Edible Apple

Apple was never one to cater to the corporate market, but in the iPad, they have a product that’s so appealing in its own right that the company is making inroads into market segments that were previously dominated by other companies.

Highlighting this telling shift in support, a recent ChangeWave survey of 1,605 business IT buyers shows that corporate demand for the iPad is as high as its ever been.

Going forward, better than one-in-five companies (22%) say they’ll be purchasing tablets for their employees during 2nd Quarter 2012, and the percentage reporting they’ll buy Apple iPads has jumped to the highest level of corporate iPad demand ever seen in a ChangeWave survey.

What’s more, the upcoming release of Apple’s new iPad is having an adverse affect on the interest corporate buyers are showing in other tablets. All across the board, no competing tablet is free from influence of Apple’s iPad dominance and growing mind and marketshare.

Apple’s next-gen iPad will go on sale at Apple retail stores this Friday at 8am. If you wanna snatch one up, you’d best be getting there early given that Apple quickly ran through it’s initial supply of iPad pre-orders, prompting an Apple to release a statement calling demand for the new iPad “off the charts.”

via Changewave

Apple’s new iPad is set to launch in Hong Kong on Friday, and it’d be quite the understatement to say that Apple product launches there go off without a hitch.

Unfortunately, scalpers are a big problem when it comes to Apple products as folks looking to make a quick buck are notorious for trying to pick up as many units of a device as possible, and then re-selling them at inflated prices.

To help combat that phenomenon, Apple in China, in the wake of the iPhone 4S release, instituted a new rule requiring interested buyers to place an order online whereupon they can then come in, flash their ID and order confirmation, and pick up their device.

Further, Apple this week began putting up notices around the IFC Mall – where Apple’s flagship store is located – notifying would be scalpers that they won’t be served on a first come first serve basis.

No staying or queueing up here. Apple will not serve on a first come first serve basis for new iPad. Please refer to Apple’s official website for the detailed arrangement.

Still, that hasn’t stopped scalpers from congretaging and queing up anyways.

Next Web theorizes,

However, it is more likely that scalpers will approach customers visiting the store to pickup their preordered iPad and offer them an inflated sum of money in exchange for their new purchase.

via The Next Web

Despite seemingly credible reports that T-Mobile would get the iPhone 4S, T-Mobile today remains the only major US carrier without Apple’s heralded smartphone.

And T-Mobile will be the first to admit that it has had an effect on their bottom line.

Just a few weeks ago, T-Mobile released their earnings report for Q4 2012 and singled out the iPhone as the reason for mass customer defection.

Sequentially, the decline in branded net contract customers was driven primarily by higher branded contract deactivations as a result of the launch of the iPhone 4S by three nationwide competitors in mid-October.

And a few weeks before that, T-Mobile CMO Cole Brodman went so far as to apologize to the T-Mobile customer base for not carrying the iPhone.

Yesterday, T-Mobile put up a Q&A with its CTO Neville Ray where he expounded on a number of questions, most of which related to T-Mobile’s 4G expansion.

Of note was this blurb,

Will refarming make your network compatible with the iPhone?  And will you stop offering 2G services? A nice side benefit of the refarming effort is that our 4G network will be compatible with a broader range of devices, including the iPhone. The other important benefit of our network modernization effort is the coverage improvements it will deliver, especially when it comes to in-home coverage.

T-Mobile is investing $4 billion to modernize their network and they plan to rollout LTE services in 2013.

via T-Mobile

The civil unrest in Syria continues to grow as the corrupt government there continues its violent crackdown on its dissenting populous. The UN estimates that more than 7,500 individuals have been killed over the past few months by Syrian authorities.

Later today, Al Jazeera will be broadcasting a documentary on the happenings in Syria that was shot entirely with an iPhone. The beginning of the documentary begins with the Al Jazeera correspondent saying the following:

I can’t tell you my name. I’ve spent many months secretly in Syria for Al Jazeera.

I cannot show my face and my voice is disguised to conceal my identity, because I don’t want to endanger my contacts in Syria.

Because carrying a camera would be risky, I took my cell phone with me as I moved around the country and captured images from the uprising that have so far remained unseen.

A promo for the film can be seen below.

It’s not entirely clear when exactly the video footage was shot. We mention this because in late 2011, in the wake of a brutal government crackdown that saw Syrian forces kill scores of demonstrators and innocent civilians, Syrian Prime Minister Bashar al-Assad banned the use of iPhones in an effort to hide the the government sanctioned violence, abuse, and human rights violations.

via Journalism.co.uk

Apple filed a Form 4 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday indicating that CEO Tim Cook, on March 10, sold 37,500 shares of Apple stock. When the dust settled, Cook took home $11.1 million after taxes.

The shares Cook sold had just recently vested after a 2-year waiting period. The shares were initially granted to Cook back in March 2010 when he was given 75,000 restricted shares of Apple stock. The stock award was the result of Cook’s “outstanding performance in assuming the day-to-day operations” of Apple – which of course references Cook’s role as interim CEO while Steve Jobs was out on medical leave.

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Update: As of 10am Central Time, Apple shares are up $14.43 and are trading at $582.53.

Buoyed by Apple’s latest iPad unveiling and the already strong demand for Apple’s next-gen tablet, shares of Apple on Tuesday climbed to all-time closing and intraday highs. At the close of trading on Tuesday, shares of APPL were trading at $568.10, up $16.10 for the day. At it’s highest point, shares of Apple reached $568.18.

And the scary thing is that Apple’s PE ratio is still relatively low at just 16.2. Contrast this with Amazon, which has a low margin high volume business model, and it’s P/E ration of 134.7. Hell, even Netflix has a higher P/E ration than Apple at 25.5.

The reality is that Apple has a lot more room to grow. For as high as it is now, Apple’s current share price doesn’t  accurately reflect the company’s potential for growth. Expect a run to $600 before ya know it.

With Apple’s new iPad set to launch in just a few days, Apple continues to fight a legal battle in China against Proview over the iPad trademark. Proview, if you recall, is angling to ban the sale of iPads in China and is even seeking to ban the export of iPads from China

Initial reports claimed that Proview wanted a whopping $1.6 billion to settle its dispute with Apple, but with creditors reportedly starting to come a’callin, that rumored settlement figure has gone down quite considerably.

Still, Apple asserts that the deal it signed for the iPad trademark includes ownership in mainland China and they’re fighting hard to prove that in Court.

In a recent public statement on the matter, Apple accused Proview of delibirately misleading the Chinese courts and Chinese customers in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy as the company is currently wallowing in a heap of debt – $400 million to be exact.

Apple spokesperson Carolyn Wu explained that Proview’s parent company structured the initial transfer of the iPad trademark in such a manner as to enable it to be called into question down the line.

“Proview clearly made that arrangement so they wouldn’t have to give the money to their creditors in China, Wu said. “Because they still owe a lot of people a lot of money, they are now unfairly trying to get more from Apple for a trademark we already paid for.”

“We respect Chinese laws and regulations,” Wu added, “and as a company that generates a lot of intellectual property we would never knowingly abuse someone else’s trademarks.”

Meanwhile, Proview attorney Xiao Caiyuan blames the legal dispute on Apple, claiming that Apple’s lawyer “made a silly little mistake.” Caiyuan has also said that reports of Proview’s credit troubles have been largely exaggerated.

Meanwhile, the case marches on.

The crown jewel of Apple’s new iPad is without question the device’s Retina Display. Going back a few months, a number of reports claimed that both Sharp and LG would be responsible for handling manufacturing duties on the new display, but now that the new iPad is officially out of the bag, word has emerged that Samsung remains Apple’s sole display supplier after both Sharp and LG failed to meet Apple’s quality control requirements.

Samsung, the world’s top flat-panel maker, currently is the sole vendor of the display for the 9.7-inch device, said Vinita Jakhanwal, a senior manager at iSuppli, a unit of Englewood, Colorado-based IHS Inc.

This of course comes as Apple and Samsung continue to sue the pants off of each other in a number of jurisdictions around the globe.

“The display specifications on the new iPad are very demanding in terms of the very high resolution,” Jakhanwal said in an e-mail. “Achieving this high resolution without compromising on the power consumption and brightness and maintaining Apple’s quality standards are supposedly proving to be a challenge for LG Display and Sharp.”

via Bloomberg

A new research report from Jeffries & Co. analyst Peter Misek claims that Apple’s plans to develop an HDTV are slowly but surely moving along. After a recent trip to Asia where he visited with various component suppliers, Misek writes that small quantities of HDTV parts are being sent to Apple’s display partners.

Evidence of commercial iTV production is starting: we believe specialty components have begun to ship to Apple’s Asia panel suppliers with polarized films, filters, and IGZO components starting to move in small quantities. We expect commercial production in May/ June with 2M to 5M builds likely. We still expect a CQ4 launch.

Misek anticipates that Apple’s rumored HDTV will launch during the fourth quarter of 2012, following full scale production which is expected to commence in either May or June. Misek expects the initial build volume to fall in the 2 million to 5 million range.

Lastly, Misek has upped his price target on Apple shares to $699. A high number to be sure, but shares of AAPL continue to skyrocket upwards in the wake of Apple’s new iPad announcement.

via Business Insider

Apple and Samsung remain at each other’s throats as the two companies continue to battle it out over patent infringement issues that span the globe and encompass a wide array of technologies.

In Steve Jobs biography, the Apple co-founder didn’t mince words when describing his outlook on Android.

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

…In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.

“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.”

Jobs’ opinion on Android notwithstanding, it’s not terribly out of the question for Apple to settle with Android manufacturers. After all, they had no problem settling with Nokia a few months back.

Besides, you might remember that Apple at one point tried to avoid litigation with Samsung entirely and engaged in negotiations with the Korean-based company back in 2010. Those talks, obviously, never resulted in a licensing agreement.

With that as a backdrop, an interesting piece of news surfaced late last week claiming that Apple is willing to license out some of its patents at issue to varying Android manufacturers.

According to Ian Sherr, reporting for the Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has indicated a “willingness to cut deals with competitors.”

Apple isn’t attempting to offer patent licenses to all its competitors or create a royalty business, one person familiar with the matter said.

However, some people familiar with the situation see more reason for Apple to consider legal settlements, following a mix of legal victories and setbacks against smartphone makers that use Google Inc.’s Android mobile operating system…

One factor is that Android has proliferated so widely that shutting the software out of the market using injunctions is no longer practical, one of the people said. Licensing is an alternative that could add cost to Android development and make it less appealing for manufacturers.

Apple is reportedly looking to get somewhere between $5 and $15 for each Android handset sold.

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We all know that Apple’s new iPad is hitting stores this Friday, but now we have a time to work with as well.

A passerby sent in the following photo spotted on the outside of an Apple retail store, indicating that Apple stores will open up for business starting at 8am sharp.

Yesterday we reported that Apple already exhausted their supply of pre-order iPads, with Apple going so far as to state that demand for its next-gen tablet has been “off the charts.”

Expect Friday to be a madhouse at Apple stores around the country.

Checking in with a 5.3 inch screen, the Samsung Galaxy Note is HUGE. And jump for joy, it also has a stylus.

But the Note is more than just a mashup of a smartphone and a tablet. No, it’s so much more.

Abdel Ibrahim and Jon Dick highlight many of the cool uses people have been using the Galaxy Note for. From a shot clock to a big screen TV, there ain’t nothing this Galaxy Note can’t do.