Foxconn sales declined 19% during the first quarter of 2013, and “disappointing” demand for Apple’s iPhone is getting the blame, Reuters reports. Between January and March, the company’s sales totaled NT$808.97 billion ($26.96 billion), down from NT$988.24 billion ($32.99 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2012, and NT$1 trillion ($33.38 billion) a year ago.
I really like Nikolai Lamm’s concepts for imaginary, rumored, (and possibly forthcoming) Apple products, and this transparent concept for a cheaper budget iPhone is no exception. I love how it merges the 2012 iPod touch’s candy colored backshell with the iMac G3’s transparent casing.
I think there’s little to no chance Apple would actually make an iPhone that looks like this — in the mind of Jonny Ive, transparent gadgets are so 1998, I bet — but heck, I’d buy a phone like this.
Source: Myvouchercodes.co.uk
Brian White, an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets, brings us a crazy new rumor about the much-anticipated Apple television today following recent meetings with supply chain sources in China and Taiwan.
White claims that the “iTV” will finally launch during the second half of 2013, and that it’ll come with a miniature device called the “iRing”, which the user will wear on their finger to act as a pointer. The device will enhance the motion detection experience and take over some of the functions of the traditional remote control, apparently.
We’ve been waiting for Samsung to launch a new smartphone with a flexible, wraparound display ever since the Korean company began showing off its new technology at trade shows like CES. But it may need to move a little faster if it wants to be the first to market with this new form factor.
A new Apple patent published today by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows the Cupertino company has been also experimenting with wraparound displays for the iPhone, which provide a more rounded form factor not too dissimilar to that of the fourth- and fifth-generation iPod nanos.
LG will compete with Apple, Google, and Samsung with a smartwatch of its own that is expected to run Google’s Android operating system. The company is also said to be working on another wearable computing device that will reportedly rival Google Glass.
The Google Glass project has been in the news a fair bit in recent months, but it seems Google may have another wearable gadget in development that’s been flying under the radar. The Financial Times reports that just like Apple and Samsung, the search giant is working on its own smartwatch that will act as an extension to the smartphone.
Apple is expected to unveil its first smartwatch sometime this year, and there’s one company who will be right on its tail, competing for sales. As you may have already guessed, that company is Samsung.
Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of the Korean company’s mobile business, confirmed the move during an interview with Bloomberg.
The rumors that Apple’s making a cheaper iPhone have kind of died down a bit with all the iWatch madness, but there’s a new rumor to add some more smoke to the situation.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the low-cost iPhone is indeed coming, and it will have the same 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5.
Martin Hajek creates concepts of imaginary Apple products that I always think look pretty good, but have no thought given to usability. For example, his iWatch concept the other day, which basically shrinks an iPad mini to the size of an inch and doesn’t even try to imagine how such a design wouldn’t suck… but hey, it has a leather band!
His new iTV concept for Dutch site iCreate is a similar affair. The black, chamfered design of the device looks very beautiful, but nothing after that makes any sense. It’s like this guy has never even used a television before, right down to the fact that he envisions the iTV as having a Camera app (why?) but not one for either TV or Videos.
More pictures after the jump. I advise Apple to perhaps take the look, but not the UI.
Wall Street has spent most of the last six months hyperventilating about the future of Apple, chomping at their fingernails and openly wondering if Apple is taking too long to innovate in the post-Jobs era.
Over at the Apple Gazette, Robin Parrish has put together a simple graphic, showing Apple’s historic product pillars. Essentially, if you add it all up, the average time between major product pillars for Apple is three years and ten months.