World of Apple

With some (possibly unheard) prompting from an MSNBC reporter, Apple has sent out text messages to iPhone users asking that they update to the latest firmware to resolve 3G connectivity bugs. Apple’s response to a reply text of “lol wut?” has not been recorded.

When Apple announced that it expected to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, some were doubtful, such as Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi who projected that Apple could easily come 20% short of its goal. However, the general outlook has changed dramatically. Earlier this month, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster projected that 4.4 million iPhones (up from his prior estimate of 4.1 million) are likely to be sold in the fiscal fourth quarter. Credit Suisse’s Bill Shope is also reconsidering his prior fourth quarter projection of 4.2 million iPhones. (via Tech Trader Daily) As far as total iPhone sales for the year, BusinessWeek reports,

Many analysts expect Apple (AAPL) to sell around 11 million iPhone 3Gs in 2008 and another 25 million in 2009. But perhaps the most optimistic forecast is from Piper Jaffray (PJC) analyst Gene Munster, who expects the company to sell 13 million this year and 45 million next year.

Further a source identified only as “someone familiar with the company’s plan” has told BusinessWeek that Apple is intending to manufacture between 40 million and 45 million iPhones in the next twelve months.

I don’t envy the MobileMe development team one bit for it is upon their shoulders to ensure that this epic win doesn’t turn into an epic fail.

The iPhone shows a lot of promise as a gaming platform and input device, but it’s obviously difficult to say whether it will take off on a whole. Now we see some kind of reassurance in the form of an announcement from a Cyan Worlds employee. Myst, an extremely popular and commercially successful game from the era of CRTs and CD-ROM drives is being ported to the iPhone! If I wasn’t missing the fourth disc, I’d play some Riven right now to celebrate. Reminisce about your days (or months) spent playing this game and how it was totally worth it in the comments.

Myst: Full of totally awesome ships, faux wood and marble stuff.

markm49uk at MacRumors found these excellent photos of the woman who assembled his phone. It appears these test shots were not deleted from his phone.

A comment on the MacRumors thread laments that “[o]nce this spreads into the blogosphere she will be fired.” I certainly hope not, but at the same time fear that iPhones will start to come with flashy marketing-designed photo shoots already in the picture gallery. [MacRumors via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Although fake fans were hired to stand in line in Poland, real fans showed up for the midnight iPhone 3G launch in India. However, Houston, there appears to be a problem.

From IBN Live:

The Apple iPhone 3G (third generation) was launched across India by telecom majors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.. . .

Aditya Malik whooped with excitement after he bought his iPhone. “I’m excited because I have got an Apple iPhone. I am not bothered about the price. Good things come at a price,” Malik said. “I have been waiting for a year to buy one. Last year I missed buying the iPhone 2G, which was launched June 5, as I left for the US on June 3. Now I am very happy to have got the latest one,” he said.. . .

Twenty-two-year-old Nishant Arya, a businessman, was equally happy though he has the earlier versions of the iPhone. “I already have five iPhones. This is the sixth. I bought it because my family wanted it. The earlier phones were 2G, this is 3G.“. . .

“More than 30,000 iPhones (2G) are running on the Airtel network alone,” Sanjay Kapoor. president of the mobility division of Airtel said.

[emphases added]

2G? Well gee, this is confusing. You see the 1G wasn’t any G, but the 3G is really the 2G, and the 4G (which is really the 3G) may not be 3G. Or perhaps the G1 isn’t the 1G, but the G2 is the 3G. Whew! For the few who don’t know what I am on about (such as apparently the entire country of India and the editorial staff of IBN Live), many Apple products are affectionately called by their generation number. For example there are first generation iPod nanos and second generation iPod nanos. Older iMacs are often distinguished as a G4 or G5 (meaning fourth generation and fifth generation respectively). However, worlds have collided now that cellular technology and Apple have been fused, and like the ottoman, no one knows what to do with the G.

Psst Aditya, I whooped too. Seriously. I did the Apple store employee happy dance.

UPDATE: A helpful reader noted that I was imprecise in my terminology, caving in to the popular use. The “generation” of the machines refer to the processors inside the machines rather than the actual machine line itself. I was trying to keep things as simple as possible in a subject that is already confusing the heck out of India.

Orange is hiring actors to stand outside of Polish stores to intensify the hype of the release of the iPhone in Poland. From the Reuters article:

“We have these fake queues at front of 20 stores around the country to drum up interest in the iPhone,” a spokesman said.

Apple sold about one million of the new iPhone models in the United States around the July launch weekend, but buyers in Poland may be reluctant to pay hefty monthly charges.

There were no queues at T-Mobile’s (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Era stores, which will also due to launch the iPhone on Friday.

Fake lines (or any lines) have not formed in front of local T-Mobile stores. Good luck to those who are looking forward to buying an iPhone in their home country!

The USA Today is reporting that the latest iPhone firmware which was released yesterday aims to fix issues related to 3G signal strength.

The newspaper cites reported from iPhones users who state that they are experiencing issues with calls being dropped. The newspaper goes onto speculate that this could be an hardware issue with the Infineon chip used within the iPhone; a possibility that Infineon itself has stated as unlikely.

The article explains that the iPhone 2.0.2 update released yesterday aims to fix the reported issues by addressing how quickly the iPhone 3G will drop a weak 3G signal and begin using a stronger EDGE signal. Often resulting in dropped calls and frustrated users.

Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock said on Tuesday, “The software update improves communication with 3G networks.”

In an email to a customer purported to be from Steve Jobs it has been acknowledged that an issue exists where third-party applications repeatedly crash on iPhones.

Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly failing to load non-default apps regardless of their nature, briefly loading them before abruptly jumping back to the home screen.

The bug occurs both with freshly downloaded software and with updates, but is reported as never having a definite fix; although some report successfully deleting and re-downloading apps to regain access, others find the solution either having no effect or gradually decaying over time to where the apps again fail to run. Restoring the iPhone also seldom works.

Jobs replied with a one-line answer:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.”

Apple has released the latest minor firmware update for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stated in a note to clients Wednesday that he has increased his estimate of the number of iPhones he expects Apple to sell worldwide in its 4th quarter, from 4.1 million to 4.47 million.

In contrast, Apple sold only 1.12 million iPhones in the same quarter of 2007.

“Our 25 hours of counting iPhone sales in Apple retail stores throughout the country lead us to believe Apple is on pace to beat our previous estimate of 4.1 million iPhones for the September quarter,” analyst Gene Munster wrote.

The analyst is estimating that Apple sells an average of 95 iPhone 3Gs per day at each of its 188 U.S. retail stores.

“We believe Apple will sell 1.78 million units at its U.S. retail stores, and 0.90 million phones at U.S. AT&T locations”, Munster wrote. “Our estimate assumes each of the 2,200 AT&T stores will sell an average of 5 phones per day from the July 11th launch through the end of the September quarter”.

Munster’s team checked U.S. Apple stores for two weeks and in that period noted a 10-percent decrease in sales during the second week. For this reason Munster’s model accounts for the ever decreasing sales of the iPhone 3G.

On that basis Munster’s fourth quarter estimate assumes Apple retail stores will average 31 iPhone sales per day for the remaining 51 days in the quarter.

“We believe that our revision may be conservative and that Apple will meet our estimates,” he wrote. “The August 22nd launch in additional countries should provide another catalyst to sales.”