Apple Inc. announced Wednesday it will release its fiscal fourth quarter report Oct. 21, possibly ending speculation how the economic downturn hurt the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Earlier this week, Apple shares dived 18 percent following downgrades by several investment houses, including Morgan Stanley. The stock recovered a day later after Goldman Sachs and Citi retained “Buy” ratings for Apple, suggesting investors went overboard in their reactions.
Analysts said Apple likely did not repeat its third-quarter figures which saw a record $7.46 billion profit, outpacing Wall Street expectations. More than 11 million iPods and 717,000 iPhones were sold during the period.
It said that “the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success”. That’s putting it mildly.
Unreleased software – or even unreleased features inside released software – is still covered by it, however.
This means the lives of software developers (and quite a few book publishers) will now be a lot easier.
That sound you can hear is iPhone devs everywhere breathing a sigh of relief.
Net Applications added another metric to the increasing evidence that Apple is closing the gap with Windows – this time online.
Macs online grew by more than 5 percent to 8.28 percent in September, compared to August, a survey of operating systems used to connect to Web sites found.
Windows, although comprising more than 90 percent of online connections, actually fell by 0.47 percent to 90.23 percent of online operating systems last month, according to Net Applications.
IPhones leapt from 0.30 in August to 0.32 percent in September, a 6.67 percent jump.
In related news, an iPhone Satisfaction Survey by the Technologizer Web site found 91 percent of participants adore their Apple device with the majority having owned the handset for 2-3 months. E-mail, the Web and SMS topped the list of most-used iPhone applications.
Here’s nicely edited footage of the opening, just a couple of days ago, of the new Apple Store in the Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikiki.
There’s also some behind-the-scenes preparation shots, of the kind you don’t see very often given how secretive Apple is, showing the build team putting the finishing touches on the store frontage just hours before the opening ceremony itself. Which includes dancing and acoustic guitars.
The Apple blogosphere is rife with renewed chatter sparked by Adobe’s Senior Director of Engineering, Paul Betlem at the recent Flash On The Beach conference in Brighton: “My team is working on Flash on the iPhone, but it’s a closed platform. If Apple says yes, Adobe will have the player available in a very short time.”
So, let’s see, getting Adobe’s closed platform to play on Apple’s closed system, that sounds like a fun game, right? Building a plug-in for a browser that doesn’t support plug-ins, what more productive endeavor could a team desire?
Of course, the Internet itself is riddled with Flash and Apple has positioned the iPhone as the must have mobile device for browsing the Internet, so there is that conflict to resolve somehow, plus, allowing people access to the gazillion online Flash games could hurt game sales in the AppStore, but Apple doesn’t see the AppStore as a significant profit center anyway (coughs), and oh yes, there’s the battery issue to resolve since Flash is such a processor hog.
Of the pieces I’ve read, I think Aviv at MacBlogz gets it mostly right, saying if Flash does come to the iPhone, Safari better get a “Flash-Off” setting.
I kinda like not seeing Flash ads on my iPhone, personally.
The BBC web site ran an interview with Woz yesterday, but to be honest there’s not much in it that the average Cult reader won’t know already.
Some of the better quotes:
“You become what you want to be in life. I wanted to be an engineer. I didn’t want to run a company.”
“Lack of resources forces you to do a lot more original thinking.”
“I wanted to do a great engineering job and every time I designed something great, several times in our life, Steve would come and say: Let’s sell it!”
The only fact in the piece that was new to me was the number of cellphones Woz owns: 10. I’m surprised it’s only 10.
Picture of Woz by Eric Rhoads, used under Creative Commons license.
Calling it the world’s first monthly comic series for children on the iPhone and iPod touch, EyeCandy is available on iTunes.
The $.99 comic, described as “goofy” by creator PJ Holden as he walks through features, can be stripped down to the ink or pencil layers for digital finger painting. It exploits the iPhone platform for sound, vibration and an accelerometer. Each issue comes with extras, like a pony toy (shake the iPhone and it whinnies) in the cowboy-themed first issue, so a lot of busy time for your buck.
EyeCandy is a heroic come back by Infurious Comics, whose MURDEDROME was rejected by Apple for sale on iTunes out of concern over adult content.
The boys in Belfast are valiantly trying to put a positive spin on the situation, describing safe for children release as “hot on the heels of the rejection” of the adult comic.
While we’re not against kiddy apps, it’s a shame there isn’t more for grown-ups who need a little displacement activity during meetings.
New from geek jeweler Irina Blok, a superb new take on the digital photo frame. Only 50 of these hand-silk screened frames will be produced, at a price of about 50 bucks each. I predict Irina will have sold the lot before the end of today.
Assuming she does, and you’re too late to get your hands on one, she has plenty of other cool stuff for you to have a look at.
There’s been a lot of hotair posted in recent hours about Apple’s apparent “threat” to pull the plug on the iTunes Music Store if it doesn’t get its way.
This is, to put it politely, nonsense.
Apple would be insane to switch off the Store now. It has invested far too much of its business in products and services that integrate with the Store to just suddenly pull the plug and go home.
The quote that has caused all the fuss is this one, submitted by iTunes vice president Eddy Cue to the Copyright Royalty Board last year:
“If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss – which is no alternative at all.”
Let’s say that again: submitted by Eddy Cue last year. This is an old comment on an old issue and in no way reflects today’s reality: which is that Apple has invested a fortune in developing a line of products (iPhone, iPod) whose future is inextricably tied up with the Store. Switching it off would be little short of madness.
Of course Apple doesn’t want to run an unprofitable Store, that’s obvious. But what should also be obvious to all is that it isn’t going to suddenly have a tantrum and switch the whole thing off if royalties have to go up. The far more likely consequence is that you and I will have to pay a few pennies more for each song we buy.
In honor of its 10th anniversary, Google has rolled back the clock as far as it can go — its January 2001 index. Though the company got rolling in fall 1998, this is the most materially complete version of the original Google that they have, and they’ve even included links to the Internet Archive to retrieve long-since dead web pages. An era before the iPod.
When you go looking for your humble Cult of Mac curators, however, it’s possible to discover a lot of proto-Cult of Mac content, most of which is extremely amusing. It’s like reading today’s Cult of Mac yesterday — but without the benefit of decent web design.
Why here’s Leander at Wired News, writing about the 2001 MacWorld keynote after years kicking around various tech publications and becoming a bicycle messenger: It’s a Mac, Mac, Mac, Macworld.
This site even tells of a prehistoric July 15, 1996 MacWeek article in which Leander reports on shocking Mac sales slumps. Damn you, Windows 95!
Other than a bunch of articles from college, searching myself only yields my earliest ever Mac tip from a MacCentral round-up of Mac celebrities that included my report on Radiohead.
Turning back the dial on Craig, meanwhile, turned up the archive of his MacToolbox column “Revert to Saved,” including this scandalous rant that Macs crash occasionally!
Ed’s history includes postings on a now-defunct and not-even archived BeOS user message board called “BeSpecific.”
Still embarrassed for them, those nice Jonas Brothers sporting purity rings at the VMAs. These Hanson clones seemed determined to make the Aughties not very naughty. At least they have cool gear.
Here Kevin picks up shirts from a dry cleaners, keeping his iPhone 3g in hand. Remember, always true to you darling, in my fashion.
Did investors react too quickly to analyst comments which sent Apple shares tumbling 18 percent Monday? Add Piper Jaffray to the list of analyst firms now calling for calm.
“We recognize investors do not see light at the end of the tunnel as market fears appear to be outweighing fundamental analysis” Piper’s Apple analyst Gene Munster wrote Tuesday.
Those fears – not including the Dow plummeting 777 points – were spurred by a spate of downgrades of Apple stock as analysts said slowing consumer sales could derail the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Web-based applications like Google’s Gmail and Apple’s MobileMe will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time and ultimately put user’s data at risk, according to Richard Stallman, founder of The Free Software Foundation and creator of the open source operating system GNU. He calls cloud computing “worse than stupidity” in an interview with The Guardian. Follow after the jump to learn why cloud computing is not such a good idea and why Apple users should already know this.
Analysts went too far with their fears Apple could be caught in the downward spiral of consumer spending. Tuesday analysts say the 18 percent fear-driven drop in Apple shares may have been ‘overdone.’
Apple shares were up 3 percent to $108 early Tuesday after Monday losing $22.98 and closing at $105.26 on Nasdaq.
Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey said Monday’s pullback “more than captures the concerns over Mac growth in a weakening spending environment.”
Yes, we know the iPhone camera is rubbish compared to most of its cameraphone rivals. But that needn’t stop people being creative with it. People like…
P0psharlow, who has created some stunning panoramic images with an iPhone and some very deft image manipulation:
Adobe appears to be pricing its soon-to-be-released CS4 suite of design tools much higher for users in the UK than for its US customers, according to a report at ITHound. For the extra £1000 the full Creative Suite 4 Master Collection is set to cost Mac users in the UK, a clever designer could fly from London to New York, buy the software in the US, and fly home, while still saving around £400.
Flickr user Sandy’s Shots! claims this photo came from an Apple employee. The black border on the screen replicates the image rumored to have been spotted earlier this month in Germany, and there appears to be some speculation about a glass trackpad and the dock that seems to be reflected – embedded? – therein.
The lull between Apple product announcements is always a fertile time for the imaginations of Apple users and, over the years has produced many compelling, sometimes laughable ideas for products the company should, or might make. Occasionally, users end up hitting quite close to the mark of what eventually makes it to the marketplace, as shown by a few of the items in this mock-up retrospective.
Images in the gallery are taken from a much larger presentation of past Apple mock-ups at Andrew Wise’s blog. Click through the thumbs for larger images.
It has no practical purpose we can ascertain, unless you count baby geek toy or dog bauble. Oh wait, the guy who made it says it’s not suitable for either of those things.
Still, it’s one-of-a-kind and uber cute. (Did I already mention that?) And, unlike the apple-shaped iPod shuffle cover in felt, which is adorable but we can’t get behind because the colors are wrong, this seems about as faithful as you can get. Using felt.
If you have to have it, bidding starts at $25 plus $5 shipping on eBay.
Aptly named “wowPod,” this giant interactive sculpture of an iPod was created by Russian artists Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin. The working iPod (inspired by this model?) with the fun-house mirror effect must especially good for those Grateful Dead tunes.
Google has released Update Engine, an open source (released under the Apache license) software update framework for Mac OS X.
Of course, there’s already a very successful software update framework known as Sparkle, developed by Andy Matuschak. Judging by this comment in his Twitter stream (“Update Engine looks much better-designed and engineered than Sparkle, though a little clunkier in a few minor ways”), he’s already impressed with what he sees.
In an announcement on the Google Mac Blog, engineer Greg Miller says: “Update Engine can update all the usual suspects, like Cocoa apps, preference panes, and screen savers. But it can also update oddballs like arbitrary files, and even things that require root–like kernel extensions. On top of that, it can update multiple products as easily as it can update one.”
So what’s the difference between this and Sparkle? As I understand things (someone correct me if I’m wrong), Sparkle sits inside each app that uses it, and is used by that app to update itself. Update Engine runs separately and independently, and uses a system of tickets to remember which apps it should monitor and when they should be updated. And, as Miller explains, it can be used to update anything, not just apps but also prefpanes and the like.
I’ll let them explain it in more detail: “The Top Draw scripting language leverages Apple’s Quartz and CoreImage rendering engines for graphical muscle. In addition to the drawing commands that are supported by the HTML canvas tag, there is support for particle systems, plasma clouds, random noise, multi-layer compositing and much more.”
It doesn’t do very much, so don’t download it and expect it to suddenly start editing photos or creating beautiful logos for you. It takes text input and renders images based on it; and for kicks, it can set the result as your desktop background, or act as a screen saver.
Still, fun to play with if messing with JavaScript is your thing. Indeed, still fun even if you have no clue about JavaScript and just want something different on your desktop.
What should we expect to hear from Apple Tuesday when it releases its fiscal fourth quarter numbers? Analysts offered Cult of Mac a preview of sorts, providing what they think CEO Steve Jobs will say tomorrow.
The overriding theme will be how Apple confronts the economic downturn which seems to be striking at the heart of the company’s consumer-oriented buyers.
Too loud, too tinny, not any good. Our fault? No, way. Rusted rockers Metallica are blaming the iPod for ruining their sound, specifically the rattle and hum on latest effort ‘Death Magnetic.’ Fortunately, the WSJ is on the case (love the stipple portrait of Rick Rubin):
“The battle has roots in the era before compact discs. With vinyl records, “it was impossible to make loud past a certain point,” says Bob Ludwig, a veteran mastering engineer. But digital technology made it possible to squeeze all of the sound into a narrow, high-volume range. In addition, music now is often optimized for play on the relatively low-fidelity earbuds for iPods, reducing incentives to offer a broad dynamic range.”
Making Metallica’s clatter barely listenable on an iPod.
For better or worse, iPods have changed the way we listen. The first time I really heard Mick Jagger singing backup on “You’re So Vain” it was on a secondhand first-generation iPod.
When it rains, it pours. Apple shares took a battering Monday as two more financial analysts downgraded the company amid mounting worries how spending cuts will hurt the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Hubert slashed her target price for Apple stock to $115 from $178, sending shares down 14 percent to $110 by noon.
Hubert also downgraded the company to “equal-weight from “overweight.”
