Apple plans cheaper, Nano-based phone: JP Morgan
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Apple Inc.  plans to launch a  cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter that could  be based on the ultra-slim iPod Nano music player, according to  a JP Morgan report.
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Blog: A new JPMorgan report throws cold water on a prediction made by one of its analysts about a future iPhone based on Apple's iPod Nano design.
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Coming too soon at too low a price Apple will release a second-generation, lower cost iPhone in September for an iPod-like price of $249-299 - if a Chinese-language newspaper report citing Taiwanese industry moles is to be believed, that is.â¦
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Digg.com founder cites 'solid' source Apple's upcoming iPhone will go on sale next month with two memory capacities and no ties to a specific network, it has been claimed. The 'small as s**t' handset is based on a slider form-factor, it's said - presumably to better match the iPod design ethos.â¦
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Similar to earlier forecasts? Industry moles have told Morgan Stanley analyst Rebecca Runkle enough to convince her that Apple will launch the eagerly awaited iPhone in the first half of 2007 after an announcement at Macworld Expo early next year.â¦
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Two new iPhones, including a 3G version, could be part of Apple's plans for next year along with a puzzling rumor about Apple TV, according to the financial giant.
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A new wafer-thin laptop and a movie rental service for iTunes starred in this year&#39;s keynote from Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld Tuesday.The notebook, called the MacBook Air, wasn&#39;t the ultraportable that pundits had predicted, but it is &quot;the world&#39;s thinnest notebook,&quot; according to Jobs, who produced it from a manilla office envelope to make his point.Priced from $1,799, the notebook has a 13.3-inch widescreen display and a full-sized backlit keyboard. To keep the MacBook Air compact, it uses the same 1.8-inch hard drive found in the iPod and a smaller version of Intel&#39;s Core 2 Duo processor built especially for Apple, Jobs said.The model shown at Macworld was in brushed silver. It is three quarters of an inch thick at its thickest part and just 0.16 inch along the front edge, Jobs said. He compared it to another popular thin laptop, the Sony TZ series. At 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms), it is about the same weight, he said, but the new Apple notebook is about half its thickness.&quot;To fit an entire Mac in this thing was a major feat of engineering,&quot; Jobs said.The MacBook Air will ship in about two weeks. It lacks an optical disk drive, which could make it tricky to load software. To get around that, Apple developed a program called Remote Disk, which allows users to download software from the optical drive of a nearby computer using its built in 802.11n wireless connection.The standard configuration comes with an 80GB hard drive, 2GB of main memory, and a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo. Options include a 64GB solid-state drive and a faster 1.8GHz processor.Intel developed a Core 2 Duo chip package for Apple that is 60 percent smaller than the standard version, according to Jobs. &quot;It&#39;s the width of a dime and as thick as a nickel, with 400 million transistors,&quot; said Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who joined Jobs onstage.Apple will sell an optional portable optical drive for $99, Jobs said. He promised a battery life of 5 hours while surfing the Web and with Wi-Fi enabled.Many had expected Apple to announce an ultraportable notebook, which would have filled a gap in Apple&#39;s notebook product line, noted Robbie Laughlin, an assistant retail manager with Apple reseller Carbon Computing in Toronto.&quot;They had a 12-inch PowerBook a few years ago, and I&#39;d like to see something small like that reintroduced,&quot; he said before Jobs began his speech.Still, Apple&#39;s computer business is riding high from the popularity of its iPods and iPhone, Laughlin said. &quot;They&#39;re still on an upswing. We&#39;ve seen a huge uptick in switchers the last six months, people who wouldn&#39;t normally walk into an Apple store.&quot;The other big focus of Jobs&#39; speech was movies, including a movie rental service for iTunes and a new version of Apple TV that allows renting and downloading movies directly to a TV without using a PC.Apple signed major film studios -- Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Sony, Universal, and Paramount -- to sell movies through the store. Rentals are $3.99 for a new release and $2.99 for older films, or a dollar more for high-definition versions.The movie rentals are available in the United States from Tuesday, and later this year internationally, Jobs said. Apple pledged to have 1,000 films available by the end of February, and films will come to iTunes 30 days after their DVD release, he said. Users will have 30 days to watch a film after renting it, and 24 hours to finish watching it after they have started.Apple TV wasn&#39;t more successful because it was sold as &quot;an accessory for your computer,&quot; Jobs said. &quot;That&#39;s not what people wanted. ... So we&#39;re back with Apple TV 2. It still syncs with your computer [if you want it to], but no computer is required.&quot;Apple TV also received a price cut to $229 from $299. The new version will be available in two weeks, Jobs said, and existing customers will be able to update to the new software.He didn&#39;t show a 3G iPhone as some had expected, but he did announce software updates available from Tuesday, including the ability to map an iPhone user&#39;s location with Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular towers. The iPhone update also lets people send a text message to multiple users.The iPhone shipped 200 days ago and 4 million have been sold since, Jobs said. The software developer kit for the iPhone will ship in February, he said.Jobs also introduced a wireless backup product called Time Capsule, a companion to the&#160;Leopard operating system&#39;s Time Machine, which constantly backs up work to a desktop hard drive. Time Capsule will ship in February and is basically an Airport Extreme base station plus a hard drive, Jobs said, &quot;so you can back up your notebook wirelessly.&quot;Time Capsule will come in two models, with a 500GB offering for $299 and a 1TB version for $499.
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AT&amp;T Inc. on Monday unveiled business plans for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, the first time that the mobile carrier has courted corporate customers of the smart phone. But the lowest-cost data plan is still two-and-a-half times higher than a comparable consumer plan.
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(InfoWorld) - TheÂ iPhoneÂ is about to do for smartphones what the iPod did for digital music players: put one in everyone's pocket. That's the message Warren East, CEO of ARM Holdings, brought to Computex Wednesday in a talk about the future of mobile computing. The idea of putting computing power into a small device has been around for years. AppleÂ put out the Newton personal digital assistant (PDA) in the early 1990s, followed by U.S. Robotics with its Pilot (which later became the Palm). Adding computing functions to mobile phones, to create smartphones, happened soon after. Now, demand for Internet access while on the move is making small computing devices even more popular. Even the computer industry has taken up the challenge, with itsÂ ultramobile PC. "This has been an emerging market for a long time," East said in an interview. And the hype surrounding the iPhone will put smartphones in the lead as demand for Internet access at all times takes off, he said. In fact, he believes that smartphone sales could double this year if the iPhone proves to be the hit that some people expect. Sales will end up close to 200 million units, or double last year's figure, if the iPhone is a hit, East said, because smartphone demand overall will take off. "Within the next few years, smartphones will make up half the mobile phone market," he said. East stands to gain from such a prediction, of course. ARM processing cores are in around 95 percent of all smartphones, so his company will be a direct beneficiary of the growing market. They are also in certain iPods, leading to speculation that several of its chip designs will end up in iPhones. East declined to comment on the matter, saying Apple prefers to keep such details secret. Another key to the success of smartphones and other small devices is software. A lot of computing software that works well on a PC has trouble on portable gadgets because of the smaller screen size. Mobile web browsers, for example, don't shrink all Web sites very well. ARM is working with software makers on rewriting their applications to better fit smaller devices, East said. The ultramobile PC is also an area that East doesn't mind competition from, since ARM processing cores go into them, too. The new product category is also boosting interest in devices such as smartphones, he said. Besides, the mobile industry has an advantage over the computer industry's ultramobile PC: its expertise in power consumption. Mobile phone makers have worked for years to ensure users have plenty of battery power on their handsets. Companies focused on the ultramobile PC come from a far different background, where power consumption has not been a big issue until recently. That gives the mobile phone industry an advantage, East said. It won't take long to see if East's predictions are correct. The iPhone will be out in the U.S. around the end of this month. It may end up creating a smartphone craze, as the iPod did for digital music players. At the very least, the much hyped product should spur interest in small computing devices. "Apple's iPhone ... is clearly the most widely anticipated product the industry has seen for years, potentially ever," said Michael Ounjian, a research analyst at Credit Suisse, in a recent report. Â
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Think Secret, &quot;through highly reliable sources&quot;, has confirmed that this week in January Apple will unveil a $499 Mac designed to attract consumers already enamored of its iPod
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JP Morgan maintained an &quot;overweight&quot; rating on Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) and raised earnings estimates, saying it has &quot;increasing confidence&quot; in Apple&#39;s digital music business.
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Users may see an iPhone with 3G technology in the next six months, a financial analyst said Monday, citing waning inventory of Apple&#39;s current iPhone and the increasing demand in Europe for 3G products.The iPhone shipments are likely to be weak during the March quarter, and inclusion of 3G technology in the phone could ensure that Apple meets its target of shipping 10 million iPhones in 2008, analyst Richard Gardner of Citigroup said in a research note on Monday. 3G is a high-speed wireless communications standard that provides broadband Internet capabilities to cell phones and mobile devices.An iPhone upgrade to include 3G technology could help the company forge more relationships with carriers as it builds a European presence. &quot;We believe that lack of 3G has been a significant headwind for iPhone in Europe where 3G is already pervasive,&quot; Gardner said.During meetings with Citigroup, Apple reiterated its plan to introduce the iPhone into additional European countries and Asia by the end of 2008, Gardner said.In a December report, Shaw Wu of American Technology Research said a 3G iPhone would likely ship around the middle or in the second half of this year after network coverage and battery life issues are addressed.During the iPhone rollout in the U.K. last year, Jobs said that 3G chips were &quot;power hogs&quot; but also said he expected to see better battery consumption this year. Chip vendors, including Broadcom and Arm, are developing power-efficient 3G mobile chips with multimedia capabilities.3G is still not widely deployed in the U.S., Wu wrote in a report. Apple could possibly position the new iPhone as a high-end smart phone with the current iPhone being shipped as a more mainstream product, Wu said.Apple&#39;s 3G plans in the U.S. could get a boost from AT&amp;T&#39;s announcement last week that it was expanding its 3G wireless coverage to 350 major U.S. markets, including all 100 of the largest cities.Until the iPhone becomes available in more countries, unlocking numbers will remain high. But as the iPhone&#39;s presence expands, &quot;most consumers will prefer to use iPhone on the network with which Apple has a relationship -- only then can they take advantage of innovative features, such as visual voicemail and ongoing software updates,&quot; Gardner said.Up to 35 percent of all iPhones sold since its launch in June have been unlocked and sold in countries where Apple does not yet have a formal relationship with a wireless carrier, Citigroup&#39;s Gardner said.There has been plenty of speculation surrounding the release of a 3G iPhone. Last year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson separately said a 3G iPhone was coming in 2008, though the exact date is shrouded in secrecy.
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Apple Inc.  said on Tuesday  its hotly anticipated iPhone could cost as much as $3,000 with  a required two-year service contract, and a handful of eager  buyers started lining up to spend their money.
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CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos says Apple should think again if it believes it can make a phone to match iPod's success.
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(InfoWorld) - TheÂ guessing game continuesÂ over which processorsÂ Apple's iPhoneÂ will use, with Arm Holdings' top executive hinting the device will contain his company's intellectual property. Warren East, Arm's president and CEO, was reported as saying the iPhone will have "at least three" Arm processor cores, according to the EE Times on Wednesday. Arm, based in Cambridge, England, licenses a variety of processor designs to other companies and manufacturers. A spokesman with Arm's public relations agency in London said the report wasn't quite accurate but not inaccurate, either. The report was "based on speculation," and Arm was considering issuing a clarifying statement regarding the story, he said. Apple's public relations agency said the fewÂ details about the iPhoneÂ were revealed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his MacWorld keynote speech on Jan. 9. "We don't know anything," the Apple representative said on Friday. When unveiling the phone, Apple's boss Steve Jobs said it will run OS X with special iPhone applications. Apple hopes to sell 10 million devices, which will retail for $499 for a 4GB model or $599 for an 8GB one. Analyst firms including investment bank Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group (FBR) have compiled lists of which manufacturers are likely contributing to the iPhone. A day after Jobs' announcement, FBR said Samsung Electronics would likely provide an applications/video processor. Samsung licenses a range of processor technology from Arm. Didier Scemama, a semiconductor analyst with ABN AMRO BankÂ in London, figures Arm cores going into three processors: the Samsung processor, a Wi-Fi chip from Marvel Technology Group and GPRS/EDGE baseband chip from Infineon Technologies. Scemama wouldn't say how he came to his conclusions. The use of three cores won't mean much for Arm, whose technology already goes in other mobile devices made by companies such as Nokia, Scemama said. Other analysts agreed with Scemama's assessment. "If Arm cores are common in phones and other small devices, why wouldn't they be found in the iPhone?," said Roger Kay president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, an analyst company. So why do people care so much about the slivers of silicon? For enthusiasts, it fuels speculation over the iPhone's performance before it hits U.S. shelves in June. An Arm-based processor would mean OS X would have to be ported to a new platform. The OS already runs on Intel Corp.'s x86 and IBM Corp.'s PowerPC processors. For others, it means the satisfaction of cracking the wall of secrecy Apple builds around it products months before the first device is cracked open with a putty knife. "The only thing that makes it news is that Apple is so tight-lipped about its products, every little snippet of information is thought to be significant," Kay said. Suppliers aren't supposed to reveal that their components are used in Apple products, Kay said. But as Apple has diversified its product line, its number of suppliers has increased, making leaks more prevalent and the monitoring of the suppliers harder, he said.
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E-mail software from IBM Corp. will be available on Apple Inc. iPhones and iPod Touch devices under a new partnership that brings together two big rivals of Microsoft Corp.
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Investor's Business Daily - As more cell phone makers launch handsets that also play musie, Apple Computer  (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) looks poised to defend its turf by going on the offensive with an iPod music player capable of making phone calls.