By Greg Mills

The combination of the recent conference call regarding the financial quarter and the "Back to the Mac" event on Thursday leaves a number of unsettled issues. I still insist a Hobby App for iOS must be on the way, and I was disappointed iWeb 4 wasn't part of iLife.  

Notice the price dropped to US$49 for iLife due to the lack of an updated iDVD and updated iWeb. They included the old version of both programs on the iLife disk but you have to look deep in the information to find that information. While I use iPhoto, I will wait to buy iLife for a while. It is possible the Hobby App iOS creator program will come out with the next iWork release. I doubt the $49 price point will hold for full releases of future iWork and iLife.

The other thing on my mind is the giant bank balance at Apple. Over $50,000,000 in the bank is unusual even for the second biggest company in the world. CEO Steve Jobs mentioned they might be buying a strategic...

Today Apple will host the much anticipated “Back to the Mac” media event, in which Jobs & Company will tell us what’s new for the Mac will preview the next version of Mac OS X. Let's look at the speculation and see what's likely.

We'll definitely get some info on the next version of Mac OS X and, based on the logo on the invitation to the event, it will be dubbed Mac OS X 10.7 ("Lion"). Although some folks are skeptical, I think we'll see the beginning of a merge of Mac OS X and the iOS that will bring touch commands to future Macs.


Now I don't think Apple will make touch the main way for us to interact with Macs. But it will be an option along with keyboards, mice and trackpads. I also think Lion will sport an iOS emulator environment that lets Mac users run iOS apps. I also suspect we'll see AirPlay implementation and ways of integrating the Mac OS file system into mobile devices. But don't hold your breath; Lion isn't likely to prowl until summer or fall of...

Apple announced its latest financial results today. The Sellers Research Firm (that's me) made its forecasts and didn't do too badly. Let's have a look.

I predicted sales of 4.02 million Macs. Apple sold 3.89 million (the most ever).

I forecast sales of 9.76 million iPods. Apple sold 9.05.

I predicted sales of 12.37 million iPhones. Apple sold 14.1 million (the most ever).

I forecast sales of 6.1 million iPads. Apple sold 4.19 million.


I forecast earnings per share of US$4.75. Apple posted $4.64 per diluted share.

Things to note about the financial announcements. Apple, as usual, trounced Wall Street’s forecasts for its fourth-fiscal quarter. The company also followed its typical approach of issuing a highly conservative forecast for the December quarter. Apple shares were halted for after-hours trades on Monday after closing up 1% at $318 in the regular session; that was a new high.

-- Dennis Sellers

By Greg Mills

The PC world has strangely stopped worrying -- at least publicly -- so much about the iPad and the tablet market in general. At least for now.  

Frankly, the underlying problem for PC tablets is that in addition to being caught completely flatfooted in the smart phone software market, Microsoft has also hopelessly bungled the tablet revolution as well. It appears Microsoft is doomed to ride the PC into the ground while the smartphone and tablet markets take over the consumer computer market.

While the numbers won't come out until next week on the first quarter of Apple iPad sales, the biggest PC microprocessor suppliers Intel and ADM have more or less put tablet support on the back burner. While a number of major players are hoping to get into the tablet market right away, the lack of a viable off the shelf software operating system from Microsoft has left a major hole in tablet development.  

The companies who plan to...

The rumors are flying again that Verizon will start carrying the iPhone in 2011. My gut feeling tells me that those rumors are, at long last, right.

If this happens AT&T will lose its exclusive hold on the smartphone. Some industry researchers estimate that Verizon’s release of the iPhone would drive Apple’s U.S. sales higher by at least five million units in 2011.

The deal would also give Apple a stronger advantage in its battle with Research In Motion, whose BlackBerrys are currently promoted by Verzion Wireless. The availability of Apple’s iPhone through Verizon may drive down market share of Research In Motion, says Zachs Equity Research (http://at.zacks.com/?id=5514). The firm also thinks that the end of AT&T’s exclusive hold on the iPhone will provide Verizon a boost in its competition against other smartphones and drive Verizon's earnings in the near term.

-- Dennis...

The US Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Apple a patent (number 7814163) first filed in 2008 that prevents users from sending or receiving “inappropriate” text messages. The patent is for "text-based communication control for a personal communications device."

According to Apple, systems, devices, and methods are provided for enabling a user to control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device. In some embodiments, a message will be blocked (incoming or outgoing) if the message includes forbidden content. In other embodiments, the objectionable content is removed from the message prior to transmission or as part of the receiving process. The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria. The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application. These techniques also may be used, in accordance with instructional embodiments, to require the administered devices to include...

The online scuttlebutt says iLife 2011 is coming very soon, dropping iDVD and adding a new app. I think that's about right, and I think that new app may be a hybrid of FaceTime and iChat. (FaceChat? iTime? Naw, Apple will probably just call it FaceTime.)

In case you're not familiar with it, FaceTime is video calling that uses Wi-Fi. Apple says that using FaceTime is as easy as making a regular voice call, with no set-up required. On the iPhone 4 and fourth gen iPod touch, you can instantly switch to the rear camera to show others what you are seeing with just a tap.

FaceTime works right out of the box. You don't have to up a special account or screen name.If you want to start a video call with your best friend, find her entry in your Contacts and tap the FaceTime button. Or maybe you’re already on a voice call with her and you want to switch to video. Just tap the FaceTime button on the Phone screen. Either way, an invitation pops up on her iPhone 4 screen asking if...

By Greg Mills

When one considers the potential for Microsoft to elbow their way into the smartphone market with their "late to the party" Mobile Vista 7, there are distinct categories of customers that have to buy it in significant numbers for the product to succeed. If we examine the smartphone market that exists today from the basis of a customer category analysis, the prospects are quite grim for Microsoft. Who is going to buy it?

While throwing half a billion dollars at advertising can sell Miss, Piggy as a ravishing beauty queen -- and that will work for a while -- but there is no amount of lipstick that can make her not a pig. She still stinks and oinks. and I think Mobile Vista 7 will oink like the Microsoft pig that it is. Developers and hardware companies alike might bank on the tons of short term money Microsoft is willing to risk to buy their way into the smartphone market they advocated to Apple and Google, but it might well be a major...

By Greg Mills

In the extremely high stakes competition in smart phone operating systems, Microsoft's new Mobile OS appears to be a stone loser. This is for a number of indisputable reasons.  

The expensive advertising program (rumored to be half a billion dollars) which will be launched soon, and the efforts of various hardware companies and cell phone carriers rallied to support Vista 7 are likely to be a doomed and completely wasted effort. This will certainly end Microsoft's presence in the mobile market, which includes both smart phones and slate computers.  

The future of computers is the smartphone and slate market, and everyone knows it. I think Microsoft is toast. Goldman Sachs already downgraded Microsoft stock to neutral, saying "the company needed to show some progress on mobile devices such as the smartphone and a device to compete with the iPad." Goldman analyst Sarah Friar wrote in her report, "The company needs an immediately...

By Greg Mills

Apple's iPad has seen faster acceptance in the main stream of electronic devices than anything else so to date, including regular DVD players made by a lot of companies. So much for the predictions iPad wouldn't sell -- as made by other well known tech company CEOs.  

The problem for the competition is that as far advanced as the iPad is, we are half way through the development cycle for the next version. If the iPad takes the same virtual yearly model cycle we have seen with other major Apple products, sometime in the spring Apple will announce the next iPad with a lot of the features most in demand, such as cameras. FaceTime is likely to be a feature, as well as a mini USB port. The iPad has the potential to be a phone with the FaceTime feature using an earphone with mic arrangement.

I am of the opinion the Hobby App creator program is coming very soon from Apple. We know Google is in beta on an Android App Inventor program soon...

Five new patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Here's a summary of each.

Patent number 20100257215 is for configurable offline storage. A method and apparatus for a configurable offline data store are described. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a request for a first set of one or more records from a client application, wherein the first set is remotely stored. The method further includes determining a second set of one or more records that is associated with the first set, wherein the second set is remotely stored. The method further includes fetching over a network the first set and the second set from a server data store unit; storing the first set and the second set in a client data store unit and providing access to the first set and the second set when the network is not operational. Bruce Gaya is the inventor.

Patent number 20100257179 involves methods and systems for managing data....

By Greg Mills

Apple generally, has excellent customer service. I went to the local Apple store Wednesday morning and pulled out my 3GS iPhone that had been dropping a lot of calls. It is easy to blame AT&T, but I noticed my iPad regularly gets more bars than my iPhone in the same location.

The Genius I saw hooked up my iPhone to a MacBook Pro and ran a diagnostic program that had access to a log showing the dropped calls on a calendar. He offered to replace my iPhone, so I agreed gratefully. He synced it up with iTunes on his laptop and assigned it my phone number and faster than you can say "Windows sucks," I was up and running.  

I took the new iPhone home and used iTunes to load my photos, music and contacts to the new phone. I had two minor problems with the phone part of the device transfer as all my favorite phone numbers were lost so I had to redo that by  going through my entire contact list and reselect phone numbers to be on the...

By Greg Mills

The press is reporting a monstrous patent case in Federal Court in the state of Texas that went against Apple for the "Cover Flow" way of rolling images across the display, as seem in the album art display in iTunes and elsewhere in the Mac OS.  

While the judgement likely means at the end of it all, Apple may well have to pay some amount of money, the current US$600,000,000 judgement will not likely stand. Frankly, so many patents on computer graphical interfaces have been written it staggers the mind to thing much could really be novel anymore.  

As an inventor with about 10 issued patents to my name, I am very familiar with the flawed US Patent system. You love it and hate it at the same time. Ironically, yesterday the patent office issued a new patent to Apple for some aspects of Cover Flow. I have not read the patents involved so this article is more related  to the issues of tech innovation in general that that case in...

This week Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities issued an in-depth 85-page note on Apple, saying the company will continue to grow, grow, grow -- and don't count out the Mac as part of that growth.

"We believe Apple is still in the early stages of capitalizing on the trend toward a digital lifestyle, while transforming itself to seize large opportunities in the enterprise market, advertising (i.e. mobile, TV, etc.), "cloud computing and social networking," White wrote.

He mainly talks about the iPad, which is taking the world by storm. But the iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, etc., are actually offshoots of the personal computer and even run a variant of Mac OS X. But they still need a computer to anchor them -- and the best choice is the Mac, which will remain the center of Apple's digital lifestyle focus.

In 2008, Forrester Research predicted that Apple would become the hub of the digital home by 2013. The research firm said that Apple had completely remade itself...

By Greg Mills

Microsoft is at it again, breathlessly planning to underwhelm us with "me too" tooo late to be relevant software. They are planning to spend millions advertising their new smartphone software.  

If Windows Mobile was so darn good why did Microsoft "miss a generation" in the smartphone market as Ballmer put it? I can well remember three of four years ago turning down a nearly new "smartphone" my cousin offered me at a cut rate price, because he reluctantly admitted it was running Microsoft Mobile OS.  He is on his second or third generation of the iPhone now and never looked back. His old Microsoft infested smart phones are gathering dust, since he couldn't even give them away. 

Now the Redmond gang that can't shoot straight, the folks who launched Windows Vista, Ken, Zune and a slew of other much less than stellar products, wants another shot at "killing" the iPhone. Yeah, right. If I remember correctly, Microsoft killed their own...

In what has to be great news for Apple's iDevices (and, yes, also the Mac), PlayFirst, a publisher of interactive entertainment, and Frank N. Magid Associates, a market research and consulting firm, has released the results of the first comprehensive study of digital game play behavior across the three major platforms for casual gamers: social networks, mobile, and computer games.

The proprietary national study reveals that two thirds of American adults play some type of digital game, and one out of three regularly play casual games on social networks, smartphones, or computer platforms. Additionally, among game players, nearly 80% of those 18-34 play casual games regularly and fully 80% say they enjoy playing games more than watching movies, listening to music, and reading books, newspapers, or magazines.

The research group says that gaming is a cross-generational, cross-platform activity that’s ubiquitous, yet requires unique and targeted experiences to be...

By Greg Mills

The Stuxnet worm news continues to resonate around the world regarding the malware that hides in Microsoft Windows operating systems and is still infecting industrial control systems. As civilians, this seems a bit out of our area of concern, until we really understand the implications and solutions.  

Most of us can agree that the nuclear reactor and uranium enrichment facilities in Iran that is being targeted represents a serious threat to the free world. However, the "blowback" from this attack may be unexpected catastrophic manmade industrial disasters down the line. Most experts think the target of Stuxnet has already been hit, and we are now seeing the collateral damage. We do know there was some sort of "accident" that hit the uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians are not talking about.

We live in a world infrastructure operated by countless computer systems. These control systems operate the valves and switches...

Several Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 20100238344 is for an electronic device having a camera flash redirector. An electronic camera device has an imaging sensor to capture an image of a scene, a flash to illuminate the scene for capture by the sensor, and an evaluator to detect a condition in the scene. A redirector shifts the peak of a spatial energy profile of light from the flash. The peak is shifted from being aimed at one region in the scene to being aimed at another region in the scene, in response to the evaluator having detected the condition in the scene. Other embodiments are also described and claimed. The inventor is Richard Tsai.

Patent number 20100244701 involves temperature based, white point control in backlights. Systems, methods, and devices are provided for maintaining a target white point on a light emitting diode based backlight...

An Apple patent (number 20100245250) for virtual input tools hint at some potentially fascinating developments in upcoming versions of the Mac OS X.

A virtual input device, e.g., a virtual representation of a physical input device, is disclosed. In one aspect, virtual coordinates of the virtual input device correlate to real coordinates on the physical input device. Dimensions of the physical input device are proportional to dimensions of the virtual input device, and interactive objects are presented in the virtual input device. The inventor is John O. Louch.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Traditional user interfaces allow a user to navigate between one or more interface elements (e.g., application windows) through the use of physical input devices (e.g., a keyboard, mouse, trackpad or touchpad). For example, a user can press a combination of keys (e.g., Command+Tab) on a keyboard to cycle between the one or more interface elements. As...

In February it was announced that Apple had cut some staff working on its Final Cut video editing software suite. Some folks took it as a bad sign, that Apple was ignoring the software -- indeed, all its pro level software - to focus on consumer products (specifically, iOS devices). So what should Apple do with Final Cut Pro?

February's cuts could represent the end of an upgrade development cycle, as the next version upgrade of Final Cut could already be in preparation. Or it could be a bad sign for Final Cut Pro.

Philip Hodgetts, president of Intelligent Assistance, feels that Apple isn't abandoning the software, and I think he's right. Hodgetts feels Apple is planning an update that will "see Apple at least catching up to its competitors with 64-bit nativity, 4K and larger timeline support; native support for media that currently has to be transcoded or rewrapped into a QuickTime container, the ability to use all the processor cores to their fullest and better media...

NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker says (ttp://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/09/24/nbc-universal-president-jeff-zucker-step/#content) he'll step down after cable provider Comcast takes control of the company later this year. The news came as Jonathan Klein, president of CNN, was fired and replaced by Ken Jautz, the head of the network's sister channel HLN.

This is, of course, the same NBC that repeatedly refuses to place content on iTunes. While I'm sure this isn't the only -- or even the main issue -- it is certainly indicative of bad decision making. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

It also makes me wonder if the regime change will mean that NBC might be more receptive to Apple's overtures? On the other hand, based on the way Comcast has ben jacking up their cable rates, the change might not be a good thing.

Apple has been granted three patents by the US Trademark and Patent Office. Patent number 7,804,897 is for a method for implementing an improved quantizer in a multimedia compression and encoding system.

Some embodiments limit the changes to a buffer occupancy accumulator with respect to a target number of bits of the current frame. Limiting the change of the buffer occupancy accumulator will prevent one odd significantly different frame from significantly changing the quantization. Some embodiments improve upon the quantizer adjustment by making more accurate estimates of the amount of information needed to encode each macroblock. Specifically, some embodiments estimate the bits per macroblock in a manner that varies from frame type to frame type.

Specifically, for frame types with motion compensation, some embodiments exploit the correlation between the complexity of the macroblock and the number of bits needed. In the case of frame types without...

I want to see terrorism fought as much as anyone, but where do we draw the line when it comes to our personal privacy. In yet another example of the federal government wanting more power, the Obama administration is developing plans that would require all Internet-based communication services -- such as encrypted BlackBerry e-mail, Facebook, and Skype -- to be capable of complying with federal wiretap orders, reports "Fox News" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/27/seeking-expand-internet-wiret...).

According to a report published Monday by "The New York Times," national security officials and federal law enforcement argue their ability to eavesdrop on terror suspects is increasingly "going dark" as more communication takes place via Internet services, rather than by traditional telephone. The...

By Greg Mills

The newer "go-to-market" models for digital video content that took Blockbuster down, (NetFlix and on-demand cable TV) is also threatening over-the-air broadcasting.  Rabbit ears don't hack it anymore.  

Broadcast TV is becoming a class-defining technology.  People who have the money to spend on entertainment are going to alternative ways to obtain video content. The numbers are disturbing to the broadcast industry, which relies on heavy advertising to survive. Even in the deepest recession in the living memory of the American public, the share of viewers watching "free" broadcast TV (over-the-air) are declining. Frankly, when almost half of over-the-air programing is advertising, it is no wonder those who can afford to get TV other ways do so. 

The content providers are getting used to a steady stream of money from cable and satellite TV systems. There is a small amount paid per customer to each channel provided. This amounts to...