Edible Apple

As part of their efforts to give the upcoming Lumina 900 a marketing push, Nokia has engaged in some web-friendly guerrilla style adverts. Now we’re usually a fan of these types of ads, that is assuming that they push the envelope and are clever. But we gotta wonder what the hell Nokia is thinking here.

For instance, take this ad dubbed “Death Grip.” It takes a not so subtle swipe at the iPhone 4 and the antennagate issue nearly 2 years after the device launched. Talk about being behind the curve and completely out of touch.

With Ashton Kutcher all set to play Apple co-founder and icon Steve Jobs in an indie biopic, the clever folks over at Funny or Die thought it’d be funny to come up with some other casting ideas.

Hugh Jackman as Woz? Sure, we’ll buy that. But then the listing takes an absurd turn into the hilarious, as witnessed by this laugh out loud casting suggestion – Tyrese as Bill Gates.

I can see it, can’t you?

via Funny or Die

Reddit has the interesting story over here.

Google today unveiled its take on glasses with built-in augmented reality functionality.

It looks cool, but some people are wary.

Joe Stracci writes:

There’s some incredible Orwellian doublespeak at work here, e.g., technology that “helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment.” As far as I can tell, it doesn’t help you to explore your world at all. If helps Google to explore your world. And this notion of “your” world. What does that even mean? I think Google has flat out given up on the idea of connecting people, and instead, has decided to help them curate their lives, and to play to the collective bloated ego, started replacing “life” with “world.”

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Back in the day, Steve Jobs would routinely handle all of the MC duties during Macworld and special event keynotes. But in the years preceding his passing, other Apple executives such as Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall began making more frequent cameos during these special events.

By now, most Apple fans are quite familiar with Phil Schiller – Apple’s Senior VP of worldwide marketing – and Jonathan Ive – Apple’s Senior VP of Industrial Design – which is why the following video is so amusing.

The video below is from 1999 and was used to showcase what was then Apple’s brand new Power Mac G3 – the blue and white model, which to be honest, doesn’t stand up to the test of time like many of Apple’s other products.

The video showcases some familiar Apple faces and it’s interesting to see a thinner Schiller along with a mustachioed Ive. Also of note is an exceedingly enthusiastic Jon Rubinstein who even remarks at one point, “These machines are beautiful, but they kick ass!”

In late 2011, the US DOJ took a cursory look into the “agency model” of e-book pricing Apple instituted with its iBookstore. Under the agency model, Apple let publishers set their own price for books, albeit with the concession that they couldn’t sell said books at a cheaper pricepoint in other online venues. So the DOJ got a little anti-trust fever and decided to investigate under the assumption that Apple and five named e-book publishers were all colluding to raise prices.

Which, of course, is a bit preposterous because as Apple has stated quite publicly, it’s in Apple’s best interest that the price of e-books be low. Apple wants to sell as many e-books as possible and to get as many iOS users on the iBookstore as possible. Outrageously expensive books don’t help in that regard.

But the DOJ didn’t get the memo, apparently, and now Reuters is reporting that Apple may have to discard the agency model altogether.

While negotiations are still fluid, the settlement is expected to eliminate Apple’s so-called “most favored nation” status, which had prevented the publishers from selling lower-priced e-books through rival retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble  the people said.

The deal could also force a shift, at least temporarily, in pricing control from publishers to retailers, one of the people said.

Such a move to a “wholesale model” would not only benefit consumers but also Amazon, which had been the leading bargain e-book retailer with its Kindle reader.

“It would be a positive for Amazon because the company’s greatest strength is as a high-volume, low-price retailer and the wholesale model plays into that,” said Jim Friedland, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

I guess this debate ultimately boils down to who you want to look out for. Consumers or the content creators, in this case publishers. Personally, the agency model seems a-ok to me. Why not have publishers set their own price and let the good ole’ supply and demand curve of Econ 101 do the rest? Of course, the clause that prevents these publishers from undercutting iBookstore prices elsewhere is admittedly a cause for concern.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been pretty forthright regarding the challenges Sprint currently faces. Specifically, Hesse has previously stated that the iPhone, or lack thereof, was the top reason for subscriber defection over the past few years.

And with AT&T and Verizon already operating with a head start, Sprint had to make a drastic move and so as part of its deal with Apple to carry the iPhone, it agreed to purchase 30.5 million iPhones whether it could sell them all or not. It was undoubtedly a bold “bet the company on the iPhone” type of move but as it turns out, it looks to have been the right decision.

The iPhone 4S quickly became Sprint’s most successful product launch in history and though Sprint’s earnings still leave a lot to be desired, the company is publicly very satisfied with the business the iPhone has brought in for them.

A few days ago, the Dow Jones reported on remarks made by Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer regarding 4G LTE networks and the rumored iPhone 5. Euteneuer explained that Sprint’s contract with Apple is similar to those already in place at AT&T and Verizon in that Sprint isn’t being held to any particular 4G coverage requirements as a precursor to carrying a 4G enabled iPhone 5.

“If you make the assumption that they launch a device at a similar time that they did last year, you’re basically done with the major markets” on Sprint’s 4G LTE buildout, Euteneuer said, noting the carrier plans to initially cover around 100 million Americans. “So I don’t think we are really disadvantaged at all.”

Sprint’s 4G coverage is currently not up to snuff with what AT&T and Verizon offer. As for a 4G enabled iPhone 5, with the latest iPad sporting 4G functionality, it stands to reason that Apple’s next-gen iPhone will as well.

via Nasdaq

All Things D reports on a research note from Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley who writes that the iPhone may not only be the top selling smartphone at AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, but that it may be outpacing all other smartphone sales combined.

“Our March checks indicated the iPhone continues to extend its market share gains,” Walkley explained in his research note. “In fact, we believe iPhones are outselling all other smartphones combined at Sprint and AT&T and selling at roughly equal volume to all Android smartphones at Verizon.”

At this point, only the carriers themselves know the true answer to that question, but it’s certainly a bold claim. Especially since there are quite a few strong Android competitors out there these days, particularly from Samsung whose Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note devices are reportedly selling quite well.

Apple today announced that it will release its Q2 2012 earnings and hold an accompanying earnings conference call on Tuesday, April 24.

During Apple’s first fiscal quarter of 2012 (which covered the October-December 2011 timeframe), Apple reported all time records in revenue, profits, iPhone sales, Mac sales, and iPad sales. Don’t expect any all-time records this time around as the holiday quarter is typically Apple’s busiest.

But still, we will get some more insight into how Apple’s new iPad is performing. Last we heard, Apple had sold 3 million units in the first 4 days the device had been on sale. But since then, the new iPad has gone on sale in a number of other countries so it’ll be interesting to see how much sales have increased.

During Apple’s Q2 of 2011, Apple reported EPS of $6.40 on revenue of $23.23 billion. Quarterly profits came in at $5.9 billion.

As Apple’s success with the iPhone and iPad continues to reach new heights, so too does the amount of scrutiny the company experiences over working conditions at Foxconn, the company that manufactures a slew of Apple products along with devices from other companies such as Amazon and Dell.

Over the past few months, working conditions at Foxconn have received an avalanche of attention as a result of an NPR report that incorporated the observations of Mike Daisey, the now disgraced theater maven who admitted to making up stories about his trip to China in order to sensationalize what truly goes on at Foxconn.

That notwithstanding, Apple has taken a pro-active approach to working conditions at the factories responsible for churning out Apple products. That said, the Fair Labor Association recently audited three Foxconn plants and came to an agreement with them regarding employee salaries and working hours. Specifically, the number of overtime hours workers can work every week has been cut down.

And illustrating the economic factors that underly all of these discussions, not every Foxconn employee is happy about the change.

Reuters reports:

Foxconn’s concessions, including cutting overtime for its 1.2 million mainland Chinese workers while promising compensation that protects them against losing income, we re backed by Apple, which has faced criticism and media scrutiny for worker safety lapses and for using relatively low-paid employees to make high-cost phones, computers and other gadgets.

But at the Foxconn factory gates, many workers seemed unconvinced that their pay wouldn’t be cut along with their hours. For some Chinese factory workers – who make much of their income from long hours of overtime – the idea of less work for the same pay could take getting used to.

“We are worried we will have less money to spend. Of course, if we work less overtime, it would mean less money,” said Wu, a 23-year-old employee from Hunan province in south China.

Foxconn said it will reduce working hours to 49 per week, including overtime.

New data released by Nielsen and covering February 2012 reveals that Android is still the smartphone marketshare player to beat in the US.

The study found that nearly half of all US mobile subscribers own a smartphone, marking a 38% jump from the same period a year-ago. And what are these subscribers purchasing? Well, Android devices it would seem.

Overall, Android continues to lead the smartphone market in the U.S., with 48 percent of smartphone owners saying they owned an Android OS device. Nearly a third (32.1%) of smartphone users have an Apple iPhone, and Blackberry owners represented another 11.6 percent of the smartphone market. Among recent acquirers who got their smartphone within the last three months, 48 percent of those surveyed in February said they chose an Android and 43 percent bought an iPhone.

Not surprisingly, RIM and Windows Phone 7 don’t make strong showings here.

Note, though, that the iPhone 4S seems to have propelled Apple’s total smartphone marketshare higher. Though the iPhone only represents 32% of total smartphones out in circulation, Apple’s smartphone represented 43% of all recent smartphone purchases.

via Nielsen

For the first time, Apple has been ranked as the top consumer brand in Japan.

In becoming the top consumer brand in Japan, Apple has surpassed brands like Google and Panasonic according to a study carried out by Nikkei BP Consulting. Impressively, Apple jumped 10 spots in a year, leaping from 11 last year to number 1 this year. The study was based on a survey that encompassed the opinions of over 52,000 individuals and included 1,000 brands.

While Apple is typically on the receiving end of such honors accolades here in the US and elsewhere, it wasn’t until the iPhone that Apple truly began to become a major player in the Japanese market. Historically, the Japanese tend to view homegrown companies much more favorably than products from foreign competitors.

The other top brands include Google, Uniqlo, YouTube, Disney, McDonalds, Panasonic, Nissan, Dyson, and Rakuten.

via Nikkei