Apple Reports Fiscal Year 2012, Q2 Earnings

CUPERTINO, California—April 24, 2012—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 second quarter ended March 31, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $24.7 billion and net profit of $6.0 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. International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4 million Macs during the quarter, a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.7 million iPods, a 15 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“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.”

“Our record March quarter results drove $14 billion in cash flow from operations,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.”

Source: Apple.com

Looking at this quarter Apple is definitely growing even without Steve Jobs, the iPad again seems to capture number of sales with a 151 percent increase. Macintosh sales are growing up as well and the only decline that still continues is the iPod category, but the main contenders for Apple being the iPhone and iPad are doing very well. Despite the previous scare of the virus on the Macintoshes, sales still are surging. Hopefully the coming year will also feature a slew of new Apple products. 

On a side note Apple now has $110.2 billion in Cash!

Mac OS X Flashback Malware

You might have heard about this malware of some sort, running through Mac OS X recently, but many users aren't inclined that such a thing exists. Why, you may ask? Simply because their running on a Mac- an operating system which thus far seemed much more secure than that of it's Windows counterparts.

Well this malware just might be the game changer, because at one point it had affected up to 600,000 Macintoshes. What is this malware you might ask?

Well the Flashback malware is designed to grab user passwords through the web and through applications, at first a user might find that it's just a simple plug in, towards the browser when in fact it is actually code that gets installed inside the browser, which then tracks down your information and sends it back to a server.

Many software companies ran tests to check on the spread of the malware, such as Kaspersky Labs noted that  at one point, the decline had gone down to just about 140,000. But that number quickly took a hit when Dr. Web a Russian based security company noted the number had shot back up and currently stands at about 560,000 Macintoshes infected.

817,879 bots connected to the BackDoor.Flashback.39 botnet at one time or another and an average of 550,000 infected machines interact with a control server on a 24-hour basis. On April 16, 717,004 unique IP-addresses and 595,816 Mac UUIDs were registered on the BackDoor.Flashback.39 botnet while on April 17 the figures were 714,483 unique IPs and 582,405 UUIDs. At the same time, infected computers that have not been registered on the BackDoor.Flashback.39 network before join the botnet every day. The chart below shows how the number of bots on the BackDoor.Flashback.39 botnet has been changing from April 3 to April 19, 2012.
 (Source Dr.Web) 


At this time Apple has been releasing Java updates to get rid of this malware, so if you are a Macintosh user make sure that you do take the time to update.

Mac mini 2012 - Rumors & Speculation

Just a few days ago, a user on our Facebook page was wondering as to when we can expect a new Mac mini this year. Currently the Mac mini stands at 243 days since refresh, and at this point in time is what would have been considered the ideal average update for the Mini, but since the introduction of the last one in the summer, there had been a huge gap since previous updates. The average time for an update now stands at just over 350 days.

If you remember last year the Mac mini had been updated right after the release of OS X Lion and this was to not only promote the new operating system, but get it onto the new Macintoshes from day one, and that way users buying a new Mac will automatically have Lion installed. That seemed like a wise decision by Apple and the proper time for an update.

In case some of you have not been following Apple, recently they had announced a new operating system in the works! (Yes, that's just after a year OS X Lion was released) the new operating system which is to be called "Mountain Lion" is also set to be released this summer. So that could mean a repeat of what happened last year.

Mac OS X Lion was released at the end of July, and it will most likely be the same time period for Mountain Lion, so your best bet if planning on buying a Mini would be to wait till July for not only a new operating system but possibly a Mac mini refresh.

If specs are on your mind, one that thing that I hope Apple gets rid of is offering a measly 2GB memory for the starter Mac mini. Considering the fact it is 2012 now, most computers would offer at least 4GB of memory, alongside that expect Mac mini's to ship with possibly the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors and perhaps since the last Mac mini server had the ability to pack in a quad core, we could perhaps see that happening in the upcoming Mac mini models as well.

This was my side of the Mac mini rumors, it seems likely that Apple might do this again, but who knows for sure?

Leave your comments below, on when you think the new Mini might be coming.

Apple introduces iPad 3

There was a lot of speculation going about a new iPad release for the past few weeks. If you haven't seen online, there have been many different design concepts as to what the new iPad 3 might look like. But after today's keynote it wasn't really about the exterior design of the iPad but more rather the interior components. Which means yes the design is still the same based on looks and dimensions.

The important aspect to look at is that finally the iPad has received the eagerly anticipated retina display which is 2048 x 1536 resolution, a new A5X quad core processor, as if dual core wasn't fast enough. Get ready to run even more intensive games at a faster speed. The camera is now a 5mp camera and features 1080p HD recording as opposed to 720p, alongside it has now the capability to run Siri and hosts compatibility of 4G network carriers. Despite having such a boost interior wise the battery life is still stellar at 10 hours on the Wi-Fi model and 9 hours on 4G.

The iPad 3 or as Apple likes to call right now the "iPad" will run you the same amount as the previous iPad 2 and will be expected to start shipping March 16th.

For all those keen owners who want to get their hands on the previous generation iPad 2 for cheap, can pick one up while supplies last for $100 below the original price.