Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
- Dermot Daly from Tapadoo – @dermdaly
- Chuck Joiner from MacVoices – @chuckjoiner
- Lynda Gousha from the Silicon Valley MUG – @llg4cdg
The show starts with some quick follow-up stories, some Apple-related notable numbers, one Apple-related legal stories, and some staffing changes at Apple that made the news in January. The five main stories for the month are the launch of the HomePod, Apple’s repatriation of billions of dollars to the US, Apple’s Q1 2018 results, the on-going war on privacy, and Apple’s preview of up-coming changes to macOSServer and iOS. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some 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!
Followup — ‘Battery-gate’
- A future update to iOS will give customers more information about the health of their battery, and allow them to turn advanced power management on and off so they can have unexpected shutdowns if they really think that’s a good idea — www.imore.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
- Law suits continue to mount up — www.imore.com/…
- Governments around the world take interest:
- French prosecutor launches probe into Apple planned obsolescence: judicial source — www.reuters.com/…
- US Senator John Thune, chairman of the Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter to Apple with questions about the affair — arstechnica.com/…
- Apple under investigation by DOJ, SEC for disclosures of its iPhone slow-down update — arstechnica.com/…
- Chinese Consumer Group Also Wants Answers on Throttlegate — www.macobserver.com/…
- South Korean group files complaint against Apple CEO over iPhone slowdown — www.reuters.com/…
Notable Numbers
- According to data analytics firm Sensor Tower, 2017 as a great year for both Google & Apple’s app stores — total mobile app store sales (including in-app purchasing) are estimated to have been $60Bn for 2017 (up 35%), with $44Bn spent buying apps. Apple’s store remains about twice as big as Google’s.
- For context: The iOS Economy — www.asymco.com/…
- Related: Apple released some record-setting App Store numbers — over 2017 developers earned $26Bn (30% increase over 2016), and App Store sales for new years day were $300M — www.macobserver.com/…
- Related: App Annie have released their Q4 2017 App Store report – the most striking two charts show that Google has a massive lead in downloads, and Apple, in sales — www.appannie.com/…
- Six Colors release their annual Apple Report Card — sixcolors.com/…
- The latest global smartphone shipment estimates from Strategy Analytics show the market as a whole dropping by 9% in Q4 2017, but Apple remaining basically flat, and surpassing Samsung in units shipped — www.strategyanalytics.com/…
Legal Latest
- The European Commission have fined Qualcomm €997M (~$1¼Bn) for anti-trust violations because it paid Apple to exclusively use its chips from 2011 to 2016 — www.imore.com/…
Notable Staffing Changes
- Some detective work by TechCrunch finds that Apple have poached somewhere between a third and a half of the staff from Silicon Valley Data Science, a silicon valley data science startup — techcrunch.com/…
- Apple have hired Kashif Zafar away form Amazon where he was senior VP of Audible — www.macobserver.com/…
- Related: Apple is reportedly working on big changes to their eBook offerings, with a new version of the iBooks app in the works that will simply be called Books — arstechnica.com/…
Main Stories
- A few months later than promised, Apple’s HomePod launches
- Pre-orders from 26 Jan, available from 9 Feb — arstechnica.com/…
- The HomePod is initially shipping without some promised features, but they’ll be released later in 2018. The missing features are related to on-going delays in getting AirPlay 2 released — www.macobserver.com/…
- What can’t the HomePod do at launch? — www.imore.com/…
- How HomePod works with Siri — www.imore.com/…
- These are the Music Services Siri Supports on HomePod — www.macobserver.com/…
- iPhone Home App Manages HomePod Software Updates — www.macobserver.com/…
- Related: New bundle drops the Sonos One back to its lowest price — www.imore.com/…
- Reviews:
- Apple Plans to pay $38Bn in US Taxes to bring overseas cash home in the wake of President Trump’s large corporate tax cut — arstechnica.com/…
- Apple to Give Employees $2,500 Bonus in Restricted Stock, Will Also Double Charity Contributions — www.macobserver.com/…
- For context: The Apple Cash FAQ — www.asymco.com/…
- Related:
- Apple promise to invest $350Bn in the US economy over the next 5 years — www.imore.com/…
- Apple Plans to Build Another New Campus — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple Expands Advanced Manufacturing Fund to $5 Billion — www.macobserver.com/…
- A great explanation of how all this international tax stuff works from Jean-Louis Gassée — mondaynote.com/…
- Apple’s 2018 Q1 Results — www.apple.com/…
- Transcript: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the company’s 2018 Q1 earnings — www.imore.com/…
- Apple Reports Record Revenues of $88.3 Billion, Record EPS of $3.89 – iPhone X Top Selling Model — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple Services Hit 240 Million Paid Subscriptions — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple’s Record Quarter Includes Mixed Results, But iPhone X Performance Will Wow Wall Street — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple Watch, AirPods drive Wearables rev 70%, outpacing size, growth of Amazon ads, Google Cloud, Alphabet Other Bets — appleinsider.com/…
- Apple’s results over the past few years in pictures — sixcolors.com/…
- The on-going war on privacy
- The US Government’s relationship with encryption, and with Apple, remains problematic:
- FBI Director Renews Calls for Magical Encryption Bypass, Doesn’t Believe Experts Who Call It Impossible — www.macobserver.com/…
- FBI director says ‘unbreakable encryption is a public safety issue’ — nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- FBI security expert: Apple are “jerks” about unlocking encrypted phones — arstechnica.com/…
- The whole FBI are not hostile to Apple though — FBI’s San Francisco Chief: We Heart Apple, They Train Our Cops — www.forbes.com/…
- House votes for six more years of warrantless surveillance — nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- To comply with a new Chinese law, Apple has been forced to had over operation of its Chinese iCloud data to a state-owned Chinese company, which will host the data in China — arstechnica.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple continues to work to protect our security and privacy
- Apple released an updated version of their iOS Security Guide — www.imore.com/…
- Apple to Add a Privacy Icon to iOS to Stop iCloud Phishing — www.macobserver.com/…
- The ad industry is complaining loudly that Safari’s new privacy features are costing them ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ in lost revenue — www.theguardian.com/…
- The US Government’s relationship with encryption, and with Apple, remains problematic:
- Apple previews future software releases
- In an article entitled ‘Prepare for changes to macOS Server’ Apple effectively announce the end of macOS Server, deprecating just about every service offered (“macOS Server is changing to focus more on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network”) — support.apple.com/…
- iOS 11.3 preview — tidbits.com/…
Quick Stories
- Reports continue to come out sugesting Apple’s nascent video group are working very hard indeed:
- Apple Orders ‘See’, Epic Drama Series From Steven Knight & Francis Lawrence — deadline.com/…
- Kristen Wiig Will Star in Comedy Series for Apple, Reese Witherspoon to Executive Produce — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple Just Committed to a Straight-to-Series Order by Damien Chazelle — www.macobserver.com/…
- In response to an open letter from a group of investors ahead of Apple’s annual shareholders meeting, Apple have announced they will be improving their parental controls features — arstechnica.com/…
- Apple’s Everyone Can Code Initiative Spreading to Europe — www.macobserver.com/…
- Related: Apple have released Swift Playgrounds 2 — developer.apple.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- WhatsApp on CarPlay: The First Third Party Messaging App — www.macobserver.com/…
- YouTube TV App Now Available on Apple TV — www.macobserver.com/…
- Siri Podcast News Feature Rolling Out to iOS 11.2.2 Users — www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple becomes Malala Fund’s first Laureate partner, helps increase support for girls’ education — www.imore.com/…
- Apple Named Fortune’s Most Admired Company 11 Years Running — www.macobserver.com/…