Apple is leading the headlines this morning, but not because it just had its most profitable quarter ever. Why isn’t Tim Cook dancing on the ceiling? Why does Tim Cook look and sound so glum? Why is Sony making another Smurfs movie? Some things just don’t make sense – there’s no explaining the Smurfs – but the reason Apple is down and out is because the company’s sales didn’t grow as fast as expected, and that makes Wall Street sad.
In a call with analysts, Cook disclosed that Apple sold 74.8 Million iPhones in the fiscal first quarter. That’s actually a record, but it fell short of projections, and falling short of projections makes investors nervous. What’s worse, though, is the outlook for next quarter, which Tim Cook says is “bleak” due in part to a strong US dollar and the fact that China’s economy, though currently strong, is taking a downturn. So, forecasts for next quarter actually paint a decline in sales and revenue for Apple, which hasn’t happened in over 10 years.
If record-breaking profits, billions in the bank, and over 1 Billion active devices in the world isn’t enough to keep your spirits up, then, well, we suppose that’s capitalism. Welcome to it, and good luck, Apple, though something tells us you’re gonna be just fine.
Do you think it’s ridiculous that you have to pay a rental fee for a crappy cable box from your cable company? Yeah? Well so does the Federal Communications Commission.
That’s why the FCC will soon introduce an initiative that gives third parties an in on the whole set-top box game. Third parties like Apple, for instance. This initiative would essentially force cable and satellite providers to allow third-party set-top boxes to work with their services.
That means Apple could refashion the Apple TV to work with your cable service, and completely transform the TV watching experience, something it has been trying and failing to do for some time now. This way, you wouldn’t rent your cable box, you would own it, and you could pick it based on how much you liked the user interface, the apps it had, and how much you enjoy the remote control.
Naturally, there’s a consortium organized to battle this initiative, and would you believe Hollywood is actually involved? It seems content creators and content providers make strange bedfellows, indeed. This is a story to watch, so keep an eye out here at DigitalTrends.com for developments.
Finally, Brace yourselves, folks, because the Facebook like button – the one thing you can count on Facebook never to change – is totally getting changed.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the Like button is getting replaced by something that will be called “reactions.” It’s going to be here before you know it, and it’s going to expand your responses from one like to a range of six emotions, including Angry, Sad, Wow, HAHA, Yay, and Love. Don’t worry, though, the Like button isn’t going away, think of these reactions as sort of an enhancement of the like button.
The reactions will be represented by animated emojis when you select them; for instance, the angry emoji’s face will turn red and look down angrily. It’s not a dislike button, which Facebook was apparently concerned would generate too much negativity, but it does let you express discontent without going completely negative. Likewise, you can laugh at something without just generically liking it or going so far as to love it.
It’s more clicks in Facebook, and in this age, more clicks equals more engagement, and engagement leads to revenue, which makes Zuckerberg even more outrageously rich than he already is.
