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Apple expected to ship 6.5 million iPads in Q1 2011
Digitimes is reporting that, according to an iPad supply chain source, Apple intends to ship 6 to 6.5 million iPads in the first quarter of 2011 (ending at the end of March). According to the source, 300,000 to 400,000 of those will be iPad 2s. Digitimes' source also points out that Apple had about 1 to 1.5 million iPads in the inventory channel in January, and since Apple only ordered about 2 million iPads in January, it surmises that Apple is already planning to phase out the first generation iPad in favor of the iPad 2, of which we can assume production will be significantly increased in March. However, if anything goes wrong with the production channel for the iPad 2, Digitimes points out that there could be a shortage of iPads because there will be no surplus stock of first generation iPads. Though, of course, this is speculation and, from Apple's track record, it is unlikely. Unless we're talking about a white iPad 2. [Via Electronista]
Gold Capped: Ore-splosion
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! The auction house is starting to have to stack all the ore they're listing for sale out back of the warehouse. Elementium Ore and Obsidium Ore have, in the last few days, been listed in quantities most people would consider unimaginable at prices that make auctioneers cackle. Until they realize that everyone has gotten this amount of stock. Level ones have been cropping up like mushrooms and listing hundreds of stacks of ore per night on every server I've checked into. I'm not the only one who has written about this. Everyone loves cheap Cataclysm ore. It means cheap blacksmithing goods, cheap gems, cheap enchanting mats, and cheap engineering items. It also has the unique benefit of having the highest price floor of any ore ever introduced to the game. Obsidium prospects into 6 green quality raw gems and an average of 0.3 rare gems per stack, and elementium into 4 green and 1 blue. This means that if you do nothing but cut and vendor the greens for 9g, the "floor" for obsidium is 54g, and elementium is 36g. Then you have the rares. This floor is the bare minimum of what the ore is worth, but it's used for so many things. What else can we do with all of it?
Apple creating touch panel shortages for tablet competition?
Things tend to get messy for the competition when Apple decides to direct its vast cash reserves on "very strategic" components. Especially when Cupertino starts waving around stacks of dough in the range of $3.9 billion to $7.8 billion. For reference, just look at what Apple did to NAND supplies as the flash-based iPod rose to dominance. Today DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is occupying close to 60 percent of the global touch panel production capacity from the likes of Wintek and TPK resulting in "tight supply" for the competition. The impact on consumers, according DigiTimes' sources at upstream component makers, is that tablet PC makers are unable to ship enough product to match orders due to component shortages. The issue is especially troublesome for second-tier tablet hopefuls who must compete with the likes of HP, RIM, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Dell (everyone but Sony) for the scraps. As a result, Apple should be able to more easily meet iPad demand in 2011, according to DigiTimes, while its competitors struggle to keep up.
Apple expected to have strong Q1 2011 shipments despite Intel's glitch
Intel recently had a kerfuffle with its upcoming chipset lines, finding a defect in the 6 series and causing production of certain models to be delayed by as much as a few months. But if you're waiting to buy a brand new MacBook Pro, don't worry -- because Apple is careful about when it upgrades its hardware, Digitimes says that shipments of new laptops designed in Cupertino won't be delayed at all. The delay may affect other brands, simply because they play their profit margins a little closer to the bottom line, but because Apple's prices already have so much profit built into them, it won't have a problem even if it is affected by delays. According to reports, shipments are up yet again anyway. Sources in the supply chain say that targets from January of this year were met according to expectations, and orders may be even higher than expected for the rest of the quarter. So there's no shortage of good news along the supply chains for Apple.
Apple's iPad strategy: Cutting off competitors, or just learning their lesson?
Falling into the "no, duh" category, Business Insider, citing a 9to5 Mac article, says that the main reason the forthcoming iPad 2 will undercut the emerging plethora of Android-powered tablets is because Apple has already cornered the market on manufacturers and has enlisted more to produce the tablet. The number of PCB suppliers, according to reports, has risen from three to seven. Business Insider points out that Apple did the same thing with the iPod just a few years ago, making it harder for competitors to get their hands on supplies. Apple does learn its lesson when it comes to supply and demand. It doesn't want to face a chronic shortage of iPad 2 when they do come out -- not only will they have the early adopters wanting to trade up to a version with a camera, but they also have the first-generation holdouts waiting for the rumored features. I'm sure that Steve Jobs was not happy with the length of time it took new users to even get their hands on an iPad after the initial run, not to mention a basic case and the iPad Camera Connection Kit. As with the iPod and iPhone, the company has learned to anticipate demand. There will also be companies out there willing to produce parts for Android-powered tablets, and have probably anticipated the growing demand as well. Just as Apple has learned from itself, its competitors are learning from Apple, too.
Apple's invested in a 'very strategic' $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it?
Here's an interesting little note from Apple's record-breaking Q1 2011 financial sales call: according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer and acting CEO / COO Tim Cook, the company's made a two-year, $3.9 billion deal with three suppliers to secure a "very strategic" component for its products. Cook wouldn't identify what the component was, citing competitive reasons, but he did say the arrangement was much like Apple's famous deals to source iPod flash memory that date back to 2005. According to Tim, "We think that was an absolutely fantastic use of Apple's cash, and we constantly look for more of these, and so in the past several quarters we've identified another area... these payments consist of both prepayments and capital for processes and tooling, and similar to the flash agreement, they're focused in an area that we think is very strategic." Importantly, Apple paid out $650m under its agreements for this mystery part this past quarter, and it's planning to spend another $1.05b in payments next quarter, so this is already happening in a big way -- and frankly, we're dying to know what it is, since Apple has a long history of squeezing the market for components it wants. Our best guess? High-density displays for the iPhone and iPad -- we've heard some rumors of deals with Toshiba and Sharp, but that's just conjecture, and we don't know who the third vendor is. We're digging, but in the meantime listen to Peter and Tim in the clip after the break.
Gold Capped: The effect of mega-blogs on your business
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on making money in game, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil (new address is basil@wowinsider.com; old one no longer works) with your comments, questions or hate mail! I've been called a lot of things by a lot of people. The reality is that every time I write about a specific business or tip for making gold, hundreds of people will end up trying it out, and if I write something about one of your favorite (or most profitable) businesses, you may find some of these people competing with you. The number of people participating in any specific market is going to fluctuate over time naturally, but as I've said before, the people who have the most success are the ones who hang in for the long run. That said, these people tend to have a strange relationship with each other. They're competitors and will undercut vigorously, but they tend to spend less effort on their tenacious competition than one would expect.
Chinese Apple Stores plan special New Year events
While India's Krishna Kalyan ate an iPhone 4 cake to celebrate the New Year, Apple's four retail stores in China have something else in mind to celebrate the Chinese New Year. According to ifoAppleStore, Apple has emailed an invitation to their customers in China to visit the retail stores between January 26 and February 13 for select events such as workshops, One to One training and shopping specials on Apple and third-party products. Apple currently has stores both in Beijing and Shanghai, but we here at TUAW are partial to the first one to land in Shanghai back in July of last year. With the four stores already under its belt and a growing online presence in China, it seems that Apple heard Lenovo loud and clear when it was declared that Apple hadn't stepped up efforts in the Far East.
Nintendo planning more consistent 3DS release schedule, eyeing developing countries
Unlike Nintendo DS and Wii before it, the forthcoming 3DS will be getting a more regular release schedule of games, says Nintendo. Company head Satoru Iwata told Nikkei News as much in an interview yesterday (via Andriasang), specifically stating, "It's important that you be able to supply software with no pause ... With the DS and Wii, following the titles that were released at launch, the momentum dropped when there was a gap in software releases." Iwata further added, "We're making plans so that this type of thing won't happen." Unfortunately, it's not clear whether Mr. Iwata is speaking to first-party or third-party game releases. An impressive list of 3DS titles in development was revealed at last year's E3, though only a handful of titles -- and just one from Nintendo themselves, Nintendogs + Cats -- appeared on the recently announced Japanese launch list. And the company's going to need plenty of copies of those games, as Nintendo intends on bringing the new handheld console to developing countries in addition to its current territories (North America, Europe, and Japan) at some point in the future. No specific timeframe is given, but Nintendo's CEO sees the rapidly rising economies of developing countries as very important to the future of the game industry. Here's looking at you, Singapore!
Insider Trader: Make a profit from Cataclysm blacksmithing
Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions. Blacksmithing is a very profitable profession at level 85 if you have the time to manage it. There are a few different markets that you have to choose from, so as soon as you have access to the Twilight Highlands metal trader, you will be able to start buying the patterns you'll need.
iPhone demand in China still exceeds supply
We've heard some crazy stories out of China about the call for Apple products there, both that Apple is trying to increase supply as quickly as possible, and that they're still not living up to the demand. And here's more news that Apple is racing, and probably failing, to keep up with all of the demand there. China Unicom says that Apple is still falling short of orders in that country. So far, 600,000 iPhone 4s have been ordered, but there's no word on how many of those have been delivered yet. Hong Kong's Telstra also says demand is high there, and that company says that it too has had trouble keeping up supply under all the demand. This is both good and bad news for Apple -- China has already been identified in the past as one of the company's biggest possible markets in the future, and it's great to hear that the expectations of demand are being matched, if not exceeded. On the other hand, it's never good to leave money on the table, and if Apple can't take advantage of all of this demand, it'll be doing just that.
Shocker! GameStop expects Kinect and Move to be in short supply this holiday season
Are you prepared to be blown away? Have your mind flipped inside-out? Experience a revelation to end all revelations? Tough luck, bubs. During an earnings call yesterday, GameStop president Tony Bartel was cited as saying that both Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's PlayStation Move would both be difficult to find this holiday season, noting that the Kinect would be "a hot item through the holiday season and the key opportunity will be just to continue to keep them in stock." He also stated that the Move would be "in short supply," and even went so far as to predict that consumers would be "following the UPS truck to our stores to pick up that product as soon as they can find it." Naturally, GameStop's in-stock guarantee won't apply to the two things it actually should (read: Kinect and Move), and Tony stopped short of providing hard evidence that this so-called shortage would in fact occur. But hey, no one ever said that drumming up demand for a product your store hawks was a bad business move, you know? And on the real, we're guessing that Santa will actually have the hots for these things, and if you're considering one, it's always wise to be proactive. Or spend countless nights attempting to snipe Johnny Doe on eBay -- your call. [Image courtesy of Geek In Heels]
EVE Evolved: ISK sinks and faucets
In EVE Online's player-run economy, the flow of ISK is a vital concept. While there are many ways to make ISK in EVE, most of them only move it around from one player to another. When you mine ore and sell it on the market, for example, the mining process doesn't introduce any new ISK to the game. Only a few game mechanics can be called ISK faucets, as the game mechanics actually create ISK from thin air. Similarly, the ISK sink mechanics destroy ISK or remove it from the game in some manner. To the individual player, the difference between something being an ISK faucet or not is largely immaterial. When you sell something on the market for a few million ISK, or get the insurance payout on a lost ship, it doesn't really matter to you where that ISK came from. Where the concept really matters is in discussions on inflation and how the game chooses to reward us in PvE. Are ISK bounties and rewards always a good idea, or could their over-use eventually lead to runaway inflation? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the various ways in which ISK flows in and out of EVE Online, and why we should care about inflation.
MacBook Air supply dwindling for online retailers, rumor mill raises an eyebrow
In the market for a MacBook Air? Well, now may not be the best time. Apple Insider is reporting indirect sales channels (read: non-Apple stores) are running out of the thin-and-light with no indication of a replenishment. Indeed, we just checked Amazon, Best Buy, and a few other online retailers and were consistently greeted by limited- and out-of-stock notices. So, you know what the means -- new hardware rumors. Or rather, old ones resurfacing, such as the 11.6-inch display from late September. Compounding the community's curiosity would be vague tweets from famed company insider John Gruber, who casually mentioned "the imminent" new MacBook Air as a possible reason for the recent Apple Store downtime. Of course, that didn't turn out to be the case, and for all we know it could just mean some refreshed specs -- if even that, really. AI reminds us that October has been historically the month of refreshed Mac hardware in the lead-up to holiday shopping... but that doesn't mean it's the case now. All we really know now is that third-party outlets aren't currently stocking the Air and it's unknown if they're getting anymore shipments of this particular model -- which, we know, isn't nearly as exciting as the imagination. Sorry about that. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
EVE Evolved: EVE Online's not-so-free market
One of the most talked-about features of EVE Online is its player-run economy. Due to over 330,000 players living on one server, the markets have reached a critical mass where the laws of economics play out in a very effective manner. When there's a demand for something, no matter how obscure the item or low the demand, you can be sure there are dozens or hundreds of pilots trying their best to supply it. The in-game economy mirrors real-life economic situations so closely that CCP even hired a dedicated economist to analyse the market and advise CCP of any problems that arise. EVE's economy is often referred to as a pure free market, but that isn't technically true. At its heart, EVE is still a game designed and implemented by a team of developers. All MMO economies require some degree of control and intervention for the game to remain playable. In EVE, this comes in the form of careful balance of supply and demand via changes to game mechanics and drop rates. There are also a number of more direct passive influences on the market, such as NPC market orders and insurance. In this economic article, I look at a few of the influences that constrain free-market economics in EVE.
Gold Capped: Meta gem deep dive
Want to get Gold Capped? Every week, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen takes a short break from building a raiding guild on Drenden (US-A) to write up a guide that will help you make gold. Check out the Call to Auction podcast, and feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail! I've talked before about meta gems, however I feel they deserve more than a paragraph buried in the middle of a jewelcrafting post. Like many of the best businesses, metas are purchased by all end game players and many leveling players. They provide a hefty bonus to PvE and PvP, come in a variety of flavors and (most importantly) get purchased every time someone upgrades their helm.
Mac mini supply said to be dwindling, world wonders 'why?'
Need a bit more evidence that Apple has some new Mac minis on the way? Then look no further than Apple Insider, which says that it has "verified four times over" that current Mac mini supplies are running dry, and that new models are all but a certainty. Adding further weight to the story is the fact that these aren't simply reports of delays here and there, but reports from large buyers like educational institutions who say that they've either been advised not to place bulk orders for Mac minis or had their orders pushed back -- in one case to an exact date of June 14th. Needless to say, that all seems to line up nicely, and sounds more than a little familiar. Maybe too familiar?
Gold Capped: The pinch
Want to get Gold Capped? Every week, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen takes a short break from trying to build a raiding guild on Drenden (US-A) to write up a guide that will help you achieve the goal of acquiring 214,748 gold, 36 silver and 48 copper. Well, technically that's just a symbolic milestone. The goal is making gold, no matter how much you have or how much you want. Got feedback, questions or hate mail? Email Basil! I've spent the last few months describing different ways to make money. I've also touched on auction house "PvP" a bit but haven't talked about it in depth. The reality is that when you post something for sale, every sale you make is a sale your competitors don't make. The reason I got involved with the AH and in-game economy at the beginning was that I needed money and hated farming. The reason I stayed? My competition. You know that feeling you get when you are in a battleground and everything just lines up, and you win? That feeling is what I get when I empty my mailboxes every morning. Playing the AH would be much less rewarding if there were no competition.
Gold Capped: Market timing
Want to get Gold Capped? Watch this space every week as Basil (also of the Call to Auction podcast, the Hunting Party podcast and outdps.com writes about making gold in the World of Warcraft. Have questions, comments, or threats for him to get off your damned server? Email Basil! The prices for all kinds of things fluctuate. I talked a little about this in my post for casual auctioneers, but there is serious money to be made with market timing for very little investment. Basically, the goal is to watch prices for a few weeks, try to predict their next swing, and take advantage by buying low and selling high. Watching prices Easier said than done, like most things worth doing. You might get hundreds of items you'd like to watch, and short of a photographic memory or a manual spreadsheet, you're going to need some help keeping track of it all. Enter Market Watcher. This is a nifty addon that, once configured, allows you to scan the auction house for just the things you're interested in, and will show you a graph of their prices over time once you get a couple scans done.
No more reservations available for iPad launch day
If you were planning on reserving an iPad for pickup at an Apple Store on April 3rd, you're out of luck. Reservations, both in-store and online, ended on Friday. According to TUAW reader Travis, who sent us the tip early Saturday, an Apple sales associate mentioned told him Apple had to shut down reservations since they have no product left between pre-orders and reservations that have already been made. Apparently Apple believes that they may get a 10% bump in extra product at the stores for launch day, but that may be wishful thinking. For those of you who were procrastinating, your best bet at getting an iPad in the near future may be to show up at an Apple Store just before 3 PM on April 3rd. At that point in time, the stores will release any iPads that were reserved, but not picked up. Your other alternative is to make an online order for an iPad for delivery by April 12th. [Thanks for the tip, Travis!]
