9to5 Staff

Apple had a pretty good quarter.  How good?  Even with bullish estimates all around, today’s news shot up Apple’s stock 6.5% from its 189 close to well over 200 (202 currently).  For those who might not think 6.5% is a big deal, that is over $10 Billion in market cap.

We’re deciphering Apple executives and their fourth quarter statements right now – but the initial take away at this stage is the company’s mysterious admission that “air freight costs” are set to rise "abnormally" in the company’s first quarter.

Now, we know we’re all incredibly curious as to just what Apple’s hatching up for its future product road map, but company executives have so far declined to disclose just what it is they’re planning to send into flight. And they don’t seem to want anyone else to be too excited about it – so ditch those tablet rumour-writing pens, folks.

All execs have said at this point is that these increased air freight costs are “nothing to do with iPhone”, and “are about getting units into the channel for the holiday.”

Units of what? This is bound to inflame the Apple rumour machine.

Specifically, the exchange ran as follows:

Toni Sacconaghim an analyst at Sanford Bernstein asked about Apple’s stated availability issues as per the iPhone 3GS, questioned if component acquisition problems were to blame and asked, "Related to that you had also mentioned that air freight you expected to go up next quarter as a reason for gross margins, I’m not sure if that was in relation to phones or anything else but perhaps you can address that as well?"

Tim Cook confirmed demand for iPhone 3GS simply exceeded supply, "I think you would probably put that in your first category of a good old fashioned demand issue which is a nice problem to have in the scheme of things. Now, because it was outstripping supply it creates component shortages as we go out to the market to secure more components," he said, confirming the problem is pretty much resolved (Ed note: hopefully, unless everyone in China buys an iPhone this month).

Then he hit us with the rumour-raiser: "The air freight is not related to the iPhone so these are unrelated topics. But, generally speaking the air freight is planned to get enough units in to the channel in time for the holidays and is necessary for that reason."

Sacconaghi speculated that Q1 air freight costs most likely are often higher than in other quarters, as company management move assets around the planet to deal with Christmas demand. Then CFO Oppenheimer hit us with a fact to leave us baffled: "It’s more than normal so you’re correct that in general we spend more in freight in Q1. However, this increase is larger than usual. I’m sorry I can’t be specific on the product but it’s an abnormal sequential increase."

So, just to clarify, Apple is spending more on air freight in the future quarter as it struggles to cope with an "abnormal sequential increase". We’re wondering what this could be, dismissing an iPhone nano, tablet, new Mac and so on, we find ourselves speculating on an iPod touch with a camera. Though we’re not sure the new name – abnormal sequential increase – will catch on…

We love Seeking Alpha, by the way.

PS: To cite Shakespeare, this could of course turn out to be much ado about nothing, but if it’s not connected to keeping iPhone inventories strong, then what is the cause? Curious, isn’t it?

As reported over the weekend, it looks like we might have an announcement tomorrow. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is throwing his predictions into the ring:

…Redesigned Plastic MacBooks, Redesigned (‘Impressive’) iMacs, Updated Minis (Including One That Ships With Mac OS X Server), the Multi-Touch Magic Mouse, and, as the Wildcard Out-There Rumor, Maybe Even Some Sort of Mentioned-Nowhere-Else-But-in-This-Very-Headline Multi-Touch Trackpad Gadget for Desktop Macs That Apple Is Set to Release Tomorrow Morning

Mostly rehashed, but a few new items from here:

• Mac Mini Server (will it be a new OS for the rest of us? Or will it be standard OSX Server for small companies that don’t need an Xserve?).  Lots of people use these already so not a huge surprise.  $999 pricepoint is our guess.  Apple is already selling Minis for $499.
• ‘Magic Mouse’ New name, multi-touch surface on top has been talked about already plenty.
• Multi-touch trackpad for desktops (which would seem to negate the above?)  Seems more in the wild guess category but certainly something we’d be interested in.  Tune in tomorrow morning.

Apple today revealed Q4 revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share.

This contrasts with revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The company confirmed what many industry observers hadn’t expected, that it is continuing to exercise the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, presumably while it implements new systems which don’t assess income in this manner.

For the present, though, Apple recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone and Apple TV over their estimated economic lives.

What’s important is the adjusted figure, in Apple’s own words: “Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures for the quarter are $12.25 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.85 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Numbers look pretty good:
– 3.05 million Macs – 17% up year-on-year (y-o-y).
– 10.2 million iPods  – 8% down y-o-y
– 7.4 million iPhones – 7% up y-o-y.

“We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

“We are delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, moving on to full year results. “For the full year, we grew revenue by 12 percent and net income by 18 percent in extraordinarily challenging times.”

Pretty positive guidance, too. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.70 to $1.78,” Oppenheimer said.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2009 financial results conference call starting at 2pm PDT.

I’ll be liveblogging the Quarter 4 conference call over at Computerworld.  Stop by or skip the middleman by listening in yourself here.

Apple’s conference call webcast discussing Q4 – 2009 financial results will begin at 2:00pm PT/5:00pm ET on Monday, October 19, 2009.

We first postulated that it was possible to use the iPod touch and original iPhone with the TomTom car kit (which includes a GPS module) back in August.  Mac4ever seemed to have confirmed this a month later, but Apple to this day only advertises that the iPhone 3G and 3GS are capable of using the TomTom kit.  Today the Gemans at iFun.de have YouTube proof (we think!) that the kit does work with original iPhones (and iPods?).

Thanks Oliver!

 Last Night Joel Hewitt, the developer of the iPhone Facebook App, tweeted that a 3.03 bugfix update was in the pipe with a new 3.1 version right around the corner.  The big feature in 3.1?  Push Notifications.  Now every time one of your 300 "friends" updates the status of their meal, you’ll be notified (OK, maybe you can set it only to push direct messages – fine).

Us? We’ll take a pass on the Push Notifications but to each their own.

A commenter, this weekend, reminded us of the NintenDon’t campaign that Sega ran a few years before it stopped making consoles.  The message is remarkably similar to the iDon’t campaign, except 20 years earlier.  Will it have similar results?

video via DF

Then there is that old saying…"if the only way you can market your product is to compare it to some other product, you’ve already lost. Well, thanks for the free publicity, bitches."

http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1300014922/code/cnbcplayershare

"You’re going to see a great set of results from Apple," Richard Windsor from Nomura said Monday ahead of the Apple’s earnings.

"In terms of their products, what they are really doing is gaining market share. It’s not so much the fact that the PC market is suddenly returning to some kind of growth."

Good deals have now become available on Apple desktops through Amazon, propelling the Mac Pro to become the third most popular computer sold through the US retailer in the category.

Amazon has slashed an impressive $200 off the price of the professional workhorse Mac, $2,299 will get you an Apple Mac Pro MB871LL/A Desktop. An additional $849 (itself a $50 discount on book price) will fetch an Apple LED Cinema Display 24-Inch (though this latter product’s not sold by Amazon, but a third-party vendor).

Industry speculation currently claims new iMac and Mac mini models are imminent for release at this time. However, Amazon disocunts on these models are slight in comparison to the Mac Pro blessing on offer today. This could give rise to speculation Apple may plan an upgrade to its top-tier Mac, which last saw a significant upgrade in March 2009.

Verizon may be aggressively targeting Apple’s iPhone with its latest Droid ad campaign, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t attempting to woo Cupertino, at least so it appears on report the next-gen iPhone is already being tested on Verizon’s network.

A report on Fone Frenzy (who?) claims Verizon Wireless CEO, Lowell McAdam has visited Apple HQ “several times”, adding that Apple is testing a CDMA iPhone on the Verizon 4G LTE network.

“The tests have been taking place for the last couple of months and but with no confirmation on the release date,” this report claims.

A report on the report published on MacTouchUser also makes the claim that Apple and Verizon are testing a tablet prototype on the network, citing an old BusinessWeek article.

Given continued complaints at AT&T’s US 3G coverage, some grist to this particular rumour is granted by the fact that Verizon has already begun putting together 4G infrastructure, set for mass market introduction next year. 4G is ten times faster than 3G, has better security and other features to attract.

All this must be put through the other recent claims that Apple and AT&T have hitched up an extension of their existing exclusivity, which could make for no deal detente between Apple and Verizon at this time. Also, we’re by no means certain of the veracity of the Fone Frenzy claim.

Hello and welcome to the Monday news digest as we start the new week. Over the weekend you may have missed that the latest beta Mac OS X Snow Leopard fixes the recently disclosed data destroying bug, EyeTV for iPhone is there, gone and back again, Verizon makes it personal and new iMac speculation grows.

This morning we’re seeing all eyes on Apple, which reports its Q4 financials today – will iPhone sales be up to scratch? And we’re impressed with MacSupport.ca’s find of a kid’s book about Jobs, Wozniak and “creating the Apple computer – pictured, right.

More on iPhone Rock Band for iPhone has shipped; Twitter co-founder has hatched a plan for iPhone credit card payments; Apple approves another VoIP app. On the Mac, an interesting story on the battle for the cloud; Flip4Mac has been upgraded for Snow Leopard and UK schools continue to embrace mobile learning, with one offerng an iPod touch to every student as part of the plan. All this and our latest hand-picked cut-price toys for our readers. See you after the blip…

Eyes on Apple – will results shine?
Apple will reveal its Q4 results after market close later on today.Recent reports claimed iPhone sales may be depressed as Apple has had a hard time keeping stock in channel, will this impact results? “The driver is if the iPhone keeps selling well," said Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst.

"Mac is a huge part of the company and I think it’s going to get better next year, so while there may be some risk in the iPhone sales for the quarter, people will take some solace in that the Mac sales are pretty strong."

Apple has beaten consensus Wall Street EPS estimates in every quarter for the past two years.

Read it here. or read the WSJ on this here.

Rock Band for iPhone ships
There’s so much expected of this release, which is at last here and available to download now on the App Store ($9.99).

ROCK BAND features a multi-player mode (via Bluetooth), allowing up to 4 players to rock out on the go. While you can also play via single-player mode, you can use the integrated Facebook Connect to invite your friends to join in.

Read it here

iPhone is a credit card (terminal)
We follow this one with interest. While iPhone technologies haven’t yet advanced toward making the device a secure payment system, developers are chasing after another holy grail, that of transforming the device into a credit card.

Recall reports of testing taking place of iPhones doing this in a shop in New York? Now it turns out the tests were being run on behalf of Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey and his Squirrel project, which is in fact the Square iPhone Payment System.

Read it here

VoIP exploding on iPhone
We’ll see speculation Apple plans to lock the carriers out of  voice calls with VoIP over data networks next, probably, but we following AT&T’s detente on VoIP, apps supporting the protocol are arriving at the App Store thick and fast. The latest entrant, Rebtel, is available now.

Rebtel joins a growing rank of Internet telephony applications including Skype, Truphone, Nimbuzz, Fring and Vonage.

Read it here

Battle in the cloud: Apple v. Windows v. Google
“Although Windows still runs 90% of PCs, the fading importance of the PC means that Microsoft is no longer an all-powerful monopolist. Others are also building big clouds, including Google, a giant of the internet, and Apple, renowned as a maker of hardware, with a market capitalisation that now exceeds those of both Google and IBM, its original arch-rival.” The Economis.

An interesting look at Microsoft’s declining importance as competitors innovate their way beyond it in the network-driven cloudy skies…

Read it here

Flip4Mac upgraded for Snow Leopard
Teleetream’s Flip4Mac WMV software for Mac OS X has been updated for Snow Leopard compatibility. It also delivers an optional install of Microsoft’s Silverlight software (Silverlight is installed by default, but it can be omitted by deselecting the Silverlight option after clicking the Customize button in the installer.) Still doesn’t offer full Safari compatibility.

Read it here

1,000 students in Bolton, Lancashire
1,000 pupils at a Bolton school is set to be given an iPod touch as part of a wider technological drive costing £250,000. It’s all part of an initiative to boost learning attainment at the school, as educational researchers become ever more convinced that digital natives need digital tools.

Read it here

Bargains from the Toys Section
We scour the shops each morning to try to find you some kind of useful bargain, here’s today’s deals – more in our Toys Section

US Deal
What’s not to like in a 32GB flash drive? Well, potentially not for everybody, but if you want a non-ipod to shift your data around, then this hugely discounted deal on the Kingston DataTraveler I – 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive DTI/32GB (White/Orange) means you’ll pay just $59.99 for the normally $150 product. And 32GB will let you easily shift a lot of movies, images, music and other data between Macs. Head over and take a look…

UK deal
Two fab UK deals this morning. Good news for UK readers with the Shure Se530 Sound Isolating Earphones now costing just £268.73 down from £499 launch price. In our opinion, these are the very best earbud headphones around, so we’d recommend them to any music lover seeking the best possible audio experience. Now they’re a better deal than ever, so do check them out.

Alternatively, keen photographers may benefit from the Hama 4024 Mini Tripod – especially when we let you know these currently cost you just 40-pence rather than the normal £32 retail price – a saving of £31.60. If you use a camera (equipped with a 1/4” tripod thread) then you surely see something to tempt you in this deal? Go and check it out.

That’s all for now, but do check back later for more in 9to5Mac’s constantly updated selection of news items as they come through the ether.

In a series of tweets today, iPhone Dev team leader, MuscleNerd, revealed some hacks that might make your iPhone life a little more interesting. 

First, there is a baseband hack called whiterat that will allow 2G iPhones to send and recieve photo MMSes.  Apple’s 3.0 update only enabled MMS on iPhone 3G and 3GS models.  Nifty!

Next up is a two-bit (not $.25) baseband hack that will re-enable sweet, sweet tethering on the most recent 3.1.2 iPhone OS-updated iPhones.  The previous tethering hack only worked on iPhone 3.0 software and firmware.

AT&T isn’t likely to enable tethering until 2010.

Both of these are pretty hardcore, as they mess with your iPhone’s baseband.  That definitely means that they fall into the "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK" category.  As he and we remind you, this could also cause AT&T to do some extra gouging to your phone bill.

That being said, let us know if you’ve had any success in trying these or if there are easier ways to acomplish the above.

WolframAlpha, the computational searchable database that went live as a website a few months ago is now an iPhone app.  "Fantastic!" you might say.  You’ll take it?  Just one thing though:  It is $50!  And it doesn’t do much that the Web page doesn’t.  Is there something we dont understand here?

WolframAlfa $50 App Store link – via TechCrunch.

The situation surrounding Elgato’s EyeTV app continues to swirl – the application was removed from the App Store yesterday, only to reappear on the US, UK and German versions of the store overnight.

At this time yesterday, the understanding was that the App had been removed from sale because it included an Easter egg which could enable streaming over 3G.

On the withdrawal of the app, Elgato said, “Some test code that enabled live TV streaming over the cellular network was accidentally left in the the EyeTV App,” the company said. “Apple requested that we remove the code since their agreement with AT&T does not allow redirecting TV signals over the cellular network. The code was removed and a 1.0.1 version of the EyeTV app was submitted.  We expect EyeTV to return to the App Store when the 1.0.1 version is approved.”

You’d think the version of the App that’s now available on the App Store would be the revised 1.0.1 version, but this does not seem to be the case.

A tipster told 9to5Mac, “This appears to to the original 1.0.0 version, though they might have neglected to change the name,” the insider also explained Elgato submitted version 1.0.1 on Saturday, “so if this isn’t the update, it’s certainly on its way.”

The EyeTV application is presently available here on iTunes US – do let us know if it disappears again…

GigaOM interviewed Mozilla CEO Jon Lily at the Play conference, an event at the Haas School of Business at the University of Berkeley.  There, Lily hinted that Mozilla would be submitting an app to the App Store.

“Mozilla will release an app to the iPhone app store in the next few weeks,” Lily said. “It’ll surprise people.”

While Mozilla’s business is mostly browsers, they do other related stuff and they aren’t likely to try to get a Safari competitor by Apple’s App Store reviewers.  Om thinks it might revolve around their bookmark synching service, Weave.

As promised, Verizon unveiled an ad in tonight’s Yankees-Angels game aimed pretty squarely at the iPhone.  It is interesting to remember that the Motorola ROKR had Apple iTunes software on it three years ago… and Apple was negotiating to put the iPhone on Verizon (never gonna happen now!) at about the same time.

It also looks like George Lucas is getting some Droid money.  You’ll notice a  “DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license.” in the materials.

Update: Keep an eye on those apostrophes in "iDon’t".  Classy.

They also have a website – DroidDoes.com.

According to Engadget, Verizon is preparing a major ad campaign starting during tonight’s Yankees-Angels game.  You’ll remember the fun "There’s a Map for That" campaign?  Well, apparently this "iDevice iDoesn’t" campaign is much more hardcore.  This little war can only be good for consumers.

Apple this morning removed the Elgato EyeTV App from sale through the App store due to concerns about live TV streaming over the 3G network.

At issue was the so-called “Easter egg” which could enable streaming over 3G, as reported yesterday.

Prompted by Apple, Elgato is developing a new version of the app, this time without this secret 3G streaming ability. The company this morning also issued the following statement on the affair:

“Some test code that enabled live TV streaming over the cellular network was accidentally left in the the EyeTV App,” the company said. “Apple requested that we remove the code since their agreement with AT&T does not allow redirecting TV signals over the cellular network. The code was removed and a 1.0.1 version of the EyeTV app was submitted.  We expect EyeTV to return to the App Store when the 1.0.1 version is approved.”

As we noted yesterday, “Apple is likely to put the kibosh on this one pretty quick so if you have an EyeTV and want to do some TV streaming, you might want to download the App ASAP and hold off on updating.”

A German Mac retailer is offering deals on its existing iMac stocks, suggesting an attempt to clear inventory as Apple’s supply chain sets the stage for new models, potentially this coming week.

As reported by German Mac news website, Mac Essentials, m-Store is offering deals on iMacs, including 0% finance and a free HP printer.

The German site is convinced these deals suggest new models are looming, saying (Google Translate): “At next week, stay tuned: On Monday, the quarterly results on Tuesday … an Apple Tuesday?”

Speculation also takes on an added dimension when we reflect on the 2-4-week shipping date currently promised on the (discounted) existing models of iMac through Amazon. Apple’s online shops now promise these items will ship within 24-hours.

Supplies of iMacs have been dwindling in recent weeks. Speculation had existed claiming Apple intended some kind of announcement on October 13, but with the company’s results due on October 19 the company usually keeps quiet in the preceding week or two.

A recent Wedge Partners report claimed a new iMac and redesigned MacBook coming in October.

“Wedge sees a redesigned iMac witjh a “thinner, organic design, likely with smoothed or rounded edges. The MacBook redesign “is likely to be limited,” Wedge asserts. Meanwhile, the firm also expects “new, lower price points to drive demand and create a meaningful competitive threat” to coming PCs based on Windows 7 as well as to the booming netbook segment. “We believe these new designs and price points will help Apple achieve a 3 million unit quarter for Macs in [calendar] Q4,” the report said.

French site MacForever says the new iMacs will have SD card slot(s) and Quad core processors. Other reports have speculated upon inclusion of Blu-ray drives in the latest models, only to repel such speculation later, saying Apple had changed its mind in an 11th hour shift. They are also saying that Tuesday is likely the day of release.  Translated:

But according to various sources, Apple Store would indeed close its doors next Tuesday. On the menu: MacBook, IMac and Mac mini. It is not impossible that Apple took the opportunity to review other models. It could also be a big surprise on the side of the iMac.

Stay tuned.

Apple has seeded developers with a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.2, the next major update for Snow Leopard, in which it has addressed the nasty Guest account data-destroying bug, reports of which have been in a flurry in recent weeks.

Apple conceded the existence of this bug earlier this week, after multiple reports complained of its existence following our earlier report the prior week.

The seed is said to contain just one issue and to carry two sets of release notes, suggesting the code’s on the fast-track to release, once successful testing is completed.

The software also promised reliability improvements across Apple apps, including iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, iDisk, and Safari.

The only known Issues in the release is that Image Capture returns a black image when scanning in black-&-white and Image Correction is in manual. Read on for full notes…

From the seed notes:

Focus Areas (Changes in 10C527f):

AFP
– Resolves a panic in AFP.

AppKit
– Fix in NSButton, where buttons can be archived for those developing in Interface Builder.

BezelServices
– Resolves an issue where users were unable to manually adjust the screen dimming/key brightness on their portables.

ColorSync
– Resolves custom color profiles over reboots.

CoreServicesUIAgent
– Downloaded folders from zip files will open in the finder.

GraphicsDrivers
– Fixes to stencil renderbuffers.
– Resolves a crash in OpenCL.
– Resolves screen flickering issue.
– Resolves a QuickTime Player X stuttering issue when playing 1080p content.

iChat
– Resolves an iChat hang on launch issue.

Image Capture
– Resolves an issue where the correct height & width values are returned for Nikon cameras.
– Fixes a problem where when two FireWire card readers are connected, the volume name is unaccessible.
– Resolves an issue where older Canon and Sony PTP cameras failed to see images.

ipsec
– Resolves an issue where the VPN connection remains active while transferring data.

Persistence
– Improves the response time when making edits to AddressBook.

Quartz Composer
– Fixes an iMovie crash when looping preview of titles in the skimming palette.

QuartzCore
– Fixes color shift issues in iMovie.

QuickTime Player
– Resolves document types so that movies that play in QuickTime, can also play in QuickTime Player X.

[Other fixed issues]

– an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
– a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
– Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
– a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
– issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
– the reliability of menu extras
– an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
– an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
– Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
– a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
– an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
– Safari plug-in reliability
– general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
– an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account.

Via: World of Apple