Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) - @bbusschots
• Lynda Gousha from the Silicon Valley MUG - @llg4cdg
• Ewen Rankin from the British Tech Network - @EwenRankin

The show starts with some followup on stories from previous months before getting stuck into some notable numbers and Apple HR changes that made the news in April. The five main stories are Apple’s settlement with Qualcomm, Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings call, the controversy over Apple cracking down on parental control apps abusing MDM, the failure of the Galaxy Fold, and the rapidly evolving world of streaming music and video services. The show ends with a quick rundown of some other Apple-related stories that made the news in April.

You'll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar - the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!

[audio mp3=”http://www.mymac.com/podcast/lta/LetsTalkApple-EP68-April2019.mp3”]

Followups

• The Keyboard Kerfuffle Rumbles on
  • An internal survey in Basecamp shows 30% of their MacBook users are suffering current keyboard problems — m.signalvnoise.com/…
  • PSA: Unshaky is a simple Mac utility that solves most MacBook keyboard problems — 9to5mac.com/…
  • Apple now quoting next-day turnaround on MacBook keyboard repairs — www.loopinsight.com/…
• 🇪🇺 Apple’s European Anti-trust woes continue:
  • 🇳🇱 The Netherlands open another parallel investigation (along with the EU one discussed in last month’s show) — www.macobserver.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
  • The FT is reporting that the EU is opening an investigation into Apple Music — techcrunch.com/…
• We’ve covered a few negative App Store stories in recent months where scammers were finding ways to trick users into signing up for expensive recurring subscriptions. Apple have made a simple but important change to address this, they’ve added an extra confirmation screen for subscription signups that clearly show the amount and period of the subscription, and make it clear that it will continue indefinitely — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇺🇸 The US SEC have charged GT Advanced and their CEO with fraud for misleading investors about the extent to which they could meet Apple’s demands for Sapphire glass — www.sec.gov/…

Notable Numbers

• 🇺🇸 Here’s What Apple Spends its $60M Lobbying Money On — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇬🇧 Figures released by Apple (as required by UK law) show that in Apple’s UK-based operations, the gender pay gap is 15% (down from 25% last year) — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇺🇸 Piper Jaffray’s latest ‘Taking Stock With Teens’ survey found a record 83% of US teens own an iPhone, and 86% expect their next phone to be an iPhone — www.macrumors.com/…
• Apple reportedly spends more than $30M on Amazon cloud services every month. Additional reporting suggests that’s actually a major reduction, a halving from this time last year — www.cnbc.com/… & 9to5mac.com/…

Apple HR News

• 3 Members Leaving Apple’s Industrial Design Team — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple have hired Ian Goodfellow, one of Google’s top AI experts — www.loopinsight.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple have hired indie film producer Molly Thompson as head of documentaries for Apple TV+ — variety.com/…
• Apple have hired Lionsgate veteran Danielle DePalma as a Film & TV Series Marketing Executive — deadline.com/…

Main Stories

1. The Apple Qualcomm Settlement & the Future of 5G
   • Huawei is ‘open’ to selling its 5G modems, but only to Apple — www.engadget.com/…
   • After just one day in court making their opening arguments, Apple and Qualcomm have reached a settlement in their on-going patent dispute — www.imore.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
     • All litigation world-wide to be dismissed
     • The companies have agreed a 6-year patent licensing agreement with an optional 2 year extension
     • Apple have reached a multi-year chipset supply agreement with Qualcomm
     • Apple to pay Qualcomm and unknown amount (but seems to be around $4Bn: Qualcomm to record $4B revenue from Apple settlement — www.axios.com/…)
   • The day after the Apple Qualcomm settlement Intel announced their exit from the 5G chipset market — www.macobserver.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
   • Intel Quit 5G Mobile Modem Market Because of Apple-Qualcomm Settlement — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Apple reportedly discussed buying Intel’s smartphone-modem chip business — arstechnica.com
   • Report: Apple Poached Intel’s Smartphone 5G Modem Lead Before Resolving Battle With Qualcomm — gizmodo.com/…
   • Opinion & Analysis:
     • Why Apple Settled With Qualcomm — daringfireball.net/…
     • Apple vs. Qualcomm: What happened, who won, and what comes next — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple Puts Need for 5G Ahead of Legal Fight in Qualcomm Deal — www.bloomberg.com/…
2. Apple’s Q2 2019 Earnings Call — www.apple.com/…
   • Jason Snell’s fantastic graphs and charts illustrating the earnings in their larger context — sixcolors.com/…
   • Transcript: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the company’s 2019 Q2 earnings — www.imore.com/…
   • Summaries:
     • Apple Q2 2019: $58 billion in revenue as services hit all-time high — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple Posts Revenues of $58 Billion for March Quarter, Down 5% – Emphasizes Record Services Revenues and Raises Dividend — www.macobserver.com/…
     • iPhone Sales Kept Sinking in Apple’s Q2 2019 — tidbits.com/…
     • Apple sets sights on services as iPhone revenue continues to fall — arstechnica.com
   • Tim Cook: iPhone price corrections delivering ‘better results’ in India — www.imore.com/…
   • How Apple Boosted Its Sagging iPhone Sales in China — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Wall Street Likes Apple Guidance and iPhone Trade-In Program Results, Sends $AAPL Higher After Hours — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Buffett says Berkshire is sticking with Apple and he’s pleased with latest earnings report — www.cnbc.com/…
   • Related: 🇨🇳 the most recent numbers from Canalys show the Chinese smartphone market shrinking by 3%,but Huawei’s share growing by 10% to 34% in the last year. Apple’s share declined by nearly a third in Q1 2019 — www.canalys.com/…
3. The NYT Ignited a controversy over Apple’ removal of parental control apps that abused MDM, implying this was some kind of anti-competitive move. Factually, using MDM in a context where the organisation the devices get enrolled into is not the organisation that actually owns the device is extremely dangerous. Here, kids phones were being enrolled into MDM servers managed by the app vendors, giving those vendors total control over the devices. Apple realised the danger back in 2017, and updated its app store guidelines in mid–2017. Last year Apple started working to address the problem, with reports of apps being removed dating back to last December. It’s not clear why this has suddenly become news.
   • The facts about parental control apps — www.apple.com/…
   • Phil Schiller Lays Out Apple’s Case for Cracking Down on Screen Time Monitoring Apps — www.macrumors.com/…
   • A blistering critique of the shoddy journalism in the NYT piece by Rene Richie — www.imore.com/…
4. Galaxy un-fold
   • Early reviews of the Galaxy Fold run into serious problems, and quickly:
     • My Samsung Galaxy Fold screen broke after just a day — www.theverge.com/…
     • Has the Samsung Galaxy Fold already failed? — www.imore.com/…
   • Samsung postpones China launch event for its foldable phone amid broken screens — www.cnbc.com/…
   • Samsung have postponed the launch of the device indefinitely and recalled all the sample units — uk.reuters.com/…
   • iFixit’s Samsung Galaxy Fold Teardown — www.loopinsight.com/…
   • iFixit pulls Galaxy Fold teardown at Samsung’s request — www.theverge.com/…
   • Analysis: Know When to Fold ’Em — daringfireball.net/…
5. Streaming Developments
   • Apple:
     • Apple Music:
       • Apple have rolled out improvements to the Apple Music’s For You section — 9to5mac.com/…
       • 🇮🇳 Apple cut the price of Apple Music in India — www.macobserver.com/… & www.imore.com/…
       • 🇺🇸 According to the WSJ Apple now has more paying US streaming music customers than Spotify does (28M -v- 26M) — arstechnica.com/…
       • However, world-wide, things appear to be different, Reuters report that Spotify has twice as many paid subscribers world-wide as Apple Music does — www.macobserver.com/…
     • Apple TV:
       • J. J. Abrams: Working With Apple is ‘The Wild West’ — www.macobserver.com/…
       • Prince Harry, Oprah to Make Mental Health Docu-Series for Apple TV+ — www.macobserver.com/…
       • ‘Peanuts In Space’ From Morgan Neville & Imagine OK’d For Launch On Apple TV — deadline.com/…
     • Apple’s Services division is worth $450Bn, twice the size of Netflix — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • Netflix:
     • 🇺🇸 2.7M Americans still access Netflix via DVDs in the mail (assumed to be due to poor rural broadband access) — www.cnn.com/…
     • Netflix remove AirPlay support from their iOS app — www.imore.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
   • Amazon:
     • Amazon Launches Free Music Tier Via Alexa — www.macobserver.com/…
     • Amazon is prepping a high-fidelity TIDAL competitor — techcrunch.com/…
   • Disney announced Disney+, their streaming service which will debut in the US in November, and cost just $6.99PM — www.imore.com/…
   • YouTube Announced New Ad-Supported Original Content — www.macobserver.com/…

Quick Stories

• Apple recalling three-prong wall plug adapters used in UK, HK, Singapore — www.imore.com/…
  • Official Apple Notice — www.apple.com/…
• Beats announce their Powerbeats Pro wireless headphonese with H1 chip for $249.95, shipping in May — www.theverge.com/…
• Apple Drops HomePod Price to $299, Down From $349 — www.macrumors.com/…
• Apple Drops $99 Data Migration Fee for New Macs and Repairs — tidbits.com/…
• PSA: Aperture Won’t Run after macOS 10.14 Mojave — tidbits.com/…
• ApplePay News:
  • 🇺🇸 JCPenney Removes Apple Pay Support From Its Retail Stores and Mobile App — www.macrumors.com/… & JCPenney explains why it dropped Apple Pay — techcrunch.com/… (TL;DR — JC Penny had to choose between dropping contactless on obsolete terminals or upgrading their terminals, and they chose not to join the 21st century)
  • 🇬🇧 Scoring With Apple Pay: Tottenham Hotspur Prepare to Open Doors at First Fully Cashless Stadium — www.macobserver.com/…
  • 🇸🇬 🇺🇸 Apple Pay for Transit: Now Accepted in Singapore, NYC Testing Soon, Chicago and Portland to Integrate Fare Cards — www.macrumors.com/…
  • 🇺🇸 Apple Pay comes to Uber Eats in nearly 20 markets — techcrunch.com/…
  • 🇨🇭 Credit Suisse Agrees Deal With Apple Pay — www.finews.com/…
  • 🇦🇹 Apple Pay Launches in Austria — www.macobserver.com/…
  • 🇬🇧 UK government starts accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay — www.engadget.com/…
• Apple Continues to Make Progress on it’s Environmental Goals
  • Apple Set to Beat Own Green Energy Targets — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple Announces New Recycling Lab in Austin — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple has partnered with Conservation International and local Colombian communities to protect earth’s carbon-trapping coastal mangroves — www.imore.com/…