Metue.com

There comes a point when calling each successive performance a record starts to get a little ridiculous.  Apple crossed that threshold a long time ago but the fiscal rocket ship flying out of Cupertino isn’t showing any signs of slowing down either.   Even in spite of lofty expectations and market acceptance of Apple’s generally conservative guidance, Apple yet again flew by the benchmarks laid down to measure its performance.

Monday,  Apple’s reported revenue for the September quarter up 25% year over year to $9.87b (the company’s second best total on record).  Profits surged 47%.

For the fourth quarter, Apple earned $1.67b, or $1.82 a share, compared to $1.14 billion, or $1.26 a share, in the same period a year ago. Click to Read More

Verizon, the biggest wireless service provider in the US has been loosely linked to Google’s Android operating system in the past but Tuesday the companies ratcheted up the stakes with word of a strategic partnership.

In a joint announcement (release), timed to coincide with the CTIA Wireless show, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said his company and Google plan to  "co-develop a family of Android based devices … with innovative applications from both companies."

Talks between the two giants began almost eighteen months ago and the first few devices to come out of the deal will be announced in a “few weeks.”

Both Verizon and Google are pledging to commit “substantial resources” to the project.  They are also pledging openness.

Click to Read More

When you talk about the magnitude of a business, there’s scale and then there’s SCALE.  Apple unequivocally reached the second plateau with its App Store Monday.

In a short press release, the company announced customers have downloaded more than 2 billion applications since the store’s debut.  That’s a jump of 500 million downloads since July, or an even billion since April.

Steve Jobs has to be happy in Cupertino.

To add some color and put 2 billion downloads in context, we’ve hit the spreadsheets.  Crunching the numbers:

• Average Downloads Per Day – The App Store has delivered approximately 4.5m downloads per day since its debut in July 2008.  Since mid July of this year, when Apple triumphantly announced it had delivered 1.5 billion downloads, the rate’s jumped to somewhere near 6.5m per day.  (Ed. Note: averages are approximate due to inexact information about the days on which Apple crossed each download milestone.   See table).

• Available Titles – Back in March, the App store had about 30k applications to offer.  Since July, the number of available titles has jumped from 65,000 to 85,000 and the number of developers has advanced from 100,000 to 125,000.

• Free or Paid – According to an App Store product survey maintained by 148Apps, the App Store had 83,618 titles available for download in the U.S. on September 28th (just under Apple’s report of 85k titles). Of these 83.6k downloads, approximately 23%, or 19,514 titles were free.

Click to Read More

It usually takes a few days or weeks after a product hits the store shelves before there is a public tear-down and reports about its innards (and manufacturing costs).    Jumping the gun, and working off “insider sources” instead of an actual look inside, several sites began sketching out the details and performance specs on the new iPhone 3G S internals this week. 

Many of the details have been rumored for a while and are probably accurate but it’ll be at least a few weeks before any actual dissection of the phone can confirm or debunk them. Still, for those looking for early insight into where things are, or where they might be going, here some of the gist from the hardware reports:

Click to Read More

There was much speculation when Jon Rubinstein joined Palm in 2007 that he’d eventually run the company if it could get back on track.  He was lured out of retirement for the challenge, had the support of the company’s investors who’d recruited him, and was loaded with fresh ideas.  Many thought it was a question of when not if.  Now they have their answer.  Wednesday, Palm announced the former Apple exec’s promotion to chairman and CEO. 

Earlier in his career, while at Apple, where he oversaw the iPod’s development, Rubinstein was part of a team of many talented executives.  At Palm, he’ll talk the helm of the entire ship.

Known as an effective manager, a team builder and an engineering whiz, Rubinstein spearheaded the rapid deployment of the iMac and the development of the iPod division as Apple’s head of hardware engineering.  Since joining Palm as executive chairman, he’s been the head Click to Read More

True to expectation, Apple launched its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco Monday with bang, or at least, plenty of news.  Two days after Palm rolled out the Pre, a solid Smartphone in its own right, Apple rolled out the latest incarnation of its own category killer, the iPhone 3G S.

Like the second incarnation that came before (iPhone 3G), the news of the phone was anticipated, and largely as forecast:

Behind a lead-in of teasing sales numbers touting 40m iPhone and iPod Touch Units sold, and the 50k applications available in the App Store (compared to less than 5,000 at the closest competitor: Android), the Keynote Speech showcased the phone and the official installment of the 3.0 software package for the platform.

Leading the improvement list, Click to Read More

The iPhone is a great device, there’s no denying its innovations but the phone’s greatest competitive advantage may well be the platform not the product.  A few minutes ago,  Apple’s supporting “App Store” passed a billion downloads. 

A billion downloads in about nine months?  That translates to an estimated 37 million customers (representing Apple’s disclosure for combined iPhone and iPod Touch unit sales), downloading 27 programs a piece – and with no sign of slowing down. 

It took Apple six months to hit 500m in January.  It took only three months, to double up.

Apple will no doubt promote the achievement, but even without any hype – it’s staggering.  It’s hard to think of any product or service (technology or otherwise) that’s had that kind of consumer uptake in comparable scale and speed.

Click to Read More