Hasta La Gadget!

Apple today released its Q3 2013 earnings report, announcing 31 million iPhones sold in the three-month period ending June, along with 14.6 million iPad units sold. Both the iPhone and iPad sales are down from the previous quarter, but this marks the first time the iPad has seen a yearly decline in sales, a 14 percent decrease YOY.

Analysts expected Apple to sell 27 million iPhones, 18 million iPads, 3.85 million Macs, and 4.9 million iPods this quarter.

Last quarter, Apple showed a slight drop in sales from the previous record-breaking quarter with 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads sold.

This quarter’s 31 million iPhones represent a quarterly loss of 21 percent, while still being up 20 from the same quarter last year. However, the iPad is down 25 percent sequentially and is down 14 percent from last year.

Interestingly, the average selling price for the iPhone has decreased from $613 last quarter to around $580 this year, perhaps marking that cloud innovation has required users to purchase less capacity, but more likely pointing toward the near ubiquity of smartphones.

When everyone owns a smartphone, as opposed to early adopters and tech fanatics, the lower-end model becomes a more attractive option in terms of pricing, especially with aggressive promotions from carriers.

The drop in iPad and iPhone sales quarterly can be attributed to the fact that this is a historically slow time for Apple and all CE companies, and that both devices are expecting a refresh soon.

The iPhone 5 was unveiled last fall, with the next-generation Apple smartphone expected in the fall alongside iOS 7. In terms of the iPad, the most recent refresh came in November with the availability of the iPad mini.

Of course, that Christmas quarter was Apple’s strongest yet for iPhone and iPad sales, breaking previous records for both products. But things have not-so-surprisingly slowed down since the star products’ unveiling, with many now waiting for the newer models to go on sale.

Meanwhile, Mac and iPod sales remain relatively flat from last quarter. Apple sold 3.75 million Macs in the quarter ending in June, down just barely from 3.9 million last quarter. This represents a 7 percent YOY loss, down 5 percent from the previous quarter.

Obviously, the PC market is dying all around us, so flat yearly and quarterly growth is actually quite impressive.

Mac sales usually do best during the back-to-school season. In Q4 of 2012, which goes from July through September, Mac sales hit 4.9 million, which was actually a 1 percent increase from the year before.

But during Christmas, the first full quarter of the 13-inch Retina MBP’s availability, Mac sales only reached 4.1 million units, representing a 16 percent quarterly decrease. Worse yet, it was a 21 percent fall from the same time last year. Last quarter, Mac sales were essentially flat again with 3.95 million units sold, down just one percent from the quarter before and nearly flat with the 4 million they sold in the previous year during the same period.

iPods continue to lose traction with a group of users who are increasingly interested in the iPhone and iPad, both of which offer similar, yet more robust technology.

Third quarter sales totaled 4.5 million, down from 5.63 million last quarter and a YOY loss of 32 percent.

There’s really no two ways about it – studies looking at the use of tablets on the market today suggest that the iPad continues its reign of dominance – at least in the web traffic universe. As the iPad appears to gain steam in studies of web traffic as revealed by Chitika this month, if only by a bit more than a percentage point each month, the difference is much more significant when considering the competition. It’s as if there is none.

What you’re seeing here from Chitika’s studies is the idea that the iPad – all of the different versions of the iPad considered as one entity, that is – control a whopping 84.3% of the web traffic belonging specifically to tablet devices. After that it’s the Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung’s entire Galaxy Tablet collection, both of those groups hovering about 5%.

Below that – when separated from this already lopsided display – you’ll find the rest of the tablet market to be rummaging around the Barnes & Noble Nook and Google’s Galaxy Nexus tablet lines. Of course you’ll note that no other collection of tablets has been around – or has so consistently released tablets that can be considered the same, with the same brand name – below the fifth place entry on this list.

With web traffic growing for the Nook family by a whopping 37% from month to month, how much does it really matter when the tablet family still only controls 1.2% of this study?

In the end, in this case, it’s really up to Amazon or Samsung to continue to release machines that live in this hero environment to beat out Apple in any study such as this. We’d be interested to see an expanded view of each individual model machine to see how each of them does in said sort of study.

But as you may well know if you’re a webmaster, not many systems actually track such things. It’s more important, in the end, to know what the family needs to show a webpage as solidly as possible

iPad family web traffic dominates while all others dwindle in latest Chitika study is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve become a lazy, lazy people. If there’s two things that really bring us together, it’s an irrational demand for instant gratification and a desire to have as little face-to-face interaction as is humanly possible. Now on the one hand, this is probably the beginning of society’s grand demise. But on the other, doing things sucks! So we might as well give in to fate and enjoy sweet, sweet laziness while we can. Which, thanks to glasses.com’s new app, now included eyewear shopping.

Read more…

While Apple most-recently went smaller with the iPad, moving down to a 7.9-inch display with the iPad mini, but it seems Apple will be moving in the opposite direction if a recent report is to be believed. It’s said that Apple is testing out 13-inch iPad prototypes, as well as larger displays on iPhones that exceed the current 4 inches.

According to the Wall Street Journal, sources from suppliers in Asia say that Apple has asked for prototypes of screens larger than 4 inches for the iPhone, as well as ramblings of the company wanting to experiment with larger iPads that are around 13 inches in size. This means we could see a third iPad model, offering the Goldilocks effect to potential iPad buyers.

Of course, experimenting with different sizes of displays doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a larger iPad come into fruition. Apple is known to experiment quite a bit with potential products, but seeing as how larger screens are becoming popular than ever, it would make sense that the Cupertino-based company is looking to get in on that market.

The report on the larger iPhone displays goes right along with rumors last month of low-cost, plastic iPhone models with up to 5.7-inch screens. These are said to be budget-friendly devices that would get even more iPhones in the hands of consumers, since Android has a huge hold on the lower-cost device market currently.

Of course, Apple increased the size of the iPhone’s screen to 4 inches with the introduction of the iPhone 5. That marked the first time that the iPhone has gotten a screen size change, with all past models having 3.5-inch screens. The company has said that the screen size would never get any larger, but it seems that they’re buckling under peer pressure.

SOURCE: WSJ

Apple iPad 13-inch model tipped for testing alongside larger iPhones is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple is reportedly testing out bigger iPhone and iPad screen designs, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The Mac maker has been asking its supplier partners for prototype screens in sizes in excess of four inches, and also just shy of 12-inches, which would make the resulting devices both larger than the current 4-inch display-toting iPhone 5, or the 9.7-inch full-sized iPad.

While looking into big displays for a possible phablet iPhone or massive iPad, the company is also set to begin production on a new iPad later this month, according to the WSJ’s sources. This new version of the iPad would have a lighter and thinner display, but primarily resemble the current, fourth generation iPad in terms of size and appearance. In addition to new iPad production, suppliers are also at work on new iPhone components, which entered mass production last month, per the report.

Apple’s tests with larger displays are not entirely new; reports from Reuters back in June suggested that Apple was looking at phones in 4.7- and 5.7-inch flavors. This is a sensible course given that many of Apple’s competitors use their larger displays on flagship devices as a way to purport to hold an advantage over the iPhone. The large screened iPad is a bit more unusual, but it could be the perfect way to address business and education users. Apple has already introduced a pricy, 128GB version of its larger iPad which fits that niche but few others, so another speciality device could be on the way.

Apple seeking test prototypes from suppliers for these larger sizes also doesn’t mean anything will make it to market; what Apple tests internally definitely doesn’t equal what it eventually ships, and plenty of products kick around the R&D center and never see the light of day. But it seems to have given a lot more thought to a larger iPhone device, at least per these recent leaks. Rival Samsung has played the big screen phone game to its benefit with the Galaxy line of devices, and that can’t have escaped Apple’s attention.

Both the next iPad and the next iPhone will keep their current screen sizes, according to the WSJ and other rumor sources, so don’t expect these immediately. But the fact that Apple is playing with its options at least brings up the possibility that we could see big changes around the corner.