Category: Apple Insider

Matter is upon us

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The Connectivity Standards Alliance gathered the media in Amsterdam, revealing new information about its future roadmap and highlighting devices from many partner brands.

It included hands-on demos showing previously inoperable devices playing nice with one another. With Matter, a Google smart speaker will be able to control an Eve light switch, which was previously impossible as Eve has always been a HomeKit-exclusive brand.

This amounted to an impressive start for the emerging standard. Here’s how the launch will work, when you’ll be able to start using Matter products, and what the future of the standard looks like.

Announced at the media event, the CSA says more than 190 products have completed Matter certification or are in the queue to be certified. This is up from the initial 130 devices that were expected.

The CSA also touted that there were more than 4,400 downloads of the Matter specifications and 2,500 downloads of the official SDK, all signs of intense interest from both member and non-member smart home manufacturers.

Many brands have announced forthcoming firmware updates. Eve, Signify, Brilliant, Amazon, Samsung, Level, and many more plan on rolling out firmware updates to existing products, requiring no additional purchase.

Eve may be the first company to deliver a Matter accessory, with the Eve Motion and Eve Door & Window getting updated on December 12.

Other companies have opted to release new hardware products. Nanoleaf has a new Essentials line coming in early 2023 to support Matter over Thread and promised additional announcements at CES 2023.

Apple has already brought Matter support to its platforms with iOS 16.1. As soon as Matter products are updated or hit store shelves, you can add them to the Home app.

The CSA told AppleInsider that it plans to release new versions of Matter on a bi-annual basis — roughly every six months. That means the next iteration of Matter could arrive as soon as March.

These subsequent Matter updates will contain performance improvements, new functionality, and support for additional devices. The initial slate of device categories isn’t huge and includes primarily device types already supported by Apple HomeKit.

New categories, though, will be more exciting. The CSA confirmed that future device categories include:

• Cameras
• Robot vacuums
• Appliances
• Wi-Fi access points
• Energy managment
• Closure sensors
• Environmental sensors & controls
• Smoke detectors
• Carbon monoxide detectors
• Ambient motion and presence sensing

All of the above device categories above have yet to be confirmed for the next iteration of Matter next year. However, HomeKit users will be excited to see new device categories, such as robo vacs and home appliances — two popular categories Apple has failed to natively support.

Between the heightened interest at launch, the full support of Apple, and a rapid release schedule for future updates, Matter is poised to reshape the smart home space even if the initial launch lacks fanfare for HomeKit users.

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As analysts have predicted, Qualcomm will remain a supplier of modems to Apple — at least through the next iPhone lineup.

According to Bloomberg, Qualcomm has informed its investors that it will continue to provide modems for the “vast majority” of iPhones released in 2023.

Initially, Qualcomm anticipated that it would only need to supply 20% of modems.

Apple has been working on creating its own modem for use in its hardware for several years, hoping to gain more control over how the component functions and to reduce costs. However, it doesn’t seem that 2023 will be the year Apple makes the switch.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had predicted that Apple would fall short of the goal in January. His survey of the supply chain indicated that Apple’s modem development “may have failed,” resulting in Qualcomm remaining as the “exclusive supplier for 5G chips of 2H23 new iPhones.”

Credit: Apple

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According to Apple’s System Status page, the issue has been going on since 6:41 PM Eastern and is only affecting certain users.

Some users have taken to Twitter to report the outage, and as MacRumors has noted, DownDetector has seen an uptick in reports over the last few hours.

Currently, none of Apple’s other services are affected, according to the system status page.

Apple Park

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The news comes shortly after the announcement that Evans Hankey would soon leave the company. Hankey was best known as Jony Ive’s replacement.

Anna Matthiasson, Apple’s vice president of online retail, is leaving her position at the company, sources told Bloomberg.

Matthiasson has been at the company for only three years, and the reason for her departure is unknown.

Karen Rasmussen, a senior director of digital experience and eCommerce at the company, will take Matthiasson’s place.

Additionally, Chief Information Officer, Mary Demby, is retiring after three decades. There has yet to be a word on who will take on her role.

Apple also lost privacy exec Jane Horvath, in August. She departed the company for Los Angeles-based law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

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Whether you’re just starting your music journey or if you’ve been collecting for a long time, it can be daunting trying to find audio equipment that fits well in your home.

The Newbury Music center is designed to take the place of multiple pieces of audio equipment, making it perfect for small spaces. It plays your CDs, records, and Bluetooth audio — and even features an FM Radio tuner.

We love the design of the Newbury 8-in-1 Music Center. It features chair-height tapered legs and invokes a mid-century design that we think looks great.

It comes in two colorways, Mahogany and Espresso. We received an espresso one to review.

The front of the Newbury features an attractive brass faceplate that houses the controls. Victor also includes a separate remote control, which we thought was an excellent addition.

If you’d rather have it on a tabletop, the manufacturer also includes some table-height feet.

The most significant selling point of the Newbury is the 3-speed turntable housed under the lid at the top. It’s a reasonably standard turntable; thankfully, the stylus is replaceable.

When we tested it, there was no skipping, and the speed was consistent, which made for a pleasant listening experience.

As a bonus, a 45 RPM 7″ single adapter is included, too.

Of course, it’s not just a record player. It also plays CDs.

We absolutely loved this feature, as many of us still have our music collections from days gone by, and as expected, that includes a lot of CDs as well.

The Newbury features a dual Bluetooth mode, which is excellent. If you’d like to pair your iPhone or Mac with it and listen to music from Apple Music, you can.

But if you want to pair it with an existing Bluetooth speaker, you can do that, too. This is great if you’ve got a Bluetooth speaker you’re already quite fond of.

We tested the Bluetooth In and Bluetooth Out features with no problems — it worked exactly as it should.

We should also mention that there’s a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks, which allows you to connect other devices to your Newbury. One is a Line In, while the other is an Audio Out.

For instance, you can connect a Walkman cassette player and use your Newbury’s speakers to play your favorite cassettes. Or, if you’d rather connect a speaker to your Newbury, you can also do that.

We’d be remiss not to mention the FM Radio feature. You can listen to the radio, and when you use the scanner feature, it’ll automatically save all stations it finds as presets.

While the FM radio works, it’s not the best. This is partially due to the style of antenna used — a floppy, single wire that we found worked better if we lifted it upward.

We would have preferred a rigid, extendable antenna, as we’ve got another radio that uses one, and it works much better.

However, if you don’t listen to the radio often, there’s hardly any reason to be concerned with this — we see it purely as a bonus feature.

If you’d like to record the music from your records or CDs, the Newbury comes with a handy feature that allows you to record the audio to a thumb drive.

This is great if you’ve got some obscure records or CDs in your collection that you’d like to make digital copies of.

We tested the feature and found that it worked well. You do need to manually start and stop for individual tracks or do final editing in a sound editing app.

Overall, the Newbury is a nice little all-in-one music system. The speakers are sufficient for normal use, and at average volumes, it provides clear mids and crisp highs.

It doesn’t offer much in the way of bass, but it doesn’t sound too thin, either.

The soundstage is a bit cramped, which is to be expected. It’s not a very large speaker, and while there is some channel separation, it’s not much.

Still, we found the experience to be enjoyable all around.

However, this is not the tool for a boisterous party. The maximum volume isn’t terribly loud — we measured an average of 72 decibels from six feet away — and the audio can distort a bit at higher levels.

It’s best suited to small-group listening sessions or everyday listening. If you’d like to use it in louder scenarios, we’d suggest pairing it with a more substantial Bluetooth speaker.

We think the Newbury would make an excellent addition to a first apartment or casual music listener home. Its entry price point and attractive design make it a fantastic addition to nearly any space.

Real audiophiles will want to invest in something at a higher price point as this lacks the depth that serious listeners may be looking for.

• Attractive, retro design
• Plays records, CD, and audio streamed from Bluetooth sources
• Dual Bluetooth function
• Records records, CDs to thumb drive

• Lacks deep bass
• Distorts at higher volumes and maximum volume is relatively low
• FM radio feature feels like an afterthought

16-inch MacBook Pro

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The fall is Apple’s main product launch period, with the annual iPhone refresh being the centerpiece of events. Flanking them are Apple’s other ecosystem changes, covering product areas including the iPad, the Apple Watch, and the Mac, which can sometimes get their own events.

Apple’s M2 processor debuted in 2022, with new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models. And, before that, the incredibly powerful Mac Studio found its way to store shelves.

The obvious next choice for the M2 is in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. That update has been rumored for some time. November has been the most likely timeframe.

A combination of a fall release cycle with atypical timing, and comments made by Tim Cook directly, have called a November event into question.

So now, we may not even see anything new until 2023.

A couple of things were mentioned in a call to analysts following Apple’s quarterly results release. As is typical for a results call, Apple doesn’t offer opinions or details of yet-to-launch products.

However, you can still pull out details based on what is said.

During the call, which saw Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri discuss generally favorable revenues and currency challenges, the pair also broke down details based on each unit.

For the Mac, Maestri spoke about the “great quarter” for the Mac unit, achieving an “all-time revenue record of $11.5 billion, up 25% year-over-year despite significant FX headwinds.” Maestri points out three things that helped the quarter, including the launch of the M2 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Second was Apple’s ability to “satisfy pent-up demand that carried forward from the significant supply constraints we faced during the July quarter,” explained the CFO. Lastly, as the supply position improved, the channel was able to be filled completely.

Maestri also referenced how Apple has attracted upgraders and new customers, increasing the install base to an all-time high. “In fact, we set a quarterly record for upgraders while nearly half of customers buying Macs during the quarter were new to the device.”

While good for the quarter gone by, Maestri offered some guidance for the fiscal Q1 2023 quarter — the crucial holiday quarter. Maestri expects the quarter will see a deceleration of performance growth for the company as a whole.

A lot of this is a 10% negative impact on year-on-year growth caused by currency exchanges, but he also highlights the Mac.

“Second, on Mac, in addition to increasing FX headwinds, we have a very challenging compare against last year, which had the benefit of the launch and associated channel feel of our newly redesigned MacBook Pro with M1,” the financial chief offered. “Therefore, we expect Mac revenue to decline substantially year-over-year during the December quarter.”

The other curious comment is from Cook himself. In a section about retail, Cook thanks Apple employees across the company, and adds color about what’s being sold in the quarter.

In opening statements, Cook addressed the analysts directly.

“As we approach the holiday season, with our product lineup set, I’d like to share my gratitude to our retail AppleCare and channel teams for the work they are doing to support customers.”

Right in the middle of that sentence is the key. Apple is entering the busy shopping season “with our product lineup set.”

Maestri’s comments paint the fiscal Q1 2023 quarter as being tough for Mac revenue. The reasons offered for his forecast are rooted in known past events and in good educated guesses.

In discussing why, he referred to the high Mac revenue of Q1 2022, brought on by the M1 MacBook Pro launches. This could be a telling element depending on how you view evidence by omission.

Maestri and Cook don’t talk about future product launches, as it is usually left to Apple’s PR team to inform of upcoming events. This hasn’t stopped them from saying another event is on the way or that new Macs are inbound.

After all, if there were to be a launch in Q1 2023, for the Q1 2022 to still be better and be worthy enough to reference M1 launches, the Q1 2023 Macs would have to be anticipated as low-sellers in comparison.

No company’s leadership in its right mind would tell investors that the launch of products in the next quarter will be underwhelming. The most likely reason is that there won’t be an event or release of any sort.

And, Cook’s clear “product lineup set” remark practically kills off any other speculation of an event.

If Apple were to have more products to launch, such as new Macs, Cook wouldn’t knowingly say a lineup has been “set,” as that says there’s nothing more to come.

This late in the year and with other commentary in play, it seems like the product catalog has been completely finalized.

After months of rumors about M2 changes, including adding M2 to the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro and an expected overhaul of the Mac mini, the financial commentary makes it seem very unlikely that there will be another launch in 2022 for Macs.

Sadly, we can’t even stretch things by questioning if a change in chip constitutes a new model for a Mac. Previous refreshes of the Mac line that were simple specification bumps were given at least a press release announcement and have been counted as full model upgrades in the past.

As a more recent example, take the 2022 iPad Pro refresh, which largely consisted of Apple sticking an M2 inside instead of the M1, and adding the Apple Pencil hover feature, while keeping practically everything else static about the models. This relatively simple pair of changes was important enough for Apple to perform a press release launch, and it would be reasonable to expect the same for a Mac or MacBook Pro update in a similar vein.

Further evidence of a late 2022 refresh being unlikely is in the cadence of other Apple Silicon hardware updates. It took Apple a year and a half to go from the M1 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro to the M2 versions of each.

By contrast, the M1 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch counterpart were launched in October 2021, making them just a year old.

Being only a year old isn’t a barrier for Apple’s hardware updates, as in the Touch Bar era of Intel MacBook models, the time between updates repeatedly went down to around a year. So it would generally be possible if components were available.

And components are also a problem, specifically the M2 chips. Apple waited 11 months between introducing the M1 and the faster M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.

With M2 landing in June 2022, it seems extremely early in the chip cycle to bring out the Pro and Max versions that would go into updated MacBook Pro models.

All of this firmly puts forward the idea of Apple truly taking a rest from product launches for 2022. This pushes new Macs into early 2023.

Apple can’t lie in earnings reports, lest they fall afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or an assortment of other regulatory bodies internationally. There’s enough wiggle-room in Cook’s statement, that if you squint and look at it just so, Apple rolling out a new MacBook Pro or Mac mini in the same form factor before the end of the year could be construed as an enhancement or other similar legal dodge to avoid SEC ire.

But, it would be new phrasing for Apple. And, Cook and Maestri have been at this long enough to make sure that they don’t say anything that requires a regulatory dance to work around after-the fact.

A better way to avoid that ire is to not have said anything at all about the product lineup during the heavily scripted earnings announcement, going into the holiday season.

But they did. And it wasn’t because they were caught off-guard.

Credit: Twitter

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The on-again, off-again story of Musk buying the social media platform has finally concluded, with Musk taking control of the company in the final days of October.

On Tuesday, Musk began moving ahead with his acquisition of Twitter, a deal that has been up in the air for months. He pledged to provide $46.5 billion in equity and debt financing, covering the acquisition price and closing costs.

On Wednesday, he was spotted on Twitter’s campus speaking to engineers and executives. By Thursday, he closed the deal to buy the social media platform.

However, the transfer of power has been anything but peaceful. According to The New York Times, four top executives were fired on Thursday, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and former general counsel Sean Edgett.

Musk has also claimed that substantial layoffs could be necessary to limit Twitter’s operational costs.

The billionaire plans to radically overhaul how Twitter is managed in the name of free speech. He has stated that he would reverse the permanent ban of former President Donald J. Trump from the service.

He’s also suggested that he’d transform Twitter into an “everything app,” which would be called X.

He told investors Twitter would reach an annual revenue of $26.4 billion and have over 930 million users by 2028.

In 2021, Twitter had an annual revenue of just over $5 billion and around 200 million users.

However, Musk decided to back out of the deal in July, claiming that Twitter lied about the number of fake accounts on the platform. That same month, Twitter sued Musk in an attempt to force the billionaire to acquire the platform at full price.