When Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in 1998, he did something unusual. For the first time in any presentation he had ever given, he ended with a slide reading, “Oh, and one more thing…” This phase would of course enter the Apple lexicon in the subsequent years. But what was it that was hidden behind this first “one more thing”?

“Think Profit.”

You see, Jobs had just been named interim CEO in September 1997 after successfully pushing out the man who brought him (back) in, Gil Amelio. And he had good reason to do that: under Amelio, Apple had lost $1.04 billion in the prior year and was less than ninety days from being completely broke. Just a few months later, as he announced on stage, Jobs had the company back in black: a $45 million profit — the first profit the company had seen in more than two years.

read more from this topic.....

Two weeks ago, the excellent Building Windows 8 blog posted an in-depth look at the upcoming operating system’s new file system, ReFS. It reminded me of the promise of so many years ago that OS X would be changing its file system from HFS+ to ZFS. Not a promise many remember or even cared about at the time, but it was, in fact, important.

ZFS support was dropped amid development and legal problems, but Don Brady, who was heading up the file system transition team at Apple, left to pursue it independently. And now he’s releasing a piece of software, Zevo, which finally adds ZFS support to any Intel Mac running 10.6.6 or later.

read more from this topic.....

Welcome, kids, to TIL – Today I Learned. Today’s TIL is “Don’t post your correspondence with AppleCare representatives or Apple will totally tell the government on you.”

David Boles had a nice Apple monitor that died on him. He had a little trouble transferring AppleCare coverage to his new monitor after it pooped out and posted some advice on his blog. Nothing major, just “don’t forget to connect your AppleCare accounts.” Very innocuous.

read more from this topic.....

Apple’s iPad reigns supreme from whatever angle you choose to look at the tablet market (profits, apps, quality, market share, mindshare, you name it), but research firm Strategy Analytics this morning said Android did manage to capture a record 39 percent tablet OS market share in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Apple maintains the lead with 58 percent market share in Q4 2011 (down from 68 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010).

Peter King, a research director at Strategy Analytics, says global tablet shipments (the research firm explains that these refer to refer to ‘sell-in’ and not over-the-counter sales) reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010.

read more from this topic.....

We’re still a few minutes out from Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings call — but as is par for the course, the raw numbers have made their way out a bit early. And they.. are… insane.

read more from this topic.....

As I watched Apple’s iBooks event in New York City last week, my mind began to race about the ramifications of such announcements. Everyone had a pretty good idea for weeks (or months if you read the Steve Jobs biography) that textbooks would be a focal point for Apple, but there wasn’t much thought given to what this would mean. During the event itself, I just kept thinking, “wow, Apple just incentivized every college student to get an iPad”.

Except, they didn’t. Not yet.

read more from this topic.....

Next week a class-action civil lawsuit will be heard in San Jose to determine if Google, Apple, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit conspired to eliminate competition for skilled labor. In anticipation of the hearing, TechCrunch has discovered evidence from the Department of Justice’s investigation in 2010 which was made public this evening for the first time. It appears to support the plaintiff’s case that the defendant companies tried to suppress employee compensation by entering into “no poach” agreements.

read more from this topic.....

Today at Apple’s education event, the company introduced iBooks 2, a textbook platform that effectively transforms $200 textbooks into iPad apps at a much more reasonable price. But of course, a textbook platform isn’t worth a thing without the educational powerhouse publishers behind it.

Luckily, the first up to the bat on the iBooks 2 platform are names we know well: Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. They’re responsible for 90 percent of the textbooks sold.

read more from this topic.....

MG Siegler argues that if you sold your Apple stock last October, right after the company’s Q4 2011 earnings report, you are an idiot and/or a moron. After all, Apple’s stock price closed at $398.62 on October 19, and it closed at $422.4 last Friday (a respectable 6 percent bump).

So selling your Apple stock that day was idiotic, right?
Maybe, maybe not.

Flamebait headlines aside, for all we know you could have been selling Apple stock you acquired back in 2000, in which case I daresay you were a true visionary. Of if you spent the money to buy your kids and spouse some nice Christmas gifts, or treated yourself to that plane ticket to Cambodia or whatever.

Reality is that, yes, Apple stock was oversold that day, but I’ll be damned if I’m calling anyone an idiot over doing it if I don’t know what you did with the money.

read more from this topic.....

On October 19 of last year I wrote a post entitled: If You Sold Your Apple Stock Today, You’re An Idiot. Because their Q4 numbers missed Wall Street expectations, Apple’s stock dropped over 5 percent on that day, to close below $400-a-share after hitting an all-time high just days before. My argument was that it was the Wall Street expectations that were horribly flawed, not Apple’s actual performance. And the stock would recover quickly as a result leading up to their Q1 earnings, which even Apple was predicting would be a blow out.

Reading the comments on that post — which I love to do — you’d think I was saying something insane. When the stock fell to $363 right after Thanksgiving, a few remembered the post and once again pointed out the irrational insanity of this fanboy.  But then a funny thing happened yesterday. Apple’s stock closed at a new all-time high.

read more from this topic.....

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Those words seem to encapsulate Apple’s 2011 perfectly. The year saw the company both became the most valuable company in the world and lose its founder, savior, visionary, and leader.

Earlier, Erick published his roundup of the bigger stories and themes in tech this year. Topping that list is the passing of Steve Jobs, a story so big that it far transcended typical tech news. But even without that sad news, 2011 was all about Apple. There was certainly enough news to constitute its own roundup. So here we go.

read more from this topic.....

Here in the States we’ve been chatting it up with Siri on the iPhone 4S for months, but the folks over in mainland China — the biggest mobile market in the world, mind you — have yet to hear that 42 is the meaning of life. The 4S launched in Hong Kong just last month, and since then we’ve heard that it would show up on the mainland in December.

People’s Daily is now reporting that a phone with the model number A1431 has passed the final hurdle in its Chinese certification. That’s the same model number that Apple used to get a network entry permit for the 4S from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on December 6, so all signs point to iPhone.

read more from this topic.....

The past few days, there’s been a lot of talk about web browsers. The report that Google will be paying Mozilla close to one billion dollars over the next three years to ensure that their search engine remains the default for Firefox is fascinating for a few reasons. The biggest is that Google now makes a Firefox competitor, Chrome. And it got me thinking about Safari.

Remember Safari?

While Chrome has skyrocketed from 0 percent market share in August 2008 to over 25 percent last month, Apple’s web browser lingers somewhere between 5 and 8 percent, depending on what numbers you look at. While its growth seemed to stall out in late 2008/early 2009, Safari has been growing again since then. But it has been at a very slow, methodical pace compared to the Google browser.

read more from this topic.....

New York City is possibly the most dangerous place to take your new iPhone or iPad. Grand larcenies have increased this year in the Big Apple, which NYPD spokesman Paul Browne attributes to criminal’s obsession with stealing handheld devices. But after a sting operation that went down between Tuesday and yesterday, things might be a bit safer in the city that never sleeps.

Undercover officers attempted to sell iPhones and iPads at discounted prices (between $50 and $200) to over 600 stores throughout all five boroughs — including bodegas, supermarkets, gadget stores, etc. — clearly stating that all the hardware had been stolen.

Of the 600 stores solicited by the undercover policemen, 141 merchants were busted for trying to purchase the “stolen” hardware.

read more from this topic.....

Another crop of Apple rumors has grown up under our feet, and it seems a little reaping is in order. Two rumors are making the rounds, both of which warrant a little consideration but should, as usual, be taken lightly until more substantial evidence appears. Both have their origins in Digitimes, which prides itself on catching scraps of news from upstream suppliers but isn’t always correct in its conclusions.

Earlier this week a little bird told Digitimes that the upcoming redesign of the MacBook Pro won’t simply be thinning down the body, but will upgrade the displays to a mind-blowing 2880×1800 resolution. And then just today there has been a recurrence of the 7.85″ iPads we first heard about in October. The implications of the first rumor especially are quite serious, and while the second one seems unlikely, its resilience must be acknowledged.

If these rumors are true, we’ve got a lot to talk about.

read more from this topic.....

Apple is reportedly going to use part of its enormous pile of cash to buy an Israeli fabless semiconductor company that specializes in flash storage solutions. Calcalist reports – in Hebrew – that the world’s most valuable company is in talks to buy Herzliya Pituach, Israel-based Anobit for $400 million to $500 million.

If the report checks out, this would mark Apple’s first acquisition in Israel (and the first with Tim Cook at the helm as CEO), and also a rare occasion because the consumer electronics giant doesn’t usually buy non-software companies. The only hardware companies Apple is known to have acquired in the past two decades were Steve Jobs-founded NeXT, Raycer Graphics, Intrinsity and P.A. Semi.

read more from this topic.....

So you missed out on getting the new iPhone 4S when it came out. Worse, all your friends got the new Apple flagship and make fun of your 3GS at every possible opportunity. Plus, all the holiday shopping you’ve been doing has made it nearly impossible to afford the 4S without giving up every shred of financial responsibility.

If that description fits you, even a little bit, then rise up, dear reader, from your sad, Siri-free existence. Because Radio Shack just offered up an excellent way for you to be #winning with regards to your 4S-toting friends.

By combining a few different programs, namely RadioShack’s $30 instant savings promo and its Trade & Save program, you might find yourself walking out of a RadioShack with a free iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S.

read more from this topic.....

The global slapfight between Apple and Samsung shows no sign of abating – a victory here, an injunction there, a ruling here, a reversal there – like Aesop’s goats, neither will give way and chances are they’re both going to end up the worse for it, though not likely at the bottom of a ravine.

It doesn’t mean that the conflict doesn’t furnish some interesting topics for discussion, however. Just recently, Apple submitted written testimony by an expert who shares their perspective on Samsung’s design decisions, and very kindly helped to compile a list of things Samsung might have done to differentiate its product. For example, Samsung could have opted not to make their tablet rectangular, or done away with the front bezel, or given it a “cluttered appearance.” Excellent suggestions!

Not surprisingly, there has been some discussion of Apple’s rather ridiculous list of design elements it claims as its own. It’s a good time to examine the creative decisions around the iPad from a different direction. It seems to me that Apple laid a trap for the entire consumer electronics industry, and they fell for it hard. And it’s really a triumph of positioning and branding. They essentially branded the tablet’s Platonic form.

read more from this topic.....

“Six months from now you’ll say the opposite. Because ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume. And the volume is favored by the open approach that Google is taking.”

That was Google Chairman Eric Schmidt speaking at LeWeb a couple days ago. Specifically, he was addressing a question from the audience wondering why most big application developers are still choosing to develop for the iOS platform first instead of Android.

First of all, if you haven’t watched Schmidt’s entire talk with Loic Le Meur yet, you really should. They cover a range of topics important to both Google and the broader tech space. Plus, it will avoid the small situation that arose yesterday when Schmidt was misquoted, making him sound much more arrogant about the Android platform than he actually was.

read more from this topic.....

Though I’m fairly sure that I disagree with him, Laszlo Birinyi of Birinyi Associates had some flattering compliments to lay on RIM today, putting the Waterloo-based company at the top spot of his five investment picks for 2012.

While we don’t usually cover analyst predictions, this statement reported by Barrons was too good to resist.

read more from this topic.....

In my home office sits a 27-inch iMac with a secondary 24-inch LED Cinema Display attached to it. It’s a glorious vision of screen real estate.

And yet, I dread using it.

First world problem? It’s perhaps the definition of the term. But it’s true. I’m sitting here on a couch adjacent to my desk because I’d rather type this post on my MacBook Air. To be completely honest, I’d rather be using my iPad right now. But I must admit, it doesn’t come anywhere close to cutting it when it comes to typing more than a few dozen words. So for now, the MacBook Air exists as the pinnacle of personal computing in my eyes.

read more from this topic.....

Most folks spent their Thanksgiving weekend ensuring that every inch of their intestinal track was thoroughly covered in gravy. Others spent it trying to get just drunk enough that their relative’s worst habits were bearable.

Some, however, spent the weekend doing something pretty much only they can do: hacking the heck out of the iPhone. As a result, everyone waitin’ and wishin’ for an iPhone 4S carrier unlock has something to be thankful for.

read more from this topic.....

In a charming interview with Forbes Magazine, Microsoft’s Craig Mundie discussed future products at Microsot, including the success and plans for the Kinect as well as their mesa para computación, the Surface.

read more from this topic.....

I’m not convinced these are discounts you’ve really been ‘waiting 364 days for’, but Apple’s Black Friday deals have gone live this morning. The prices leaked earlier, but hey.

If you were looking at buying a new Mac, iPod or the latest iPad, now’s the time, even if the discounts aren’t really that big in terms of percentages. You can also save on a bunch of accessories, ranging from peripherals to iPad Smart Covers and even iTunes Gift Cards.

The iPhone gets no Black Friday love.

read more from this topic.....

Like everyone else in the tech world, I’ve been reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography. Simultaneously, I’ve been reading the reactions to it. The one that seems to stand out above all others amounts to: “wow, Steve Jobs was a jerk”. Those who have followed Apple closely throughout the years have heard dozens if not hundreds of stories of Jobs berating employees. Isaacson’s book brings a handful of these stories to the masses, and it’s rubbing some people the wrong way.

Here’s the thing: the tech world could probably use more jerks.

I’ve been thinking about this since reading Robert Scoble’s post a couple days ago entitled “Why I’m treating startups more critically lately“. Depending on who you ask, Scoble is a lot of things. But I don’t think anyone would call Scoble a jerk. In fact, most would probably say he has the opposite problem. He tends to puff up startups into thinking they’re the best thing in the world. (A social network for your Roomba to take pictures of food? Brilliant! Game-changing!” — Okay, I exaggerate. Slightly.) That’s great. For five minutes. After that, reality often sets in.

read more from this topic.....

I suspect we’ll have to start picking and choosing our Apple rumor posts carefully in the coming months as the speculations begin flying fast and free, but until then a bit of gossip portending the next year’s changes won’t hurt anybody.

iLounge is hawking some intel from their “most reliable source,” who claims to have the inside scoop on Apple’s upcoming revisions. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but it might be enough to make you unconsciously start saving money.

read more from this topic.....

Habitual component-stream eavesdropper Digitimes says that “a small volume of components” that fit the spec for a 15-inch ultra-thin notebook have shipped, and March of 2012 is their estimate for full-scale device shipping.

We’ve talked about Macbook Air DNA being injected into the Pro line, and this is just more evidence of that. The latest update to the notebook line was minor and the design is getting a little long in the tooth.

read more from this topic.....

In a move that demonstrates an incredible amount of either customer care or procrastination, Apple has issued a recall for the first generation iPod Nano. Not the one you use as a watch, not the fat one, and not the round one. The original (and in my opinion, the best). Turns out it has a rare overheating problem, by which these warnings usually mean explosion problem.

Only a single battery supplier has actually been implicated, and the few hot devices were only available between September 2005 and January 2006. So if you gave or received a Nano during the 2005 holiday season, better find it before it burns your house down.

read more from this topic.....

The latest wave in the infosec world is that Apple has banned the well known security researcher – Charlie Miller – from it’s developer program for exposing a new iOS exploit. It’s not really the smartest move as I’m prett…

read more from this topic.....

The year was 2008. I was at an event focused on mobile, sitting in on a roundtable discussion with several folks from key companies in the industry. One gentleman was from Adobe. The iPhone had launched the previous year, famously without any support for Flash. A lot of folks were up in arms about this — including several at this table. The guy from Adobe assured everyone: mobile Flash would be coming soon. And it was going to be wonderful. The notion that Apple wouldn’t include it on the iPhone because of performance issues was pure hogwash.

The same thing was said in 2009.

The same thing was said in 2010.

The same thing was still being said in 2011.

read more from this topic.....