Apple

Apple to open first retail store in Indonesia, resume direct online sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 31, 2017

Apple is finally opening its first retail outlet in Indonesia, a new report out Tuesday confirmed. The brick-and-mortar store will be located in the capital city, Jakarta. Additionally, the Cupertino firm will boost its retail presence in the 250 million people country by enabling direct online seals via the Indonesia online web store. Apple on December 3, 2012 started selling the iPhone 5 in Indonesia and more than fifty other markets. The following day, the company also launched its iTunes movies and music store in 56 new countries, including Indonesia...

Verizon activates 6.2M iPhones in Q4 2012, but quarterly loss doubles

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 13, 2016

Carrier Verizon Wireless Tuesday morning posted results for the 2012 holiday quarter. The numbers don't look good: the company posted a huge loss of $1.93 billion, despite adding a "record-high" 2.1 million new subscribers on smartphone penetration of 58 percent.

Even though quarterly revenues increased 5.7 percent to as much as $30 billion, Verizon reported negative EPS of a whopping $1.48, blaming the decline on pensions and costs associated with Hurricane Sandy. In a conference call with analyst, Verizon's finance chief confirmed that iPhone activations hit 6.2 million units out of 9.8 million smartphones, or 63 percent. This was the first quarter with full three months of iPhone 5 sales on the Verizon network...

Apple’s ‘Red Friday’ sale set to take place on January 25

Cody Lee ∙ January 22, 2013

Apple announced its annual Lunar New Year sale last night, a one day shopping event for Asian countries that is similar to November's Black Friday event. The sale, dubbed "Red Friday," is set to take place on January 25.

As with its popular Black Friday event, Apple will be offering up deals on its Macs, iPads, and iPod products, as well as many of its in-house accessories like the Magic Mouse, Bluetooth keyboard and Smart Cover...

Don’t worry, the ‘iPhone Math’ moniker won’t stick

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

When I woke up this morning to the iPhone Math rumor, I was like 'iPhone what?' As insane as that purported moniker sounds, some did fall for it and took the story as is. But do you really believe Apple would adorn a refresh of its iconic smartphone with such a stupid name? Yes, the Power Mac G4 Cube also wasn't the best moniker to begin with, but what on Earth is the 'iPhone Math' supposed to stand for?

Not to worry, a well-connected Apple blogger has now called into question both the trustworthiness and knowledgeability of the sources who pretentiously claim to even know an upcoming iPhone’s name...

Twitterrific gains new features, push notifications still being worked on

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 21, 2013

https://vimeo.com/57871805

As you can see in the clip above, Iconofactory today released an update to its Twitter client on the App Store, Twitterrific. The app has some loyal following - in fact, both TweetBot and Twitterrific are my favorite go-to Twitter clients for iDevices. Twitterrific fans should appreciate half a dozen new features and a bunch of improvements in this release.

Most notably, the new Twitterrific version 5.0.2 now has a simplified in-app web browser and reading mode supporting Instapaper or Readability. It also lets you find tweets in all timelines via History, preview images directly in the timeline and so forth. Push notifications, you say? Read on for the full breakdown...

jOBS star Ashton Kutcher to kick off MacWorld

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 25, 2017

Actor Ashton Kutcher who stars in jOBS, the upcoming indie biopic about Apple's late co-founder, will kick off MacWorld Expo, now known as iWorld. The conference runs January 31 - February 2 in San Francisco's Moscone West. Kutcher will take the main stage on January 31 at 9am to kick off the three-day conference and talk about the flick, which is scheduled to hit theaters in April after its debut at the legendary Sundance Film Festival later this month...

Poll: my next cell phone will be…

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 24, 2016

These days, it's all but impossible to escape Apple hate speech. You know who to blame: big media. I mean, stock manipulators played even the credulous Wall Street Journal. It's not just WSJ - or NYT or Reuters, for that matter.

Anti-Apple Forbes hit new lows with clickbait headlines like this one or this one. And as crazypants analysts voice their concern regarding "Apple’s lack of a strategy in the lower-end phone”, they at the same time continue to hallucinate about a happiness or time travel machine from Apple.

And all of them get an assistance from traffic-hungry journalists like Dan Lyons whose write-ups sound bitter and idiotic. But in spite of all that FUD talk, Apple is demolishing Android in every metric that matters. None of this frenzy should matter when considering your next cell phone.

But real life can be a bitch and with so much negative publicity mounting ahead of Apple's earnings report, no wonder some of the faint-hearted fans are beginning to question their faith in the California firm. I know where my heart stands, but I want to know one thing: do you know where your heart stands? So, what's your next phone gonna be?

Reality check: despite FUD talk, Apple demolishing Android in all metrics that matter

Ed Sutherland ∙ January 21, 2013

Now that Apple's stock price appears to have regained some sanity, rising this morning to $500 from last week's low, perhaps its time to introduce some reality into the Apple vs. Android discussions which lately have resembled Chicken Little's adaptation of the Mayan Calendar. Before "The Sky is Falling: Apple orders are down" mania, there was the "Android has the market share and Apple's a has-been" debate.

The core argument and evidence of Android's dominance over Apple was right out of Circular Logic 101: Android has the Market Share. But look behind the curtain and the end of the world does not seem so close - at least for Apple...

Optimus G fuels LG’s return to No. 2 in the U.S., bumps Apple to No. 3

Ed Sutherland ∙ January 21, 2013

Competition to see who is the No. 2 cellphone maker in the U.S. has become a horse race. After losing it to Apple in 2011, LG for the first time since the iPhone 4S launch reportedly has retaken the spot behind industry-leader Samsung. But how did Apple, which produces only smartphones, for so long hold off the South Korean maker of both smart and feature phones?

According to Hong Kong's Counterpoint Research, LG in December snared thirteen percent of the overall U.S. cell phone market, beating Apple's twelve percent. However, it took LG's family of smart and dumb phones to regain the No. 2 spot, which it lost in 2011 when the iPhone 4S was released...

HypedMusic: listen to millions of tracks for free

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Rdio, Pandora and Spotify are all nice options to stream unlimited music rather than buy individual tracks (so last century). But these services cost north of ten bucks per month, which amounts to a $100+ annually. With so many music tracks readily available on the Internet for free, in the form of music videos and what not, Luke Li launched the HypedMusic web site in January 2011 as a legally compliant option to enjoy music on your computer free.

And with an iPhone app launched yesterday, HypedMusic has become a whole lot more useful an alternative to the commercial streaming music services. I've included additional info and a few more screenies right past the fold...

Budget iPhone: the augur of a new era of lower Apple margins

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

What should the rumored budget iPhone cost and how low could Apple price it without sacrificing its industry-leading profits? Jean-Louis Gassée, a former executive at Apple, where he worked from 1981 to 1990, ran some numbers on his Monday Note blog to try and make sense of the idea. The crux: there's no way Apple could make a compelling, inexpensive device sporting today's hardware encased in a less exquisite (dare I say, plasticky?) body without sacrificing its powerful margins.

Should the Cupertino, California company in fact pursue the low-cost iPhone, the move will be remembered as the augur of a new era of lower Apple margins and as such likely signals a new brutal phase in the Smartphone Wars...