Apple Releases Sales Figures: Mac Sales Grow 17%

I would not trust anyone who said there is no such thing a recession proof company because, Apple just released their sales figures and its much better than expected. Last quarter, Apple sold more iPhones & iMacs then ever before: 3.05 million Macs and 7.4 million iPhones. But, this quarter was not a perfect one for apple. The failing iPod continued the falling sales trend. This is most likely because smart phones, particularly the iPhone, provide all the things the doomed iPod have to offer.

If you are wondering how much profit Apple has made the quarter here it is: $9.87 billion. That is the second largest revenue Apple has made, next to last Christmas season.

Mac sales grew over 17% which is a huge leap considering the mere 2% of growth the industry totaled overall. Laptops were 74% of all Macs sold. Please take not that the the 17% growth is not market share. Apple still holds only about 9% of the desktop market share. Half of the Macs sold are still sold to first time Mac buyers.

Here are the somewhat disappointing iPod sale figures. 10.2 million iPods were sold which is down from the 11 million units sold last year (down 8%). Here is the crazy thing; iPod touch sales grew 100%! Surprisingly 50% of iPod bought were going to first time buyers. The iPod still has 70% of the market share. Sorry Zune HD.

Most Profitable Quarter Ever; Record Mac and iPhone Sales

CUPERTINO, Calif. Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter's revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $12.25 billion of "Adjusted Sales" and $2.85 billion of "Adjusted Net Income."

Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing seven percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

"We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010."

"We are delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "For the full year, we grew revenue by 12 percent and net income by 18 percent in extraordinarily challenging times. Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.70 to $1.78."

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple's standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on October 19, 2009 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq409/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

Overpriced iPhone App of the Week: Wolfram Alpha

The Wolfram Alpha iPhone App is so overpriced, its not even funny. It costs a whopping $50. I don’t even think the biggest Wolfram Alpha fans are willing to give up that kind of money, to get a “computational engine” that you can use for free by simply pointing Safari to their website.

The people at Wolfram Alpha are selling this as as a half-priced graphic calculator, with the added benefit that it uses the existing Wolfram Alpha “computational engine”. But even with that wonderful selling point I cant get over the fact that you can get the same thing free by going to their website. Really Wolfram, do you think that the public is so stupid that they will give up their had earned $50, so that they can use a service that they can get for free at the Wolfram website.

Wolfram Alpha rep Josh Dilworth had this to say in an email to Gizmodo:

"How many people will buy it? We're not sure, but looking at the other apps that are $50+, we think that we're of at least comparable in utility and functionality, if not more. And, part of what the company is also doing is making a statement about the non-trivial nature of WolframAlpha's capabilities, and how much the system has matured since launch."

Mr. Dilworth, I'm sure that the Wolfram Alpha app is as good as any $50+ app in the app store, but who is going to buy this app when they can get the exactly same thing in their browser.

Your free to go ahead and pay $50 for this app, but personally I’ll just go to their website. 

iPhone OS 3.1 for 3GS Now Jailbroken

The iPhone OS 3.1 has finally been jailbroken, and freed from the evil grips of Apple. The problem is that you need to have already Pwnd it at 3.0 or 3.0.1—you can't jailbreak 3.1 directly, but its a start.

FCC Investigating Apple for Rejection of Google Voice App

  The Federal Communication Commission is looking into Apple’s rejection of Google Voice, asking whether AT&T was involved, and why it was rejected.

The request is part of a broader-ranging inquiry by the commission on exclusive deals between cell phone carriers and handset manufacturers for hot phones. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Thursday that the FCC wants to look into rural areas where customers can't buy the latest fancy phones because of such exclusive deals.

Unfortunately, Google Voice still may not be included in the iTunes App store, but it may pressure Apple into including more Apps.

iPhone Patch Will Hit iTunes Saturday, Says O2

According to UK carrier O2 Apple will release a patch on Saturday to fix an iPhone SMS security hole, that was revealed by Charlie Miller. O2 spokespersons said the update will be available for download on iTunes. Apple is yet to comment, and it is unclear if the update will be available worldwide.

Windows 95 Running on iPhone is a Disgrace to Tech

I don’t know why, but the iSoft team has decided to run Windows 95 on an iPhone 3G. The horrible background music and unfocused camera makes my stomach turn.

The hack uses the normal Windows 95 image and runs on the Bochs emulator. As everyone would expect, the speed is awful They are currently working on getting Windows XP to run on the iPhone, which will be even slower. This is a huge disgrace to tech.

China Gets iPhones Early, But Wi-Fi is Disabled

China Unicom will likely be selling an iPhone sooner than expected, but it will not have Wi-Fi capabilities.

The Government of China, which controls the 3 major cell phone networks in China said in the past that it objected to Wi-Fi in phones, perhaps because it's harder to sniff local packets than ones drifting through a wide-area network.

According to unconfirmed reports, China Unicom plans to sell a GSM based iPhone, but its licence is for something where Wi-Fi is blocked. As TradingMarkets.com puts it: "Apple has to cancel the Wi-Fi function without changing other components."

The good news is that, China has been waiting for the iPhone for a long time and they are finally getting it now. I just wonder how adept the Chinese jailbreakers will be at reactivating that Wi-Fi.

Stream Zune Songs to your iPhone

Gear Live has found a clever way to stream Zune Pass songs to your iPhone. Why would you do that. Zune Pass gives you an unlimited amount of songs for about $15/month. The issue is that they don't play natively on the iPhone.

You first need to set up Orb on a Windows based computer to transcode, on the fly, your already downloaded Zune songs. Then you can listen to all of your songs (not just 16GB or 32GB of them) wherever you have internet access. It works well on 3G and Wi-Fi but EDGE is too slow for full quality music. For a full guide on how to do it click here.

New iPhone SMS Vulnerability Found

I am quite surprised that over the years there have not been many holes discovered on the iPhone. In fact the last exploit that was patched happened over two years ago and now, thanks to OS X security expert Charlie Miller -- we're seeing yet another come to light. At the SysScan conference in Syngapore, Miller talked about a vulnerability, which would allow hackers to "run software code on the phone that is sent by SMS over a mobile operator's network in order to monitor the location of the phone using GPS, turn on the phone's microphone to eavesdrop on conversations, or make the phone join a distributed denial of service attack or a botnet." Miller is planning to further discuss the vulnerability at the Black Hat conference. Apple is hoping to have the hole patched by the end of the month.

iPhone 3GS’ Copy & Paste is not Really Incredible

Apple seems to think that the iPhone 3GS’ Copy & Paste feature is incredible. I’ll admit that it is intuitive but lets face it, this feature has come too late. About two full software revisions late we'd say. And listing the feature as an incredible feature is ridiculous, considering my Motorola phone from 1999 could do that. 

Microsoft Refuses to Reimburse Employees for iPhone Bills

Microsoft has stopped paying its employees wireless bills if they don't have a Windows Mobile phone.

This is not at all a shocking move. Lots of companies standardize on a particular mobile operating system or two and limit reimbursements to those devices.

Microsoft confirmed on Friday that "the data plan reimbursement for Microsoft employees is limited to Windows Mobile devices."

"This policy took effect as part of the broader cost saving measures announced earlier this year," Microsoft said

Microsoft made its product line smaller, and also pulled back on spending on travel, vendors and contractors.