Apple Q4 2020 Results - $64.7 Billion Revenue

By John Voorhees

Apple has just published its financial results for Q4 2020. The company posted revenue of $64.7 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:

“Apple capped off a fiscal year defined by innovation in the face of adversity with a September quarter record, led by all-time records for Mac and Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Despite the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, Apple is in the midst of our most prolific product introduction period ever, and the early response to all our new products, led by our first 5G-enabled iPhone lineup, has been tremendously positive. From remote learning to the home office, Apple products have been a window to the world for users as the pandemic continues, and our teams have met the needs of this moment with creativity, passion, and the kinds of big ideas that only Apple can deliver.”

Estimates and Expectations for Q4 2020

Due to the uncertainty caused by the global pandemic, Apple did not provide financial guidance for Q4 2020 during its last earnings call.

Going into today’s call, though, Yahoo Finance said that:

AAPL is expected to report adjusted earnings of $0.71, down from $0.76 in the prior-year quarter, according to third-party consensus analyst estimates. Revenue is projected at $64.1 billion, roughly flat versus a year ago.

Graphical Visualization

After the break, we’ve compiled a graphical visualization of Apple’s Q4 2020 financial results.

Clips 3.0 Brings New Video Aspect Ratios and an Upgraded iPad Experience

By Ryan Christoffel

Clips is finally growing up.

Since its debut in 2017, Clips has offered a variety of fun, easy to use tools for making or editing videos, but it has always been hamstrung by one severe limitation: you could only create videos with a square aspect ratio. I’ve always found Clips far more accessible than other video creation apps, such as Apple’s iMovie, because it was designed from the ground up for mobile. The inability to create standard widescreen videos, however, or even portrait videos for Instagram stories, was a dealbreaker. As a result, my use of Clips has only been intermittent; despite liking the app a lot, I’ve only ever created two legitimate projects with it.

My use is sure to increase now. With today’s 3.0 update for Clips, Apple is finally eliminating the app’s requirement for square video while simultaneously making its iPad experience far better than before. Clips 3 is what the original app should have been, and it might just mean Apple finally has the ingredients for a hit.

AppStories, Episode 191 – New Apps Enabled by Apple Hardware and OS Advances

By John Voorhees

This week on AppStories, we explore the third-party apps enabled by Apple’s latest hardware and developer frameworks.

Microsoft Is Rolling Out iPad Pointer Support to Its Office Suite →

Linked By John Voorhees

Microsoft’s suite of productivity apps, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are being updated on a rolling basis over the next couple of weeks to add pointer support to the iPad versions of the apps. According to a Microsoft blog post, the update will:

give iPad users using a mouse or Apple’s new Magic Keyboard easy cursor control, fluid navigation, and precise adjustments. When moving a finger across the built-in trackpad of Magic Keyboard, the cursor transforms into the tool you need depending on the content you’re pointing to.

Microsoft is also updating the start screens and ribbon of each of its apps and mentioned that it has further updates planned in the upcoming months, including contextual menus and offline support for documents stored in the cloud.

I don’t have the new features announced yet, but I’m glad to see Microsoft adopting iPad pointer support. Especially with apps like Excel, the ability to use a precise pointer is useful when selecting cells in a large spreadsheet.

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MacStories Unwind: The All-New iPad Air, Halide Mark II, Reeder 5, and Creative Pro Apps

By John Voorhees

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Sponsored by: SaneBox – Organize Your Inbox (and Never Waste Time on Email Again) With SaneBox

This week on MacStories Unwind:

MacStories

Club MacStories

MacStories Weekly
- MacStories Favorite: Keep
- A collection of technologies that will shape the future of Apple’s products
- Ryan’s system for setting up a new iPhone
- Lots of new and updated apps and more

AppStories

Unwind

Federico’s Pick:
- You’re Worth It, EP by Hodera
John’s Pick:
- Serpentine Prison, Matt Berninger

Porsche Adds Apple Podcasts and Apple Music Time-Synced Lyrics Support to Its Taycan EV

By John Voorhees

Source: Porsche

Last year, we reported Porsche’s partnership with Apple to directly support Apple Music as part of its Taycan entertainment system. Yesterday, Porsche announced that it’s expanding the relationship to include the Apple Podcasts app and expanded Apple Music support.

According to a press release from Porsche:

From the touchscreen display of the Porsche Advanced Cockpit, drivers can stream over 1.5 million shows from Apple Podcasts, the world’s leading podcast platform. This is the first-ever full integration of Apple Podcasts in any vehicle, and it includes the entire catalog-of-record with programming in 100 languages plus Top Charts for shows and episodes.

Porsche also revealed that its Apple Music integration would add support for Time-Synced Lyrics on the Taycan’s passenger-side display. The new features are already available for new Taycan owners. However, existing customers will have to wait until January for the new functionality.

Although the features announced by Porsche are limited to just one vehicle made by one manufacturer, it’s good to see because if it’s successful, Porsche’s early adoption will likely lead to other carmakers jumping on board.

Adobe MAX Kicks Off with Illustrator for iPad, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Fresco Updates for iPad, Plus the Addition of Fresco for iPhone

By John Voorhees

Illustrations: Adobe.

Today marks the start of Adobe MAX, Adobe’s annual conference for creative professionals. Every year, MAX is jam-packed with announcements about Adobe’s many products.

If you’ve been following along the past few years, the rise of the company’s mobile apps has been an unmistakable trend at MAX. Adobe has made apps for the iPhone and iPad for years, but with the launch of Photoshop for iPad in late 2019, it became clear that the company intends to play as big a role on the iPhone and iPad as it has for decades on the Mac. Instead of building companion apps for its powerful desktop apps, Adobe seems intent on building apps that let creative professionals move seamlessly from the desktop to the iPad and iPhone and back again.

Given the complexity of Adobe’s desktop apps, building something comparable on the iPad or iPhone is a tall order that takes time. Photoshop for iPad didn’t start out with nearly all the features users rely on when they use the desktop version, but with a monthly release cycle, Adobe has chipped away at the pain points, bringing the two apps closer together over time. The same goes for apps like Lightroom, which photographers rely on for editing images they take. The iPad versions of Adobe’s apps haven’t reached feature parity with the desktop, but the gap is closing, enabling users to work in new ways and in a wider variety of contexts.

This year the announcements at MAX are no different. I’ve tried all of the apps discussed below that Adobe is releasing or updating for the iPad and iPhone this year to one degree or another, including spending the past few weeks using the beta version of Adobe’s latest pro iPad app, Illustrator. My artistic skills don’t do Illustrator justice, but from what I’ve seen from my testing the past few weeks and demos by Adobe, Illustrator is a remarkably powerful vector drawing app that takes a truly innovative approach to the app that should still be familiar to desktop users, but is designed first and foremost around touch interactions. Adobe has also released Fresco for the iPhone and some substantial new features to both Photoshop and Lightroom.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming for the iPad and iPhone at Adobe MAX.

Illustrator for iPad

Illustrator on the iPad is Adobe’s popular desktop vector drawing app reimagined for the iPad and Apple Pencil. The app integrates with Adobe’s Creative Cloud service, allowing users to do their work from any device.

Adobe has created a context-aware interaction model that, coupled with the same touch shortcut UI first seen in Photoshop for iPad with the Apple Pencil, provides a rich and flexible set of tools for illustrators. The breadth and depth of tools and options Adobe offers comes with an initial learning curve. However, Adobe has wisely provided a set of tutorials and ways to learn from others that make it easy to learn the basics, so you can start experimenting on your own.

Apple Debuts New Music Video Streaming Service Called Apple Music TV

By John Voorhees

This morning Apple debuted a new video streaming service dedicated to music called Apple Music TV. According to an announcement sent by Apple to Variety, the free service will stream:

exclusive new music videos and premiers, special curated music video blocks, and live shows and events as well as chart countdowns and guests.

The service, which is available through Apple’s Music and TV apps, is currently US-only.

To kick things off, Apple Music TV is streaming the top 100 videos streamed on Apple Music. According to Variety, the service plans to debut new videos every Friday:

It will also have two exclusive video premieres on Friday at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT, Joji’s “777” and Saint Jhn’s “Gorgeous”; the channel will premiere new videos every Friday at that time.

Apple also told Variety that there will be an all-day Bruce Springsteen takeover of the service on October 22nd to celebrate the release of Springsteen’s latest album, which will includes videos and an interview with Apple Music 1 DJ Zane Lowe.

Variety says there is no word from Apple about whether the service will include documentaries like the recently-announced film by Billie Eilish, which is coming early next year.

Music videos have long felt like an afterthought to Apple. As Federico asked in his iOS and iPadOS 14 review:

The question remains though: is there more Apple could do to surface Apple Music’s catalog of non-music material, such as radio stations, interviews, and music videos?

With so much music video content available, it’s terrific to see Apple giving it a dedicated place inside both the Music and TV apps.