Carriers pay Apple the subsidy that is able to keep the iPhone down to its $199 price point even after cramming in loads of new features in every release. For Apple, this is good. For consumers, this is good. For carriers, this is very bad.

During 2009 and 2010 before Verizon Wireless was selling the iPhone, its EBITDA margin was at an average of 46.4 percent. Right after the Verizon iPhone became a reality, the profit margin dropped to 43.7 percent. Last quarter, which was the first quarter to include iPhone 4S sales, Verizon’s margin was at 42.2 percent.

Fortunately for Verizon, its margins are comparably high to those of AT&T and Sprint. AT&T’s EBITDA service margin last quarter was 28.7 percent, an 8.9 percent decline year-over-year. Sprint’s margin last quarter was even worse at a sad 9.5 percent. The year before that when Sprint wasn’t selling the iPhone, its margin was 16 percent.

The good news is since Apple sells so many iPhones, carriers are still making plenty of money off of them. Don’t ever lose sleep about them not making money — if something doesn’t add to their bottom line, you can bet carriers will not go through with it.

[via CNN Money]

You see many pieces of Apple tech which can bring up nostalgia or even some rage. I still hate the one-button mouse and the Newton was a joke – or if you want to be kind, it was too ahead of its time for its own good. What really stands out to me in the rapid procession of products is that the iPhone gets a few seconds to stand out. It should.

It seems silly now but the iPhone was never a guaranteed hit and Steve Jobs said he would be happy to sell 10 million in the first year. It sold 37 million iPhones last quarter. The iPhone business alone is generated more revenue last quarter than all of Microsoft. Today’s stock results have also pushed Apple to being worth more than Google and Microsoft combined.

Remember, Apple was on the brink of destruction when Jobs came back, so this video is kind of a timeline to its meteoric rise to the top.

[image credit]

We do know that HTC’s new handset flow will begin to wane in 2012 in favor of better quality devices but we don’t know if that also translates to a greater focus on updating the massive amount of different handsets it released last year. At the moment, everything is just talk but we’re more than happy to hear HTC filling in its customers.

HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL.

In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Rezound, HTC Vivid, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks.

If you’re rocking a Sensation, which includes the 4G, XE, or XL, you can expect to get your handset updated within or around a month’s time. All other handsets will likely be waiting for a while. It doesn’t come as a surprise that HTC’s 2011 flagship handset line will be getting updated the quickest but most of the remaining handsets to be updated are more than capable of handling the next version of Android and Sense. It remains to be seen as far as the Incredible S, Desire S, and Desire HD are concerned. Hopefully there is enough space without stripping too much out.

HTC is the latest among a decent list of manufacturers who have already announced its upgrade schedule for Ice Cream Sandwich this year. Now, it’s time to wait and see which company does or doesn’t make good on their promises.

[Via: Droid-Life, Facebook]

The numbers may not mean anything because movements always start small but this seemed like a layup for this city, as it involves workers’ rights, moral outrage and iPhones. It’s easy to pick on Apple too because it has nearly $100 billion in the bank and it could likely take a hit on its profit margin and still be fabulously wealthy, but the dirty secret about pretty much the entire consumer electronics industry is that all these awesome gadgets are generally made in working conditions that we wouldn’t accept. We’re talking about conditions where child labor is accepted and people work so hard that they commit suicide.

A great New York Times piece sheds some light on what these workers have to go through in order for us to have our fancy iDevices and some of it is heart wrenching. The part that I thought would make this protest larger is when a former Apple executive told the paper that if Apple demanded that the conditions had to improve, it would. Instead, it seems like Apple has chosen higher profit margins over the well-being of people in China.

Apple, Dell, HP and every other companies are legally obligated to maximize shareholder value and producing devices in China and other countries with abysmal labor laws can greatly add to the bottom line. Even Nokia is moving its production to China in order to save on costs but also because these factories enable companies to be more nimble with production. Nokia wants to get high-quality phones out at a quicker pace and right now, that’s only possible using Asian factories.

The moral outrage argument feels right but it may not be totally. Paul Krugman is known for leaning toward the left and even he believes that these “sweat shops” are needed and provide value because “bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all.” He also argues that these conditions may be appalling but they are better than the cruel existence of subsistence farming or or having no work at all. He writes:

In short, my correspondents are not entitled to their self-righteousness. They have not thought the matter through. And when the hopes of hundreds of millions are at stake, thinking things through is not just good intellectual practice. It is a moral duty.

Krugman has forgotten more economics than I’ll ever know but it’s tough to shake some form of moral outrage. Yes, every country may have to go through an industrial revolution of sorts which includes some nastiness but in this interconnected world, we can demand better conditions if we really want them. The only way to do this is with your dollars.

If you read deep into the words: “integrate” and “time-consuming” you instantly think about a software related issue, right? Well, not according to Moto’s SVP. She claims that “hardware is the long pole in the tent,” adding that many hardware components found in the company’s devices need some fine tuning to fuse a new OS. When someone asked her about Motorola’s custom user interface, MOTOBLUR or whatever it’s called today, Wyatt responded saying “the software is never the hard part.”

She also talked about things we already knew, like Google prioritizing manufacturers who has dibs on the company’s “hero” device (think any Nexus phone), as this gives them access to the new code first. Sorting through all the fluff, I found that the most compelling part of what Wyatt said was carriers have the final say when it comes to updates. Motorola also says the carriers have a large impact on when things happen, or whether they happen at all. Wow.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This ultimately is a Google issue, as it needs grow a pair and put its foot down on some of the behavior from these carriers. Truth is, the search giant has empowered the carriers way too much, giving them the last say so when upgrades go out. It’s ridiculous that only 1 percent of Android user have ICS 4.0, especially since its been out for over two months — it’s absurd. Just stating the facts, people.

[via mobileburn]

We’ll know by Monday if the EU has any beef with the deal and I’d imagine its concerns would revolve around patents and Google’s position in the Android chain. Additionally, the EU has been taking a close look at Google over the last few months.

While one could easily see this deal having a material impact on Samsung, HTC and others, I don’t really see how the U.S. government could stop the deal on anti-trust grounds. This isn’t AT&T trying to buy a competitor, as Google and Motorola don’t really compete in meaningful ways. Google is using its cash to enter some new market segments, as well as shore up its patent portfolio.

If you’re worried about what this will mean for Android, you should know that Google says it is committed to keeping it open and the independently-owned Motorola won’t get any special access. I’m not sure I buy that because it doesn’t make business sense for Google to not utilize all of its resources to better compete against Apple, particularly with the company being more focused and streamlined under Larry Page. Sure, you may argue that doing this will alienate some partners but the reach and appeal of the free Android operating system has few challengers – Windows Phone is good but costly and the open source webOS has no track record of success.

Whatever happens, it appears like we can all be on the lookout for a Googorola later this year.

[Via Wall Street Journal]

The timing of the announcement fits in nicely with Apple’s previous launch schedule for the iPad. Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad in January 2010 and the iPad 2 in March 2011. It would only make sense the iPad 3 would make its debut one year later in March 2012.

Though the report did not have any new information on the hardware. AllThingsD’s source supposedly confirmed earlier rumors that suggest the iPad 3 will have a faster processor, retina-like display, and improved graphics. The form factor will stay about the same. As expected, an Apple spokesperson would not comment on the report.

[Via AllThingsD]

Looking ahead, there’s only so much we can say about Nokia. The real people in charge now are the folks sitting in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft needs to deliver a compelling user experience and complimentary suite of services if they want their operating system to take off. Windows Phone Mango doesn’t cut it, but from what we’ve heard about Windows Phone 8, codename Apollo, that looks to be the version that starts making people pay attention. One slight problem though, Apollo doesn’t come out until the fourth quarter of 2012. There’s a reason Nokia didn’t provide any guidance when they posted their Q4 2011 financial results, they haven’t got the slightest clue how bad things are going to get.

Anyway, all we know is that if Windows Phone doesn’t take off then Elop is going to be put between a rock and a hard place. What then? Revive Maemo? Call up the Google brothers?

[Via: SlashGear]

Update: One of our readers (@chilko) pointed out that Stephen Elop said the exact same thing in June 2011!

Now before anyone gets upset about this, note that we don’t have any information about what kind of cores Apple is using. We can easily imagine Apple wanting to go with ARM’s Cortex A15 processor, which clock for clock is 40% faster faster than the ARM Cortex A9 inside the iPad 2. In other words, two 1 GHz Cortex A15 chips should deliver the same amount of compute power as two 1.4 GHz Cortex A9 chips. Assuming the Apple A6 chip is built on a new 28 nanometer process, Apple could easily clock those Cortex A15 processors to 2 GHz, which would be the equivalent of a pair of Cortex A9 chips running at 2.8 GHz. Translation? Ludicrous speed.

At the end of the day though there’s no need to get too hung up on specs. People who buy the iPad don’t care about what makes the iPad tick, they care about the apps that they’ll be poking and prodding at for hours on end.

To that end, Asus released a new update for its tablet/netbook that comes with an all new kernel inside (version 2.6.39). In addition, the new software also promises to fix WiFi and Bluetooth functionality, while also increasing the overall performance. According to user reports, the Transformer Prime is faster after the update, showing increased benchmark scores.

In addition, if your Prime was suffering from random reboot issues, you’ll be happy to know that issue has been addressed with this software as well.

So what are you waiting for? Fully charge your beloved gadget, connect it to a fast Wi-Fi hotspot, check for updates, follow the on-screen procedure and voila… all (or at least most) of your Prime problems are fixed.

[Via: PocketNow, xda-developers]

Thanks for your patience @bittersw8regene. Unfortunately the Nokia Astound on T-Mobile will not be updated to Nokia Belle.

— Nokia US (@NokiaUS) February 8, 2012

It would be easy to slam Nokia right now over this, but we know better. It’s not their fault, it’s T-Mobile’s. When Symbian Anna came out it was nothing more than an over the air update that weighed in at around 10 MB. Belle on the other hand requires that you connect your phone to your PC and download a 250 MB software update. We can imagine the thinking within T-Mobile’s office went something like this: “Do you have any idea how much money it’s going to cost to not only tell people about Belle, but also the support costs in case people screw the update up?”

It’s a shame really, and we hope T-Mobile changes their mind.

[Via: Unleash The Phones]