dailylicious!

Up until the year 2000, Apple’s laptops had been sporting an Apple logo that wold appear upside down when the lid is opened. Of course, up until that moment it had not been such a big issue. The logo would appear the right way up to the person who was about to use the computer but upside down to onlookers and it wouldn’t matter one bit. And then Hollywood happened. Apple’s notebooks were showing up in popular TV shows and movies and somebody at Apple noticed. You could say that this was a marketing decision ahead of usability, but in my opinion, this was the right decision. In an era in which brand recognition is important, you can’t dismiss a simple “branding oversight” such as this. Steve Jobs himself actually highlighted and ridiculed this point when he introduced the PowerBook G4 in January 2001 at Macworld Expo.

Unlike other mobile phone manufacturers, Apple has always stuck to a single new model every year since the iPhone was originally released in 2007. Other companies may release five or fifteen models a year, Apple sticks to just one. However, it has elected to maintain older models up to two generations behind every year and sell them at reduced prices. As a result, it can hit lower price points that it could not in previous years and provide competition to newer and cheaper phones. After all, many new phones being sold at lower price points essentially use older technologies anyway.

The 3GS currently is sold in the US for either free or $1 up front  with a two year subsidized contract, but in developing markets, the phone sells for roughly $375-$430 without subsidies. Consumers in developing markets also tend to purchase phones outright in the first place either by choice or by design. Mobile telcos in these markets don’t necessarily offer subsidized contracts.

By offering the 3GS at a lower outright price even as Apple releases a new iPhone later this year, it could significantly increase the adoption of iOS and provide Apple with an even more expanded lineup without compromising on size and quality. Additionally, if Apple does offer the 3GS alongside the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the upcoming new iPhone, there might be a chance that Apple maintains compatibility with the upcoming iOS 6 even if it may be in a limited fashion.

• Thinner, lighter, faster, sharper, SSD-powered, retina display, redesigned MacBook Pro? Check.
• More iCloud apps? Check
• Mountain Lion release? Check.
• iPhone in October? Check.
• Retina Display iMacs? Oh.
• New Apple television? Hmmm… well, almost all the rumors.

As the competition in the cloud heats up, Apple is rumored to be preparing a major upgrade to its popular iCloud service. After languishing for over a decade under various monikers and collection of services, Apple may have just hit the right notes with iCloud. At the moment iCloud offers an email service, a cloud-based contacts list, mobile and desktop instant messaging, photo synchronization, device backup and locator, and a storage service for applications. iCloud members get 5GB of free space with paid options for additional space.

Following a leak last week of a web based reminder and notes apps on the beta site of iCloud, more services are said to be coming to iCloud, which is expected to be part of the upcoming iOS 6 announcements at WWDC in June. The Wall Street Journal reports that iCloud will feature photo and video sharing services that could put it in competition with sites such as Flickr, Facebook, 500px and others.

Having shipped 176 million devices containing Apple’s own mobile processors in 2011, the Cupertino company is quickly becoming one of the leading mobile processor companies in the world. Although Intel is still far behind in terms of shipping processors for mobile phones, it did ship 181 million processors in laptops which are clearly mobile products.

In terms of market share, Intel holds 13.9% while Apple is quickly catching up at 13.5%. Given the speed at which iDevices are being sold, a report by In-Stat says that Apple will easily surpass Intel as the top mobil processor company by the end of 2012.

Interestingly, Intel’s achievement is managed by shipping low voltage and ultra-low voltage processors for laptops while Apple designs and ships processors for mobile phones and tablets. While the two companies did not directly compete in this field last year, Intel will begin to ship processors for mobile phones this year although it has yet to score a major phone vendor to allow it to compete with ARM processors in a big way.

The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet

- Phil Schiller, SVP Worldwide Marketing

In the battle of platforms, Dell says it can still challenge Apple’s iPad. Not saying that the iPad’s lead is not assailable but to do that, Dell needs a strong Windows 8 ecosystem with apps specifically made to run on tablets. Additionally, Nokia is also coming up with a Windows 8 tablet (or tablets).

Android’s assault on the iPhone comes primarily from Samsung with other Android manufacturers being almost inconsequential. Will the same scenario play out in the tablet scene (single vendor rival) or will it be a collective push?

RIM’s PlayBook is… well, the company seems more interested in turning it into a notebook.

This is usually the view that live bloggers get at Apple’s events

Q: What makes design different at Apple?

A: We struggle with the right words to describe the design process at  Apple, but it is very much about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers. If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. To solve and address those requires a remarkable focus. There’s a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you don’t see those in combination very often.