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Apple Q3 2013 Results: $35.3 Billion Revenue, 31.2 Million iPhones, 14.6 Million iPads Sold

Apple has published their Q3 2013 financial results for the quarter that ended on June 29, 2013. The company posted revenue of $35.3 billion. The company sold 14.6 million iPads, 31.2 million iPhones, and 3.8 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $6.9 billion.

We are especially proud of our record June quarter iPhone sales of over 31 million and the strong growth in revenue from iTunes, Software and Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.

The company generated $7.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter. Read more

Indiegogo: Canary is Your Connected Home Security Camera

Home security systems have a reputation for being a hassle to install, difficult to use, and expensive to boot. Instead of entrusting a company to monitor you home for a monthly fee, what if you could monitor your home yourself?

Canary is personal monitoring device with a focus on home security. Not dissimilar from a modern baby monitor, Canary uses its widescreen HD camera and microphone to keep an eye on your home. Combined with night vision, motion detection, and smartphone alerts, Canary quickly becomes an inexpensive tool for apartment dwellers or renters. The monitoring device also includes some sensors for monitoring temperature, air quality, and humidity, which could be useful for determining whether a fire has broke out in your home.

What makes Canary unique is how it informs you of changes in your homes environment. Notifications will inform you of movement in your home, letting you then sound an alarm and call 911. It can also send notifications for sudden changes, like if hears audio when nobody is normally home or if the temperature suddenly drops. Kind of like the Nest, Canary is supposed to build a profile that knows when you’re home and when you’re not, and can use the iPhone’s geofencing features to automatically enable and disable Canary as you leave and enter your home.

I think the main thing that people like about security systems is that they feel like they’re a deterrent. Doors beep when people enter and leave the home and the house alarm will sound if a someone intrudes while you’re away, hopefully letting the neighbors know something isn’t right. There’s also all sorts of sensors that can detect when a window is broken for example. For people who want full home security, Canary won’t offer that kind of stuff. You can, however, connect multiple Canary monitors together if you want more coverage. The current suggestion is to put Canary in a place that covers the most entrances or where multiple places converge. For people who don’t have the option of installing a traditional alarm in their condos or apartments, I think Canary covers all the right bases in a compact device. You simply buy the device and there are no subscription fees to use the app and its monitoring service. For people who want more, Canary will offer that down the road.

Canary does away with keypads and codes, turning a smart camera and a plethora of sensors into an IFTTT like service that engages when you go to work or head out to take care of errands. It’s available to pre-order for $199 in white or $249 in black or silver. The campaign has already raised $146,284 in contributions, already ahead of the $100,000 goal. Learn more and contribute here.

 

QuickRadar for Apple Radar

Since iOS 7’s release, I have been submitting entries to Apple’s Radar, the company’s bug tracking system. The problem with Radar is that, for some reason, it comes with an outdated and slow interface that’s prone to errors and random logouts, making the process of filing radars tedious and unpleasant. A number of apps to “fix” Radar have surfaced over the years, but lately I’ve been trying an enjoying QuickRadar. I remembered it deserved a mention here thanks to Clark’s link two days ago.

QuickRadar is a menubar app for the Mac that signs you into Apple’s Radar and that can be activated with a keyboard shortcut. Instead of redirecting you to Radar’s web UI, it lets you write your bug report in a window on your Mac, and when you click “Submit” it’ll take care of uploading the report for you without launching the website. The app can also file duplicates, handle rdar:// URLs to launch them in OpenRadar or filing them as duplicates, and it comes with sharing options for WordPress and App.net if you want to share your radar’s number with the world. Like Tokens (another app made out of frustration with an Apple-made web UI), QuickRadar uses web scraping to communicate with Apple’s bug reporter.

QuickRadar is still in the alpha stages and has some rough edges. For instance, it doesn’t support file uploads for attachments, although the developer says they’re on the roadmap. Version 0.7 was released earlier this week with improved Preferences and support for Mountain Lion’s Notification Center.

You can download QuickRadar here.

VLC for iOS Returns To The App Store

After a two-year absence, popular video player VLC is returning to the App Store with a new app for the iPhone and iPad. The new VLC for iOS will be available later today (it will start propagating at midnight in the various international App Stores) as a free download.

I’ve been able to test the new VLC for iOS for the past few weeks, and, in terms of visual appearances, the app isn’t too dissimilar from the old version that was available on the App Store in 2010. A main screen lists all your media with thumbnail previews, and you can tap on an item to start playback in a full-screen media player. However, in spite of a UI reminiscent of the old version, VLC has been completely rewritten to use modern audio and video output modules, multi-core decoding, and support for any file type supported by VLC on the desktop. In my tests, the app was able to quickly start playing any video file that I threw at it, such as .mp4 and .mkv files. Read more

Google Maps for iPad Now Available

With a 2.0 update released today on the App Store, Google has brought Google Maps to the iPad, adding the enhancements and new features that the company announced last week.

Google Maps, first released in December 2012 following Apple’s apology for issues with their own iOS 6 Maps service, can now take advantage of improved navigation with accident information and live traffic reports whenever available; using Zagat and Offers, Google Maps can now recommend the best places around you with reviews and exclusive deals; for selected areas, Google Maps features indoor mapping for malls, train stations, and airports.

Results for businesses are displayed on a grid that shows inline photo previews, distance from your current location, and total amount of available reviews; tapping on a result brings up a dedicated page with buttons to save, share (via Message, Mail, or Clipboard), get directions, see Street View, and view photos.

The app now puts more focus on discovering places to “eat, drink, sleep, and shop” with a new card-based layout that aims at simplifying the process of finding nearby businesses. As we expected, Maps for iPad follows Google’s relaunched web app and client for Android tablets in the way it displays large, full-screen map views with search boxes and “cards” on the left side of the screen to find places, see suggestions, and preview directions. A list button in the top left corner of the app allows you to view Traffic and Public Transit information (if available for your area); directions are displayed in a floating card with alternate routes stacked directly below it. Overall, the iPad app is consistent with the design language and animations of the iPhone app and redesigned web experience.

It’s also possible to cache a portion of a map for offline usage (what Google calls “pre-loading”). Simply zoom into an area, and search for “OK Maps” to activate the command that will tell the app to save a cache of the currently displayed area. In my tests, this indeed enabled me to load cached areas with no Internet connection available – without, however, being able to use search or anything else. Also, if you try to save larger areas with the “OK Maps” command, Google will warn you that the map is too large for pre-loading.

Google Maps 2.0 is available on the App Store.

Apple Launches Logic Pro X with Logic Remote iPad Companion App

Apple today launched Logic Pro X, a major new version of Logic Pro that includes hundreds of new features, new instruments and effects, and a free iPad companion app called Logic Remote that takes advantage of multi-touch to integrate with Logic Pro X.

The standout features of Logic Pro X are Drummer (a virtual session player that automatically plays along a song in a variety of styles), Flex Pitch (an editor for individual notes in a waveform to fix out-of-tune vocals or recorded audio), Track Stacks (organize multiple tracks into one), Smart Controls, and Arpeggiator.

Apple is detailing the new functionalities in a press release and will launch later today a webpage for Logic Pro X.

Logic Pro X provides a collection of new creative tools for songwriting and music production. Drummer delivers professionally produced, realistic drum tracks that respond to your direction and can perform millions of unique grooves in rock, alternative, songwriter and R&B genres. Drummer is powered by the performances and sounds of some of the industry’s top session players and recording engineers, including legendary mixer/producer Bob Clearmountain, who has worked with the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie. Designed to work with Drummer, the new Drum Kit Designer plug-in lets you build your own custom kit using a diverse collection of professionally recorded snare drums, toms, hi-hats and cymbals that you can mix, match and fine tune to get the right drum sound for your song.

Logic Remote, available for free on the App Store, allows users to record, mix, and even play Logic’s instruments directly on the iPad using multi-touch. Compatible with the iPad 2, iPad mini and later and requiring iOS 6 and Logic Pro X, Logic Remote can navigate inside Logic projects, control recordings remotely, act as a second screen for the Logic’s documentation (Smart Help) on the Mac, and also remotely trigger Logic Pro X key commands with customizable buttons. Users can mix Logic sessions from the iPad, or play instruments such as a piano keyboard, guitar fretboard, drum pads and drum kit, adding the Arpeggiator plugin to any instrument.

Logic Pro X is now available on the Mac App Store for $199.99. Logic Remote is free on the App Store, and Apple has also released MainStage 3, a live performance companion app for Logic Pro X, on the Mac App Store for $29.99.

Google Announces Google Maps App Coming to iPad “Soon”

In a a blog post published today to detail the new features of Google Maps for Android devices, Google has announced that the app will also be released for iPad “soon”. Following the removal of the native, Google-based Maps app in iOS 6 (replaced with a new Maps app using Apple data), Google released a native iPhone app last December.

In describing the tablet version of Maps for Android, Google says that the larger screen makes “exploring the world from the comfort of your living room much more fluid, smooth and fun”. Based on the Android screenshot shown on Google’s blog, it appears the Maps app for iPad may be somewhat influenced by the new Google Maps for the web with fullscreen map views and floating cards for menus and discovery.

The updated Google Maps app will focus on exploration to browse and discover new places through a new cards interface that shows “great places to eat, drink, sleep and shop”. Alongside improvements to navigation and reporting of traffic conditions, Google will also bring Zagat and Offers integration, retire Latitude and My Maps, and release new location sharing and check-in options for Google+ (coming soon to iOS). According to Google, the My Maps functionality will return to future versions of the app.

You can read Google’s blog post (with screenshots of the new Google Maps app for Android) here.

Sponsor: Smile

Our thanks goes out to Smile for sponsoring MacStories with TextExpander.

TextExpander takes the pain out of typing the same mundane things over and over again. If you work in customer support, respond to inquiries, work with various signatures, or find yourself typing the same boilerplate text, TextExpander saves you time. On the Mac, TextExpander lets you create short phrases and keywords that can expand into dates, addresses, and paragraphs of text with just a few keystrokes. You can even create pre-formatted forms that let you add in things like a person’s name. For those who want to take TextExpander to the next level, TextExpander even lets you perform custom actions on text that you might regularly copy and paste from somewhere else, like a technical support guide. If you work with words, TextExpander will prove to be an invaluable tool for your Mac.

TextExpander touch 2.0 on iOS devices now comes with the same great features that are found on the Mac, such as formatted text and fill-ins. If you’re working on the go, it’s a great way to get the same benefits from of the desktop onto your iPhone or iPad.

Try TextExpander for your Mac today by downloading a free trial. If you like it, be sure to try TextExpander touch, which can be downloaded  from the App Store.

Learn more about the benefits of TextExpander here.