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John Brownlee - page 77

Old iPhones Are Collapsing The iPhone’s Average Selling Price, And Maybe iPhone Profit Too

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Sales of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 are eating into the iPhone 5.
Sales of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 are eating into the iPhone 5.

Apple’s iPhone penetration strategy is to not release a lot of conflicting models, but to drop the price on previous iPhone models every time the new one comes out.

Right now, for example, Apple sells the iPhone 5 starting at $199 on contract, the iPhone 4S starting at $99 on contract, and the iPhone 4 with a two-year contract. In this way, Apple can sell an iPhone to anyone, regardless of their income level.

This strategy might be leading to negative repercussions for Apple, though, at least according to a new report, which suggests that Apple is proportionally selling considerably fewer iPhone 5 units during launch than they sold iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 units during their launch window.

Brownlee’s Thanksgiving Smorgasbord: AirPlay, Rdio, Day One, Jambox, Mr. Macintosh

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Norman Rockwell Cousin Reginald Catches the Thansgiving Turkey 1917

Happy Thanksgiving! This year to observe the holiday we asked each of our writers to tell us a bit about the things they are most thankful for in 2012: specifically, the Apple product, app, service, third-party accessory and person they most relied upon and were grateful for this year. All through the rest of the day, we’ll be posting these thanksgiving observances. Here’s Cult of Mac Deputy Editor John Brownlee’s list of the things he’s most thankful for this year. You can find the rest of our Thanksgiving Smorgasbord entries here.

Get $50 Off A Third-Gen iPad At Best Buy Today Only And A $75 Gift Card Free [Deals]

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Want an iPad? Best Buy has a great deal on the still-perfectly-excellent-and-less-than-a-year-old, third-gen model with Retina display: not only are they charging $50 less per iPad today only, but you’ll also walk away with a $75 gift card.

The deal is good today only, one iPad per customer, and you can only choose between a $649 64GB iPad WiFi in black or a $549 32GB iPad WiFi in black or white. After the discount is applied, you’re talking about $599 and $499 respectively. Shipping is free, but you have to order online.

Even so, that’s a heck of a deal: if you don’t have an iPad or have considered getting one for a loved one, you’re not going to beat this savings before the holiday.

Source: Best Buy
Via: iDB

It Will Be Easy To Buy An iPhone 5 This Christmas

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Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is saying that Apple has basically solved their iPhone 5 supply issues in the United States, and that in a couple weeks, anyone who wants an iPhone will be able to just walk into a store and buy the one they want without any chance of leaving empty handed. Just in time for the holidays!

FaceTime Over Cellular Now A Go For Many AT&T Unlimited Data Customers

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AT&T has notoriously been stingy, which made it no surprise back in August when they announced that they would only allow subscribers on Shared data plans — and not grandfathered plans — to utilize the new FaceTime over Cellular feature in 2016.

Call it an early Christmas present, call it a change of heart, but AT&T has now opened up FaceTime over Cellular to grandfathered unlimited data plans.

The Cool Space-Age Welding Technology That Lets The New iMacs Be As Thin As A Knife

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The new, ultra-thin iMacs may not be shipping yet, but they are at using cutting-edge manufacturing and fabricating techniques that are right out of the space program.

Case in point? The way the new iMacs achieve their remarkable thinness is because of something called friction-stir welding, and it’s a process that’s been used in spacecraft fuel tanks and airplane wings.

Gene Munster: iPad Mini With Retina Display Will Debut In March, $2000 Apple HDTV In September [Analyst]

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Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has been one of the most outspoken proponents of the idea that Apple will release their own television, having predicted it for at least the last years every three or four months Now he’s at it again, promising a sub-$2000 Apple HDTV before the end of 2013. That’s not the weirdest thing he’s predicting though: a retina iPad mini by March, and a third-gen by September 2013.

Nokia’s iOS 6 Maps Alternative Is HERE, Available On iTunes Now

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Disappointed with iOS 6 Maps but sick of waiting Google to finally get its act together and release a native Maps app on the App Store. Good news: another big name in maps, Nokia, have launched their own native maps app for iOS today. Called Nokia HERE, the app leverages Nokia’s decade-long expertise in mapping and brings it to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, while also offering cool new features like Facebook integration, turn-by-turn directions, the ability to save maps for later, transit directions, and more.

This Is Hacking! Vintage Macintosh Portable Now Runs OS X [Video]

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Ah, the venerable old Macintosh Portable. First introduced in 1989, the $6,500 wasn’t just a milestone in that it was the first battery-powered portable Mac, but it was also the first laptop ever used to send an email in space.

I’ve always been fond of the cute, suitcase-y design of the Portable Macintosh, so I’m delighted to see that some industrious hacker has given it a new life by gutting it and transplanting the innards of a Toshiba NB100 netbook inside. Some truly advanced soldering later, and you have, for all appearances, a pristine Macintosh Portable that can also run OS X Mountain Lion.

Check out this full video tour…

What If The Hobbit Used iOS 6 Maps? [Humor]

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As everyone who has ever read J.R.R. Tolkein’s classic fantasy novel, The Hobbit, knows, Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Thorin Oakshield and a company of twelve other dwarves make their way from Bag’s End to the Lonely Mountan to battle Smaug on a journey by way of Rivendell, the Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains.

Here’s what the actual trip looked like. Thank goodness they didn’t trust iOS 6 Maps as their navigator, right?

Via: Bullz-Eye

The iPhone 5S, Fifth-Gen iPad Could Debut Next Summer, 2013 [Rumor]

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Right now, if Apple sticks with a yearly product release cycle, all of Cupertino’s major products are scheduled to debut next year in October. The iPhone 5S. The iPad mini 2. The iPad 5. New iPod Touch. New iMacs. New MacBooks. All released right before Christmas.

It’s hard to believe that Apple would actually release all of their new products in October next year, though. It not only makes for a boring road map, but it positions all of Apple’s new products during the most expensive holiday of the year: if people want to get, say, a new iPhone and an iPad next year, they might have to choose one or the other, instead of getting both at launch during a more staggered road map.

That’s why there’s something about the latest Digitimes report that makes sense to me: they say the iPhone 5S and next-gen iPad will come out in the middle of next year, or around June or July.

The Worst Name For An Apple Store Specialist Ever [Humor]

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Can you imagine being this poor Apple Store specialist, Mr. Sam Sung? The glowers of suspicion, the titters of ridicule he must have to endure? But he’ll show them. He’ll show them all as he conducts his job with ruthless efficiency, schooling Apple Store customer after Apple Store customer in his way of doing things. The Sam Sung Way.

Source: The Loop

Watch Jony Ive Talk About The Future Of Apple Design Back In 1997 [Video]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GIFdBp8rbtA

This video of a young Jonathan Ive talking about the design of the famous 20th Anniversary Macintoshi back in 1997 is hypnotic for a number of reasons.

At first, it’s just kind of cute, watching Jony Ive standing next to this bulky plastic all-in-one and talking about it with the same intensity as he would talk about designing the iPhone 5, but then you get sucked in, and despite your first impressions actually starting to appreciate what he was trying to accomplish, and see the same echoes and reiterated design philosophies extending forward in time, right down to the latest iMacs. Everything Ive was trying to do then, he’s still trying to do with Apple’s latest products.

Via: iPhone in Canada

What It’s Like To Have A Beer And Fix A Car With Steve Jobs

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Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is filled with a lot of personal anecdotes about what the charismatic Apple co-founder and ex-CEO was like in his personal life… and most of them were not very good at making Jobs look likable or human.

That’s why I was grateful to see this thread pop up on Quora, in which Tim Smith, the principal at the Applied Design Group talks about the time that Steve Jobs, his son and Laurene Powell Jobs tried to fix his car back in the 1990s… along with a mysterious man in a tuxedo who looked eerily like James Bond.

Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs Biopic Will Take Place Behind The Curtain Of Three Different Apple Keynotes

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Steve Jobs before unveiling the original Macintosh back in 1984.

Famed screenwriter and producer Aaron Sorkin’s background is in the theater, and started his career as a promising playwright before going on to write such films as A Few Good Men and The Social Network, along with television shows like Sports Night and The West Wing.

Sorkin’s theater background is worth keeping mind, given the latest revelation he has dropped concerning the plot and structure of his upcoming bio-pic based on the life of Steve Jobs.