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Apple sheds value during iPhone event
The TechCrunch crew is hard at work writing up the latest from Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch event. They have good notes on the megacorp’s hardware updates. But what are the markets saying about the same array of products?
For those of us more concerned with effective S&P dividend yields than screen nit levels, events like Apple’s confab are more interesting for what they might mean for the value of the hosting company than how many GPUs a particular smartphone model has. And, for once, Apple’s stock may have done something a little interesting during the event!
Observe the following chart:
Image Credits: TechCrunch/Y Charts
This is a one-day chart, mind, so we’re looking at intraday changes. We’re zoomed in. And Apple kinda took a bit of a dive during its event that kicked off at 1 p.m. in the above chart.
Normally nothing of import happens to Apple’s shares during its presentations. Which feels weird, frankly, as Apple events detail the product mix that will generate hundreds of billions in revenue. You’d think that they would have more impact than their usual zero.
But today, we had real share price movement when the event wrapped around 2 p.m. ET. Perhaps investors were hoping for more pricey devices? Or were hoping Apple had more up its sleeve? How you rate that holiday Apple product lineup is a matter of personal preference, but investors appear to have weighed in slightly to the negative.
Worth around $2.5 trillion, each 1% that Apple’s stock moves is worth $10 billion. Apple’s loss of 1.5% today — more or less; trading continues as I write this — is worth more than Mailchimp. It’s a lot of money.
You can read the rest of our coverage from the Apple event here. Enjoy!
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Apple’s iOS and iPadOS 13 support multiple PS4 or Xbox One controllers, which could be huge for Arcade
Apple’s iOS 13 update (and the newly renamed iPadOS for iPad hardware) both support multiple simultaneous Bluetooth game controller connections. Apple added Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controller support in the updates, and after doing some digging, I can confirm that you can use multiple of either type of controller on one iOS device running the update, with each controlling a different player character.
That’s the good news: The bad news is that not many games take advantage of this right now. I wasn’t able to find a game in Apple’s new Arcade subscription service to try this out, for instance — and even finding a non-Arcade iOS game took a bit of digging. I finally was able to try local multi-controller multiplayer with “Horde,” a free-to-play two-player co-op brawler, and found that it worked exactly as you’d expect.
With Arcade, Apple has done more to re-invigorate the App Store, and gaming on iOS in particular, than it has since the original launch of the iPhone. The all-you-can-game subscription offering, which delivers extremely high-quality gaming experiences without ads or in-app purchases, has already impressed me immensely with the breadth and depth of its launch slate, which includes fantastic titles like “Where Cards Fall,” “Skate,” “Sayonara: Wild Hearts” and “What the Golf,” to name just a few.
Combine the quality and value of the library with cross-play on iOS, iPadOS, Apple TV and eventually Mac devices, and you have a killer combo that’s well-positioned to eat up a lot of the gaming market currently owned by Nintendo’s Switch and other home consoles.
Local multiplayer, especially on iPads, is another potential killer feature here. Already, iPad owners are likely to be using their tablets both at home and on the road, and providing quality local gaming experiences on that big display, with just the added requirement that you pack a couple of PS4 or Xbox controllers in your suitcase or carry-on, opens up a lot of potential value for device owners.
As I said above, there’s not much in the way of games that support this right now, but it’s refreshing to know that the features are there for when game developers want to take advantage.
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Firefox is now a better iPad browser
Mozilla today announced a new iOS version of Firefox that has been specifically optimized for Apple’s iPad. Given the launch of the new iPad mini this week, that’s impeccable timing. It’s also an admission that building a browser for tablets is different from building a browser for phones, which is what Mozilla mostly focused on in recent years.
“We know that iPads aren’t just bigger versions of iPhones,” Mozilla writes in today’s announcement. “You use them differently, you need them for different things. So rather than just make a bigger version of our browser for iOS, we made Firefox for iPad look and feel like it was custom made for a tablet.”
So with this new version, Firefox for iPad gets support for iOS features like split screen and the ability to set Firefox as the default browser in Outlook for iOS. The team also optimized tab management for these larger screens, including the option to see tabs as large tiles, “making it easy to see what they are, see if they spark joy and close with a tap if not.” And if you have a few tabs you want to share, then you can do so with the Send Tabs feature Mozilla introduced earlier this year.
Starting a private browsing session on iOS always took a few extra tabs. The iPad version makes this a one-tap affair as it prominently highlights this feature in the tab bar.
Because quite a few iPad users also use a keyboard, it’s no surprise that this version of Firefox also supports keyboard shortcuts.
If you are an iPad user in search of an alternative browser, Firefox may now be a viable option for you. Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments (just don’t remind us how you work from home for only a few hours a day and make good money… believe me, we’re aware).
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Civilization VI lands on iPad
In case you wanted something engrossing to keep you distracted from family squabbles this holiday, a special gift just arrived: Civilization VI, which is now available as a $30 purchase for iPad via the App Store. The world building simulation game is possibly the most ambitious and expansive ever to hit the iPad, and it has hefty spec requirements to match – you’ll need at least… Read More
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Apple will reportedly unify iOS and Mac apps in 2018
Apple is said to be working on a way to allow developers to build apps that work with touchscreen input on iPhone and iPad, and with mouse and trackpad on Mac devices, to be implemented next year, according to Bloomberg. The system would unify development environments for both of Apple’s main computing platforms, iOS and macOS, allowing them to target all devices with a single app instead… Read More
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Here’s an early look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 8
We’re just weeks away from Samsung’s next major launch event on August 23, and already we have a full visual of the device it is expected to unveil — the Galaxy Note 8. That’s courtesy of prolific smartphone leaker Evan Blass — who correctly detailed Samsung’s Galaxy S8 before it was announced earlier this year — and a couple of photos of the… Read More
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Lightroom Mobile gains RAW HDR capture on iOS and Android
Good news, pocket photographers: Your mobile device just became a much more powerful camera thanks to a new update to Lightroom Mobile. The app for iOS and Android now supports RAW HDR capture on newer devices, including the iPhone 6s and above, as well as the iPad Pro 9.7-inch; on Android, Galaxy S7, S7 Edge and Google Pixel users can join in the fun. Why would you want this if your phone… Read More
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Samsung investigating reports of Galaxy Note 7 explosions
Samsung is looking into reports from multiple users that the recently released Galaxy Note 7 has issues wherein a few phones have exploded during charging. A Samsung spokesperson told TechCrunch that they’re “conducting a thorough inspection,” and Korean news agency Yonhap reported earlier that a potential recall of all Note 7 devices is one option on the table.… Read More
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Android Nougat comes out of beta
Google surprised everyone when it launched a public beta of the Android Nougat back in March. Annual updates are nothing new for Android, but not only did this announcement come very early, it also offered users the option to easily install the beta with an over-the-air update. Now, half a year later, Nougat is out of beta and available for Google’s own Nexus devices (the Nexus… Read More
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Google’s Now on Tap gets even smarter
Now on Tap was one of the marquee features of Android Marshmallow when Google first announced this update to its mobile operating system last year (which is now already being eclipsed by the next version: Android Nougat). It allows you to quickly find more relevant information and context about what’s currently on your phone’s or tablet’s screen when you press and hold the… Read More
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