New Product! Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch

*Apple Shares Their Quarterly Earnings for Q2*
43.7 million iPhones, 16.3 million iPads and 4.1 million Macs. That’s a total of 45.6 billion in revenue. Smokin’!

??Be sure to read more in Don’s recap below!??

“*Read more*”:http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/04/23Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html.

*Apple Patents Environmental Sensors for Mobile Devices*
Apple is apparently working on new environmental sensors for mobile devices. Apple filed two patents described as sensors that can be embedded in portable electronics like the iPhone, iPad “wrist-watch” devices. This adds further evidence to the speculation that the Apple iWatch is coming!

“*Read more.*”:http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/04/24/future-apple-devices-may-boast-environmental-sensor-suite-with-built-in-thermometer

*New Retail Leader Will Step Into Apple Role Next Week*
It was announced last October that sassy lady Angela Ahrendts would be coming to Apple from Burberry and will hopefully be imprinting her fashion experience all over the Apple market. Her start date was delayed a bit as she was rumored to have been waiting for her giant bonus from Burberry before parting ways — sounds like a smart lady to me!

“*Read more.*”:http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/23/apples-new-retail-leader-angela-ahrendts-officially-steps-into-her-role-next-week/

*Apple Releases Earth Day Ad*
Earth Day was this past Wednesday, and Apple decided to release a killer “*full-page ad*”:https://twitter.com/DavidMcClelland/status/458498117248512000/photo/1 that ??kinda?? took a dig at the whole Samsung drama that has been going on lately. The ad features the awesome solar farm that Apple built to power their data center in Maiden, NC with the some fighting words: “There are some ideas that we want every company to copy.” ??Oh snap.??

“*Read more.*”:http://9to5mac.com/2014/04/22/apple-teases-samsung-in-new-environmental-print-ad-there-are-some-things-we-want-every-company-to-copy/

_Dear Friends,_

On our weekly Retail call this week, we discussed how to answer the question we get posed from time to time: “Why should I buy from Small Dog?” One manager related a story about a customer who bought a screen protector for her iPad mini. While we were installing the screen protector she bought free-of-charge, the customer asked why she should buy a second iPad mini for her other son from Small Dog Electronics as well. The employee looked down at what he was doing and the customer did, too — and she exclaimed, “Oh, I understand!” __Always by your side__ is more than a slogan for us and with twenty years of experience in the business, we view customer satisfaction and delight as our most important task.

Perhaps the most compelling reason, however, is supporting the local economy. As I explained to our staff, it is great that customers feel good about supporting a local business rather than one of the big box stores, but there is more to it than that. When you spend your hard-earned dollars at a local business, a much greater percentage of that dollar stays in the local economy than if you buy from a larger company. While we work on extremely thin margins and much of what you spend will end up being used to buy the products we sell to you, the profit margin mostly stays in our community. We use that to pay wages, which our employees use to buy goods and services. We use it to buy advertising, services and other overhead items, all in the local economy. That margin circulates into the local economy making the overall community stronger.

Yes, we will install that screen protector for you, but we will also take the time to truly understand your needs before we sell you a product. We will demonstrate the product, allow you a hands-on experience and never up-sell you into a solution that is inappropriate for your needs. After the sale, we are there for you, too: With knowledgeable advice, Apple Authorized Service with genuine Apple parts, and a wide variety of technical support solutions, from in-home consultations and lessons to mobile device management for large companies and government agencies. And of course, you also get free small dogs with every order!

After reading a lot of gloom and doom stories about how Apple has lost its mojo and their quarterly financials would be poor, it was very exciting to see that Apple posted their best March quarter ever and had a lot of good news. I will go over the numbers below.

My special for this week is the iPad 2. This is the entry level full-size iPad with 16GB of RAM with Wi-Fi. These are brand new iPads with an Apple warranty. I am going to bundle this iPad with AppleCare+ for the iPad and a Hammerhead Folio case. AppleCare+ is a great value for the iPad as it not only extends the Apple one-year warranty to two years but it also extends Apple’s technical support from 90 days to two years. Without AppleCare+, Apple will ask for your credit card number before providing any support after 90 days, so with it, you’ll have two full years of tech support warranty on the hardware. And perhaps even more valuable (judging from the number of accidentally damaged iPads we see), AppleCare+ allows you up to two incidents of accidental damage. You just pay a small deductible, and Apple will replace that iPad — even if you accidentally drop it on the floor or in the bathtub!

For further protection, I’ve added a Hammerhead Folio case to the bundle. This durable case fits your iPad securely and provides excellent protection from impact and scratches. It converts into two landscape viewing modes to provide optimal angles for typing and viewing and will automatically wake and sleep your iPad. This bundle normally sells for $427, but for Kibbles & Bytes readers only, this week it is $399!

“*Purchase this bundle here!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001381

For a long time, Don and I had an agreement when it comes to new Apple products: He gets all the new mobile products, and I get any new desktop workstations to try out and use. This agreement went well for both of us for the first 15 years of Small Dog’s life, but in 2010, Apple didn’t have any regular updates to the Mac Pro lineup. I was fine with it, as my old Mac Pro tower had plenty of life in it, but was definitely envious every time Don received a new MacBook while I plodded away with my old system.

Finally, in the summer of 2013, Apple announced the new Mac Pro! Unfortunately, I had to wait until October before I could order one. Then, when I could finally get one on order, they were on heavy allocation at our distributors, so I had to wait while we filled all of our customer orders first (of course)! Finally this month, nearly six months later, my shiny new Mac Pro has arrived!

I decided that I wanted to try to take advantage of all the new machine had to offer, so I purchased a couple of 1080p television monitors and mounted them to the wall behind my desk. Prices have come down on these monitors so much, so it was worth the investment to have some extra screen options.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I would use these displays for, but figured they would be good for having a sporting event on, and I could load on some tickers for various business processes on them as well. Currently, I have settled on Google Analytics for our website, a stock ticker, and my weekly calendar. Do you have any other suggestions for what I could put on these? “*Email me!*”:mailto:hapy@smalldog.com

I opted for the base model Mac Pro, but got the 512GB of PCIe flash storage because trying to compress all my files into 256GB just didn’t seem possible.

We have one used 30-inch display in-stock — if you are interested in sporting a similar configuration to me, here is a special deal for you! ??Note: There’s only 1 available!??

It includes:

* Mac Pro 3.7GHz Quad-core 12GB/512GB/D300 CTO
* Apple 30″ cinema display (used)
* Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI Adapter
* 2 x Hammerhead Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Cable – 6ft
* 2 x ViewSonic VX2252mh-LED 22in Widescreen HDMI Monitor
* 2 x Chief FTR-V Tilting VESA Wall Mount
* Seagate Backup Plus Portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive – 1TB Black
* Kensington SlimBlade USB Trackball
* Microsoft 4000 Egro Keyboard
* AppleCare extended warranty on the Mac Pro ??(Note that you can’t add coverage to a used monitor)??

All of this for just $4,799! “*Purchase Hapy’s special bundle here!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001382

Bamboo Pad is a touchpad with a digital stylus that allows you to combine simple hand gestures with a pen for more convenient and intuitive navigating and annotation. Its wireless capabilities give you wireless freedom at your desk and provide even more flexibility to pair it with different devices.

*Enjoy free shipping for the next week!*

Go back a week and these were the headlines in the financial markets:

* Competitors Are Like Piranhas Chewing Up Apple
* Apple Faces a Problem
* Apple Flat EPS, Blah Revenue Growth
* Apple Q2 Results Are Likely to Disappoint

This morning we have quite a different picture and different headlines:

* Apple Hits a Home Run
* Apple Ready to Become a Dow Stock
* Five out of Five Brokers Rate AAPL a Buy, Raise Price Targets

Wednesday night, Apple announced its financial results for the January-March quarter and it blew away just about every analyst’s prediction. They posted revenue of $45.6 billion, net quarterly profit of $11.62 per share or $10.2 billion and higher margins. This was their best second quarter ever for revenue and the highest non-holiday quarter ever. The company sold nearly 44 million iPhones, 16.3 million iPads, 4.13 million Macs, 2.7 million iPods and generated $4.5 billion from iTunes and software. They returned $21 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buy-backs, too.

Apple went on to announce that they would be doing a 7-to-1 stock split, which, while it does not necessarily add value to the stock, does make the stock more accessible to individual investors and would qualify Apple to become part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. They announced that there would be an 8% dividend increase and their intention to provide on-going dividend increases. This makes Apple one of the largest dividend payers in the world. They also announced that they feel that their stock is such a good buy that they will increase their own stock purchases by another $30 billion — also a record for stock buy-backs.

Other items of interest from the announcement and call with analysts was that Apple has a 95% share of the education market for tablets and data shows that 91% of tablet activations in the business market were iPads. This is with a totally unprecedented an overall customer satisfaction rate of 98% for the iPad. Two-thirds of those planning to buy a tablet are planning to buy an iPad and usage numbers are “off the chart” in the words of Tim Cook with over 4 times the web traffic of all Android devices combined. Looking at iPhone buyers, 85% of purchasers of the iPhone 4S were first-time iPhone buyers, 69% of buyers of the 5c were first-time iPhone buyers and over 60% of buyers of these devices were switchers from Android.

These are fantastic results for Apple, and we congratulate the entire Apple team! Tim Cook went out of his way to praise the retiring Peter Oppenheimer for his financial leadership over the last 10 years. He also announced that Angela Ahrendts will be joining Apple next week as the VP for Retail and Online.

While these are fantastic results for Apple and we are very happy to be a part of this success, I must make an editorial comment that Apple’s independent reseller partners are not sharing in this success to the extent that makes our businesses sustainable. Several high-profile and smaller resellers have been forced to close their doors in the face to declining margins.

Apple needs to recognize the importance of this channel in terms of serving our joint customers and providing top quality customer service in underserved areas. I know that when you are dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars and a company that has grown over 20 times in the past ten years, smaller elements of the business are sometimes overlooked.

Apple Specialists are an important part of the Apple experience and I urge Apple to embrace our channel to allow as sustainable business model. Okay, enough editorial — it was a great quarter for Apple, and I am sure that there are a lot more coming!

The Intuos Professional Pen & Touch is the ideal choice for anyone with a serious creative passion in photography, art or design. The streamlined size packs a lot of power into a small desktop space and combines Wacom’s finest pen capabilities with intuitive multi-touch gestures.

*Enjoy free shipping for the next week!*