Month: November 2022

Today is the official launch day of the latest version of the Apple TV 4K, the third generation model.  A number of folks in the press were sent review units; their reviews were released this past week, and some notable ones are identified below. The consensus seems to be that if you have the second generation Apple TV 4K that was released in 2021, there is no real reason to upgrade; the new model is faster, but not considerably faster than last year’s model.  The exception is if you are using a Samsung television and you want the support for HDR10+ in the third generation—more on that below.  On the other hand, if you have an older Apple TV model, or if you don’t have one at all, the reviewers concluded that the new Apple TV is probably the best streaming device on the market.  At $149 (or $129 for a version missing some features like Ethernet), it’s not the cheapest streaming device on the market, but you get what you pay for, and this model is less expensive than the $179 second generation Apple TV 4K.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Catherine Reach, the Director of the North Carolina Bar Association, shares some simple but good tips for securing your smartphone.
• Chris Welch of The Verge calls the new Apple TV unmatched power at a much better price.
• Darrel Etherington of TechCrunch notes that because Samsung uses HDR10+ instead of Dolby Vision, the new Apple TV 4K is a great device to get if you have a Samsung television.  I haven’t tried HDR10+, but I know that it is similar to Dolby Vision (without the need to pay Dolby’s licensing fees), and I can attest that Dolby Vision shows look great on an Apple TV, so hopefully the same is true for HDR10+.
• Henry T. Casey of Tom’s Guide wrote an extensive review of the new Apple TV 4K.  His tests show that it is the fastest streaming device for launching services like Netflix and Disney+, and he says that it has the best interface of any streaming device.
• Jason Cipriani of CNN Underscored is also a fan of the new Apple TV 4K.
• One thing that might not be so good about the Apple TV?  The possible new placement of the Up Next list in the Apple TV app.  When you open that app, on the first “Watch Now” tab, you traditionally see an Up Next list that often contains exactly what you want to watch next—such as the next episode of a show you are watching or a movie that you started but did not finish.  And when I looked at my own Apple TV last night, that’s what I saw.  But as Joe Rosensteel notes in an article for Six Colors, Apple is starting to push down the Up Next list so that it appears below a Watch Now list, which shows programs that Apple wants to promote.  That Watch Now list may have good suggestions, it also includes shows even if you have already watched them.  It is unclear to me if this change is rolling out to everyone, and just hasn’t made its way to me yet, or if Apple is simply experimenting with different layouts for different folks.  I hope that they leave the Up Next list in a prominent location.
• Note that while the new Netflix Basic plan—only $6.99/month but with ads—started this week, it is not yet available for the Netflix app on the Apple TV.  However, Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac notes that it is coming soon.
• Sebastiaan de With, one of the people behind the sophisticated Halide camera app, wrote an incredibly detailed review of the camera on the iPhone 14 Pro.  He includes some amazing photos that he took.
• Justin Meyers of Gadget Hacks came up with 26 new iPhone features in iOS 16.1.
• We are still getting used to all of the new features in iOS 16.1, but Sami Fathi of MacRumors reports on some of the new features expected to ship in iOS 16.2 such as the Freeform app and Live Activities for sports games via the built-in TV app.
• There is an interesting interview of Jony Ive, who formerly led the design team at Apple, by Elisa Lipsky-Karasz of the Wall Street Journal.  (Remember that if you have Apple News+, you have access to Wall Street Journal stories like this one.)
• Heidi Wigdahl of KARE11 in Minnesota shares two stories of people who quickly got help after they fell thanks to an Apple Watch.
• David Price of Macworld wrote an extensive review of the Apple Watch Ultra.  He thinks that it is terrific if you are a member of the target audience, but he warns that it might not be the right Apple Watch for others: “What the Ultra is not, however, is simply a premium edition of the Apple Watch for those with a higher budget. The upgrades and modifications mentioned above carry downsides, and if you don’t plan to dive or sail or hike or spelunk with the Ultra, you’re not getting the benefits to make those downsides worthwhile. You’ll find that it gets caught on your jacket sleeve, is uncomfortable in bed, triggers actions by mistake, and above all costs far more than it should.”
• Allison Johnson of The Verge recently started using an Apple Watch for the first time and explains why she now cannot believe that she waited so long to get one.
• Victoria Song of The Verge reviewed all three of the watch bands that Apple sells for the Apple Watch Ultra.  [There is something messed up with the formatting of that page as I type this, but you can still read the review.]
• Glenn Fleishman of Macworld shares tips for transferring photos from a camera to an iPhone or iPad.
• And finally, here is a new video from Apple that shows that you can now use Apple’s Fitness+ service with only an iPhone (or iPad) even if you don’t own an Apple Watch:

As most of us approach the end of 2022, Apple is already living in the future in 2023—fiscal year 2023, that is.  Apple recently ended its 2022 fiscal fourth quarter, which ran from June 26, 2022, to September 24, 2022.  Last week, Apple released the results for its 2022 fiscal fourth quarter and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter is typically a transitional quarter; it is the first fiscal quarter—the one that we are in now—that is traditionally Apple’s big revenue quarter because of holiday sales.  But Apple still sells a lot of products in its fiscal fourth quarter, and in this past one, Apple saw record Q4 revenue of $90.1 billion, which was 8% more than this time last year.  With about 90 days in a typical quarter and about $90 billion in revenue, it is fascinating that Apple can bring in a billion dollars every day without breaking a sweat.  But as always, I’m not all that interested in the financial details; what interests me is that this is one of four times a year when Apple answers questions from a bunch of analysts, so I’m always curious to see what Apple has to say about the iPhone and iPad and related technologies.  If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, 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 $42.6 billion, which is 10% higher than it was a year ago.  For comparison, though, this time last year, iPhone revenue was 47% higher than the previous year.
• Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that Apple set a quarterly record for iPhone upgraders and grew switchers double digits.  So there are lots of people getting a better iPhone, and lots of people getting a first iPhone.
• Maestri said that the active installed base of iPhones is now at a new all-time high across the world.
• Maestri said that the latest survey of U.S. consumers from 451 Research indicates iPhone customer satisfaction of 98%.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook said that during the past quarter, Apple sold three of the top four smartphones in the U.S. and the UK, the top three in urban China, the top six in Australia, four out of the top five in Germany, and the top two in Japan.  Apple is not quite at Taylor Swift levels—she currently has all ten songs in the Billboard Top 10, the first artist to ever do that—but Apple is not that far off.
• To give you some context for the increase in iPhone revenue this past quarter, here is a chart showing the year-over-year percentage change since fiscal 2013 Q1, which is when Apple started reporting this type of revenue in this form. 

iPad

• iPad revenue was $7.2 billion.  This was down 13% compared to this time last year.  (This time last year, iPad revenue was up 21% from the year before that.)  What caused the decrease in revenue?  One reason given was negative foreign exchange.  Because the dollar is so strong right now against other currencies, Apple makes less money when people in other countries buy an iPad.  Another reason given was that a year ago, Apple had launched a new iPad and iPad mini during 2021 Q4, and a new iPad Pro had just come out in 2021 Q3.  So in 2021 Q4, there were lots of new iPads to buy.  That wasn’t true this year.  This year, the Fall new iPad model release happened in October, which was calendar year 2022 but fiscal year 2023 Q1.
• Maestri said that the number of iPads in use reached a new all-time high.
• Maestri said that over half of the people who purchased a new iPad during 2022 Q4 were purchasing their first iPad.
• Here is a chart to show the year-over-year percentage change in iPad revenue since fiscal 2013 Q1, which is when Apple started reporting this type of revenue in this form.  Although the last four quarters show decreases, remember that this chart shows change in revenue.  So the iPad was still profitable during the past year, just not quite as profitable as it had been in the recent past.

Other

• Apple recently announced a price hike for its services, typically $1 or $2 more per month.  In the call, Cook explained that there were essentially two reasons for that.  For Apple Music, Apple’s cost to license music increased, so Apple raised the cost of its service.  Cook noted that this should mean that artists will get more money for their songs.  For Apple TV+, the cost increase is because Apple has far more content available to watch than when the service launched, so Cook says that Apple “increased the price to represent the value of the service.”  Negative foreign exchange rates may have played a role in this one as well.
• Apple’s wearable sector was up 10%, and Cook said a lot of the credit for that goes to the Apple Watch and AirPods Pro.
• If you want to see lots of interesting charts related to Apple’s 2022 Q4 announcement, check out this post from Jason Snell at Six Colors.