MacRumors

Apple recently snatched a top engineer from Netflix as Apple works to build out a technical team to support Apple TV+ and the company's other services, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The new hire, Ruslan Meshenberg, helped build Netflix's platform and participated in key initiatives to create a faster and more consistent service for viewers. He ran the infrastructure guaranteeing Netflix shows and movies played reliably.

Meshenberg has joined Apple's internet-services organization just this week, with his LinkedIn profile listing him as an Engineering Leader.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Meshenberg is joining Apple at a time when Apple is shifting its approach to cloud services, relying more often on third-party providers to save money.

Michael Abbott, a former Twitter engineer, has been responsible for Apple's internet-services operations and he has been adding engineers to Apple's technical team. Apple has not run into any particular major issues with ‌Apple TV‌+ or its other new services, but hires like Meshenberg will ensure that things continue to run smoothly as Apple scales up with new customers and new content offerings.

Apple plans to release an iPhone with a Touch ID power button on the side of the device in the first half of 2021, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

In a research note with TF International Securities, obtained by MacRumors, Kuo has now revealed that the iPhone will feature an LCD display, further suggesting that it will be a lower-cost model. Last month, Kuo claimed the device will lack Face ID, allowing it to have a nearly edge-to-edge design with a smaller notch.

Kuo said the fingerprint solution will be capacitive and sport a "new design" for an improved user experience, but he did not elaborate.

Last month, Kuo claimed that the so-called "iPhone SE 2 Plus" will feature a 5.5-inch or 6.1-inch display, suggesting that its size will fall somewhere between the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone 11. The device could complement higher-end iPhones with both Face ID and under-display Touch ID in Apple's 2021 lineup.

Apple plans to release several new products in the first half of 2020, including Ultra Wideband tags, high-end wireless headphones, a 4.7-inch iPhone, refreshed iPad Pro models, and refreshed MacBook Pro and/or MacBook Air models, according to the latest forecast from well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

"We forecast that Apple's major new hardware products in 1H20 include the 4.7-inch LCD iPhone, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro/Air, smaller wireless charging mat, UWB tag, and a high-end Bluetooth headphone," wrote Kuo in a research note with TF International Securities, a copy of which was seen by MacRumors.

Our insight on these products:

• 4.7-inch iPhone: Apple is widely rumored to be planning to release a new low-cost iPhone with a similar design as the iPhone 8, including a 4.7-inch LCD display and a Touch ID home button, but with a faster A13 chip and 3GB of RAM. The device is expected to launch by the end of March, with pricing predicted to start at around $399 in the United States.
• iPad Pro refresh: New models with a triple-lens rear camera system that supports 3D sensing for augmented reality are expected to be unveiled as early as March.
• MacBook Pro/Air refresh: It is unclear if Kuo is referring to the possibility of either a new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air or both, but previous rumors suggest that a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a scissor switch-based Magic Keyboard will launch in the first half of 2020, following in the footsteps of the 16-inch MacBook Pro last October. Apple last refreshed the MacBook Air in July 2019 with a True Tone display and a lower $1,099 starting price.
• Ultra Wideband tags: Last year, MacRumors uncovered evidence of Apple working on Tile-like item tracking tags in iOS 13 code, including a potential "AirTags" name. As with iPhone 11 models, Kuo believes the tags will support Ultra Wideband, which would likely make it possible to locate the tags with much greater accuracy than Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi.
• High-end headphones: Kuo did not provide any details about these headphones beyond claiming that they will support Bluetooth. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that Apple-branded over-ear headphones were under development, but it is unclear if they were canceled, became the Beats Solo Pro, or otherwise. MacRumors has also uncovered evidence of Apple developing new Powerbeats4 headphones, but the existing Powerbeats3 are not considered high end.
• Small wireless charging mat: No further details were shared. Apple canceled its much-anticipated AirPower charging mat last year due to quality concerns. That mat would have been able to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods case simultaneously, regardless of where each device was positioned on the mat and with deep iOS integration.

Farther out, Kuo said the worst scenario for Apple related to the new coronavirus outbreak would be postponing the qualification and mass production schedules for new products in the second half of the year.

"If there are no significant improvements regarding the coronavirus epidemic in the foreseeable future, we predict that Apple may delay new material adoptions or lower test requirements for components to shorten qualification processes and launch new products in 2H20 on schedule, and the lower spec will likely hurt the ASP of materials or components," wrote Kuo.

Flexibits today is launching version 3.0 of its popular Fantastical calendar app, bringing a host of improvements across all platforms including Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Along with all of the feature updates, Fantastical is transitioning to a premium subscription model that unlocks access across all devices and will provide continued feature additions and improvements on an ongoing basis.

With the new updates to the Fantastical apps, everything has been unified across the various platforms, so users will essentially find feature parity on all of their devices. An all-new design brings a full-screen calendar window, support for native OS features like Today widgets, action and share extensions, and Handoff, and much more.

I've had a chance to try out the new Fantastical, and I've come away impressed with the sleek look, slick management of significant amounts of information, and of course the natural language parsing Fantastical has been known for that lets you easily create events and tasks by simply typing a few words. Among the key additions in Fantastical 3.0:

- AccuWeather integration displays small weather icons in relevant places, bringing forecasts right into your calendar so you can see what the weather is going to be like for your various events, even taking into account event locations.

- Calendar sets let you quickly manage your various calendars and tasks, allowing you to toggle multiple calendars with a single click and even change displayed calendars based on your location. Interesting Calendars is another new feature powered by SchedJoules that lets you subscribe to calendars for holidays, your favorite sports teams and TV shows, and more. Subscribing to a sports team, for example, will add entries for upcoming games to your calendar, and each game entry will update at its conclusion with box scores and even highlight links to let you easily follow your favorite team.

- Meeting proposals are particularly useful for groups, letting you specify multiple time options in a calendar event invitation and have each invitee choose times that work for them. Once a unanimous time has been selected, the event can be automatically scheduled in on users' calendars, or it can be manually set by the organizer.

- Tasks now have a prominent home alongside calendars in Fantastical, and integration with Todoist, Google Tasks, and iCloud helps keep everything in sync.

Other features in Fantastical 3 include one-click creation of Zoom or Google Hangout meetings right from events, the ability to attach files and photos to scheduled events, event templates for one-touch creation of frequent events, and custom alert sounds for events.

Fantastical has long been available across Apple's various platforms, but each app has been a standalone purchase, and that's changing with Fantastical 3.0's shift to a subscription model. Subscriptions have long been controversial with users, but Flexibits has made a strong effort to justify the change by unifying everything under a single subscription that unlocks all apps and keeping pricing to a reasonable $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year. With the new subscription model, Flexibits will be able to deploy new features on a more regular basis rather than holding them to bundle for the next major paid update.

For those who don't want to pay for a subscription, there is a new free mode available for Fantastical, but many users will find it limited enough that they'll want to consider a paid subscription, for which there's a 14-day free trial. All users will also need to set up a free Flexibits account if they wish to sync calendars.

Fantastical 2 users who don't wish to convert to a subscription won't find themselves completely out of luck, as they'll be able to download the new apps and maintain access to all of the features and functionality they've had under Fantastical 2 on the platforms where they previously purchased it, plus a few of the new features as well as ongoing bug fixes and technical support.

Fantastical version 3.0 is rolling out now as an updated version of the existing Fantastical 2 ‌iPhone‌ app [App Store], which is now a universal binary supporting ‌iPhone‌, ‌iPad‌, and Apple Watch. (If you're an existing user of Fantastical 2 for ‌iPad‌, you'll need to download the new universal version, as the iPad-only app is being discontinued, but the transition should be seamless.) The updated version of the Mac app can preferably be downloaded directly from Flexibits, but it's also available on the Mac App Store.

Apple's shares jumped 2 percent today in after-market trading, following the company's best reported quarter ever in terms of revenue and profit.

The tech giant's market capitalization has now grown to over $1.4 trillion, further cementing its place as the world's most valuable tech company. Only the Saudi Aramco oil company is worth more.

AAPL is currently hovering around $312 in pre-market trading. As The Guardian points out, Apple's valuation is now more than Germany's 30 largest listed companies that make up the DAX index on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The DAX is worth a combined $1.36 trillion, including business software giant SAP ($162 billion), chemical company Linde ($111 billion), engineering and industrial conglomerate Siemens ($108 billion), and insurance group Allianz ($100 billion).

The figures are a response to Apple's glowing financial results last night which saw the company post revenue of $91.8 billion and net quarterly profit of $22.2 billion, or $4.99 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $84.3 billion and net quarterly profit of $20.0 billion, or $4.18 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. The quarter was the best in Apple's history, topping the first fiscal quarter of 2018.

During today's earnings call covering the first fiscal quarter of 2020, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about 5G, and how much of a demand driver it might be for Apple.

Cook of course said that he wouldn't comment on future Apple products with respect to 5G, but said 5G is in the "early innings of its deployment on a global basis."

Cook went on to say that Apple "couldn't be prouder" of its current iPhone lineup, and is excited about the upcoming product pipeline. "We wouldn't trade our position with anybody," he said.

In another question, Cook was asked about the demand for 5G and the demand for lower-cost iPhones, and how that might impact Apple's future ‌iPhone‌ product plans, which Cook also declined to comment on. He did say that in general, "it's important to look around the world at 5G deployment schedules." Cook said he will not comment on the price of handsets that are not announced.

Rumors suggest that Apple's 2020 iPhones will include 5G support for the first time, allowing the devices to connect to available mmWave and Sub-6GHz 5G networks, which carriers are in the process of rolling out in the United States and around the world. Rumors indicate Apple will use Qualcomm's 5G chips for 5G connectivity.

During today's earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook commented on the coronavirus outbreak in China, which investors fear could potentially impact Apple's business, affecting production of both current iPhones and the new low-cost iPhone that's on the horizon.

Cook said that Apple is donating to China to help with the outbreak and working with partner companies.

We're donating to groups that are working to contain the outbreak. We're working closely with our Apple team members in the affected areas, and our thoughts are with all of those in the region.

In an interview with CNBC, Cook confirmed that employee travel has been restricted to "business critical travel" only as of last week, and employees in Wuhan and across China are receiving care kits from Apple.

"We're restricting travel to business critical travel. For employees that are in the Wuhan area, we are providing care kits and supplying them across our employee population in China as well.

Cook said that Apple's decision to set next quarter guidance with a range of $4 billion is reflective of the coronavirus outbreak and the "uncertainty around that." Apple's guidance for Q2 2020 is $63 to $67 billion, a larger range than normal.

The situation is still emerging, said Cook, and Apple is monitoring the situation closely and gathering data points.

According to Cook, supplier factories in wider China are opening late after Chinese New Year, on February 10, which Apple is working to manage. Apple does have suppliers in the Wuhan area, but all of these suppliers have alternate suppliers, and Apple is working to ensure good supplies. Apple has accounted for the delayed startup with its larger range of outcomes.

In its retail stores, Apple is limiting hours, checking employees, and sanitizing its stores regularly. One store has also been shut down for the time being. Apple's retail sales have slowed due to virus concerns, but this is accounted for in Apple's guidance numbers for Q2 2020.

Following poor iPhone sales in the first quarter of 2019, Apple saw significant improvement in the first quarter of 2020, with ‌iPhone‌ sales bringing in $56 billion in revenue for 8 percent growth.

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, response to the ‌iPhone‌ 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max has been highly positive. The ‌iPhone‌ 11 was the top-selling ‌iPhone‌ every week during the December quarter, and the three new ‌iPhone‌ models were Apple's most popular iPhones.

Apple saw double digit growth in the United States, UK, France, Singapore, Brazil, Mainland China, India, Thailand, Turkey, and more. In greater China specifically, Apple has returned to growth.

Apple made a major trade-in push in 2019, which was successful, and Apple saw ‌iPhone‌ trade-in numbers double year over year.

During the first quarter of 2020, Apple's wearables category set a new all-time revenue record, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple's wearables earnings category, which includes AirPods and Apple Watch along with accessories like Beats headphones and HomePod, hit $10 billion, up from $7.3 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Wearables, Home, and Accessories revenue surpassed Mac revenue for the first time this quarter. Mac revenue was at $7.2 billion in Q1 2020.

According to Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌, Apple could not make enough AirPods and Apple Watch Series 3 devices to meet demand during the quarter, and supplies continue to be low. Cook told Reuters that Apple is "working on both of those very hard."

Apple Watch set a new all-time revenue record during the quarter, and more than 75 percent of new customers during the quarter were new to Apple Watch. Both AirPods and Apple Watch were "must-have holiday gifts," driving growth even as supplies were constrained.

Cook says that Apple's wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 150 company.