Imagine getting home after a hard day’s work in the year 2016: There’s no need for keys as you approach your house, since proximity sensors in the lock mean a simple iPhone voice authorization will open the door for you.

The house has been alerted to your arrival, so your Nest thermostat has adjusted the temperature to suit you, while your Philips Hue connected light bulbs change the lighting to fit your mood — predicted by analyzing your heart rate and schedule for that day. The iWatch on your wrist runs Jawbone app, letting you know your caffeine levels are a little high and that you should wait until 7:30 p.m. before going for a jog to ensure maximum sleep quality that night.

Five minutes after putting your car keys down, dinner’s ready. You’re running late, but your smart immersion cooker — which has been monitoring your location all day — has delayed cooking until the optimal start time.

While most of the other rumors about the upcoming iPhone 6 have tended to sync up with each other, one thing we’ve still yet to get a clear answer on is whether or not Apple’s next generation smartphone will feature a sapphire display.

The latest report, coming from LEDinside, claims that the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 won’t be incorporating sapphire displays, due to limited volumes of sapphire being produced this year — mostly as a result of sapphire ingot manufacturers yield rate being lower than expected, alongside other issues involved in sapphire glass processing.

Apple has been struggling to produce enough sapphire displays in time for the iPhone 6, but after going straight to the source of the freakishly indestructible glass – GT Advanced Technologies – MIT has learned of the company’s plans to use a giant machine that may solve all of Apple’s sapphire production problems, one slice of sapphire at a time.

The problem with sapphire glass is that while amazingly durable, it’s also ridiculously hard to produce in thin smartphone sized sheets. Apple’s current production methods involve taking a large chunk of sapphire and sawing it down to just a few hundred micrometers thick. It’s time consuming and wasteful, but GT’s new Hyperion 4 Ion Implanter technology could allow it to make paper thin sheets of pure crystal sapphire glass just by bombarding it with hydrogen ions.

We’re increasingly obsessed with the idea of personal health tracking devices like the long-awaited iWatch, but current Apple devices can also be used to revolutionize medicine within hospitals.

A new report in the U.K. states that doctors and nurses at Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital are using iPads and iPod touches to streamline the hospital’s current reliance on paper notes.

There are a lot of reasons to be excited about Apple right now, but if you believe Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, we’re just getting started.

Based on Apple’s quarterly SEC filing, Huberty believes Apple’s revenue is set to explode over the coming quarters, since she claims Cupertino’s off-balance sheet commitments “confirm major product ramps later this year.”

Eddy Cue thinks 2014 will be the best product pipeline Apple’s had in 25 years, and according to the company’s latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cupertino is certainly pouring enough money into R&D to back him up.

Apple increased spending in research and development 36 percent year-over-year in Q3, with an extra $425 million being funneled into R&D in the last quarter alone.

Even Apple execs sounded pleasantly surprised as they revealed last quarter’s mostly higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday. But in what’s become something of a refrain in Cupertino, they couldn’t stop themselves from vague and knowing references to the incredible products waiting in the magical Apple pipeline.

Trust us, they seemed to say: Last quarter’s net profit of $7.7 billion — fueled by robust sales of iPhones, MacBooks and a surprisingly strong showing in the iTunes Software and Services category — was totally great, but wait till you see what we’ve got up our sleeves.

“We’re expecting a very busy fall,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer. “We’re very excited about what’s in the pipeline.”

What else did Apple executives have to say during Tuesday’s Q3 earnings call? Here’s our take on everything you need to know from the latest numbers talk.

Apple fell just shy of Wall Street’s third-quarter revenue predictions but came in well within its own guidance, bringing in $37.4 billion gross and $7.7 billion in profit for Q3 2014.

iPhone sales were modest at best, but that’s probably because everyone is waiting for the iPhone 6 in September.

Apple sold 35 million iPhones, 13.2 million iPads and 4.4 million Macs in the just-ended quarter, the company announced Tuesday just prior to its Q3 earning call. That’s decent for what’s traditionally the company’s slowest quarter of the year, but they’re not numbers to sing about—which is why Apple is steering everyone’s attention to what it has planned for the coming months.

In what is quite possibly the strongest indication to date that Apple has been working on a smart watch for some time, on Tuesday the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an Apple patent related to a “Wrist-worn electronic device” referred to as iTime.

The patent was first filed back in 2011, and describes a device reminiscent of the Pebble smart watch — which would act as a notifications system for other Apple devices such as your iPhone and iPad, with information communicated wirelessly between these devices by way of Bluetooth. Alerts such as phone calls, text messages, and push notifications could be sent to your watch, with the user then made aware of these by way of audio, visual, or vibration cues.

Don’t expect anything too exciting from Apple’s third quarter earnings tomorrow.

This is Apple’s slowest part of the year. The summer slump means no new hardware, which means no explosive sales growth. But that’s alright, because the best is yet to come.

Tim Cook and co. have promised that truly epic things are coming in the fall, and Wall Street is actually excited about Apple again.