Apple Watch details from earnings call

Everyone had their eyes and ears firmly placed on the part of the third quarter Apple earnings report that would tell the world exactly how well the newest Apple product – the Apple Watch – is selling.

Apple is smarter than that, though. Combining the Apple Watch into the ‘other product’s’ category made it so that no specific numbers on the Watch sales were made available.

They could be roughly gleaned, though. The other products category, which includes the Apple Watch, the iPod, the Apple TV and accessories like headphones, had $2.6 Billion in revenue this 3rd quarter, compared to $1.7 Billion in the same quarter last year.

The Apple Watch, of course, was not part of the revenue in that quarter last year, leaving many to speculate that the almost $1 Billion dollar difference was directly due to Apple Watch sales. Those speculating however must also take into consideration that iPod sales were down from last year.

CEO Tim Cook also made sure people knew that Apple Watch sales during it;s first 9 weeks of availability were higher than that of the original iPad and iPhone when they were first released, and that June sales of the Apple Watch were up from April and May, signifying rumors of decreasing sales were false.

Some in the tech arena are still pessimistically watchful (… get it?)  of the Apple Watch and it’s sales and success potential, however Apple is full steam ahead, with now over 8,500 apps for the device, and a new OS coming out in the Fall.

From the Sauce himself, Tim Cook:

“We believe the possibilities for Apple watch are enormous.”

Apple is for equality!

Great to celebrate with over 8,000 Apple employees, friends and families. Happy Pride everyone! #applepride pic.twitter.com/2A9YD9z95B

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 29, 2015

Apple is a company that likes to have it’s public image (and internal culture) aligned closely with the fight for equality.  Recently, Apple continued with this important fight by declaring support for the Equality Act of 2015, which would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the legislation that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

From the sauce, in a statement to the Human Rights campaign:

“At Apple we believe in equal treatment for everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. We fully support the expansion of legal protections as a matter of basic human dignity.

The Equality Act will ensure full federal equality for all LGBT Americans, including those who live in the 31 states that do not currently have non-discrimination legislation, protecting LBGT citizens from discrimination when seeking jobs, housing, public accommodations, education, and more.”

Apple is continuously and rigorously fighting for equality and anti-discrimination, especially in the workplace, and especially since Tim Cook has been CEO.

Kudos.

He made an entire rap record in an Apple Store

There is a rapper named Prince Harvey, hailing from Manhattan, who, a little while ago, had the mad skillz needed in order to make a rap record, but didn’t have the tools to make it happen. His computer died. His Hard drive died. Through his grief, he saw a shining symbol of hope and promise: The Apple logo.

Perched above the Soho Apple Store in Manhattan, the Apple logo shone, glowed, really, telling him that everything was going to be alright.

And so it was. Prince Harvey got himself inside that store and with the help of a pair of rule-bending Apple employees and the occasional random customer, Prince Harvey spent four months recording vocals and backing instrumental tracks . Impressive, non?

The name of the album? PHATASS – Prince Harvey At The Apple Store: SoHo.

Rapping, singing and humming into the display computers, hiding files in the Trash on the display computers, emailing himself, using thumbdrives, 5 days a week for 16 weeks. The result? One complete rap Album, PR worked in.

PHATASS was released on July 27. Give it a listen. Here’s his Soundcloud!

New Apple Ad campaign

Today Apple commenced a new Ad Campaign for the iPhone around the tagline – “Why there’s nothing quite like iPhone.”

Seen on the Apple Homepage and on the iPhone homepage, the campaign is pretty straightforward, pointing out why exactly there’s nothing else quite like the iPhone.

From the sauce:

“Every iPhone we’ve made — and we mean every single one — was built on the same belief. That a phone should be more than a collection of features. That, above all, a phone should be absolutely simple, beautiful, and magical to use.”

 
The iPhone’s integration of hardware and software, camera capabilities, breadth of available apps, resistance to malware, and Apple’s commitment to privacy and security with Touch ID and Apple Pay are all featured.

Deal of the week! Best Buy Black Friday in July!

Apparently there’s a Black Friday in July, and guess what? IT’S TOMORROW!

Y’all need to get your butts online to www.bestbuy.com this weekend for their ‘Black Friday in July’  promotion to see some serious discounts on a range of products.

What kind of deals? Well, let’s look at an example – iPads.

iPads are rad. Wi-Fi only iPad Air 2 models will sink  from $499 to $374.99 (16GB model). The 64GB model is priced at $474.99 instead of $599, and the 128GB model is available for $574.99, down from $699. Discounts are available on all colors of the Wi-Fi iPad Air 2.

Some more examples?

The 2.2GHz 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory and a 256GB SSD is available for $1,749.99, a discount of $250.

128GB iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models from Sprint are available at a $100 discount with a two-year contract.128GB iPad mini 3 – $449.99 (Save $125)

Free Jawbone UP2 activity tracker with Sprint smartphone purchase

$75 free Gift card with GoPro Hero4 camera

Save $10 to $250 on portable Bluetooth speakers

$50 free gift card Sith Xbox One Console

Free PlayStation TV system ($79.99 value) with PlayStation 4 purchase

It all begins on July 24th and runs through July 25th online only, however new and existing Best Buy members can get early access to the deals online beginning RIGHT NOW. Signing up is free! What are you waiting for?

Apple’s earnings call details.

Today Apple announced financial results for the 3rd fiscal quarter and 2nd calendar quarter of 2015. And it’s really good, mostly.

Let’s have a look at some of the numbers.

* Total revenue was $49.6 Billion, for this time last year it was $37.4 Billion.

* Total profit (the good stuff) was net $10.7 Billion, for this time last year it was $7.7 Billion.

* That’s profit of $1.85 per diluted share if you’re lucky enough to be an Apple shareholder. Thats up from $1.28 per diluted share a year ago.

* International sales accounted for 64% of revenue.

*Apple announced a dividend payment of $0.52 per share to be paid on August 13th to shareholders of record as of August 10th.

*Apple has an impossible to imagine (but we like to think about Scrooge McDuck’s daily money swim animation) $202.8 billion in cash and marketable securities.

* All this revenue? Mostly from iPhones. Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones during the quarter. For this time last year it sold 35.2 million.

* Mac sales are also up, with 4.8 million units being sold, up from 4.4 million for this time last year.

*The bad news bear came in the form of the iPad, which is still in decline, with sales falling from 13.3 million to 10.9 million.

From the sauce:

“We had an amazing quarter, with iPhone revenue up 59 percent over last year, strong sales of Mac, all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The excitement for Apple Music has been incredible, and we’re looking forward to releasing iOS 9, OS X El Capitan and watchOS 2 to customers in the fall.”

Dollar dollar bills, y’all!

New Instagram search functionality!

Instagram is known for being awesome on your iPhone, obviously, but also for their… very simple non-mobile internet presence. Instagram on your Macbook is not what it’s built for and hence, doesn’t represent the multitude of functionality you can access on the mobile app. You can access and heart photos and that’s about it.

This changes now!

Instagram has just introduced the ability to search on the web version. You can search for hashtags, locations and user accounts directly on your Mac/PC.

If you’re not Instagramming, maybe you should give it a try? #whatareyouwaitingfor #grandad #don’tfallbehind #we’renotgreatathastagging

Experiencing problems with Apple Music? You’re not alone.

There seems to be a widespread glitch occurring within Apple Music today – users from all over the world are complaining about getting errors like: “The shared library “Cloud Music Library” is not responding (503).

The error has been reported throughout the day and although not ruinous- as the error can be dismissed and music will be played after another connection attempt – it is slightly annoying.

Apple is said to be investigating the issue.

A9 chip production for next iPhone begun!

According to those in the know, Samsung and TSMC have both started mass production of the A9 chip that will be a part of the next models of the iPhone – said to be iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus and possibly a third option – the iPhone 6C.

Apparently there was some last minute changes to the chip, but that hasn’t changed the production schedule which will be readying the devices for release most likely in the Fall.

Apple is reportedly ordering over 85 million iPhone 6S units from suppliers by the end of 2015. Wowzers.

Apart from the new chip, the new iPhones are looking at a speculatively similar design and screen size as the previous models (iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and possibly an update to the iPhone 5C), an improved 12 megapixel rear-facing camera, 7000 Series aluminum, and the possibility of the inclusion of the Force Touch feature seen in the Apple Watch.

An announcement and release details are expected in the fall.

New 6th generation iPod Touch!

Hooray for Wednesday! Humpday bought us some goodies this week! Apple has just released the 6th generation iPod touch. Weeee!

Here’s what you’re looking at:

* 4-inch Retina display.

* 64-bit A8 chip & M8 motion coprocessor (faster, more power).

*iOS 8.4 preinstalled (So you can party to Beats 1 and Apple music).

* 8-Megapixel  rear facing camera and improved FaceTime HD camera.

* New colours! Bam! Blue, Pink, Silver, Space Gray, Gold and Red.

* Available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and 128 GB

* One of these shiny new devices will cost you $199, $249, $299 and $399 respectively.

* You can buy them TODAY. You can buy all of them through Apple right now. In the near future you’ll be able to buy them though resellers like Walmart EXCEPT for the 128 GB and Red Models which will be sold exclusively through Apple.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Yuppers, if you’re more of an iPod Shuffle kinda kid, or you like your iPod Nano sized, you’re also in luck this fine Humpday. These devices have also been updated with the colors listed above although no other hardware or software improvements were made and the price remains the same at $149 and $49.