MacRumors

Financial Times reports that Apple has been pressuring TV networks to lower their prices for iTunes content, hoping to pass along the savings to customers in order to spur sales. According to the report, Apple has been unhappy with the sales of television content and would like to drop the cost of TV episodes from the current $1.99 to $1 to introduce a new pricing dynamic.

The plan is seen as an integral part of the iPhone maker's strategy for the tablet computer, which it is expected to unveil tomorrow.

However, networks are resisting the move as they fear a repeat of the music industry's pact with Apple in 2003 to sell individual songs for 99 cents on iTunes. The price helped to simplify and boost downloads of digital music but dented album sales .

The report also claims that Apple has primarily been focusing on book and newspaper publishers ahead of the tablet's launch to get them on board, but the TV networks will soon see greater attention as Apple looks to use its tablet as leverage to convince networks to accept lower per-download fees in order to drive increased quantities of downloads.

Apple has also been rumored to be developing a monthly subscription service for a "best of television" package that would offer consumers a variety of content from the networks in what Apple hopes to position as a replacement for traditional cable TV subscriptions.

As typical prior to any Apple event, supposedly "leaked" product images tend to start circulating. Unfortunately, actual product image leaks are quite rare and they typically come from a trusted source or site. In fact, it's been extremely rare for randomly circulating and unsourced images to be genuine.

We had previously posted a collection of these circulating "iPad" images on our Page 2 which collects unreliable rumors and other news of lesser importance.

A couple of these tablet images, however, have started gaining traction amongst other tech sites, so we are re-publishing these for reader interest. The above two images seemed to originate from a Twitter account last week. We don't know the story behind the images, so they could have even been labeled as concept/mockups from the start.

One of the images has geotagging placing it in Germany, while the second image places it in San Jose, California. Both images, however, appear to have been taken at the same time, making it likely that some of this information has been tampered with. The keyboard layout of the MacBook Pro in the photos appear to have an international layout.

For what it's worth, we don't believe these images are legitimate, but provided for interest and discussion. That said, earlier reports have said the upcoming Apple tablet will resemble these images.

According to a (now deleted) tweet by major German electronics retailer Media Markt, the Apple iPad will go on sale March 1st at a price of 499 Euros with contract with T-Mobile or 899 Euros without. In U.S. prices this would likely be around $500-$600 U.S. with contract and $999 without. We came to these numbers by comparing similarly priced Apple items sold in Euros and USD (Mac Mini: 549 Euros / $599 USD, MacBook 899 Euros / $999 USD).

The company, however, quickly deleted the tweet but not before it was retweeted a number of times. NetbookNews.de also picked up on the story and seems to believe that Media Markt would be in a position to know this information. The German site tells us that Media Markt is the biggest German electronics chain akin to Best Buy in the U.S., and has a dedicated Apple section.

Given Apple's secrecy, however, we're not convinced Apple would reveal such information to their retail partners ahead of the official announcement. That said, it's possible that mobile carriers such as T-Mobile have been briefed already due to the carrier agreements that must be put into place. Apple's Media event takes place Wednesday, January 27th.

Update: fscklog reports [Google translation] that a company representative has confirmed that the Twitter account is not an official Media Markt account, and thus the iPad posting is certainly fake.

As Apple's media event quickly approaches, the flurry of rumors continue to pour in. First off, both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook of Apple have been building the hype for their product announcement on Wednesday. In Apple's PR release, Steve Jobs describes the release of a "major new product that that we're really excited about."

During the Q&A session of today's financial results conference call, Tim Cook teased that he "wouldn't want to take away your joy and surprise on Wednesday" when questioned about their upcoming products.

One analyst now claims that Apple may allow all U.S. Carriers to sell the iPhone:

T-Mobile USA Inc. will get the phone this summer, followed by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. in the fall, and Clearwire Corp. in 2011, Horan wrote in a note yesterday. AT&T Inc. has been the exclusive carrier since the iPhone debuted in June 2007.

This report leads to one possible interpretation of the Apple invitation with colors lining up with the brands of major carriers:

It may be a simple coincidence, but makes for an eye catching possibility.

Finally, the NYTimes now reports that the new Tablet will run current iPhone and iPod Touch Apps.

It will run all the applications of the iPhone and iPod Touch, have a persistent wireless connection over 3G cellphone networks and Wi-Fi, and will be built with a 10-inch color display, allowing newspapers, magazines and book publishers to deliver their products with an eye to the design that had grabbed readers in print.

If true, this would consistent with a report from analytics company Flurry which claimed they detected up to 50 presumed-to-be tablet devices running their iPhone apps.

Apple today announced financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2010, corresponding to the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $11.88 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.26 billion, or $2.50 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.9 percent, compared to 37.9 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter's revenue. The numbers represent the most profitable quarter in Apple's history on record-breaking revenue, and include the highest Mac and iPhone quarterly sales in company history.

The company has adopted revised accounting standards that no longer require Apple to parcel out income from iPhone and Apple TV sales over a 24-month period from the date of sale, and the company has retrospectively revised financial results for previous quarters to reflect this change. Apple previously released two sets of financial numbers, one official set utilizing this subscription-based accounting for the iPhone and Apple TV and a second "non-GAAP" set that more accurately portrayed the company's performance.

Apple shipped 3.36 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a unit increase of 33 percent over the year-ago quarter. The company also sold 21 million iPods during the quarter, representing 8 percent unit decline over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 8.7 million, up 100 percent from the year-ago quarter.

"If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it's surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we're really excited about."

Apple's guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 includes expected revenue of $11.0 billion to $11.4 billion and earnings per diluted share of $2.06 to $2.18.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2010 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference Call Highlights:
- Apple opened 10 new stores in this quarter, bring the worldwide store total to 283
- A record 50.9 million people visited Apple stores this quarter
- New FASB rules requires Apple to estimate software upgrade revenue for Apple TVs and iPhones over the upcoming 24 months and recognize this revenue at the time of sale rather than later
- Tim Cook stated during the Q&A section, "We believe we are shipping the best product we've ever shipped and are very excited about the product pipeline."
- In response to a question on the future guidance provided during the call, Cook stated "You may be alluding to the event on Wednesday," and "We don't have anything to share on that today. Stay tuned."
- When asked about how the iPhone is performing in China, Cook stated that the company typically does not disclose sales by country, but Apple is focused on the long-term for that market and believe it has "significant potential."
- Regarding iPhone inventory during the quarter, Apple could have sold "a lot more" but chose to manage inventory tightly instead.
- In answering a question about the complaints about the App Store approval process, Cook responded that it's important to keep this in perspective given that there are over 100,000 apps in the store and over 90% of these have been approved within 14 days. The focus during the approval process is ensuring consumer privacy is respected and most rejections are because of bugs.
- When queried about possible new product categories for the future, Cook declined to comment in light of the upcoming event on Wednesday.
- Going back to the topic of the iPhone in China and other emerging markets, Cook commented that the company is very focused on these markets and they recognize the differences in customer populations and learn from them.
- Total capital expenditure is expected to be $1.9 billion (no change from previous guidance), with about $400 million going to retail and $1.5 billion in other areas - these expenditures will be focused on facilities, infrastructure, and manufacturing.
- Regarding the iPhone in business, Cook stated that 70% of the Fortune 100 are piloting or deploying the iPhone and the company "feels great" about this.
- When asked about the acquisitions of Lala and Quattro and Apple's future direction, Peter Oppenheimer said the company had acquired Quattro to "offer developers a seamless way to make more money" in their apps, particularly free apps.
- Apple would not comment further to questions on expectations on mobile advertising and its impact on future revenue.
- Education was up 16% year-over-year and the company expects to continue to do well in this market with continued focus.

The conference call concluded just after 3:00 pm Pacific time. A replay of the conference call will be available for 2 weeks at phone numbers +1-888-203-1112 and +1-719-457-0820, using confirmation number 4035751, starting at approximately 5:00 pm Pacific time today. It will also be available in iTunes as a podcast shortly.

Apple has begun prepping the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and appears to be placing large banners on the side of the building to mimic the invitations sent out last week. MacRumors reader Samuel Powell sent in this photo of the Yerba Buena Center being prepped for the event.

Apple's media event will take place on January 27th at 10 a.m. Pacific time, where Apple is expected to unveil its latest "creation". Rumors have pegged the focus of the event to be a new tablet device from Apple.

9 to 5 Mac summarizes information it has received from contacts in the publishing industry in recent days, revealing that Apple has been pushing aggressively forward in discussions with publishers about bringing their content to Apple's tablet rumored for introduction on Wednesday.

According to the reports, Apple has been touting the tablet's software as a "game changer" for the e-reader market and positioning its distribution model in contrast to Amazon's Kindle by offering publishers greater control over content and pricing. Other tidbits include:

- Apple is expected to have general agreements with major publishers in place by Wednesday, allowing it to tout the partnerships while still leaving "nuts and bolts" details of the arrangements to further negotiations.

- Scrollmotion and other companies serving as middle-men to bring e-books to the iPhone are being cut out of the tablet, with Apple preferring to work directly with the publishers.

- A large library of e-book content for the tablet is not expected until "mid-2010 at the very earliest", although Apple will likely have something to show at the media event.

- Publishers have not been provided access to any tablet prototypes, although the device has reportedly been described to them as having a 10-inch glass screen and smaller than but roughly equal in weight to Amazon's Kindle DX.

- Apple's tablet will not be priced "anywhere near" the $1,000 mark that some have floated as a possible price point.

As part of a broad report in advance of Apple's media event scheduled for Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times claims that a team of New York Times employees has been traveling to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California to work on a new version of the newspaper's iPhone application offering video and optimized for a large-screen tablet device.

Apple has been slowly amassing digital reading material for the forthcoming device. A team from the New York Times has been working in Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters in recent weeks, developing a large-screen version of the newspaper's iPhone application that incorporates video for the yet-to-be-unveiled device, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.

The claim is reminiscent of a story related by the developers of flight simulator application X-Plane 9, who were invited to Cupertino to work alongside Apple's engineers to port their application to the iPhone in hopes of demonstrating it at the company's "Let's Rock" media event in September 2008.

The New York Times has long held a close relationship with Apple in regards to the iPhone platform, frequently finding itself featured in demonstrations at media events and keynotes. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. revealed last week, however, that he will not be attending Apple's media event, and when pressed for comment on Apple's involvement with the newspaper's plans for restructuring online access, said only "Stay tuned."

HotHardware claims that AT&T may be losing its iPhone exclusivity as early as Wednesday at Apple's media event:

According to an inside source close to the going-ons involved in all of this, a new tablet of some sort may not be the only thing on deck for next Wednesday though. We have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day, though it's not yet clear what other carrier (or carriers) will be stepping in to also carry the phone

We've never reported on a rumor from HotHardware before, so we have no record of the accuracy of their sources. That said, AT&T exclusivity has been a hot topic ever since the iPhone was released. In the U.S., AT&T remains the only mobile phone carrier that offers the iPhone.

This deal has been rumored to be expiring in mid 2010 with indications that Apple has been working on a Verizon-compatible iPhone. While the announcement of a Verizon-compatible iPhone certainly seems possible this year, we're not sure how it would fit in with what is believed to be an event focused on the new Apple Tablet.

TechCrunch reports that Steve Jobs has been heard saying that the upcoming Apple tablet "will be the most important thing I've ever done." The report is said to come from multiple independent sources:

We haven't heard this first hand, but we've heard it multiple times second and third hand from completely independent sources. Senior Apple execs and friends of Jobs are telling people that he's about as excited about the upcoming Apple Tablet as he's ever been.

Jobs had been previous quoted as being "extremely happy" with the upcoming tablet.

Apple is holding a media event on January 27th. We'll provide ongoing updates as well as a Spoiler Free page if you would rather wait to watch a video of the event yourself after it is posted.

As first noted by Jesus Tablet, the company that has been registering the iPad trademark internationally en masse has also applied for it in the U.S. We revealed earlier this month that a company called IP Application Development had begun applying for the iPad trademark in mid January.

The company has been loosely connected to an Apple shell corporation called Slate Computing through a similar iPad trademark application in Canada. The U.S. trademark application arrives in the backdrop of Apple interest in contesting Fujitsu's U.S. iPad trademark.

We believe it's likely that Apple is behind the IP Application Development company's actions, though no further evidence links the two companies. Apple is rumored to be introducing their tablet next week at a media event on January 27th.

As we reported earlier, it's no surprise that Apple is actively working on Mac OS X 10.7. Bug reports from the early builds were spotted in November and as early as December Mac OS X 10.7 signatures appeared in web logs from Apple-owned IP addresses. More spottings have been since reported, and we've found Mac OS X 10.7 signatures in our own web logs with increasing frequency since October.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.7.1 (KHTM
L, like Gecko) Version/4.1 Safari/532.7.3

Apple has said nothing of the next major version of Mac OS X, though John Gruber had said he had heard that Mac OS X 10.7 would be ready for developer release by WWDC this June.

Rumored features that never made it into Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard such as the Marble interface revamp may make their way into 10.7.