Month: May 2022

For a while now, Apple and other companies have been working towards a future in which we no longer need to use passwords.  Apple—and others, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, MasterCard, Visa, and American Express—are part of the FIDO Alliance.  FIDO means Fast IDentity Online, and with this system, instead of you needing to remember a username and password, and instead of the service needing to know your username and password (creating the risk of passwords being leaked if the service is hacked), FIDO uses something called public-key cryptography.  The user has a secret key, something that you might store on your iPhone, and it matches one and only one public key, which the service uses. (The service does not need to worry about keeping the public key confidential because it is useless unless it is paired with your secrete private key.)  Yesterday, as we were all of course celebrating World Password Day, the FIDO Alliance announced that they are taking major steps towards this future without passwords.  As Corin Faife of The Verge reports, their proposal is that when you want to log in to a service, you simply authenticate yourself on your iPhone using Face ID (or Touch ID)—or other devices if you don’t use an iPhone.  No username.  No password.  Your web browser (or app or whatever you are using) talks to both the service and your iPhone (or other device) and then you are authenticated.  Although no specific timetable was announced yesterday, apparently their hope is to have the first implementations in about a year.  About two months ago, Lily Hay Newman of Wired wrote a good overview of how FIDO will work, and she says that it “will make phishing a thing of the past” which is great because the bad guys “have become masters at tricking users into unintentionally handing over their passwords, and even two-factor authentication codes or approval prompts can be exploited.”  Security is such an incredibly important topic for everyone—and especially for lawyers, who have a duty to keep certain information confidential—and thus I would love to see day when we will have an even more secure world without the headaches of usernames and passwords.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews The iOS App Icon Book, a book showcasing great app icon designs.
• For a good example of why the end of passwords cannot come soon enough, Adam Engst of TidBITS shares the stories of two friends of his whose email accounts were taken over by scammers because the bad guys figured out his friends’ passwords.
• Josh Hendrickson of ReviewGeek reviews Eve MotionBlinds, smart shades that work with Apple’s HomeKit technology.
• David Snow of Cult of Mac recommends accessories for your Apple Pencil, such as a cover that makes it look like a yellow #2 pencil ($11.04 on Amazon).
• Speaking of Amazon, a four-pack of Apple AirTags typically cost $99, but right now you can get them on Amazon for $84.55, which is as low as I ever remember seeing them priced.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that the European Commission may impose new rules on how Apple uses ApplePay.
• On May 4 (Star Wars Day), Apple released a fantastic video showing how the incredibly talented people at Skywalker Sound use Macs to create sound effects for Star Wars and many other movies and TV shows.  This video was great fun to watch.
• If you use an older AT&T plan, Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that AT&T is going to raise the plan price to encourage you to switch to an unlimited plan.
• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge wrote a comprehensive review of the top-of-the-line Eero Pro 6E, which takes advantage of Wi-Fi using the new 6GHz band—which no Apple devices currently support, but I suspect that support will come soon, perhaps later this year in the 2022 version of the iPhone.
• Justin Meyers of Gadget Hacks has an interesting list of lesser-known iOS features.  For example, I didn’t know that when you are using the keyboard you can type a capital letter by tapping the Shift key and then sliding your finger over to the letter.
• And finally, if you use Apple Fitness+, you should enjoy this video from Justine “iJustine” Ezarik, who had a chance to visit the Fitness+ studio in Santa Monica, CA.  I wish that she could have shown even more behind-the-scenes shots, but the views of the control room showing all of the different screens are really interesting.  For example, one screen includes overlays for every different device that someone might use to watch a video — iPad, iPhone, TV, Mac — so that they can make sure that the action stays in an area that everyone can see.  It is also interesting to see the countdown timer and “up next” information that the fitness coaches see as they lead a workout.  Apple’s Fitness+ videos have always been incredibly well produced, in addition to having useful content, so it is fun to see a glimpse into how they produce the videos.  If you want to get even more behind-the-scenes access, check out this article by Robert Leedham of British GQ.

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2022 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 26, 2021, to March 26, 2022) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  Unlike Apple’s Q1 which contains all of the holiday sales, Apple’s Q2 is usually not a particularly interesting quarter.  But this year, Apple’s Q2 was a big financial success.  Back in 2018, Apple posted record Q2 revenue of $61.1 billion.  This time last year, Apple set another Q2 record with $89.6 billion.  This year, Apple set another record, reporting $97.3 billion, up 9% year-over-year.  But as explained below, Apple also warned investors that Q3 will not be so rosy; supply constraints as a result of COVID shutting down factories in China plus industry-wide silicon shortages mean that Apple’s revenue in April, May, and June will be less than it would have been if Apple could sell all of the products that people want to buy.  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the conference call from iTunes, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors.  Apple’s official press release is here.  Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• iPhone revenue for the quarter was $50.6 billion, a record for a fiscal second quarter.  This was a 5% increase from last year, and Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple saw strong demand for the iPhone 13 family of devices.
• As Jason Snell noted in an article for Macworld, the fact that iPhone revenue was higher in 2022 Q2 than 2021 Q2 is particularly impressive when you consider that the iPhone 12 was released later in 2020 than the iPhone 13 was released in 2021.  So a year ago, Apple’s Q2 saw a large number of iPhone sales that normally would come in Q1.  That didn’t happen this year, and it would have been reasonable for iPhone revenue in 2022 Q2 to be less than it was a year ago as a result.  But instead, iPhone revenue was higher this year.  That indicates that Apple is seeing even higher iPhone demand this year than a year ago.
• Cook refused to say whether demand for the iPhone SE 3 was better or worse than Apple had seen for prior iPhone SE models, instead simply saying that Apple could not be happier with its iPhone sales.
• Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that iPhones are selling very well compared to other smartphones: “When we look at top selling smartphones around the world, we’ve had pretty incredible results during the March quarter, the top six models in the United States are iPhones, the top four in Japan, the top five in Australia, five of the top six in urban China, and so on and so forth.  So the iPhone 13 has been truly a global success.”

iPad

• iPad revenue for the quarter was $7.6 billion, down somewhat from $7.8 billion one year ago. 
• Cook attributed the decrease in iPad revenue to supply, not demand.  Cook described the same problem three months ago.
• The 2% drop in iPad revenue as compared to this time last year was better than the 14% year-to-year drop last quarter, when Apple was also very constrained in iPad supply.  (But as noted below, I expect iPad revenue to go back again next quarter.)
• Maestri said that iPad demand remains strong:  “Customer response to our iPad lineup, including our new M1-powered iPad Air, remains very strong, and our installed base of iPads reach a new all-time high during the quarter, with over half of the customers purchasing an iPad during the quarter being new to the product.”

Other

• Although Apple does not reveal specific information about Apple Watch sales, Apple said that the entire category of Wearables, Home, and Accessories saw 12% revenue growth in the past year, setting a new record of $8.8 billion.  Maestri said that two-thirds of the people who purchased an Apple Watch in Q2 were purchasing their first Apple Watch.  That’s impressive considering that the Apple Watch has now been for sale for just over seven years.
• Apple services revenue rose to a record $19.8 billion in Q2, up 17% from last year.
• Tim Cook said that because of supply constraints caused by COVID and industry-wide silicon shortages, Apple will sell $4 to $8 billion less in Q3 than it would have sold without these issues.  Cook said that these shortages will affect most of Apple’s product categories.  The silicon shortages were something that Apple saw in Q1 as well, but the shortages due to COVID were new in Q2.  As a result of these shortages, some sales that Apple would have made in Q3 will not happen until Q4.  But Cook also believes that some customers will purchase non-Apple products in Q3 because of these shortages, which means that Apple will lose the sale completely as a result of the shortages.  Cook said that the good news is that the factories in Shanghai, China that had closed to COVID are now starting to re-open, but it could take four to eight weeks for the factories to get back to normal.