Articles tagged Apple.

The latest cell phone market share figures should have tablet makers quaking in fear of what Apple may do to them once iPad 3 arrives. Currently, Apple is sucking all the profits out of the market. Moreover, many of Apple's competitors have taken their best stab at iPad by flooding the channel, but with weak sell-though results (just ask Samsung, HP or RIM how tablets are working out).

The latest figures peg Apple's global tablet market share at 61.3%. Like with iPhone vs Android phones, we saw Android quickly race out ahead in deployment numbers, which are flattening out or starting to work back in Apple's favor. New numbers for the iPhone comes from BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk, predicting up to 30 million iPhones could be sold in the September quarter. If iPhone sales are poised for this absolute explosion, what will halo effect be for iPads vs the rest of the pack?

Apple doesn't have partners, they have suppliers. But when Apple entered the cell industry it had no choice but to enter into partnership agreements with AT&T and others across the globe. Don't confuse necessity with anything Jobs and company are happy with, as Apple is setting course to go nuclear with its pernicious carriers.

Until now, the iPhone has been built with the philosophy of design elegance and overall quality. Apple has been able to work this way due to the business model being focused on subsidized products, hidding the true costs of iPhones into two-year contracts. But Apple's forthcoming iPhone 5 launch promises to change this model and the way we purchase iPhones.

Mark your calendar. Today is the day Verizon ends unlimited data plans, putting a nail in the coffin of all-things all-the-time mobile. Eventually all carriers will follow this model as they are all addicted to charge-per-minute plans, so why not charge per bit downloaded, so their thinking goes.

Governing minutes or data, it is the way pipe providers, and unlimited plans are completely counter to their business soul. But ending unlimited plans on AT&T, and now Verizon, it's an Omen of things to come from every data provider, mobile or not. The capping of data is rapidly extending into homes via cable and fiber internet providers. This shouldn't shock anyone. All of these players were spawned from the world of telecommunications, thus the game is the same across the board. How they can extract every cent from our wallets will seemingly never end. However, there is one white knight that has the cash and cajones to change the game – Apple.

It's 4 am and I'm packing up, leaving the hotel to catch my flight. Getting back to LAX is a snap, and returning the rental car goes off without a hitch. A second security checkpoint is opened to speed the check-in process, making for a relatively uneventful journey to the gate.

At this point I'm looking around to find the nearest caffeine injection center when I get my first laugh of the day. Large portrait LCD's are positioned within the terminals, running an ad stating "Amateur Hour Is Over" showcasing the Blackberry Playbook. I'm not sure if I laughed out loud, but if I did it was certainly justified. I came away with four possible reactions to the ad, none of which bode well for RIM or their ill-fated Playbook:

Apple is very good at making hardware. They are also very good at making software that runs on that hardware. But what they are really good at is creating an eco-system that uses their hardware and software to solve a much larger problem.

What made Apple's lead in digital music sales and then the creation of an entire new industry — podcasting — so successful was this self-sustaining eco-system. For cool hardware Apple gave us the iPod; for cool software iTunes (desktop version); but it was the iTunes Music Store was the linchpin that made it so other companies couldn't just make cheaper hardware and/or software to compete on par with Apple. Sure one could buy a Samsung MP3 player and purchase music from Amazon, but the integration was always second-rate. Nothing ever just worked like the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes music store.

With Apple's announcement of OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud, Ballmer and the Redmond collective must be picking themselves off the floor trying to figure out what just happened.

Alas, not all is lost for Microsoft — if they follow my simple advise. Well, thinking about that again, the chance Microsoft might listen to reason instead of the Windows/Office juggernaut is slim to none —and slim left town!

Holy covered banners Batman! We had thought Apple raised all their banners this past Friday, but have been proven wrong. It appears Werner Reschke (Guy #3), was correct in his guess that Apple may put up covered banners Sunday night. Nice call Werner. You can see more original T-GAAP WWDC banner photos here.

We are not sure what this banner holds under it's black veil, but here are three of our best guesses:

When it comes to smartphones, they've delivered us a lot of mobile computing goodness. But nothing great in technology-land seems to come along without a catch. In the cell phone world, the unsavory lining to success is radiation.

EWG (Environmental Working Group) has served up a plethora of appliance and smartphone test results as it relates to radiation. What this means to the user, that's debatable, but anyone can find articles and test results to support just about any position on the topic. At this point, an overarching rule of thumb is cell phone radiation is not good for the body, but how much can the human body take is another question. Looking specifically at smartphones, EWG tested 83 products, and out of the bunch Motorola came away the loser. As for Apple?...

If Boy Genius reporting is accurate, Apple is setting the stage to make the higher educational sales competition a no-contest event this summer. The report claims Apple will be offering $200 off any iPad with the purchase of a Mac, which is an additional offer added to the typical free iPod touch offer given to students during the educational buying season. Apple offering iPads as low as $299 – it's a game over situation.

If you have any form of youth in the house and were considering a Mac or iPad, this "may be coming" offer marks the time to get some new Apple goodness. Students are on, or around, campus most of the time, thus a majority are likely to just go with an iPad wifi model. But many students will consider a 3G version with Apple's tempting discount, pitting Apple against its carrier partners, specifically Verizon. 

Whack! No, that wasn't Apple's Steve Jobs laying some open letter smack down on Adobe. This time the hammer on Flash comes from some former Apple engineering employees (according to 9to5mac.com). HTML5 is claimed to be converted on-the-fly from Flash, with no need for additional coding requirements via a new product called HYPE 1.0.

Conversion of Flash to HTML5 is a wonderful thing, but I wouldn't call this a Flash killer (at least not yet). The product allows for the lazy use of Flash to continue as a baseline authoring tool, being converted upon output for iOS and other HTML5-loving devices. But at some point the question will become (if it hasn't already) "Why can't I just design in an HTML5 authoring tool from the get-go, instead of designing in Flash and converting?"

A group calling itself Apple Retail Workers Union picked up some nice press yesterday when they sent out their own form of a press release to some major media outlets. The goal? Simple. Unionize Apple retail stores. The chances of this happening? None to, well, none.

There are any number of reasons why Apple retail stores won't ever form a union, such as Apple's overall pay being much higher than the average mall store (you won't find any Genius salaries in The GAP), and benefits are good. But there are two key reasons any union effort for Apple retail employees will fail. First, Apple retail employees are a happy, satisfied bunch, because the atmosphere Apple has created for them is top of the class. Secondly, Steve Jobs has no love for unions (so it appears). In 2007 Jobs told a school-reform conference in Texas "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way..." Jobs also added "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy." As a result of Jobs public stance it would appear Unions have no love for Jobs either.

Reuters is reporting that Apple isn't satisfied with the size of current SIM cards and is pushing for a smaller standard for the iPad and other iOS devices. The information comes to Reuters from an Orange executive. 

Orange is one of the UK's major carriers along with T-Mobile and O2. Any validity to this? Who knows, as Reuters is an odd rumor source, and this is not typical for them. This could simply be an Orange executive with loose lips sinking ships.

Working at an Apple retail store in the past, I felt compelled to share some thoughts on the rumors hinting of a major event coming this weekend at the Apple retail stores. Computerworld's Jonny Evans shares some additional thoughts along these lines, but also shares information from ifoapplestore.com, which has been a faithful follower of Apple retail stores since they opened nearly 10 years ago.

Taking in the smoke from the rumor mill, don't get excited about Apple launching some form of anniversary Mac hardware, or delivering some surprise Apple HDTV product, that just isn't happening. Apple does not waste hundreds of millions of dollars in free press when launching into new markets, and pulling some surprise Mac launch over the weekend would be doing exactly that. What's more likely is a software/cloud initiative.

Based on BGR's claims, it appears Apple will actually be revealing pre-announcement information to a select group of Apple retail staff 12 – 24 hours ahead of a major announcement. This would be a first for Apple, and a bold move from the Cupertino machine. But this may be an Apple litmus test, and if successful may lay the groundwork for how future product launches roll out.

It appears Apple corporate does not trust their retail employees (smart move), in that BRG's source claims the 10-15 employees that will be pulling an all-night-er in the stores, must not only sign an NDA, but also lock their cell phones in the managerial office.

Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) is coming next next month, yet Apple is still completely mum as to additional abilities and feature sets since it's sneak peak at NAB's Supermeet. As a result, resources and information beyond the presentation are difficult to find.

"Stay Tuned" says Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. Stayed tuned for what? A tablet. But before diving into that topic, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. No one in the tech industry is better positioned to take on Apple in the mobile computing space than Amazon – no one.

According to the UK-based V3 publication, market research firm Context is claiming 3G iPads are a disproportionately large chunk of overall iPad sales figures. In fact, Context claims the 64GB 3G iPad totaled a third of all iPad 2 sales in Europe since its launch. The surge in 3G iPad sales is likely to have pushed Apple's average selling price (ASP) north, but to what extent?

The last known ASP for iPads came during Apple's January financial conference call, where Apple COO, Timothy Cook and Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer revealed a $600 figure. But Apple's figure was from the Christmas quarter, when entry-level $499 iPads were likely high volume sellers (when compared to other quarters). If Context figures hold true beyond Europe's boarders, iPad 2's ASP for the June quarter will land somewhere around $680. How much revenue does equate to for the June quarter? Mr. Cook gave us an idea last month.

Microsoft's latest pursuit is yet another sign that Apple is tearing them up. The company from Redmond is rumored to be in pursuit of buying out (or heavily investing in) Skype. If you are a user of Skype you may have noticed their latest updates are pretty much deplorable with regard to user interface, and their video quality typically stinks when compared to Tango or Apple's Facetime.

Based on Microsoft's track record, I can only assume they will purchase Skype, repurpose it for "Windows Phone 7 Extreme Plus Home Edition" and market it as: Windows PeopleTime – The Windows you love, now with video chat... Please.

The T-GAAP Staff wish all those Moms out there a very Happy Mother's Day – You deserve it!

Cnet's Scott Stein comes up with five creative areas where he'd like to see Thunderbolt deployed. Scott has some creative – and some not so creative – ideas:

• External Storage
• Monitors
• Cameras
• External GPUs
• iPhones, iPads and iPods

Hmmmm... We take a quick look at each area to see what makes sense.

Apple's Steve Jobs seems to be the wunderkind reborn after his return to Apple in 1997. His first stint with Apple led to the design and launch of the original Macintosh and the original Mac OS. During his second time behind the wheel he brought us the iMac, Mac OS X, and the i-Series of products and iOS operating system.

There's not much that Apple has done under Jobs' leadership that hasn't been a success. One of guiding principle Jobs has used is during his second term is, "Keep Your Friends Close; Keep Your Enemies Closer". There are three examples of this from the recent decade: Intel, Google and Facebook.

Back in March we covered Apple's aggressive Thunderbolt plans, and how we believed every Mac would be gaining Thunderbolt by the end of 2011. With the recently updated iMac and MacBook pro lines receiving Thunderbolt updates, nearly half of Apple's Mac fleet has now made the transition to the new technology.

The next Mac on the update roadmap is the Mac mini. But regardless of which Mac is next, Thunderbolt is an absolute game changer, and here's why:

No, this isn't a new column that will come out every Tuesday. It's just that the last few days has seen a heavy does of rumors, so to aid in keeping you up-to-speed with the things that are – or are not – going to happen.

Check it out:

Part I can be seen here. Part II continues with market share assumptions and the fallacies they advance.

iOS vs Android: The Market Share War That Is

Analysts and tech media alike have one central theme correctly identified. Apple and Google are in a heated market–share war, but declaring any victor in today's battle would be pure folly. Yet Henry Blodget advances his position that Android is now the victor and iOS is dead. Blodget flashes around Nielsen's latest purchasing intent survey as proof positive. I also recall a survey claiming nearly 54% of all Verizon customers would turn in their Blackberry's and Android's for iPhone 4 on day one of it's launch.

Lack of Security within mobile OSes isn't anything new. Developers have seen the gaping holes for quite some time an the public is just starting to become aware. Back on April 5th the WSJ did some pretty impressive research on Pandora's invasive practices within the Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems, and both seem to be unable in stop applications from taking what they want out of the phone (at least for now).

With the latest iOS is tracking you story making national headlines, the general consumer seems to be catching on that their devices are peeking in on what they are doing, or at least they think they are (and their apps are likely doing even more privacy damage). The whole buzz around this privacy issue is eerily similar to that of "antenna-gate" and it's best Apple get in front of this as they did with the iPhone 4's attenuation story. It is critical Apple blows holes in mis-information and rumor before it becomes an assumed fact the Apple is stealing your every move from iOS devices.

Recently a big stink over user privacy has reared its ugly head again, but this time about one of my favorite products and something I use daily, if not hourly — the iPhone. Security researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warde revealed last week that Apple was storing logs of users' geographic coordinates in a hidden file. The researchers didn't know why Apple was doing this or what it was using the data for, but they said Apple indeed is gathering this information about the whereabouts of its iPhone users.

Apple's OS X 10.7, AKA OS X Lion, is coming to Apple's WWDC (world-wide developers conference) this June. From the sneak peak Apple gave us a few months back, it looks as if many people are going to love it. But dare we say, some people might not understand Apple's name Lion is only the program name. Apple's talking about system software, not real lions. Evidently not everyone is catching onto this and full-on embracing, well, lions...

Whatever you do, don't try this at home, the Zoo, or local savannah...

Apple's financial call is set for Wednesday, April 20 at 5 PM Eastern, and it may be one of the biggest financial thrill rides in recent memory, if our estimates are correct (Imagine that, a financial call being a thrill ride). Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, delivered guidance of $22m in revenues with a 38.5% gross margin. You can see a full listing of what the pro's and bloggers are predicting Apple will deliver for their fiscal Q211 here.

The highest estimate from Wall Street analysts comes from Jeff Fidacaro of SIG (Susquehanna Investment Group). The highest blogosphere estimate comes courtesy of Nicolae Mihalache over at traderhood.com. They're probably both wrong.

This past February we talked about Final Cut Pro 8's forthcoming release and set of capabilities. The new name, Final Cut Pro X (FCP X), turned out to be different than anticipated, but the changes within the application went well beyond the surprise "X". The latest version of FCP was a bold move by Apple, which – before the official launch – was what Larry Jordan described as "jaw dropping".

But FCP X may have left us with more questions than answers. What exactly is FCP X? Who is its target audience? Will FCP 7 live on? What about the rest of the suite? Along the way to the sneak-peek, Apple gave us some clues with their pro direction.

Last week there was a back and forth on whether Microsoft stores were a good idea or a poor one. As most know, last year Microsoft began opening retail stores in malls across America to counter Apple's success. One could almost predict this would happen because Microsoft has become so predictable.

Unless you're slightly crazy, there's no questioning Apple's dominance in the tablet market. In fact, a year after the iPad's original launch, competition is still scarce. PC and cell phone manufacturers alike are struggling to nip Apple's iPad heels. Can these hardware makers find a market for their tablets and truly compete with Apple, or is iPod history repeating itself?

Presently, there are several issues blocking Android-based tablets success in the marketplace:

In business there are times when opportunity knocks and you had better be ready to answer the door. Is your hair combed, your shirt tucked in, does your breath smell good? Because on the other side is royalty, and it's called "opportunity".

Google had such a knock on their door in 2009 when Apple decided to enter into a third year of exclusively with AT&T. On the other hand, Google was working with several handset makers across the other three major US carriers delivering the Android OS. While Android wasn't yet mature and its feature set somewhat lacking, Mr. Opportunity knocking at Google's door. But did Google answer?

On Thursday TechCrunch's Devin Coldewey reported that Best Buy would no longer be receiving shipments of iPad 2's due to the Best Buy withholding iPad 2's for sale after they had reached an internal day's sales quota.

TechCrunch claims the news comes from a tipster within the Best Buy chain who is highly likely to be delivering accurate information. Coldewey was told that Apple COO Timothy Cook is working to revolve this issue. Cook's involvement would indicate this is not an isolated innocent by a single Best Buy store, but a practice implemented on large scale. Yet the question remains, “Why do this?“ It seems counterintuitive to withhold sales, but there are two reasons Best Buy would implement such a policy.

Google announced a new video codec in May 2010, called WebM. This format uses Ogg Theora audio and VP8 video codecs. Google received VP8 when they purchased On2 for $106 million back in August of 2009. WebM is designed to take on the H.264 video codec that has become the digital video standard. Google says WebM is an open and free format.

Since Google does not make any money on WebM, Why have they created it? Google makes money by selling advertising. In Google's eyes, users are the product and advertisers are the customers. The more users Google has, the more they can sell to their advertising customers, and the more money Google makes. Google creates free products and services to bring in more users. 

Apple comes to the table on April 20, at 2 PM Pacific, to reveal what will likely be year another record fiscal 2Q11. Financial numbers are one thing, but how Apple achieves them is another.

There's been a lot of speculation revolving around Apple's supply chain for iPad 2 and MacBook batteries since the Japan quake and Tsunami. But a few hints from Apple may be revealing another story. The truth. On April 20th we'll learn a lot based on the little information Apple delivers.

Apple hit the airwaves during the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament to air their first advertisement for the iPad 2. There are no more fast interchanges between scenes, or conceptual shots of the iPad. This time around, Apple brings an intimate view of the iPad. The ad delivers tight shots showing off Garageband, and many others content creating-like apps.

The ad begins with the statement "Technology is not enough." The voiceover is performed by Peter Coyote who also performed the voiceover for the original iPad's debut ad. The theme is dead center of Apple's overarching mission: to remove technology and let the user become immersed in experience.

Apple released their new processor for the coming year's iOS products when they debuted it in the iPad 2. This new processor is called the A5, and it is based on the ARM Cortex A9 reference processor. The A5 is a dual-core system-on-a-chip (SoC) running at a variable speed of 800Mhz to 1Ghz. This variable speed allows it to save more power when not performing major tasks.

The processor costs Apple more to produce their own chip than to buy an off the shelf ARM processor. Some estimate the difference to be around 50% more, but the extra cost gives Apple the ability to make a better chip by modifying the reference design to suit their needs. Apple will be able to reduce this cost over time by putting the A5 into every iOS device like the iPhone, iPod Touch, and AppleTV. The performance gains are well worth it and gives Apple a major advantage in the mobile market space. While we don't know what Apple plans for next year's A6, we do know ARM's plans for future ARM processors.

iPad 3 has been rumored by Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber and MG Siegler of Tech Crunch as possibly landing this fall, but recent information suggests to T-GAAP that iPad 3 will not be arriving this year.

Any delay in launching the iPad 3 is not due to parts availability or the lack of retina display production, it is because of iPad 2's tremendous holding power in the market. iPad 2 is besting Apple's highest world-wide demand expectations, and therefore may not trigger a speedy iPad 3 launch.

This past Thursday, RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie spun his best story, explaining why RIM would be able to compete in what he called the "Superphone" market space. Balsille also tried to clarify why the RIM's financials were not in line with Wall Street expectations, presenting a rosy picture in just a few quarters from now.

Unfortunately for Mr. Balsillie, renaming smartphones as "Superphones" won't change the Blackberry makers problems. RIM's margins are shrinking, and the physical keyboard market is limited. Making matters worse, RIM's efforts to counter the iPhone with their touch-screen Storm lineup has been a complete failure. RIM's best days are behind them. To make this perfectly clear, 2011 is the beginning of the end for RIM.

Circa 1996, Boyz II Men, Happy Gilmore and Doc Martin's were the pop culture of the day. Nordstrom, The Gap and Eddie Bauer were mall favorites and techies were in short supply when it came to the Macy's crowd. But the character and purpose of "Let's go to the mall" was on the precipice of massive change.

Fast forward to May, 2001. Gateway's retail venture had peaked and Sony's radical Matreon in the heart of San Francisco was proving to be a colossal failure. Tech and trend-cool retail just could not co-exist. There was one more small-ish event took place on May 15, 2001. Steve Jobs rounded up some media folk, and introduced them to the first-ever Apple retail store in Tysons Corner mall in Virginia. The mall as we knew it was forever changed.

Since Chrome's first stable release, it has become the third most poplar browser on the Mac. Because Chrome has rapidly grown in popularity, it is time to compare it with the default browser, Safari.

Both browsers use the same Webkit rendering engine, but does Chrome offer features compelling enough to switch? Time to find out.

It has been nine days since iPad 2 rolled out into stores across the U.S. Apple, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and some Sam's clubs all had iPad 2 on it's Friday night debut. But since the iPad 2 launch, the supply chain hasn't been filled, it's been all but depleted, and it's more than just about demand — somethings wrong.

For the ninth day, lines across America continue. Thousands of people are still spending tens of thousands of hours gathering during their much needed REM sleep time for a shot at finally being able to purchase the magical product. But instead of Apple being able to deliver a higher volume of iPads and time moves forward, it appears Apple's manufacturing capability is diminishing.

To-date, iOS devices have seen modest updates, but recent rumblings suggest iOS 5.0 will be a major release integrating a host of new Apple technologies.

Apple has become methodical — if not predictable — in delivering recent updates to both hardware and software. With the exception of the original iPhone launch, each major iOS update has been released only a few days before revamped iPhone hardware. Claims that Apple will deliver an iOS 5 update this spring appear to be erroneous guesswork at best.

Apple's iPad 2 has a hidden advantage over its competitors, and that is their supply chain. This supply chain gives the iPad access to parts its competitors can't touch and at prices they can't reach. With Apple's war chest of cash and high volume production, will their competitors be able to compete?

Steve Jobs has greatly improved Apple's supply chain management since his return to Apple back in 1996. Back in 2000, Dell was viewed as having the best supply chain management. They excelled in a commodity driven computer industry. Apple replaced Dell when the iPod Nano was released by cornering almost the entire flash memory business. Flash memory production increased after that, but by then is was too late for Applecompetitors. Apple was the second best supply chain management back in 2007, with Nokia being number 1. Now Apple is continuing its success with the iPad and iPhone.

Earlier this week we prominently posted that we would be bringing you our Apple iPad 2 vs Motorola Xoom with side-by-side testing report. Unfortunately, we Three Guys and a Podcast took a bit of advice from our "good friend" Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. 

The advice he gave all of us? Gene explained we shouldn't expect any long lines for the iPad 2, as it was available at many retailers verses last year. Perhaps Gene missed the fact that the original iPad was available for pre-order, while iPad 2 was available for pre-order for less than 24 hours before retail launch.

Google's Android OS fragmenting into a death spiral may be overblown at times, but it certainly won't be overstated in the tablet arena - assuming of course, one of these years PC hardware vendors will be able to compete with Apple's iPad and its pricing.

Android's appearance in the tablet market is currently minimal, but as PC vendors are forced to get in the game due to shrinking netbook and notebook sales, Google is going to witness Pandora breaking out of her box, with no quick fix on how to remedy the situation. The issue I am speaking of is one that is (or soon will be) staring every Android tablet developer squarely in the face — Android's complete lack of attention to hardware vendor's screen resolution, aspect ratio and pixel density. Mind you, this is no trivial problem.

Intel's Light Peak technology (also known as Thunderbolt) was first introduced on Apple's MacBook Pro line-up last month. Thunderbolt is set to race across the Mac platform, spreading across Apple's entire lineup by the end of 2011.

The next Mac product to include Thunderbolt is the Mac Mini — via a product update due this month. Following the Mac Mini will be updates to the iMac and Mac Pro towers. That said, both systems update timelines have varied greatly in the past few years. What is not known is how many Thunderbolt ports each system will receive.

Steve Jobs took center stage this week at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, unveiling Apple's new iPad 2. Some bloggers, such as Paul Thurrot, mention Jobs physical appearance, while others left Steve Jobs health off the table. Clearly, Wall Street dinged Apple's stock price on the news that Jobs would be taking another leave of absence. However, his appearance, along side the iPad 2 launch, gave investors confidence to once again to pour big dollars back into the company.  

But where is the line in commenting on and covering Steve Jobs health? Is it any business of yours? Is it any business of mine? The answers are diverse and it could be situational.

Yesterday the Nielsen Company reported that for the months of November 2010 to January 2011 Google's Android operating system’s market share has pulled ahead of Apple and RIM with 29% of the smartphone sales in the U.S.

As with most things, when you look behind the curtain there is more than meets the eye — and in this case we don't find a happy, content Android family, but one fighting for its smartphone life.

The iPad 2 launched today with great fanfare and a solid, if not modest, hardware update. Apple's hardware team showed us how they can industrial engineer like no one else, delivering a razor thin iPad 2 — which is even thinner than the iPhone 4. The iPad 2 shows us Apple's hardware prowess, but a few major pieces were missing amongst the mix.

The iPad 2 sports the same resolution screen as iPad 1, humble camera specs, and ho-hum software updates — for now. The big reveal in hardware and software looks to be on the horizon, arriving in the in iPad 3.

The clock struck midnight and February 10, 2011 was born, but apparently no lines materialized at Verizon retailers. Why?

We heard a lot of hoopla surrounding the supposed "event everyone has been waiting for." Verizon made a special commercial with clocks just about to strike midnight and people in anticipation of being able to get an iPhone on the Verizon network. Jon Stewart was exuberant, claiming "a spring in my step... a certain twinkle in my eye" about the iPhone Verizon announcement. Apple even made the "Twins" commercial showing an iPhone on an AT&T and Verizon network simultaneously. So where are all the Verizon iPhone customers?

Anyone who has a smart phone or is thinking about a new smart phone knows about Apple's iPhone. It is the biggest name in the smart phone market.  When a new customer decides to buy a smartphone, they first decision to make is if they are going to get an iPhone, or look for another brand.

The biggest threat to Apple is losing their name recognition. They could lose it if another company were to dominate the mobile space (like Microsoft dominated the desktop starting with Windows 95). Lets take a look at the major competitors and see if they are capable of dominating of mobile operating system.

Despite our earlier report of Final Cut Studio and the MacBook Pro arriving in April (notwithstanding Sandybridge taking a slight “detour” to market), there is no indication that FCP has been thrown off its pace, and it is rapidly approaching its launch — with one of its largest updates ever.

The MacBook Pro may very well join the launch, shipping in late April/early May. We continue to hear the new MacBook Pro will arrive with higher resolutions screens, increased battery life, a thin chassis that follows the format of the MacBook Air — and no optical drive. One 15" legacy MacBook Pro model will remain, gaining internal updates only, for those believing they require an onboard optical drive.

Ultimate Electronics plan for rapid expansion hit a major speed bump this past week. The chain is in bankruptcy and all 46 stores are in liquidation mode, yet their going out of business sales are reportedly slow.

Surprisingly, in a consumer electronics market where Apple is a must have, Ultimate Electronics did not sell any Apple products. No iPods, iPads, iPhones, Macs or Apple software — nothing directly manufactured by Apple. Ultimate Electronics only carried a few non-Apple branded cases and minor accessories. Oh and one more thing...

Now that Microsoft has successfully inked a deal with Nokia, MeeGo and Symbian are all but dead, leaving Nokia with a new master from Redmond, Washington. Both Nokia and Microsoft needed this deal regardless of the costs, as it delivers Nokia a partner in the OS world and Microsoft a level of credibility in the smart phone market place.

Microsoft's never been good at competing against opponents of equal weight. Rather, Microsoft's typical game is to bully their way into a market over time by outspending the competition. But this business model is expensive as seen in their entertainment division, and it failed with their Windows CE, Plays for Sure and HD-DVD initiatives. When Microsoft is standing toe-to-toe with other giants, we don't suggest placing your bets on Mr. Softie.

HP's OS Bowl 2011 is quite a work of creative fantasy. I must admit, I really didn't see Kramer, errrrr, Jon Rubinstein having the imagination to put together such a work of fiction, but there it is (based on Jon's bracket, I certainly hope he doesn't put good money down on any March Madness basketball tournament, because the way he think's he'll be in big trouble).

Now every good piece of fictional writing has some truth sprinkled in, and this is the case when Jon outlined the battle between Windows Phone 7 and RIM's Blackberry.

 Apple cares little about market share, much more about profits. For companies like Microsoft and Intel, market share and profits go hand in hand. This is not true for Apple.

Apple competed with Microsoft not through market share, but through margins. They proved this when Steve Jobs came back and ended the licensing program for the Mac OS. Steve showed you can make a lot of money without dominant market share. They are now doing the same thing with Android.

While the ads were made and paid for by two different companies, they both said the same thing — The iPhone 4 is the best phone on the market. Period.

Apple's ad features two iPhone 4's doing the exact same thing — communicating there are now two networks (AT&T and Verizon) for iPhone 4. While the ad is mostly true (Verizon's CDMA network won't allow you to talk and do data transactions at the same time), the commercial sticks with Apple's message continuing to assert the iPhone 4 is the best/only phone you should consider.

When Apple released OS X 10.0 one of the most controversial aspects of the new Aqua interface was the Dock. Back then the Dock wasn't as 3-D or reflective as it is today, but nevertheless, the Dock pretty much functions the same way it did on day one: you can enlarge it; you can shrink it; you can hide it; you can even move it to the left or right of your screen.

While the Dock has evolved over the past decade one has to wonder if Apple is letting history repeat itself with their icon designs for the Dock? It's almost as if they are in “thinking jail”, just like Jeff Goldblum proclaimed about all computer designs being “beige” when Apple introduced the first iMac.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball came out with a big piece of news, claiming iPad 2 isn't likely to receive a retina display similar to that of the iPhone - don't place your bets quite yet.

Siting sources, Gruber believes the current iPad display (1024 x 768 resolution) is what will also be found on the iPad 2. Countering Gruber’s claims, Engadget maintains a retina display is coming to the iPad 2. So who should we believe? First, let’s start with a few facts, followed by some reasonably sourced information that delivers a different side of the story.

Yesterday the world read about Steve Jobs "stepping back" from the day-to-day operations at Apple to tend to his health.  Tim Cook, who took over for Steve when Steve took a leave of absence to fight pancreatic cancer, is back at the helm.

However, this time we have not been told what specific ailment has caused Steve to step back to focus on his health. Is it a return of the cancer? Is it a virus or bacterial infection (since his immune system may be weak)? We don't know. What we do know is that Jobs will keep his CEO status and remain involved with Apple at the strategic level but not the day-to-day. Yesterday in Germany the knee-jerk reaction to this news dropped AAPL 8%. Today in the U.S. the reaction is similar, but also somewhat muted.

Sometimes a video is worth 10,000 words.

The talk of the town is Apple's big iPhone 4 deal with Verizon, but Google also came to the table yesterday with a little announcement of their own. Google delivered an under-the-radar announcement, stating they will be dropping support for the h.264 codec in favor of their open source WebM codec.

Google claims their Chrome browser dropping h.264 is about supporting open standards. If Google were truly concerned with supporting open standards, why does the proprietary Flash still ship with Chrome as a preinstalled plug-in? As John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out, the hypocrisy is thick.

Apple's launch of the Mac OS X App Store appears to be an instant success. Apple was on center stage Thursday with their iWork apps ready for download, but one application made available today from Apple caught everyone off guard —Aperture.

The arrival of Aperture on the App Store isn't a just a shot across Adobe's bow, that doesn't do Apple's move justice. What Apple did to Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom software is equivalent to hundreds of cannon rounds being fired upon a ship at point blank range. T-GAAP asked Adobe PR if any Adobe apps were heading to Apple's App Store, but we did not receive a response. But it gets worse for Adobe.

Google is the King of internet search, but there is a new game in town. Social media is the next wave of internet communication and Google has been unable to compete with Facebook or Twitter. Not only is Facebook the top social media website, it has also de-throned Google as the most visited website in the US for 2010. While Google is going after Apple's mobile market, Facebook is going after Google's core business.

Google is focused on finding another market in which to grow their business. All of these new strategies are based on free or open source software. One of these new markets is the smartphone market with Android, in which they are competing directly with Apple. Google has created many such projects and has canceled some of them like Google Wave. Google and their open source software developers have been generating software products at an astounding rate. Yet, it does not look like they have a clear strategy to all this software development. They are basically throwing mud on a wall and hoping some of it sticks. Can such a mud flinging battle be profitable?

It may be the last day of calendar year 2010, but it's Apple, Inc's fiscal Q1 2011, and it looks to be a pretty hot one Jobs and company. The December quarter may very well be a record for many of Apple's devices:

• 20+ million iPhones estimated to be sold
• 4+ million Macs (a first for the company)
• A record number of iPod touch's sold
• iPads breaching the 6 million mark

What calendar year 2011 may hold?

Many analysts and inside-the-beltway tech journalists believe Android is going to be the new Windows that dominates and controls the world as we know it - Don't count on it.

Android is exploding on eBook readers, tablets, phones, HDTV's and probably quite soon, refrigerators and hairdryers. So long as the buzz word "Android" is on a device, that's all that'll matters and Google seems more than fine with that approach. But will that make Android a winner? And what is a so-called "activation" anyway?...

Here's a shocker - Apple's on a tear lately. iPhone's, iPad's, even Mac's, their sales are exploding. Apple has had the uncanny ability to push their financial figures north, defying the growth rules which mandate Apple must flatten out the larger they become. Will Apple succumb to these laws? Perhaps, but it's not likely to occur in 2011 based on recent estimates. According to DigiTimes, Apple's on pace to ship more than 20 million iPhones in 2011, along with new iPads shipping in the quarter. Throw in a newly rumored 65 million iPads for the new year and 2011 is covered.

Apple will defy Wall Street in 2011, but what will Jobs magically produce to keep the numbers piling up for 2012?

In an October 2008 Financial conference call, Steve Jobs said this about Apple TV, “Well, again, I think the whole category is still a hobby now—nobody has succeeded at it.”

The sad thing is that at the close of 2010 despite successful sales numbers, the second generation Apple TV still behaves like a “hobby”. The Apple Discussion Forum is now littered with over a hundred posts of people struggling to get the Apple TV to see their computers via Home Sharing.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has become the trade show for new computing products to the latest in remote control vacuum cleaners. To summarize, CES is an absolute circus, but it's a must-attend show for any business serious about the the markets in which they play — unless that business is Apple, Inc.

Since Apple exited MacWorld Expo in 2009 it has shunned industry trade shows and opted to conduct their own media events. Why share the stage when a spotlight can be had? Last year Apple waited for CES to blow by — with all the half-baked tablet announcements. Then on January 18, Apple issued invitations to their special event: "Come see our latest creation". This special event took place on January 27, where Apple amazed all with the iPad. This year proves to be no different. Apple will not be holding a special event prior to CES.

One thing not found at One Infinite Loop is mediocrity. Since Steve Jobs returned to Apple their success has been built upon designing and executing excellence. Excellence is found in the iOS — an OS designed just for touch systems. Excellence is found in the Mac Book Air with its super thin sleek design, long-lasting battery life and solid state drive. No matter what Apple product you consider, that product has excellence built-in.

Another way to state this is that Apple does not manufacture commodities. A commodity is an item that can't be distinguished from a competitor's product except for by price, delivery or something that has little to do with the product itself. For example, the Windows PC quickly became a commodity. Speeds and price were the only real differentiators, but in essence, one Windows PC was just like the next one. This commoditization significantly reduced the value of the PC Manufacturer while it raised the value of the Operating System. Apple was able to avoid being seen as "just another PC" by making its products different — better and special — through hardware innovation, design and software integration.

It's no secret people move in packs. Whether populations migrate to new continents or flocking to malls on Black Friday, it makes no difference, the masses will follow each other over cliffs if the herd moves that way.

Technologies that win the day are not lost on human behavior either. VHS vs Betamax, Windows versus Mac OS or the air-popper vs the superior oven roasted Whirly-pop popcorn, the masses consistently find themselves settling for the lowest common denominator as "good enough" often defeats better or best.