MacRumors

With only a little over six weeks of lead time, Apple today officially announced that it will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) from June 11-15 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Conference passes are on sale now for $1599, and come with a new restriction requiring that purchasers be members of one of the company's developer programs.

Tickets are expected to sell out quickly given past years' trends. Last year, the conference sold out in under twelve hours.

“We have a great WWDC planned this year and can’t wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The iOS platform has created an entirely new industry with fantastic opportunities for developers across the country and around the world.”

Apple notes that it will hold over 100 technical sessions for developers, with over 1,000 Apple engineers on hand to provide support for attendees.

This year's conference again appears to be focused on both OS X and iOS developers equally, with OS X Mountain Lion set for public release later this summer and iOS 6 likely ready to enter developer testing at the conference ahead of an iPhone hardware update later in the year.

The June 11-15 dates for WWDC 2012 are not particularly surprising, given that a generic "Corporate Meeting" event typical of Apple's WWDC listing appeared on the Moscone Center's calendar last year, and the timeframe also appeared as long ago as April 2010 in a tentative convention calendar listing WWDC dates through 2015. Nevertheless, developers able to secure passes to the conference will need to move quickly to obtain travel arrangements and may encounter high prices, as the U.S. Open golf championship is being held in San Francisco during the same week.

Apple today announced financial results for the first calendar quarter of 2012 and second fiscal quarter of 2012. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $39.2 billion and net quarterly profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $24.67 billion and net quarterly profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 47.4 percent, compared to 41.4 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter's revenue. Apple's quarterly profit and revenue were both company records for the March quarter.

Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 35.1 million, up 88 percent from the year-ago quarter, and the company sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, up 151 percent year-over-year. Apple sold 4 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a unit increase of 7 percent over the year-ago quarter. The company sold 7.7 million iPods, representing 15 percent unit decline year-over-year.

"We're thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. "The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver."

Apple's guidance for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 includes expected revenue of $34 billion and earnings per diluted share of $8.68.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q2 2012 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference Call Highlights

- Very pleased to report results of our outstanding fiscal quarters. New March quarter records for iPhone, iPad, Mac, profit and revenue.

➜ Click here to read rest of article...

Google today announced its long-awaited Google Drive cloud storage service, providing users with 5GB of free storage integrated with Google Docs and other Google services.

Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.

Beyond the free 5GB level, Google offers several levels of paid storage up to 16 TB, all accessible via Google Docs or through clients for PC, Mac, Android and iOS devices -- though the iOS app has yet to be released, Google promises it is "coming soon". One of the biggest features in Drive is the ability to open more than 30 different file types directly in the browser, allowing users without programs like Illustrator and Photoshop to open up files and see what's inside. The service includes extensive sharing and collaboration features, as well.

The launch of Google Drive comes as several other cloud storage services have augmented their services in recent days. Microsoft's SkyDrive, which offers users 7GB of free cloud storage, yesterday updated its offering with an updated iOS app [Direct Link] and a preview client for OS X Lion, which allows users to manage their SkyDrive accounts directly from the Finder. Finally, Dropbox extended its file storage service with the ability to quickly share files stored on Dropbox with anyone, simply by creating a link.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt has put together his list of analyst expectations ahead of Apple's quarterly earnings report this afternoon. The list includes estimates from 23 "independent" analysts and 34 "affiliated" analysts who work for large investment houses or research organizations.

As usual, the independent analysts are much more bullish than the affiliated analysts. The independent consensus expects earnings per share (EPS) of $12.74 on revenue of $42.73 billion. The institutional consensus is EPS of $10.18 on $37.06 billion in revenue. The six analysts with the best track record expect $12.49 EPS on $41.47 billion in sales.

Click through to Elmer-DeWitt's post at Fortune to see the full-size chart.

Apple will announce its earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2012 (first calendar quarter) and host a conference call regarding the release this afternoon at 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific. The earnings release itself typically comes in around 4:30 PM Eastern.

Last quarter the company announced record-shattering results in a number of areas, including $13.06 billion in profit on revenue of $46.33 billion. For the second fiscal quarter, Apple has issued guidance of $32.5 billion in revenue with profits of $8.50 per share. The company typically exceeds its guidance by a significant margin.

AT&T today announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, revealing that it activated 4.3 million iPhones during the quarter. The number marks a substantial drop from the 7.6 million iPhones activated last quarter for the launch of the iPhone 4S, but still easily tops Verizon's 3.2 million iPhones sold during the first quarter.

Both Android and iPhone device sales remain strong. iPhone sales were helped by AT&T's 4G network, which lets iPhone 4S download three-times faster than other U.S. carriers' networks. In the quarter, the company activated 4.3 million iPhones, with 21 percent new to AT&T.

While AT&T's activations and sales can not quite be directly compared because activations includes used devices being reactivated on new accounts, AT&T has told us that this is a small difference. Consequently, AT&T's 4.3 million iPhone activations likely corresponds to approximately 75% of its total smartphone sales of 5.5 million units for the quarter.

Even more impressively, the continued trend toward smartphone adoption means that the iPhone is representing a growing proportion of total phone sales (smartphone and non-smartphone) at AT&T. The carrier notes that smartphones represented more than 78% of its total phone sales to postpaid customers, meaning that the iPhone accounted for roughly 60% of AT&T's total phone sales to those customers during the quarter.

The significant drop in iPhone activations for AT&T combined with the significant drop at Verizon are weighing on Apple's stock this morning, with the already-weakened share price down another $10 as trading opens for the day. But while investors appear nervous about Apple's iPhone sales numbers for the quarter, the primary driver will be international sales as Apple increased distribution during the quarter. China is by far the largest component to that equation, with the iPhone 4S not only having launched on China Unicom early in the quarter but also having been added by China Telecom in early March.

Apple will report its quarterly financial results after the close of trading today, at approximately 4:30 PM Eastern Time.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice, a number of U.S. states, and authorities in several other countries announced that they were filing lawsuits against Apple and six book publishers, alleging anticompetitive behavior in shifting to an Apple-backed agency model in which publishers set retail pricing and retailers such as Apple receive a 30% commission on the sales price.

Rather than settling the case as several of the publishers have opted to do, Apple has stood firm in its stance that the move did not represent collusion and price fixing but instead served as a way to give publishers control over pricing and break up Amazon's near-monopoly in the e-book market.

Former Wall Street Journal publisher and Press+ founder Gordon Crovitz published a column over the weekend outlining how Apple's plan for a 30% commission on publishers' sales is merely its standard business practice, not any sort of collusion to fix prices in the market.

'I don't think you understand. We can't treat newspapers or magazines any differently than we treat FarmVille."

With those words, senior Apple executive Eddy Cue stuck to his take-it-or-leave-it business model of a 30% revenue share payable for transactions through the iTunes service. Despite my arguments to Mr. Cue in Apple's Cupertino, Calif., offices last year on behalf of news publishers seeking different terms, to him there was no difference between a newspaper and an online game.

It was a sobering reminder that traditional media brands have no preferred place in the new digital world. It also should be the defense's Exhibit A in the Justice Department's antitrust case against Apple and book publishers: The 30% revenue-share model is Apple's standard practice, not, as alleged by the government, the product of a conspiracy.

Crovitz goes on to outline how the U.S. government's case against Apple and the publishers is misguided, with the agency model having been validated in numerous other industries by federal courts. And with the model looking exactly like that used for apps and other iTunes Store content, it suggests that Apple is not trying to accomplish anything special to gain control of the e-book market.

In fact, Crovitz notes that the e-book market has become significantly healthier since Apple's agency model was adopted by the major publishers.

Over the past couple of years, thanks to the agency model, the Kindle's market share has fallen to 60% [from 90% previously] thanks to competition from iPads and Barnes & Noble Nooks, and there is more variation in consumer prices, typically ranging from $5.95 to $14.95.

Pricing flexibility for publishers is necessary to allow innovation. Why shouldn't some e-books cost 99 cents and others that come with video and hardcover editions be $49.95? Why not give people the option to pay 10% more to access an e-book on all e-readers? Consumers should decide, not Amazon or the Antitrust Division.

With settlements already looking at unwinding the agency model to allow Amazon to once again begin controlling the e-book market by leveraging its consistent $9.99 pricing to drive competitors out of business, investors have become increasingly skittish about Barnes & Noble and other retailers trying to stake out their positions in the market. Consequently, there are real fears among authors, publishers, and retailers that the federal government's efforts are working quickly to restore an Amazon monopoly capable of bringing down its competitors.

Update: As noted by Chris Martucci and others, Crovitz fails to address the issue of the "most favored nation" clauses included in Apple's contracts with the publishers. These clauses prohibited the publishers from offering their content to any other retailer at lower prices than they offered through Apple. When combined with the apparent coordination among the publishers to break Amazon's near monopoly by shifting to the agency model, a case for anti-competitive behavior is more easily made.

But while simply removing the most favored nation clauses from Apple's contracts with the publishers would bring them more in line with the relationship between Apple and app developers, that move alone would not appear to satisfy the Department of Justice.

The government's settlements with several of the publishers have gone beyond the issue of most favored nation clauses and have required that the publishers essentially abandon the agency model as it currently exists. While the settlements would allow a modified form of the agency model to exist, they would require that retailers remain some control over the setting of retail prices.

As noticed by Apple Bitch, Chinese parts vendor TVC-Mall has begun offering "iPhone 5" home buttons for sale in both black and white. But what the report doesn't mention is that the buttons are indeed slightly different from the round home buttons seen on iOS devices to date.

The new home buttons appear to have a rounded square shape much like iOS app icons, but retain the round depression for the button as seen in existing devices. TVC-Mall notes the distinction in its product description:

Different from iPhone 4S 4, the iPhone 5 home button is round in the centre and square outside as the pictures show. The two parts are indivisible.

It is, however, unclear from the product images whether the design change will be noticeable to users. Specifically, it is not clear whether the rounded square portion of the button would be flush with the surface of the device with the round portion depressed slightly or if the rounded square portion might simply be below the surface of the device and invisible to the user as with the small edges and "wings" of the current iPhone home button design.

We suspect that that the rounded square portion of the new home button will lie below the surface of the iPhone, serving to hold the button in place while remaining invisible to the user. In this scenario, only the standard round home button portion would protrude through the surface of the device to be accessed by the user.

In either case, it appears that rumors of Apple removing the home button entirely or replacing it with a touch-senstive button with a larger gesture area are once again unfounded. Such rumors have become common in the months leading up to the launch of each new iOS device, but Apple has maintained the contestant iconic presence of the home button introduced on the original iPhone through each new product release.

TVC-Mall has a history of leaking minor genuine iOS device parts well ahead of the products' official introductions, yielding hope that parts for the next-generation iPhone are beginning to surface from Apple's supply chain. If the parts are genuine, they may suggest that Apple is looking toward ramping production of the device, although these leaks sometimes come many months ahead of production.

Update: The home buttons are also listed for sale in both black and white at TrueSupplier, and images posted there more clearly show that the rounded square will lie behind the front of the device and serve to hold the home button in place.

1Password is a popular password service which offers apps and browser plug-ins for a number of platforms, including Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The service automatically generates strong, unique passwords whenever a login is needed, keeping them in a keychain under a master password. Once authorized, 1Password can then automatically fill in user names and passwords when needed without the user having to know the often complex passwords created for maximum security.

But with Apple continuing to push out developer betas of OS X Mountain Lion and Safari 5.2, it is now becoming apparent that the company is looking to bake similar functionality directly into Safari.

One of the more visible changes in the Safari 5.2 developer builds has been a new "Passwords" pane in the application's preferences, offering a way for users to access stored user names and passwords for various sites and services. As currently deployed, the pane is essentially a more convenient way to view passwords already stored and accessible through the dedicated Keychain Access application.

But text strings associated with the last several builds of Safari 5.2 point to more extensive password functionality for Safari, including an ability to suggest unique passwords rather than simply storing user-created ones. Specifically, one of those strings which is present in Safari 5.2 but not currently used in a public-facing context reads:

Safari can automatically suggest and remember unique, secure passwords for websites you choose.

With Mountain Lion's focus on taking greater advantage of iCloud services to keep data synced across devices, it seems reasonable to speculate that Apple has plans to roll this password functionality out to iCloud and iOS as well. The move would allow "unique, secure passwords" created on one device to be automatically available for use on another device without having to manually record or insecurely copy and paste password information for transfer.

Apple has already revealed its plans to use iCloud to integrate browser activity across devices, as evidenced by Safari tab syncing making its way into test builds. And interestingly, Apple previously offered keychain syncing across devices with .Mac and MobileMe, but discontinued the feature with the transition to iCloud. It now appears that the functionality was removed while Apple worked to revamp and expand it to increase its functionality.

Apple has also signaled its intention to broaden the browser syncing features of Safari with the iCloud preference pane in System Preferences under Mountain Lion. While the Safari section has been titled "Bookmarks" under Lion, with the addition of browser tab syncing and perhaps new user name and password syncing the section has now simply been retitled "Safari".

But while Apple certainly seems to have all of the pieces in place for higher security unique password generation and syncing across platforms via iCloud, the feature has not yet been introduced for testing in developer builds of OS X Mountain Lion. The feature has also not been seen in iOS builds, although the company has yet to begin developer testing on either iOS 6 or an interim iOS 5.2 update.

In line with the rumored April 23 launch date, BBC News reports that Intel has officially introduced the first batch of its next-generation Ivy Bridge processors. The processors are Intel's first to use a 22-nm manufacturing process and "Tri-Gate" technology of 3D transistors to reduce power and increase efficiency.

The initial launch consists of 13 quad-core processors, primarily focused on the desktop market, although several mobile processors that would be appropriate for revised 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models are also included in the launch. Dual-core chips appropriate for smaller notebooks will follow "later this spring", with previous rumors having pegged that launch date as June 3.

The firm has already built three factories to fabricate the new chips and a fourth will come online later this year.

"This is Intel's fastest ramp ever," [Intel executive Kirk] Skaugen added.

"There will be 50% more supply than we had early in the product cycle of our last generation, Sandy Bridge, a year ago. And we're still constrained based on the amount of demand we're seeing in the marketplace."

In addition to the power and efficiency gains made possible with the Tri-Gate technology, Ivy Bridge will also benefit from significantly enhanced integrated graphics performance compared to Sandy Bridge, which will help with supporting higher-resolution hardware and content, as well as improving transcoding rates. Ivy Bridge also brings new hardware security features and native support for USB 3.0.

The launch of Ivy Bridge processors opens the door for a massive set of upgrades encompassing nearly all of Apple's Mac product line with the exception of the Mac Pro, which is itself long past its usual refresh interval and could see upgrades to new Sandy Bridge E server chips.

Update: Intel has now published its press release announcing the launch of Ivy Bridge, which is officially referred to as the company's 3rd Generation Core family.

Research analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has in the past offered accurate information on Apple's Mac product roadmap, recently took on a new position with KGI Securities and has published a new report today indicating that Apple may be preparing to drop the 17-inch MacBook Pro from its lineup due to weak sales.

Kuo's prediction comes as Apple is expected to introduce new notebooks that serve as a hybrid between the current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, offering greater power than the Air but greater portability than the Pro. Kuo believes that Apple will elect to drop the 17-inch size as part of this revamp in order to streamline the company's product offerings.

Apple’s Mac business in 2Q12 will be boosted by several factors. Three of which are: (1) Mountain Lion, which integrates iOS features with Mac OS, Apple TV’s interaction function, will be launched in June; (2) upgrading to Ivy Bridge; and (3) back-to-school demand. We forecast Apple will sell 5.32mn units of the Mac series (up 28.5% QoQ and 35.2% YoY) in 2Q12, making it the main growth driver.

We also predict Apple will roll out a fully new MacBook model in early 3Q12, boasting strong performance and easy carryability by combining the advantages of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

While adding new products, Apple is likely to stop making the 17” MacBook Pro this year due to falling shipments, in order to maintain a lean product line strategy.

According to Kuo's estimates for the first calendar quarter of 2012, Apple sold roughly 3.1 million notebooks, with nearly half of them being the 13-inch MacBook Pro, far and away the company's best-selling Mac product. But while Kuo predicts sales of nearly 1.5 million units of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, he sees much lower sales of roughly 500,000 15-inch models and only 50,000 17-inch models.

Kuo estimates Apple's first quarter MacBook Air sales at roughly 1.1 million, split nearly equally between 11-inch and 13-inch models. He believes that the MacBook Air is only meeting Apple's expectations and not exceeding them, in large part because solid-state drives are not yet available in large enough capacities to satisfy consumers. But the trend of abandoning optical and traditional hard disk drives from notebooks will continue, and solid-state drives will continue to become more cost competitive over time.

Following last week's rumor that Apple is looking to adopt thinner in-cell touch technology for the display of the next-generation iPhone, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who recently took on a new position with KGI Securities, has issued a report looking at how that change could help Apple reduce the thickness of the iPhone from the current 9.3 mm of the iPhone 4S to under 8 mm. The move would help Apple to compete against its Android-based challengers, which have continued to see reductions in their thickness over time.

Since Apple’s smartphone competitors have generally slimmed down their high-end offerings to 7-8mm, Apple needs to make a leap forward from 4S’ 9.3mm thickness. We believe Apple will aim at 8mm or below (at least 1.4mm slimmer) for iPhone 5, in a bid to ensure brisk sales through 2014, while peers will also continue to introduce increasingly slim models next year.

As such, all iPhone 4S components that account for thickness must be slimmer, specifically, touch panel, battery and casing. Moreover, a marginal amount of space is required between the three parts for the sakes of assembly tolerance and thermal expansion of components.

Kuo calculates that shifting to in-cell touch technology in the next iPhone will yield Apple just shy of 0.5 mm in terms of a reduction in thickness. Kuo envisions a similar reduction coming from the battery, which he predicts Apple will be able to broaden somewhat inside the casing, allowing for a roughly 10% reduction in battery thickness.

A final 0.5 mm reduction in thickness could come from the use of a metal back case, which could come in at half the thickness of the glass back used in the current iPhone. Altogether, Apple could shave 1.4 mm from the iPhone's thickness to bring the next-generation model in at just 7.9 mm thick.

In yet another argument for the adoption of in-cell touch technology for the display in the next-generation iPhone, Kuo notes that display production would be greatly simplified, with fewer steps in the manufacturing process and fewer vendors being involved resulting in an estimated reduction in production time from 12-16 days to just 3-5 days.

While the initial yield on in-cell touch displays is currently lower than for glass-on-glass manufacturing techniques such as those used for the iPhone 4S, that deficiency can be compensated for by re-bonding in-cell panels and cover glass units with the optically clear resin (OCR) used in the bonding process. The optically clear adhesive (OCA) used in the current manufacturing process can not be re-bonded if the initial bonding fails.

Adobe today officially announced the launch of Creative Suite 6, the next major update to the company's bundles of popular design applications. The release sees new versions of 14 separate applications, including the flagship Photoshop CS6 that has been offered as a free public beta for the past month.

“Creatives get a ton of innovation across CS6, with milestone releases of all our flagship products,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. “With CS6 and Creative Cloud, we’re also introducing new products, new mobile workflows and advanced publishing capabilities that show we are laser-focused on ensuring design, Web and video pros have everything they need for the delivery of high-impact content and apps.”

As with previous editions of Creative Suite, Adobe is offering the CS6 applications individually, as well as in several different bundles targeting print, web, and video design professionals.

Bundle pricing begins at $1299 for the Design Standard collection, which includes Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Acrobat X Pro. At an $1899 price point, Adobe offers either the Design & Web Premium collection, which includes Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash Professional, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and Acrobat X Pro, or the Production Premium collection, which includes Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Flash Professional, Illustrator, Photoshop Extended, Prelude, and SpeedGrade. Finally, Adobe's Master Collection containing all of the CS6 applications is available for $2599.

Adobe today also officially introduced Creative Cloud, a subscription service offering access to all CS6 applications as well as other cloud services to facilitate the integration of desktop Adobe software with the company's growing stable of tablet and smartphone applications.

Creative Cloud is priced at $49.99 per month for an annual membership, or $74.99 per month on a month-to-month basis. The service is also being offered at a special introductory rate of $29.99 per month for current users of Adobe's CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 software.

All Creative Suite 6 products are available for pre-order now and will begin shipping within 30 days. Adobe will be hosting a streaming launch event at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, highlighting the new developments included in Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud.