Apple has announced this evening that its fiscal first quarter earnings call will take place on Tuesday, January 26th at the usual time 2PM PT/5PM ET, with the earnings release dropping roughly thirty minutes before that. The call will report earnings for the three-month period ending this month.

Given that these results will cover the holiday shopping season, we should expect strong numbers from Apple. This is also the first full quarter during which the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been available, as well as the iPad Pro.

Last quarter, Apple reported profits of $11.1 billion off of $51.5 billion in revenues. The company sold roughly 48 million iPhones, 9.9 million iPads, and 5.7 million Macs, as well. For its first fiscal quarter of 2016, Apple is expecting revenues between $75.5 billion and $77.5 billion.

The live broadcast of the call will be available here on Apple’s website and of course we will have live coverage, as well. The call will feature questions from the press and investors for Apple executives.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, earnings, earnings call

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Hunter Fan Company, one of the top manufacturers of ceiling fans, has today taken the wraps off of its foray into the HomeKit market. The company has announced a pair of connected ceiling fans that are WiFi enabled and support Apple’s HomeKit platform for communication. The ceiling fans are named Symphony and Signal and come in at $329 and $379 respectively.

The Symphony connected fan offers a more modern design with an all-white appearance, while the Signal fan features wood-finished blades and ticket housing. Of course, the real selling points of the two fans are their connected features.

With WiFi and HomeKit capabilities, users can create scenes to automatically have the fans turn on or off. For instance, users could create a scene that would automatically turn the fan on when the fire alarm detects smoke or when the temperature in the house reaches a certain level. The fans, thanks to HomeKit, are able to interact with other appliances in the house to function more autonomously than non-connected fans do.

Both the Symphony and Signal fans will be available during the spring of 2016 from retailers such as Amazon, Build.com, Best Buy, Lowes, Home Depot, and Menards, as well as in lighting showrooms around the country.

We’ll likely see a variety of different HomeKit-enabled accessories launch this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Earlier today, Honeywell announced the HomeKit-emabled Lyric thermostat.

Filed under: HomeKit Tagged: ceiling fans, homekit, Hunter Fan Company

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Honeywell has today announced the second-generation version of the Honeywell Lyric thermostat. The first version (currently discounted ahead of the new hardware) was labelled with HomeKit advertising in various places, but that support never materialized. Honeywell has clarified that interested customers will have to buy the new $249 hardware to use the Lyric with HomeKit, currently available for preorder from the Honeywell website.

If you don’t want to wait, check out the ecobee3 system. You can buy a comprehensive thermostat and lights smart home system with full HomeKit support through ecobee today.

Honeywell is a bit behind the curve, although the Lyric has generally been praised outside of HomeKit integration. HomeKit lets users control the heating in their home via an iPhone app or with voice control via Siri. The physical design of the second-generation Lyric has not changed, it remains a circular unit with touch screen controls and motion sensor to automatically light up the display. See more suggestions for improving your home with HomeKit accessories in our 2015 HomeKit gift guide.

Filed under: AAPL Company, HomeKit, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: homekit, Lyric, Thermostat

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Welcome to the latest edition of Jeremy’s 5, my latest quick roundup of 5 interesting little things that aren’t big enough for full articles, but are still worth sharing with you.

My first edition of 2016 looks at two separate topics related to this week’s 2016 CES: first, Apple’s continued absence from the show, and second, the annual event’s seemingly declining interest to Apple fans. I also wanted to share some additional thoughts on Apple’s Remote Loop for the new Apple TV’s Siri Remote, the classic (but ever-evolving) iOS app Akinator the Genie, and the continued scourge of free-to-play games…

1. Apple’s (Still) Not At CES. Although it had another explanation at the time, Apple effectively stopped participating in trade shows when then-CEO Steve Jobs’ declining health made the events inconvenient to stage. Years earlier, Apple had depended on events such as Macworld Expo and Apple Expo Paris to announce and show off new products, but as its “last year at Macworld” press release said — somewhat convincingly — Apple’s own retail stores and marketing efforts were extremely effective, while trade shows had “become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers.” Apple employees continued to attend trade shows, including the annual CES in Las Vegas, but often with their badges obscured and never again formally with gigantic, Macworld-sized booths.

While Apple’s decision to pull out of trade shows has had modest impact on its mindshare and stock price, it has created some major consequences for its device ecosystems. Trade shows used to be the ideal opportunity for Apple and third-party developers to demonstrate new co-developed initiatives, such as iPod car integration or Made for iPhone accessories. That just stopped after Macworld Expo. Consequently, think about all of the under-promoted ecosystem initiatives that Apple could be spotlighting at CES this year: HomeKit, CarPlay, the Mac App Store, Made for Apple TV, iPad in the Enterprise, Lightning headphones, or Apple Watch apps. If this year’s CES is anything like past years, however, attendees will be lucky to find more than a stray piece of signage for any of these things. Yes, there will be HomeKit accessories and CarPlay head units on the floor, but they’ll be mixed in with competing products, and easy to miss.

Trade shows used to be an opportunity for journalists, retailers, and sometimes members of the public to interact with Apple and key third-party developers, all in a single location, to see their “big picture” vision. Even if there are hundreds of Apple Stores across the globe, none of them hosts as many important people or product launches as a single trade show. When Apple stopped showing up at Macworld Expo and Apple Expo Paris, this opportunity was lost, and despite third-party efforts to fill the gap, nothing short of Apple’s re-engagement is going to fix it. Should Apple get involved again, or is the very idea of a consumer electronics trade show (despite record CES attendance) a vestige of the past?

2. On That Note, The 2016 CES Looks To Be A Snoozer For Apple Fans. Years ago, I co-created and helped to curate CES’s Apple accessory exhibition area (originally called the iLounge Pavilion, later the iProducts Marketplace), which grew from under 100 exhibitors to over 500, eventually spanning multiple football field-sized sections of the Las Vegas Convention Center and the adjacent LVH hotel. Unfortunately, the Apple area has recently declined significantly in both number of exhibitors and size, last year deliberately to weed out vendors who were only marginally Apple-focused, and this year seemingly due to declining interest and tougher finances. (If it’s not already obvious, Apple accessory companies have been closing, shedding staff, and/or merging over the past couple of years, leaving fewer players and far fewer products of interest.)

There used to be a thriving, growing market for Apple-specific accessories, but for various reasons, the last few years have seen an almost complete collapse of the Apple-specific electronic accessory business. AirPlay and Lightning speakers were all but completely absent from CES last year, and the big story of the past two years has been the triumph of the universal Bluetooth standard for everything from audio to health accessories. That’s left a lot of case makers and vendors of generic power accessories (such as wall chargers, batteries, and docks) to fight for attention at CES. Unless you’ve been waiting for more Apple Watch bands or iPad Pro cases, the early press releases I’ve seen from the show suggest that there’s not going to be a lot of excitement from Apple’s third-party developers this year. Here’s hoping for some surprises.

3. Siri Remote + Remote Loop. One of Apple’s many Fall 2015 releases seemed seriously trivial when it was released, but I wanted to share a few more thoughts on it here. As you may know, Apple shipped the Apple TV with a new Siri Remote, but opted not to include the Remote Loop accessory, sold separately for $13. While it’s hard to justify the Loop’s price point on features, I have to say that it’s made the Siri Remote a lot easier to use every day.

If you use your TV in the dark — and who doesn’t? — it’s hard to sense which side of the Siri Remote is the top unless something is attached to the bottom Lightning port. The Remote Loop makes it easy to figure out which side is the bottom, and also to grab the Remote when it gets wrapped up in your bedsheets at night. If Apple isn’t going to include a Loop with future Apple TVs, it should at least make the small effort to rebalance the Siri Remote with a heavier bottom, so that you can more easily orient it in your hand without seeing it. Until then, the Loop is a reasonable investment.

One caveat on the Loop: the neoprene or neoprene-like material Apple is increasingly using strikes me as cheap, and looks as if it was expressly designed to degrade over time. It’s a functional material, and works quite well with the sturdy plastic and metal Lightning attachment that’s at its top, but it feels at odds with Apple’s “luxury” vibe. As a freebie, it would have been fine, but as a standalone purchase, it should have been nicer.

4. Akinator the Genie. Elokence’s Akinator the Genie ($2) is a novelty app that I’ve been using on and off for several years — effectively, a magic trick powered by a database in the cloud. I came back to it again over the holidays, reminding me that kids and parents both love it; it’s inexpensive enough to be an impulse buy when you see what it can do.

Akinator “magically” guesses the identity of any person, whether non-fictional or fictional, and it’s excellent at naming pretty much any character who has been featured in a movie, TV show, or other entertainment medium. While Akinator has been good for years, the genie’s database has only become more impressive over time. New people are constantly being added, such that you can be guaranteed that virtually every character from Star Wars: The Force Awakens is already in there, and thanks to the app’s large userbase, even obscure characters from older movies have been searched for hundreds or thousands of times.

Typically, Akinator can ID whomever you’re thinking of within 20 questions, using (mostly) yes or no responses to determine the person’s identity. In the rare event that it needs more than 20 questions, you’ve either found someone very obscure, or have tricked the system by providing bad answers. To deal with all-but-anonymous people (say, your sibling, significant other, or parent), Akinator does have a few catchalls, including generic “your friend” or “your family member” guesses, but even there, Elokence lets people build personal databases. It’s a very cool app, and worth checking out.

5. The Scourge of Free-To-Play Games, 2016 Edition. I can’t possibly be the only person who thinks that Free-To-Play/Freemium games have gone from being mildly repellant as an “option for other people to waste money on” in the App Store, to becoming a major deterrent to feeling good about the App Store and iOS experience — even if I’m not personally downloading the games. These days, it seems like I can’t go two days without an unwanted Safari redirect to a freemium App Store download page. And I can’t even begin to imagine how much real money people are losing to casino, match-3, farming and battle apps.

Even if Apple’s taking a 30% cut of the revenues, these games have been poisonous for the iOS gaming scene as a whole. Rather than selling games at a fair initial price, developers now feel compelled to offer everything for “free,” then interrupt gameplay every several minutes with advertisements, prompts to refill a meter, or offers to sell currency. It has become dispiriting to great developers, reducing the likelihood that they will come back to the App Store to release anything close to console-quality games. On the consumer side, freemium games are obviously successful at leeching cash out of some people, but I’ve personally gotten to the point where I’ve almost stopped buying iOS games, and cannot stand when my screen gets taken over by ads for Candy Crush, Hay Day, Clash of Clans or casino games. We’re well past the point where Apple should have said ‘enough’s enough,’ but with Phil Schiller now in charge of the App Store, I have some hope that Apple will take another look at the big picture, deciding the long-term health of its developers, software ecosystem, and customers would be better served by shutting down these freemium games.

More From This Author

Check out more of my reviews, How-To guides and editorials for 9to5Mac here! I’ve published a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users, as well as a personal gift guide for Apple fans, a great gift guide for iPhone users, a detailed gift guide for Mac users, and a separate gift guide for Apple photographers.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple TV, CarPlay, General, HomeKit, iOS Devices, Mac

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Apple has seeded the second beta of iOS 9.2.1, a minor enhancement and bug fix release for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. We’ll update if we spot anything new. The new seed has a build number of 13D14, a small bump over the previous seed. iOS 9.2.1 was released to developers on December 16th.

Filed under: iOS Devices

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Following the unveiling of its BreakSafe USB-C accessory earlier today, Griffin has now taken the wraps off of a new Apple Watch accessory. Dubbed the Travel Power Bank, the accessory is one the of the first battery packs we’ve seen for Apple Watch and it comes in a bitesize package.

The Travel Power Bank is keychain-sized and includes an inductive charging pad for powering your Apple Watch when it is running low on juice. The pack includes 800mAh of extra power, and while that seems a bit small, it’s enough to recharge Apple Watch four times, The Travel Power Bank charges via microUSB and features a single power button for turning the device on and off (via The Verge).

Carrying around an Apple Watch charging dock on your keychain seems a tad cumbersome, but the idea is that it’s small enough to not add too much weight to your keychain yet be useful in emergency situations. You’ll also obviously have to have the pack on somewhat of a level and stable surface for the inductive charging feature of Apple Watch to work consistently. Nevertheless, it’s better than carrying around Apple’s own charger and wall adapter all of the time.

Griffin’s Travel Power Bank will be available in the second quarter of this year for $69.99. It doesn’t appear that the Travel Power Bank is capable of charging anything aside from Apple Watch at this point.

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: Accessories, accessory, Apple watch, Battery pack, Griffin, Watch

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Hyper’s new iShowFast Lightning drive adds a few features not available from competitors: USB 3.0 for faster performance, support for files over 4GB in size, and new low power consumption features that mean you’ll never have to charge it.

Lightning thumb drives have become more popular in recent years. With a standard USB connector on one side and Apple’s Lightning connector on the other, the product allows iPhone and iPad users to quickly and easily transfer files between devices (iOS and desktops) or stream content directly from the drive to their device.

Space is limited on your iPhone and iPad, so the idea is you store your videos, photos, and other files on the drive and have them available offline at any time by simply connect the drive to your device. On a plane, at a meeting, hotel or event with unreliable Wi-Fi, you can quickly retrieve, view, or stream your files without relying on the cloud to work at the right time.

The drive uses a companion iOS app from the App Store (pictured above) that makes managing files, streaming content, and sharing easy all from the iOS device itself. Plug it into your Mac using the USB end, and you’ll be able to manage it like any other external drive right from within Finder.

With USB 3.0 on the new iShowFast drive, you get transfer specs of 140MB/s (read) and 45MB/s (write), while the Apple Lightning connector side gives you 30MB/s (read) and 20MB/s (write). And the new drive, unlike Hyper’s last generation product or competitors, supports ExFAT for files over 4GB in size. That will certainly come in handy for large project sessions or video files that well exceed the otherwise 4GB cap per file upload.

The drive comes in three color options to match the pink, rose gold, and space gray iOS devices currently avialable:

• Made for iPhone, iPad and iPod
• 16/32/64/128GB flash drive with both USB 3.0 for computers (Mac/PC) and Apple Lightning for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod).
• Fastest way to transfer any file between iOS devices and computers. No need for iTunes, Internet, Cloud or wireless network.
• Apple Lightning connector speed: 30MB/s (read), 20MB/s (write)
• USB 3.0 connector speed: 140MB/s (read), 45MB/s (write)
• ExFAT support for files larger than 4GB

It’s available now from Hyper online for $79.99 (16GB), $99 (32GB), $149 (64GB), and $249 (128GB), $399.99 (256GB), but we have a 20% off discount for readers bringing the prices down to $63.99 (16GB), $79.99 (32GB), $119.99 (64GB), and $199 (128GB), $319.99 (256GB).

Use coupon code “9to5mac” on Hyper’s site at checkout to take advantage of the deal. The gold and rose gold color options are available to order now in most storage tiers, while some capacities (including the 256GB models) and the space gray models are available to preorder now ahead of launch.

Hyper will be showing off the iShowFast and its other new products at CES this week. Its CES booth is at LVCC North Hall 5124 if you want to stop by.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: 140MB/s, Apple, CES 2016, ExFAT, Hyper, iPad, iPhone, lightning drive, USB 3.0

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BrydgePro for iPad Pro

Accessory maker Brydge has today announced a pair of new keyboard accessories for the iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro. The BrydgeMini and BrydgePro are on display at CES this week in Las Vegas and feature a variety of unique capabilities that the company hopes will make them standout from the growing number of keyboard accessories on the market.

Both the BrydgePro and BrydgeMini feature the company’s 180-degree hinge system. This means that the cases can be folded into a laptop-like clamshell position when the device isn’t in use, a rarity for the iPad Pro so far. Brydge’s new offerings are made of 100 percent aluminum and feature backlit keys, as well.

More specifically, the BrydgePro weighs 1.60 lbs, is .27-inches thick, and connects via Bluetooth 4.0 technology. The combined thickness of the iPad Pro and BrydgePro make it thinner than the MacBook Air. The backlit keys also offer varying brightness levels, much like MacBooks.

For the BrydgeMini, the keyboard connects via Bluetooth 3.0. The case comes in at .29-inches thick and .66lbs in weight. The keys are backlit, but at a set level, unlike the BrydgePro which offers varying levels depending on the surrounding environment.

The BrydgeMini is available for pre-order now and costs $99.99, while the Brydge Pro is available for pre-order for $189 and will ship in April of this year. Both cases are available in gold, silver, and space gray and feature rechargeable three-month batteries.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: accessory, BrydgeMini, BrydgePro, iPad Pro, keyboard

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Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

Beats by Dre Powerbeats2 Wireless Active Collection Earphones from $120 shipped (Reg. $200)

Anker ToughShell iPhone 6/s/Plus Case w/ built-in tempered glass screen protector: $10 (Reg. $18)

Kick off your New Year’s workout plan w/ a free download of Runtastic PRO for iPhone & Apple Watch (Reg. $5)

App Store Free App of the Week: Colorburn adds 1,000 photo filters to your iOS device for free (Reg. $1)

Lifeline 2 and Lifeline: Silent Night games for iOS/Android drop to $0.99 each

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

Apple 27-inch Retina 5K iMac (Late 2014) 3.5GHz/8GB/1TB Fusion: $1,699 shipped (Orig. $2,499)

Roku announces fresh 4K UHDTVs w/ HDR capabilities as 1080p models hit all-time low prices

• Games/Apps: Guitar Hero Live 2-Pack $100, Machinarium $2, more
• Media: Alien Anthology + Prometheus on Blu-ray $21 (Reg. $55), more
• Add 75 classic films to your DVD collection for $105 (Reg. $330)
• Apogee Groove portable USB DAC/headphone amp $240 shipped (Reg. $295)
• Daily Deals: Under Desk Elliptical $105, Imneed 10,000mAh Power Bank $11, more
• LeapFrog LeapTV Educational Gaming System $45 shipped (Reg. $60)
• Get in shape this year w/ huge savings on home workout gear

Royal Bluetooth Splash-Resistant Speaker w/suction cup in four colors just $2 (Orig. $7) wp.me/p1xTlR-LYK https://t.co/ImMUpah16C

—
9to5Toys (@9to5toys) January 04, 2016

MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

Apple is giving away Pixite’s Union image blending iOS app ($2 value)

Disney’s Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse drops to its best price in over a year: $1 (Reg. $10)

Best Buy Apple sale: iPad Air 2 $125 off, iPad Air $100 off, iPad mini 4 $100 off, much more!

iTunes is hosting a rare sale on HD movies, including $5 titles + heavily discounted bundles

• Free PS Plus Games for January: Grim Fandango Remastered, Medal of Honor, more
• Fashion: Nike extra 25% off clearance – Vapor Jacket $82 (Orig. $130), more
• Lightning 3600mAh Aukey Portable Battery Pack + MFi cable: $10 shipped
• Anker iPhone/iPad accessories: Car Chargers from $6, Nylon MFi Lightning Cable $8
• LG Music Flow P7 Bluetooth Speaker: $60 shipped (Reg. $90+)
• USB-C cables w/ Prime shipping: 3-ft for $6, 5-ft for $7, plus more
• TurboTax 2015 for Mac/PC price drops: Deluxe $40, Premier $55, more
• CBS All Access: Free two-month trial for Chromecast owners ($12 value)
• SUBWAY sandwich offer: Get a free 6-inch sub w/ the purchase of a drink

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

LG goes after Amazon Echo with its new SmartThinQ hub

This astonishingly detailed LEGO Millennium Falcon took 7,500 pieces and over a year to build

• This $20,000 hoverboard can actually fly, brings 2015 to a close in spectacular fashion
• Thimble’s DIY robot subscription service launches on Kickstarter to great success
• Here are the Holiday Best Sellers from Amazon’s record-breaking year
• ShiftWear sneakers use flexible displays to showcase custom artwork on your shoes
• The new iOS-connected Hamwells e-Shower recycles your water

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys Lunch Break

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One of the biggest complaints regarding the 12-inch MacBook has been the ports, or lack thereof, that the device offers. The MacBook features just as single USB-C port that you use for everything, including charging. This means that the MagSafe technology that Apple introduced 10 years ago and that we’ve all come to love is nowhere to be found. A new accessory introduced by Griffin today, however, aims to fix that problem.

The company has unveiled a new six-foot BreakSafe Magnetic USB-C Power Cable that brings the laptop-saving magnetic technology to the 12-inch MacBook. The BreakSafe cable comes in two parts. The first part is a 12.8mm small plug that you insert into the USB-C port on the MacBook. The second part is the 6-foot cable that connects magnetically to the 12.8mm dongle and features a USB-C connection on the other side.

Obviously Griffin’s hope here is that you’ll leave the small dongle in your MacBook’s USB-C port at all times, but of course that means you’re limited to only using Griffin’s USB-C cable, but the added protection of the magnetic technology may be worth it. The MagSafe tech, of course, would mean that should you ever trip over your USB-C charging cable, the cable would safely disconnect and not send the laptop itself flying across the room.

Griffin’s BreakSafe USB-C adapter will be available in April for $39.99.

Filed under: Mac Tagged: Griffin, Mac, MacBook, MagSafe, USB-C

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