Analyst

While Apple released its newly revamped iPhone 3GS with a lower price tag and gave the iPhone 3G a $100 price reduction, Apple is still enjoying a very healthy profit margin according to a new report.

Turley Muller wrote in a recent report on his financial Blog that Apple reaps a sizeable product margin with the 32GB iPhone 3GS to the tune of 59.6%. He also believes that this massive margin allows Apple to subsidize the cost of other Apple products such as the MacBook.

“Going forward Apple will recognize higher iPhone revenue carrying a higher gross margin,” Muller writes. “As iPhone revenue as a percentage or share of total revenue increases, the impact of the higher iPhone (gross margin) on overall (gross margin) will intensify. This will assuage margin pressures Apple faces in other areas.”

Via: iPhones Talk

John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame has cast his prediction in to the pot as to what we’ll see at WWDC.

Gruber is usual spot on with his predictions and this time he’s saying that the next gen iPhone will be called, or at least code named “iPhone 3GS.” He’s unsure of what the “S” stands for but knows that it will branded on to a new, faster model.

“I expect Apple to announce updated iPhones with significantly faster processors, twice the RAM, and twice the storage. I expected prices to remain the same as the current lineup: $199/299 for 16/32 GB, respectively. The video camera is going to be a major selling point.”

It will be interesting to see what the third generation iPhone’s final name is. The current iPhone 3G could become the $99 model analysts have been hoping for while the more expensive and up-to-date version could be dubbed “iPhone Video” according to some rumors.

Another round of speculation is hitting the Internet as analysts share their thoughts on what AT&T’s next move will be once Apple rolls out another update to the iPhone. While we’ve heard everything ranging from an iPhone Nano to a more robust (and wallet burning expensive) iPhone Pro, no one has really thrown the ball in to AT&T’s court but their next big thing could be a price cut.

Yes, a price cut but only on their monthly iPhone plans. Since Apple seems gung-ho on expanding the iPhone in to as many people’s hands and ears as possible, a little nudging towards AT&T’s end to ease the cost of ownership has probably been in the cards for some time. There is nothing set in stone on what the magic number will be but the word going around is a move back to the $20 a month for a limited internet plan. The reduction in monthly rates would go hand in hand nicely with a lower cost (and feature reduced) iPhone which would finally shut up the rumor mill about a $99 iPhone. In addition to a… more...

According to Barclay’s Capital, sources from Asian factories have reported Apple ordering a higher inventory of iPhones possibly in preparation for a new model coming this June.

Ben Reitzes also claims that the next generation iPhone would arrive this June and come in two variations, the much rumored higher end version and a potentially stripped down, cheaper version to be a sold at a discount. To prepare for the next generation iPhone’s launch, Ben also cites Apple’s interest in increasing production hopefully to avoid selling out and have an adequate supply for the dozens of countries it would launch on this summer.

via: iPhones Talk

Rumors have been swirling around what the next generation iPhone will include and often times personal wants get mixed in as well but a Canadian analyst is pointing out the obvious. A higher end iPhone will all the dream features we want won’t help Apple’s sales.

The iPhone 3G took off drastically thanks to its inclusion of 3G, wider availability and of course a massive price cut over the last generation. Lowering the price would help Apple sell more iPhones but introducing an “iPhone Pro” would add little to Apple’s revenue according to Mike Abramsky, a Royal Bank of Canada analyst. While he does think some kind of fuller featured iPhone will arrive eventually, he speculates it won’t receive the same kind of sales growth the iPhone 3G did. Despite the rumors though, Analysts are very positive about the iPhone’s sales outlook as Gene Muster predicts 4.4 million handsets will be sold in Q2 2009.

Via: Arstechnica

After U2 ditched Apple to buddy up with RIM, you’d think the crazy sponsorship and marketing promotions would’ve stopped. For us, it just began as Roger McNamee informed us of an apocalyptic scenario for the iPhone following its two year anniversary as everyone would jump ship to hop aboard Palm’s and ride the waves, Pre in hand. Following such lunacy, Palm issued a back track on McNamee’s statements and reassured us that not everyone and their mother would ditch their iPhone just for a Palm Pre come June 29 of this year.

McNamee, an investor for Elevation Partners, a huge backer of Palm and responsible for financing the development of the Pre got overly excited about the Palm Pre on live TV. Like anyone overly enthusiastic about a product, McNamee got carried away and his verbal victim, the iPhone, bore his oddly predicted doomsday scenario. His reasoning behind the massive switch of iPhone users to the Palm Pre? Well, not only is the Pre godly awesome but many first generation iPhone users’ contracts will expire that day which is justification enough to immediately dump AT&T in… more...

Let’s do a “best of” iPhone rumor list:

1) Flash on iPhone
2) iPhone in China
3) $99 iPhone

The great thing about predicting anyone of the top three iPhone rumors is that sooner or later you’ll be right. It is a little like predicting tomorrow will be cooler than today. IT might take a sometime but sooner or later the temperature will drop and you’ll be correct. Once that happens you can amaze your friends by your psychic powers.

Today’s predictor of the predictable is Mike Abramsky. He predicts Apple will release a cheaper iPhone with scaled back features to appeal to a broader base. That is undoubtably what most companies would do but Apple doesn’t always go down the most predictable path. Where’s the mid priced expandable tower every other computer manufacturer sells in Apple’s Mac lineup? And you surely remember that TIm Cook said that Apple wasn’t interested in competing in the low cost phone game.

Mike Abramsky seems certain that the low priced iPhone is Apple’s next move. So certain that he’s got the specs for both the as yet unrevealed cheap iPhone and a new flagship iPhone. Specs that are more...

“We think there is strong reception of AAPL’s new iPhone 3G Gift Card program,” Wu wrote in a report to clients Wednesday, “where the process of giving the iPhone as a gift is greatly simplified without the need for activation and personal information. … We estimate several hundred thousand to one million units could be impacted.”

That’s Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu commenting about Apple’s iPhone Gift card prospects as reported by Fortune.

The article continues to explain the upside of gift cards for Apple (more cash) and the downsides (the recipient probably won’t activate the gift card until after Christmas). For Apple any gift card sale is a good news and an unactivated gift card sale is pure awesome (more on this later).

Will people really be buying these things up and giving them as Christmas presents? First off, unless you’re buying a Chris Howard a gift card for vegemite there’s a no way to know if the recipient is really going to use it. This is doubly true with the iPhone. An iPhone gift card is kind of like giving someone a puppy, you save them the expense… more...