News - page 651

In its quest for minimalist perfectionism, Apple loves shaving ports off its products wherever possible. But even it has stopped short of creating a phone like the Meizu Zero.

Promising no buttons, no speaker holes, no Sim card slot, and no charging port, this sleek Chinese Android phone looked like a concept phone or, uncharitably, an early April Fool’s joke when it first popped up online last month. Well, it seems that that’s not the case at all — since pre-orders have just gone live on Indiegogo. Be warned: It’s not cheap.

Foxconn, which promised to create 13,000 jobs with a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin, won’t be producing state-of-the-art TV screens here as planned.

The news may not come as a big surprise to critics of the deal, which gave the iPhone maker the richest subsidy package in the state’s history. Foxconn has already forfeited some of those tax credits after it missed 2018 hiring goals.

Apple may have suffered a few bruising months, but it seems that investors aren’t ready to lose faith in the Cupertino giant.

Despite Apple announcing disappointing holiday earnings, shares in the company rebounded today. Having performed strongly in pre-market trading, they are currently valued at — time of writing –$161.44. That’s the highest AAPL has been since the middle of December.

The Pokémon Company looks to be hard at work on a brand new Pokémon game for mobile.

The studio is seeking a principal game designer who will work “within a team of designers, engineers, artists, producers, and testers to create an upcoming mobile game.”

Apple’s cheap battery replacement program might have come to an end, but the folks over at iFixit have extended their own $29.99 replacement program for the rest of 2019.

The company’s kits provide everything you need to replace the battery for your iPhone, with batteries available for handsets going all the way back to 2011’s iPhone 4s.

Starting Friday, Apple Music subscribers can enjoy the service on domestic flights with American Airlines without purchasing Wi-Fi.

Complete access to the service and its more than 50 million songs will be available on flights equipped with Viasat satellite Wi-Fi. American Airlines is the first commercial airline to offer the service.

Another analyst has declared that Apple stock is currently undervalued following on from yesterday’s earnings call.

“The stock is cheap, I mean, it’s selling at low multiples,” King Lip, chief strategist at Baker Avenue Asset Management, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday. However, Lip said that Apple is going to have to prove itself with a “killer app or killer product” sometime in the next 12 months.

Google’s official Gmail app is getting a fancy new redesign on Android and iOS.

The fresh lick of paint won’t just make Gmail look better; it will also come with new features and tweaks that will make it quicker and easier to use, as well as phishing alerts for dodgy emails.

Facebook will shut down the iOS version of its Research app after a TechCrunch report revealed how it was paying users aged 13-35 to install a VPN, allowing it to gather data on their phone and web activity.

This follows an incident last August in which Apple asked Facebook to remove its Onavo VPN from the App Store, since it was violating Apple’s data collection policies.

Unsurprisingly, Apple’s recently exposed FaceTime bug — allowing other people to see or hear you before a call starts — is already landing the company in hot water.

According to a new lawsuit filed against Apple, the bug allowed an unknown individual to eavesdrop on a private conversation between a lawyer and their client.

Not included in the Q4 financial results Apple just announced was the number of iPhone units sold. An analyst firm quickly filled in the gap, estimating that 65.9 million iOS handsets shipped in the last quarter of 2018, down significantly.

This is the first quarterly earnings announcement in which Apple didn’t reveal how many iPhone, Mac, and iPad units it had sold.

Details  on an upcoming pair of iPad models are already trickling out, and today came word that these tablets might support an Apple clip-on keyboard. At least one of these models is expected to target the classroom, making the release of a Smart Keyboard for it a very welcome addition.

This change might help Apple regain some of the ground it’s lost in education.

Tim Cook sounded confident about Apple’s future when he got on today’s Q1 2019 earnings call with investors this afternoon. Despite slumping iPhone sales and declining revenues, Cook told investors that his company is being managed for the long-haul instead of short-term gains.

Wall Street is already responding positively to Apple’s earnings report with shares trading up in after-hours trading. The company has 1.4 billion active Apple devices in the world, positioning Apple to continue raking in money as no other company can. However, today’s call revealed some new challenges Apple faces going forward.

Apple unveiled its earnings for Q1 2019 this afternoon and as expected, total revenue came in a lot lower than Apple originally predicted at the end of last year, with iPhone sales dropping 15%.

Thanks mostly to slumping sales in Greater China, Apple posted $84.3 billion in revenue, marking a drop from the $88.3 billion the company pulled in during the same quarter a year ago. Even though iPhone sales are struggling, Apple’s services are bringing in more money than expected, giving investors some good news.

Investors are eagerly waiting to see all the numbers from Apple’s 2018 holiday quarter during today’s earnings call. Based on early reports, some of the numbers might come in even lower than expected.

Gulp.

Apple already warned investors that iPhones sales during Q1 2019 came in lower than expected, mostly thanks to problems in Greater China. Even after lowering revenue guidance, the company still could pull out a few surprises. However, most analysts remain worried that the iPhone sales slump will continue into 2020.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are set to get on the phone with investors at 2 p.m. Pacific today. Per usual, Cult of Mac will be here live-blogging all the action with up-to-the-minute analysis on all the important numbers.

Come join the fun:

Project Titan may take the steering wheel out of the driver’s hands, but controlling the car could be as easy as gesturing at the seatbelt.

Apple has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that details a smart seatbelt with a surface that would sense hand gestures for adjusting the entertainment system and operating various features in self-driving vehicles.

Apple is expanding its slate of Today at Apple sessions with 50 new classes that offer free educational experiences for iPhone, iPad and Mac users.

Today at Apple first started at Apple store in 2017, providing 18,000 free sessions a week that have been attended by millions of people around the world. With the new sessions, Apple is expanding on its most popular sessions, giving participants more opportunities to create and explore with their products.

Malicious Siri Shortcuts are a real possibility warns one developer, so users need to start treating all of them as potential threats. He calls on Apple to fix their problems.

Shortcuts debuted last fall in iOS 12. They are small apps that can be used to automate iOS features. That apparently makes them well suited for creating malware.

One of the biggest health insurance providers in the U.S. is giving customers the option to earn a free Apple Watch Series 3 by engaging in healthy activities like exercise and sleeping better.

Aetna revealed today that it is collaborating with Apple for its new app called Attain. Through the app, Aetna members will get personalized goals, be able to track their activity and get recommendations on healthy action. And if you do a good job, you’ll earn some cool rewards too.

When Apple unveils its earnings report for last year’s crucial holiday quarter, the entire world will be watching for signs of the company’s long-rumored impending doom.

Several factors will make Tuesday’s Q1 2019 earnings call Apple’s most important in years. Depending on how it goes, it could have an enormous impact on the company’s stock’s performance in 2019 and beyond.

The boss of one of the biggest names in the camera industry says his company cannot compete against the cameras in the iPhone and other smartphones.

Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai says the camera market will shrink by almost 50 percent within the next two years.

To survive, Mitarai says Canon, which produced pioneering autofocus gear popular with professional photographers, will shift its focus to corporate customers in fields like surveillance and medical care.

Fortnite for iOS finally supports wireless game controllers. After installing the latest version 7.30 release, you can connect a compatible MFi controller and bid goodbye to fiddly touch controls.

But don’t expect exactly the same experience as on consoles, and don’t assume you’re going to have an advantage over other mobile players.

Here’s what you need to know about playing Fortnite for iOS with a controller.

It feels like spam calls have gotten out of control lately. With more calls resulting in sales pitches and attempts to scam you, people are answering their phones less and less.

A new report from call identification and blocking company Hiya shows just how bad these spam calls have gotten.

Apple stock is down right now — and if you’re a potential investor looking to dive in, that’s good news.

At least, that’s according to Shark Tank star and chairman of O’Shares ETF Investments, Kevin O’Leary. In a new interview, O’Leary notes how, “Apple is getting cheap again.” Despite previously selling off his Apple stock due to the iPhone decline, O’Leary now says he’s tempted to invest again.

UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri is concerned that declining iPhone sales are going to continue not only through 2019, but also into 2020.

“We believe the challenges in China would likely to continue and while a trade settlement could help, the damage in terms of iPhone is likely done,” writes in a note to clients. Arcuri thinks that Apple likely sold around 64 million iPhones over the holiday season. While that’s still a big number, it’s less than the 68 million Wall Street consensus.