Apple

Can Apple get its mojo back without high iPhone gross margins?

Ed Sutherland ∙ July 24, 2013

Apple CEO Tim Cook's message Tuesday was clearly: "We're back!" But can a company which has experienced four quarters of sliding shares and a stock value that's dropped around 40 percent since September make such a claim without traditionally fat gross margins?

The iPhone - Apple's flagship product - has seen its per unit revenue fall with the iPad telling a similar story. In an ironic development, Apple products once overshadowed by the iPhone and iPad now are revenue champs, according to a Wednesday report...

Apple navigates low revenue, tight margin future

Ed Sutherland ∙ July 24, 2013

Tuesday's announcement by Apple that it sold more devices but with less profit during the June quarter seems to have reset investor expectations about the tech giant. The key to Apple introducing new products going forward now appears to be the ability to sustain Wall Street confidence that CEO Tim Cook can continue steering the ship effectively without the hand of late co-founder Steve Jobs.

Although overall quarterly revenue of $35.4 billion topped the consensus of $35 billion, profit fell 22 percent to $6.9 billion. As a result, Cook tried to reassure investors, announcing Apple was "laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products" set for the fall and 2014...

App Store is now EA’s biggest retail partner

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

Electronic Arts, the most prolific games publisher, during a conference call discussing its June quarter earnings, paid a nice little lip service to Apple by acknowledging that the App Store has become its biggest retail partner in terms of sales - and for the first time, too. That's another important milestone for both Apple's strides in the mobile gaming space and its application store, which last month celebrated its fifth birthday and 50 billionth app download...

Google Drive iOS app can now open links in Chrome or Safari

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

Google is building a nice little ecosystem around Apple's iOS by feverishly updating its iPhone and iPad warez with deep cross-app integration. For example, earlier this month the Internet giant refreshed its Chrome iOS browser with the ability to open URLs for YouTube, Maps, Google+ and Drive in Google’s native iOS apps instead of the browser.

Notably absent from that update: the Google Drive client for the iPhone and iPad. Well, Google saw to that with today's Drive iOS release which can now open links in Google's Chrome or Apple's Safari browser. Google Drive version 1.5 also adds support for inserting rows and columns using the “+” button in Google Sheets...

AT&T’s LTE expands to seven new markets

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

The nation’s second-largest carrier continues expanding its fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology coverage. On Wednesday, the carrier announced it has deployed LTE across seven new markets, including California's Merced and Velleyo regions, alongside additional LTE pockets in Missouri, Delaware, Alabama and Connecticut. The development follows AT&T's major LTE expansion in nearly three dozen new markets last month...

Apple’s dual-image sensor patent focuses on higher quality images

Ed Sutherland ∙ July 24, 2013

While we've all heard the saying "two heads are better than one," a new Apple patent applies that thinking to digital images. The patent, granted Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes a method of combining two image sensors to produce a photo with the best quality.

In its U.S. Patent No. 8,493,482 filing, Apple outlines a 'Dual image sensor image processing system and method.' The company mentions the iPhone, iPod and some Macs as potentially benefitting from the technology, suggesting a likely iSight camera bump up and better imaging on future devices...

Apple’s iPad grabs 84 percent of tablet web traffic

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

It is pretty well understood that Apple's iPad is a major player in tablet traffic online. However, new numbers only emphasize the iPad's dominance as the device has accelerated further and now accounts for 84 percent of web traffic. Specifically, more than eight out of ten online ads were served to tablet devices carrying the Apple logo, a web analytics firm announced yesterday.

Competing tablets are left fighting over the remaining crumbs, with the No. 2 tablet - Amazon's Kindle Fire - accounting for just 5.7 percent of traffic detected between June 15 and June 21...

Apple updates touch tech in upcoming iPads

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

DigiTimes in January wrote Apple's fifth-generation iPad could adopt the iPad mini's thin-film touchscreen technology called GF Ditto, also better known as GF2. NPD DisplaySearch is well-versed in all things concerning mobile screens and yesterday they corroborated the rumor.

Specifically, DisplaySearch notes Apple’s shift toward in-cell display tech for the iPhone 5 and GF2 for the upcoming iPads has resulted in major shifts in the touch-panel industry supply chain. Basically a double-sided ITO film, GF2 has allowed Apple to make the iPad mini much thinner and significantly lighter compared to the bulkier G/G touchscreen tech driving the iPad 3.

As the iPad 5 is widely expected to adopt the iPad mini's thin and light appearance, obviously a major part of that will be Apple's adoption of the advanced GF2 technology...

Tim Cook: iOS in the Car is a ‘key focus’ for the company

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Apple held its quarterly earnings conference call this afternoon, for the June Quarter, where Tim Cook and his CFO Peter Oppenheimer shared financial information and other insights into the company's operations with analysts, shareholders and reporters.

During the Q&A portion of the call, Cook was asked about Apple's 'iOS in the Car' initiative. The feature, which allows users to interact with their iOS devices via an in-car display, was one of the few that Apple spotlighted during its WWDC keynote last month...

Foxconn to exclusively manufacture Apple’s iPad mini 2, rumor has it

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 27, 2016

As we sift through Apple's June quarter numbers and decipher vague hints suggesting a blockbuster Fall, rumors of a next-generation iPad mini continue to swirl. And where DigiTimes sees a Retina iPad mini in October, KGI's Ming-Chi Kuo sees a launch in March or April of 2014 given the battery and performance challenges stemming from driving a much smaller, thinner and lighter Retina display.

A pair of recent supply chain reports points to Apple commissioning Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (aka Foxcon) with assembly of the second-generation iPad mini. The company is additionally said to have included new suppliers in the iPad supply chain...

Apple makes its blockbuster Fall kinda official

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 23, 2013

If there ever was any doubt fresh Apple gadgets were coming this Fall, one just needs to read between the lines of what Apple's finance boss Peter Oppenheimer said during June quarter conference call with analyst. In a Q&A Session, the exec hinted at a "very busy Fall".

The statement echoes a recent note by a reliable analyst who projected a flurry of Apple product launches throughout September and into late-October. When pressed to explain himself, Oppenheimer dodged giving a straight answer by insisting on leaving it there and instead "go into more detail in October." Touché, Pete, touché indeed!

15 interesting points from today’s earnings call

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Apple just announced its earnings for its June quarter, and despite all of the ‘doom’ talk and lowball analyst predictions, the numbers are actually pretty good. In fact, the company set a record for iPhone sales during the 3-month period.

We're just finishing up the conference call, where Tim Cook and his CFO Peter Oppenheimer talked about the quarter, offered some insight and fielded several questions. And as usual, we’ve rounded up the 15 most interesting points for you...