Apple

15 interesting points from Apple’s Q3 2015 earnings call

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 28, 2016

Apple announced its financial results for its fiscal third quarter of 2015 this afternoon, and the numbers are solid. The company sold 47.5 million iPhones and earned $49.6 billion in revenue, breaking June quarter records and beating Wall Street expectations.

We just finished up the conference call, where Tim Cook and other executives discussed Apple’s performance over the three-month period, and offered up some insights into its future. And as usual, we’ve rounded up the 15 most interesting points from the call below.

iOS 8 adoption rate grows to 85% of devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

As measured by the App Store on July 20, 2015, iOS 8 is now powering 85 percent of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild.

iOS 7 has dropped from fourteen percent of devices a month ago to thirteen percent of iPhones, iPads and iPod touches in the wild. Earlier iOS releases continue to comprise a meager 2 percent of installed hardware.

We've been tracking iOS 8 adoption rates for months now and to call this an impressive achievement would be an understatement given iOS 8 hit a mere ten months ago.

Apple’s Q3 2015 earnings: 47.5M iPhones, 10.9M iPads, $49.6B revenue

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 7, 2018

Apple has posted its third quarter earnings report for 2015 this afternoon, and says it has broken its own record for the three-month period. The company earned a net profit of $10.7 billion on $49.6 billion in revenue.

That money comes from strong international hardware sales, which accounted for 64% of all revenue. Overall, Apple moved 47.5 million iPhones and 10.9 million iPads during its third quarter, as well as 4.8 million Macs.

watchOS 2 beta 4 for Apple Watch seeded to developers, here’s your changelog

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

In addition to releasing iOS 9 beta 4 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan beta 4 to its developer army, a matching beta of the upcoming Apple Watch software update is now available to registered members of the Apple Developer Program.

The new watchOS 2 beta 4 (build 13S5305d) requires an iPhone running iOS 9 beta 4 and can be applied over-the-air by going to the General -> Software Update section of the Apple Watch companion app.

Apple seeds fourth OS X El Capitan beta to developers

Cody Lee ∙ July 21, 2015

Apple on Tuesday released the fourth OS X El Capitan beta to developers. The new build is available to registered developers via the Updates section of the Mac App Store or through Apple’s Developer Center.

Today’s update comes roughly two weeks after Apple pushed out the third beta of OS X El Capitan, and more than a month after its initial release in early June during Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference.

Apple seeds iOS 9 beta 4 to developers, here’s what’s new

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

Following the release of iOS 9 beta 3 for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad two weeks ago which gave developers access to Apple Music on their development devices while bringing out the News app and a host of refinements, Apple today released iOS 9 beta 4 (build 13A4305g) to registered members of the Apple Developer Program.

New fingerprint scanning solution could allow seamless iPhone designs without Home buttons

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

A recent report by DigiTimes, a somewhat accurate Taiwanese trade publication, contended that Apple has developed in-house technology for embedding Touch ID sensors into the screen, potentially eliminating the need for the physical Home button.

Tuesday, a security technology firm called Sonavation provided a glimpse into how Home button-free iPhones could be engineered as it announced a breakthrough 3D fingerprint scanning technology embeddable under the Corning Gorilla Glass which Apple uses to protect iPhone displays.

Apple Music, Beats 1 & store services experience downtime during VMA nominee announcements

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

In what's become a norm for the company these days, another outage has hit a number of cloud-based services as users around the world report issues accessing Apple's content stores: the App Store, the Mac App Store and the iTunes Store.

We're also tracking issues with Apple Music and Beats 1.

Indeed, I'm currently struggling to stream my Apple Music songs and Beats 1 radio.

UPDATE 1: Apple has now acknowledged the outage on the iCloud status page. “Users are experiencing a problem with the services listed above,” reads the notice. “We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.”

UPDATE 2: The iCloud dashboard says all services have been restored after three and a half hours of downtime.

Google Play Books gains revamped Read Now, notes and highlights syncing, new font and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

Google on Tuesday issued an update to its Play Books application in the App Store, adding a few new features and enhancements designed to elevate your reading experience on the iPhone and iPad.

The new Google Play Books 2.5 for iOS now features a revamped Read Now view, a new default font, the ability to sync notes and highlights to Google Drive and more.

Apple Watch hitting Apple Online Store in New Zealand, Russia and Turkey on July 31

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

Apple on Tuesday announced a fourth wave of Apple Watch expansion as the device is scheduled to launch in New Zealand, Russia and Turkey on Friday, July 31. The wrist-worn gizmo will be available in these countries from 7:01am local time via the Apple Online Store.

Customers in Turkey will also have the option of picking up their watch in one of Apple's brick-and-mortar stores at the Zorlu Center and Akasya Shopping Center in Istanbul, as first noted by MacRumors.

Apple adds high profile auto executive to electric car team

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

It was uncovered on Monday that Apple recently hired high profile auto executive Doug Betts, reigniting rumors that the company is building an electric car. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, Betts' LinkedIn profile says that he joined the Cupertino firm's "Operations" team this month.

It's not clear what he will be working on at Apple, but it's hard to imagine it's anything but a car. Betts was Head of Quality at the Chrysler Group, now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, for 7 years before leaving in 2014 to "pursue other interests." Prior to that he worked at both Toyota and Nissan.

MTV’s VMA nominees will be announced tomorrow exclusively on Beats 1

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 20, 2015

Lots of ink was used in the run-up to Apple Music introduction regarding exclusive music deals that Apple has managed to negotiate with its favorite artists. And in addition to album exclusives, Apple's Beats 1 global radio is hosted by celebrity DJs and has already aired a few exclusive interviews.

And now, the 24/7 live-streaming radio station has partnered with Viacom-owned MTV to exclusively reveal nominees for the upcoming Video Music Awards (VMA), a move which suggests Apple's desire to position Beats 1 as the de facto source of both new music and industry events.