Apple to announce iPad 3 first week of March

Written by

John Paczkowski:

Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.

Yep.

Dirty little secret

Written by

Jason Kottke: Maybe I’m being old-fashioned here, but this seems unequivocally wrong. Any app, from Angry Birds to Fart App 3000, can just grab the information in your address book without asking? Hell. No. I bet Apple will change this … Continued

GigaOM buys paidContent.org

Written by

Om Malik:

First the news: Yes, the rumors are true. We are indeed buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. And no, we are not disclosing the terms of the deal, except that we are buying the entire group of properties — paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra and paidContent:UK and that a representative of Guardian News & Media will join our board of directors as an observer.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Om and what he’s done. Good luck with this.

ARM and Intel chips

Written by

John Brownlee:

Apple’s not serious about ditching Intel for the Mac, but even so, the next few years will be very interesting as ARM and Intel trade body blows. If Intel plays its cards right, come 2015, we could all be talking very seriously indeed about whether or not Apple will be putting Intel’s new mobile chips in the iPhone 8 and iPad 6.

Interesting rundown of the chips and what we may see.

RIM says it’s ‘ready to compete’

Written by

Reuters:

Next-generation software for BlackBerry’s smartphones is “ready to compete”, Research In Motion’s new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, told more than 2,000 technical developers on Tuesday, expressing confidence in RIM’s long-term future.

I hate to tell you this, but that train left five years ago.

Pain in the ass portability

Written by

Abdel Ibrahim talking about the Galaxy Note:

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind a slightly bigger display on my iPhone, but not if it means a significantly bigger footprint. The prettier visuals just wouldn’t make up for the pain-in-the-ass portability factor, and you’d better believe I’m not alone in that sentiment.

Right.

Sprint sells 1.8 million iPhones in Q4

Written by

Forty percent of Sprint’s 1.8 million iPhone sales in the fourth quarter were to new customers.The company reported total net subscriber additions of 1.6 million during the fourth quarter of 2011 – the best quarterly result in six years – bringing total ending subscribers to the highest level in the company’s history.

It was still a tough quarter for Sprint, reporting a net loss of $1.3 billion.

The wrong specs

Written by

Ben Brooks talking about an article written by Tim Moynihan:

I don’t give a damn about this camera, but I think it offers an interesting glimpse at the market. That is: consumers are looking at the wrong specs. Traditionally in this segment it was all about megapixels, but now it seems to be all about: optical zoom and Wi-Fi. Both are horrible features to care about, let alone to base a decision on.

Ben’s right. Consumers tend to focus on specs far too often when making a decision, but when you focus on the wrong specs, you can’t possibly make an informed choice. Things like Wi-Fi are just part of what you expect to be there — those are features you say “oh, and it has Wi-Fi, right?” when you are ready to buy. That’s after you’ve already investigated all of the important things.

Some more products for Samsung Galaxy Note users

Written by

Since Samsung decided to go retro and include a stylus with its newest products, I thought I’d be nice and hunt down a few other products Galaxy Note users may be interested in. […]

Final Cut Pro X named PCMag’s Editor’s Choice

Written by

PCMag:

Apple has built a completely new, faster, cleaner, and more intuitive digital video editing package. While some professionals are still kicking and screaming about the changes it brings, we predict they’ll eventually be won over by Final Cut Pro X’s significant speed and usability advances. Meanwhile, prosumer video enthusiasts get a less daunting upgrade path to a pro-level Mac editor.

FCPX has come a long way.

[Via AI]

Picture: Galaxy Note next to iPhone 4S

Written by

Samsung includes a stylus with its newest smartphones, what’s it going to include with this beast, a wagon to carry it in?

Thanks to @abdophoto for sending the photo of Leo Laporte holding the devices.

Apple had the best Super Bowl ad of all

Written by

Jim Cramer talking about how all of the football players pulled out their iPhones to capture the moments at the end of the game.

But what matters to me is that when everyone else is paying $3 million per commercial, Apple paid nothing and easily had the best ad of all.

[Via DF]

Apple claimed 80% of mobile profit in Q4

Written by

BGR:

Impressive data points from Apple’s record-setting holiday quarter continue to trickle out, and new estimates suggest that the company accounted for a staggering share of mobile profits in the fourth quarter of 2011. Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt wrote in a research note on Tuesday that Apple took in approximately 50% of all mobile industry revenues last quarter. Even more impressive, the analyst says Apple’s high-margin iPhone lineup accounted for more than 80% of all mobile phone profits. Read on for more.

How can this be if Android is winning?

High-DPI resources in OS X

Written by

John Gruber:

Have you noticed that Safari’s hovering-over-a-link pointing-finger cursor looks a little different in Mac OS X 10.7.3? It’s not just that the finger is at a slightly different angle — it’s a new UI resource that scales gracefully to larger sizes.

He’s right, I hadn’t noticed.

Apple is the top selling smartphone maker

Written by

NPD’s smartphone report:

Apple leaped past Samsung and LG to become the best-selling U.S. handset brand in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2011. In a quarter that featured the launch of the iPhone 4S and the addition of Sprint, Apple’s three available models combined to capture 43 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in Q4.

[…]