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Apple releases Lightning to Micro USB adapter for Europeans

Jake Smith Sep 12 2012 - 2:27 pm PT

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The Apple Store has come back online following Apple’s media event that just wrapped up in San Francisco. We’ve gotten a look at several smaller products from Apple, and we’ve found one more. For the Euro-folk, Apple has released a Lightning to Micro USB adapter, available for £15.00 and shipping within three days. Presumably the fine men and women of Cupertino have made the adapter available to comply with certain regulations regarding the Micro-USB standard. [Apple Store]

Catch up on our iPhone 5 event liveblog from earlier this afternoon or hit up or iPhone 5 hub for the latest.

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New York State audit reveals that MTA gave Apple unfair advantage in Grand Central Store bidding

Élyse Betters Jul 30 2012 - 6:41 am PT

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New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s latest audit suggested the Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave Apple an unfair advantage last year when the company bid for a spot in Grand Central Terminal.

According to The New York Post:

• A fresh audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the MTA last May allowed the California-based tech giant to set a daunting hurdle for rival bidders to clear in a tight, 30-day window — namely, that they be willing to front $5 million in cash.
• “The competitive process followed by MTA . . . was at a minimum severely slanted toward Apple,” reads the report, submitted to MTA officials Friday and expected to be made public today.
• DiNapoli’s report notes that Apple had been in private talks with the MTA for more than two years leading up to the bidding process.
• In a saucy move that was rejected by the MTA, Apple even tried to get reimbursed by taxpayers for the initial $2 million it had paid the restaurant Metrazur to vacate the balcony atop the historic commuter hub, the report found — a deal that ultimately was worth $5 million.

MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota told The New York Post that DiNapoli’s report is overtly “bias against the MTA and Apple,” and he said the audit is “not fact-based, and, accordingly, their opinion is worthless.”

“The MTA’s lease process with Apple was open, transparent and followed both the spirit and letter of the law,” Lhota contended.

Apple opened its doors in Grand Central’s last winter and pays $1.1 million in rent for 2012, which the audit noted is below market, and the company notably does not share a percentage of its sales with the MTA. It is the only retailer at the station with such a deal.

On the plus side, there is an awesome Apple Store with free Wi-Fi in Grand Central Station!

[The full audit does not appear to be online as of press time.]

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Apple’s new Barcelona retail store opens tomorrow [Gallery]

Jordan Kahn Jul 27 2012 - 10:45 am PT

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We first got a look at the elaborate mosaic construction barricade officially announcing the new location, and today MacRecord and CultofMac posted some photos of Apple’s Barcelona retail store slated to open at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Related articles

• Apple announces that its new Barcelona store makes its grand opening on July 28th

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Apple gets paid for its products, on average, before it has to pay for their manufacturing

Seth Weintraub Jul 22 2012 - 6:58 pm PT

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A fun fact from The Wall Street Journal just in time for Apple earnings:

Cash comes in before it goes out in part because Apple has incredible negotiating leverage vis-à-vis its suppliers. On average, in fiscal 2011 it didn’t pay suppliers for 83 days after being invoiced, according to Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Yet Apple collected on its customer invoices much faster, 18 days on average. Meanwhile, it paid to keep just four days of inventory on hand in 2011, versus an already impressive 10 days in 2010.

While the scenario above oversimplifies (it takes many months to set up device assembly lines including testing and fault tolerance for instance), capital investments in manufacturing are heading toward null game for Apple.

Related articles

• WSJ: Apple suppliers preparing to begin mass production of 7-inch iPad in September (9to5mac.com)

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Apple online store adds text message notifications for order status updates

Jordan Kahn Jul 18 2012 - 7:22 am PT

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The Apple online store went down last night for a short while. It appears Apple made some minor tweaks, including the ability to receive text message notifications on orders. Apple is now displaying the following text in several sections of the online store in at least Canada and the United States: “Now get order status updates by text message.”

Apple explained on its website that the new feature is an option during the checkout process, and it is available to the following supported carriers: Alltel, AT&T, Boost Mobile, Cricket, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, and Virgin Mobile USA.

Apple Notifications is a text-message-based alerts service designed to keep you up-to-date on your shipment and/or pickup notification status. In addition to standard email notifications, you can also request text message updates when you’re in Checkout. The number of messages you’ll receive will vary depending on the orders you placed.

What to Expect

Once your order ships, or is available for pickup, we’ll send you a text message. The text message will include your order number and a link to online Order Status. Texts are sent between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in your time zone.

How to turn off text notifications:

To stop receiving text notifications, simply reply STOP to the text message. Texting HELP to 83372 will give you additional information.

(via CultofMac & AppleBitch)

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Report: NIAC director slams US Gov’t, Apple for racially profiling over export sanction to Iran

Élyse Betters Jul 12 2012 - 6:35 am PT

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Do you remember last month’s report about select Apple retail stores in Georgia allegedly discriminating against Farsi-speaking customers due to a United States sanction export to Iran? Well, the story is still abuzz. The policy director at the National Iranian American Council, Jamal Abdi, even got some space in The New York Times today to speak his mind on the matter:

• IMAGINE if your ethnicity determined which products you were able to buy. Or if sales clerks required you to divulge your ancestry before swiping your credit card.
• Some of us don’t have to imagine.

Abdi reviewed the cases from last month, and he even cited similar situations in California:

• An isolated episode could be dismissed as the work of one bigoted, or misguided, employee. But there have been other recent reports of Apple employees refusing to sell to customers of Iranian descent.
• In Santa Monica, Calif., two friends looking to buy an iPhone were asked whether they were speaking Persian and promptly informed, “I am sorry, we don’t sell to Persians.” In Sacramento, an Iranian-American man looking to buy Apple products for personal use mentioned that he was also thinking about buying an iPod for his nephew in Iran and was told he could not buy anything, even for himself. An Iranian student in Atlanta, and his Iranian-American friend, were not permitted to buy an iPhone after the friend, under questioning, mentioned that the student planned to return to Iran for the summer.

The NIAC director attributed these occurrences to Apple retail employees being forced to “interpret and implement federal policy,” which results in racial profiling, he said:

• At the moment, nearly all exports to Iran are prohibited. Traveling to Iran with items like computers and smartphones is illegal. Apple’s own policy, stated on its Web site, makes it very clear that its products can’t be sent there.
• But it is also illegal in the United States for a private company to discriminate against individuals based on race, color, religion or national origin under the Civil Rights Act. This protection extends of course to retail stores.

Abdi concluded his editorial by calling for Congress and President Obama to confront the consequences of their “ratcheted up sanctions,” or else they will continue to threaten the “values and basic civil liberties of some American citizens.”

The issue comes down to the US Government vaguely forcing retailers to enforce sanctions when those should be enforced at borders.

Visit The New York Times for the entire piece, called “Sanctions at the Genius Bar”.

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Iran’s Apple product vendors say iOS devices flourish in capital despite US sanction

Élyse Betters Jun 25 2012 - 7:02 pm PT

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Apple product vendors in Iran are laughing at reports from last week about U.S. Apple Store employees refusing sales to Farsi-speaking customers.

According to a weekend story from the Agence France-Presse (via MSN News), iPhones and iPads are widespread throughout Iran’s capital:

Hossein explained it is easy for traders to workaround the export restriction. He said Apple’s highly coveted products are smuggled into Iran through Iraq. He also noted practically everyone in Tehran owns an iOS device, while other salesclerks claimed several shops are “dressed up to look like official Apple Stores.”

Despite the vendors’ jibes, and their claims about Iran’s unwavering access to the Cupertino goods, many questioned Apple’s treatment of Farsi-speaking U.S. customers, which bordered on racial profiling. An Apple Store in Georgia apparently refused to sell iOS devices to an Alpharetta woman and her uncle, because they spoke Farsi, a Persian-Iranian language, to each other. Another customer, Zack Jafarzadeh, apparently received the same treatment at a different Apple Store in Atlanta when he accompanied a fluent friend to buy an iPhone.

Sabet and Jafarzadeh asserted that the Apple Stores racially profiled Iranians and discriminated against them. They further said Apple’s policy is both confusing and inconsistent.

A representative for the U.S. State Department clarified there was no policy or law that prohibits Apple from selling products in the U.S. to anybody intending to use them stateside, including customers of Iranian descent or citizenship, but customers do need a license to take the “high-technology goods” to Iran.

Apparently, though, at least to a few vendors in Iran, that license is a joke.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBDFILJ8tkM&feature=player_embedded]

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Arizona’s iStores close up shop as another Apple reseller bites the dust

9to5 Staff Jun 20 2012 - 4:07 pm PT

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Liquidation sale

Apple Stores are an unmitigated success. Unfortunately, that is bad news for those who sold Apple products before the stores came along. Yet another Apple retailer is closing this month, as Arizona’s iStore Owner Steve Walker told patrons on its website.

Walker cites an unfair playing field provided by Apple:

“We had a lot of fun over the years working so closely with the Apple product and loyal Apple product users. Unfortunately, since the introduction of the Apple Corporate Stores in 2001, dealers have continually struggled with fair inventory allocation by Apple along with a horribly uneven playing field in relation to the independent’s ability to service our customers in the same way the Apple Stores are able to provide service. As an example, Apple will swap iPhones, iPads, iPods and oftentimes Macs that are not functioning properly, but do not provide the ability for Independent’s to offer the same level of service. These problems existed even though iStore has consistently met all metrics as measured by Apple to be a distinguished and high-performing Apple Specialist and AppleCare Premium Service Provider. For these reasons and others, I have made the tough choice to close our stores.

The note on the website is pasted below:

To Our Many Valued Customers and Friends,

We have enjoyed assisting you with all your Apple needs over the past 17 years here in Arizona. I feel blessed to have been able to provide for my family while being entangled in all the cool Apple products. Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with some of the most talented Apple people around – those who have helped you with everything from your complex issues to your simple problems or helped you figure out exactly which Mac, iPod or iPad was right for you.

With the gradual opening of what is now 5 corporate Apple Stores here in the Phoenix area and corresponding changes at Apple with their reseller relations, Apple has made it nearly impossible to sustain profitability while providing great customer service. As many of you have experienced (most recently with the 3rd Gen iPad), Apple consistently withholds product from their independent dealers while providing abundantly to their own corporate Apple Stores. For this reason and many others that would take too long to enumerate and, quite frankly, you probably don’t care about, we have chosen to permanently close our stores.

As is the case with all businesses, we have made our fair share of mistakes. We could have done better at many things. If you were ever caught in the crossfire of those situations, I hope you were made whole by us (except the crazy ones like that guy that expected us to give him a refund for a product he purchased at our competitor’s store).

I thank you for your kindness, tolerance, patience, humanity, business and friendship over the years.

Sincerely,

Steve Walker

President

iStore

The question is: Should Apple have some compassion for retailers that have been with Apple for decades? Or is this just part of business?

Related articles

• Apple Store employees getting a little overzealous with Iranian export restrictions, borders on racial profiling [Video] (9to5mac.com)
• Apple finally drops iPad purchase quantity limits at its retail stores, change coming online June 11th (9to5mac.com)
• Did Apple just give every one of its retail employees a $4 raise? (Update: Nope) (9to5mac.com)

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Did Apple just give every one of its retail employees a $4 raise? (Update: Nope)

Jordan Kahn Jun 18 2012 - 8:44 am PT

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Update: BusinessInsider issued the update below confirming our doubts:

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that all Apple Store employees were getting a raise of at least $4 per hour. This is what we were told by a single source at an Apple Retail store. But other Apple Retail store employees say this is not true. It is possible that only employees at one store are getting raises. We don’t know the full story, and we never should have written a story that indicated we did. It was an overreach, and we sincerely apologize for misleading readers.

While we find it a little hard to believe, BusinessInsider reported that a source said all Apple retail employees would receive a $4-per-hour raise starting July 20:

A source tells us that every Apple retail employee will get a $4-per-hour raise… This is based on an internal review process called NetPromoter that lets Apple employees critique the company… It seems that enough Apple employees thought they were underpaid that the company decided to spread some money around.

It is definitely possible that some retail employees will get the $4 raise, but we will wait for confirmation from Apple about all of its nearly 30,000 retail employees seeing the increase in pay. We talked to four different Apple employees from varied locations, but they have not heard anything about a raise. We previously reported that Apple’s recently appointed Senior Vice President of Retail John Browett has promised retail employees a three month advance on raises originally expected in September. We will keep you updated.

Related articles

• Apple’s new retail chief announces three-month advance on employee pay raises (9to5mac.com)
• Apple’s first Swedish retail store coming to NK Mall in Stockholm (9to5mac.com)
• Weekend Reading: The Apple Experience by Carmine Gallo [excerpt] (9to5mac.com)

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Apple’s first Swedish retail store coming to NK Mall in Stockholm

Jordan Kahn May 23 2012 - 9:22 am PT

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We told you a couple months ago that Apple was likely planning its first retail location in Sweden after job listings were discovered on Apple’s website. There were reports at the time that the store would end up somewhere in Stockholm’s city center, but the exact location was otherwise unknown. Today, local reports from 99mac and others claimed Apple is now confirming to new employees that the store will be located in the NK mall in Stockholm. According to the report, there is also talk that Apple is planning more retail locations for Malmö and Gothenburg, and possibly a second location in Stockholm.

The Stockholm store increases Apple’s retail presence to 13 countries, and it is expected to open sometime in August or September. NK Mall has two locations in Stockholm and Gothenburg, with the Stockholm location alone receiving roughly 12 million visitors annually.

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Target discounting iPhone 4S to $149, iPhone 4 to $49 – in store only

Jake Smith May 7 2012 - 1:23 pm PT

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If you are looking to pick up the iPhone 4S in the next couple of days, make sure to check your local Target store before purchasing. Thanks to a couple of tips sent to us by email, we now know that various Target locations are running a deal on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 for all carriers. The 16GB iPhone 4S is available for $149.99 on a two-year contract, while the iPhone 4 is $49.99 on two-year contract — both at a $50 discount. Let us know in the comments if your local Target is running this deal. Sadly, it is not available online.

Cheers Laurenty, Caleb, iDannyOcean!

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