Hasta La Gadget!

Apple just announced its quarterly results, and it looks the brutal economy isn’t bruising the fruit at all — the company posted a record $1.61B profit on $10.17B in revenue. Adjusted to reflect the subscription accounting Apple uses for the iPhone and Apple TV, that’s $2.3B of income on $11.8B of revenue. Sales were all strong — Macs were up nine percent to 2.5M sold, iPods up three percent to 22.7M sold, and iPhones were up 88 percent to 4.3M sold. If you’re keeping track, that means Apple’s now sold well over 10M iPhone 3Gs on top of beating its goal of 10M total iPhones in 2008, which is pretty tremendous. Acting CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer are taking questions from analysts now, we’ll let you know if anything interesting happens — as you’d expect, the first question was “How’s Steve?” and it got basically a non-answer.

2:18PM – After rattling off Apple’s core goals and beliefs, Tim Cook said that “regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.” Neither him or Peter would speak to succession plans or comment on Steve’s health.

Continue reading Apple records another record quarter — $1.61B profit

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops

Apple records another record quarter — $1.61B profit originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Revolving dork (no really–revolving dork) Chris Maguire harbors such an intense love for the original Super Mario Land and his Asus Eee PC that he did what any of us would do: he laser-etched the entire game (as it appeared on the original Game Boy) onto the lid of the Netbook!

We’re not sure what safety precautions Mr. Maguire took before the surgery to ensure the safety of the Eee PC, but the end result is flawless. The laser cutter, courtesy of NYC Resistor in Brooklyn, rigged up the final artwork to show all the levels cascading on top of each other in several layers.

Chris provides the Mario Land etching pattern here, but recommends you try to make one yourself and set the laser in “raster mode at 70 percent speed and 40 percent power to achieve this look.”

More pictures of Chris’s masterpiece after the break.

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It’s no secret that Vertu‘s delicate, understated design and real commitment to value for your hard-earned dollar have won the brand lots of fans here at Engadget — and we’re still kicking ourselves for being too busy to check out the company’s store in Las Vegas during CES. Our Japanese readers are in luck, however — come February 19, people in Ginza will have a Vertu store to call their own. Sure the thing looks a little less gaudy than we would have imagined — an eighteen foot tall, solid gold, fire-breathing Dragon would have been nice — but you can’t really argue with a place that sets aside an entire floor for each handset line it carries (including Ferrari, Ascent and Signature). If you get a chance to visit, let us know what you think! More pics after the break.

Continue reading Vertu opens tasteful, refined retail location in Japan

Filed under: Cellphones

Vertu opens tasteful, refined retail location in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is it time to start breaking out the eulogies for Macworld yet? Hot on the heels of Apple’s post-Jobsian decision to end its Macworld keynotes after 2009, the Consumer Electronics Association today announced that it will be teaming up with iLounge for an iPod, iPhone Developers Pavilion.

Debuting at CES 2010, the iLounge Pavilion will designate thousands of square feet to third-party iPhone and iPod accessories developers.

“We are excited to announce that iLounge and CEA are partnering on this dynamic new CES pavilion,” CEA head Gary Shapiro told iLounge. “The accessories market, driven by the popularity of iPods, iPhones, and other MP3 and smartphone technologies, will grow this year to a nearly $15 billion market. This new pavilion is one more innovative way the 2010 CES will be the epicenter of consumer technology.”

In past years, floor space occupied by these companies had largely been limited, due to MacWorld’s tendency to occur the same week as CES. With Apple pulling out of the show, we’re likely to see similar announcements by smaller companies.

The Phantom Lapboard is one of those fabled legends of the gadget world, a keyboard and mouse that you can use comfortably on a couch—in the making since 2004.

Phantom was kind enough to send us the first final production unit off of the line—preorder shipments should be fulfilled starting Feb 20th. It’s unfair to judge any product with higher standards only because of funding and manufacturing delays—even if the Phantom Lapboard is the Duke Nukem Forever of the keyboard world. But despite these delays and issues, there’s still no clone or ripoff to compare it to.

Phantom’s pitch is a wireless, ambidextrous keyboard that can be used via lap for a home theater PC with a full-sized mouse. The keyboard itself pivots vertically, lifting the keys from the platform on your lap to make room for a mouse, while simultaneously spinning 360 degrees horizontally so that it works for righties and lefties.

In use, the lapboard functions as promised. It synced instantly to both my PS3 and Mac through a 2.4GHz USB dongle (though, I should mention, I had left mouse button recognition issues on the PS3). The keyboard locks after a gentle tilt, and you can actually spin it round and round indefinitely…which can be addictive.
Typing, however, is a bit more problematic than I expected. It’s certainly possible, and the keys are clicky and responsive. But the keyboard tilts a bit too much for my taste (a full 22 degrees) and I found myself typing with one hand uncomfortably higher than the other. I wish there were two tilt settings—one that would just fit your mouse hand under it, and one with a little more clearance. That said, a few hours of hands-on gaming would probably put you more at ease with the design.

To tilt the keyboard back down, you push in on a semi-awkward rubber latch.
The mouse has a subtler style than you’d expect to see with a hardcore PC peripheral, with a one-piece plastic top creating two buttons with perfect resistance. (There’s also a clicking scroll wheel.) It’s rated at some insane DPI—it felt accurate enough—but there’s one downfall to gamers. The board for the mouse is just too slippery. At the slightest angle on your lap, the mouse will literally slide off. I’m actually tempted to sand the plastic or add new pads to the mouse because this very small (overlooked?) detail makes the lapboard far less pleasant to use.
I find the Phantom Lapboard’s $130 asking price a bit steep—but if it cost less than $100 it would be a strong recommendation. Using the mouse can feel a bit like walking on ice and the keyboard tilts a lot, but given that there are few competitors that can offer a full keyboard/mouse that fit comfortably in your lap, I’m glad to see the still-fresh idea finally come to market. [Phantom]