MacRumors

Following last week's launch of the iPhone 4S in the first batch of seven countries, Apple is set to debut the new device in 22 more countries next Friday, October 28th. Apple's online stores in many of those new countries began taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4S today, giving customers in the new markets the chance to join the queue for delivery. The new launch countries include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Apple does not operate online stores in all of those markets, however, and thus the new pre-orders for unlocked iPhone 4S models through Apple are only available in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Customers in other countries and those looking to purchase subsidized units on contract may be able to arrange for pre-orders through their local iPhone carrier partners.

Rather than promising October 28th delivery for iPhone 4S pre-orders in the new batch of countries, Apple is currently citing shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks. It is unknown if Apple is planning to meet the original October 28th date or if availability will slip slightly in the face of strong demand in markets where the device has already launched. Apple announced opening weekend sales of four million units for the iPhone 4S, more than double that of the iPhone 4 last year.

The Associated Press obtained an early copy of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography and shared some highlights.

In particular, they share Steve Jobs' reaction to HTC's 2010 introduction of an Android phone that shared many features of the iPhone. Jobs told Isaacson that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft."

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Jobs met with Google's Eric Schmidt later and told Schmidt he wasn't interested in settling for any amount of money. Instead Jobs told Schmidt, "I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want."

Jobs' attitude against Android helps explains the lawsuits that have come from Apple against both HTC and Samsung. Both legal actions have resulted in countersuits as well as attempts to ban sales of devices around the world.

9to5Mac believes that the new MacBook Pros will be launching next week.

With supplies only becoming more constrained, and with shipments already touching down in select countries, we think a launch next week is likely (between Tuesday and Thursday). That is, of course, if there are no unforeseen circumstances.

The new machines are said to stay at the exact same prices as current MacBook Pro models. Word of possible new MacBook Pros in late 2011 was first reported back in September. At the time, it was believed that the new MacBook Pros would take advantage of new Sandy Bridge processors released by Intel late this year. Based on the part numbers, the new machines are expected to be only a minor update.

The newly released processors from Intel include Quad Core i7 processors with speeds of 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz, as well as a Dual Core i7 at 2.8GHz models. Here's the list of new mobile CPUs adapted from CPU World:

Given the heat constraints of the MacBook Pro design, Apple will be unable to use the 2.7GHz Quad Core (Core i7-2960XM) in their notebooks. Apple also won't use the mobile Celeron listed at the end. The top 3 listed, however, remain candidates for upgrades in the new MacBook Pros.

Apple aired the first television advertisement for the iPhone 4S tonight. The new ad highlights Apple's virtual assistant Siri. The ad has not yet appeared on Apple's official YouTube channel, but was captured by MacRumors reader Philip.

The ad shows many situations where people are talking to their iPhone 4S, asking it specific questions or describing scenarios. At the end, Apple shows Siri responding, and ends with "Say hello to the most amazing iPhone yet."

In a conference call with analysts this afternoon, Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility discussed the impact of the recent price drop on older-generation iPhones, particularly the iPhone 3GS. That phone is the first iPhone be offered free with 2-year contract in the U.S.

We have another device that I think is going to dramatically change those people that are on smartphones and quick messaging devices, the [iPhone] 3GS, which is free with a 2-year contract. We've seen a tremendous, tremendous demand for that device even though it's a generation old. And actually, we're getting more new subscribers coming on the 3GS on the average than other devices. So we also have an inventory sold out on that device.

De la Vega also noted that AT&T, like Apple, had slightly slower numbers this quarter as a result of the next-generation iPhone launching in the fourth calendar quarter versus the third. He expects AT&T's numbers to surge in the holiday quarter with the launch of the iPhone 4S, saying the company was "very, very optimistic on what the fourth quarter is going to look like in terms of smartphone growth."

Apple has long touted the crisp resolution of its "Retina" display that debuted in the iPhone 4 with a resolution of 326 ppi (pixels per inch), a display that has since made its way to the iPod touch and now the iPhone 4S. The Retina display concept is also said to be set to make its way into the iPad 3 next year, with Apple preparing to quadruple the number of pixels to offer a resolution of 2048 x 1536 on the device's 9.7-inch screen.

Toshiba is now pushing the idea even further, today introducing a new 6.1-inch display offering a resolution of 2560 x 1600, coming in at 498 ppi.

This newly-developed world-class, high-definition LCD panel is based on our processing techniques for forming fine-pitch and high-performance, low-temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) thin-film transistors (TFT) on glass substrates, and other precise fabrication techniques which have been cultivated over the years. This direct-view LCD panel achieves high-definition images with photographic quality, and although the images are displayed in 2D format, they impart a sense of depth and realism.

Apple obviously does not currently offer a mobile product in the range of 6.1 inches and other considerations such as ensuring a smooth transition from lower-resolution displays would likely preclude the company from utilizing this exact display, but it is clear that the technology is advancing rapidly to enable ever higher display quality. As mobile devices continue to see increased graphics capabilities and costs fall into line with existing technologies, such ultra high resolution displays are likely to see significant adoption.

With Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs set for release next Monday, tidbits from the book have been surfacing from time to time. But the most significant revelations to become public ahead of the book's launch will come on Sunday, when an interview with Isaacson airs on the CBS show 60 Minutes. CBS is offering a brief preview of the segment, which will reveal that Jobs regretted an early decision to delay surgery for his pancreatic cancer back in 2004.

"I've asked [Jobs why he didn't get an operation then] and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened...I didn't want to be violated in that way,'" Isaacson recalls. So he waited nine months, while his wife and others urged him to do it, before getting the operation, reveals Isaacson. Asked by [60 Minutes correspondent Steve] Kroft how such an intelligent man could make such a seemingly stupid decision, Isaacson replies, "I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking...we talked about this a lot," he tells Kroft. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it....I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."

Isaacson goes on to note that Jobs continued to receive cancer treatments after his surgery, even as he was playing down the seriousness of the issue and telling people that he had been cured. By the time of his surgery, the cancer had already spread beyond his pancreas to the surrounding tissues, suggesting that earlier surgery that could have caught the cancer before it spread might have given Jobs a much better chance.

Isaacson's interview, which will air on the 60 Minutes episode beginning at 7:00 PM Eastern Time Sunday on CBS, offers a number of other tidbits from Jobs' life, including his views on death and the effect of extreme wealth on some of Apple's early employees, a perspective that shaped how he dealt with his own wealth.

Setting aside the claim of analysts that Apple "missed" earnings last quarter, Apple sold record numbers of Macs (4.9 million) and iPads (11.1 million). During a conference call with analysts earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about "cannibalization" -- the thought that increased sales of one type of product will impact sales of another. In this case, will iPad sales negatively affect Macintosh sales?

I do believe that we're seeing cannibalization. I think that it's showing up in 2 ways. I think that some people are electing to buy an iPad rather than a Mac. However, I believe a materially larger number of people are electing to buy an iPad instead of a Windows-based PC. And so I think we are overwhelmingly coming out very, very well in that cannibalization question. And I would point out that despite that, the Mac had its best quarter by far ever last quarter. And so even with having the best quarter on iPad with some cannibalizations in Mac, the Mac has its best quarter ever, which is almost unbelievable. And so with cannibalization like this, I hope it continues.*

Cook believes that the iPad is cannibalizing the PC market, and to a limited extent, the Macintosh as well. However, with both iPad and Mac breaking sales records, things are good so far as Apple is concerned.

There is no doubt that the Macintosh is a premium computer offering, with the most inexpensive full-featured Mac being the $999 11" MacBook Air (the Mac Mini does start at $599 but needs an additional keyboard, mouse and display to work). For the first three calendar quarters of 2011, the average selling price (ASP) of all Macs, both notebook and desktop, was $1297.75. This is more than double the ASP of a generic Windows PC. For that same time period, January through September of this year, the average selling price of a Windows PC at U.S. retail was $491, according to NPD's Retail Tracking Service**.

In October 2008, long before the iPad made its debut, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs said this:

There are some customers which we chose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them. We’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continue to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve.

But these days, Apple does make a $500 computer -- the iPad. The least expensive iPad is $499, precisely the price point Jobs claimed Apple couldn't make a computer that wasn't "a piece of junk." In fact, the iPad ASP for the first three calendar quarters of 2011 was $628, more than $130 higher than the average Windows PC. Perhaps even more incredible is that Apple's smartphone offering, the iPhone, had an ASP of $653 over the same period.

All three of Apple's most profitable product categories -- the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad -- have average selling prices significantly higher than a generic Windows PC.

Analysts and other computer industry watchers typically compare Apple's computer sales with Windows PC's, assuming that comparing computers-to-computers is an apples-to-apples comparison. However, given that the ASP of the typical Windows PC in the US is less than ASP of all Apple's major products, perhaps a better comparison -- from a financial perspective -- is to add the sales numbers for iPhone, iPad, and Mac together.

The combined average selling price of the Mac and iPad -- Apple's most "computeresque" offerings -- is $852 for the first 9 months of 2011. When the iPhone is added to that, the combined ASP of Apple's three most popular products is $733, nearly 50 percent higher than average selling price of a Windows PC sold at U.S. retail.

In just 9 months, Apple sold 12.6 million Macs, 25.1 million iPads, and 56.1 million iPhones -- 93.7 million units for total sales of $68.7 billion dollars.

*Tim Cook quote via Seeking Alpha transcript

**The average selling price for a Windows PC sold at U.S. retail (for the first three quarters of 2011) was $491 based on NPD's Retail Tracking Service. The Apple ASPs used in this article are calculated from Apple's earnings reports, which are not broken out by country. This should be considered when comparing NPD's U.S. Retail numbers to Apple's worldwide numbers.

As noted by Tom's Hardware, Intel announced during its earnings conference call this week that its Ivy Bridge platform has entered volume production, with the company expecting to begin deliveries to computer manufacturers by the second half of this quarter. It will, however, take some time for Ivy Bridge to make its way into shipping products, with Intel's partners shooting for a Spring 2012 debut.

CEO Paul Otellini confirmed that Ivy Bridge 22 nm processor volume production has already begun, which is a rather significant achievement as there have been apparently no major hiccups in the implementation of its 3D transistor technology. There has always been the question how Intel defines "volume", but vice president Mooly Eden told me years ago that Intel would only consider a production process volume production if it affects "millions" of processors.

Intel had previously outlined its Ivy Bridge roadmap as targeting a launch for the first half of 2012, and so the latest news confirming that the company is on track with its new 3-D transistor technology bodes well for an on-time launch.

Ivy Bridge will offer a number of benefits for Apple's notebook lines, opening up the door to quad-core processors in the 13-inch MacBook Pro and bringing significantly faster graphics and new OpenCL capabilities to the MacBook Air. Ivy Bridge will also support ultra high resolution displays and Intel has committed to Thunderbolt support alongside USB 3.0 in the platform.

A minor refresh to Apple's MacBook Pro line is expected any time now, with the update set to carry the line through until Ivy Bridge is ready.

Just one quarter after it took the title of world's largest smartphone manufacturer, Apple has apparently been dethroned by Samsung, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Samsung Electronics Co. shipped more than 20 million smartphones in the quarter ended Sept. 30, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday, beating market leader Apple Inc. as well as Nokia Corp., the world's biggest cellphone maker by volume.

The South Korean company benefited from a push into the high end; demand is robust for phones that consumers can use to watch videos, download movies and send email. The company is also taking advantage of the popularity of Google Inc.'s Android operating system, while also stepping up production in Europe of phones using its own software and software from Microsoft Corp.

The comparison is a bit fuzzy as Samsung earlier this year halted public disclosure of its smartphone sales numbers, forcing observers to rely on unofficial sources and industry analysis.

Several observers have also noted that Samsung's number refers to shipments while Apple's refers to sales, although those metrics may not be vastly different. Apple's "sales" numbers actually refer to sales into the distribution channel rather than end users, and Apple noted during its earnings conference call that channel inventory had declined by 180,000 units quarter-to-quarter. That decline meant that actually sold approximately 17.25 million units to end users, compared to 17.07 million units delivered into the channel.

With Samsung apparently pushing over 20 million units into the channel last quarter, the company would have had to have significantly increased its channel inventory of devices still on store shelves in order to have not surpassed Apple even in sales to end users. Unlike the tablet market where Apple's competitors have flooded the market with shipments that have not been sold to end users, the smartphone market is established enough that channel inventories should be relatively stable and sell-through numbers should be relatively close to sell-in numbers.

AllThingsD reports on IHS iSuppli's teardown analysis of the iPhone 4S, with an eye toward estimating the cost of components included in the device. Based on iSuppli's analysis, the 16 GB iPhone 4S carries a bill of materials cost of about $188, in line with that of the GSM iPhone 4 at launch.

In the case of the iPhone 4S, [IHS iSuppli analyst Andrew] Rassweiler estimates that the BOM cost ranges from $188 for the 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone 4S to $207 for the 32GB version and $245 for the 64GB version. Apple and its carrier partners sell the phones for $199, $299 and $399 respectively, typically with a two-year contract for wireless service that carriers use to subsidize the cost they pay Apple.

While we've already seen a couple of iPhone 4S teardowns from iFixit and Chipworks, IHS iSuppli highlights a few new items of note.

- A noise cancellation chip from Audience that had been included in the iPhone 4 is not found in the iPhone 4S, suggesting that the noise cancellation functions may have been incorporated directly into the main A5 system-on-a-chip. IHS iSuppli estimates that the A5 chip, which continues to be manufactured by Samsung, costs Apple about $15.

- While iFixit found Toshiba flash memory in its iPhone 4S unit, IHS iSuppli expressed some surprise at finding Hynix memory in its unit. Apple has, however, sourced flash memory for various devices from Hynix for many years, although the company's products have apparently not been seen in recent iPhone models. But with flash memory being a relative commodity in the hardware market, Apple typically sources the chips from a variety of vendors based on pricing and volume requirements.

- IHS iSuppli was unable to determine the manufacturer of the iPhone 4S camera module, as the part contained no identifying information printed on it. Chipworks had determined in its teardown that the camera sensor was made by Sony, but it is unclear if Sony is splitting sensor production loads with Apple's longtime partner OmniVision. Regardless, IHS iSuppli estimates the cost of the camera module at $17.60.

Component costs for Apple's entry-level iPhones have typically come in between $170 and $190, offering the company a hefty margin when the $199 purchase price and extensive carrier subsidies are accounted for. But it is important to note that bill of materials cost estimates account only for the cost of the individual hardware components used in the device. The estimates do not include other costs involved in product development, manufacturing, and sales, such as research and development, software, patent licenses, marketing, and distribution expenditures.

AT&T today announced that it has surpassed one million iPhone 4S activations since the device launched last Friday, the most successful iPhone launch in the carrier's history despite the device also being available on Verizon and Sprint for the first time at launch.

AT&T touts its network speed as one of the primary reasons customers are choosing the carrier over Verizon and Sprint.

AT&T was the first carrier in the world to launch iPhone in 2007 and is the only U.S. carrier to support iPhone 4S with 4G speeds.

“It’s no surprise that customers are clamoring for iPhone 4S and they want it to run on a network that lets them download twice as fast as competitors’,” said Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets.

Apple announced earlier this week that iPhone 4S sales had topped four million units over the opening weekend across all carriers in its seven launch countries. The iPhone 4S is scheduled to come to 22 more countries at the end of next week.

As we noted earlier today, Apple updated its Steve Jobs memorial site with remembrances of the company co-founder and CEO ahead of today's private celebration of Jobs' life held on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California. While the private event is closed to the media and the public, those in attendance have been sharing some details on the event and their thoughts, with many expressing the feeling that they are finally feeling a sense of closure with the event.

Twitter seems to be the medium of choice for attendees to share their experiences, and we've collected a few of the comments we've spotted there.

@tylerstone:

Wonderful speech by Tim. Wonderful speech by Bill Campbell. Wonderful performance by Norah Jones. This really helps bring closure.

@xtian666:

An incredible and fitting celebration. Tears, laughter and some closure. #stevejobs

@larley:

That was a really moving ceremony. Norah Jones, Coldplay, Al Gore... Got choked up when they played Steve reading "Here's to the Crazy Ones"

While Apple launched iOS 5 and iCloud last week, the company pushed back the debut of its paid iTunes Match service in the United States until the "end of October". While iTunes Match had been in beta testing with iTunes 10.5 developer releases, the feature was removed from the public release and instead folded into an iTunes 10.5.1 beta that will presumably debut alongside the service.

Apple appears to be moving closer to a launch of iTunes Match in the United States, as the Music section of the Settings app in iOS 5 has now gained a toggle for turning iTunes Match on and off. That toggle had been present for developers testing the service, but had disappeared in recent days for many developers. The toggle now appears to have returned for developers and is visible to the general public as well.

Non-developers turning on iTunes Match on their devices will not yet be able to sign up for the $24.99/year service, as iOS 5 pops up an alert instructing users to sign up through iTunes.

With iTunes 10.5.1 not yet available to the general public, signups for iTunes Match are similarly not yet functional. Apple is, however, advertising the service as "coming soon" on the front page of the iTunes Store. Interestingly, iTunes Match is reportedly only launching in the United States by the end of the month with other countries set to come later, but Apple is optimistic enough about the service's international timeline that the "coming soon" flag is showing for users in a number of other countries. So far today we have received reports of the "coming soon" flag from users in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

iTunes Match will allow users to have their music libraries matched to Apple's database of over 20 million tracks in the iTunes Store, making those songs available for use on any iCloud-enabled device associated with the user's accounts. Songs not available in the iTunes Store can be uploaded to Apple's servers and also made available across devices.