Xverse10

On Wednesday, Apple joined an elite group, as its shares rose $7.03 to end the day, and the month, at $542.44. And with that gain, Apple finished February with a market capitalization of $505.8 billion.

The company joined the likes of Cisco Systems Inc., Exxon Mobil, General Electric Co., Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., each of which has, at one time, put in a month-ending close with a market cap of at least $500 billion, according to data compiled by S&P Indicies.

Apple reached the $500 billion valuation mark a little more than six months after it first surpassed Exxon for the title of world’s most-valuable company. At that time, on August 10, Apple’s shares closed at $363.69 and giving the company a market cap of $337.2 billion.

Since then, Apple has remained on a tear, with its market cap climbing $142 billion. By comparison, Exxon’s market cap has risen a comparatively paltry $77 billion to $407 billion.

And with Apple setting March 7 for an event in which the company is widely expected to unveil the next version of the iPad, the company looks set to put even more distance between itself and all the other pretenders to its market cap crown.

Xverse10 has received info from a reliable source that revealed part numbers for at least some models of the iPad 3 as well as an updated Apple TV set-top box.

Apple is releasing three different variants of the new iPad, going by code names J1, J2, and J2a, with the presumption being that J1 corresponds to a Wi-Fi only model while the J2 variants correspond to models with cellular data capabilities. The part numbers also include reference to the J33 product that had previously been identified as a new Apple TV.

MD328LL/A – J1 GOOD B- USA
MD329LL/A – J1 BETTER B-USA
MD330LL/A – J1 BEST-B-USA

MD366LL/A – J2A GOOD A-USA
MD367LL/A – J2A BEST A-USA
MD368LL/A – J2A BEST A-USA

MD369LL/A – J2A GOOD B-USA
MD370LL/A – J2A BETTER B-USA
MD371LL/A – J2A BEST B-USA

MD199LL/A – J33 BEST -USA

The report indicates that iPad 3 shipments are indeed already making their way around the world in advance of the device’s introduction, suggesting that customers should see availability come relatively quickly after the media event.

Speculation based on the part numbers suggest that the J1 variant (presumably the Wi-Fi only models) may come in only one color at launch. Part numbers are also showing a mystery “B82″ product launching alongside the new iPads and Apple TV. It is unclear what that product is, but is likely to be a new accessory of some sort.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 at a media event for March 7, while we have believed for some time that the upgraded iPad 3 would pave the way for an update to the Apple TV and higher-resolution iTunes Store content.

Apple today sent out invitations for a media event scheduled for next week Wednesday, March 7. The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and is scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern. The tagline on the invitation reads “We have something you really have to see. And touch.”

Apple is of course expected to introduce the iPad 3 at the event, with an upgraded Apple TV set-top box also reportedly in the plans. Rumors have also suggested that Apple could show off a new high-definition audio format with “adaptive streaming” that could allow Apple’s iCloud and iTunes Match services to send varying qualities of audio files to different devices depending on bandwidth and hardware requirements.

Adobe has released the first real version of Photoshop for the iPad, called Photoshop Touch. The app is impressively featured and includes much of what you’d expect from Photoshop, including full layer support, all the standard color adjustments tools, a wide variety of filters, and many of the standard selection tools and brushes that make Photoshop so fun and powerful to use.

Photoshop Touch also has some interesting features that rely on internet access, including a built in Google image search feature that makes it easy to find images to edit, and of course there’s social sharing functionality so you can show everyone else your creations. To accelerate any potential learning curve with the new interface and touch controls, Adobe included several tutorials and sample galleries with Photoshop Touch too.

Photoshop Touch requires at least an iPad 2 or newer and iOS 5 or later to use. Check out more screenshots and a video of Photoshop Touch in action, embedded below.

App Store Link: Adobe Photoshop Touch, $9.99

Canon has announced that its highly anticipated Canon EOS-1DX digital SLR—a high-speed, 18-megapixel digital model that replaces the company’s EOS-1Ds Mark III and EOS-1D Mark IV will ship in April, a month later than its original proposed shipping date in March.

Aimed at professional photographers and cinematographers, Canon’s latest offering features increased speed, a brand new image sensor, a high density AF (auto focus) system, along with a number of minor enhancements.

According to the Canon, the EOS-1DX represents a reinvention of the EOS-1D series. The camera includes three DIGIC image processors, including a new Dual DIGIC 5+ processor that works at 17 times the speed of its predecessor, the DIGIC 4. The camera’s 18-megapixel full-frame image sensor is also new to Canon’s EOS line, and utilizes large pixels for enhanced light gathering and less noise. Users can adjust between a huge ISO range—from 100 to 51,200—while extended ISO ranges from a low 50 to a super high 204,800.

The EOS-1DX includes Canon’s most sophisticated DSLR AF system to date, according to the company. It features 61 focusing points; greater low-contrast subject detection; a Configuration Tool for customizing tracking sensitivity; a built-in Feature Guide to advise photographers on which settings to use; six AF point selection modes; and more. The new iTR (Intelligent Tracking and Recognition) and face detection technology is designed to be particularly useful for wedding and sports photographers. The camera is also the first EOS DSLR to feature Canon’s Multiple Exposure capability, which combines up to nine individual images into a single one.

Users can capture full HD video at 1920 by 1080. For video recording, the camera offers frame rates of 24p, 25p, or 30p with 720p HD or SD recording; manual audio level control; a wind filter; and options to record via an internal microphone or an external microphone through the stereo mic input. Canon also touts the camera’s ergonomics—the button configuration is designed to feel comfortable in your right hand. For more rugged or outdoor shooting conditions, the camera comes equipped with weather resistance.

Canon will release two new accessories alongside the EOS-1DX. The WFT-E6A Wireless File Transmitter enables photographers to wirelessly transfer images, synchronize clocks on multiple cameras, and support linked shooting using multiple cameras. The Canon GP-E1 GPS Receiver provides an electronic compass that records camera direction when shooting and logs the camera’s movement (users can later view these logs on a computer after shooting). The Wireless File Transmitter will be available in March 2012, and the GPS receiver is expected in April 2012.

In an email sent out on Monday, Apple invited developers to prepare their software for OS X Mountain Lion by joining the Developer ID program, which will allow for apps to run on a Mac or iOS device that is protected by the upcoming Gatekeeper anti-malware system.

When Apple’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion launches this summer, it will feature the new Gatekeeper security system which requires that apps be certified through the Developer ID program to ensure seamless installation.

Gatekeeper is a new anti-malware feature that, according to Apple, will filter out malicious third-party applications and prevent OS X users from “unknowingly downloading and installing malicious software.” To that end, the system implements a hierarchy of security that is based on digital certificates embedded in a software’s code.

At its highest securty setting, Gatekeeper will only allow the installation of content from the Mac App Store, however the default setting also allows for third-party downloads from “identified developers” or those code writers who have signed up with the Digital ID program.

Gatekeeper works by verifying digital signatures that are generated by the Developer ID program after Apple checks the validity of an app and can be inserted into a program’s code with Xcode 4.3.

By using the free Digital ID system, Mac developers can distribute their wares outside of the Mac App Store, and subsequently pass through Gatekeeper’s security protocols.

Mac OS X users will soon have the option of turning on Gatekeeper, a new Mac OS X security feature. When a user does this, the system provides an additional measure of safety: it blocks that user from opening newly-downloaded applications that are not Developer ID–signed. In this scenario, the same user is easily able to launch downloaded applications that are Developer ID–signed.

With Gatekeeper and Developer ID, Apple is looking to stop the growing number of Mac-targeted malware.

For users, the system is nearly invisible as warning messages only appear when an unsigned app attempts installation.

By popular demand, here’s a primer on taking AT&T to small claims court provided by attorney Bradley Sniderman. Recently a plaintiff in Los Angeles CA won a $850 settlement and per AT&T’s EULA, class action lawsuits are not possible so this might be your only means of exacting revenge on your limited unlimited plans.  Excerpted:

1) Where to file — most lawsuits, even those from small claims, need to be filed in the jurisdiction where the defendant can be found. In this case (and let’s use AT&T), AT&T may have corporate offices in only a few locations, but since they are a nationwide phone company, they are usually subject to jurisdiction anywhere. What this means is that you can file your small claims suit in the courthouse most convenient to you.

2) Make sure you have a copy of your contract, and please review the entire agreement. It may be a slow read, but you need to know the terms of it. You may be able to use these terms to show that AT&T does not have the right to slow your data speed.

3) You need to be able to show that you have an unlimited data plan, which means you are entitled to unlimited data. You need to also show proof that AT&T had limited your data streaming. You next have to argue that AT&T has no right to charge you a fee for unlimited data, and then not supply it. It is not your fault that AT&T can’t keep up with demand for data. If you can even show that you are using less data that some of the fixed rate plans, such as the 3 gigabyte plans, that is even better (fixed plans using more data than you use, but they are not being throttled back). Make sure you have been paying your bill on time and that you are not late, since that could be used against you.

4) Make sure you have an amount for damages. You need to show how you were damaged by not having data streaming. This could be by showing lost business opportunities or showing how much you have paid for the service you never got.

5) Be polite, and make sure you are prepared. The court will listen to you, but if you don’t know what you are talking about, then your argument gets lost.

Every courthouse is different and has their own rules and forms for small claims, so it is important that you know the local rules. They can usually be found on the court’s web site.

Going to small claims has its advantages too. First of all, you are not allowed to bring in an attorney to help, which means that AT&T, with all their attorneys, can’t use any of them to represent them. It will be you against another non-lawyer, and that levels the playing field. Small claims are also quicker and much less expensive than filing a regular lawsuit. The disadvantage of small claims range from not having an attorney to help draft papers or present arguments, to being limited on how many small claims you are allowed to file each year, to the amount you can ask for damages (this is going to be limited per lawsuit and per year). Make sure you have not reached your limit on small claims filings, or you will be precluded from filing.

While small claims lawsuits may not be glamorous, they are effective. When it comes to the issue of data throttling, this may be your only recourse. Will it stop AT&T from continuing to throttle back your use of data? That has yet to be seen. But this will get their attention, and if enough people use the small claims venue to air their grievances, it may just get them to think twice about not honoring the service contract that they drafted in the first place. Small claims actions have worked in the past against AT&T and the data-throttling issue, so if done right, it may work for you as well.

Don’t feel intimidated by big companies such as AT&T. You have rights, too, and sometimes it’s important to exercise and protect those rights. The policies and practices of corporations are not always right, and it may be up to you to bring this to their attention.

Vimeo launched its long-awaited iOS app nearly a year ago. Though the program offered a comprehensive set of editing features, it only supported iPhone and iPod touch. Today, the company introduced a new version at Mobile World Congress (MWC), an annual mobile industry trade show that runs this year from Feb. 27 through March 1 in Barcelona, Spain.

A free download from the App Store, Vimeo 2.0 is a major update bringing the much-awaited native iPad interface with full-screen playback and the ability to simultaneously watch a video while browsing other clips. In addition, the improved video editor now lets you enrich clips with music bought in the integrated Vimeo Music Store. You can also share clips, add comments and likes, view your Subscriptions, and utilize the “Watch Later” album option or browse featured channels without logging in or signing up.

Lead mobile developer at Vimeo stated a prepared statement: “We’ve seen mobile traffic triple since we launched our original iPhone app in early 2011,” which is a testament to users’ eagerness to shoot and edit projects on the go. According to the company, the launch of the iOS app in March 2011 helped push total mobile traffic on the website from 7 percent in January 2010 to today’s 15 percent.

Vimeo for iOS version 2.0

• new, native iPad UI and an updated, easier to use iPhone UI
• Vimeo Music Store integration in the video editor
• shoot video, create projects, and browse our featured channels without logging in or signing up
• view your Subscriptions, Likes, and Watch Later album
• share, add comments, and view licenses, credits, and likes on other peoples’ videos

App Store Link: Vimeo, FREE

For as much growth that Wall Street analysts crave, that craving is unmatched by the pressure that many company CEOs face to produce such growth. For this reason, most investors (including me) tend to stay in a state of perpetual worry. Because one earnings miss tends to send stocks to the Wall Street dog house where companies tend to stay in a probationary period until (at least) the next quarter – and that’s if you’re lucky. Not many companies today are growing as fast as tech giant Apple. While it has rewarded investors with considerable amount of growth and value for their investments, it seems the company is yet pressured by investors and analysts to spend more money – if not through acquisitions, it’s with the latest nonsense, dividends.

Stop trying to spend Apple money!

To be clear, it is not that the idea of dividends itself is nonsense, I just disagree with the notion that Apple should succumb to the pressure and do what it feels is not (at the moment) in its best interest nor that of shareholders. Remarkably, for Apple it now appears that meeting ridiculous growth standards quarter after quarter is no longer enough to make investors happy. For this, I have come to appreciate that while it is credited with having brought the biology term “ecosystem” to investing, there now needs to be a new investment term to describe some of the absurdity of the non-performance related demands by investors. I’ve said this once and I feel it is now necessary to say it again, stop trying to spend the company’s cash.

In a lot of ways, the company’s perceived cash-hoarding has offended a lot of people. Some analysts as well as investors compare Apple to that kid who just loves to watch his piggy bank grow while ignoring the fact that this same kid has the best run lemonade stand on the block that also serves cappuccino and washes your car while you wait. Yet he can’t rest until he figures out a way to offer you something else that you haven’t realized that you need yet. This is who Apple is and a dividend will inhibit its ability to further this endeavor.

A dividend would be nice, it’s not going to happen and I agree with Apple on this stance. The same reasons that have brought it to prominence will be ignored should the company go this route – and this is what many investors fail to understand. While I agree it would be the “obvious and easy” option of sharing its wealth with investors, it would also send a signal that (and I’ve said this before) the company has reached a “creativity-block,” or worse has run out of neat ideas. Indeed, getting the cash will make shareholders happy, but I fail to see how that helps the company produce and compete in any meaningful way well into the future.

Let’s consider a dividend from a retail investor’s perspective. $10 a share has been tossed around. Today, that’s a roughly 2% yield. If you own 100 shares, you would collect $1,000 over the course of a year on an AAPL dividend. Compare that to McDonald’s (MCD) where it’s reasonable to think mere mortals could have collected 500 to 1,000 shares over time. At a dividend per share of $2.80 (2.8% yield), you take in between $1,400 and $2,800, annually, in MCD dividend income.

If you want dividends, you should have been building positions, over time, in dividend-paying blue chip stocks. AAPL is not a dividend-paying blue chip stock. It is an innovative hyper-growth machine in perpetual start-up mode that needs to stay that way or die. I honestly think Apple executives view the situation in that regard. Why in the world should we pay a dividend? It’s not in our culture. It does nothing for everyday shareholders and it only makes the already rich (thanks to Apple) richer. As an AAPL bull, I hope Tim Cook and the Apple board does not give in. As great as a dividend sounds, it is not great for every situation and may likely impact the very quality that made that company great in the first place.

However, for Apple, when the discussion is not about a dividend it is about an acquisition such as Sirius XM as has been suggested by some. These days, the most recent rumors have turned to Netflix. But my contention is why? It did not need an acquisition to come up with the iMac nor the current iPhone. Who did it acquire to develop iTunes? It seems investors are quick to forget why they have invested in the company in the first place. Apple can build whatever it wants from scratch and does not need either Sirius or Netflix.

Apple has taken on Research In Motion and won – the company that created the smartphone market. It continuously brushes threats off its shoulder form the likes of Google and Amazon. Yet it stands tall above everyone else as the leader of the tech sector. The reason that it has been able to stave off these threats is because it has loads of cash to spend in to R&D as well as future project. So for investors to continually have their hands out requesting or (more appropriately) demanding a dividend would be akin to chopping the beanstalk and then spraying it with weed eater. Then what is left climb? Instead, be happy with its ridiculous growth.

Apple’s latest courtroom win over Motorola Mobility in a German patent infringement suit is so significant, it has led one expert to now question whether Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola was worth it.

The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court ruled on Monday that Motorola Mobility cannot further enforce its standard-essential patent injunction against Apple in Germany during its appeal. That indicates that Apple is “highly likely” to succeed, which was declared a “huge” win for the iPhone maker by intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents.

“The appeals court summarily held that Apple has made an amended proposal for taking a license to MMI’s patents on FRAND terms that should be acceptable to MMI, turning any further attempts to ban Apple’s iPhone and iPad products into a violation of applicable antitrust law,” Mueller wrote.

In fact, Apple’s win on Monday was considered so significant by Mueller that he said it raises the question of whether Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last August has “failed before the deal is even formally closed.” Experts have largely viewed Google’s acquisition of Motorola as a deal driven by patent acquisitions to bolster its strength in a lawsuit-laden smartphone industry.

The decision comes less than a week after Microsoft joined the fray and filed an antitrust suit against Motorola Mobility in the European Union, accusing it of abusing its standard-essential patents. Both Microsoft and Apple believe Motorola has been illegally attempting to block sales of their products by leveraging patents that are obligated to be offered with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing.

Motorola was hoping to gain near-term leverage against Apple and Microsoft through the aggressive pursuit of injunctive relief based on standard-essential patents. Google, which was totally in agreement with MMI’s litigation strategy, was hoping to buy that leverage for $12.5 billion, and Germany was a key part of that plan because its legal system places a relatively high burden on implementers of standards invoking the FRAND defense. In fact, Google’s public statement on the post-acquisition use of MMI’s patents proposed the German approach to FRAND as the way forward for the whole world. With today’s ruling, Googlorola’s strategy has failed even before the companies have formally merged. This is such a major blow to Google’s patent strategy that, from a mere shareholder value point of view, it should now give serious consideration to the possibility of coughing up the $2.5 billion break-up fee agreed upon with MMI’s board of directors and walk out on this deal. After all, that $2.5 billion payment would be an affordable subsidy for the only totally Google-aligned company among the major handset makers. But in all likelihood, Google will nevertheless try to close the deal, if only to avoid a colossal embarrassment for its CEO and other decision-makers.

MMI is now in a tricky situation. The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court has formally alerted it to the fact that its refusal to accept Apple’s offer — which from an antitrust point of view is now apparently too good to refuse — is a potential antitrust violation. By continuing not to accept Apple’s proposal, MMI risks consequences that could include fines from the European Commission.

Motorola has sought in court to obtain 2.25 percent of Apple’s sales of wireless devices, including the iPhone, in exchange for a patent license. Apple has argued that Motorola’s royalty sought for a standard-essential patent is unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory.

My Take: I would Short Sell Google stock and Motorola Mobility stock on GP (General Purposes) because you may never know.