Apple CEO Tim Cook has written an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing in favor of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a proposed piece of U.S. legislation that protects against sexual identity and gender discrimination in the workplace. Cook occasionally gives media interviews, but him writing something like an op-ed out from under the umbrella of Apple is pretty significant.
Get your silver bullets and holy water ready dear friends, because our new CultCast: some Dell laptops are emitting a mysteriously pungent smell; iPad Air gets benchmarked, is murderously speedy; our fave photo app brings darkness… out of the shadows; Apple says some 5S batteries are dieing… faster than they should; Tim Cook says upcoming Apple products will blow… your mind; and we chant… aloud our favorite apps so you can vote on which is best… it’s an all new Faves N Graves!
Put down that candy and join us for this week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the spookiness begin.
Write it off as a smokescreen to cover sliding profit and margins if you want, but Tim Cook’s belief in the culture of Apple came across loud and clear during Monday’s conference call with analysts and reporters.
Speaking about Apple as a “force for good in the world beyond our products” Cook claimed that, “Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making substantial contributions to society.”
During this afternoon’s earning call, Tim Cook was asked about the iPhone 5c and whether the company is disappointed with sales after customers were expecting Apple’s plastic iPhone to be significantly cheaper than its $99 price tag on-contract.
Before diving into iPhone 5c expectations, Cook clarified that even though customers may have expected the iPhone 5c to be Apple’s entry level phone, the company has never considered it to be its cheapest model. That honor goes to Apple’s other cheap phone – the iPhone 4s.
Tim stated that the iPhone 4s is priced as a entry-level offering to giving customers full-access to iOS at a cheap price, while the iPhone 5c is being sold as a mid-tier offer with the 5s of course at the top. Cook elaborated the the iPhone 5c was a good way for Apple to enter the mid-tier market and expand sales in the category. With a record number of iPhones being sold last quarter Tim says he’s pretty pleased with the results so far.
We’re still waiting for Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer to start today’s earnings call, but now that the closing bell has rung Apple just released its official financial results for Q4 2013. So far the numbers look pretty good with Apple beating analyst estimations for revenue and profit with $37.5 billion and $7.5 billion respectively.
Sorting through the pile of information and numbers Apple just gave us can make your head spin, so we’ve broken it down for you. Here are the most important numbers you need to know from today’s earnings:
Last night Carl Icahn took to Twitter to talk about one of his favorite subjects, Apple. The billionaire investor tweeted that he had just sent a letter to Tim Cook and would be publishing the letter on his new website tomorrow.
True to his word, Icahn published the full letter this morning urging Tim Cook and the Apple Board to immediately tender an offer for $150 billion AAPL shares at their current price, rather than wait, as other investors have suggested. Icahn also stated that he will continue to invest in Apple and has already increased his stake in Apple from 4 million shares to 4.7 million.
Here’s the full letter:
Apple packed a lot into one hour and 20 minutes today, with announcements about OS X Mavericks, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, Mac Pro, and the stars of the show: iPad Air and Retina iPad mini. We think that this is about an hour and 18 minutes too long to watch, though, so we’ve condensed it to around 90 seconds.
Here is the Apple iPad Air and iPad mini keynote, right from Yerba Buena, in just 90 seconds:
So you didn’t get a chance to watch every breathtaking second of Apple’s iPad keynote today because you were doing other stuff like working? Well, Apple just made the video of today’s event available for streaming on its website so can catch up and relive all the glorious moments of Craig Federighi’s hair as well as the deets on the new iLife and iWork apps, the Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, iPad Air and everything else.
For best results, Apple recommends watching the video in Safari. You can also watch it on your Apple TV from the Apple Events app.
Source: Apple
Looks like these dudes are trying to crash Apple's iPad event pic.twitter.com/oEyq4ntNUL
— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) October 22, 2013
We’re less that 30 minutes away from the official unveiling of the iPad 5, iPad mini 2 and whatever other goodies Tim Cook and the gang have instore for us. The press are just about to be let in but it looks like some Android fanboys are trying to crash the party in their Android Bot costumes.
No idea if they’re from Google or just some happy fans doing some Android proselytizing for fun. Good luck getting in.
Source: Jon Erlichman
Over the past couple of months we’ve seen tons of concept designers dream up ideas of what Apple’s smartwatch might look like, but this concept iWatch GIF by Thomas Bogner is one of the best ideas we’ve seen yet.
Apple announced today that Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts will be filling the company’s vacancy as Senior VP of Retail and online stores, and while the move came as a surprise to many, Tim Cook says he had been eyeing the Burberry CEO for sometime now.
In an internal email sent to employees this morning, Cook says that he’s wanted to steal Ahrendts away from Burberry from the first time they met in January of this year. Cook describes Angela as “wicked smart” while also being an extraordinary leader with a proven track record. Ahrendts is set to join Apple in spring 2014 as she transitions over from Burberry.
Here’s Tim’s full email:
Apple has today announced that Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, will be joining the Cupertino company to take up a newly-created position as senior vice president of retail and online stores. Ahrendts will report directly to CEO Tim Cook and will oversee the strategic direction, expansion, and operation of Apple’s retail business.
We’re still waiting for the iPhone to make its big debut on China Mobile, but we’ve seen lots of evidence to suggest that the move is imminent. The latest indication comes from a job listing on Apple’s China website that seeks a new engineer with extensive knowledge of China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network.
Former Apple CEO John Sculley believes Tim Cook is doing a “terrific job” at leading Apple after taking over from Steve Jobs two years ago. Cooks is “continuing the Apple philosophy of no compromise and quality of their products and great styling,” Sculley said, and he commends Cook for “not trying to be Steve Jobs.”
Apple announced today that its financial earnings call with investors for Q4 2013 will be held on October 28th at 2PM PT.
AAPL shares have been slowly recovering from a recent slump after hitting a high of over $700 per share in 2012. The recent announcement that iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales shattered past iPhone sales records with 9 million units sold should portend good things for Apple’s earnings and the share price, but Wall Street is always pretty fickle with AAPL, so we’ll have to wait and see if the good news will be enough to get more of Wall Street on board.
Like its previous earnings calls, Apple is allowing the press and its shareholders to listen in to a live audio webcast, which is available via its website and can be accessed on iOS devices. Cult of Mac will be on hand to liveblog the results as they come in, along with any commentary from Tim and the gang.
Cable industry veteran and former CableLabs executive Jean-François Mulé became an engineering director at Apple last month, and he’s hard at work on “something big.” His appointment comes just weeks before Apple is expected to unveil its latest Apple TV, and at a time when the Cupertino company has been working hard to improve the $99 set-top box.
But is Mulé part of something a little more exciting?
Carl Icahn finally got his dinner date wish with Tim Cook last night, after the famous billionaire investor took to Twitter a few weeks ago to preach how Wall Street has seriously undervalued AAPL stock. Along with parading his optimism for Apple’s stock, Icahn purchased a major stake in AAPL stock and has been dying for Cupertino to issue more buybacks.
Nine meeeel-leon iPhones… nine meeel-leon! Yes sir, Apple’s opening weekend iPhone sales were better than they’ve ever been, and that’s got to feel great after months of analysts asking if they’ve lost their touch. We’ll discuss the feat on our newest CultCast, plus, scoop you up a heapin’ helpin’ of iOS 7 tips and tricks, and wait… is that really our sweet Tim Cook that just joined twitter?
Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the unadulterated audio enjoyment begin. Show notes up next.
Apple announced this morning that it sold an ungodly number of iPhones during the iPhone 5s and 5c launches this weekend – 9 million to be exact. The launch was Apple’s most successful ever, after Apple sold a record-breaking 5 million iPhone 5 units during its launch.
Along with the stratospheric sales numbers, Apple also announced that more than 200 million iOS devices were updated to iOS 7 since its launch on September 18th, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.
Tim Cook made a public appearance at the Palo Alto Apple Store this morning for the launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c, and it looks like he may have finally taken to a Twitter account he created back in July to share about the experience in his first tweet ever.
“In the past, when we’ve announced a new iPhone, we’ve lowered the price of the current iPhone making it even more accessible to more people. But this year, we’re not going to do that,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook during the company’s special event in Cupertino on Tuesday.
Instead, Apple replaced the iPhone 5 with the iPhone 5c, a device with exactly the same internals, but a different, more colorful design. But why did it do that? Could it be because the iPhone 5 is too similar to the iPhone 5s, and that dropping its price would have hurt sales of the newer model?
I think so.
I don’t think Apple made the iPhone 5c plastic to make it cheap; I think the company made it plastic to make it worse and to open up a bigger gap between the entry-level iPhone and the high-end model. Here’s why.
Apple’s keynote clocks in at a shorter-than-average one hour and 9 minutes this year, but even so, that’s too long. It’s been our habit to condense these talkfests into just the great bits, and today is no different.
Here, then, is the Apple iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s keynote, right from Cupertino, in just 90 seconds.
Our good pal Tim Cook and his merry band of Apple geniuses are 30 minutes away from taking the stage at the Mothership. It’s a ton of stress presenting at an Apple keynote, but Tim Fortune Cookie has been relaxing in his golden lair, sharping his claws, and waiting to announce the seven new iPhone colors, including his favorite, goooooooold!
We’ll be liveblogging the entire event, so get ready for an avalanche of Apple news as Cook and the gang unleash the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S upon the world.
Source: Twitter
While Apple has been getting dominated by Android in terms of the sheer number of smartphones sold, iOS users have still managed to capture the lion’s share of worldwide mobile web share company, but it looks like the size of their pie is shrinking.
According to the latest survey from NetApplications, iOS’s worldwide mobile web share has dropped 11% since August of 2012. While iOS is still at the top with 54.9%, Android has risen from 20.9% in August 2012, to 28.1% in August 2013.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is one to shy away from sharing his opinions on the state of Apple, but rather than giving a speech on the advice he would impart to Tim Cook, Woz recently shared his Apple product wishlist, which includes wearable computers and bigger displays.
During a recent interview with Reuters, Woz says that he wants Apple to make an iWatch that is as complete in functionality as the current iPhone. The wishlist also includes larger screens on the iPhone, more customizations, and a happy room full of Dreamers thinking up how to change the world with a product that you wouldn’t call a phone.
Here’s the full interview: