Appleviews – 28th October 2022
I swear, they pass faster
So, Twitter is sold – more on that in a bit.
But, geez, is it really Friday already? I have a worrying concern, that the older you get, the quicker the weeks pass…moving swiftly on…let’s start with today’s big news…
He actually did it!
Whether because he was forced, or chose to, today, Elon Musk finally completed his buyout of Twitter.
No sooner had the deal been done, that Elon began stamping his authority on the company, by firing some high-profile names. Gone is the chief executive, Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and head of legal policy, trust, and safety, Vijaya Gadde.
Today’s deal caps off, what has been a tumultuous few months between Musk and the board at Twitter. In April, Musk offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which the board accepted. In May, the man behind Tesla, put the deal on hold due to the number of fake or spam accounts that Twitter claimed to have.
Come July, Musk decided he wanted out of the deal altogether. The board responded by filing a lawsuit, which was to force him to see the deal through. In October, Musk, once again turned tail, and stated yes, he wanted to buy Twitter for the proposed $44 billion. Today’s final deal was concluded with just hours to spare, before that lawsuit was to come in to force.
Last week, Musk was making sounds that there would be widespread sackings, to save money on the ailing bottom line. The rumours were that up to 75% of the staff may find themselves unemployed, but Musk has now distanced himself from those earlier claims.
Many have been worried over the future of Twitter, with Musk now at the helm. He claims, his reasons for buying Twitter were for the right reasons;
“The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”
Musk, this morning, changed his Twitter bio – it now signs off, simply as ‘Chief Twit’!
Speaking of dodgy deals
iPad – well, I could just leave it there, but, let me expand.
Last week I covered the odd story, that the iPad 10, now ships with a USB-C port. Hurray I hear you shouting, well, that can be quelled by the other news, that iPad 10 is only compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil, which pairs and charges via lightning. Seriously, you couldn’t make it up, right?
The plan from Apple was that all new, first gen Apple Pencils would ship with an adapter. If you already own one, though, and want to use it with iPad 10, you’d have to buy a USB-C – Lightning cable for $9. The problem, however, is, that those adapters are already on back-order. Apple is quoting that they will not be available for around one month.
In an attempt to ensure customers of the new iPad are not left without a way to charge their Apple Pencil, Apple have now instructed certain stores in the US, to stop selling first generation pencils until the new stock is available.
Could they not simply have made iPad 10 compatible with the second generation pencil?
As it turns out, USB-C, has been in the news a lot one way and another this past week…
New & slow
The iPad I was just talking about, iPad 10, has yet another flaw. Although equipped with a USB-C port, it is the slowest version of the port in the iPad range.
I understand that it could be argued that the target users of this iPad, would not require superfast transfer speeds, but even so, it seems an odd choice. M1 iPad Pro’s get transfers from their USB-C port of 40Gbps. The fifth gen iPad Air gets 10Gbps, with the fourth gen having transfer speeds of 5Gbps. Meanwhile, the brand new iPad 10 has been limited to 480Mbps – the same speed as the 9th generation iPad, with Lightning.
If you can handle a bit more USB-C news…
Last week, I covered the fact that Craig Federighi, and Greg ‘Joz’ Joswiak were due to appear on stage with the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern. It turned out to be a brilliant interview, and you can watch it in full, on YouTube here.
There were a few major takeaways from the interview. The first of which was confirmation that next year’s iPhone 15 will have it’s lightning port, replaced with a USB-C one (hopefully a quick one). Apple has decided to get the switch over made one year ahead of time.
New EU regulations come in to force in the fall of 2024, stating that all small, hand-held devices must ship with USB-C ports. Apple is currently testing iPhone 15 Pro models with USB-C connectors, so unless there’s any major hiccups in testing, 2023 should be the year of USB-C and iPhone.
Other than that confirmation, other highlights from the event were that Apple have no interest in developing an Android iMessage app. Federighi said;
“If we just shipped an app that really didn’t get critical mass on other platforms, what it would have accomplished? It would have held us back in innovating in all the ways we want to innovate in Messages for our customers, and wouldn’t have accomplished much at all in any other way”.
And when ‘Joz’ was asked about the possibility of a calculator app coming to iPad any time soon, he simply replied;
“There are a ton of them. Go to the App Store. I use third-party apps”.
That, right there, is your answer, folks.
The state of iPhone buttons
According to the ultra-reliable Ming-Chi Kuo, the volume, and power buttons on next year’s iPhone 15 are also due for a change.
The clicky buttons that we know so well, could be replaced on iPhone Pro, and Pro Max with Solid State buttons. The tech would be similar to the home button on iPhone 7.
To recreate the ‘clicky-ness’, Apple will use Taptic Engine vibrations. The current iPhone uses only one engine, but Kuo suggests this could up’d to three on next year’s Pro phone line-up. Now, let’s talk money.
The report is in
Yesterday, Apple announced their financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2022, which corresponds to the third calendar quarter of the year.
For that quarter, Apple posted a revenue of $90.1 billion, which yielded them a net profit of $20.7 billion. Over the entire year, Apple posted new records of $394.3 billion in sales and $99.8 billion in net income, up from $365.8 billion in sales and $94.7 billion in net income for fiscal 2021.
Apple Services, such as the App Store, Apple TV+, and Apple Music, continue to grow, and become an ever more important part of Apple’s turnover. Year-on-year, there was a growth of very nearly $1 billion, with services this quarter generating $19 billion.
iPad sales saw a sharp downturn in the fourth quarter of 2022. Sales were down from $31.8 billion in 2021, to $29.2 billion in this week’s report.
Luca Maestri, forecast that Mac sales will dip in Q1 of 2023, year-over-year, due to the higher than average sales of Mac in 2021, which was down to the release of the M1 MacBooks.
Finally, Tim Cook said that Apple has been constrained on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max from the get-go. In turn, this has had an almost inevitable effect on sales. Cook carried on to say that he anticipated that “sales will be constrained for a little while”. He added that “Apple is working very hard to fulfil demand”.
Update week
This week Ventura, the latest macOS, was released, as was iOS 16.1.
I wrote yesterday about my initial findings on Ventura, and they continue to be strong.
iOS 16.1 has been a relatively smooth release, with only a few users reporting some random Wi-Fi issues.
Articles on Reddit, Twitter & the Apple Support forum pages, have suggested that some are having issues with Wi-Fi drop-outs. The problem appears to be that iPhones running 16.1 are periodically and sometimes randomly disconnecting throughout the day, despite no changes in their environment.
I have not had that issue, but I have had an issue with Air Drop. I am having to quit Finder and re-launch it most days, on the first attempt of the day, to transfer from Mac to iPhone.
That’s all folks
Well, I think that has gathered all the Apple goodness up for you this week.
As ever, if there are stories you think I have missed, or should cover, get in touch, and let me know.
But, with that, I am off to enjoy some glorious autumn sunshine and then sort out renewing my passport. Have a fantastic weekend, and I’ll catch you all Monday.
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