UPDATE 2: Apple confirms the late March ship-stimate to Wired [via @arsinfiniteloop].

UPDATE 1: Seth Weintraub at 9to5Mac puts up a thoughtful reminder about the nature of analyst notes:

If [analysts] do produce something publicly, that means one of two things: (1) Their clients have had the information for weeks and have had time to invest accordingly. (2)They are trying to artificially change the price of Apple’s stock because they have previously told their clients to invest based on the good/bad news that they are about to relay.

ORIGINAL: Digital Daily is reporting that, according to Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek, Apple might be facing manufacturing problems that will lead to constrained supplies of the iPad, or even a delay in its launch:

“We have … heard that the upcoming iPad launch may be somewhat limited as a manufacturing bottleneck has impacted production of Apple’s newest device. An unspecified production problem at the iPad’s manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision, will likely limit the launch region to the US and the number of units available to roughly 300K in the month of March, far lower than the company’s initial estimate of 1,000K units. The delay in production ramp will likely impact Apple’s April unit estimate of 800K as well. It is also possible that, given the limited number of units available in March, the launch will be delayed for a month.”

Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook runs Apple’s supply chain with more precision than an aluminum unibody chassis, however, so would a problem this large really be allowed to happen? DIgital Daily claims it’s a “big if” as to whether or not Misek is correct. Best case he isn’t. Worst case, despite Apple’s still current claim of the iPad shipping in late March, we may only see it in April.

Does this affect your odds of buying one either way?

UPDATED: Manufacturing Problems to Lead to Constrained iPad Supplies, Launch Delay? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Okay, that headline about how an analyst thinks Apple should lower the price and add new features next June/July when they release the 4th generation iPhone (not iPhone 4G, that’s a couple years and an LTE network away) is only semi-facetious. Apple has lowered up-front costs and increased features on every generation of iPhone, after all. Last year the iPhone 3G dropped to $99 and the iPhone 3GS added video recording, hardware encryption, voice control, and a host of other things — never mind iPhone 3.0. According to AppleInsider, however, Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley has two things more specific in mind.

“We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology.”

We’ll leave the part about gestures alone; just file it under “reads the same patent applications we do” and move right along. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), however, is interesting because in 2008, even as the iPhone 3G was offered at $199, the cost of the AT&T data plan rose to $30/m making the overall TCO (over the course of the 2-year contract) higher.

Now, if Apple wants the iPhone to battle it out with Nokia in emerging markets, TCO is vitally important. But Apple hasn’t historically chosen to battle it out in the low-end PC space, and their answer to netbooks wasn’t cheaper MacBooks but the iPad. Makes it tough to see them doing it with discount iPhones.

In the US, big, colorful charts show how much you can save in terms of TCO on other networks and devices. With the iPad coming, and tiered AT&T data plans coming with it, maybe it’s not unreasonable to think a reduction in TCO is in order — not just “everything unlimited” but “overall less expensive”. Then again, AT&T isn’t hurting for subscribers or iPhone sales, so where this downward pressure would come from, if not Apple or our simply wishing it so, is unclear.

What do you think? Any chance Apple will pull “magical new plans” out of AT&T for the 4th generation iPhone?

Analyst: Apple Should Lower Price, Add New Features for 4th Gen iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Credit Suisse Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin thinks we can expect Apple’s iPhone to remain exclusive to AT&T for an additional 12-18 months, long past some people’s expectations (and recent rumors). Not only will it remain exclusive, Chaplin says, but the delay will have a major negative impact on Verizon, causing him to lower his rating on Big Red from “Outperform” to “Neutral” and cut his share price target from $32 to $30.

“Our analysis suggests that Apple will eventually sell the device at all carriers; however, there is a much greater probability that AT&T keeps exclusivity for another 12-18 months than investors realize,” Chaplin wrote. “We think this has profound impacts for Apple, the carriers and the other handset OEMs.”

Credit Suisse is 75% certain that AT&T will keep their stranglehold on iPhone for the rest of this calendar year.

“We conclude there is only a 50% probability that it (exclusivity) ends in 2010,” Chaplin wrote. “Next, we try to determine whether AT&T bids for another year of exclusivity if exclusivity does end in 2010. We conclude they would and they can afford to compensate Apple such that Apple would be economically indifferent. Our approach yields a 25% probability for this outcome. Taken together, we see a 75% probability that AT&T keeps exclusivity for another year.”

Those of us here at TiPb have often wondered “analyst” predictions were any more reliable than magic 8-ball results, so we will ask you, our readers — will we ever see an iPhone on Verizon or is Steve out to bury them for rejecting the iPhone the first time around? Sound off in the comments!

[Via Apple Insider]

75% Chance iPhone Remains AT&T Exclusive iPhone Carrier in 2010 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple announces their Jan. 27 “Come see our latest creation” event, and like a big, rumor-filled moth to an increasingly rabid internet flame, rumors of a Verizon iPhone being part of it follow:

“We believe there is a good chance,” writes Canaccord Adams’ Peter Misek in a note to clients Wednesday, “that the ‘One more thing…’ part of next week’s presentation may include two iPhone-related announcements: namely, the release of iPhone OS 4.0 and the unveiling of iPhone 4G coming to Verizon in June.”

To be clear, TiPb still believes that, technologically, Apple will be able to produce a Verizon (i.e. CDMA) compatible iPhone by this June/July, but whether or not their exclusivity with AT&T will be over by then, and whether or not they can come to financial (subsidy) terms with Verizon is anyone’s guess.

Also, Misek no doubt means G4, as in 4th gen iPhone, not 4G as in 4G wireless, LTE networking, since he later states he only thinks we’ll see an LTE iPhone in 2011. And if iPhone 4.0 is “released” it will likely be a beta for developers, with the consumer “release” to follow a few months later as it has in years past.

So, anyone placing odds on a big, red iPhone next week?

[CNN/Fortune thanks Michael for the tip!]

Apple Announces Event, Verizon iPhone Rumors Follow is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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From the now we’ve heard everything department, an analyst is “predicting” that the 4th generation iPhone’s plastic casing will be multitouch enabled, just like Apple’s new Magic Mouse.

Not “predicted” of course is how it would work, and how it would filter out things like holding the iPhone for normal use vs. deliberately initiating a multitouch gesture on the back of the case.

Again, with Apple anything is possible, but is this desirable? Can you see Apple doing it?

The Palm Pre and Pixi have a multitouch area below the screen to enable consistent gestures for “back” and to bring up the app launcher. Is that preferable?

[Bloomberg via Macrumors]

Do You Want the 4th Gen iPhone Case to be Multitouch like Magic Mouse? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Computerworld is rumoring that Apple’s allegedly-to-be-announced-January-27th iTablet/iSlate will run on Verizon’s CDMA network according to… an analysts sources (!)

“The tablet will be supported by multiple [mobile] carriers,” said Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech, citing unnamed sources he said were close to the situation. “Verizon and others,” he continued. “Definitely Verizon. I’ve been told that’s a certainty.”

Meanwhile, AppleInsider quotes another analyst who says, when it comes to the iPhone, Apple and Verizon can’t see eye-to-eye on pricing. Control-freaks the both of them, no one is yet blinking:

Currently, it is estimated that Apple gets a favorable $700 average selling price per iPhone, subsidized through exclusive carrier AT&T. Compare that with the ASP of the Motorola Droid, exclusive to Verizon, which costs an estimated $450 per sale.

Also, combined CDMA/GSM chips, which would let the iPhone run on both Verizon and GSM carriers like AT&T and most of the rest of the world, aren’t likely to be ready until the second half of 2010.

Hey, maybe Verizon will get a CDMA iTablet, but it can also be perpetually tethered to an AT&T/GSM iPhone! Sound off in the comments!

Computerworld: iTablet Will Be on Verizon, iPhone… Maybe is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Harry McCracken’s Technologizer looks back to pre-2007 and the ridiculous amount of hype and — comical in hindsight — guesses (and photoshop concept art) as to just what Apple and Steve Jobs’ iPhone might turn out to be:

Remember the very first iPhone–the one that sold for $249, had an iconic click wheel, a cool slide-out keypad, and a unique two-battery design–and which ran on Apple’s very own nationwide wireless network? No, not the iPhone that Steve Jobs unveiled at Macworld Expo San Francisco on January 9th, 2007. It didn’t have any of those features. I’m talking about the one that was an ever-changing figment of the collective imagination of bloggers reporters, analysts, and others who wrote endlessly about the iPhone in the months before anyone outside of Apple knew much of anything–including whether or not the phone existed at all.

Flash forward and Michael Gartenberg on Engadget uses that article as a cautionary tale when it comes to Apple’s future, possible, universe dent’er, the iTablet (or iSlate):

A larger iPod touch or a small MacBook with a touch screen is simply not the next big thing for Apple — the goal is to appeal to 50 million customers, not 50 thousand. Perhaps that’s why there’s so much mystery: what we’re waiting for isn’t another failed ‘tweener device but something as different from what came before as the iPhone was to previous mobile phones.

Gartenberg also points out that, without even mentioning the existence of a tablet, Apple still owns all the mindshare in that space, even over real devices that have been announced and shipped.

That’s probably not by accident either.

A Look at the iPhones that Weren’t and the iSlate that Might Be is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Regarding all those iPhone on T-Mobile US stories clogging the interwebs lately: that’s all they are — stories. No leaked carrier roadmaps, no Cupertino commuters logging into popular Twitter apps via a T-Mobile IP. No Steven P. Jobs standing on a stage, announcing the CEO of T-Mobile, and a new, magenta (TM) iPhone.

It’s just an analyst who thinks AT&T will someday lose exclusivity and Verizon is all Droid‘ed up now, and T-Mobile is GSM like the iPhone (though not on the same 3G frequencies — d’oh!), so why not?

We know some of you already use an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile’s 2.5G/EDGE network. We know a lot of you would like an alternative to AT&T. And we feel for you. We really, truly do.

But there’s no more to the story than that for now. In fact, there’s less.

[Still, many thanks to everyone who sent every version our way!]

Regarding All Those iPhone on T-Mobile US Stories is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Could Apple’s iPhone be destined for 3rd place in smartphone marketshare by 2012, trailing Nokia/Symbian’s 39% and Google Android’s 14.5% with a paltry 13.7%? That’s what some analysts at Gartner are telling ComputerWorld, with Nokia already in the global lead, and Google’s wallet, cloud-services, rapid iteration of the OS, and variety of form-factors and UIs from multiple manufacturers. Rounding out the other players are Windows Mobile with 12.8%, RIM BlackBerry with 12.5%, various Linux mobiles with a collective 5.4%, and Palm webOS with 2.1%.

iPhone, projected at 71.5 million unites sold, doesn’t have Nokia’s existing footprint or Google’s services, but here’s the thing: a) it has Apple’s still-unmatched 360 degrees of ecosystem integration, b) will likely continue to improve at the same rate it has since the original iPhone 2G running 1.x with no apps or services in 2007, and c) will remain wildly profitable, and that profit share will remain more important to Apple than raw marketshare.

TiPb has discussed this before, of course. Back in August we heard that while the iPhone currently only has 8% of the market, it gets 32% of the revenue. Further back in January, we heard Apple was making double the profits of Nokia.

So, okay, if the Mayans are wrong and we’re all still here in 2012, maybe Apple will only be making 30% margin on a 13.7% share. But that might still be killer compared to very little on a 39% share.

Just compare Apple’s current financial results to the rest of the industry for an indication of how that works…

2012: End of the World for iPhone Marketshare? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Stalwart Apple analyst Gene Munster is back, this time predicting the iPhone will hit multiple US carriers within an year — specifically Verizon — as well as expanded video offerings from iTunes — including a subscription service akin to satellite or cable, and an updated Apple TV to go with it.

Oh, and flying unicorns.

We joke. Slightly. Of course we want all these things too — and more — but we have a feeling that that’s all there is to some of these analyst reports — a bit of logical deduction and some surveys combined with what any of us would want:

“For various reasons the company moved from an exclusive relationship with French wireless carrier Orange to a multi-carrier model,” Munster said. “In France, the company now enjoys dramatically higher market share (in the 40 percent range vs. about 15 percent in ROW) than in countries with exclusive carrier agreements (such as AT&T in the U.S. where the iPhone has market share in the mid-teens). We believe Apple is seeing the increased unit sell-through more than offset the slightly (~10 percent) deteriorated economics per unit involved in non-exclusive agreements.”

So, expect it only when you see it.

[via AppleInsider]

Analyst Predictions: iPhone on Verizon, Updated Apple TV, Subscription Video, Peace on Earth is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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