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Apple Announces Q4 2014 Conference Call for October 20

In an update to the Investor Relations website, Apple today announced their Q4 2014 earnings call, which will be held on Monday, October 20. As usual, Apple will provide a live webcast of the conference call.

Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its fourth fiscal quarter on Monday, October 20, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

Apple’s Q4 2014 earnings call will likely provide another insight into the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Released in 10 countries on September 19 and subsequently rolled out in 22 additional countries on September 26, the iPhone 6 line set a new record for Apple by topping 4 million pre-orders in 24 hours and over 10 million units sold in the opening weekend. It’s also possible that the company may share details about iOS 8 adoption numbers (currently at 41%) and the launch of Yosemite, the next version of OS X that graduated to Golden Master status for registered developers today.

In the third quarter, Apple posted revenue of $37.4 billion. The company sold 13.3 million iPads, 35.2 million iPhones, and 4.4 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $6.9 billion. In the year-ago quarter (Q4 2013), Apple posted revenue of $37.5 billion and sold 14.1 million iPads, 33.8 million iPhones, and 4.6 million Macs. For the fourth quarter of 2014, Apple has set its guidance to “between $37 billion and $40 billion” of revenue.

We will provide live updates from the conference call on our site’s homepage on October 20 starting at 2 PM PT.

Built for iOS 8, DateStamper Lets You Apply Date Stamps to Photos

Photo shot on iPhone 6 and modified with DateStamper (vibrancy effect).

Photo shot on iPhone 6 and modified with DateStamper (vibrancy effect).

When I was a kid, my parents used to take a lot of pictures. Family gatherings, vacations, Sunday road trips, our dog growing up. They weren’t photographers by any means – they just wanted to document our lives and create memories. They useddisposable Kodak cameras most of the time – lots of them. Before smartphones and when “cellphones” meant this, those thousands of pictures collected in dozens of photo albums are the ones that stuck around to this day. They haven’t been lost in a cloud backup. They’re in my closet.

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Saving Recipes with the AnyList Extension

My girlfriend and I are moving into a new apartment next month, and to justify the expense of a new kitchen I promised myself (and my friends) that I would learn new recipes to go beyond my repertoire of a couple of dozen pizza types and pasta sauces. Cooking is a passion of mine, but I feel like I need to extend my knowledge to a wider catalogue of recipes and ingredients. Therefore, I’m in the process of reading and bookmarking several recipe websites (primarily Italian ones) and I thought it’d be interesting to combine that with recipe apps for iOS 8.

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iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Launching in China on October 17

Apple issued a press release today noting that the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will launch in China on Friday, October 17. Preorders will begin a week earlier on October 10 and they will be available on all three of China’s major mobile networks; China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

“We are thrilled to bring iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to our customers in China on all three carriers at launch,” said Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. “With support for TD-LTE and FDD-LTE, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus customers will have access to high-speed mobile networks from China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom for an incredible experience.”

Prices for the iPhone 6 will start at 5,288 (RMB) for the 16GB model, 6,088 (RMB) for the 64GB model and 6,888 (RMB) for the 128GB model. The iPhone 6 Plus will start at 6,088 (RMB) for the 16GB model, 6,888 (RMB) for the 64GB model and 7,788 (RMB) for the 128GB model.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus first went on sale on September 19 in the US and nine other countries where 10 million units were sold in the opening weekend. The second launch round took place last Friday when it went on sale in 20 countries.

iOS 8 Document Management Updates

Panic's Transmit inside Readdle's Documents

Panic’s Transmit inside Readdle’s Documents

After updating PDF Converter and Scanner Pro with support for iOS 8 extensions last week, Readdle released updates to Documents and PDF Expert yesterday, bringing full integration with iCloud Drive and document pickers.

Similarly, Panic’s Transmit was updated with various enhancements including an Import/Export feature for iCloud Drive. These options let you save and copy files to and from Transmit (either in local or remote locations) using the native iOS 8 document picker.

I’ve been playing with both since yesterday and I noticed some good ideas and inconsistencies that I think are worth pointing out.

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Apple Highlights “Apps for Health”

Following the release of iOS 8.0.2 and the restoration of HealthKit functionalities for third-party apps, Apple has started highlighting iPhone apps that integrate with iOS 8’s Health dashboard with a dedicated section on the App Store.

Experience an entirely new approach to wellness where your fitness app can talk to your calorie tracker, your doctor can be automatically notified of updates to your health data, and great apps work together for a healthier you. This handpicked collection highlights the best fitness, nutrition, and medical apps customized for iOS 8.

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Apple Pay and Europe→

Kirk McElhearn makes some good points about Apple Pay in Europe:

On its website, Apple touts that fact that Apple Pay will save you time, by not forcing you to search for your wallet and then find the right card. These concerns, too, are specific to the United States. On average, Europeans carry only 1.46 payment cards (more than two thirds of which are debit cards). In the US, people have more than twice as many cards; 14% of Americans had more than ten cards in 2007. Credit cards are much less common in Europe (though adoption rates vary by country), and most people only have payment cards with their banks.

This is exactly why I’ve been struggling to get the excitement around Apple Pay. Sure, it looks cool, but Passbook was also cool and I never actually used it in a real life scenario in Italy. I’ve never owned more than one payment card in my life (the one supplied by my bank) and most people I know don’t have multiple cards. I’ve never understood the videos of modern payment solutions showing people fumbling to find their credit card – I have one, and it’s not that hard to find in my wallet. We still use cash every day for any kind of purchase, at least here in Italy.

I’m sure that Apple Pay will be easy to use and potentially more appealing than Passbook (especially for online payments). I’m just worried that it’s going to be another cool technology primarily meant for the United States.

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