Taking a look back at this week’s news and headlines from Apple, including Apple’s Q3 earnings call, new iPhone 16 Pro details, Apple Intelligence arrives, iPhone’s speedy upgrade, MacBook Pro monitors, China’s lack of iPhone love, frustrations with Vision Pro games, and Steve Jobs polaroids…
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Apple in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes.
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs speaks during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts … [+]
Apple’s Flat Numbers Saved By The iPad
Apple’s Q3 numbers have been announced, and they make good reading for the iPad team. While iPhone and Mac have remained broadly steady (iPhone revenue down one percent, Mac revenue up two percent), iPad is up 24 percent year-on-year:
“Overall, the iPhone business fell slightly from $39.67 billion in the same quarter last year to $39.30 this year. As a percent of total sales, the iPhone accounts for its lowest portion amongst the company’s other products and services in almost four years. So how did the company still achieve a 5 percent overall in overall revenue? That was driven in no small part by substantial gains in both services and iPad revenue.”
(Apple, Ars Technica).
iPhone 16 Pro Colors Leak
This week, we saw exclusive shots of the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. These confirmed not only the design details of the camera layout and the new capture and action buttons but revealed some of the new colors for Apple’s next smartphone:
“Three colors are on show, and they can best be described as the standards that match last year’s White Titanium, Black Titanium, and Natural Titanium. 2023 also saw a Blue Titanium color; this isn’t shown in the images provided by Dickson, but I would expect new colors to help boost sales as people look for a fashionable choice.”
(Forbes).
The Early Arrival Of Apple Intelligence
Tim Cook pitched Apple Intelligence hard in Apple’s earnings call as an accelerator for iPhone sales as consumers upgrade to get the required hardware. Developers now have their first look at a subset of the software…. as long as they are based in America:
“It’s limited to U.S. users only. Specifically, Apple notes before you download the update that “Both device language and Siri language must be set to U.S. English, and the device region must be set to United States.” Apple spells out that Apple Intelligence is not available in the EU or China… it may be that the EU regulations which arrived with the Digital Markets Act have prevented Apple from prioritizing European countries, too.
(Forbes).
iPhone Speedy Wifi7
The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 pro Max will have a more powerful processor and faster charging, but that’s not the only speed gain the handsets will have. Leaked specs reveal the new phones will support Wi-Fi7 with its improved conenctions and lower latency. Assuming you can find a Wi-Fi 7 network that is:
“All of which is pretty desirable, but Wi-Fi 7 comes with a sting in the tail, for now at least: right now, Wi-Fi 7 is rare and expensive. So, you shouldn’t expect the iPhone 16 Pro to transform connection speeds and resilience overnight.”
(Forbes).
MacBook Pro M3 Gets Multiple Displays
Apple has been reluctant to equip its consumer-focused MacBooks with the software and hardware to run multiple monitors from a single laptop. This week’s macOS update switched on the useful multi-tasking option for the latest MacBook Pro.
“Despite sharing the same chip, the base M3 MacBook Pro lacked this feature. The company confirmed to 9to5Mac in March that a future software update would also allow M3 MacBook Pro owners to use two external displays at the same time, and that promise was fulfilled today.
(9to5Mac).
Apple Loses China Top Spots
Apple faces tough conditions in China, and its market share has steadily shrunk as more home-grown manufacturers enter the market. Canalys reports on sales this week and notes that Apple has dropped out of the Top Five manufacturers, and once more Apple Intelligence is being cited as the saviour:
“Apple’s market share has been shrinking in China, down to 14% in second quarter compared with 15% in the first quarter and 16% a year earlier. It is the first quarter in history that domestic vendors dominate all the top five positions,” said Canalys research analyst Lucas Zhong. Localization of Apple’s Intelligence services in mainland China will be an important move in the next 12 months, Canalys said, as Chinese brands are aggressively incorporating generative AI into their products.”
(CNBC).
Apple Arcade’s Vision Pro Frustrations
Launched in a blaze of hope and gadgetry, Apple’s Vision Pro headset has not set the market alight. Part of that may be down to the lack of third-party applications. A report in Mobile Gamer this week cites numerous developers who have considered gaming and app development for VisionOS and found the hardware not up to the task, and an unresponsive Apple taking a courageous approach to building relationships:
“Two other sources told us that they had been approached by Apple to make a Vision Pro game but were offered no compensation to make the title, and no guarantees it would be promoted or marketed in any way. Unlike Meta, which funds a lot of VR development, Apple offers indies no financial incentives at all to develop for Vision Pro – an approach a source described as “utterly baffling”.”
(Mobile Gamer).
And Finally…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Steve Jobs in possession of a few pictures must be able to sll a product. A long time ago Jobs had to sell the first batch of Apple-1 computers with just a few polaroids and his guile. Those polaroids are now up for auction:
“The photographs were given to Byte Shop owner Paul Terrell by Steve Jobs during a 1976 Apple-1 demo to entice him to make a purchase. The pitch worked, and Terrell agreed to buy 50 Apple-1 computers, provided they were fully assembled. This would have been Apple’s first big order. It provided Jobs with the seed capital funds to begin manufacturing computers.”
Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.