Federico Viticci

10804 posts on MacStories since April 2009

Federico is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MacStories, where he writes about Apple with a focus on apps, developers, iPad, and iOS productivity. He founded MacStories in April 2009 and has been writing about Apple since. Federico is also the co-host of AppStories, a weekly podcast exploring the world of apps, Unwind, a fun exploration of media and more, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about portable gaming and the handheld revolution.
@viticci@macstories.net
@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

A Graphical Visualization of Apple’s Past iPhone Launches

As Apple’s new iPhone 4S has topped four million units sold in its first weekend, we thought it might be appropriate to look back at Apple’s iPhone launch history and the evolution of weekend sales figures over time. The original iPhone launched in the United States in June 2007, and Apple announced the 1 millionth unit was sold after 74 days. During the launch quarter’s earnings call, however, the company confirmed 270,000 iPhones had been sold in the first 30 hours of U.S. availability.

Since the iPhone 3G, which followed the original iPhone in 2008 with a new design and 3G connectivity, Apple has always managed to publish press releases announcing at least 1 million iPhone units sold after the first opening weekend. Both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, launched in multiple countries on Day One, registered 1 million sales in the first weekend. The iPhone 4, announced at WWDC last year by Steve Jobs and featuring a completely new design with more powerful CPU and improved camera, was the first iPhone to break the 1 million figure and jump past 1.7 million units sold in three days.

With the iPhone 4S, Apple went back to announcing “1 million units sold” – only with pre-orders and after 24 hours, not three days. In the launch weekend, as reported this morning, the company reported over 4 million iPhone 4S units sold in the seven countries the device launched on October 14th: US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

Bigger weekend sales numbers are a result of the impressive growth of the iPhone in the past four years. Take a look at this graph we posted during the Q3 2011 earnings call in July: Apple went from 8.4 million iPhones sold in Q3 2010 to 20.3 million units in the third fiscal quarter of 2011. Launch days obviously attract far more “Apple fans” always waiting to get their hands on the latest device than “regular” sales weeks throughout the year, but clearly the popularity of the iPhone as a mass-market device is also affecting the lines around the world we see on every iPhone launch. It’s also widely believed that the iPhone 4S attracted several customers who bought an iPhone 3GS in 2009, and waited two years to get an updated model. The iPhone 4S is sold unlocked outside the US since day one, but it appears some US models have been sold without SIM-lock as well. According to Apple, unlocked iPhone 4S units will be sold starting this November.

Check out the full-size graph of Apple’s iPhone launch history here, or click on the image below to enlarge.

Data

Instapaper 4.0 Available: Completely Redesigned iPad UI, New Features, Search Subscription

Since I started using Instapaper in 2008, this app has changed the way I read. Instapaper 4.0, released today on the App Store, will change my reading habits, again.

For those who are not familiar with the concept of Instapaper, it’s a web service that allows you to save web articles for later. But unlike the number of similar solutions that have surfaced since Apple featured the app multiple times (or simply its merits, which have been recognized by millions of average users alike), Instapaper isn’t simply a website with an account, a bunch of text stripped off websites, and a bookmarklet to grab articles. Over the years, Instapaper’s Marco Arment, founder and creator of the service, has managed to build an ecosystem around Instapaper, which is based upon but doesn’t stop at apps connected to the service via an API. Apps that support Instapaper play a big role in the service’s success and Arment even showcases this kind of integration in the new 4.0 version, but what really made Instapaper great is its simplicity coupled with publishers’ support, user adoption, multi-platform nature, and interconnectedness of tools that has allowed Instapaper – once a small indie project churning out a couple of thousand articles per day – to become the most popular way to never miss a good read.

Instapaper works on the web, on the Amazon Kindle with automatic wireless delivery, and on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. The foundation upon which Instapaper works and prospers is the Read Later bookmarklet, a button you can install in your browser’s toolbar to send any webpage off to your Instapaper account. Instapaper, however, works best with articles, as its main goal is to provide users with an elegant way to read the words of an author without seeing ads, graphical elements, or readers’ comments. Just text. In this regard, Instapaper works like magic: you hit a button, and any web article is transformed into an elegant, readable, easy on the eye page that you can customize to your liking with different fonts, pagination and brightness settings, or “dark mode” if you prefer white text on black while reading at night.

And I have been reading with Instapaper at night. Since the original iPad came out last year, pretty much everybody had a feeling the device could turn out to be ideal for reading, but no one really stopped to think about the implications of a device for Instapaper before the iPad’s release. When Apple did release the iPad and a native version of Instapaper was available on day one, it was clear Apple’s form factor and Arment’s UI decisions would play well together in the long term.

I’m not the only one to think Instapaper nears perfection on the iPad. In fact, I’m not even the only one to think the iPad edition of Instapaper has redefined portable web reading since its introduction in April 2010. Amidst the proliferation of social magazines, RSS readers, social news readers and more or less any other variation of the terms “social” and “reading”, Instapaper for iPad provides a unique solution to a seemingly unfixable problem: to create your own collection of web articles, ready to take wherever you want. A collection – or, if you will, a constantly updating combination of inbox and archive – that’s also connected with the articles your friends like and the pieces written by people you trust.

On the App Store, Instapaper started as an iPhone app. The app, featured in a great promotional video with Adam Lisagor, introduced iPhone users to the concept of “saving articles for later” – if you, too, have had too many interesting articles in your web browser and have wished there was a way to take them with you all the time, here’s the app for you. The video made it extremely clear that all you needed was a bookmarklet to hit, and an article would appear later on the web, or even better, on your iPhone. Instapaper for iPhone is a fantastic app; it updates fast, it’s elegant, it focuses on articles as it should be, and it gained a number of cool functionalities over time such as pagination, Twitter sharing, and Evernote integration. Yet, as this 4.0 update suggests, it’s clear Instapaper for iPad has somehow overshadowed its iPhone counterpart, making it the version to use when you can’t access your computer or iPad. Read more

Apple: 4 Million iPhone 4S Units Sold In First Weekend

With a press release, Apple has just announced that iPhone 4S sales have already topped 4 million since its debut on October 14th in seven countries. Apple also reported 25 million users are already using iOS 5, and 20 million have signed up for iCloud. According to Apple’s Phil Schiller, quoted in the press release, this is the most successful launch ever for a mobile phone, doubling the number of units sold by the iPhone 4 in three days last year. In June 2010, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in just three days.

That Apple was on track to deliver an impressive launch weekend with the iPhone 4S was clear since the company announced that over 1 million units had been pre-ordered in the first 24 hours of online availability. Following Apple’s announcement, US carriers AT&T and Sprint reported 200,000 pre-orders in the first 12 hours and a “very pleased” reaction to the iPhone 4S, respectively.

Apple today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. iPhone 4S is available today in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on October 28 and more than 70 countries by the end of the year.

“iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.”

Since its launch, the iPhone 4S has collected largely positive reviews that focused on speed, camera improvements, and better 3G signal of the device. With iOS 5 and iCloud (our launch coverage here), the iPhone 4S is providing a combination of hardware and software (some iOS features are exclusive to the iPhone 4S, such as Siri) that has managed to capture the customers’ attention, as proved by the long lines around the world for the device’s launch.

Apple’s next iPhone 4S rollout is on October 28th, when the device will be launch in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Sprint Reports “Best Ever Day of Sales” with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 Launch→

Sprint Reports “Best Ever Day of Sales” with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 Launch

Sprint has issued a statement on the first day of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 sales:

Fared Adib, Sprint Product Chief, issued the following statement:

“Sprint today reported its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history with the launch of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET. The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers’ desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan.

Sprint started selling the iPhone 4S alongside carriers AT&T and Verizon this morning at 8 am in the United States. Sprint is also selling a new 8 GB version of the iPhone, announced by Apple last week. If pre-orders and lines are of any indication, clearly customers are interested in the new device rather than the cheaper model of the old version – which has been kept around at $99. Last week, Sprint said they were “very pleased” with iPhone 4S pre-orders, which AT&T reported at 200,000 units in the first 12 hours.

Sprint is offering unlimited data plans starting at $79.99, and it’s believed to have struck a $20 billion deal with Apple to sell the iPhone over the next four years.

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Sony Camera Found In iPhone 4S Teardown→

Sony Camera Found In iPhone 4S Teardown

There was much speculation surrounding the supplier of the camera module of the new iPhone prior to the official iPhone 4S announcement, which confirmed the device has an improved 8 MP camera but didn’t give us any details on the manufacturer behind the component. In the months leading up to the iPhone 4S, you may remember Sony CEO Howard Stinger hinted at Sony producing the camera for the next-generation iPhone, though confusion arose as it wasn’t really clear whether he was being sarcastic in his statements or not. A report from June then noted both Sony and OmniVision – Apple’s main camera supplier for the previous iPhones – would supply a new 8 MP camera for the iPhone.

Following iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone 4S, Chipworks has put the camera module under a microscope, and confirmed that their unit has a Sony camera as seen in the die markings from the photos. This still doesn’t completely exclude OmniVision from the list of camera suppliers, but it seems to confirm rumors of a Sony camera were correct.

In order to get our readers the device manufacturer as soon as possible, rather than going through a fuming sulfuric acid chip deprocessing we chose to use our infrared microscope to look through the structure of this image sensor. What you see are the die markings on the base layer of the image sensor. The image isn’t beautiful, but it’s enough to tell us that Sony is in our particular iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S’ camera has been known to feature improved optics, allow for 73% more light through the lens and, overall, shoot sharper and crisper images, as well as 1080p HD video. You can check out Chipworks’ teardown and X-ray images here. [via]

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There Are Some Siri Limitations Outside The US

As the iPhone 4S launches today in seven countries (US, Canada, Japan, Australia, UK, France, Germany – our launch coverage here), many customers are finding out for the first time that Siri, the voice assistant Apple announced and demoed at the Let’s Talk iPhone media event last week, has some limitations outside the United States.

Several websites reported that Yelp integration for local businesses wouldn’t be available outside the US initially. Siri is still in beta, available in a few languages, and Apple has already announced that more languages and services will be available soon. On Apple’s website, the Siri page reports in a footnote: “Siri is available in Beta only on iPhone 4S and requires Internet access. Siri may not be available in all languages or in all areas, and features may vary by area. Cellular data charges may apply.” Some of the early reviews of the iPhone 4S briefly touched on the subject of limitations outside the United States and mentioned Siri could have some issues with some very specific accents (albeit the software does recognize the difference between U.S. English, UK and Australia); as customers get their hands on the iPhone 4S today, features that have been omitted from the first version of Siri outside the US  are starting to surface online.

Electricpig was first to report maps and directions wouldn’t be available to Siri except for US customers; today, a number of users have confirmed that both businesses (with Yelp integration) as well as maps/traffic data aren’t available outside the United States. When asked for Maps information in the UK, Siri says “I can only look for businesses, maps, and traffic in the United States, and when you’re using U.S English. Sorry about that.” (thanks, Sam).

Rene Ritchie of TiPb has also got his iPhone 4S, and confirmed Siri can’t “provide maps and directions in Canada” and “look for places in Canada”. From the screenshots, it appears Siri fetches the current location, but can’t provide additional information through Maps or Yelp integration yet. Furthermore, we’ve received a number of reports from French and German users unable to look up data on Wolfram Alpha through Siri, suggesting that Wolfram integration is only available to English-speaking countries for now. Read more

iPhone 4S Lines Around The World

As the iPhone 4S begins its international rollout, lines have begun forming at Apple retail stores in preparation of tomorrow’s product launch. The iPhone 4S, announced at a media event last week, will go on sale tomorrow at 8 am in seven countries: US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia. The device will be available in two colors (black, white) and three storage sizes (16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB); in the United States, it will be available on carriers AT&T, Verizon and, for the first time, Sprint. Soon after the pre-orders for the device started online, Apple announced they had already topped 1 million; those who haven’t been able to pre-order an iPhone 4S, or have decided to avoid the online process altogether, are now camping out hoping to get one tomorrow morning.

As we did with our iPad 2 coverage earlier this year, we’re collecting some of the best photos and videos people waiting in line at Apple stores are posting online. We’ll be updating this post throughout the next 24 hours, so make sure to come back later for the latest updates and photos from around the globe.

If you want to send us photos or videos from your local Apple store line, send us an email at: tips at macstories.net

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Notes From iFixit’s iPhone 4S Teardown: 512 MB of RAM, New 3G Chip

As usual with every new Apple gadget, the team over at iFixit has decided to tear down the latest iPhone 4S – which officially comes out tomorrow in seven countries, albeit some customers have already managed to get their hands on it – to take a peek inside the improved hardware of Apple’s new iPhone. As a quick recap, the iPhone 4S represents a significant change from the iPhone 4 in terms of internal components: whereas the design is the same of the old-generation model, the 4S comes with a dual-core A5 processor, a new wireless system with “intelligent” antenna design capable of switching between two antennas, world phone capabilities for GSM roaming, and a new 8 megapixel camera sensor with backside illumination. We have already discussed how the iPhone 4S appears to be a great mix of hardware and software – on the iOS side, in fact, the device comes with exclusive access to Siri, a new voice assistant.

In their teardown, iFixit notes the iPhone 4S’ battery has an extra .05 WHrs over the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S has, however, much power-consuming hardware than the older generation unit, which leads iFixit to believe “power consumption seems rather efficient” with 8 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, and up to 10 hours of video/40 hours of music. The iPhone 4’s battery, part of iFixit’s teardown last year, featured 5.25Whr; the iPhone 4S does 5.3Whr with the same 3.7V polymer battery.

The iPhone 4S’s logic board seems to bear “a close resemblance” to its Verizon iPhone 4 counterpart; indeed, the iPhone 4S also shares the same exterior design of the older CDMA iPhone 4, which has little differences from the GSM iPhone 4. In taking a look at the logic board, iFixit notes the two major components are the new CPU and new 3G chipset from Qualcomm, listed below.

  • Qualcomm MDM6610 chipset
  • Apple A5 processor

As previously rumored, iFixit confirms the iPhone 4S has 512 MB of RAM – a marking on the A5 chip (“E4E4”) seems to confirm this. There was much speculation surrounding the iPhone 4S’ RAM as other rumors in the past claimed the new iPhone would have 1 GB of RAM – clearly that’s not the case.

Other chips identified on the logic board:

  • Avago ACPM-7181 Power Amplifier
  • Qualcomm RTR8605
  • Skyworks 77464-20
  • Toshiba THGVX1G7D2GLA08 16 GB 24 nm MLC NAND flash memory

Other notes of interest:

  • Apple is using the same oscillating vibrator of the Verizon iPhone 4, rather than rotational electric motor found in the old GSM iPhone 4. This vibrator is softer and quieter than the GSM iPhone 4’s motor.
  • The display assembly is similar to the GSM iPhone 4.

We’ll update this post with more details as iFixit uncovers more components during the tear down. For now, keep in mind that the iPhone 4S has a much improved processor, camera, same amount of RAM and completely re-engineered 3G system.

Grand Theft Auto III Coming To iOS→

Grand Theft Auto III Coming To iOS

Rockstar Games has announced that they’ll be porting Grand Theft Auto III to iOS and Android devices “later this fall” to commemorate the game’s tenth anniversary.

10 years ago, this month, the revolutionary open-world epic Grand Theft Auto III was released to the world – a game that set players loose as a small-time criminal at the bottom of the food chain in Liberty City, a sprawling metropolis where anything can happen – and probably will. To commemorate the game’s 10th anniversary, we’re proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto III will be coming to select new generation iOS and Android devices later this fall.

Ten years ago, I remember sitting in my friend’s room, watching him play GTA III on his PlayStation 2. Back then, the technology behind the game looked amazing: great graphics, a seemingly “open” environment and a “mature” plot gave us the illusion that we were really controlling the game’s world. Looking back, it’s easy to spot the tricks Rockstar pulled to let gamers think they were in control, and it’s interesting to consider how the GTA series evolved as hardware became more powerful and allowed for “real” decisions to take in-game. More importantly, a game like GTA III doesn’t look as impressive today as it did 10 years ago, so I guess Rockstar is betting on the “nostalgia effect” as it’s recently done on the Mac as well.

GTA III will be available for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. No word on whether the game’s graphics will be upgraded for the A5 processor and how controls will be ported to multitouch; Rockstar also says more devices will be announced soon, so keep an eye on their blog if you own an iPad 1 or iPhone 4. [via]

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