Living eight to a room on four bunks, long shifts and tiny televisions in depersonalized common rooms, this is life at Foxconn’s iPhone factories, a fresh report informs this morning.
Below pictorial record of life in Foxconn’s factory in Shenzen, China, a place a colossal 420,000 workers call home. There’s pictures of dorm blocks and of the netting draped around these buildings to help prevent suicides at the plants. (The spate of suicides stopped in May, the report explains). Expand Expanding Close
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s iPad has seized a mighty 95 percent share of the nascent tablet market, and while competitors are swinging into action Apple already has plans to take the discussion to a whole new level as the company engages in an all-fronts fight for the future of innovation and mobility.
If you worry in case viruses appear on the more-or-less virus proof Mac platform, then worry no more — there’s a reputable and free anti-virus solution available for you today, from the security boffins over at Sophos. Expand Expanding Close
Apple has cut €100 off of the European price of the Mac mini — the price cut is trans-European, it is also available at the UK store. Expand Expanding Close
Apple and Google seem set for another bidding war with both companies said to be sniffing around at purchasing mobile payments firm, BOKU. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s plans for the iPhone 5 extend beyond the iWallet and straight into a more mobile computing experience than you’ve seen before using an iPhone, at least that’s what Cult of Mac is claiming. Expand Expanding Close
iPhone is the most popular US smartphone while the Android army’s march has propelled that multiplicity of devices to become the most popular OS, Canalsys reports today.
The analysts note massive growth in the sector – the worldwide smartphone market grew by 95 percent over the year ago quarter. Nokia stays ahead of the pack with 33 percent while Apple grabbed 17 percent worldwide, putting it above RIM. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s senior VP retail, Ron Johnson, has exercised 150,000 AAPL stock options at a strike price of $11.73, selling these for a total $44.1 million.
Johnson, who has been responsible for Apple’s explosive retail store success, sold his shares at an average $306.07 per share, according to a SEC filing. Expand Expanding Close
Remember when Motorola sued Apple (and everyone else) earlier this month? Remember when Motorola said Droid Does and iPhone Doesn’t? Well today Apple is hitting back at Motorola. Apple has recently filed two lawsuits against Motorola over six patents filed by Apple relating to Multi-Touch. According to Apple’s lawsuit the Motorola products infringing on Apple’s Intellectual Property are the Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm 1.
Apple has split up the six patent infringements into two lawsuits and here they are fromPatently Apple:
One: Apple, Inc patent titled: Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces
iOS app strategist Raven Zachary today revealed via Twitter that Microsoft apparently has a group dedicated to the iPad. This tidbit comes from Zachary overhearing two Microsoft employees discussing confidential information. Electronista reported this tweet as possible evidence that Microsoft is developing an iPad competitor.
It would be no shock that Microsoft is working on some tablets of their own but we do not think this tweet is any indication that Microsoft has a dedicated group to go against the iPad. The original report states that the tweet could also mean they have a group dedicated to market research of the iPad but it probably has nothing to do with that either.
What will be inside the iPad 2.0? If you’ve been asking yourself this question then you don’t have too long to wait — iPad 2.0 will boast a camera and is set to ship in the first quarter of 2011.
COMPUTERWORLD: Despite the heavily-hyped Android onslaught and the ‘antenna-gate’ affair, Apple has managed to ease its way into the top five handset makers for the first time, bouncing Sony Ericcson out of the game and returning iPhone sales growth of 90.5 percent since last year.
Sprint’s making cooing noises around Apple, praising the company’s iPad for stimulating interest in the carrier’s Overdrive 3G/4G MiFi Wireless hotspot device.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, says “Smartphones is part of a bigger value proposition, because you need to have a network that can support that smart phone,” he said. Expand Expanding Close
Apple launched its online retail store in China this week — and promptly sold out of iPhone 4 units within 10 hours, forcing the company to suspend sales.
With Apple’s recent move to stop iPhone sales in its brick-&-mortar stores in China, this means there’s now nowhere to purchase an iPhone in the country — except from the scalpers who are scooping-up all stocks in the first place. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s over $20B in revenues announced earlier this month easily blew away Microsoft’s $16.20 billion in revenues reported today. However, Microsoft still retains the profit crown with a whopping $5.4 billion in earnings while Apple “only” reported $4.3 billion this quarter.
I wonder how the holiday quarter is shaping up for the two? Microsoft is going to have to sell a lot of Xboxes to beat the iOS brigade. Expand Expanding Close
Just like the iPad and those tiny underpowered netbooks out there, the 11″ MacBook Air has been cleared to go through Airport security in the US without being taken out of its bag.
Apple may wish to avoid comparisons of the MacBook Air to similarly compact but underpowered netbooks. However, like netbooks, Apple’s new laptop is “smaller than a standard-size laptop,” meaning it can stay in a bag, said TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball.
The rules on whether the larger, 13-inch MacBook Air — thinner than most laptops because it doesn’t have a DVD or hard drive — would need to be placed on the conveyor belt separately have not been established, Kimball said.
COMPUTERWORLD: Intense competition; component cost price hikes; and rapid technology advancement — for most handset manufacturers, mobile’s not a nice market any more. Apple’s iPhone advantages include some Android and others can never match.
It still seems a little weird mentioning Apple products and Verizon in the same sentence but they are now for sale with Mifis in Verizon Stores. AT&T too. Verizon’s are Wifi versions bundled with Mifis while AT&T have the 3G iPads that are tied to their network with the same price points for each.
Apple has filed its 2010 annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing higher employee numbers, higher advertising spend and a slight decline in profit margins as it kept iPad prices as low as it could.
The company has raised its employee numbers by over a third from last year, it had 46,600 full-time employees as of September 25, up from 34,300 a year ago and 28,000 in 2008. Expand Expanding Close
TPK Holdings, a supplier of touchscreens for iPhones and iPads has seen serious business come its way as a result of its Apple connection, raising $200 million from its IPO — the largest such offering in Taiwan this year. Similar happy rumblings too from Apple’s carrier partners in the area, who confirmed rising profits and subscriber numbers on back of the Apple device. Expand Expanding Close
Apple has removed all mention of the white iPhone from its website, scant hours since some reports claimed the company may have dismissed the product completely. Expand Expanding Close
Yet more information on the iPhone which doesn’t yet exist! And no, I’m not talking about the mythical, nay, almost unicorn-like white iPhone 4 fantasy creature, but the CDMA iPhone for use on networks outside of AT&T.
Speaking of data center speculation, just how big are Apple’s plans for North Carolina? Sure, we already know the company’s almost finished building one of the world’s largest data centers there — and we recently learned it could even be twice the size we originally thought — this morning we learn Apple has also purchased land sufficient to make the center even larger. Expand Expanding Close
