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Translating the Apple Q4 2013 earnings call into normal human language
Apple earnings calls always create a bit of a three-ring circus on the web. Everyone tries to read into every last boast and stutter out of the mouths of Apple management and predict the future. We do plenty of that here at TUAW as well -- you can check out all the hard numbers from the call on our wrap-up post -- but while the rest of the staff puts on their thinking caps to dissect the transcript, I figured it would be easier to just run a bunch of the most notable quotes from the call through my handy dandy AppleSpeak Translator 4000. Let's check the results! Tim Cook: "We're pleased to report a strong finish to an amazing year with record fourth-quarter revenue, including sales of almost 34 million iPhones." Translation: "Ok, listen, we sold a lot of stuff and made a whole bunch of money, but that doesn't really matter to any of you, right? No matter what I say, you're going to scribble your little notes down and the stock is going to dip as soon as I hang up, just like it always does." Tim Cook: "We're proud to be a force of good in the world, beyond our products." Translation: "We make desirable green gadgets, and we're nice people. You can't possible hate us, it's against the rules." Tim Cook: The iPad Air is "the most incredible product we've ever done." Translation: "We made it thinner and lighter and smaller... and more powerful. I already know you want one, I mean just look at the thing." Tim Cook: "We obviously believe that we can use our skills in building other great products that are in categories that represent where we do not participate today. We are pretty confident about that." Translation: "Yeah, we could probably launch the iWatch before this winter's snow melts if we really really wanted to, but did you see how badly Samsung is taking it on the chin with that Galaxy Gear monstrosity? We'll keep the iWatch in our back pocket for now, thank you very much." Tim Cook: "We're selling the iPhone 5c as a mid-tier offering." Translation: "There's no such thing as a bargain iPhone. Apple doesn't make bargain products." Tim Cook: "We had a pretty good quarter in China." Translation: "We launched an iPhone day-one in China for the first time ever, and that should tell you exactly how we feel about expanding our reach in the region." Tim Cook: "We continue to view the tablet market as 'huge.' We see it as a large opportunity for us. We are not solely focused on unit share, as we've said many times, but on usage and customer [satisfaction] and other things that are very important to us." Translation: "We realize Android and Kindle are now forces to be reckoned with in the tablet market, but we're not going to sacrifice the iPad experience just to push a $200 tablet out the door. We'll sell iPads to people who want iPads, and there are plenty of those around." Tim Cook: "It's going to be an iPad Christmas." Translation: "If you're not already making plans to get one, don't cry in the middle of December when you have to drop $1,500 for a new Retina iPad mini on eBay just to keep from ruining your family's holiday."
Nokia aims to take the drudgery out of concalls with its Conference app
Is your organization still on the fence about BB10 and casting around for alternatives? Then here's a little first-party business app for Nokia Windows Phones that might be worthy of some evidence-based evaluation. It's called Conference and it's only at the beta stage, but it's already able to serve its primary purpose: namely, letting you join a conference call on your Lumia without needing to grab details out of your calendar and key them in. The app receives the invite, with the necessary ID/PIN details supplied by the sender, and then lets you join a call with a single tap -- or a voice instruction if you're on a WP8 handset. It also integrates with Lync and vibrates whenever someone uses corporatese in lieu of gravitas.
Daily iPhone App: Bridge Call Dialer speeds conference calling
As much as we love the multitasker flexibility of the iPhone, there are situations where you might find it slightly inconvenient to have your email, notepad, address book and phone all stacked atop one another on a touchscreen. Most business professionals experience one of those situations on a regular basis: the simple (or not so simple) conference call. Sure, if your meeting host is using an integrated service that supports iOS directly (WebEx, GoToMeeting, Fuze Meeting etc.) then it's one-button easy to join the call via VoIP or a callback. But most of the time, you'll find yourself jotting down a bridge number and PIN on a piece of paper, or switching between apps hastily to memorize the access code before the voice prompt times out. Not ideal. That's why I'm so fond of AHUB's $1.99 iPhone utility Bridge Call Dialer. The feature list is brief and the interface utilitarian (at best), but what it does it does oh so well. If you've got a calendar appointment with a conference call number listed, pop open BCD and it will scan through the event description. Tap once to enter the bridge number, again to capture the PIN, and then tap "call." Watch, pleasantly relaxed, as BCD hands off the dial string to the Phone app, complete with pauses and octothorpes, to join you to the conference. The current version of BCD lets you save one-click "frequent calls" detail so you can quickly rejoin a regularly scheduled phone meeting. You can also associate a conference call number and PIN with a particular iPhone contact; that way, whenever that person sends you a meeting invite, their conference info will be prepopulated automatically. New in BCD 3.0 is the ability to specify a VoIP app to handle calls selectively (on WiFi or when they're internal PBX calls), rather than using the iPhone's built-in phone. Configuring your VoIP tool in BCD requires that the dialing app support a URL scheme to hand off the number, which not all apps do; Talkatone is explicitly supported, and it looks like Acrobits SIP, Line2 and the open-source Siphon all have the ability to take a call handoff. I'd love to try it with Skype or Bria, which are my go-to apps for calls, but it may take some tweaking. The next time you reach for a pen and paper before a conference call, consider a $2 investment in streamlining your day and treat yourself to a license for BCD.
Liveblogging Apple's 'cash balance' conference call
Apple's already told us exactly what to expect on this so-called 'cash balance' conference call, but what they hey -- we'll be liveblogging it just in case Appel slips in that "one more thing." You know, that "thing" about spending a few billion on an Apple-shaped spacecraft for kicks and giggles. The call will get underway at 9AM ET, and we'll have quotes from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer, as well as any juicy questions from the media. March 19, 2012 9:00 AM EDT
Apple to announce plans for its $100 billion cash reserves tomorrow morning
A slew of successful, high margin products have left Apple sitting on an almost unimaginable amount of money -- $97 billion as of its last earnings report -- and led to the natural question of just what to do with it. According to a press release just issued, we'll all find out about "the outcome of the Company's discussions" tomorrow on a conference call with CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer at 9AM ET. What does $100 billion or so of iMac, Macbook, iPhone and iPad money buy? Speculation has already included dividends for investors, a spending spree of acquisitions or even a dip into philanthropy. We'd have blown the entire bundle on the largest indoor laser tag facility ever built long ago, so this time we'll leave the question to the experts -- what do you think the folks in Cupertino will (or should) announce? March 19, 2012 08:00 AM EST
Apple hosting conference call on March 19 to discuss cash balance
Apple issued a press release today (Sunday, March 18) saying that CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will host a conference call bright and early on Monday, March 19 to "announce the outcome of the Company's discussions concerning its cash balance." The call should be of particular interest to shareholders, who could possibly hear of a dividend payment. The press release also notes that "Apple will not be providing an update on the current quarter nor will any topics be discussed other than cash." To listen in on the call, which begins at 6 AM PDT / 9 AM EDT, a webcast is available here. The rebroadcast of the call will be available for approximately two weeks afterwards.
Guild Wars 2 console version confirmed
Guild Wars Insider has the scoop on the confirmation of a Guild Wars 2 console version at some point after the game's PC client goes live. The source is an NCsoft earnings call, during which a couple of console-specific statements were made. The call also mentions beta testing for the upcoming fantasy game. "In March and April there will be large-scale testing for GW2; depending on results of testing a finalized commercialization schedule will be determined. [The] console version will be launched separately from [the] PC [version] at a later date," the fan site reports. NCsoft also says it will be considering "seasonality factors" when determining "final commercialization" for both Guild Wars 2 and Blade & Soul. Head to Guild Wars Insider for more, including audio of the call.
Disney considering 28-day rental window, because 'On Stranger Tides' was that good
That sound you can hear is the studios dashing around as they look for a new scapegoat. Disney's got Redbox and Netflix in its sights as it declares plans to impose a 28-day window before it'll make its titles available for rental. Despite conceding that the studio hadn't seen any impact on overall DVD sales, CEO Bob Iger pointed to a 16 percent drop in quarterly revenue compared to 2010 as the motivation. It's also collecting splinters in its backside as it watches to see how well digital locker service UltraViolet fares with consumers before committing to join the program. Of course, given the legitimacy of First Sale Doctrine, it's possible Redbox will do as its done with Warner titles and just buy 'em at retail -- as long as it can cover its costs as it does so.
Google brings free voice calls to Hangouts, really wants you to hang out
Google's Hangout feature has just become a little more Hangout-y, now that the folks in Mountain View have integrated free voice calls within Google+. Available to users within the US and Canada, this new "extra" feature allows social networkers to place calls directly from a Hangout, allowing the recipient to remotely join in on the conversation at hand. To set it up, all you have to do is start a Hangout, hit the "Invite" button, and dial up your friend's number. Users can also use the feature to place individual calls without setting up a Google Voice account, though they'll need one if they wanna talk to someone overseas.
Apple schedules Q4 conference call for Oct. 18
Use Siri to set a reminder for October 18. That afternoon, Apple will announce its fourth quarter 2011 earnings via a live earnings conference call to discuss the results. The call will start at 5:00 p.m. EDT (2:00 pm PDT) will be streamed live over the Internet so you can listen in. Most of the call is filled with financial information only an accountant will appreciate, but there are always tidbits of information about Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod sales that'll interest Apple fans. And we usually live-blog it which makes it a barrel of fun. Plan to come join us, won't you please? [Via MacObserver]
Apple's Q3 2011 financial results call scheduled for July 19
Apple has announced that its Q3 2011 financial results conference call will take place at 5 PM Eastern / 2 PM Pacific on Tuesday, July 19. Apple usually releases its financial results to the public a couple hours before the call itself takes place, and we'll be keeping an eye out for that when it happens. We will also likely be liveblogging when the call takes place and relay any insights that we get from the call.
NCsoft: Guild Wars 2 beta coming later this year, will probably release in 2012
Do you want the good news or the bad news? The good news is that Guild Wars 2 fans hoping to get their hands on this title this year may get their wish -- but the bad news is that it looks as though the release is still a while away. According to Eurogamer, Guild Wars 2 will enter beta testing in the second half of this year. The news came out in a conference call with NCsoft's Jaeho Lee, who also indicated that the title wouldn't release until 2012: "Starting from year 2012, we believe substantial growth will be driven by new blockbuster titles like [Blade & Soul] and Guild Wars 2. Also, Guild Wars 2 will go into beta testing stage in the second half of this year." However, until we hear a definite release date, we'll take this with a pinch of salt, especially considering that ArenaNet's mantra is "When it's ready" -- and this isn't the first time Lee has said something similar. Hopefully, "ready" will come quickly.
The "big bet": EA aims at a half-million subscribers to make SWTOR profitable
"It's a big bet, but it's the right kind of bet to make for EA." These are the words of BioWare's Ray Muzyka, responding to a conference call to EA investors in which the company admitted that Star Wars: The Old Republic will need to pull in at least 500,000 subscribers to become profitable. This is substantially less than the two million subscriber mark that industry analysts previously predicted. During the conference call, EA CEO John Riccitiello drew a line in the sand between financial failure and victory for The Old Republic: "At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about. Anything north of one million subscribers is a very profitable business. Essentially it turns on a dime from being quite sharply negative in terms of its EPS [Earnings Per Share] impact to positive the day the product ships. So it's our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader [World of Warcraft] because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there. Of course, we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two. Our ambitions are higher than that, but we throttle back a little bit relative to our financial projections." While Riccitiello admitted that the title has seen "significant development costs," he claims that costs proposed by the public are far higher than the actual costs of The Old Republic's development. He declined to share the actual costs or the number of staff working on the game. EA also announced that The Old Republic's release date will be in calendar 2011. BioWare has as recently as this January targeted a spring 2011 release. EA's estimate puts its launch somewhere between March 31st and December 31st of this year.
TUAW Liveblog: Apple Q3 earnings call
We're liveblogging today's Apple earnings results in the CoverItLive widget below -- be sure to click and join in to share your comments! You can also listen in on the call via QuickTime streaming. TUAW Coverage of the Apple 3Q Financial Call
Apple posts record $3.25b profit in first full quarter of iPad sales, says more 'amazing products' coming this year
Apple just posted up its third quarter earnings -- its first full quarter selling the iPad -- and, well, it's raining cash in Cupertino. The company posted a record profit of $3.25b on record revenues of $15.7b, which is up from $1.83b and $9.73b from a year ago. The big stat? Apple sold 3.27 million iPads, nearly matching the 3.47 million Macs sold -- and Mac sales were up 33 percent from a year ago to set a new quarterly record. Yeah, damn. iPhone sales -- including the first few weeks of the iPhone 4 -- were up 61 percent from a year ago to 8.4 million, and the iPod continued its slow decline, down eight percent to 9.41 million units sold. Over half of the Apple's sales -- 52 percent -- were international, and Jobs is quoted saying "we have amazing new products still to come this year." Not a bad way to head into back-to-school and the holidays, we suppose -- we've got a feeling those iPad numbers are just going to go up. The conference call to discuss all this is at 5pm ET, we'll be covering it live right here. Update: The call is all done -- the full liveblog is after the break. We didn't learn too much apart from the fact that Apple's selling every iPhone and iPad it can make (Tim Cook repeated this over and over), and that Apple's setting aside $175 million in revenue to cover the free iPhone 4 cases. Of course, given that Apple added an additional $4.1 billion in cash to its warchest this quarter for a total of $45.8 billion, that's pretty much pocket change, but there's the number.
Line2 adds a second line to your iPhone for $15 a month
Would you like to add a second line to your iPhone? Perhaps you'd like to add a business number to the phone, but your existing phone is currently tied to your personal mobile number. You could always carry a second phone, but that's an expensive proposition, particularly if you're an iPhone addict. VoIP provider Toktumi has a solution that may work out well for you. They're now selling an app called Line2 (US$0.99) that mimics many of the capabilities of the standard Phone app, complete with a form of visual voice mail. Purchasing the app provides you with one month of free VoIP service. After that point, each month's continued service costs $14.95 for unlimited calls within the US and Canada. The service is purchased in-app, and was a point of confusion for me -- the app listing in the iTunes store shows a "Top In App Purchase" at a cost of $19.99 for a month. Toktumi's website and the promotional video (above) do show the lower monthly rate. While many VoIP solutions require a Wi-Fi connection to work, Line2 works over both 3G and Wi-Fi. The app has many of the features you might want in a business phone, including call waiting and call transfer, the ability to create conference calls with up to 20 participants, and even integration with Toktumi's hosted PBX service. For small businesses that want to present a more professional image to callers, Line2 might be just the right solution. Toktumi notes that the app also works with both the iPod touch (Wi-Fi only) and iPad (Wi-Fi or 3G).
70% of trial players quit WoW before level 10
When Blizzard put all characters below level 10 on easy-mode and added the tutorials in patch 3.3, I thought that was because they were expecting a huge influx of new players for the holidays. But I was wrong. CEO Mike Morhaime stated in the quarterly conference call for investors yesterday that only 30% of all Trial Accounts make it past level 10. This would account for the priority of making the beginning of the game new player friendly, over other development we veteran players would like to have seen. He goes on to say that the changes to the leveling game in Cataclysm will be good for retaining new players while giving better replay value for the rest of us. Now, I know what you're thinking. How many of those trial accounts are scammers, so of course they don't make it to level 10? Good point. I don't know the numbers, though I'm sure Blizzard could just look at how many of those accounts made character names by facerolling. However, the account thieves aren't strapped for cash and have been known to not only purchase full accounts to do their evil bidding; but will also reactivate lapsed accounts, slap an Authenticator on and farm/scam away. So the 70% may very well include a large percentage of potential subscribers by process of elimination, since the scammers can afford multiple accounts. As I've said before, the pre-level 10 changes we already have help us introduce our loved ones to the game. And I think we're all looking forward to the new starting zones and leveling experiences we'll find in Cataclysm. Particularly now that we've had a taste of the new quest mechanics in the Love is in the Air quests, such as PIlfering Perfume and Hot on the Trail. [via Digital Spy]
Cataclysm release confirmed for 2010 in Activision Blizzard conference call
Just in case we weren't completely sure of it yet, Activision Blizzard confirmed in today's quarterly earnings call that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released in 2010. For general Blizzard fans, another game was given a 2010 release date: StarCraft II, which will begin its beta phase within a month. As was pointed out during the conference call, it has been twelve years since Blizzard released two major titles in the same calendar year. The Cataclysm news is in line with everything we've heard so far, including Mike Morhaime's comments during BlizzCon that the expansion has a targeted release date of 2010. Things seem to be moving along right on schedule, but remember that this is Blizzard. Things could change at any time, so I wouldn't start preparing for leveling vacations yet. Actually, you probably shouldn't do that at all. It's kind of silly.
Join us for a Tablet talkcast this evening at 5:30pm Eastern
Everyone's currently engaged with the fervor over the pending announcement, but once the dust settles, there'll be lots and lots of opinions to be shared and "will you/won't you buy it" conversations to be had. That's what our talkcast is for! This evening at 5:30pm Eastern, we invite you to join us over on Talkshoe.com for a special edition of our weekly TUAW Talkcast, all about today's announcement and what it means for the Appleverse at large. A crew of TUAW regulars will be aboard with us, and you'll be invited to call up yourself and share your own opinions about what has happened today. Please join us -- the talkcast will kick off this evening at 5:30pm Eastern on our Talkshoe page (right in the middle of the latest edition of TUAW TV Live, which starts up at 5 this evening). Bring your opinions, please! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk with you then!
