Apple Earnings Q1 – 2025

It’s earnings season again and Apple News has again reported record total net sales for first quarter earnings.

From Apple News:

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2025 first quarter ended December 28, 2024. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent year over year, and quarterly diluted earnings per share of $2.40, up 10 percent year over year.

“Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent from a year ago,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We were thrilled to bring customers our best-ever lineup of products and services during the holiday season. Through the power of Apple silicon, we’re unlocking new possibilities for our users with Apple Intelligence, which makes apps and experiences even better and more personal. And we’re excited that Apple Intelligence will be available in even more languages this April.”

“Our record revenue and strong operating margins drove EPS to a new all-time record with double-digit growth and allowed us to return over $30 billion to shareholders,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO. “We are also pleased that our installed base of active devices has reached a new all-time high across all products and geographic segments.”

iPhone $69,138 million down 1%
Mac $8,987 million up 16%
iPad $8,088 million up 15%
Wearables, Home and Accessories $11,747 million down 2%
Services $26,340 million up 14%
Total Net Sales $124,300 million up 4%

See also, the six colours charts.

Los Angeles Fire

The images coming out of Los Angeles this morning are heartbreaking.

From the BBC:

We don’t yet have concrete answers as to what started the LA fires, it is too early to tell and first responders are still focused on evacuating and tackling the blazes.

But, officials have pointed to high winds and drought in the area, which has made vegetation very dry and easy to burn.

An important factor that has been cited in the spread of the blazes is the seasonally strong Santa Ana winds.

These blow from inland towards the coast and with speeds of more than 60mph (97 km/h) these are believed to have fanned the flames and embers across LA County.

The likely impact of climate change has also been cited been blamed – although the exact circumstances remain unclear.

Some 95% of wildfires in the area are started by humans, according to David Acuna, a battalion chief at the Californian Fire Service, although officials are yet to state how they think the current fires started.

My friend who lives in Pasadena sent me this yesterday along with a bunch of videos from her backyard. The next city over, Altadena is destroyed. Firefighters in Los Angeles are running out of water and don’t have enough engines. Her own neighbourhood looked like a scene from an apocalyptic movie. The sky was red and at least one house just a few doors down had been on fire. Three giant fires are still burning out of control in the worst fires in Los Angeles’ history.

Et Tu, Tim?

Tim Cook’s personal donation of $1,000,000 to Trump’s bribe fund inauguration fund has left a bad taste in the mouth of Apple fans across the net.

First, the situation from Mike Allen via Axios:

Apple CEO Tim Cook will personally donate $1 million to President-elect Trump’s inaugural committee, sources with knowledge of the donation tell Axios.

Why it matters: The donation reflects a long, collaborative relationship between Trump and Cook that included many meetings during Trump’s first term, and dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Other CEOs and companies have made seven-figure inauguration contributions in their efforts to build bridges to the incoming administration.

John Gruber via Daring Fireball:

It seems pretty obvious that it was Apple/Cook that leaked this to Axios, not Trump’s side, given the eye-roll-inducing “proud American tradition” spin, but more especially the nugget that only Cook personally, not Apple as a company, is contributing. That’s Cook asking for any and all ire to be directed at him, personally, not Apple. Good luck with that.

Marco Arment via Mastodon:

Is it that hard to believe?

Why do we think Tim Cook couldn’t possibly support Trump, while all of these other billionaires support him for their own billionaire self-interests?

Why do we keep making excuses for him?

Why do we keep making excuses for Apple?

Nick Heer via Pixel Envy:

Call this what you want: bipartisanship, diplomacy, pragmatic, outright support, or “the spirit of unity”. But one thing you cannot call it is principled. We have become accustomed to business leaders sacrificing some of their personal principles to support their company in some way — for some reason, it is just business is a universal excuse for terrible behaviour — but all of these figures have already seen what the incoming administration does with power and they want to support it. For anyone who claims to support laws or customs, this is not principled behaviour.

Daniel Jalkut via Daniel Punkass :

On the occasion of Apple’s slithering CEO Tim Cook donating $1M to a neo-fascist insurrectionist, it’s FINALLY time to deploy the often overused expression “this never would have happened if Steve Jobs were still in charge.”

Monton Reece via Manton.org:

Tim Cook has led Apple to incredible success, but his words are hollow. Even the principles he seems to care most passionately about, like user privacy, are in doubt. I’m increasingly thinking it’s an act.

I’ve been an Apple developer since the 1990s when the company was doomed. Fans propped up the company because we believed they were different. They focused on design and creativity. They were the rebels and troublemakers, trying to push the human race forward through technology.

Most of the employees at Apple still care about these things. Tim Cook cares about appeasing a would-be autocrat and taxing developers in an app distribution monopoly. It’s time for new leadership.

Cabel Sasser via Mastodon:

I wonder how Tim would answer the question: “why are you donating to this one, but didn’t donate to the last one?”. That’d be fascinating to see.

It’s a sad day for Tim Cook, Apple, and the of course the USA. How can they expect the world to choke down their claim of American exceptionalism when its leaders both in and out of government are so transparently corrupt?

Apple Photos – How to view all unnamed faces – Solved

I finally discovered the secret for creating a smart album that only shows photos that do NOT have people or pets identified in Apple Photos on MacOS.12

  1. Create a smart album with the criteria “person/pet” -> “does not contain” -> =”A” (It will suggest a name from the database to place here but just change it manually.)
  2. Repeat creating rules using the same criteria but with the all the other vowels.
  3. Next create a rule for “person/pet” -> “is” -> “<blank>”. By blank I mean remove all characters from the textfield. This should filter out all of the photos without a face.
  4. Lastly create a rule for “photo” -> “is not” -> “screenshots”.

Here is the smart album:

I also created one for unmarked GPS locations.

Screenshot of the smart album for showing images that have no location in Apple Photos.

  1. My source for this information comes via Apple Discussion Forums[]
  2. It doesn’t work if at least one of the other people in the photo are named but it’s a pretty good start.[]

Three Seconds Everyday 2024

2024 is the 11th year I’ve created a once a day video project. Lots of travel this year, lots of kids, and lots of fun. It’s a pretty good glimpse at the everyday routine of our lives.

Top 10 Posts of 2024

Here’s a quick table of my most view posts in 20241

Post Views
Stairway to Heaven Backwards Full Lyrics 8,139
Secret Hitler – Print and Play 5,616
Home page / Archives 4,147
Laughing Wild — by Christopher Durang 1,833
Laughing Wild — by Christopher Durang 578
The Face of Dr. Claw Revealed! 427
Tab Cola Commercial 269
Edmonton Spelling Test on Google Forms 266
Backmasking Info 247
More Backmasking Songs 234
  1. Previous year-end stats for 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020[]

The Vanity Fair Interview with Billie Eilish, Year Eight

Every year since 2017, Vanity Fair has interviewed Billie Eilish about her life and career. They didnt release last year’s conversation but they are back this year with the eighth iteration.

It’s amazing that Vanity Fair picked Eilish for this project when they could have picked any number of up-and-coming stars from 2017. They got lucky picking not only the one who went supernova winning multiple grammies and maintaining popularity but who is also self-reflective, eloquent, and willing to talk about her emotions.

The Bad Review Revue

Mufasa: The Lion King: “Be prepared for a disappointing prequel.” — Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: “[Peter Jackson] proves here that if you scrape hard enough at the bottom of any barrel you will eventually damage the integrity of the entire barrel.” — Kevin Mahar, Times (UK).

Nightbitch: “[W]himpers slowly into the night, a fangless could-have-been.” — Tom Meek, Cambridge Day

Venom: The Last Dance: “The third and final episode in the Venom saga issues a third and final reminder that the world never really needed a Venom saga in the first place.” — Leigh Paatsch, Herald Sun (Australia)

Red One: “If this is what Red One is, don’t expect a Red Two.” — Matt Neal, ABC Radio (Australia)

Joker: Folie à Deux: “How dark and depressing is this movie? Let’s put it this way: If ‘Seven’ had musical numbers, it might get to where ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ has set up shop.” — Sean P. Means, The Movie Cricket