Hasta La Gadget!

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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It would seem that Apple is in the final stages of preparing for the upcoming launch of OS X Mountain Lion, as an application for its Up-to-Date program when live for a brief period today. The Up-to-Date program, which was announced last month, allows users who purchased a Mac after June 11 to receive a free upgrade to the new OS. However, the application was taken down shortly after it went live, so it appears that Apple isn’t quite ready to roll out the program just yet.

Apple wasn’t quick enough though, with the folks at MacRumors filling out the application and even receiving their codes for the upgrade before Apple managed to take the application offline. The redemption process goes something like this: users are required to fill out the form with information on their eligible Macs, including the date and location of the purchase, personal contact information, and the serial number of the computer that will be receiving the update. After that’s done and sent off, Apple then sends back a pair of emails – one with a password-protected PDF containing the redemption code, and another with the password needed to access the PDF.

Naturally, with Mountain Lion not yet available, MacRumors’ attempt at redeeming the code on the Mac App Store (the only place OS X Mountain Lion will be available) proved fruitless. At the moment, Mountain Lion’s release date is still unknown, but with Apple giving it a release window of July 2012, it has to be coming up pretty quickly here, considering that the month of July ending in just eight short days. If that July release window holds, we’ll likely be seeing the Up-to-Date application go live again soon, so stay tuned.

OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date application released, quickly disappears is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week Microsoft is making sure all is clear on what’s happening with the new version and subscription fees, not to mention the contents, of the Mac version of Office 365 Home Premium. This software will indeed be in a pack with the ability to acquire Office for Mac 2011 in the upcoming wave of availability for Apple lovers. This announcement comes after a mistaken quote reported across the web that Mac users would have to purchase Office for Mac 2011 separately from Office 365 Home Premium altogether.

This update also makes it clear that Microsoft intends on releasing several different packages for Mac users as well, with a note of theirs stating the following. “The final version of Office 365 Home Premium, when available, will include Office for Mac as an option of the 5 devices – Macs could be all five of the devices if the subscriber chooses, and at no additional cost.”

Microsoft recently previewed many features of the newest release of Office 365 as well as Office 2013 for release alongside Windows 8. Windows 8 will be shipping October 26th, 2012, while Office will likely be launched in each of its new iterations soon after that date. Office 365 for Mac will be including access to Office for Mac (2011) as part of its five per user device limit.

Unlike the Office for 2013 for Windows 8 edition of the software, it appears more likely that the Mac version of the software will be coming out early next year.

[via ComputerWorld]

Microsoft confirms Mac Office 365 subscription details is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple has released a software update for 2012 MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs that fixes some issues with increased CPU power usage. Of course, we’re still not entirely clear what is causing the CPU to use more power than it should in some cases (and Apple apparently isn’t interested elaborating), but whatever the issue was, it’s been fixed. The software update also “improves compatibility with some USB devices” in addition to fixing the CPU power problems.

So, Apple’s “MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 1.0″ is a relatively small one, but necessary for those who were seeing increased power usage when they shouldn’t have been. Apple notes that the update is only intended for “Mac notebooks introduced since June 2012″ so if you’ve had your MacBook for longer than a month or so, there’s no need for you to download this update.

AppleInsider points out that users on Apple’s support forums have been claiming that the CPU power issues have been stemming from port failures, while others have been reporting issues with getting their MacBook to recognize some external hard drives as compatible devices. Regardless of the source of the problems, here’s hoping that this software update fixes those issues for good.

Be sure to check out our reviews for the 2012 MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro!

Retina MacBook and Air units get first software update is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft did quite a decent job of keeping us entertained with yesterday’s unveiling of its most recent Office package and all of its promising integration with SkyDrive. Still, Redmond left out any mention of how the cloud service would play out for OS X users working on Office 2011 for Mac. Well, according to The Verge, Microsoft’s informed the site an update that’d bring some of the features introduced in Office 2013 to the Mac crowd is indeed in the works. The SkyDrive refresh is said to be coming at the same time as the official launch of the 2013 Office bundle, which means you’ll have to stick with your current workflow at least for a few more months.

Filed under: Software

Microsoft’s reportedly working on Office 2011 for Mac SkyDrive update originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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