Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Apple Reducing CDMA iPhone Orders Following Low Sales?

In an article focused on Pegatron’s first quarter financial results for 2011 (in which the company posted net losses of $19.38 million), Digitimes reports an interesting tidbit about CDMA iPhone orders and the fact that, perhaps following sales under expectations, Apple lowered the estimated shipments for 2011 from 10 million to 5 million units.

Market watchers were originally optimistic about Pegatron’s performance in 2011 as the company landed orders for CDMA iPhone 4 from Apple, but as the company reported losses for the first quarter of 2011, the market watchers are turning conservative about CDMA iPhone 4 shipments in the future as volumes may not be as strong as expected.

Meanwhile, Pegatron originally expected to ship 10 million CDMA iPhone 4s in 2011, but sources from upstream component makers pointed out that Apple’s orders already saw a significant reduction and the volume is estimated to drop to only five million units.

There might be a few reasons behind slow CDMA iPhone sales: first off, the device was introduced on Verizon (a CDMA network in the United States) in February, by the end of the iPhone 4 lifecycle, and was never released on other CDMA networks worldwide, although Apple repeatedly confirmed its interest to expand the iPhone’s brand to other international markets. More importantly, slow Verizon iPhone sales had already been reported a few days after launch, although the company later announced 2.2 million activations in 2 months, and a report claimed the Verizon iPhone was the most acquired smartphone in the United States in February. Then why lowering orders from 10 million to 5 million? It is possible Digitimes’ report is incorrect, and the CDMA shipments mentioned in the article referred to CDMA iPhones on other carriers, which might have been delayed to late 2011 – when the iPhone 5, supposedly a universal GSM-CDMA handset, is set to come out. Digitimes’ article doesn’t mention Verizon Wireless, so there’s the possibility Pegatron was asked to lower shipments for iPhone 4s destined to international carriers. You can read the full report on Pegatron’s first quarter here.

Fring with Group Video Calling for iPhone Now Available

As announced earlier this month, web communication service fring has released an update to their official iPhone client that brings group video calling both on WiFi and 3G. As detailed a few weeks ago, the new group video calling feature allows iPhone users to communicate in real-time with up to three other friends – doesn’t matter if they’re using an iPhone or Android device. As long as you keep adding friends to a group video call from your fring’s buddy list, the session will go through even if multiple iPhones and Android handsets are using the app. This is some serious cross-platform technology fring has implemented here, and the fact that it works on 3G as well provides an interesting alternative to Apple’s FaceTime – which is free and integrated into the iOS phone app, but only works on WiFi. Fring also promised higher video calling quality than competitors (read: Skype) thanks to their Dynamic Video Quality technology, which also runs in fullscreen mode.

If you want to test the new fring app for iPhone with group video calling, you can download the latest update from the App Store. Read more

Pioneer AppRadio To Bring Apps And Deep iOS Integration To The Car

A new Pioneer car audio system is set to feature its own app system that also ties in with iOS devices and put it all on a very stylish iPad-eque front panel. The official FCC filing and a leak to CrunchGear reveals the Pioneer AppRadio, with a 6.1” display and an iOS-style home button in the center, will be loaded with specialised apps from Pandora Radio and iHeartRadio to GPS mapping software and traditional AM/FM radio.

In what is surely a sign of the times, Pioneer will not be including any optical drive in the device, opting instead for USB, RCA and S-Video inputs. CrunchGear contends in its report that the audio system will likely talk to iPhones and iPods through the USB interface for music as well as contacts and even some apps. The device also doesn’t have any internet access on its own and will likely rely on smartphones such as an iPhone to provide mobile connectivity for some of the internet apps such as Pandora.

To avoid problems surrounding distracted driving, the Pioneer AppRadio will also come with a steering wheel-mounted remote control as an option. Based on the FCC filing and the rumor, the AppRadio is believed to be “about ready” but no specific release date or pricing is yet known.

[Via Electronista]

iPhone 6 To Use Next-Gen Thinner Displays from Sharp?

Japanese newspaper Nikkan is today reporting that Apple may have made a display component deal with Sharp for the display of the sixth-generation iPhone. It is based on reports that Sharp has begun preparation for the start of manufacturing in Spring next year at its Kameyama plant in Japan for an iPhone display using next-generation technologies.

Sharp will reportedly be producing “low temperature poly-silicon technology” displays, a next generation technology that will allow displays to be thinner and lighter whilst consuming less power than a current LCD display. The key component of these new displays is the polycrystalline silicon, which enables display drivers to be mounted directly onto the glass and thus have a thinner display. Other advantages of the technology include displaying a more vivid image and enhanced durability because of a reduced number of connecting pins.

Previous rumors had circulated that Apple had sided with Toshiba for future display manufacturing – but a Sharp representative disputed this at the time. In a similar vein, Tim Cook commented in January at the Q1 earnings call that Apple had entered a $3.9 billion component supply deal. He didn’t specify what component it was for, but it was speculated that it was for high-resolution displays and that the deal was between Toshiba, Sharp and a third manufacturer. Sharp was also at the center of another display rumor back in January in which they were supposedly preparing to manufacture glasses-free 3D displays for the iPod Touch.

[Nikkan [Google Translate] via AppleInsider]

 

The “Re-Imagined” TweetDeck 2.0 iPhone App Hits The App Store

TweetDeck has today released its completely new 2.0 iPhone app that has received a “Hollywood re-imagining”, being rebuilt from the ground up to be “fast, flexibe and full-on powerful.” The update, which has been a long time coming, adds a number of new features and improvements whilst retaining the “guiding principles” of the original.

One of TweetDeck’s new and innovative features is the use of pinching on a column to access the columns’ settings so that any combinations of Twitter timelines, mentions, DMs, Facebook feeds and so on can be merged into one customized column. The whole user interface has also been redesigned, following the direction that their Android and Chrome apps have gone in, and of course it now takes advantage of the Retina display.

Also improved is multiple account handling and gestures, which although not extensive as those present in Tweetbot, are greatly improved adding the ‘pull to refresh’ and pinch for column settings gestures and general improvements in swiping through your various feeds. Finally there is built-in Deck.ly support, letting you write those longer messages on Twitter without hassle.

The 2.0 version comes after “several months of feverish work” and a promised iPad revamp of the app is also coming in a Universal binary “in the next couple of weeks”. In fact technically TweetDeck 2.0 is not an update and the old versions of the app have been temporarily removed from the App Store to avoid confusion. So don’t go to the updates tab of the App Store, it won’t appear there, you’ll have to download the new TweetDeck app from the actual store.

Jump the break for some more screenshots of the new update.

[Via TechCrunch]

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