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Look who’s switching to iPhones and iPads

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:40:33 +0000

Roustabouts, weatherpeople and Air Force pilots

As if to underscore Apple (AAPL) CFO Peter Oppenheimer's claim that "nearly all" Fortune 500 companies "approve and support" iPhones on their networks, three major purchase orders came to light this week:

Halliburton announced that over the next year the oil services company will be "transitioning" from Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry platform to "smartphone technology via the iPhone." A spokesperson told AppleInsider that about MORE

Apple’s new Siri ad: Remind me to do WHAT again?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:39:52 +0000

Would that the iPhone's intelligent assistant were as smart as the latest TV ad suggests

Based on my experience with the iPhone 4S, Apple (AAPL) is doing something very un-Applelike in its TV ads for Siri -- over-promise and under-deliver.

Case in point: The last instruction the woman gives her voice-activated assistant in the TV ad that debuted Thursday night. "Remind me to do this again," she tells Siri on a beach MORE

63% of iPhones were activated outside the U.S. last quarter

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:06:17 +0000

And that percentage is likely to increase sharply now that China has the iPhone 4S

Click to enlarge. Source: Asymco.com

The chart at right from Horace Dediu's Asymco blog shows the U.S. share of iPhone activations growing last quarter due, he speculates, to the U.S. launch of the iPhone 4S and the addition of a third domestic carrier, Sprint (S).

But the long-term trend is clear. The U.S. is becoming a progressively less important MORE

Why did Apple pop Thursday?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:05:54 +0000

Investors search for reasons the company's market cap grew by $15 billion in one day

Charts: Richard Bloch. Click to enlarge.

The $16.49 Apple (AAPL) rose Thursday was only its sixth largest one-day dollar gain, according to AAPLInvestors, and in percentage terms, 3.46% doesn't even make the top 10.

But when the world's most valuable company rallies a few points, its market capitalization gets a whole lot bigger. According to the Bespoke Investment MORE

Apple is now worth more than the GDP of Sweden

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:05:00 +0000

Also, the combined market caps of Google and Microsoft. Steve Jobs would be pleased.

GDP: $458 billion. Map: Tourist Destinations

Apple (AAPL) closed Thursday at a record high $493.17, up a whopping $16.49 (3.46%) for the day. That pushed its market capitalization (share price times shares outstanding) to nearly $460 billion -- more than any other company in the world and, as Apple Insider's Neil Hughes noted, greater than the value MORE

Highlights of Steve Jobs’ (heavily redacted) FBI file

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:36:26 +0000

We slogged through the 119-page document so you wouldn't have to

Jobs at NeXT. Source: TheStreet

In 1991, while Steve Jobs was at NeXT and before he returned to Apple (AAPL), the first President Bush considered him for an appointment on the White House's Export Council, triggering an FBI background check.

In October 2011, MuckRock's Michael Morisy, a former journalist who has made a business of filing Freedom of Information Act requests, MORE

What’s the point of those Apple price targets?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:14:45 +0000

Like the tortoise in Achilles' footrace, they may be perpetually unreachable goals

"There's scant evidence that the stock market itself has paid much if any attention to analysts' price targets in recent years," writes Needham's Charlie Wolf in a note to clients Thursday that raises his own Apple (AAPL) target $80 to $620.

He's got a point. the average target among the two-dozen analysts we sampled on October 19, the day after Apple's MORE

Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:02:06 +0000

It's not enough that Google borrowed the phone's look and feel to make Android?

From Google's IEEE letter. Source: FOSS Patents. Click to enlarge.

It took a Techmeme news cycle for the import of Google's (GOOG) letter to the IEEE -- the nonprofit organization that sets technical standards for everything from AC/DC converters to Wi-Fi networks -- to sink in.

Early reports praised the company for joining Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) MORE

Apple’s $90 billion run

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:09:03 +0000

The company has gained nearly one Facebook in value since Steve Jobs died

On Oct. 4, the day before Steve Jobs passed away, Apple (AAPL) shares closed at $372.50 and its market cap stood at $347 billion.

Four months later, the stock is up nearly $100 and its market cap is $437 billion. To put that $90 billion gain in perspective, it's nine tenths the value analysts have placed on Facebook in MORE

What’s on Apple’s iTV?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:29:06 +0000

Jefferies' Peter Misek takes a deep dive into the problem of acquiring quality content

Amid all the chatter this week about Apple's (AAPL) putative plans to build a standalone TV set -- from Best Buy's leaked customer survey to the Globe and Mail's report that Canadian telcoms are already testing the thing in their labs -- the 23-page report produced by Peter Misek's team at Jefferies International stands out.

Rather than get MORE

IDC: The iPhone is once again the world’s No. 1 smartphone

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:53:36 +0000

Regained the spot that it took from Nokia in June and gave up to Samsung in September

Click to enlarge. Source: IDC

It will come as no surprise to Apple (AAPL) watchers that the company sold 37 million iPhones last quarter. Tim Cook reported that number two weeks ago.

Getting comparable figures from Apple's competitors is a different matter, and that's where companies like IDC come in. Samsung, for example, used to report MORE

Video: Grading the Apple analysts on a scale of A to F

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:59:03 +0000

Two ways of seeing how well (or badly) the pros and amateurs predict Apple's earnings

Green = Amateurs, Yellow = Pros Source: Dediu, PED

We've been trying for several years to find the best way to show how much better the so-called amateur analysts (some of whom have since gone pro) are at estimating Apple's (AAPL) quarterly revenue and earnings than the Wall Street professionals who do it for the big MORE

Android’s original standard bearer — HTC — falls from grace

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:42:05 +0000

Squeezed by Apple and Samsung, it had a bad quarter and expects the next to be worse

There was a time when HTC and Android were practically synonymous.

The Taiwanese manufacturer built the first commercially available Android phone -- the HTC Dream -- in 2008, and two years later collaborated with Google (GOOG) to build the Nexus One, the flagship of the Android line. Last November, it edged past Samsung, Apple (AAPL) MORE

Charlie Wolf: The launch of the iPhone 4S sent Apple Store sales ‘into the stratosphere’

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:35:59 +0000

In terms of revenue per sq. ft., think Tiffany's (its nearest rival) multiplied nearly threefold

iPhone 4S launch in Beijing. Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images

Apple Stores are always busy places, but they tend to go crazy when a major new product is launched. With the arrival of the iPhone 4S, writes Needham's Charlie Wolf in his tenth annual report on the state of Apple's (AAPL) retail empire, they went absolutely MORE

What Motorola wants: 2.25% of Apple’s iPhone sales revenue

Philip Elmer-DeWitt — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:25:28 +0000

A blogger uncovers the $2 billion dispute behind Friday's bizarre back and forth

Source: FOSS Patents

Apple (AAPL) watchers were shocked Friday when the company, in response to a court-ordered injunction, removed the iPhone 4 and 3GS from its online Apple Store in Germany.

The injunction was suspended before the end of the day -- and the products restored -- but the bizarre incident left analysts and investors wondering what the hell MORE