Apple’s cash hoard swelled to a staggering $246.09 billion in the December quarter, an increase of $8.49 billion. This, despite returning some $15 billion to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividends. It’s an unprecedented concentration of corporate wealth that would let Apple buy more than 4.9 billion Amazon Echo Dots if it wanted.
Apple's Services Business Hits Fortune 100 Level
Apple is a hardware company, a media company, and now it’s a serious services company, too. Company CEO Tim Cook said the company’s services business is on track to reach the size of a Fortune 100 company in 2017, and the goal is to double the division’s growth over the next four years.
Iconfactory Gets iPad Sketch Apps Right with Linea
The Iconfactory is jumping into the iPad sketch app market with its brand new Linea app, and based on our tests, it’s pretty cool. Linea is going for drawing and sketching, not digital painting, and it has the right tool set for the job. It comes with four pen tips an dan eraser tool, support for five layers, blending and transparency modes, graph paper grids, and one of my favorite features: tap a swatch on the color palette to see several shades for that color. It also includes Apple Pencil support and offers pretty flexible image export options. Linea is priced at US$9.99, and it’s one of the few sketching apps that gets to stay on my iPad Pro.
![Apple Beats Guidance with Record Revenue of $78.4B and EPS of $3.36 [Update]](https://www.macobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/apple-money-pile.webp)
Apple Beats Guidance with Record Revenue of $78.4B and EPS of $3.36 [Update]
Apple announced Tuesday record revenue for its December quarter of US$78.4 billion, as well as record earnings per share (EPS) of $3.36. That’s up from $75.9 billion in revenue in the year-ago quarter with EPS of $3.28. [Update: This article has been updated with additional details. – Editor]
The iOS Chrome Browser Is Now Open Source
After several years of switching the code, Google made the iOS Chrome browser open source. For the past several years the Chrome team has been updating the code in order to bring it under the Chromium Project. Since iOS browsers must use Apple’s WebKit rendering engine, the app had to support that as well as Google’s Blink engine.
Winners of the TMO Roddenberry Vault Giveaway Announced
On January 9th, TMO published our Background Mode interview with producer Rod Roddenberry. As part of that podcast, Rod generously provided TMO with three copies of his new release, The Rodddenberry Vault, on Blu-ray, to give away. The three randomly selected winners, who correctly answered a question about the podcast audio, have been announced.
Apple and Worker Visas, HomeKit Falls Behind in the Smarthome Game - TMO Daily Observations 2017-01-31
Work Visas for the tech industry may be changing thanks to an executive order that’s said to be coming from the White House. Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to look at the draft order and the impact it could have on Apple and other Silicon Valley companies. They also have some thoughts on the rapidly changing smart home market and Apple’s apparent lagging position.
Plugies Magnetic Lightning Charging Cables: $27.99
Check out the Plugies Magnetic Charging Cables, Lightning charging cables with a magnetic connector. They’re designed to work like Apple’s on-the-way-out MagSafe, but for your iPhone. It has two pieces, one a Lightning plug that sits in your iPhone. The other is a cable that connects to that plug with a magnet. They’re $27.99 through our deal. There are also versions with Micro-USB and one with both Micro-USB and Lightning. Check out the details on the deal listing.
Apple's Tortoise Races Amazon's Hare for Home Automation Dominance
Apple has chosen to take a steady, if slow, approach to home automation focusing on licensing, security, and no high-profile, fixed device like Amazon’s Echo & Dot. As a result, Reuters author Stephen Nellis observes: “Still, it’s not clear whether Apple’s elaborate but slow-to-develop system will have enough advantages to overcome Amazon’s widening lead.” The discussion starts on page 2 of Apples Tortoise Races Amazons Hare for Home Automation Dominance.
watchOS 3.2 Developer Beta Gives Us Our First Look at Theater Mode
Apple released watchOS 3.2 as a beta for developers Monday afternoon. The update gives us the first real look at Theater Mode, and opens SiriKit on Apple Watch to developers, too.