Seth Weintraub

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AT&T just released its earnings and showed strong iPhone sales despite having a 16-month old device on hand with updates looming.  The carrier reported activating 2.7 million iPhones in the quarter out of a total of 4.8 million total devices.  Android device sales doubled year over year.

Non-iPhone Smartphone Sales Increase. AT&T continues to deliver robust smartphone sales. (Smartphones are voice and data devices with an advanced operating system to better manage data and Internet access.) In the third quarter, the company sold 4.8 million smartphones, representing nearly two-thirds of postpaid device sales. Sales of Android devices more than doubled year over year, and almost half of all smartphone sales were non-iPhone devices. During the quarter, 2.7 million iPhones were activated.

Our polls show that significantly more than half of all US iPhone users go with AT&T, due mostly to the higher data rates and ability to talk and use data at the same time.

Press release follows:
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In May we profiled a Kickstarter project called the Kogeto Dot which was trying to build an affordable Panoramic Video camera attachment for the iPhone to bring panoramic video recording to the masses. They needed to raise $20,000 to get their product built and develop the app.

CEO Jeff Glasse and Co. raised over $120,000, so needless to say, they built the product. It goes on sale this week.

I had a chance to demo the product this evening with Glasse (above). It couldn’t be more straightforward and the good news is that the camera on the iPhone 4S not only works but it produces a 40% better picture due to the capture of 1080p video (over 720p on the iPhone 4).

As you can see in the video above, the video comes out as a circular recording in a standard movie file. The Looker software then uploads the video to a server which then stretches it out into a 360 degree panel. From there you can post to the web or upload to Facebook to share with friends. The movie plays in the Looker App or Flash on the web.

You can pick up the Dot for $79 in four colors starting next week. The Looker App should hit the App store this weekend.

Walter Isaacson will drop in on 60 Minutes Sunday likely with some interesting tidbits from his book (who are we kidding, anything is interesting at this point). The book Steve Jobs goes on sale next week. via Fortune.

Update: Woz posted an interesting update to his Facebook page stating that he was in fact interviewed for the Book (if we read it right). It appears that he may not have known he was being interviewed. :D

re: Jobs book by Walter Isaacson. Hi. There are some tweets going around saying you thought you weren’t interviewed for my book. I promise, you were, as we discussed below! A few times by phone, and we chatted also in the vip room before a couple of launches.

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CBS copters, captured by CNET, caught some of the Celebrate Steve program today put on by Apple.  As we’d been tweeting live, Tim Cook, Bill Campbell and Al Gore spoke and Norah Jones and ColdPlay played music (ending with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”).  Apple retail employees shut down Store operations from 12-3 ET to view a private screening of the event.

One of the touching moments was said to have been when they played Jobs’ rendition of “The Crazy Ones”, below:

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As we reported over the weekend and others reported yesterday, Apple Store will be closed for three hours today to view the celebration of Steve Jobs’ life stream coming from AppleHQ.

Thanks Danny, Steven

Thanks

Update: White curtains going up everywhere for privacy. Gallery:

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The keynote went a little bad over in Hong Kong with both the Facial Recognition and the Quick Response features not working or crashing the device. Overall though, there are some interesting new features that certainly differentiate Android from iOS and Windows Phone 7.

As for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone, it has a 5-megapixel camera which has to be a letdown when compared to 8 megapixel cameras that are standardizing on the high end across the industry. Its most impressive feature (unless you are trying to squeeze it into your pocket) has to be the 4.65-inch 720P display. Although Pentile, which means not every pixel gets RGB dots, it does get close to Apple’s 326 PPI Retina display with a 316 PPI density. Like the as yet unpopular Honeycomb tablets, it doesn’t have any front facing buttons but has screen buttons that shift around as well as all of those new Android 4.0 features.

Check 9to5Google.com for ongoing coverage.

We were all ready to start making fun of these guys for being wacko gun nuts and wasting a perfectly good $650 iPhone until the slo-mos came in about halfway through the video. OK, that was cool.  Where’s the Android version?  Via Giz (of course)

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…except the huge smartphone sticking out the back.

Imitation=flattery? Check the whole lineup below. via 9to5Google

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Last week we revealed that Apple is planning a small refresh for its MacBook Pro line with modest CPU bumps and possibly improved Bluetooth Wireless networking. Today we’ve found what seems to be evidence for such a refresh in Apple’s own online store.

If you do a search on Apple’s online store for ‘MacBook Pro’, you get a list of Apple’s products. In that list of products, there are two mysterious entries for ‘Macbook Pro Memory Model’ toward the bottom with the caption “Ships: Coming in November”.

Perhaps more interestingly, they link to the following two URLs which aren’t currently active:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/ME_17_2_33_MBP?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY

http://store.apple.com/us/product/ME_17_2_4_MBP_PREV?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY

We’ve heard that these could be the spare part part numbers for the new MacBook Pros and the 2_33 and 2_4 could be the new speeds of the quad-core Intel Core i7 processors (current is 2.0 to 2.3 GHz). If they are spare parts, these often ship a week or so after the new products so the MBPs could come sooner than ‘November’.

Update: 4-year-old MacBook Pro RAM has a similar URL but it isn’t certain if the two parts are related.

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Today Apple debuted their iPhone 4S retail availability reservation system via www.apple.com/retail/iphone/ and the Apple Store iOS app. 9to5Mac has received a bit more clarification concerning the reservation process and walk-in availability from the Apple Store Daily Download. Each evening from 9 p.m. to Midnight, hopeful iPhone 4S buyers can log on to apple.com or the Apple Store app to check model availability and reserve their iPhone 4S for the next business day. When an individual successfully creates a reservation they will have from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. the next day to pick up their reservation. Apple stores will cease all iPhone 4S sales at 8:30 p.m. to allow ample time to prepare for the nightly reservation process.

Contrary to previous reports, the iPhone 4S will be available for walk-in traffic as well as reserved at Apple retail stores. After 6 p.m. all unclaimed reservations will be forfeited and available for walk-in purchasers to buy. Select stores will also be making unclaimed inventory from the night before available from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. each day. We hope everybody who wants to get their hands on Apple’s fastest iPhone yet are able to soon!

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Sprint took a big risk on the iPhone, paying a rumored $20B up front to get the iPhone over the next four years (that is some pipeline!).

Mr. Hesse told the board the carrier would have to agree to purchase at least 30.5 million iPhones over the next four years—a commitment of $20 billion at current rates—whether or not it could find people to buy them, according to people familiar with the matter. In order to keep the price people pay for the phone low and competitive with rivals, Sprint would be subsidizing the cost of each phone to the tune of about $500, which would take a long time to recoup even at the high monthly fees iPhone users pay.

Directors debated what they had just heard. Some worried the payoff would be too long in coming. One member questioned whether the multiyear deal might outlast the iPhone’s popularity. To sell that many iPhones, Sprint would have to double its rolls of contract customers, convert all of them to the Apple device or a combination of the two.

It appears that the risk is already starting to pay off.

Today, spokeswoman Michelle Mermelstein told us:

Fared Adib, Sprint Product Chief, issued the following statement: “Sprint today reported its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history with the launch of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET. The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers’ desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan.”

Unlimited is a good thing.

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The iPhone 4S repair specialists show you how to disassemble an iPhone 4S whether it is to fix something inside or just to piss off an enemy. (If you aren’t a Rick Ashley/Rickroll fan then you might want to get that volume toggle ready).

Readers are writing in to tell us that AT&T is backlogged on their iPhone activations while Verizon and Sprint appear to be handling the load a little better.

One reason is likely sheer numbers. Our survey (below) shows that US users are picking AT&T over Verizon and Sprint by a significant margin (mostly for the Data speed). We’ve also heard that Apple was expecting this and stocking up to five times as many AT&T iPhone 4Ss as Sprint or Verizon iPhones.

So which iPhone did you pick up?

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We are getting a lot of reports that those big lines are clearing and Apple Stores actually have some stock of iPhone 4S left over (the shot above is from Naples, Florida). While the lines are much larger than iPhone 4 lines were during the Verizon launch, they aren’t as big as the iPhone 4 launch lines according to a few reports.

Why? Apple now has more points of sale (+Verizon and Sprint Stores, Sam’s Club, etc). Plus, online pre-orders have been popular with 1 million being sold this year in the first 24 hours on 100 carriers (vs. 5 countries last year). Some analysts are predicting up to 4 million unit sales in the first weekend alone.

From our knowledge of the situation, we’ve heard that Apple has thought ahead this time and ramped up production well ahead of the release. In fact, Apple could have released the iPhone 4S hardware much earlier if the iOS 5 software had been ready.

But that’s good news for those who are trying to get in early on the iPhone 4S but didn’t want to camp out or pre-order.

The bad news? AT&T activation servers seem to be taking some time to activate phones with some users reporting 5-15 minute wait times.

What’s the word on the street out there?

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He didn’t call it a world-changing event, like Siri’s co-founder did in the days leading up to the iPhone 4S announcement. But it is pretty clear that he knows how profound Siri will be to smartphone users.

Woz on his last call with Jobs, the future of Apple and other big stuff below:

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US District Judge Lucy Koh came down on Samsung today for infringing on Apple’s patents in a preliminary hearing on Apple’s request to bar some Galaxy products from being sold in the United States. She stopped short of issuing an injunction however, like her Australian counterpart yesterday, saying that Apple may have some issues establishing the validity of its patents.

Apple and Samsung have been at each others’ throats in more than 20 districts around the world. The fight has ensnarled some of the two companies’ partners and vendors.

Mobile providers Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have opposed Apple’s request, arguing that a ban on Galaxy products would cut into holiday sales.

Apple must show that Samsung infringed its patents and that its patents are valid under the law.

At the hearing on Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court, Koh also said she would deny Apple’s request for an injunction based on one of Apple’s so-called “utility” patents.

She did not say whether she would grant the injunction based on three other Apple “design” patents.

Koh characterized her thoughts on the utility patent as “tentative” but said she would issue a formal order “fairly promptly.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.

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The teardown is in progress. Notes of interest:

• The extra .05W/hrs battery increases talk time by an hour but for some reason (likely additional background processes with notifications), standby time is reduced from 300 to 200 hrs
• “Pentalobe Screws, again?”
• The A5 processor is rated at 1GHz (like iPad obv.) but is underclocked for battery saving purposes. That doesn’t mean an update (or hack) in the future could boost speed to iPad levels.
• The iPhone 4S logic board bears a close resemblance to its stateside CDMA counterpart.
• The Qualcomm chip updated from MDM6600 to MDM6610. There isn’t much out on the 6610 right now but we’re investigating.
• It looks like there really is only 512MB of RAM. AnandTech says:

The second confirmation iFixit’s teardown gives us is the size of the A5’s on-package memory: 512MB. A quick look at the image above yields the Samsung part number: K3PE4E400B-XGC1. Each highlighted E4 refers to a separate 2Gb LPDDR2 die. The A5 features a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory interface, thus requiring two 32-bit die to fully populate both channels. The final two characters in the part number (C1) refer to the DRAM’s clock period, in this case 2.5ns which indicates a 400MHz clock frequency (F=1/T). My assumption here is Samsung’s part number is actually referring to clock frequency and not data rate, implying there are a pair of LPDDR2-800 die in the PoP stack. It’s not entirely uncommon to run memory at speeds lower than they are rated for, a practice we’ve seen in graphics memory in particular for as long as I can remember, so I wouldn’t take this as proof that Apple is running at full LPDDR2-800 speeds.

We’re updating as things develop.

Businessweek’s lengthy profile on Apple’s youngest VP (of iOS software) Scott Forstall is full of little nuggets. Here are the best bits:

1. Forstall’s older brother, Bruce, has been a senior software design engineer at Microsoft for 20 years; imagine the Thanksgiving dinner conversations.
2. “He was as close to Steve as anybody at the company,” says Andy Miller, who headed Apple’s fledgling iAd group.
3. Insiders say he has such a fraught relationship with other members of the executive team—including lead designer Jony Ive and Mac hardware chief Bob Mansfield—that they avoid meetings with him unless Tim Cook is present.
4. He’s known to have a taste for the Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG, in silver, the same car Jobs drove and has a signature on-stage costume: black shoes, jeans, and a black zippered sweater. (He favors Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts for normal days at the office.)
5. “I once referred to Scott as Apple’s chief a–hole,” says former Apple software engineer Mike Lee, who left the company in 2010. “And I meant it as a compliment.”
6. “He knows what he wants, and he’s driven to get it,” says AT&T (T) Chief Technology Officer John Donovan. “He can be relentless about getting it.” “Scott’s a pretty amazing guy,” says Vic Gundotra, a senior vice-president at Google. “In terms of running an operating system team, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.”
7. According to the story, iPod godfather Tony Fadell and Jean-Marie Hullot CTO of Apple’s application division until 2005 left Apple after clashing repeatedly with Forstall. Jon Rubinstein, a former iPod chief who left for Palm in 2006, chatted amiably at a Silicon Valley party last month, until Forstall’s name came up. Then he turned away abruptly. “Goodbye!” he said.
8. He graduated high school as co-valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. (His high school sweatheart/future wife was the other co-valedictorian.)
9. Before the iPhone 4 went to market, Forstall persuaded Jobs to allow dozens of his engineers to carry prototypes of the device to better test its network performance and minimize dropped calls, says a former Apple employee who was a manager at the time. That’s how Gizmodo got ahold of it.
10. Forstall has cashed in over $40 million in Apple Stock. Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, says that he would consider downgrading Apple stock if Forstall were to leave.

The idea is that Forstall isn’t quite a Steve Jobs, but he’s the closest all around package that Apple has.

Update: Fadell weighed in pretty much refuting BW’s portrayal of the situation

“I inherited the competitive iPhone OS project from Jon Rubenstein and Steve Sakoman when they left Apple. I quickly shuttered the project after assessing that a modified Mac OS was the right platform to build the iPhone upon. It was clear that to create the best smartphone product possible, we needed to leverage the decades of technology, tools and resources invested in Mac OS while avoiding the unnecessary competition of dueling projects.”

Along with everyone else in the iOS family, Apple TV got its own update today weighing in at 377MB. We’re seeing Trailers, Photo Stream, NHL, and WSJ Live as new features.

Any others?

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Owning up to its ‘Worldphone’ capabilities, Macworld got the SIM unlock policies from Verizon and Sprint which may make the CDMA phone more attractive than one from AT&T that is SIM-locked.

But there’s a new wrinkle that potentially makes the international-roaming experience better on Sprint and Verizon iPhones than it is on AT&T. Sprint plans to sell the iPhone 4S with its micro-SIM slot unlocked; Verizon’s will be initially locked, but if you’ve been a customer in good standing for 60 days, you can call Verizon and ask for an “international unlock.” (A Verizon spokesperson told me that this is Verizon’s standard policy for all world phones—it’s just the first time it’s manifested itself on an iPhone.)

That’s interesting because for instance the Verizon Droid II Worldphone comes with a locked Vodafone (Verizon’s half parent company) SIM card. If you travel overseas you cannot exchange a local carrier’s SIM, you have to use Vodafone. Verizon may unlock these but it was my understanding that it was up to their discretion. Their policy might be two months old now but that could change on a whim (plus, what is “good standing” – seems shady).

AT&T of course won’t let you put in a local carrier’s SIM card and will charge you their high rates for roaming (though they’ve come down a bit over the past year).

When added to Sprint’s unlimited data plans, ol’ Yellow is looking pretty good, especially for those who travel internationally.

Update: Sprint refuted this claim to Ars Technica and says you will get a Sprint SIM and be charged Sprint Roaming charges, like AT&T.

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Slashgear ran the browser on the dual-core 800MHz A5 iPhone 4S against the latest and greatest Galaxy S II with dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor (skip ahead 4:30). From the video it looks like the iPhone 4S was faster (as expected). However, in their words…

…from initial results the iPhone 4S performs quite well, I’m sure everyone expected that as the original held its own pretty well too. One of the fastest processors around currently, the 1.5 GHz Qualcomm in the Galaxy S II performs very well but is just barely by a hair beat by the new A5 dual-core iPhone 4S in most tests. We could argue about this all day, or try other sites but when it really comes down to it iOS is highly efficient — not to mention many many websites are designed with iOS in mind.

Damn that is a huge screen.

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