iNewsBlog iOna: 2012

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Analysts cut AAPL target price average to $740

All of the concerns voiced about the impending leap off the ‘fiscal cliff’ and its associated increase in capital gains taxes on stock sales have sent Wall Street into a tizzy. The end result: knocking Apple’s target share price down to $740. Nearly a dozen analysts have cut their target price for Apple stock amid talk that the iPhone maker has a dodgy future, what with supply questions hanging over the executives at One Infinity Loop. Despite all the rain clouds, the $740 per share target price reduction is about $225 more than Friday’s opening on Wall Street…

According to a chart of analyst forecasts by Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Fortune, there are holdouts from the $740 outlook. Leading the pack is Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets.

White has a price target of $1,111 for Apple shares. He continues to recommend the stock as a “Buy.” Then there are others who believe Apple’s salad days are gone.

Peter Misek of Jefferies sees Apple’s future in chasing emerging markets, such as China and India, where mobile consumers are starting to adopt smartphones like the iPhone en masse.

Earlier this month, Misek made news by predicting Apple will unveil a new iPhone in June or July of 2013, returning to its usual mid-year schedule for product announcements. But along the way, he told investors the price for smartphones has likely peaked and he trimmed his target price for AAPL shares to $800.

High-profile Apple watchers such as Gene Munster of Piper Jeffray or Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu also missed the down elevator. Munster has a $900 price target, while Wu isn’t far behind at $840 for Apple.

Although a number of analysts trimmed their price targets for Apple, only two of the 11 Wall Street observers recommended investors sell their AAPL shares. The majority of analysts retained a “Buy” recommendation – or even “Outperform.”

If analysts were teenagers and Apple was heartthrob Justin Bieber, I would suggest the questions surrounding the iPad maker was just a phase.
masse
When Apple announces its next ‘album,’ Wall Street will be one of the first in line.

Hackulous shuts down: piracy app Installous is gone

In what seems like a small victory against app piracy, the Hackulous team announced today on its site that it is shutting down, bringing down its most popular apps in the process: Installous and AppSync.

Although it’s still unclear what the reasons behind the shut down are, Hackulous claims on its website that it’s mostly due to stagnant forums and the difficulty to moderate them. Although I never hang out in the forums, I find it hard to believe that there was little activity in there, especially given the notoriety of Hackulous in the piracy world…

The short message left by the Hackulous team on the website reads as follow:

Goodnight, sweet prince.

We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down. After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence.

With lots of love,
Hackulous Team

As far as I know, Installous was the easiest and fastest way to install cracked apps onto your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. At this time, it appears that the Hackulous repo is down, meaning that you can’t install Installous or AppSync anymore, those two apps being necessary to install cracked apps from third party pirate sites.

As I mentioned above, this is just a small victory against app piracy in general. I’m fairly certain that other developers will pick up where Hackulous stopped, and will likely provide updated versions of Installous and AppSync in the future.

App piracy is one of the reasons why some people jailbreak their iOS device, and the fact that there is no untethered jailbreak for iOS 6, and more specifically no jailbreak at all for the iPhone 5 might be one of the reasons why Hackulous is shutting down.

If you were an Installous user, it looks like you’re going to have to spend $0.99 on that app after all. If you are a developer, I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear the news. If you are an iOS user, consider this day a victory for iOS and a chance to have an amazing developer community keep coming up with awesome apps.

Auxo for iOS 5.x now available on Cydia

Auxo — the popular jailbreak tweak we covered in depth last week — is now available on Cydia with iOS 5.x support in tow. As you may recall, the initial version only supported iOS 6 out of the gate, and many users, pined for iOS 5.x support, since a great majority of jailbreakers have chosen to remain on 5.x firmware for obvious reasons.

Thanks to developer, Kyle Howells, who assisted with porting the tweak, the team behind Auxo was able to meet its turnaround time for adding support for the older iOS firmware. Did the team have to make any sacrifices in order to bring such an awesome tweak to iOS 5.x? It sure doesn’t look like it to me. Check inside as we go hands on with Auxo for iOS 5.x on video…

As you can see from our video, Auxo for iOS 5.x works exactly like it does on iOS 6.x. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a difference between the two. If anything, the new version of Auxo with 5.x support works even better, because it adds bug fixes, performance upgrades, and new languages.

The video that I included with this post is designed to show you how the tweak works on the lesser firmware, and it’s not an in-depth dive into all of its features. If you haven’t read our original synoposis of Auxo, or you’re still wondering what all of the fuss is about, then I urge you to check out our original post about the tweak. There, I broke down every aspect of Auxo in full detail, and also included a more in-depth video that what accompanies this post.

While most iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 4G users could have easily upgraded to iOS 6 in order to run Auxo, jailbroken iPhone 4S owners had no such luxury. Now, with the introduction of Auxo 1.1, users of the jailbroken iPhone 4S can enjoy the improved app switching experience on much faster hardware. Sadly, I lost my jailbreak for the iPhone 4S, so I am patiently waiting for an iOS 6 jailbreak for that device, and obviously, I’m looking forward to running Auxo on my iPhone 5 as well.

So what’s next for Auxo? Well, the most logical next step for the team is to implement iPad support. Auxo is the type of tweak that would translate well on the iPad’s larger screen, and the team has assured me that they are working diligently to bring the experience to Apple tablets.

I won’t say I was skeptical, but I was a tad doubtful whether Kyle Howells could bring Auxo to iOS 5 in an accurate fashion. I guess I shouldn’t have been skeptical at all, after all, this is the same guy who brought us great tweaks like MountainCenter, along the marvelous SwipeSelection and Emblem, which were both featured as one of our top tweaks of 2012. Given his track record, I should have realized that if anyone could have pulled this off during the short time allocated for its completion, it would have been Howells.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

NYC Mayor: iPhones thefts responsible for crime increase

That iPhone you’re carrying on the New York City subway, well someone else likes it: thieves. Indeed, the Apple device is so popular with Big Apple thieves the mayor is blaming the gadget for a rise in the city’s crime rate. Mayor Michael Bloomberg told his radio audience some tactics for preventing your iPhone becoming the 3,891st Apple device stolen in 2012. Among the suggestions: tight clothes…

The New York Times quotes Bloomberg advising his radio audience:

Put it in a pocket in sort of a more body-fitting, tighter clothes, that you can feel if it was – if somebody put their hand in your pocket, not just an outside coat pocket.

If thefts of Apple devices were removed from New York City’s crime stats, the Police Department’s major crimes – which includes robbery – would be down, according to the mayor’s press secretary.

A prime hunting ground for iPhone thieves is the city’s subway system, where criminals can quickly snatch and grab as people enter or exit trains. The crowds and easy exits are perfect for making a clean getaway, the NYPD told the Times.

This isn’t the first time thefts of Apple devices have made headlines. Earlier this year,$1.5 million worth of iPads were stolen from a JFK airport warehouse before the tablets could be shipped to their owners.

In 2011, iPhone thefts comprised 70 percent of all cell phones stolen in New York City and half of all thefts there, according to the New York Daily News.

One NYPD source told the New York Post carrying an iPhone was “like walking around with a $500 bill”.

Where are stolen iPhones sold?

Apparently, many wind up in New York City stores. During a 2011 sting, police found the smartphone selling for between $50 and $200.

Bloomberg is not the first to offer advice on ways to prevent your iPhone winding up in the hands of thieves.

Along with etching your device with identifying information, a number of stolen iPhones have been traced using Apple’s Find My Phone application, a free download from the App Store.

But as the story of one New Jersey iPhone owner who traced his device to a thief still talking on the stolen smartphone illustrates, you might want to call police before yelling “gotcha!”

Hopefully thieves are off the grid and aren’t reading this.

Has your iPhone ever been stolen and did you have luck locating it via Find My iPhone?

Google invites iOS devs to ‘do cool things that matter’

Google is determined to become the top iOS developer in terms of quality and presence. Already the company’s Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Maps, Search and other products are found on many people’s home screens. In fact, YouTube and Maps topped the list of most downloaded apps on Christmas Day. And now, the Mountain View, California-headquartered Internet giant has launched a web ad campaign to promote its presence on the Apple platform and invite developers to ‘do cool things that matter’ on iOS. It’s a nice vote of confidence and a sign that Google in no way intends to leave iOS users behind and lose a a treasure trove of data it collects on use through its iOS apps…

This was first reported by Jake Smith of 9to5Mac.

A Jobs section on Google’s site titled “Wait, Google has iOS mobile apps teams?” details the company has “a ton of in-house iOS teams, building apps for everything from Search to YouTube to Chrome to Maps”.

The post is focused mainly on Google’s Search product for iPhone, arguably the best software to do voice search on iOS devices.

Google tells potential hires:

It’s fun. People have misconception that we just copy and paste existing Google products to the iOS platform. But we have a lot of freedom and try to innovate beyond anything that Google’s done so far. We are always working on ideas to push the envelope on mobile search, and we collaborate closely with Google Web Search engineers to implement new features.

And because Google is developing for iOS, the company’s developers pay utmost attention to the nimbleness and appearance of their software.

“We all like to build polished products and we take design very seriously”, Google’s post reads. And commenting on the recently updated Search iOS app, Google acknowledges it “spent a lot of time perfecting design”.

“User experience is as simple as tapping on the microphone icon, with beautiful transitions and animations”, the search firm wrote.

Indeed, as noted by Matthew Panzarino of The Next Web, Google’s recently updated iOS offerings have in fact introduced a new and attractive design language that’s reminiscent of Android, but in many ways prettier and more functional.

Contrary to Google, Microsoft is attempting to woo iOS devs to write for the Windows platform.

What do you think of Google’s iOS apps?

Apple withdraws patent claim against Galaxy S III Mini in the U.S.

Faced with a potential $15 billion fine by The European Commission over its misuse of standards-essential patents in litigation with Apple, Samsung earlier this month dropped its bid to ban Apple devices in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Seemingly mirroring Samsung’s move, Apple has now agreed to withdraw its patent infringement claims against a new Samsung phone it added to its U.S. suit on Black Friday, Reuters reports…

It’s not what you think.

According to Reuters, Apple realized that the new Galaxy S III Mini wasn’t going to be sold in the U.S. market at all.

Apple Inc has agreed to withdraw patent claims against a new Samsung phone with a high-end display after Samsung said it was not offering to sell the product in the crucial U.S. market.

In response to Apple’s bid to add the Galaxy S III mini and five other phones to its U.S. suit, Samsung said the Mini was not available for sale in the United States and should not be included in the case.

The news gathering organization explains that the patents Apple is asserting against the Mini are separate from those that went to trial in August, securing the iPhone maker a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung.

Samsung launched the Galaxy S III Mini mid-October in Europe in response to the iPhone 5. The Jelly Bean-driven smartphone with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface inherits much of the Galaxy S III’s software and hardware features, only in the more compact four-inch form factor.

Lawyers for Apple wrote in the filing they were able to “purchase multiple units of the Mini from Amazon.com Inc’s U.S. retail site and have them delivered in the United States”.

The Galaxy maker responded that it is not “making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the Galaxy S III Mini in the United States”.

Therefore, Apple basically had no other choice but to agree to withdraw claims on the Mini “so long as the current withdrawal will not prejudice Apple’s ability later to accuse the Galaxy S III Mini if the factual circumstances change”.

Is it just me or could this move be interpreted as a gesture of goodwill on Apple’s part?