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15 Feb 2011 10:50

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Tech: Steve Jobs on subscriber service: We won’t always take 30 percent

  • Our philosophy is simple – when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing.
  • Steve Jobs (who’s still on medical leave) • In a statement announcing the new App Store subscription service, which reveals a pretty awesome financial path for publishers of all stripes. Apple will take their 30 percent revenue share if they lead to the subscription; if the publisher does it, they keep 100 percent. One interesting thing to note is the way that the service handles consumer information. Many magazine publishers make money by using consumer information from their subscriber base – a move somewhat at odds with Apple’s App Store model. In a compromise move, Apple will allow consumers to say how much information they want to give out. The overall model is similar to that of The Daily, which launched last month to general praise. source

06 Feb 2011 23:39

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Tech: Quick facts: Three strikes against Motorola’s new Xoom tablet

  • strike The device, based on Android 3.0 and getting a lot of attention, has a starting price of $799 – which is way higher than the entry-level iPad.
  • strike The data plans are really expensive for 3G usage – 1 gigabyte is $20, and the plans go as high as $80 for 10 gigabytes. That’s right – $80 a month!
  • out And don’t think you’ll get around this with a hotspot like you can with an iPad. Wi-fi won’t be activated unless you buy a data plan! source

19 Jan 2011 10:15

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Tech: No single analyst predicted the iPad’s level of success

  • 7M the highest sales prediction a professional analyst gave for the iPad’s first-year sales
  • 9M the top-end estimate of various tech bloggers – not even fanboi John Gruber was this bullish
  • 14.8M the actual amount that Apple sold, blowing everyone’s estimates out of the water source

18 Jan 2011 22:53

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Tech: Article about “Goatse Security” doesn’t use phrase “Goatse Security”

  • where can we drop this for max lols
  • Reported AT&T iPad data hacker (and member of “Goatse Security”) Daniel Spitler • Reportedly discussing, in unsealed chat logs, their plans to release information on iPad 3G users, which AT&T had made available one-at-a-time on a public Web site, but they gathered en masse using a brute-force attack. A secret source reportedly turned in the chat logs focused on Spitler and his partner, Andrew Auernheimer, who were charged with fraud and conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. The details of the case were released today. We’re just upset that this Computerworld story doesn’t once use the phrase “Goatse Security.”  source

18 Jan 2011 22:09

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Biz, Tech: Steve Jobs may be sick, but Apple’s still killin’ profit expectations

  • Want to know the best way to get investors off your back about your iconic CEO’s illness? Post numbers that make everyone criticizing you look like chumps. That’s what Apple did today. And even though Steve is still sick (and hopefully he’s able to deal with that without a problem), the numbers suggest that Apple does so much right that it’ll be hard for them to screw up the next couple of quarters. Just to give you kids an idea:
  • $22 billion in revenues in the first quarter for Apple (very good)
  • 2% the increase in Apple’s stock after Apple’s numbers were released, nearly erasing earlier Jobs-illness-related losses
  • 4:5 the number of Fortune 500 companies currently field testing the increasingly-popular iPad – suggesting further success
  • 16.2M the number of iPhones Apple sold, which is way up from a year ago
  • 7.33M the number of iPads they sold – an extremely robust number
  • 4.1M the number of Macs they sold – also way up from a year ago source

13 Jan 2011 10:15

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Tech: Here’s a round-up of the latest Apple iOS 4.3-related rumors

  • goodApple plans to allow iPad users to decide how they use the toggle on the side. In iOS 4.2, they changed its functionality, annoying lots of people.
  • betterThe new device will allow for more multi-touch hand gestures, and should allow users to turn their device into a personal hotspot.
  • weirdThe strangest rumor? Apple may ditch the home button and replace it with multi-touch gestures. Steve Jobs hates buttons! source

20 Dec 2010 20:46

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Tech: Apple lowers barrier of entry for advertisers, but not developers

  • Question of the day: Why is there a slick iAd creation program (the brand-new iAd Producer, above), but not a slick iPhone app creation program? Seems like Apple’s new development environment for advertising should exist in a similar form for iPhone app creators, lowering the barrier of entry for many app designers and getting more people in on the game. This seems like a direct competitor to Flash, by the way. source
 

08 Dec 2010 21:50

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Tech: In the U.S., people smuggle drugs. In China, they smuggle iPads

  • 14 Chinese housewives were arrested for smuggling lots of tech devices into China
  • 88 the number of iPads the fourteen women had, roughly enough to create an iPad fort
  • 340 the number of phones they had; it was a total haul worth roughly $143,000 source
  • » Why the demand? Simple. The only version of the iPad sold in China is the wi-fi version. The 3G version (sold in Hong Kong) is in very high demand as a result. Plus, China has recently started taxing iPads brought in from Hong Kong, and on the other end, smugglers have been recruiting people without criminal records to make the runs from Hong Kong to China (for around $30 a run). We end this post with a visual image; imagine a woman with 65 smartphones wrapped around her chest and 20 more in her handbag. Yes, this actually happened.

22 Nov 2010 11:00

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Tech: Sales-wise, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab holds its own with iPad

  • 600,000 number of Android-based Galaxy Tab units the company has sold in its first month of launch
  • 1 million number of iPads that sold in the first month of ITS launch; they’re now hovering around 7.2 million source

22 Nov 2010 10:27

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Tech: Side benefit of iOS release: “Find My iPhone” is now free (finally)

  • $99 the cost of Apple’s greatly useful “Find My iPhone” service, as part of a MobileMe subscription
  • free the cost of the shoulda-been-free service after iOS 4.2 comes out today (good idea) source