iPhone

Is Apple really that much of a chip hopper?

If Apple follows through and uses a chip designed by its latest acquisition, PA Semi, in a future product, the company will have made major bets on Power, x86, ARM, and Power again in just this decade. What, no love for SPARC or MIPS?

A PA Semi representative on Wednesday confirmed last night's news that Apple has paid $278 million for the low-power chip designer. Led by prominent chip designer Don Dobberpuhl, the two-and-a-half-year-old company makes chips for embedded devices based on IBM's Power instruction set.

So what might … Read more

Recession fears, rampant iPhone unlocking, and a pessimistic outlook dinged Apple at the beginning of this year, but surging Mac shipments appeared to have the company in good shape as it closed out the quarter.

Apple is set to announce its financial results for its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday after the close of the stock market. The company has not appeared overly bullish on this particular quarter, issuing guidance well below its usual conservative outlook in January and admitting at its shareholder meeting in March that the industry is going through "concerning times" right now amid a … Read more

Apple has reportedly made a rare acquisition, snapping up low-power chip company PA Semi one day before reporting its quarterly earnings.

Forbes reported late Tuesday that Apple has agreed to purchase the company for a middling $278 million, quoting Apple spokesman Steve Dowling as confirming the deal. PA Semi made its debut a few years back designing low-power chips based on Apple's old friend, the Power architecture.

It's not clear what Apple might have in mind for PA Semi. I'd doubt Apple plans to get into the chip design game anytime soon, although having low-power chip experts … Read more

Sure, it's not new that people get interrupted at dinner by a cell phone call. In the past, it must have been a pager, or maybe in olden days, a courier pigeon. But with the increasing number of people getting iPhones (I have to admit that a scion of my friends are over it and are eagerly awaiting the next iPhone) what's happening is now I know what types of messages are interrupting that long-planned catch-up dinner with that over-scheduled friend sitting across the table from me. Whereas before you knew there was a message, now (thanks to … Read more

Several smartphone makers are finding themselves short of product this spring, not just Apple.

A few weeks ago, Apple's retail stores were extremely low on iPhones, which at the time was attributed to a clearing of the channel before the next revision to the product brought 3G speed. But Apple's not the only company dealing with lean inventories, according to a research note from Morgan Keegan spotted by Electronista.

Research In Motion and Palm are also short on certain smartphone models, with RIM's carriers running low on BlackBerry Pearls and Palm's Treo 755p hard to find. … Read more

A report out of Italy Monday suggests that Apple is planning to revamp its business model with the launch of the iPhone in that country.

It's always tough to correctly interpret translations, but check out the report from La Repubblica and read it for yourself. In short, the report claims that Apple is getting ready to launch a 3G iPhone in Italy with Telecom Italy, and that the carrier will not have to pay Apple a share of the data revenue earned from iPhone users, nor will it have an ongoing exclusive. As a result, the iPhone will be … Read more

Steep price cuts to the iPhone in Europe are a sign that carriers overestimated demand for Apple's first smartphone, according to a report.

O2, the iPhone's U.K. carrier, and T-Mobile, its German carrier, both cut the price of the iPhone by a significant margin this week, in a move seen by many as a prelude to the debut of a 3G iPhone within the next couple of months.

Before the 3G iPhone arrives, carriers will need to clear their shelves of the current EDGE model, which will look pedestrian next to the faster model. An O2 representative … Read more

Some details are starting to emerge about Nokia's Comes With Music phones, which will come with the right to download music at no extra charge. According to a report yesterday on PaidContent.org, Nokia will pay Universal Music Group $33.50 per handset for the first 2.5 million sold, with the rate dropping after that.

It sounds like the download model will not be strict all-you-can-eat, but instead will be similar to eMusic--users will be able to download a limited number of songs over a certain time period, and those songs will be theirs to keep. It'… Read more

A tradition unlike any other: the 3G iPhone rumor on the Internet.

Today's rumor, courtesy of Daily Tech, actually has a fair amount of detail. According to what it heard from a little birdie, Apple plans to stick with the 8GB and 16GB options for the 3G iPhone, as well as the pricing for those models, and announce the new phones at the Worldwide Developers' Conference in early June.

The new iPhones, however, would be about 2.5 millimeters thinner than their predecessors, and have a slightly different exterior finish that's less "plasticky," according to Daily … Read more