Hasta La Gadget!

Like sands in the hour glass, these are today’s Apple tips and leaks – starting with an analyst note passed on after a meeting with Apple executives, chock-full of suggestions for the future of the company. First off, it would appear that Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty has made it clear that Apple may be releasing a new “killer iOS app” later this year. Before we go any further, it’s important that we all pause and read the two most important words read thus far: analyst and “may”.

While there’s no reason to think Huberty didn’t meet with Apple executives recently, the fact that the notes she’s passed on are all tied to “could” and “is believed to” and “may” should give you a clue to how much was actually revealed to her. With that in mind, feel free to go wild with acceptance and faith in the possibilities!

“We believe Apple could charge either developers or users for some of these services, which could boost Apple’s annuitized revenue stream and better monetize its large user base. For example, Apple could offer a streaming music service using a freemium model.” – Huberty

You’ll find Apple being suggested to create an internet-based service the likes of which could be a music service by the name of “iRadio” and might be working on deals with Warner Music and Universal Music Group as we speak. Also suggested once again is the iPhone 5S along with distribution plans for NTT Docomo in Japan and China Mobile (in China).

The “killer iOS app” spoken about by Huberty has been described as quite possibly as important as Apple’s adoption of Siri with the iPhone 4S. This could be the introduction of mobile payments, integration being started already with the app Passbook brought fourth in iOS 5. Conflicting reports in the past have suggested Apple’s inclusion of an NFC payment system in the next generation of iPhone products as well.

Sound realistic to you? How about that multi-colored plastic iPhone, eh? Have a peek at some other recent Apple tips and suggestions in the timeline below, and let us know what you think!

[via Apple Insider]

Apple “killer iOS app” tipped with new web-based service is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This is concept art

It’s the season for market Analysts to help their clients position their portfolios and Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek (the analyst  who came out with a number of such prediction about Apple yesterday) is said to have  told his clients that Samsung is prepared to build a record 100 million Galaxy S4 (or Galaxy SIV or Galaxy Next, there is no official name). Interestingly, he also mentions that components suppliers that Samsung shares with Apple could come under manufacturing capacity pressure and may have to make a tough choice between which client to satisfy: Samsung or Apple.

So far, both companies have been doing a great job at building a record number of handsets, but Apple has already reported that some of its iPhone handset came under manufacturing pressure, which slightly affected last quarter’s numbers. Yet, those  constraint are typically a “good problem” to have, and there is no doubt that HTC or Nokia wouldn’t mind having those  right now. There is no official Samsung Galaxy S4 specifications yet, but at this point, they are speculated to look like this: 5″ Super-AMOLED display (1920×1080, full HD) , 13 Megapixel camera, wireless charging, Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor with 2GB of RAM. It looks like this year will be more competitive than ever, and that’s how we like it as consumers.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sony Xperia Z Available for Preorder on Vodafone UK, Android And iOS Capture 91.1% Global Market Share,

IDC’s third quarter figures are in, complete with a few unexpected shake-ups. The entire cellphone market grew 2.4% over the same time last year, but smartphones drove the majority of that, showing growth of 45.3% and beating the analysts’ expectations. Of the 179.7 million smartphones shipped, Samsung and Apple devices accounted for almost half of them, with the companies retaining their number one and two positions in the market, respectively. IDC notes that iPhone shipments didn’t increase, but this is somewhat expected given the latest iteration was released only a short time before the end of the quarter. What we find particularly interesting is that Nokia was ousted from the top five smartphone players and replaced by RIM. Whether Nokia’s upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices will put it back in contention remains to be seen, as does the effect BB10 and RIM’s new handsets will have on the market. ZTE finished fourth in the list thanks to increased sales in North America, with HTC rounding up the top five vendors with continued uptake of its power devices. With a bunch of new handsets coming to the table and the holiday season fast approaching, look out for even more surprises in the fourth quarter numbers, due early next year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, RIM

IDC: Samsung and Apple still kings of the smartphone market, Nokia loses top five spot to RIM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to technology and the end of a financial quarter, you can bet your wage there’ll be an analyst report or two letting you what’s what. And according to Gartner’s latest estimates for Western Europe, PCs didn’t fare too well in Q2 of this year, with a 2.4 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same period in 2011. Consignments of mobile PCs (read: not tablets) grew by 4 percent, while desktops floundered, dropping 12.8 percent. Of this, a minor growth of 0.4 percent was recorded in consumer PCs, while the professional market decreased by 5.3 percent. Among the big hitters, HP remained at the top of the pile despite losing some market share, and Acer remained in second position with a mild increase in the same. ASUS put in a healthy performance, moving the company up to bronze medal position, while Dell dropped off the podium to fourth. The vendor statistics for the whole region were echoed in France in Germany, but during the quarter Apple managed to break into the top five in the UK market. Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner, attributes the overall performance to economic uncertainty in the region, as well as lackluster demand in the wait for Windows 8 machines. We don’t want to spoil all the fun, so a comprehensive breakdown of the numbers awaits you at the source link.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Gartner reports Western Europe desktop shipments down, portable PCs up in Q2 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung recently launched the Galaxy S III in Europe and the United States, with the device poised to be one of the most popular smartphones this year. Analysts at JPMorgan believe that Samsung has managed to sell around 6.5 million Galaxy S IIIs over the second quarter, and they’re predicting that the South Korean company will shift up to 15 million between July and September.

On top of that, analysts believe Samsung has sold around 50 million smartphones in the second quarter alone, putting the company comfortably ahead of Apple’s estimated 30 million iPhone sales. For reference, Apple managed to sell 37.million iPhones in the first quarter of this year, while Samsung sold around 41 million smartphones.

The Galaxy S III recently launched on all major carriers in the United States, featuring a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED 720p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.5Ghz, 2GB of RAM, an eight megapixel camera with 1080p video recording, and a microSD card slot. NFC support is also onboard, and depending on which carrier you choose you’ll get LTE connectivity too. Shipments for the Verizon version of the phone have been delayed slightly, but the carrier says everything should be back on track starting from today.

[via Know Your Mobile]

Analysts predict 6.5m Galaxy S IIIs sold in Q2 ’12 is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.