The iPhone as we know it has one little big problem - no 3G support. We all have heard rumors that were something like "next software update to the iPhone will bring 3G support", but that didn't happen so far, and it seems it won't happen anytime soon. In fact, it seems the current iPhone models are not capable of such a thing but, according to latest rumors - also confirmed by people inside Apple - the 3G iPhone will arrive later this year, so the only question remaining is "When?"...


<-234x60 Half Banner - left->According to Citigroup, the 3G iPhone could appear in the next four months. Rich Garder's conclusion was based on input from various industry sources, which lead him to be almost sure that the 3G version of Apple's iPhone is scheduled to appear before the end of July, maybe even in late June.

On the other hand, Shelby Seyrafi, from Caris & Co., said the "10 million units sold" goal will be achieved, but that's what remains to be seen, especially since Meizu's iPhone clone, also known as the M8, made its appeareance at the CeBIT expo these days, with better features such as a high-resolution (720x480) 3.4-inch display, a three-megapixel autofocus camera, and the inclusion of a TV-out port, but...

...just as most people, I am definitely intrigued by this, so I ask myself - will Apple's lawyers sit back and watch, or the lawsuit is already a few steps away from being started?

A company can't be pushed forward by only one man, but the absence of a key person can lead to its downfall, and Apple is one solid proof to the above. Their Superman is - obviously - Steve Jobs, and if I say "Steve Jobs is going to step down from its CEO position", everyone would consider this a hoax, just as it would have been if I said the same thing about Bill Gates in late 90s...


All right, now is not the time to step down for Steve Jobs, and he knows it well, but that day will come, sooner or later, and possible successors have already been mentioned by Apple's current CEO.

During Apple's annual shareholder meeting, on Tuesday, Jobs gave two hints about the one that will follow him in leading the company, the first one being the current Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, and the second, Apple's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer.

Obviously, Jobs didn't say a single word about when is this going to happen. All he said was "We’ve got great talent, and I think the board would have a few really good choices. We talk about that a lot.", so you don't have to worry - our favorite CEO will be around for at least a few years more, in my opinion!

Some time ago, Apple promised to have over 1,000 movies ready for rental on the iTunes Store before February ends, but it seems they didn't make it, adding one more failure to the delays suffered by the iPhone SDK. Anyway, while I couldn't consider these delays to be such big problems, they should not be taken lightly. After all, Apple reached a position where they shouldn't make promises they can't keep...


Let's look behind and see what Apple said at the MacWorld, when they released the iTunes Movie Rentals service - "iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.", and let's see where did they get so far - 91 HD rentals on the 29th of February, as well as only 378 titles that appear when selecting "All Rentals".

Well, if they didn't make it in February, maybe in March... let's hope for the better!

Each year, Fortune and its survey partners ask a bunch of people to name 10 companies they admire the most, and so a top is created. There are more attributes taken into consideration, and after reaching 11th position back in 2006, and 7th place in 2007, Apple finally managed to arrive in first place!


In 2008, Fortune and its partners at Hay Group had a group of over 3,700 people from all possible industries to decide who's the best, and Apple got the following results - 1st place in the innovation, people management, and quality of products/services areas, 3rd place in use of corporate assets, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, while their social responsability attribute got 5th place, but all these pushed them into the position of "most admired company" in America for the current year.In Fortune's view, Apple has shown the world "how to create real, breathtaking growth by dreaming up products so new and ingenious that they have disrupted one industry after another: consumer electronics, the record industry, the movie industry, video, and music production", but what I really want to see from Apple, is "how to get the crown from Microsoft's Windows in the OS market", but that's a very tough job, and it won't happen in a year or two...

Surveys are a very good method for companies to "feel" the trend of the market, and for users, to know if their choice was good or not...or at least popular, because not everything that's popular is also good. Anyway, since everyone seems to be more and more budget conscious, as well as more demanding, let's see how does Apple stand in the last surveys regarding its products, shall we?


In the latest survey by Net Applications, Mac OS X dropped just a bit, while the iPhone continued climbing. Here you have the numbers - Mac OS X fell from 7.57 percent in January to 7.45 percent, while Windows remained above the 90 percent mark, with 91.58 percent of the operating systems market. At last, the iPhone, jumped from 0.13 to 0.14 percent, but I can't understand why did they list it in an OS survey, and separated from the Mac OS X...

At last, it should be noted that Safari got down to 5.70 percent in February from a pervious market share of 5.82, reported back in January. Anyway, it seems that the iPods keep going strong, with over 40 percent of the buyers in the last holiday season being new to Apple's music players, so it all gets leveled fine, in the end.