Profits dip again for Apple, while iPhone sales beat record

Apple’s profits fell for a second consecutive quarter, even as the company enjoyed record iPhone sales for the April-to-June time period.

For its fiscal third quarter ended June 29, Apple reported sales of $35.3 billion, with net profit at $6.9 billion. That translated to earnings of $7.47 per diluted share. Apple’s revenue marked a record for the June quarter, ticking up 1 percent from the $35 billion Apple posted in last year’s third quarter. Still, profits fell 22 percent year-over-year, down from $8.88 billion in 2012. Apple also reported a drop in profit during its fiscal second quarter of 2013.

Apple’s performance for the third quarter topped analyst expectations. Analysts were looking for the company to earn $7.32 a share on $35 billion in revenue.

With a tiny increase in revenue but a drop in profit, you’d rightly conclude that Apple’s gross margin dropped: For the quarter, it was 36.9 percent, versus 42.8 percent on the year-ago quarter. That’s because Apple’s most popular products now have lower margins than the top-sellers a year ago.

Apple says international sales accounted for 57 percent of its revenue for the quarter.

The company also says it has issued $18.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

While Apple generally keeps a tight lid on future product announcement, company officials did reiterate a point made during its second-quarter earnings announcement in April—that the company plans to roll out new products starting this fall and into the next year. “We are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products,” CEO Tim Cook said in an statement accompanying Apple’s earnings announcement.”

Apple says it sold 32.2 million iPhones—a record for the June quarter. That’s up from 26 million iPhones in the year-ago period. For the U.S., iPhone sales rose 51 percent year-over-year, Apple says.

“iPhone 5 remains by far the most popular [phone], but we’re also very happy with sales of iPhone 4 and 4S,” chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts during a Tuesday conference call. Those older phones, of course, are lower-margin devices, since Apple charges customers $200 or $100 less for those phones, respectively, compared to the iPhone 5.

Oppenheimer said that iPhone sales remain ahead of expectations, and that Apple is particularly pleased with the iPhone’s strong year-over-year growth in both developed and emerging markets. Apple says that ComScore shows the iPhone holds the top spot in the U.S. market for the three month period ending in May, with a 39 percent share. And the iPhone is the top-selling smartphone in Japan, and the top or second-best selling smartphone in most markets IDC tracks.

With government, business, and education, iPhone holds a 62.5 percent share of the U.S. commercial market.

Cook suggested that Apple is at least open to the notion of trade-ins for smartphones. “I like the environmental aspect of it,” he said, though he stressed that Apple hasn’t announced any plans on that front. Cook pointed out that “residual value of iPhone stays high, and there’s so much demand around it. So that makes the trade-in program very lucrative.”

The picture was less rosy for iPad sales, but Apple has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the 14 percent drop in tablet sales from last year’s third quarter. A year ago, Apple introduced the third-generation iPad and enjoyed a full quarter’s worth of sales to the tune of 17 million units. This quarter, sales fell to 14.6 million iPads.

Still, Apple has plenty of reason to remain bullish on the iPad. Oppenheimer said that the iPad ranked tops in a 2013 U.S. tablet satisfaction survey by JD Power and Associates. And during the quarter, the company inked a deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the U.S., to roll out iPads to 640,000 students.

In fact, the iPad got the bulk of the credit for a strong quarter of sales to U.S. schools. According to Oppenheimer, the last three months generated the highest quarterly revenue ever for Apple’s U.S. education institution business.

Mac sales also fell in the quarter, down 7 percent from last year to 3.8 million units. Still, Oppenheimer pointed out that the 3.8 million Macs sold beat Apple’s own expectations. And Apple’s sales still were ahead of the total PC market, which saw sales contract by 11 percent according to estimates from research firm IDC (which is owned by the same company that owns Macworld). By Apple’s math, the Mac gained market share during the quarter.

The Mac was one of the few product lines to see any changes during the quarter, with Apple updating its MacBook Air lineup at the beginning of June by adding new Intel processors. Company executives had little to say about any impact those new laptops had on overall Mac sales, but Oppenheimer did call it the most successful MacBook Air launch to date, adding that customer response was great.

But during the call, executives implied that there were better things to come. Oppenheimer noted that June’s Worldwide Developers Conference included previews of both the Mac Pro and the next version of OS X, code-named Mavericks.

The iTunes Stores—which includes the App Store, Mac App Store, iBookstore, and the music, movies, and TV sections of iTunes—generated $4.3 billion in billings, Oppenheimer said, culminating in the best week and best month ever for App Store. That translated to quarterly revenue of $2.4 billion, up 29 percent year over year. Total quarterly revenue from iTunes, software, and services generated $4 billion in revenue.

Oppenheimer said that Apple now has over 320 million iCloud accounts, and 240 million Game Center accounts.

As for brick-and-mortar retail efforts, the Apple Store saw revenue of $4.1 billion for the quarter, virtually unchanged from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer reported that Apple saw 16,000 visitors per store each week.

For the quarter, Apple had an average of 405 stores, with average revenue per store at $10.1 million—down $1 million from the year-ago quarter. Apple opened six stores across five countries during the quarter, giving it 408 stores around the globe; 156 of those outlets are outside the U.S.

The company plans to open nine new stores during the September quarter, giving it 27 new openings during the 2013 fiscal year. It’s not just about new stores, however: Apple says that it relocated four of its stores to more appealing spots; it will complete 23 such relocations before the end 2013 fiscal year in September.

China has been a particularly critical part of Apple's business in recent years, but that took a hit in the third quarter. “China was weaker” in this quarter, Cook acknowledged, but maybe not as weak as it might seem at first blush, he argued. “Our sell-through in China was only down four percent from the year-ago quarter, when you normalize for channel inventory,” he said. Hong Kong drop was worse, though mainland China was up five percent year over year, “but that’s a lower growth rate than we have been seeing,” Cook added.

“I attribute that to many things, including [the fact that] the economy there clearly doesn’t help us there or others,” Cook said.

Still, China drove $4.9 billion of revenue—about 14 percent of the company’s earnings—Cook pointed out. “And a few years ago, that was within the hundreds of millions. We have a very strong market there.” He added that year-to-date, iPad sales are up 48 percent in China year over year, and half a million developers in China are working on iOS apps. He also said that Apple would double its number of retail stores in China “over the next couple years.”

Cook said that Apple will continue to work to boost iPhone and iPad sales, “both of which are currently lower then where we would like or need them to be. We’re doing that very cautiously, because we want to do it with quality.” He added that, “over the arc of time, China is a huge opportunity for Apple, so don’t get discouraged over the 90-day cycle with economic factors.”

Apple’s not done returning cash to investors. The company’s Board of Directors has announced another cash dividend, this one at $3.05 per share of common stock, payable on August 15 to any shareholder as of August 12.

For the next quarter, Apple is predicting revenue between $34 billion and $37 billion, with gross margins between 36 and 37 percent. That sales figure would put Apple’s performance in line with the $36 billion in revenue it reported in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the coming quarter, Apple also predicts operating expenses will be between $3.9 billion and $3.95 billion, with a tax rate of 26.5 percent.

That may dissatisfy some sections of Wall Street, where the focus is on growth and new products, but Apple’s Cook told analysts on Tuesday that he doesn’t think the company’s goals diverge from investors’ focus on profits.

“We’re here to make great products, and we think that if we focus on that and do that really well, the financial metrics will follow,” Cook said. “We don’t look at those two things as mutually exclusive.”

This is Tim: Cook on iOS in the Car, iPhone prices, and low-cost devices

Apple’s fiscal third quarter earnings, announced Tuesday, showed a drop in the company’s profits year-over-year. But with new June-quarter records for the iPhone and revenue, and income still in the billions, Apple continues to forge ahead. During the usual conference call with analysts, CEO Tim Cook took time to talk about the low-end opportunities of the smartphone market to iOS’s forthcoming car integration.

Here’s an edited transcript of what Cook had to say on Tuesday about Apple’s most recent quarter.

From an iPad point of view, or iPad and iPhone, we reduced inventory, and reduced it fairly significantly. iPad was down over 700,000 units in the beginning of the quarter, and iPhone was down over 600,000. As you know from working with us over several quarters, we typically don’t like to have any more inventory than we need. And so if we can find a way to reduce, we do so, and we’ve done that in both of these cases. We also had slight decreases in the Macintosh area, and iPods.

From a growth point of view, for Apple, our key catalyst will be—always will be—new products and new services, and these are both in existing categories that we’re in, and in new categories. In addition to this, we have opportunities in distribution, from carrier relationships to expanding our retail stores, expanding our online store, and continuing to expand the indirect channel. And we also have a market expansion opportunity; Peter mentioned enterprise in his comments, and the share positions that we have there are over 60 percent, in both iPad and iPhone. And I think we’re at the very front end of that. And so I think we have lots of growth opportunities. And then I don’t subscribe to the common view that the—sort of “higher end”, if you will—smartphone market has peaked. I don’t believe that. But we’ll see, and we’ll report our results as we go along.

For us, if you look year over year, we had a 2.4 million unit decline, but 80 percent of that (or 1.9 million units) were just due to changes in channel inventory. As I think Peter referenced earlier, we reduced by over 700 in the current quarter, and in the year-ago quarter had an increase of 1.2 [million]. And so the underlying sell-through declined by just three percent. If you look at the situation that we were in in the year-ago quarter, we had just announced the third-generation iPad, which was our first iPad with a Retina display. We’d announced in March and said that this was our first full quarter. And so from what Peter and I expected 90 days ago, we hit within the midpoint of the range that we expected to hit in on iPad unit sales. And so it was not a surprise to us.

In terms of how other people are doing, I don’t know. What I can tell you is, the most recent data I’ve gotten, which actually just came out, I believe, this morning, is that the iPad Web-share data shows that, through the quarter, we accelerated further and are now—iPad accounts for 84 percent of the Web traffic from tablets. Which is, y’know, absolutely incredible. And so if there are lots of other tablets selling, I don’t know what they’re being used for. Because that’s a pretty, y’know, basic function, is Web browsing.

We feel really good about where we are. We had, as Peter had mentioned earlier, an incredible quarter in U.S. education, setting a new record for iPad. We’re really happy to be selected for the first stage of the 660,000-unit rollout at L.A. Unified and the really bold move they’re making to change teaching and learning. And we had double-digit unit growth in China for iPad, in Japan, in Canada, in Latin America, in Russia, in the Middle East, and in India. And so we’re really happy with what we saw.

From an iPhone point of view, with the moves that we’ve made on [iPhone] 4, and with iPhone 5 continuing to be the most popular model, we saw very strong sales in several of the emerging markets, or pre-paid markets. India was up over 400 percent, Turkey and Poland were both up over 60 percent, Philippines were up about 140 percent. And these were—in addition we saw very strong iPhone sales in several of the development markets; for example, the U.S. was up over 50 percent, Japan up over 60, the U.K. about 50. And so we had several regions where iPhone growth actually accelerated from the previous quarter—which is an unusual pattern for us, and we were very very happy with this.

China was weaker in the quarter, although the data sheet that obviously focuses on revenue doesn’t really tell the complete story here. If you look at sellthrough—as we’d mentioned earlier with the inventory changes, it’s important to do that—so our sellthrough in China was only down four percent from the year-ago quarter, when you normalize for channel inventory. Hong Kong was actually down more significantly than that; mainland China was actually up year over year, was up 5 percent.

But that is a lower growth rate than we have been seeing, and y’know I attribute it to many things, including the economy there clearly doesn’t help us nor others. In Hong Kong—Hong Kong is an international shopping haven, as you know, for not only tourists but also some resellers. And we saw more dramatic downturns there, and it’s not totally clear exactly why that occurred. But it was down on a sell-through basis by about 20 percent, and so that weighed greater China down as you can see on your data sheet.

We haven’t announced anything relative to a trade-in program, so what you’ve seen is rumor-oriented. There are a number of channels that do trade-in programs; now, not only in the U.S., but in different regions and the reason that it’s so attractive around iPhone is that the residual value of an iPhone stays so high and there’s so much demand for it. And so that makes the trade-in programs more lucrative to, or win-win from, many points of view. But we haven’t announced anything that we’re—that about anything.

[Are you opposed to it?]

No, I’m not opposed to [trade-in programs]. I see channels doing it, and I like the environmental aspect of it, and so that part of it really is encouraging to me.

I think it’s important to put it in perspective: If you combine the results and we haven’t in greater China, the revenues there were 4.9 billion for the quarter; and so that’s about 14 percent of the company. Which is very significant, and a few years ago, that was in the hundreds of millions. And so we’ve grown our business there significantly. We have a very strong market there, and in the last twelve months we’ve done 27 billion on a trailing basis. And so it’s a huge, huge business for us.

Underlying the results are—if you look at iPad, sell-through in greater China was up 8 percent, but sell-through in mainland China was up 37 percent. So iPad’s doing remarkably well. The latest share numbers we’ve seen on—for iPad, for the tablet market—is over 50 percent, and year to date iPad units are up 48 percent year-over-year. And so there’s been great growth there.

From an ecosystem point of view, we continue to attract a lot of developers from China. We now have about a half a million developers in China that are working on iOS apps, and that’s up almost 70 percent year-over-year. And so I think that’s fantastic, not only for China, but for outside of China, as many offer their apps through—in different stores around the world.

We’re obviously paying developers quite a bit, and so that’s furthering the ecosystem of developers. We’re continuing to invest in distribution; we’re going to double the number of retail stores there over the next two years; and we’re continuing to lift iPhone point-of-sales and iPad point-of-sales, both of which are currently lower than where we would like them or need them to be. But we’re doing that very cautiously because we want to do it with great quality.

And so I continue to believe that in the arc of time here, China is a huge opportunity for Apple, and I don’t get discouraged over a 90 day kind of cycle that can have economic factors and other things in it.

The reference that Peter made earlier was to the iPhone 4, and what we’ve seen is that the number of first-time smartphone buyers that the iPhone 4 is attracting is very very impressive. And we want to attract as many of these buyers as we can. And we saw that beginning to happen toward the end of the Q2 timeframe, as I’ve referenced on last quarter’s call, and we did that on a wider-spread basis—offered the more-affordable pricing on a wider-scale basis this quarter—and continued to be very happy with what we saw.

Where iPhone 5 continues to be the most popular iPhone by far, we’re really happy to provide an incredible high-quality product with iPhone 4 running iOS 6 to as many first-time smartphone buyers as we can. And I think it’s proven to be exactly a great product for that buyer.

There’s always more weapons [to use in the market]. And y’know, we have more than one tool in the toolbox. But y’know it’s a great way for a buyer to get into the iOS ecosystem, and the customer sat[isfaction] ratings that we have with iOS 6 and the stickiness of the platform is huge. And so it’s great for customers, and we’re very glad to offer it.

We’ll see, Gene. Y’know, we’re working up some stuff that we’re really proud of, and we’ll see how it does and we’ll announce things when we’re ready.

I would classify [our relationship with our current carrier partners] as being good. The press I’ve seen on Russia probably needs some color, and the articles I’ve seen suggested that we are not selling iPhone through carrier-owned stores. If that’s the one that you’re referencing… If you look at the Russian market, over 80 percent of smartphones are sold in retail. They’re outside of carrier-owned stores. And we sell through a number of national chains there. And in fact, our activations in Russia for iPhone were—set a record last quarter, it was our highest quarter in Russia ever. And so we’re really happy with how we’re doing there.

We do continue to sell through some carrier-owned stores as well, but obviously the contribution is much less than the retail organizations and so forth. And so I think that’s probably not well-understood there. We are continually looking for other relationships to both add and enhance the ones we’ve got, and I do think there’re some opportunities there for us.

Sure. We certainly have no problem procuring [supplies]. In terms of where we see pricing headed, and this would have been factored into the gross margin guidance that Peter gave earlier, despite the very very weak PC market, DRAM pricing has actually increased. And we see continued upward pressure in this area. NAND pricing is fairly stable, and it’s following seasonal trends we would expect. Both LCDs and HDDs have, the prices have fallen, and we would expect further reductions in these areas.

And if you look at other commodities, they appear to be in a supply/demand balance, and so we would expect the pricing to decline on these at sort of historical levels.

I think about it differently than that. The way I think about it is we’re here to make great products. And we think that if we focus on that, and do that really really well, that the financial metrics will also come. And so we don’t see those two things being mutually exclusive. We see them having great overlap and I think if you look at how the company’s executed over many years, it would suggest that that’s possible.

We start at the product, because we believe that the most important thing is that our customers love the products and want them. Y’know, if you don’t start at that level, you can wind up creating things that people don’t want. And so we’ve tried very hard to focus on products and customers—enriching customers and making great products.

In terms of… we don’t project ASPs, we do give guidance—we have an assumption on the ASP for the current quarter in our guidance, obviously, to come up with the numbers that Peter talked about earlier. If you look underneath the iPhone numbers as I think Peter alluded to earlier, we saw significant growth, clearly, in the lower price point, year-over-year, which for us is iPhone 4. It’s still a great product.

And that was one of the things—and the iPhone 5 doing well—that allowed us to significantly beat what I think was probably the vast majority of expectations out there for iPhone sales. And so, obviously if we do a lot better at the low end, then we sell more of those, and the mix changed—it has changed across the last year. If you look at [iPhone] 3GS last year, which was in a comparable position as our entry product, we’re selling a lot more [iPhone] 4s than 3GSs. I think we both understand the market much better, and have our fingers on the pulse of distribution in different countries, and so forth this year. I’m sure that we’ll get better and better at that over time, and how that will change mix, I don’t know.

Typically for us, a product has the highest mix during its initial few months of sales. And so you’d have a natural kind of seasonal decline over time of the product cycle. That generally happens on iPhone, it generally happens on iPad, we’ve seen it happen on the Mac over many years. And so I don’t see anything that fundamentally would change that, but again we’re going to look at this thing quarter by quarter, and tell you how we look at the quarter, and give you guidance for it as we go.

I see it as very important. It is a part of the ecosystem, and so just like the App Store’s a key part of the ecosystem, and iTunes and all of our content are key, and the services we provide from iMessaging to Siri and so forth, having something in the automobile is very very important, it’s something that people want, and I think that Apple can do this in a unique way and better than anyone else. And so it’s a key focus for us.

Bugs & Fixes: Resolving an iPhone camera dust-up

A few weeks ago, a small irregularly-shaped object began appearing in all of the photos and videos taken with my iPhone 5. As the object was always in the same location on an image, I assumed this meant some sort of dust had gotten stuck on the exterior of the lens.

The yellow arrow points to an annoying object that began appearing on all my iPhone 5 photos and videos. (Click to enlarge.)

“No problem,” I said to myself, “I’ll just clean the lens and all will be well, at least for future photos.” I was wrong. None of my attempts to clean the lens had the slightest effect. Eventually, I was forced to conclude that the dust had somehow lodged itself on the interior of the lens—where I could not reach it.

Although I did not hold out much hope by this point, I checked online to see if there was some solution to this problem that I could accomplish myself.

The first thing I discovered was that I was not the only victim of this dust bug. In numerous forums postings (such as here and here and here), many iPhone 5 owners had described exactly the same symptom.
The second thing I discovered was that there is no user-accessible fix. The only solution is to take the phone to an Apple Store and have the Geniuses there deal with it. So that was what I did.

As my iPhone 5 is still covered by AppleCare, everything went as smooth as silk. An Apple Genius confirmed the presence of the dust, went to a computer to check out some further instructions, and came back to announce that I would get an entirely new iPhone, free of charge. A few minutes later, I was walking out of the Apple Store with a new phone. As the dust problem has not returned in subsequent weeks, I am hopeful this is a happy ending to the story.

In other news, Apple has just replaced one of its troubleshooting applications with a redesigned alternative.
You may already be aware that you can check your Mac for internal hardware problems by running Apple Hardware Test (AHT). If your Mac shipped with OS X 10.7 or later, you access this software by restarting your Mac and immediately holding down the D key. If that fails, you may still be able to load AHT by holding down both the Option and D keys at startup. For more details on AHT, including how to load the program on older Macs, check out this Apple support article.

After identifying a possible hardware issue, Apple Diagnostics offers advice as to what it means and what you should do about it.

What you may not be aware is that Apple dumped AHT this past June. New Macs, introduced in June 2013 or later, no longer include the software. Instead, they have an entirely new diagnostic application called, appropriately enough, Apple Diagnostics. You access Diagnostics exactly the same way as you do AHT: Hold down the D key at startup.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between the two applications is that Apple Diagnostics has a more refined and verbose interface than AHT. If a problem is found, Apple Diagnostics also offers detailed advice as to how to proceed. This is consistent with Apple’s ongoing strategy to make its computers more consumer-friendly and easy to use, even for such “techie” tasks as diagnosing hardware problems. 

How to sync your iPhone and iPad using iTunes

As more and more of our data moves to Apple’s iCloud and other server-based services, it’s hard to believe that just a few years ago we relied solely on iTunes to keep our devices up-to-date with our content libraries. Even though iTunes’ role in managing iOS devices has diminished, Apple hasn’t completely abandoned syncing. Here’s a guide to doing it right.
When you first sync your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with iTunes, you must physically connect it to your computer via USB. (After you’ve synced for the first time, you can also enable Wi-Fi sync, which lets you connect to iTunes via Wi-Fi only.) Depending on what categories you select to sync, you can then load music, movies, apps, TV shows, ringtones, podcasts, books, and photos onto your device from your Mac. These might be ebooks you’ve bought on Amazon or music you’ve ripped yourself, in addition to any iTunes-purchased content.
In contrast, iCloud syncs only content you’ve purchased from iTunes and apps and app data from the App Store. iCloud lets you re-download, over the air, your purchased music, movies, apps, TV shows, ringtones, podcasts, and books from the iTunes or App Store. (If you subscribe to iCloud’s $25 per year iTunes Match service, you’ll also be able to sync up to 25,000 songs you own but that aren’t on the iTunes Store.) All other content that you’ve purchased or ripped elsewhere won’t be synced via iCloud, nor can Apple’s cloud service sync with your iPhoto or Aperture library.
If you have no content on your computer that you want to keep on your iOS device, you may not need to use iTunes at all. The majority of folks, however, will likely want content from both iCloud and their computer, and in that case they’ll need to use iTunes.

Here’s how iTunes offers a real advantage:
It lets you keep full backups of your app data so that you can restore a device faster than you can via iCloud: If you plan to buy a new iOS device, you can restore your purchased apps and content via iCloud—but that process can be very slow. If you use your computer and iTunes, however, a full iOS device restore will take minutes, not hours.
You can make encrypted local backups of your device: Want to make sure no one can crack open your backups? iTunes offers an encrypted-backups option that protects your backups with a password. (iCloud also encrypts your backups, but you again have to access them from a server, rather than store them locally.)

You can encrypt local backups with a password if you check the ‘Encrypt local backup’ checkbox.
You can easily rearrange your home screens and app layouts: Even in iOS 6 and Apple’s upcoming iOS 7, rearranging apps on new home screens can be a pain. iTunes offers a clickable rendition of your device’s home screen, where you can drag apps, create folders, and more, all with the click of a button.
You can add files to your apps: iTunes’ app file sharing lets you drag and copy files from your computer to specific apps on your iOS device; you can then view them on your iPhone or iPad. While Dropbox’s, Mail’s, and iOS’s respective ‘Open In’ commands make it relatively simple to add files to other apps on your iPhone or iPad, sometimes you might want to add a large file without sending it through Dropbox or Mail to add it to do so.
You can copy apps and their data: iCloud sync stores only your app’s data (game high scores, text files, saved passwords, and such) on its servers, not the apps themselves. When you need to restore your device, iCloud turns to the App Store to get the app. But if, for some reason, an app of yours gets removed from the iTunes Store, iCloud won’t be able to restore it.
If you sync your device with iTunes, however, all those apps and their data get copied to your computer for future restores, regardless of whether they’re still on the store. Granted, this takes up more space on your computer’s hard drive, but it ensures that an app you rely on won’t mysteriously vanish if you restore or upgrade your device.
If you want to enjoy your non-iTunes-purchased music, videos, books, or photos on your device, you must first make sure to import that content into iTunes on your computer.
To add an external media file to iTunes, simply drag it to the application’s Dock icon on your computer. Alternatively, with iTunes open, choose File > Add to Library and select the files.
When it comes to your photographs, iTunes sources images from either iPhoto, Aperture, a folder on your hard drive, or (for Windows users) Photoshop Elements 3 or later. To sync your images with your device, you’ll either need them to be in one of these programs or you’ll need to create a folder for them.
Not all media files play nice with iTunes: If you’re having a problem adding your content, check out our tips for troubleshooting music, video, ringtones, and ebook uploads.
Syncing your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with your computer is really quite easy. Gather  your device and its USB charging cable, and make sure you have installed the latest version of iTunes on your Mac. Plug in your device, and iTunes should launch, displaying your device’s summary screen.
If iTunes doesn’t immediately display your device, click the Devices button in the upper right corner of the iTunes window. (If you’re syncing more than one iOS device with the same computer, you’ll instead see a button called X Devices, where X is the number of devices you have.) Alternatively, select your device from the iTunes sidebar. If the sidebar isn’t visible, choose View > Show Sidebar.
To find options for what you can sync and how you sync it, click the tabs at the top of the iTunes window.
The summary screen offers a brief overview of your device, displaying its name, capacity, phone number (if applicable), serial number, and iOS version number. (Click the Summary tab if it isn’t displayed already.)
Here you can control how you back up your device. By default, iTunes asks you to choose one option (iCloud or your computer) for backing up. Still, if you choose to back up automatically via iCloud, you can always make an additional manual back up to iTunes by clicking the Back Up Now button you see here.

Check out an overview of your device in the summary screen.
Other options include syncing only checked songs and videos, syncing SD video over HD video, converting high-bit-rate music to lower-quality (and smaller) files for your device, and  specifying accessibility settings.
Additionally, if you’d like to use Wi-Fi Sync to connect your device wirelessly to iTunes in the future, click the ‘Sync with this [device type] over Wi-Fi’ checkbox.
The Info tab, at one point, was the main way to sync your contacts, calendars, and mail between your computer and your device. Now that most people have Google and iCloud accounts, however, this information usually syncs seamlessly over the air. If you’re using a service that won’t wirelessly sync with your device for whatever reason, you can manually sync it here, but most users should be able to ignore this pane entirely.
Click the Apps tab to see syncing options for all your apps. By default, any you’ve downloaded directly to your device are copied to iTunes when you sync (or if you’ve turned on Automatic Downloads in iTunes > Preferences > Store). On this page, iTunes lets you pick and choose the apps you’d like to sync, as well as rearrange your home screens.

Prune and rearrange apps during an iTunes sync using the Apps tab.
Make apps appear and disappear: A comprehensive list of all the apps you own shows up in a column on the left side of the pane; this includes iPhone-only apps, as well as iPad-only and Universal apps. You can sort these apps by name, kind, category, date, and size by using the pop-up menu above the list. To load an app onto your device, click the Install button to the right of the program’s icon; to remove the app, click the Remove button.
Below the list, you’ll see a checkbox that allows you to automatically sync any new apps you’ve purchased on your computer in the iTunes Store. (If you have Automatic Downloads enabled on your device, this checkbox is irrelevant, as any new purchases you make on your laptop or desktop will automatically download directly to your iPhone.)
Organize your home screens: On the right side of the Apps window is a preview of your device’s home screens. You’ll see a large, editable screen, as well as numbered thumbnails representing your other screens. Click a thumbnail to reveal it in the editing window. Here, you can click and drag an app’s icon to change its location. Or, if you see an app you’d like to remove, mouse over it and click the X that appears in the top left corner of the app icon.
Create folders: Still overwhelmed by your apps? Create folders to organize them. Drag one app onto another app; after a slight delay a folder appears with the two apps inside of it. The folder name is editable and you can rearrange icons within the folder.
Add files to some apps: Scroll down further on the Apps tab to access the File Sharing section. Some Apple and third-party apps allow you to add files from your computer via iTunes. (If you have no apps that support file sharing, this section won’t appear.) Click an app in the Apps list to see any files associated with it. To add a file, just drag it from your desktop or click the Add button.
Click the Music tab to see your options for tunes. To add nonpurchased music to your device, click the Sync Music checkbox. iTunes lets you choose between two options: copying your entire music library or copying selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres. You also have the option to include or exclude music videos and voice memos.

The Music tab lets you choose what tunes to sync with your iPhone or iPad: either everything or selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres.
Check for space: If you’re wary of sticking your whole music library on your device, you can preemptively see how much space it will take by looking at the capacity bar at the bottom of the iTunes window. When you select the Entire music library option, iTunes estimates how much space the files will take up and adjusts the bar accordingly. You can also see how many songs you’ll be loading in the upper right corner of the pane.
Fill extra space with surprises: If you decide to pick and choose, iTunes loads a complete list of your music for your perusal. Under the ‘Include music videos’ and “Include voice memos’ options, choose whether you’d like to fill any remaining free space with randomly selected music. Mix and match artists, playlists, albums, and genres by selecting the appropriate checkboxes.
For iTunes Match customers only: If you use iCloud’s $25 per year iTunes Match service, you won’t be able to sync your computer’s music. That’s because iTunes Match takes over the Music app when enabled, allowing you to stream music from your digital library rather than storing it locally on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad. iTunes will let you sync any voice memos you’ve made, but nothing beyond that. If you want to sync and store music on your device, just go to Settings > Music on the device and disable iTunes Match. When you next plug in your device, you should have access to all music sync options.
The Tones tab lets you sync ringtones you’ve created or purchased from the iTunes Store. (If you don’t have any, this pane won’t show up.) If you want to sync all your ringtones, select All Tones; otherwise, click Selected Tones.

Sync any ringtones you’ve purchased or made to your iPhone via the Tones tab.
When you click the Movies tab, you see a list of all the movies you have loaded into iTunes, represented by name and a movie poster or selected screenshot. This might include the latest movie you downloaded from iTunes to watch on the plane, as well as projects of yours that you’re carrying around just in case you catch a movie producer in an elevator.

The Movies tab lets you add movies to your device.
Click the Sync Movies checkbox, and you can automatically include all videos, selected videos, playlists, most recently uploaded videos, or unwatched videos. If you’ve rented movies from the iTunes Store on your computer, they appear at the very top of the screen. Transfer a movie to your iPhone or iPad by highlighting it, and then clicking the Move arrow. If you decide you don’t want to load the film on your device, click the arrow a second time.
As with the Movies tab, you see a list of your television shows, grouped by series, in the TV Shows tab.

In the TV Shows tab, you can add any shows you’ve purchased from iTunes.
Click a show and, in the right column, you see a list of its episodes, organized by season. When syncing manually, you can choose only individual episodes or seasons of selected shows. You can also copy over playlists that include TV episodes. If you choose to sync automatically, however, you can copy over an entire series (or your entire television library). You can also filter within that series to sync only unwatched or newly added episodes.
If you’ve rented TV shows on your computer from the iTunes Store, they appear at the very top of the TV Shows tab. Transfer one to your iPhone or iPad by clicking the Move arrow. You can remove it from your device by clicking the arrow a second time.
The Podcasts pane presents you with a list of all your subscribed podcasts, grouped by series. (If you haven’t subscribed to any, this pane won’t show up for you.) That said, this is one case when iTunes syncing may not be necessary. If you already have the Podcasts app on your iPhone or iPad, that will probably suffice.

Sync your played or unplayed podcasts automatically via the Podcasts tab.
Clicking a podcast displays a list of the show’s episodes, organized by date in ascending order. You can choose to sync your podcasts manually or use iTunes’ automatic options, which offer syncing for the most recently uploaded or unplayed episodes for selected shows or all shows.

The Books pane divides books and Audiobooks into two sections. Choose to sync All books or Selected books. You can peruse a list of your ePubs and PDFs if you want to pick and choose. The Sync Audiobooks pane is organized much the same way.
You can sync any books and PDFs you’ve added to iTunes via the Books tab.
Unlike your other content, your photos and personal video files are only linked to iTunes, rather than stored there. (Your original files remain in Apple’s iPhoto, Aperture, or the image folder you’re syncing with.)

The Photos tab syncs your images from iPhoto, Aperture, or a folder.
To sync photos, go to the Photos pane and choose the application or folder iTunes should link from. For example, if you keep all your images in iPhoto, enable the Sync Photos from option and choose iPhoto in the pop-up menu.
You can sync images according to how they are organized in that application. For example, if you use iPhoto, you’ll see images organized by date. Otherwise you can select only your Pictures folder or a custom folder of your choice.

Unfortunately, you can’t sync your iPhone or iPad with more than one program or with multiple folders. You have to choose one. As with all the other media panes, you can sync your entire photo library to your device or choose selected albums, projects, and (in iPhoto’s or Aperture’s case) Events, Faces, or images with certain star ratings. 

Apple asks for stay on ITC ban on iPhone and iPad models pending appeal

Apple has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to stay a ban on certain iPhone and iPad models pending an appeal.

The ban could come into effect on Aug. 5 after a 60-days review period during which U.S. President Barack Obama can veto the order.

If the orders go into effect, Apple will lose not only sales of its iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G GSM products but also the opportunity to gain new smartphone and tablet customers who otherwise would have purchased the entry-level Apple devices, it said in a filing Monday to the ITC. The company has appealed the ITC order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Whereas other major handset and tablet manufacturers make and market a large number of new devices each year, Apple’s business model is to typically introduce only one new phone and one new tablet, and at most only a few new phones or tablets in any given year, it added.

The orders “will sweep away an entire segment of Apple’s product offerings,” Apple said. Carriers who use GSM are also likely to be affected in a competitive market, it added in the filing which which was redacted in some parts.

The ITC ruled on June 4 that Apple infringed a Samsung Electronics patent, and passed an “exclusionary order” that would ban the import of AT&T models of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G.

The ITC found that Samsung did not prove that three other of its patents were violated by Apple. The violating patent covers apparatus and method for encoding and decoding of mobile communications.

As Samsung declared the patent to be standard-essential, it could not reasonably expect to exclude others “from practising its claimed invention,” Apple said in the filing. If the stay is granted and the Commission’s final determination is affirmed on appeal, Samsung can then seek FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) royalties through a patent infringement suit that it has already initiated in the District of Delaware, it added.

Apple noted in its filing that it is not aware of any investigation in which the Commission has stayed enforcement of an exclusion order. The order in the current case differs from those in other investigations because they arise from “a declared-essential patent that the patent owner has promised to license on FRAND terms,” it said.

Bits Blog: The iPhone Hasn’t Saved T-Mobile USA Yet

Reuters John Legere, chief executive of T-mobile, at an event in March to announce the carrier’s new iPhone offering.
There’s no question that finally being able to sell Apple‘s iPhone was good for T-Mobile USA, the struggling carrier that bled many subscribers to its rivals over the last few years, partly because it lacked the iPhone. Now the question is when — or if — adding the phone will help lead the company to a meaningful comeback.

Kantar Worldpanel, a research firm, published a report on Monday suggesting that T-Mobile has an awfully long way to go. The company’s share of the wireless market was 10.1 percent in the three months ending in May, down from 13.5 percent over the same period last year.

It’s worth noting that the iPhone didn’t become available on T-Mobile until April. And Dominic Sunnebo, an analyst at Kantar, said T-Mobile’s strength with the iPhone appeared to be attracting people who were buying smartphones for the first time. Of T-Mobile consumers who bought an iPhone, 53 percent had previously owned a traditional cellphone, also called a feature phone, he said. The problem for T-Mobile, though, is the dwindling number of people still using feature phones. Earlier this year, global shipments of smartphones surpassed feature phones.

To stage a true comeback, T-Mobile will need to lure subscribers from rivals like AT&T and Verizon. That still appears to be a difficult task, and not only because both AT&T and Verizon have long offered the iPhone. Both those carriers are significantly ahead of T-Mobile in the race to deploy fourth-generation wireless networks — and when it comes to choosing a carrier, customers care about the coverage and speed of their service. T-Mobile only recently started turning on its fourth-generation network, called LTE, in a small number of cities, whereas AT&T has deployed 4G LTE in about 300 markets, and Verizon Wireless has LTE in about 500 markets. T-Mobile is expected to make more announcements about its network on Wednesday at a press event in Manhattan.

For now, T-Mobile is trying to separate itself from the competition with its phone plans. In a marketing campaign, the company calls itself the “uncarrier” — a wireless company that is different because it cares about what customers want. Part of the campaign involved breaking away from traditional two-year contracts and offering unlimited data plans.

Gadgetwise Blog: Looking for a More Durable iPhone Case SmartFlex Shine cases from Speck.

SmartFlex Shine cases from Speck.
In the oversaturated market for cellphone cases, manufacturers elbow one another to gain the attention of consumers, but few actually introduce anything new.

Speck, a case maker in Mountain View, Calif., has pushed to stay ahead of the pack with a focus on blending engineering and style, which has earned the company a few patents for its designs.

The company’s latest innovation is the SmartFlex Shine case, which uses a so-called in-mold labeling technology to give the cases a shimmery hue.

The design of the SmartFlex Shine case incorporates a metal-flecked base layer with a scratch-resistant finish that is intended to be more durable than the painted finish on most cases.

The case is lightweight and offers a slim fit, and paired with the glossy exterior is a flexible, rubberized interior that provides ample shock protection.

Speck cases can be found at most retailers, but the SmartFlex Shine is available only on Speck’s Web site, for $35. The case comes in five colors and is designed to fit the iPhone 5.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

BlackBerry launches iPhone and Android security platform

Secure Work Space lets users toggle between personal and corporate modes on their devices.

Now a distant fourth (behind even Microsoft) and fading fast on the hardware side, BlackBerry is hoping its acclaimed security software might be its ticket to success -- even if it means supporting rivals' devices.

BlackBerry on Tuesday introduced a new service called "Secure Work Space," which allows enterprise iPhone and Android users to toggle between personal and corporate modes.

Secure Work Space is aimed at giving companies control over the data that flows over their networks, even on a user's personal phone. Corporate email, calendars, contacts and intranets are cordoned off, and IT departments can add or remove other apps from that corporate section without affecting any personal information.

That separation ensures, for example, that users can't copy a message from the corporate profile and paste it into the personal one. Just as crucially, malware infecting the personal side of the phone won't make its way into corporate data.

The setup is similar to BlackBerry Balance, which comes standard on BlackBerry 10 devices.

Related story: You're going to love the BlackBerry Q10 (or hate it)

BlackBerry will provide an update on sales of the Z10 and other BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Friday. Though some analysts are optimistic, no one expects the new line of devices will launch BlackBerry back to the smartphone forefront anytime soon -- or, truthfully, ever.

But if Secure Work Space takes off, it could help BlackBerry (BBRY) regain some of the corporate market that it lost so publicly and painfully.

"Conceptually, it does make sense -- BlackBerry did well securing email, and now they're securing a workspace," said Cowen & Co. analyst Matthew Hoffman.

But as BlackBerry has declined, competitors like Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) have worked hard to improve their own security capabilities. Samsung launched its own "Knox" system for the new Galaxy S4, which works much like Secure Work Space.

Still, there's room in the market for a trusted multi-platform solution -- an Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) of mobile devices.

Hoffman isn't convinced that BlackBerry will be the only company in the field, but BlackBerry still has the chance to become that trusted solution. Despite all of its troubles on the hardware side, BlackBerry's reputation as a company dedicated to security endures, as CEO Thorsten Heins has made sure to play up the company's history in the space.

A full switch to software would be "messy," though, Hoffman said. "[BlackBerry would] be taking 95% of its revenue, hardware, and saying, that doesn't matter -- now we're going to focus on this 5%. It would be a pretty big corporate transition to become software-only."

BlackBerry dipped a toe into this field back in 2011, when the company launched an experimental product that allows corporate IT staffers to manage multiple mobile devices -- including iOS and Android -- through the same interface. At the time, the company insisted that it wasn't shifting its strategy away from hardware.

Two years later, however, BlackBerry is still struggling on the device side and sorely needs a bright spot. If security software can be successful for BlackBerry, a bit of a strategic shift could be a smart move.