Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)Taking a look back at another week of news from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop looks at the feature list for the iPhone 6S, iOS 8.4 and Beats music, fifteen Apple Watch issues, smartwatch sales projections, security issues over the Apple Watch, mobile advertising breakdowns, the autonomous Lily drone, App Store listing tips, and should Apple buy Greece?
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read our weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).
Eleven New Features For The iPhone 6S
It might not be announced until September, but details of the iPhone 6S are going to become known as it moves through the external design and manufacturing process. Kicking off the first big tranche of information, Forbes’ Gordon Kelly rounds up the information from KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo:
The Talking Point - Force Touch is what will likely prove to be the key selling point of the 6S models. Having introduced it on the Apple Watch and 13-inch MacBook Pro it makes perfect sense for Apple to extend this to the iPhone (and eventually the iPad).
How Apple does this will be crucial. The Apple Watch isn’t immediately intuitive and iPhones already have gesture, swipe and long press commands. Adding another must be done right.
For the eleven bullet points, head on over to his full post.
Beats Still Missing Action With Latest iOS 8.4 Beta
With the ninth updated to iOS (in seven months) being prepared – presumably for WWDC – there are more signs of the integration of Beats software into Apple’s mobile OS. Beta 3 of iOS 8.4 was released yesterday, and Gordon Kelly tries to track down the musical streaming service that is still missing in action:
For a long time iOS 8.3 was rumoured to include the long awaited Spotify rival, but having drifted to iOS 8.4 it is surprising that no test features or even code have given away its existence.
There is still time the Beats streaming service to be dropped in there (Apple typically tends to do four to five iOS betas before official release) or for it to arrive via a dedicated event, but the lack of any telltale signs at this stage is surprising.
Given WWDC is developer focused, Beats might be a better bet for September’s new iPhone launch event – and this would leave more time to negotiate ether deals with the music industry.
15 Issues With The Apple Watch Resolved?
As the Apple Watch was launched, 9to5Mac’s Jeremy Horowitz highlighted fifteen issues with Tim Cook’s wearable. One month later, were these issues addressed, were they real concerns, or has time with the watch proved them to be early adopter’s planting some tall poppies? Horowitz returns to his list:
Several reviewers flagged the Watch’s auto-on/auto-off screen as an annoyance for various reasons, primarily its tendency to not actually turn on whenever desired. While the complaints were valid — including ones that the screen turns off too quickly when in the midst of use — the problem is not as pronounced as the worst howls suggested. The feature works most of the time, and when it doesn’t, a tap on the screen turns it on.
Solution: Hopefully, a software update will make the accelerometer a little more generous in recognizing “wrist up” motions, and the OS a little less willing to shut the screen off mid-use. Until then, a quick tap on the screen will suffice.
Nineteen Million Apple Watches In 2015
IHS Technologies has been looking at the smartwatch market, and while the headline number for projected smartphone sales in 2020 is a nice 1010 million, I’m more interested in its prediction for sales of the Apple Watch this year… around 19 million. Forbes’ Paul Lamkin:
IHS’ forecasts are based on Apple shifting around 19 million of its just-launched smartwatches this year; resulting in an estimated 56% of the market share.
That’s a pretty conservative prediction as, back in November, Morgan Stanley forecast 30 million Apple Watch sales in 2015. “Our 30m unit estimate implies 10% penetration into Apple’s 315m iPhone 5 or newer installed base exiting 2014, which is lower than iPad penetration of 14% in its first year but higher than iPhone at 7%,” it said.
Back to the IHS forecast and it’s stating, by 2020, the Cupertino tech giant’s share of the market would have shrunk to 38%, with 96 million Android Wear shipments helping Google to a 22% piece of the wearable pie. That leaves 40% of non-Apple or Google smartwatches – with the likes of Pebble, Microsoft and even Samsung, with its own Tizen software, potentially playing catch-up.
The big unknown in all of these numbers is just how the public will take to the smartwatch – the geekerati love the computer on the wrist but that’s not enough users to build a sustainable and profitable market.
DJ Skee, speaks at the 2015 PTTOW! Annual Summit at Terrenea Resort on May 7, 2015 (Photo by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for PTTOW!)
How Secure Is Your Smartwatch?
With more information on your wrist than ever before, many people are wondering how secure the information is on their smartwatch. Business Insider has spoken to Kaspersky Labs’ Patrick Nielsen about the risks:
“…the Apple Watch’s biggest security benefit is that it’s so minimal. A lot of the processing that goes on the Watch is actually happening on the iPhone,” meaning the that your iPhone holds and handles most of the sensitive information that a data thief would want. The Watch essentially functions as a secondary wrist-worn display for your iPhone rather than acting as a standalone device.
Right off the bat, a data thief should theoretically have much more interest in your iPhone than your Apple Watch…. But a few obstacles stop thieves and hackers from getting to your sensitive data pretty effectively. And as it turns out, the Apple Watch is essentially hacker proof.
Apple Loses Ground To Android With Mobile Advertising
While it is only a subset of data (derived from Opera’s own mobile advertising platform), the regular state of mobile advertising report from the Norwegian company shows its numbers passing a tipping point, with Android now earning more advertising revenue than iOS:
The volume of handsets on the market does play a large part in this equation. With significantly more Android devices in the space than iOS devices, even though Android is now leading in revenue the monetization rates are lower on Google’s operating system. Volume helps to make up the difference between the two platforms. Android accounts for 65.1% of traffic and 45.77% of revenue, compared to iOS taking 22.34% of traffic and 45.44% of revenue.
Apple is still ahead on per-user monetization, pointing towards a more efficient platform per head for advertising, but the volume argument for Android is becoming more compelling to developers every day.
Apple’s iPhone 6 is displayed as people browse through products at a store in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on November 8, 2014. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)
The Apple-Following Drone
The Autonomous ‘Lily‘ drone has taken to the air this week, offering a drone that will follow you through your activities without worrying about flying your camera (snow-boarding is the example used in the demonstration). The waterproof unit recorded in HD, and pre-orders are open until the middle of June. Neil Hughes takes a closer look over on Apple Insider:
Lily will also offer iOS connectivity when it ships, streaming low-resolution live video to a companion app that will help users to frame shots. The official Lily app will also enable users to change camera settings, create custom shots, and edit and share content from the device.
The drone has a max speed of 25 miles per hour, and can fly up to 100 feet away from the user, or as close as 5 feet from them. Flight time for the drone is said to be about 20 minutes, and the battery is not swappable because of its waterproof design.
Shipping commences in February 2016, so you’re going to be waiting a while for your own eye in the sky, but with a list price of $999, the pre-order price of $499 is attractive.
Get Your App Store Upload Right The First Time
Building a good app takes time, but once the code is compiled the hard work is not over, with distribution, marketing, support, and the all-important updates to be taken care of. As a gentle reminder to developers, Gilad Bechar has posted an article on Venture Beat that offers five tips for developers uploading apps to the App Store, including…
3. Check your keywords.
When it comes to Appstore optimization (ASO), you must stay alert, and we don’t just mean going over your chosen keywords and updating your selection (though that is a crucial part of any update). Contrary to some of Apple’s rejections, which are visible (and painful) to developers, keywords rejection is a fun little treat for you to find out for yourself. You might discover that certain picks did not make the cut and are absent from your app page. Since these keywords will generate organic traffic to your app more than anything else, wasting precious keyword space is extremely unfortunate. Follow each update with a quick check to make sure everything is in order, and replace rejected keywords with the next best thing.
Check out the other four at Venture Beat!
Greek finance minister Yianis Varoufakis speaks during the Economist conference (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)
…And Finally
Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky returns to an oft-quoted idea, but with some interesting numbers on how Apple could turn its cash pile into a profit… it should buy Greece:
Greece needs about 190 billion euros ($212 billion) to bring down its debt to the manageable level of 70 percent of gross domestic product. That’s about 48 percent of the five companies’ combined cash stash [Apple, Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Cisco have stockpiled $439 billion]. For paying down the debt, Greece could reward the firms with a special deal on corporate taxes, somewhat like the one Apple now enjoys in Ireland…
In exchange for less than half of their cash — and just 13 percent more than it would cost to pay U.S. taxes — the companies would receive an indefinite, ironclad guarantee of low taxes on non-U.S. operations. Not a bad deal.
From a throwaway conference call comment in 2012 to this? How delightful…
Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.
You can find more of my work at ewanspence.co.uk. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In. You should subscribe to my weekly newsletter of ‘Trivial Posts’.
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