPhone Apple sold during the previous quarter.
Some attribute the rise to the iPhone becoming available in more countries and the handset being sold by multiple carriers.
“Sales of the Apple iPhone 3GS far exceeded expectations, and sales are expected to reach 10 million in the fourth quarter of 2009,” writes the Taiwan-based Digitimes. The comments are based on a 32 percent jump in orders for smartphone components.
Although traditionally cell phone makers increase their supply orders to meet holiday sales demands, those suppliers linked to Apple were singled-out as benefitting from the double-digit increases. Samsung, which makes the application processors, Infineon, maker of the iPhone’s baseband and radio frequency transceivers, and TriQuint, which manufactures power amplifiers were noted in the report.
While several rivals – most recently Verizon’s Droid – have attempted to wrest the iPhone’s buzz, so far “no one develops user-friendly software like Apple does,” analyst Charlie Wolf Monday told investment customers of Needham & Co. In his “Wolf Bytes” report, the analyst described the iPhone as the “gold standard” for smartphones.
[Via AppleInsider and 9to5Mac]
Could coal in Apple’s stocking turning into diamonds for the Cupertino, Calif. company? While reports suggest Apple is delaying shipping its popular 27-inch iMacs due to display issues, some see it as a potential bonanza. Already one of the most popular consumer items for the holiday season, the iMac could join the iPhone in record sales.
“The company may be headed for another blow-out quarter”, writes AllThingsDigital. That’s if Apple’s weekend explanation holds true.
Will an apology be enough to satisfy frustrated buyers of the new 27-inch iMacs? Over the weekend, the Cupertino, Calif. company said delivery of its popular but ill-fated large screen desktop computers may be delayed. However, missing from the statement was any mention of the iMac’s much-publicized display issues.
“The new iMac has been a huge hit and we are working hard to fulfill orders as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience or delay this may cause our customers,” Apple said in an announcement. Although Apple is delaying shipments for two weeks, some resellers are encountering ones up to two-months, according to Monday reports.
