The 2012 Fortune 500 list is now available, and to no one’s surprise, Apple leap up the charts from number 35 last year to number 17 this year — and Cupertino isn’t likely to rest in that position for long, judging from the kind of year they’re already having. But that’s not the only news for today, so without further ado, here’s the latest for Tuesday, May 8, 2012.
With many of us now using family plans for our wireless phones, it only makes sense for carriers to allow sharing a pool of data among users, the same way we now do with voice minutes each month. Both AT&T and Verizon have expressed interest in just such a service, and if Ma Bell has its way, they may actually beat Big Red to the punch. According to Cnet, AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega confesses he’s “very comfortable with the plan that will be offered to our customers” — a definite about face from the company’s waffling position of a few months ago. Like Verizon, AT&T is planning to launch a family data plan package by mid-year, which is just around the corner. Such a plan would “allow consumers to buy one bucket of data, which can be used by multiple devices, a move industry observers believe could spur the sale of non-traditional cellular devices like connected tablets.” Hey, can’t come soon enough for us!
MacRumors is reporting that its sister website TouchArcade has finally released their own iOS app, dedicated to games for the platform. The TouchArcade app brings “website content, easy game discovery, user forums, as well as app tracking abilities” — which includes adding games to a “Watch List” where users can be notified of sales, reviews and updates. The free app is compatible with all devices running iOS 4.2 or later, but isn’t yet a universal build with native iPad support. MacRumors also notes that an official app for their own website is also planned for launch later this year.
Fortune magazine released its Fortune 500 list for 2012, and Apple is once again on the move, sprinting up the chart 18 places from number 35 to number 17. “The company emerged from the tragic passing of co-founder Steve Jobs saddened but in no perceptible way weakened,” the magazine notes. “Under CEO Tim Cook, the company continued pumping out new products — like a significantly upgraded version of the iPad tablet. Apple nearly doubled its earnings per share in 2011, compared to 2010. That helped nudge management to announce plans for the firm’s first dividend since 1995, returning some of the .6 billion in cash it had accumulated. Apple fans and analysts alike also continue to await a long-rumored television set from the gadget maker.” A year from now, Apple is likely to be even further up the Fortune food chain, with many predicting the company may even crack the top five.
Macworld is reporting that two more regional carriers are about to roll out the iPhone on Friday, May 18. This time it’s Nex-Tech Wireless based in Kansas as well as California-based Golden State Cellular, who will both be offering all three storage capacities of the iPhone 4S for less than their major carrier rivals at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Both carriers use the CDMA standard and offer better voice and data plans than their larger competitors. The pair of regional carriers now make a total of 13 different companies offering the iPhone here in the U.S., and is likely to even further depress T-Mobile, the fourth-placed carrier still left without an official Apple device.
On the heels of its Penultimate acquisition, Evernote has announced a new update for its own iOS app, with a special focus on enhancements for the iPhone. Chief among them is a “completely redesigned note editor,” including attachments at top, intuitive text styling and redesigned note info. The iPhone version also receives better checkboxes, but you’ll need iOS 5 or higher to see both of these changes. Evernote has also improved attachments (including support for Photo Stream images) and a pair of new settings to control auto-titling and saving to Camera Roll. The update is now available in the App Store.
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No longer the exclusive iPhone carrier, AT&T is frequently knocked as a poor carrier with lousy wireless service, but if you ask their CEO, it sounds a bit like the customers are the ones taking advantage of them.
The New York Times published an interesting report over the weekend which sheds some light on controversial decisions made by AT&T, such as ditching the unlimited data plans that made the iPhone so popular in the first place. As it turns out, the company’s CEO would have made the move much earlier — or in hindsight, maybe not at all.
“My only regret was how we introduced pricing in the beginning, because how did we introduce pricing? Thirty dollars and you get all you can eat,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said during an on-stage interview last week at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference. “And it’s a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital.”
Unlimited data plans have been dead for nearly two years now, and the capped packages that replaced them are clearly working out for the carrier, who reported .1 billion in revenue from mobile data alone in Q1 2012 — particularly since 70 percent of the people using them are “paying for the more expensive options.”
Stephenson is equally regretful about “disruptive” new technologies such as Apple’s iMessage or Microsoft’s Skype, both of which the CEO consider a threat to their current business.
“You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model,” the CEO elaborated. “Apple iMessage is a classic example. If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.”
These complaints aside, Stephenson has no such regrets about the “unique opportunity” to become the first carrier for the iPhone — despite the company’s board of directors being nervous about the handset possibly transforming the carrier’s business model.
“I remember asking the question: Are we investing in a business model, are we investing in a product or are we investing in Steve Jobs?” Stephenson concludes. “The answer to the question was, you’re investing in Steve Jobs. Let’s go after this thing. And we went after it, and the rest is history.”
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Verizon Wireless may have boasted 3.2 million iPhone activations in its first-quarter 2012 results last week, but onetime exclusive carrier AT&T is still the king, announcing 4.3 million units sold for Apple’s handset in the first three months of this year.
AT&T has posted its Q1 2012 earnings, beating Wall Street estimates thanks to a 27.2 percent increase in its wireless operating income margin. In fact, wireless, wireline data (DSL, U-verse broadband) and managed services made up 78 percent of the company’s total fortunes — up 6.2 percent from the same quarter last year.
While overall smartphone sales also exceeded the first quarter of 2011 with 5.5 million, the real story comes with the company’s disclosure that 4.3 million of those handsets were iPhones, with 21 percent of those customers new to AT&T. While that’s a dip from last quarter’s 7.6 million, keep in mind that the January through March period is historically slower after the holidays, and 4.3 million is still a bump from the same period last year, which saw 3.6 million iPhones activated.
Despite so many vocal critics of AT&T, customers appear to be staying put, with a postpaid wireless churn rate of only 1.1 percent, which Ma Bell calls the “lowest level in seven quarters.” Roughly 30 percent of the company’s smartphone customers are using a “4G-capable” device, but that doesn’t mean much since the carrier includes “faux G” and LTE under the same shingle.
Although AT&T didn’t break out iPads from the rest of its tablet offerings, the company claims Q1 2012 was “its best-ever first-quarter sales for branded computing subscribers,” which includes tablets, tethering plans, aircards, mobile Wi-Fi hot spots and “other data-only devices.” Ma Bell added 460,000 such devices to reach 5.8 million, a 70 percent bump in subscribers from a year ago.
These numbers don’t show the results of AT&T’s recent push with Windows Phone handsets led by the Nokia Lumia 900, which started shipping earlier this month. We’ll have to wait for July to see those Q2 numbers — meanwhile, Apple will have their own numbers out later on Tuesday, so stay tuned for those.
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Happy Friday, dear readers! Have we got a doozy of a recap for you today — it’s got a little bit of everything, but mostly a whole bunch of savings for indie Mac games, and even a tip on how to start wiping out all that AT&T text messaging spam that you may be getting. It’s the perfect way to end the week, so kick up your feet and get reading on this Friday, April 20, 2012.
We don’t have much time to do any blogging of our own these days (hey, this news doesn’t write itself, folks!), but when we did, MarsEdit was our weapon of choice. Today, the Mac blogging application was bumped to version 3.5, and The Red Sweater Blog has published the details of what’s new. MarsEdit now includes rich-text formatting macros for quickly aiding in common blogging tasks, improved support for OS X Lion full-screen mode, tweaks to Tumblr connectivity and a considerably long list of other bug fixes and other improvements. Whether you’ve purchased the app straight from the developer or via the Mac App Store, MarsEdit 3.5 is a free upgrade, so have at it, fellow bloggers.
If you’re like some folks we know, you’re always looking for ways to save when it comes time to buy new Mac games. The folks at Indie Royale feel your pain and are happy to help feed your addiction on the cheap by debuting six quality, independent games as part of its Spring Bundle. How does worth of apps for one crazy low price sound? Yeah, we thought so. The Indie Royale Spring Bundle includes Unstoppable Gorg, Depths of Peril, Tobe’s Vertical Adventure, Inferno+, Slydris, and Ballistic, but if you pay at least for the bundle, you’ve got a nice bonus coming on top of all that fun — Danimal Cannons “Roots” music album, billed as “one of the most acclaimed chiptune releases of 2011,” available in 320k MP3 and FLAC formats. So why are you still reading this? There are only four days left to grab the deal, ya lunkheads!
We don’t know about you, but SMS spam seems to be on the rise, particular from AT&T. As it turns out, there might be a way to eliminate it — or at the very least, report it to the carrier so you’ll feel better about it. TidBITS has all the details, which basically involves forwarding the unwanted SMS text message in question to 7726 (that’s S-P-A-M on a dial pad, in case you were wondering). AT&T will respond asking for the number the offending message originally came from — copy and paste it into your reply and you’ll get a grateful reply back from Ma Bell. And in case you’re wondering, the entire exchange won’t cost you a dime, although by now most of us have been strong armed into an unlimited text messaging plan anyway.
What’s this? A second Mac gaming bundle available in the same week?? We must really love you Mac gamers! (Now you’ll have no reason not to renew that Mac|Life subscription with all the money we’re saving you today.) The folks at HumbleBundle have nabbed Bonanicula, the new game from the creators of Machinarium, which is also included in the bundle along with Samorost 2, Kooky and Windosill — that is, assuming you pay the minimum amount, which is currently .76. HumbleBundle’s proceeds support the World Land Trust charity and all games are cross-platform, so they’ll work equally well on Mac, Windows or Linux. Purchased elsewhere, you’d be looking at upwards of for this bundle — and it’s not often you just saunter in and name your own price, you know.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple has cut a deal with the local government of Prineville, Oregon, where it plans to build a new data center on a 160-acre piece of property. According to Associated Press, Apple has agreed to invest 0 million into the site, plus an annual 0,000 “project fee” which will be paid to the local government in lieu of property taxes over the next 15 years. Apple’s commitment also includes hiring a minimum of 35 locals, who will be paid 150 percent of the average living wage in that county. The iPhone maker purchased the land back in February for a reported .6 million, where it plans to build a data center similar to the one recently launched in Maiden, North Carolina, which currently powers a big chunk of the Apple’s iCloud service.
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(Image courtesy of TidBITS.com)
Color us shocked: AT&T has announced they’ll start unlocking out of contract iPhones beginning Easter Sunday, which has long been a thorn in the side of international travelers everywhere. Coupled with the fact that Apple now sells contract-free, unlocked handsets on its own, the move may mark the end of an era for many jailbreakers whose interest was mostly using their handset overseas. And there’s plenty more where that came from for this fabulous Friday, April 6, 2012. Happy Easter, everyone!
Curious about where you iCloud data goes when it leaves your device or computer? Apparently the folks at Wired were as well, so they took to the air in search of some photos of “Area i51,” better known as Apple’s newest data center in Maiden, North Carolina. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen aerial shots of the complex, but the photos taken in March reveal not only the entire 500,000 square foot facility as well as the 100 acre plot where Apple is building a solar power farm for generating 20 megawatts of power back to the data center. There’s also a curious section cleared out next to the data center, which Wired notes is likely “a 4.8 megawatt biogas-powered power generator.” It’s all quite fascinating, although one day we hope to see a tour of the actual data center facility itself…
Mobile gamers are about to get excited! The Verge is reporting that Rockstar will be releasing Max Payne Mobile for iOS on April 12, and will follow on Android on April 26. “The title, which includes all the shootdodging action of the 2001 release, also features renovated graphics and Social Club functionality,” the report notes. “Players will be able to customize the touch controls as they see fit.” The developer isn’t saying how much the smartphone port of the original Max Payne will cost just yet, but their similar port of Grand Theft Auto 3 might give gamers a small clue.
We all know the iPhone and iPad is lust worthy, and many of us joke that we’d give an arm and a leg to have one. But would you really? According to The New York Times, a Chinese teenager did something along the same lines, selling one of his kidneys so he could buy both an iPhone and an iPad. “Five people in southern China have been charged with intentional injury,” reveals the Xinhua News Agency, which includes the surgeon who actually performed the procedure on the 17-year-old teen a year ago. The story gets more depressing from there: The teen from Anhui — one of the country’s poorest areas — now suffers from renal deficiency, which hardly makes it worth the 22,000 yuan (just under ,500 USD) he received. Before you start judging his parents, it turns out they had no knowledge of the procedure until the teen known only as Wang showed up with his shiny new toys and had to confess where he got the money to buy them.
AT&T is offering an early Easter treat for iPhone users on their network, with news that Apple’s handsets can now be unlocked for use on GSM networks worldwide. According to Engadget, the policy change begins on Easter Sunday, April 8, but don’t pick up that phone to call right away — you’ll have to qualify first. “Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones,” the company’s official statement explains. “The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.” That means everyone who bought an iPhone 4S on contract is out of luck for now — but those of you rocking iPhone 4 or earlier handsets should be good to go. Sounds like all of those emails to Apple CEO Tim Cook pleading for an unlock have finally paid off, eh…?
Right on the heels of a recent report detailing Apple’s plans for anti-glare displays with the next iMac comes word that Cupertino will release these new models in June. DigiTimes is reporting that Quanta Computer and Foxconn Technology will start assembling this year’s iMacs, “which are set to launch in June with Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors,” according to Chinese-language Economic Daily News. “The new iMac is rumored to feature an anti-glare display with Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge-based i5 and i7 processors, noted the paper adding that Apple is also set to launch MacBook Pro notebooks featuring Ivy Bridge processors at the end of the second quarter,” the report reads. Wait — did our iMac just give us the stink eye? We still love you, old friend… it’s not like we want to buy a new model…
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(Image courtesy of Wired)
