iPhone, News/Rumors

“Black Diamond”-world’s most expensive iPhone 5

Have $15.3 million lying around? United Kingdom-based designer Stuart Hughes will help you get rid of such sum! For three years on end, he has done his best to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records with his most expensive handheld gadget. He has already made a number of ultra-expensive Apple devices – White iPhone 4 ($ 20,000), iPad ($ 121,000), iPhone 3GS ($ 3,2 million), iPhone 4 ($ 8,000,000) and iPad 2 ($ 8,000,000). Stuart’s new creation – $15 million iPhone 5, which topped all previous prices.

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This beautiful device took 9 weeks of detailed intricate work to re-create the original chasis of the iPhone 5 in solid gold all of which was started and finished by hand, including a flawless black single deep cut diamond weighing in at 26 cts, most unique to replace the home button also the chasis was inlaid with a circa of 600 white flawless diamonds with full gold dressing for the rear section with the logo in solid gold with 53 flawless diamonds.

This masterpiece has 135 grams of 24-carat gold and sapphire glass for the screen. $15.4 million handset, called «Black Diamond» and recognized as the most expensive smartphone in the world, was commissioned for Stuart by a Chinese business man who has had the black diamond for a while. A Chinese businessman was identified only as “Joe”. Purchase of probably the most expensive iPhone in the world isn’t possible, it’s made by special order. But a cheaper iPhone 5,  made entirely of gold is available right now.

News/Rumors

Apple plans to triple its operations in India

As the analysts say, Apple and Samsung are locked in a pricing struggle in India, with each company suggest discounts on its smartphones to draw customers in one of the world’s largest developing smartphone markets. As the world’s second-most populous country, India represents a tremendous market opportunity for both companies.

The fact is in early April Apple decided to give a discount to any customers trading in an older smartphone for Apple’s iPhone 4. The customers now receive a cash discount of at least 7,000 rupees ($128) toward the purchase of an iPhone 4. Samsung in it’s turn offers 15 percent cash back for consumers buying a Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Grand, or Galaxy tablet. Industry observers expect that Apple will have to address the issue further by introducing a lower-cost iPhone in the near future. The current low-cost iPhone 4, they say, is just a stopgap measure that allows Apple to build a presence while clearing inventory of older models.

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Apple’s iPhone holds a 15.6 percent revenue share in the Indian smartphone market. That’s a distant second to Samsung’s hold on the market. Offering a wide range of handsets at an array of price points has allowed Samsung to grab 38.8 percent of the revenue in India’s growing smartphone market.
Since mobile providers in India do not subsidize the cost of smartphones, Apple is faced with a difficult situation in the country. The company’s flagship iPhone 5 sells for 45,500 rupees, while Samsung’s Galaxy Grand is available for 21,500 rupees.

 

Apple, News/Rumors

Apple’s iTunes Store is the driving force behind digital music

 

NPD’s “Annual Music Study 2012″ revealed consumer opinions and habits in music buying. The study found out that Apple’s iTunes held 63 % of the market for paid music downloads in the fourth quarter of 2012, followed by AmazonMP3 at 22 percent.

According to the study results 44 million Americans bought at least one song track or album download last year. Per-buyer spending on music downloads was up six percent year-over-year, thanks to teens buying more tracks.

The fact is about 40 percent of U.S. consumers still are sure it’s important to own their music. 30 percent believe that listening to whole albums is important. The belief in the importance of owning music is actually somewhat stronger among consumers that listen to Pandora and other free streaming services. Those listeners, NPD found, were more likely to buy downloads of things they’d heard on a radio or on-demand service.

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What began as a simple, legal music repository for owners of Apple’s iPod 10 years ago has grown into a powerful force in the music industry. In 2012, iTunes and other download providers boosted music industry revenue for the first time since the Napster era. Worldwide, digital music revenues are at $5.6 billion, and Apple’s iTunes accounts for a large portion of that. The service recently sold its 25 billionth song, with 15 billion of those sales coming in the last three years.

News/Rumors

Analysts: Apple employees leave to work at startups

Analysts note the outflow of Apple’s employees to other companies, Mercury News reported reffering to a blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball. The company had a reputation for hanging onto its employees for decades despite minimal title inflation and lower pay. But the situation started changing. “More generally there is a growing level of dissatisfaction among Apple executives and employees, and a greater willingness to explore leaving,” says one investor. Some are sure that Apple policy has changed when the new leadership came to the top, including wages indexation and provided benefits.

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John Gruber said that while Apple employees leave the company, recruitment agencies get more resumes from those interested in  new promising projects. Among possible causes of such situation, the expert highlighted higher wages offers in the market and dissatisfaction with the general policy of the company.

Apple employees are in high demand, pure and simple.That’s why retention is going to be such a tricky problem for the company.” The outflow relates primarily to the most valuable staff – engineers and designers, which is a dangerous trend for the development of Apple. Apple PR declined to comment on this situation.
In March, observers have already expressed their concerns about possible brain drains. The human factor always influenced  ups and downs of Apple.

 

News/Rumors

Satirical “iSteve” now available to watch online

If you have waited fot the release of “iSteve” , then you’ll be happy to hear the time has come. Funny or Die has published its satirical film about Steve Jobs on its website for streaming. A 79-minute movie based on the life of the famouse Apple co-founder, was released yesterday by the comedy site. Notably, the project is the longest video that Funny or Die has ever created. The site was previously known for “The Landlord,” a clip featuring actor Will Ferrell and co-creator Adam McKay’s 2-year-old daughter. Since its release, the creators received more than 80 million views.

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Director of the film is Ryan Perez, known in particular as the author of scripts for the comedy show Saturday Night Live and comedy shorts such as “Who is Paul McCartney?” According to him, “In true Internet fashion, it’s not based on very thorough research — essentially a cursory look at the Steve Jobs Wikipedia page.” “iSteve” writer and director said that “It’s very silly. But it looks at his whole life.”

Justin Long (Dodgeball, Jeepers Creepers) is shot in the title role. Alongside Long is Jorge Garcia (Lost) as Steve Wozniak, James Urbaniak playing Bill Gates and Michaela Watkins filling the role of Melinda Gates. This movie covers Job’s life store since his death in October 2011. Remind, that there is another one movie “Jobs” with Ashton Kutcher as Jobs. That film was originally set to be open Friday, but its release been postponed to an unknown date.

 

News/Rumors

Most expensive Apple’s employees

Referring to the data received from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg published the names of the most highly paid executives.The five top included executives with the highest incomes. By the way four of them were Apple’s employees, but none was the head of the company Tim Cook.
The highest earnings were recorded in Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. In 2012, he received $96.2 million. The following ones are only the representatives of Apple: Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeff Williams and Peter Oppenheimer. Most of the money they received in the form of interest on the shares, while the official salaries were low.

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The annual income of the senior vice president of technology Apple Bob Mansfield, who was going to leave the company, was $ 85.5 million. General counsel and senior vice president of Apple Bruce Sewell earned $ 69 million. Jeff Williams, senior vice president of Operation was the next, with $ 68.7 million. He received his current position in 2010, ten years before he had worked at Apple on other places. While serving as Chief Financial Officer in Apple, Peter Oppenheimer has received $ 68.6 million. It should be noted that Tim Cook earned only $4.17 million last year.

Apps Lists, News/Rumors

Facebook wants to bring ‘Home’ to Apple’s iPhone

After the successful announcement of Facebook Home for Android, the Menlo Park-based social networking giant is apparently in talks with Apple and Microsoft to bring the software to iOS and Windows Phone. But it should be noted that Home could be a very different experience on iOS compared to Android, if Apple does end up collaborating on the software.

On Monday Adam Mosseri,Facebook director of product, announced that talks were underway with both Apple and Microsoft, saying the social network titan is looking to expand the reach of its newest initiative to other smartphone platforms.

“We’ve shown them what we’ve built and we’re just in an ongoing conversation,” Mosseri said. “It may or may not be Home,” he said, referring to the Android-only software. “We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it’s not called Home, it’s called something else.”

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Facebook Home hit store shelves on April 12 as implemented in the HTC First handset, with the launcher going live in the Google Play app store that same day.

iPhone, News/Rumors

Rumor:iPhone 5S comes with 12-megapixel camera

According to a fresh report out of the Far East, Apple’s next-generation iPhone will include an all new 12-megapixel camera. That’s as compared to the 8-megapixel sensor found on both the iPhone 5 and 4S. The rumor, from Vietnamese blog Tinhte.vn announced the new information originated form “Wonderful Saigon Electrics in Binh Duong, which specializes in providing camera modules for the iPhone.” And today isn’t the first time we’ve heard that the next-generation iPhone might include an improved camera. In January there was a bit more specific report, suggesting that Apple would tap Sony’s 13-megapixel sensor. The improvement from 8 to 12 megapixels is perfect. Firstly, the images can be printed and cropped down in a larger size, and secondly they might take less space on the device.

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Apple is under more pressure than ever to make improvements to its cameras, which have become a point of comparison as the smartphone market matures. With the upcoming iPhone 5S, a new camera could be one of the handset’s major peculiarities. The quality of pictures and videos is one of the priorities of Apple, no wonder iPhone has become one of the tools in the work of many professional photographers. He also became the most popular device for taking pictures at users of the Flickr service.

Sure, it’s hard to believe in improvements in camera after amount of rumors, concerning next iPhone features, including multiple variety of new colors, a fingerprint security scanner and a faster processor.

Accessories, News/Rumors

Welcome, the JBL Charge: new Bluetooth speaker

Today, let me introduce a new speaker: the venerable Jawbone Jambox-the JBL Charge with a much bigger sound and a larger size than the Jambox. It’s a colorful pill of a speaker that looks almost like, as an accessory, it leaped out of a new iPod touch commercial. The JBL Charge has a fun and fantastic design, that will attract much attention of visitors of your room filled with design.

The sound is absolutely phenomenal. The JBL Charge has the louder, richer sound of the Big Jambox, although it’s slightly larger than the original Jambox. It has the bass richer and better, unlike most Bluetooth speakers. The JBL Charge at the maximum volume is loud enough to comfortably hear across the apartment, with clear and crisp sound.

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The JBL Charge is equipped with the 6,000mAh battery inside, which can not only be used to power the speaker or up to 12 hours, or you can plug a cable into the Charge’s USB port and drain electricity into your smartphone. Such a feature makes the Bluetooth speaker more useful, especially for those who travel a lot. The JBL Charge costs $149, which isn’t too much for the thing that sounds so good. Unfortunately, there is no aptX support, which makes music streamed over Bluetooth sound better.IMG_0932

Generally, there are a lot of Bluetooth speakers out there, but the JBL Charge is like getting the best of these with its playful and colorful design and an external battery.

iPad, News/Rumors

This year tablet sales climb to $64B

There is no surprise that the tablet growth rate contrasts sharply with the traditional computing market, though PC shipments should still be about double the number of tablets in 2013. International Data Corp. last month projected global computer shipments this year would total 345.8 million, but the tech research firm has since warned it likely will lower the forecast because of dismal first-quarter sales. Tablet sales are expected to catch up to PCs within the next couple years.

The tech research firm expects tablet sales to climb 28 percent this year to $64 billion. In terms of shipments, a jump of 38 percent to 150 million is expected in 2013. The tech research firm says “the tide is definitely turning toward Android-based tablets,” with Samsung and others continuing to erode Apple’s early success in the market. The convenience and mobility benefits afforded by tablet computers are showing no signs of slowing interest after record unit shipments and revenues were reported by device vendors in 2012.

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Apple’s iPad Mini “was a timely introduction,” but ABI remains cautious about the financial impact it’s having on Apple. ABI believes the first quarter will have been the first time production was able to meet demand for the iPad Mini, which should provide a better sense of how much larger iPad volume has shifted to the smaller device.