Macgasm

This morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster called the iPad the first “Mac for the masses” and predicted that it would sell 21 million units in 2011. His previous estimate was 14.5 million. Also revised was his price target for the stock, now $390 up from $371.

Munster said that because of its lower price and relative affordability, the iPad is essentially a Mac for everyone who couldn’t afford one in the past. However, it may be unfair to compare the iPad and other iOS devices with the Mac, since the tablet is a completely new category of device.

Nevertheless, if Apple can sell 21 million iPads worldwide next year, it can only be good for the company and for investors. How is Apple going to sell so many units? Munster cited three reasons for the increased sales projections:

• Improvements in Supply and Distribution - Apple has been able to ramp up production and make the units faster, and is also expanding its distribution channel. It will be available in Best Buy and likely Target stores by year’s end, and “ultimately we expect the total iPad points of purchase to exceed that of the Mac by 2011.”
• International sales and Price Sensitive Markets – As Apple begins to launch worldwide, it begins to sell to markets which are more sensitive to price. At its lower price point compared to traditional computers and Macs, Munster predicts that it could well be the sole computing device people purchase, rather than the secondary device for most individuals in North America and Europe.
• Enterprise – Business is the big factor here in Munster’s projections. “Of any product Apple sells we believe the iPad has the potential to garner the largest percentage of its sales from enterprise customers. Apple has recently highlighted several business use cases on its site (sales, medical, hospitality, etc.) and on the June-10 conference call the company indicated that over 50% of the Fortune 500 were deploying or piloting the iPad.”

Article via BusinessInsider

We’ve been holding off on the announcement, but since the FLUD team broke the news on Twitter, we thought we’d pass it along to you guys. We’re going to be included and featured in the FLUD News app for the iPad.

We’re pretty pumped about it, and can’t wait to see it in action. We pride ourselves on thinking outside of the box here at Macgasm, so instead of developing our own super crappy iPad application, we figured we’d find a way to bring our content to you in one of the best looking iPad RSS readers on the market. It’s how we roll.

If you haven’t heard of FLUD News, you’ll want to check out our review here. We stand by it, and still think it’s one of the best ways to consume your news.

I can’t illustrate in words just how excited we are to be a part of the FLUD News app, and while you run off and download it , why not add us to any other RSS readers you might have.  All you have to do is import that feed URL (http://macgasm.net/feed), and you’re off to the races

If it wasn’t for you guys and girls, we wouldn’t be here. We appreciate your readership, and look forward to bringing you guys even better content in the next year. You’re all superstars in my book.

Analysts and “people in the know” overseas have confirmed that Apple’s pushing the supply chains to get 3 million CDMA iPhones ready for December 2010. So there you have it: Verizon is getting an iPhone. Sources say it’s so, and we all know that financial analysts are never wrong.

All kidding aside, given the comments coming out of AT&T, Apple, and others in the industry, it is only a matter of time before we see the iPhone on America’s other network. No one knows exactly when it’s going to happen, but we doubt that we’ll hear an announcement at any time before January, the traditional time when Apple announces new iPhones and changes to the lineup. Heck, Verizon could even be getting an iPhone 4S at that point. If history tells us anything, and in the case of Apple it usually does, we should be hearing about a CDMA phone in the first week of January.

If you’re also in the business of following what analysts have to say, Jeffrey Fidacaro, who works for Susquehanna Financial Group, also says that between a 3G phone and a CDMA phone, Apple would be producing approximately 21 million and 22 million phones.

Fidacaro also says that Apple’s currently producing between 18.2 million and 18.4 million GSM phones this quarter, and that they’re probably going to be selling approximately 11.6 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of this year.  If Apple manages to sell 11.6 million phones in the fourth quarter of this year, it would be a 39 percent increase over sales last year, which in and of itself isn’t all that surprising, considering the iPhone 4 is a completely revamped model, whereas the 3GS was more of a specification bump.

There you have it, your analyst insight for the day.

Article Via Apple Insider

Why would the fine folks at AT&T worry about losing iPhone exclusivity when they have a majority of iPhone users locked in for years to come? There’s a higher liklihood that users will be sticking around than there is that users will jump ship to Verizon. Sure, a lot of people will be making the change when given the opportunity, but take it from a Canadian who’s had the luxury of having the iPhone on multiple networks for a while now, changing Telcos takes a major time commitment. AT&T knows it, and they even seem to be flaunting it these days. Randall Stephenson, while speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, pretty much alluded to this during his speech.

“If you look at the iPhone base, about 80% is either on a family-talk plan or in a business relationship with us…Those customers tend to be very sticky. They don’t churn very frequently.” Checkmate.

The Stephenson comments, while interesting, were a surprise for some, but if you haven’t deduced that on your own yet, you probably haven’t been paying much attention lately. They know they’ve got you locked in, and they certainly know that it’s a giant pain for people to cancel their account early.

Stephenson continued to add to the debate by also stating that two-thirds of the iPhone customer base on the AT&T network were already there to begin with. Only 33% of iPhone users on the AT&T network came from other networks. This is the point that really stuck out for me. If two-thirds of iPhone users were already on the network to begin with, what does that mean for market-share? Being in Canada, we only get the squeaky-wheel complaining about the iPhone exclusivity in the US, but are there really that many people still waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon? If so, Apple’s got a huge boost on the horizon, and their market share will likely skyrocket once exclusivity ends. If there’s anything we can take away from the Stephenson keynote, it’s that Android better get a stock of diapers. Things could get really messy for them in the next year.

Article Via Market Watch

Waiting for your new AppleTV to arrive? Well if you live in Canada, one more piece of the puzzle just fell into place. Netflix, the DVD by mail and online streaming company just launched its service for Canadian subscribers today. Offering only online streaming for $7.99 a month, the service hopes to make inroads in the Canadian market, with no real competitors in the space.

Since the announcement that Netflix would be expanding its online streaming service to Canada several months ago, the netflix.ca site has been a placeholder site to sign up for information. Well, today it’s fully active, and you can sign up for a one month free trial. The streaming service works on your Mac or PC, your iPhone and iPad, as well as the Wii, and the PS3. Xbox 360 support is slated for “this fall” according to the website.

One issue that is always of concern to Canadians is that of content. Often shows are not available due to licensing restrictions, especially in the initial stages of a new product. For example, the iTunes Music Store TV show section was remarkably low on American television shows at launch, and only featured a handful of less popular shows. Reed Hastings, interviewed in the Financial Post, downplayed this concern.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a stumbling block for us because we are licensing content for the Canadian market. Let me give you an example, Mad Men, a great show, we don’t yet have the rights for it in the U.S., so our U.S. subscribers can’t get access to it. But we’re going to have the rights to it at launch in Canada. So, with that particular show, our Canadian subscribers will have a huge leg up over our American subscribers.”

Looks like Canadians will have something to watch after all. Keep an eye on your bandwidth caps, ladies and gentlemen, the content is flowing!

Article via Financial Post.

Whether you’re working a 9-5 or dating a member of Destiny’s Child, everyone has bills to pay. With that in mind, iBear LLC set out to create an app with a function that would appease just about everyone: a way to plan and track your bills and expenses. Available for the iPhone ($1.99) and iPad ($3.99), Bills is designed let you do just that, from the comfort of your virtual office.

Bills is fairly simple in design, with most activity centering on a nicely designed calendar. The process is simple as well.  You select a date, pick a category, add the amount of your bill and you’ve now added a new bill to the “planned category”. Later, once the bill is paid, you can approve the transaction moving it from “planned” to “paid.”  Once your bills are added, you’ll have a nice calendar showing what’s due when, and a handy indicator showing your progress on “planned vs. paid” expenses.

What’s Macgasmic:

If you read through the iTunes description for Bills, you’ll notice how much attention has been paid to highlighting the app’s design. In this area, Bills definitely delivers.  While you’ll still get the pretty interface and smooth transitions on the iPhone version, the extra screen size of the iPad really lets Bills shine. Styled after a typical office, Bills displays the calendar as a projector, your settings in a bookshelf, categories in filing cabinets, and your list of bills on an easel. It’s a nice touch, and can take some of the monotony away from planning and tracking those pesky expenses. The design is complimented by nice use of color and vibrant icons to represent each category of bills and expenses.

Bills also brings a few helpful features including bluetooth sync between the iPad and iPhone, the ability to add a security PIN, category customization, push notifications, and the ability to export to CSV.

What Needs Work:

What Bills makes up in design, it lacks in functionality. Things start out rough from the minute you launch the app. While it’s fairly straightforward to add bills and expenses, Bills offers absolutely no tutorial or initial setup screen when you launch. You’re greeted with a view of your office, a calendar, and that’s just about it. Not unlike a typical first day at some companies. Things get worse from there with sloppy coding requiring the app to skip past one screen to get to the next, leaving you feeling like you’ve done something incorrectly. Adding bills isn’t complicated, but the interface could be laid out in a much simpler format with certain fields only showing up when needed (like asking for a confirmation number even for “planned expenses”).  Also, as simple as it is to mark an expense as paid (tapping the checkmark beside the expense), it was less obvious how to undue this easy to make mistake (editing the bill, then selecting the newly available “paid” checkbox.”  While the interface isn’t awful by any means, a few functionality mistakes really hold this app back.

Final Thoughts:

There are still a few features that could be added in future releases, such as iCal and Google Calendar sync, expense charts and history, and more customizable notification options. If you are sensitive to interface issues, it may give you a few moments of unnecessary stress. If you need a more robust solution then there are much better options. Overall though, if you’re looking for a simple app to track your monthly bills and aren’t too picky about the interface, I could recommend you give Bills a try.

If you use more than one web browser or computer, you know what a hassle it is to keep your bookmarks up to date. Well, no more hassle for you, my friend. Xmarks is a free add-on for Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. Once installed and set-up, Xmarks will automatically keep your browsers up to date with each other by syncing to a server. You’ll never have to manually update your bookmarks again.

If you’re an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch user, you can get the same great syncing with the Xmarks iOS App for only $0.99. That’s a great way to support the Xmarks team.

Sadly, there are some downsides. Safari users don’t get all of the benefits of Xmarks. In fact, Safari users on Windows can’t use Xmarks at all. Safari for OS X only supports bookmark syncing; other browsers can sync open tabs, history, and passwords. If you want to voice your dissatisfaction with the Safari version’s limitations, you can contact the Xmarks team here. Hopefully, Safari will soon be at parity with the rest.

So, do you have a better way of syncing your bookmarks? Let me know by leaving a comment on this post. We here at Macgasm depend on your input do decide what to cover. Be heard!

The iPad was supposed to be the saving grace of comics, and a lot of people think it’s doing that, but the Fallout: New Vegas comic, and subsequent reader, has left quite a bit to be desired. While the story if fun and everything you’d come to expect in a modern day comic, the reader and implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Fallout: New Vegas is a graphic novel based on the popular Fallout gaming series. The iPad version is a preview of the Fallout New Vegas All Roads graphic novel. Thank God they released a preview, I would have been pretty pissed if I paid for this experience, even at a dollar.

Sometimes I wonder if the comic industry is just like the news print industry, stuck in the past, too big to change, and unable to cope with the new landscape. For once I’d like to see someone take the ball and run with it, instead of spiking it in last generation’s expectations. There’s a page scrubber, and cell by cell approach in this comic reader, and even an entire page at once view, but other than that, there’s nothing. It’s not innovative, and it’s certainly something we seen imagined previously in other comic readers.
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It wouldn’t even be that big of a deal, but the cell by cell mode is terrible. It works like you’d expect it to, tap to zoom in, swipe to jump to the next cell, rinse and repeat. That’s not the problem though, Fallout: New Vegas’ zoomed in view is pixellated and blurry. That, as far as I’m concerned is absolutely unacceptable, no matter how to frame it. Why do these companies insist on cutting corners and putting together half-assed digital comics, when instead, they could be focusing on redefining the industry entirely. I’ll never understand it.

If you want to read an interesting comic, and you don’t mind jumping between landscape and portrait mode to get an optimized viewing experience then go download it for free, but if you’re tired of pixellated and blurry text, then don’t waste your time.