Apple Highlights U.S. Job Creation on Website→

Apple has updated its website with a page focusing on U.S. job creation. Perhaps the most significant number listed is the claim that Apple has created over 2,000,000 U.S. jobs when counting its corporate employees, suppliers, and work supported by the App Store ecosystem.

Much of the information given on the site is extremely detailed, such as the state-by-state breakdown that includes the following data for each of the 50 states:

  • How many Apple employees work there;
  • How many App Store-related jobs are funded there (as seen in the image above);
  • The number of retail stores there;
  • The number of suppliers based there; and
  • A highlighting of App Store apps that were created there.

The data is fascinating and extensive, and worth checking out. Some of the interesting tidbits I learned about my home state of Texas are that it contains the second largest base of Apple corporate employees in the world, and that the indie game Reigns was developed here.

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Email Service Newton Launches Amazon Alexa Support→

Newton, the email client for power users, today launched Amazon Echo integration with an Alexa skill. The skill enables email management with nothing but your voice; in addition to having Alexa read emails to you, you can perform the following list of actions by voice:

  • Snooze
  • Mark as read
  • Delete
  • Archive
  • Mark as spam

Replying to or composing new emails is not possible with Alexa, but personally, I don’t think I would trust a voice assistant to write my emails anyways – at least not until the technology grows more foolproof. The option to perform simple actions by voice, like archiving or snoozing messages, is much more appealing.

Newton’s expansion to Alexa-equipped devices follows the introduction of a Windows version of the client in beta form earlier this week. As a daily Newton user, I wrote about the iOS and macOS versions last Friday for Club MacStories members, and look forward to seeing the service continue to grow and improve.

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iTunes Connect’s App Analytics Adds Source and Referrer Data

Two years ago, Apple rolled out App Analytics on its iTunes Connect developer portal. Originally announced at WWDC in 2014, App Analytics gave developers a better understanding of how and when their apps were used, how many views their app’s page on the App Store received, and more. However, the original version of App Analytics did not report how customers got to the App Store.

Yesterday Apple announced an expansion to App Analytics that adds source and referral data. According to Apple’s developer news website:

App Analytics in iTunes Connect now provides insight on where customers discover your app, including App Store browsing and search, within other apps, or on the web. With key metrics based on source types, you can see your top referring apps and websites, making it easier to optimize your marketing campaigns.

Apple’s App Analytics page elaborates:

With App Analytics, you can see how many users discover your app while searching or browsing the App Store — including tapping on Search Ads for your app — to gain insight into how your marketing and metadata impact downloads.

App Analytics counts users who visit your app’s product page from a link within another app.

Blogs, websites, and other online sources that link to your app’s product page, are critical in driving user acquisition through word-of-mouth marketing and PR. With App Analytics, you can see which organic marketing channels drive the highest traffic, downloads, usage, and revenue for your app.

There is a lot of interesting new data for developers to digest in App Analytics that should help them market their apps more effectively. I particularly appreciate the ability to drill down into any source of App Store traffic to see how it has performed over time and from which countries those customers are coming.

Fast Time Zone Conversions with Zones

I find myself dealing with time zone conversions more often these days. The MacStories team has grown and we’re all in different time zones; with AppStories, we’ve begun interviewing guests, and it can be tricky to coordinate times that work for everyone. While I’ve mostly learned to perform time zone calculations in my head, it can still be difficult when I’m dealing with cities I don’t know, or when countries change to DST in different periods of the year. I still appreciate a good utility that converts time zones for me.

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Apple Watch Support Removed from Major Apps→

Neil Hughes of AppleInsider reports that major apps like Google Maps, Amazon, and eBay have all quietly removed support for the Apple Watch.

Google released a comment on the story stating their intention to reinstate Watch support in the future.

While apps like Amazon and eBay may not be well-suited for the Apple Watch to begin with, the bigger story here is how long it took for anyone to notice that the Watch apps were removed. Hughes writes:

The fact that these high-profile removals have gone largely unnoticed could be a sign that the apps simply were not widely used. In contrast, removing iPad support from an iOS app, for example, would likely be noticed immediately and generate headlines.

The Apple Watch has proven to be a challenging platform for developers to find success on. Initially that could be attributed to slow hardware and limited developer tools, but Apple has made significant improvements with watchOS 3 and its 2nd-generation hardware. Perhaps part of the challenge is that not every app belongs on the Apple Watch, and for the ones that do, the implementation has to be just right.

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Dispelling the Apple Services Myth

Apple is known for its quality hardware and software, but services are another story.

Cloud-based services are the future – there’s no denying that. And Apple historically has struggled with its cloud offerings. From MobileMe, to the early growing pains of iCloud, to the Apple Maps fiasco, the company gained a poor reputation in the area of services.

Only in the last two years has Apple publicly touted services as a core part of its business. Company press releases as recent as May 2015 ended with the following self-definition:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

There’s a lot that feels outdated here, including the fact that both Mac and iPod are highlighted before the iPhone. But one major way this paragraph fails to describe the Apple of today is that the word ‘services’ is nowhere to be found.

Amid a variety of other changes, Apple’s current self-definition includes the following:

Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud.

Services are a key component of modern Apple. The way the company defines itself, along with the numerous services shoutouts in quarterly earnings calls, prove that.

Despite Apple’s increased focus on services, the common narrative that the company “can’t do services” still hangs around – in online tech circles at least.

But is that narrative still true, or has it grown outdated?

I want to share how I use Apple services in my everyday life across three important contexts of life:

  • As I work,
  • On the go, and
  • Around the house.

My aim is not to perform an in-depth comparison of Apple’s cloud offerings and competing products. Though competitors and their features will come up occasionally, the focus here is on my experiences in everyday living – my experiences, not yours. I understand that just because something does or doesn’t work for me, the same isn’t necessarily true for you. The point of this piece is not to try proving anything; instead, I simply want to assess and share my current experiences with Apple’s services.

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Apple Q2 2017 Results: $52.9 Billion Revenue, 50.8 Million iPhones, 8.9 Million iPads Sold

Apple has just published its financial results for Q2 2017, which covered the period from January 1, 2017 through to April 1, 2017. The company posted revenue of $52.9 billion with a quarterly net profit of $11 billion. Apple sold 8.9 million iPads, 50.8 million iPhones, and 4.2 million Macs during the quarter.

“We are proud to report a strong March quarter, with revenue growth accelerating from the December quarter and continued robust demand for iPhone 7 Plus,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve seen great customer response to both models of the new iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition and we’re thrilled with the strong momentum of our Services business, with our highest revenue ever for a 13-week quarter. Looking ahead, we are excited to welcome attendees from around the world to our annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month in San Jose.”

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AppStories, Episode 3: App Camp for Girls with Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we invited Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten, co-founders of App Camp for Girls, to talk about their organization and the goals of the program. App Camp for Girls, now at its fifth year, helps middle-school age girls get started with app development, and, for the first time, there will be a Camp in Chicago later this year.

Sponsored by:

  • Working Copy – a powerful Git client for iOS.
  • Narwhal – fast, gesture-based Reddit browsing.

You can listen to the episode below.

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