Apple This

Target, in my opinion, is one of the greatest stores on the planet. The ones around my neck of the woods literally have everything: clothes, electronics, movies, toys, games, cameras, home goods, food and even a Starbucks, Pizza Hut and food court. So, whenever I go into Target, I can’t help but say to myself, “How could this place possibly get any better?” By adding an Apple store, that’s how.

Reuters had originally reported that Target would be installing special displays for Apple products in concordance with a new effort known as “The Shops of Target”, something the retailer announced last week. Target will begin with 25 stores around the country, which is the same number that was initially reported by Apple Insider last week as well.

The Cupertino giant already offers a plethora of devices and accessories at Target, though selection is limited to iOS products like the iPhone, iPod and iPad. The mini Apple stores found within other big name retailers, like Best Buy, include all of that with the addition of Apple computers.

A spokesman for Target could not confirm nor deny whether or not these new mini Apple stores inside of Target would include Apple’s computers as well, though it stands to reason that, if Apple is making a big deal out of it like they are, we may very well see Apple computers added to the list.

Other companies, like Wal-Mart, already offer limited selections on laptops though none offer complete Apple computers. Should Target begin retailing Apple’s famous computers, we could very well see Target become the next big thing in the retail market. I know that this definitely excites me because it gives me yet another thing to look at during one of my many trips to Target on the weekends.

Source: CNET – Target confirms plans for mini Apple stores

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In the computer world, portable devices get the most attention and sales without a doubt. However, despite that, all-in-one PCs have quietly become an overwhelming and booming market and Apple’s iMac accounts for almost one-third of all of the all-in-one PCs sold in the industry.

All-in-one desktop computer sales increased 39% in 2010 to a total of 14.5 million units according to research firm DisplaySearch. Among those sales Apple accounted for 32.9%, putting Apple on top as the single largest all-in-one PC maker in the world.

The iMac is Apple’s only all-in-one device and is also the company’s strongest selling desktop computer, even beating out the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. In the previous quarter for Apple, portable Mac computers represented 74% of Mac sales, though desktop sales still hit an all new record for the company.

Apple has a 33% share of all-in-one desktops, which put it ahead of Lenovo, the second place company. Third place goes to HP with a 21.4% share. HP is planning on releasing a new pair of desktop PCs before next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012.

HP’s HP Omni is an all-in-one desktop that comes with a 27″ screen that is specifically designed for family use. It will go on sale January 8 for a base price of $1,200. In addition to the HP Omni, HP will also be releasing a standard desktop PC aimed at PC gamers known as the Pavilion HPE h9 Phoenix. The Phoenix will have a base price of $1,150.

Bloomberg stated that HP’s decision to highlight new desktops as portables is evidence that the company is trying to stand out for the influx of portable devices destined to dominate CES 2012 next week. The all-in-one PC market is set to see continued growth and DisplaySearch believes that it could reach 23.3 million units by 2014.

Even though the iMac is performing stronger than ever for Apple, the company is suspected to be questioning the future of the more traditional Mac tower computer, the Mac Pro. It has already been reported that Apple is considering doing away with the entire Mac Pro lineup and sparing all the resources devoted to it.

Source: AppleInsider – Apple’s iMac accounts for 33% of all-in-one PC sales

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Do you know what it took to establish the most profitable and powerful computer companies in the world? A simple, three-page contract. Three simple pieces of paper brought Apple to the world and shot Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak into the history books. However, that document is getting a little more attention these days due to the fact that it recently sold for $1.59 million in New York, far above the pre-sale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000.

Bidding for the document began at $70,000 in a half-empty room containing only about 20 people and nearly as many Sotheby’s staff members manning the phones for call-in bidders. A total of six online and telephone bidders competed for the entire lot, which finally went to Eduardo Cisneros, CEO of Cisneros Corporation.

The contract, which was signed on April 1, 1976 by both Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, was initially owned by Wayne who met Jobs while working at Atari. Jobs’ longtime friend Wozniak was working at HP at the time and Jobs urged Wayne to persuade Wozniak to join the new company. Wayne’s success in getting Wozniak on board granted him a 10% share in the soon-to-be billion dollar company.

However, only 11 days after the contract was signed, Wayne dropped out as a partner. His move was documented by a County of Santa Clara, California statement and an amendment to the contract, both of which were included in the Sotheby’s lot. Wayne only received $800 for relinquishing his 10% share and subsequently received an additional payment of $1,500, according to Sotheby’s.

If Wayne had stayed with the company, his 10% share would be worth more than $36 billion today. Wayne, in an October 7 interview with Bloomberg, called Wozniak and Jobs “intellectual giants” but “also felt it was going to be something of a roller coaster” adding, “If I’d stayed with them, I was going to wind up the richest man in the cemetery.”

Source: Bloomberg – Founding Apple Contract Jobs Signed Sells for $1.6 Million

Power Point Projectors
Most business class projectors will do a good job displaying your PowerPoint presentation. If you have a small presentation group, a 2000 lumen LCD projector will be able to produce a nice and clear picture. For larger audiences you should consider a 5000 lumen LCD projector.

Think wearable computers are only things Marty McFly can get ahold of? Think again, because Apple is apparently working on designs for wearable computers and has even gone as far as to create a few prototypes, just because they can. Multiple unnamed sources are claiming that a small team at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California are hard at work on these devices, as well as concepts for other wearable computer products.

The New York Times reports that Apple’s wearable computer concept will include devices that transmit data to your iPhone or display information on iPod screens. Apple is also said to be playing with the idea of a wrist watch-style iPod that has a curved glass surface along with a Siri voice control interface.

The curved glass surface idea began as a rumor in the beginning of 2011, though at the time it was also assumed that the glass was for the next generation iPhone. That rumor, however, quickly became debunked when the iPhone 4S was released with the exact same screen format as the previous iPhone 4. Though, maybe the rumor isn’t false and is simply referring to the iPhone 5?

It seems likely that Apple is working on new designs and accessories for these wearable computers since iPods, iPads and iPhones are already extremely portable. Wearable devices seem like the next logical step for Apple though the sources are saying that just because Apple has prototypes does not mean we will be seeing these devices anytime soon.

Regardless, Apple is already teasing consumers with wearable tech with the iPod Shuffle and the new version of the iPod Nano. The new iteration of the Nano includes a lot of watch faces and some companies have even made wrist bands specifically designed to hold the iPod like a standard wristwatch.

Nevertheless, the mere thought of Apple bringing together the iPhone, wireless data technology and Siri onto a single, wearable device is definitely exciting and something that many people are praying the company is actually serious about bringing to life. I just hope they find a way to recreate the hoverboard from Back to the Future. If there is a company alive today that can do so, it is definitely Apple.

Source: The Mac Observer – Apple Working on Wearable Computer Prototypes

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Sparrow, which was previously updated with CloudApp integration and pull-to-refresh with its latest version 1.4 update, has reached an all-new milestone at Apple. This morning marked the release of version 1.5, an update that allows Sparrow to continually integrate Gmail natively with optional loading for remote images and token-based searching for messages.

One new thing that comes with version 1.5 is Dropbox integration. Dropbox integration uploads large attachments to Dropbox as an alternative to CloudApp. If you would rather use Dropbox instead of CloudApp, you can go to the Services tab in the preferences to choose your option. You will have to log out of CloudApp first if you plan on switching to Dropbox and if you upload an attachment that is larger than 25MB, Sparrow will automatically choose Dropbox over CloudApp.

Gmail users should be familiar with the yellow bar located above their email messages that asks whether or not you would like remote images to be loaded into the document. Sparrow also now includes similar functionality like this to protect you from Spam or unknown senders and allows you to choose whether to always show messages from a particular sender or to only show images when requested.

Last, but certainly not least, Sparrow users will notice search tokens are useful for isolating labels and finding specific messages. Gmail’s powerful shortcuts have also been brought over to Sparrow in the same way as tokens in mail with one difference. Tokens can be specific to message statuses, labels, if a message is flagged, etc… Tokens are very easy to use as well. All you have to do is type a keyword, select a specifier and press the tab key to continue adding keywords.

Sparrow 1.5 continues to add functionality to one of the better email clients on the market today for the Mac. You can get the full version of the client on the Mac App Store for $9.99, or you can try out a free lite version from the client’s website.

Source: MacStories – Sparrow 1.5 Hits the Mac App Store with Dropbox Integration and Search Tokens

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A global shortage of traditional, spinning hard disk drives (HDDs) has, coincidentally, come at a time when Apple’s flash-based solid-state MacBook Air is one of Apple’s most popular products. The large success of the redesigned netbook has come with “fortuitous timing” in the face of HDD shortages according to Evercore analyst Rob Chira. Chira believes that Apple is largely insulated from the ongoing component constraints that were caused by flooding in Thailand.

The MacBook Air only features NAND flash for storage, primarily relying on solid-state hard drives as opposed to the more traditional spinning hard disks. NAND memory has been completely unaffected by the floods in Thailand, events that have since put over 600,000 people out of work.

In addition to his previous statement, Chira also believes that the ongoing hard-drive shortage will create an influx of MacBook Air copycat Windows-based devices also using solid-state drives in 2012. Specifically, Chira sees PC makers gravitating towards Intel’s ultrabook design specification, which aims to capitalize on the popularity of Apple’s thin-and-light MacBook Air concept.

However, Chira expects Apple to counter this by refreshing its Air lineup in the first half of 2012 and also believes that Apple’s hoard of money will also allow it to leverage “some unique NAND engineering/supply vs. vanilla (solid-state drives).”

Recent rumors have also hinted at the possibility of Apple adding a 15″ model to its MacBook Air lineup in the early parts of 2012 and that the company is supposedly looking to expand its lineup as the ultraportable notebooks now represent 28% of Apple’s notebook shipments.

As far as Chira is concerned, Apple is in a strong position concerning Macs featuring traditional hard drives as well. He believes that Apple was the fastest hardware maker to react with hard-drive suppliers, putting the company in an advantageous position in the chain of supply.

This opinion also comes a matter of days after AppleInsider reported that build-to-order iMacs with 2TB hard drives had an estimated shipping time of 5 to 7 weeks. The shortage of high-capacity drives for Apple’s all-in-one machine could also be the first sign that the company is indeed being hit by the global shortage as well.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, recently expressed concern about the hard drive shortage during his company’s quarterly earnings conference back in October. While Cook was “certain” there would be an industry-wide shortage of hard-disk drives, Cook said he was “not sure” at the time of exactly how the situation would affect Apple.

Source: Apple Insider – Apple’s MacBook Air has ‘fortuitous timing’ in face of hard drive shortage

Power Point Projectors
Most business class projectors will do a good job displaying your PowerPoint presentation. If you have a small presentation group, a 2000 lumen LCD projector will be able to produce a nice and clear picture. For larger audiences you should consider a 5000 lumen LCD projector.

Apple continues to break records as the company’s share of the worldwide PC market has reached a 15-year high. The company’s popular Mac computer has reached 5.2%  of worldwide computer sales, a number that is a 15-year high for the tech giant out of Cupertino, California. News of this accomplishment comes by way of a report from Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf.

Even though 5.2% is only a very small percentage of the overall computer space in the world, it is a very important benchmark for Apple, who has been trying to obtain market share from other major computer makers, including companies like Dell, Hewlett-Packard and even Acer. Wolf added that Mac shipment growth in the third quarter managed to outpace the total PC market for the 22nd straight quarter by a margin of 24.6% at 5.3%.

In the home segment, the growth of Apple’s Mac was 25.6%  as opposed to the 4% recorded by the overall market. Among businesses, Mac’s increase of 43.8% outpaced the wider market’s 4.8% by a staggering margin. Wolf also stated that Asia Pacific represented the fastest-growing geographic region for Apple with 57.2% growth for the quarter, something also noted by AppleInsider.

In a statement from Wolf, the analyst stated, “The growth of Apple’s sales in China represent a perfect storm between an iconic brand and a rapidly growing middle class that’s more brand-conscious than consumers in most other regions of the world.”

This benchmark probably has more significance now than it would have as Apple is still mourning the loss of co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs. With Jobs’ passing, the company will be eager to put the claim that when Jobs died, Apple died with it to rest.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald – Apple’s worldwide share of PC market reaches 15-year high

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Greenpeace just released its newest “Guide to Greener Electronics”. Now, you may be asking yourself what this has to do with Apple? Well, according to the guide, the global environmental group has ranked Steve Jobs’ legacy the fourth greenest company among worldwide device makers. That’s right, the maker of the iPad, iPad and iPhone broke the top five!

The poll ranked 15 different companies across three different categories: energy, greener products and sustainable operations. In addition to that, the report also challenges these 15 companies to reduce their carbon footprint in a plethora of areas and to also set “ambitious” goals for renewable energy.

Apple received a total score of 4.6 out of 10, which landed the company in the fourth spot. While Apple enthusiasts would prefer the company to be higher, this position is five places higher than where Apple ranked in the last Greenpeace report. Apple got high marks in sustainable operations while ranking poorly on energy.

Greenpeace has stated that it believes Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions data needs external verification and also criticized the fact that the company has not yet specified any target to reduce emissions. However, Greenpeace also gave Apple some credit for the company’s improved energy efficiency and use of renewable energy.

While energy was Apple’s lowest point, the sustainable operations category was particularly strong for the company. Greenpeace again gave credit to the company for exceeding its own goals in global recycling in 2010 and also ranked Apple as a top scorer for policies and practices on the sourcing of conflict materials.

In addition to that, Apple also had a very strong showing in the products section with all of Apple’s devices being free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants. Apple also received maximum points for reporting that all of the company’s products meet or exceed the latest Energy Star standards for energy efficiency.

Source: Apple Insider – Apple ranks fourth on Greenpeace’s ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’

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An interesting bit of news came out of Apple recently as the company sent out an email to registered developers that is definitely going to raise some eyebrows. As of March 2012, Apple will require all apps submitted to the company’s app store to implement sandboxing. However, this isn’t an entirely new development as Apple was originally going to require sandboxing starting in November of this year. It appears as if Apple delayed the initiation of the rule for another few months, though the fact that the requirement will exist at all may pose problems for some Mac developers.

Many people are wondering what is prompting this action from Apple and the answer is security. According to the company in a recent statement, “Sandboxing your app is a great way to protect systems and users by limiting the resources apps can access and making it more difficult for malicious software to compromise users’ systems. As of March 1, 2012 all apps submitted to the Mac App Store must implement sandboxing.” While the company’s intentions are noble, the all-or-nothing approach is potentially problematic for sure.

Over recent months, a plethora of some of the biggest developers in the app world have been pointing out the flaws and shortcomings of Apple’s sandboxing approach. These include a buggy Carbon implementation as well as questionable support for most AppleScript-centric automation tools. Other big names in the app community, like Jason Snell and Andy Ihnatko, have also chipped in their two cents with both parties concerned that sandboxing may eventually lead to a dumbing down of the Mac App Store options or the death of AppleScript entirely.

On a lighter note, Apple does allow for a few exceptions to its upcoming sandboxing policy. According to the company, “If your app requires access to sandboxed system resources, you will need to include justification for using those entitlements as part of the submission to the Mac App Store.” However, Apple did follow this up with some bad news saying, “Apps that are being re-engineered to be sandbox compatible may request additional temporary entitlements. These entitlements are granted on a short-term basis and will be phased out over time.”

However, it may do everybody some good to look at the fact that unlike the iOS platform, the Mac App Store is not the only legitimate platform to get apps onto your Mac computer. On the other hand, that probably doesn’t do much for developers who have found the Mac App Store an easier and more lucrative channel for app distribution as opposed to the conventional methods. But then again, who knows how long it will be before Apple restricts all apps on Mac devices to go through the Mac App Store and not another platform?

With all that said, this policy is a bit extreme, much like the rule of “no third-party IDEs” for the iOS platform Apple made last year. This policy also seems to be more like something a committee created that seemed like a good idea at the time. However, it will more likely than not be modified or deprecated once the real-world implications for the Mac platform become evident. The simple fact that Apple has already delayed the launch of the rule by five months indicates that Apple may be working on further reprieves or workarounds for developers with affected products.

Source: TUAW – Apple to require sandboxing in Mac App Store apps as of March 2012

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In recent news, Apple is supposedly planning on constructing a solar farm directly next to its massive data center located in Maiden, North Carolina. The report was first released by the Charlotte Observer and later picked up by both Apple Insider as well as Mac Rumors.

Apple has already won approval to reshape the slope of nearly 121 acres of vacant land owned by the company that is adjacent to the company’s data center in preparation for the solar farm if permits issued in Catawba County are accurate.

However, the permits did not offer any details about the solar farm project itself, which has officially been nicknamed the Project Dolphin Solar Farm. This includes the solar farm’s total size according to the Charlotte Observer.

It has been reported that Apple has spent a supposed $1 billion in order to build a 500,000-square-foot monster data center in Maiden, North Carolina, which was codename Project Dolphin. On the other hand, Apple has yet to officially state how it is planning on using the server farm, though there is speculation that it will be used to power the cloud services provided by Apple as well as ones currently in development.

Apple representatives have yet to respond to requests for comments though the company has shown a lot of interest in renewable energy for its facilities and gadgets. Apple’s facilities report for 2011 states that the company sites located in Austin, Texas, Elk Grove, California and Cork, Ireland are all powered by 100% renewable energy sources.

Unfortunately, Apple has yet to release any solar-powered gadgets. Apple was awarded a patent earlier this year for a system that uses a solar panel for charging different portable devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones and other handheld devices. I don’t think we are going to have to wait long for a solar-powered iPhone though.

Source: CNET – Apple planning solar farm near data center, report says

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