iOS

An Apple CEO-in-waiting sells 95% of his company shares

The head of iPhone and iPad software sold 64,151 shares Friday worth $38.7 million 

FORTUNE -- Scott Forstall took home a chunk of change Friday.

Taking advantage of Apple's (AAPL) relatively high (but not record) share price, the company's senior vice president for iOS software -- someone often mentioned as possible successor to Steve Jobs and Tim Cook -- sold 64,151 shares at prices ranging from $601 to $605 to clear $38.7 million MORE

How many Macs did Apple sell last quarter?

Estimates range from 4.3 to 4.85 million. The best analysts' consensus: 4.64 million

FORTUNE -- Compared with Apple's (AAPL) iOS devices -- the iPhone and the iPad -- the Mac is a turtle. Slow and steady has characterized its growth rate since the launch of the iPhone -- an average of 26% year over year for the past five years.

This time, with no new Mac introductions to boost sales in the MORE

Today in Tech: Will Google's Dropbox rival launch next week?

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* Research in Motion (RIMM) is reportedly seeking a financial advisor to help the ailing handset maker weigh strategic options. One analyst suggestion? License out the BlackBerry operating system to a company like Samsung. Also: A look at RIM's only (and lonely) BlackBerry story. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal)

* Hulu MORE

Analyst: 'The entire cellphone and computing ecosystem will be shaken to the ground'

ACI Research's Edward Zabitsky, who famously advised clients to short Apple when it was selling for $450 a share, has seen the future and it is Microsoft's Windows 8 

We know what Ed Zabitzky thinks of Apple (AAPL). In a note issued in January, when the stock was selling for $450 a share, the CEO of ACI Research set a price target of $270 and told his institutional clients to sell it MORE

Asymco: Google makes only $1.70 a year per Android device

Apple, by contrast, generated more than $575 for every iOS device it sold last year

"In terms of returns, Android is sustainable," writes Asymco's Horace Dediu at the end of a long analytical piece posted Monday. "However, in relative terms the value created leaves much to be desired."

That's quite an understatement, especially when you consider how much Apple (AAPL) makes on its mobile devices. According to Dediu, Apple generated $576.30 per MORE

$1 on Apple's App Store is 89¢ on Kindle and 23¢ on Android

Google could learn something from Amazon about how to run an app store

For 45 days, from mid-January to the end of February, the folks at Flurry analytics ran an interesting experiment.

They found a basket of top-rated apps that are available for the same price on three major app stores -- iOS, Android and Amazon -- whose revenue was generated primarily by in-app purchases. Then they compared the revenue generated by MORE

Nielsen: Recent U.S. iPhone sales nearly matched Android's

Between December and February, Android captured 48% and iOS 43% of the U.S. market

The thrust of the Nielsen report issued Thursday morning is that nearly half (49.7%) of U.S mobile phone owners now carry smartphones.

But what interests me, as usual, is how that market is being divvied up among Google (GOOG) Android phones, Apple's (AAPL) iPhones, Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerries and the diminishing Others.

The chart at right tells the story. MORE

Apple's iOS devices: Selling 'em as fast as it can make 'em

The company is ramping up production at ever more impressive rates

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook often says about the company's iOS devices that it is selling them as fast as it can make them.

In that context, the chart published Tuesday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster illustrates what may be Cook's most impressive achievement as COO: The rate at which he has been able to ramp up production.

Five years ago, it took MORE

The iPad event by the numbers

A round-up of Apple's latest milestones 

No company is better at telling its story with nice round numbers than Apple (AAPL). Here, in the order they arrived, are the numbers it trotted out at Wednesday's iPad event:

362 Apple Stores
110 million customers in Q4
315 million iOS devices sold
62 million in Q4 alone
25 billion iOS apps downloaded
100+ million iCloud customers
15.4 million iPads sold in Q4
200,000+ apps designed for iPad
100+ competing tablets came to MORE

And the prize for Best App Ever (2012 edition) goes to ...

The results of the "People's Choice" app award are announced at Macworld|iWorld

A record 1.5 million votes were cast earlier this month in the fourth annual Best App Ever contest, more than three times as many as last year. Created in 2008 by 148Apps -- a smartphone app-tracking website named after the maximum number of apps that could be installed on Apple's (AAPL) original iPhone -- its purpose, according to founder MORE