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Apple today held its earnings call for the second fiscal quarter of 2024 (first calendar quarter), with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri providing us with some details on Apple's performance, Vision Pro sales, services growth, AI plans, and other topics. We've highlighted the most interesting takeaways from today's earnings call. Next Week's Announcements Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ said Apple is prepping for "an exciting product announcement" that the company thinks "customers will love." Cook also told CNBC that Apple has "big plans to announce" from an "AI point of view." Generative AI Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ said that Apple is making "significant investments" in AI, and that it has some "very exciting things" to share with customers "soon." Cook also said that he believes Apple has "advantages that will differentiate" the company, including Apple's hardware and soft

Apple today announced financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2024, which corresponds to the first calendar quarter of the year. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $90.8 billion and net quarterly profit of $23.6 billion, or $1.53 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $94.8 billion and net quarterly profit of $24.1 billion, or $1.52 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter . Apple set an all-time quarterly record for Services revenue at $23.9 billion, but iPhone revenue dropped by over $5 billion compared to the year-ago quarter. Gross margin for the quarter was 46.6 percent, compared to 44.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. Apple's board of directors also authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases and declared an increased dividend payment of $0.25 per share, up from $0.24 per share. The dividend is payable May 16 to shareholders of record as of May 13. "Today Apple is reporting revenue of $90.8 billion for the March quarter, incl

AI safety and research company Anthropic has announced the launch of its Claude iOS app, offering users easier access to the conversational agent from their iPhone . Similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, the Claude chatbot operates by processing large amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like responses. Its architecture is based on machine learning techniques including large language models (LLMs). Whereas ChatGPT is foremost designed for versatility and scalability, Anthropic says its focus is on creating a "steerable" AI so that users can direct the model's style and content more effectively, thereby mitigating potential harmful outputs and biases from the outset. The AI company says its Claude iOS app features: Seamless syncing with web chats: Pick up where you left off across devices. Vision capabilities: Use photos from your library, take new photos, or upload files so you can have real-time image analysis, contextual understanding, and mobil

Apple's atrial fibrillation (AFib) history feature on Apple Watch has been qualified by the FDA under its Medical Device Development Tools (MDDT) program, the first digital health technology feature of its kind to do so. Since 2022, Apple Watch has supported AFib History, which allows users diagnosed with atrial fibrillation to view an estimate of how frequently their heart is in this type of irregular rhythm. The feature analyzes pulse rate data collected by a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor to identify episodes consistent with AFib and provides the user with a retrospective estimate of AFib burden (a measure of the amount of time spent in AFib during past Apple Watch wear). Apple says the feature is intended for individuals aged 22 years or older who have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. The AFib History feature received FDA clearance in the United States just prior to its announcement by Apple, after being validated in a clinical study. The MDDT program under w

Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine for Safari on iPhone , iPad , and Mac, reports Bloomberg . The information was revealed in court documents Google provided in its antitrust dispute with the United States Department of Justice. The DoJ has accused Google of having a monopoly on search, and in the lawsuit against Google, the search engine deal with Apple has been a major focus. In November, lawsuit documents indicated that Google was paying 36 percent of the total revenue that it earns from searches conducted on Safari, and now it turns out that equates to $20 billion. Google has been the default search engine on Apple devices since 2002, though the deal has been renegotiated several times. Apple and Google have worked to keep the terms of the search engine agreement under wraps during the trial and before, but it has been well known that Google is paying Apple billions per year . Last October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that the ag

With the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch approaching, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at an interesting bit of Apple Watch history. After the Apple Watch was announced in 2014, and before it became available in 2015, Apple sent out custom Apple Watch iPad demo kiosks to retail stores. The Apple Watch and ‌iPad‌ units used for these devices were specially designed, had custom software, and represent the first and only time that an Apple Watch was able to pair with an ‌iPad‌. AppleDemoYT , known for sourcing rare prototypes, shared images and detailed information about the demo units with MacRumors , offering up detailed insight on the lengths Apple went to for this custom experience. AppleDemoYT was able to acquire one of these now-rare demo units. Jony Ive and his design team came up with the Apple Watch ‌iPad‌ Kiosks as a way for customers to try out an Apple Watch without needing help from an employee. Apple used a modified iPad mini 2 running iOS 8.2 pai

Apple today dropped the price of the MLS Season Pass for the rest of the 2024 Major League Soccer season, which is about a third of the way through. MLS in the U.S. now costs $69, down from $99 when the season began in February. For Apple TV+ subscribers, the pass is now just $59. The MLS Season Pass offers access to every live Major League Soccer match, including Leagues Cup, and All-Star games. Apple offered a similar discount last year, but it came later in the season in September. The 2024 Major League Soccer season will run through October 19, and the MLS Season Pass also includes live coverage of the playoffs that are expected to start in mid-October. The MLS Season Pass is available in the TV app on Apple devices and on Apple TV 4K. Tag: Apple TV Plus This article, " Apple Discounts MLS Season Pass " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums Source: TechRadar