Apple has emailed a number of developers who scrambled to purchase tickets for its Worldwide Developers Conference this June to tell them that their order has been cancelled. Anyone who purchased more than one $1,600 ticket on their credit card is likely to find that their order is “not eligible,” but a phone call to the Cupertino company could rectify the issue.
Remember back in the day when Apple and Google were all chummy? Back when the original iPhone was released in 2007, and Google wasn’t in the smartphone business? That all changed once Google betrayed Apple’s trust and launched the Android operating system, and ever since then Google has held the stance that they never copied the iPhone. It’s hard to prove that a company wasn’t thinking about something, but newly released designs of Google’s original concept phone from 2006 show that Google wasn’t even considering the creation of a touchscreen smartphone back when the iPhone was unveiled, so they stole Apple’s designs instead once they saw them.
While the vast majority of the world’s tech press was focused on Apple’s record-breaking quarter yesterday, HTC quietly announced its own figures. Unlike Apple, the Taiwanese company reported a huge 70% drop in profits after raking in just $151.5 million during the three-month period. And it says the iPhone 4S is the main reason for its dismal quarter.
Apple has just announced their Q2 2012 results, and despite Wall Street plunging AAPL stock by $60 a share over the last couple of weeks, there was no reason for pessimism as Apple is announcing yet another record quarter, with 35 million iPhones, 12 million iPads, 7.7 million iPods and 4 million Macs sold.
Full press release after the jump. Stay tuned for live coverage of the conference call with investors later today.
There have been a handful of technologies touted over the past few years that would remove (or dramatically reduce) the need to carry our credit/debit cards, loyalty cards, and even cash. For the past couple of years, NFC has been the technology of choice for turning our phones into digital wallets. Google and RIM have built NFC support into their respective mobile OSes and a handful of manufacturers have built NFC phones, but the technology hasn’t lived up to the hype.
Apple has added a new page of iPhone app suggestions for business users. The page, titled iPhone at Work, lists apps broken down into five major categories: organize your day, view your business, manage projects, meet anywhere, and travel light. Each of those sections is further divided to show off the ways that the iOS apps Apple bundles with the iPhone and third-party apps can be used in business.
A few years back Seattle Rex had gone all out on a 17” MacBook Pro – spending approximately $4,500 on the then top-of-the-line machine ($5,100 including AppleCare). The particular MacBook Pro he bought turned out to be defective. The laptop’s Nvidia graphics processor started displaying symptoms of the defect shortly after his AppleCare expired. A few days later the laptop died completely – it wouldn’t even start up. At the time Rex’s laptop broke down the defect was a known and well-documented issue. Apple had even issued a tech note and was replacing defective models as they failed.
Many have speculated that Apple’s next iPhone will have lightning fast LTE ‘4G’ networking speeds. Chipset maker Qualcomm has been experiencing incredible demand for its next generation 28-nanometer LTE chips, and industry watchers are saying that device markers are having to adjust their LTE product roadmaps accordingly for 2012.
This news could be a factor in why Apple’s sixth-gen iPhone probably won’t hit the shelves this summer if it does indeed come with LTE. Instead, analysts are predicting an October rollout, mimicking the iPhone 4S launch just last year.
Apple has filed for all sorts of patents related to 3D technologies over the years, sparking speculation that the company will one day bring us 3D-capable Macs and iOS devices. But evidence that it’s about to get serious about 3D technology for iOS devices comes from a recent job listing on its website for a “Computer Vision specialist to strengthen its multi-view stereo research group.”
It’s always fun to speculate about what Apple should or could do with its horde of cash, and this video runs through some of the wackier ideas: from building and staffing a lunar base for eight-and-a-half years. to buying a third of the world’s drugs and throwing a continent-wide coke party, to enslaving the Rolling Stones and making them play a concert night after night after night for thirty-four years. It leaves the best for last though: making 4,813 baby clones of Steve Jobs.
(<em>Thanks, Mike S!</em>)