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Apple Inc. on Thursday released a developer preview of an update for the Mac operating system, dubbed "Mountain Lion," that will copy more features and apps from the iPhone and iPad to the Mac.
Apple said the new software will be on sale this summer, a year after it released the latest update, "Lion." The preview version will help software developers make products that take advantage of the new features of the operating system.
Mountain Lion will include Game Center, an iPhone app which stores high game scores and helps users find opponents. It will be integrated with iCloud, the new Internet storage service designed for the mobile devices.
The new Messages app, also copied from the mobile operating system, will replace iChat. Lion users can download a preview version of the app for free.
A new Notification Center will show alerts from email and calendar programs, just like on the iPhone.
Apple started the trend of making its Mac operating system more like its phone and tablet operating system, iOS, with the release of Lion. It borrowed phone features like a screen that shows all installed apps, and expanded the range of gestures that can be used to control a MacBook through the touchpad.
The Cupertino, California-based company sells Lion for $30. It didn't say what Mountain Lion would cost.
Apple has been growing Mac sales in a nearly stagnant PC market, but the sales aren't growing as fast as those of the iPhone. In 2010, iPhone sales overtook those of Macs for the first time.
Apple has been using the names of big cats to differentiate its OS versions since 2001.
Microsoft Corp. is set to release Windows 8 later this year, and a preview version is already in developer hands. It, too, will be borrowing features from phone software, and one version of the operating system... newsfactor.com »
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Some Apples will be green. Apple data centers, that is.
The technology giant has announced that its new half-million-square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C., will only use electricity that has been generated by renewable energy. The company said that the Maiden facility will be "the most environmentally sound data center ever built."
This complements plans for a data center currently in Newark, Calif., and one planned for Prineville, Ore., to go 100 percent renewable.
'An Industry First'
Two solar array installations are being built to support the North Carolina center, and both will use high-efficiency solar cells and an advanced solar tracking system. One array will be a 100-acre, 20 megawatt installation on the same site as the data center, and it will generate 42 million kilowatt-hours each year.
The other, also 100 acres, is being located several miles away, and it will produce another 42 million kWh. A bio-gas-powered 5-megawatt fuel cell installation is being constructed, and will become operational later this year. It will add another 40 million kWh.
These Apple-owned energy generators will generate 124 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which will account for 60 percent of the data center's needs. The remainder will come from area providers of renewable energy.
Greenpeace Protests
The data center planned for Prineville will use only renewable energy, purchased from local providers of wind, hydro and geothermal. The data center in Newark has received regulatory permission to purchase electricity from renewable sources, and expects to be 100 percent renewable by February of next year.
In a section called "Apple and the Environment" on its Web site, the company pointed out that its operations center in Austin, Texas, has been using only purchased renewable energy for nearly a decade, and now its operations centers in Sacramento, Munich, and Cork, Ireland, do as well. The corporate headquarters in Cupertino,... newsfactor.com » | Despite the continued rapid rise of the Android platform in the fast-growing tablet category, Apple's iPad tablet will remain king. That's one of the findings in a new report from industry research firm Gartner.
The report, released Tuesday, estimated that global tablet sales will reach about 119 million tablets by the end of this year, nearly doubling the 60 million sold last year. Of those, Apple is expected to sell about 73 million tablets, for a 61 percent market share. While that's a five percentage point drop from 2011, Android-based tablets will increase their share by only three points to 32 percent, with about 61 million sold to end users.
New iPad 'Reset the Benchmark'
Gartner projects nearly 5 million Microsoft Windows 8-based tablets being sold in 2012, and about 2.6 million of Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBooks.
By 2013, Gartner sees the iPad reaching about 99 million tablets, compared with 61 million Android tablets, about 14 million Windows 8 devices, and 6 million PlayBooks. In 2016, Apple is expected to boom to nearly 170 million, Android to 137 million, Microsoft to 43 million, and PlayBooks to almost 18 million.
Gartner said that one of the factors holding down Android's growth is a lack of apps designed specifically for tablets.
Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, noted in a statement that, "despite PC vendors and phone manufacturers wanting a piece of the pie and launching themselves into the media tablet market," there has been "very limited success outside of Apple with its iPad" in this category.
Milanesi added that tablet vendors are struggling to compete on the basis of price or differentiations based on hardware or ecosystems, such as Android apps, but the new iPad has now "reset the benchmark for the product to beat."
Waiting for 8
She also noted that there were relatively few... newsfactor.com » | Apple told investors Monday that the iconic device maker intends to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program beginning later this year. During the company's business quarter that begins July 1, Apple expects to begin paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share.
CFO Peter Oppenheimer said Apple had about $98 billion of cash on hand at the end of December, of which about $64 billion was outside the United States. He said he expected Apple's new dividend payments to exceed $10 billion during the first year and that the company will use more than $45 billion to issue dividends and buy back stock during the first three years of the new programs.
"We are extremely confident in our future and see tremendous opportunities ahead," Oppenheimer told investors during a Monday morning conference call.
Meanwhile, Apple intends to continue making strategic investments in the company's infrastructure, supply chain and R&D programs.
"Innovation is the most important objective at Apple, and we will not lose sight of that," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "These decisions will not close any doors for us."
Confident About the Future
The dividend payout will be the first by Apple since 1995. Cook told investors Monday that he is extremely confident in Apple's future.
"The pipeline is full of stuff, and I think our customers are going to be incredibly pleased with what they see coming out," Cook said.
Although the company sold 37 million iPhones in its latest quarter, Cook noted that Apple's unit sales only represented 9 percent of global handset shipments during the period. Given market expectations that mobile phone shipments overall will grow from 1.6 billion in 2011 to more than 2 billion by 2015, Cook sees plenty of growth opportunities for the iPhone ahead.
"It's our belief that eventually all handsets will be smartphones, so the potential... newsfactor.com » | Piper Jaffray boosted its 12-month price target for Apple's shares from $670 to $718 on Thursday, saying that the investment firm had previously not given sufficient credit to the iconic device's maker's strong position for growth in the tablet and smartphone markets. For example, the firm's analysts have boosted their iPad unit shipment growth rate estimate for 2013 from 21 percent to 42 percent.
"We are raising our calendar year 2013 iPad estimates based on our belief that Apple will release a sub-$300 iPad with a smaller display in 2013," Piper Jaffray analysts Gene Munster, Andrew Murphy and Douglas Clinton wrote in a new investor note.
"Our base model assumes Apple will sell 122 million iPads in calendar year 2014 and 176 million iPads in calendar year 2015 as the product line matures with additional form-factors," Munster, Murphy and Clinton explained.
With respect to Apple's coming iPhone 5, Munster, Murphy and Clinton have pushed back their expected iPhone 5 release date from mid-2012 to this year's September-ending quarter.
"We're uncertain whether they will try to retain the annual summer launches or have switched to an annual fall release, but some of our insight into the supply chain suggests fall," Murphy said in an e-mail Thursday. "Also, if they don't have an iOS software event in the Spring -- and wait until WWDC to intro iOS 6 -- then that sort of confirms that they're doing a fall launch."
New Base Model
Looking beyond 2012-2013, Piper Jaffray believes that the coming iPhone 5 will help Apple outperform the firm's prior expectation of 162 million iPhone unit shipments in 2014.
The investment firm's new base model assumes that "Apple will sell 285 million iPhones in calendar year 2014 and 385 million iPhones in calendar year 2015, driven by continued strength in developed markets and share gains... newsfactor.com » | Although iOS devices are outpacing Mac sales, Apple is nonetheless forging ahead with the next iteration of its computer operating system. Apple on Thursday released a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion.
Mountain Lion promises to bring apps and features from the iPad to the Mac. Some of the new features include Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay Mirroring. Mountain Lion is also Apple's first OS X release that incorporates iCloud features.
Mountain Lion previewers also will get a sneak peek of something Apple is calling Gatekeeper, which is a security feature that works to protect Mac users against malicious software by blocking apps that aren't Apple-approved. Mountain Lion will hit the market in late summer.
"The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing. He also noted that Mountain Lion is making its debut just seven months after Lion, the current Mac operating system, went on the market.
New Features Up Close
As part of Mountain Lion, the Messages App will replace iChat. Messages lets users send unlimited messages, photos and videos directly from one Apple product to another. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk. Meanwhile, Reminders and Notes are sort of virtual to-dos. And Game Center lets users personalize the Mac gaming experience.
Mountain Lion's Notification Center offers easier access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps. Systemwide Share Sheets let users share links, photos and videos directly from Apple and third-party apps. And Twitter is integrated throughout Mountain.
"Apple is being less aggressive than Microsoft is with Windows 8, mostly because Microsoft doesn't have a large... newsfactor.com » | Though IHS iSuppli expects Amazon to ship 3.9 million Kindle Fire tablets during this year's fourth quarter, Apple remains confident that its position of strength in the tablet market will continue. According to the analysts at J.P. Morgan, Apple is "not too concerned about the low-priced entrants."
Last week, the financial firm's analysts slightly reduced their iPad unit sales estimates for the quarter currently under way. After a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, however, they indicated that their earlier iPad trim might have been too cautious.
"We think that Apple is not seeing much pressure from lower-priced tablets, yet," wrote J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz in an investor note.
"If anything, we think that Apple views the Kindle Fire as a device that stands to bring incremental consumers to the tablet market, and here, these consumers could gravitate to more feature-rich experiences," Moskowitz added.
IHS likewise believes the Kindle Fire will help fuel the expansion of the tablet market overall. The research firm projects that tablet shipments will grow from 64.7 million units this year to reach 287.2 million units in 2015.
Appealing To Prosumers
The Kindle Fire's unique Amazon-centric user interface is what enables the online retail giant to sell the new tablet below the device's actual hardware cost. "Once these users are on the site, Amazon hopes to sell them all kinds of other goods, ranging from shoes to diapers," IHS analysts noted on Friday.
However, many prosumers and enterprise customers may find the Kindle Fire's sales-driven focus too limiting, though the platform is helped to some extent by the subset of Android apps that run on Amazon's new tablet. More than 50 percent of the media tablets in the hands of U.S. consumers today are being used for at least some work-related activities, according to Forrester Research.
Microsoft hopes... newsfactor.com » | A Thursday report from industry trade publication DigiTimes suggests that demand for Apple's iPad 2 is continuing to escalate. The Taiwan-based newspaper noted that contract manufacturer Foxconn Electronics is expected to deliver 20 million iPad 2s to Apple during the third quarter.
Foxconn is the largest exporter of consumer electronics in the Greater China area. A number of gadget vendors based in North America and Europe outsource their manufacturing to the Taiwan-based company, including Apple, with the iPhone and the iPad the best-known products that Foxconn produces.
The DigiTimes estimate of 20 million iPad 2s is a 60 percent increase from the prior three months. Still, given the supply shortages that struck Japan early this year, Apple may simply be taking the precaution of stocking up well in advance of this year's holiday shopping season.
"We are modeling for second-half calendar-year 2011 iPad unit [shipments] of 22 million -- up 91 percent year over year from 11.5 million in the second half of calendar year 2010," Piper Jaffray analyst Andrew Murphy wrote Thursday in an email.
The firm also currently estimates that Apple's 2011 iPad shipments "will grow 143 percent year over year to 35.9 million units," Murphy added, though this last comparison is to a partial year of iPad sales in 2010.
Redefining Web Metrics
Accelerating demand for media tablets overall -- and Apple's iPad in particular -- has forced Net Applications to change the way it reports data about the global market shares of browsers and operating systems. The web-metrics firm said Thursday that it will be releasing separate statistics for the PC and mobile/media tablet markets.
"The combination of mobile and tablet usage has continued to rise dramatically and is now over six percent -- and accelerating -- of all browsing on the Internet," said Net Applications Executive Vice President Vince... newsfactor.com » | The U.S. arbiter for trade disputes has spurned Apple Inc.'s digital-camera patent claims against Eastman Kodak Co., a 131-year-old photography pioneer caught in a perilous race to redefine itself in the cutthroat digital-imaging arena.
Kodak's stock, nonetheless, fell 21 cents, or 8.5 percent, to $2.30 in afternoon trading Tuesday -- its lowest level since March 2009 -- amid signs of rising investor concern over its ability to fund a long and painful turnaround.
In a ruling late Monday, the U.S. International Trade Commission's six-judge panel affirmed a preliminary decision in May that Kodak's technology doesn't infringe on Apple's patent rights and that one of the two patents in dispute is invalid.
The decision comes weeks after the commission kept open Kodak's high-stakes case against iPhone behemoth Apple and Research In Motion Ltd., maker of BlackBerry smartphones.
The commission's chief administrative law judge, Paul Luckern, had ruled in January that the iPhone and the BlackBerry do not violate Kodak's patent. On appeal, the commission asked Luckern in late June to take another look. Yet Kodak's failure to score an outright victory heightened worries on Wall Street about whether the maker of cameras, film and printers will be able to cross back quickly enough into a reliably profitable company.
"Kodak can't speak for investors or their reaction" to the commission's decision in June, spokesman David Lanzillo said Tuesday. "As we have said since January, we are confident that Kodak will ultimately prevail in this case."
Kodak, which popularized photography beginning with the Brownie box camera in 1900, had $1.3 billion in cash at the end of March. It needs to pay back $50 million in debt this year, another $50 million in 2012 and $300 million in 2013.
"We have the resources to fully pay our obligations, and we are confident that will continue to be the case," Lanzillo... newsfactor.com » | Apple shipped an impressive 16.9 million iPhones in the first three months of this year, according to Gartner. The downside for Apple, however, is that 36.2 million Android-based smartphones shipped in the first quarter -- up from 8.36 million units one year earlier.
Android's steep rise suggests that Apple's hold on the leadership position in the smartphone application space is slipping. If past history is any indication, however, Apple may begin offering the iPhone 4 at a reduced price after the new iPhone 5 launches later this year, noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi.
"Apple has been decreasing the price of the previous generation device when the new one launched so I would expect a similar trend this time around," Milanesi said in an email Friday. "It will depend what kind of [iPhone 5] improvements we will see as to how much discount we will see on the iPhone 4 and indeed if the 3GS will continue to ship."
LTE On The Backburner
Still, Apple will need to do more to keep from eventually being overwhelmed by Android's startling growth, which rose 36 percent year-over-year in the March ending quarter. By contrast, Apple's iPhone shipments grew 16.8 percent growth during the same period, according to Gartner.
Earlier this month, Google said it was activating over 400,000 Android-based handsets on a daily basis, and with more than 100 million devices based on Google's mobile platform already in play. Android Market is also growing rapidly. Over 200,000 free and paid applications were available in Android Market as of May 10, with more than 4.5 billion applications already installed on handsets worldwide.
One looming issue that gives Android-based handset makers a potential edge is the wireless industry's ongoing transition to LTE. According to Piper Jaffray, LTE modems currently consume too much power to meet Apple's... newsfactor.com » |
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