Apple’s latest iPhone lineup is its most expensive yet, with prices starting at $999 for the iPhone XS and $1,099 for the iPhone XS Max. But Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t see a problem with that.
In an interview with Good Morning America this week, Cook again defended Apple’s price tags, talked about Apple Watch Series 4, and explained why some devices have avoided price hikes amidst America’s trade war with China.
The Trump administration is expected to spare three Apple products from the next round of tariffs, but escalating conflicts with China could still be a costly problem for the tech giant should a full-blown trade war ensue.
Bloomberg news, siting five unidentified sources, said a product code that covers the Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod smart speaker, is not listed among some $200 billion in Chinese products subject to a new 10 percent tariff expected to be announced later this week.
Trump’s latest round of proposed tariffs will negatively impact Apple’s revenues but according to some numbers crunched by an Apple analyst, investors shouldn’t worry about the company’s profits being hit too hard.
Apple revealed last week that some of the proposed tariffs would hurt the profitability of Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod and Apple Pencil. Price increases would be passed on to consumers, however, it probably won’t be more than a 20% jump.
Apple may have just passed the $1 trillion mark, but it’s still looking for ways to save money. In its efforts to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible, the company is supposedly shifting production for its various devices from Taiwanese suppliers to Chinese ones.
Apple has pulled a massive 25,000 apps from its Chinese App Store following state media complaints about the company. At least 4,000 of these were tagged with the word “gambling,” which is illegal in China outside of state-sanctioned lotteries.
“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said in a statement. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”
Apple is working with Chinese telecoms firms to find a way to cut down the amount of iMessage spam customers in the country receive.
Apple has recently been under fire by state-controlled Chinese media for supposedly allowing users to be bombarded with illicit content through its iMessages. These are said to include gambling ads (illegal in China, aside from state lotteries), pornography, and counterfeit goods.
Apple may have just reported yet another record quarter, but there’s a potential dark cloud lurking on the horizon in the form of the impending China trade war.
Not only has Tim Cook been outspoken about China being Apple’s future biggest market, but Apple also relies on China for the majority of its manufacturing. In other words, Apple has a problem — and in this case it’s a problem that could be passed onto you, the customer.
As if the threat of the burgeoning trade war between the U.S. and China wasn’t enough, Apple has another problem in the world’s most populous country.
State-controlled media in China is accusing Apple of failing to act to block content that is pornographic, gambling-focused, or intended to promote the selling of counterfeit products. At least five news agencies in the country have jumped on the accusations.
When Apple unveils its latest earnings report Tuesday, some analysts think the numbers may be even better than expected.
Q3 is usually Apple’s weakest quarter of the year as the iPhone sales cycle starts to come to an end. However, this week’s call may hold a number of surprises and hints about the 2018 iPhone lineup as Apple gives investors guidance on next quarter. As usual, Cult of Mac will liveblog the entire call with all the pithy analysis we can muster.
We’ll be watching for these key details in the report (and so should you).
Tim Cook was reportedly assured that the iPhone wouldn’t been among the items to be hit with an import tariff as part of the United States’ burgeoning trade war with China.
However, according to a new report, it may wind up being hit with two sets of charges: one on iPhones imported from China, and another tax levied in China itself. Ouch!
iPhone users in China are reportedly being bombarded with iMessage spam, many of them promoting illegal gambling.
Much of the iMessage spam in question links to WeChat account or gambling websites. Gambling is illegal in China, with the exception of two state-sanctioned lotteries.
One of the most important components of the 2018 iPhone could be produced by a company with very strong ties to the Chinese government.
BOE Technology Group already makes some LCD screens for Apple, but also wants to manufacture OLED displays used in flagship iPhone models.
Now that rival smartphone makers have had some time to follow in Apple’s footsteps, you don’t have to spend $1,000 on an iPhone X to enjoy features like facial recognition and an edge-to-edge screen. For instance, this handset looks almost exactly like Apple’s latest flagship, and yet it costs just $100.
But don’t be fooled by its pretty face. This unashamed iPhone X clone is as ugly as sin under the surface, and its poor excuse for security is even scarier.
Apple might have been reassured at the news that tariffs in the U.S.’s trade war with China wouldn’t hurt the iPhone and the iPad — but apparently nobody said anything about the Apple Watch.
According to a new report, the latest round of U.S. tariffs on approximately $200 billion goods imported from China could hit Apple’s wearable device.
When Apple moved iCloud data for Chinese customers over to Apple partner Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry earlier this year, a lot of privacy advocates were worried about the implications.
They might have even more cause for concern now, as Apple’s iCloud data in the country — including users’ emails and text messages — is now being stored by a division of the state-owned China Telecom. Apple confirmed the change late on Tuesday.
Apple has leant its name — and, more importantly, its cold, hard cash — to a new initiative investing around $300 million to push energy use in China.
The fund will invest in and develop clean energy projects, capable of powering the equivalent of nearly 1 million homes.
Sometimes software bugs can be awfully revealing. This week, a security researcher noted how an iPhone-crashing bug occurred whenever some users used the Taiwanese flag emoji in iOS 11.3.
The bug is seemingly an abortive attempt to acquiesce to China’s rules for tech companies to follow, which includes its refusal to accept Taiwan as an independent country. While Apple hasn’t commented on the case, this isn’t the first time it has caved to China’s requests.
The iPhone is made in China, so most of the profit stays over there, right? Actually, everything in that sentence is wrong.
A new study finds that China makes less than $9 from each iPhone 7. Some of the rest goes to other Asian countries, but the lion’s share is earned by Apple and other U.S. companies.
Foxconn could assemble even more iPhones if China eased restrictions curbing factories from abusing overtime, the company’s CEO says.
Billionaire Terry Gou says China’s rules on overtime keep workers from earning more and puts limits on Foxconn’s competitive edge.
It was widely reported yesterday that iPhones assembled in China are safe from having tariffs placed on them by the Trump administration. Now the White House trade advisor says he’s unaware of any such exemption.
Import taxes placed on the import of iPhone units could significantly raise the cost of these devices, if Apple chooses to pass these costs on to consumers.
Apple has more to lose than just about anyone from a U.S. trade war with China.
The country — which Tim Cook has made clear is Apple’s future biggest market — currently represents nearly 20 percent of Apple’s revenues. Last year, it shipped more than 41 million iPhones into China, as well as having 40 stores in the country, and a reliance on Asian manufacturers. In other words, the escalating trade war is pretty darn worrying!
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been hard at work trying to make peace before the brewing trade war with the U.S. and China blows up.
In a new profile by the New York Times, details have emerged of how Tim Cook has been talking to both Trump’s administration and leadership in China to ensure Apple’s stability in both countries.
We’re still eagerly anticipating Nintendo’s first The Legend of Zelda game for mobile. iOS users in China may have briefly believed the wait was over this week when Breath of the Wild landed in the App Store — except it wasn’t actually Breath of the Wild.
It turns out Apple approved a shameless Zelda clone that, unsurprisingly, doesn’t deliver everything its description promises.
Entrepreneur Luo Yonghao has a smartphone company in China that is losing money and has yet to capture even 1 percent of the market share.
So the CEO of Smartisan is making a lot of noise — including firing potshots at Apple — to raise his brand’s profile.
Tim Cook has shared some of the details of his recent meeting with President Donald Trump, during which he reportedly criticized the White House’s trade war with China.
“I felt that tariffs were not the right approach there, and I showed him some more analytical kinds of things to demonstrate why,” Cook told Bloomberg Television. Cook is referring to the Trump administration’s 25 percent tariffs on around $50 billion worth of products entering the U.S. from China.
