MacRumors

Apple's iPhone 8 Plus was the number one selling iPhone in the United States during the second quarter of 2018 according to new data shared today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

The iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X accounted for 54 percent of US iPhone sales during the quarter, with the iPhone 8 making up 13 percent of sales, the iPhone 8 Plus making up 24 percent of sales, and the iPhone X making up 17 percent of sales.

Older iPhones continued to be popular as well, with the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, SE, 6s Plus and 6s making up 46 percent of sales. Apple's Q2 2018 sales are a deviation from its Q2 2017 sales, where the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the flagship phones at that time, made up more than 80 percent of sales.

In what is usually a quieter quarter for iPhone sales, the model breakdown is interesting, as older models persisted in popularity," said Josh Lowitz, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder. "The latest iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X models accounted for a little more than half of sales, yet last year at this time the then-latest iPhone 7 and 7 Plus accounted for over 80%. And, the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, and SE grabbed 20% in the past quarter, virtually the same as in the June 2017 quarter, though at lower price points. So, it looks like two-year old legacy iPhones have squeezed the newer models. Still, because Apple increased base storage and boosted prices, we expect Average Selling Price to increase nicely over the June 2017 quarter."

Combined, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus made up 37 percent of purchases, far exceeding purchases of the iPhone X, according to CIRP's data.

This is likely attributable to the high price of the iPhone X, with pricing that starts at $999 vs. the iPhone 8's $699 starting price. Given the popularity of the two lower-cost devices, Apple plans to continue offering consumers an affordable option in 2018 with the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone that rumors suggest will be sold alongside more expensive 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED models.

As for iPads, the low-cost iPad continues to be the best selling tablet, with CIRP lumping the 5th and 6th-generation models together. 31 percent of customers bought a low-cost iPad during the quarter, but the iPad Pro was also popular with a combined 40 percent of sales for the 10.5 and 12.9-inch models.

While CIRP's data can provide an interesting look at the iPhones customers in the United States are choosing to purchase, it's worth keeping in mind that CIRP's numbers are aggregated from surveys that encompass just 500 customers who purchased an iPhone, iPad, or Mac during the second quarter of 2018, which spans from April to June.

Samsung Display today announced an unbreakable OLED smartphone panel that's been certified by Underwriters Laboratory (UL), an official testing company for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The UL test indicates that Samsung's unbreakable display withstood 26 drops from 1.2 meters (4 feet) with no damage and held up to extreme temperature testing. Samsung says that the display was also subjected to a drop of six feet with no sign of damage.

According to UL, the unbreakable display developed by Samsung Display passed the rigorous real-time durability test that is based on military standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense. After a drop test administered at 1.2 meters (nearly 4 feet) above the ground 26 times in succession, and accompanying high (71 degrees) and low (-32 degrees) temperature tests, the Samsung unbreakable panel continued to function normally with no damage to its front, sides or edges.

According to Samsung, its flexible OLED panel uses an unbreakable substrate that's adhered to an overlay window, a deviation from other, more breakable flexible OLED panels that use a glass-covered window.

Samsung says that the unbreakable panels are being developed for use on smartphones but are likely to find viable markets with other products like display consoles for automobiles, mobile military devices, portable game consoles, and tablet PCs.

"The fortified plastic window is especially suitable for portable electronic devices not only because of its unbreakable characteristics, but also because of its lightweight, transmissivity and hardness, which are all very similar to glass," said Hojung Kim, general manager of the Communication Team, Samsung Display Company.

While UL-certification for the panel is being announced today, Samsung first showed off its technology at DisplayWeek in May, in the form of a 6.22-inch display that was targeted at automotive customers. Samsung has been developing flexible display technology for years.

As CNET's Shara Tibken points out, Samsung's announcement comes just two weeks ahead of when it plans to unveil the Galaxy Note 9, so it's possible Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone could use this new display technology. With UL certification, the panel is ready to be used in consumer products.

Apple uses displays sourced from Samsung in its iPhone lineup, so it's not unreasonable to think that the Cupertino company could potentially adopt this technology in the future, should it meet Apple's demands for quality.

Apple sources its OLED displays for the iPhone X from Samsung and is expected to continue using Samsung as a supplier for the foreseeable future, though the company is working on securing additional display suppliers for diversification purposes.

Apple does not have plans to use Qualcomm's LTE chips in its next-generation devices, Qualcomm's CFO said today during Qualcomm's second quarter earnings call.

As relayed by CNBC, Qualcomm CFO George Davis told investors Apple will use a competitor's chips in its 2018 iPhones, likely speaking of Intel.

"We believe Apple intends to solely use our competitors' modems rather than our modems in its next iPhone release. We will continue to provide modems for Apple legacy devices," said Davis.

Over the course of the last few months, there have been mixed reports about Apple's LTE chip plans given the legal disagreement between the two companies. Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in February that Intel would be the supplier of LTE modems for all 2018 iPhones, with Apple using no Qualcomm chips.

Kuo's report was called into question in April when Fast Company said that Intel would supply Apple with 70 percent of the LTE chips needed for the 2018 iPhones while Qualcomm would provide the rest, but it appears that report was inaccurate.

Qualcomm's statement today is also in line with an October report from The Wall Street Journal suggesting Apple would eliminate Qualcomm chips from its 2018 iPhone and iPad lineup, instead using chips from Intel and perhaps MediaTek.

Apple's decision not to use Qualcomm chips in its latest crop of iPhones is understandable given the increasingly bitter legal battle the two companies have been embroiled in for more than a year.

Apple in January 2017 sued Qualcomm for $1 billion, accusing Qualcomm of charging unfair royalties for "technologies they have nothing to do with" and failing to pay quarterly rebates. Apple and its suppliers stopped paying licensing fees at that time.

While Apple insists Qualcomm charges unfair royalties, Qualcomm claims that its technology "is at the heart of every iPhone."

It didn't take long for Qualcomm to file a countersuit claiming that Apple had infringed on several of its patents. Since then, both companies have filed multiple lawsuits against one another, and Qualcomm has also sought import and export bans on some iPhones in the United States and China.

Apple has used Qualcomm chips in its iPhones for years, but until the legal dispute is resolved, the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus could be the last iPhones with Qualcomm chips.

Apple is rumored to be working on its own Apple-designed modem chips for future iPhones, but until its own technology is ready, Apple devices may be equipped with Intel technology.

Rumors suggest that Apple's 2018 iPhones will use Intel's XMM 7560 modems, which support both GSM and CDMA networks. Apple is said to be planning to introduce improved antenna technology for faster connection speeds and dual-SIM dual standby functionality.

Qualcomm today reported better-than-expected quarterly results with $5.6 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.01 per share. Qualcomm saw "strong demand" from Chinese device makers amid "lower demand" from Apple.

Following the launch of the App Store in 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs sat down for an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

In celebration of the recent 10th anniversary of the App Store, The Wall Street Journal today published both the audio and transcript of that interview, where Jobs shares his view on the future of the App Store and the future of Apple.

The interview took place in August of 2008, a month after the launch of the App Store. Even back then, just after its debut, the App Store's success surprised Jobs, who said Apple hadn't expected the App Store to "be this big." "The mobile industry's never seen anything like this," he said.

Within 30 days, users had downloaded 30 percent as many apps as everybody in the world downloaded songs from iTunes during the same period of time. Jobs said he could not even predict how many new apps would be uploaded by a particular date given the App Store's wildly popular debut.

I would not trust any of our predictions because reality has so far exceeded them by such a great degree that we've been reduced to spectators just like you, watching this amazing phenomenon and just doing our best to try to help everybody get their apps done and get them on the store.

In the early days of the App Store, Apple was criticized for high app prices. "It's a competition," said Jobs. "Who knew what to price things at?" According to Jobs, Apple didn't have advice for developers on pricing either. "Our opinions are no better than yours because this is so new."

Jobs went on to mull how the App Store could grow in the future as people adopted the iPhone and the iPod touch, speculating that it could be a billion dollar marketplace, which Apple has significantly exceeded. As of July 2018, developers have earned more than $100 billion from the App Store.

Who knows? Maybe it'll be a billion dollar marketplace at some point in time. This doesn't happen very often. A whole new billion dollar market opens up. 360 million in the first 30 days, I've never seen anything like this in my career for software.

Jobs said that he didn't expect the App Store would be a big profit generator, with Apple instead launching it to add value to the iPhone. Jobs was wrong, though, and Apple's services category is the size of a Fortune 100 company, largely on the strength of the App Store. In Q2 2018, for example, services brought in $9.19 billion and the App Store set an all time revenue record.

While Jobs was surprised by the success of the App Store, it didn't stop him from declaring that the "phone of the future will be differentiated by software," a prediction that has largely come true. Today, many high-end smartphones share similar features and designs, with software - iOS and Android - as one of the main factors that people take into consideration when choosing a device.

The entire interview with Steve Jobs is well worth listening to and can be found over at The Wall Street Journal.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will speak at the second annual LOVELOUD festival at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City this Saturday. He will then introduce the band Imagine Dragons for a live performance on stage.

LOVELOUD was founded in 2017 by Dan Reynolds, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, to "help ignite the relevant and vital conversation of what it means to unconditionally love, understand, accept, and support LGBTQ+ youth in an effort to keep families together," according to the foundation's website.

"Tim Cook joining us in Utah for LOVELOUD sends a clear message to LGBTQ youth that they have unlimited potential to achieve their dreams," said Reynolds. "Tim is an unwavering advocate for human rights and equality, and we're thrilled he'll be joining our powerful line-up of speakers and performers."

Other guest speakers will include actor Alfonso Ribeiro, dancer Julianne Hough, Ellen Show star Kalen Allen, Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara, Grammy-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter, musician WRABEL, singer Mary Lambert, comic Dana Goldberg, singer-songwriters VINCINT & Parson James, and more.

Other performers will include Zedd, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, Grace Vanderwaal, and Neon Trees' Tyler Glenn. Nationally touring stand-up comedian Cameron Esposito will also perform and emcee the day's festivities.

LOVELOUD tickets are available for purchase online, while AT&T will be live streaming the entire event on Twitter. The non-profit LOVELOUD Foundation says proceeds from this year's event will be donated to LGBTQ+ organizations, including Encircle, the Tegan and Sara Foundation, and the Trevor Project.

The festival is scheduled for Saturday, July 28, with doors open at 2 p.m. local time, and music beginning at 3:30 p.m. local time.

Apple as a company has shown its support for the LGBTQ community over the years by participating in Pride parades around the world, introducing Pride-themed Apple Watch bands, and supporting LGBTQ rights and laws.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple today shared a fun new iPhone X ad on its YouTube channel, this time touting the capabilities of the A11 Bionic chip built into the device.

In the video, a student walks down the street playing popular iOS game Vainglory on his iPhone when the game characters start coming to life and attacking him, causing him to fight them off in the real world.

Apple has shared multiple clever iPhone X ads focusing on features like Face ID, Animoji, Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting, and more, but this is the first video that has specifically highlighted the A11 Bionic chip, which is the fastest chip ever in one of Apple's mobile devices.

The A11 is a 10-nanometer six-core 2.4GHz chip with two performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and it's powerful enough for console-quality games and augmented reality applications. It includes a three-core Apple-designed GPU too, along with an embedded M11 Motion coprocessor.

In benchmarks, the A11 significantly outperforms the A10 included in previous models for better gaming and better performance all around. It's called the "Bionic" because two of the cores in the chip are dedicated to a neural engine that's able to process more than 600 billion operations per second, powering Face ID and other machine learning tasks.

Apple's latest iPhone X ad will be shown on TV and on social networks starting soon. According to Vainglory's developers, there's an exclusive skin tied to the ad that can be downloaded in game.

Apple is letting anyone in the United States with an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV watch the pilot episode of Hulu's new series Castle Rock for free through its TV app. The episode is available now for users in the U.S., and it will live in Apple's TV app for two weeks (via Engadget).

This coincides with Castle Rock's premiere on Hulu today, beginning with the first three episodes available for Hulu subscribers to watch in full. Over the next few weeks, one episode will launch each Wednesday leading into the finale with the tenth episode capping the first season.

As Engadget points out, Apple's decision to promote the show makes sense as it's one of the most anticipated new series of the summer and should get more people to jump into the company's TV app ahead of the launch of its own exclusive shows next year. Apple says this is the first time it has debuted a new series before any paywalls in the TV app, and it already offers free episodes of its own shows like Carpool Karaoke in the app.

For the show itself, Castle Rock focuses on the life of a criminal law attorney who returns to his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine when a new case about a mysterious inmate emerges from the nearby Shawshank State Penitentiary. The show uses numerous stories and locations created by author Stephen King as the backdrop for new characters and a new story in the Maine town.

The episode has already launched, so those interested can watch the pilot of Castle Rock for free in Apple's TV app right now.

Apple might delay the launch of its new, low-cost 6.1-inch iPhone by one month and launch the device in October, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty (via Barron's). Huberty cites suspected issues with "LED backlight leakage" leading to the "possible" one month delay in mass production on the 6.1-inch iPhone.

The problem was worse in the original production forecast, according to the new report, as there was originally a rumored six week delay for the 6.1-inch device. Now, Huberty says the cheaper smartphone will launch in October, while the second generation 5.8-inch iPhone X and 6.5-inch "iPhone X Plus" will "see no delay" and debut in September. All three devices are expected to be revealed during an event in September.

We currently see no delay in the ramp of Apple's upcoming flagship 5.8" or 6.5" OLED iPhones. However suspected issues with LED backlight leakage have caused a 1 month delay in mass production of the 6.1" LCD iPhone, although this is down from a 6-week delay baked into the original production forecast, according to suppliers.

The six week delay for the LCD model was previously mentioned in a report earlier this year that predicted the LCD model wouldn't launch until November 2018, but otherwise the belief has been that Apple will release all three devices in September 2018.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has backed this idea, and in a June report outlined what he believes will be Apple's pricing plan for the smartphones: the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will be priced at $600 to $700, the 5.8-inch OLED second-generation iPhone X will be $800 to $900, and the 6.5-inch OLED device will be $900 to $1,000.

If the 6.1-inch model doesn't make a September debut, Apple will likely lose a few sales to customers who are interested in a new iPhone model but still don't want to pay upwards of $800 in full for the OLED devices. Because of this, Huberty sees Apple delivering a "slightly weaker-than-consensus September quarter."

This is a similar sentiment that the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus gained when Apple split up their launches last year, although somewhat reversed given that the flagship iPhone X was the delayed device in 2017.

Five months after performing a test that put the smart speakers of multiple companies in the spotlight to determine how well they performed in various categories, Loup Ventures is back today with an IQ test focused entirely on digital AI assistants. To get the necessary results, the researchers asked Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana 800 questions each on a smartphone, and compared their findings to a previous AI test held in April 2017.

For Siri in the new test, Apple's AI helper understood 99 percent of the queries and answered 78.5 percent of them correctly. That's an improvement on a similar AI-focused test from April 2017 (66.1 percent of 800 questions answered correctly). While Loup Ventures looked at similar methodologies when testing smart speakers in February, the researchers explain that it's "not worthwhile to compare" the results across these tests since "the use cases differ greatly between digital assistants and smart speakers."

This is particularly true for Siri on HomePod, which performs well in certain areas but is largely limited to the amount of actions it can perform on the speaker itself. This led Apple's HomePod to become relegated to the "bottom of the totem pole" in an AI assistant performance test during Loup Venture's smart speaker research in February, with Siri answering 52.3 percent of 782 total questions correctly, across the same five categories as the new test.

Loup Ventures grades each digital assistant on two metrics: "Did it understand what was being asked?" and "Did it deliver a correct response?" Questions came from five categories, including Local (example: "Where is the nearest coffee shop?"), Commerce ("Can you order me more paper towels?"), Navigations ("How do I get to uptown on the bus?"), Information ("Who do the Twins play tonight?"), and Command ("Remind me to call Steve at 2pm today").

Questions were asked of Siri on an iPhone running iOS 11.4, Google Assistant on a Pixel XL, Alexa on the iOS app, and Cortana on the iOS app. Siri's best category was Command (90 percent of questions answered correctly), outperforming all rivals when asked to control aspects of the iPhone, smart home products, Apple Music, and more. Following Command, Siri performed well in Local (87 percent), Navigation (83 percent), and began dipping in Information (70 percent) and Commerce (60 percent).

Google Assistant has the edge in every category except Command. Siri’s lead over the Assistant in this category is odd, given they are both baked into the OS of the phone rather than living on a 3rd party app (as Cortana and Alexa do). We found Siri to be slightly more helpful and versatile (responding to more flexible language) in controlling your phone, smart home, music, etc. Our question set also includes a fair amount of music-related queries (the most common action for smart speakers). Apple, true to its roots, has ensured that Siri is capable with music on both mobile devices and smart speakers.

Google Assistant was the top digital assistant in all categories except Command, with Loup Ventures particularly liking Google's "featured snippets" feature that reads off search results of voice queries and is often "exactly what you're looking for." Both Alexa and Cortana were lesser performers in the test due to the iOS app for each limiting what the assistants can do on an iPhone, unlike Siri's ability to perform tasks all over iOS and not just in one app.

In total, Google Assistant answered 85.5 percent of the 800 questions asked correctly and understood all of them, compared to Siri's 78.5 percent answered correctly and 11 misunderstood. Alexa correctly answered 61.4 percent and misunderstood 13, while Cortana was the "laggard" and correctly answered 52.4 percent and misunderstood 19.

Over the 15 month period since April 2017, Siri improved by 13 percentage points, with Loup Ventures pointing out that it was "impressed with the speed at which the technology is advancing" for most of the assistants. The researchers went on to explain that many of the issues they had last year were erased by "improvements to natural language processing and inter-device connectivity."

Loup Ventures also sees more improvements coming down the line, particularly for Siri. This fall, the digital assistant will gain new abilities with Apple's upcoming "Siri Shortcuts" feature in iOS 12, which will let users create automations between apps that can be easily triggered through voice commands. The researches say they are "eager to test that feature" when it launches within iOS 12, likely coming in September.

Apple today released an important bug fix for 2018 MacBook Pros, which was designed to address an issue that caused the machines to excessively throttle when doing system intensive tasks.

The bug fix came in the form of a supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, which many new MacBook Pro owners have now installed on their machines. Multiple MacBook Pro owners and media sites have been testing the new patch, and the results appear to be largely positive -- the throttling issue has been resolved for the most part and the machines are performing better.

CNET for example, did some before and after testing with a video encoding test. Prior to the patch, the Core i9 machine the site tested saw frequent fluctuations in internal temperature and CPU clock speed, while after updating, the CPU throttling in the Core i9 MacBook Pro ceased, with the clock frequency of the cPU and internal system temperature remaining stable.

Macworld shared some preliminary test results from its 4K Adobe Premiere test and had similar results, with even clock speed at or above base rather than spiky throttling. Macworld estimates that prior to the patch, the 2018 Core i9 15-inch MacBook Pro was 11 percent faster than the last year's comparable 2.9GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro. After the patch, "it's more like 20 percent faster."

Dave Lee, who highlighted the throttling problem in the first place, tweeted some post-patch test results and said the performance was much better.

Geekbench Labs founder John Poole tested the 2018 Core i9 MacBook Pro after the patch and found that it was faster with a more stable processor frequency. It was slightly slower than the 2018 Core i7 MacBook Pro. Poole says that while long running heavily multi-threaded tasks are going to see similar performance on the Core i9 and Core i7 machines, single and lightly-threaded tasks should be faster on the i9.

MacRumors reader Aea shared pre-patch and post-patch Cinebench benchmarks done with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip showing the jump in score following the update.

Multiple Reddit users with 2018 MacBook Pro models have been sharing their benchmarking and testing results after installing the supplemental update and have seen significant improvements. This image from Reddit user XNY, for example, depicts a before and after from a 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro with a Core i5 chip.

Another Reddit user (apple_) confirmed that following the update, his Core i9 machine is performing consistently better.

I did all the original tests and I can confirm, for myself, that I am continuously getting the base clock speed or above in the torture test with Prime 95. Even so much as getting between 2.9 - 3.9 when I was 4 tests in. Also ran cinebench and OpenGL got 106 fps and the cpu test I got above 1000 for every test ran. Thank you Apple for this quick fix and thank you for everyone bringing these issues to light.

The throttling issue was first discovered just a few days after the MacBook Pro models were released, when YouTuber Dave Lee tested the top-of-the-line 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.9GHz Core i9 chip using Adobe Premiere Pro and found that it was underperforming compared to a 2017 MacBook Pro due to what Lee said was an "unacceptable" level of throttling.

Apple reached out to Lee to and worked with him to replicate his workflow, getting to the source of the bug. Apple discovered that there was a missing digital key in the MacBook Pro firmware that impacted the thermal management system, driving down clock speeds under heavy thermal loads. This was a problem that appears to have affected all 2018 MacBook Pro models.

The problem appears to have been successfully addressed in today's macOS High Sierra supplemental update, and Apple has issued an apology to customers who experienced less than optimal performance on their new 2018 machines.

Customers who have a 2018 MacBook Pro and have not installed the update should do so immediately to see the performance improvements for themselves.

Update: Dave Lee, who first found the throttling issue, also uploaded a new video and says the supplemental macOS High Sierra update has successfully fixed the throttling issues that he saw prior to the patch.

Using the same Adobe Premiere render time test, Lee found that the Core i9 MacBook Pro was significantly faster than the 2017 Core i7 model that had beaten it prior to the patch.

Lee went even further and tested six laptops equipped with an i9 from various manufacturers. Unsurprisingly, thicker laptops with better cooling did outperform thinner laptops, including the MacBook Pro. The Alienware 17 R4, Acer Helios 500, and Asus G703 (all very thick) saw higher average clock loads.

The Dell XPS 15 and the Zenbook Pro were right on par with the 2018 MacBook Pro. None of the laptops tested beat the MacBook Pro when it came to noise level though, with the MacBook Pro winning out as the quietest of the bunch. Lee says that overall, the Core i9 MacBook Pro is performing the way that a 6-core MacBook Pro should, but he wishes Apple had engineered a better thermal solution for the i9.