Hasta La Gadget!

This week Apple is letting loose not only details of this most recent financial quarter, but their expectations for the future as well. The crew speaking with investors on their Q3 financial call spoke on iCloud, noting that users of the service now number close to 150 million in all. Speaking on how they’re extremely excited about iOS 6, the company’s next mobile operating system release, they spoke up on how the current generation of the software has yielded fabulous results for developers, with $5.5 billion dollars paid to App Store developers this past quarter along.

Apple noted today that Apple retail sales were $4.1 billion dollars with $11.1 million in average per store during the quarter. This quarter also yielded a 12% increase in store visitors across the country. Apple has had iPad adoption for enterprise triple over the past year, with everyone from British Airways to a Japanese home building group using iPads in their everyday work schedules.

In all there have been 410 million iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches sold altogether across the entirety of Apple’s history, with 45 million of these sold in just this most recent quarter. With 17 million iPads sold, Apple is seeing very strong youth growth, educational usage growth, and spread, with the device now being sold in 97 countries across the earth.

With all of this greatness coming down, Apple has projected a $34 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of this year – prepping for big releases and massive sales indeed.

Check out the timeline below as well as the rest of our [Apple portal] to stay up to the minute with breaking Apple news bits, hands-on looks, and reviews as well!

Apple expands on Q3 earnings: App Store, iCloud, and expectations is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s hard to believe its been just three months since we were here last, but it’s true. It’s already earnings season again and, in the feast of financial conference calls, Apple is an entree. Not surprisingly, Cupertino was raking in the big bucks yet again, but it wasn’t quite the windfall of revenue the company has seen in the past. All told the company pulled in $35 billion in revenue, pocketing $8.8 billion of that as pure profit, a record for both in Q3. But, just cause it wasn’t quite as lucrative a quarter doesn’t mean the boys in Cupertino aren’t happy with the results. Profits were up $1.5 billion from Q3 of 2011, once again allowing the company to declare yet another cash dividend for its share holders. During the last three months the company shipped 17 million iPads, an 84 percent increase over the same quarter last year — a simply staggering number. And don’t think that its other premier gadget has plateaued. 26 million iPhones were also sold, representing a 28 percent increase year-over-year. Interestingly, Mac sales slowed, increasing just two percent over last year, largely thanks to a 13 percent drop off in desktop sales.

The biggest money maker for the company continues to be the iPhone and its related products and services, however. More than $16 billion of the total revenue is directly attributable to the smaller member of the iOS family. The iPad is quickly closing the gap, netting Apple over $9 billion in this quarter alone. As a percentage of revenue, the iPod continued to decline, marking the slow death of the once flagship product line.

While revenues were down sequentially, it’s the year-over-year numbers that tell the real story and that explain why, for the second quarter in a row, Apple is able to award its investors a $2.65 per-share dividend. Revenue was up $9.5 billion from Q3 of 2011 and net income by $1.5 billion, as the company has continued to increase its market share and open up to niches to itself. For the next quarter Apple actually expects a small drop in both revenue and earnings per-share, but not enough that we expect Wall Street types to start yelling, “sell, sell, sell!”

Continue reading Apple announces Q3 2012 earnings: $35 billion revenue, $8.8 billion in net profits, declares another dividend

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablet PCs

Apple announces Q3 2012 earnings: $35 billion revenue, $8.8 billion in net profits, declares another dividend originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week a May survey done by Appcelerator and IDC on developer interest for both iOS and Android has been released showing a significant lead being gained by Apple’s mobile OS over Google’s equivalent. Developer interest in iOS for the enterprise grew to 50% while Android grew 37% over the month of May here in 2012. This is a boost from last year’s survey done in the third quarter which showed both platforms to be tied up for developer interest at 44%.

This information comes from a platform interest survey of 3,632 Appcelerator application developers between the dates of May 11th and May 18th, 2012. Windows, BlackBerry OS, and WebOS were also included in the survey during this quarter (Q2 2012) and Q3 of 2011, each of them racking up less than 8% interest from developers. The best of the three was Windows Phone with a 7% share, this a 1% boost over Q3 of last year. This analysis notes that “Android’s perceived weakness in the enterprise is a key Microsoft opportunity” while developers far and away believe iOS will win over all for enterprise in 2012.

This analysis also included questions on consumer app development as well as business app development with iOS once again winning out in both categories. For business apps it’s Apple’s 53.3% of the market for developer interest with Android grabbing 35.5%. For consumer apps, its 53.6% for Apple’s mobile OS and 37.9% for Google’s mobile OS.

In a longer list of developers “very interested” in developing for a variety of platforms, you’ll find that back in January of 2010, the iPhone was up on top with Android smartphones in second, the iPad bringing up the third place of the three. Down near the bottom of the chart the group also recorded BlackBerry Phones and Windows Phone 7.5, both of them grabbing less than 25% interest. Once June of 2010 rolled around and the Android tablet was formally introduced, it was both Apple’s iPad and the iPhone that were up on top with more than 80%, Android phones right behind the iPad with just above 80% as well, Android tablets coming in at just over 60%.

These numbers remain extremely similar through July of 2012, with Android phones having made a leap along with Android tablets early in the year and the iPad and the iPhone slowly converging in on just below 90% interest from developers.

[via Appcelerator]

iOS developer interest pulls ahead of Android by 16% says IDC is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It appears that there’s some miscommunication going on in the world of iOS developers as Zanther, Inc, is reporting that Apple has forced them to keep iPad 1 compatibility on their app even though it’s more advanced than the single-core processor should be able to handle. If you see this app on the app store now you’ll find the message “this update not recommended for iPad 1 users” while the developers have released a message to the press requesting that something be done about their situation.

The amount of RAM the iPad 1 has is one of several reasons why the developers of Tapose are noting that they’d rather not continue to support the device. Another reason is the difficulty they had in making the app gain approval for the iPad 3. These reasons of course have not a whole lot to do with one another other than this: once you submit an application to the Apple app store with support for a device, you must continue to support that device till death do the app part.

If you want to create an app on the app store with different compatibility, so be it, but Apple’s current model has you promising once and forevermore that you’ll continue support for one device with an app if you signed up for it. Needless to say, the folks at Zanther are not happy about this situation, and those still attempting to get the app to work on their first-gen iPads are not happy about it either, so we ask you this:

What do you think of this policy for the iTunes app store? Do you think a developer should have to stick with the devices they signed up for, or do you think they should be allowed to drop them with an update and fair warning?

[via Pocketables]

Tapose app forced to include iPad 1 compatibility is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When it comes to instant messaging apps, WhatsApp is probably an app that comes to mind. However when it comes to making VoIP calls, apps such as Skype and Viber are the more popular choices. Well the good news for those who prefer using Viber is that it looks like group messaging has finally arrived in the latest update for the app on both Android and iOS devices, and is supposedly the “killer feature” of the update and also the most requested one.

Apart from group messaging, the update to version 2.2 will also introduce the ability to add custom backgrounds to conversations, a new HD voice engine that reportedly provides better quality calls, time stamps, photos in contact list and also the ability to see which of your friends has recently joined Viber. We’re not sure if Viber’s new feature will allow it to grab more market share from WhatsApp since it now does what WhatsApp does and more, but if you have yet to update/download the latest version of the app, head on over to the iTunes App Store or the Google Play store for the download.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: The Dark Knight Rises now on iOS and Android, Smule launches AutoRap,