It’s been a crazy, whirlwind day here at MacLife.com, with Apple’s insanely great fiscal second quarter, Google Drive and all kinds of other cool stuff vying for the hearts and minds of tech fans everywhere. Can you think of a better way to cap off the day than to kick back with a nice recap of some other stories you may have missed? We didn’t think so. Without further ado, here’s the latest for Tuesday, April 24, 2012.
Just ahead of its Google Drive cloud storage launch today, Google snuck a curious item into its Play Store: An unlocked, contract-free Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which now makes up the sole item in a new “Shop Devices” category. Of course, this isn’t the first time Google has tried pimping its own hardware — the original Nexus One was sold online but quickly snuffed out, apparently to appease U.S. carriers at a time when Android desperately needed a boost on their shelves. Although the Galaxy Nexus is a few months old now, it remains one of the best Android handsets on the market, offering a completely pure Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich experience. At 9, the handset is a good bargain for those in the market for an unlocked handset, and thanks to its pentaband antenna, owners will enjoy HSPA+ data from either AT&T or T-Mobile while in the U.S., while using it almost anywhere in the world with GSM to boot.
Apple’s iPad trademark rift with Proview is still raging in China, but the news isn’t looking good. Macworld is reporting that Fu Shuangjian, vice minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), has gone on record claiming that “Apple does not have ownership of the iPad trademark in China,” an ominous sign that authorities in the country may be playing favorites with local companies. The SAIC enforces trademark laws in China, but has promised to abide by a higher court decision yet to come. “Due to the impact of this case, and because the court’s final decision will determine ownership of the iPad trademark rights, SAIC will carefully deal with this case,” Fu explained at a press conference on Tuesday. Failure to win that court ruling could result in fines for Apple or worse yet, a ban on the iPad from the Chinese market, where Cupertino has seen explosive growth with its products.
It’s been a busy week for cloud storage companies, with Microsoft revamping SkyDrive on Monday and Google Drive launching earlier today. Hardware storage provider LaCie is hoping they won’t be forgotten, announcing a 3GB bump for the company’s Wuala cloud storage, which brings the service up to the same level as Google Drive. “Three years ago Wuala and LaCie joined forces. To celebrate the anniversary of this notable event, Wuala increases included storage from 2GB to 5GB.” Wuala announced on their blog. “If you are already using Wuala, your new storage quota will be available over the next few hours. All you have to do is to sign into your account again to see your updated storage.” Of course, if 5GB still isn’t enough, Wuala will be happy to sell you even more…
The Mozilla Blog is touting a new Firefox update, so it’s time to toss out that crusty old Firefox 11 and say hello to Firefox 12, which debuted today for Mac, Windows and Linux. It’s not a huge update for end users, but promises to make future updates easier, specifically by removing the user account control dialog pop-up that frustrates so many Windows users. Once you’ve said “Yes” once, you’ll never have to see the UAC prompt again. Developers will also be pleased with Firefox 12, which promises more than 85 improvements to Mozilla’s built-in tools: “For example, developers no longer need to reload the page to see messages in the Web Console, and Scratchpad adds Find and Jump to Line commands to the editor. Our improvements touched on every one of the built-in tools.” For what it’s worth, installing Firefox 12 on our iMac cleared up some odd quirks we were experiencing with Firefox 11, so there’s certainly no harm in giving it a go if you’re in the same boat.
Now here’s a curious item: Amazon has released Mac and PC Send to Kindle apps for aiding Kindle owners in getting their personal documents onto their device. The app allows for drag and drop onto the Send to Kindle icon in the Dock, but Mac users can also send documents from any application with a Print menu as well. Finally, users can also control-click one or more documents via the Finder or simply open the Send to Kindle app to send them. Send to Kindle should be perfect for Mac users who want to archive their documents in their Kindle library, where they can be downloaded conveniently at any time. Send to Kindle for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or higher and is available to download now from Amazon’s website.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
The number crunchers in Cupertino are notorious for conservative estimates when it comes to forecasting revenue for the next quarter, but Apple has managed to exceed Wall Street’s expectations yet again with .2 billion in revenue for their fiscal second quarter.
Apple has released fiscal second quarter results for 2012 for the period ending March 31, and it’s another blockbuster indeed. Cupertino posted .2 billion in quarterly revenue with a net profit of .6 billion, or .30 per diluted share.
That’s a net profit increase of 94 percent over last year for the same period, where Apple raked in a mere .7 billion and net profit of only billion (.40 per diluted share). International sales continue to make up a huge chunk of Apple’s income, accounting for 64 percent of the revenue for the fiscal second quarter.
The iPhone was yet again one of the stars of the show in Q2 FY12, with 35.1 million handsets sold during the quarter for an 88 percent unit growth year-over-year. But the iPad wasn’t exactly a slouch either, racking up 11.8 million units thanks to an accelerated international launch, for a 151 percent increase over the same quarter last year.
“We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter,” said CEO Tim Cook in a press release ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings call with investors. “The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.”
The Mac is still going strong as well, with Apple moving four million units even without a recent product refresh, for a seven percent increase from the same quarter in 2011. While iPod sales declined 15 percent compared to last year, Apple still pushed 7.7 million units into the market, which is more than many MP3 player manufacturers manage to do in an entire year.
“Our record March quarter results drove billion in cash flow from operations,” said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about billion and diluted earnings per share of about .68.”
Stay tuned for updates from Apple’s live conference call!
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
In what has to be one of the worst-kept secrets in Google history, the search giant finally opened the garage doors and let Google Drive go for a spin onto computers and Android devices, with an iOS client yet to come.
The Google Official Blog has announced the availability of Google Drive, the company’s new cloud storage service. There’s little doubt that the crew in Mountain Drive is taking direct aim at the likes of Dropbox, SugarSync and even Microsoft’s SkyDrive, which only yesterday unleashed its own client software for OS X Lion.
“Today, we’re introducing Google Drive — a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff,” the blog reveals. “Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.”
As widely predicted, Google Drive matches Dropbox with a free 5GB storage allotment out of the gate, but Google has done one better by integrating your existing Google Docs account right into the Drive service. That means wherever you install the Drive client software — for now, Mac, Windows or Android — your Docs will be available will be available for real-time collaboration with others.
Of course, Google Drive isn’t simply a host for Docs — like Dropbox, you can toss any files you’d like into the dedicated folder on your computer or mobile device, which gets tossed up into the cloud and available from anywhere, including a web browser if that’s all you have access to.
Search is also a big part of Google Drive — not surprising considering that’s how Google made a name for itself. Text in scanned documents will be recognized using optical character recognition (OCR) so you’ll never have to worry about finding something.
So what if 5GB isn’t enough for you? Users can upgrade to 25GB for a mere .49 per month, 100GB for .99 per month or a whopping 1TB for .99 per month — and paid accounts will also have their related Gmail account storage bumped to 25GB at the same time.
The only thing missing for now is a companion iOS app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. If you’re holding out hope that it will be launching today, we’d say don’t hold your breath: Google’s blog claims “we’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices,” which certainly doesn’t sound like it will be launching anytime soon. Bummer…
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
; ?>/img/advert.jpg)