Tim Cook

Apr 24 2012

Apple Sold 35.1 Million iPhones and 11.8 Million iPads 2nd Quarter

Apple announced their quarterly profits today with their net profits up a whopping 94% over 2nd quarter 2011.   During 2nd quarter 2012, Apple sold a total of 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads resulting in a quarterly net profit of 11.8 Billion USD during the quarter.  They also sold 7.7 million ipods during the same quarter.  The number of iOS devices is now over 365 million devices thanks to to the sales of the devices this previous quarter.

Apple’s cash on hand reached a staggering 110.2 billion USD, which is a 12.6 billion increase over the previous quarter.  Apple is planning to pay a $2.55 per share dividend at the end of 3rd quarter 2012.

By admin • Apple Inc., Stock Price, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Mar 7 2012

Apple Introduces new iPad

Tim Cook took the stage today in San Francisco and quickly worked through a number of stats, finally introducing Japanese Siri and then the new upgraded Apple TV.  However, that was not the highlight.  The iPad 3 came up on the screen, sleeker, and smoother, with Retina Display and Quad Core Graphics with the Apple 5X CPU.   The machine comes with a 5 megapixel camera and has 1080P Video Recording.   It has standard voice dictation and is  4G LTE next generation wireless.     Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus, and AT&T will all be LTE partners.   All of the new iPads will come with 3G so they will work globally.

The iPad 3 can also now act as a hotspot for your wireless devices. The battery life on the new iPad will be 10 hours and 9 hours for 4G LTE  The Ipad 3 will come in 3 models: 16gb, 32gb, and 64gb with the pricing at $499/$599/$699 unless you want 4G and then it is $629/$729/$829.

The new iPad 3 will be available on 16 March in the main countries including Japan and then additional countries on March 23rd.  The iPad 2 will continue to be available for $399 for the 16gb model.  Wi-Fi + 3G will be $529.

 

By admin • Apple Computing, Apple Inc., CEO, iPad, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Feb 13 2012

Tim Cook to Speak at Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference

Apple Inc. (AAPL) CEO, Tim Cook will speak at the Goldman Sach’s (GS) Technology and Internet Conference tomorrow at 12:30 PM Pacific Time.  The Apple Investor Relations page has a direct link for the audio portion of the speech.  Tim will be among a host of CEO’s and IT industry companies speaking at the conference about the future and direction of their companies.

Many people are expecting he will be announcing the upcoming Apple iPad 3 event but his focus may be on the cash hoard that Apple is sitting on and how Apple Inc. plans to use that cash.   If you would like to hear the speech, you can follow along at:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/conference/

By admin • Apple Inc., CEO, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Jan 30 2012

Apple Stock Down $1.58 in Pre-Market Trading

Apple is starting this week where it ended last week on a downward spiral.   While the record highs hit last week are still freah in people’s minds, the $445.70 USD per share at 8:17 AM EST is off by 1.58 or 0.35% per share.  News over the weekend included news of the lawsuit against Apple and other tech giants for colluding to prevent employees from jumping from one company to another,  While these claims have not been substantiated, they are the first serious challenge for Apple post Profit announcement.  There was also Tim Cooks response to the accusation that Apple is exploiting cheap Chinese labor and that Apple really didn’t care about the people building the products.

By admin • Apple Inc., Lawsuits, Stock Price, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jan 26 2012

Apple Employees Getting New Discounts

Yesterday, Tim Cook held a town hall meeting with employees of Apple Inc.   While there were several items discussed, perhaps the biggest surprise was the new employee discounts that Apple employees will get.   Each employee will get $500 off Mac Purchases and $250 off iPad purchases, once every three years.  The discounts will begin in June 2012 and it is only available to employees who have been with the company for more than 90 days.  It is also not applicable to the Mac Mini.  Employees already get a 25 percent discount on purchases of Macs.

Source: 9 to 5 Mac

By admin • Apple Inc., Employees, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jan 25 2012

Bytes From The Apple – Will Apple’s great Quarter push expectations too high?

Apple had a slam dunk, in your face type of quarter in quarter 1, 2012.  It’s profits were beyond that of any belief.   The stock price jumped to over 455 USD a share at one point after profits were announced.  The number of iPhone 4S’s sold were more than 4 million units beyond that of even the most optimistic analyst.  It was a huge success, but there are cracks in the mirror.

Supply is an issue for the iPhones, hard drives are still problematic for the desk tops, and really, the fiasco in Beijing cant be good for the next quarters profits.  Even Apple themselves were selling the good results this quarter as a one off type of deal.  But what is the truth.

At this point, Apple is the most valuable company in the United States.   It is selling products that customers wait in lines for days to get, and their corner on the Tablet Market doesnt look like it will wane any time soon.  This will especially be true if behind this great quarter, Apple comes out and announces the iPad 3. However, the iPad3 will need to have some major improvements in order to keep it on the leading edge of the market.  People are also expecting the iPhone 5 or something of the sort sometime within the next 12 months and that should also be a super star seller if it increases capabilities exponentially.

If all of these items are introduced this year, what will hapen next?  The stock go through the 1000 USD mark?   Or will we hear a large thud next quarter in Cupertino as Apple comes back to reality?  While Apple seems to be playing up the we are not going to do that well this quarter bit, it is doubtful that it will be any kind of crash to earth.  It will more likely be more modest profits, but profits all the same.

Many people are still attributing this quarters results to Steve Jobs, however, Tim cook has been in control for a while now really and if this quarter is anything to judge his tenure by, it should be a good one.   Apple still has tons of money and plenty of time for a few stumbling blocks along the way, but looking at the current state of affairs, it looks like the steps will keep spiraling upward.

And speaking of all that money.  97.6 Billion USD in cash.   No one can even really fathom that amount in their minds, yet Apple is still sitting on it.  While they say they are talking about how to use the cash horde, they really could just keep accumulating the cash and sit on it.  Investors might like some dividends but then I guess the stock price rising the way it is is thanks enough for the average investor. The way Apple will likely spend it is to keep producing the kinds of products we have come to expect, leading the way, spending on research and development and more factories.

By admin • Apple Inc., Bytes From The Apple, Columns, Quarterly Reports, Steve Jobs, Stock Price, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jan 19 2012

Inside Apple – The real story of what goes on inside Apple

Adam Lashinsky’s book about Apple Inc and its inner workings is due out next week.   The book, which purports to tell how things works at apple is the latest book about the company and second to be published since the death of CEO Steve Jobs.   While most books written about Apple have focused on Steve himself, this one focuses on how Apple handles its people, secrecy and security within the company.

The 272 page book is “a golden ticket to step inside” apple and see how they do things there.

You can pre-order the book from the iTunes Store for $12.99 USD at:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/inside-apple/id444015286?mt=11

By admin • Apple Inc., Books, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jan 17 2012

What’s Really Coming on the 19th of January 2012 from Apple

On January 19th, 2012, Apple Inc. is scheduled to have an education related announcement in the heart of New York City. While many in the world are speculating that apple is trying to “destroy the textbook industry”, We suspect that they are just following up on several lines of thought.

First, Texas was the first in the nation to embrace to totally digital textbook idea. It currently saves the state 2 billion USD per year in text book costs. If Apple is really going to “destroy the textbook industry”, then it will have to have the help of three places. The Apple suppliers and factories.  Apple needs to deliver the iPad3 immediately and it must have markedly superior capabilities to the current models with upgrades in nearly everything.  The cameras, the memory, the UI, and of course the power of the machines.  Second is the states.  Apple also needs the states to buy the iPads  and buy into the idea that digital text books are better than the paper ones. Thirdly, the textbook manufacturers.  Apple is  also going to have to get the current textbook publishing companies to go completely to digital copies of books and abandon the idea of printing books on paper (please tell me where we have heard this idea before). Of course, while we are at it,  why not destroy the entire physical book industry.  Could this not the end of the entire hold it in your hand type book industry? (Again, tell me where I have heard this before)

What little do we know that as of 19 January 2012, everything in our libraries will become controlled by computer and by the amount of memory in the computing device. If a glitch or hardware failure hits them, they are gone! Great idea!  That way the book companies can charge consumers for another copy of a book they have already paid for.  Thankfully, Apple has resolved this blight in the system for us by already incorporating that into the cost of the initial copy.  But this will get people buying books from Apple and now it will be very easy for  every book we ever order can be checked out by someone in the Ministry of Truth.

Second, the ebook publishing format currently used by Apple with their iBook store is epub2. epub2 is outdated and definitely not up to snuff with the current level of ideas in the digital publishing arena. They must implement epub3 and do it not only quickly but also they must support it with their announcement. If they fail to implement the new standards, they will not only not get the support from the publishing industry that they need, but they also will not get the teachers or the schools or states. Apple’s 1980′s education initiative put apples in many schools across the country but there were definitely haves and have-nots in that game.I suspect that the Trash-80 vs Apple wars came out of this idea of haves and have-nots.  Unless Apple is going to subsidize an iPad for every student in the US, we will likely have this same flame ware between the Android Tablet vs Apple iPad users  of this generation. This subsidization might deplete 10 percent of their 85 Billion Dollar war chest of cash.  Perhaps the Ministry of Plenty will forgive them for being so generous and the Ministry of Peace will thank them for ending the perpetual wars between the haves and have-nots.

Thirdly, Apple must make it easier to publish to the Apple book store. Our suggestion that iPublish is the new publishing product that they will introduce on the 19th is not far fetched.  It would definitely get the ball rolling to the point where everyone and their brother in the publishing industry would suddenly publish for Apple and no one else.  Should such an app not appear on the goodie bag list, Apple could suffer for a long time in the publishing arena and it would likely make any push for the education initiative mute point. Up until now, they have always supported the larger publishers when introducing the latest products and failed miserably at getting the smaller mom-and-pop shop types on board.  Apple must get them and the end consumer to the same playing field as those big guys. This failure to provide a clear path to the promised land is the reason that many of the smaller publishing companies wind up paying through the nose to some big publishing company just to reach that playing field. This is definitely the one area they need to improve upon if they really want to get ahead of the game.

Will Apple announce the iPad3? Not likely, but they may have a pre-anouncement type announcement which they will announce the initiative and then say when the iPad3 comes out, it will be available, similar to Steve Jobs famous “You don’t need an SDK” statement at WWDC 2007. We all know that changed in a hurry. With all of the parts rumors going around, it is possible that we may see the iPad3 mid year 2012.

Thus the announcement will be “We are starting an Education Initiative, we are digitizing books (already been done), and the book companies are on board (already been done).” No hardware and quite possibly, no software which would make this the biggest non-event type event Apple ever had. Oh Wait, there is one more thing….I was dreaming.

The real announcement will be “iPad3 with 256gb memory in 2 months, iPublish in 2 months, and all current major text books on iPad3, including those used by major universities in time for school year 2012-2013 to start”.  One more thing…Break out the check books!

By billm • Apple Inc., Bytes From The Apple, Columns, Events, New Product, Rumors, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

May 23 2001

The Northern Spy — From WWDC Part II

The feedback sessions at WWDC provide some of the most interesting and informative times. The VP event this year was a highlight. Many of the questions centered around education, and Tim Cook, Senior VP, Worldwide Operations took much of the heat.

Why? Understanding higher education goes past price and compatibility issues. There was once a weight of Apple presence at the university level, but no longer (especially in Canada), and this is the nub of market share loss.

You see, university education is fundamentally unlike business. A professor don’t see bottom line results at the end of the month. They become evident in people’s lives ten years or more later–why I’m in education (including writing) and not in business. It’s so for Apple. Overall market share in the late nineties collapsed for many reasons, but failure to keep universities in the fold a decade earlier was a big part of the problem. They replaced with Wintel; their grads bought and developed for Wintel

Are things changing? Where are the institutional research partnerships? Where are the coop/intern arrangements? Where are the faculty exchanges with Apple’s campus? Where are the corporate academics who ought to be on the speaker circuit among us? Where are the research contracts with universities? Where are the showcase schools that fundraise for jointly-sponsored facilities while Apple advertises on the back of corporate-academic partnerships? Where is the support for the few friends Apple has left in academia? What does Apple even know about university life, research, partnerships, and cooperative marketing?

Marketing to universities is more than sales, more than cool. It’s an investment; it’s hard work. Apple hasn’t been serious about taking the many steps needed to change things. Is it now?

What should Apple do?

  • revive the education consortium
  • cooperatively set up a handful of showcase schools with Mac labs
  • do joint fundraising/advertising with universities
  • get more involved with coop/intern programs
  • fund research; get involved in technology transfer
  • fund some high profile chairs of computing science
  • exchange academics to the Apple campus
  • identify key institutions (not always the largest) and market aggressively to them
  • make deals students cannot resist on hardware and developer tools
  • lower the price of the premiere developer package
  • make a deal with, say, Franklin, to co-brand their e-book reader as an Apple product and market it to universities and their students as a low-cost textbook source
  • better yet, get the PIEA (Personal Intelligence Enhancement Appliance) right by marrying cell phone-computer-bookreader-PDA in a pocket package
  • have FileMaker buy Nisus, Eudora, and a spreadsheet and sell a serious productivity package in direct competition with MS. Market to students first.

After all, OS X on a desktop or portable (even it it did last 20 years) isn’t really the future, it’s the present. What about the future? The good old Apple (as opposed to the bad old Apple) got the future right most of the time, and this is always at least as important as getting the present right. The improved current Apple need to be readying the next generation of hardware and software, and achieving true portability. It needs even more to capture mind share at the universities, or else…

–Rick Sutcliffe

By rsutcliffe • Columns, The Northern Spy, Tim Cook • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,