07/25/2007, 7:45pm, EDT
Wednesday, July 25th
Apple's music business remains strong
"We did have some activation problems during the first week or so, and we would like to apologize to those customers who had less than a perfect activation experience," Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said. "Since then, AT&T has corrected the most common cause of these difficulties, and we are now experiencing a very high percentage of problem-free activations."
Oppenheimer reported "overwhelmingly positive" feedback on the iPhone, and cited a USA Today survey suggesting that 90 percent of iPhone owners are extremely or very satisfied with their phones. The same survey also revealed that 85 percent of respondents were extremely or very likely to recommend the iPhone to others, which led Apple's financial chief to conclude that customers agree with Apple that the iPhone is a revolutionary product.
"It took Apple seven quarters, almost two years, to sell our one millionth iPod. We hope to sell our one millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter ending September 29th."
iPhone in Europe
Apple said it is on track to begin selling the iPhone in Europe during the fourth calendar quarter of this year, starting with a few major countries and expanding into other countries throughout 2008.
"We will announce our initial plans with our European partners later this quarter," Oppenheimer confirmed.
Apple reiterates 10 million iPhone goal
The Cupertino-based company reiterated its goal to sell 10 million iPhones in calendar year 2008, and plans to build on the device's foundation by incorporating new software features and applications at no charge to customers.
Additionally, Oppenheimer reminded investors that Apple has yet to see a dime of its revenue related to payments from AT&T during the June quarter, but said that revenue will show up in the company's September quarter results.
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Nokia, for example, includes new features in new phones, but doesn't add those features to the firmware updates of older phones, even if they would be capable of accommodating and supporting such features. They want you to purchase a new phone.
Apple's iPhone reference platform is built and designed to be 5-years ahead of the industry, and most likely it is -- what it means is that most any upgrades to it will be done in software to provide newer and better features.
While, obviously, there will be hardware upgrades as the technology evolves and expands into other markets (i.e. better megapixel camera, GPS built-in, more memory, etc...) the platform itself does not need to change - i.e. just like a Mac, a single software update will work on multiple minor versions of iPhone, making *all* of them work the same way.
...and all of it, at no charge, the legacy initial purchasers will be receiving function and feature updates equalling the release of new hardware (which is not the way the iPod is handled, for example)