Apple sells 3 million iPads over the weekend, remains coy on how many were Mini

Apple has announced that it has sold three million iPads over the opening weekend, but fails to break down that figure into how many were iPad Mini tablets and how many were fourth generation full-size model.

Apple has sent forth its traditional, post-opening weekend press release trumpeting how many new iPads it has sold. We say iPads — plural — because it wasn’t only the iPad mini that went on sale, but the fourth generation iPad too, despite it being almost completely ignored by the press.

From November 2 to November 5, Apple sold 3 million iPads, which it says “doubles the previous first weekend milestone of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation in March.” Neither of the two new iPads have cellular connectivity yet, but 4G models will ship in the next few weeks.

Just in case you didn’t quite catch it, Apple CEO Tim Cook chimed in to confirm that the company “set a new launch weekend record,” and adds that it had “practically sold out of iPad minis.”

So, a resounding success? Well, possibly, but there’s no breakdown of exactly how many units of that 3 million magic number were iPad minis. Reports from around the world on Friday didn’t contain the same degree of excitement over the iPad Mini as they have for previous Apple products, and described shorter lines at stores.

This didn’t stop it from selling out, a fact that anyone could gather from a cursory glance at Twitter late in the launch day, as frustrated buyers found the shelves empty at their local stores. Apple’s statement closes with reference to online pre-orders selling-out too, confirming that “demand for the iPad mini exceeded the initial supply.”

Three million sales needed for success

Prior to the weekend, an analyst from BTIG said Apple needed to shift at least 3 million iPad Mini tablets for it to be hailed a success. For some context, the iPhone 5 sold 5 million over its opening weekend and as we reported last week, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has taken nearly 40 days to reach 3 million sales.

Apple analyst Gene Munster warned the company may fall short of this figure, estimating between 1 million and 1.5 million iPad mini devices would be sold. He noted that this lower than expected figure is because the iPad mini will be a “grower,” and that once people see and try it, demand will increase.

Without the aforementioned sales breakdown, it’s impossible to know how close Munster came to the truth, but he’s probably not far off. At least we assume he’s not, as for all we know, the fourth generation iPad could have been responsible for 75 percent of the total.

With the iPad mini selling out online and in stores, it certainly looks like another successful launch for Apple. But it’s difficult to say just how much of this was true demand, and how much was lack of supply. Among the endless iPad Mini rumors, you may recall an analyst warning that there would only be “acceptable” iPad mini stock levels for the first month, due to problems with the supply chain. This rumor may have come true, and comes soon after the iPhone 5’s similar problems.

The iPad mini came out in 34 countries on Friday and according to the Apple Store, is currently limited to two per customer with a two-week wait before it ships.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

iPhone 5 Hits 5M in Sales in Opening Weekend

                                                                 (Image Credit: Credit: Joanna Stern / ABC News)

It’s all about the fives. Apple announced this morning that 5 million of its iPhone 5s were sold in the first weekend, setting a record for opening-weekend iPhone sales. The phone, which has a larger 4-inch screen, faster processor and LTE data transmission, went on sale online Sept. 12 and in stores at 8 a.m. local time Friday. In the first 24 hours of pre-sale, 2 million phones were purchased online.

“While we have sold out of our initial supply, stores continue to receive iPhone 5 shipments regularly and customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement this morning.

For now,  iPhones are slated to ship within three to four weeks through Apple.com.

Despite complaints about Apple’s new Maps app, which replaced Google Maps in the new iOS 6 operating system, 100 million iOS devices have been updated to the new software. Since launching, many people have complained about misplaced points of interest and important missing places. Still, iOS 6 has been the fastest iOS software download.

Some analysts predicted that Apple would sell as many as 10 million phones in the first weekend;  company stock was down 2.1 percent in pre-market trading.

Still, Apple seems on track to beat Samsung’s latest achievement. Samsung recently announced that it had sold more than 20 million Galaxy S 3s -  the iPhone 5′s closest rival – in 100 days. Samsung and Apple have been involved in ongoing intellectual property disputes in the United State  and around the world over smartphone technology.

Check out our full review of the iPhone 5 and our overview of iOS 6 here.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Was Apple aware of the iPhone 5 build quality issues?

The chipping issues of the anodized aluminum back cover of the new iPhone caused a real storm this weekend and it seems the saga is not going to end anytime soon. Apple’s latest smartphone turned out to be way less durable than its predecessor and that made quite a lot of its early adopters angry.

And while build quality issues are not uncommon in an industry where time is so precious and technology is oftentimes pushed close to its limits, Apple might not be an innocent victim here. The latest development leads us to believe that the company was fully aware of the sensitive nature of the iPhone 5 back panel, but still proceeded with its manufacturing.

One of our readers brought to our attention the following video, which was created before the iPhone 5 was announced. The worker at the Foxconn factory who published the photos of the new iOS smartphone before it went official, said that most of the iPhone 5 units he and his team were producing were faulty – with good ones being just 10%.

If all the workers in the factory knew that the back can be scratched easily, there’s no way the guys over in Cupertino weren’t aware of the issues and yet they still went ahead with the launch.

The good news is that you can always return your iPhone 5 if you are unhappy with it for a full refund. According to the video, though, you should just wait until October, when units of higher quality will supposedly come to the market.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Toys ‘R’ Us jumps in the tablet game: 7-inch Tabeo with Android 4.0

Toys "R" Us has debuted its own tablet for kids: the 7-inch Tabeo, which runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Toys “R” Us announced this weekend that it will begin selling its own branded tablet for kids. The 7-inch Tabeo tablet will cost $150, and goes on sale on October 1. Pre-orders for the device are available through ToysRUs.com now.

The Tabeo will run on a stripped-down version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and come pre-loaded with 50 apps, including games, books, and educational apps. Other Tabeo technical specs include a 1.0 GHz processor (of unknown make), HDMI output, 4GB of internal storage, a front-facing camera, and Wi-Fi connectivity. The devices also comes with a “drop-safe” cover to keep it protected from children’s inevitable disregard for fragility.

While Toys “R” Us says that the Tabeo will give its young users the “full Internet experience” (including Flash support!), the Tabeo will be limited to Toys “R” Us’s Tabeo Store, which the company says currently has around 7,000 apps. Parental controls will also come pre-loaded to keep that “full Internet experience” kid-friendly.

The Tabeo is far from the only tablet available from Toys “R” Us. Other child-centric options include the LexiBook Junior Tablet, MEEP! Kids Tablet, and the Kurio Kids Tablet. Toys “R” Us also sells more grown-up devices, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), and the Kindle Fire.

So, why is Toys “R” Us getting into the tablet game? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s because the toy seller is struggling to make ends meet. As with other big box retailers, Toys “R” Us has seen a drop in in-store sales over the past year, due in part to its inability to compete with online retailers who offer lowers prices. Unlike general electronics retailers, like Best Buy and Radio Shack, Toys “R” Us continues to benefit from the fact that its customers (parents) still like to buy its products in person.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Phone phreaking archive available online

Enjoy this glorious audio archive of the lawless frontier that was phone phreaking.

Here’s a little something to while away a long weekend: Phone Trips, a massive archive of phone phreaking recordings. Long before BitTorrent, Pirate Bay, or Napster, online lawlessness was all about clever kids figuring out how to make long-distance phone calls for free, and the reverberations echoed far through the technology industry.

Phone phreaking, like early modems, was premised on the exploitable fact that analog telephone lines not only transmitted audio signals, they also used audio signals for network control. Phreak culture began when a blind seven-year-old with perfect pitch discovered that whistling a particular note would cause his dial tone to disappear, inaugurating a tradition of blind telecommunications hackers that continues into the present day. Soon, aspiring ne’r-do-wells proved that a 2600 Hz tone, played into any Bell telephone, would cause the phone to think any call on the line was over, allowing clever hackers to make calls without being charged long-distance fees by playing further frequencies into the mouthpiece. One of the early kings of phreaking, “Captain Crunch,” got his name when he discovered that the free whistle included in boxes of the titular cereal provided a perfect 2600 Hz tone without the need to master the recorder, instrument of choice for grade-school bands and phone phreakers alike.

Soon, hackers were making “blue boxes“, which packed all the necessary tone-generation features into a compact little unit the size of a pack of cigarettes. Esquire published a long article covering the phenomena, falsely labeling it as “fiction,” so as not to inspire other lawbreakers. Despite the label, there was enough technical content in the piece that a San Jose mom thought her boy, who loved fooling around with electronics, would be interested. So she sent a blue box to little Steve Wozniak, who immediately shared it with his hippie room-mate, a long-hair by the name of Steve Jobs. 

Depending on who you believe, Jobs and Wozniak either built their own blue boxes, or Captain Crunch showed them how to do it; either way, they were soon gleefully driving around California using the boxes to make calls without paying a dime. The device they built was so good, they decided to start a little business making blue boxes and selling them to friends for $150 apiece. Yes, you read that right — the first business that Jobs and Wozniak started was illegally selling a hack to jailbreak the phone system. This was a serious enough criminal offense that Jobs disclosed it when seeking security clearance from the Department of Defense. 

The F.B.I. caught up with Captain Crunch before too long, but he remained an important figure in Jobs and Wozniak’s next business, building one of the first code assemblers for the Apple I, and EasyWriter, the first word processor for the Apple II. According to Wozniak, some of the circuitry designs used in the blue box were used for the Apple II’s video processing.

Phone phreaking continued to be a popular pastime for all manner of anti-authority counterculture types, with Abbie Hoffman forming the Youth International Party Line and Al Bell (no relation to Ma!) launching the Technological American Party, dedicated to showing young people how to “stick it to The Man” by hacking phone lines. Outside of the radical politics world, phreaks formed communities built around pure love of messing with the system. In the 1970s, almost every town in America had a slightly different telephone network, and “phone trips” became the dedicated phreak’s version of a vacation: driving around the country recording the different dial tones and number pitches in every town. Yes, this is what kids did for fun before the Internet. When the first Internet forums developed in the form of BBS networks, phone phreaks immediately took to them as a place to share information with less risk of censorship or capture than print publication. The most famous of those was alt.2600, named for the 2600 Hz tone, which evolved into one of the great hacker magazines of the 90s.

Phone phreaking became less popular as long distance rates dropped, especially once cellular phones started treating long distance and local calls as identical. But phreaking didn’t truly end until June 15, 2006, when Wawina County, Minnesota, the last exchange to use a “phreakable” signal, switched over to a T1 carrier (that’s a type of telecommunication system, no relation to T1 Internet connections).

Today, the original phreaks are remembered on the History of Phone Phreaking blog, in the upcoming book Exploding the Phone, and in the fond memories of dedicated Apple historians. So if you have the good sense to treat a three-day weekend as a chance to mess around in your basement without being bothered, take a look at the Phone Trips site and relish the energy of the original cybercriminals.

(Image of a young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak inspecting their “blue box” from Woz.org)

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

VIDEO: Humpback Whales Appear Near California Coast

A small pod of humpback whales along the coast of California  gave some onlookers quite a surprise this weekend.

Image credit: Courtesy Michael Brink

Several boaters, paddlers and kayakers who were in the water Saturday narrowly missed becoming whale food when the marine mammals burst through the surface to lunge-feed.

Bill Bouton, a retired biology instructor who was photographing birds off San Luis Obispo, snapped the whales’ rare close encounter with people that day.

“I was sitting in my car, parked along the shoulder of the road overlooking the beach. Got to use my tripod, thank goodness,” he  said on his Flickr page, where he’d posted the shots.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Droid Razr HD videos leak: Is this Motorola’s new flagship smartphone?

Five leaked tutorial videos surfaced on YouTube over the weekend allegedly revealing Motorola’s new flagship Android handset, the Motorola Razr HD.

Motorola and Verizon are due to host an event on September 5 and we’re beginning to think that the Motorola Razr HD will be unveiled. Five leaked Razr HD tutorials were posted on YouTube over the weekend and soon popped up on Droid Life and other websites, but they have since been removed and the user account responsible for posting them has been closed.

There has been a great deal of speculation about the new Motorola flagship device. Expectations have been high since Google officially acquired Motorola Mobility back in May.

None of the videos explicitly mention the Motorola RAZR HD and details are scant. The tutorials explained how to set up email, messaging, and Wi-Fi, along with a few other bits and pieces, like battery saving tricks. The phone appears to be running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with a MotoBlur overlay, just like the UI on the Motorola Atrix HD.

Nokia and Microsoft are also set to make a joint announcement at a press conference on September 5. It seems likely that it will involve a new line of Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices. The timing is clearly not accidental and Motorola and Verizon will be aiming to steal their thunder – the invitations they sent out for their event say “Motorola. On Display. Join us for the day’s main event.”

We’ll bring you all the news as it emerges.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com