Articles about Apple

The measure of Apple fiscal first quarter 2017 isn't record revenues ($78.35 billion) but comparison to major competitors: More than three times Google ($26.06 billion) or Microsoft ($24.1 billion). Amazon announces tomorrow, Groundhog Day. Will the retailer's CEO, Jeff Bezos, see his shadow? The 3x multiplier nearly applies to net income: $17.89 billion, versus $6.64 billion and $5.2 billion, respectively, for the two rivals. Looked at differently, compared to Apple's same quarter in fiscal 2010, seven years later, profits exceed total revenues ($15.68 billion). That's an astounding comparison.

The results defy pundits' prognostications, including my own, about gravity pulling the company back to Earth. iPhone, as major source of revenue, can only stay up for so long, before slowing smartphone sales wreck havoc. That said, credit where it's due: CEO Tim Cook is, as I've asserted before, a logistics and manufacturing genius. He is a strategist, but not an innovation leader like predecessor Steve Jobs. Cook masterfully manages his inheritance, but he, nor Apple observers, should get lost in the quarter's glow: iPhone remains boon and bane.

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Apple edged Samsung to take the top spot in the smartphone market in the final quarter of 2016, thanks to very strong iPhone shipments. The Cupertino, Calif.-based vendor moved 78.3 million units, having a share of 17.8 percent, while its South Korean rival only managed to ship 77.5 million smartphones, which equates to a market share of 17.7 percent. Total shipments for the quarter were 438.7 million units, according to a Strategy Analytics report.

This is not the first time that Apple beats Samsung, but it is rare for it to happen. Samsung usually has a comfortable lead over its rivals, including Apple, but thanks to the Galaxy Note7 recall it failed to repeat that performance last quarter. You can follow the saga here, but the gist of it is that the company had to pull millions of devices as a result of its mistakes, and that had a serious effect on its showing in the last part of 2016.

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Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote presentations are often very boring, but unfortunately, they are a fact of life in the business world. If you have ever sat through a meeting that focused heavily on these slides, you have probably feigned interest and tried hard not to fall asleep. But why? Often, the data held on the screen is quite informative, but if the presenter is a bore, the presentation will suffer regardless. To make matters worse, with more and more employees working remotely, these presentations can be nothing more than slides with audio for some -- those not physically in the room with the presenter can have a lesser experience.

Logitech decided to take a look at the deficiencies of these PowerPoint presentations, with the goal of creating a tool to improve both presentations and the presenters. True, presentation remotes are one such tool that can help, but that segment was very stagnant. Today, Logitech unveils the fruits of its labor -- the Spotlight Presentation Remote. While the elegant device looks simplistic, you should not judge this book by its cover. It is a revolutionary tool for the business world that is chock full of goodness.

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Buy an iPhone -- or any other phone -- from somewhere other than an official reseller, and you run the risk of getting your hands on a stolen device. Apple has a tool that allows would be buyers to check whether the phone they are planning to buy is secured with Activation Lock. Until very recently, that is; the tool has now disappeared.

The Activation Lock status checker was available on iCloud.com, and by simply entering the IMEI or serial number of a phone it was possible to perform a quick check to see if it is already locked to another user. But no more!

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For far too many years the process of providing feedback in the App Store has been a one-way dialog. At long last Apple is opening things up so developers will be able to respond to reviews that are left by customers.

References to the new option is to be found in the documentation for iOS 10.3 beta, and Apple says that it will be available to developers when the final version of iOS 10.3 is released; it will also be available in the Mac App Store. Importantly, just as with Google Play, responses that are left will be visible to all and a new API will make it possible to leave feedback from within apps.

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Apple today releases updates for all its major operating systems, introducing iOS 10.2.1, macOS Sierra 10.12.3, tvOS 10.1.1 and watchOS 3.1.3. The latest builds do not add any new features, as the focus is on improving the existing functionality and squashing bugs.

Mac users are treated with the lengthiest changelog, and users of the latest MacBook Pros (October 2016 models) should be particularly interested in it. That's because Apple improved graphics switching on the 15-inch MacBook Pro and fixed graphics issues that occurred while using Adobe Premiere Pro to encode projects on both 13-inch and 15-inch Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pros.

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Following the release of flagship devices such as the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 in 2016, water resistant handsets are now the fastest growing segment in the smartphone industry. But, what does this mean for handset design in 2017?

Let's take a look at recent research from IDC and explain how hydrophobic nano-coating technology can support OEMs when looking to incorporate this increasingly sought after feature.

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Apple is not happy with its longtime partner Qualcomm, as it has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the chip maker for allegedly being charged "royalties for technologies [that Qualcomm has] nothing to do with."

This is the second major lawsuit filed against Qualcomm this week, with the US Federal Trading Commission announcing on Tuesday that it is taking the chip maker to court for "monopolizing key semiconductor device used in cell phones." The two lawsuits are related.

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The financial turbulence that followed the UK's vote to leave the European Union has seen the value of the pound tumbling. With the pound and the dollar almost reaching parity, Apple has again been forced to increase prices.

While the US and UK currencies may not quite have reached parity, the price of apps in the two regions will very soon do just that. Apps that cost $0.99 in the US would have cost £0.79 in the UK pre-Brexit -- now this will jump to £0.99. Information about the price hike came in an email to developers, and it will take effect over the next seven days.

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Apple is eager for MacBook Pro users to squeeze the best possible battery life out of their machines, so it's understandable that the company was taken aback by Consumer Reports' original, and disappointing battery life results.

With macOS, Apple helps users to be proactive in boosting battery performance by warning when a particular app is using a lot of power -- if it is not entirely necessary, users will hopefully feel compelled to kill it. In the latest beta version of macOS Sierra, screen brightness is also taken into account, and users are advised that lowering this setting will save power.

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Cellebrite -- the Israeli security company famed for helping the FBI crack the iPhone at center of the San Bernardino case -- has been hit by hackers. The attack resulted in the theft of 900GB of data.

While the website Motherboard -- which was handed a copy of the data -- reports that "the cache includes customer information, databases, and a vast amount of technical data regarding Cellebrite's products", the company has downplayed the incident.

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It is no secret that iOS is a tightly controlled ecosystem. There is not a whole lot that users can do to customize their iPhones, and there are not that many options for developers wanting to sell their apps outside of the App Store. In fact, if you do not want to reach a very small audience, who likes to jailbreak their devices, your one and only bet is the App Store.

A number of customers believe that that is a problem so serious that they sued Apple over its perceived iOS app distribution monopoly. A complaint was filed all the way back in 2011, but only now did a court allow the lawsuit to go forward.

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In a shocking series of tests just before Christmas, Consumer Reports put the new MacBook Pro through its paces and came to the conclusion that battery life was so poor and so variable that it was the first MacBook Pro it could not recommend.

Apple was rather taken aback by the result and, after further investigation, blamed a hidden setting activated by Consumer Reports. This in itself exposed a bug in Safari. With this patched, the tests were re-run and the MacBook Pro is now the proud recipient of Consumer Reports' coveted 'recommended' award.

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Owning a MacBook Pro (2016) has been a very fun experience. While some people are unhappy not having USB Type-A ports, I am happily embracing the Type-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports. Sure, I have needed a dongle a few times when connecting some devices, but it hasn't been too bad. I've even embraced a USB-C dock (with power delivery) to create a Mac desktop experience in my home -- mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

So far, however, I haven't been very satisfied with USB-C docks. I sometimes face issues where USB ports don't work while delivering power. On a few occasions, my connected USB hard drives have disconnected when the Mac goes to sleep, leading to macOS warning messages. The market will soon be saturated with true Thunderbolt 3 docks that should provide a much better experience. Today, StarTech announces a new line of Thunderbolt 3 devices, including docks and display adapters.

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Apple traditionally enjoys very strong iPhone sales after it launches new smartphones. And this is certainly true of the three months ending November 2016, when the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus topped the sales charts in US and helped iOS close in on Android in Great Britain.

In US, it is actually an all-iPhone podium, with the iPhone 6s joining the newer models in the top three, according to a new Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report. Apple saw its share rise to 43.5 percent, while Google's Android dropped to 55.3 percent of the market.

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