Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
- Chuck Joiner from MacVoices – @chuckjoiner
- Guy Serle from the My Mac Podcast – @Macparrot
- Nick Riley – @spligosh
The show starts with some quick followups to stories from last month, before moving on to look at a few notable numbers that and Apple-related legal stories that made the news in January. The four main stories are the tech world’s response to President Trump’s immigration and refugee ban, Apple’s Q1 2017 earnings call, changes to the App Store reviews API, and whether or not we should worry about the apparent rise in high-profile departures from Apple over the past weeks. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other shorter Apple-related stories that made the news in January.
You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!
Followups
- The mystery of the insane battery results from Consumer Reports is resolved. They were using a developer feature to disable caching (totally not how real people browse), and there was a bug in that feature. Apple will fix the bug, and Consumer Reports now recommend the new MacBook Pro – www.loopinsight.com/… & www.consumerreports.org/…
- The Samsung Note 7 Fiasco comes to a conclusion
- Samsung have released their report on why the things kept catching fire – bad batteries replaced by differently bad batteries – news.samsung.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- Samsung is delaying the release of the Note 8 as a result of their investigation – www.macobserver.com/…
- Verizon step up their efforts to recover the last few recalled phones by redirecting outgoing calls to customer support – www.macobserver.com/…
Notable Numbers
- Recommended Reading – Apple's 2016 report card from Six Colors – sixcolors.com/…
- Apple Releases some App Store Statistics – www.apple.com/…
- 1 January 2017 was the best day on the App Store yet – $240M in purchases
- Developers earned $20Bn in 2016, up 40% from 2015
- A report from Slice Intelligence suggests Apple's AirPods have already captured a quarter of wireless headphone spending – www.macrumors.com/…
- Nintendo report that Super Mario Run has been downloaded 78 million times, and that the conversion rate from the free download to the full app for $10 is over 5% – www.theverge.com/…
- Data from Upwork shows that Swift is the second fastest growing skill demanded of freelancers – www.upwork.com/…
- Hardback book sales overtake ebooks again – www.macobserver.com/…
- RELATED – the International Digital Publishing forum has merged with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) – future ebook standards will become more like self-contained website designed to work off-line – www.macobserver.com/…
Legal Latest
- The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed a class-action suit accusing Apple of having a 'monopoly' on Apple App Stores to proceed – www.macobserver.com/…
- Everyone piles on to Qualcomm
- The US FTC charges Qualcomm with anticompetitive tactics to retain a monopoly on the supply of a key semiconductor devices used in cellphones – www.ftc.gov/…
- Apple file a $1Bn law suit against Qualcomm over patent-licensing in the US – arstechnica.com/…
- Apple file two law suits against Qualcomm in China – arstechnica.com/…
- Apple is now facing two law suits for not using technology it patented to stop phones being used by drivers – arstechnica.com/…
Main Stories
- Apple, and the tech industry respond to President Trump's Executive Order on immigration & refugees
- U.S. tech leaders sound alarm over Trump immigration order – www.reuters.com/…
- Apple responds to U.S. President Trump's executive order on immigration – www.imore.com/…
- Google's Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai speak at company immigration ban rally, while thousands of Googlers take to the streets – uk.businessinsider.com/…
- Trump Reportedly Drafts Executive Order Targeting Visas Used by Apple and Other Techs – www.macobserver.com/…
- Tech companies to meet on legal challenge to Trump immigration order – www.reuters.com/…
- Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft draft a joint letter opposing Trump’s travel ban – www.recode.net/…
- Justice Dept. lawyer says 100,000 visas revoked under travel ban; State Dept. says about 60,000 – www.washingtonpost.com/… (Remember, last weekend the White House said this was being blown out of all proportion because it only affected about 100 people)
- Federal Judge Blocks President Trump's Immigration Ban – gothamist.com/…
- Another aspect of the order that is not catching much attention is that it forces US federal agencies to exclude non-Americans from their data protection rules, putting the EU/US Data Shield agreement which is heavily used by US tech companies in jeopardy – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- An interesting opinion piece from seasoned tech exec, and immigrant, Jean-Louis Gassée – mondaynote.com/…
- Apple Q1 2017 Earnings Call – www.apple.com/…
- Apple’s record quarter by the numbers – sixcolors.com/…
- Apple Beats Guidance with Record Revenue of $78.4B and EPS of $3.36 – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple Q1 2017: 78.3M iPhones, 13.1M iPads, 5.4M Macs
1 February 2017 – www.imore.com/… - Apple’s Services Business Hits Fortune 100 Level – www.macobserver.com/…
- Highlights from Apple's Q1 2017 investors call – www.imore.com/…
- Transcript of Tim Cook's contributions on the call – www.imore.com/…
- RELATED – Perspectives on Mac and PC Shipments and Sales for 2016 – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple have announced a new App Reviews API – www.loopinsight.com/…, www.imore.com/… & daringfireball.net/…
- Developers will be able to respond to reviews
- The API will allow apps to prompt for in-app reviews more easily, but with rate-limiting applied, and, to more easily ask for reviews in-app, but with rate-limiting applied
- Apple Staffing Changes – normal churn or something to worry about?
- Chris Lattner, the father of Swift, leaves Apple for Tesla – arstechnica.com/… & www.tesla.com/…
- Yoky Matsuoka has left Apple to return to Nest after less than a year with the company – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple senior designer Matt Casebolt leaves for Tesla (the original MacBook Air and the Touch Bar MacBook Pro were some of his designs) – 9to5mac.com/…
- Apple Global Marketing Communication Director Musa Tariq leaves for Ford – www.autonews.com/…
- Dropcam founder and Next executive Greg Duffy joins Apple – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple hires former Spotify exec Steve Savoc to run indie labels relations – www.imore.com/…
- Apple, Tesla, retention, and reality – www.imore.com/…
Quick Stories
- Apple joins other major tech players like Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM & Microsoft in the Partnership for AI – an industry group focused on driving forward advances in AI while protecting the privacy and security of consumers – www.imore.com/…
- Apple have released a major updates for both of its audio apps (Logic Pro X & Garage Band) – www.macobserver.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
- RELATED – Apple is offering students a major discount on their pro apps – $630 worth of apps for $200 – arstechnica.com/…
- Associated Services for the Blind honours Apple for their work in accessibility with their Louis Braille Award – www.imore.com/…
- Tim Cook to receive the Newseum's Free Expression Award "for his leadership in creating technology that has had a profound impact on how we communicate" and for having "used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues, including racial equality, privacy, protecting the environment, access to education and LGBT rights" – www.imore.com/…
- Greenpeace name Apple as top green company (again) – www.imore.com/…
- RELATED – a nice look at Apple's solar energy empire – www.macobserver.com/…
- Believe it or not, the iPhone was launched 10 years ago – ifixit.org/…