OnePlus 3 ‘Soft Gold’ edition arrives in understated luxury
About a month after releasing Engadget’s favorite sub-$400 phone, OnePlus is classing up the solid, budget-minded OnePlus 3 with a new, “Soft Gold” color variant. “This isn’t your typical gaudy gold smartphone,” a OnePlus staffer wrote in the subtweet-heavy product announcement. Instead of a jewel-encrusted piece of hardware, OnePlus has gone for a toned-down, “low-profile take on gold” to match the phone’s budget-friendly price.
Naturally, the new color comes with all the same build quality and impressive horsepower we’ve come to expect from OnePlus, plus the Soft Gold edition sports a luxurious-sounding finish that feels “reminiscent of holding fine, silky-soft sand.” The new limited edition is available today in the US, and in other regions starting on August 1st.
Opera Mini can download videos for offline viewing
If you’re often in areas where mobile data is spotty or pricey, the Opera Mini browser for Android has a helpful new feature: video downloading. When you’re at home or have solid WiFi, you can visit sites like Facebook, IMDB and GQ.com and download videos directly to your phone. Later, if you’re without a signal or want to keep your cell bill down, you can watch the videos offline at your leisure.
The feature works with sites like Facebook that support native .mp4, .webm and other formats, but not with YouTube and others that use their own media players. You can download a video while you’re watching it by hitting a button at the top right.
The feature should be handy for those of us who use the subway or drive in the country where cell connections are limited or nonexistent. But Opera is aiming it more at developing nations like India, where cellular data can be dicey and prohibitively expensive. Google recently did something similar with YouTube, offering an offline mode that allows you to schedule video downloads during periods where data is cheaper. Facebook is also testing an offline mode, letting users sync videos on WiFi and watch them in the app later on.
Source: Opera
Apple Music signs up ‘Carpool Karaoke’ as a new show
On The Late Late Show with James Corden the “Carpool Karaoke” segment has seen visits from a number of celebrities, and now Apple wants in. It’s signed an exclusive deal with CBS to produce a 16 episode series where celebrity guests ride along with the host (still TBA), visit “meaningful” places, sing songs and surprise fans. This is apparently the kind of thing Eddy Cue meant when he said Apple was only interested in developing content that could be complementary to Apple Music.
The segment will continue to appear on Corden’s show but it has been a viral hit online, thanks to guests like Justin Bieber, Adele — the clip embedded above is its most-viewed ever with over 119 million views — and most recently First Lade of the US Michelle Obama. Apple seems to think this kind of exclusive content will be enough to wrangle a few more months of music subscriptions that could otherwise go to competitors like Spotify, Google Play Music or Tidal. Hey, speaking of Tidal…
Source: CBS
White House outlines how the US will respond to cyberattacks
The US government is understandably worried about cyberattacks as of late, and it’s now setting some ground rules for how it responds to those digital intrusions. A newly approved Presidential Policy Directive details just how officials will coordinate responses to hacks and other “cyber incidents.” including its basic principles, outlining procedures and creating mechanisms that link the actions that link government divisions. Provided everything goes according to plan, officials would not only learn to share responsibility and resources when fending off attacks, but better understand the risks associated with a given crisis.
The policy also resurrects something you might have forgotten about since President Bush Jr. left office: color-coded threat levels. A new Cyber Incident Severity Schema gives the government a sense of just how seriously an attack might threaten everything from national security to foreign relations and “public confidence.” If it’s determined to be a green- or yellow-level risk, it’s unlikely to do serious damage. There’s a very tangible concern if an attack is labeled orange or red, and you’d better hope that you never see a black-rated attack — that’s an “imminent threat” where lives and critical infrastructure are in danger.
Once everything falls into place, you won’t see too many conspicuous examples of the directive in action. Even the schema is meant more for internal use than alerting the public. However, you’ll know that it’s working if the feds spend less time scrambling to react to a cyberattack and more time setting things right, whether they’re upgrading defenses or helping victims.
Via: Motherboard
Source: White House, (PDF)
Twitter’s growth remains flat as its profit continues to dip
Twitter’s Q2 2016 earnings report tells a story we’ve heard many times before: namely, flat growth and a net loss in terms of profit. For the quarter ending June 30th, Twitter saw revenue of $602 million but a net loss of $107 million. The service boasted 313 million monthly active users, up 3 percent over the previous year. Last quarter, Twitter reported 310 million monthly active users.
Twitter’s main source of revenue is advertisement. For the quarter, advertising revenue accounted for $535 million of the company’s $602 million total, with mobile bringing in 89 percent of all ad dollars. Ad revenue was up 18 percent year-over-year.
So far in 2016, Twitter has emphasized live video, particularly for sports and political events, and the company continues to update Periscope, its livestreaming service. Twitter also boosted its GIF size limit to 15MB, made it easier to quote your own tweets and rolled out a few changes aimed at making the site friendlier for casual users. Plus, Twitter is getting in on the augmented reality game with the addition of former Apple UI designer Alessandro Sabatelli.
“We are seeing the direct benefit of our recent product changes in increased engagement and usage,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in today’s report. “We remain focused on improving our service to make it fast, simple and easy to use, like the ability to watch livestreaming video events unfold and the commentary around them.”
Today’s report marks Dorsey’s first full year as Twitter CEO since re-joining the company he founded. In July 2015, Dorsey took over as CEO from Dick Costolo after the company’s April earnings report showed slow user growth on top of net losses for the first quarter of the year. Twitter has historically struggled to attract users and generate profit on the same levels as platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Facebook Messenger, for example, recently topped 1 billion users.
Source: Twitter
Zagat’s new iPhone app is like the best of Yelp and Foursquare
After buying the restaurant review company Zagat back in 2011, Google helped to modernize it with a new website, mobile apps and integration within Google Maps. Today, Zagat is getting its biggest upgrade yet on the iPhone, and it’s good enough to make it your primary solution for discovering new places to eat. The app is now smart enough to recommend restaurants based on your location, as well as the time of day. That location awareness is a big part of what makes Foursquare’s recommendations useful, and it’s nice to see it finally show up in Zagat (albeit surprisingly late).
The Zagat iPhone app has also been redesigned with a cleaner, magazine-like look. When I launched it at the Engadget office, it immediately popped up with lunch recommendations, coffee spots and places to get “quick bites” nearby. It also features a neighborhood map in NYC, which is useful if you’re not familiar with the layout of the city. There’s also much a better search experience than before.
What’s most striking about the redesigned app is that it’s simply a nice experience. It combines Zagat’s editorial reviews (which are based on opinions from regular diners) and local coverage with the location features we’ve grown to expect from Foursquare and Yelp. If you’re tired of browsing through uninformed user reviews and you want more than an algorithm pointing you to food spots, it’s worth giving the Zagat app a shot.
Source: Zagat, iTunes
iPhone 7 May Include Flush ‘3D Touch’ Home Button
Apple’s iPhone 7 may not include a physical home button, instead adopting a touch-sensitive “3D Touch” home button, reports Mac Otakara [Google Translate]. Such a home button would be flush with the body of the iPhone and would not actually depress when a finger is placed on it.
Instead, when a user presses on the home button, haptic feedback will mimic a press, much like the Force Touch trackpad on Apple’s most recent MacBooks. Through haptic feedback, iPhone users will feel the sensation of pressing on a button even though there’s no actual button to press.
Mac Otakara’s report refers back to an April home button rumor from Stormmedia and confirms its veracity, citing unspecified supply chain sources and saying there’s a “high possibility” the rumor is accurate. We’ve heard the same home button rumor from DigiTimes and analysts at Cowen and Company. While none of these sources have track records accurate enough to unquestioningly say the rumor is true, the fact that it’s a rumor we’ve heard multiple times now suggests it could be accurate.
A flush home button, when combined with rumors of improved waterproofing and the removal of the headphone jack, makes some sense. Without a physical button, there would be no way for water to get into the internals of the phone around the button, and it would also potentially improve the reliability of the Touch ID system.
Based on leaked part images and dummies, the removal of the home button will not drastically change the look of the iPhone 7.
Should Apple remove the physical home button in favor of a Force Touch or 3D Touch home button in the iPhone 7, the company will be one step closer to eliminating the home button entirely, something that’s rumored for the 2017 iPhone.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: macotakara.jp
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Apple Reports Q3 2016 Earnings of $7.8B on $42.4B in Revenue
Apple today announced financial results for the third fiscal quarter (second calendar quarter) of 2016. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $42.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $49.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $10.7 billion, or $1.85 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. As expected, the results represent the second consecutive year-over-year declines in quarterly revenue and iPhone sales.
Gross margin for the quarter was 38 percent compared to 39.7 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounting for 63 percent of revenue. Apple also declared a quarterly dividend payment of $0.57 per share, payable on August 11 to shareholders of record as of August 8. The company currently holds $231.5 billion in cash and marketable securities, partially offset by $68.9 billion in long-term debt.
Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones during the quarter, down from 47.5 million a year earlier, while Mac sales were 4.25 million units, down from from 4.8 million units in the year-ago quarter. iPad sales were also down once again, falling to 9.95 million from 10.9 million.
“We are pleased to report third quarter results that reflect stronger customer demand and business performance than we anticipated at the start of the quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We had a very successful launch of iPhone SE and we’re thrilled by customers’ and developers’ response to software and services we previewed at WWDC in June.”
Apple’s guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 includes expected revenue of $45.5–47.5 billion and gross margin between 37.5 and 38 percent.
Apple will provide live streaming of its fiscal Q3 2016 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.
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Tag: earnings
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Apple Forecasts Third Consecutive Revenue Decline Next Quarter
Apple today reported a negative-growth June quarter in iPhone sales and revenue, and its guidance for the fourth quarter of the 2016 fiscal year suggests that the downward trend is likely to continue through summer.
Apple expects fourth quarter revenue of between $45.5 billion and $47.5 billion, which would be up to 12 percent lower than the $51.5 billion in revenue it posted in the year-ago July-September quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the company also expects a gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38 percent, operating expenses between $6.05 billion and $6.15 billion, other income/expenses of $350 million, and a tax rate of 25.5 percent.
Tags: earnings, AAPL
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Apple Sees iPad Revenue Growth for the First Time in 10 Quarters
Apple today announced a year-over-year drop in revenue for the second quarter in a row based on flagging iPhone sales, but amid the decline, Apple saw its iPad revenue grow slightly for the first time in 10 quarters. Apple’s iPad line brought in $4.9 billion in Q3 2016, up from $4.5 billion in the year-ago quarter.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook said he was “encouraged” by the iPad’s revenue growth and the 19 percent growth in the services category, which includes Apple Music, the App Store, iTunes, and more.
“There are a number of encouraging signs in the results,” Mr. Cook told The Wall Street Journal. “This last quarter was surprising because it was better than we expected from so many different points of view, not just one thing.”
While iPad revenue was up based on the higher average selling price of the 9.7 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models, overall unit sales continued to decline. Apple sold almost 10 million iPads during the third quarter of 2016, compared to almost 11 million during the third quarter of 2015.
Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad Pro starts at $599, while the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $799, two price points that are much higher than the $499 price Apple’s previous iPad models started at.
Related Roundup: iPad Pro
Buyer’s Guide: 12.9″ iPad Pro (Neutral)
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