512 Pixels

John Paczkowski:

Incidentally, that Amazon Prime Video is the exception to the conga line of content offerings above is entirely Amazon’s doing. A magnanimous Apple tells BuzzFeed News that “all are welcome” on its new Apple TV platform. But Amazon — which recently purged Apple TV from its store — doesn’t have a Prime Video app in the Apple TV App Store. And as of a few days ago, it hadn’t submitted one. (An Amazon spokesperson told BuzzFeed News the company “doesn’t have anything to share” on the topic.)

I can see why Amazon would favor its own Fire boxes over Apple’s, but the cold war over Prime video isn’t doing those of us who pay for the service — and like it — any favors.

Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff interview with the man who tell’s Apple story is full of interesting details. It revolves around things like the 12-inch MacBook and Campus 2, but the things shared here should be considered far-reaching when thinking about Apple.

Christopher Phin:

Imagine if today, you could buy “a Mac” from Sony or Lenovo or Dell that wasn’t just cheaper than what you’d buy from Apple, but faster and more expandable—and still ran El Capitan perfectly. That’s pretty much where we found ourselves in the late ’90s with companies such as UMAX, Akia, Motorola, and of course Power Computing, the first to be granted a licence from Apple.

I admit I haven’t spent a lot of time exploring this chapter of Apple’s history. It’s a prime example of just how screwed up Apple was before Jobs came back. Cancelling this program was one of the first things he did.

Serenity Caldwell and Jason Snell transcribed Tim Cook’s remarks on today’s call. Lots of interesting stuff in there.

Apple’s Q4 2015 results are in. Here are the highlights:

• $51.5 billion in revenue
• Net profit of $11.1 billion
• 48 million iPhones sold
• 9.8 millions iPads sold
• 5.7 million Macs sold

That’s a record quarter for the Mac, mind you.

The iPad stays on its downward trend, but the only new hardware released this fall in the line was the iPad mini 4. The iPad Pro’s launch will fall in Apple’s busy holiday quarter. Time will tell if Apple will highlight how the new model does. Are a lot of people holding out for the iPad Pro? Did the lack of an update to the 9.7-inch model supress sales, or is this just more of the same news from the iPad?

International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. This trend has been going on for some time, and it can’t be understated how important China is to the company. There are 25 Apple Stores in China, and Apple plans to get that number to 40 by mid-2016. There’s one huge reason why:

China revenue up 99%

— Six Colors liveblog (@sixcolorsevent) October 27, 2015

Tim Cook is happy:

Fiscal 2015 was Apple’s most successful year ever, with revenue growing 28% to nearly $234 billion. This continued success is the result of our commitment to making the best, most innovative products on earth, and it’s a testament to the tremendous execution by our teams. We are heading into the holidays with our strongest product lineup yet, including iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple Watch with an expanded lineup of cases and bands, the new iPad Pro and the all-new Apple TV which begins shipping this week.

Here are some charts outlining some of this. I may need to adjust the axis on that Mac one at some point soon.

Revenue: Q1 2013 to Q4 2015

iPhone units: Q1 2013 to Q4 2015

iPad units: Q1 2013 to Q4 2015

Mac units: Q1 2013 to Q4 2015

It’s hard to believe the first Apple TV was so similar and so different to what we have today, all at the same time.

On this week’s Liftoff, Jason and I talk all about the sun. Come for the warm sunshine; stay for the arching plasma torrents of death.

Bonus: Don’t miss this post by Chris Breen, which includes the sheet music of our theme.

My thanks to these sponsors:

• Luminos: A fantastic astronomy app, 10 years in the making! Now with an Apple Watch app for skygazing!
• The Freelancer’s Guide to Escaping Taxes, by Andrew Carroll

If you are a teacher, Easy Grade is for you. If you know a teacher, you can help them out by telling them about Easy Grade.

Easy Grade is a free iOS/Android app that gives teachers the ability to quickly calculate grades on their students’ tests and quizzes. Configuring it is super-simple. It lets you calculate grades based on the number of questions right or wrong. You can show grades rounded to whole numbers or tenths. If you give partial credit, you can calculate grades based on half-points as well (available via In-App Purchase).

The Mac version just came out last month, so if you want to have the same grade-calculation powers on your Mac, we’ve got you covered there too.

Brought to you by Objective Jellyfish, a small iOS development company consisting of one guy, Paul Brown, who lives outside of Atlanta, GA.

Maybe this is the key to not losing that new $79 remote.

The new Apple TV is now available for pre-order. The 32 GB model is $149, with the 64 GB for $199. Apple hasn’t made a strong case for the need for the bigger storage option, but I opted for it as I plan on using this device for a long time.

As an extra Siri remote is $79, I’m really hoping my kids don’t lose the new remote, but I know in my heart how this will end.

Update: Apple has posted this about the storage options. Thanks to Dan for sharing:

If you plan to use your Apple TV primarily to stream movies, TV shows, and music or to play a few apps and games, you’ll probably be fine with 32GB of storage. If you plan to download and use lots of apps and games, choose the 64GB configuration. Keep in mind when making your decision, that some apps, when in use, do require additional storage.

Autumn used to be a little more colorful for Apple fans.

Live from the Release Notes Conference, it’s a new episode of Clockwise with Jason Snell, Myke Hurley, Underscore David Smith and me:

Anticipating Apple TV, Google’s new YouTube Red service, iOS stability and bug fixes, and a Magic Devices shopping list.

Be sure to stick around for the bonus question. It’s a good one.