iTakeover - Apple rings up bigger profits

After Apple's pretty sensational sales figures a few days ago, analysts have been putting forward various breakdowns of what it all means.

Apple generated US$9.8 billion in cash, and a staggering 65 per cent of that record cash hall last financial quarter came from iOS device sales.

Apple sells over two iPhones every second of every day, or 123 iPhones every minute of every day, or 7435.9 every hour.

Wow. I only have one.

Apple sold 89.94 million iPhones (including all versions) up to the end of December 25, 2010. Each iOS user apparently downloads 60 Apps - that's robust business for App developers - and iAd advertisers.

In fact, Apple just sold its ten billionth app on iTunes.

In the States, Apple is about to break it's one-provider iPhone cellular situation with a Verizon CDMA model that required a slight case redesign.

This may mean cell providers who couldn't/wouldn't previously carry Apple's phone now can.

Telecom, anyone?

On the (heavily rumoured) cusp of the announcements of new iPhones and iPads with cameras and stuff, Apple claims 80% of Fortune 100 companies are already deploying or piloting Apple's tablet. In fact, 160 million iOS users were added in Q1 2011.

Even the efficient Germans are impressed - Deutsche Bank Equity Research's Chris Whitmore says it has been running a two-month trial of iPhones using Good Technology's secure email application.

The email solution uses Microsoft Exchange through a custom interface which makes the process seem similar to using a Gmail account on an iPhone. The experience has been so good, Deutsche Bank recorded "... a fantastic experience as it was easier/faster to access data (touch UI) than on the Blackberry. It was also great to only have to carry one device for personal and corporate email access."

NZ Stills

I've talked about Snapr before, created by a NZ duo with a vision to geo-tag images to maps to create geolocated albums anyone can browse. At the CreativeTech conference in mid 2010, people snapped Snapr pictures and built a cloud of images on the CT site over the a map of the AUT conference.

Rowan Wernham and Edward Talbot recently released some API code that enables people to add better social functionality to their photo apps, with all the mapping features of Snapr.

They are currently working towards a v2 product in time for SXSW this year.

Working mostly from New York, the pair have had a bit of US press.

New York Observer's headline said 'NYC Photosharing Startup Snapr Likes to Share'.

An article also appeared in Mashable.

Snapr has created an HTML 5 mobile optimised template for iPhone and Android that can be loaded into apps to add social photo feeds.

Users can 'like', and comment on, each others' photos, and also follow each other.

The feed features a map view for easy discovery of nearby photos.

Snapr makes it easy for you to show only the photos taken by users of your app, and Snapr photos can be pushed to multiple services including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare with just one upload.

If you're interested in deploying this code yourself, full documentation is online.

NZ Video

Some of my favourite apps do things to photos and, increasingly, to video, and since the iPhone 4 shoot such good quality, I find myself using it more and more as a pocket, instant video solution.

MEA Mobile, a company divided between New Zealand and Boston USA, has announced a new motion video app called iSupr8. This app gives Apple iPhone videos a slick, retro 8mm film treatment, then lets you share the creations on Facebook.

MEA Mobile's algorithm individually grades each pixel based on exposure while adding a projector frame, flicker, vignette, noise and film-burn for a realistic effect. This takes a few seconds to 'process' but it's worth waiting for.

That's partly because iSupr8 is perhaps the only vintage motion film app that shoots in 720p HD - and it's only $2.59.

Webstock

In a not-strictly-related event, Wellington is about to host the remarkable premium web developer event of the NZ year in February (14th-18th).

Webstock is all about the web (funnily enough) but prides itself on an extremely high level of speakers brought in from all over the world.

Focus shifts from development, to usability, to trends, to entrepreneurship, to showcasing NZ's best with the Onya awards ...

One such speaker is John Gruber of Daring Fireball, the Apple-centric blog that dares to be different, critical and well informed. It's very perceptive and Gruber never shies from telling Apple like it is.

(I'd love to interview him for Mac Planet!)

Check out the other speakers. They always surprise and enlighten.

It's not an Apple event, but when I attended three years ago, about 20 per cent of the developers there were on Macs.

Last year it was more like 50 per cent.

I really hope to be there.