MacRumors

Citing "channel checks", Jefferies analyst Peter Misek today reported in a research note that Apple appears to be preparing for a television-related product event next month. While Misek does not believe that Apple's rumored television set will be making an appearance at the event, he does suggest that Apple might begin setting the stage for the future product by launching developer tools that would presumably also allow the current Apple TV set-top box to gain third-party apps.

Channel checks indicate Apple has a product event in March that is Apple-TV related (possibly an iTV SDK introduction). We think a Sep/Oct iTV launch is being targeted.

Misek anticipates that Apple will launch its television set in the 42"-55" size range with prices starting around $1500.

Rumors about Apple's television set plans have slowed down in recent months after a flurry of reports at the end of 2012, but just today fresh rumors of a potential Apple acquisition of German television maker Loewe have brought renewed focus.

Apple has also gained regulatory approval for a tweaked Apple TV box, although the company claims that the update incorporates only minor internal changes and will be invisible to users.

With the Apple TV software being based on iOS, Steve Jobs noted at the time of the launch of the revamped box in late 2010 that an App Store for Apple TV could launch when the time is right, indicating that the company has indeed been looking at opening up the platform to third-party developers.

Update: The Loop's Jim Dalrymple has refuted Misek's claim of an event scheduled for next month.

Reuters reports that shares of German television set maker Loewe jumped 43% today as rumors of a possible acquisition by Apple resurfaced. A trader was quoted as saying that Apple is looking to bid 4 euros per share for Loewe, but a company spokesman claimed that Loewe was not aware of any such offer.

Rumors of an Apple acquisition of Loewe first emerged in May of last year, dying when Loewe said there was "absolutely nothing to it". It is not known what has led to the renewed speculation today.

While Loewe's luxury TV designs are very much in line with what might be expected from the long-anticipated Apple television set, given that design is one of Apple's core strengths it is not immediately clear what unique contributions Loewe might bring to the table. The German manufacturer is 28% owned by Sharp, 13% by the company's management, 11% by storage company Lacie, and the rest freely traded.

As of the time of writing, Loewe shares were up 33% to 3.63 euros ($4.89), valuing the company at 53 million euros.

Gartner's quarterly Market Share Analysis: Mobile Phones, Worldwide report shows that Samsung and Apple continue to dominate the smartphone market, with more than 52% of the market between them, but that Android's market share grew dramatically year-on-year while iOS saw a decline.

Samsung's Q4 2012 smartphone sales totalled 64.5 million handsets, up 85.3% on the previous year, while Apple's sales reached 43.5 million, a 22.6% increase. However, with featurephones included in the picture, Apple lays in third place behind Samsung and Nokia, with a 9.2% market share.

The dominance of Android meant that overall iOS market share fell from 23.6% in Q4 2011 to 20.9% a year later. Android increased its market share in the same period from 51.3% to a commanding 69.7%. The bulk of this growth was at the expense of Symbian and RIM, but some of it was from iOS.

The figures are likely to fuel debate about Apple's pace of innovation, with iOS having changed far less dramatically than Android since the launch of each platform. While the Android platform is split across a range of manufacturers, giving it the benefit of being marketed by multiple companies, Samsung alone is responsible for 42.5% of Android sales.

With Samsung commanding over 42.5 percent of the Android market globally, and the next vendor at just 6 percent share, the Android brand is being overshadowed by Samsung’s brand with the Galaxy name nearly a synonym for Android phones in consumers’ mind share.

The report suggests that Apple's continued success may be more due to the halo effect of the brand, rather than the strength of the iOS platform itself.

The success of Apple and Samsung is based on the strength of their brands as much as their actual products. Their direct competitors, including those with comparable products, struggle to achieve the same brand appreciation among consumers, who, in a tough economic environment, go for cheaper products over brand.

Total worldwide mobile phone sales last year fell 1.7% to 1.75 billion, with the economy undoubtedly leading people to delay upgrades.

Apple today announced that it has updated its Retina MacBook Pro lineup with new processors, also moving to lower pricing across the board on the 13-inch models.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now starts at $1,499 for 128GB of flash, and $1,699 for a new 2.6 GHz processor and 256GB of flash. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now features a faster 2.4 GHz quad-core processor, and the top-of-the-line 15-inch notebook comes with a new 2.7 GHz quad-core processor and 16GB of memory.

The high-end 15-inch stock configuration now has the twice the amount of RAM that it had previously and the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro prices are $200 and $300 cheaper than their predecessor models, respectively. Apple has also lowered pricing on SSD upgrades across the Retina MacBook Pro lineup, with the bump from 256 GB to 512 GB now costing $300 instead of $500 and the additional bump to 768 GB costing $400 instead of $500.

In addition to the Retina MacBook Pro updates, Apple has also lowered the price of the 256 GB 13-inch MacBook Air by $100, now starting at $1399.

Update: Apple has also eliminated the high-end stock configuration of the non-Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro, leaving only the base model starting at $1799. Customers can still configure the low-end model with all available options, meaning that the previous high-end configuration is still available, but it is no longer being promoted separately as a stock machine.

President Barack Obama tonight mentioned Apple during his State of the Union speech to Congress, mentioning the fact that Apple will again be building Macs in the United States in 2013. CEO Tim Cook disclosed that plan back in December.

Though he didn't mention which line of computers would be made in the U.S., rumors said Apple would begin manufacturing of the Mac mini there, bringing some 200 jobs to the country.

From President Obama's yearly State of the Union speech:

Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing.

After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three. Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. After locating plants in other countries like China, Intel is opening its most advanced plant right here at home. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again.

Tim Cook attended the State of the Union, sitting in the First Lady's box -- a frequent location for guests who are mentioned in the President's speech. He sat behind and to the side of the First Lady, just behind the Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden.

Note: Due to the off-topic comments, the discussion thread has been closed.

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has a team of about 100 product designers working on a wristwatch computer, according to "two people familiar with the company's plans." The New York Times previously reported that Apple had been "experimenting" with a curved glass smart watch, but Bloomberg believes that Apple's smart watch plans have moved beyond the experimental phase.

The team, which has grown in the past year, includes managers, members of the marketing group and software and hardware engineers who previously worked on the iPhone and iPad, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private. The team’s size suggests Apple is beyond the experimentation phase in its development, said the people.

Apple's senior director of engineering, James Foster, is said to be one of the managers working on the project, which happens to involve challenges like creating a smart watch that doesn't have to be charged every day. The smart watch, known colloquially by some as the "iWatch," would be able to do some of the same tasks as the iPad and iPhone.

Bloomberg also mentions that Apple had been planning a wearable fitness tracking device, much like Nike FuelBand or Jawbone Up, but that Apple had decided not to bring them to market. Apple CEO Tim Cook is a Nike board member and spoke about his own Nike FuelBand at the D10 Conference last year, also saying that wearable devices were an "interesting area" but that "the book hasn't been written on that one yet."

At this morning's Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about a number of topics including vaguely addressing rumors of a possible future iPhone with a larger screen.

Cook focused his comments on the user experience, saying that was more important than specifications. Answering a question about larger screen sizes, Cook had this to say (transcript from Macworld):

I don't want to say what we will do or won't do [regarding a larger screen for the iPhone], and so don't interpret anything I say along those lines. Let me go back and compare it to the PC industry for a minute. The PC industry over the years, the way that companies competed were two things: specs and price. And so people would want to say, "I've got the largest drive," or, "I've got the fastest processor," or in the camera business people began to say, "I've got the most megapixels."

The truth is, customers want a great experience, and they want quality. They want that "Aha!" moment each time that they use the product. And that's rarely a function of any of those things. These are things that technology companies invent because they can't have a great experience, and so they talk about the spec of something.

Cook went on to talk about smartphone displays, saying that "some people are focused on size." He explained that some things are more important than simply size, citing the poor color saturation and brightness on OLED displays.

And so I only bring these points up to say there are many attributes of a display, and what Apple does is sweat every detail. We care about all of them, and we want the best display. And I think we've got it. I feel great about it.

I'm not going to comment about what we're going to do in the future, because that releases our magic, and I'm not going to do that. But, you know, the customer experience is always broader than that which can be defined by a simple number.

Going back to language that he has used before, Cook said that Apple will "never … make a crappy product." He said that for new products, Apple must design "something great, something bold, something ambitious."

One thing he didn't mention was Apple's frequent assertion that the iPhone's screen is the perfect size for "your thumb" -- the ability to hold and use the phone in one hand -- a fact that was mentioned in one of the first television ads for the iPhone 5.

Both Monoprice and Amazon are now offering low cost Lightning cables, priced at $11.77 and $14.99, respectively, for a standard 3-foot cable.

That’s a significant savings over Apple’s official Lightning cables that are sold online and at retail stores for $19.99.

Monoprice is known for offering high quality generic cables at a deep discount. In addition to the standard 3ft cable, Monoprice is also selling a 6ft cable for $12.56 and a Slimfit cable for $12.73. The cables are all MFi certified Lightning to USB charge/sync cables, made to work with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod. The Slimfit cable from Monoprice is set to ship out in the beginning of March, with the other two cables following later in the month.

Amazon is only offering a 3ft MFi Certified cable at this time, but it is available to ship immediately.

While there are cheaper lightning cables available, the offerings from Amazon and Monoprice are MFi (Made for iPad/iPhone/iPod) Certified, which means they have been approved by Apple. Other low cost Lighting cable options are unofficial, which has introduced concerns about quality and compatibility.

Apple has been maintaining strict control over the Lightning connector and accessories that utilize the technology, insisting that Lightning-related accessories are manufactured in Apple-approved facilities. As a result, the introduction of lower-cost licensed Lightning cables has been slow.

iOS 6.1, which was released two weeks ago, brought with it a handful of serious bugs. The first bug, which affected 3G performance on the iPhone 4S was fixed yesterday, following Apple's release of 6.1.1 for the iPhone 4S.

The second bug involved an error that caused iOS devices running 6.1 to continuously loop when synchronizing a recurring calendar meeting invitation on Microsoft Exchange. This error, which causes excessive memory consumption, was not fixed with yesterday's 6.1.1 update.

As noted by 9to5Mac Microsoft has published an official support document offering workarounds for the error.

Microsoft offers up several fixes, including the recommendation not to process Calendar items like meeting requests on iOS 6.1 devices. The company also recommends immediately restarting the devices and renewing the device partnership to halt the continuous looping access.

Devices using iOS 6.1 should be blocked or throttled, says Microsoft, in order to reduce the effect on server resources.

While none of these options are true fixes, Microsoft mentions that it is working with Apple to investigate the issue and suggests customers open an Enterprise Support case with Apple, via Enterprise agreement or a pay-per-incident case report.

At this morning's Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about a number of topics including Apple's Retail division. Cook said that the company's stores are "the face of Apple" and that Apple will continue to invest in them, including the first Apple Retail location in Turkey.

There's no better place to discover, explore, and learn about our products than in retail. Our team members there are the most amazing, awesome, incredible people on earth. It's the best retail experience. It's a retail experience where you walk in and you instantly realize the store is not here for the purpose of selling, it's here for the purpose of serving.

And so the Genius Bar helps you not only with an issue, but it helps you get more out of your Apple products over the life of them. The store acts as a gathering place. It's a place that has an important role in the community. And so if you look at an agenda on an Apple Store for any given day, you might find that there's a youth program going on where the kids from a local elementary school are coming in the store as a part of their field trip. You might find that there's a local musician that's entertaining people in that store on that night. It's incredibly exciting what these stores do.

I'm not even sure "store" is the right word anymore. They've taken on a role much broader than that. They are the face of Apple for almost all of our customers.

Retail accounted for $6.4 billion of Apple's revenue in the holiday quarter, despite the fact that retail has been without a leader since October when John Browett departed the company.

Cook had strong praise for Apple's executive staff today, saying that the executive boardroom is filled with superstars, specifically mentioning Bob Mansfield, Jeff Williams, Phil Schiller, Dan Riccio and Craig Federighi.

Cook's feelings about the quality of his lieutenants may be part of the reason retail has been without an executive for nearly four months. He said Apple may need to spend a significant amount of time to find a new retail head that matches up to the current executive suite -- particularly after the issues Apple had with Browett's management decisions.

Apple spent some 7 months looking for a replacement for Ron Johnson and Tim Cook had high praise for Browett after he was hired, calling him "the best by far". Some seven months after his hiring, Browett was out. The new retail head will need to oversee Apple's continued aggressive international expansion, including stores in a number of new countries including Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia.

At today's AllThingsD Dive Into Media Conference, HBO's Eric Kessler announced that from this moment forward, HBO subscribers will be able to use AirPlay with the HBO Go app.

"Our longterm goal for Go is to be on all devices all platforms," said Kessler. HBO Go is HBO's streaming service that allows subscribers to watch HBO content on PCs, tablets, and consoles.

At this time, HBO Go is not available on the Apple TV, but an app is available for the iPad and the iPhone. With today's changes, iDevices are able to stream HBO Go content to the Apple TV using AirPlay, but the two companies are planning to bring a native HBO Go app to the Apple TV.

"We will get on Apple TV as we've said all along," Kessler said.

Currently, the Apple TV only supports streaming content from subscription apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus, but Apple has been making efforts to expand its content offerings.

At today's AllThingsD Dive Into Media Conference, Intel Media vice president Erik Huggers announced that the company is indeed working on an Internet TV service and a set-top box to go along with it.

Huggers noted that Intel has put together a team of people hired from Apple, Netflix, and Google to work in a new Intel Media group devoted to developing an Internet television platform.

Rumors of an Intel set-top box and TV service began circulating in late December. The setup was said to be similar to what Apple offers with its Apple TV, but with access to cable networks and and a la carte content. Huggers confirmed today that Intel will be offering cable content, but not in a piece meal format as expected.

For the first time we will deliver a new consumer electronics product under a new brand. We'll offer consumers a box and they'll buy this directly from us. It'll be an Intel-powered device with fantastic industrial design. But it's not just a device. We're working with the entire industry to figure out how we get live TV to consumers over the Internet.

Intel is planning its service as an all-in-one solution that will incorporate live TV, catch-up TV, and on-demand TV. "We're shooting for a service that incorporates literally everything. … But Rome wasn't built in a day. It'll take time," Huggers said.

Like Intel, Apple has been rumored to be working on a similar set up for its users, speaking with cable services like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, but Apple has struggled to secure content deals.

It is likely that Intel has had similar problems gaining entry into the cable TV market as content providers have been hesitant to offer television channels piece meal. Though earlier rumors suggested Intel would serve up individual channels a la carte, Huggers says that the company is taking a different approach.

Intel will provide the same bundled content that cable services offer, but over the internet, and he does not expect it to be less expensive.

Intel's proposal is similar to traditional cable offerings, and not the piece meal cable revolution that was expected when the project was originally announced. "We believe that there is value in bundles, if bundles are done right," he said, as noted by TechCrunch.

Though Intel is beginning with a more traditional cable model, the company remains interested in changing the way that cable is delivered in the future.

According to Huggers, the unnamed project will launch later this year.

Apple has been awarded a patent (via AppleInsider) for 'microslot antenna' technology, which could enable 'invisible' radio antennas to be embedded into the housing of a Mac, iPhone or iPad to save space inside and allow for more compact devices.

The antennas would use microscopic slots in the housing, with widths of just a few microns, making them almost invisible to the naked eye. The patent shows a variety of possible locations for the antennas on a laptop, though the same approach would likely be taken with iPhones and iPads also.

Current devices may contain antennas for GSM, 3G/LTE, GPS, wifi and Bluetooth, though some of these may be combined. The iPhone 5, for example, uses just two antennas for the five functions, using rapid frequency switching to enable one antenna to do two jobs. Eliminating the need for internal antenna space altogether would, though, allow for slimmer and smaller devices.

As TechCrunch observes, this could also create the possibility of an all-aluminum case. Apple has previously had to have a small area of glass or plastic to provide radio windows for the internal antennas. Microslot antennas would eliminate this need, perhaps leading to more Mac-like iPhones and iPads in future.

Apple's interest in the possibility of implementing microslot antennas dates back to at least 2007 when the patent was filed, meaning that the concept may be requiring significant refinement before arriving in a shipping product or may have been scrapped entirely by this point. Still, it is clear that Apple is continuing to look for ways to handle the increasing complexity of wireless communications while maintaining its design goals for size and aesthetics.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is now speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, participating in a Q&A session with analyst Bill Shope. Apple is streaming live audio of the session on its investor site, and we'll be sharing some of the highlights here in this post.

Question about Apple's cash usage strategy...do you have a Depression-era mentality?

What a way to start! We're making significant investments in a number of areas: supply chain, retail stores, corporate acquisitions, etc. Now, we do have a significant amount of cash, and we're fortunate to have that. We're returning some of it to investors and will continue to have discussions on that.

Thoughts on Greenlight's proposal about unlocking more capital for shareholders?

We welcome input from our shareholders and are discussing a broad array of options.

How about Greenlight's lawsuit regarding your proxy statement?

There are some misconceptions over what this is about. It's not about turning money back to shareholders. It's about corporate governance. So we've decided to eliminate the ability to issue "blank check" shares ourselves. We could still do it, but would have to go to shareholders for approval. So frankly, this seems bizarre to me that we're being sued over something that's good for shareholders.

We wish people involved in this lawsuit would take this money and donate it to a good cause. This is a waste of money for all involved...a silly sideshow. But you're not going to see us sending out a mailing or campaigning for our proposal. It's the right thing to do, and I'm going to vote for it. You're not going to see a "Yes on 2" sign in my front yard.

Question on acquisitions...most of them are small. Is there something in your culture against large acquisitions?

We do a fair number of acquisitions...one every other month. Most of them are for talented people working on smaller projects that we absorb and then move them to our own projects. PA Semi is an example...talented chip folks working on PowerPC and we moved them to iOS device work. We'll do more deals like this.

As for large companies, we have and will continue to look at them. But so far they haven't passed smell test for us. We could do it, but we're disciplined. Not interested in just growing revenue, but if there was a large acquisition that fit our needs, we would do it.

➜ Click here to read rest of article...

An analysis by Asymco of Apple's newly-introduced revenue breakdowns claims that Apple made more money from iTunes and accessories sales alone than all other companies except Samsung made from phone sales during the most recent quarter.

As noted in its latest earnings release for the first fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple's total revenues from iTunes and accessories amounted to over $5.5 billion - ahead of the total phone revenues of each of Nokia, Motorola, Sony, LG, RIM (now rebranded as BlackBerry) and HTC.

Analysis author Horace Dediu also notes that iTunes may be worth more to Apple than its Mac business within the current year.

iTunes+Accessories combined is a bigger business in terms of revenues than any of the other phone vendors except Samsung. iTunes is now Apple’s fourth largest business, having overtaken the iPod in revenues two years ago. iTunes growth relative to the Mac means that it could become the third largest business during this year.

The figures also make iTunes bigger than Microsoft's combined Xbox and Windows Phone divisions.

Meantime, Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt (via Business Insider) suggests that Apple receives around a billion dollars a year from Google in return for making Google the default search on iOS devices, up roughly tenfold from just three years ago. It had previously been believed that Apple had a revenue-sharing deal with Google, but Devitt believes Apple would have gone for the neater and less risky option of a flat fee per device sold.

The steep rise in value for the search deal is said to have been driven in part by Microsoft which has been becoming increasingly aggressive about making such deals for its Bing search engine but has yet to secure a partnership with Apple for iOS to make the switch.