By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 fourth quarter ended September 29, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.3 billion and net profit of $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter's revenue.

The Company sold 26.9 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 58 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 14.0 million iPads during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.9 million Macs during the quarter, a 1 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 5.3 million iPods, a 19 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Apple's Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $2.65 per share of the Company's common stock. The dividend is payable on November 15, 2012, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 12, 2012.

"We're very proud to end a fantastic fiscal year with record September quarter results," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're entering this holiday season with the best iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod products ever, and we remain very confident in our new product pipeline."

"We're pleased to have generated over $41 billion in net income and over $50 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2012," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2013, we expect revenue of about $52 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $11.75."

Some quick comments from me: international sales are down slightly at 60% where a short while back they had been 63%, so with sales up, that implies domestic (US) sales are improving. Sales of iPhones and iPads are up. While Mac sales are up 1%, these were expected to be "disappointing". With the rest of the PC business showing reduced sales this is positive. The decline in iPods is not unexpected with the shift to iPhones and iPads, but with new products this may be slowed.

The next quarter is traditionally high, so with new products announced across the board recently (except the MacPro -- coming next year we were told) and as per above %52 billion is expected, although Peter Oppenheimer (CFO) is usually conservative. For example, he predicted $34 billion for Q4 and the actual figure (Above) was $36 billion: better to rely on Oppenheimer than the predictions of all those analysts who are already expressing disappointment because Apple failed to reach those crazy guesses.

There is a useful comment on this (usual) negativity from Jeff Carlson on TidBits while rubbing his hands in glee over negative reports is Rik Myslewski on The Register who has been negative on Apple since they called him out on a news embargo a few years back.

Apple shares are currently showing $609.54 on my widget: a drop of 1.1%.

Earlier in the week, there were several products released, with a couple of surprises and a number of implications wrapped in those. I started to examine this in an article and had to draw a line when I finished looking at the Macs. I hope to finish Part 2 later today (Friday). While I was writing up my comments on the presentations and the contents, with a number of innovations revealed, particularly in production processes, I was directed by MacDaily News to a comment in the vein of "Apple is done". It was perfect and I slipped it into the text.

I also linked to three interesting articles on the Fusion Drive that Apple announced. Lee Hutchinson on Ars Technica had an overview of how it seems to work, with a slightly different outline by Dave Hamilton on The MacObserver, while an interesting observation from Patently Apple suggests this was outlined in a patent filed in 2011. I also found a FAQ on the Apple KB site.

I have not written about the iPads yet, but one of the things I will obviously be including is comment on the A6X processor. As part of the search for information I have an item by Chris Foresman on Ars Technica who makes some deductions.

The new Macs are probably going to sell well. Each of the new products is firmly aimed at the consumer market, although a lot of businesses will also be having a look especially for the new year buying period. Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider suggests that this will provide a well-needed boost to sales which are reported to be rather low for the quarter (see above results).

Some were surprised by the prices that the new iPad mini had. It was interesting in the presentation to see Schiller do a side by side comparison with the Google Nexus and we may be fairly certain that Apple compared the prices as well as the plastic/aluminium and the Android/iOS differences. Caitlin McGarry on MacWorld examines the pricing and includes some analyst comments. No point in all that hand-wringing, Apple is not in a competition, with one analyst conceding that "Apple usually has an uncanny sense for how to price new products": ain't that the truth?

Comments on pricing of the products brought Phil Schiller out to defend the decisions Electronista reports. Note that in the item there is reference to Analysts' estimates. So once more, Apple fails to produce what the Analysts want and is in the wrong. Has anyone in analyst land thought that maybe Apple really does have an idea about what it is doing?

The arrival of a new iPad -- the other one, not the mini -- was a bit of a surprise as this gave an unusual 6 month product cycle. As there was no intimation of this, except by way of rumour, lots of folks may have just bought these, only to find they are out of date. AppleInsider reports that it may be possible for those who bought the 3rd generation ones recently to have them exchanged for the new version: owners must have bought their iPad within the last 30 days. It is not known if this will apply in countries other than the US (or the EU which has strong consumer laws).

Following the release of the new iPad models, Mikey Campbell reports on AppleInsider that Apple posted detailed drawings of the products on the developer website. This is to help those making accessories like cases, but I am sure other companies -- perhaps in Korea, for example -- also take a peek.

While we were looking the other way as Apple put out its new hardware, they also slipped out an update to Final Cut Pro X, which Sam Oliver on AppleInsider calls "significant." One major point is that this now has support for those gorgeous Red cameras. I also found an update to the Camera Raw software was made available.

Despite the refresh of the iPods that happened last month, some are unconvinced that they are selling. After all, 3 million (as reported by Tim Cook this week) is a mere drop in the ocean. MacNN has the thoughts of KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who thinks it is all over because of the iPhone and the small difference in price. Everyone wants those. I do for sure, but several of my students are happy with their iPods and I know a lot of others are buying them as well. And not everyone wants (or can have) carrier subsidization. There are more countries than just the US: some analysts never get that point.

An odd story from Patently Apple picks up a report from The Korean Times about Apple sacking its country manager in Korea who had only been in the job a year. This is allegedly over "sluggish sales"

Another day another lawsuit. Patently Apple reports that Apple's Siri allegedly infringes on a patent issued to academics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and there is a Thai connection here as one of the profs listed is a Dr. Boonjing, who is currently a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang in Thailand. Odd that what became Siri was developed by a company formed at Stamford, but there was no suing going on then.

A later report from Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider tells us that the judge who was down to try this case, recused himself over "an unspecified interest in Apple."

A report from Electronista details a new LED monitor from Benq that has a special M-Book mode that allows it to recreate "authentic MacBook picture quality, gamma, and whitepoint on either the 21.5-inch or 24-inch displays." These monitors look just the sort of thing that would go with a new Mac mini, rather than one of those drab black Dell or Acer monitors so prevalent here.

While we are on screens, Sam Oliver on AppleInsider reports that LG is now Apple's favourite for production of screens in Korea. I wonder what happened to Samsung.

Half and Half

In another development, Foss Patents is reporting that the US Department of Justice is looking at the way Samsung has been using FRAND patents abuse. This has been discussed before and it seems that Samsung has a selective way of applying the licences: which it cannot. Abuse of the system could mean a ban and this adds to the FRAND disputes with Motorola/Google

There was a tart comment from Jim Dalrymple on the Apple event this week. As happens these days, new products were available for those attending to get their hands all over. Everyone then goes home happy and writes nice things about them. Jim compares this with the Surface intro a few months ago which many complained about: heavy-handed, controlled and unfinished. Is anyone at Redmond listening? Oops.

With the Surface about ready for its public debut (at least in the US), there have been some reviews, but Electronista reports that these are "mixed" with particular mention being made of "the dearth of available applications", one thing that the iPad had before it appeared. Apparently Joshua Topolsky of The Verge was not at all positive, with Matt Buchanan of FWD unable to recommend it: "just another tablet. And not one you should buy". There is something of the Zune about this.

Other Matters

While Apple was outlining new methods of plasma lamination using vaporisation to apply anti-glare materials to the glass screen of the iMac, Epson also announced a new cooperation with Merck: the use of technology to manufacture ink for large OLED displays. The combination of the companies' joint expertise will make it possible to produce cheaper displays, for example OLED TVs. My comments on Apple concern a similar use of vapour deposits, which could find its way into CMOS use by Apple in the future. Thin is in.

Earlier this week I read in an item by John Constine on Tech Crunch that the financially stretched Zynga who only a short while ago were doing so well with all those Facebook games, has shut its Boston office and laid off more than 100 employees. There is now confirmation from the CEO and links to employees comments.

Local Items

• DTAC has changed its site recently and when you use the dtac.co.th URL that shows the iPhone 5 but is Thai only. I found out a few days earlier that a user has to add /en to bring up English pages, but when I did that, there was no iPhone 5 and the iPhone page only had the 4S.
• The AIS page was slow to load and its Flash display took ages to come up. Hitting the EN button did nothing so like the DTAC page, I entered /EN and was treated to a partially loaded page with another slow Flash display. Someone had mercifully Tweeted the link for the iPhone and that did load up. It is for regular customers only.
• True were advertising the iPad and the iPhone 4S.

I sometimes wonder if Thai companies are really interested in selling products and helping customers. I have cash for a 64GB iPhone all ready, but I am not really sure where or how I can get one.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.