RealBlab

I’ve started a new blog, RealBlab, about great finds around the web. I feature my favorite art, music, software, and still some ramblings about technology and Web 2.0. Find it at http://realblab.wordpress.com

Different Firm Puts Apple’s Legal Resolve with Mac OS X-ready PC to the Test

Apparently blind and unaware of the recent legal action taken against Psystar’s Open Computer, a new company known as Open Tech (even a similar name!) says it’s making Mac OS X-compatible PCs, and believes it has found a loophole that prevents legal action from Apple.

read more | digg story

Microsoft offers hints on anti-Apple marketing blitz

Microsoft has planned a mega million dollar advertising campaign designed to expunge any doubts regarding the quality of its Windows Vista operating system. They plan on doing this through a bold barrage of advertising campaigns, and they have now released some early information on what this may be.

read more | digg story

Steve Jobs’ Health: Crossing the Line

Job’s appearance at June’s World Wide Developer Conference stirred up all sorts of health rumors. But, honestly, is it any of our business? I mean, many Apple fans and tech columnists somehow have come to think they know the CEO personally, but the truth is that we only see him a few times a year as he gives a keynote on stage. His health is a private issue, and anyone who feels that they can use the excuse, “I deserve to know! I’m an Apple shareholder!” clearly doesn’t understand the boundaries between the business man and the consumer. If there were any real company-related concerns, we would know. CFO Peter Oppenheimer recently addressed this issue during the Apple Q3 financial call on Monday. According to Oppenheimer, Steve Jobs has know plans to leave the company. Everybody needs to calm down on this issue. Really.

read more

Apple extends MobileMe trial following UK billing glitch

Following a billing error that caused “free” MobileMe trial customers in the UK to be charged £121, Apple has offered an apology and yet another 30-day extension, giving users a total of four months free. I would be patient if it had true push support.

read more | digg story

You Know You Want It: MacBook Touch Rumor

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at “low” price that will reduce margins. 

This rumor is simply a list of everything we’d want to see in this product and then the “reducing margins” card is thrown in for added possibility. That said, what’s not to like?

read more | digg story

Apple to Drop Prices of Notebooks?

Investment bank Piper Jaffray issued a note today based on Apple’s future outlook in 2008 and 2009. During their financial conference call, Apple told investors that they expect the company’s gross margins will by down to 31.5% (from 34.8%) in Q4 2008 with expectations of further declines down to 3…

read more | digg story

Apple’s Q3 Financial Report

This Monday, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer released the company’s third quarter earnings report during a conference call with analysts and the press. Ending on June 28th, Apple’s third quarter showed outstanding results in multiple areas of sales. First off, Mac sales were the predominant business segment of profit for Apple in Q3. While accounting for around 48% of the company’s total revenue, Apple managed to sell more Macs in Q3 than ever before, a staggering 2,496,000 units. These sales figures are made from a commanding 1,553,000 notebook sales and 96,000 desktop shipments. Both are showing promising rates of increase, with notebooks and desktops increasing sales by 8% and 10% respectively. In a yearly growth of 44%, Apple retail stores, mostly based in the United States, sold 476,000 Macs, totaling to $1.445B of revenue. This revenue is up a whopping 58% from last year. 

     To summarize iPod earnings, most sales were driven by the iPod Touch and iPod Shuffle models. In all, approximately 11,000,000 iPods were sold, producing $1.678B of revenue. As a reminder, Apple holds 70 percent of the media player market here in America and mostly leads with other percentages worldwide. Apple is also proud to say that they’re iTunes online music store now offers 8 million songs, 2,200 movies, 450 of those movies offered in HD, and 20,000 TV shows.

     In iPhone news, the company believes that the new iPhone 3G will meet its yearly sales goal of 10 million and flaunts the product’s first week of sales as a sign of its success. Many sources believe the iPhone is selling out of stock faster than expected in retail stores nationwide.

     Overall, Apple’s fiscal third quarter demonstrated a 2.1% decrease in gross margins from last year. Now at 34.8%, these figures are most likely due to the current product diversification not as obvious last year. 

     After listeners took notes and charted Oppenheimer’s usual number crunching, the media was intrigued when the CFO continuously threw in hints of a “product transition” during his hour long talk. Interspersed throughout the conference, Oppenheimer gave burning curiosity to listeners with remarks of new state of the art products that “will have features and technology that others can’t match”. Because of these soon to come mystery products, Oppenheimer says that gross margins are expected to fall to 31.5% by September and to an all-time low of 30% flat by fiscal ‘09. As if this wasn’t interesting enough, he went on to comment on the availability and practicality of consumer NAND flash memory and the availability of other components, such as optical drives and hard drives.  Oppenheimer said this during the conference call:

We are working to develop new products that contains technologies that our competition will not be able to match. I cannot discuss these new products, but we are very confident in our product pipeline

       On a different note, Oppenheimer said this about Steve Job’s health after it was noted that he did not attend the conference:

 ”Steve loves Apple. He serves at the pleasure of Apple’s board. He has no plans to leave Apple. Steve’s health is a private matter.”

       To conclude the conference, Apple is targeting revenue of $7.8B for Q4 and $1 earnings per share.

Apple files suit against Psystar

Apple has sued computer clone manufacturer Psystar, which began OS X EULA slashing sales of its product in April. The OpenComputer (aka Hackintosh) product Psystar makes utilizes PC’s Intel processors together with some clever BIOS revisions and firmware tweaks to run Leopard. While some machines sell for the low-price of $399, recently Psystar has began making Xserve knockoffs also. All machines are designed by Psystar using non-Apple parts and cases.

Apple’s legal case seems far easier than Psystar’s, whose sole defense is not in EULA’s or legally valid paperwork, but simply that their way is the right way. One employee compared it to “Honda limiting cars to only certain roads”. More on this later.

Happy July!

We’re back! After a brief hiatus, TMC is back and ready to cover all of your latest Apple news! With the flood of iPhone 3G rumors now aside, we are bringing you the best news on your favorite products. By the looks of it, I will be doing a lot of blogging this busy month of July: coming down the pipe we have the most focused and useful blog coverage of MobileMe, iPhone 3G, and Apple’s own Black Friday launch disaster. Stay tooned