9to5 Staff

AT&T released their quarterly numbers today.  Taken with yesterday’s iPhone numbers, we have a more complete view of the iPhone global sales outlook.

Of the 6.9 million 3G iPhones sold in the quarter, AT&T sold 2.4 million of them.  That means that 4.5 million iPhones were sold overseas, almost 2/3rds of the total 3G iPhone allotment.

 AT&T had 2.0 million new subscrbers in the quarter.  Of the 2.4 million iPhone’s sold, 40% were to new subscribers.  That mean .96 million iPhone 3G customers were new to AT&T.  So 1/2 of AT&T’s new subscribers were iPhone 3G customers.  Not a bad partnership to be in if you ask us.

 

Oh, and just to put the cherry on top: 50.5 percent growth in wireless data revenues from Internet access, messaging, e-mail and related services; total wireless revenues up 15.4 percent

We wonder what Verizon thinks about their decision to pass on the iPhone?

Another Apple ad. Got to say this one didn’t do it for us. And that outfit on Mac guy looks familiar/ass-hat-ish.

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_bakesale_20081020_480x272.mov

Thanks to the transcribers at Seeking Alpha, we have the entire transcript of the call which sent to stock up over 10% in after hours trading.  Most interesting is what dear leader Steve Jobs said.  Here are some bits:

Hi, everyone. Some remarkable things are happening at Apple but everything is now set against the backdrop of this global economic slowdown, so it seemed like a good time for me to make a few remarks and help answer some of your questions.

I would like to go back and talk about the non-GAAP financial results because I think this is a pretty big deal. In addition to reporting an outstanding quarter, today we are also introducing non-GAAP financial results which eliminate the impact of subscription accounting. As you know, subscription accounting is the solution we adopted to let us provide free software updates to iPhone users under GAAP accounting rules. In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, Apple recognizes the revenue and the cost of goods sold for the iPhone over its economic life of two years rather than upon sale as we do for Macs and iPods.

Because by its nature subscription accounting spreads the impact of iPhone’s contribution to Apple’s overall sales, gross margin, and net income over two years, it can make it more difficult for the average Apple manager or the average investor to evaluate the company’s overall performance. As long as our iPhone business was small relative to our Mac and music businesses, this didn’t really matter much. But this past quarter, as you heard, our iPhone business has grown to about $4.6 billion, or 39% of Apple’s total business, clearly too big for Apple management or investors to ignore. Hence our introduction today of non-GAAP financial results alongside our reported GAAP results.

As you can see, the non-GAAP financial results are truly stunning. By eliminating subscription accounting, adjusted sales for the quarter were $11.68 billion, 48% higher than the reported revenue of $7.9 billion, while adjusted income was $2.44 billion, 115% higher than the reported net income of $1.14 billion. Adjusted net income that is more than double our reported income — if this isn’t stunning, I don’t know what is, all due to the incredible success of the iPhone 3G.

I would like to now highlight two remarkable milestones resulting from iPhone’s outstanding performance last quarter. The first is that Apple beat RIM. In their most recent quarter, Research in Motion, or RIM, reported selling 6.1 million BlackBerry devices. Compared to our most recent quarter sales of 6.9 million iPhones, Apple outsold RIM last quarter and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products and so it is surprising that after only 15 months in the market, we could outsell them in any quarter.

But even more remarkable is this — measured by revenues, Apple has become the world’s third-largest mobile phone supplier. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true — as measured in revenues, not units, Apple has become the third largest mobile phone supplier. Let’s look at the ranking — Nokia is clearly number one at 12.7 billion; Samsung number two at 5.9 billion; Apple is number three at 4.6 billion; Sony Ericsson, number four at 4.2; LG, number five at 3.4 billion; Motorola, number six at 3.2; and RIM number seven at 2.1. Pretty amazing.

Now, both of these things, beating RIM in units and becoming the third largest mobile supplier in revenues are amazing feats but part of this was the result of expanding into over 50 countries and there’s no guarantee that sustained sales will equal initial sales. And who knows what the future results will be, given the worldwide economic slowdown but we actually outsold RIM last quarter and ranked as the third largest mobile phone supplier in revenues. Not bad for being in the market for only 15 months.

I would now like to talk about the App Store for a few minutes. One area that where we have completely changed the value proposition for mobile devices is the App Store. Customers will download the 200 millionth application from the App Store tomorrow, only 102 days since its launch on July 11th — the 200 millionth app. We’ve never seen anything like this in our careers. There are now over 5,500 applications offered on the App Store in 62 countries around the world and the rate of new applications being submitted is increasing every week. Competitors are scrambling to copy our App Store but it’s not as easy as it looks and we are far along in creating the virtuous cycle of cool applications begetting more iPhone sales, thereby creating an even larger market which will attract even more iPhone software development. It is clear that customers are now attracted to iPhone not only for its amazing functionality and revolutionary multi-touch user interface but also for its unique ability to let users easily purchase, download, and use thousands of different applications, ranging from free games to financial planning and health management — all of this in only 102 days.

And now I’d like to touch on the notebooks that we just introduced. Last week we introduced our new MacBook and MacBook Pro line. These products are very important since notebooks comprise two-thirds or more of the Macs we sell. These new MacBooks are some of the best products we’ve ever created and it’s already clear that our customers love them. We’ve had a very, very strong launch and we are anxiously awaiting to see the demand trajectory that will unfold during the quarter. The level of quality these products deliver to customers is mind-blowing for their price points. The unibody precision aluminum enclosures would normally cost hundreds of dollars by themselves. The electronics, especially the graphics, are state-of-the-art in mobile computing and features like the glass track pad are unique in the industry. With the introduction of LED backlit displays on these mainstream notebooks, over 90% of the notebooks Apple sells now use LED backlit displays.

Another thing worth noting is that these new notebooks are the greenest products Apple has ever offered. You will hear more and more about that from us in the future.

So now let’s turn to the economy, to the broader market conditions resulting from the global economic slowdown and credit crisis. First, let me say that we are not economists. Your next-door neighbor can likely predict what is going to happen as accurately as we can, but we do know a few things.

First, we have the best customers in the world. I wouldn’t trade our customers for any other company’s customers in the entire world. They are some of the smartest, most product aware customers in the market and they have chosen Apple’s quality, hardware and software products. While they may postpone purchases in tough times, they are unlikely to abandon the quality and seamless integration which they have personally experienced and become accustomed to with Apple’s products. So if the economic downturn does affect the

m, they are more likely to delay than switch.

Two, we still have a minority market share of the PC market and a miniscule market share of the mobile phone market. While we may not appeal to every prospective customer, the percentage of prospective customers we need to attract in order to significantly increase our market share isn’t that many and we have 250 Apple retail stores that already sell half their Macs to new-to-Mac customers.

Three, we have the best product lineup in Apple’s history. The new MacBooks in particular should trigger a serious upgrade cycle in our installed base. We’ll see. I feel very good about our product lineup as we head into the holidays and beyond.

Four, we have the most talented and creative employees in the world — just look at their results — the new MacBooks, the iMac, the iPhone, the iPod Nano and Touch, Leopard, iLife, and on and on. None of our competitors can deliver products in this class.

And five, we have almost $25 billion safely in the bank and zero debt. This provides us tremendous stability and the ability to invest our way through this downturn. This is what we did during the last downturn — we increased R&D investments and created some of our best new products and businesses, like the Apple retail stores, for one. This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them, like Apple does.

In summary, we have the strongest product lineup in Apple’s history, the most talented employees, and the best customers and $25 billion in the bank. We may get buffeted around by the waves a little bit but we will be fine and stronger than ever when the water is calm in the future.

With that, I’d like to open it up for questions for Peter, Tim, or myself.

Q&A

*in response to a question

Well, again this particular downturn is not creating a market of cheaper computers. That market has existed for some time and there are parts of that market that we choose not to play in.

I think when people want a product of the class that we make, over and over again people have done the price comparisons and we’re actually quite competitive. So we choose to be in certain segments of the market and we choose not to be in certain segments of the market. And the question is is the downturn going to drive some of our customers to those lower segments of the marketplace and get to buy lesser products? And I will be surprised if that happens in large numbers and I actually think that there are still a tremendous number of customers that we don’t have in the Windows world or in the other 99% of the phone market we don’t have who would like to and can afford to buy Apple products. So we’ll see what the ratio of those two things are but we’re not tremendously worried.

As we look at the NetBook category, that’s a nascent category. There’s as best as we can tell not a lot of them getting sold. You know, one of our entrants into that category, if you will, is the iPhone for browsing the Internet and doing e-mail and all the other things that a NetBook lets you do, and being connected via the cellular net wherever you are, an iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it fits in your pocket. But we’ll wait and see how that nascent category evolves and we’ve got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve.

Another question:

Well, I think what we want to do is deliver a lot, an increasing level of value to these customers. There are some customers which we choose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve and there’s a lot of them. And we’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continuing to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve. Does that make sense to you?

On Apple TV:

Well again, I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it and actually the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away, so I’d have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.

Bill Fearnley – FTN Midwest

And if I could switch quickly to tablet computing and touch screens, you’ve made some comments about those in the past but when you look at tablet computing and you look at the new form factor for the Macs and those types of things, does that get to be a more attractive opportunity for you going forward here, now that the new Macs are out?

Steven P. Jobs

I think we have such creative people that are looking at a lot of things but I really can’t talk about any of the future products we are working on, I’m sorry.

Mike Abramsky – RBC Capital Markets

Thanks very much. Steve, you only have really one SKU in the phone biz, and the phone market is 10 times the size of the PC market, so I think you clearly as you said strive to be the best. At the same time, what might be the opportunities for further innovation or market opportunities within that market?

Steven P. Jobs

Well, I wasn’t alive then but from everything I heard, Babe Ruth had only one homerun, he just kept hitting it over and over again. So I don’t think that — I think the traditional game in the phone market has been to produce a voice phone in a hundred different varieties. But as software starts to become the differentiating technology of this product category, I think that people are going to find that a hundred variations presented to a software developer is not very enticing and most of the competitors in this phone business do not really have much experience in a software platform business. So we are extremely comfortable with our strategy, our product strategy going forward and we approach it as a software platform company, which is pretty different than most of our competitors

Listening in on the call today, Apple’s leaders including Steve Jobs (who made a rare earnings call appearance) seemed very upbeat and very – dare I say smug- about hording lots of cash.  It’s funny to hear an investment banker wonder why Apple is hoarding cash (they really did ask) when their industry has been torn apart by the lack of prudence in this area.  Apple has $25 Billion which Steve said, could be used to hire every Engineer in the Valley "Good idea!"

When Asked about a tablet, Jobs said "we don’t talk about future products"

When asked about Netbooks, he said "we compete in this market already with iPod Touches and iPhones.

Apple is the 3rd largest phone maker in the world by revenue!! 

 

Nokia#1
Samsung #2
Apple #3

Apple beat RIM by unit sales and as an analyst mentioned, most of RIM’s sales are repeat customers.  Almost all usable iPhones are in use.

The iPhone accounts for 40% of Apple’s business and is also its biggest opportunity for growth…

It is hard not to be optimististic after all of this.  Especially for the iPhone market.

Yeah it is kinda sad, I am going to be liveblogging the Apple Q4 Earnings call over at Computerworld. Hit the Semi-Live-Panel. 

Also see the Apple report:

 

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

6.9 Million iPhones Sold
Mac Sales Reach All-Time High

CUPERTINO, California—October 21, 2008—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 33.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 41 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

 

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.68 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.44 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple shipped 2,611,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,052,000 iPods during the quarter, representing eight percent unit growth and three percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 6,892,000 compared to 1,119,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”

“We’re very pleased to have grown revenue 35 percent and to have generated $9.1 billion in cash in fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead, visibility is low and forecasting is challenging, and as a result we are going to be prudent in predicting the December quarter. We are providing a wide range for our guidance, targeting revenue of $9.0 to $10.0 billion and earnings per diluted share between $1.06 and $1.35.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2008 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq408/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

*Non-GAAP Financial Measures

During fiscal 2007, the Company began selling the iPhone and Apple TV. Because the Company may provide unspecified features and additional software products to iPhone and Apple TV customers in the future free of charge, in accordance with GAAP the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for these products on a straight-line basis over their economic lives, with any loss recognized at the time of sale. Currently, the economic lives of these products are estimated to be 24 months. This accounting treatment, referred to as subscription accounting, results in the deferral of almost all of the revenue and cost of goods during the quarter in which the products are sold to the customer. Other costs related to these products, including costs for engineering, sales, marketing and warranty, are expensed as incurred. Further, the costs to develop any future unspecified features and additional software products that may eventually be provided to customers also are expensed as incurred. In contrast, the Company generally recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for its other products, such as Macs and iPods, at the time of sale, as the Company does not provide future unspecified features or additional software products to those customers free of charge.

In July 2008, the Company began selling iPhone 3G, the second-generation iPhone, and significantly expanded distribution by establishing carrier relationships in over 70 countries. Unit sales of iPhone 3G have been significantly greater than sales of the first-generation iPhone. During the first quarter of iPhone 3G availability ended September 27, 2008, 6.9 million units were sold, exceeding the 6.1 million first-generation iPhone units sold in the prior five quarters combined. As a result of this growth in unit sales, the amount of iPhone revenue and product cost that the Company deferred for recognition in future periods under subscription accounting increased materially in the quarter ended September 27, 2008.

While the GAAP results provide significant insight into the Company’s operations and financial position, management supplements its analysis of the business using financial measures that look at the total sales, related product costs and resulting income for iPhones and Apple TVs sold to customers during the period. The presentation at the end of this press release includes the following non-GAAP measures: “Adjusted Sales,” “Adjusted Cost of Sales,” “Adjusted Gross Margin,” “Adjusted Operating Margin,” “Adjusted Income before Provision for Income Taxes,” “Adjusted Provision for Income Taxes,” “Adjusted Net Income” and “Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share.” These financial measures are not consistent with GAAP because they do not reflect the deferral of revenue and product costs for recognition in later periods. The Company uses these financial measures, along with other measures discussed below, to provide additional insight into current operating and business trends not readily apparent from the GAAP results.

Management uses Adjusted Sales to evaluate the Company’s growth rate, revenue mix and performance relative to competitors. Given the significant increase in iPhone unit sales during the quarter ended September 27, 2008, Adjusted Sales provides a meaningful measurement of the Company’s growth by reflecting amounts generally due to Apple at the time of sale related to products sold within the period. Further, eliminating the effects of deferred revenue (current sales deferred to future periods and prior sales being recognized currently) provides more transparency into the Company’s underlying sales trends. Management uses the non-GAAP measures of “Adjusted Cost of Sales,” “Adjusted Gross Margin” and “Adjusted Operating Margin” to measure the Company’s operating performance based on current period iPhone and Apple TV sales and to facilitate on-going operating decisions. Additionally, because the Company recognizes engineering, sales, and marketing expenses as incurred, including expenses related to iPhone and Apple TV, management uses Adjusted Sales to evaluate returns on those costs, to manage year-over-year operating expense growth, and to budget future expenses. Furthermore, because they are considered meaningful indicators of current business performance, the non-GAAP measures “Adjusted Sales” and “Adjusted Operating Margin” are metrics that will factor into the determination of management compensation beginning in fiscal year 2009. Finally, management uses the non-GAAP measures of “Adjusted Income before Provision for Income Taxes,” “Adjusted Provision for Income Taxes,” “Adjusted Net Income” and “Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share” to measure the Company’s operating performance based on current period iPhone and Apple TV sales, to facilitate on-going operating decisions, and compare performance relative to competitors.

Management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures, when taken together with the corresponding consolidated GAAP measures and related segment information, provide incremental insight into the underlying factors and trends affecting both the Company’s performance and its cash generating potential. Management believes these non-GAAP measures increase the transparency of the Company’s current results and enable investors to more fully understand trends in its current and future performance. Beginning with this earnings release, the Compa

ny plans to include these non-GAAP measures of financial performance as part of its earnings releases.

Cautions on Use of Non-GAAP Measures

As noted previously, these non-GAAP financial measures are not consistent with GAAP because they do not reflect the deferral of revenue and product costs for recognition in later periods. These non-GAAP financial measures do not adjust for the costs associated with the Company’s intention to provide unspecified new features and software to purchasers of iPhone and Apple TV products. These costs are expensed as incurred under GAAP’s subscription accounting model, and are not adjusted in these non-GAAP financial measures. As such, these non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to reflect in a given period all of the costs of sales made in that period. Rather, the non-GAAP financial measures presented below are intended for the limited purpose of presenting performance measures that include the total sales, related product costs, and resulting income for iPhones and AppleTVs in the period those products are sold to customers.

Management believes investors will benefit from greater transparency in referring to these non-GAAP financial measures when assessing the Company’s operating results, as well as when forecasting and analyzing future periods. However, management recognizes that:

 

• these non-GAAP financial measures are limited in their usefulness and should be considered only as a supplement to the Company’s GAAP financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, the Company’s GAAP financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered to be superior to the Company’s GAAP financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures were not prepared in accordance with GAAP and investors should not assume that the non-GAAP financial measures presented in this earnings release were prepared under a comprehensive set of rules or principles;
• these non-GAAP financial measures are not presented with comparable non-GAAP financial measures for prior periods, although management intends to continue to track and present these non-GAAP financial measures for future periods; and
• until management presents comparable non-GAAP financial measures for additional periods, these non-GAAP financial measures do not provide any information regarding trends in the Company’s performance and, as such, investors should not assume that the presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures reflects any positive or negative trends in the Company’s performance.

Further, these non-GAAP financial measures may be unique to the Company, as they may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. As such, this presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not enhance the comparability of the Company’s results to the results of other companies.

A reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure or measures appears at the end of this press release.

This press release contains forward-looking statements including without limitation those about the Company’s estimated revenue and earnings per share. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation the effect of competitive and economic factors, and the Company’s reaction to those factors, on consumer and business buying decisions with respect to the Company’s products; potential litigation from the matters investigated by the special committee of the board of directors and the restatement of the Company’s consolidated financial statements; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; the ability of the Company to deliver to the marketplace and stimulate customer demand for new programs, products, and technological innovations on a timely basis; the effect that product transitions, changes in product pricing or mix, and/or increases in component costs could have on the Company’s gross margin; the inventory risk associated with the Company’s need to order or commit to order product components in advance of customer orders; the continued availability on acceptable terms, or at all, of certain components and services essential to the Company’s business currently obtained by the Company from sole or limited sources; the effect that the Company’s dependency on manufacturing and logistics services provided by third parties may have on the quality, quantity or cost of products manufactured or services rendered; the Company’s reliance on the availability of third-party digital content; the potential impact of a finding that the Company has infringed on the intellectual property rights of others; the effect that product and service quality problems could have on the Company’s sales and operating profits; the Company’s reliance on sole service providers for iPhone in certain countries; war, terrorism, public health issues, and other circumstances that could disrupt supply, delivery, or demand of products; unfavorable results of other legal proceedings; and the Company’s dependency on the performance of distributors and other resellers of the Company’s products. More information on potential factors that could affect the Company’s financial results is included from time to time in the Company’s public reports filed with the SEC, including the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 29, 2007; its Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended December 29, 2007, March 29, 2008 and June 28, 2008; and its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 27, 2008, to be filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates.

<!–

BULLET LIST HEADER (as needed)

• BULLET 1
• BULLET 2
• BULLET 3
• BULLET 4 etc…

–>

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Press Contacts:
Steve Dowling
Apple
dowling@apple.com
(408) 974-1896

Press Contacts:
Nancy Paxton
Apple
paxton1@apple.com
(408) 974-5420

Joan Hoover
Apple
hoover1@apple.com
(408) 974-4570

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple’s PR website, or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iPhone, Apple TV and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

 

You’ve heard it many times before, you’ll probably hear it again.  The Mac Mini is dead.  So says some European retailers who were told by Apple that there weren’t any more en route to be sold.  Could there be other reasons for this?  Sure. 

I think the reason that the constant falsely reported rumors of the Mac Mini’s demise are so popular are because consumers want more choice in this area.  How about a midrange Mac?  Not a pro, book, mini or iMac.  Just a Mac.

This would also put a big dent in the so-called clone market that Psystar is giving Apple legal a headache about.

When?!  Maybe we’ll find out in a few hours?

Being newly proud parents in the big city is a tough gig.  The iPhone has been a life saver on many accounts from the birth to dying from boredom during feedings and sleepless nights.  It will continue to do so.  To that end,  Mommy Poppins put together a top ten list that accurately sums up the device as a parenting tool. 

Digital Camera — While it’s not the best camera phone I’ve owned, it takes decent 2 megapixel photos. Having a camera phone is a must for parents in my book because it means I always have a camera with me and can snap those spontaneous cute moments without thinking.

Brag Book — Show off all those cute pictures either with the images stored in your phone or use this App to connect to your Flickr account.

Appointment book — The built in calendar will sync to your iCal so you always know where you need to be and can add appointments as you make them.

 Read: Here are the 10 essential tools your iPhone will replace, making it the ultimate parenting tool

What?  You needed another reason to get an iPhone?

Boxee, the XBMC adaptation for various platforms including the AppleTV has all kinds of news this week.  Firstly and formostly, they are now able to stream Hulu, MyspaceTV (whatever that is) and CBS programming to your AppleTV.  Oh, and Comedy Cental (Read: Daily Show and Colbert Report) too.  Very cool. They also have support from content from Last.fm and Flickr (AppleTV also does Flickr pictures) as of last month…. 

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2010794&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Yesterday afternoon boxee was selected by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and judges Ryan Block (gdgt), Molly Wood (Cnet), Jeff Pulver (VOIP/Online TV pioneer), and Kevin Kelly (Wired) as America’s Next Top Gadget (err, software?). boxee beat out hundreds of other companies to win the competition and will receive a turnkey exhibit booth at CES along with a check for $50,000.

But success can sometimes be fleeting and all of this attention may not be a good thing.  Its support of other technologies like Hulu is a hack and could be at one point or another pulled by updates from the content creators.  Also, as it is a USB dongle that goes on an AppleTV, could be foiled by an AppleTV upgrade in the near future if Apple deems it competition the the iTunes Music Store (with Hulu, it certainly seems like it could be).  Finally, the process of putting the image on a USB dongle and getting the AppleTV to boot from it isn’t a cakewalk for your average AppleTV customer.

All of that being said, it is a cool technology and the price is, as they say, free as in beer.

Mac Soda reported the news on Friday

Day Traders, today is the last chance to get your low bids in on Apple stock before the earnings call.  While it is hard to get excited for a financial report, sometimes Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer will let out a coded morsel or two of future product plans.  So we’ll be listening…and trying not to dose off.

The wild card today is iPhone sales for the quarter.  Analysts are saying anywhere between under 4 million to over 8 million.  It will be interesting to see who is right and who should get a pink slip.

Other figures expected to be released:

• Revenue: 8 Billion plus or minus 1/2 billion
• Earnings per share: $1.00 – $1.25
• Gross Margins: 30-35%
• zzzzzz..Who!?, what?!
• iPods: 10-11 million
• Macs: 2.7 – 2.9 million

We have absolutley nothing to go by here and are just picking this out of the blue, but we think with the latest marketshare analysis (Apple near 10% in the US), we might see Apple’s first 3 million unit Mac quarter.

Then Apple will guide lower for the next quarter and the stock price will drop.  Deja Vu all over again.

It’s "newsy"

It looks like those new MacBooks might not be limited to 4Gb of RAM like Apple says on its website.  As people who run a Mac Mini with 4Gb of RAM , we can attest to the fact that Apple’s RAM specs are artificially set and might not always be the gawd’s honest truth.

While we don’t yet have official confirmation from NVIDIA (snap!- now we do), the 9400M chipset seems like it would be able to support much more than 4Gb.  Some will argue that it is a 32-bit chipset, thereby limiting the amount of RAM to 4Gb.  Not true.  The desktop equivalent 9300 32-bit chipset maxes out at 8Gb of RAM.  They would be unlikely to limit the max RAM on a higher model chipset.

Oh, and you can pick up a few 4GB, 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-8500 memory modules from Crucial for $590/each.  What a bargain :/  Anyone out there have anymore insight?

UPDATE: NVIDIA PR got back to me (on a Sunday no less!!)  The definititive answer: 

 

Yes!  8Gb MacBooks should be no problem:

Seth,
 
Yes, an 8GB system can be built using two such SODIMMs after the memory is qualified with GF 9400M.
 
I’m curious why you were thinking of loading up on memory? In terms of gaming perf, going from 4GB to 8GB of system memory would have little to no effect.
 
Ken

Perhaps Apple is waiting on 4Gb Modules to come down before offering it as an option?

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_vword_20081019_480x272.mov

They raise a pretty good point…

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_beancounter_20081019_480x272.mov

As owner of a jailbroken iPhone and very satisfied user of Qik, I have to say that all of you ‘unjailbrokens’ out there are in for a pleasant surprise.  According to sometimes on (nano) sometimes off (BluRay), Kevin Rose, the deviant little app is on its way to the App Store.  Hopefully they won’t have to cripple it too much to get it on there.

This little app uses your iPhone’s camera to upload live streaming video to Qik’s server where onlookers can watch as live events unfold.  Frankly we’re not sure why a Stevenote hasn’t fallen victem to Qik’s eyes yet.

 

Last month I sent news of my son’s birth out live via Qik on my iPhone.  It worked wonderfully.  (crying baby alert)

http://qik.com/swfs/qik_player.swf

Andy Zaky of Seeking Alpha and Bullish Cross  believes he can beat the street on Apple sales/earnings predictions…and he’s got some proof to back it up.  He’s been pretty solid against most analysts and was very accurate for the 3rd fiscal quarter.  If you believe his bullish numbers for the 4th quarter, AAPL is going to do well on Tuesday.  Apple might even have sold 3 million computers in a quarter for the first time in history.

 
Chart courtesy of Apple2.0

Zaky is not too far off the party line on everything except iPhones where he’s predicting sales of almost 8 million this quarter -almost double the Wall St. analyst’s consensus.  A lot of that is based on the IMEI number counting going on at MacObserver forums. We’ll see how that pans out on Tuesday.

For more, see Apple 2.0’s take.

Another milestone has been reached as hard drives keep getting bigger and bigger and cheaper and cheaper.  The sub 10 cent Gigabyte era is upon us as a few retailers are selling 1TB hard drives for $100.  Frequent 9to5mac.com advertisers, Other World Computing are offering Samsung Spinpoint P drives for $99. 

Also Amazon is offering is offering a Seagate Barracuda for $100 (since raised back to $130).  If you are a rebate kind of person you can get a 1Tb drive at NewEgg for $99 after $30 rebate.

1TB drives have been coming down in price more significantly since larger 1.5 TB drives have hit the market.

What makes SATA drives more interesting/fun is that you can use them like hot swapable disk drives if you get a USB docking station (like pictured).  They have standardized power/interface port locations acoss all drives and manufacturers.

The first hard drive I ever bought was a 80 MB SCSI Hard drive which was just under $1000.  Today, if someone gave me a 80 MB USB Key, I’d probably toss it.

 

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0013FRA0O&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Various sites around the interwebs were talking up the $800 MacBook before Tuesday’s event – with the economic downturn, it seemed like a good idea.  That $800 laptop never happened – or did it?  Amazon today is offering up a brand spanking new MacBook with the same specs as the $999 laptop (sans Superdrive) that Apple is offering up for $869 (after instant rebate).

We’re not sure how long this will last so if you are in the mood for a low end $800(ish) new Macbook, give that image on the right some clickage (9to5mac gets link cred) ASAP.

Who loves you? 

That’s right, we do.

 

 

 

Eat your hear out Skype-fans, Apple’s iChat software has spawned its very own unique speakerphone for up to four people to chat via iChat.

Taiwanese firm IPEVO’s TR-10 Speakerphone for iChat ($79.90) is now available at Apple stores in the USA nationwide. This product does VoIP support for four-way conferencing as both a speakerphone and handset.

Better yet, it will happily record conversations straight into GarageBand, so you can quickly create a podcast of an interview just done, for example. 

It’s not a bad speakerphone, ofering a voice reception range of up to 1.5 metres along with good echo cancelling technology which helps make for nice and clear sound quality during calls.

We think this is a pretty unique system, so we wanted to let you know about it.

In advance of its Tuesday keynote Apple security bundled out a protestor urging a boycott of Nvidia products as part of a campaign against a third firm which provides the graphics processor company with cafeteria services.

Protestor Feng Kung was handing out leaflets urging Apple employees to spill the beans on Nvidia for "allegedly covering up video-card defects," Wired informs.

Nvidia acknowledged a common defect in some of its video cards on July 2. These problems even extended to relatively recent models of MacBook Pro, Apple confirmed last week, saying: "In July 2008, Nvidia publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected."

Apple then identified that problems do exist which affect some MacBook Pro computers with the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor and is now offering users free repair, paid for (presumably) from a fund set aside by Nvidia earlier this year.

However, Tuesday’s protestor wasn’t really pursuing that matter, instead he was attempting to highlight the fate of employees of the company’s cafeteria services contractor, Aramark. The problem there is that Aramark is refusing to let workers unionise. 

More here.

 So it seems iPod shuffle knock-off maker, Luxpro (remember them? There’s is the player in the middle of this picture) is suing Apple for “monopolising the MP3 music player market.” 

Apple’s also receiving a drubbing for everything else the Luxpro lawyers could think of other alleged offences, including “contract interference, attempted monopolization of the MP3 player market, unfair competition, and commercial disparagement.”

Oh it’s a laugh – I mean – looking to the background of this litigation between Apple and LuxPro you don’t need to be a genius to sense that the latter firm may have been just a little, erm, naive when it introduced its iPod shuffle knock-off similar sized, shaped, controlled and coloured flash-based MP3 player in March 2005 atCeBit (great show, but visiting it is such a drag).

Seems Luxpro didn’t like it that Apple eventually stopped it making and selling its product, accusing Apple of pressurising the company’s retail partners into ceasing sales (ie. Apple probably called retailers and pointed out the legal ramifications of selling a product so closely identical to its own while a case was pending.)

Still, while it may be obvious to us that the Luxpro product looks a lot like the iPod shuffle of the time, seems a Taiwanese judge disagreed after a long legal battle, prompting Luxpro to warn it would attempt to sue Apple. And that’s what’s going on now.

"While Apple’s over-reaching injunctions were on appeal, Apple sent warning letters to other companies doing business with Luxpro demanding that they cease doing business with Luxpro," Luxpro’s complaint alleges, citing pressure on a Circuit City subsidiary as evidence.

Anyway, whatever the courts decide you’d have to be a no eye’d dear not to see the physical similarity between the two products, don’t ya think?