Brad Cook

A new patent published this week titled “Apparatus and Method to Facilitate Universal Remote Control” reveals a touchscreen-based universal remote that would operate a variety of devices, including computers, and promises to reduce the clutter found on many universal remotes sold today.

Research firm Strategy Analytics said this week that tablet shipments more than doubled in 4Q11, thanks to frenzied interest in the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, but noted that Apple lost 10 points of market share while Android gained 10.

Good Technology, whose products help IT departments secure mobile devices, this week released a report in which it said that the iPhone 4 and 4S “strongly dominated activations in the enterprise for Q4 2011. The mid-October release of the iPhone 4S caused smartphone activations to skyrocket month over month, while Android’s percentage of total smartphone activations remained steady.”

The Wednesday morning surge in Apple’s stock price, which hovered around the US$450 mark during the first few hours of trading, catapulted the company ahead of Exxon Mobil and into first place as the world’s most valuable company. The Wall Street Journal noted that the jump in AAPL shares put Apple’s market value at $416.7 billion, just ahead of Exxon Mobil’s $413 billion.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley on Wednesday issued a new research note obtained by TMO. Mr. Walkley wrote: “We believe Apple is likely to announce a dividend during 2012, potentially next quarter when crossing $100B in cash and cash equivalents. We view this as very bullish for investors, as we believe a new group of investors seeking dividends would invest in Apple and drive shares higher.”

Smile on Wednesday announced iCloud support for its PDF editor PDFpen, which is also available now for iPad. iCloud support is automatically included in the new PDFpen 5.7 and PDFpenPro 5.7 released to the Mac App Store, and users who update to the new version directly via Smile can buy the US$0.99 app PDF Cloud Access at the Mac App Store to receive the new functionality.

UBS analyst Maynard Um on Wednesday issued a new research note in which he covered Apple’s Tuesday earnings announcement and significantly raised his expectations for the company’s 2Q12 fiscal quarter and 2012 fiscal year, given the blowout results reported for calendar 4Q11. He bumped FY2Q12 from US$33.7 billion in revenue and $8.54 EPS to $37.5 billion/$10.95 and boosted FY2012 from $142.7 billion/$35.83 to $161.2 billion/$46.09.

The “thermonuclear war” that Steve Jobs declared against Android may be getting bogged down in trench warfare that is rumored to have cost US$100 million or more, according to a source who spoke with Newsweek’s Dan Lyons.

Apple may be rumored to have a TV set in the works, but its Apple TV set-top box “is still classified as a hobby,” CEO Tim Cook said during the company’s Tuesday earnings call. Mr. Cook made that categorization based on the revenue generated by the 2.8 million units sold during Apple’s previous fiscal year, which concluded last September.

During Apple’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, company CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that Apple’s average revenue per retail store was US$17.1 million during the fourth quarter of 2011, up 43 percent from $12.1 million a year ago. Apple opened four new stores in the quarter, three in Europe and one in New York City’s Grand Central Station, for a total of 361 locations in the chain.