Apple

Seagate will discontinue its lineup of Thunderbolt storage products in favor of pushing Thunderbolt under its premium LaCie brand, 9to5Mac has learned.

A company spokesperson confirmed the move noting that the product life cycles for the company’s USM technology, which allowed integration of interfaces like Thunderbolt through adapters, is “coming to a conclusion.”
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Last month Apple rolled out support for dozens of banks and credit unions with Apple Pay bringing the count to more than 45 institutions, and today Apple is out with the first wave of the month adding more than a dozen new banks to its list of supported Apple Pay banks bringing the total count to over 60 institutions. Here are the new banks listed as supporting Apple Pay as of today:
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Apple is looking to hire individuals across the US for a team of IBM Business Development Executives that “will be accountable for all aspects of the Apple and IBM partnership for a defined geographic and account set territory.” That means Apple is hiring a team of individuals that will act as company liaisons to help roll out and oversee sales teams pushing the new Apple/IBM iOS solutions to enterprise customers. The positions, which are industry and region-specific, also show Apple’s plan for the upcoming expansion of its enterprise solutions for new industries including manufacturing and healthcare. 
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZTRTv56k58]

Following the latest drone flyover video of Apple’s under construction “Campus 2” last month, today we get an up-to-date look at progress over the last several weeks with another 4K video courtesy of Myithz.
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Following the October surprise bankruptcy filed by GT Advanced Technologies—a key sapphire supplier for the iPhone—Apple today announced plans to invest $2 billion over the next 30 years in the failed plant. The Mesa, Arizona-located plant will become the central command center for its various data centers around the globe.

“We’re proud to continue investing in the U.S. with a new data center in Arizona, which will serve as a command center for our global networks,” Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, wrote in an e-mailed statement on Monday. “This multibillion-dollar project is one of the largest investments we’ve ever made.”

Shortly after the bankruptcy announcement from GT Advanced Technologies, Apple described the decision as surprising while adding that the company would focus on job preservation.
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IDC is out today with its numbers on tablet shipments for Q4 2014 showing Apple remained on top of the market both last quarter and throughout 2014 despite a slight drop in overall market share.

Apple sold 21.4 million iPads during the holiday quarter last year, which gave the company around 28% market share compared to 33% with 26 million units sold during the same quarter last year. Apple beats out number two Samsung, according to IDC, which grabbed 14.5% of the market in Q4 with 11 million units shipped. Samsung also dipped in overall market share from 17.2% with 13.5 million units shipped in the year ago quarter.
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My next new car probably won’t have CarPlay. I’ve reached this decision in part due to automakers’ slow crawl to put CarPlay in vehicles that you can actually buy today. While 2015 may bring the feature to more vehicles on the road with more than 30 automobile brands committed to ship CarPlay in the future, we’re still not there yet and the roll out is slow.

More influential, though, is my experience using aftermarket CarPlay in my current car for several months convincing me that CarPlay’s features are not yet where they need to be. As I noted in my hands-on review last fall, CarPlay introduces a new set of problems while trying to make using your iPhone in the car safer and easier.

So if CarPlay isn’t ultimately the answer to creating a better iPhone experience on the road, then what is? I’m convinced the Apple Watch will be better suited…

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Apple’s annual Back to School sale in Australia and New Zealand has gone live with a promotion for qualifying students to receive Apple Store credit with the purchase of a Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Similar to last year, the Back to School sale includes the usual education pricing on Macs and iPads, but this year Apple is including Apple Store gift cards rather than App Store gift cards like last year.
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Following on the heels of a record-breaking quarter for Apple, Strategy Analytics has crunched the numbers and crowned Apple the king of the smartphone vendors for Q4 2014—or rather, one of the kings. It seems the Cupertino company managed to tie rival Samsung for the title.

Both companies shipped 74.5 million handsets during the quarter, though Samsung still outsold Apple in terms of the annual total by a hefty margin. Those quarterly sales gave both companies an equal marketshare of 19.6%.

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Apple broke many records with its latest quarter reporting $74.6 billion in revenue and $18 billion in profit with 74.4 million iPhones sold, numbers which greatly surpassed both Apple’s guidance and the even higher consensus analysts predicted, and Wall Street is taking notice.

Following a dismal day for the market yesterday which saw Apple down a few points ahead of its earnings report—it was soon back on the rise in after hours trading—both Apple and the Dow are climbing this morning largely due to those record numbers yesterday. Hovering around 7.5% higher since opening this morning and occasionally crossing 8%, Apple is positioned to cross its previous record high shortly.
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Apple announced a lot of numbers during its fiscal Q1 2015 earnings call today in addition to confirming the Apple Watch will ship in April. Some of Apple’s highlights include numbers on Apple Pay since its launch in October, the 1 billionth iOS device shipping in November, and big growth in China as Apple sells a record 74.4 million iPhones during the quarter.

Head below for a roundup of stats and milestones that Apple announced during the call:
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Today during Apple’s Q1 earnings call with investors, CEO Tim Cook announced that the company sold its billionth iOS device back in November.
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Ahead of Apple’s fiscal Q1 2015 earnings report today, there were signs that Apple had enjoyed significant growth in China and a record number of smartphone sales in the region during the holidays. Today, we get some more insight into that growth, as Apple reported a 157% increase from the previous quarter: revenue of $16.144 billion in Greater China compared to $6.292 billion in Q3.
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As it revealed earlier this month, Apple will have its quarterly conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern to discuss earnings from its fiscal year 2015 first quarter results. These results include sales 74.4 million iPhones, 21.4 million iPads, and 5.5 million Macs. Earlier today the company reported that it earned $74.6 billion in revenue during FY 2015 Q1.

While Apple’s previous quarter included the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales, today’s numbers include the bulk of the sales in the United States and the initial sales of the new models in key markets including China. Today’s reported numbers do include the first sales numbers for the iPad since Apple began shipping the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, and the first Mac numbers since the Retina 5K iMac went on sale. Apple Pay will also be an area of interest for listeners as the mobile payment service only launched the day of the last quarterly conference call.

Investors and analysts will have an opportunity to ask Tim Cook and company questions during the earnings call, and we’ll be listening closely to bring you coverage.
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(Image via Michael Steeber)

Apple announced its Q1 2015 earnings results today reporting $74.6 billion in revenue earning $18 billion in profit during the three-month period.

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 first quarter ended December 27, 2014. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion and record quarterly net profit of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $57.6 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion, or $2.07 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.9 percent compared to 37.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 65 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In addition to its revenue and profit disclosure, Apple reported sales numbers for the following categories:

• iPhone: 74.4 million units
• iPad: 21.4 million units
• Mac: 5.5 million units
• iTunes: $4.7 billion
• Accessories: $2.6 billion

Totals:

• Revenue: $74.6 billion
• EPS: $3.06 per share

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the following regarding the quarter:

“We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our revenue grew 30 percent over last year to $74.6 billion, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.”

Apple CFO Luca Maestri added this:

“Our exceptional results produced EPS growth of 48 percent over last year, and $33.7 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter, an all-time record,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We spent over $8 billion on our capital return program, bringing total returns to investors to almost $103 billion, over $57 billion of which occurred in just the last 12 months.”

Ahead of today’s earnings report, sales numbers for both the iPhone and iPad were particular areas of interest. Q1 2015 held the bulk of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales in the United States and saw the new iPhone models debut in key countries like China. Meanwhile, the iPad sales numbers were particularly interested following last quarter’s year-over-year shipment decrease and the release of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 in October.

Apple’s Q1 2015 numbers follow last quarter’s results of $42.1 billion in revenue and sales of 39 million iPhones, 12.3 million iPads, and 5.5 million Macs. For the same quarter a year ago, Apple reported $57.6 billion in revenue and sales of 51 million iPhones, 26 million iPads, and 4.8 million Macs. Compare also to profit last quarter of $8.5 million and a year ago of $13.1 billion.

Apple will hold its conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern to discuss the quarter’s numbers, follow along for our coverage then. Both Cook and Maestri will likely share prepared remarks then answer a round of questions from analysts on the call.

For Q2 2015 Apple is providing guidance between $52 billion and $55 billion. The full Q1 earnings results release is below:

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Apple has made yet another key hire from the fashion industry: Chester Chipperfield, the Vice President of Digital and Interactive Design at Burberry. Chipperfield was “responsible for User Experience and Digital Design for all channels” and was “highly involved in digital retail initiatives” at Burberry, according to his LinkedIn profile. He confirmed the move to Apple on his profile as well as on Twitter…

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Beijing News reports that Tim Cook has agreed to allow China’s State Internet Information Office to carry out security audits of Apple products sold in the country. Cook reportedly made the offer during his meeting with China’s Cyberspace Administration minister Lu Wei in December.

China has long expressed suspicion over the security of Apple products, seemingly resulting from frosty relations with the U.S. Government. A state-run TV station in China described the iPhone as a “national security concern” last July due to its location-tracking capabilities. Apple responded by pointing out that location data is stored on the phone, not on Apple’s servers, and is encrypted … 
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Apple will allow its upcoming Siri-controlled HomeKit platform to work with certain existing, non-HomeKit home automation products, including ones using competing protocols such as ZigBee or Z-Wave, but there are many limitations. According to sources briefed on the new specs, the latest Made for iPhone (MFi) licensing program specifications detail the types of home automation products other than HomeKit that Apple will permit to interact with its platform.

During the 2014 WWDC, Apple briefly mentioned the possibility of connecting rival home automation products to HomeKit using a hardware “bridge,” but only in recent weeks has clarified the types of accessories that will and will not be allowed.
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