Steve Jobs has just 6 weeks to live
A news report has claimed that Steve Jobs has less than a couple of months to live. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs is currently on medical leave from the company.
According to reports, Mr Jobs was taken to the famous Stanford Cancer Center where he spoke to number of totally unrelated people about why he would be visiting and what would be the likely outcome based on some long distance photos they took. The report stated that Jobs is stricken with pancreatic cancer. Various doctors claimed that he had just a few weeks to live.
The Apple CEO has battled a rare, but also far less aggressive type of pancreatic cancer for the past seven years and had a liver transplant in 2009.
Although he looks weak in the photos, he is seemingly well enough to still be attending meetings with senior people around California and carrying on business as normal.
Apple offers subscription plans through its App Store
Apple has announced that it will permit Apps developers to start charging recurring subscription fees through its Apps Store.
The move came after a trial with News Corp.’s “The Daily” app for the downloadable newspaper.
As per the scheme, if a customer buys the App first, then later signs up for a subscription through the Apple platform, Apple will take a 30% slice of the renewal fee. It’s a move which will cause friction with publishers who had hoped to push subscription fees to their platforms, where the credit card processing costs would be a fraction of that being charged by Apple.
Although publishers will be able to sell subscriptions to Apps on their own websites, they won’t be allowed to promote that within the App or link to their website from the App.
According to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, their philosophy is simple – when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30% share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100% and Apple earns nothing. All the company requires is, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.
Finally, Apple will also require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app, which will prevent them from passing on the higher processing fee to the customers.
Apple is working on cheaper, smaller iPhones
Apple building up iPad 2 with smaller screen
Here comes good news for iPad lovers as Apple is working on a smaller iPad model with a smaller screen size.
According to reports, makers of parts of the new iPad are gearing up for a new round of production in the first quarter, confirming reports last week that Apple’s iPad 2 is under development.
Sources revealed that the revamped model would feature cameras on the front and back of the device, enabling Apple’s Facetime video conferencing service. It would be slimmer, lighter and have a better resolution display than the first iPad.
In October, Steve Jobs dismissed the idea of a 7-inch iPad, saying the screen would be too small to express the software.
However, sources last week suggested that the iPad 2 launch was being put back by a month to February due to difficulties with the device firmware, which could add fuel to the speculation that a smaller iPad is proving as difficult to develop as Steve Jobs had suggested it could be.
AT&T Increases Smartphone Early Upgrade fees (USA)
If you are an AT&T customer and planning to upgrade your AT&T smartphone before your two-year contract be ready to pay extra as the company has increased upgrade pricing options. The carrier has increased its early upgrade fee from US$75 to US$200.
According to reports, AT&T has raised its smartphone early upgrade fee to US$200 on top of the new two-year contract price. Before October 3, when the new policy went into effect, it was US$75 to upgrade your smartphone before the 18-month mark in a two-year contract.
According to the company, the change will not be applicable to Apple’s iPhone or basic and quick-messaging phones. When Apple released the iPhone 4, the existing users who are using their phones for less than 12 months will have to pay US$100 more to get the upgraded smartphone. But according to Apple chief Steve Jobs, AT&T would subsidize iPhone customers upgrading to the iPhone 4 up to six months earlier than their current upgrade date.
An AT&T spokeswoman confirmed that the notice posted on BGR was legitimate.
AT&T pointed to the BlackBerry Torch, which costs US$199.99 with a two-year contract, is now available at US$399.99 for customers who agree to early upgrades. The no-commitment price is US$499.99, so a customer will save US$100 providing they don’t mind adding more time onto their contract.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will appear at the Center for American Progress in D.C. on Oct. 13 to discuss the steps the commission is taking to avoid bill shock and unveil the findings of a new white paper on the topic.
AT&T adds tethering, drops iPhone unlimited data plan (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Unlimited data plan for new iPhones to be unveiled on June 7 has been dropped by the USA- based telecom operator as it would also offer tethering to iPhone customers for an extra $20 per month.
AT&T will provide a pair of plans that cap the amount of data users can consume before paying additional fees, instead of offering new iPhone customers its current unlimited data plan, which costs $30 per month. Through this service, iPhone owners can tether their smartphones to a laptop or other device for $20 additional per month, turning the phone into a mobile hotspot that the laptop can use to connect to the Internet.
According to de la Vega, AT&T Mobility CEO, the company is breaking free from the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ pricing model and making the mobile Internet more affordable to a greater number of people.
However, the advocacy groups feel that AT&T asserts that its high-end 2GB cap will only impact the heaviest users, but the fact is today’s heavy user is tomorrow’s average user and opined that AT&T should charge the low-end users $15 per 200MB, and charge $20 for tethering capability even if no additional capacity is used.
New capped plans will be kicked off by AT&T next Monday, the same day when Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference will open. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the next iPhone in the conference. Although AT&T’s unlimited data plan for the iPhone has been a hallmark of the U.S. carrier’s partnership with Apple, the carrier has regularly complained that iPhone customers consume the bulk of its data capacity, and have hinted that caps might be coming.
Analysts opined that if AT&T manages to squelch the heaviest users’ consumption, and thus improve the overall performance of its network, a sore spot with iPhone owners almost since the day Apple introduced the device three years ago, almost everyone will be happy.
AT&T has been regularly defended by Apple although it has acknowledged performance problems.
AT&T new iPhone to be unveiled in June (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The launch of the new iPhone 4G/HD has been confirmed by the USA- based telecom operator, AT&T in June. The official information about the launch has been confirmed after a long spell of speculations and the employees of the company have been announced that there will be a new iPhone and it will hit the stores in June.
The handset is expected to be unveiled in the early June itself straight after the WWDC event and Apple’s unveiling. The new iPhone model is well and truly on its way reason, discontinuation of the iPhone 3G and the drop in price of the iPhone 3GS at Walmart stores. The commercial for the new handset has been completed and the Apple iPhone 4G is expected to be announced at WWDC 2010 on June 7 at the Steve Jobs keynote.
Detailed information has not been provided by the company regarding a lot of exciting things like the new iPhone and the iPhone OS 4. A sneak peak however might be provided at the upcoming Mac OSX 10.7.
Apple may unveil new version of iPhone at WWDC in June
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Worldwide Developers Conference of Apple will be addressed by the Chief Executive Officer of the company Steve Jobs, in June and it can be assumed that the firm is planning to unveil the next version of its super hit device, iPhone. Keeping a track of the Apple record in the past, analysts also feel that they’ll introduce new hardware, in this case the latest iPhone.
The five day meeting will be given a flag off by Jobs on June 7, and most of the products are typically introduced in this event namely, WWDC. The iPhone was first introduced in June 2007 and since then; it has been offering a new version every summer. In July 2008, the iPhone 3G, which added support for third-generation wireless networks, was kicked off for sale followed by an upgraded version in June 2009.
The newest iPhone is expected to have improved battery life and a front-facing camera and the device would probably be shown during keynote address by Jobs. Apple’s top-selling product in the last quarter was iPhone which earned $5.45 billion in sales, or 40 percent of revenue. 28 percent of sales had been represented by the Macintosh computer while the iPod media player accounted for 14 percent.
IPhone 3GS was introduced by Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller, at last year’s event because Jobs, 55, was out on medical leave. An unreleased iPhone prototype, lost by an Apple engineer at a bar in March, was disassembled and photographed by technology blog last month. If the type comes out to be true, then the features of the new iPhone can be a front-facing camera, camera flash, higher-resolution screen, bigger battery and boxier design than the current iPhone 3GS. According to Apple, the WWDC sold out in eight days to more than 5,000 developers.
Apple holds annual meeting with shareholders
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The annual face-to-face meeting with shareholders will be held by Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs with no shortage of questions for a company famously stingy with information.
Despite a strong December-quarter earnings report and massive hype around the iPad tablet, Apple’s shares have been treading water around the $200 mark since last October.
Analyst all over the world feel that the investors may be looking for a fresh catalyst to send shares that have already more than doubled from a year ago, even higher, as market capitalization of the company has approached $200 billion in recent weeks.
According to Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves, Apple is a big company now and there are questions about the limits to growth in any market, and once the $200 billion number is hit, which they’re close to, people have questions.
