This could be a big deal: demand for the iPhone 4 is already outstrippign supply in China, where local carriwer China Unicom received over 200,000 preorders for the device by Saturday.
The iPhone went on sale in China last week, and the local carrier there intends building up supply as fast as possible.
Expand
Expanding
Close
http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoPlayerMain.swf
In this clip, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talks about technology, his relationship with Apple and Steve Jobs. He also told Businessweek that Apple and Google have recently extended their search partnership.
Apple is a company we both partner and compete with. We do a search deal with them, recently extended, and we’re doing all sorts of things in maps and things like that. So the sum of all this is that two large corporations, both of which are important, both of which I care a lot about, will [remain] pretty close. But Android was around earlier than iPhone.
Among other highlights in this (really interesting) interview:
Expand
Expanding
Close
COMPUTERWORLD: In July I wrote about an Apple patent which described ways in which iPhones and other devices could change shape and function depending on what’s going on around them. At the time I visualized this only in the sense of the user interface, but how much further can these ideas go?
Of course Apple will never, ever, ever release a 7-inch iPad, the argument goes, why would it, its product lines are models of simplicity, etc., etc. So here’s the news from out of China, Apple is prepping a 7-inch iPod touch.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple competitors in the are reeling as the iPad effect grabs a chunk of sales and threatens to raise netbook component prices, principally display prices.
Display prices may rise if screen makers get their way. That’s because of increasing demand for displays, prices for which have already fallen to cost levels. Indeed, manufactuers are increasingly more interested in the fast-rising tablet market than they are in the netbooks and notebook markets.
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM25fGAzy34&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Just in time for a Friday morning, here’s a neart little video showing an all-new iPod nano transformed into a little walking robot, from the same dude who made the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch into a tryptch of walking technology a few months ago.
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gngr3RF_eBY&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Here’s a video showing some of the differences between Windows 7 and the iPhone. Win 7 incidentally seems set to drive some future Nokia smartphones.
Apple constantly invents and reinvents, files patents and attempts to weave its advances into new generations of device to amuse and amaze the Apple faithful, today in AAPL Patent watch we present you with a new technology which could spearhead Apple’s move to take a big slice out of the digital photography market and another which basically just makes iPod nanos even more nano.
Expand
Expanding
Close
COMPUTERWORLD: No sooner do we learn Apple is manufacturing CDMA iPhones for launch in 2011 than Verizon’s CEO makes statements which suggest it won’t sell the iPhone next year. Don’t US customers deserve a little more clarity on the future availability — or otherwise — of Apple’s must-have mobile in the US?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of2GBIqP9eA&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Look I’ve been bleating on ad infinitum about how your iPhone will one day be your wallet — now over at the real world, New Yorkers may soon pay for their travel fares with a flick of their iDevice.
Visa has just launched a new pilot scheme in which New Yorkers can pay for subway, bus and train fares with their iPhone.
Expand
Expanding
Close
There’s a furiously healthy grey market in the iPhone in China — we wonder how it works? Turns out it is quite complicated, involving early morning queues at US Apple Stores, backstreet sales deals at stores in Chinatown, unlocking, shipping and later sale in China, where the devices actually get made.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Independent artists are finally making their long, slow progress onto Apple’s social network for music, Ping.
Ping, which launched after months of development without support from Facebook and with limited involvement of the labels, was originally castigated for offering a major label bias.
Expand
Expanding
Close
There’s a series of interesting App Store metrics contained in a handy (but large) infographic you can go grab from a business-focused website right now. These little visual nuggets of information include data on just how many inactive apps exist, how quickly the App Store has grown and much more.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple’s attempt at 99-cent TV show rentals is off to a choppy start, with NBC Universal chief exec Jeff Zucker saying his network ain’t about to follow Fox and Walt Disney to rent movies via the service.
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK-fnAnLX3o&fs=1&hl=en_GB]
Hey we’re just hearing this from the BBC so it must be true, but it looks like some of those iPhone apps out there aimed at kids may sometimes manage to fool children into making in-game purchases using a grown-up’s credit card. We also have Apple’s response to this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNoF1SWtSg&w=670&h=401]
Intel’s optical connectivity standard Light Peak may not be a huge success once the company begins offering it to PC makers, but as a technology it could open the door to future furiously fast optical interconnects extending all across the gamut of the consumer and the professional/server markets, an engineer from an unnamed “top-tier” PC company said today.
Expand
Expanding
Close
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s on track to deliver the iPhone on US carriers other than AT&T early next year, the latest reports claim, but at least one analyst suggests iPhone sales growth may have slowed down (while setting new records). And perhaps the iPad really is ‘magical’.
The age of future motoring is scurrying fast toward us, and it looks like the iPhone could be coming along for the ride, at least according to Mercedes and BMW, who showcased a pair of eScooters at the Paris motorshow this week, both of which use the iPhone as the sole driver interface.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple’s recent move to allow applications developed using Adobe’s Flash Packager for iPhone tool for CS5 has had some effect, but only a “muted” one, claimed Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen during that company’s Q3 financial call.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple creates amazing devices, sometimes you can’t help yourself and feel compelled to simply touch them, to feel their delicate electromagnetic chemistry shimmer under the contact with your skin. Almost like they’re alive.
No, this isn’t now, silly, but it sure will be a hallmark of Apple’s products of the future,
Expand
Expanding
Close
Speaking of the change-everything iPad as I seem to from time-to-time AT&T has some interesting wit and repartee for us — alleging there’s already over half a million iPads on its US 3G network — meanwhile the survey results are in and the iPad is (I can feel blushes in Cupertino) the highest-scoring product a leading consumer satisfaction index has ever tracked.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Here’s news for all you socialites out there — it appears Apple and Facebook chatted for over a year before the launch of Ping, and the talks gave us … nothing.
Recall when Apple boss Steve Jobs says Facebook demanded “onerous” terms?
Expand
Expanding
Close
The below chart is so telling, showing as it does Apple’s slice of mobile industry profits in comparison to its actual sliver of a slice of the mobile industry itself.
With this in mind, Canaccord Genuity today began offering coverage of AAPL stock, citing a buy rating and rather stonkingly high $356 per share price.
The analysts have astutely spotted that not only can Apple create innovative products, it also knows how to make money selling them.
Via: Apple 2.0 @ Fortune
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s Steve Jobs was excited at the Star Trek-like use of video in a FaceTime chat with Jony Ive when announcing iPhone 4 — but take a look at Apple’s recent purchases and a ride on the Apple rumor mill and you can’t help but see the jigsaw pieces falling into place that mean the science fiction future is here.