Table of contents for 159 in iPad & iPhone User

It’s hard not to find a bright spot in Apple’s third-quarter earnings. Not only did the company beat expectations with revenue of nearly $60 billion and an 11-per cent growth over last year, it also saw a sales bump across every product it sells. The Mac enjoyed the biggest leap, buoyed by work-from-home orders for many businesses around the world. Mac sales topped $7 billion for the first time in third-quarter history, an increase of more than 20 per cent, and the iPad also set a record for a non-holiday quarter. Numbers below are compared to last year’s Q3. iPhone: $26.4 billion versus $25.9 billion Mac: $7.1 billion versus $5.8 billion iPad: $6.6 billion versus $5 billion Wearables: $6.5 billion versus $5.5 billion The only somewhat muted performer was Services.…

Traditionally, Apple sells separate gift cards for its various departments: one for hardware in the Apple Store, one for software in the App Store and one for music and other media in iTunes. But that is all about to change. In the US, Apple has launched a universal gift card and “Apple Account Balance”, writes AppleInsider. It can be purchased and used for hardware products, software, accessories, apps, games, music, movies, TV series, iCloud storage and anything else purchased from or via Apple. If the scheme is a success in the US, the universal gift card may appear in other parts of the world.…

Few products exert the kind of gravity on rumours and speculation as Apple’s iPhone. Every year, the process repeats itself: websites and tweets full of conjecture, hypotheses and more about what the latest version of Apple’s smartphone might look like, what new features it might add, how it will compare to last year’s model. Though we’re still a little way off from any formal announcement of this year’s iPhone, there is a bit of a different spin on the theorizing this year. The most intense speculation isn’t about the aesthetics or functionality of Apple’s upcoming device, but something arguably a little more mundane: what’s included with the phone? Let’s take a moment to cogitate on what might actually be in that box this autumn – aside from a brand-new iPhone,…

When you first upgrade to iOS 14, either in beta or when it releases in the autumn, you’ll be treated to some big obvious improvements. The new, more customizable home screen with widgets and the App Library will make an immediate difference in how you use your iPhone. You’ll discover the usefulness of picture-in-picture video right away. But some of iOS 14’s best features aren’t the ones Apple pops up tutorial cards for; they’re buried layers deep in Settings or hidden behind interface actions you don’t make every day. Some of the best stuff in iOS 14 you wouldn’t know about if someone didn’t point it out. Here are some of our favourite lesser-known and hard-to-find features of iOS 14. 1. Headphone Accommodations If you open Settings > Accessibility…

Prior to iOS 14, one of the central problems with iOS (compared to Android) was that every single app you’ve ever downloaded has to exist somewhere on your home screen. You can have folders, you can have multiple home screens, but you can’t simply hide an app you don’t use very often. The iOS 14 release changes all that. In addition to being able to put Widgets on your home screen, you can now remove apps without uninstalling them. A new top-level screen called the App Library contains all the apps installed on your iPhone. It’s a bit like the app drawer on most Android phones, but it looks and behaves differently. Mastering the App Library is key to keeping a more tidy and organized iPhone and quickly being able…

Apple’s in a strange position vis-à-vis many of its biggest rivals. While the company has in the past counted many of the most prominent tech companies in the world – IBM, Microsoft, Intel – as rivals, in more recent years, it’s been strategically savvy about turning those erstwhile competitors into allies. Which isn’t to say that the company doesn’t still have powerful foes. But the nature of the technology industry today is that none of these companies exist in a vacuum; there are so few at the highest of levels that ultimately all of them exist in a liminal state between ally and enemy. And for Apple, no company is more prominent in that frenemy zone than Google. But with the latest updates to its software platforms unveiled at this…

Over recent months, pundits and analysts have gone back and forth on the question of when this autumn’s new iPhone models will be launched. But now – extremely unusually – we have confirmation from Apple itself that the iPhone 12 will be delayed. During the quarterly earnings report, Apple CFO Luca Maestri announced that the late-2020 iPhone will be released a couple of weeks later than usual. In other words, the new phones won’t be available in shops until October. The announcement comes as no major surprise, especially as Qualcomm’s chief financial officer Akash Palkhiwala announced as recently as 29 July that the “delay of a flagship mobile” will have a negative effect on results for the current quarter. We even suspected that this quarter’s report could contain hints about…

Apple unveiled an ambitious plan to make its entire business carbon neutral by 2030. Apple’s ‘corporate emissions’ are already carbon neutral, but the impact of its offices and data centres are small compared to all the products it makes and sells. This new goal encompasses the entire business, including the manufacturing and sale of all of its products, the supply chain for them and even product end of life. Given all the global companies involved in the supply of parts for Apple’s products, it’s a very ambitious goal to achieve in a decade. However, it’s worth noting that carbon neutral is not the same thing as zero carbon. Carbon may be produced somewhere in Apple’s business, as long as the company makes up for it elsewhere. For example, if the…

Whenever Samsung launches a new phone, Apple fans tend to notice. It’s not just that Samsung is one of the biggest Android phone makers or even that its designs tend to be among the closest to Apple’s, it’s that Samsung’s flagship Galaxy phones are really, really good. They have the latest processors, displays and cameras, and the innovative trends that we see in the latest Galaxy S or Note phone generally make their way to the iPhone. So it is only natural to compare them. The £949 Galaxy Note20 that was revealed earlier this month costs £100 less than the £1,049 iPhone 11 Pro. Samsung has cut corners and sacrificed features to keep the Note20 ‘affordable’ compared to the £1,279 Galaxy Note S20 Ultra, so even an 11-month-old iPhone can…

Even if you haven’t rushed to install the iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 public betas on your devices, you already know all about the new features that’ll transform your home screen, apps and overall mobile experience in exciting new ways. Major changes are in store for our home screens, widgets and apps, as Apple makes some long-overdue tweaks to the iPhone and iPad experience. But it’s not all moonlight and roses. I’ve been testing the new betas, and I’ve run into frustrating quirks and road blocks along the way. Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot to like here, but in true Apple fashion, old systems and puzzling decisions keep the new features from being as great as they can be. There’s still a lot of time for the betas…

Apple has announced iOS 14, and it’s the first time in years that the company has made significant changes to the home screen. There are several new features, but perhaps the most significant change is the new Widgets system. We’ve had Widgets on the Today View (the screen to the left of your first Home screen) for years, but not a lot of people use that screen. And what’s the point of glanceable information if you have to swipe around to see it? With iOS 14, Apple is replacing the old widgets with all new ones that are more dynamic, can pull in more information, come in three sizes, and most importantly, can be placed anywhere on the home screen. Here’s how you work with widgets in iOS 14. Add…

I wrote my first story about Apple in 1993, meaning I’ve been covering Apple for 60 per cent of its existence. Lately, I’ve realized that beyond a few major milestones, most people don’t really remember Apple as anything but a technology titan. But the two very different Apples of the 1990s and early 2000s are worth remembering, rather than losing them in a hazy muddle that begins with Steve Jobs leaving Apple and ends with the arrival of the App Store. I’ve tried to categorize the history of Apple into six distinct eras where the company’s approach and position were remarkably different, with special attention paid to the two most undersold eras in company history. The Hobbyist Era (1976-1982) You know the story. Two guys named Steve built a company…

After more than 30 years at Apple, Phil Schiller is transitioning his role from Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing to Apple Fellow. Greg Joswiak will be promoted to fill that position. Phil Schiller has been a mainstay of Apple events for as long as anyone can remember. Apple’s press release quotes him as saying: “I first started at Apple when I was 27, this year I turned 60 and it is time for some planned changes in my life. I’ll keep working here as long as they will have me, I bleed six colours, but I also want to make some time in the years ahead for my family, friends and a few personal projects I care deeply about.” Schiller’s words make it sound as though he is getting ready…

One of these quarters, Apple’s going to announce financial results that don’t result in some sort of record. Perhaps as soon as next quarter, even. But last month, Apple announced the results of its financial third quarter of 2020 – and they were an all-time third quarter record. Literally every measurable category went up, year over year. It was so sunny a set of results that Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed almost embarrassed to be reporting such huge growth amid a global pandemic and some powerful social upheaval in the United States. In any event, here’s what I gleaned from the results and Apple’s regular post-results conference call with analysts that might provide some insight about where Apple is and where it might be going next. Topsy turvy: Mac and…

For the past few years, Apple has made its operating systems available in a public beta, so you can kick the tyres and help find bugs before its release in the autumn. We touched briefly upon how to run the beta the previous issue, but here we go in to more detail. We highly recommend you do not run this beta on a critical device. Yes, you can downgrade back to iOS or iPadOS 13, but it’s not trivial, and you may lose some of the information that you haven’t backed up or saved in the cloud. We also recommend you back up your iPhone or iPad before you get started. Registering for the Public Beta Apple has made it easy to enter the public beta programme. Simply head to…

In many ways, Messages is the most important app on the iPhone. Obviously, sending and receiving texts is one of the most popular uses for smartphones, and it is a necessary part of many two-factor authentication set-ups. But iMessage – the blue-bubble Internet messaging platform introduced in iOS 5 – is a critical part of the Apple ecosystem. It solved a lot of the problems with texting at a critical time, and it is important that Apple continues to make the ‘blue bubble’ as meaningful as possible. With each new release of iOS, Apple makes some improvements to Messages. This year, iOS 14 will bring several welcome new features that recognizes the way people use it today. The focus is on organizing an increasingly big list of messages, and more…

Apple first implemented picture-in-picture on the iPad way back in iOS 9, and users have been clamouring for it to come to the iPhone ever since. With iOS 14, Apple is finally giving us our wish. PIP is coming to iPhone, and it works almost exactly like it does on iPad. Apps need to incorporate support for the feature, though. During the early beta days, you can use the TV app or any video that streams in Safari, but popular apps like Netflix and YouTube have not yet implemented PIP support. That will likely change by the time iOS 14 is released in the autumn. Use picture-in-picture To start watching a video in PIP mode, just tap the PIP icon in the upper left. You’ll have to be using an…

If there’s a segment of Apple’s business that seems to fly in the face of the company’s philosophy – not just in terms of making a product that is substandard or lacklustre – but in terms of actually being at odds with the way it otherwise does business, you couldn’t put forth a more prominent example than the App Store. The discussion, always at a constant simmer in the Apple community, bubbled up once again last month even as Apple CEO Tim Cook was grilled by lawmakers over antitrust concerns. Developers, regularly dissatisfied with the company’s lack of transparency and equality over rules, took the opportunity to renew criticism of not only that, but the hefty 30-per cent cut of proceeds. The App Store has been a profitable business for…