Apple (AAPL)

Apple (AAPL)

The company’s sales led by the pricey iPhone X pushed quarterly results far beyond Wall Street targets on Tuesday, with subscriptions from App Store, Apple Music and iCloud services bolstering business. The world's most valuable technology company also forecast revenue above expectations for the fall, when it typically launches new iPhone models, reassuring a nervous tech sector that saw sell-offs last week in Facebook, Twitter and Netflix on concerns about their future growth. Apple sold 41.3 million iPhones in the fiscal third quarter, half a million less than expected, but the average iPhone selling price topped expectation by $30, hitting $724, according to FactSet. Apple posted third-quarter revenue of $53.3 billion and profits of $2.34 per share, compared with analyst estimates of $52.3 billion and $2.18 per share, respectively. It also forecast revenue of $60 billion to $62 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, which will include early sales of soon-to-be-announced phone models, beating the $59.6 billion analysts expected.

Apple updated its latest share count today, defining a price of $207.04 that would make the iPhone maker the first publicly listed U.S. company valued at $1 trillion.

Apple said in a quarterly filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, that its share count was 4,829,926,000 on July 20, less than the 4,842,917,000 it reported on Tuesday for the end of the June quarter. That would put Apple's stock market value at $973 billion, based on its newly disclosed number of shares.

Will this history making event occur? And when?

Today is the day! Apple is now the first company in history with a $1 Trillion valuation!

In a memo to Apple's more than 120,000 employees, Chief Executive Tim Cook said the $1 trillion valuation was "a significant milestone" that gave Apple employees "much to be proud of." But he said it was "not the most important measure" of the company's success.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) could delay chip shipments for Apple' new iPhones after a computer virus outbreak halted production at several facilities. TSMC expects the incident to cause shipment delays and forecast a hit to its third-quarter financial results to the tune of $171m.

Australian newspaper, The Age, has reported that a local teenager has plead guilty to hacking into Apple's main computer network, downloading internal files and accessing customer accounts. The boy, 16, from the southern city of Melbourne, broke into the U.S. computer giant's mainframe many times over a year,

An Apple spokesperson said the company's information security personnel "discovered the unauthorised access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement" without further elaboration..

Canaccord Genuity has raised the firm's price target for AAPL to $250 from $220 ahead of the annual IPhone event scheduled for September 12th, where the company is expected to unveil multiple new iPhones and possibly a new Apple Watch and/or updated iPad Pro.

The market was reminded that Apple Inc is still in the race to build autonomous vehicles after one of the companies self-driving cars was rear-ended while merging onto an expressway near the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. According to reports the accident happened at about 3 p.m. as the Apple vehicle had slowed and was waiting for a safe gap in traffic to complete the merge. Both vehicles sustained damage but there were no injuries.

Apple has chosen South Korea's LG as a second supplier for OLED screens in the companies IPhones after LG's flexible screen product passed a series of quality tests. Samsung Electronics had previously been the sole OLED screen supplier for Apple.

Bloomberg is citing 17 unnamed intelligence and corporate sources to suggest Chinese spies have compromised the technology supply chain with malicious computer chips surreptitiously implanted on the motherboards of thousands of servers installed by Apple, Amazon, multiple US Government agencies and other strategic assets.

Apple denies the allegations.

Apple is buying the power-management technology supplier Dialog Semiconductor in a $600m deal.

Sources suggest Apple has acquired music recommendation and analytics startup Asaii for an undisclosed sum.

Apple denies the allegations.

Apple CEO Tim Cook suggests the story is untrue and requests it be retracted.

Apple has reached a settlement with Japanese Anti-Trust Regulators following a 5 year investigation of the firms app store practices. Sources suggest that Apple will loosen existing rules to allow some content companies like Netflix to provide links to their websites so customers can sign up for paid accounts, bypassing Apple's payment system and associated transaction fees.

Media reports are circulating that the U.S. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has issued a ruling in the Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Apple Inc's (AAPL) App Store. While the judge ruled that Epic failed to prove Apple engaged in antitrust behavior, she did end some of Apple's restrictions on developers.

The court issued an injunction ordering Apple permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.

Agents for Apple said:

Today, the court has affirmed what we've known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law. As the court recognized, "success is not illegal." Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world. We remain committed to ensuring the App Store is a safe and trusted marketplace that supports a thriving developer community and more than 2.1 million U.S. jobs, and where the rules apply equally to everyone.

Agents for Epic were less enthusiastic with CEO Tim Sweeney suggesting via Twitter that the ruling “isn’t a win for developers or for consumers.”

Epic will need to pay Apple $3.7 million for unpaid commissions on Fortnite ingame purchases that have accrued since the dispute began.

Apple has announced the release of new iPhone 13 models with faster processors, improved cameras and a smaller front-facing sensor notch.

The firm also announced upgrades for the iPad 9, Apple Watch 7, and iOS15.

Still no removable battery. Pass.

Agents for Apple Inc. are reporting that they have patched a security flaw in the Messages app across all of the firms devices. They further confirmed that the flaw could be exploited if a user on a vulnerable device received a “maliciously crafted” PDF file. The malware didn’t require victims to engage with the file. Receiving it was enough to infect their devices.

Security researchers say the flaw was actively exploited by an Israel-based organization known as NSO Group. The flaw allowed hackers using NSO’s Pegasus security tool to gain access to Apple devices. 

The NSO Group has been the subject of criticism after its spyware was discovered on the phones of activists and journalists critical of repressive regimes. NSO Group has insisted that the spyware is intended to be used to fight terrorism and crime, not to aid in human rights abuses. In response to the Apple news, agents for the group said “NSO Group will continue to provide intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world with life saving technologies to fight terror and crime.”