Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/02/monday-morning-news050218/
Apple’s Q1 2018 results were released on Friday morning, with revenue of US $88.3 billion and $20.1 billion profit. Those numbers alone make it Apple’s biggest quarter yet, even though the first financial quarter of the year are historically larger than the others. In just three months, Apple sold 78.3 million iPhones, 13 million iPads, and 5.4 million Macs, with the iPhone accounting for 70% of Apple’s revenue and the Americas taking up 40% of the revenue pie by region. MacStories has other graphs of the data.
While transcripts of the conference call following the announcement isn’t as awe-inspiring as the raw numbers, it’s often more interesting. Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the call by pointing out Apple’s 1.3 billion active devices worldwide, with Cook also noting that the iPhone X has been the best-selling phone every week since it launched. Six Colors has the full transcript, which includes questions from analysts.
Apple’s biggest revenue category may have been the iPhone, but it was services which took out second place, followed by the Mac, iPad, and other. Notably, $5.5 billion in revenue came from Apple’s “other” products category, which includes devices such as AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, and the iPod touch indicates that those products are doing pretty well. Not iPhone-levels of well, but that’s Apple’s golden goose.
A Chinese national was caught back in 2015 for taking part in a large-scale operation involving the sale of fake Apple products in the US. The operation went on for five years, starting in 2009, and Jianhua Li personally received $1.1 million in revenue from sales. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic counterfeit goods into the US, and one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods.
Research firm KGI Securities claims Apple’s iPhone lineup this year will ditch Qualcomm cellular modems entirely, with Apple choosing instead to rely on Intel. Speculation points to Apple’s ongoing legal battles with Qualcomm as one possible reason, despite Qualcomm modems being marginally better than Intel when it comes to power efficiency and features.
Apple has started an iPhone 7 Repair Program for “No Service” issues. According to the repair program page, a small percentage of devices may show “No Service” despite coverage being available, due to a failed component on the logic board. Only specific devices with certain models numbers depending on region and devices manufactured between September 2016 and February 2018 are eligible for free repairs for the issue, and only from two years of the original retail sale of the unit. I wonder if this is related to China remotely destroying devices with VPNs?
MacRumors says Apple employees get 50% off HomePod for the first two months. Apple’s done this before with the Apple Watch when that first launched, so presumably the company wants at least some people to buy their home speaker with Siri capabilities.
Apple’s latest activity challenge is for American Heart Month. To earn the badge and thee animated iMessage stickers, you’ll need to close the exercise ring every day from the 8th to the 14th of Feb. Just so long as Apple gets the dates right this time — users have previously been awarded a February challenge for activity in January.
Upcoming versions of iOS and macOS will include a new icon which will indicate to users when Apple’s own apps request personal information. I’m always curious about this kind of security measure. Even if Apple include some kind of custom graphic or other indication that something on your iPhone was a request from Apple for your iCloud password, what’s to prevent some developer coming up with their own custom implementation? Would you be able to tell the difference?
Over at Macworld, Dan Moren asks what will happen to macOS Server with the demise of several services. Apple’s focus on management of computers, devices, and storage is all well and good, but there are people who are using those services that will now need to find alternatives.