Appletell

In a report released Thursday, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann announced that iPhone sales in Germany have reached and passed 100,000 units.  With exclusive rights to the German iPhone, Deutsche Telekom saw sluggish sales through January, but sales looked up after that.  Sales saw an even bigger jump when the company announced a gigantic €300 (over $460!) discount on the 16 GB iPhone until June 30. 

Hamid Akhavan, Deutsche Telekom’s board member at T-Mobile, told Dow Jones Newswires earlier on the sidelines of a corporate event that the sales figures for the iPhone are “about in line” with the company’s internal targets. Akhavan also said that the current price reduction of the device had boosted sales.

Only question is, what does Apple think about the discount?  If Apple took legal action on a UK iPod seller from offering a ₤15 ($30) iPod discount, there is no saying what action Apple will take against the German iPhone purveyor.

[Telekom Europe] Via [CNN Money]

Fueled by the recent snowballing of Mac sales and interest in the iPhone’s mobile WiFi platform, this year’s Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) has sold out for the first time in history.  The exact number of spaces that were available was not put out by Apple, but soon after making the “sold out” announcement, they released the following statement. 

“Response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK. The conference is now sold out.”

There are many speculations as to what will happen at WWDC ‘08, ranging from 3G iPhones to Tablet Macs (the latter taken with quite a sizable grain of salt).  Based on past WWDC history, chances are slim that any new computer designs will be introduced, as those larger announcement are usually saved for MacWorld (small design updates for the Mac line up are more of a possibility).

Luckily for those who didn’t snag a seat at the conference, videos of the session will be on iTunes shortly after for purchase.

Read [Mac Megatsite]

Telefónica Europe’s Chairman and CEO, Matthew Key, made a pretty important comment the other day (Telefónica Europe is O2’s parent company).  During a conference about their 1st quarter earnings, Key said that executives from his company and some Apple execs would be announcing the 3G iPhone - get this - within weeks!  This is the first time we have actually heard confirmation of the 3G iPhone from anyone in the know.  Key refused to give an exact place, but stuck to his word that it would be in the “coming weeks”.  He also confirmed that the UK and Ireland will be getting the power of 3G soon after.

With iPhone sales headed skyward world wide, the 3G iPhone can only pump those numbers higher.

Read [http://www.9to5mac.com/02_iphone_in_weeks]

During tonight’s broadcast of American Idol, another Get a Mac Ad premiered.  The ad features PC in a country music- inspired outfit, singing a sad country song about Vista’s fallibility.  The howling blood hound also ads a “nice touch”, but Mac’s kind words fail again to console PC’s Vista woes.  This ad follows the release of two other ads, “Pep Rally” and “Group”. 

Recently, I have been in general disappointed with the newer ads, but this new ad ends that streak.  It is definitely up there with the likes of “Genius” (definitely my all time favorite), “Security” and of course the very first Get a Mac Ad, “Virus”. 

What do you think of the new ads?

Watch the ads
via [TUAW]

A White Plains, New York robbery case was open and shut, all thanks to a resourceful college student and Back To My Mac.  An unfortunate student (who happened to work at the local Apple Store) and her roommates returned to their apartment to find it ransacked and burgled.  The stolen items included a Macintosh laptop, which happened to have Back to My Mac installed.  Days later, the victim received a call from a friend, asking her if she was online, she replied no, but seized the opportunity to get her stuff back.  Using a work computer, she went online and logged into the Back to My Mac service, proceeding to open Photo Booth and getting a snapshot of the first perp.  Then, searching through the computer, she found pictures of the other burglar. The victim did not recognize the men, but her roommate recognized them from a recent party.  She then took those pictures to the local police, who made arrest within a day.  Almost all of the $5,000 in tech goodies, including her computer and two plasma TVs were returned.

Have you had any interesting computer experiences? If so, feel free to comment below.

Read [LoHud]

In a recent MacWorld test, the controversial Open Computer was pitted against the likes of the Mac Mini and the lower-end iMac.  In the tests, one thing was clear from the beginning.  The Mac Mini doesn’t really hold a candle to the Open Computer, making it more of an iMac competitor.  Using the Speedmark performance-measuring tool, the base-line Mac Mini scored 28% lower then the opposition.  Although the base-line iMac scored higher then the Open Computer, it didn’t win by much.  There was only an 8% deviation between their scores. 

With very similar specs to an iMac, and at almost $500 less, you may think that an Open Computer would be a worthy investment, but don’t jump too soon.  First off, the Open Computer seems significantly lower quality then anything Apple would put on the market.  The reviewer of the computer from MacWorld reported not only that there was only a box and packing peanuts protecting the computer from the elements during shipping, but that he had to reroute the power cable, as it was getting caught in the cooling fan.  I wouldn’t ever trust a computer with such simple design flaws.  Another aspect of complaints is the software update issue.  Somewhere along the line, someone decided to disable the Software Update application.  Instead, you have to trudge on over to the Psystar website and fetch the updates manually.  Some of the out-of-the box updates needed (shipped systems come with basic OS X 10.5, no updates) include one that enables Time Machine, which for some reason doesn’t work automatically.  Supposedly an update is in the works for an automatic updater, but its not here yet.  The software updater issue is one of the main complaints of users so far. 

Have you had any Open Computer experience?  If so, please detail some of what you like or dislike in your machine in the comments below.

Read [MacWorld]

“Apple and Microsoft are on opposite trajectories in terms of their cash reserves” say recent reports, and we don’t really need those reports to tell us that either.  These differences have recently become more evident then ever, both from the fail of Vista and Apple’s rather large jump in market share.  Now, with recent three-year earning figures released, Apple’s increase compared to Window’s fall has been set in stone.  Three years ago, Apple had a pretty measly monetary reserve of only $5.5 Billion.  In comparison, Microsoft had a monetary reserve of $64 Billion.  Recent earnings reports show that Apple’s earnings have almost quadrupled, to $19.4 Billion.  In great contrast, Microsoft’s reserves to have plummeted to only $26.3 Billion.  Microsoft should be happy that their deal with Yahoo went through the floor, as they would have had to borrow a considerable amount of money.  Speculations show that Microsoft saved over $40 Billion in the short term. 

“The company’s overall decline is attributed to deliberate investment decisions, namely continual stock buybacks and special dividend payments, such as a $32 billion plan announced in 2004. In the most recent quarter, Microsoft bought back more than $1 billion of its own stock, a strategy which is likely meant to enhance the company’s EPS rating.”

Apple’s sharp increase in profits, fueled by Mac and iPod sales, has been enough to surpass even those of Google ($12.1 Billion), IBM ($12 Billion), and Intel ($10.9 Billion).  With Apple’s huge recent sales increases, both from the Mac and iPod, it seems like those numbers can only go up.

Read [MacNN]

Although Safari has a very measly presence in the PC world, those numbers are changing.  With Safari 3.0, Apple had a fairly constant .07% of the PC Internet Browser share.  With the recent automatic download of Safari 3.1 angering and alienating many of those PC users, it was fairly unknown what the impact on the market share would be.  Things seem to be looking up for Safari 3.1, with the overall market share jumping to .21%.  This is seen as a good jump for Apple, but they still have a bit of work to do if they want to further increase that. 

According to Net Apps, the Safari browser is blowing up on the Windows platform… to the tune of three times its last month of total of market share.  No doubt in large part due to (un)equal parts coming out of beta, the great reviews and Apple’s somewhat questionable strategy of slipping the application into the iTunes software update...When you are playing on Microsoft’s field, you have to play by Microsoft’s rules....or when in Rome?- Seth Weintraub for 9 to 5 Mac

Hopefully this will also help Safari in their overall market share, as they trailFirefox by more then 10%.

What browser do you prefer?  Any complaints about a specific one?  Sound off below.

Via [9 to 5 Mac]

On the recently released 2008 Time 100, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has gotten hold of a spot.  This is a list that is considered by many to be a list of the world’s most influential people, and the fact that Mr. Jobs has a spot on the list is only a testament to how well he has led Apple throughout the last few years. 

“Jobs may be a celebrity CEO, but he doesn’t jump out of airplanes or traipse around Africa with bundles of cash. He is always in character and always on message, so much so that when late-night TV parodies him, he’s invariably rolling out some new iProduct . Jobs gets called mercurial, egomaniacal, a micromanager. If that sounds a little like a CEO doing his job, maybe that’s because he is - and a mighty fine one.” says Barbara Kiviat, author of Times’ report on Jobs

Other members of the list include Microsoft’s Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, and tech blogger Michael Arrington.

Via [MacWorld UK]

If you can’t beat ‘em, develop for ‘em!  At the moment, that it what Research In Motion, producer of the BlackBerry, may be doing.  The company has seen falls in sales of elephantine proportions since the introduction of the iPhone, and they seem to be in a hole out of which they cannot be dug.  Some analysts even predict the iPhone to totally make the BlackBerry an after thought in the world of SmartPhones. 

With that in mind, RIM may be hedging their bets in terms of an BlackBerry fallout.  A recent company memo called for applicants for a special team, and although the exact memo is nowhere to be found, an unidentified RIM employee did leak the following to Electronista. 

MORE »