iPhone in Thailand, O2's iPhone sales, MacBook Air unboxed, more

[AppleInsider]

Apple is discussing bringing the iPhone to Thailand, local carrier Advanced Info Service says. Also, British carrier O2's iPhone sales may be low but have tripled store activity, while Japanese press got the world's first taste of unpacking the MacBook Air.

Thai iPhone talks underway

Thailand telecom firm Advanced Info Service (AIS) is in talks with Apple to offer the iPhone in the southeast Asian country, company assistant marketing VP Prattana Leelapanang has confirmed on Monday.

The executive has not said whether the talks are close to their conclusion but notes that, as with other carriers already offering the iPhone, AIS is in the midst of negotiating a revenue sharing plan.

Apple's move makes Thailand the third provider in Asia known to be discussing the introduction of the iPhone, with China Mobile and Japan's NTT DoCoMo both having acknowledged high-level meetings between themselves and the Cupertino, Calif.-based electronics giant.

O2 sells 190,000 iPhones, sees store traffic boost

The UK's official iPhone carrier, O2, has sold 190,000 handsets in the two months since its launch on November 9th, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Citing anonymous sources, the paper says about 190,000 Apple handsets have traded hands since launch. This may fall underneath a "conservative" 200,000 figure and suggests that Apple's £269 ($524) price is too high for customers used to far less expensive devices, the report says.

O2 has not published its official figures but says that its retail store traffic has tripled compared to a year ago courtesy of the iPhone. The spike is believed to have provided a surge in O2's sales for the end of 2007 regardless of how many customers eventually chose the iPhone over an alternative.

MacBook Air's ultra-minimal box revealed in Japan

Apple chief Steve Jobs' claims of reducing Apple's packaging volume for the MacBook Air by 50 percent versus the MacBook has been confirmed through a photo gallery posted by an attendee of Apple Japan's press event for the new subnotebook.

Where the normal-sized MacBook still ships with a foam shield, the Air's box contains no foam at all -- just a tray deep enough to hold the portable. A paper pull tab reveals all the accessories and software hidden in a section underneath the computer.

In an additional treat, the Japanese event also reveals that the MacBook Air is roughly half the thickness of the Sony VAIO SZ despite sharing the common trait of a 13.3-inch screen.













Microsoft ahead of Apple in allowing home OS virtual machines

As part of a series of virtualization-related announcements, Microsoft on Monday opened up its licensing agreements to allow Home Basic and Premium versions of Windows Vista to run within virtual machines.

In the past, only advanced editions of the OS -- Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise -- were allowed to be used in these environments. This has stopped Parallels and other software developers from officially supporting the more accessible and inexpensive versions.

By contrast, Apple has only just begun to allow Mac OS X virtualization: the company's Leopard Server license agreement is the first to allow Mac virtual machines. It also requires a separately licensed copy of Leopard Server in place of either the standard Mac OS X Leopard client or an additional license for the same copy.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[eAi]

I'm not sure many consumers will care about virtualization - us geeks might, but your average OS X user won't... That said, theres not much reason for Apple to not allow it - they can have the same 'Apple hardware only' restriction OS X server has.

[jpellino]

joy.

that vaio is pwned.

[TenoBell]

Between the UK and France we are looking at roughly 290,000 iPhones sold in Europe. And still waiting for Germany.

[SpamSandwich]

So how far along is Apple to making that 10 million iPhone sales goal?

[Mooch]

Yay! Now I don't need to shell out the big bucks for Vista Ultimate when I get my Mac Pro.

[HyteProsector]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

So how far along is Apple to making that 10 million iPhone sales goal?

the number 4mil was released at MacWorld. This puts them on pace to sell 10mil. I think the quarterly report coming up will elaborate. I believe its coming tomorrow?

[andrewpmk]

Thailand? When will we have the iPhone in Canada? It's right next door to the US after all, and grey market iPhones are being sold in many of the local computer stores.

[Monkeyoe]

Woohoo! Thailand, then the rest of South East Asia!

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

So how far along is Apple to making that 10 million iPhone sales goal?

Well considering they are basically only counting 2008 (i.e. not 2007) sales they are only starting out. They'll easily reach it though. And if they bring out an iPhone nano later in the year they'll double or triple those numbers.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by HyteProsector

I think the quarterly report coming up will elaborate. I believe its coming tomorrow?

That's right Sir

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Apple's move makes Thailand the third provider in Asia known to be discussing the introduction of the iPhone, with China Mobile and .......

Huh? Didn't SJ say explicitly in an interview that there were no talks going on with Chinese service providers? In fact, I recall that he said something along the lines that someone from China Mobile visited Cupertino once, and that's about it.

Of course, he could be b-s'ing.......

(Here's the AppleInsider article that quotes SJ re. what I said above: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ndle_more.html)

[MrMoo]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Apple is discussing bringing the iPhone to Thailand

Does that mean the iPod will eventually get Thai script support then? I think the iPod is currently limited to Latin, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean only currently.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

So how far along is Apple to making that 10 million iPhone sales goal?

Maybe about 4,400,000 sales, after the German results come in.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Huh? Didn't SJ say explicitly in an interview that there were no talks going on with Chinese service providers? In fact, I recall that he said something along the lines that someone from China Mobile visited Cupertino once, and that's about it.

Of course, he could be b-s'ing.......

(Here's the AppleInsider article that quotes SJ re. what I said above: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ndle_more.html)

He was very explicit about that. I don't think he would lie about something that important.

I was going to post on it myself.

[melgross]

Other than for servers, what would be the point to virtualizing OS X on Macs?

While it's true that an 8 core and even a 4 core machine could do it, it might not be such a good idea.

There will be contention for other services which would slow the machine down with conflicts. The drives would also be pounded.

However, it's good that MS has now bowed to users and given the nod to Home. I wonder why, since the assumption was that it was to forestall Mac movers.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by Ireland

Well considering they are basically only counting 2008 (i.e. not 2007) sales they are only starting out. They'll easily reach it though. And if they bring out an iPhone nano later in the year they'll double or triple those numbers.

The original statement wasn't for 10 million in 2008 only, it was total for sometime in 2008, including 2007.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by melgross

The original statement wasn't for 10 million in 2008 only, it was total for sometime in 2008, including 2007.

I'm not sure how Apple is 'on track' to meet their 10 mil goal by anytime this year based on the current sales. They'll have to offer additional, cheaper models or broaden their offering of cell providers.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

I'm not sure how Apple is 'on track' to meet their 10 mil goal by anytime this year based on the current sales. They'll have to offer additional, cheaper models or broaden their offering of cell providers.

If they sold about 4.5 million in the first 6 months, then they just have to sell about 5.5 million in the next 12. I see no problem there.

We know they will have new models, that's been said. What those models will be other than including 3g, I don't know.

But, the SDK will also add a good deal of appeal, even if it is limited, which we don't yet know. Business software has already been coming from some of the biggest names in business software.

I would expect that they will add more Flash sometime this year as a good bet.

One way or the other, they will add more carriers.

[MsNly]

Originally Posted by melgross

One way or the other, they will add more carriers.

If they would let Verizon use it I would tack it on to my 1.3 years left on my contract, then I would switch to AT&T if that makes Apple happy, I'm just tired of having to wait out this contract.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by MsNly

If they would let Verizon use it I would tack it on to my 1.3 years left on my contract, then I would switch to AT&T if that makes Apple happy, I'm just tired of having to wait out this contract.

It would have to be a different phone. The iPhone, as it is, only uses GSM. They would either have to have a CDMA model, or one that has both (some do).

[success]

Great....plenty of iPhones for all the ladyboys but none for the Canadians

[melgross]

Originally Posted by success

Great....plenty of iPhones for all the ladyboys but none for the Canadians

Oh, I'm sure that eventually, all you TS's up north will have one also.

[mdriftmeyer]

Steve was quoted on CNBC regarding the reported stalled China Telco talks and pointed out it's a goal to get the iPhone into China but that they haven't even begun talks.

[Carniphage]

Why does Apple Insider do this?
Kick off a thread with three different topics. Which story are we supposed to be discussing?
Surely one topic per thread would be more sensible?

[ioport]

I don't understand why so much emphasis is put on the thinness of the MBA.

Using a Toshiba R500 myself and carrying it all the time between work locations, I would say that weight (it's much lighter than the MBA) and battery life are much more important than just being thinner for the sake of it. True it's using a slower Core 2 Duo ULV, but considering I get 7h out of it, ULVs are perfect CPUs for ultralight systems.

Also what's the point of having a 13" screen for such a low resolution? I have the same resolution on a 12" one and I have yet to find somebody wearing glasses or a more senior colleague complaining about it being small.

Finally the fact that I don't have to sacrifice on ports, a Gigabit interface and an integrated optical drive are just bonuses, but they are nice to have.

[samurai1999]

Originally Posted by melgross

The original statement wasn't for 10 million in 2008 only, it was total for sometime in 2008, including 2007.

The original statement (at Macworld 2007) *was* for 10 million *in* 2008

[yama]

Originally Posted by melgross

Other than for servers, what would be the point to virtualizing OS X on Macs?

Same reason people virtualize Windows on PCs - so you can have multiple OS configurations on one machine. This is great for testing purposes.

Say you need to test how an app works in 10.4 and 10.5. You could dual boot the system, but that's kinda messy. It's much easier just to have multiple virtual machines and fire them up as you need them.

It's also great for testing configurations before rolling them out to a bunch of machines in a lab.

Using the snapshot feature in VMWare you can make a change to a system, and if it causes problems, you can just revert to the saved snapshot instantly. Again, great for testing stuff.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by HyteProsector

the number 4mil was released at MacWorld. This puts them on pace to sell 10mil. I think the quarterly report coming up will elaborate. I believe its coming tomorrow?

That presumes the pace remains constant.

Sales are rarely constant if the product remains the same throughout it's life.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by success

Great....plenty of iPhones for all the ladyboys but none for the Canadians

Is that an iPhone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

[palegolas]

Originally Posted by ioport

I don't understand why so much emphasis is put on the thinness of the MBA.

Using a Toshiba R500 myself and carrying it all the time between work locations, I would say that weight (it's much lighter than the MBA) and battery life are much more important than just being thinner for the sake of it. True it's using a slower Core 2 Duo ULV, but considering I get 7h out of it, ULVs are perfect CPUs for ultralight systems.

Also what's the point of having a 13" screen for such a low resolution? I have the same resolution on a 12" one and I have yet to find somebody wearing glasses or a more senior colleague complaining about it being small.

Finally the fact that I don't have to sacrifice on ports, a Gigabit interface and an integrated optical drive are just bonuses, but they are nice to have.

I agree. Mostly.. Weight, battery time and usability should come first. Not including a FW port was a really sad move for instance. I think that's the only thing I don't like with it though. I got a pb12, and I think 13" is better, but I don't see why they couldn't minimize the frame around the screen to make it just a tad less wide.

[Jemster]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Citing anonymous sources, the paper says about 190,000 Apple handsets have traded hands since launch. This may fall underneath a "conservative" 200,000 figure and suggests that Apple's £269 ($524) price is too high for customers used to far less expensive devices, the report says.

I get the feeling the anonymous sources are all linked to O2. To me it's not the £269 that's too expensive, it's the hugely expensive minimum £35 / month contract for less mins / txts than I get at the moment. I'm paying a little more than half that for more minutes, more texts and slightly less (though more than adequate) data usage.

Come on O2, sort out your contracts to a more reasonable level then you'd see them fly off the shelves.

I'm still thinking of selling my Viewty on eBay and hacking an iPhone to work with Vodafone which would be another sale for Apple but scared they'll brick it with some update, or prevent iTunes from working with it unless it's at a specific firmware version number. I'd be happy not updating (and that's what the revenue sharing model is meant to pay for isn't it?) if I could be assured it wouldn't get "turned off" at some point.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by melgross

Maybe about 4,400,000 sales, after the German results come in.

Was the 4 million announced at Macworld including European sales or not?

I noticed the market shares had to be US only otherwise they'd not be impressive at all, so perhaps it was US only, but I've not watched the keynote yet.

I usually watch the keynotes as soon as they are out, but other than the Time Capsule announcement, everything else wasn't of interest this year. Apple's hardware is getting less and less interesting for me I think.

I'm waiting for the MacBook Pro update and then deciding if I'm buying a Thinkpad T61 and hackintoshing it.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by melgross

The original statement wasn't for 10 million in 2008 only, it was total for sometime in 2008, including 2007.

I tend to think you're right Mel, though some will argue to their dying days that Jobs was talking about 2008 only, while other will say the 10 million sold goal is for mid '07 (US launch) through the end of '08 (18 months).

The latter group is definitely WRONG:





The giveaway that Jobs was talking about selling 10 million iPhones in 12 months, rather than US launch-to-end of '08 (18 months) is the "1% marketshare" figure in the graphic.

Since the worldwide cellphone market is roughly 1 billion phones sold per year, you just wouldn't get 1% marketshare by selling 10 million phones in an 18-month time period. It's obviously a 12-month time period they're talking about.

I guess one could argue that what Jobs meant was mid-'07 to mid-'08, rather than simply '2008'. If true, then Apple is quite a bit behind schedule... 4 million sold in 6 months works out to an 8 million per year pace, or well shy of the 10 million goal. And that's WITH the big holiday quarter already spoken for.

Additionally, no help from the Asian launch then, unless it happens before the end of calendar Q2. Ach, me poor stock.

.

[samurai1999]

Originally Posted by TBaggins

I tend to think you're right Mel, though some will argue to their dying days that Jobs was talking about 2008 only, while other will say the 10 million sold goal is for mid '07 (US launch) through the end of '08 (18 months).

The latter group is definitely WRONG:





The giveaway that Jobs was talking about selling 10 million iPhones in 12 months, rather than US launch-to-end of '08 (18 months) is the "1% marketshare" figure in the graphic.

Since the worldwide cellphone market is roughly 1 billion phones sold per year, you just wouldn't get 1% marketshare by selling 10 million phones in an 18-month time period. It's obviously a 12-month time period they're talking about.

I guess one could argue that what Jobs meant was mid-'07 to mid-'08, rather than simply '2008'. If true, then Apple is quite a bit behind schedule... 4 million sold in 6 months works out to an 8 million per year pace, or well shy of the 10 million goal. And that's WITH the big holiday quarter already spoken for.

Additionally, no help from the Asian launch then, unless it happens before the end of calendar Q2. Ach, me poor stock.

.

It's interesting how the human mind works...

- some people will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 18mth period beginning June 28th, 2007, and ending December 31st, 2008.
- other people will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 12mth period beginning June 28th, 2007, and ending June 30th, 2008.
- and still others will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 12mth period beginning Jan 1st, 2008, and ending Decemeber 31st, 2008.

[asdasd]

- some people will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 18mth period beginning June 28th, 2007, and ending December 31st, 2008.
- other people will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 12mth period beginning June 28th, 2007, and ending June 30th, 2008.
- and still others will see 'in 2008' and think 'ah, the 12mth period beginning Jan 1st, 2008, and ending Decemeber 31st, 2008.

There is really only one way to see Job's claim - given he said 1% of the market in 2008- it has to be calendar 2008. From Jan 1 to Dec 31. The market share is not estimated, in any market, from June to June but by calendar year, and 18 months is not the timeframe to measure any market.

In any case they are on target. Rich though it is the US is merely 5% of the global market. Clearly mobile use is global - it seems the entire industry sells enough to give a phone to the entire population of the Earth every 6 years. If US sales just stay at the same rate, and Apple moves into Canada, India, China, Japan and the rest of Europe/Russia ( with 3G phones, preferably) and South America ( with half a billion people) it will easily meet it's targets without a price drop. With a price drop, it could be larger than 1%.

[piot]

I never understand why there is so much debate over this 10 million target.

If it wasn't completely clear at the iPhone keynote, Jobs repeated the target figure numerous times at the usual post Macworld interviews. It was also reiterated by other Apple execs at various other events.

Here's Tim Cook at the Q4 2007 earnings call:

"I’ll start with that one. The answer is we are not predicting, Andy. I would reiterate that we are very confident with shipping 10 million in the calendar year of next year."

Linky

So that is 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 .... and ONLY 2008. There might be a question as to whether 10 million is 1% of the market .... but there is no question about the figure.

It's not really worth counting until the end of this quarter .... but I am sure we will.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by samurai1999

The original statement (at Macworld 2007) *was* for 10 million *in* 2008

This has been gone over so many times now that it really doesn't pay to explain it to you. But that was NOT the meaning.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by piot

I never understand why there is so much debate over this 10 million target.

If it wasn't completely clear at the iPhone keynote, Jobs repeated the target figure numerous times at the usual post Macworld interviews. It was also reiterated by other Apple execs at various other events.

Here's Tim Cook at the Q4 2007 earnings call:

"I’ll start with that one. The answer is we are not predicting, Andy. I would reiterate that we are very confident with shipping 10 million in the calendar year of next year."

Linky

So that is 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 .... and ONLY 2008. There might be a question as to whether 10 million is 1% of the market .... but there is no question about the figure.

It's not really worth counting until the end of this quarter .... but I am sure we will.

Aaargh.... can't wait till it's 2009, so that this debate becomes moot.

Oh, wait.....

[melgross]

Originally Posted by yama

Same reason people virtualize Windows on PCs - so you can have multiple OS configurations on one machine. This is great for testing purposes.

Say you need to test how an app works in 10.4 and 10.5. You could dual boot the system, but that's kinda messy. It's much easier just to have multiple virtual machines and fire them up as you need them.

It's also great for testing configurations before rolling them out to a bunch of machines in a lab.

Using the snapshot feature in VMWare you can make a change to a system, and if it causes problems, you can just revert to the saved snapshot instantly. Again, great for testing stuff.

A very few people will get any benefit from that, and those who do will not be using Basic, or premium. we both know that.

The question remains.