Apple’s earnings fell just shy of Wall Street’s expectations for third-quarter revenue despite continued strong sales of the iPhone 6, which helped the company bring in $49.6 billion in gross revenue and $10.7 billion in profit.
Perhaps even worse for AAPL, the company’s fourth-quarter revenue forecast fell short of analysts’ best guesstimates.
Along with the release of new betas for iOS 9 and watchOS 2, Apple has seeded a fourth beta of OS X 10.11 El Capitan to developers today. The release comes nearly two weeks since the last beta was made available to developers are well as public testers.
Apple has released a new set of betas for the mobile operating systems it announced at WWDC 2015 in June. iOS 9 beta 4 and watchOS 2.0 beta 4 are now available to registered developers, nearly two weeks after Apple seeded the previous betas.
Apple is set to report its financial results from Q3 2015 to investors this afternoon and, as usual, Cult of Mac will be here to liveblog all the action, from the numbers down to the analysts’ questions.
Apple Watch sales have been looming large in the minds of investors and analysts now that the device has been available for a full quarter. We don’t expect CEO Tim Cook or CFO Luca Maestri to announce the Watch sales as their own category, but there’s sure to be plenty of speculation as to whether the new wearable has met sales expectations.
Today’s earning’s call is set to kick off at 2 p.m. Pacific, but we’ll be kicking off the liveblogging party early with a breakdown of all the numbers. Bookmark this page and join us for the Apple earnings bonanza.
Apple and IBM have been collaborating on creating an excellent suite of apps for the iPhone and iPad over the past year, but starting today, IBM’s MobileFirst apps are adding support for Apple Watch.
The Apple and IBM partnership revealed today that it’s created 10 more apps that cover everything from managing employee shifts to helping government inspectors get all the data necessary while out in the field.
Take a tour of the new apps below:
Fans hoping to catch MTV’s announcement of this year’s VMA nominees on Beats 1 this morning got a rude awakening as Apple servers crashed right before the artists were revealed.
We’ve been trying to access Beats 1 radio all morning but keep getting “Request timed out” errors on all our devices. Other services have been impacted as well: People on Twitter have reported a number of issues with Apple services, including problems accessing the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iTunes Match.
Here’s a list of Apple services affected:
The Apple Store’s policy to check employees backpacks after they check out from work has been turned into a class-action lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco certified the case as a class-action on Thursday, after former employees sued Apple for conducting the bag searches at the company’s 52 retail stores in California.
Apple continued its marketing blitz for the Apple Watch today with four new TV ads that highlight how useful the new wearable is for fitness freaks as well as travel junkies.
Two of the clever new ads titled ‘Beijing’ and ‘Berlin’ show two sets of friends using Apple Watch and its many apps to explore the city, talk to locals in a different language, and communicate on the fly. The other two ads feature number fitness and goal setting apps, as well as how the watch brings people closer together.
You can watch all four ads below:
Tim Cook has been adamant that Apple is not in the business of collecting your data, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t brainstorming ways it could make some extra money by skimming key bits of personal info off your iPhone — like how much money you’ve got in the bank.
In fact, Apple has devised a way to display targeted ads on users’ devices based on what they can actually afford to purchase.
Two days after seeding the latest OS X Yosemite beta to developers, Apple has now made OS X 10.10.5 beta 1 available to all public beta testers.
Canadian singer-songwriter and musician turned high-fidelity music spokesman, Neil Young, announced that he’s fed up with music streaming service. Sure, there’s a lot less money in streaming than selling albums, but Young revealed to fans that he’s pulling his albums from Apple Music and other services today because the music just sounds too horrible for him to tolerate.
The Pono Player creator told fans this morning that the sound quality was dramatically reduced by ‘bad deals’ made without his consent so he has no choice but to pull his entire catalog from Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal so that you, the fan, aren’t harmed by hearing his music in the worst quality in the history of broadcasting — which is probably the way you’ve been listening to his music the past five years.
Here is Young’s full explanation:
Apple Pay makes buying items quicker than ever thanks to its tap-to-pay technology that is ridiculously easy to use. But if you want to use Apple Pay to purchase gas, you still have to deal with going inside the store and making a transaction at the register rather than at the pump.
That could soon change, though, as Chevron announced today that it has started a pilot program in Northern California that lets drivers fuel up and pay for their gas with Apple Pay, right at the dispenser.
Here’s where you can find the Apple Pay pumps:
The United States and Iran finally signed an official nuke agreement today after 20 months of negotiations, and according to a new report, Apple is already looking to move in.
Irish software development studio Probendi is suing Apple in Europe over the use of the term ‘iWatch’ in its search engine ads.
Court documents filed by Probendi in Milan claim that even though Apple doesn’t own the trademark for iWatch, it has used iWatch wording on Google in an effort to direct customers to the Apple Watch website.
Fox’s reboot of the Fantastic Four is set to land in theaters next month, but fans who attended Comic-Con last week in San Diego got a special peek at the new Doctor Doom who’s threatening to end life as we know it on Earth.
The fiery new trailer was released online this morning and in addition to giving us a better look at Doom, The Thing, and the Human Torch in action, it also reveals how Reed Richards and Ben Grimm became friends when they were just kids dreaming of unlocking the secret of dimensional travel.
Watch the fantastic new trailer below:
I didn’t have high hopes for Suicide Squad, the upcoming action movie that pits a team of supervillains together on a top secret government mission, but now that the first trailer for David Ayer’s action-packed film has been teased to fans, I’m starting to become a believer.
Will Smith, Cara Delevingne, and Viola Davis all make an appearance in the first trailer that debuted at International Comic Con 2015 over the weekend, but Jared Leto manages to steal the show as the Joker with a menacing appearance in the last few seconds.
Check it out:
Siri can be used to quickly access a huge library of sound effects. Ask it to play fireworks, a babbling brook, or even a machine gun and Apple’s digital assistance will pull out the perfect sound effect. But if you ask Siri to ‘play loud farts’ you’ll get an unexpected surprise.
European leaders have finally agreed to a bailout plan with Greece this morning. The country’s financial crisis at one point capped how much cash citizens could withdraw daily, so Apple has decided to help its customers out by providing one free month of iCloud to current subscribers.
Tim Cook and Eddy Cue were in Sun Valley, Idaho this week for Allen & Co’s annual gathering of the richest and most successful people in media and technology. The gathering includes multiple days of hobnobbing with fellow elites where Cook has become a staple for the past two years.
Last year Apple’s CEO made headlines by telling a reporter to throw her Samsung away. This year Cook was mum when reporters asked him questions, but he was spotted chatting with some of his fellow tech titans, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates:
After invading sport stadiums across the country, Apple Pay is preparing to make an appearance at the biggest baseball game of the season: the 2015 MLB All-Star Game.
Along with releasing the first ever public beta of iOS 9, Apple has also opened up OS X El Capitan to the public for beta testing as well.
Developers have been toying around with Apple’s latest iOS 9 betas for over a month now, but starting today, everyone can download and install the latest iOS 9 beta, even if you’re not a developer.
After previewing its productivity suite to testers for the past four months, Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac is now available to anyone with an Office 365 subscription.
Microsoft announced this morning that the final version of Office 2016 is ready for primetime, marking the biggest update to come to Office for Mac since the last version was released nearly five years ago.
The new version of Office boasts a number of huge features that were designed with Mac in mind, including an improved user interface that feels like it’s part Windows, part Office for Mac 2011. The familiar Ribbon user interface is still around and plays nicely with OS X features like sandboxed, apps, Retina screen optimization, Multi-Touch gestures, and full screen views.
Check out some of the new goodies:
Apple is known for its uncompromising demands on quality, and now it appears that the iPhone-maker is helping third-party accessory makers learn the magic of making beautiful packaging too.
Apple Stores have begun stocking third-party accessories with redesigned packaging that was created with help directly from Apple. The new packaging aims to reinforce the Apple Store’s image as premium retail location by matching the color of Apple Stores’ storage wall.
Here’s a look some of the new packaging:
Spotify and Apple Music are now the two major players in the battle for music streaming supremacy, but if Facebook has its way the world’s most popular social network may also become the best place to discover and listen to tunes.
Facebook is in early talks with record labels to develop a music streaming service of its own, according to a new report that claims the social network has some bold plans for the future of music.