Apple inches past Samsung as world’s top smartphone vendor

(Credit:
IDC)

Apple has been crowned the victor in last quarter’s smartphone wars by yet another research firm.

Among the top five global manufacturers, Apple grabbed the top spot with a market share of 23.5 percent, according to IDC figures released yesterday. That was a healthy gain over the 15.9 percent share from a year ago.

The
iPhone maker also shipped the greatest number of phones last quarter at 37 million, compared with 16.2 million in 2010′s fourth quarter.

Brisk sales for the
iPhone 4S helped Apple narrowly surpass smartphone rival Samsung. The Korean handset maker’s share rose to 22.8 percent in the fourth quarter, a leap from 9.4 percent a year earlier. Samsung shipped 36 million phones for the quarter.

The new iPhone helped Apple achieve a record number of shipments, both for itself and across the entire industry, according to IDC.

The heavy demand came despite some initial disappointment that the iPhone 4S would not be the rumored
iPhone 5 with a larger screen size and other whiz-bang features. But the combination of holiday shopping, a delay in the iPhone’s launch to the fourth quarter, and the addition of Sprint as a carrier all added up to higher volumes.

Samsung may have come in second for the quarter but its 275 percent growth year over year in shipments was tops among all five vendors. The company kept expanding its Galaxy-class lineup, focusing on both high-end handsets such as the Galaxy S II and the Nexus, and more mass-market products, including the Galaxy Ace and Galaxy Y.

On the downside, both Nokia and Research In Motion saw their market shares drop for the quarter.

Nokia is facing a difficult position, hurt by falling demand for its Symbian phones but at the same time waiting for its new Lumia Windows Phone lineup to start grabbing customers. For the quarter, the Finnish phone maker saw its market share drop to 12.4 percent from 27.6 percent.

RIM’s quarter had its share of ups and downs. New smartphones equipped with BlackBerry OS 7 hit more markets, while the company managed to avoid a fourth consecutive quarter of a decline in shipments. But the BlackBerry maker was hurt by a network outage in October. And it announced that BlackBerry OS 10 wouldn’t arrive until later this year.

Rounding out the list, HTC watched its market share dip to 6.5 percent from 8.5 percent a year ago, though its shipments crept up to 10.2 million.

Beyond its usual array of Android phones, the company unveiled the Windows Phone-enabled Titan and Radar models, the Beats-influenced Rezound, and the LTE-enabled Vivid, IDC noted.

Looking at the full year, Samsung actually emerged as the top smartphone maker over Apple, though just by a fraction. Samsung’s market share for 2011 rose to 19.1 percent from 7.5 percent in 2010, according to IDC, while Apple’s nestled in at 19 percent last year from 15.6 percent in 2010.

Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57372401-37/apple-inches-past-samsung-as-worlds-top-smartphone-vendor/

Why Didn’t Apple Advertise During the Super Bowl?

During the third quarter of the 1984 Super Bowl, viewers witnessed one of the most memorable commercials ever, “1984.” Twenty-eight years later, Apple ignored the most widely watched television event of the year and is instead mocked by one of its chief rivals. Did it make a mistake by skipping Super Bowl XLVI?

Back in 1984, Apple’s somewhat dark and forbidding Ridley Scott-directed spot shocked some, but intrigued millions. It didn’t show a single product, but teased the introduction, just two days after the game, of the first Macintosh, promising, “you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ’1984′.”

According to Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography:

“It was a sensation. That evening all three networks and fifty local stations aired news stories about the ad, giving it a viral life unprecedented in the pre–YouTube era. It would eventually be selected by both TV Guide and Advertising Age as the greatest commercial of all time.”

Fast forward to 2012. Apple is not mentioned at all during the rather thrilling contest between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Instead, electronics manufacturer Samsung makes fun of Apple—without ever saying or showing its name or products. Samsung has actually been running these Apple-mocking ads for weeks. They all revolve around the same core idea: Apple fans camping outside an Apple store, waiting for the next big thing. There’s usually a sign hanging in the stark, unbranded, white store: “It’s Coming.” The central conceit: Samsung Galaxy owners keep showing up and wowing the assembled campers with the tech feats of the thin, light and powerful Samsung smartphones. This last Super Bowl spot tied together virtually every thread of the previous commercials into a rather raucous singing and dancing extravaganza. This time, however, the commercial featured the 5-inch, stylus-sporting Samsung Galaxy Note.

The ads are a very smart bit of counter programming by Samsung. Funny, memorable, and maybe a little bit true. Why do people wait outside an Apple store for, say, the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 when they know they could just as easily order one of them online? Is being first that important?

For Apple, though, there is a bigger concern here. By not appearing at the Super Bowl, Apple is letting its competition frame the discussion. Founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, who died months before the Samsung ads started airing, would likely have wanted to create some sort of counter attack. He was, after all, the chief architect of the Macintosh and the remarkable first ad promoting it.

So, yes, why not run an ad that points out that Apple does more than simply make gorgeous hardware? Maybe a new spot that somehow spins the concept of an ecosystem that spans multiple screens and even the cloud? It’s not a bad idea, but Apple won’t do that. If it was going to run a Super Bowl ad, it would need a new product, or at least the hint of a new product to promote.

And that’s where Apple’s real troubles begin.

Apple’s Hardware Gap

In case you haven’t noticed, Apple’s iPad’s second birthday came and went without the introduction of the eagerly anticipated third generation of the landmark tablet. There is an iPad 3 in the works. Everyone knows it and numerous leaks all but prove it. We even have some ideas about the specs; a faster A6 processor and a high-rez retina display with edge-to-edge screen coverage. It may also be thinner and lighter or perhaps there will be multiple versions, including a 7-inch iPad.

Still, for all we think we know, Apple was not ready to tell us anything about it during the Super Bowl.

Here’s a more distressing fact. It has been more than a year since Apple released significant new hardware. Obviously, I’m aware of the iPhone 4S, which launched just a day before Jobs died. It’s a wonderful phone, and who doesn’t love Siri (some, too much)? But it’s essentially an iPhone 4 update and not a wholly new gadget.

Does anyone realize how long we’ve been talking about new Apple hardware with nothing to show for it? People began talking about the iPhone 5 almost immediately after Apple shipped the iPhone 4. They started talking iPad 3 in January 2011 and Apple iTV buzz has been going strong since last fall (when Isaacson’s Jobs biography reported that the late CEO had “solved TV”).

The last year or so has, at least on the hardware side, been nothing but a big, pregnant pause for Apple. I knew that Jobs’s death would have an impact, but I never feared Apple would be rudderless without him. Current Apple CEO Tim Cook is a good manager with a deep understanding of Apple, but I do not think he has Jobs’s innate vision.

A Big Test

I know all this will change in short order. Before his death, Jobs and his team laid the groundwork for a host of new products. Apple will unveil an iPad 3 as early as March. We could see the iPhone 5 in June. Then, perhaps, it’ll be business as usual for the wildly successful tech company (which now has a boatload of cash to spend—certainly enough to afford every single Super Bowl XLVI commercial). Whatever Apple introduces this spring, it will be the company’s first hardware introduction since Jobs’s death: in other words, a huge test for Apple and for Cook. I have spent a lot of time pondering if Apple would now do things differently. Cook does not command the stage like Jobs. Nor does Phil Schiller (senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing ). Scott Forestall (senior vice president of iOS Software) has frenetic energy, but not Jobs’s magnetism. Is Apple, right now, struggling with how to unveil its next big thing?

While Apple ostensibly figures this out, companies like Samsung will continue to take the national stage and beat up on the Cupertino company. Apple will still run its warm, fuzzy ads touting current products and services, but is that enough?

I worry that without Steve Jobs, Apple may have lost some of its fighting spirit. For all his quirks, Jobs was a fighter. He liked to deride the competition and then beat them, as publicly as possible. Imagine if right after the Samsung Super Bowl ad, Apple had run some sort of iconic spot for, say, the Apple iTV: “Television is about to change forever, thanks to the company that, 28 years ago, changed computing forever. Watch…” Now that would’ve been cool. Jobs would have done it. What is Cook’s plan?

Bonus: All the Commercials That Did Air During the Super Bowl

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G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation hits theaters on March 2nd, 2012.

Cast: Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Dwanye Johnson, Bruce Willis, Lee Byung Hun, RZA, Ray Stevenson, D.J. Cotrona, Ray Park, Walton Goggins, Elodie Yung, Joseph Mazzello

The G.I. Joe team faces off against Zartan, his accomplices, and the world leaders he has under his influence.

G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation trailer courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Article source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/06/why-didnt-apple-advertise-during-super-bowl/

iPhone 5 to be revealed June 2012 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference

Article source: http://www.gamezone.com/news/iphone-5-to-be-revealed-june-2012-at-apple-worldwide-developers-conference

What will be the iPhone 5′s make or break feature?

If Apple sticks to routine (which they’ve been slipping on lately), we should be introduced to the iPhone 5 sometime later this year – hopefully sooner rather than later. We can’t be sure what exactly the device will entail, but rest assured the Internet will be putting its imagination to work over the next four to nine months in an attempt to guess what the Cupertino-based company will bring to market.

If there is one thing we’re absolutely certain of, the iPhone 5 will be iconic, or at least a classic, regardless of what it brings. The word on the street is that this is the last device that the late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, was “intimately involved” with. Unlike devices that are several years down the road that might have the Jobs touch, the iPhone 5 (if that’s what it’s to be called) will be the last device he directly worked on.

If nothing else, among the Apple fans out there, this phone will be a memorable one.

To those who care more about the device itself (not by whom or how it was made and designed), however, the iPhone 5 could be a make or break device. It’s not like Apple will just fall out of the mobile game. But over the last couple years, Apple has had trouble keeping up with demand and competition alike. With a handful of manufacturers working for Google and Microsoft, Apple is finally beginning to feel the pressure of licensed software and outsourced hardware.

In other words, we expected the iPhone 5 in 2011 but were mostly disappointed when we learned that the 2011 upgrade to the iPhone was nothing more than the evolutionary (but still respectable) iPhone 4S. We didn’t see the rumored new design or a larger display like we were hoping and a year’s worth of rumors went down the drain.

This has set the bar high for 2012 – maybe too high. All of those rumors about the iPhone 5 that started in 2010 will continue and build until Tim Cook and Co. take the stage in the summer months. But here lies the question: what will be the make or break feature of the iPhone 5 for you?

There are a lot of different directions Apple could take with the iPhone 5. Aaron told us what he wants to see in the iPhone 5 late last week, including a 4-inch display, LTE and (official) T-Mobile support, better battery life, iOS 6 and a new design. I think we can all agree, for the most part, that these are the biggest changes we would like to see introduced with the new iPhone this year. But will you still buy the iPhone 5 if it has the same design as the iPhone 4 and 4S? The same camera? No 4G LTE? No global support? A non-Retina Display?

For me, there are only two make or break features.

First, I need a larger display. Over time, I’ve learned to cope with the 3.5-inch display of the iPhone. But in no way is it comfortable for me to use. Browsing the Web is constricted and requires a ton of panning and zooming. Typing forces me to use the very tips of my enormous thumbs. And watching videos on the tiny iPhone display simply pales in comparison to videos on the Galaxy Nexus’ 4.65-incher. The problem with bumping the size iPhone display is that Apple will have to also bump resolution, else they will lose the Retina Display moniker. If they do increase the resolution, they could step on developers’ toes by forcing them to update their apps with support for yet another resolution. Personally, I don’t care what resolution they go with, so long as the display retains a fairly similar ppi count.

Unlike Aaron, I would prefer something a little larger than a 4-inch display as I have larger (read: chunkier) hands – but I agree that 4-inches is the sweet spot for the general populace. Nonetheless, a larger display would require some form of design change. I wouldn’t mind if the design changes, but I won’t complain if the phone looks the same either. A larger version of the same design would be perfectly fine with me.

The other must-have is 4G LTE. I’ve been on 3G for way too long now. After getting a taste of LTE on the ThunderBolt and stepping back to 3G (and HSPA+ on T-Mobile), 3G has never felt so slow. The first few months back on 3G weren’t so bad. But when it comes to downloading files and actually getting my money’s worth out of what I pay for my grandfathered unlimited data plan on Big Red, I would much rather use LTE.

The only problem with LTE and a larger display is that they are two of the biggest culprits for battery drain. I just have to trust that Apple will compensate for higher power consumption with a much larger battery. Here’s to hoping …

Anyway, enough about me and my needs. What do you need to see in the next iPhone before you decide to purchase it? A quad-core processor, larger display, double the memory or LTE? Take our poll below, and if your must-have feature isn’t listed, choose “Other” and tell us in the comments!

Article source: http://www.phonedog.com/2012/02/06/what-will-be-the-iphone-5-s-make-or-break-feature/

Valentine’s Day: iPhone 5 June release date makes iPhone 4S safe gift

February 6, 2012   by Bill Palmer  

by Bill Palmer

Those thinking of giving their loved one an iPhone as a Valentine’s Day gift but concerned about the impending release date for the iPhone 5 needn’t worry. The product won’t surface until this summer at the earliest, with the fall a possibility. That means that buying an iPhone 4S in mid February ensures your sweetheart will have the current-generation iPhone for at least four months or so. Such a purchase will lock your significant other out of moving to the iPhone 5 when it does launch, as carriers tend to only allow customers to buy one new phone at advertised pricing every twelve, eighteen, or twenty months; ATT, Verizon, and Sprint each have their own policies regarding upgrade pricing and the only way to circumvent it is to pay a couple hundred dollars above sticker price to upgrade early. But you can put to bed any fear that an iPhone 4S purchased now and wrapped up for February 14th will be an outdated product by the time it’s unwrapped. However, signs are surfacing that the iPhone 5 release date is not that far away..

For Apple’s part, the iPhone 5 was supposed to have arrived last summer. Delays (for still unconfirmed reasons) led Apple to ultimately release the iPhone 4S last fall in order to buy time. The 4S has since gone on to set sales records and ignite iPhone marketshare, leading some to predict that Apple wouldn’t be in any hurry to replace it with the iPhone 5. However, reports from factories have the iPhone 5 already on site in prototype form (actually multiple prototypes, likely intended to keep everyone guessing) and there’s buzz that it’ll debut at Apple’s WWDC conference in June with a release date not long after…

Observers have pinned various supposed specs and features to the iPhone 5, from 4G LTE networking to a four-plus inch screen to a quad core A6 internal processor. Some T-Mobile customers are hoping the iPhone 5 also marks the expansion of the iPhone to their preferred carrier, after the previously ATT-only iPhone expanded to Verizon with the iPhone 4 and to Sprint with the iPhone 4S. While the iPhone 5 could indeed arrive as soon as June, it won’t arrive any sooner. Apple typically reserves the spring for the launch of its latest iPad lineup. So while buying an iPhone 4S as a Valentine’s Day gift doesn’t ensure it’ll stay current all year (it won’t), it does buy you at least a few months of currentness. And even after the iPhone 5 debuts, the iPhone 4S will likely stick around as a second-tier iPhone model, meaning you won’t have to explain to your sweetheart why his or her four month old iPhone just got discontinued altogether. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.

Article source: http://www.beatweek.com/iphone/ipodiphoneitunes/12607-valentines-day-iphone-5-june-release-date-makes-iphone-4s-safe-gift/

CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield: Would Steve Jobs Have Allowed Apple Sweatshops To Go …

» 23 comments

In the wake of a new report out over alleged Apple sweatshops in China, CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield spoke with chief business correspondent Ali Velshi about what Apple knew and when they knew it. “Steve Jobs — he seems like the kind of guy who never, when he was alive, would have allowed any of this to go on,” Banfield observed. “Did he know? Did he not know? Did he not care? Do we know?”

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“The question is this,” Velshi responded. “We all know that if you get much cheaper labor in China they don’t work in the same conditions we work in. The issue is how bad is it? There are some things called core violations: employing underaged students, unhealthy conditions. A couple of Foxconn factories within a number of months last year had two explosions caused by the aluminum dust when they brushed the iPads and iPhones. There are some violations that are worse than others and the question is how serious are the violations and in the interest of profitability, do the companies sort of turn a blind eye to it? There are people who say we told Apple what was going on.”

“We told Apple or we told someone at a low level?” Banfield questioned. “They didn’t get it?”

“No, there are allegations from human watchdog groups that said they told Apple,” Velshi explained. “One woman went to Apple headquarters and asked to speak to someone and no one would speak to her. We’re not expecting the Chinese workers would have the same conditions today that US factory workers have, but are they being caused to work six or seven days a week standing, without ventilation. Your iPod or your iPhone gets polished to a great degree. That glass has to be shined.”

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• The sweatshop allegations against Apple have been going around for years. Either Steve Jobs didn’t care or he was willfully brainwashed.
  Full disclosure- I am typing this on my MacBook Air. It was a gift though. That makes it okay, right?

• Foxconn has been making Apple products for years and Apple has “investigated” claims of employee abuse repeatedly. Of course Jobs knew who they are.

• Jobs’ ego outweighs chinese workers.   He died knowing he was the biggest and best, so I guess that’s what mattered.  Granted he died 20 years to soon, but his own ego did him in on that as well.  Change your diet to battle cancer…smart Steve.

• The underlying issue is how has it become acceptable for “American” corporations to partner with a communist dictatorship? The fact is, China has horrific worker protections. I’ll treatment is a given. Once you source your products from China you have effectively partnered with the Devil. One cannot then claim ignorance of sins that inevitably follow.

• It’s not just Apple, but Apple is now on top, so they will be the one pinpointed as the only bad guy.  

• If it were not for Apple those workers might be out on the streets starving to death.

  Liberals would prefer starvation and poverty over bad work conditions.

  Just something to think about.

• I agree, these American companies will talk about American values workers rights, but that’s all a lie. Its about maximizing profits. 

• I don’t think it fair to compare ugly sh*t and smelly sh*t.  In the end it’s still sh*t.

• He didn’t care, just as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have never given a rat’s ass about the fact that they make millions from sweatshop-produced Nike junk.

• or how about they just pay them a halfway decent wage?

• This is a serious topic for me.  When I think of the children involved in the “sweatshops” of our clothing companies, electronics, building supples – etc  it makes me sick. 

  The United States was a great country because of the products it produced.  We had a strong middle class – and thusly, a strong economy.  The middle class shrank when these jobs were sent over seas – to be done by the young, old and in between – at slave wages.  And they are not going to come back.

  It was more than unions – it was greed.  It will always be greed.

• It is indeed something to think about – in 2010, 12 workers attempted suicide at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. Measures were then taken to ‘prevent’ more suicides which involved forcing all Foxconn employees to “sign a legally binding document promising that they won’t kill themselves.”

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285980/Revealed-Inside-Chinese-suicide-sweatshop-workers-toil-34-hour-shifts-make-iPod.html 

  “[Apple's] Net income of $13.1 billion in the period that ended Dec. 31 [2011] ranked among the highest quarterly profits on record.”

  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-24/apple-posts-record-quarterly-profit-sales.html 

  I think there is something wrong with this picture.

• The left can’t stand how successful Apple has become. They love the products, but hate themselves for supporting an “evil” corporation. So now they want to knock Apple down a peg or two by howling about Chinese working conditions. Pathetic.

• But…but…but isn’t there a free lunch in there somewhere???. Don’t liberals have all the free lunches ready-to-eat for America??? Can’t everything be free in America???

  Surprise! Borrowers get to pay for payroll-tax holiday

  So you think you got a payroll-tax holiday for free? Think that the big
  fat-cat mortgage lenders will foot the bill as part of Obama’s promise
  to make the cut pay for itself? CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson delivers the wake-up call to home buyers, who will pay a pretty penny for the latest gimmick of Obamanomics:

  My only question is why it is not called sheeponomics?
    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/06/surprise-borrowers-get-to-pay-for-payroll-tax-holiday/

  Sheep actually believe that Barry has turned the economy around, and that ANYTHING in life is actually FREE! .Sheeeeeeeponomics!

• Thank goodness it is anything but Fox News. Otherwise the sheep would run away from any story like this. Hey, does this hurt Barry? Because it is racist if it does.

• Hey check out Steve Jobs Quotes and Trivia app for iPhone!!!
  Get to know a little better this great leader!!!!­!

• By telling the truth about how dreadful the working conditions are too! Those dastards! How dare people use facts to make spread awareness that apple are exploiting their workforce in ways that are illegal in western nations?

• Take a deep breath and step away from the computer. When you’re calmer, read the article, then read your post again and consider how paranoid and ridiculous you sound.

• America’s Socialist cable channel cannot be viewed by any business entity as anything but destructive with commentators like Banfield. He hasn’t a clue why iPad sells for $599 and not $1,799.

• Where would Wal-Mart be without cheap crap from China?  What would we all buy if we did a strong boycott of “made in China” goods or if we started a trade war with them? I don’t pretend to know the consequences or the results, just, I think, an interesting question.

  Some high tech companies have tried to make stuff here only to quit because they could not compete with those that do make crap in China.

  Of course Steve Jobs knews.
  http://gawker.com/5482922/apple-only-wants-16%252B-year+olds-working-its-dodgy-sweatshops

  Can you imagine working in a place that can accommodate 400,000 workers and has safety nets to prevent worker suicides and small dorms that sleep several workers in small bunks.

  Google FOXCONN. Have fun and learn a little.

  But as bad as China is there are worst places to work as far as child labor is concerned. Yep, slavery is alive a well throughout the world.

• There are good things and bad about Foxconn. 

  The good:
  They pay good or better wages than other electronics manufacturers.
  Their facilities are cleaner and working conditions better.
  They provide dormitory type housing for the employees if they so chose.

  The bad:
  To make a decent salary, you must work overtime. And by decent, I mean Chinese standard. Around 2500 RMB per month or $400.
  The jobs are mind-numbingly repetitive.
  Chinese health and safety regulations are not up to the standards of other countries, but they are evolving. Nothing happens quickly in a country of 1.3 billion people.
  Foxconn is a Taiwan based company. The Taiwanese have a history and reputation in China for not respecting the mainland Chinese workers. I haven’t seen this in action, but it is widely accepted even by the foreign community.

  Personally, I think if Apple is going to post obscene profits from their little toys, they have a responsibility to ensure that the people making them work in facilities that set the standard. 

  And yes, if you shut down Foxconn, people will have to find jobs elsewhere and they probably won’t be as good.

• Who gives a damn what’s legal in Western nations? The products are being made in China. How China treats their workers is China’s problem. It’s too damn expensive to make anything in Western nations.

• I think god for those talented little hands. I hope the Iphone 5 comes out soon. 

Article source: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-ashleigh-banfield-would-steve-jobs-have-allowed-apple-sweatshops-to-go-on-did-he-not-care/