Ahead of Apple’s October 22nd iPad-focused event, major accessory maker ZAGG seems to be getting its offerings in order for the new Apple tablets. The company posted a listing for an iPad 5 keyboard case on its website this week, and the images for the case clearly show an iPad with a thinner-bezel. The case features backlit keys, white and black color options, and comes in at 7.6mm. While this case does not provide any breakthrough details about Apple’s new iPad, it does demonstrate that case makers expect that the iPad 5 will look just like the several leaks over the course of last many months. The above case launched for the current iPad mini earlier this year.
US Mac sales fell year-on-year as part of the global decline in the PC market as consumers switch to tablets, phablets and smartphones – but the two major market analysts produced wildly differing estimates of the size of that fall.
IDC has a dramatic drop of 11.2 percent, from 2.14M in the third quarter of 2012 to 1.9M in the same quarter this year, while Gartner shows a much more modest decline of 2.3 percent from 2.2M (close to IDC’s number) to 2.1M. The only point on which both agree is this is the first Q3 decline in Mac sales since 2002, a quarter usually assisted by the back-to-school market …
Macs make automated backup childishly easy: simply plug in an external hard drive and OS X will ask whether you want to use it as a Time Machine disk. Say yes, and you’ll then get fully-automatic, hourly, versioned backups without doing anything further.
Unplug it to take your MacBook out & about, and it will catch up as soon as you return and plug it back in. Even easier, get a Time Capsule, and those backups take place over wifi, so you don’t even have to connect a drive.
But I’m a belt-and-braces chap. I like multiple backups, and I like one of those backups to be off-site. That way, if the house burns down, or a burglar takes both my Macs and my backup drives, I still have access to my data. Which is where online backup services come into play. Think of them as your backup of last resort.
iCloud, covered in my cloud storage roundup last week, already backs up quite a lot of your data – but nothing like all of it. The services covered here are ones that backup either your entire Mac, or a large proportion of it …
Starting today, all the screenshots you take can automatically be saved straight to your Dropbox. And on top of that, Dropbox will also create a link to your screenshot and copy it to your clipboard — so your picture’s instantly good to share.
Something more unique and useful perhaps is a simple iPhoto uploader.
As an added bonus for all you Mac users, today’s update also includes a nice little importer that copies your photos from iPhoto directly to your Dropbox.
Almost the exact 2x Apple promised and great for people doing big videos. Also notable from Macsfuture:
The iPhone 5s’ Geekbench score of 2552 is close to the score of the “Early 2010” version of the Mac Mini.
So it seems that Apple’s processors are about 3-4 years behind Intel’s currently. If Apple’s Ax processors keeps doubling speed every year and Intel struggles to keep up with Moore’s law, it doesn’t take a Computer Science major to see what’s going to happen in a few years. Expand Expanding Close
The American Customer Satisfaction Index saw Apple take the top spot in the personal computers category for the 10th year running, with its score of 87 a full eight points higher than the industry average. Apple, which scored one point higher than last year, has topped the ranking since 2004.
The ACSI includes tablets in its ‘PC’ category, so the scores reflect both Mac and iPad. Factors feeding into the scores include customer expectations pre-sale, perceived quality, perceived value, customer complaint incidents and customer loyalty.
The iPhone took the top slot in the JD Power customer satisfaction survey for the ninth consecutive time back in March, and both iPhone and iPad even managed to beat Samsung on its home turf of South Korea.
According to a report from French Apple blog Mac4Ever, Apple has just dropped the outside public relations company, Rumeur Publique, that it has used in recent years to handle communications with journalists in France. Instead Apple will now be moving its public relations in the country in-house as it does in the US and most other countries. A separate report from Macg.co notes that Rumeur Publique tells them Apple’s decision to move its press relations to an internal team was “not a surprise”, hinting that the transition has been in place while Apple beefs up its internal PR teams in the country. Apple already has its public relations teams located within the company for most countries, but the report notes that PRFection still handles Apple’s PR in Germany.
The long-awaited Jobs movie opened this weekend, with Box Office Mojoreporting that it took seventh place in the weekend openings, grossing $6.7M against top-grossing movie The Butler at $25M. Distributor Open Road Films had expected Jobs to gross $8-9M.
Playing at 2,381 locations, Jobs opened in seventh place with an estimated $6.7 million. While it was never expected to match The Social Network, it’s still very disappointing to note that the Steve Jobs biopic earned less than one-third as much as the Facebook story. This is also one of star Ashton Kutcher’s lowest openings ever—among nationwide releases, it’s only ahead of 2003’s My Boss’s Daughter ($4.9 million). Jobs had plenty of issues, including awful reviews and a comedy star playing dramatic (almost never a good idea). Most important, though, was the movie’s apparent tonal issues: while plenty of people enjoy their Apple products, the deification of Steve Jobs is a bit of a turn off. Jobs received a weak “B-” CinemaScore, and all indications are that it will disappear from theaters quickly …
As noted by several 9to5 readers, Apple has just recently updated its Support pages through Apple.com to better reflect the redesign the rest of the site has been receiving in recent months. Today’s update provides a new design for the majority of support pages available through Apple.com/support, including: Videos, Manuals, Tech Specs, and Downloads.
Apple used to present these pages using a design that was a few generations behind the rest of the site and displayed links in a search result style list. Today’s update brings a flat grid style layout that allows users to select or search for a product in order to find related manuals, videos, tech specs, etc, but also displays search results by product in the grid layout.
Apple.com’s search result pages also get a cleaner look today to match the recent Apple online store design (pictured below). Expand Expanding Close
StackSocial has a pretty impressive bundle hitting this evening for just $29.99. In it you get 9 solid apps including: Painter Lite: Ease Into the World of Digital Art TuneUp: Organize Your iTunes Music Collection in Just a Few Clicks Disk Drill Pro: Protect and Recover Data Like a Pro MoneyWiz: Personal Finance For Your Mac Voila:The Best All-in-One Mac Screencapture Tool DVDRemaster 8: The Ultimate DVD Re-Encoding Solution DesktopShelves: Fight Clutter on Your Desktop by Organizing Files on Shelves MacScan: MacScan is the premier Macintosh security program NetSpot Pro: The Only App for Wireless Site Survey, Wi-Fi Analysis, & Troubleshooting on Mac OS X
We’ve heard nothing of new Haswell iMacs in the pipeline but prominent Apple Analyst Mingchi Kuo from KGI securities thinks they are on the way:
What’s new
We forecast iMac shipments to be 650k units in 2Q13, down 63% from 1.75mn units in 1Q13. We expect shipments to pick up in 3Q13 as Apple (US) launches Haswell iMac and peak season arrives. Full-year shipments are set to reach 4.7mn units. Analysis
We attribute the shipments decline to the fact that new product shipments have peaked and due to the arrival of the consumer slow season. But we believe iMac shipments troughed in 2Q13. Apple is expected to upgrade iMac processor to Intel’s (US) latest Haswell processor in June or July. Meanwhile, the consumer peak season has arrived. Thus we expect shipments to reach 1.1mn units in 3Q13, up 69% QoQ. Full-year shipments are forecast to be 4.7mn units, up 31% YoY.
Apple is currently testing versions of iOS 7 internally that include the AirDrop WiFi-direct file sharing tool from the Mac, according to people familiar with the software.
Like with the Flickr and Vimeo integration that we previously reported on, it is very simple for Apple to remove any single feature from the new operating system ahead of the mid-June unveiling.
Additionally, Apple has scrapped AirDrop late in software development from iOS before. Last year, we reported that Apple was developing an AirDrop tool to take advantage of the new WiFi hardware inside of Apple’s latest iOS devices. Because Apple has postponed the feature before, we believe it is possible that the feature could be pushed back again…
Update: Pricing has just been announced, at $3,799. Pricey, but actually not bad value in a market that had five-figure pricing not so long ago.
ASUS today revealed that it will launch a 31.5-inch 4k monitor late next month, its 3840×2160 pixels allowing four 1080p HD videos to display full-size on the same screen without overlap. A 4k monitor in such a small package is made possible by using an IGZO panel, whose smaller transistors enable greater pixel density, and is likely to be in the same league (and possibly from the same manufacturer) as the 32-inch Sharp panel we saw at CES.
However, don’t rush out to buy one just yet: it’s unlikely that even a top-spec Mac from today’s line-up would be able to drive the resolution at a decent frame-rate. But the next-generation of Haswell-powered Macs almost certainly will. Indeed, as we mentioned earlier, it’s even possible that a next-generation MacBook Air could do so … Expand Expanding Close
OS X 10.9, which is internally codenamed “Cabernet,” will focus on various “power-user” enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to our sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions.
The new operating system includes major enhancements to the Finder application such as tags and tabbed browsing modes. Those additions are notable as many pro-users have relied on third-party solutions and hacks to enable these features. Additionally, the new operating system will include a new Safari web browser with a redesigned backend for improved page loading, speed, and efficiency…
Red Sweater Software’s Daniel Jalkut speculates that tickets are being offered to those who had the item in their cart, but were unable to purchase due to the record 180 second sellout.
Apple is now calling some folks who didn’t get a WWDC ticket earlier. Not sure how many, but stay by your phone if you had tried and failed.
Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted during yesterday’s conference call that Apple wouldn’t have anything notable in terms of hardware until the Fall, though it is unclear exactly what he meant by that.
The 132 day wait between the 2010 MacBook Air and the iPad 2 was the longest hardware dry-spell before the one we are currently enduring. Expand Expanding Close
An insightful Reuters blog by financial journalist Felix Salmon suggests that Apple’s surprisingly low share price may be due to the evolving nature of the company leaving it between two sets of investors.
Conservative investors, who like slow-growing stocks with high dividends, are constitutionally uncomfortable with the volatility inherent in the tech world. And technology investors, who are happy taking that kind of risk, want to see substantial growth. Apple, notwithstanding the fact that it’s one of the most valuable companies in the world, is falling through the capital-markets cracks.
Apple always used to be the company which surprised and delighted investors and customers alike. Its guidance to investors was deliberately pessimistic, blowing through those figures when it reported actual revenue and earnings. It was notoriously secretive about new products, launching new ones in a playful manner with Steve Jobs’ famous ‘One more thing‘ moments… Expand Expanding Close
Following Apple’s announcement of its Q2 2013 earnings and new cash program, the company is hosting an earnings call to discuss the results. The company’s CEO and CFO, Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer, also typically stick around for a question and answer session. We’ll be live blogging the proceedings after the break (Image via AP):
Just under a week after the last build, Apple has seeded developers with build 12E36 of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 release. Apple, again, asks developers to focus on WiFi performance, Graphics, and Safari. Thanks, D!
As planned, Apple has announced its Q2 2013 earnings results.
Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2013 second quarter ended March 30, 2013. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $43.6 billion and quarterly net profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $39.2 billion and net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 37.5 percent compared to 47.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
The Company sold 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 19.5 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold just under 4 million Macs, compared to 4 million in the year-ago quarter.
Apple reported revenues for Q2 of $43.6 billion, which beats Apple’s estimates for the quarter of between $41 and $43 billion. This revenue compares to a revenue of $39.2 billion in the year-ago Q2. Apple also reported net profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share
Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads, just under 4 million Macs, and 5.6 million iPods. This compares to 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, and 4 million Macs, sold in the year-ago Q2 2012 quarter.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on the results:
“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”
Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer as well:
“Our cash generation remains very strong, with $12.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter and an ending cash balance of $145 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.
Apple’s guidance for next quarter (Q3 2013) is revenue between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion
Apple will hold a conference call regarding today’s announcement. We will have live coverage at 5 PM EST/ 2 PM PST.
– Choose to receive notifications that let you know exactly when you’re eligible for upgrade pricing on a new iPhone. And since all you need to complete the order is your Apple ID and password, buying your new iPhone is fast and easy (US only).
– Stay on top of your delivery with notifications. We’ll let you know when your order ships, keep you informed of any updates, and notify you when it’s delivered.
Apple is preparing to soon release new Mac computers that support super-fast 802.11ac Gigabit wireless, according to code-findings inside of Apple’s latest OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 beta seed to developers. The code was located by a tipster inside of the operating system’s WiFi-frameworks folder. As you can see in the image directly below, the 802.11ac code is not found in OS X 10.8.3, which is the latest public release of Apple’s Mac operating system.
Previous reports have claimed that Apple is working with wireless chipmaker Broadcom to produce 802.11ac chips for future Macs. Now, it appears, Apple’s software is ready to support the new wireless technology as well. More details below…
Dropbox is a free download
