Verizon sold 4.2 million iPhones during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Verizon’s CFO Fran Shammo speaking at a conference on Wednesday, reported by StreetInsider. That’s more than twice as many iPhone devices as it sold during the previous quarter, an increase no doubt spurred by the launch of the iPhone 4S.

This might not be a really big bonanza for Verizon though, as Verizon complained about narrower profit margins for all new phones and contracts because of added upfront costs on such deals that offer discounts to new customers.

Then, on top of that, Verizon had this setback with three separate outages of their 4G/LTE network in December alone, and it’s unclear whether customers will be receiving a credit on their accounts because of the outage or whether the 4G/LTE network will be able to support additional devices like the iPhone 5.

The iPhone currently isn’t set up with 4G technology, but the bad press probably still could have hurt Verizon as the outages of their 3G network were also widely reported.

Whatever Verizon gets or doesn’t get from increased sales of its iPhones, it certainly doesn’t matter much for Apple which enjoys doubling the sales of iPhones in full.

Add to these Verizon figures this overall picture: analysts have been predicting upward of 30 million iPhones sold for Apple’s holiday quarter, which would be almost double the 17 million it sold during the previous quarter. 

Estimates also show that most of this success of iPhone sales can be attributed to a timely release of the iPhone 4S. Success of the iPhone 4S in its turn can be attributed to the tremendous popularity of its Siri service.

Well, it depends on your situation. Wilson Rothman has a decent guide put together on Gadget Box that breaks it down. For example, he’s saying that current iPhone 4 owners can probably skip this update. Yes, you can’t have Siri on your iPhone 4 and you’ll need to make do with a 5MP camera and A4 processor, but the 4S really isn’t that much better than the 4. It’s worth waiting for a true iPhone 5 if you really want the upgrade.

On the other hand, current owners of the iPhone 3G and 3GS could probably stand to get the upgrade. You get a “new” form factor and plenty of more horsepower than what you currently have. Similarly, Sprint customers would probably like the 4S, since they haven’t had an iPhone before. It’s also no saying that WiMAX will be supported in the next iPhone anyhow.

The camp where I belong is that of the Android smartphone and superphone. I only have a Samsung Galaxy S, but especially people with an Atrix, SGSII, or something similar, they probably wouldn’t want the iPhone 4S quite as much. You could make the jump from Android to iOS, but spec for spec, the current crop of dual core-touting Android superphones are on par or better than the 4S.

But that’s just a general idea. What about you? Are you getting the iPhone 4S or are you waiting for the iPhone 5? Maybe you’re waiting to see the Nexus Prime instead?

After months of hearsay, rumors, and conjecture, it’s finally official. Apple did not announce a new iPhone 5 this morning. Instead, it followed in the tradition started by the 3GS by revealing the new Apple iPhone 4S to the world. As before, the iPhone 4S is an incremental upgrade to the pre-existing iPhone 4.

Following the live coverage, I learned pretty much everything you need to know about the next generation iPhone 4S. Let’s get the big details out of the way. It’s supposed to be substantially faster than the iPhone 4, thanks to upgrading to the same A5 processor as the iPad 2. Graphics performance is said to be seven times better too.

We also learn that it gets an upgraded 8MP camera with an F2.4 aperature and backside illumination, providing 73% more light and 33% faster capture. That should help with low light shooting. The OS is upgraded to iOS5, of course, and there is a larger 64GB capacity model too. Wireless speeds get bumped to HSPA+ 14.4 too, putting the iPhone 4S on par with other HSPA+ smartphones already out there.

The other major announcement was the introduction of Siri, a voice-based personal assistant that can be used for all sorts of things on your iPhone 4S. It allows you to use natural language to search contacts, define words, add appointments, read out text messages, and so forth. It’s contextual, personal, and works with built-in apps. It’s like Skynet or HAL, but friendlier and not as murderous.

As far as pricing and availability, the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan get first dibs with pre-orders starting October 7. Launch date is set for October 14. It’ll come in your choice of black or white with the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB variants going for $199, $299, and $399 respectively, presumably on contracts. Sprint USA gets it, but not T-Mobile (yet).

As was the case going from the 3G to the 3GS, I imagine that most iPhone 4 users won’t need to upgrade just yet, but if you’ve still got a 3G or a 3GS, moving to the iPhone 4S sounds like a pretty good idea.

[Photos courtesy of Engadget and The Verge]

Even though some cool kids are spending more time on Google+ these days, there’s still plenty of love for Mark Zuckerberg’s baby. If you happen to be rocking an iOS device, you’ll want to know that Facebook for iPhone version 3.5 has now been revealed and it comes with some nice upgrades.

For instance, you’ll notice some new sharing options from the compose screen, making it easier for you to get desktop-like Facebook functionality on your iPhone. Other updates include better privacy controls, redesigned Profile and Group walls, and the ability to tag your friends in posts. The tagging bit is a very welcome addition, since I do that quite often in my status updates. Friends can be added from the compose screen either from a list or through a search. And yes, photo uploads are there too.

They’ve also worked to fix some bugs and improve overall performance and stability. This is Facebook 3.5 for iPhone, but I imagine a larger version for iPad should be following shortly.

Nokia had long since held that crown, but the Finnish firm has come into some serious woes in the last year, getting trounced left and right by Android and iOS. In the second quarter of 2010, Nokia shipped 23.8 million smartphones. In Q2 2011, it only shipped 16.7 million. By contrast, Apple jumped from 8.4 million to 20.3 million over the same time period.

Apple isn’t the only one showing significant growth either. Fueled largely by its Galaxy S and now its Galaxy S II lines of smartphones, Samsung saw a quantum leap from 3.1 million in Q2 ’10 to a whopping 19.2 million units in Q2 ’11. Based on this trend, Samsung could jump ahead of Apple some time in the next year or so.

Nokia is still tops in terms of total cell phones, probably because of its strong presence with cheaper phones for emerging markets, but I’m thinking the guys in Helsinki aren’t exactly dancing for joy at this point. Interestingly, despite only selling iPhones, Apple is fourth in overall cell phone shipments too.  

But get this,  Apple has more cash reserves than the U.S. Government.  The U.S. Treasury Department shows a total cash reserve for the U.S. government at $73.768 billion. Apple’s total cash reserves? $75.876 billion.

What do you do when you’re competing with over 200,000 other applications, fighting for the attention of the even shorter attention span-wielding smartphone user? You give them a reason to pay attention to you… until Apple says that you can’t do that.

Up until now, a number of app developers for iOS have made use of incentivization, a common strategy employed in marketing both online and offline. These developers, including Flurry and TapJoy, offer some kind of bonus in exchange for downloading a promoted application. For example, you might get some extra virtual coins for “buying” more songs in Tap Tap Revenge if you also get application XYZ.

Apple has now put a stop to this practice in the App Store. These apps are now being rejected by the Cupertino Crew since they are in violation of section 3.10 of the developer guidelines. I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with incentives, so long as all the parties involved (promoted app, app providing the incentive, end user) are happy, but I guess Apple isn’t happy that they’re not getting in on the action.

Not that this is going to stop the popularity of iOS apps as a whole, of course.

[Read]

The market share, she’s a-shifting. Apple’s iPhone with iOS is still leading the pack according to the latest numbers from Nielson, but it looks like there will soon be a new second place contender in the United States. Not surprisingly, that rising star is Google’s Android.

The newest data is for November 2010 and it shows that RIM’s BlackBerry dropped from 33.9% in June to just 26.1% in November. By comparison, Google Android-based devices rose from 15% to 25.8% over the same time period with no real sign of slowing down. That puts Android within fractions of a percentage point of RIM. For frame of reference, Apple is sitting relatively steady at 28.6%.

Over the course of those few months, Jim Balsillie saw his company’s market share (in the United States, at least) fall from being first to almost dropping to third. If these trends continue, we could see a complete flip with Android leading the pack, iOS taking second, and RIM chasing along with bronze.

Yes, Android is “cheating” by being offered through multiple manufacturers, but the closed ecosystem are Apple’s and RIM’s own doing.

[Nielsen via GigaOm]

Looking toward some of the component suppliers that Apple uses, they have indicated that the Cupertino management team have increased “shipment goals” for the iPhone in Q1 2011. The goal was initially set for 19 million units in the first quarter of next year, but now they’re aiming for between 20 and 21 million units.

Now, this is wholly conjecture and speculation, but why would Apple choose to suddenly increase its shipment goals unless it was expecting to suddenly experience an increase in sales? It’s possible that we could be on the cusp of something like an iPhone 4S, but it also quite likely that the 21 million figure factors in more than a few CDMA units coming out of the factory.

To put things into perspective, Apple is expected to wrap up 2010 with a total of 47 million iPhones shipped in the calendar year.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of our addiction to gadgetry is that it may not always be so good for the environment. In order to treat mother nature a little better, Tjeerd Veenhoven fashioned together a special iPhone case that he dubs the iFan. Yeah, it’s a case with a giant fan at the top of it.

The idea with the repurposed computer cooling fan is that it can act much like a windmill, taking the power of passing gusts and harnessing it into useful electricity. This can then recharge your iPhone on the go without ever needing to plug into a wall outlet. I can’t imagine it being all that efficient, but every little bit helps.

Is it unsightly? Possibly. Will you have a very hard shoehorning this thing into your jeans pocket? Without a doubt. Even so, I could see this being an effective solution for someone going for a bike ride, mounting the phone with the iFan case to the handlebars. This way, you can use your iPhone as a GPS navigator (or music player or whatever) and keep the battery charged with the wind passing you by.

[Gadget Review via Tjeerd Veenhoven]

They say that perception is 95% of reality. The trouble is that everyone’s perception is a little different and there are few places where this is more evident than among smartphone evangelists. Are you an Apple fanboy (or fangirl)? Well, other people don’t see you in the same way that you see yourself.

Depicted here is a clever graphic from the folks at C-Section comics. Let’s take the iPhone user as a prime example. According to this, most iPhone users will probably see themselves as hip and fashionable. Unfortunately, BlackBerry users will view the same iPhone owner as childish and immature. And the Android user? Well, she sees the iPhone owner as a cult-ish witch.

It’s not like the other platforms are immune to these ill-conceived perceptions either. The typical Android user might see himself as a brilliant Einstein, but the iPhone user will see the Android owner as a pimple-faced dork. Not good.

Yes, these are all exaggerated versions of reality, but there is some truth to this. The Android guy probably does see the BlackBerry owner as an ancient dinosaur. And where do I, as a Nokia Symbian user fall into the field? Probably as a nondescript wallflower that very few people notice.

See the full comic strip at C-Section