The Computer Science Department at Stanford University will offer a course in iPhone programming in the Fall Semester, according to its latest course schedule.
It is unclear at this point whether Apple will object to the course offering under the terms of its SDK confidentiality agreement.
Via TUAW
It’s no news that The Secret Diary of Fake Steve Jobs is off-line after what has to be one of the most entertaining runs in recent memory. That said those of you longing for just one more dose of dry wit and satire FSJ-style need wait no longer.
Dan Lyons, the creative genius behind FSJ has opened another blog — this time in his own name. Personally, I find it even funnier now that doesn’t have to voice his satire through the mask of FSJ and can just be himself.
Dan’s new blog can be found at: https://realdanlyons.com/blog/
A number of third-party iPhone application developers are unhappy with continuing restrictions imposed under the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) they signed when they joined Apple’s Software Developers Program.
Perhaps some innocently assumed once the AppStore launched their iPhone applications into the wild the terms of the NDA would magically disappear. Others may have simply failed to read the document they were signing.
In any event, a few have put together a website to express their frustration. Be aware the link may be NSFW, depending on your place of employ. The argument seems to be that inability to talk freely with one another about their challenges and successes hampers the advancement of the platform, though, we’re guessing Apple’s legal department thought of that one before drawing up the document.
Via TUAW
Wall Street’s reaction to Apple’s traditionally conservative guidance by the brain trust that drives the US equities markets has further convinced me that most of these jokers (and our economy) would be better off if they all just played roulette. Taken with the bitter pill that better than 80% of fund managers out there can’t manage to beat the S&P 500, and it’s no small wonder that the investment banks are falling out like teenage girls at a boy-band concert.
Apple’s business strategies are as foreign to Wall Street as fiscal accountability, but there is no denying Apple’s success.
Hit the jump, and I’ll explain the top five reasons why Apple is not just the best consumer products company, but one of the best run companies out there period.
AT&T has authorized stores in its Northern California region to begin taking iPhone pre-sale orders with a promise of 72hr availability, according to the manager of one of the region’s busiest stores. In an email sent to store managers this morning, the wireless carrier said stores could promise customers they would have a phone in 3 days if they sign up for new service or upgrade their eligible hardware in-store and pass the requisite credit checks to establish a new two year service contract. Customers get a call from the store in three days when their phone arrives and are required to return to the store to complete service activation and pick up the handset.
The store manager said all AT&T retail stores in his region have been out of stock since the first wave of phones sold out in the days after its initial release on July 11. “It’s a marketing ploy by Apple,” he said, responding to a question about the lack of inventory at AT&T stores. “They release one or two hundred thousand phones and spread them all over and then do it again once those are sold out.” Describing the scenes of chaos in his store in the days after the launch, he said, “We actually prefer direct-ship. It keeps the crowds down so we can service our other customers and we don’t have to call the police to help with crowd control.”
Long lines are still present at the few Apple Stores in the country with inventory today, as iPhone buyers remain wiling to stand in line for two to three hours to make purchases directly from Apple.
Earlier today AT&T said iPhone 3G sales during the first twelve days were nearly double that of last year, despite shortages that have seen backorders up to three weeks at some of its retail stores nationwide. A company spokesman confirmed the official policy indicating a 13 to 14 day wait on direct-ship orders this afternoon, but indicated some regions could have greater availability than others.
Steve Jobs has been reassuring associates and colleagues about the state of his health, according to the New York Times. After undergoing treatment four years ago for a rare form of pancreatic cancer, Jobs is “cancer-free,” according to sources close to him, but he did undergo a surgical procedure this year to address a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight.
A great deal of speculation over Job’s health and uncertainty regarding his future prospects as CEO of Apple contributed to a sharp decline in Apple’s stock yesterday, after the company reported solid earnings and a muted outlook for the next quarter on Monday after the markets closed. Today AAPL is trading at $164 per share, $2 higher than yesterday’s close, but up $18 from yesterday’s intra-session lows.
Much of the speculation surrounding Jobs’ health began in response to his appearance at the WWDC conference last month, where he appeared wan and quite thin. According to an industry executive who spoke with Jobs and was a source for the Times report, Jobs had run a high fever for the week preceding WWDC. Apple had previously said that Jobs had come down with a “common bug” which was treated with antibiotics, and additional speculation and concern were sparked by remarks in the Monday conference call, in which the company said Jobs’ health is “a private matter.”
AT&T Research Labs is testing a web based application that will bring limited voice control functionality to the iPhone. The so-called Speech Mashups, based on AT&T’s WATSON speech recognition engine, is a web service requiring high-speed wireless access to the internet in order to allow voice control of certain functions, such as entering text into web forms. The service appears to fall well short of meeting the demand for voice dialing, expressed by many as a must-have feature in a mobile phone.
The lone voice dialing application available on the AppStore appears to be Speechcloud Voice Dialer, whose 300+ commenters have thus far given it a 2.5 star rating.
The AT&T Labs chart below shows the complexity of delivering its web-based Speech Mashups solution, though, with the prevalence of speech recognition capability so widespread among other mobile handset manufacturers, we wonder what it is about Apple’s device that has made voice dialing such a difficult hurdle to clear.
Apple’s support forums are hopping today with customers angry about continuing problems with the rollout of MobileMe web services. The MobileMe Mail category has over 13,000 messages that have been viewed more than 50,000 times, with many of the messages expressing anger and frustration over a mail server crash and unexpected fiber-optic line problems that have left some subscribers without email access for as many as five straight days, according to AppleInsider.
Apple’s system status message acknowledges the MobileMe Mail issue but claims only 1% of its subscribers are affected. If that’s the case, the problems would appear to have struck a particularly vocal 1%.
We were writing just last week that Apple’s lawsuit against Psystar could be the final stake in the heart of Mac clone computer makers. Some ideas are just too irresistible to die, we guess, because here comes a guy named Elijia Samaroo and his company, Open Tech, Inc waving a new red flag in the face of Apple’s legal department with the promise of an “open” computer that runs OS X.
Open Tech claims to be aware of the legal problems incurred by Psystar and intends to avoid them by not pre-loading its machines with OS X, the blatant violation of Apple’s licensing terms that should prove Psystar’s undoing. Open Tech says it plans to simply configure a system for the intended OS — Windows, OS X , Linux, Ubuntu — and provide a “do-it-yourself” kit that will help with whatever OS a customer buys separately.
Grab the popcorn and soda, and recall the ending of Basic Instinct.
Mock up via Flickr
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Muntster wrote for his clients today “We believe there is an 80% chance Apple will introduce redesigned MacBooks and possibly new MacBook Pros at lower price points. Specifically, Apple may re-enter the $999 price point (currently $1099) with the MacBook, or test the $1,799 price point with the MacBook Pro (currently $1999).” Thus, the news from yesterday’s stellar earnings report is all about Apple’s future – new products on the horizon and facelifts for old friends.
The consensus appears to be that Apple will be slashing prices on on Macs in an effort to increase market share that has moved Mac into third place in the US and has Apple knocking on the door of 10% among all US computer buyers.
Additional speculation about new products in the pipeline – Oppenheimer referred in yesterday’s hour-long earnings report to Apple’s penchant for introducing “state of the art new products at price points our competitors can’t match” – has people salivating about a multi-touch Mac, a new iPhone-like PDA, new mid-to-low priced Mac workstations and more.
Whatever it is – whatever they may be – Apple’s new products are likely to follow in the mold of the company’s decade-long success introducing, in Oppenheimer’s words, something with “technologies and features that others can’t match.”
Mock up via Flickr
Recent questions regarding Steve’s health have renewed calls for a succession plan at Apple. While I hardly give two shakes over the “Industry Concerns” cited in the recent New York Post article, I would go a little further and suggest that what Apple needs is not a ‘Succession Plan‘, but a new CEO.
As startling a statement to make as that is, hold the flames for just a few more moments, follow me after the jump to find out why.
The WordPress app for iPhone has just gone live on the iTunes App Store. Here’s the direct link to the WordPress app.
The app allows WordPress blogs to be edited on the iPhone and iPod touch, online and off.
It supports blogs hosted at WordPress.com and self-installed blogs (2.5.1 or higher).
There’s all the features you’d expect for mobile blogging — but best of all, there’s an auto-recovery feature that recovers posts interrupted by phone calls. Let’s hope it works.
More details here on the iPhone WordPress site.
UPDATE: Apple’s stock is being punished because of concerns about Steve Jobs’ health, plus the company’s cautious guidance about Q4. Jobs didn’t participate in the earnings call, leading analysts to ask whether he is OK. Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer dodged the question. As Wired.com reports: “Andy Hargreaves, consumer electronics analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said the lack of response from Oppenheimer regarding Jobs’ health only adds to investors’ doubt. “Not addressing Steve Jobs’ health perpetuates the fear that it’s a real problem,” Hargreaves said.”
Well, Apple just had another record quarter, with earnings jumping by 31 percent and revenue by 38 percent. The company sold more Macs in the third quarter than it has at any point in company history. It is performing better as a company than it ever has, and in a down economy.
So how does Wall Street respond? By knocking the stock price down by more than 10 points. Why? Because Apple’s guidance, or “made-up numbers to please whiny Wall Street analysts,” is below where the analysts believe it should be. Now, this might seem like rational behavior. If Apple is below Street consensus, the company must be headed for unanticipated trouble, right?
No. Not at all. Apple always sets expectations low and then jumps way beyond them. Take this quarter. Apple set earnings guidance at $1 per share. Analysts pegged it at $1.10 per share. Instead, they managed $1.19 per share. And the same thing keeps happening as far back as you can look. As Andy Zaky notes, Apple does this all the time, and they always beat their own guidance and the Street consensus, too. It’s just how they roll.
So why is it obvious to everyone except Wall Street traders that Apple always understates its guidance? Power is one hell of a drug, I imagine.
Picture via Imageshack
Steve Jobs at WWDC 2008. Photo by MacsimumNews
During Apple’s earnings call, a question was asked about Steve Jobs’ health.
Answer: “Jobs has no plans to leave Apple. Steve’s health is a private matter.”
Apple just announced its best June quarter ever for revenue and earnings in Apple’s history.
Highlights include:
(Last year: $5.41 billion and $818 million profit)
And this is without recording any iPhone revenues, which are being deferred until the fourth quarter.
Webcast of the analyst conference call.
Highlights from the analyst call:
Apple opened the first of two planned retail stores in Beijing, China over the weekend, at the Sanlitun retail complex. Enjoy our gallery of photos by several fine photographers. All images courtesy of Creative Commons or copyright the individual photographers.
Via Gizmodo
The iPhone Dev Team released its Pwnage jailbreak tool for iPhone over the weekend. Despite the tool’s inability to unlock iPhones for use with unapproved phone carriers and decreased demand for “illegal” apps in the light of Apple’s own AppStore, enough curious parties overwhelmed Dev Team servers and forced mirror sites into service to satisfy iPhone’s teeming masses still yearning to break free.
The tool jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches but “We only support the 2.0 firmwares,” according to the Dev Team’s blog.
An upskirt warning poster in a subway station outside Tokyo. Photo by Jeff Epp.
The iPhone 3G in Japan has a special feature unique to that country: The camera always makes a conspicuous “shutter” sound when a picture is taken, even when the phone is set to “silent” mode.
The loud shutter sound is supposed to deter voyeurs from taking sneaky pictures up women’s’ skirts — or down their tops.
In Japan, upskirt and downblouse shots have become increasingly popular with the advent of high-resolution camera phones.
As a result, all cell phones sold in Japan make a conspicuous shutter sound, or say the word “cheese” when a snap is taken, according to Nobuyuki Hayashi, a tech reporter based in Tokyo.
On almost all new cell phones, the camera shutter sound can not be muted, Hayashi says.
“Some manufacturers have even put louder shutter sound,” he reports.
The shutter on the first iPhone sold in Japan could be muted in silent mode; an anomaly that many wondered whether Apple would correct in the iPhone 3G, Hayashi says.
Apple did: The shutter sound cannot be turned off, even in silent mode, Hayashi says.
Apple, Inc. is expected to report strong second quarter earnings after US markets close on Monday and the company will do so without recognizing a single iPhone sale, according to a Bloomberg report. Instead of including sales of first generation iPhones that came at the end of the second quarter before the release of the wildly successful iPhone 3G, the company will report an increase in earnings on rising sales of Macintosh computers and iPod media players alone.
“The Mac is the primary reason we own Apple shares,” said Michael Obuchowski, a portfolio manager at New York-based Altanes Investments LLC, which began buying Apple shares in 2006. “For several quarters, we’ve seen an incredible acceleration in Apple’s PC business.”
There could be even more good news ahead for Apple shareholders, who will undoubtedly receive another boost next quarter, when Apple tells the story of its hugely successful iPhone 3G release, which has nearly completely sold out in the United States, Germany and other worldwide locations in its first 10 days on the market.
Software engineer Satoshi Nakajima, the lead architect of Microsoft’s Windows 95, picked up a Mac for the first time two years ago.
He was so impressed, he says he’ll never touch a PC again.
Satoshi loves Apple products so much, he started a company in April, Big Canvas, to develop for Apple’s iPhone platform full-time.
“We have chosen iPhone as the platform to release our first product (for) several reasons,” explains his company’s website. “We love Apple products… You need love to be creative.”
Based in Bellevue, WA — right next to Microsoft’s home turf of Redmond — Satoshi spent nearly 14 years at Microsoft, serving as the software architect of Windows 95 and 98. He also oversaw the development of Internet Explorer 3.0 and 4.0. While at Microsoft, he developed the third largest portfolio of intellectual property of any employee at the company, according to his bio.
Last week, Satoshi released his company’s first iPhone application, Photoshare, a free, social networking app for sharing pictures with the iPhone.
Photoshare is like Flickr for iPhone photographers. The downloadable Photoshare app allows users to upload pictures to Photoshare’s website, and then share those pictures publicly or privately — without any required registration or the need for a computer.
We spoke with Satoshi about the pleasures of writing software for the iPhone SDK and got some of his thoughts about Apple’s UI, its distribution model for iPhone apps and the future of handheld communications.
The interview continues after the jump.
UPDATED: See comment below.
The very last iPhone 3G at the Stonestown store in south San Francisco was just sold to a guy in a Microsoft shirt!
I’m currently at the Apple store in the Stonestown mall, posting from an in-store computer.
I came down to pick up an iPhone 3G, but the last phone was just sold to this guy in a Microsoft shirt. WTF!
The guy, who is very nice, asked me not to use his name in case he gets into trouble at work. He is a trainer for Microsoft Microsoft trainer who works for a third party company.
Staff here at the Apple store say they have no idea when — or even if — they will get new stock of the iPhone 3G.
The concierge is sending people upstairs to a new AT&T store that is apparently taking preorders. The concierge says there’s likely a 21 day wait however.
I phoned other nearby stores in Sand Francisco and Burlingame, but they are sold out also.
As Lonnie reports below, iPhones are available at only one in four stores, and Piper analyst Gene Munster thinks it will take Apple a month to restock.
Via BoingBoing
Perhaps AT&T employees in New York were so overwhelmed by the amount of business they did this week, they went time out of mind, or began speaking in tongues.
Check back last week for more iPhones.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says because Apple “knocked it out of the park on the first weekend” supply chain shortages could force iPhone 3G customers to scramble to find a phone or delay their purchase into August, when beefed up orders should replenish supply.
Apple’s iPhone availability tool indicated yesterday just over 25% of the compnay’s 188 US retail stores had any models of the iPhone 3G in stock, with the most-hard-to-find 16GB model in black available in only 18 stores countrywide. Only 13 stores reported all three models on hand, while the apparently least-popular 16GB model in white could still be found in 46 stores.
AT&T company spokesman Wes Warnock said Tuesday their 1,200 retail stores are also nearly out of the iPhone. “As we’re able to start restocking our stores, we will do so as fast as we can.”
Via Macworld
Intego has announced a free upgrade for users of its VirusBarrier X5 security software to eradicate malware from the iPhone and iPod touch. The company has been at the center of news regarding the rise of “trojan horse” malware targeting OS X since at least 2004, the subject of ongoing debate among computer security experts about the risks of malicious software and computer viruses infecting Apple systems.
Earlier this month reports of Apple’s having neglected its mobile platform in releasing security patches to fix exploits discovered in the OS X desktop caused some to wonder whether the opening of the AppStore might also open the door to software that could harm an iPhone or iPod touch. Apple has promised to use its gatekeeping role to screen malware from the AppStore, though, as Intego’s press release mentions, users “jailbreaking” (unlocking) an iPhone or iPod touch can install applications not pre-certified by Apple, increasing the risk of stumbling into harm’s way.
Thus far, the only harmful scripts or programs identified targeting OS X have required the inordinately reckless cooperation of users to open their systems and invite an attack, so the real risks are yet minimal. But as Macs begin to surpass double digits in desktop market share and Apple’s mobile OS continues to advance among handheld users, the prize for black-hat software developers grows ever larger. Perhaps Intego, makers of what MacWorld calls the “gold standard” of Macintosh anti-virus software, will one day rival Norton.
