MacRumors

Following recent meetings with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty today issued a research note sharing some of her takeaways from those discussions and her views on Apple's future plans.

While she did not disclose any specific information shared by Oppenheimer, Huberty did come away feeling that Apple will be working hard to expand carrier partnerships and distribution for the iPhone to drive growth in Apple's largest segment. She also believes that Apple is working to develop new services to take advantage of the "stickiness" of the Apple ecosystem.

On the topic of the lower-cost iPhone which has been the subject of increasing rumors, Huberty makes the case Apple's experience with the iPad mini and continued strong sales of the iPhone 4 that saw the company experiencing shortages throughout the fourth quarter of 2012 are driving the company's efforts to focus more on cheaper offerings.

We also see several signs that a lower priced iPhone makes sense: 1) iPad Mini is expanding Apple's customer base with 50% of purchases in China/Brazil representing new customers to the ecosystem. 2) Chinese consumers show a desire to purchase the latest version of iPhone (instead of discounted older generations). 3) iPhone 4 demand surprised to the upside in the December quarter. Even at a low 40% gross margin and 1/3 cannibalization rate, we see an "iPhone Mini" as incremental to revenue and gross profit dollars.

Huberty goes on to note that she believes Apple has maintained its long-standing approach to product decisions under the leadership of Tim Cook and that the company remains committed to innovation with a strong product pipeline under development. Despite continued investments in that pipeline, Huberty believes that Apple is likely to return more cash to shareholders as its cash holdings continue to grow.

A judge has decided to block a vote on Question 2 at Apple's annual shareholder's meeting next week, according to a report from Reuters.

Hedge fund Greenlight Capital, a major shareholder of Apple stock, filed a lawsuit earlier this month asking that Apple be prevented from bundling a number of proposals into one ballot question at the shareholders meeting. The firm argued that the bundling of three separate corporate governance proposals into one question was in violation of SEC rules.

A judge handed hedge fund star David Einhorn a victory in his court battle with Apple Inc on Friday, blocking the iPhone maker from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

Proposal 2 contains language relating to the term of office of the board of directors, language about the board's ability to issue preferred shares of AAPL stock without shareholder approval, and the establishment of a par value for the company's common stock.

Apple CEO Tim Cook called the lawsuit a "silly sideshow" and "a waste of money for all involved", but the judge presiding over the case disagreed. Apple issued a statement in early January saying it was in "active discussions" about ways to return cash to shareholders as Greenlight head David Einhorn has requested.

Update: AllThingsD has the text of the judge's ruling.

Update 2: Apple has withdrawn Proposal No. 2 from its proxy statement, issuing this statement:

We are disappointed with the court’s ruling. Proposal #2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders’ best interests. Unfortunately, due to today’s decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal #2 at our annual meeting next week.

FixYa, a site that provides consumer generated troubleshooting tips, today released a "Smartphone Reliability Report" that compares user complaints on smartphones from Apple (iPhone), Samsung (Galaxy), Nokia (Lumia), and Motorola (Droid).

Based on the reported problems, which come from a database of 30 million users, FixYa assigned a dependability score to each manufacturer. According to FixYa's rankings, Apple products were the most reliable, with the fewest reported problems.

Apple received a dependability score of 3.47, a good deal higher than the 1.21 that Samsung received. Nokia and Motorola received scores of 0.68 and 0.13, respectively. To get these scores, the site used 722,558 troubleshooting questions from smartphone owners, normalized the data for relative marketshare, and analyzed the data to determine reliability.

Fixya users lauded the reliability of the iPhone, stating that it is almost always working as intended in regards to core features and never hits a constant roadblock with one feature.

Of the complaints that were made about Apple's iPhones, battery life was the number one problem, making up 35 percent of user issues. A lack of new features was the second biggest complaint, while no customizability and WiFi problems were also brought up.

In the past, battery life has been a significant issue for iPhone owners. Most notably, iOS 5 had bugs that affected battery performance, which Apple later fixed. The iPhone 5 has also had battery issues, particularly when using the phone in areas with a weak signal.

As for Apple's competitors, FixYa users had complaints about Samsung's microphone and speaker issues, Motorola's touchscreen, and Nokia's load response times.

The Verge's Joshua Topolsky has written a lengthy piece about his experiences using Google Glass, the company's new on-face computer.

Google Glass is a tiny computer that mounts to an eyeglass frame and has a small display that is visible only to the user. The wearable device has a built-in camera that sees what the wearer sees, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connections. The glasses can handle many of the same tasks as smartphones, including giving driving directions, sending text messages, showing weather reports and more.

Some potential purchasers were concerned that Glass would only be compatible with Google's Android smartphone operating system, but it appears the device will be able to tether to any smartphone via Bluetooth. Topolsky writes:

The device gets data through Wi-Fi on its own, or it can tether via Bluetooth to an Android device or iPhone and use its 3G or 4G data while out and about. There’s no cellular radio in Glass, but it does have a GPS chip.

Google hopes to put Glass on sale sometime before the end of the year for less than $1,500.

Apple is working with the New York City Police Department to locate stolen iPhones and iPads, a radical change from the hands-off approach that the company employed previously. The NYPD estimated that the theft of Apple products accounted for a significant rise in crime in the Big Apple, with more than 3,890 reported thefts of Apple products in 2012.

Reports The New York Post:

Every time an Apple device is stolen, detectives attempt to get tracking numbers from the victim or online records.

That number, known as the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, is then shared with the officers in Police Headquarters who pass it on to Apple.

The California-based company then informs the NYPD of the device’s current location — and it can track it even if it was reregistered with a different wireless provider.

Apple has been criticized in the past for not having a centralized database of stolen devices and for even repairing or replacing stolen units under warranty. It isn't yet known if this is a new program that any police department can use, or if it is only applicable to the NYPD.

Following last week's introduction of new processors for the Retina MacBook Pro lineup, Primate Labs has analyzed benchmarks coming in from the new machines through the company's popular Geekbench 2 software.

Unsurprisingly, the benchmarks reveal a roughly 3-5% increase in Geekbench scores for each of the processor bumps. For the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro lineup, Apple bumped each of the three available processors by 100 MHz, accounting for the minor benchmark improvements.

One thing to note is that the new mid-range Retina MacBook Pro has the same speed processor as the old high-end Retina MacBook Pro. However, the new mid-range model is slightly slower than the old high-end model. While this seems surprising at first, the difference is easily explained by comparing the two processors: the old high-end processor has more cache than the new mid-range processor.

For the 13-inch lineup, the 100 MHz speed bumps were limited to machines based on the high-end stock configuration starting at 256 GB of storage, with those machines also seeing a 3-5% improvement in Geekbench scores.

Aside from the processor improvements for the Retina MacBook Pro lineup, Apple also reduced pricing on the 13-inch models by $200-$300, increased RAM on the high-end 15-inch stock configuration, and reduced pricing on storage options.

The reality of the "post-PC era" predicted by Steve Jobs at the launch of the iPad 2 in 2011 can clearly be seen in a single graphic created by market intelligence company IDC in a report on what the firm refers to as the Smart Connected Device Market.

The chart shows the market share decline of both desktop PCs (from 23% in 2010 to just 12% in 2012) and laptops (from 29% to 17%), while tablets grew from 3% to 11% and smartphones from 45% to 60%. Overall, PCs have seen their share of the total smart connected device market fall from roughly 50% to just 30% in only two years.

The figures do not, of course, necessarily indicate device preference, as some may choose a cheaper device for financial reasons, especially in developing markets.

Across the four markets, Apple increased its market share from 16.3% in 2011 to 18.2% in 2012, but dropped from first to second place as it was outpaced by Samsung, whose market share grew from 12.3% to 20.8%.

Google today announced the Chromebook Pixel, a new Chrome OS-based notebook that Google is aiming directly at Apple's MacBook Air.

On the hardware front, Google has built in a high-resolution touchscreen display, as well as 32 or 64GB SSD storage, a backlit keyboard, and a dual core 1.8GHz Intel i5 processor. The unit includes a 12.85" screen with a 2560 x 1700, 239 ppi display -- the same range as Apple's 13" MacBook Pro with Retina, which has a 227 ppi screen -- as well as two USB 2.0 ports, a Mini Display Port connector, and a SD-card reader.

The machine runs Google's Chrome OS, the web-only operating system that the company introduced almost two years ago. As added perks, the Pixel comes with 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage for three years, and 12 free sessions of GoGo inflight Wi-Fi.

So what’s next? Today we’re excited to announce our newest laptop—the Chromebook Pixel—which brings together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. With the Pixel, we set out to rethink all elements of a computer in order to design the best laptop possible, especially for power users who have fully embraced the cloud. The philosophy of Chrome has always been to minimize the “chrome” of the browser. In much the same way, the goal of the Pixel is to make the pixels disappear, giving people the best web experience.

The Pixel comes in two flavors, a $1,300 model that includes 32GB of SSD storage and Wi-Fi connectivity, while the $1,450 option adds built-in LTE and a 64GB SSD. The Wi-Fi only model ships today while the LTE model is expected in 6-7 weeks.

While the Pixel's hardware is appealing, because it runs the Chrome OS there are not nearly as many apps available for it as comparable Windows or OS X machines. Gadget recommendation site The Wirecutter had this to say:

Maybe someday Chrome OS will really be enough of an operating system to replace Mac OS X or Windows on a productivity machine. But at $1,300, the Chromebook Pixel is just too much machine for the software. If you have the money to spend on the Pixel and you need the kind of hardware it's packing, you have so many other better options.

Major League Baseball has updated its MLB At Bat app for the 2013 baseball season, refining the app in several areas and adding multi-platform access for subscriptions purchased through the MLB At Bat's In-App Purchase mechanism. The app provides baseball fans with access to subscription-based live game radio and television broadcasts, MLB GameDay play-by-play service, and more.

There are several subscription levels depending on whether the user wants streaming television broadcasts, or just the radio broadcasts. The app itself, a universal app designed for both the iPhone and iPad, is a free download and offers free league-wide scoreboards and limited access to news and non-live video content from Major League Baseball.

There are two main subscription packages. The high-end $130/season MLB.tv Premium offers everything: live home-and-away television broadcasts for "out-of-market" games (that is, users can't watch their local team's television coverage) as well as live game home-and-away radio broadcasts, and the ability to watch on mobile devices, PC's, the Apple TV, and consoles. Users can also watch a growing number of archived classic games. MLB.tv Premium can be purchased through the MLB website or via in-app subscription for $25/month.

The cheaper At Bat 2013 product, which is available as an in-app purchase for $20/season or $3/month, offers both home-and-away radio broadcasts with no blackout restrictions.

New for this year, subscribers who purchase MLB.tv Premium or At Bat 2013 through IAP will get to access in-game audio or TV broadcasts not only on the iPhone and iPad, but on Android devices, as well as Macs and PCs and consoles (as applicable).

MLB Advanced Media has promised more upgrades to the app before opening day at the beginning of April, and told MacRumors that the company is aware that customers would very much like to stream local games without blackout restrictions, but that the content deals to allow that are extremely complex and difficult to negotiate.

MLB At Bat is a free universal download from the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple has seeded iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 to developers. In line with our suspicions following the launches of iOS 6.1.1 and 6.1.2 emergency bug fixes released over the past two weeks, the original iOS 6.1.1 beta track has now been relabeled as iOS 6.1.3 with this second beta.

Release notes for the original beta version had indicated that it focused on Maps improvements for Japan, and Apple indicates that the beta now addresses the passcode lock bug publicized last week.

The release of the new beta comes just over two weeks after the release of the first beta version, although at least part of Apple's team has undoubtedly been sidetracked by rushing the emergency Wi-Fi and Exchange bug fixes through development. A target date for a public release of iOS 6.1.3 is unknown.

Mobiles Pie points to a forum thread [Google translation] at Chinese site WeiPhone sharing a number of photos of what may be the rear shell of the second-generation iPad mini.

The photos show a shell very similar to that of the current iPad mini, although from some angles it does appear to be slightly thicker. It is difficult to tell, however, whether the apparent increased thickness is a genuine design change needed to add a Retina display and accompanying battery improvements to the device or if it is simply a bit of an optical illusion due to the fact that the edges of the shell have not yet been chamfered as they are in the final product.

The photos also show a bright blue Apple logo and "iPad" text on the rear shell, but it is possible that this is simply part of the process used to create the mirrored logo and text as seen on the current product. Alternatively, it may be an effort to add additional color to the iPad mini as Apple did with the iPod touch last September and has been rumored to be using for an upcoming lower-cost iPhone.

Perhaps notably, the forum user who posted the images had posted back in December [Google translation] sharing images of what he said was the initial machining process for the iPad mini rear shell. Their legitimacy is, however, unconfirmed.

Update 12:24 PM: Nowhereelse.fr has taken a close look [Google translation] at the two photo sets from December and this week, noting in both sets the presence of boxes labeled "Catcher", which is indeed one of Apple's primary casing suppliers. The site believes, however, that the latest batch of photos is of the current iPad mini rather than a second-generation model.