Apple’s stock share price has risen today, after being down this morning, due to a rumor of an imminent stock split announcement. SeekingAlpha points to a tweet from The Street’s Doug Kass that seems to be the original source of the rumor. Apple’s next shareholder meeting will be held tomorrow, and this is where the announcement is rumored to take place.
We’d caution that this is just a rumor (if reliable, why didn’t he post it on the Street.com?)at this point and Kass’s past hits include things such as:
“I am also hearing that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has already begun low-level discussions with several Apple board members regarding his role as a possible temporary replacement to Steve Jobs should the options-backdating issues intensify at legal levels.”
Also Kass has a big personal interest in AAPL’s share price: Expand Expanding Close
After officially bringing iTunes music and movies to India alongside a huge international rollout in December, Apple appears to have now launched Apple TV in the country. The Apple TV product page on Apple’s India website was first spotted by BGR India, but Apple has yet to issue an official press release announcing the product launch. The product page doesn’t include a “buy” button, and some reports claim stock has not yet made it to Apple resellers in the country. BGR first posted a screenshot of Apple’s site showing an Rs 7,900 price tag, but Apple’s website now shows a price of Rs 8295 (as pictured to the right). That’s roughly $150 USD and slightly higher than first rumored. As pictured above, the product page also highlights a number of Bollywood films and other local content in addition to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube, Vimeo, and MLB.TV.
A recent job posting by Apple looking for an Apple TV software engineer backs up rumors that the company is finally preparing to expand its presence in the living room. According to the job listing on Apple’s website, the company is looking for someone to “lead a team of engineers working on exciting new features and functionality” for the next-generation Apple TV. Once described by Apple as a hobby, the job listing refers to the Apple TV as a “high priority project.”
The Apple TV team is looking for an experienced engineering manager to help deliver the next generation features for Apple TV. Bring your creative energy and engineering discipline, and help us bring the Apple experience to the Living Room…Work closely with cross functional teams, representing Apple TV across Apple
With all the recent rumors of an upcoming Apple TV-related event, the reports that Apple is getting ready to introduce a revamped TV platform are starting to hold a little more weight. Reports from analysts about the company planning an event for next month to introduce a new Apple TV SDK were quickly shot down, but other reliable sources have chimed in today and claimed the event is likely scheduled for fall.
We don’t often report on Apple’s job listings, but Apple TV has languished for a while and we rarely see job listings from Apple referring to the device’s next-generation features. We also have never seen Apple refer to Apple TV as a “high priority project.”
Update (Feb 21st): This has been fixed according to a reader. The iTunes and App Stores use HTML on the backend so Apple can “push” updates via backend code changes:
As of this morning, the bug is gone! No update required! Looks
like the somehow they pushed the update! I can no longer change the
account in the App Store or iTunes store! This reminds me when I was
beta testing 6.0 and Apple changed the behavior of downloading updates
not requiring a password (they also allowed free apps with no password
for a short while). That didn’t need an update to change either.
They seem to have ways of fixing App Store behavior without needing to
update iOS. I’m still running 6.1 on my devices, haven’t gone to
6.1.2 yet.
Would be nice for an official answer from Apple, but so far, it’s
working correctly! Also, I see redeem and send gift are grayed out
also, at the bottom of the App Store. Same for iTunes Store.
For those unaware, iOS 6 received some beefed up Restriction settings when it was released that allowed users to select “Don’t Allow Changes” for an entire account linked to an iOS device. This option was particularly useful for schools and organizations that wanted to limit a device to a specific account and keep students and others from installing apps not approved by the institution. Without the restriction, students or employees could easily change the iTunes account linked to the iOS device. Unfortunately, as noticed by one frustrated 9to5Mac reader, it seems there are several backdoor methods of bypassing the setting…
After releasing an SMC firmware update for most MacBook models last month to address the same battery issue, Apple today released MacBook Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.7 for mid-2010 and early 2011 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros. The update, available through Apple’s website, addresses a rare battery issue:
About MacBook Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.7
This update addresses a rare issue on some Apple notebooks where a battery that has accumulated more than 1000 charge cycles may unexpectedly shut down or stop functioning.
The Wall Street Journal is out with a report today that claimed Apple’s press relations team has tried “a little harder to get its message out” by sending members of the press an increasing number of positive third-party reports about the company. The Wall Street Journal described one of the reports Apple PR sent out as a “study predicting that by 2014, Apple will be as accepted in the enterprise as Microsoft is today.” According to article, Apple has sent out five reports in a month since the starting of 2013, representing quite an increase compared to the past.
Apple issued a press release last month for the minor iOS 6.1 release, as well as the 128GB iPad released today ahead of Microsoft’s new 128GB Surface product. The Wall Street Journal said a person familiar with the matter claimed it’s a “recognition that competition is heating up.”
Apple, and indeed virtually all its competitors, send reporters favorable studies from time to time. But the five reports Apple has sent since the start of the year, mostly related to mobile market share, represent more than recent months… Apple has long been willing to sing its own praises when it needs to, issuing press releases about major milestones, products and sales. So rather than a big shift, the latest moves represent a recognition that competition is heating up, a person familiar with the matter says. Apple also has more to cheer internationally, with growth in countries like China very strong.
If you are holding out for a MacBook Air, check back with us tomorrow, we’ll have the lowest prices you can find on MacBook Airs across the board. Expand Expanding Close
Apple released updates today for MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, and they are for a rare issue that causes batteries with more than 1000-charge cycles to shut down or stop working. The updates are available through Software Update in the Mac App Store now. Links to each update is on Apple’s website below:
This update addresses a rare issue on some Apple notebooks where a battery that has accumulated more than 1000 charge cycles may unexpectedly shut down or stop functioning.
MacTech put the two apps to the test in a number of areas including launching various OSes, application performance, 3D graphics tests, Retina Support, and much more. The conclusion: Parallels Desktop 8 won on the majority of general tests and 62 percent of 3D graphics tests.
In the vast majority of our overall tests, Parallels Desktop 8 won. Again, if you count up the general tests (including the top 3D graphics scores), Parallels won 56% of the tests by 10% or more. If you include all the tests where Parallels was at least 5% faster, as well as the balance of the 3DMark06 graphics tests, Parallels increased the lead further.
On declining Mac numbers: Cook: “If you look at the previous year, our Mac sales were about 5.2M. The difference is 1.1… iMac were down by 700k units Y-O-Y…. There were limited weeks of ramping on these products (iMacs) during the quarter.” We left the quarter with significant constraints on iMacs. Our sales would have been significantly higher… Our channel inventory was down by over 100K units at the beginning of the quarter.
–Cook says market for PCs is weak… “we sold 23 million iPads, we obviously could have sold more than this because we could not build enough iPad minis to come into a demand balance… Im sure there was some cannibalization of Macs there.” If you look at our portables alone we were inline with IDC’s projections of market growth.
While not making enough iMacs for Christmas shopping was a significant and uncharacteristic operational misstep, it doesn’t account for the significant drop in Mac sales overall year-over-year and even sequentially. iMacs and desktops in general have been a declining component of the Mac market as MacBooks take over the space, so even a significant drop in iMac sales wouldn’t account for a 20-percent drop year-over-year and sequentially. Apple also released new Mac Minis and 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros in the quarter, and the rest of the Mac lineup (including the Mac Pro) was updated just a few months before the quarter began.
Cook rationalized why Macs weren’t even flat and are “inline with IDC’s projections,” even though Macs have outgrown the market for something like 20 consecutive quarters previously.
Without a major hardware change or drastic price cuts, it is hard to imagine Apple having another 5 million Mac quarter. It would seem that, like iPods a few years ago, Macs have peaked. Apple’s iPods were cannibalized by iPhones.
The good news is that Apple is cannibalizing its own Mac growth (as well as overall PC growth) with its own high-margin iPads—and lots of them. In fact, Macs now represent significantly less than 15 percent of the total of combined numbers (below and corresponding revenues).
Here’s an interesting find sent by a tipster. Staples, the biggest office retailer in the United States, has a page showing an Apple TV with a list price of $49.99. While that price is very low, we were not able to add it to our cart or check out because the following page said “out of stock” (screenshots below). Staples also recommended a $24.99 Apple Lightning charge and sync cable when you visit the page. In fact, there is a bunch of Apple’s products sitting on “Mockup Pages” section.
This is what happens when designers have to look down at the same box they had almost a decade ago.
We showed you a detailed modular Mac Pro design concept in September posted by designer Peter Zigich. Today, Zigich is back with another future Mac Pro concept that imagined Apple ditching Intel for a custom Apple-designed ARM CPU, “A10”. We’re not sure Apple is ready to take the jump to ARM in the first major refresh of its Mac Pro line since 2010, but the prospect of a smaller, possibly Mac mini-like design for a new Mac Pro is definitely intriguing. The PCI slotsare probably not necessary thanks to Thunderbolt, and Zigich doesn’t rule Intel out entirely. While these specs are maybe not completely realistic for an upcoming Mac Pro refresh, it certainly gets us thinking about what Apple might have planned for its aging Mac Pro design. More images available on Zigich’s website here.
Shipping times for the new 21.5-inch iMacs, at least in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, had sat at “7-10 business days” since the beginning of December. Following changes to shipping times for the device around the globe last night, Apple has today updated its U.S. site to reflect the new “2-3 week” shipping estimates being quoted. CEO Tim Cook warned in October that the company would experience significant iMac shortages for the full quarter. This pushes delivery for new orders of iMacs (27-inch included) well into February.
We expect Cook to provide updates on shortages later this week during the company’s earnings call.
Apple hinted in November at its plans to add more features to Siri in the near future with a job listing that sought individuals to translate Siri into a handful of new languages. Today, we came across another interesting job listing posted by Apple. This one looks for a creative writer skilled in character-driven dialog to “help the Siri team evolve Siri as a distinct, recognizable character.” Not only will the person help “refresh and refine” existing Siri content, Apple is also looking for someone to “develop and write original dialog to support new Siri capabilities.”
Apple clearly thinks Siri’s personality and lifelike AI is just as important as her functionality, noting in the job ad that “Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways.” It looks like Siri’s witty responses will be something that Apple continues to focus on to differentiate Siri from the competition.
We’re looking for a uniquely creative individual to help us evolve and enrich Siri, our virtual personal assistant. Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways. The ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.
Sanho, the company behind the HyperJuice external battery products for Mac that we’ve reviewed in the past, just unveiled its latest lineup of products at CES 2013. While introducing some minor updates to its HyperJuice 2 unit (it’s now 12W instead of 10W), as well as the second generation of its iUSBport product (now with two USB ports), I was surprisingly most impressed by its new eco-friendly polypropylene iPhone 5 case…
At just 0.3mm thin, ThinShield is the world’s lightest and thinnest case, according to Sanho, and will land in Q1 for just $20. Normally, I do not use a case on my iPhone 5 (I opt for a leather sleeve instead), mainly because of the extra bulk it adds to the device. Good news for those that come from the same line of thinking: the ThinShield is barely noticeable, especially when throwing black on black or white on white (depending on your iPhone color). Thanks to ThinShield, you’ll soon be able to get scratch and dirt protection while still being able to enjoy the design Apple intended. I’ll be first in line.
Apple refurbished products are packaged and look like new and come with the same one year of AppleCare. See all of the best prices on Apple Products on our Apple product pages.
If you haven’t heard, those who purchased a new Mac with Apple’s built-to-order 3TB hard drive option found themselves unable to utilize Boot Camp assistant to install Windows. Boot Camp Assistant is currently limited to drives up to 2.2TB. Apple hinted that support might come at a later date, but TwoCanoes shares a step-by-step guide for getting the job done in Boot Camp until then:
Since it is not possible to get around the 2.2 TB limitation with booting Windows, it is possible to organize the partitions so that Windows is the last of the first four partitons and is within the first 2.2 TBs of space on the drive. Since the Mac can see the remaining space above the 2.2 TB limit, this space can be used for addtional storage space for OS X.
In order for Windows to boot successfully and still be able to utilize all of the available space on a 3 TB (or larger) hard drive, Windows must be installed on the fourth partition. You can use Disk Utility to create the partition, but since Disk Utility does not show hidden partitions, it can be difficult to see what is going on if some partitions are hidden. To have Disk Utility show hidden partitions, open Terminal and run the following command:
For a limited time, Walmart is offering the $50 iTunes gift card for $40. That’s 20 percent off and the lowest price we’ve seen for these. The card comes immediately through email, and it counts toward free shipping on other items. It can be purchased for use in the US iTunes Store on iBooks, Mac and iOS Apps, Music, Videos, Movies and more.
Limit two per customer. International readers have mixed results when purchasing these. You usually need US-based credit cards.
You can save even more on your iTunes purchases by using this discounted gift card to purchase heavily discounted apps. 9to5toys has been tracking some of the best iPhone and iPad app deals for the holiday season. Most notably:
Going deep into our supply chain, we now follow weekly supplier data for over 1,000,000 workers. In November 88 percent of workweeks were less than the 60-hour maximum specified in Apple’s code of conduct. In limited peak periods, we allow work beyond the 60 hour limit for those employees that volunteer to do so.
Apple has released an update to the late 2012 models of the iMac, that owners will sure want to grab. The iMac EFI Update 2.0, weighing in at 4.32MB, brings general performance fixes to sleep and Thunderbolt, and additionally improves the compatibility when using 5GHz band Wi-Fi. As always you can grab the update directly from Apple or via Software Update. [Apple]
