Herp Games releases Defend Your Phone - New
iPhone and iPod Touch Game

post from prMac on 15 November 2009 10:23:00 PM. © prMac

UK-based Herp Games announces Defend Your Phone, their new game for iPhone and iPod Touch. The game combines two very popular game genres: The strategy and weapon upgrading from popular tower defense games and the finger flicking action from defend your castle games. The player has to defend his phone against waves of enemies that try to push it off the screen. The player has to hold the enemies back by bouncing them off the screen instead.

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Oh Joe You Didnt

post from Daring Fireball on 15 November 2009 09:23:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

Joe Wilcox published a piece Friday titled “Apple was NOT more profitable selling cell phones than Nokia in Q3” (caps emphasis his). It’s in reference to the widely-cited (and linked from DF here) report last week by Strategy Analytics which concluded that Apple generated more profits than Nokia from mobile phone handset sales last quarter.

Wilcox was skeptical — nothing wrong with that — and conducted his own investigation into the numbers:

Well, hell, that sounds reasonable enough, right? Wrong. Apple and Nokia SEC filings tell a different story. Both companies announced third calendar quarter results a few days apart in mid October. For devices and services, Nokia reported profits of ?785 million, which is about US $1.1 billion. Apple reported total profits — that is for all products — of $1.67 billion in its earnings press release, and later the 10-K filing. I searched the 10-K, and, as I expected, Apple doesn’t breakout iPhone profits.

But it doesn’t have to for purposes of this discussion. I don’t doubt that Apple is more profitable per handset, since iPhone is a smartphone, than Nokia. But the numbers don’t add up to Apple’s overall handset profitability exceeding Nokia’s during third quarter, unless someone is making the bold assumption that all, or nearly all, Apple profits came from iPhone. They surely do not. What? Apple made only $700,000 on iPod, Macintosh, retail and software — $1.6 billion — on iPhone. No way.

The disturbing lack of fact checking seems to be a trend when it comes to Apple these days.

This is disturbing. Either Joe Wilcox has uncovered a massive, widely-reported error, or, he has made a fool out of himself.

What Wilcox is arguing is that Apple only reported $1.67 billion in total profit for the quarter, so how could they possibly have made $1.6 billion from the iPhone alone? But that’s not what Apple reported at all. Perhaps if Wilcox had actually read more than just the first paragraph of Apple’s press release announcing the company’s earnings, he’d understand. Apple’s announcement stated:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter?s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone and Apple TV over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures for the quarter are $12.25 billion of ?Adjusted Sales? and $2.85 billion of ?Adjusted Net Income.?

As everyone who follows Apple should be aware, Apple is accounting for iPhone sales over eight quarters. This practice is unusual, but it’s not complicated. This is how they’re able to give software updates to iPhone owners free of charge, and, conversely, because iPod sales are not accounted for on a subscription basis, why iPod Touch users must pay for the same updates. When Apple sold an iPhone last quarter it only accounted for one-eighth of the revenue and profits for that quarter. The remaining seven-eigths will be accounted for over the next seven quarters.

Subscription-based accounting does not mean that Apple doesn’t pocket the cash from iPhones all at once. They do — at least since June 2008 when they switched to the model of being paid an up-front subsidy from the carriers, rather than the per-month revenue-sharing model they used with AT&T for the first year. It’s all just a matter of accounting. What Apple calls “non-GAAP measures” are its way of saying “this is how much money we actually made this quarter”. The “adjusted net income” of $2.85 billion is effectively what Apple would have reported as profit for the quarter if they weren’t using subscription based accounting for the iPhone and Apple TV.

This is how Apple’s cash on hand has grown by $21 billion in the last three years, from $14.5B on 30 September 2006 to $36.2B on 26 September 2009. (Click “Balance Sheet” and “Annual Data”.)¹

It is true that Apple does not specifically break out the revenue or profits from iPhone sales. But unless you think Apple is selling a lot more Apple TVs than most of us do, it’s pretty safe to say that the iPhone accounts for nearly all of the difference between Apple’s GAAP and non-GAAP reported profit, which difference came to $1.18 billion for the quarter. That suggests Strategy Analytics’s numbers are in the ballpark. It’s also worth noting that Nokia does not account for its handset sales as Apple does — Nokia accounts for them “normally”, up front, in the quarter in which they were sold.

Even if Strategy Analytics’s $1.6 billion figure is a little high, they’d have to be wrong by over $500 million for their overall conclusion (that Apple made more profit than Nokia selling phones) to be wrong. Here’s another back-of-the-envelope calculation. Apple does release the total number of iPhones sold during each quarter. Last quarter it was 7.4 million. So take Strategy Analytics’s estimate of $1.6 billion in profit, divide by 7.4 million iPhones, and you get $216 in profit per iPhone, which, again, sounds like it’s in the ballpark. (Unsubsidized 16 and 32 GB iPhone 3GS models — the most popular iPhones — sell for $599 and $699 respectively, and Apple’s reported gross margin for the quarter was 36.6 percent.)

As for Wilcox’s would-be exposé, I’m almost embarrassed to quote his concluding paragraph:

As for Apple’s overall phone profits being higher than Nokia’s, don’t believe it. Just because dozens of Websites report something as true doesn’t make it so. Because of the extent of misreporting, I can’t say where the fault lies. The Strategic Analytics report, which again I haven’t seen, might have gone no further than present numbers showing that Apple makes more profit per phone than Nokia. That absolutely makes sense. But to assert that iPhone generated $1.6 billion profit during a quarter when all Apple products generated $1.67 billion is simple stupidity.

Simple stupidity indeed.

If you subscribe to the Market Share gospel, it’s perhaps very hard to wrap your head around the idea that a company with 2.5 percent unit sale market share generates more profit than a company with 35 percent market share. But the numbers aren’t complicated. The iPhone really is that big a deal.

That Wilcox is so utterly befuddled by Apple’s iPhone accounting — convinced that Apple is generating far less cash than they actually are — makes me wonder how many analysts and investors are likewise confused about this. Probably many. So it’s worth noting that a recent accounting rule change may change the way Apple reports these numbers in the near future, such that Apple could report revenue from iPhones the way casual observers expect — in the quarter the sales occurred. Here’s what Henry Blodget wrote about the rule change in September:

The new rule will allow Apple to recognize the iPhone hardwarerevenue and profit at the point of sale, while an estimated valuefor the software will be recognized over the life of the device.
A change in accounting shouldn’t make a difference, but I’m guessing it will. Look for Apple’s stock to jump up if they make this change. ↩

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Typographic Howlers

post from Daring Fireball on 15 November 2009 03:50:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

From a NYT story on those who notice typographic errors and discrepancies:

?I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,? said Michael Bierut, a partner in the Pentagram design group in New York. ?My font nerdiness makes me have bad reactions to things that spoil otherwise pleasant moments.?

?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/arts/16iht-design16.html

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GizMac Announces XRackPro2 Studio Rack

post from prMac on 15 November 2009 02:21:00 PM. © prMac

GizMac Accessories LLC has announced details on their upcoming Studio Rack version of the XRackPro2. With years of success from the noise reduction design of the XRackPro2 server rack product line, GizMac has created the Studio Rack. The Studio Rack version of the XRackPro2 is designed specifically for studios, home theater or other applications that do not require deep equipment. The reduced depth of the new XRackPro2 Studio Rack will provide a solution for environments with limited space.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-8633.htm

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EditShare Partners With Dixon And Scores Big With
Major League Baseball

post from prMac on 15 November 2009 01:04:00 PM. © prMac

EditShare, the technology leader in cross platform collaborative editing and shared media storage, and Dixon Sports Computing, the sports video management experts since 1992, have deployed a new HD production workflow at the Cincinnati Reds' Great American Ball Park. The new integration combines EditShare's shared storage solutions - Storage Series - with Dixon's Sports Management software.

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DS Fragrance crossover with iPhone Cases

post from prMac on 15 November 2009 12:37:00 PM. © prMac

DSStyles has announced its latest sales product, coming up in Christmas period. Featuring two distinctive series of iPhone 3G/3GS cases packed together, a Christmas card, and a 4ml bottle of specially compounded fragrance. Five Big Christmas Lucky Draw Games will be launched during Christmas period. This ultra-fabulous lucky draw is designed to boost up the shopping atmosphere of the holiday seasons with an exciting line up of prizes.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-8631.htm

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CallSaver iPhone App Enables UK Users To Save
Money

post from prMac on 15 November 2009 08:34:00 AM. © prMac

Independent iPhone developer Jeremy Bassett today announces CallSaver 1.0 for iPhone and iPod touch. CallSaver aims to solve the problem of avoiding costly 0845 & 0870 UK telephone numbers. It allows users to directly browse an internal database to find alternative UK numbers. Users will be able to save money by accessing a database containing the most popular companies and authorities instantly.

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Free X-PDF 9 & Crossroads Workflow Solutions
Guide now available

ThePowerXChange is pleased to announce the availability of the free X-PDF 9 and Crossroads Workflow Solutions Guide, North American Edition, providing product details and system requirements for time-saving and valuable tools available for PDF creation, correction, preflight and delivery.

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VitaMobile launched new SpaceClash game for
iPhone and iPod touch

VitaMobile has released SpaceClash 1.4 for iPhone and iPod touch. SpaceClash is a multiplayer online game that blurs the border between real life and fantasy. It is the first representative of the new generation of Massively Multiplayer Trans-Reality Games. The innovation of MMTRG is that any number of people can interact with each other, just like they would in real-life Mass Multiplayer games.

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HTC Cydget : HTC Clock Widget on iPhone
Lockscreen

Earlier this week we published CyDialer : Call Friends from the Cover Flow LockScreen and Weather Cydget : Weather Widget on LockScreen. Here we go with another plugin/widget called HTC Cydget, is a new theme for the lockscreen able to display clock[...]

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