While most analysts are expecting Apple to comfortably beat its holiday quarter guidance of $75.5-$77.5B, one large firm of analysts goes much further.

An investment note by Morgan Stanley seen by Business Insider says that an analysis of Apple’s financial report suggests that the company could be gearing up for quarterly sales totalling as much as $84.4B.

The clue, claims the company, is the company’s off balance-sheet spending commitments.

Apple’s last quarterly report revealed $29.5 billion in off balance-sheet commitments, and $7.3 billion in other commitments, at the end of the September quarter.

These usually represent money that Apple is planning to spend on parts and manufacturing equipment.

It should be noted that although Apple has recently been beating its own guidance of late, this has typically been by just a few percent – nothing like the leap Morgan Stanley is suggesting. While Steve Jobs used to give extremely conservative guidance, seemingly enjoying blowing expectations out of the water, Tim Cook promised more accurate guidance under his leadership and has more-or-less been delivering on that.

It also wouldn’t be the first time the analysts have made big leaps on little data. We’re going to file this one in the skeptical pile.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: AAPL, AAPL Q1 2016, Apple financials, Morgan Stanley, Q1 2016

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With thousands of generic battery packs now on the market, it takes something special to make a new option stand out, and Nomad’s new Wallet for iPhone certainly succeeds. Shaped like a standard bifold wallet, the Wallet hides a 2,400mAh battery pack in its spine, as well as a 3″ Made for iPhone-certified Lightning cable.

Nomad notes that the goal was to produce a wallet that wasn’t any thicker than what “guys are already sitting on.” Made from Saffiano leather and measuring 4.7″ by 3.5″ by 0.75″ when closed, Wallet can hold six cards and a bunch of cash, in addition to providing at least a full recharge for pre-iPhone 6 models of the iPhone, and around 100% for the just-released iPhone 6s. Wallet for iPhone is available for preorder now for $79, and shipping on November 16; the price will go up to $99 for all orders placed after November 15. A gallery of images is below…

Filed under: General, iOS Devices Tagged: battery, charger, Lightning, Lightning Cable, made for iPhone, MFi, Nomad, Rechargeable battery, wallet

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Speaking in his first major interview since the formation of Alphabet, Google co-founder and now Alphabet CEO Larry Page said that both he and Steve Jobs had been right in their different approaches to running their respective companies.

Steve Jobs had argued that Google was doing too many things, and should adopt Apple’s focused approach of doing a few things really well. Page said both approaches worked.

He was right. He did fine as well […] We’re trying to make a company for entrepreneurs [we’re trying to] think creatively.

Page said that part of why the company has its fingers in so many pies is that each time Google hits a problem with an external supplier, they start wondering whether it has to be like that. He gave the example of a transformer that took a year to arrive.

Why does it take a year? Why does it have to be shipped on a train car and then a special truck? Is that really the resolution? It makes you wonder […] so ten years later, that might turn into a business.

More on the interview, and the full video, over at 9to5Google.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Google, Larry Page, Steve Jobs

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With Apple Pay, Google Wallet and other services transforming the way people carry out transactions, Apple has joined forces with four other companies to ensure that lawmakers don’t end up ‘inadvertently’ stifling innovation in the financial services field.

Technology industry leaders Amazon, Apple, Google, Intuit and PayPal today announced the formation of Financial Innovation Now, a coalition that will promote policies to help foster greater innovation in financial services.

While the new organization uses relatively diplomatic language, it’s pretty clear that the aim is to ensure that politicians don’t screw things up by introducing poorly thought-out legislation, like the infamous example proposed by Democratic Rep. Joshua Peters … 

Back in January, the Missouri lawmaker proposed a new law that would require shoppers to show photo ID whenever they used a mobile wallet service like Apple Pay, with clerks obliged to record the ID details before processing the transaction.

Brian Peters, Executive Director of Financial Innovation Now, says that the lobbying group wants to help lawmakers understand modern payment technologies.

Financial Innovation Now wants policymakers to understand how new technologies can help solve today’s policy challenges […]

The regulatory environment must allow these new innovations to enter and compete in the marketplace. We look forward to working with policymakers to promote the adoption of new services, many of which are already bringing significant benefits to consumers and small businesses today.

The group plans to lobby lawmakers to modernize the financial services system through better security and real-time payment processing.

Apple is continuing to expand Apple Pay, with an ever-growing list of new banks in the U.S. plus further international expansion. The company recently reported double-digit monthly growth.

Via Re/code

Filed under: Apple Pay Tagged: Apple pay, Financial Innovation Now, Financial Services, Google, Government, Law, Mobile wallet, payment, Paypal, policy

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The Financial Times reports that Activision Blizzard has agreed to acquire the company behind the popular Candy Crush Saga and Farm Hero games, King Digital Entertainment, for $5.9 billion in cash. King Digital’s games consist of a community of more than 340 million unique users. Activision, of course, is the company behind hit console games like the Call of Duty series.

King Digital closed with a $4.7 billion market capitalization on Monday, meaning Activision is paying a 26 percent premium to acquire the company. That’s less than, however, the price at which King Digital went public last year.

Activision’s motivation to purchase King Digital comes in that it is lagging dramatically in the mobile gaming market. In its second quarter earnings, the company reported that just 5 percent of its net revenue came from mobile gaming, with the rest coming from console gaming, online gaming, and PC gaming. The news of the acquisition comes on the eve of the company’s third quarter earnings report.

King Digital has been working recently to reduce its financial dependence on Candy Crush, but the app still accounts for more than one-third of its total revenues. The company saw the total spending on its titles fall 13 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2015.

The $5.9 billion sale is huge for a company that solely relies on digital games. In 2012, OMGPOP, the company behind the popular Draw Something app, was acquired by Facebook for $200 million, only to be shut down 16 months later. It’s also a mind-blowing amount considering Apple purchased Beats for a little over half of that price at $3 billion.

Filed under: Apps, Tech Industry Tagged: Activision, Apps, candy crush, Games, king digital

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When the new Apple TV launched last week, one notable omission in the tvOS App Store were Top Charts like we are used to seeing on iOS devices. The obvious reason for this omission seemed to be that Apple didn’t have enough data collected to populate top charts, but now that appears to have changed…

Users of the new Apple TV have noticed a new section in the device’s App Store that lists the Top Charts for tvOS applications. Just like on iOS, the Top Charts tab breaks down the Top Paid, Top Free, and Top Grossing applications.

As we noted this morning, the Top Paid charts are heavily dominated with games, a feature new to the fourth-generation Apple TV. The first place spot, however, is held by Simple X, a third-party Plex client that will likely slide down the charts as more people realized Plex has released an official client for the device. Games Galaxy On Fire, Does Not Commute, Lumino City, and Alto’s Adventure round out the top five paid tvOS apps.

The top free apps are dominated by media apps, as you would expect with a set-top box. Nat Geo TV comes in at the top, with Fox Now, Showtime, History, and CBS following. Finally, the Top Grossing charts are again dominated by games, although Simple X leads in this category as well.

As Mayo elaborated on this morning, tvOS apps are certainly on the pricier said when compared to iOS apps. It remains to be seen if this is a trend that will continue or if prices will gradually fall. Top Charts are rolling out slowly to fourth-gen Apple TV units.

Thanks Scott!

Filed under: Apple TV Tagged: App Store, Apple TV, Apps, TV, tvOS

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I first reviewed Leef’s USB to Lightning thumb drive last year when I compared a handful of similar products just hitting the market at the time. The products are essentially standard USB stick drives, but with the addition of a Lightning connector, you can now have the convenience of thumb drive storage on your iPhone or iPad. My favorite of the bunch was the Leef iBridge, and now the company has a new version that adds a microSD card slot…

It’s not necessarily a better version of the iBridge— Leef still sells that in 16GB ($59), 32GB ($79), 64GB ($119), 128GB ($199), 256GB ($399) capacities for those that want the built-in storage and a USB connector— but the addition of a microSD card slot on the new iAccess version will come in handy for a number of use cases.

For anyone with a device that takes a microSD card, like a GoPro-style camera or drone, the new version will make transferring files directly to an iPhone or iPad easier, bypassing the need to transfer over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or a cable. And you can also use it to transfer files from iOS device to iOS device. 

The iAccess doesn’t have a USB connector on the opposite side of the Lightning like the iBridge, so it’s essentially built for those that want a quick way to transfer from microSD to iOS device, or iOS to iOS device only, as described above. You could also transfer from a device that uses an SD card if you have a microSD to SD adapter, which Leef happens to sell separately, as do others. But if you want to transfer from a USB device– for example, to grab some files off a MacBook and transfer to iOS– than iBridge is still your best bet. 

It does keep the same J-shape design as the iBridge, however, allowing it to wrap around the iOS device and stay out of the way when connected. That’s one of the reasons, in addition to the product’s companion app (more on that below), that Leef’s iBridge was our favorite Lightning drive last year. 

And it utilizes the same slick companion iOS app that we noted made the Leef iBridge our top pick in our comparison of Lightning thumb drives last year. Apps for the handful of other products I tested last year just didn’t stack up. Leef’s app makes it easy to view, manage, and move files around within the app and to a connected device. It also builds in features for streaming content directly from iAccess to your iOS device and allows you to automatically have photos and video taken on your iOS device storage directly to the connected SD card. 

Here’s a look at the main features of the iPhone app:

It’s also cheaper than the iBridge version from last year, selling for $49.99. However, that is without the necessary SD card. Leef sells its own microSD card with SD card adapter starting at $17.99 for 16GB. But you can grab microSD cards and SD adapters on Amazon starting as low as $5.

There are somewhat cheaper competitors on the market, but Leef’s wraparound design and well designed companion app make it worth the slightly higher price tag.

Grab the Leef iAccess MicroSD Lightning drive for $49.99.

Filed under: iOS Tagged: Adapter, GoPro, iaccess, ibridge, iOS, iphone drive, leef, Lightning, MicroSD, SD Card, thumb drive

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The official Plex app for Apple TV is now available in the App Store. Plex is a media server for video, TV shows, music and photos. The app is fully featured, with quick access to search, playlists and more from the top bar. It also tracks your currently playing items so you can quickly pick up with a show or film from where you left off. The app incorporates channel streaming of content like TED, Revision3 and more as well as video queues from YouTube and Vimeo.

Although the app is free, be warned that the app will work only if you have a Plex Media Server setup either locally or on a remote network. Activating streaming for the tvOS app costs $5 via In-App Purchase, so it’s not really free.

The poster art looks great on Apple TV — the app features a nice 3D animation as focus changes from item to item. The detail view for media has been made to replicate the system view almost 1:1 so everything feels very native. Cast info and ratings mirror the iTunes Store layout too. Playlists are laid out cleanly as faux music albums, which is a nice way of displaying a usually bland list of shows.

Plex organizes all of your video, music, TV and photo collections, and streams them to all of your screens. With the free Plex Media Server on your home computer and Plex for Apple TV, you can watch and listen to all of your personal media on your Apple TV and share it with friends and family.

Download Plex by searching for it in the Apple TV App Store or downloading it from iTunes then searching Purchases on Apple TV. If you are looking for an unofficial client alternative, search for SimpleX in the App Store — it’s a good third-party Plex client priced at $2.99.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple TV, Apps, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple TV, Apps, Plex, plex media server, video streamer

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When Apple released iOS 9.1 last month, it closed an exploit that was used in the development of the most recent jailbreak software. As with every new iOS release, users were forced to choose whether they wanted to upgrade to the latest version of the operating system or stay on a slightly outdated version in order to preserve their jailbreak.

While that hasn’t changed today, a new bit of information from Zerodium has revealed that it is possible to jailbreak iOS 9.1—and the new iOS 9.2 beta—without even needing to plug it into a computer.

Our iOS #0day bounty has expired & we have one winning team who made a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b #jailbreak (untethered). Congrats!

—
  (@Zerodium) November 02, 2015

Browser-based jailbreaks have been a thing of the past for several years now, but Zerodium says it has awarded a $1 million bounty to one team of developers who managed to put together a new hack for modern iOS versions. Unfortunately, it’s not expected that users will ever benefit from this specific discovery. Zeroidum is in the business of buying exploits, not releasing jailbreaks, and after spending $1 million on this one, it’s not likely they’d release it to the public.

So while the developers who discovered this particular trick probably won’t be pushing out a 9.1 jailbreak anytime soon, users can at least rest assured that it is possible to create a JailbreakMe.com-style jailbreak for today’s software. Whether anyone will put this type of exploit to use is yet to be seen.

Filed under: iOS Tagged: iOS 9.1, ios 9.2, jailbreak, zerodium

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Apple and government officials have been publicly sparring over how to handle privacy and encryption for months, and new rules expected to be proposed in the UK on Wednesday might make Apple’s position much harder to maintain.

The issue boils down to Apple allowing iPhone users to encrypt data behind a password — encryption that Apple can’t break through — and government officials wanting access in instances where de-encrypting smartphones could help law enforcement and security efforts. Services like iMessage and FaceTime are also encrypted end-to-end.

Now The Telegraph reports that the Investigatory Powers Bill being introduced on Wednesday will likely require Apple and other companies to hold a key to encrypted smartphones and services, giving access to government agencies when a warrant is issued.

Should the bill become law, Apple would be forced to stop encrypting iPhones, iMessage, and FaceTime beyond its access. Apple has used its strong approach to encryption as a product feature worth marketing and strongly disagreed with government officials that say Apple has created a safe haven for criminal activity.

While measures within the bill haven’t been publicly revealed yet, The Telegraph says it will also require Internet companies to maintain user browsing data for one year. The bill is said to be a controversial one in terms of government reach and privacy implications, but one with the support of Prime Minister David Cameron.

Back in the US, the Department of Justice pushed forward by saying that Apple should be forced to grant access to iOS devices when asked by the government because the software running on iPhones is licensed, not sold.

DOJ and FBI officials have reportedly voiced frustration to the White House at Apple winning the encryption fight with little push back from higher-ups in the government, publicly saying last year that Apple’s stance would eventually stop law enforcement officials from preventing heinous crimes. Apple is among several voices that asked President Obama not to back measures that would force Apple to change its encryption policy like the ones being proposed in the UK this week.

Filed under: iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: david cameron, Encryption, FaceTime, iMessage, Investigatory Powers Bill, iPhone, UK

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