Apple Reports Second Quarter Results

Best March Quarter Revenue and Earnings in Apple History

CUPERTINO, California—April 22, 2009—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended March 28, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $9.06 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $1.66 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple sold 2.22 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a three percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11.01 million iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 3.79 million representing 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

“We are extremely pleased to report the best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Apple’s financial condition remains very robust, with almost $29 billion in cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet. Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.7 billion to $7.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.95 to $1.00.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q2 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on April 22, 2009 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq209/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

The App Store is about to hit a billion downloads!

Should be a billion by Friday!

Viliv S5 Lightning Review (Netbook, Meet MID)

The gadget: Viliv S5, a computer that fits in your palm, packing all the Atom processor power of the latest netbooks along with GPS.



The price: $599 (configured with 4.8" WSVGA display, 60gb HD, Intel Atom 1.33GHz CPU, free spare battery, car kit and pouch)

The verdict: The S5 is a good value, but you may not like it anyway.

At .92lbs, the Viliv is a bit hefty in your hands even though it's 1.5lbs lighter than most netbooks (it's sitting on an Asus Eee 1000HE here). Still, the Viliv kept surprising me with its speed. Loaded with the same processor as the Vaio P, the system doesn't actually run XP faster than any Atom-based, but to see installation bars and downloads move so quickly on such a tiny device is always a bit of a mindfrak.

The resistive touchscreen has passable color, brightness and contrast—luckily, it's also ridiculously accurate. Yeah, the buttons and icons are as minuscule as you'd expect, but I never had a hard time, say, hitting the "X" to close a window (with my precision "nail" tool, of course)...unless my browser was full screen. Then my finger just never fit in the corner properly. For when you need extreme precision, the four-way thumbstick doubles as a mouse, or you can use the bundled "Cube" interface for larger icons (which is fine for a skin, but you'll need to tinker in the real XP sooner or later).



As for the keyboard, it pops up with a conveniently placed button on the right. Pressing keys offers a satisfying moment of haptic feedback. It works about 90% of the time, but however the keyboard skin was designed, your finger press sometimes goes through the keyboard and hits a link or something that's on your screen. It can make typing a simple phrase quite taxing as you unintentionally swap text boxes.

The GPS? It works, but you'll need to supply your own nav software (an additional cost). The battery? It's rated at 6 hours, but we received four hours (and two minutes) when tested with nonstop WMV playback (Wi-Fi on with the screen at medium brightness). Since many manufacturers claim battery life that's double actual testing, I considered four hours to be decent.



The USB, headphone and Multi I/O ports are enough in a device of this size, because between them, you could plug in a keyboard, monitor (with adapter) and speakers. In this respect, the Viliv could make for an extremely portable home-to-office computer.

Here's the issue: I just don't like MIDs. I hate them, really. If I want to use something small, I'll use a smartphone. If I want to use something slightly bigger, that's netbook/laptop territory. The MID, in my mind, is a failed idea of the future still stuck in the 90s. It's a computer that neither fits in your pocket nor serves as your main computer. So if you hate MIDs, the Viliv S5 won't do anything to change that.

But for a MID, I must say, I liked the Viliv. If you are the type of person who can stand the 4.8-inch screen and is looking for their GPS to do a little more, then it might interest you. And at $599, it's sort of the netbook of MIDs—a whole lot cheaper than what you can get from Sony or the soon defunct OQO.

+ As fast as any netbook

+ Relatively cheap

+ Utilitarian but solid build

+ Accurate touchscreen

- Some keyboard quirks

(Original post www.i.Gizmodo.com)

Apple found guilty of willful patent infringement

Apple has been found guilty of willfully infringing on a "predictive snooping" patent awarded to Opti Inc. in 2002. The company has been ordered to pay just over $19 million in compensation, despite its attempts to have the patent thrown out.



Apple has been ordered to pay $19 million to Opti Inc., a technology company based up the road in Palo Alto, for patent infringement. The verdict came out of Patent Lawsuit Valley (also known as the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall) late Thursday, where a jury found that Apple had "willfully" infringed on Opti's patent for "Predictive snooping."

The patent—its full name is "Predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses"—describes a method to more efficiently transfer data among the CPU, memory, and "other devices." The patent was issued to Opti in June of 2002, and the company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in January of 2007 (which we briefly mentioned in a Friday Apple links post that week).

Apple had acknowledged that it used similar technology, but argued unsuccessfully that the patent should be declared invalid due to prior art and obviousness. Much to Apple's dismay, the jury didn't buy it. They ended up rejecting Apple's claims and found the company guilty of willful patent infringement, awarding Opti $19,009,728 as a "reasonable royalty for infringement." We sincerely hope some lawyer uses that extra $8 to buy a nice coffee or something.

With close close to $30 billion in the bank, $19 million isn't likely to hurt Apple very much in the overall picture. However, cases like this remind us of why Apple seems to be a popular target for patent infringement suits. It's a large, well-loved company that has tons of cash. If it's not careful with those patent searches when developing new technology, the company could continue to find itself shelling out—or being forced to change its products.

(Original post www.ArsTechinca.com)

Can the iPod Shuffle Be Swallowed?

Someone asked that question when the tiny shuffle came out, so we tried it. Well, we didn't, but we found someone who did: The very sweet sword-swallower Heather Holiday, from the Coney Island Circus.

Heather is a professional sword swallower. Someone with no gag reflex—or better said, trained to suppress it while swallowing 36-inch long solid steel swords down her throat. No tricks, no smoke and mirrors. She's the real deal. I saw her swallow an entire—and very large—soup spoon with my own eyes in a second. She didn't even blinked. She gobbled it down like I eat maple-syrup-bathed buttermilk pancakes.

Needless to say, she had the right credentials to try our test: Swallow the tiny, 1.8 x 0.7 x 0.3-inch iPod shuffle and then take it out again, after we have listened to a couple of songs thanks to the in-cable remote control—which is a bad idea for regular use, but it's great to play songs when someone has the iPod down the esophagus.

Unfortunately, as you will see in the video, she wasn't able to do it for a number of reasons. First, the iPod shuffle is way too light. Apart from controlling your gag reflex, her technique for swallowing swords use the force of gravity to pull them down. She also uses her esophagus muscles to control how fast it gets in her body, but the gravity is what pull downs the sword. With the iPod shuffle—which is only 0.38 ounces or 10.7 grams—this was impossible. The iPod just hanged there and had to be pushed with her hand or a large object—like a spoon—to get into the entry of her throat. However, from there it was not possible to make it go down.

Heather thinks she can do it with more training—or maybe pushing it with something larger—so she took the iPod with her and will be back when she can do it. Until then, here's the answer to the question: No, you can't swallow the iPod shuffle, even if it's small enough to get it in. If the iPod shuffle is sword-swallower proof, it's certainly child- and moron-proof.


Can the iPod shuffle be swallowed? from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

(Original post www.i.Gizmodo.com)