Month: May 2018

Yesterday, Apple updated the operating system for the iPhone and iPad to iOS version 11.4.  iOS 11.4 adds two more important features, plus it includes a few smaller features and bug fixes.

Messages in iCloud

We all know that you can check your email on your phone, your computer, or your iPad.  And deleting an email from one device will delete the email from all of your devices.  The system works because all of your devices talk to a single server to handle your email.  iOS 11.4 brings this same feature to your text messages.

Before iOS 11.4, if you deleted a message thread on one device it would still exist on other devices.  And while new text messages would normally show up on all devices, sometimes they would appear on one device but not another one.  And sometimes messages would display out of order on one device.  In iOS 11.4, once you turn on Messages in iCloud, iCloud acts as a central hub for all of your messages (both SMS text messages and iMessage messages) so that all of your devices can stay in sync.  And iMessage is encrypted end-to-end for your privacy.

To enable Messages in iCloud, open the Settings app, tap your name at the top, then tap iCloud and turn on Messages.

At least, that is how it is supposed to work.  Last night, the Messages app in iOS 11.4 worked great for me on my iPhone, but on my iPad the app seemed to get caught on the “Signing in…” screen, where it has been stuck for many hours.  I tried signing out of my iCloud account on my iPad and signing back in again, but that didn’t fix the problem.  I haven’t yet seen any other reports of something similar, so perhaps this was a hiccup unique to my iPad Pro.  I’ll update this post when I figure out how to get this working.

[UPDATE 6/6/2018:  It took about five days, but eventually the app started working correctly on my iPad.  I presume that there was some sort of bug on the Apple server that affected some devices such as mine, but now all is working great.]

Note that even though the messages are stored in iCloud, that doesn’t mean that you can see them at the iCloud.com website.  That website does give you access to other items synced via iCloud such as mail, contact, photos, etc.  But for now, at least, there is no Messages app on the iCloud website.

Also note the keeping your messages one the iCloud server uses up some of your iCloud data space.  If you are not paying Apple for additional iCloud space and if you have lots of pictures and videos in your messages, you might not have enough space on iCloud.

AirPlay 2

If you own an Apple HomePod, iOS 11.4 is an important update for you.  Especially if you own multiple HomePods.  With AirPlay 2, you can put two HomePods in one room for richer, stereo sound.  Or you can place them in different rooms and the music will stay in sync as you travel from room to room.

If you own a smart speaker from another company, it may also support AirPlay 2.  Apple has a page on its website listing dozens of devices from manufacturers like Sonos, Marantz and Devon that will also work with AirPlay 2.

Fixes and Security

Virtually every iOS update fixes various bugs and improves security in various ways.  iOS 11.4 fixes issues with CarPlay in which audio can be distorted.  I don’t yet know exactly what this means; I’ve noticed that CarPlay in iOS 11.3 would occasionally cause some popping noises for me, and perhaps this fixes this.  iOS 11.4 also fixes some issues that arose when accessing certain Google files in Safari including Google Drive, Good Docs, and Gmail.  Apple also fixed a bug that could cause Messages to crash if certain characters were sent in a text message.  And Apple will soon update this page with information on the security improvements in iOS 11.4.

Cybersecurity is never easy, and often there is a tradeoff between convenience and security.  That’s why I like services such as 1Password, which increase your security while also making it easier to use passwords.  This week, Eliana Johnson, Emily Stephenson and Daniel Lippman of Politico reported that President Trump uses at least two iPhones for Twitter and for making calls, but that he has resisted recommended security protocols such as swapping out his iPhone on a monthly basis because it is too inconvenient.  I that countless hackers are constantly trying to compromise mobile devices being used by world leaders, especially the President of the United States.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky discusses Gemini Photos, an app that can look for duplicate (or very similar) photos on your iPhone to streamline your collection.
• Joel Rosenblatt and Mark Gurman of Bloomberg report that a federal court jury awarded Apple $539 million against Samsung for copying the iPhone design.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac discusses some of the new features in the Dropbox app.
• If you are on an airplane and you want to use your AirPods to listen to the in-plane audio (for example to watch a movie), Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reviews AirFly from Twelve South, a Bluetooth transmitter that you can plug into a 3.5mm headphone socket. 
• Jesse Hollington of iLound also posted a review of the AirFly.
• If you want a direct connection from a 3.5mm headphone socket without using Bluetooth, Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reviews the Belkin 3.5mm audio cable with Lightning connectivity.
• Buster Hein of Cult of Mac discusses Camera+ 2, the new version of the one of the best third party camera apps for the iPhone.
• Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider reviews Logetech’s Logi Circle 2, a home security camera that works with Apple’s HomeKit technology.
• There are complicated rules on when it is permissible to record a telephone conversation, and even if it is generally legal in your state it may be unethical for a lawyer to do it.  But if you are in a situation in which a recording is appropriate (such as when you have the consent of all parties to the conversation), Elizabeth Stinson and Josie Colt of Wired give advice on how to record a phone conversation on an iPhone.
• And finally, here is a colorful new music video produced by Apple using Animoji, featuring the song Citizen Kane by South Korean band HYUKOH.  (The lyrics are in English.)  Apple calls the spot Taxi Driver, which frankly seems like a better title for this catchy song:

What is your teenager doing on his or her iPhone?  Many parents looking for answers to this question have turned to services that promise the ability to monitor an iPhone.  For example, TeenSafe offers a service called TeenSafe Monitor.  For $15 a month, parents can access a web-based dashboard to review their child’s text messages (both SMS and iMessage, and even if the messages were deleted from the iPhone), messages sent through WhatsApp, incoming and outgoing calls, a full list of contacts on the iPhone, the history of websites visited on the iPhone, and the current and historical locations where the iPhone has been.  How does it get access to all of this information?  The iPhone has to be configured to backup to iCloud, two-factor authentication has to be turned off, and you have to give TeenSafe your teenager’s Apple ID username and password. 

Those requirements may make you raise your eyebrows and bit, and for good reason.  If you are going to give any third party a username and password, you have to trust them.  Not only do you have to trust that they are going to use the information responsibly, but you also need to trust that they are going to safeguard this secret information.

Unfortunately, Zack Whittacker of ZDNet reported this weekend that TeenSafe wasn’t very careful in storing this information.  TeenSafe stored a file which had all of those usernames and passwords and other information in a place on the Internet where anyone could access it.  Even worse, the data was not encrypted and was instead stored in a plain text format.  The reporter contacted some of the email addresses in the file that anyone could download, and confirmed that, sure enough, the leaked passwords were accurate.  Ugh.  As you would imagine, TeenSafe is now taking efforts to secure the data again and to inform its customers of the leak.

Did any bad actors get access to the usernames and passwords before the story was published on ZDNet?  Perhaps we will never know.

The ZDNet story came just one day after an article by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries of the New York Times.  She reported that while these services say that they are for parents to monitor their teens, they are heavily used by people to monitor their spouses, especially when infidelity is suspected.  The report goes on to explain that some stalkers are using them to monitor their victims. 

I’m reminded of an incident about four years ago, when a hacker was able to trick celebrities through a phishing attack into providing their Apple ID passwords.  Once he had the username and password, the hacker was able to access their iCloud backups, find nude photographs, and then leak them to the Internet. 

We live in a digital world in which many aspects of our privacy are often protected by little more than a username and password.  Every time you give a password to someone else — your spouse, a co-worker, or a third party — you need to be sure that you can trust that they are going to protect your privacy just as much as you yourself would.

Only two weeks ago, I started In the news by stating:  “It seems like every time we get one security disaster behind us, the next one comes along.”  Sure enough, two weeks after the issue with Twitter passwords, we now have the next one.  If you use PGP to encrypt your emails, the EFF reported this week that new vulnerabilities have been discovered, such that the EFF recommends not even using PGP anymore.  Sigh.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• If you use GoodNotes for your iPad handwritten notes, the developer recently posted a helpful article with videos showing you how to make the most of drop and drag with the GoodNotes app.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore writes about how Apple has worked with a number of other companies to develop carbon-free aluminum smelting so that the aluminum used in future Apple devices can be made with less negative environmental impact.
• Good news:  Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that the Logitech Crayon for iPad is now on sale, giving you most of the capabilities of an Apple Pencil for half of the price.  Bad news:  it only works with the 6th generation iPad, and you have to be a school to buy one.
• If you don’t subscribe to Apple Music but you want to watch Apple’s Carpool Karaoke show, Killian Bell of Cult of Mac reports that all 19 episodes of the first season are now available for free for anyone with an Apple TV.
• The iMac is 20 years old.  To celebrate, you can give your iPhone a case that looks like the early iMacs.  Leif Johnson of Macworld shows off the cases, made by Spigen.
• And finally, if instead of celebrating the iMac you want your iPhone to celebrate how much money you have to spend, the Russian luxury item company Caviar is selling an iPhone X in a custom case which includes a solar panel.  Caviar calls it the iPhone X Tesla.  The 64 GB version sells for 284,000 ₽ (about $4,500) and the 256 GB version sells for 299,000 ₽ (about $4,800).  Here is a video which shows off the device (with the voiceover in Russian):

Thank you to Bellefield Systems, the creator of iTimeKeep, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. again this month. 

You may talk to a client over the weekend, spend time working on a brief at night after you put the kids to bed, or handle something in a courthouse because you happen to be there on another matter.  iTimeKeep makes time entry so simple and accessible that you can easily enter your time no matter when or where you are working, and thus you don’t forget to record your time entries.

Forgetting to record a few 0.1 or 0.2 time entries may not seem like a big deal, but over weeks and months it can really add up.  This time that would have otherwise been lost is what Bellefield refers to as invisible time. With the iTimeKeep app on your iPhone — which is likely with you all the time — you can enter your time contemporaneously and before you forget about it.  As soon as you enter time, the app quickly talks to your firm’s time management system so that the activity is officially recorded.  By using your iPhone to record your time entries at the time that you do the work, you don’t have to worry about losing time that you forgot about as you try to reconstruct your activities at a later time.  It’s not unreasonable to expect that you will record some additional billable time every day by keeping your time contemporaneously with iTimeKeep.  Multiply that by 255 work days a year, and multiply that by your billable rate, and the value of iTimeKeep becomes obvious.

Contemporaneous time entry is good for another reason.  It is much easier to keep track of what you are doing while you are doing it than it is to try to reconstruct your time entries at the end of the day (or on a subsequent day).  We’ve all been there before — you are doing your time entries at the end of the day, and you find yourself staring blankly as you try to remember what it was that you worked on in the morning.  Eventually it may come to you, but you are wasting your own (non-billable) time as you attempt to remember what you did.  If you instead enter your time as you are doing tasks, you save yourself the agony of reconstructing your day.  And because iTimeKeep makes it so easy to keep track of your time contemporaneously, over time you will find that you do it more and more.

iTimeKeep works with law firms of any size, integrating with several time and billing systems:  Aderant, Elite, Omega, PC Law, TimeMatters, and many, many more which are listed here.

I started using this app in my own law practice last year, and I posted a comprehensive review in August.  I have used this app on more occasions that I can remember to record my time when I am out of the office, time that I might have otherwise forgotten about.  Thus, the app has helped me to get paid for the work that I am actually doing, plus it ensures that my timesheets accurately reflect all of the work that I am doing for my clients.

 

iTimeKeep validates your time against client billing guidelines, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to add a needed issue or task code for a file, or entering time in 0.1 increments when the client requires 0.25 entries.  And you can use built-in timers to keep track of precisely how long you spend working on a task.

What surprised me about iTimeKeep is that it isn’t just a tool for avoiding missed time entries.  It is also a fantastic tool to use every day for recording all of your time.  The iTimeKeep interface is so incredibly well-designed and fast to use that I often prefer using iTimeKeep over the interface for my law firm’s time entry software.  And fortunately, it doesn’t matter which one I use — time that I enter in iTimeKeep shows up on my firm system, and time that I enter in my firm’s system shows up in iTimeKeep if I have to go back and edit an entry.

I cannot type on an iPhone as fast as I can type on a computer keyboard.  However, I can often enter time just as quickly using iTimeKeep on my iPhone.  Sometimes I use Siri dictation to speak a time entry, which is fast and easy.  Other times I use the iPhone’s keyboard shortcut feature to speed up time entry.  (In the Settings app, go to General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement.)  For example, if I type “tcw” on my iPhone, it automatically changes that to “Telephone conference with ” so I just need to type the name and the “re” information.

But iTimeKeep is not just a product for your iPhone (and iPad and Apple Watch, and even Android).  You can also use iTimeKeep on your computer via a secure website interface.  Whether I am entering time in the office on my PC or at home on my Mac, I frequently use the desktop version of iTimeKeep to type my time entries in the clean and efficient interface.

No attorney enjoys time entry, but it is a necessary part of the practice of law for most of us.  With iTimeKeep, you significantly reduce the friction associated with entering your time, especially when you record it contemporaneous with performing the work for your client.  Thank you to Bellefield for sponsoring iPhone J.D. again this month, and thank you for creating this perfect example of an iPhone app that greatly improves the practice of law for attorneys.

Don’t waste anymore time.  Try iTimeKeep today.

If you have an older iPhone with a battery that no longer holds a charge for very long, you can go to an Apple Store and pay only $29 to get the battery replaced.  When Apple first started this program a few months ago, I heard many stories about how hard it was to get an appointment for this service.   Serenity Caldwell of iMore reports that Apple seems to finally have a sufficient stock of the replacement batteries.  If you were waiting for the line to shorten before giving new life to an older iPhone, now seems to be the time to do so.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses Apple’s efforts to make the iPhone more secure.
• Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal reports on a federal Fourth Circuit decision holding that some form of individualized suspicion is necessary before the government can search a cellphone seized at the border.
• In an article for The Daily Record, New York attorney Nicole Black discusses iPhone use by attorneys.  Note that the title of the article mentions 2018 use, but the data she is discussing comes from the 2017 ABA Tech Survey released last November (my report), which is based on data collected from February to May, 2017.
• Luke Dormehl reports that Apple now has permission to use drones to improve Apple Maps.
• Benjamin Clymer of Hodinkee (a website and magazine devoted to expensive watches) interviewed Apple’s Jonathan Ive to discuss the creation of the Apple Watch.
• Matthew Byrd of The App Factor came up with a list of 20 iPhone apps that you might not know about but which are worth checking out.  There are some good ones on this list.
• Harry Guinness of How-To Geek explains how secure Face ID and Touch ID are on an iPhone.
• Olloclip has made external lenses for iPhones for years now.  Jim Fisher of PC Magazine reviews the new Olloclip for the iPhone X, and finds that while it can work well, there are tradeoffs.
• Peter Cao of 9to5Mac reports that starting in July 2018, all new apps and all updates to older apps must include support for the iPhone X’s display.
• And finally, Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reports that at the recent 97th annual Art Directors Club awards, Apple won Best in Show for an ad that Apple created called Barbers which shows how portrait mode on the iPhone can make anyone look good.  I mentioned this ad almost exactly one year ago when it debuted, not only because I thought it was a great ad, but also because it was filmed right here in New Orleans.  (I also noted that Apple made some digital changes to the neighborhood, including adding a fake law firm.)  Perhaps this will inspire Apple to film even more commercials in the Big Easy.  Here is that award-winning ad again:

Unless you are using an older iPhone, I suspect that you are using an iPhone that can support 3D Touch.  This is a gesture similar to tapping, except that you push down a little bit more.  3D Touch was introduced with the iPhone 6s in September 2015, and also works on the iPhone 7, iPhone 8, and the iPhone X (and the Plus variants of those phones).  But even though 3D Touch has been around for many years, I talk to many folks who don’t even know that the feature is there.  Frankly, I forget about it sometimes too.  But there are tons of really useful things that you can do with 3D Touch.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Quickly jot something down

I often need to quickly jot something down, like a phone number, a name, a case number, etc.  The built-in Notes app is a great place to put that information.  Of course, you can open the app and then tap on the button to create a new note, but it is faster to use 3D Touch.  Just push down on the app icon on your home screen and tap New Note.

Perhaps even more useful is the option just below that:  New Checklist.  If you need to jot down a number of items, such as a grocery list, the New Checklist option after you 3D Touch will open the Notes app, create a new note, and then enter the checklist mode (normally accessed by pressing the icon of the check mark inside of a circle).  Using 3D Touch and tapping New Checklist is far, far faster that doing all of those steps one at a time.

 Compose a new email, without distractions

If you 3D Touch on the built-in Mail app icon, there is a New Message option.  Thus, using 3D Touch is a fast way to compose a new email.  But the real reason that I like this shortcut is that whenever I open the Mail app to compose a new email, the first thing I see when the Mail app opens is a list of emails, which probably includes some new ones that I haven’t seen yet.  Thus, I find myself distracted, and sometimes sidetracked, by those messages.  By the time I start composing my email, I may have even forgotten what I was going to say.  When I use the 3D Touch shortcut to compose a new email, I don’t see my Inbox until my new email is composed and sent. 

3D Touch cursor

When typing an email, or when typing virtually any other text, if you push down on the keyboard, the keys turn blank and the keyboard turns into a trackpad.  You can slide your finger around to move your cursor up a few lines to edit or add to text.  Not only does this save you the trouble of tapping to select a new location for the cursor, I also find that it is far more precise than just tapping on text you previously typed.

While you are moving the cursor around, you can 3D Touch again to select a word, and then drag your finger to select multiple words.

Message a specific person

If you tap on the Messages app icon, you will probably see your most recent text message conversation.  But if you 3D Touch on the Messages app, you will see a list of names of folks who have recently had text message conversations with you.  Assuming that you wanted to send a message to, or review a recent message from, one of those three people, this is a faster way to jump directly to the text message conversation with that person.

Beware of Contacts

This isn’t as much of a tip as it is a warning.  If you 3D Touch on the built-in Phone app, you see a list of four favorites.  Tap a name, and you call that person.  That makes sense.  What I don’t like is that if you 3D Touch on the Contacts app icon, you see that same list of Phone favorites, and tapping one of those names will also call that person.  That shortcut makes sense to me on the Phone app icon, an app used to call people, but not on the Contacts app icon.  It would make much more sense to me for a 3D Touch on the Contacts app to bring up the Contacts entry for that person so that you can review contact information.  And that might be the behavior that you were expecting as well, which can cause quite a surprise if you were intending to quickly bring up a person’s contact information to see some detail about the person and instead you find yourself calling that person’s phone.

Mark my location

If you 3D Touch on the Maps app icon, the first choice is to Mark My Location.  Tap this to drop a pin on the map at your current location.  This can be useful if you are parking a car or a bike and then you are going to walk somewhere else and you are worried that you might forget where your car or bike was located.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

I frequently have a need to open the Settings app and go to the Wi-Fi settings or the Bluetooth settings.  Both are located near the top of the list after you open the Settings app, but an even faster way to access these settings is to 3D Touch on the Settings icon and then tap Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Get this app first

Sometimes I want to start using an updated version of an app, so I will open the App Store icon, tap Updates, pull down from the top of the screen to see what updates are available, and then I’ll tap the button to update all of my apps.  Normally this works fine, but sometimes I find that I really want my iPhone to start by updating app X, and instead my iPhone is slowly updating apps Y and Z.  As I wait, I cannot even launch the app that most interests me because the app icon is gray.  Ugh.

To solve this, 3D Touch on the app icon on your home screen for the app in question, and then tap Prioritize Download.  This will tell your iPhone to put the other updates to the side and immediately start updating this app.

Speaking of the App Store, you can 3D Touch on the App Store icon to see a few choices, one of which is Search, which brings you directly to the search function of the App Store.

Adjusting 3D Touch

You can adjust how hard you need to press on the display to trigger 3D Touch.  Open the Settings app and go to General -> Accessibility -> 3D Touch to select Light, Medium or Firm.  You can also turn off 3D Touch, if for some reason you need to do that.

And much more

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to 3D Touch.  For example, you can also use it to “peek” at a link or a file before you officially open it.  And many third-party apps offer interesting 3D Touch options, such as the Launch Center Pro app which lets you see miniature icons.  Click here to see a short video by Apple showing off the features of 3D Touch.

If you are looking for something to do while in waiting in line at the grocery store, on a train, etc., take a few minutes to play around with 3D Touch in different places to find other interesting uses.  3D Touch is a useful, but I suspect underused, feature on the iPhone.

It seems like every time we get one security disaster behind us, the next one comes along.  This week it is Twitter, which announced yesterday that apparently all of its passwords were accidentally decrypted and stored in plain text for a period of time.  Twitter hasn’t said for long, and we don’t know if any hackers accessed it during this time period, but obviously Twitter is telling everyone to change their passwords just in case.  Twitter also has optional two-factor verification, so while you are updating your password, you should turn that on for extra protection if you have not yet enabled it.  But more importantly, even if you don’t use Twitter, this serves as yet another warning that you ought to use unique and secure passwords for every website and service — a task that is much more simple if you use a Password Manager.  (I use 1Password and was able to change both my @jeffrichardson and my @iphonejd account passwords very quickly.)  If you don’t currently use a password manager, I strongly recommend that you do so.  Better yet, get it for your entire family, like I recently did with 1Password Families.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Twenty years ago, Apple introduced the iMac, and Apple created a commercial called Simplicity Shootout to show how much easier it was to set up an iMac versus a PC.  I remember that commercial very well.  Michael Steeber of 9to5Mac explains how that video was made, and he even tracked down the two people who starred in that video.  The former PC-user now uses a 12.9″ iPad Pro.  It’s a fun article and worth reading.
• Jennifer Vazquez of Channel 4 New York reports on a man who saw a notification on his Apple Watch telling him to seek immediate medical attention because something was wrong with his heart rate.  He immediately went to the ER and the doctors found a dangerous ulcer that could have killed him if he had waited.
• If you want to get an Apple Watch, for yourself or someone else, Lief Johnson of Macworld reports that they are currently $50 off at Macy’s.
• In my experience, games don’t work very well on the Apple Watch, but maybe I just haven’t tried the right one yet.  Andrew Hayward of Macworld recommends 15 Apple Watch games.
• If you use Wemo smart home products, you can add the Wemo Bridge to make it work with Apple HomeKit.  That normally costs $40, but as John Levite of iMore reports, you can currently get it on Amazon for only $30.
• Today is Star Wars Day.  To celebrate, you can now pre-order tickets for Solo: A Star Wars Story at your local theater.  I just bought mine for May 25th.
• Yesterday, to celebrate French film director Georges Méliès, Google released a Google Doodle video.  Thuy Ong of The Verge has details.  You can watch it on YouTube, but if you have Google Cardboard, I strongly encourage you to watch the VR version of it using the Google Stories app on the iPhone.  It is an incredibly well done VR short cartoon.  You need to watch it multiple times to catch all of the fun details.
• And finally, here is an interesting picture recently tweeted by developer Steve Troughton-Smith that I don’t remember seeing before, although apparently it was also posted back in 2014 on MacRumors.  This is the hardware setup that Apple used to create the initial software for the iPhone before it was released in 2007:

Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2018 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  Apple’s first fiscal quarter is the one with all of the holiday sales, so Q2 is usually not a particular impressive quarter for Apple.  In fact, two years ago, Apple had a particularly rough second quarter.  In 2018, in contrast, Apple had its best Q2 ever, with record Q2 revenue of $61.1 billion,up from $52.9 billion in 2017 Q2 (and $50.6 billion in 2016 Q2). Apple CEO Tim Cook attributed the record quarter to three factors:  iPhone revenue was up 14%, services revenue (things like Apple Music and the App Store) was up 31%, and wearable revenue (things like the Apple Watch and AirPods) was up almost 50%.  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha, or a transcript prepared by Mikah Sargent of iMore.  Apple’s official press release is here.  As always, I’m not as interested in the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users.  Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• During the past quarter, Apple sold 52.217 million iPhones. The all-time record for Q2 was in 2015 when Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones, but this is the second most iPhones that Apple has ever sold in a fiscal second quarter (up from just over 50 million a year ago).
• By my count, Apple has sold almost 1.4 billion iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.
• If you combine Apple’s over $38 billion in iPhone revenue in Q2 with its over $61 billion in iPhone revenue in 2018 Q1, you get to about $100 billion in iPhone revenue for the first half of 2018, which Cook said was a new record for iPhone revenue in the first half of the year.  I’m sure that a big part of the reason for this was that Apple has been selling the iPhone X, its most expensive iPhone ever, during these past two quarters.  But whatever the reason, I’m glad that Apple has numbers that it can boast about, because that encourages Apple to continue to develop the iPhone, and encourages smart engineers who work at Apple to stay at the company, all of which results in better iPhones for those of us who use them every day.
• What kinds of iPhones are people buying?  Cook said that in the past, the most expensive iPhone was not the best=selling iPhone.  In other words, the Plus model of the iPhone 7, iPhone 6, etc. sold less than the non-Plus model.  But in this past fiscal quarter, the most expensive iPhone being sold by Apple — the iPhone X — is also the best-selling iPhone.
• Before today’s call, there were rumors that the iPhone X was not selling as well as Apple had hoped.  Cook addressed this by pointing out what I just mentioned — that the iPhone X was the best-selling iPhone.  He also stated:  “I think that it’s one of those things where, like a team wins the Super Bowl, maybe you want them to win by a few more points, but it’s a Super Bowl winner and that’s how we feel about it.  I could not be prouder of the product.”
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball offered this take on iPhone X sales:  “Year over year, iPhone sales were up 3 percent on unit sales, but 14 percent on revenue.  Unit sales are close to flat, but Apple grew revenue by double digits.  There’s no other way to explain it than that iPhone X is a hit.”

iPad

• Apple sold 9.113 million iPads in the past fiscal quarter.  iPad sales were highest for Apple in 2013 to 2015; for example, Apple sold 19.5 million iPads in 2013 Q2.  iPad sales have been reduced in recent years, but Apple did sell a few more iPads in 2018 Q2 than it did in 2017 Q2 (when it sold 8.922 million).
• By my count, Apple has sold over 403 million iPads since they first went on sale in 2010.
• To help you to see iPad sales over time, I prepared a chart that shows two things.  The blue line shows the actual iPad sales each quarter (in millions).  The green bars show the average of the current quarter and the prior three quarters.  I think that this chart is useful because while the blue line shows peaks every year in Apple’s fiscal first quarter — the holiday quarter, when folks buy lots of iPads as presents — the green bars are more helpful for seeing iPad sales over time.  As this chart shows, the iPad was introduced in 2010 and saw a sharp rise in sales until the end of calendar year 2013 (the beginning of Apple’s fiscal year 2014).  From calendar year 2014 through 2017 Q2, iPad sales have decreased over time.  But then iPad sales started to increase again.  The increase wasn’t very much each quarter, and thus if you look at the last four green bars in this chart, you can only see a slight increase.  But it does increase.  For four quarters in a row, the four-quarter average of iPad sales has increased every single quarter.  I don’t know if we will ever see the record iPad sales that we saw a few years ago, but as long as iPad sales continue to increase, Apple will (hopefully) be encouraged to continue to put resources into iPad development.  And hopefully that will translate into better iPads for us to use.

Other

• This was Apple’s best-ever quarter for services, including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, etc.  Because much of this is subscription revenue, these should continue to be profitable areas for Apple in the future.
• Cook noted that more transit systems are accepting Apple Pay, which has increased Apple Pay use by commuters.
• Apple never reveals specific numbers for the Apple Watch, but Cook did say that 2018 Q2 Apple Watch sales were higher than any prior Q2, adding:  “Millions of customers are using Apple Watch to help them stay active, healthy, and connected, and they have made it the top selling watch in the world.”
• Apple also doesn’t release specific numbers for the AirPods, but Cook said that the product is a “runaway hit.”
• Of course Tim Cook was not going to reveal any new products coming in the future, but Cook did show his excitement for the future, noting:  “We have the best pipeline of products and services we’ve ever had.  We have a huge installed base of active devices that is growing across all products, and we have the highest customer loyalty and satisfaction in the industry.”
• One analyst asked Tim Cook whether Apple’s emphasis on user privacy was a focus because it could help Apple’s revenue.  Cook pushed back and said that Apple doesn’t see it that way.  “In terms of benefit, we don’t really view it like that.  We view that privacy is a fundamental human right and that it’s an extremely complex situation, if you’re a user, to understand a lot of the user agreements and so forth.  And we’ve always viewed that part of our role was to sort of make things as simple as possible for the user and provide them a level of privacy and security.”