Apple has been the subject of plenty of financial scrutiny (perhaps even more so than usual) recently, and now all that speculation has come to a head.

The Cupertino company has just released its fiscal Q2 2013 earnings — it reported $43.6 billion in revenue (up from $39.2 billion in the year-ago quarter) along with $9.5 billion in quarterly net profit, which works out to earnings of $10.09 per share.

That means that the rumblings were true — Apple posted EPS of $12.30 per share back in Q2 2012, which makes this the company’s first year-over-year quarterly earnings decline in nearly a decade. Naturally, the bigger question is whether or not this ignominious milestone will mean anything for Apple going forward and there’s no clear answer to that just yet. Financially speaking it was bound to happen sooner or later, but Apple’s recently cultivated image as a computing juggernaut could take a very prominent hit. Still, Apple has $145 billion in cash in its coffers, so we can all lay off the doomsday scenarios.

These past few days have been surprisingly turbulent ones for Apple (the company’s share price tumbled below the $400 mark just last week to a new 16-month low), so it’s no surprise to see that analysts weren’t quite as bullish on Apple as they usually tend to be. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the analyst consensus was for Apple to announce earnings of $10.02 per share on $42.4 billion in revenue, which the company managed to beat. On the other hand, Apple’s own (notoriously conservative) guidance from its last earnings release forecasted revenues between $41 and $43 billion.

“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,” Apple CEO Tim Cook noted in the release. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

Despite the fact that Apple didn’t release or unveil any new hardware in Q2 (as some eagerly suggested it would), device sales were still nothing to sneeze at. As always, we’ve got more detailed breakdowns of how Apple did in terms of hardware this quarter courtesy of Jordan and Darrell, but here’s how the company did in a nutshell: Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones during Q2, along with 19.5 million iPads, but there’s no longer any word on iPods. Mac sales came up short as well, as Apple sold 4 million of them back in Q2 2012 compared to “under 4 million” this time around.

Not too shabby considering that iDevice sales are up across the board compared to the year-ago (and in the iPad’s case, dramatically so likely thanks to the iPad mini), but the lack of any new standout products has weighed heavily on some people’s minds over the days and weeks that have led up to today’s release. Apple hasn’t pulled back the curtain on a new product since the iPad mini was unveiled back in October 2012. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that — the company likes to stick to its timetables after all — but the release of impressive new smartphones from Samsung and HTC could mean that Apple could be facing even stiffer competition as it works to dominate the mobile market. That could all change very shortly too, as rumblings of a new iPhone to be unveiled sometime this summer (along with a possibly cheaper model to follow) continue to circulate.

As always, Apple has provided its own guidance for next quarter: the company expects to pull in (among other things) between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion in revenue and gross margin between 36 percent and 37 percent

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Inzen Studio, a small game startup in Singapore has just released an ambitious project called Game Show Warriors. The launch kicks off with the release of an iOS game called Amazing Studly Strikes, but the studio has quietly released the first two episodes of a Web comic, and episode three just dropped to accompany the release of the mobile game.

The game app will also include the Web comic, according to Inzen’s co-founder, Gerald Tock.

Inzen was started in October last year. Update: Its core team of six is spread out across Singapore, China and Uruguay. Four of them—game designer, technical lead, marketing and product strategist, and lead designer are based in Singapore. The lead artist is in Uruguay and Inzen’s producer is in China.

The comic and its first game center on a character they created, G-man Studly. The game appears to be a tapping frenzy, with waves of enemies attacking G-man Studly from different corners of the screen, requiring you to tap on them furiously as your character scales a skyscraper.

Tock said the team is hoping to make the rest of its project happen. It has enough material for another “larger” game and four mini games to be produced under the Game Show Warriors banner. It plans to wait for the response to the first episode to decide whether to continue, however.

Besides having people download and play their games, Inzen is hoping that the investment into the online manga will get fans making derivative works such as fan fiction, videos or cosplaying as the characters.

The five founding developers in Singapore are graduates ex-developers from the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab. Prior to creating this project, some of them produced apps that enjoyed some success on the mobile scene. Dark Dot was a shooter they produced in 2011 that climbed to the top of the action charts in 48 countries including China, the US and Singapore, and was the top free iOS app in several Southeast Asian countries.

Check out the trailer for Amazing Studly Strikes here:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Brother, a Japanese document imaging company, has bought Kodak’s imaging business for $210 million, according to a company release. Kodak sought bankruptcy protection in January 2012 and has been restructuring itself since.

The document imaging side of the company – namely a portfolio of professional scanners, capture software, and services – has long been a mainstay for enterprise clients looking to streamline document design and production.

“Document Imaging has many differentiating strengths, including an outstanding global customer base, award-winning software and hardware solutions, strategic reseller partners and a comprehensive service and support network,” said Antonio M. Perez, Kodak Chairman and CEO. Brother makes copiers, printers, and, as the release notes, sewing machines.

The company recently sold its online photo service and will soon stop selling digital cameras. Kodak, once the biggest name in photography, will focus on commercial printing.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

BlackBerry issued a press release today that amounts to little more than “Look! We’re selling handsets!” The four paragraph release hit the wire at 3:17 ET, and shares (which had been down on the day on the NASDAQ) shot up immediately afterwards. BlackBerry provides no details about who placed the order or why, noting only that it’s the single largest purchase order for the devices “in history.” They ended the release with a reminder that BlackBerry’s fiscal 2013 fourth quarter earnings results will be reported in two weeks time.

From the release:

So, to recap: BlackBerry says ‘Here’s a wildly sizable order we got, with no real information provided (and no timeline for the delivery of the order, either), at a crucial time for our company when stock was slumping based on a dip after an earlier surge about acquisition rumors, ahead of quarterly results which will almost certainly be disappointing because they don’t yet represent and incorporate the launch of our new platform.”

BlackBerry told us via an emailed statement that they can’t reveal the identity of the buyer due to confidentiality agreements with the partner.

The release itself was pretty hilarious, but the chart of what happened to stock price immediately following the news is even better:

The jury is still out whether Blackberry is simply whistling past the graveyard here or if the nascent trend of major buyers upgrading their BB fleets (and bolstering the stock) will hold.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s time for CrunchWeek, the TechCrunch TV show where a few of us writers take a look back at the past seven days and talk about a few of the week’s most interesting stories.

With Colleen Taylor out this week, Anthony Ha, Ryan Lawler and I discussed Sony’s bizzare PlayStation 4 launch, Google’s chromebook Pixel launch and the release of more details about the company’s wearable computer device, Google Glass; and social photo sharing startup Albumatic’s launch.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Apple has just issued iOS 6.1.1, a bug-fixing update aimed at the iPhone 4S specifically to address issues around cellular issues on 3G connections for some European carriers, per the release notes. The update had been in beta for only five days, which is a much shorter cycle than Apple usually goes through for new iOS updates. The new release is a different one from that already in testing, according to Apple, which addressed Maps fixes for users in Japan.

Vodafone UK and 3 Austria had warned customers not to update their iPhone 4S to iOS 6.1 via text messages sent out to subscribers, advising that it prompted 3G connection issues including an inability to make or receive calls or texts. iOS 6.1 also caused issues for AOL corporate employees, creating errors around meeting management.

Those errors, as well as ones that users are reporting around battery drain and device overheating, aren’t specifically mentioned in the release notes for this update. Those problems also extend beyond the iPhone 4S, so it’s likely they’ll get zapped in another, less urgent bug-fixing update aimed at all the hardware to be released later.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Inside Network is excited to announce the release of the Comparative Dashboard Tool in PageData, our Facebook analytics service. The Dashboard allows users to create a personalized list of Facebook Pages and easily compare them for deeper insights into competitive performance.

“Our subscribers use PageData to refine their Facebook marketing strategy and demonstrate success to their companies. The Comparative Dashboard gives them an easy way to benchmark trends and progress,” says Scott Bialous, General Manager of Inside Network.

The Dashboard is latest addition to PageData’s suite of analytical tools designed to help Facebook Page administrators and marketers understand how users are engaging with content and which competing Facebook campaigns are gaining the most traction.

Visit PageData today to explore the Dashboard tool and learn more about other product features.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Microsoft Office has long been the dominant office suite. Through the years there have been many contenders rise and fall: WordPerfect, Corel, StarOffice, and too many more to count. Sun Microsystem’s StarOffice eventually mutated into OpenOffice, which for a long time was the best alternative to Microsoft’s dominance. But when Oracle bought Sun, legions of developers abandoned OpenOffice, and instead threw in with a forked version called LibreOffice.

The app grew popular with a certain set of open source fans. The Document Foundation was established in late 2010 to provide stewardship of the project.

Today, The Document Foundation is announcing the release of LibreOffice version 4.0. The announcement has a number of interesting data points about this release.

During the last seven months, since the branch of LibreOffice 3.6 and during the entire development cycle of LibreOffice 4.0, developers have made over 10,000 commits. On average, one commit every 30 minutes, including weekends and the holiday season: a further testimonial of the incredible vitality of the project.

The core LibreOffice code has seen substantial transformation from the more than 500 active developers contributing to it. A lot of legacy cruft has been removed; more modern constructs added; and 25,000 lines of comments have been translated from German to English. The end result is a product that is cleaner, easier to understand, and easier for new developers to work with.

Anyone who has used an office suite of any kind will feel at home with LibreOffice 4.0. There’s not a lot of trail to blaze when it comes to document production. Instead, LibreOffice offers a smooth, comfortable interface that works equally well on Linux, Mac and Windows. One particularly interesting addition to LibreOffice 4.0 is the introduction of an Impress Remote Control App for Android. Currently it’s only supported on a few Linux distributions, but the next version should work on all of LibreOffice’s supported platforms.

And what of the venerable OpenOffice? Oracle licensed the code to the Apache Software Foundation to allow the ASF to lead further developments. Apache OpenOffice is still alive and well, and has recently enjoyed a substantial code contribution from IBM Symphony.

It’s also interesting to note that Microsoft is looking into expanding Office onto Linux, something that will ensure that the platform ends up in nearly every cubicle.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

CES today issued a press release announcing that DISH’s Hopper with Sling technology built-in is the “Best of Show” after all, an honor it will share with existing winner the Razer Edge for the 2013 show. The decision follows the revelation that CNET was ordered to remove the Hopper from consideration after CNET parent company CBS asked them to. CBS is currently involved in litigation with DISH over Hopper functionality.

Along with the granting of the award, CES also announced that it will launch an RFP seeking a new partner for the “Best of CES” awards “soon”, since it isn’t confident that relationship with CNET will continue to be beneficial for the CES brand.

“CES has enjoyed a long and productive partnership with CNET and the Best of CES awards,” CEA SVP of Events and Conferences Karen Chupka said in the release.  “However, we are concerned the new review policy will have a negative impact on our brand should we continue the awards relationship as currently constructed.  We look forward to receiving new ideas to recognize the ‘best of the best’ products introduced at the International CES.”

The DISH Hopper with Sling can record and play back programming within a 24 hour window after its airing, without commercials, which is the source of CBS’s legal dispute with DISH. CEA joined up with other tech organizations last week to file a brief in support of DISH around the Hopper, as the company is clearly eager to distance itself from the editorial decision made by CNET and its parent company, which came under fire from other media organizations (ours included) and tech industry watchers alike.

CEA came out in strong support of the DISH Hopper in a statement from Gary Shapiro included in the release:

We are shocked that the ‘Tiffany’ network which is known for its high journalistic standards would bar all its reporters from favorably describing classes of technology the network does not like. We believe that the DISH Hopper DVR is fully covered by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc. The simple fact is making television easier to watch is not against the law. It is simply pro-innovation and pro-consumer.

The fallout for CNET has already resulted in the departure of Greg Sandoval from the network, who resigned his post, citing a loss of confidence in CBS’s commitment to editorial independence as his reason for leaving.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Today is Q4 earnings day for Facebook, and we’ve learned some really interesting things about the growth of the social network. Surprisingly to some, mobile DAUs have exceeded those on the web, for the first time in the company’s history. We knew that Facebook was focused on growing its network leveraging mobile devices and platforms, but it’s impressive to see this usage increase in such a way so quickly.

To those who have been following Facebook closely, the shift to mobile has been apparent. More and more, people are checking their Facebook messages on their mobile device and skipping the desktop version completely. This is a behavioral shift in users that Facebook is riding along with, and it’s smart.

Here’s a quick look at the overall DAUs for Q4:

Overall MAUs were at 1.06B, up from 1.01B in Q3. Here’s a look at the data from the the quarter:

When the release hit the wires today, it came with a statement from Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

In 2012, we connected over a billion people and became a mobile company. We enter 2013 with good momentum and will continue to invest to achieve our mission and become a stronger, more valuable company.

As far as making money, mobile accounted for 23% of advertising revenue, which is up from 14% of advertising revenue in Q3 of of 2012. Back in September at TechCrunch Disrupt, Zuckerberg projected that one day, Facebook would make more revenue from mobile users. That’s not the case as of yet, but the shift is in full swing. At the time, he said:

We’re going to execute this mission to make the world connected and build value over the long-term. The bigger question that will define how we’ve done is how we do with mobile.

Facebook stock declined 7% in after-hours trading even though its revenue rose 40% To $1.59B for Q4 2012. Since the release, it’s popping back up a bit.

During the earnings call, Zuckerberg discussed the power of mobile:

It allows us to reach more people, there is more engagement from those people, and we’ll be able to make more money from those users. Mobile creates a more dynamic ecosystem.

He also discussed Facebook’s new approach to build mobile-first applications and features. This is something that everyone has been waiting to hear from Facebook, as the company has been trying some new things, but hasn’t really cashed in on them yet, execution wise.

[Photo credit: Flickr]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch