Sakura Quick Math is an educational iPhone and iPad game for children and adults that drills your basic arithmetic skills by having you race against the clock and input your answers by simply writing them on the screen. It's gorgeous, innovative, and fun.

Sakura Quick Math has 5 different modes: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and mixed. Each mode also has 3 different levels of difficulty: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. All these modes and levels makes Sakura Quick Math great for kids in grades 1-5.

To play the game, you simply answer each arithmetic problem that comes up by writing it anywhere on the screen. If you get it wrong, you have to keep trying until you get it right or you can choose to skip the question. The goal is to get through all the problems as quickly as possible, however, so skipping a question will result in a time penalty.

When you complete a round, your time and penalties will be calculated and displayed on a graph. This lets you keep track of your progress to see if you're getting better. Since a faster time means you did better, you want your graph to decrease over time, not increase!

As with anything that uses handwriting recognition, it's easy to be skeptical and think "does it really work"? Sakura Quick Math is off to tremendous start with their handwriting recognition. It's definitely not perfect, but works pretty darn good. It will sometimes misread my 2's and 5's and mistake them for 8's and 6's. My husband also runs into an occasional hiccup. Unfortunately, since Sakura Quick Math is a game where speed is everything, this can be rather frustrating. But my guess is that young kids won't be bothered by this as much.

The good

• Beautiful design
• Input your own handwritten answers
• Modes for addition, subtractions, multiplication, division, or a mixture of all
• Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels for each mode
• Great for 1st-5th graders, pre-algebra students, or anyone who needs brush up on their arithmetic skills
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• No stress-free non-timed mode for general practice. This would be great for young kids who just need practice and don't want to feel rushed.
• No support for multiple users
• Recognition of 2's and 5's is sometimes wrong (could just be my handwriting)

The bottom line

Sakura Quick Math is a fun way for adults and children to test their arithmetic skills. It does occasionally make mistakes with handwriting recognition, but overall, Sakura Quick Math is a great educational app. In fact, I'm highly considering reserving my school's iPads and having my students compete against each other during class sometime this semester -- I think they'd have a lot of fun.

$1.99 - Download Now

While announcing their Q3 numbers yesterday, Amazon took the opportunity to take a few shots at Apple and the newly announced iPad mini. Amazon listed what they think are key advantages for their Kindle Fire HD over the iPad mini, including higher screen resolutions, better speakers, and lower cost. This, perhaps, to help distract from the loss Amazon suffered during the quarter. Here's the checklist courtesy of Amazon's press release:

Compared to the iPad mini, Kindle Fire HD 7" has: - 30% more pixels (1,024,000 vs. 786,432 pixels) - 33% more pixels per inch (216 vs. 163) - Watch HD movies and TV – cannot on iPad mini (iPad mini is an SD device) - Better audio with dual stereo speakers and Dolby Digital Plus - Wi-Fi with dual band, dual antennas + MIMO - Costs $130 less

Amazon posted a $28 million operating loss last quarter, and they expect losses for next quarter as well. This isn't good news. Neither is Amazon is bringing specs to an experience fight, a strategy that has proven catastrophic for every other iPad competitor in the history of iPad competitors. The Kindle Fire HD is particularly amusing here for a couple of reasons.

First, it's not a tablet. It's a media appliance, a front-end for the Amazon store with great shopping software and middling everything else. Second, because of that, it's barely more than a paperweight outside the small handful of countries in which Amazon sells it.

The iPad mini is a full tablet, available in 90+ countries, with the best tablet software in the industry, and over 250,000 tablet class apps.

So, as they say, good luck with that Amazon.

Source: Amazon Media Room

Mobile Nations No Tricks, Just Treats Halloween Costume Contest!

Submit your costume + phone/tablet photos to halloween@mobilenations.com

With Halloween falling on a Wednesday this year, we know a lot of you will be out this weekend in costume getting your party on. Odds are you'll be carrying a phone in your pocket too. Heck, some of you will probably even be dressed up as a phone or tablet.

We had a great time with our Halloween Costume Contest last year, so we're making it an annual event! While you're out in costume, be sure to snap a photo with your phone (or tablet) in hand. Then email it to us. We'll put together all the photos receive into a sweet video for the blogs. And beyond that, you can win some awesome prizes for taking part. Full details below!

What You Need to Do

When you're out at Halloween parties this weekend or out trick or treating on Wednesday, get a photo snapped of you in costume holding your smartphone and/or tablet visibly out in hand. Be scary, funny or do a crazy pose. Whatever you want is cool. Have fun with it. For brownie points, load up iMore.com in the web browser or throw a iMore wallpaper on. Group photos with friends and co-workers are welcome too.

Submit Your Photo

With your photo taken, all you need to do is email it in to halloween@mobilenations.com by midnight PST this Wednesday, October 31st. It would be super helpful if you renamed your photos with your username. Also, if you would like to include a caption or any other information about your picture, be sure to send it in.

How and What You'll Win

Come November 1st we'll go through all the photos and pick out a bunch of winners in a variety of categories - scariest costume, funniest costume, sexiest costume, best group photo and more! We'll put all the winners and other photos received into a video collage and post it up on the blogs Tuesday afternoon. Check out last year's entries here.

As for the prizes? Well... it's Halloween - which means you might get a treat, or this could all be just a nasty trick. But you know us... we like treats. We're going to keep the treats a surprise though, so take your photo this Halloween, email it in, and stay tuned.

From all of us at iMore and the Mobile Nations team, have a safe and happy Halloween!!

Windows 8 hit physical and electronic store shelves this morning, and Mobile Nations' own WPCentral was up early grabbing Surfaces and giving everything a look. For iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, however, you can also now get your hands on Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system. If you are a Windows user, like most of us, you can download Windows 8 Pro and install it straight onto your PC as an upgrade to an existing Windows installation or set up your computer as a new PC and wipe it clean.

Windows 8 comes with an upgrade compatibility wizard which will check your hardware and software and let you know what is compatible and what isn't. It looks like the current version of iTunes is compatible -- but there's something you need to be especially aware of.

You need to de-authorize iTunes on your computer BEFORE you upgrade to Windows 8. If you don't do this, it will be authorized as an additional machine and use up two out of your five allowed computers.

To de-authorize a computer in iTunes follow these simple steps:-

1. Open iTunes
2. Click on the Store tab
3. Click on De-authorize this computer
4. Enter your username and password
5. Hit Ok and you should get a confirmation message saying "This computer has been successfully de-authorized".

If you decide to upgrade to Windows 8, you can download the update from Microsoft for $39.99 or buy it on physical media for $69.99. If you want to discover exactly what Windows 8 is all about, Microsoft has you covered with a dedicatedWindows 8 portal right here.

I will be updating my computer over the weekend so should have some more information on using your iPhone or iPad with Windows 8. If anyone else does the update, let us know how it goes in the comments!

Source: Microsoft

OK, boys and girls on the East Cost. Listen up. Hurricane Sandy's on her way, and she's liable to make a mess of things next week. Just how bad depends on who you're reading, but regardless it's time to start getting ready. Here's how your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can help.

• Charge your iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads. Now. Keep them charged. And once the storm starts, keep them off. You'll likely lose power at some point, and there's a good chance your local cell network will go down for a bit, even with generator backups.
• Spare batteries. You can't swap batteries in Apple products, but you can get external batteries. If you got 'em, make sure they're charged, too. If you still have time to get some, do it.
• Car charger. Get one. Get a couple, actually.
• After the storm, text messages may work best. If the network's up, it's going to be clogged, and calls might not go through. iMessage might not go through. Text messages have a much better chance.
• If you're worried about damage and don't have a traditional camera, use your phone to take a few pictures of your home and your belongings. It'll make insurance claims much easier, should it come to that.
• While you still have power and internet access, be it on your phone or broadbad, take advantage of features like instant uploading on Photo Stream, Google+, or Dropbox to make sure those pictures get somewhere that can't be destroyed by the storm. Better to be safe than sorry in that case.
• If you just have to use Instagram during a storm, don't use a damn filter. Folks wanna see what's happening, and filters don't help that.
• Use apps like Evernote to help keep track of your emergency supplies.
• Before the storm, use those gas-finder apps to track down the cheapest petrol. That won't help you with the lines, but it may save you a few bucks.
• Apps from FEMA and the Red Cross can help you find shelters and other emergency information.

Those are but a few ways your iPhone or iPad can get you through this. Have a tip you'd like to share? Let's hear 'em in the comments! And good luck, everyone. Stay safe.

Whether you're a hardcore iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad gamer or just need something to kill time or secretly make meetings less deathly dull, word games are not only addictive but available by the truck load in the App Store. Letterpress, Words With Friends, and Scrabble are all equally addictive and, frankly, no-brainer buys. But even if they're cheap or free, no one has unlimited time so the question becomes, which iOS word game is the best?

Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Gameplay

Letterpress by Atebits is a completely new twist on word games and reminds me of the popular iOS game, Welder. When you launch Letterpress for the first time, you're given a description of how to play. From there you can start a game with any of your friends on Game Center. After you start a game you're presented with a brightly colored five by five grid of letters. The object of the game is to create words out of the letters you're given. Each word must be at least two letters long and the same word can't be played twice. You also can't play a prefix of a previously played word (so you can't play MARBLE if someone has already played MARBLES). Once you create a word you can submit it, the tiles on the board will turn blue. Your opponent's tiles will show up red. (Assuming you're using the default theme.)

The game ends when all tiles on the board are colored. Then, whomever has the highest score wins. To gain an edge over your opponent you aim to surround a letter with your color. That will lock the surrounded tile to your color (visually it looks darker or more intense). Your opponent can still use that tile to make words, but gets not points for it.

Even though the game is ridiculously simple, it's extremely addictive and can vary greatly in challenge depending on the skill of your opponent. The real key it to try and lock in as many tiles as you can or your competitor will just steal them right out from underneath you.

An in-app purchase lets you unlock themes and have multiple games going on at once.

Words With Friends, purchased by Zynga, is socially aware version of Scrabble. Once you start a game your letters are available along the bottom of the screen, as well as a few options and the current score. The object is to use all your tiles before your opponent, and get the highest score for words you play.

Along the board are colored areas labeled with letter codes such as DL, DW, TW, TL, etc... These are areas that award double or triple points. If none of your current tiles allow you to play, you can swap them out but it'll use one of your turns to do so. Using all your tiles in one play also earns you additional points.

Zynga being Zynga, Words With Friends also has a few add-ons you can purchase to enhance game play such as Tile Pile which will tell you what tiles are remaining in the game. The Word-O-Meter will also give you the ability to see how strong your word is before you play it. You can choose to buy them as you need them or purchase infinite use of them for a one time fee of $14.99.

A game of Words With Friends ends when you or your opponent completely runs out of tiles. And just as in traditional board games, you'll be docked for any tiles you have remaining at the end of the game.

Scrabble by Hasbro is exactly what you'd expect from a digital version of the popular Scrabble board game. Even though Words with Friends was made to be very much like Scrabble, there are a few key differences in the original. The main one is that you have the option to play with 3-4 opponents instead of just one in Words With Friends (or Letterpress).

As far as game play goes, you get the exact same letter coded board you see in a traditional game of Scrabble as well as what you see in Words With Friends. You want to go after the coded tiles to maximize your score wherever possible. And as expected, the game will end when a player runs out of tiles.

Unlike Words with Friends, which charges extra for it, Scrabble shows you to the bottom right of the word exactly how many points you'll get for playing that word. Of course you can always do the math inside your head but most likely, you'd rather just know than sit their guessing or figuring out how many points a word will score you.

When it comes down to game play, which game you prefer is going to be a personal preference. Words With Friends and Scrabble are very much alike (again, Words with Friends was made to be like Scrabble). Words With Friends, however, is more fluid, is arguably a better designed app, and seems to attract more players.

While Scrabble is the original, I did have trouble finding friends that were using the Scrabble app which meant I ended up playing against random opponents more often than not.

Letterpress is a completely different kind of word game. If you're tired of Scrabble or Words with Friends and want a fresh take on the word game genre, Letterpress is it.

Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Multiplayer support

Letterpress has built-in Game Center support which lets you match up with any Game Center friends or helps find you a random opponent. As of now, Game Center is the only way to match up with people or find friends. There's no Twitter or Facebook support. Since most people probably don't have a lot of friends using Game Center, you'll either have to bug them to join, or settle for getting matched up with random people.

Words With Friends has both Twitter and Facebook integration which makes it easy to find friends to play against. From within the app you can easily view which friends on your social networks are already playing Words With Friends. If you're in the mood to play a quick game or can't find anyone to play with, you can also choose to match a random opponent off of Words With Friends' own servers.

Scrabble tries to push its own native game play service, Origin, which is anything but user friendly and can actually be downright annoying. The up side is that Scrabble also has support for Facebook, single player against the computer, and random opponents. Even so, I've found it extremely hard to find actual friends playing the game where tons of my friends are playing Words With Friends. I'm not sure if this is just contributed to good marketing on Zynga's part or if people just prefer Words With Friends. Either way, if you're looking to play more than a one on one game, Scrabble is your only option. So again, if you're okay with playing against random opponents, you won't be affected but if you prefer playing against people you actually know, Words With Friends is a better choice.

Words With Friends supports multiple platforms across both iOS, Android, and computer as well as integration with both Facebook and Twitter which makes the odds of you finding a friend to challenge quickly much more likely.

Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Pricing

Letterpress is available now in the App Store for free and is a universal download for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch The only limitation on the free version is that you can only play two games at once. A $0.99 in-app purchase removes the two game limit, adds themes, and gives you access to previously played word lists. At $0.99 you really can't beat it.

Words With Friends offers a free version of their iPhone app, but unless you want to be inundated with annoying popup ads, you'll probably want to purchase the $2.99 version. If you'd like it for the iPad, you'll need to shell out an additional $2.99 for Words With Friends HD. Both the free and the paid version have the same default feature set but the paid version makes the ads go away.

There are additional add-ons that you can buy as in-app purchases such as the Word-O-Meter and Tile Pile. You can purchase each at $2.99 which will give you 99 Word-O-Meter uses or 10 Tile Pile uses. The Ultimate Play Pack will get you unlimited use of these features plus Word Count for $14.99 which seems quite steep in my opinion.

Scrabble has a free, ad-supported version as well as a paid version for iPhone and iPod touch for $1.99. If you'd like to add the iPad counterpart you'll have to fork over an addition $9.99 which is far more than the Words With Friends iPad counterpart. Aside from that, there aren't really any other additional expenses to incur. So depending on which features you want to be able to use, Scrabble may be a cheaper option in the long run.

When it comes to price, Letterpress has the best offering across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. At $0.99 to unlock every feature the game offers, there's no contest.

Letterpress vs Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: The bottom line

Letterpress, Words With Friends, and Scrabble are all great for killing time and can be incredibly addictive. While Words With Friends and Scrabble are very much the same game with different interfaces and price points, Letterpress is very different. Not only is the concept different but the actual game play experience is completely different.

Words With Friends has the largest network of any of its competitors and considering you don't really need all of the extras in order to play, it isn't a bad deal. Unless you're friends are Game Center geeks, this is where they'll likely be.

Scrabble just doesn't have the network or fluid experience that Words With Friends does which makes it hard to recommend over its competitor. Unless you absolutely want to play against up to 4 people at once, you're better off playing something else.

Letterpress is a refreshing take on word games. While options beyond Game Center would be nice, the quick pace makes it the best time killer of the bunch.

If you're into classics, go with Words with Friends and also try out Letterpress. If you want something new, just go with Letterpress.

Letterpress - Free - Download Now

Words With Friends - $2.99 - Download Now

Scrabble - $1.99 - Download Now

The new Mac mini is the latest in Apple's staggering list of new releases to get the teardown treatment. Though the outward appearance hasn't changed much from last year's model, teardowns are all about finding out what's new on the inside. And that's just what iFixit has done:

Inside, we found an empty extra SATA connection on the logic board perfect for adding a secondary hard drive, replaceable RAM and hard drive, and modular components -- just like in last year's model. Kudos to the Mini for receiving an excellent 8 out of 10 repairability score, and to Apple keeping it so fix-friendly.

The Mac mini looks to be the most repairable and upgradeable device Apple has released in quite a while. Adding another drive or upgrading the RAM is an easy task earning the the Mac mini an 8 out of 10 repairability score. For Apple, that's stratospheric.

Also, unlike many Apple devices, the Mac mini actually doesn't require even a single pry tool in order to access the internals. The bottom simply twists off.

Considering the Mac mini is aimed at being a simple and more customizable solution than a retina MacBook Pro, it only makes sense that Apple would allow certain components to be easily upgradeable. Many users seem to steer towards a Mac mini not only because they're much more affordable but because they are upgradeable which makes the Mac mini more future proof, and more functional.

Any of you plan on picking up a new Mac mini? What kind of upgrades do you plan to do either right away or over time?

Source: iFixit

Air Canada has launched Passbook support for their electronic boarding passes, and submitted an update to their App Store app that will include iPhone 5 support and allow for on-device Passbook generation as well.

Customers who check-in on mobile.aircanada.com, aircanada.com or at and airport kiosk and access their Electronic Boarding Pass with a supported device (iPhone or iPod touch on iOS 6) will receive the Passbook version of the Electronic Boarding Pass. The Passbook version works just like our existing Electronic Boarding Pass and will allow customers to identify themselves at airport kiosks, check-in counters, enable them to pass through security and board their flights.

Passbook is a new feature of iOS 6 that collects all tickets, coupons, gift cards, and similar vouchers, all in one place, for convenient mobile access, including notifications and live updates.

Air Canada also says they have more Passbook enhancements planned for 2013. Frankly, I hope they have better ones as well. The current version of the Air Canada app is one of those all-too-common websites in a thin app wrapper and that's never a good user experience. (Which is still the biggest problem facing Apple's Passbook in general.)

I'm not going to hold out much hope that the Passbook updated version of the Air Canada app includes, you know, an actual native app, but the sooner large organizations learn that loading a web view into an app just isn't good enough, the better it'll be for everyone. There are tons of great development houses out there. Hire them, don't handcuff them, and let them make you great apps.

Kudos to Air Canada for the rapid integration of Passbook, relatively speaking. Now let's see them really wow us.

Today Only: Buy the Seidio SURFACE Case for iPhone 5 and save $13.95!

The Seidio SURFACE Case provides an amazingly thin layer of protection without adding the excessive bulk of other cases. This case consists of interlocking top and bottom pieces that fit your iPhone 5 snugly, and Seidio's signature soft touch finish provides a great feel and better grip without attracting lint. Color options include black, blue, red, purple, green and white.

List Price: $29.95     Today Only: $16.00

Learn More and Buy Now

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Since Apple removed the stock YouTube app in iOS 6 many users have flocked to the hugely popular third party YouTube app Jasmine for their YouTube fix. Jasmine has just received an update today which adds in some nice new features but unfortunately, Google / YouTube have insisted that some features be taken away too.

Google has insisted that the developers remove the following from the Jasmine app:-

1. Removed Automatic "Background Audio" playback. Native to iOS, this can still be invoked manually by double-tapping the home button, swiping right and hitting play
2. Removed customisable skip/rewind controls
3. Switched to YouTube compliant playback (adds 1-2 seconds to video load times and limits refinement around playlist auto-queuing)

To offset the disappointment of losing these features, Jasmine has got some shiny new features to enjoy so it is not all bad news:-

1. Drastic improvements to available videos
2. Added "Preferred Quality" selection to Playback Settings
3. Added "Watch Later" list in Playlists section
4. Added timestamp to videos
5. Fixed: Missing videos from playlists
6. Removed: "Always Ask" option for feed quality (use "Preferred Quality" instead in Playback Settings)

I hope that some of the positive changes here will help to alleviate the negative. I'm more disappointed than anybody else at the removal of some of these conveniences, but I'm not discouraged. There is still a lot to be done, and so much that will be improved.

Free Download Now

It is always disappointing when an app update takes away feature so if you use the removed features think carefully before updating the app. Of course by not updating you do run the risk of the app not working in the future as well as missing out on new features when they are added.

As expected, at midnight Pacific Time, Apple began accepting pre-orders for the iPad mini and the iPad 4 via their online store. Initial stock often gets sold out quickly, so if you want an iPad mini or iPad 4, and want it to arrive at your door on launch day, hurry on over and secure it now.

And once you have, come on back here and let me know which one you bought, in which color, what capacity, and for which carrier (if you went cellular).

Wi-Fi models come out on November 2, with cellular models hitting a couple of weeks thereafter. If you're having trouble deciding which iPad mini or iPad 4 to get, check out our newly updated buyers guide:

• iPad 4 vs. iPad 2 vs. iPad mini: Which iPad should you get?
• 16GB vs 32GB vs 64GB: Which new iPad mini or iPad 4 storage capacity should you get?
• Black or white, which iPad mini or iPad 4 should you get?
• AT&T vs Verizon vs Sprint: Which iPad carrier should you choose?

In compliance with a U.K. court ruling, Apple has posted their "Samsung didn't copy iPad" notice. At least after a fashion. The notice is rather long, and meticulously crafted by Apple's lawyers. It mentions patents rather than devices in the "apology" up front, and gets its own back in the middle by quoting the judge as saying Samsung isn't as cool, and at the end by citing a German court ruling that did find Samsung violated Apple's design, as well as Apple's massive, billion dollar win over Samsung in U.S courts. And yes, they posted it in Arial.

Since I'm not sure how long it will remain up on apple.com/uk, here's the complete text:

Samsung / Apple UK judgment

On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited's Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple's registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High court is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html.

In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products:

"The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design."

"The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool."

That Judgment has effect throughout the European Union and was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal's judgment is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the registered design in force anywhere in Europe.

However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad.

Source: apple.com/uk, thanks @hykang

Rovio's latest hit Bad Piggies has been updated with 15 new levels. The story is that the bad piggies have finally got the birds' eggs and the Angry Birds are hot in their pursuit. The piggies are trying to take cover in darkness, but it's not enough, so you must help them build the best machines to stay ahead.

In addition to the 15 new levels, Bad Piggies has also added a new sandbox level called Field of Dreams that is available as a $2.99 in-app purchase.

So how many of you have been playing Bad Piggies? Are you just as addicted to it as you once were to Angry Birds? If you haven't picked this one up, yet, check out our review to see if it's a game you'll enjoy.

$0.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$2.99 for iPad - Download Now

Last night Apple reported Q4 fiscal 2012 earnings. In what seems like a case of deja-vu, the stock slipped by a few percentage points in after market trading. What's knocking Apple down this time? Well, they shipped a lower number of iPads than Wall Street expected in the quarter, and guidance for the holiday quarter is lower than expected. And the sooner we learn to ignore the short-term nature of Wall Street thinking, the better.

Just to recap, last quarter the stock dropped 5% in after market trading because of perceived weak iPhone sales and weak guidance. Then, within a few weeks, the stock had climbed from about $575 up to $700. Subsequently, it has now dropped back down to about $609. It's a volatile stock and that's just something you have to accept if you participate in the stock market.

The numbers

Let's take a quick look at the key numbers: Apple delivered $36 billion in revenue and $8.66 in earnings per share (EPS). Gross margin was 40%. This is significantly better than guidance, but then again Apple is notorious for giving conservative guidance. Nothing has changed.

Apple's largest product is the iPhone. In Q4 they sold 26.9 million units, which is up slightly from 26 million units last quarter. Customers knew the iPhone 5 was coming, and people obviously held off on iPhone purchases until it launched, considering the 5 million units sold in the first week after launch.

iPad sales were only 14 million units. This is down from 17 million last quarter, and Wall Street is a bit worried about this. Analysts expected more iPad sales, despite the fact that Apple says sales exceeded expectations. I wonder if people held off buying because of such huge anticipation for the iPad Mini, which Apple just announced this week. Still, iPad sales are up nicely on a year-over-year basis and are bound to be up dramatically in the December quarter. So I'm not worried.

Mac sales and iPod sales were solid, as usual. Macs continue to outgrow PCs, which means Apple is gaining on Microsoft in terms of OS market share. This is a trend that has been ongoing for many years, and shows now signs of slowing down. That's great news for Apple shareholders.

Is profitability dropping?

During the Q&A session of the conference call, one analyst pointed out that if Apple's guidance plays out, it will mean an earnings decline year-over year. Why would Apple tell Wall Street to expect the December quarter to be less profitable than last year's comparable quarter?

CFO Peter Oppenheimer had a well-scripted and quite reasonable answer to this question. First of all, Apple's December quarter will only be 13 weeks this year. Last year it was 14 weeks, so we should expect a 7% headwind from that alone.

But far more important is the huge refresh of products that Apple just threw at us. The iPhone 5 will be shipping for the entire quarter. The new 4th generation iPad and iPad Mini will ship for the bulk of the quarter. We've also got new 13" Macbook Pros and iMacs hitting us. I think Apple is correct in saying that they've never had a quarter with so many new products hitting all at once.

Here's the thing about new products - they cost more to make than the prior generation of product. They have better screens, faster processors, and other component enhancements. This cost hits Apple, yet they don't raise prices. Instead, they work their way down the cost curve over the life of the product. So the gross margin takes a hit. It's a step change. And because Apple is launching so many products at the same time, it's a lot of step changes in the wrong direction.

Apple is also introducing the iPad Mini, with a significantly lower price point versus other iPads. It has a lower gross margin. So profitability goes down.

As an investor, none of this bothers me so long as Apple can do two things. First, it has to prove that it can get costs down on new products just as it always has. This shouldn't present much of a challenge. Second, they need to show me that the iPad Mini expands the overall market for iPads. If the Mini doesn't accelerate iPad unit growth, then Wall Street can correctly say that Apple either canibalized its own profits, or was forced to take this step due to pricing pressure from competing 7" tablets.

If iPad sales improve with the new form factor, I look at is as Apple gaining more share and capitalizing on a portion of the market that was shopping elsewhere, or not buying tablets before. But if iPad sales don't grow then Apple has simply lost profit, which is bad. For the record, I expect the former situation to unfold.

The bottom line

I'm pleased with Apple's quarterly performance and I understand the reason for their guidance falling below Wall Street expectations. I take a longer term perspective on the business than most analysts and investors. I love the products they've just unveiled and it's obvious to me that I'm more likely to increase my spending on Apple products than slow it down. If others feel the same way I do, that's good for the stock.

In the mean time, if you are an Apple shareholder, learn to stomach the volatility. It's not going away.

During Apple's Q4 2012 conference call today, when asked about Microsoft's new Surface tablet, Tim Cook said he hadn't had a chance to play with one yet, but based on everything he'd read, he found it to be compromised and confusing.

Cook went on to say that one of the toughest things to do when designing a product was making hard tradeoffs and deciding what a product should be. He said that's what Apple had done with the iPad, and what made the iPad user experience incredible.

While not exactly citing Home Simpson's car, Cook did liken Microsoft's Surface to making a car that could also fly and float, but not do any one of those things particularly well.

The use of the word "compromised" is interesting, since "no compromises" was Microsoft's buzzword for Windows 8. That translates into two versions of the Surface, one that's releasing now and runs Windows RT for ARM, and one that's being released early next year and runs Windows 8 Pro on Intel. It also translates into two modes, the Metro/Modern/Windows 8-style of higher-level apps, which is more like iOS, and the full-on Windows mode, which is more like traditional Windows, of course. It also comes with two versions of Internet Explorer, one for Metro and one for Windows. They also have two kinds of keyboard-covers, one that's multitouch and one that has physical keys. And the bifurcation goes on and on.

Optimistically, it can be viewed as Microsoft trying to best serve the needs of both new, iPad-generation users and old, Windows-generation users both, and transition the latter towards the former. Pessimistically, it can be viewed as Microsoft failing to make any choices of their own, and offloading all those choices to the users.

Pragmatically, it can seen as living somewhere in between the iPad and the laptop, the way the iPad mini lives somewhere between the iPhone/iPod touch and the iPad.

It's personality is undeniably split, and that will seem compromised and confused to most Apple users, made only worse by the inarticulate way Microsoft has handled their messaging. But it might also be exactly what traditional Windows PC users need to help move them into the post-PC era.

The Surface isn't a product Apple would ever make, but it's also more than the Tablet PCs Microsoft has allowed to be made in the past. So whether or not history ultimately judges it as a misstep, for Microsoft, it remains a step, and that's interesting.

The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) has extended the exception that makes it legal to jailbreak your iPhone which will be good news for most of the jailbreak community. It doesn't come without a few hefty caveats though including new rules on unlocking and the fact that tablets, namely the iPad, are not granted the same exception.

The DMCA has recently renewed their exception to make jailbreaking your iPhone legal but it doesn't come without some serious drawbacks this time around. When it comes to unlocking your iPhone, it won't be covered under the exception unless the actual carrier unlocks it for you.

This basically means that any iPhone (or smartphone at all for that matter) that you purchase as of January 2013 will require you to get the carrier's permission in order to unlock it. Software unlocks such as ultrasn0w will be considered illegal. If you've got a smartphone that you've purchased before January 2013, you'll still be covered under the exception but any smartphone purchases made after that date won't receive the benefits of the old exemption.

When it comes to tablets, the DMCA has decided not to grant the same jailbreak exception.

What about tablets? No dice. The Librarian "found significant merit to the opposition's concerns that this aspect of the proposed class was broad and ill-defined, as a wide range of devices might be considered 'tablets,' notwithstanding the significant distinctions among them in terms of the way they operate, their intended purposes, and the nature of the applications they can accommodate. For example, an e-book reading device might be considered a 'tablet,' as might a handheld video game device or a laptop computer."

The Librarian ruled that "the record lacked a sufficient basis to develop an appropriate definition for the 'tablet' category of devices, a necessary predicate to extending the exemption beyond smartphones."

The exception goes on to talk about laws on DVDs and other types of media such as eBooks as well. If you care to find out everything the exemption, hit the source link below then come back and tell us what you make of it all. Is it fair or do you think the DMCA is out of touch with electronic rights in our day and age?

Source: Ars Technica

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