9to5 Staff

 Apple’s laptop sales are booming, up 61 per cent in the second quarter, and the good news is impacting the company’s notebook OEM, Quanta, which announced an 18 per cent increase in profit this morning, on strength of Mac sales.

Apple last week confirmed 2.29 million Mac sales in its second quarter. Mac sales overall climbed 51 per cent, year-on-year, a rate of growth an astonishing 3.5 times that of the overall PC market. Desktop sales climbed 37 per cent, also faster than PC market averages,

The company’s portable sales were driven by continued strong demand for Macbook, Macbook Pros and the MacBook Air. This steady demand meant Quanta Computer saw profits climb 18 per cent to book NT$4 billion for the quarter. The OEM observed strong demand for notebooks, predicting demand would climb 25 per cent in the current quarter.

Apple’s no niche player, the company explained, with management and analysts agreeing the Apple-driven laptop sales explosion seems set to continue, despite the downturn. Apple accounts for 25 per cent of Quanta revenue.

"Notebook growth is coming in faster than we expected," said Quanta Vice Chairman C.C. Leung. "There’s some slowdown from the U.S., but Asia and emerging markets are still seeing growth. So far things look positive for overall notebook demand."

The consumer move to favour laptops is posing an interesting new challenge for Apple’s notebook maker – the company has confirmed components for laptops, principally those used to make laptop enclosures, are running in short supply. Quanta management said this would be unlikely to affect Apple and other larger brands, but would definitely impact the smaller notebook brands.

The surge in Mac sales isn’t simply a fashion, but could become a tipping point, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last October: “The question is, are we headed for a tipping point, it sometimes feels like that."

NPD recognises significant gains in Mac notebook sales, which the researchers claim rose 64 per cent in units and 67 per cent in revenues year over year.

Apple seems set to continue to expand its marketshare – and Quanta’s profits – on strength of strong notebook sales. According to IDC, some 23.5 million computers were sold in the first quarter of 2008 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which is equivalent to 19 per cent sales growth over Q1 2007. Market growth is the result of the growing popularity of notebooks. While sales of desktop PCs fell by 1.7 per cent to approximately 10.5 million items, sales of notebooks grew by 43 per cent to 13 million items, IDC said. Apple’s overall Mac sales in Europe climbed 45 per cent in the March quarter, the company’s financial results confirm, with 627,000 Macs sold (both desktop and laptops).

 Apple will introduce the iPhone in Canada later this year, working with Rogers Telecom to bring the device to the country.

This news has been confirmed this morning in a short statement from the Canadian network operator. Ted Rogers, company President and CEO issued a statement to the following effect: “We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it now, but stay tuned.”

Rogers Telecom has been in the frame for an iPhone launch for some time, with industry observers noting the network to be the only one with the GSM/EDGE infrastructure required to support the device in that country. As 9to5 Mac noted in March, “if you have a hacked iPhone they are your only choice.” Unless Apple plans to liberate the Canadian launch from being available exclusively through Rogers (and there’s nothing in today’s company statement that certainly implies an exclusive deal) the news means competing Canadian telco’s have lucked-out, despite the Canadian government currently auctioning off more mobile spectrum.

With this morning’s news speculating a wider distribution in Latin America, our recent disclosure of Apple’s plans for introducing the iPhone into Mexico and continued – and intensive chatter emanating from within carriers worldwide, Apple seems set to make an aggressive move to widen its distribution, perhaps as soon as June, making the device available through multiple carriers in those countries where such a move most makes sense.

 China may be blocking .Mac sites from being accessed by internet users in the country, though iDisks, iWeb site updates and other functions are working fine.

Access to .Mac sites has reported to be unavailable to internet users in Beijing, Shenzen, Hunan, Hangzhou and Zhuhai, and most reports agree that its user-made websites that are suffering from the blockage.

MacFixIt cites multiple reports to this effect, while Apple’s .Mac discussion pages also carry complaints to this effect. “Any page beginning with Web.mac.com is blocked,” the report explains. Email and other features of Apple’s subscription-based service is working fine, the report claims.

“I don’t know how many readers you have in China, but it is a pretty big place and the issue seems to be affecting a lot of .Mac users here," one reader told the website.

Apple’s purported plans for Asia and Europe have been widely reported, now new evidence suggests the company has a plan to launch the device across Latin America – offering its device through multiple carriers.

It’s just the latest in a growing body of evidence that proves Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer really was not joking when he said the company is “not wedded to any particular way to go to market.”

Speaking in March this year, Oppenheimer also added: “Our objective is to drive scale and take market share. We’re going to enter more European countries this year, and Asia, and we remain very confident about our goal of reaching 10 million iPhones shipped in 2008.”

Add Latin America to the list, where Spanish language newspaper, Cinco Dias reports Apple’s mulling plans to offer iPhones unlocked through multiple carriers.  We also noted last month that Mexico is likely to be in on the fun.

We note the urgency of rumours surrounding Apple’s plans to widen iPhone availability by entering different countries continues to grow, leading us to consider it possible a batch of new territories will be announced along with the new model iPhone in June.

News out of the Hackintosh forums continues to flow in on throwing Leopard on PCs.  Today’s news is that some enterprising hackers got OSX Leopard working on an OQO – one of the smallest full PCs out there.  Nevermind that it takes two minutes to start up and not all of the wireless networking components work.  It is still a very compelling setup.  

The last few weeks were about Psystar selling Hackintosh PC’s.  Apple’s lawyers usually swoop in within seconds to stop EULA ‘violations’ like this.  On Psystar, they are eerily quiet.  Psystar is shipping clones and customers are receiving them. 

What does all of this mean? 

Perhaps Apple is considering licensing the Leopard OS out to PC vendors.  Maybe they’ll sell it as a virtual machine?  Or perhaps a paired down version for Web browsing, and iTunes?  Most likely not but it is kinda weird all of this Leopard on PC stuff.  It seems a little too easy.

According to Barron’s and B. Riley analyst Salomon Kamalodine, STEC will be making the Solid State Drives (SSD) in future Apple products – most notebly, the MacBook Air.  The 64Gb SSD’s on current MacBooks are manufactured by Samsung.  High end MacBook Air owners were upset recently when their SSD Hard drives showed little performance increase and battery life over 1.8" hard drive equipped macbooks.  

Hopefully STEC can up the performance and lower the cost of entry to this technology.  They currently offer SSDs in capacities ranging from 73-512GB however the most likely candidate for the MacBook Air – the Mach8 line –  ‘only’ scales to 128Gb.  Will this be the next MacBook Air go to 128Gb in SSD size?  Will the prices remain the same?  Are we going to see a revision 2 MacBook soon?

More from Barrons:

Kamalodine writes in a research note that the finding is based on “discussions with industry sources.”
He says the Apple business could lead to an incremental $25 million to $30 million in revenue in 2009. Kamalodine raised his 2008 and 2009 revenue estimates to levels well ahead of the Street consensus. He sees $237.8 million this year and $302.9 million next year; the Street has been looking for $217.6 million and $273.1 million.
STEC today is up 79 cents, or 9.7%, to $8.96.

digg_url = ‘http://9to5mac.com/STEC-Samsung-macbook-air-hds’;

Apple today upgraded its iMac selection to include faster (and more efficient) Penryn (or Montevina QX9770!?) processors – topping out at over 3 GHz.  The iMacs can be configured with much burlier graphics cards (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS) as well.  Unsurprisingly, Apple didn’t include Blu Ray as an option…perhaps next time?

“The iMac’s gorgeous aluminum and glass all-in-one design has been an incredible hit with our customers and is just one of the reasons Mac sales are growing three and a half times faster than PC sales,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the latest Intel processors, a faster new graphics option and more memory, customers now have even more reasons to love the iMac.”

Also Apple touts the new iMac’s green credentials:

The iMac furthers Apple’s commitment to environmental progress with highly recyclable and durable materials including scratch-resistant glass and professional grade aluminum. Every model in the iMac line is rated EPEAT Silver and the power-efficient iMac also meets the stringent Energy Star 4.0 requirements for power consumption. Customers who purchase any qualifying Apple computer can recycle their old PC or Mac® for free via the Apple Recycling Program.

The new iMacs are on sale immediately and start at $1200 in the US.

20", 2.4GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 128MB. $1199
20", 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB, $1499
24", 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB, $1799
24", 3.06GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512MB, $2199

 Apple’s seems incredibly interested in expanding its reach in the professional and enterprise space, posting a job opportunity which calls for a ‘Hardware Design Manager’ for Apple’s, “new Pro Servers and Towers teams”.

There’s several key statements there – it seems to imply Apple has more than one strategy for servers, with multiple teams involved in their development.

Anyway, if you’re interested in taking the job, it’s a full-time position at Apple’s Cupertino campus. Rather than indulge in our own speculation (though we’d welcome yours in the comments below), here’s detail from the job advert:

“In this critical design manager position for the new Pro Servers and Towers teams, the selected candidate will manage a team that determines design approaches and parameters, analyzes equipment to establish operating data, conducts experimental tests and evaluates results.

“Candidate will lead others in selecting components and equipment based on analysis of specifications and reliability. Candidate may also review vendor capability to support product development. Involves heavy schematic design as well as strong lab skills and system integration skills. Strong Unix skills preferred with light programming skills required. Domestic and international travel required.”

 Apple has aggressive sales targets for its next-generation 3G iPhone, anticipating 20-25 million units of the new device to be sold within the product’s lifecycle.

This news leaked from the Far East this morning, where long-time Apple partner, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), has once again been named as being contracted to manufacture the new device, according to the Chinese-language Commercial Times. Foxconn also manufactures the current iteration of the iPhone.

Component suppliers are on scramble now to ship their parts by the end of May, with shipments of the device expected to exceed three million units in June. This would assume to reach well into 2009 (assuming 1 year product cycles that Apple seems to have on iPods and iPhones).

The news once again reinforces expectation the new breed of the device will ship in June.

 Security researchers have identified a fresh vulnerability in QuickTime for Windows, which they claim can allow hackers to take control of infected machines.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZd9ChU3XAY&hl=en]

 Apple’s online retail store in the US and the UK is down, as anticipation climbs the company plans to introduce new model iMacs this week.

Introduction of the new Macs was anticipated to take place tomorrow, but Apple may have bought this forward for reasons of its own. Equally, Apple may simply be indulging in site maintenance of its retail store while the US sleeps. We’ll know more later.

EDIT TO ADD: The new iMacs are visible now on the Apple Store. They comprise four models in total, with either 20-inch or 24-inch screens, with a 2.4GHz processor at the bottom end, topping out with 3.06GHz processor at the top.

Prices appear about the same as before. More information follows.

Although it is beyond obvious at this point, it is still nice to have some confirmation that the next iPhone will be 3G.  Today 9to5Mac has it.  Looking in the latest iPhone SDK Preferences application, we find references to both EDGE and 3G Networking.

…which compares to EDGE code found further along in the file.

…developing…

Nice one Apple….

…from the Flicker Photostream – check them out!!.

 Half-way through the financial year, Apple’s retail stores seem set to create new sales records as other high street retailers face falling sales and the credit crunch.

Apple launched its first Apple retail stores in May, 2001, entering the high street market in the same year Gateway began to divest itself of its own-brand retail shops. 

Critics warned Apple would fail in the scheme.

David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp. famously told Business Week: "I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake."

He was wrong.

Apple’s retail segment returned $1.45 billion in its March quarter – up 74 per cent year-on-year and 48 per cent quarter-on-quarter, resisting the downward trend at high street retail.

To put this into perspective, two quarters into the 2008 financial year and Apple has already generated more revenue ($3,152 million) than in any year up until 2005 ($2,350 million) and is just under a billion short of the record it set for itself last year ($4,115 million).

Elsewhere, high street retailers are watching sales shrink – Home Depot and Dick’s Sporting Goods have both seen declining sales. 

With 34 million visitors to an Apple retail store in the March quarter, Apple’s Mac sales climbed 54 per cent – three-and-a-half times the average PC industry growth rate. And 50 per cent of Macs sold went to customers new to the platform, Apple claimed this week.

“If Apple can bring in those types of numbers during this fairly gloomy economic period, that bodes very well for them,” said Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg. 

Apple’s execution of its retail concept was remarkable. The first prototype designs were constructed in secrecy in warehouses near its Cupertino headquarters by design firm Eight Inc. 

The company invested in talent, hiring in experienced retail executives from key retailers, Gap, Target, Sony, Disney and others. Gap CEO Michael Drexler was adopted to Apple’s board in 1999, with the retail initiative in mind. And the retail initiative is led by former Target vice president, Ron Johnson.

The cutting-edge aesthetic of the stores was quickly recognised, winning the company a Gold IDSA award. "This store communicates Apple’s design language—the attention to detail reflects the Apple product line. I was especially impressed with the idea of the Genius Bar, with a resident in-house expert for tech support. The emphasis on lighting must make it a great environment. This is delightful. I want to visit it today!" said IDSA’s Carla Blackman.

What’s the secret? "People haven’t been willing to invest this much time and money or engineering in a store before," Apple CEO Steve Jobs observed to CNN last year. "It’s not important if the customer knows that. They just feel it. They feel something’s a little different."

And that’s part of the point, as explained by Johnson in 2001 when the first stores opened up: "Our vision for hiring people for Apple stores is to get people who have Apple and the Mac in their bones," he said. "We want people who have a sincere service orientation.

"You have two choices in a retail store: a service culture or a retail culture. We’ve chosen service so customers will be in charge of their store experience."

The service-focused in-store culture is one thing, that all the stores offer Internet-connected Macs passer’s by can use have transformed the stores into an international chain of free internet cafes, generating store traffic while creating brand loyalty and stimulating sales. And the iPod halo and the company’s continued place at the forefront of innovation and slick product design also play their part.

With new iPhones in the pipeline and the Mac in absolute resurgence, Apple’s high street success reflects its growing market share. 

iPhone video cameras have been getting better and better since they made their debut at the end of last year.  The best so far is iPhonevideorecorder.  Give it a try if you haven’t already. 

What is interesting here is that the technology obviously works and Apple could have included something like it in the photo application.  Why didn’t they?  And will they in 2.0?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LDw4HItO6c&hl=en]

To install IPhone video Recorder add the following source to installer; http://www.iphone-recorder.com/install2.  Refresh sources.  Then look for "iphone video recorder" in the install section.  As a 30 day trial you get to record 30 second videos.

VIA

With a high quality video like this, it has to be good!

Hit up their website if you dare!  Actually if anyone gets one of these, let us know…

Via Macrumors

Engadget has a friend who has a friend who got to play with the new 3G iPhone.  They have some specs.  All seem legit to us:

• The first thing people will notice: the 2nd gen iPhone will be about the same size and shape as the first gen.
• It will, of course, have 3G. And proper GPS!
• The most noticeable physical difference is back of the phone is no longer metal — the whole thing is glossy black, from top to bottom. The volume buttons are now chrome.
• Because it’s got a little less metal to deal with, it doesn’t have quite as many angular edges. The battery is (still) not removable.
• The phone itself will be slightly thicker than the first gen device.
• The headphone jack will no longer be recessed, and will finally be flush with the body.
• The device itself uses roughly the same size and resolution screen as the first generation product.
• No solid word on battery life or storage capacity.

btw, we know that is the black case from Honk Kong and not the new iPhone…

 Apple’s purchase of PA Semi doesn’t mean the company’s relationship with Intel is cooling off, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal.

The relationship between Apple and Intel is still strong, Jobs said, "We have a great partnership with Intel. We expect that to continue forever.”

As 9to5 Mac reported early this week, the acquisition wasn’t driven by any plan to migrate Macs back to PowerPC, but by Apple’s interest in hiring PA Semi’s team of expert chip designers, Jobs reassured. The newly-hired talent will lend their expertise to Apple’s work developing chips for portable electronics devices such as the iPod and iPhone. Jobs explained Apple has "been involved" in designing chips for these for some time.

Asked if Apple plan to return to the PowerPC chip in its Macs, he said “I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over that. We’re very happy with Intel.”

News around the web is spreading that Apple is going to announce the 3G iPhone on June 9th – at Apple WWDC 2008.  While this makes much sense, we really feel that you’ll have to sweat it out for at least a month before they are in your grubby hands.  Apple typically waits about six weeks between announcing products and releasing them when they involve the FCC.  Hope this doesn’t affect your summer vacation plans ;)

 Carphone Warehouse is out of stock of 8GB iPhones following its recent move to cut £100 off the cost of the device.

The high street mobile phone retailer has been warning website publishers who are members of the Tradedoubler affiliate advertising network to stop advertising the discounted models, as they’re out of stock.

"Thanks to the most phenomenal response to the promotion, The Carphone Warehouse is now out of stock on the Apple iPhone," a message from the retailer reads. "Please can you remove all reference to the iPhone promotion in your copy."

The company website continues to take orders for the 8GB model, but the retailer says it doesn’t "expect to receive any additional stock at this time." 

The imminent release of a new version of the iPhone was once again discussed by the analysts at CitiGroup last night, where Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee predict the new device will be announced during the WWDC keynote speech on 9 June.

The analysts say the new (3G) iPhone will be the "first of an impressive wave of new products", predicting upgraded laptops and iPods may also make their appearance at the show.

 Just a student story: UK students at two Leeds universities are competing in a distance running challenge, using Nike + iPod kits.

The scenario sees students from both universities signing-up to join the running battle through the Nike+ website. Nike vans went through the University of Leeds and Leeds Met University to hand out free Nike+ T-shirts and Nike+ Sports Kits this week, helping drive the student’s in their ambitions to run the most kilometres in 29 days.

Top athletes will win Nike and Apple gear, including iPod nanos, Nike-branded clothes and shoes. The winning university team will also receive fifty pairs of VIP tickets to an iTunes Live From London event at Apple’s Regent Street Store. The competition begins on 25 April and ends on 23 May, and there’s more information on this Facebook page.

Nike points out that any Nike+ user can create their own challenge or join an existing one at nikeplus.com