During the Q4 financial call today, Tim Cook was asked about the future of the Apple TV and whether it will continue to be a hobby, or maybe something more. Of course Tim Cook wouldn’t talk about any future plans for the Apple TV, but he did explain why Apple is slower to make improvements to the Apple TV.
During today’s conference call, Tim Cook commented on the price of the iPad mini and explained the the iPad mini has gross margins that are significantly below the corporate average. He didn’t say that Apple is selling the 7-inch tablet at a loss, but Apple definitely isn’t going to make as much profit off each iPad mini as they’re used to with other devices.
Earlier this morning a story from Digitimes claimed that the $329 price of the iPad mini is a result of mass production issues with the screen. Considering Cook’s statements on the margins of the iPad mini and Schiller’s comments that the iPad Mini is a premium product, the iPad Mini might be one of the most competitively priced Apple products we’ve seen in the last few years.
During today’s fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reassured the press that Apple has “made a number of improvements to Maps in the past months, and will work non-stop until Maps reaches our high standards.” Apple’s new Maps application in iOS 6 came under heavy criticism out of the gate for being buggy and unreliable. Many expected Apple to release a mapping solution that was as good (if not better) than Google Maps, but iOS 6’s Maps still leaves much to be desired.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently issued a public apology for the Maps app, and Apple is temporarily recommending third-party mapping solutions in the App Store. Google is expected to launch a standalone Maps iOS app within the next few months.
Apple’s revenues, profit, and cash hoard continues to grow. Even though the amount of profits Apple earned in Q4 2012 is down from Q3, their stash of cash has grown. Looking at Apple’s growth over the last 15 years, it’s incredible to see how Apple continues to grow like crazy.
Apple is currently holding its earnings call for Q4 2012, and now we’re hearing that many of you are experiencing iMessage problems around the world. Despite the fact that Apple is saying all systems are fine on its iCloud status page, it seems that many can’t send or receive iMessages. Game Center and FaceTime also seem to be down for many in different countries, namely areas in North America and Europe.
Apple just posted some of their financial data from Q4 and to the surprise of everyone, it was another record breaking quarter. Apple sold more iPods, iPads, iPhones, and Macs than they have during any other Q4 in their history.
The numbers aren’t earth shattering, but considering that Q4 is a transition quarter, the competition should be terrified of what Apple’s numbers are going to look like during the Holiday quarter (Q1 2013).
Apple just announced its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 ahead of its conferenced call in 30 minutes. The company has reported $36 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in profit. 29.9 million iPhones 14 million iPads and 4.9 million Macs were sold.
Apple expected to earn $34 billion in revenue, so it beat its own estimate met Wall Street’s average estimate of $35-$37 billion. All of Apple’s product sales are up when compared to Q4 of last year, but the Mac only grew 1%. iPad sales also suffered because everyone has been anticipating the iPad mini that was announced earlier this week.
Looking ahead to its next quarter, Apple expects a staggering $52 billion in revenue due to the holiday season.
Official press release from Apple:
Word on the street has been that Apple is preparing to launch its own Spotify/Pandora-killer in the near future, and a new report today from Bloomberg claims that the rumored internet radio service will launch in early 2013.
Apple has reportedly been in talks with many of the major music labels for quite some time, and deals will hopefully be reached by mid-November. The details of the upcoming service remain a mystery, but it looks like Apple isn’t settling for the status quo.
I get a boat-load of email everyday. Every morning I have pretty much the same routine, skim through my inbox to try to find the important stuff, skip the cruft, and prioritize. After that skim, I need to delete most (if not all) of the cruft. Annoying, time consuming, and worst of all sometimes I miss important emails buried in the cruft. Now, I’m also very skeptical about services that interact (or intervene) with my email. I don’t want to lose or miss something important. I also don’t want spam, bacon, or cruft in my inbox either.
Enter SaneBox—Spend Less Time In Your Inbox With SaneBox (1-Year): Keep Your Inbox Clutter-Free & Your Mind Sane With a 1-Year Subscription—which after watching the intro video (below) I figured I’d give it a shot. Why not, I can try it for a couple weeks for free before I even have to enter my credit card. Yeah, well I’ve pushed a few email accounts through it this morning and…wow.
This is Rubbernet, a network activity monitoring tool for OS X. If you really need to know what’s hogging your bandwidth, Rubbernet can tell you.
HEX3's JaJa is one of the first pressure-sensitive styluses on the market, and it is also the most unique. Instead of using low-power Bluetooth 4 to talk to your iPad, it uses high-frequency sound. This not only lets it work with the iPad 1 (or any capacitive-screened device whether iOS or Android), but means that the battery lasts for weeks.
I have been testing one out for a month or so now, and some big apps have now added support. So how does it do?
Apple fans have been disappointed that the iPad mini cost $329, while other 7-inch tablets cost significantly less. Phil Schiller defended the price saying consumers will pay for a quality product. He’s right. Apple’s going to sell a gazillion iPad minis, but the reason for it’s higher price tag might have a lot more to do with problems manufacturing the touch screen.
According to Digitimes, Apple’s $329 price tag for the iPad mini is largely due to low yield rates for the device’s GF2 (DITO film) touch screen technology.
If the Apple used a real apple and an MRI scanner to make their logo it’d probably look something like this. Brazillian physician Gabriel Camargo was at work the other day, eating an apple, when a thought popped into his brain that it’d be pretty cool to create an MRI scan of the Apple logo.
So he placed his apple in the idel MRI scanner that was nearby and the result was the image you see above. Even though the placement of the bite is a tad off, we think it looks pretty sweet.
Source: WIRED
ThrowMeApp is a camera app which will magically turn your Android phone into something useful. The idea is that you keep your precious iPhone safe in your pocket and then toss your Android phone into the air as high as it will go.
The app then takes over, firing the shutter automatically and snapping an aerial shot of you. neat, right?
The iPhone camera has sparked a revolution in self-portraits – both above and below the belt. One Apple fanatic in San Francisco has turned the habit of iPhone users to say cheese into inspiration for a new kind of portrait.
Igor Capibaribe takes the nude iPhone photos people send him and turns them into one-of-a-kind art works.
The final effect is so far away from DIY nudie shots that the photos here don’t really do them justice. If you’re in San Francisco, you can check them out on this weekend at his studio. (October 26th from 6-9 pm, October 27 and 28 from 11 am – 6pm, Studio 3A 2150 Folsom Street. You can also see more on his site.)
One of my favorite things about OS X is that if the need ever arises where I absolutely have to use a Windows only application, I don’t have to borrow a friend’s PC, I can just run Windows via Bootcamp right on my Mac. It’s not something I do often, but it has happened a few times.
Parallels makes the experience even better by letting you run Windows while you’re still using OS X so you only have to taste Windows for a brief momemt. With the release of Windows 8 approaching though Parallels posted a critical and urgent advisory note today telling Mac users that they should hold off on upgrading to Windows 8 for a little while.
Just $124 will buy you the mCAMLITE, an aluminum case for your iPhone 5 which lets you attach all manner of photo and video accessories, as well as making it easier to hold.
No, this isn’t a stylish retro-camera case for fauxtographers, but it is a serious tool for photographers and videographers.
Each time Apple releases a shiny new device lusted after by consumers across the globe, workers at Chinese factory manufacturers pay the price more than anyone who waits in line at an Apple Store for five hours to shell out $329.
As soon as production of an Apple product goes into launch mode, Chinese factory workers get hit by a wave of chemical fumes, 12-hour work shifts, unpaid overtime, and even explosions, as they are hurried to assemble the device.
After over a year of rumor and speculation, we’re less than a day away fr0m the iPad mini finally going up for preorder. Starting at 12:01AM Pacific Time, the iPad mini (Wi-Fi version only) will be available for preorder on Apple’s official site, with units delivering on November 2nd.
It’s always hard to tell with a new product, but if history is anything to go by — the iPhone 5 preorders sold out within hours, and stock is still short — the iPad mini is going to be crazy in-demand. If Apple starts preorders in the middle of the night, it’s because they’re anticipating a madhouse… such a madhouse that if they held it in the middle of the day, their servers would crash under the pressure.
Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the best ways to make absolutely sure you get your iPad mini preordered right at the stroke of midnight and in your hands next Friday when it officially launches in the minimum amount of time, so you can go right back to sleep.
Wondering which iPad mini to buy? Check out our guide to finding the one that is right for you.
I confess, I was prepared to dismiss Pocket for Mac when I first heard about it.
After all, I thought: I already have Pocket on my Mac. It sits in my browser, where its life began and where I think it belongs. It is software born of the web. It should live on the web.
But I changed my mind pretty fast after trying out the native app, downloaded from the Mac App Store. Because it’s gorgeous.
Why buy a whole new stylus and carry it around with you when you could just buy a little capacitive tip to slip onto the top of your biro/ballpoint pen/pencil? That’s the thinking behind Stylus Caps.
Each time Apple releases a new product, American TV show hosts rush out with their jokes about it. Conan O’Brien consistently comes out with the best Apple jokes, and he’s got another great one with this new video that uncovers the real reason why you want to buy an iPad mini.
Source: YouTube
[polldaddy poll=6632040]
Over 45% of iPad owners are a little upset that Apple announced the iPad 4 on Tuesday. Even though the iPad 4 is a small spec bump, the iPad 3 has only been on the market for six months, making some iPad 3 owners feel like they got screwed out of having the latest and greatest iPad.
Toluna QuickSurveys conducted a study involving 2000 iPad owners, and they discovered that 50% of iPad 4 owners are upset about the launch of the iPad 4, followed by 45% of iPad 2 owners and 40% of first-generation iPad owners being upset as well.
We love DODOCase here at Cult of Mac. They are the finest of a surprising number of purveyors who makes cases that turn your iDevice into a simulacrum of the Moleskine, and now they’re doing the same by selling three new products for the iPad mini.
There’s the classic DODOCase, which starts at $59.95, the DODOCase Hardcover, which starts at $35,94, and the BookBack, which affixes the back of your iPad mini with a Moleskine-like leather and costs just $19.95.
All of Dodocase’s products for the iPad mini are available to buy now. Stay tuned for a Cult of Mac review.
Source: DODOCase
Chances are you’ve heard of the popular app iTranslate Voice that made a splash when it landed on the App Store earlier this year. iTranslate voice made it easy to quickly translate phrases and sentences, right on your iPhone.
Well, the folks at Tapity and Sonico Mobile haven’t been standing still, releasing a brand new app today called Languages that builds on the foundation of iTranslate Voice. I’ve been testing it out for the past few weeks, and it really is an incredible application.
