When Apple began accepting pre-orders for the iPad mini at 12 a.m. Pacific, I visited the store a few times to see how quickly it sold out. I didn’t buy one; I have a third-generation iPad and decided I don’t need another one. But I was curious.
To my surprise, at 12:03 a.m. Pacific, the white iPad mini had already sold out in the United Kingdom. Only the black model was available for November 2 delivery. And just over ten minutes later, it was a similar story for Apple’s U.S. online store.
Having lost its appeal against the Samsung Galaxy Tab in a High Court ruling in the United Kingdom earlier this month, Apple was ordered to publish advertisements in British newspapers and magazines, and on its website, which must say that Samsung did not copy the iPad.
The Cupertino company has now published a statement on its website, and it makes for a very humorous read. Basically, Apple quotes the judge, who said that Samsung’s tablets “are not as cool” as Apple’s, then says that despite the decision, Samsung did copy the iPad really.
Gah. Apple has jacked App Store prices across Europe, rising around 11% at some levels. This is due to local VAT increases in some places, as well as the lower value of the Euro against the dollar in recent months.
They’re here! iPad mini preorders have just gone live. We used the Apple Store app to get our order in, but the Apple.com store is now up as well. Go get your order in, because iPad mini supply isn’t going to last, then come into the comments and tell us which one you got. Me? I followed my own advice and picked up a 16GB iPad mini with Wi-Fi for $329, but I already have a 64GB third-gen iPad with Wi-Fi + LTE. What about you.
The US Copyright Office reviews the Digital Millennium Copyright Act every three years, looking at requests to create temporary changes that act as ersatz loopholes int he law, typically to address continually changing technology standards. This year, the Copyright Office allows jailbreaking of devices like the iPhone, but not for devices like the iPad.
The Office also ruled that consumers can unlock phones purchased before January 2013, but not thereafter. You’ll also be albe to bypass encryption on a DVD to use an excerpt in a non-commercial way, like in a documentary, but it will still be illegal to rip a DVD for your iPad.
The rules seem pretty arbitrary, right?
Back in 2010, Steve Jobs famously compared the 7-inch tablet form factor to the practicality of sanding down someone’s fingers. To Jobs, the average human finger would have to be shrunk by about 25% in order to properly interact with 7-inch tablet apps. “This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps,” said Jobs. It was one of those classic moments that showed his intense commitment to Apple’s idea of the ultimate user experience.
Fast forward to today, and Apple still has a thing or two to say about 7-inch tablets. Don’t let the smallness of the iPad mini fool you, Apple is firmly against 7-inch tablets because they are vastly inferior to 8-inch tablets. Apparently one inch makes all the difference.
Iceberg Interactive and Kukouri Entertainment announced today an update to adorable little war game, Tiny Troopers, in the guise of a zombie apocalypse. The update comes via Steam to the Mac and PC version, bringing endless waves of brain munching zombies and undead chickens. There will be special air-drops of new special zombie-killing weaponry dropped to lay waste to the zombie hordes, and special forces troopers to take the undead down. There’ll even be special zombies, in case the normal ones just aren’t scary enough.
The MacHeist Bundle (affiliate link) gets you amazing software for an amazing price, and benefits charity as well. Also? It’s over at midnight tonight.
That means you have enough time to purchase the bundle and still pre-order your iPad mini.
“We’re very proud to end a fantastic fiscal year with record September quarter results,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in today’s fourth quarter earnings report. “We’re entering this holiday season with the best iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod products ever, and we remain very confident in our new product pipeline.”
While Apple didn’t see a ‘blowout’ quarter this time around, things are still looking very good for the Cupertino company. Apple is still the most valuable company on earth, and its flagship products are seeing crazy growth in sales. We’ve collected all of the big numbers from today’s earnings call:
One of the biggest shockers at the iPad mini keynote was the announcement of the redesigned iMacs that are unbelievably thin. In our readers poll we were surprised that almost 50% of people were more excited about the iMac than the iPad mini. Unfortunately for all those people eager to get their hands on it, the new iMac will be in short supply when it launches.
During Apple’s financial results conference call this afternoon, Tim Cook was asked whether any Apple products will be facing any significant supply constraints over the next few months. Cook made sure to mention the iMac in particular and said that it will be “constrained in a significant way.”
Apple CEO TIm Cook briefly touched on Microsoft’s new Surface tablet during his company’s earnings call today. When asked about the Surface, Cook admitted that he hasn’t played with it yet, but it looks like “a compromised, confusing product.”
“The toughest thing you do with a product is make hard trade-offs,” said Cook. To Apple, it obviously seems like Microsoft still hasn’t figured out a good tablet experience.
“I suppose you could design a car that flies and floats, but I don’t think it would do all those things very well,” quipped Cook.
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?
