As expected Apple for the first time ever broke $100 b illion in revenue for a quarter.
They posted $111.4 billion in revenue, up 21 percent year over year, with a net quarterly profit of $28.8 billion
That’s up from $91.8 billion last year
Revenue by product
$65.6 B iPhone, up 17 percent.
$15.76B Services, up 24 percent
$8.68B Mac
Up 21 percent from $7.2 billion and driven by the popularity of Apple’s new M1 Apple Silicon Macs
Apple says supplies were constrained, so they could have possibly sold even more.
$12.97B Wearables, Home, and Accessories, up 30 percent
$8.44B iPad
This is up a massive 41 percent
Apple’s top revenue segments are now iPhone (59%), Services (14%), and Wearables, Home, and Accessories (12%)
Apple had an amazing 57% year over year growth in China.
Apple has more than 620 million paid subscribers to it’s services.
Apple also has achieved a record of more than 1 billion active iPhone devices worldwide
Next Apple Watch may bring new health feature
ETNews is reporting the next generation of Apple Watch could feature blood glucose monitoring
The feature would be enabled via an Apple designed optical sensor
The solution is a skin-top continuous monitoring solution that would not require an implant
The report says Apple is working on the reliability and stability of the solution so they can commercialize the product
Apple has supposedly been working on the tech for years having hired a team of biomedical engineers and consultants who have been working on developing a non-invasive solution since about 2017
Work on the sensor reportedly progressed to trials at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Apple has also released a new limited edition of the Apple Watch Series 6 to celebrate Black History Month
It is a black aluminum Sport Edition watch with a special Black Unity Sport Band and a Unity watch face.
The band uses colors inspired by the Pan-African flag with the words “Truth. Power. Solidarity.” laser-engraved onto the closure. And the watch has “Black Unity” laser-etched onto the back crystal.
The Black Unity face is also available as part of watchOS 7.3
For fitness on the current generations of Apple Watch Apple added a new “Time Walk” feature for Fitness+ subscribers
The feature is “an inspiring new audio walking experience on Apple Watch for Fitness+ subscribers,”
Each original Time to Walk episode invites users to immerse themselves in a walk alongside influential and interesting people as they share thoughtful and meaningful stories, photos, and music.
The walks were recorded while walking outside with the celebrities in places that are meaningful to them.
Time to Walk is an experience meant to mimic walking alongside someone else
Walks are available with Dolly Parton, Draymond Green, Shawn Mendes, and Uzo Aruba
Walks are 25 to 40 minutes in length and can be downloaded and played from your Apple Watch
New sessions will be available in the Workout app every Monday through the end of April
Time to Walk requires AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones to be paired with your Apple Watch.
iOS 14.4 patches two ‘in the wild’ vulnerabilities
I don’t often mention incremental software updates, but a couple of security patches in iOS 14.4 are worth knowing about, especially since Apple says they know about instances where they were used “in the wild”
Apple didn’t provide specific details in the release notes about the incidents, but noted that additional information would be “available soon”
The exploits were a kernel vulnerability and a WebKit vulnerability
The kernel vulnerability could allow a malicious application to elevate privileges.
The WebKit issue allowed for a remote attacker to cause arbitrary code execution
iOS 14 also added a new “BlastDoor” sandbox to the Messages app that was detailed by a security researcher from Google’s Project Zero this week
It’s a tightly controlled sandbox service
It takes all incoming messages and inspects them for malicious code inside a secure environment that is blocked from interacting with the iOS or user data.
The 14.4 update for HomePod also finally added the enhanced “Handoff” experience for iPhones that have Apple’s U1 chip and the HomePod mini.
Users will get visual, audible, and haptic effects when handing off
They also get personalized listening suggestions when the iPhone is near the HomePod mini and media controls will appear without having to unlock the phone.
Apple’s new “privacy labels” on iOS Apps in the App Store are great and make it really easy for consumers to decide on which Apple they want use when it comes to privacy and their data.
But there might be an issue with not all apps being “honest” in their disclosures
In a report by the Washington Post they spot checked a couple dozen apps and found that more than half had misleading or dishonest privacy claims
Apple says it is relying on developers to be honest and will only respond if they get a report that the developers information is not correct.
Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency privacy feature will go into effect for the public early this spring
It was delayed from last September in order to give developers more time to prepare for the change
Developers will need to get user's permission to to access and use their devices random advertising identifier, Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), which can be used to track their activity across other apps and websites.
The update will present a pop-up with options to “allow tracking” or “ask app not to track” options.
Currently the feature is available, but it’s optional for developers to use. This Spring all apps that track users via the IDFA will be required to display the prompt.
Apple appoints new VP of hardware engineering
Apple announced that current SVP of hardware engineering, Dan Riccio, is moving to a new role focusing on a unspecified project
To fill his role Apple has appointed John Ternus the new SVP of hardware engineering
Ternus started at Apple in 2001 as part of the product design team.
He has been serving as Vice President of Hardware Engineering since 2013.
AirPods top wireless headphone market
New data from Strategy Analytics shows that AirPods continue to top the wireless headphone market
In the “True Wireless Stereo” segment Apple’s AirPods accounted for almost a 50 percent share of the global market
Though the report notes that Apple is seeing some of that share decrease as competitors release new lower cost alternatives.
But Apple Laos continues to expand and update the line.
We have the recently released Air Pods Max
And DigiTimes expects Apple to release the second-generation of Air pods Pro some time in the first half of 2021
The main rumor is that Apple is looking to make them “more compact” and that they might lose the stems.
This week also saw another indicator that AirTags are coming.
Accessory make Spigen listed an AirTags “case” accessory for AirTag
A leather strap with a gold clip-on carabiner to attach it to items
Mention being wireless charging compatible.
Notes the product is coming “late October”, but unclear if that meant 2020 or 2021
Apple TV+ news
According to Variety Apple is close to putting in an order for a new limited series based on a novel by James Keene and Hillel Levin.
The series is title “In With the Devil” and the novel has the simple title, “In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption.
The novel is based on Keene’s real life and tells the story about a time when he was incarcerated and offered a deal for release if if could get another inmate who was a suspected serial killer to confess to the crimes.
The six episode series would star Taron Egerton as Keene and also will feature Paul Walter Hauser.
Egerton is also involved on another Apple TV+ project, Tetris. It’s about Hank Rogers, a video game designer who secured the rights to distribute Tetris on game consoles.
Apple has put in an order for another limited series called WeCrashed
This one is about the company WeWork and is based on a podcast called “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork”
The series will star Jared Leto and Ann Hathaway both of whom will also serve as executive producers on the project.
According to Deadline Apple has sourced the worldwide rights to a Sundance film, ‘CODA’, for a record $25M
The story is about a high school senior who is the only person in her family who is not deaf. In the film she must make a choice between staying home to care for her parents or pursuing her dreams of a career in the music industry
The film stars Emilia Jones
There no release date set, but it’s expected to come to AppleTV+ later in 2021
Cult of Mac reported that Apple “quietly” acquired the lease to 90,000 square feet of studio space in New York last year
The deal is with the Kaufman Astoria Studios in queens
Apple will have a 35,000 square foot ground floor sound stage with 30 foot tall ceilings
That also will get 40,000 square feet of additional studio production space along with 15,000 square feet of office space.
iPhone sales doubled in India
In new research data from Counterpoint and CyberMedia reported on by TechCrunch
Apple increased their iPhone marketshare from 2 percent to 4 percent in India
A big help seems to be the diversity of the iPhone lineup with the lower priced options being popular in India.
The reports claims Apple shipped more than 3.2 million iPhones in India in 2020 with the iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone SE being the most popular.
A report from the Wall Street Journal adds to the rumors that Apple is looking to bring in display Touch ID technology to a future version of the iPhone
Could happen as soon as this year.
The issue is most in-scene technology uses optical sensors that can be easily fooled
the WSJ source claims Apple has been working to create optical sensors that are “more reliable”
Apple’s current technology uses capacitive sensors.
There are optical-capacitive hybrid sensors and it could be a that Apple is exploring ways to make that technology work in an under display sensor
Though Ming-Chi Kuo thinks Apple could go with "large-area sensing ultrasonic" technology. Though ultrasonic is generally not used because it’s much more expensive to implement.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
Website using ‘significant memory’
Stan wrote in because he has a brand new M1 MacBook Air running Safari 14.0.2 and MacOS Big Sur 11.1
But despite having 16GB of RAM he was getting an error in Safari about memory
“This webpage was reloaded because it was using significant memory”
This message can be very confusing because it makes it seem like possibly something is wrong with the RAM on your Mac. It’s not.
Really what this is Safari reporting on website or pages that are using up significant resources.
There is also an error for pages that are using up significant battery
Typically you’ll see this warning on sites that have a heavy amount of ads and tracking scripts. Also advertising with auto playing video ads
Macworld was the specific site Stan was seeing issues with.
You can see how much resources a site is using by opening Activity Monitor and looking at the Memory and Energy tabs
I loaded Macworld’s homepage and it was using almost 500MB of RAM. Just for one page.
Set-up did not go at all as smoothly as I had hoped
I did set up the SSID with the same name and password as my old network, so everything just reconnected without issue once I did get the set-up completed.
The App is “too simple” for me, but still nicely designed.
Luckily there is a web interface that offers much more advanced controls
Main things I like to change:
DNS. I use CloudFlare’s 1.1.1.1
DHCP IP range. Switch from 192.168 to 10.0.1
DHCP reservations
The Orbi makes this easier because it accurately lists all the devices and their manufacturers
I have 29 devices currently in my network.
So far performance is improved significantly
Thing of the Moment: UAG iPhone 12 cases
I’ve been a big fan of UAG cases for years
They offer a nice range of designs and options, but all with amazing drop protection
When the iPhone 12 was released they sent me a bunch of cases to try out.
Luckily because Apple did not have any iPhone 12 cases ready to go when the iPhone launched.
I have been using the Civilian Series iPhone 12 case since launch and I really like it
It offers a nice level of protection, but isn’t overly bulky
Has really nice access to the button and ports
It is a little on the thicker side, but works fine with my Anker WiFi chargers.
Only “sort of” works with Apple’s MagSafe charger. I have to get it lined up just right.
There are some UAG cases for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro that are labeled “Works with MagSafe”, but they are not technically “MagSafe” cases.
Meaning they don’t have Apple’s “MagSafe” magnet system in them
They do offer very robust rugged cases like the Pathfinder line, my wife loves these.
