Category: Apple

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Apple

40th Anniversary of the Mac

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh, the first successful mass-marketed computer with a graphical user interface. My first “Mac” wasn’t until my 2015 MacBook Pro but as a third grade kid my parents got me an Apple II1 which I loved and on which I learned to code BASIC.

Pricing for the original Macintosh started at $2,495, equivalent to over $7,000 today. Key specs and features included an 8 MHz processor, 128 KB of RAM, a 400 KB floppy disk drive for storage, and serial ports for connecting a printer and other accessories.

  1. Technically it was a third party clone of an Apple II but at that age I didn’t really know the difference[↩]
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Apple crime finance

Ex-Apple Lawyer Responsible for Insider Trading Charged with Insider Trading

David Thomas writing for Reuters:

Apple’s former top corporate lawyer will receive no prison time after pleading guilty last year to U.S. insider trading charges, a judge said on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark, New Jersey, sentenced Gene Levoff to four years of probation and 2,000 hours of community service. Levoff was also ordered to pay a $30,000 fine and forfeit $604,000.

Levoff had admitted to six securities fraud counts that each carried a maximum 20-year prison term and $5 million fine.

A lawyer for Levoff, Kevin Marino, said in an email that they were “extremely pleased” for what he called a “fair and appropriate sentence of probation.”

A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

Prosecutors said Levoff exploited his roles as Apple’s corporate secretary, head of corporate law and co-chair of a committee that reviewed drafts of the company’s results to generate $604,000 of illegal gains on more than $14 million of trades from 2011 to 2016.

Levoff ignored quarterly “blackout periods” that barred trading before Apple’s results were released and violated the company’s broader insider trading policy that he himself was responsible for enforcing, prosecutors said.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fired Levoff in September 2018, five months before he was criminally charged.

When someone uses insider information to trade stocks, it really does take the money from other investors. That $604,000 came from somewhere. As someone bought shares during that time, perhaps the difference would have only equated to fractions of pennies on any given share, but it still makes me glad they caught him.

(via Daring Fireball)

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Apple

Apple Blocks Android’s New iMessage App

Android has a new app, Beeper, that connects to iMessage. Well, it did for a few days until, apparently, Apple shut it down. It remains to be seen if Beeper Mini has a future.

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

On Friday, less than a week after its launch, the app started experiencing technical issues when users were suddenly unable to send and receive blue bubble messages. The problems grew worse over the course of the day, with reports piling up on the Beeper subreddit. Several people at The Verge were unable to activate their Android phone numbers with Beeper Mini as of Friday afternoon, a clear indication that Apple has plugged up whatever holes allowed the app to operate to begin with.

Beeper Mini was the result of a comprehensive attempt to reverse engineer Apple’s messaging protocol. A 16-year-old high school student managed to successfully pull it off, and for a while, everything worked without a hitch. That effort became the basis for the new app, which requires a $2 / month subscription

Beeper Mini used a direct link with Apple iMessage servers, allowing beeper users to access Apple’s exclusive blue bubbles directly using iCloud addresses and no intermediaries.

I’m a little disappointed it’s been shut down because I would really like my Android family (just my brother actually) to get on the iMessage train.

Update: MacRumors confirms Apple shut it down over purported security concerns.

Categories
Apple finance

Apple Earnings Report Q4 2023

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2023 fourth quarter ended September 30, 2023. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $89.5 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.46, up 13 percent year over year.

“Today Apple is pleased to report a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We now have our strongest lineup of products ever heading into the holiday season, including the iPhone 15 lineup and our first carbon neutral Apple Watch models, a major milestone in our efforts to make all Apple products carbon neutral by 2030.”

• iPhone: $43.805 billion (up 3%)
• Mac: $7.614 billion (down 44%)
• iPad: $6.443 billion (down 10%)
• Wearables, Home & Accessories: $9.322 billion (down 3%)
• Services: $22.314 billion (up 16%)1

Jason Snell’s 6 Color Charts.

  1. All percentage changes are year over year looking only at the 4th quarter[↩]
Categories
Apple

12 Things to Do First with iOS 17

MacRumors has 12 suggestions for what to do now that you’ve updated your iPhone.

Categories
Apple humor

Woman Rescued from Outhouse After Climbing in to Retrieve Apple Watch

This story by the AP and commentary by Gruber is just too good to not quote completely:

The Associated Press:

A woman was rescued Tuesday from an outhouse toilet in northern Michigan after she climbed in to retrieve her Apple Watch and became trapped. The woman, whose name was not released, lowered herself inside the toilet after dropping the watch at the Department of Natural Resources boat launch at Dixon Lake in Otsego County’s Bagley Township, state police said Wednesday in a release.

First responders were called when the woman was heard yelling for help. The toilet was removed and a strap was used to haul the woman out. “If you lose an item in an outhouse toilet, do not attempt to venture inside the containment area. Serious injury may occur,” state police said in the release.

Tim Cook had a good line in the keynote last week about people’s attachment to their iPhones and Apple Watches: “If you left either one at home, I bet you’d go back to get it.”

Home, yes. Outhouse, no.

It reminds about the guy who was caught dropping a $100 bill down the outhouse as his friend accidentally walked in on him. The friend asked him what he was doing. The guy responded, “I dropped $10 down there and there’s no way I’m climbing down there for 10 bucks!”

Categories
Apple Music

Default iPhone Ring as a Ballad

The default ring for the iPhone used to change every year or two evolving through various iterations of the tunes: “Marimba”, “Opening”, and “Reflection”. In the video above composer and pianist Tony Ann reimagines “Opening” as a complete ballad.

(via Kottke)

Categories
Apple finance

Apple Earnings Report Q3 2023

Jason Snell at Six Colors:

Apple announced its results for its fiscal third quarter on Thursday. As expected, it was a down quarter—though at a 1% drop over the year-ago quarter, it’s a better result than the previous quarter, which was down 3% year-over-year. The company reported $81.8B in revenue and $19.9B in profit.

The three key hardware categories were all down year-over-year: Mac was down 7%, iPad was down 20%, and the all-important iPhone was down 2%. Things were a little different in the two portions of Apple’s business that have shown indefatigable growth in recent years: Services revenue was up 8% and the Wearables, Home, and Accessories category was up 2%.

In a press release accompanying the results, Apple CFO Luca Maestri trumpeted that it has broken the billion paid subscriptions barrier.

Apple’s fiscal 2023 third-quarter results reveal a mixed picture for the tech giant. While the company reported a 1 percent year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue, reaching $81.8 billion, it managed to achieve a 5 percent increase in quarterly earnings per diluted share, reaching $1.26. These results indicate a certain level of resilience, particularly when compared to the previous quarter, which saw a more substantial decline.

A noteworthy highlight is Apple’s impressive performance in the Services segment, where it achieved an all-time revenue record during the June quarter. This growth was driven by surpassing the milestone of 1 billion paid subscriptions, demonstrating the company’s ability to retain and engage its customer base. Additionally, the robust sales of iPhone in emerging markets contributed to the positive performance.

Financially, the company generated substantial operating cash flow of $26 billion during the quarter, enabling it to return over $24 billion to shareholders. This reflects Apple’s ongoing dedication to rewarding its investors while continuing to invest in long-term growth plans.

Overall, Apple’s fiscal third-quarter results demonstrate a mix of challenges and successes, with notable growth in services and a strong cash flow position.

Categories
Apple

Vision Pro

On Monday Apple released its long rumored VR headset, Vision Pro. I’ve been busy with work and haven’t had a chance to watch the whole demo video yet but I did quite enjoy this review by John Gruber on Daring Fireball:

It was a very fast 30 minutes, and the experience was, in a word, immersive. I’d pay good money just to run through the exact same 30 minutes again.

It was nowhere near enough time, nor was I able to wander far off the rails of the prepared demos. It’s very clear that the OS and apps are far from finished. But even given the brevity of the demo and constraints of the current state of the software, there are a few things I feel confident about describing.

First: the overall technology is extraordinary, and far better than I expected. And like my friend and Dithering co-host Ben Thompson, my expectations were high. Apple exceeded them. Vision Pro and VisionOS feel like they’ve been pulled forward in time from the future. I haven’t had that feeling about a new product since the original iPhone in 2007. There are several aspects of the experience that felt impossible.

It’s obviously out of my price range but if nothing else, I’m going to be looking for an opportunity to try one out when they are released next year.

Categories
Apple

The Playgrounds from Develop in Swift Data Collections

Developing iOS apps is an exciting but challenging process, and I’ve been working on improving my skills by reading the Develop in Swift Fundamentals and Develop in Swift Data Collections books. While going through the practice assignments, I encountered some roadblocks and couldn’t find answers to some of the questions in the Data Collections book. Although I was able to find answers from other students for the Fundamentals book, I still needed some help with the Data Collections exercises.

After searching for a while, I was relieved to discover that the teacher’s guide to both books had answers to the playground questions. I was able to download the guide and find the answers I needed, which allowed me to continue making progress on my iOS app development journey.

I wanted to write this in case anyone else is looking for the direct link: https://education-static.apple.com/data-collections/xcode13/teacher.zip

If you’re also working on improving your iOS app development skills, I highly recommend checking out the Develop in Swift series. It’s been a lot of fun and I’m beginning to feel like I will finally be making my first iOS app soon.