Tag: New product development

  • Listed below are crucial new adjustments coming on your iPhone this autumn

    Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner speaks prior to the beginning of the Apple International Builders Convention at its headquarters on June 05, 2023 in Cupertino, California. Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner kicked off the yearly WWDC23 developer convention. 

    Justin Sullivan | Getty Photographs

    At its annual developer convention on Monday, Apple debuted iOS 17 and the slew of updates it is going to convey to iPhones in all places later this 12 months. The corporate unveiled adjustments to how incoming calls seem, new in-app messaging options or even a “standby” mode.

    The brand new working gadget offered at WWDC 2023 will probably be appropriate with the iPhone XR and later gadgets, rolling out in and round September. Listed below are the highlights – and for CNBC’s are living weblog of all of the match, click on right here. 

    Touch playing cards and video voicemail 

    With iOS 17, customers will probably be ready to select how their touch playing cards seem, together with what pops up once they position a decision to every other iPhone. They are able to replace their symbol, whether or not a photograph or Memoji, in addition to its filter out and the colour and font in their title. 

    In case you are no longer keen on voicemails, Apple has some excellent information. Reside transcription will probably be coming for telephone voicemails so customers should not have to hear get the message. And because it is in real-time, if one thing is essential, you’ll “select up the decision to speak to them proper then and there,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vp of tool engineering, mentioned at the livestream. 

    Some other giant trade is that voicemail may be coming to FaceTime, so customers can go away video recordings for family and friends. 

    Team chat hacks and voice notice transcription 

    Apple stickers

    Supply: Apple

    In case you are the infamous flake in workforce chats, iOS 17 has crucial function for you. It is a “catch-up” arrow within the best proper nook of the messaging window that lets you soar to the message you learn maximum lately, although it was once closing week. You’ll be able to now transcend the standard emoji and use your personal pictures to create reactions, together with animated stickers from Reside Pictures. Customers too can react with stickers in third-party apps, Apple introduced.

    The corporate additionally mentioned that dictation and autocorrect will now use transformer-based language fashions for speech reputation and prediction, for higher accuracy and potency. If the function will get issues flawed, it is now more uncomplicated to revert again on your authentic textual content, Apple mentioned, and in-line predictions will probably be extra personalised: Simply use the spacebar to simply accept a proposal. 

    For individuals who love to overshare on voice messages, iOS 17 is handing over automated transcriptions.

    Airdrop will get a revamp, and so does location-sharing

    Apple Identify Drop

    Supply: Apple

    Messaging now gives in-app location-sharing capability, so that you should not have to click on out of a dialog to view a touch’s shared location, and there is additionally a check-in function so you’ll see when anyone has made it house protected. In case you are no longer heading against your location, your iPhone will ping you to test in and will let you upload a time on your deliberate arrival. If you do not reply, it could possibly proportion your location and battery standing together with your selected touch. Apple mentioned all of that data is end-to-end encrypted. 

    The corporate additionally published updates to Airdrop, together with “Namedrop.” The function means that you can convey your machine as regards to someone else’s iPhone or Apple Watch and proportion touch data, specifying which of your telephone numbers or electronic mail addresses you need to go alongside.

    In case you are giant into appearing off all the ones holiday pics, iOS 17 will permit you to proceed sharing even while you go away Airdrop vary and with out shedding high quality.

    Journaling involves iPhone, outdoor the Notes app 

    Notes app power-users now have a brand new software. Magazine makes use of on-device device finding out to “encourage your writing” by way of personalised tips out of your Pictures app. Say you took a week-long seaside holiday together with your circle of relatives: Magazine might show the place you went, your favourite songs from the travel and the pictures you took, in addition to a writing steered so that you can replicate at the highlights.

    Customers can agenda journaling activates for a undeniable time of day, and the app’s content material is encrypted so “nobody however you’ll get right of entry to it, no longer even Apple,” Adeeti Ullal, a senior engineering supervisor, mentioned on the match. 

    Standby mode

    Apple Standby

    Supply: Apple

    When your telephone is charging and grew to become on its aspect, iOS 17’s Standby mode lets in it to change into a clock, assembly agenda, song show, map, meals supply tracker and extra. It is “glanceable data designed to be seen at a distance,” Federighi mentioned at the livestream. 

    Alternatively you personalize the brand new function, your iPhone will bear in mind particular settings in accordance with the MagSafe charging location. For example, charging in your table might imply Standby robotically presentations your assembly agenda, whilst charging in your nightstand might defer to a collection of your favourite pictures. 

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  • Why Apple raised the cost of the iPhone, however no longer within the U.S. and China

    Buyer inspects iPhone 14 Professional Max within an Apple retailer in Marunouchi, Tokyo.

    Stanislav Kogiku | SOPA Photographs | Lightrocket | Getty Photographs

    Apple’s latest iPhones, the collection 14 fashions, include higher shows, cameras, and satellite tv for pc messaging, amongst different options and updates. However relying on the place you reside, in addition they would possibly include the next price ticket.

    Whilst some analysts projected that Apple may build up the cost of its newest iPhones around the board because of persisted provide chain demanding situations and inflation, attainable consumers within the U.S. and China noticed no will increase in comparison to the collection 13 fashions.

    However for shoppers in markets just like the U.Ok., Japan, Germany, and Australia, the latest fashions additionally got here with important worth will increase.

    For instance, the bottom iPhone 14 fashion begins at $799 within the U.S., the similar worth that the corporate charged for the iPhone 13 at its unlock remaining yr.

    Within the U.Ok., the bottom iPhone 14 prices £849, or kind of $975. The bottom iPhone 13 used to be priced at £779, an build up of £70 or kind of $80.

    That worth distinction best will increase with the extra enhanced fashions. For instance, the iPhone 14 Professional Max within the U.Ok. is £150 dearer than the similar remaining yr’s fashion.

    The rationale Apple took the step to extend the cost of telephones in the ones markets has to do with foreign money fluctuations.

    “Necessarily each and every foreign money around the globe has weakened in opposition to the greenback,” Apple CFO Luca Maestri mentioned at the corporate’s fourth-quarter income name with analysts remaining week. “The robust greenback makes it tricky in quite a lot of spaces. Clearly, our pricing in rising markets makes it tricky, and the interpretation of that income again into greenbacks is affected.”

    Whilst Apple reported that its income greater 8% within the quarter to $90.15 billion, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner instructed CNBC remaining week that the corporate would have grown “double-digits” if no longer for the robust greenback.

    “The foreign currency headwinds have been over 600 foundation issues for the quarter,” Cook dinner instructed CNBC’s Steve Kovach. “So it used to be important. We might have grown in double digits with out the foreign currency headwinds.” 

    Foreign currency echange trade is “an overly major factor that has effects on our effects, each income and gross margin,” Maestri mentioned. Apple does hedge in opposition to its foreign money exposures “in as many puts as imaginable around the globe,” he mentioned, however the ones types of protections do begin to scale back as the corporate must proceed to shop for new contracts.

    However Apple additionally examines the foreign currency panorama when it launches new merchandise, Maestri mentioned, which led to those most up-to-date worth will increase.

    “In some circumstances, for instance, consumers in global markets needed to … they noticed some worth will increase once we introduced the brand new merchandise, which isn’t one thing that, for instance, U.S. consumers have noticed,” he mentioned. “And that is the reason sadly the location that we are in presently with the robust greenback.”

    Whilst contemporary foreign money fluctuations as opposed to the U.S. greenback are inflicting some global consumers to pay extra for an iPhone, there were circumstances the place Apple as a substitute absorbed the ones prices.

    In 2019, when the U.S. greenback additionally noticed a upward push in price in comparison to different currencies, Apple adjusted overseas costs in some markets and reset them to close or the similar as that they had been in native currencies a yr prior.

    Then again, the rationale Apple did that used to be because of a decline in gross sales because of the fee build up. For instance, in Turkey, the place the native lira had fallen 33% in opposition to the greenback in 2019, Apple’s gross sales have been down $700 million.

    “We have determined to return to [iPhone prices] extra commensurate with what our native costs have been a yr in the past, in hopes of serving to the gross sales in the ones spaces,” Cook dinner instructed Reuters in an interview on the time.

    However in 2022, Apple says it has no longer noticed any drop off in call for in the ones markets. Maestri famous that it noticed double-digit enlargement in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam, and different nations even of their respective reported currencies.

    “It is necessary for us to take a look at how those markets carry out in native foreign money as it in reality offers us a just right sense for the buyer reaction to our merchandise, the engagement with our ecosystem, and basically, the energy of the emblem,” Maestri mentioned at the income name. “And I’ve to mention, in that appreciate, we really feel very, superb concerning the growth that we are making in numerous markets around the globe.”

    The united statesdollar has additionally risen continuously in opposition to the Chinese language yuan over the six months, however there were some indicators that call for for the brand new Apple iPhones within the nation may well be weakening. Whilst Maestri mentioned Apple noticed new September quarter data in Larger China, a contemporary record from Jeffries mentioned that China gross sales of the 4 new iPhone 14 fashions over their first 38 days of being bought are down by means of 28% in comparison to the iPhone 13 fashions over the similar time period.

    Listed below are another comparisons of the costs of the bottom iPhone fashion between the 14 and 13 collection:

    Australia:

    iPhone 13: 1,349 Australian dollarsiPhone 14: 1,399 Australian greenbacks

    Japan:

    iPhone 13: 98,800 Eastern yeniPhone 14: 119,800 Eastern yen

    Germany:

    iPhone 13: 899 eurosiPhone 14: 999 eurosCompanies feeling have an effect on of sturdy greenback

    Apple is not the one corporate acknowledging the have an effect on that foreign money headwinds are having on its trade and pricing choices.

    McDonald’s reported that foreign money dragged down its income by means of 7 proportion issues, accounting for its 5% year-over-year decline in gross sales – which might have greater by means of 2% with out the foreign money have an effect on. With 60% of its gross sales coming from out of doors of the U.S., “Clearly, we are translating the ones gross sales again into much less U.S. greenbacks,” CFO Ian Borden mentioned at the corporate’s income name remaining week.

    At P&G, the foreign money hit helps to keep getting larger. The shopper merchandise corporate reported a 6% decline in internet gross sales because of “adverse foreign currency,” which adopted 3% and four% unfavorable foreign money affects in each and every of its earlier two quarters. The corporate needed to lift its forecast for the trade fee have an effect on this yr to $1.3 billion, with CFO Andre Schulten pronouncing at the corporate’s income name remaining week, “Foreign currency echange has persisted its robust transfer in opposition to us.”

    James Quincey, CEO of Coca-Cola, which makes roughly 80% of its income out of doors the U.S., mentioned the greenback has been a excessive single-digit headwind this yr. “It is prone to be a large headwind like that subsequent yr,” Quincey mentioned on CNBC’s “Squawk at the Boulevard” remaining week.

    Coca-Cola, like Apple, has seemed to offset one of the crucial foreign money headwinds by means of elevating costs, one thing it mentioned it expects to proceed to do because the U.S. greenback displays little indicators of waning. “We predict pricing to be forward of standard subsequent yr on most sensible of what is came about this yr,” Quincey mentioned.

    To this point, Coca-Cola has no longer reported call for losing because of the upper costs, however Quincey did say there are some attainable shopper considerations at the horizon.

    “We do see our shoppers are starting to reply in a standard approach they might in a recession; delaying discretionary and high-ticket discretionary pieces and in all probability going to extra non-public label or cut price greenback channels,” Quincey mentioned, noting “some results of relief of buying energy in the market on the market.”