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The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that Apple suppliers are cutting back production of parts for iPhone X, with claims that Apple has significantly lowered orders for the January – March quarter. Echoing numbers from KGI and Nikkei, the report says Apple will make about 20 million iPhone X units this quarter down from an initial target of 40 million.
Apple is said to be working on new Mac laptops and a desktop with Apple coprocessors, similar to the T2 chip seen in the iMac Pro and the T1 chip introduced with the 2016 MacBook Pro, according to Bloomberg.
The publication also reports that a new iPad will be launching towards the end of the year. Details on these machines are scarce as they are presented as tidbits as part of a larger article on Apple’s chip division.
With its latest update, WhatsApp users are finding a new icon app appear when they connect to CarPlay. A WhatsApp icon and basic on-screen app interface are now part of the CarPlay experience, beyond what was already offered by WhatsApp’s SiriKit integration.
You can’t browse a list of conversations, but you can tap on the icon to start sending a new message using dictation. Notifications from WhatsApp also appear in the CarPlay UI and users can tap to listen and respond.
Update: See how to remove the power cable here. It requires a lot of force, Apple officially doesn’t recommending doing it.
The HomePod went on sale earlier today, but there’s still a few little tidbits Apple simply hasn’t documented yet. Thanks to a helpful support rep, we now know some details about the power cable that were not clear before.
KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo has been reporting the 2018 iPhone lineup as two OLED models (5.8-inch and 6.5-inch) and one LCD model (6.1-inch) for a little while now. Today, a Digitimes analyst says that Apple has been testing various screen panels, and may only launch a single new OLED iPhone this year, with a 6.5-inch screen.
The report also corroborates a new iPhone SE successor with wireless charging, and no 3D Touch, and will launch in the first half of 2018.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple will revamp the iBooks app later this year with a major redesign, with a new ‘Reading Now’ tab, a separate section for audiobooks and a store interface that draws from the same design language as the iOS 11 App Store.
The report follows the launch of iOS 11.3 beta, which includes a renaming of the iBooks app to simply ‘Books’. In the current beta, there are no meaningful UI changes to the Books app.
Update: Refinery29 has updated its article to say that calendar notifications are not supported:
Uhm, so the original story has been updated saying that HomePod will NOT support calendar notifications after all 🤔 pic.twitter.com/LGMVw80orm
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) January 26, 2018
In what seems to be the first hands-on report with a HomePod ahead of the orders going live tomorrow, Refinery29 writes they had an hour to test out the smart speaker. The site says that HomePod looks great as an object, and they preferred the HomePod’s sound quality when compared to a Google Home Max, Amazon Echo and Sonos One.
The article also says that the HomePod has some awareness of whether its owner is at home and Siri will not speak about calendar notifications, text messages, reminders and other personal alerts if the user is out of the house.
Apple today previewed iOS 11.3 with a whole host of new features, including a new set of Animoji, an ARKit update, and the ability to view personal health records directly in the Health app. iOS 11.3 will be available to customers in the spring. A developer beta of iOS 11.3 will be released today.
iOS 11.3 will also include the aforementioned battery health statistics features. Users will be able to disable the throttling in Settings → Battery, but may see more unexpected shutdowns in exchange for full performance.
As rumored yesterday, the EU announced a 997 million euro fine to be imposed on Qualcomm, approximately $1.2 billion dollars, which makes cellular baseband chips inside most iPhones. The EU says Qualcomm bribed Apple with billions of dollars in rebate payments to make Apple not use chips from competing manufacturers, reducing competition from other manufacturers in the LTE baseband chip industry.
The fine is a hefty levy against Qualcomm’s bottom line, which recorded $20 billion in total revenue last year, although it is subject to appeal so the final number might be less.
Apple today announced that HomePod goes on sale February 9. Whilst HomePod works best with an Apple Music subscription, allowing users to ask Siri to play any of the 40 million tracks in the Apple Music catalog, it does not require a subscription to function. We have learned that the HomePod can play content purchased from iTunes, stream Beats 1, and listen to podcasts without needing a subscription.
Update: HomePod now available to buy from Apple.com, Best Buy and other resellers.
Apple has announced that the $349 HomePod will launch on February 9, customers can preorder Apple’s home wireless speaker from Friday. The HomePod goes on sale in US, UK and Australia. Apple announced that it will rollout to France and Germany ‘in the spring’.
Originally billed to launch in late 2017, the HomePod will launch for users in February. The speaker will be available to order from the Apple Online Store on 26th January, with the first orders arriving in early February.
A new, vague, report from Digitimes says that Apple is planning a new addition to the MacBook line for launch in the second half of the year. Described as a ’13-inch entry-level MacBook’, it sounds like a successor to the MacBook Air.
It’s fair to say that the MacBook Air line has been left to stagnate. Whilst this doesn’t sound like a new Air, it could wholly replace the Air lineup with something new.
The Pixelmator team has today released an important update to Pixelmator Pro (currently $60), adding new cropping abilities that didn’t quite make the cut for the 1.0 release. Other changes include tweaks to selection and text tools and many more bug fixes. Pixelmator Pro is available exclusively in the Mac App Store.
Apple’s new 2017 iPhone models – iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X – made up for about 61% of iPhone sales in the United States, according to a new consumer study from CIRP. This is lower than the 72% share iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus took in the same quarter a year ago.
Comparisons to the 2016 cycle are difficult due to the staggered debut of the (higher priced) iPhone X in November, but it seems like older iPhone models sold better than usual during the holiday season.
A new report from KGI defies market consensus claiming that iPhone X shipments are not as strong as many believe. The analyst says that it believes Apple will ship around 18 million iPhone X units in the current quarter, significantly below estimates in the 20-30 million range from other analysts. It primarily blames longer replacement cycles in China for the weaker demand for iPhone X.
However, KGI reaffirms its predictions of a three-tier 2018 iPhone lineup with a 6.1-inch LCD model, a successor to iPhone X and a 6.5-inch OLED ‘iPhone X Plus’ launching in the fall. In fact, KGI suggests that Apple may stop making iPhone X altogether when production of the new 2018 models ramp up.
Apple had already said that a future iOS update will give users more insight into the state of their battery. In an interview with ABC News, Tim Cook was asked for his take on Apple slowing down iPhones with degraded batteries. He revealed that the developer beta including these features will be released next month, with a public release to follow after.
Moreover, he says that this forthcoming update will give users the option to disable the throttling to maintain normal CPU performance, but will be at risk of unexpected shutdowns.
Every day, Apple runs a shuttle service from San Francisco to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino to help employees commute to work. Sadly, some of these buses have been attacked in the last week by unknown criminals resulting in smashed windows. Mashable confirmed with Apple that the incidents were happening but the company did not say how the buses were being damaged; presumably someone is throwing objects (rocks?) to break the glass.
Apple suppliers will be lowering component manufacturing for iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in the first quarter of this year following the peak holiday season. Via Digitimes, lower orders are mostly from seasonality trends but some sources noted that iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 sales have not been as strong as expected and are ‘dragging down’ iPhone X momentum in terms of overall iPhone production.
iPhone 8 component orders apparently began falling off during the final months of 2017 which is unusual for flagship iPhone sales. However, even Apple admitted on its last earnings call that it doesn’t really know how customers would react to a three flagship iPhone product mix, so comparisons to expectations may not be significant.
Digitimes today reports that Apple is reallocating MacBook Pro orders from Quanta to Foxconn in order to lower costs and reduce risks. The company is willing to shift production this year reportedly because Apple does not have a major hardware update for MacBook Pro in the pipeline for this year.
This means that supply of 2017 MacBook Pro will remain strong even if Foxconn encounters yield and quality control problems whilst it ramps up. Apple first launched the modern MacBook Pro design in 2016.
A new research note from Counterpoint shows that whilst Apple’s dominance in China is not as high as its peak, it is the only foreign smartphone brand that matters in the region. iPhone 7 Plus was the no.2 best selling handset across all of 2017, and the smaller iPhone 7 took fifth place (via CNBC).
China’s propensity towards larger-screened phones is shown by the Plus’ popularity compared to the regular iPhone 7. Apple was the only foreign brand to feature in the top 10 phone models, with 5.2% total market share from both iPhone 7 models.
Bloomberg reports that representatives from Apple held meetings with suppliers of parts for augmented reality devices at CES 2018. The company is believed to be working on an AR headset of its own, with an approximate 2019 release timeframe.
[Update: Party’s over! Older OS versions are no longer being signed once more. As suspected, it was an accidental change and has been reverted. Original story below …]
Apple is currently signing iOS 10 version updates for many devices including iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 models as shown by IPSW.me. Whilst the upgrade servers remain in this state, users are able to downgrade from iOS 11 by restoring their firmware to iOS 10.2 and 10.3.
It is not clear why Apple is suddenly allowing this to happen and there is a good chance it is a bug. If you want to downgrade your OS, get in quick before Apple reverts back to signing iOS 11.2 and later only.
Apple has taught Siri more about sport ahead of the Australian Open starting this weekend. iPhone, iPad , Apple Watch and Mac users can now ask questions to Siri like ‘Hey Siri, how is Roger Federer doing’ or ‘Hey Siri, who is ahead in the Pebble Beach tournament’.
You can also ask for player biographies and more information relating to the sporting events coming up and historical records. Details below on exactly what Siri knows about in golf and tennis …
Apple has today announced a date for when it will hand over operations of iCloud data services for residents of mainland China to GCBD. The change was announced last year so that Apple can comply with local laws. GCBD will manage a new Apple data center in China that will eventually store all iCloud data for Chinese customers.
Affected customers are now being notified about the transition which will start on February 28. Apple reassured users that the data will be protected by the same encryption standards as its current US policies and that no special backdoors will be created.