Since the company already employs 100,000 workers to manufacture components and devices for customers like Apple, Dell, and HP, that translates to 40,000 new workers. And since Apple is widely expected to be releasing not only an updated iPhone 5 but also a cheaper, plastic-bodied iPhone in the fall-to-winter time frame, that translates to speculation that Pegatron is gearing up for big orders.

This fits both with Apple CEO Tim Cook’s announcement during the company’s recent earnings call that Apple would not bring out any new products until the fall and with recent rampant rumors of new iPhone models.

And, says Reuters, Pegatron’s CFO Charles Lin indicated that 60 percent of the company’s 2013 revenue would come from the second half of the year.

Apple needs new products, badly.

Canalys’ numbers for smartphone, tablet, and laptop sales for the first quarter of 2013 show that Apple’s growing only 7.6 percent in smartphone sales, while the industry is growing at a 64.3 percent pace. And while Apple sold 37 million iPhones, Samsung shipped is growing its smartphone shipments by 64.3 percent.

Apple’s not interesting in market share for the sake of market share, but at some point market share has to impact the overall health of an ecosystem. And without a strong app, media, and device ecosystem, smartphone manufacturers are in deep, deep trouble.

photo credit: jurvetson via photopin cc

Ramping up production in June and July will stock Apple’s shelves for a late summer or early fall launch, when Apple typically sells millions of devices in just a few days. That timetable is in line with Tim Cook’s statements during Apple’s last earnings call, in which Cook warned investors not to expect any major new product launches this summer:

“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014,” he said at the time.

Japan Display and LG have long made screens for Apple’s smartphones, while Sharp was added just late last year as Apple continues to diversify its list of manufacturers in an attempt to ensure adequate production capacity — and to limit reliance on any one particular partner.

The most critical point in the report?

The liquid crystal panel of the next model “iPhone (iPhone) 5″ Apple, specification is close to the current and the “iPhone 5.”

In other words, the 5S is the same size and shape as the 5, which means that this particular product is not the iPhone Mini or iPhone Maxi that have recently been rumored. Which doesn’t, of course, mean that Apple is not sourcing components for those potential products from other manufacturers.

According to the report, the factory Sharp will be using has a production capacity of 600 million units a month. Apple will not even need even a reasonable fraction of that, and the factory has been chronically underutilized.

This is good news for Sharp, Japan Display, and Japan in general. Electronics manufacturers in Japan have seen Korean companies like Samsung take their lunch and eat it, too, and have had to cut staff, offload underperforming business units, and cut back expenses.

It’s also good news for Apple fans who are looking forward to some juicy new iTech.

Image credit: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

It’s time for iPhone to “get the family treatment,” former Apple creative director and strategy consultant Ken Segall says.

The former Apple employee writes that public perception is now that “Samsung is now the real innovator,” and that “iPhone has fallen behind.” While, he says, perception is not equivalent to reality, it has actual impact … such as Apple’s stock price, and such as Apple’s reputation.

Fortunately, he’s not suggesting an innovation quick-fix with the application of some paint and lipstick.

But he is saying that, as iPod’s biggest years came after the iconic “MP3 player” bifurcated again and again into multiple models and, yes, multiple colors, iPhone’s biggest years are ahead of it too. If Apple learns the lesson of the past.

That means iPhone mini, a cheaper but not cheap iPhone, iPhone 5S, a new iPhone in multiple colors, and iPhone maxi, a bigger iPhone to compete with the mounting fablet fascination, especially in Asia.

Segall’s not saying he has access to any privileged insider information, although it’s not unlike Apple to quietly leak information to trusted sources. But what he’s saying makes sense:

The smartphone audience has grown exponentially in recent years. The simple reality is that different people have different needs. Creating a family of devices would widen iPhone’s appeal as it squelches the perception that Apple is somehow losing touch.

That would seem to be common sense. And it’s the kind of simple innovation that requires no huge degree of amazing new whizzbang technology, but satisfies actual customer desires — or needs, as you wish — in a very easy way.

So easy, in fact, one is left wondering why Apple hasn’t done it already.

Image credits: Apple, James Pikover/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Last week I bought 13 laptops from WalMart.com. All were pretty cheap, between $500 and $700, but 13 of them added up to a rather hefty $8,000 bill on my MasterCard.

There were only two problems: I didn’t buy them, and they weren’t being shipped to my house.

I’d been hacked. Somehow, somebody in Sacramento, Calif., was going to get 13 Dell Inspirons at my expense. Lucky them … and unlucky me.

But not only unlucky me — a staggering one in four Americans report being a victim of identity fraud, according to a new study by Jumio, a leading credit card validation service for web and app-based commerce. And 83 percent of us worry about identify theft.

Source: John Koetsier

Fraudulent WalMart.com orders charged to my account

That’s a problem, because commerce is increasingly going mobile. Two-thirds of us own a smartphone and/or a tablet, and most of us plan to use them to buy things in the near future. A full 48 percent of us use our mobile devices to check something as sensitive as our bank balances. But as we do, we’re opening ourselves up to even more avenues of fraud and scamming.

“Users may be willing to accept risk now in favor of convenience, but this tolerance will weaken as fraud continues to grow,” Daniel Mattes, founder and CEO of Jumio, said in a statement. “The industry needs to get on board to protect our customers as much as the customers themselves need to take greater precautions.”

Investigators in my case suspected a phishing attack, in which you get an email purportedly from an online store that leads you to a fake but real-seeming site that then takes your credentials, but I had not clicked on any real or fake WalMart emails.

And so the only greater precautions that would have been useful would have been perhaps using unique passwords for each e-commerce site I use.

The problem of online and mobile security is a growing one. According to VISA, mobile commerce fraud was $2.7 billion in 2010, $3.4 billion in 2011, and $3.5 billion in 2012. And Cybersource says almost a third of all retailers experienced mobile fraud in 2012.

So what’s the solution?

Perhaps biometrics. Apple is said to be building a fingerprint sensor into the next iPhone model, the iPhone 5S. And Jumio’s survey says that 74 percent of us don’t feel that simple username/password security is sufficient. It certainly didn’t protect me — I was only fortunate enough to notice 13 thank-you-for-your-order emails from Walmart.com.

But biometrics won’t be available on every device, and won’t be an industry-standard smartphone feature for some time to come, if ever.

Meanwhile, according to Jumio, 69 percent of us would feel more comfortable sharing our personal information online, and buying via mobile, if there were more secure ways of storing that data online.

Source: Jumio

Mobile purchasing and banking activity

“For mobile to reach its full potential, the industry needs to adopt more consistent and accurate ways to identify and authenticate consumers,” Mattes said. “Only then will we be able to truly combat fraud.”

The question remains: How exactly that should be done?

The mechanisms for catching fraud after the fact, and protecting consumers from the consequences, are mostly in place. MasterCard canceled my credit card, WalMart canceled the transactions, and no harm was done. And big data solutions that the big credit card issuers including VISA and American Express employ to track consumers’ spending habits and suspend cards if odd or suspicious spending patterns start to emerge limit losses when the fraud proceeds successfully.

But that’s not the case every time: web and mobile security has a last-mile problem that isn’t going away any time soon.

photo credit: ToastyKen via photopin cc

Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White issued a research note today indicating that a cheaper ‘iPhone Mini’ would be announced in June along with the next version of the iPhone 5, the 5S, and shipped in July.

The ‘iPhone Mini’ is not actually expected to be smaller than an iPhone 5 — except in price — but will have a curved back casing constructed with colored plastic, White says, and should be priced somewhere between $350 and $400, as opposed to iPhone 5′s $700 to $900 price tag. Naturally, there will be deals with carriers to get the phones for “free” with wireless plans.

That price point, White says, will be cheap enough for consumers, but also expensive enough for investors:

We believe this price point will provide relief for those investors concerned that Apple would be sacrificing too much margin or brand to serve the lower price band of the smartphone market.

Part of White’s information is in strong contrast to a report from KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo yesterday, which said that Apple’s iPhone 5, the new cheap iPhone, and the updated iPad Mini would all be delayed until perhaps October/November. This kind of discrepancy is not uncommon as analysts fish for details with industry insiders who may have only small pieces of the full picture. Apple attempts to keep a firm lid on any shipping timetable information or rumors. White is basing his report today on new information from sources in the Chinese consumer electronics world.

The new report also confirms that, in keeping with Apple’s long-standing practice of unveiling similar update models, the iPhone 5S will look almost identical to the iPhone 5, but will have a slightly larger camera, plus fingerprint identification technology for security.

Finally, White can’t confirm any larger-screen iPhone at the moment, although he said that such a development is “inevitable” and, in fact, absolutely necessary for Apple’s success in the size-conscious Asian market:

… we believe it is inevitable that Apple will need a 5-inch to 5.5-inch iPhone or “iPhad” if the Company wants to remain competitive in China and elsewhere in Asia. For example, during our meeting with a leading consumer electronics vendor in Asia, the Company discussed new smartphone launches with screen sizes that are well over 5-inches and meant to be flagship products in this category. This larger screen phenomenon has been a very clear trend during our Asia trip over the past two weeks and one that we hope Apple eventually embraces.

photo credit: Incase. via photopin cc

Note, that’s potential bad news.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple’s iPhone 5S, an as-yet-unannounced low-cost iPhone, and the new version of the iPad mini are all going to be delayed, due to production difficulties.

Originally, he targeted a summer launch for all three products; now, based on manufacturing challenges with integrating a potential new fingerprint sensor in the iPhone 5S, color coatings for the low-cost iPhone, and difficulties fitting a high-res retina display into the second-generation iPad mini, Kuo says that launch dates could be pushed back as far as October/November:

Currently, market consensus for shipments of iPhone 5S, low-cost iPhone and iPad mini 2 is July, July, and August, respectively. But in light of publicly available information and our knowledge of technological trends, we now think all three products will begin shipments later than our previous expectation and market consensus.

This is not what Apple needs right now.

Apple’s domestic iPhone sales are up 11 percent this past quarter, according to one ComScore report, but the international mobile market, already dominated by Android, has been clamoring for a cheaper iPhone. And with Apple’s current stock price woes, anything that even smells of new product delays is dangerous.

If Kuo is correct reading the supplier market and the delays are real, he projects that Apple will see only single-digit year-over-year growth in iPad and iPhone shipments in the coming third quarter, far below analysts’ projections.

Apple, however, has never released a product roadmap claiming the products will be released at any given time, and a summer release would mean that Apple would be shipping the iPhone 5S much quicker than other follow-on models. For example, the 4S lagged the iPhone 4 by 16 months, and the 3GS followed the 3 after about a year. A summer iPhone 5S launch could make a gap of just eight months between the 5 and 5S ship dates.

We’ll know more about what might actually be happening on April 23 when Apple releases its second quarter numbers and issues guidance for the third quarter.

Image credit: ShutterStock/Delayed

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple’s next iPhone could land as soon as this summer, judging from a Wall Street Journal report today.

Sources tell the paper that Apple plans to start production of its latest iPhone during this quarter, which means it could be ready for the third quarter in the summer. Much like the iPhone 4S and 3GS, Apple will likely debut a slightly revamped “iPhone 5S” this year, which will share the same basic design of the iPhone 5.

Intriguingly, the WSJ’s report also notes that Apple is still planning to launch a cheaper iPhone later this year. It would be unusual for Apple to announce two new iPhone models in a single year, but given the increasingly strong competition from cheap Android phones and Samsung’s wide variety of handset choices, Apple certainly has to step up its game.

The WSJ’s report also corroborates iMore’s iPhone 5S prediction from a month ago, which pointed to an August launch for the new phone. That would give Apple a new device to compete with the upcoming Galaxy S IV and HTC One much sooner than the October launch dates we’ve seen over the past two years, and it also leaves room for Apple to announce a cheaper lineup before the holiday season.

As for more iPhone color options, the WSJ notes that Apple has been developing additional colors, but right now it’s unclear how it’ll release them. Previous rumors suggested that different colors could be a big selling point for Apple’s cheaper iPhone.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Apple’s iPhone 3G was released on July 11, 2008, and followed a little more than a year later by the faster 3GS on June 19, 2009. The iPhone 4 was released on June 24, 2010, and followed by the 4S sixteen months later on October 14, 2011. The iPhone 5 was launched on September 21, 2012, and if a rumor from Japan is correct, it will also be followed by a 5S model, to be released on June 20.

That is just an eight-month gap.

According to MacFan, a Japanese Apple fanzine that is celebrating its 20th anniversary, June 20 is the announce date of the newest iPhone, which will then ship in volume in July. How exactly a Japanese fanzine would be in possession of that privileged information is difficult to determine, but the timetable does square with analyst expectations. As CNet notes, Gene Munster and other Apple followers have identified June as the most likely launch window for the 5S.

If accurate, that’s a lot quicker than Apple has brought out upgrades in the past. But the pace of innovation has quickened, and the competition is getting hotter.

Samsung just recently unveiled its Galaxy S IV, the successor to its best-selling Galaxy S III, and the Korean manufacturer’s flagship phone against which Apple’s current iPhone 5 and next models will be compared. Samsung had released the S III in May of 2012, so the IV came out just ten months after — a much quicker model succession than Apple has traditionally managed. In addition, Galaxy IV pre-orders were 446 percent higher than III, at least for some carriers, and iPhone trade-ins doubled in the month leading up to the IV’s launch.

In other words, the Galaxy S IV is a major competitive threat, and Apple needs to address it. Which makes the June-July timeframe credible, even if the actual launch date is not June 20.

The only question, really, is whether Apple is prepared to run a quarterback sneak and maybe, just maybe, release multiple iPhone models simultaneously for the first time. With one that is just a bit cheaper for emerging markets – the cheaper iPhone that is supposed to come out in the latter half of 2013.

Now that would be interesting.

photo credit: Mez Love via photopin cc

Apple’s next-generation iPhone and iPads could appear surprisingly soon.

The iPhone 5S is reportedly planned for release in August, a few months earlier than the October release of the past two iPhones, while the iPad 5 and new iPad Mini could appear as soon as April, reports iMore.

While we typically don’t give much credit to most Apple rumors, iMore’s Rene Ritchie has proven himself as a reliable prognosticator for Apple’s updates. He was one of the first to report on the iPhone 5′s Lightning connector last year.

Not surprisingly, Ritchie notes that the iPhone 5S will feature the same design as the iPhone 5, but will pack in a better camera and faster processor. That’s typical for Apple, judging from the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S. Given how thin Apple was able to make the iPhone 5, I didn’t expect a completely new case to appear this year.

We’re still hearing rumors about a slightly cheaper iPhone as well as one with a slightly bigger screen than the 4-inch iPhone 5. The latest rumor, somewhat perplexingly, noted that Apple’s cheaper iPhone could also sport a bigger 4.5-inch screen. It could be that we’re hearing about changes that will appear in next year’s iPhone line, much like how we heard rumors of the iPhone 5′s design almost two years in advance.

As for the April iPad announcements, Ritchie notes that “we’re not sure what to make of that yet.” Apple announced the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad in October, so an April upgrade seems a bit too soon. Ritchie expects a slightly redesigned case for the iPad 5, but only a slight specification bump for the next iPad Mini. Those hoping for a Retina Display iPad Mini will likely have to wait until the next refresh.

“Apple is not going to release iPads that costs more or don’t get as good battery life as the current models,” Ritchie wrote. “So if the next iPad Mini does end up getting slated for April, it could be a spec bump, or have something other than Retina as a differentiator.”

Phhoto: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

New photos of Apple’s alleged ‘iPhone 5S’ have surfaced on a Chinese technology website, supposedly revealing that, just as the iPhone 4S looked basically identical to the iPhone 4, Apple’s newest upcoming iPhone model will look identical to the current flagship iPhone 5.

According to the rumor, Apple’s new iPhone 5S is already in production.

The photos, if real, were certainly hurriedly snapped by someone fearfully of being caught and are poor quality, but do show electronic calipers in almost every shot reveal relative size, apparently the same as the iPhone 5. Sharp eyes in Germany have noticed one minute difference: the vibration motor (which you can see in the shot below).

The motor appears to have been updated from the iPhone5′s to address concerns that it was too noisy.

Source: http://sjbbs.zol.com.cn/2/30_11361.html

iPhone 5S with a new vibration motor?

One thing that might cast some doubt on the images, and the source, is that the Chinese site also claims that the iPhone 6 will have a 4.8″ to 5″ screen, significantly larger than the current iPhone 5′s 4″ and much bigger than the iPhone 4S’s 3.5″. On the on hand Apple faces increasing competition from large-screen smartphones, or “fablets,” but on the other, Apple has gone on record that it is not interested in make phones that can’t easily be used one-handedly.

Of course, Apple said that it would never make a mid-sized tablet, too.

Here are all the images for your viewing pleasure: