When Ayush Agarwal decided to look for love, he thought carefully about his likes and dislikes. The 28-year-old product manager at Google, who lives in San Francisco, loves Apple products. So he signed up to Cupidtino, a dating website for Apple fanboys and fangirls.
“The idea of pivoting my dating life around Mac ladies was intriguing,” he says. “It’s definitely a solid conversation starter. Also, having a Mac girlfriend would mean that I wouldn’t end up becoming [her] tech support”.
iPhone powers Apple March quarter, June will suffer
Apple has announced another stunning quarter, with revenues of $39.2bn earning net profits of $11.6bn or $12.30 per share. That compares with analyst expectations of $36.5bn in sales and $9.94 a share in profits.
The company sold 35.1m iPhones -up 88 per cent on the year-earlier quarter – but is expected to sell fewer in the current quarter, with revenues declining 13 per cent sequentially. Tim Cook, chief executive, and Peter Oppenheimer, chief financial officer, spoke to analysts after the announcement – our live blog is after the jump.
Google quietly shutters One Pass, its Apple Newsstand competitor
Fourteen months ago, to some fanfare, Google launched One Pass – its way to help publishers charge for digital content on the web, mobile and tablets.
Coming just a day after Apple announced plans for a 30 per cent tax on all app subscriptions, Google’s gambit caused quite a stir. With a more generous 10 per cent split and promises to share more subscriber data with publishers, at a time when many were spitting feathers about Apple’s diktat, One Pass was seen as a bold challenge and a tempting proposition from a company many publishers still felt was a parasite.
Yet last week, on a sunny Friday afternoon, Google quietly snuffed One Pass, whose homepage now returns only a 404 error.
How Apple changed the publishing industry
United States v Apple, Inc et al is more than a US Justice department antitrust action against publishers allegedly colluding on ebook prices. The 36-page complaint filed on Wednesday is an ebook in its own right, in its pdf format, about how Apple changed the publishing industry and dealt a blow to Amazon, its biggest content rival.
While Apple may not have come up with the idea for the new agency model for selling ebooks – the docket suggests Hachette and HarperCollins were responsible – it was allegedly the main coordinator of the new strategy – refining it, winning a consensus among publishers and ensuring it was imposed on all other retailers. Steve Jobs, chief executive, and Eddy Cue, in charge of iTunes and its App Store, played key roles, according to the DOJ.
Why Apple’s China concessions will hit its rivals hardest
Make no mistake: Apple will end up eating the higher costs that supplier Foxconn will incur to end excessive overtime and improve working conditions at its plants. But, as we suggested earlier this year, it will be Apple’s rivals that will end up suffering most.
Spring cleaning was in the air for Apple this week as the company announced its plan to pay a dividend and institute a share buyback programme. The announcement had many tech commentators putting themselves in the shoes of Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, to ask: what else could Apple have done with its cash?
Apple iPad complaints seem like hot air
Apple must be wondering whether it was worth the improvements, particularly the addition of 4G LTE, to the new version of its iPad.
The extra mobile connectivity has earned the company plenty of criticism, despite it offering the opportunity to enjoy, at least theoretically, 73 megabits-per-second 4G speeds for the same price as the old single-megabit 3G models.
Apple’s dividend and buyback – how it happened
Apple has announced plans to pay a dividend and institute a share buyback programme as it deals with a cash mountain that has grown to more than $100bn.
The maker of the iPhone and iPad said it would begin with a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share, sometime in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins on July 1. A $10bn share buyback would begin in its next fiscal year, starting September 30 and be executed over three years.
Apple held a conference call to discuss the moves (it also revealed a record weekend of sales for the new iPad). Our live blog on that, and the reaction to it, is after the jump.
Samsung = half of new iPad cost – IHS
Samsung and Apple may be locked in a smartphone and tablet war and concomitant patent disputes, but the Korean manufacturer may be responsible for more than half the cost in component terms of the new iPad, which went on sale on Friday.
A “teardown” by the IHS iSuppli research firm reveals Samsung is supplying the new Retina high-definition display, its applications processor, the Nand Flash memory in some cases and probably the battery as well.
New iPad looks best in close-up
The photos of the new iPad look just like the old one’s. Read the specifications – denser pixels, faster graphics, better connectivity, improved camera – and the changes seem predictable and incremental.
But pick up the new iPad, gaze at the incredible detail and vibrant colours in its screen, transform your photos with a few touches on the new iPhoto app, and that old black magic from Apple is back.
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Older entries
