AAPL passes 10 percent of all of NASDAQ value as analysts target half a trillion dollar valuation
Apple’s blockbuster holiday quarter sent shares to an all-time high of $431 a share, which is enough to close in on a market valuation of $400 billion. However, that was last month. Today, AAPL briefly passed a record $460 billion market cap with new historical stock price high at $493.97 a share. Exxon Mobil Corporation’s [XOM] market valuation is just $402.72 billion. Analysts featured on Bloomberg Television said Apple is an “absolute phenomenon.”
Both Needham and Canaccord raised their price target for Apple shares to $620 and $650, respectively, maintaining a Buy rating on the stock. At the current market cap, Apple weighs more than 10 percent of NASDAQ and has 52 times Research In Motion’s [RIMM] valuation of just $8.45 billion.
Apple’s market capitalization is double the size of IBM and almost double the size of Microsoft [MSFT]. Heck, it is now almost the size of IBM and MSFT combined, and it surpassed the joint GOOG ($198.9 billion) and MSFT ($256.7 billion) market cap. However, some analysts still deem the company’s valuation “tepid.”
Steve Jobs’ FBI file reveals he’d been considered for a Bush 1 White House ‘sensitive position’ in 1991
Federal Bureau of Investigation has posted on its website an interesting and exhaustive file on Apple’s Cofounder and late CEO Steve Jobs. According to Gawker, which first spotted the file, the 191-page document reveals that Jobs was considered for a “sensitive position” in the Bush I White House back in 1991. It also contains results of an investigation into a 1985 bomb threat against Jobs.
How did Jobs do in High School? 2.65 GPA - hallmark of all geniuses.
An excerpt also includes comments from several people who noted Jobs’ reality distortion field, included right below.
Logitech takes a page from the Magic Mouse playbook for its new touch mouse M600
We are so in love with Logitech’s new touch-sensitive Touch Mouse M600 that it would most likely be a replacement if we broke our mouse. Akin to Apple’s Magic Mouse and Microsoft’s Explorer Touch Mouse, the M660 is all about gestures and touch. It also looks great with its sleek design and smooth curvature. Moreover, just like Apple’s mouse, the M600 lets you swipe, scroll, and flip through pages, bookmarks, and websites. The device fetches $70 and it will be available in the United States and Europe beginning in February 2012…
iPad announcement coming in less than a month, claims AllThingsD
“First Week in March,” claimed AllthingsD.
Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to début the successor to the iPad 2 and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these. No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that’s what it’s called), though my guess is retail availability will follow roughly the same schedule as that of the iPad 2: available for purchase a week or so after the event.
As you can see above: Wednesday, March 7 is available at Yerba Buena, which is Apple’s traditional venue for such events. Last year’s announcement was on Wednesday, March 2, and the iPad 2 went on sale about a week later (March 11).
AllThingsD’s sources also backed the prevailing rumors for the iPad 3: HD display, faster GPU/CPU, and similar design to iPad 2. Is anyone excited?
High-res Sharp panel spotted, is it for iPad 3?
iPad 3 parts are supposedly cropping up all over China. Following yesterday’s spy shots of a purported iPad 3 enclosure (here and here), Japanese blog Macotakara today published the above photo allegedly depicting a high-resolution panel manufactured by Sharp. According to the blog, the part was obtained by parts reseller Eye Lab Factory, which means take this with a few pinches of salt. It looks like 9.7-inch panel, and Macotakara said its flat cable corresponds to a similar cable connecting the iPad 2′s LCD panel to the motherboard.
The display is said to be a XQGA variety equaling 2,048-by-1,536-pixel resolution. Macotakara claimed last month that Foxconn and Pegatron Technology began assembly of next-generation iPads for an early March launch (and iLounge concurs). Unnamed sources also told Macotakara that Sharp would supply 2048-by-1536 resolution panels for iPad 3, which is a notion in line with earlier reports by DigiTimes and the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, another source revealed new iPad 3 replacement parts….
Purported iPad 3 shells floating around China, here’s a very high-resolution image of the inside, and photos of the outside
- Full-sized, below.
Since a purported iPad 3 back-shell image leaked earlier today, we have dug into the story to uncover where it originally came from and some of the intricate details behind the part. For one, there are not only a few of these back-shells floated to repair shops, but there are sizable amounts of these parts built-in China. This gives credence to reports about the iPad 3 is in production, and it likely means things are moving full steam ahead of the rumored-March launch.
Next, the original image comes from a Chinese supplier who provides parts to iPad repair shops across the globe.
Perhaps the best news of the night is that we have a very high-resolution version of the image. Click the image below to view the full super high-res version. The iPad 3 rumors include the device to have a Retina Display, faster processor, improved graphics, and better cameras. As hinted by these back-shells and earlier rumors, the iPad 3 will likely sport a design that closely mirrors the iPad 2 design.
Update: Our friends at Apple.pro also obtained photos of the iPad 3 back shell, and they have a photo of the outer back portion. It appears that the camera lens is larger than the iPad 2 camera lens, and they confirmed the iPad 3 would feature magnets to support the Smart Cover. You can catch that photo after the break as well.
Foxconn hacked by group called SwaggSec, here’s what they are looking at…
Hacker group SwaggSec just released a dump of Foxconn internal information, including a mail server login/password dump and logins to various online procurement sites and Intranets. The hack seems to be a retaliation for the working conditions that have swarmed the news lately. The hackers gained access through an unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability used by a worker inside Foxconn.
We were able to verify these logins worked on more than one Foxconn server, and you can find bits like the following from the large dump:
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The server is now closed—hence why we are posting this stuff. Every single username and password from the company is also in the mail dump, including the company’s CEO Terry Gou:
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We are certain that Foxconn admins are shutting down outside access; however, it is currently uncertain if any sensitive data leaked. The servers we see are mostly client Intranets. We will update as we find out more.
The full message from SwaggSec is available below:
iPad 3 won’t include quad-core processor?
Immediately after those purported iPad 3 back-shell photos broke loose, The Verge claimed Apple’s next-generation tablet would not include a rumored quad-core processor. The Verge‘s report contradicts findings inside beta builds of iOS 5.1 and a report from the typically accurate Bloomberg. While The Verge said the next iPad would be dual core, it also said the iPad 3 would sport an improved GPU. This new graphics processor would likely make the rumored huge Retina Display run smoothly. We deduced from earlier reports that the processor is codenamed “S5L8945X,” and it comes out of Samsung, who is busy working on both dual and quad-core processors for its own devices.
TuneCore: iTunes Match royalties appearing ‘out of thin air’, $10,000 in two months
In a blog post from earlier today (via Ars Technica), the CEO of online music distribution service TuneCore announced some intriguing numbers on iTunes Match royalties it has collected for its clientage. While calling the payout “magic money,” CEO Jeff Price said his company collected $10,000 for a two-month period beginning at the launch of iTunes Match. While TuneCore’s artists have included the likes of multi-million album sellers like Nine Inch Nails in the past, Price said the royalties represent money most independent artists using the service would have otherwise never received: Read more
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