MacRumors

During today's fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook commented on the Retina iPad mini, noting that it is unclear whether Apple will have enough supplies to meet demand for the tablet.

According to Cook, while Apple is aware of how many Retina iPad minis the company can produce, it is unclear how much demand will exist for the tablet. As noted by Apple during the Retina mini's second-generation introduction, a Retina display has been one of the most requested features for the tablet.

Multiple sources have suggested that the Retina iPad mini will be in short supply throughout 2013, which has been all but confirmed by Apple's nebulous November release date. According to a report from last week, following its November debut, Retina iPad mini supplies could be "ridiculously tight" until 2014. Cook did not offer any further information on a prospective launch date.

While supplies of the Retina iPad mini will be constrained, supplies of the iPad Air are expected to be more plentiful. When the iPad Air goes on sale on November 1, the company is expected to offer same day in-store pickup for orders. On account of high quantities of the iPad Air, Cook was positive about overall iPad sales during the quarter, stating "I think it's going to be an iPad Christmas."

Cook also confirmed that Apple has had a significant backlog on iPhone 5s supplies, but is working to build up stock each week. He remains confident that Apple will be able to continue to build up its iPhone 5s supplies as it launches in additional countries around the world in the coming weeks. Currently, iPhone 5s shipping times in the United States and multiple other countries remain at 2 to 3 weeks.

During its financial conference call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a new perspective on the company's iPhone strategy.

Cook was asked questions about how Apple plans to address lower price segments of the smartphone market and where the iPhone 5c stands in the lineup. He stated that the iPhone 4s is now the entry-level iPhone contrary to the pre-launch belief that the iPhone 5c would be the entry-level device:

If you look at what we've done, we're selling the iPhone 4s as our entry offer. We sell the iPhone 5c as the mid-tier and the 5s. Our goal is to have growth across the iPhone but we want each of those categories to grow as compared to what we were doing previously. If you look at the total that we're making in the low end and mid tier and high end, the sum there, we'd like to grow in each one of those. We're really please that we did that.

Cook also elaborated the philosophy of seeing the iPhone 4s as the entry level iPhone after discussing foreign device pricing strategy and why the company did not keep the iPhone 4 in its lineup given its sales success:

What we did with our lineup this time was the 4s is replacing the 4. If you look at the US as an example, the 4s is now free. The 4 was free previously. When you translate that out of the US, it depends on the market as to what specifically happens. Currency changes and the strength of the dollar doesn't always play in our favor in some geos.

We see the 4s as our entry iPhone offer that gives somebody the ability to access the entire ecosystem as a fantastic product. We understand that there is elasticity in that market and it will move accordingly.

Apple sold a record 150 million iPhones in fiscal 2013, up 25 million units from 2012. The company has sold 421.3 million smartphones since the iPhone's launch in 2007.

During today's fourth quarter earnings call, Tim Cook confirmed that Apple still plans on introducing new product categories within 2014.

According to Cook, Apple believes that it can use its skills building software, hardware, and services to create "great products" in categories that Apple does not participate in today. "We're pretty confident about that," said Cook.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a number of innovative products, including a smart watch dubbed the iWatch, which will compete with offerings from several other companies like Nike, Jawbone, and Samsung, along with a potential Apple television set.

Apple's iWatch is rumored for a 2014 release, while a possible release date for a television set has been more hazy. The company is also possibly working on other offerings within the television sector, including a potential set-top box that replaces traditional cable boxes.

Apple today announced financial results for the third calendar and fourth fiscal quarter of 2013. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $37.5 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.5 billion, or $8.26 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $36 billion and net quarterly profit of $8.2 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin for the quarter was 37 percent compared to 40.0 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounting for 60 percent of revenue. Apple also declared a dividend payment of $3.05 per share, payable on November 14 to shareholders as of the close of trading on November 11. The company currently holds $146.8 billion in cash and marketable securities.

The company generated $9.9 billion in free cash flow from operations and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said Apple returned $7.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

For the full fiscal year, Apple generated $170.9 billion in sales, a new record for the firm, with just over $35 billion in net income. In fiscal 2012, Apple made $41.7 billion on $156.5 billion in sales thanks to stronger margins. In 2013, Apple sold 16.34 million Macs, its lowest total since 2010, and 26.4 million iPods, its lowest total for that category since 2005.

It sold a record 150 million iPhones on the year, up 25 million from 2012, and the company has now sold 421.3 million smartphones in total. It sold 71 million iPads, a new record, and the company has now sold 169.2 million tablets.

Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 33.8 million, compared to 26.9 million in the year-ago quarter, and the company sold 14.1 million iPads, compared to 14 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 4.6 million Macs compared to 4.9 million in the year-ago period.

“We’re pleased to report a strong finish to an amazing year with record fourth quarter revenue, including sales of almost 34 million iPhones,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. "We’re excited to go into the holidays with our new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, iOS 7, the new iPad mini with Retina Display and the incredibly thin and light iPad Air, new MacBook Pros, the radical new Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks and the next generation iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS.”

Apple's guidance for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 includes expected revenue of $55-58 billion and gross margin between 36.5 and 37.5 percent.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2013 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference Call and Q&A Highlights are available in reverse chronological order after the jump.

➜ Click here to read rest of article...

Apple is sending a set of Mac Pro posters to select journalists, according to TechCrunch. Writers at CNET, Dallas Morning News and TidBITS have all received copies of the posters, which feature images of the Mac Pro's radical cylindrical design along with the following message:

It's the computer we were insane to build. The one that turns conventional thinking on its head, then kicks the living $#&% out of it. We challenged all our assumptions. Abandoned our preconceptions. And blew away limitation after limitation. This is the new Mac Pro. It's like no Mac we've created before. And we can't wait to see what you create with it.

First announced in June, Apple's redesigned Mac Pro starts at $2,999 and comes in several different configurations. The entry-level version includes a 3.7 Ghz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs, 12 GB of memory, and 256 GB of PCIe-based flash storage.

With configure-to-order options, the Mac Pro can be customized with an 8-core or 12-core Xeon E5 processor, FirePro D700 GPUs, up to 64 GB of memory, and up to 1 TB of flash storage. While Apple has yet to provide a solid release date for the Mac Pro, it is expected sometime in December.

When Apple launches orders for the iPad Air on Friday, November 1, the company will reportedly accept requests for Personal Pickup, according to a source who notified MacRumors about Apple's plans.

With Personal Pickup, prospective buyers can reserve an iPad Air online beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time and pick it up at a nearby Apple retail location later that same day without waiting in line.

Launch day availability of Personal Pickup is unusual for Apple, as the company did not offer the choice for the iPad 2, the last tablet that was offered without pre-orders. Apple also did not initially offer in-store pickup of the iPhone 5c, despite the fact that supplies of the phone were readily available.

Though Apple has elected not to accept pre-orders for the iPad Air, it appears that supplies of the tablet are plentiful, with no significant shortages expected. And while supplies of the iPad Air do not appear to be constrained, the same cannot be said for Apple's Retina iPad mini. The tablet, which does not yet have a solid release date, may not be widely available until early 2014.

Revealed last Tuesday, the new iPad Air weighs in at a pound and is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than Apple's previous fourth-generation iPad. Along with a Retina display, it includes an A7 processor, an M7 motion coprocessor, and a 5-megapixel rear camera.

Available in white/silver and black/space gray, the iPad Air begins at $499 for the entry-level 16 GB Wi-Fi only model with a $100 price increase for additional storage options up to 128 GB and an extra $129 for comparable cellular models.

While online orders will be accepted beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time in the United States and at varying times in other countries, Apple retail locations will open at 8 a.m. local time in the U.S. and other countries in Europe and Asia to begin in-store sales.

Several tidbits about Apple's upcoming "Made for iPhone" (MFi) gaming controllers leaked out over the weekend, revealing a few new details about products from both MOGA and Logitech. According to a tweet from @evleaks, Logitech's upcoming controller, which was revealed in photos in October, will be called the Powershell, while MOGA's controller is the MOGA Ace Power.

MOGA's upcoming Ace Power controller was accidentally unveiled in a YouTube video over the weekend (via TouchArcade), after images of the controller first leaked last week. While the original images depicted a traditional d-pad along with dual thumbsticks, the video confirms the controller also includes R1/R2 and L1/L2 buttons located at the top.

While there is no prospective release date available for the MFi controllers, the increasingly frequent product leaks suggest that they could come before the end of the year, possibly in mid-November.

A little more than a month since the iPhone 5s and 5c went on sale worldwide, the two devices account for 5.5 percent of all active iPhone devices around the world according to Localytics, though the prior-generation iPhone 5 remains the most popular iPhone by far with a 40 percent share.

Much has been written about the head-to-head battle of the iPhone 5s and 5c including our own research from last week that showed that the iPhone 5c is starting to close the gap on its higher-end sibling. Today, the iPhone 5s and 5c now represent 3.8% and 1.7% of all active iPhones globally seen by Localytics. Meanwhile, the iPhone 5 remains the most popular iPhone with a nearly 40% share.

With the iPhone 5s outselling the iPhone 5c by more than 3 to 1 over its launch weekend, the sales gap has begun narrowing between the two new iPhones, perhaps as the initial early-adopter push begins to fade.

Localytics is an mobile analytics platform that uses mobile and web apps to measure usage across 40 million iPhones.

Philippine carriers Smart and Globe have announced that they will launch the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on November 15, suggesting that Apple may be planning to roll out its new iPhones in a broader fourth wave of countries on that date. The news comes as Apple launched both new iPhones in the second wave of countries late last week and will also rollout the iPhone to 16 other countries this Friday, November 1.

AppAdvice also has a theory on the matter, giving a potential list of countries for the fourth wave of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5s launches based simply on other countries where the iPhone 5 launched on the same date as in the Philippines last year:

After looking back to the countries grouped with the Philippines for the sixth wave of last year’s iPhone 5 launch, and removing the territories which have (or will have) already received the new smartphones, we’re expecting Apple to bring its iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c to some or all of the following countries on Nov. 15:

Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, South Africa, and Venezuela.

After its November 1 rollout, Apple will have brought the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c to a total of over 60 countries, which will move the company closer to its stated target of avaliability in 100 countries before the end of the year.

Overall, supplies of the iPhone 5s remain constrained, with shipping times in the United States and a number of other countries still at two to three weeks. Supplies of the iPhone 5c, however, remain plentiful with estimated shipping times of 24 hours.

Update: Several Israeli carriers have announced that they will be launching the new iPhones on November 3.

A growing number of Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro owners in Apple Support Communities forum threads are reporting various problems with both the 13 and 15-inch models of the laptop, including lockups with the keyboard and trackpad on the 13-inch version, as well as difficulties installing Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 through Apple's Boot Camp utility on both models.
According to users in a support thread spanning over 14 pages, the trackpad and the keyboard on the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro are reportedly locking up at random during use, with a hard reset through the machine's power button appearing to be the only present solution to the problem. Users are also reporting that a reset of the MacBook's System Management Controller (SMC) appears to be ineffective, and a small survey of users within the thread show that the problem is affecting all three configurations of the 13-inch model. Currently, it is unknown as to whether the freezes are a hardware or software problem, as Apple has not officially commented on the errors.

Meanwhile, users in another support thread spanning over 8 pages are reporting occassional failures when trying to install Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 on both the new 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The errors appear to be with the partition that Boot Camp creates in order to install Windows 8, as users in the thread have reported freezes and copy errors with methods such as insallation through a USB drive and DVD installation via external SuperDrive.

However, a post in the support thread directing users to select specific options within Boot Camp Assistant has been marked as a solution to the issue, with users reporting successful installations of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 after using the method. It is also likely that Apple may issue an official EFI update to address these Boot Camp install errors in the near future, as one for the Late 2013 iMac addressing the problem was issued shortly after its release.

Apple unveiled the new 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros at its media event last week, which were updated with Intel’s latest processors for enhanced performance and significantly improved battery life. Apple also reduced the pricing of the new Retina MacBook Pros by $200, offering the entry level 13-inch version for $1,299 and the entry level 15-inch model for $1,999. The updated MacBooks are available from Apple's Online Store and at its various retail locations.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled yesterday that Apple, Google and several other large tech companies will face a trial over "no solicitation" agreements that prevented the companies from attempting to hire away each others' employees, reports Bloomberg.

The suit represents software and hardware engineers, programmers, animators, digital artists, Web developers and other technical professionals, according to the ruling. Kelly Dermody, a lawyer representing them, said in an e-mail that there are as many as 64,626 potential class members.

“The court finds that, based on the extensive documentary evidence, economic theory, data, and expert statistical modeling, plaintiffs’ methodology demonstrates that common issues are likely to predominate over individual issues,” Koh wrote in her ruling.

According to the original lawsuit filed in 2011, the "no solicitation" agreements dated back to 2005 and were between Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. The agreements reportedly prevented recruiters from contacting employees at other companies who were party to the agreement, though employees were free to apply for jobs at other establishments.

The anti-poaching agreements were investigated in 2010 by the Justice Department. The claims were eventually settled, with the companies agreeing not to form no-solicitation agreements for five years.

The current lawsuit is a class-action civil suit representing over 64,000 technical employees who said they were harmed by the anti-competitive actions of the defendant companies. According to SFGate, Judge Koh has scheduled the trial for next May, but it is also possible that it could be delayed by possible appeals from the defendant companies.

For their upcoming Sotheby's charity auction to benefit Product (RED), Apple senior vice president of design Jony Ive and designer Marc Newson have created a one-of-a-kind Mac Pro, featuring the new Mac Pro's radical cylindrical design with a shiny red finish that matches the style of other Product (RED) items produced by Apple.

On the auction site, the Mac Pro value is listed at $40,000 to $60,000, and like the rest of the custom-designed products, it will be auctioned off on November 23. It is unclear whether the Mac Pro will be available to the buyer at that date, as Apple has announced that it will officially launch the Mac Pro to consumers in December.

The specs of the red Mac Pro are not listed on the auction site, but Apple's Mac Pros start at $2,999 and come in several different configurations. The entry-level version includes a 3.7 Ghz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs, 12 GB of memory, and 256 GB of PCIe-based flash storage.

The higher-end 3.5 Ghz 6-core version with 16 GB of memory will starts at $3,999, and additional configure-to-order options offer 8-core or 12-core Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs, up to 64 GB of memory and up to 1 TB of flash storage.

Ive and Newson have also collaborated on a number of other products, including a one-of-a-kind Leica camera, an aluminum desk, and solid gold Apple EarPods. Proceeds from the auction will go to Product (RED), a longtime Apple partner. Apple has raised more than $65 million for the charity since 2006.

(Thanks, Anthony!)