Throngs greet Apple’s newest iPhones, gold color sells out

Thousands of iPhone enthusiasts queued up at Apple Inc stores around the world on Friday as two new models of the smartphone went on sale, but Apple’s shares ended slightly lower as investors wait for initial sales figures, due as early as next week.

Long lines formed outside stores in Sydney, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco and other cities as Apple broke with tradition and launched two iPhone models – the new top-of-the-line 5S and the less-expensive 5C – on the same day.

Apple watchers said early signs pointed to more demand for the 5S than last year’s new model. But some cautioned that the size of the crowds this year may not be an accurate gauge because consumers were unable to order the more expensive model online ahead of time, as with previous launches.

“While it is likely some of this line is due to not having an early pre-order option for the 5S, we still believe it shows loyalty to the iPhone remains strong among Apple’s installed base,” said ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall. He estimates Apple will sell about 6 million units in the first three days.

Apple sold more 5 million of the previous iPhone 5 units during its opening weekend last year.

A survey done by Piper Jaffray of 416 customers standing in lines outside of stores in New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis found that 95 percent of the people were planning to buy the 5S. Gene Munster, analyst with Piper Jaffray, estimates Apple will sell 5 million to 6 million iPhones over the weekend.

While Apple’s stock dipped one percent by the close of trade, shares of Avago and TriQuint ended higher after they were identified as component suppliers for the new models.

The gold-colored version of the 5S, which also comes in silver and gray, was already sold out as of Friday and will now ship only in October, according to Apple’s website. The gray and silver versions can still ship in 7 to 10 days.

Supplies of both the new models has been disappointing, a source at a U.S. wireless carrier had told Reuters earlier.

Winning chip firms

Analysts have questioned whether the technology of the new top-end 5S is enough to persuade people to trade up. But those concerns did not seem to apply Jimmy Gunawan, the first in line outside an Apple store in Sydney.

“It’s been one year since iPhone 5. It’s about time to upgrade I guess,” he told Reuters TV.

The new iPhones use chips made by Avago Technologies Ltd, TriQuint Semiconductor Inc and Skyworks Solutions Inc, according to repair firm iFixit, which opened up the iPhone 5S and 5C on Thursday.

Broadcom Corp’s chip is used for the touchscreen controller in both phones, iFixit said. All these suppliers also featured in last year’s iPhone 5.

Another teardown expert, Chipworks – which opened up Apple’s A7 chip – found that Samsung produced the application processor while NXP Semiconductor made the new M7 co-processor chip. The iPhone’s M7 can track motion data continuously without heavily draining the battery.

Including the M7 processor on the same chip as the main A7 processor would be more efficient than adding it as a discrete chip and would help the two processors communicate more easily, said Real World Technologies analyst David Kanter.

Investors have also questioned whether Apple has priced its new plastic-backed 5C too high to compete with cheaper smartphones that use Google’s Android operating system, particularly in China and other emerging markets.

The 5C, which comes in a range of bright colors, carries a price tag of $549 for an unlocked 16 GB model in the United States, though Apple has a history of cutting iPhone prices once a model has been on the market for a while, ISI’s Marshall said.

“We believe it will do the same for 5C after initial pent-up demand is met,” he said in a note.

Tech analysts this week praised the fingerprint scanner in the 5S model, which lets users unlock their devices or make purchases by simply pressing their finger.

The sensor technology that powers the fingerprint scanner in the new iPhone 5S was developed by AuthenTec, which was bought by Apple a year ago, iFixit said.

Apple shares initially traded up, hitting the day’s high of $478.55 on the Nasdaq before easing back to close 1 percent lower at $467.41.

source: interaksyon.com

With week to go, iPhone fans already queuing in Japan

TOKYO — Another wave of iPhone excitement has swept Japan, where Apple fans were queueing Wednesday for the new handset, more than a week before it hits the shelves.

A 44-year-old Japanese businessman began lining up outside the Apple store in Tokyo’s glitzy shopping district of Ginza on Tuesday, hours before the US IT giant unveiled two new iPhones.

“I’m glad to have secured first place,” Tetsuya Tamura told AFP, as he sat on a camping chair Tweeting on his iPhone 4, adding the number of people following him on the microblog has shot up by 1,000 since he began his vigil.

“Being here gets my adrenaline going,” Tamura said. “I am using up my annual leave to be here, but getting the first handset will make it all worth it.”

The iPhone goes on sale in Japan on September 20.

Apple on Tuesday unveiled its latest models to an expectant room in California. The company is offering the iPhone 5S, a slick new top-end model, along with iPhone 5C, a pared down version aimed at budget-conscious smartphone shoppers around the world.

Apple has suffered a decline in its global share of the lucrative market as Android-run models, led by Samsung, expand their presence.

The firm now has a window of opportunity in Japan, where the nation’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo will sell the gadget for the first time.

Although sales are now rocketing, Japan came relatively late to the smartphone, with many consumers preferring to stick to clam-shell models that have long-since looked outdated in other developed markets.

While mobile phone technology in Japan initially raced ahead of other parts of the world, it developed in ways that never took off elsewhere, leading to a phenomenon dubbed “Galapagos-ization”, which slowed the introduction of smartphones.

Docomo is now looking to reverse years of lost business after watching domestic rivals cash in on the iPhone bonanza.

The firm, which has about 42 percent of the Japanese market, has lost more than 3.5 million subscribers to rivals since 2008, when SoftBank first rolled out the iPhone in Japan, local media have reported.

source: interaksyon.com

How Steve Jobs' legacy has changed

(CNN) -- When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer in his California home a year ago today, the world rushed to eulogize him in glowing terms: Genius. Visionary. A modern-day Thomas Edison.

Obituaries and video clips focused on how he led a mobile-computing revolution, upended the music industry with iTunes and, at Pixar, changed the way movies are made. Pundits marveled at his brilliance in creating a mystique about Apple products and knowing which unborn electronic gadgets consumers would most desire.

Fans lit candles outside Apple stores around the world, and more than a million people left thanks or tributes to Jobs on Apple's website.

But in the 12 months since, as high-profile books have probed Jobs' life and career, that reputation has evolved somewhat. Nobody has questioned Jobs' seismic impact on computing and our communication culture. But as writers have documented Jobs' often callous, controlling personality, a fuller portrait of the mercurial Apple CEO has emerged.

"Everyone knows that Steve had his 'rough' side. That's partially because he really did have a rough side and partially because the rough Steve was a better news story than the human Steve," said Ken Segall, author of "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success."

"Since Apple is the most-watched company on Earth, there are a ton of writers always looking for the new angle," Segall added. "After all the glowing tributes to Steve ran their course, it's not surprising that the more negative articles would start to pop up."

The book

Nineteen days after Jobs' death, Walter Isaacson's much-awaited biography of the Apple leader hit stores and immediately became the top-selling book in the country. In "Steve Jobs," Isaacson crafted a compelling narrative of how Jobs' co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, got pushed out of the struggling company a decade later and then returned in the late 1990s to begin one of the most triumphant second acts in the annals of American business.

But he also spent many pages chronicling the arrogant, cruel behavior of a complicated figure who could inspire people one minute and demean them the next. According to the book, Jobs would often berate employees whose work he didn't like. He was notoriously difficult to please and viewed people and products in black and white terms. They were either brilliant or "sh-t."

As a young man Jobs abandoned his pregnant girlfriend and was later a cold, distant father to his daughter, Lisa. And in one especially callous episode, Jobs refused to give founding stock options to one of Apple's earliest employees, even after a fellow employee intervened and offered to match whatever Jobs was willing to spare.

"What Isaacson's book did was puncture a hole in the image the rest of the world had of Steve Jobs," said Adam Lashinsky, a senior editor at Fortune and author of "Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works." Thanks to Isaacson, "the population at large has gotten a much fuller picture of who he really was," Lashinsky added. "I don't think that really changes anyone's opinion of his accomplishments. It just may change their opinion of him."

The Isaacson book, and other accounts of Jobs' life and work, have reinforced parallel images of the late executive as an ingenious innovator but a demanding, unpleasant person.

"His stature is greater than ever. No one denies his brilliance and his legacy," said Leander Kahney, editor and publisher of Cult of Mac and author of "Inside Steve's Brain," a book about Jobs.

"However, his personality, his methods, have been thrown into a harsh new light by Isaacson's biography," Kahney told CNN. "Everyone knew he was a taskmaster, but his cruelty -- his relentless, humorless pursuit of corporate perfection -- wasn't so widely acknowledged. It's certainly put some people off. Some see his life as a warning. It's a lesson in how not to devote your life to your work."

This dichotomy was reinforced in July when Wired magazine published a cover story, "Do you really want to be like Steve Jobs?" and a cover image of Jobs wearing both a halo and devil horns. The article argued that Jobs' example has created two camps of people: those who want to emulate his ruthless, idiosyncratic business style, and those who are turned off by his failings as a father and a human.

"Indeed, his life story has emerged as an odd sort of holy scripture for entrepreneurs, a gospel and an anti-gospel at the same time," said the article, by Ben Austen. "To some, Jobs' life has revealed the importance of sticking firmly to one's vision and goals, no matter the psychic toll on employees or business associates. To others, Jobs serves as a cautionary tale, a man who changed the world but at the price of alienating almost everyone around him."

Apple since Steve

Some observers say that Apple's mighty financial performance over the past year, its stock price is almost $300 higher now than it was when Jobs died and Apple is now the world's most valuable company, diminishes Jobs' legacy. If he was so crucial to the company, why are they doing better without him?

Others say Apple's ongoing success cements Jobs' business reputation because the company is being run by a team that he handpicked and is still releasing products, most notably the third-generation iPad and the iPhone 5, that he helped design.

"It's hard to argue that Apple's great financial performance in the last year diminishes Steve's importance at all. It's safe to say that everything we've seen so far has had Steve's mark on it," Segall said. "From this point forward, not as much. The next year or two should be interesting times for Apple watchers, as Steve's direct influence slips further into the past."

Then there's the issue of the much-maligned new Apple maps, which replaced Google Maps as the default mapping system on iOS 6, Apple's new mobile operating system. Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a rare public apology last month for the maps, which have misplaced or mislabeled multiple streets and landmarks.

A few pundits grumbled that Jobs the perfectionist, with his obsessive attention to detail, never would have allowed Apple to release such a flawed product. Others pointed out that Jobs presided over such Apple flops as MobileMe, a subscription service for owners of Apple products, and Ping, a social network centered around music.

Segall doesn't think the maps fiasco will have much impact on Jobs' legacy either way.

"I don't think anyone can conclude that Steve would have made a different decision about releasing Apple Maps," he said in an e-mail to CNN. "But I also don't think Steve would have been as apologetic as Tim Cook was in his open letter. I imagine he would have done something similar to what he did when dealing with the backlash against Apple's ban on Flash. Of course there is a big difference here, in that Flash had a lot of enemies and Google Maps has a lot of fans."

In the long term, however, Apple's fluctuating stock price and flaps over maps probably won't do much to change consumers' opinions of the man who birthed their beloved phones and tablets. And if Steve Jobs is remembered decades from now, it'll likely be as the man who invented the iPod, iPhone and iPad, not as the executive who was sometimes a tyrant. Does anybody really care whether Alexander Graham Bell was cranky?

"Among Apple employees, I'd say his reputation hasn't changed one bit. If anything, it's probably grown because they've realized how central his contributions were," Lashinsky said.

"History tends to forgive people's foibles and recognize their accomplishments. When Jobs died, he was compared to Edison and Henry Ford and to Disney. I don't know what his place will be in history 30, 40, 50 years from now. And one year is certainly not enough time (to judge)."

source: CNN