Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Lexware Taxman 2011 Billiger bei AMAZON

Here a quick post in German as it applies to an actual offer for tax preparation software and in this case enormous spreads - Amazons selling the same product 35% under publishers direct price.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Update: Alarm clock bug fixed with iOS 4.2 - and much more...

Finally, the much awaited iOS Update has arrived. As described in the previous post this Update is considered to be a bug fix for me and many users of the alarm clock - but of course - Apple would not issue an update for such "minor" thing only.

And so, iOS 4.2 comes with Airprint and wireless (Video) streaming to compatible Client such as the Apple TV Box GameCenter and more - just in time for Black Friday and the coming Shopping Season.

And even more importantly iOS 4.2 brings all of this to the iPad as well and puts it - for the first time since launch - completely in sync with the latest iPhone. It brings Folders, Multitasking and Game Center to the iPad which makes it "a totally new device" as somebody prominent from Cupertino is quoted.
(Apple recently has lost just a little sense of reality it seems, as they have touted the Beatles iTunes release as "a day you will never forget" (!))
C´mon guy´s you make great things but too much is too much.

Anyway, with all major and minor things fixed and a feature packed new iOS everything is ready to mark just another record sales and earnings quarter.
I have heard analysts who express "doubts" that the elevated expectation of 6m iPads shipped in Q4 could be reached.
They base these doubts on Samsung having to downwardly adjust Galaxy tab production capacity.
Make no mistake -  the iPad is simpy so much superior and not by any chance the "whichlist item #1" for the current holiday shopping season.

Oprah Winfrey is said to have given 275 iPads as a gift to all of her staff recently - if that tells anything..

According to a recent post from John Paczkowski Apple has ordered FoxConn to ramp up additional capacity at the Chengdu Site to 300k/month in order to reach a total of 2.8m (monthly) runrate.
Apple has shipped 4.2m iPads in Q3, Analyst consenus is 6m in Q4 (with few  exceptions  as mentioned  above who think this might be a stretch goal.)
My stomach and market feeling tells me it will be rather in the 6.5m to 7.5m range.
My newest 12month price target for the stock is now 415$ based on continuing strong growth on iPhones, iPads (completely offsetting the decline in ipods) a continuing growth in market share for Macs (as dominance in mobile devices has a positive drag effect on PCs) Apple isn´t anymore the niche maker of design PCs that only Graphics Pros and Photographers really need, it´s becoming main stream.
And last not least the tightly controlled App-Universe creates an ever money machine - a growing revenue stream from software that scales extremely well and has margins well beyound those a hardware maker could ever dream of.
Stay tuned...

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Iphone Alarm Clock DST Bug - and how to fix it.

Yes, I have got it too. And yes I WAS late Monday after the Daylight Savings Time (DST) Change in Europe.

iPhone Alarm Clock Bug "in Action".

Apperently all iPhones 3G, 3GS, iPhone4 and iPod Touches 2nd through 4th generation are affected by a software bug that rings alarm clocks 1h late after the DST time switch.
The internal clock (which is also the source for the built in (alarm) clock as well as third party alarm clock apps) is adjusted correctly but internal alarms WITH a  REPEAT SCHEDULE setting are NOT.
 They go off 1h late. Deleting and reprogramming the alarm doesn´t help.

The only fix is to RECONFIGURE alarms to NO REPEAT setting - which effectivly sets them to "daily" as long as they are activated.

And finally of course apply the Apple iOS bug fix for this which is in the works (I have heard a "Gold Master" ist out already.).
The bug has been first found in New Zealand and Australia (who were first to switch back from DST to "Winter time". Then Europe was hit beginning of this week - and the US will suffer next Monday Nov. 8th - IF, and only IF (fingers crossed) Apple will not be able to supply the fix "JUST IN TIME" on this very weekend. We can only assume that Apple engineers are working feverishly to publish the fix before 10 millions alarms will fire off late on Monday.

Right now (as I write this 8h50 CET New York time) there is no Update available yet in iTunes.

What will be the economic impact?

Here´s a first approximation:
Around 90 Million iPhones or so are out (not counting all the ipod Touches), let´s assume 40% of those are used in the USA. Let´s further assume 20% of the users do use the alarm clock and rely on it. Let´s estimate that being an hour late to work creates an economic impact of 25$ (Machinery not operated, Calls not answered, shipments not expedited, flights missed etc.).  This adds up to 250Mio$ economic damage on Monday not counting the hours 50 million users will spend time to find out the cause, browse the internet for solutions, time spent finally with iTunes to apply the fix etc.
Another hour per user which could have been spent productively otherwise to increase the GDP  is certainly a conservative estimate. Makes another 1.25 Billion $ (!) Together 1.5b$ - conservatively...

Small cause - big impact.