According to Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf, the launch of the iPhone 4S sent Apple Store sales to record heights during the holiday quarter. Below is Wolf’s chart of quarterly store revenue over the past 9 years. The spikes, he says, correspond to the “exploding popularity” of the iPod, the introduction of the iPhone, and the launch of the iPad, respectively.
In the fourth quarter of 2011, Apples revenue per store reached $17.08 million, a 42.6% increase over the same quarter in 2010. The average number of visitors per store was up 15.3% annually and sales per square foot reached $2,033 for the quarter — by comparison, the company’s nearest retail rival Tiffany & Co. saw sales of $2,974 per square foot last quarter,Fortune noted.
Apple currently has 361 retail locations with 40 more planned for 2012, 30 of which will open overseas. The company currently has five locations in China and is looking to increase that number to 25 within the next three years.
Saurik has updated his twitter status with something real interesting. He has revealed that the release of the Corona jailbreak for A5 devices has led to almost one million newly jailbroken iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices, in just 3 days. The release of Corona for A5 devices marks the first time a jailbreak has been available for the iPhone 4S.
So, @MuscleNerd’s 205k number was just the number of on-Cydia iPhone 4S’s; I believe that is now 494k. iPad 2 5.0.1 adds an additional 463k.
When Cydia is launched for the first time, it contacts the Cydia server, in part to see which SHSH blobs are available for it. This 957k number should be an accurate report of the total number of A5 devices jailbroken as of Monday afternoon. (Note: the number doesn’t include A4 devices or lower).
iPhone dev team have shared the following numbers - 491,325 new iPhone4,1 devices. 308,967 new iPad2 devices. 152,940 previously jailbroken (at 4.x) iPad2 devices. Total: 953,232 new A5 jailbreaks in a little over 3 days
ChangeWave’s new survey has something nice to say about iPhone’s future sales, indicating that 54% of near-term smartphone buyers are planning on picking up the iPhone 4S over competing devices.
The late December survey looked at smart phone demand trends going forward, and finds Apple iPhone demand remains incredibly strong more than two months after the iPhone 4S release. Among respondents planning to buy a new smart phone in the next 90 days, better than one-in-two (54%; down 11-pts) say they’ll get an iPhone. Apple has never dominated smart phone planned buying to this extent more than two months after a major new release.
The survey was conducted in late December and it studied 4,000 US consumers. The results suggesting huge demand for the iPhone 4S even with it being more than two months old. ChangeWave goes on to say that, a key reason for the Apple iPhone’s extraordinary demand has to do with its industry leading customer satisfaction rating. In the current survey, three-in-four iPhone owners (75%) say they’re Very Satisfied with their smart phone.
However there is a substantial difference between the higher Very Satisfied rating for Windows Phone OS (55%) and the much lower rating for the older Windows Mobile OS (12%). Nonetheless, the high Windows Phone rating has yet to produce a sustained momentum boost for Microsoft in terms of buyer preferences.
Arieso, a Telecom network technology firm has just said that Siri is contributing to roughly twice as much data as iPhone 4 owners and three times as much as iPhone 3G users, according to Reuters. The study used Apple’s three-year-old iPhone 3G model as a benchmark.
Arieso discovered that data usage of the iPhone 4 was 1.6 times higher than the iPhone 3G, while iPad 2 tablets consumed 2.5 times more data. The iPhone 4S was the heaviest on usage with three times the amount used by the iPhone 3G.
“I use the iPhone 4 myself and when I first heard of the iPhone 4S features I was not compelled to rush out and get one. However, the data usage numbers I am seeing make me wonder what I am missing,” Arieso’s chief technology officer, Michael Flanagan, said of the study.
Arieso’s report also reveals that what it dubs ‘extreme’ dominate data usage. Today, just 1 percent of subscribers consume half of all downloaded data, and 3 percent of subscribers download close to 80 percent of all data, according to Flanagan.
All that makes it clear that the capacity issues plaguing mobile operators around the world will worsen in 2012, Arieso writes in its report. Going forward, the best chance operators have is to bring base stations closer to users by making better use of smaller base stations. Flanagan also noted that tablet usage closely resembled that of high-end smartphones. “A tablet still looks like a big smartphone,” he said.
We have been waiting for an easy untethered iPhone 4S jailbreak for a long time now. iPhone hacker @pod2g who is the frontrunner in trying to get an untethered iPhone 4S jailbreak, said in his blog that he was successful in solving caching issues he was experiencing with the 4S jailbreak. In an update to his blog post, the iPhone hacker acknowledged that he had solved the A5 chip cache issue, which means the iPhone 4S jailbreak is in its final stretch.
I discussed with @saurik today about the launched boot process, and he’s found one missing piece of the puzzle I needed to have a perfectly stable jailbreak. He’s definitely one of the best iOS gurus out there. Thank you saurik!
It appears that the untethered jailbreak stability was fixed alongside with the caching issues. Previously, it was uncertain how much time the fix would require but it turned out to be a quicker fix than expected. This gives an impression that the iPhone 4S untethered jailbreak is nearing completion with a release date rumored to be set around Christmas time.
With work progressing quickly though, everyone has high hopes of quick release.
Found this interesting video on PhoneArena where iPhone 4S is compared to Motorola DROID RAZR. iOS and Android. Pretty interesting comparison. I would go with 4S . I am totally biased right… and I dont care!!!
Aircel has updated their website with an iPhone 4S center image and will be take pre-orders from November 18th. They have also updated their FB page. 25th Nov will be the formal launch date:
Airtel hasnt yet shared any update on this version. No news on the cost or the type of SIM it would have. Whether it would be locked to the provider or free to all. Strange! Anyways, the good news is that Indian consumers would be given a choice to pick up a 4S post 25th Nov. You can get more info about this launch on Aircel website.
People are speculating Rs.40,000 for a 16GB version which is more than Rs.5,500 than the iPhone 4 version. I would still speculate around Rs.35,000 for 16GB version even this time on. Lets wait and watch.
Apple has just released 3 new ads to help spread the word about the ‘most amazing iPhone yet.’ These 30-second spots are featured towards iCloud, Siri, and a 8 megapixel camera packed into the iPhone 4S in a typical Apple fashion. Check all 3 below:
Looks like iPhone 4S battery is getting sucked up like mad. This time Apple engineers are going an extra mile to solve this issue asap. Apple discussion thread is filled with threads talking about this battery issue – iPhone 4s Battery Life?. Apple engineers are getting in touch with customers directly.
One user who spoke with the Guardian said that he was contacted by Apple, and was asked to install a monitoring program on his phone.
In its data sheet for the iPhone 4S, which was released earlier this month, Apple quietly noted that the standby time for the new phone would only be 200 hours – compared to 300 for the iPhone 4, and 250 hours even for the original 2007 iPhone. The company did not offer any reason when asked why by the Guardian, but noted that other lifespans such as 3G talktime were as long or longer than previous models.
One owner who was contacted by Apple told the Guardian: “My battery life was extremely poor – 10% drop in standby every hour. I noticed that the usage figure was roughly half that of standby, even when the phone was not being used, so I assumed something was crashing or running in the background. I switched off all the new features including Siri and location services, but it was still really poor. I also tried setting up a clean phone with no apps but it is still really poor.
“I then got a call from a senior [Apple] engineer who said he had read my post and was ‘reaching out’ to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren’t close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Mac after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Apple way!”
Another user, ‘Frenzi,’ said they found some success by turning off many of the features on the phone, and only gradually re-enabling them as needed. Among the features disabled included sending of diagnostic data to Apple, automatically searching for Wi-Fi connections, automatic date and time, iTunes Ping, and even the Siri “raise to speak” feature. “The improvement has been nothing short of miraculous,” they wrote.
The iPhone 4S is compared vs Google’s Galaxy Nexus and Droid RAZR. Apple’s iPhone 4S, is currently selling like hot cakes. Galaxy Nexus was launched yesterday and the skinny Droid RAZR was unveiled earlier this week. Check out the chart below [via PC World]
Benjamin Dowie uploaded his video shot in HD on iPhone 4S sometime back and uploaded on Vimeo. He was so amazed with the quality that he said that iPhone 4S video actually beats the $600 Canon video camera which spent in 2008.
Holy cow. Time to throw my 7D in the bin.
Got an iPhone 4S yesterday and got up this morning to go for a surf. No surf, so thought I’d shoot some stuff to see what the new camera is like on the 4S. Got home, looked at the footage, and couldn’t believe it came out of a phone. Was so excited so thought I’d quickly cut a vid to share the goodness.
It’s actually amazing. The automatic stabilisation seems to work wonders, and gets rid of most the jello. Depth of field is flipping awesome. Colours are really good straight out the camera, but I did give this footage a slight grade.
So, if you were waiting for ‘Factory Unlocked’ iPhone 4S from Apple, seems like Apple is already selling these ‘Off Contract’ devices. Macrumors is reporting that these “Off Contract” devices are sold at full retail price and don’t lock you into a contract with AT&T. The prices for these models are $649, $749 and $849 for 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB iPhone 4S models. This Macrumors forum thread went on throw some light on this revalation:
I really have no idea. Part of me thinks it was some kind of glitch. The only thing I can think of is that a paid full price and didn’t extend my contract. I ordered through Apple too. I wish there was a way I could confirm it, but I don’t have any T Mobile or foreign sims laying around lol – BFW122083
The same thing appeared on mine when I did a restore… I am wondering if it came like this from the factory because I paid the full $849.99 for a 64 GB because my AT&T contract was not eligible for an upgrade…- mjcxp
. I am totally biased right… and I dont care!!!
