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Apple Doesn't Want You Weighing Things With Your iPhone Just Yet
Can you turn an iPhone 6S into a working digital scale? The answer, apparently, is yes, but Apple doesn't want you to right now.
In an interesting post on Medium, developer Ryan McLeod explains how he and his friends built a digital scale app for the new iPhones by taking advantage of Apple's new pressure sensitivity feature, 3D Touch. The company only uses 3D Touch for a few functions — adjusting how quickly you scrub through music and video, for example, or quickly accessing app shortcuts from the home screen — but McLeod says he was inspired by all the "creative workarounds" on the App Store to hijack it for something else.
-- submitted from IRC
Apple Sales, Profit Surge On iPhone Strength
Apple logged another healthy rise in sales and profits for its most recent quarter on the strength of record iPhone sales and strong results for Macs.
The company's revenue rose 22 percent from a year earlier to $51.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 26. Sales of iPhones reached a fourth-quarter record, and the company said it sold more Macs than ever. Sixty-two percent of revenue came from outside the U.S., and revenue in China nearly doubled.
The company's profit grew even more strongly than sales, up 31 percent to $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per share. For the full year, Apple made $53.4 billion.
Both sales and profit beat the consensus forecast of analyst polled by Thomson Reuters.
What will Apple do with its mounting pile of cash?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mmcmonster on Friday October 30 2015, @12:42PM
We all want cheaper devices, but who are we to judge how much profit a company makes? Presumably Apple has some people on board who help them decide how much an item should cost. Supply and demand curves are the hallmark of capitalism, aren't they?
Playing Devil's Advocate here, consider this hypothetical situation:
Apple lowers the price of new iPhones to manufacturing cost + only a small profit. Sells the 64GB latest phone for $200, no contract.
Questions:
1 - What will that do to the market? Their competition?
2 - What will that do to all the smart phones that are currently in peoples hands? Will they ebay them or repurpose them?
3 - What will that do to their market share? Will they become supply-limited?
4 - What will that do to the Android App Store (or whatever they call it)?
While I'm not happy spending so much on a new iPhone, at least I know that if I don't like it, I can switch to a Samsung Android or some such device. If the android market implodes due to cheap iPhones, I won't get that option.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday November 02 2015, @03:04PM
We all want cheaper devices,
I don't, I want better quality devices. That was what I used to get with an iphone/ios/osx ecosystem, not so sure now, but there isn't really a good quality phone elsewhere.
I've just replaced my SSD in my 5 year old laptop, moving from a 120GB without TRIM support to a 24GB one. It's got a good keyboard and screen, unlike 90% or more of the machines out there. Originally the laptop cost $3000, but it's enabled over $1 million worth of work.
If a $500 laptop made me only 1% less efficient, it would actually cost $7k, not save $2500.
The same happens when I'm flying, sure some people are happy spending $1000 and flying in cattle class across the world, I'd rather spend $2500 and fly in something approaching civilization.