A sleek and intuitive game library app for casuals and pros
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we discuss the themes that run throughout our 2018 iOS and Mac must-have apps and what they mean for 2019.
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On the heels of the announcement that Samsung Smart TVs are gaining an iTunes Movie and TV Shows app and AirPlay 2 support, Apple has updated its AirPlay 2 page to highlight additional features that are coming to AirPlay 2.
AirPlay 2-Enabled TVs: Samsung may have been the first to announce support for AirPlay 2, but Apple’s webpage indicates that the feature is coming to ‘leading manufacturers,’ so expect more announcements at CES and beyond. In addition to using AirPlay 2 to send video from an iOS device or Mac to a compatible TV, consumers will be able to play music on their TVs and sync it with other AirPlay 2-compatible devices in their homes.
Control Your TV with Siri: Perhaps the most interesting feature is the ability to use Siri on your iPhone to send video to your TV. Because the new feature works in tandem with HomeKit, if you have multiple AirPlay 2 TVs, you’ll be able to specify the room in which you want the video to play.
Remote Control: Apple also indicates that remote control features are coming soon:
Convenient built-in controls appear in apps, on the Lock screen, and in Control Center. So you can easily play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and adjust the volume on your TV.
Controlling the volume of a TV via AirPlay 2 would be new, and perhaps there’s something coming related to Apple’s reference to “built-in controls… in apps,’ but playback controls on the Lock screen and in Control Center already exist.
Apple is clearly using the days leading up to CES to implement the first moves in its video strategy. Observers have long wondered how Apple planned to extend the reach of a video service beyond the relatively small number of Apple TV owners. By cutting deals with TV manufacturers, Apple is moving down a path that is similar to the one Google has taken with the Chromecast and will be able to reach many more consumers. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see these new AirPlay 2 features begin to appear when Apple ships its first iOS 12.2 betas.
In a first among TV manufacturers, Samsung has announced that its 2019 TVs will ship with an iTunes Movies and TV Shows app in over 100 countries as well as AirPlay 2 support in 190 countries. 2018 models will receive the same support via a firmware update.
With the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas just around the corner, Samsung’s US newsroom site issued a press release stating:
With the new iTunes Movies and TV Shows app on Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung customers can access their existing iTunes library and browse the iTunes Store to buy or rent from a selection of hundreds of thousands of movies and TV episodes — including the largest selection of 4K HDR movies. iTunes Movies and TV Shows will work seamlessly with Samsung’s Smart TV Services, such as Universal Guide, the New Bixby and Search, to create a consistent experience across Samsung’s platform.
With AirPlay 2 support, Samsung customers will be able to effortlessly play videos, photos, music, podcasts and more from Apple devices directly to Samsung Smart TVs, including QLED 4K and 8K TVs, The Frame and Serif lifestyle TVs, as well as other Samsung UHD and HD models.
The press release also reports Apple’s Eddy Cue as saying:
We look forward to bringing the iTunes and AirPlay 2 experience to even more customers around the world through Samsung Smart TVs, so iPhone, iPad and Mac users have yet another way to enjoy all their favorite content on the biggest screen in their home.
Apple’s partnership with Samsung, one of the largest global TV manufacturers, is particularly notable given Apple’s efforts to amass a stable of original content for a long-rumored video streaming service. By making existing and future content available directly within Samsung’s Smart TV system and providing a means for iOS device and Mac owners to easily play content on Samsung TVs, Apple greatly expands the potential viewership for the content it offers.
A new product launch wouldn’t be complete without some level of controversy, and for the 2018 iPad Pro models the kerfuffle has centered around bending. Some users have reported their devices being slightly bent out of the box, and Apple even confirmed to The Verge that this is the expected result of its manufacturing process. Today the company is adding to that explanation via a new support document on its website titled ‘iPad Pro unibody enclosure design.’
The document explains how every cellular iPad model undergoes a special manufacturing process called co-molding.
In this high-temperature process, plastic is injected into precisely milled channels in the aluminum enclosure where it bonds to micro-pores in the aluminum surface. After the plastic cools, the entire enclosure is finished with a precision CNC machining operation, yielding a seamless integration of plastic and aluminum into a single, strong enclosure.
Interestingly, this co-molding process isn’t used as an excuse for some iPads’ slight bends, but instead it’s presented as evidence of Apple pursuing even stricter flatness standards than ever before. The following paragraph states:
These precision manufacturing techniques and a rigorous inspection process ensure that these new iPad Pro models meet an even tighter specification for flatness than previous generations. This flatness specification allows for no more than 400 microns of deviation across the length of any side — less than the thickness of four sheets of paper. The new straight edges and the presence of the antenna splits may make subtle deviations in flatness more visible only from certain viewing angles that are imperceptible during normal use. These small variances do not affect the strength of the enclosure or the function of the product and will not change over time through normal use.
In other words, the latest iPad Pros are actually held to a stricter standard for flatness than previous iPads, but even the smallest variations may now be more visible than on previous models due to the new straight edges of the device.
The support document closes with reminders about existing Apple policies: that all products purchased from Apple include a 14-day return policy, and hardware defects outside Apple’s stated specifications are covered by a standard one-year warranty.
The iPad Pro’s bending controversy has reached nowhere near the level of attention as that of the iPhone 6 Plus a few years back, but it’s nice to finally receive official word from Apple on the subject. If your iPad is bent enough that it’s obvious and noticeable in daily use, there’s a decent chance the bend exceeds 400 microns, and thus would be covered under warranty. With slighter bends, however, it seems those are a cost we have to pay for enjoying the iPad Pro’s boxy, straight-edged new design.
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement regarding disappointing holiday iPhone sales, today Apple has better news to share: the App Store enjoyed a record breaking sales period recently, with over $1.22 billion in App Store spending taking place between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. This marks the biggest sales week ever for the App Store, and it was followed by the biggest single day ever: New Year’s Day 2019 brought $322 million in sales, up from last year’s then-record $300 million.
Apple’s press release provides more color on some apps and categories that were particularly successful:
Gaming and self-care were the most popular categories of app downloads and subscriptions during the holidays. Globally, multiplayer games including Fortnite and PUBG were among the top downloaded games over the holidays, along with Brawl Stars, Asphalt 9 and Monster Strike. Productivity, Health & Fitness and Education apps are already capturing the attention of customers in the first few days of the year with 1Password, Sweat and Luminosity charting in their respective categories.
$1.22 billion is a major increase from last year’s $890 million figure, and a remarkable number for one of Apple’s most profitable services. As Apple continues beating the drum that services are of growing importance to the company, news like this helps prove that claim’s validity.
In a letter to investors, Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated that the company has revised its financial guidance for the holiday fiscal quarter that ended on December 29th as follows:
- Revenue of approximately $84 billion
- Gross margin of approximately 38 percent
- Operating expenses of approximately $8.7 billion
- Other income/(expense) of approximately $550 million
- Tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent before discrete items
We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion.
Here’s the guidance that Apple gave November 1, 2018 when it reported its fourth quarter 2018 results:
- revenue between $89 billion and $93 billion
- gross margin between 38 percent and 38.5 percent
- operating expenses between $8.7 billion and $8.8 billion
- other income/(expense) of $300 million
- tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent before discrete items
That’s a miss of $5-9 billion in revenue. Cook’s letter is lengthy, but the lion’s share of the problem comes down to lower than expected iPhone revenue:
Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year.
While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
Although there have been rumors of lackluster iPhone sales for weeks based on supply chain leaks, a miss of this magnitude caused by falling iPhone revenue is still a big surprise, which is no doubt why Apple chose to address the issue before its next earnings report is released.
As we start a new year that could bring significant change to macOS, Glenn Fleishman, writing for Macworld, spoke to the creators of four Mac apps – BBEdit, PCalc, Fetch, and GraphicConverter – that have been around for at least 25 years and weathered a variety of past macOS and hardware transitions.
Rich Siegel of Bare Bones Software, which can trace BBEdit’s lineage back to 1989 when the app was built for System 7, told Macworld that over the years:
We’ve extensively rewritten, upgraded, and optimized [BBEdit’s] internal architecture.… Even though it has evolved a great deal, BBEdit has stayed very close to its fundamental mission: empowering its users to accomplish tasks which would challenge or defeat other tools.
Not long after BBEdit came on the scene, James Thomson released the first version of PCalc on the Mac, which was also built for System 7. For Thomson, PCalc’s evolving UI has kept working on the app fresh:
My passion since I first discovered the Mac nearly 30 years ago has always been making interesting and fun user interfaces. And look forward to keep doing it for a long time to come.
Fleishman also spoke to Jim Matthews, for whom FTP client Fetch has gone from full-time job to side project over the years, and Thorsten Lemke, whose GraphicConverter app has evolved from converting a handful of image formats to over 200.
Twenty-five or more years on one app is a remarkable accomplishment. The story of each app is different, but their developers share a common commitment to maintaining their apps for their customers notwithstanding the changes to the Mac and its OS over the years. Later this year, we should hear more about Apple’s plans to help iOS developers bring their apps to the Mac App Store. Whatever impact those changes end up having on the Mac app ecosystem, I hope the sort of developer dedication that has kept BBEdit, PCalc, Fetch, and GraphicConverter around for over a quarter century perseveres.
Hosted by Tinderbox maker Eastgate, WinterFest 2018 is an amazing collection of carefully-crafted productivity apps and books available for a limited time for 20-25% off.
The 17 apps and books span the entire spectrum of the research and writing process. There are apps to plan your next big project, track your time, discover research materials, organize your research, add and tag images to your project, write, and more.
Each app is hand-crafted by some of the best Mac developers around. WinterFest includes:
Saving hundreds of dollars on these fine tools couldn’t be simpler. Visit the WinterFest website to learn more about each and purchase Eastgate’s Tinderbox and Storyspace. For everything else, just use the coupon code WINTERFEST2018 at checkout to take advantage of these fantastic deals.
Our thanks to WinterFest 2018 for sponsoring MacStories this week.
