GigaOM » Apple

A breakdown of iOS and Android profits, plus 4 other Apple stories to read today

Erica Ogg — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:11:34 +0000

With so many people writing about Apple, finding the best stories and reports isn’t easy. Here’s our daily pick of stories about the company from around the Web that you shouldn’t miss:

Apple number cruncher Horace Dediu at Asymco took at stab at calculating how much of Apple’s revenue comes from Google. What he came up with suggests that Apple makes more money from Google than Google does from Android: ”$1.4 billion from Google to Apple vs. $600 million from Android to Google.” Read his analysis to find out how he got there.
Turns out the Apple retail juggernaut he helped create can’t be duplicated in a few quarters. Former Apple VP and current J.C. Penny CEO Ron Johnson is coming under fire from his investors for falling sales and a huge stock drop just six months after he joined, Reuters reports.
There’s been a lot of talk about Apple doing a MacBook with a high-resolution Retina display. Sounds great, but how feasible would that be? ZDNet does the analysis.
The Flashback malware threat exposed some serious lapses in Mac security. But what did the creators get out of it? Pretty much nothing, according to Symantec: The botnet “managed to generate around 400,000 ad clicks out of roughly 10 million being displayed,” and they’re having trouble collecting from pay-per-click services who employ anti-fraud measures, says Ars Technica.
Just a day after Greenpeace protested outside Apple’s headquarters about its data center’s reliance on coal power, Reuters reports that Apple plans to build solar farms next to its North Carolina data center and move toward only renewable resources at the site by the end of this year. Katie wrote about this earlier in the year.

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Biz spending on Macs, iPads could hit $19B in 2012

Erica Ogg — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:26:06 +0000

Apple’s been a beneficiary of the BYOD craze that has hit corporate IT departments everywhere. The policy resulted in lots of workers bringing not only iPhones and iPads into the office, but Macs too. But BYOD isn’t the only reason Apple’s presence is growing at your office; IT departments are also buying more Macs and iPads for employees. That’s according to a new report from Forresterpublished Friday.

In putting together the Global Tech Market Outlook for 2012 and 2013, Forrester talked to 46 major IT vendors as well as agencies like the IMF, U.S. Commerce Department and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and now estimates over the course of 2012, Apple will sell $9 billion worth of Macs and $10 billion worth of iPads to enterprise companies worldwide. That’s up from the estimated $6 billion spent on Macs and $6 billion on iPads in 2011. Forrester calls its corporate growth “the big surprise of 2011,” especially because Apple has never actively or directly targeted business users. The report notes:

The Apple assault on the corporate market has so far taken place without much formal Apple support, and probably without Apple itself understanding its full extent. That’s because corporate adoption of Apple products has been largely clandestine, occurring through three channels.

Those three channels?

IT departments buying iPads. In October, Apple reported 93 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 companies are trying out or actively issuing iPads to employees. (Expect an update on this number on Jan. 24.)
Smaller companies buying both Macs and iPads for employees. These types of companies tend to purchase devices that employees can use both at work and at home, Forrester says.
Workers BYOD-ing iPads and Macs, then harassing their IT department to support them. (For more on that, see my GigaOM Pro piece here — subscription required.)

While Apple continues to make inroads into the corporate IT market, traditional PCs are expected to lose ground: Forrester estimates global corporate spending on Windows-based PCs and tablets will decline 3 percent next year, as you can see in the chart below:

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Joli MacBook Air sleeve review: Luxury, meet luxury

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:39:43 +0000

The MacBook Air is a very pretty piece of hardware. For that reason, I’m not too eager to hide it away in just any old sleeve. At the same time, I’m super-paranoid about leaving gadgets out exposed, and thus susceptible to rings from frosty glasses and scratches from a casually discarded set of keys. So basically, I need a sleeve that can match the Air’s sense of style while also providing it with protection.

The Joli Originals MacBook Air sleeve might just fit the bill. Joli makes hand-crafted leather sleeves for iPhones, iPads and the MacBook Air, and has recently made the jump from Etsy to its own Shopify-based e-commerce site to sell the Apple device accessories. Joli sent me a sample sleeve to test with my 11.6-inch MacBook Air. Here’s what I’ve found after nearly a week of use.

All dressed up and everywhere to go

Joli’s sleeves are hand-made in The Netherlands, using soft leather finished in Italy on the outside, and 100-percent wool felt for the interior. You can choose from a number of customization options, including four colors of leather and up to four colors of felt, depending on which color leather you choose. My test unit has a brown leather exterior and an orange interior, which makes for an attractive combination.

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As soon as you hold the sleeve in your hands, everything about it screams quality. It has a significant weight to it that makes it feel like it can offer a decent amount of protection from bumps and maybe even drops of small distances. The soft leather looks great (as does the stitching holding the two sides of the sleeve together) and feels even better on the hand. The fit is snug, which help makes the sleeve look even better when it’s actually holding the Air.

Despite its good looks and high-quality materials, the Joli surprisingly doesn’t feel like it needs to be coddled. In fact, it strikes me as the kind of leather product that might look better after a certain amount of stress from wear and tear. I’ve been throwing it in the backpack with various other items, and I think the cat’s taken to using it as an impromptu bed; so far, there doesn’t seem to be a mark on it.

Fit and features

Like I said, the fit is snug. In fact, it actually takes quite a bit of shimmying to get the Air into the sleeve to begin with. It does get better with use, and using two hands, it shouldn’t prove unduly stressful. Plus, the grip means you don’t have to worry about your Air sneaking its way back out in a moving bag.

The Joli is open-ended, so one side of your Mac will be exposed, although it is deep enough that the edge of the computer won’t stick out. The open edge actually proves quite useful if you want to charge your Air while it’s encased, which is something I found myself doing often. The lack of a zipper or flap also didn’t seem to negatively affect my Mac during the course of my use, although if you plan on using it regularly on a sandy beach, you might have cause for concern.

Price and availability

The Joli MacBook Air sleeve retails for €55, which works out to around $79 U.S. before tax and shipping. Considering that a basic neoprene sleeve will likely cost you around $40 at the Apple Store, it’s not a bad price for something that’s hand-made using premium leather. Joli sleeves are available right now, and shipping estimates vary based on where you’re located in the world.

Verdict

If you want something to house and protect your MacBook Air that’s as stylish as the Air itself, the Joli sleeve is a very good choice, especially if you’re looking for a unique case that you’re unlikely to see carried by others very often.

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How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide

Rumor Has It: Apple Putting 3G Into MacBooks, Rendering USB Sticks Useless

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:01:07 +0000

As if I didn’t have enough USB sticks sitting around doing nothing (512KB flash drives, Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless dongles, etc.). Now it looks like my 3G mobile broadband USB modem might soon join the ranks of the neglected and forgotten. Not because 4G networks are being built out as we speak, but because it looks like Apple is gearing up to start building 3G radios into their notebook computers. It’s about time, too, and frankly I’m surprised that more computer manufacturers haven’t gone this route long ago, considering the significant added incentive to buyers of having wide-coverage Internet access built in to their machines.

News of the new direction for Mac hardware comes from job postings, which have been garnering quite a bit of attention for Apple lately, considering the recent buzz about chip-making related positions. Now Cupertino seems to be looking for a few good 3G QA, design, and testing engineers to join their camp. The job descriptions, listed on their Hardware Engineering jobs site, list a variety of wireless specifications, with 3G among them, and the jobs in question talk about Mac applications specifically, so this isn’t just an iPhone-oriented position, as I initially suspected.

There’s already been all kinds of buzz about AT&T or other telcos offering bundles, including both 3G wireless plans and subsidized MacBooks, but so far nothing’s come of it. It’s very possible that either AT&T or Apple floated the rumor in order to try to gauge customer interest in such a package, and are only now moving to build the tech into their hardware because the response they received indicated that it would be worth their while. Question is, how much of a premium will Apple be charging for the new hardware addition, if any, and what kind of plans will the cell phone companies be able to offer?

Even if Apple is going forward with this, and the deal is good, there’s also the fact that tethering is apparently included in iPhone OS 3.0 to consider. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak, by offering iPhone users a way to use 3G mobile broadband with their MacBooks without taking advantage of a built-in in antenna? There’d be no incentive for owners of those devices to sign up for an additional plan to take advantage of built-in MacBook 3G access.

It’s possible that the price of purchasing 3G antennas has become so affordable that Apple is willing to put them in as just one more incentive for prospective buyers, rather than as a significant selling point. Personally, I know I’d rather have it than not, even if my iPhone is able to tether on my existing wireless plan. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops, which will likely take at least a year, considering the types of positions Apple is hiring for.

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MacBooks Selling Out Worldwide

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:51:08 +0000

Reports are coming in that Apple’s new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are selling out in retail stores around the world.

Apple’s flagship San Francisco store reportedly had no stock as of this morning, and our own David Appleyard apparently scored the last new MBP at the Manchester Arndale store. The London Regent Street flagship store is also announcing that they are out of stock, and calls to the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple Store confirm that they also have no stock and aren’t sure when they’ll be receiving any.

With flagship stores in three different countries already experiencing stock shortages, it’s clear that Apple’s new notebooks are being fairly well received by consumers, even if analysts are disappointed in the high price points of the new notebooks. It’s not clear from these reports whether sales have been exceptionally high, supplies are short, or some combination of the two. Another possibility is that Apple is taking a page from Nintendo’s playbook and short-stocking in order to drive up demand. Whether real or orchestrated, the same tactic worked well for them when the iPhone 3G initially launched.

If you’ve run into any stock shortages or outages at your own local store, or if you were lucky enough to get your hands on one, let us know.

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New MacBook Rumors

Jethro Jones — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:42:50 +0000

Last week, during the Q2 financial call for Apple, Peter Oppenheimer does what Apple does best: he stirred the pot. It may seem to the untrained eye that Apple’s less-than-stellar four-product launch was detrimental to the company, but how quickly we forget. Just a few short words left all the bad feelings behind and kept the rumormill going at full tilt once again, “…and we’re busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months.” In the call, Oppenheimer stressed that he could not talk about these products, and that they would be released at about the end of September. What better way to divert the attention from poor performance than to announce bleeding edge products that will leave the competitors straggling in the dust?

Since the brief unannouncement, the speculation has been plentiful, with some talk of new Apple Cinema Displays (and from January of this year), but most of the rumors have focused on the long overdue MacBook line.

Here are some highlights:

Thinner and lighter MacBook and MacBook Pros with glass trackpads, to utilize Multi Touch, and will be called MacBook Touch(ComputerWorld)
No Intel chipsets (the CPU will still be Intel–not going back to PowerPC), looking at AMD, VIA, or nVidia (CNET)
One long piece of aluminum for the body of all three notebooks (AppleInsider)

I have heard of some others that sound pretty farsical, and of course, a Mac tablet is always bantered about when it is time for a new rumor. What other features have you heard? What would force your hand to upgrade when they are released?

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