Apple's new products: Specifications at a glance

Apple Inc. unveiled a pair of new iPads and new MacBook Pro computers, among other products, at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. Here are some product specifications:

iPad Air
Size
9.4 inches tall, 6.6 inches wide and 0.29 inch thick

Weight
1 pound

Display
9.7 inches diagonally

Resolution
2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 264 pixels per inch

Chip
A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor

Colours
Black with space gray, white with silver

Price
$499 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $599 for 32 GB, $699 for 64 GB and $799 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will still sell the 2011 model, iPad 2, for $399.

Availability
Nov. 1

Apple also is refreshing its iPhoto and iMovie editing software and the GarageBand app for creating music. New features are available for both Mac and iOS devices. It's also free with new Mac and iOS devices. 

Ipad mini
Size
7.87 inches tall, 5.3 inches wide, 0.29 inch thick

Weight
0.73 pound

Display
7.9 inches diagonally

Resolution
2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 326 pixels per inch

Chip
A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor

Colours
Black with space gray, white with silver

Price
$399 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $499 for 32 GB, $599 for 64 GB and $699 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will sell last year's model, without the sharper display, for $299, down from $329.

Availability
November

MacBook Pro
13-inch
Size
0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 12.35 inches wide and 8.62 inches deep
Weight3.46 pounds
Display13.3-inches diagonally
Resolution
2,560 pixels by 1,600 pixels, at 227 pixels per inch
Camera
720p FaceTime HD Camera
Battery
Up to 9 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby
Price
Starts at $1,299 for model with 128 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
Availability
Tuesday
MacBook Pro
15-inch
Size
0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 14.13 inches wide and 9.73 inches deep
Weight
4.46 pounds
Display
15.4 inches diagonally
Resolution
2,880 pixels by 1,800 pixels, at 220 pixels per inch
Camera
720p FaceTime HD Camera
Battery
Up to 8 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby
Price
Starts at $1,999 for model with 256 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Availability
Tuesday
Other products:
Mac Pro
A high-end desktop computer in a cylinder casing and assembled in Austin, Texas. Available in December for a starting price of $2,999.
Mavericks
The latest version of the Mac operating system. Unlike previous updates, Apple is releasing it for free. It promises better battery life, improved file management and new apps such as a Mac version of Maps.
iWork
Apple is refreshing its suite of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Apple is offering it for free with new Mac and iOS devices. Once you buy the new device, you can install the app in older devices you own. Each of the three apps normally costs $20 for the Mac and $10 for iPhones and iPads.
iLife

Why App Developers Love iOS, Not Android

NDTV

Apple, perhaps for the first time other than the data it shares during events, has officially disclosed 'fragmentation' data for iOS devices.

According to the data available on the Apple website, 93 percent of iOS devices run iOS 6, the latest version of Apple's operating system. Just 6 percent of devices run iOS 5 and only 1 percent devices run iOS 4 or earlier. Apparently, this includes all iOS devices i.e. iPhones, iPod touch devices as well as iPads.

The graph that Apple has shared is very similar (in principal, if not the trends) to what Google shares every month for Android. It will be interesting to see if Apple updates this data every month, like Google does, or if this remains a one-off.

According to data shared by Google last month, only 4 percent of Android devices run the latest version, Android 4.2. If you expand the criteria to include all Jelly Bean (Android 4.1 and Android 4.2) devices, even then the number touches just 33 percent, a heaven and earth comparison when you stack it up against iOS.

Google's data is for all Android devices as well, mobiles and tablets. Interestingly, Apple's data is based on devices connecting to Apple's App Store during a 14-day period ending June 3, 2013. This is the same cut-off date and criteria that Google used to share its last set of data. Google releases fresh data using the 3rd as the cut off for each month based on devices that connect to the Play Store during a 14-day period.

As is evident from the charts, fragmentation is rampant on Android, making it difficult for developers to write code against APIs available in the latest version of the OS. As a contrast, Apple developers can make use of all the latest features and write iOS 6-only apps, and be confident that their apps will still reach nearly all of the iOS install base. Android developers, as a contrast, must either maintain various copies of code, each targeting different versions of Android, or continue to use outdated APIs to ensure their apps reach a critical mass.

Of course, the Android fragmentation is even worse when you consider variants/ versions of Android that do not get to connect to the Google Play store, like Amazon's Kindle Fire devices, as well as third-party manufacturers that are unable to ship with Play Store on board due to Google's requirements. As indicated earlier, such Android devices are not included in the dat Google shares.

NDTV 

Apple executive challenges ebook conspiracy

A top Apple executive downplayed the theory of an e-book price-fixing conspiracy at an antitrust trial Monday, saying publishers were already moving away from Amazon's model when Apple launched its iPad.

Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president, said in his second day of testimony that Apple introduced e-books for the iPad that were not available on Amazon, which was selling many popular e-book titles for $9.99.

"We were making available books immediately that weren't going to be available for months and at really great prices," Cue said as he was questioned by Apple attorney Orin Snyder in US federal court in New York.

"We didn't raise prices for books that weren't available."

Cue said that at the time, at least four major publishers had delayed books to Amazon or threatened to do so in a practice known as "windowing," because of dissatisfaction with the pricing model.

Cue's testimony sought to blunt the US government argument that Apple and major publishers conspired to end Amazon's pricing scheme and impose a new system with higher prices for electronic books when the iPad was introduced in 2010.

But Cue, in response to questions from US Justice Department lawyer Lawrence Buterman, acknowledged that some e-book prices did go up.

Cue admitted that the day of the iPad launch, a memoir by the late US senator Edward Kennedy, "True Compass," was not windowed and that Apple was selling the book for $14.99 while it retailed on Amazon for $9.99.

"For that book, that's correct," Cue said.

Buterman said that only 37 books were windowed, saying this was a relatively small number.

Cue countered that "37 could be a huge number if it's the right books."

Cue also came in for tough questioning about a December 21, 2009 email updating Apple's chief at the time, Steve Jobs, in which he said the publishers were generally pleased with Apple's stance because it "solves Amazon issue."

Buterman asked if "solving" the "Amazon issue" meant the publishers agreed to impose higher prices on other retailers.

But Cue denied this and said he was referring to following the publisher's demand that Apple .........readmore

Rovio teases forthcoming Angry Birds Go!

Image Credit: Rovio's official Facebook page

 
Angry Birds enthusiasts might have a reason to rejoice. Rovio shared an image on its official Facebook page teasing a new offering. The new iteration of the popular gaming series Angry Birds is labeled as "Angry Birds Go!"

In a blog post on its website, the company said, "Those birds and piggies are getting ready for their most thrilling and action-packed game yet! All your favorite characters are returning for a brand new title that will 

bring you closer to Piggy Island than ever before."

This brief announcement was followed by an even briefer animation on a website that the company has launched for the new game. Visiting the same, flashes the words 'Ready'...'Set'...'Go'. The animation is then followed by a bird running on-screen. In the end, you see "Something new is coming" with the Angry Birds 

Go! symbol beside. What one might decipher from the brief trailer is that perhaps this version of the popular aerodynamics based game might now offer a running element into the series. The "Ready. Set. Go" at the start makes it feel more like a race as well.

Angry Birds Go! will be the seventh game in the popular series, following the original Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Friends.

What platform the game will be available on is unknown at the time, but based on the past, it's safe to say 

Android and iOS will be targeted at the very least. As of now all of Angry Birds titles except for one are available in mobile as well as desktop versions. Angry Birds Friends stays an exception, as the gaming app was initially available only on Facebook before going mobile.

While we wait for further details about the forthcoming game, Rovio suggests that we stay tuned to the company's social media platforms for more information.

News Credit Gurman Bhatia

Apple executive says company did not raise ebooks prices

An Apple Inc executive at the center of an antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. government said on Thursday the company "didn't care" what price publishers set for e-books.

Eddy Cue said he was not surprised when publishers increased prices for new and best-selling titles after Apple entered the e-books market in 2010, but he disputed that Apple caused prices industry-wide to increase.

"I didn't raise prices," he testified in federal court.

Apple is the sole remaining defendant in a lawsuit in which it is accused of working with five major U.S. publishers to fix e-book prices and undo Amazon.com Inc's market control. The publishers all reached settlements with the U.S. government.

Cue, a 24-year veteran of Apple, was the primary negotiator with major U.S. publishers in December 2009 and January 2010 before Apple launched its iBookstore and, according to a Justice Department lawyer, the "chief ringleader" of the alleged conspiracy.

During Thursday's proceedings, Cue, 48, said he had felt "tremendous" pressure to get a deal done with the publishers quickly after former CEO Steve Jobs gave him approval in late 2009 to pursue an iBookstore for the then-under wraps iPad.

Jobs, who died in 2011, was "near the end of his life" as the January 2010 unveiling of the iPad neared, Cue said. Not getting a deal done would have meant debuting the iPad without the bookstore, he said later.
"I wanted to get it done in time for that as I wanted to get it done for him," Cue said.

At the time of the negotiations, Amazon controlled up to 90 percent of the market by 2009, court filings show. Amazon, which had entered the market with its Kindle in 2007, was pricing new and bestselling e-books at $9.99, often below cost.

Cue testified initially Apple intended to adopt a wholesale model like Amazon, buying titles from the publishers and then setting the prices itself.

But after talking with publishers, Apple instead went with a so-called agency model, in which publishers set the price and Apple received a 30 percent commission on sales.

Publishers subsequently pushed Amazon to also adopt the agency model, a shift the government contends Apple encouraged through a contract clause that would allow it to reduce prices on its bookstore if other retailers sold e-books cheaper.

The move caused prices for new and best-selling books to increase, the government contends. Amazon's shift to agency also contributed to its e-books market share falling to 45 percent in 2012, Morgan Stanley said in a February report.

But Cue said Apple was not tying to shift its rival off of its wholesale approach, and that the price parity clause was intended only to ensure his company could effectively compete with other retailers. Apple was indifferent if other retailers sold books on a wholesale or agency model, he said.

"I didn't care what deals all the publishers got with Amazon, Barnes & Noble or anyone else," he said.
The publishers had expressed unhappiness with Amazon and said they wanted higher prices from Apple, Cue said. But Apple sent price caps to ensure the company didn't lose any control.

Pearson Plc's Penguin Group, News Corp's HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp's Simon & Schuster Inc, Hachette Book Group Inc and Macmillan have all settled.

Cue acknowledged telling publishers he was speaking to their rivals during negotiations, but said he did so only generally and not naming the companies.

He said he also did not know of calls the government said publishers were making between themselves, nor did he think anyone else at Apple knew.

"If they were working together, I assume I would have had much easier time negotiating," Cue said.
The case is United States v. Apple Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.
 12-02826.
 

Creative Rut

Apple enters net Radio's busy field

 

Apple is known for making some of the finest hardware in the world, but one of its biggest stumbling blocks has been services that rely on an Internet connection.

Apple's Maps app for iPhones was initially so bad the company apologized. Ping, Apple's social network for discovering songs, was killed because hardly anyone used it. And iCloud, its service for synchronizing user data across devices, has been criticized for being unreliable, though it has not had as many glitches as its predecessor MobileMe, which had an email blackout that disconnected thousands of customers for days.

Now, Apple is giving online services another try, in an area where it has long been the leader: music. On Monday, at the opening of its annual developers conference in San Francisco, the company is expected to unveil an Internet radio service that will stream songs over a data connection instead of storing them on a device, according to people briefed on the negotiations. The service is expected to be free, but supported by ads.

With its Internet radio service, Apple will be following other online music services, like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio. But it could spread this type of music consumption further into the mainstream, some analysts say.

"The genius of iTunes 10 years ago was that they made the mainstream consumer understand what digital music was, and how it all worked," said Russ Crupnik, an analyst at NPD Group who studies the digital music market. He said Pandora was mainstream, with 200 million registered users, but it was not a dominant global player, and that a similar service from Apple would expose more people to online radio.

The company is also expected to introduce new Mac notebooks and a redesign of iOS, its software operating system for iPhones and iPads, at the four-day developers conference. The conference includes seminars where software developers can get training on the latest Apple software development tools so they can start making apps.

The new operating system will be the first mobile software system made under the company's lead hardware designer, Jony Ive. Ive was put in charge of software design after the company fired Scott Forstall, the former head of mobile software development, amid the flurry of negative news reports surrounding Apple's mapping software.

Before taking over software design, Ive made it known in the company that he did not like some of the visual ornamentations in Apple's mobile software, particularly the use of textures representing physical materials. Under his direction, elements like the yellow-notepad inspired Notes app and the leather borders in the Calendar app for the iPad are expected to be removed from the software. The overall look will be smoother and less ostentatious, according to a person briefed on the company's plans, who asked not to be named.

For Apple, the expansion into streaming music underscores a competitive issue: One of its chief rivals, Google, has long had robust Internet services, like Gmail and Google Apps, while over the years it has gotten better at designing the software and hardware for its phones and tablets.

But while Apple struggles with Internet services, its stock is down about 37 percent after peaking at a little more than $700 in the fall. The company is still selling tens of millions of iPhones and iPads, but investors are concerned about its growth slowing and profit margins getting tighter. A shift into services like Internet radio could present new opportunities to make money.

But James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, says he thinks Apple is too late in this game. The company has to present an Internet radio service that is better than what is out there, he said, or people will continue to just buy its hardware and use other companies' services.

"It's going to have to innovate," McQuivey said. "It can't just be Pandora with an 'i' in front of it or Spotify with an 'i' in front of it."

In the late 1990s, the music industry was in turmoil because many Internet users quickly learned they could download their favorite songs for free instead of paying for albums. Steven P. Jobs, Apple's late chief, approached the music labels with the idea of a store offering the ability to download songs a la carte for 99 cents a download.

"When we first approached the labels, the online music business was a disaster," Jobs was quoted as saying in the book "The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness." 

"Nobody had ever sold a song for 99 cents. Nobody really ever sold a song. And we walked in, and we said: 'We want to sell songs a la carte. We want to sell albums, too, but we want to sell songs individually.' They thought that would be the death of the album."

In 2003, Apple was the first company to legitimize digital music when it opened the iTunes Store, a legal way for people to download and purchase digital songs. Now digital music has grown far beyond the traditional album. Many companies offer the ability to stream music over a data connection.

Spotify, for example, based in London, lets people search for songs and immediately stream them over the Internet on their smartphones and computers; a free version of the service plays ads every few songs, but paying $5 a month will skip the ads.

Rdio, another music streaming service, costs at least $5 a month to stream songs from a computer, but it has an emphasis on social networking, or discovering music by looking at what friends are listening to.

And Pandora, introduced eight years ago, lets users create their own stations by entering an artist and then automatically playing songs similar to that artist. Its ad-free upgrade is $4 a month.

But online streaming services are not as popular as iTunes, which counts about 500 million customers with their credit cards on file. Apple is still No. 1 in the paid digital music market with a 63 percent share, followed by Amazon at 22 percent, according to NPD Group.

In a study, NPD said it found that 44 million Americans bought at least one song or album download last year, a number that has remained stable despite the growth of Pandora and music streaming services. A separate NPD study found that people who stream music are much more likely to buy music downloads.

When Apple enters online radio, it will be difficult for companies like Spotify and Pandora to compete, said Laurence Isaac Balter, chief market strategist at Oracle Investment Research, which has clients that own Apple shares. He said Apple will be at an advantage because it will have deeper control of the iPhone software and hardware, as well as more data about its own customers, than outside companies would, so that it can make smarter music recommendations for customers. Streaming music will also give customers a chance to listen to music they would otherwise never have heard before, and then perhaps buy the songs in iTunes, Balter said.

Balter added that Apple could potentially leverage the user data it gets from streaming radio and expand it into a future Apple television, where people could find video content about their favorite bands or even purchase concert tickets on the bigger screen.

"There's so much of a white canvas here for Apple to paint on," Balter said. "It's refreshing to see them start to think in this area."

As Apple expands its product lines to include cheaper products, like the iPad Mini and a rumored cheaper iPhone, its profit margins will decrease. That is when the importance of online services will become even greater for Apple because they will provide more ways to make money, McQuivey said.

"If Apple doesn't make this shift to services," he said, "they won't be left with a leg to stand on."

© 2013, The New York Times News Service