An adventurous venture for Apple a smart TV

Rumor out of China is that Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant will be in charge of mass producing Apple’s smart TV. News of Apple’s smart TV began emerging late last year, but it was unclear when Apple intended to make an official entry into the entertainment display market.

In the late Steve Job’s autobiography by Walter Isaacson, Jobs told Isaacson that he wanted to “create an integrated television that is completely easy to use, [and that] it would seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.”

Perhaps the Apple smart TV will be what Jobs envisioned it to be, but TV’s that can sync with other devices and the internet has been around for a while. Tech giants such as Samsung have a variety of smart TV’s on the market, and tech savvy individuals have concocted TV’s that are hooked up to HTPCs. Apple dominates the “ease of use” department, but until there’s an actual product for consumers to review, we won’t know if it will be any easier than current smart TV’s on the market.

Apple’s smart TV will range from 42’’ to 55’’ and have a price tag ranging from US$1,500-2,000 according to wantchinatimes.com. Gene Muster, an analyst that specializes in tracking Apple stock, predicted that “Apple smart TVs can occupy 10% of the global TV market in one to three years.” Considering how mature the TV market is, Munster’s prediction is a rather bold one.

DisplaySearch’s, a market consultant firm, Xie Qinyi backs up Munster’s prediction by reporting to wantchinatimes.com that Apple has four major advantages in developing its smart TVs. One being a large amount of people uses Apple brand products. Secondly, Apple has a lot of money to back up its product. Thirdly, Apple has a rich connection with the entertainment production sector. Lastly, Apple knows how to make quality displays for professionals (think about why graphic designers tend to prefer Apple displays for media creations).

When the first Apple smart TV hits the shelf, it might revolutionize the industry like the iPhone—or it might be a bust. We will just have to wait and see!

Reference: wantchinatimes.com, bgr.com

ASUS launches Eee PC 1025 Flare series, world's fastest netbook with 2 sec resume

The ASUS Eee PC 1025 Flare Series netbook sports a new design with several color options, and incorporates 1.8GHz Intel Atom Cedar Trail dual-core processor, which claims to offer four times the graphical performance to previous generations while consuming less power. It also supports up to 2GB of DDR3 memory, up to 500GB hard drive, and comes with Smart Camera with 4x zoom, built-in USB 3.0, DLNA, and Wi-Fi Direct connectivity. The netbook features the proprietary ASUS Super Hybrid Engine II with Instant On technology that offers two-second system resume from sleep mode, and up to 21 days of standby. It also supports Blu-ray 2.0, and full high definition 1080p video playback via HDMI output. With the built-in data security features, it ensures zero data loss, with user data automatically saved to the hard drive when the battery drops below 5%. Available in eleven different colors, including Addict Pink, Mysterious Blue, and Plucky Purple, the ASUS Eee PC 1025 Flare Series netbook is now available in Singapore at S$499. Users will also receive 3GB of cloud storage space on ASUS WebStorage.

Apple to sell 190 million iPhones in 2012

Apple could sell upwards of 190 million iPhones next year, according to a report by financial services firm Morgan Stanley.

The Cupertino, California-based company is expected to ship between 31 and 36 million iPhones in the final quarter of this year, up to 30 per cent more than other analysts project.That figure is projected to jump to 41 million in the first quarter of 2012, with up to 190 million sales predicted for the entire year, showing that demand is increasing, rather than falling, for iPhones, despite strong competition from rival Android smartphones.Apple is also enjoying high sales for its iPad range, with forecasts that the company will sell 52 million iPads in 2012.This figure could almost double to 90 million if Apple is willing to cut $100 off the price-tag, particularly considering the entry of Amazons Kindle Fire tablet will present people with a choice that is significantly cheaper.Whether or not Apple is willing to reduce its profit margin remains to be seen, but it might be forced to do so if Amazon steals a large chunk of its market share.Source: CNN

Apple and Intel racing to hire former TI engineers

Apple intends to build a new R&D center in Ra’anana, Israel, and is thus looking to hire some engineers. A group of 250 employees fromTexas Instruments Ra’anana development center were conveniently let off recently, and so Apple decided to offer them jobs. The engineers were mainly working on TI’s OMAP and radio chips. When Intel found out about this, they decided to hire the same engineers before Apple could get to them, hoping to put them to use in Intels R&D centers in Haifa, Jerusalem, Petah-Tkva and Kiryat Gat.

As incentive, Intel is offering “healthy compensation packages” to those who come to work for them instead of going to Apple. Apple, meanwhile, is rumored to be planning an interview day specifically for Texas Instruments employees. Apple is planning their new Research and Development center for the end of 2013, but unless they can hire the engineers, the center wont be able to open.

Apple Most Popular Phone for Prospective Buyers

How many people do you think plan on buying an Apple iPhone? Turns out, it’s almost everyone. At least, as long as they already own one.

According to a new survey of 400 consumers by Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, found that 65% of phone owners say that they expect their next phone to be an iPhone. Compare that number to the 19% who plan on buying an Android phone, 6.5% who won’t be purchasing a smartphone, 6% who aren’t sure, and 2.5% who plan on purchasing a Blackberry, and you’ll see that among those surveyed, Apple’s device far outstrips any of its competitors. It is worth mentioning, however, that 52% of the survey group already owned an iPhone, which more than likely skews the results towards Apple’s devices. Munster acknowledges this, but still says that he thinks the iPhone can boost Apple’s share in the smartphone market from roughly 20% to roughly 30% by 2015.

51% of those who planned on buying an iPhone are waiting on the iPhone 5, which to Munster means that roughly 85 million iPhones are already as good as sold, based on his prediction of 170 million iPhones in 2013 and the results of this survey. Also, 94% of iPhone users in the survey group plan on buying an iPhone for the next phone as well, which is a very good thing for Apple, considering that the iPhone now accounts for more than 50% of Apple’s revenue.

While very interesting, the weighting of the study towards iPhone owners leaves me highly skeptical towards any conclusions drawn from the data. In fact, after removing the iPhone users from the data, a surprising shift happens.

I feel that I should mention at this point that this is back-of-the-napkin math and should in no way be taken as conclusive.

With 65% of those surveyed planning on purchasing an iPhone, and 52% of the survey group owning an iPhone (with 94% of those planning on purchasing another), that means that only around 14% of those surveyed plan on purchasing an iPhone without ever having owned one. After removing iPhone users, 38% plan on purchasing an Android phone, 28% plan on purchasing an iPhone, 13% will not purchase a smartphone, 12% are undecided, and 5% plan on purchasing a Blackberry. This new set of data seems to indicate exactly the opposite of the analyst’s conclusions.

More studies need to be conducted to confirm or refute Munster’s findings, but I personally feel that, outside of Apple’s walled garden, Android phones still reign supreme.