Apple does not break out sales of the Apple Watch like it does for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Apple Watch set all time unit and revenue records during the first fiscal quarter of 2017, suggesting significant sales during the holidays.
Cook said holiday demand was "so strong" that Apple "couldn't make enough." He went on to say the company is thrilled with the response its seen to the wearable device.
While the Apple Watch set an all time revenue record, that's not reflected in Apple's "Other" products category, which was down eight percent year over year.
"Other," which includes the Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, the iPod, and Apple-branded and third-party accessories (including the new AirPods), brought in $4.02 billion, down from $4.35 billion in the year-ago quarter.
It's not clear what was responsible for the drop if Apple Watch sales are up, but slower Beats and Apple TV sales could be one explanation.
Apple also set revenue records for the iPhone and Mac, along with its Services category.
Update: Apple CFO Luca Maestri told the Financial Times that Apple TV sales were down year over year, better explaining the revenue drop in the "Other" category despite surging Apple Watch sales.
During today's earnings call for the first fiscal quarter of 2017 (fourth calendar quarter), Apple announced that its services revenue is up an impressive 18.4 percent year-over-year.
Services brought in $7.17 billion during the quarter, up from $6 billion in the year-ago quarter. Services revenue now nearly matches Mac revenue, which was at $7.24 billion.
The "Services" category includes the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iTunes, and iCloud, with continued growth largely attributed to the App Store. As was previously announced, the App Store saw its single best month ever in December of 2016, with $3 billion in app purchases alone.
Developers have now earned more than $60 billion through the App Store, with $20 billion earned in 2016 alone.
Revenue from Apple Music has continued to grow for the third quarter in a row, and AppleCare and iCloud saw all time record revenue results. As for Apple Pay, usage tripled over the course of 2016 and hundreds of millions of transactions were conducted in December alone. Transaction volume is up more than 500 percent year over year and more than two million small businesses accept it. Apple says Comcast will begin accepting Apple Pay later this month.
As he has said in the past, Cook expects the services category to reach the size of a Fortune 100 company this year, and Apple's goal is to double it within the next four years.
Apple today announced financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2017, which corresponds to the fourth calendar quarter of 2016. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $78.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $17.9 billion, or $3.36 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $75.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $18.4 billion, or $3.28 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Both revenue and earnings per share were company records in what is traditionally Apple's strongest quarter due to the launch of new iPhone models.
Gross margin for the quarter was 38.5 percent compared to 40.1 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounting for 64 percent of revenue. Apple also declared an upcoming dividend payment of $0.57 per share, payable on February 16 to shareholders of record as of February 13.
Apple sold a record 78.3 million iPhones during the quarter, up slightly from 74.8 million a year earlier, while Mac sales rose slightly to 5.4 million units from 5.3 million units in the year-ago quarter. iPad sales continued their recent declines, falling to 13.1 million from 16.1 million.
“We’re thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”
Apple's guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 includes expected revenue of $51.5–53.5 billion and gross margin between 38 and 39 percent. Revenue guidance is slightly below analyst expectations.
Apple will provide live streaming of its fiscal Q1 2017 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.
Conference Call and Q&A Highlights are available in reverse chronological order after the jump.
Actor Justin Long, well known for his role in Apple's popular "Get a Mac" ad campaign, has signed on to star in a series of Huawei commercials promoting the company's latest Mate 9 smartphone.
Huawei reportedly sought out Long due to his past work with Apple, despite the fact that Long hasn't been in an Apple ad since 2009. "It was key when we considered Justin as a possible partner for Huawei," Jessica Grizzel, director of the WPP Blast Radius agency behind the campaign told ad industry news site Campaign U.S.in an interview.
From 2006 to 2009, Justin Long played a Mac computer in Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, starring in commercials alongside John Hodgman, who played a PC. The commercials always started out with the tagline "Hello, I'm a Mac," and were some of Apple's most iconic ads, featuring Long as the cool, casual Mac while Hodgman was a stuffy PC in a suit and tie.
Huawei is China's largest smartphone maker and the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, but the company has bigger ambitions.
Huawei consumer head Richard Yu recently said the company's goal is to break into the top two market share, and, by 2021, become the top smartphone seller in the world. Given its ambitions, it is not surprising Huawei is attempting to take some advertising cues from Apple.
The ad agency behind the campaign even wanted to highlight Long's past relationship with Apple in its new line of ads, but Long reportedly convinced the company to go with a more subtle approach.
In fact, Grizzel says the original concept "was a much more emboldened approach to call out the previous relationship with Apple," but that Long and the client encouraged them to find "a nice middle ground where that idea is inferred as opposed to explicitly stated." [...]
"The storyline for the video series positions Justin as a new director providing guidance to a series of Huawei products as they are looking to break into the market and make their mark," she said. "There is no doubt that Justin's history as a pitch-man for Apple adds a nice subtext to the videos and builds on Huawei's challenger position in the market."
Long's first spot, "The Interview," features Long interviewing with a Mate 9 for the opportunity to direct Huawei commercials. The ad is fairly different from Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, but it does feature the same light humor used to highlight Mate 9 features.
To secure a position as the top smartphone manufacturer in the world, Huawei will need to make serious inroads into the U.S. market, something the company may be hoping Long will help with. Huawei has not managed to establish deals with the major carriers in the United States and it has a ways to go to impact Apple, the U.S.'s top smartphone manufacturer.
Google today announced that the code for Chrome for iOS is being added to its Chromium project and will be available through the company's open-source repository going forward.
According to Google, Chrome for iOS was previously kept separate from the rest of the Chromium project because of the "additional complexity" required for the platform, such as the need for the browser to be built using the WebKit rendering engine.
Google says the company's engineers have spent "a lot of time" over the last few years tweaking the Chrome for iOS code needed to upstream into Chromium, a process that was recently completed.
Today, that upstreaming is complete, and developers can compile the iOS version of Chromium like they can for other versions of Chromium. Development speed is also faster now that all of the tests for Chrome for iOS are available to the entire Chromium community and automatically run any time that code is checked in.
Designed as an alternative to Safari, Chrome for iOS is available for free to all users from the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]
Chrome users won't notice any obvious changes to the browser, but the shift to open source will make it easier for Google to release new versions of Chrome for iOS.
Twelve South today launched the "MagicBridge," an accessory that combines Apple's Magic Keyboard with a Magic Trackpad 2 into one connected control surface, letting users "type and swipe more efficiently," according to the company. The versatile accessory supports orientations for both left-handed and right-handed users.
MagicBridge has cutouts in the back for the on/off toggles and Lightning connectors of Apple's typing and trackpad accessories. The MagicBridge itself is made up of white polycarbonate to match the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, with silicone pads on the inside to protect each when they're placed in the frame of Twelve South's accessory.
Ever notice the Wireless Keyboard & Trackpad 2 look like they were supposed to go together? By connecting these profile twins, you’ll create one larger keyboard that’s much easier to use than the smaller pieces by themselves. Also, when your trackpad is predictably beside your keys - you can find it with your fingers without looking down. Touch-typing is now Touch-tracking. Cleaner, faster, more stable control. Now that’s magic.
The MagicBridge is an update to Twelve South's previous device, called the MagicWand, which connected the original Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad and provided a steeper angle for typing.
Users interested can purchase the MagicBridge today from Twelve South's website for $34.99.
Since iOS 10.1, when a user opens an old 32-bit app on a newer iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, Apple has reinstated a warning that the app may slow down the device until the developer updates it to improve its compatibility. The apps are still fully usable, however, despite the possible performance issues.
On iOS 10.3 beta, Apple has tweaked the wording of that warning to note that 32-bit apps "will not work with future versions of iOS," suggesting that iOS 11 could be the first software update to support 64-bit apps only. "Future versions" is unsurprisingly vague, however, so the exact timeline remains unclear.
Apple has supported 64-bit apps since the iPhone 5s launched in September 2013. The company required that all new apps support 64-bit architecture as of February 2015, and all updated apps since June 2015, but a number of older 32-bit apps that have not been updated in years remain available on the App Store.
iOS devices with a 64-bit chip include the iPhone 5s and newer, iPad Air and newer, iPad mini 2 and newer, and sixth-generation iPod touch.
In September, Apple said it would begin removing problematic and abandoned apps from the App Store, including those that no longer function as intended or follow current review guidelines, and others lacking compatibility updates for a long time. By October, it was reported some 50,000 apps had already been removed.
Streaming media application Plex today announced its acquisition of Watchup, a free app that offers viewers a collection of local, national, and world news videos from 160 trusted news sources that they can further personalize by liking and disliking each news story (via TechCrunch).
Watchup originally began as an iPad app back in 2012, and since launched apps on iOS, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Android, and Wii U. Similar to Apple News but with a focus on video, users can pick which category of news they're most interested in, as well as specify the organizations they want to see news from, and the app presents a curated list after the settings are specified.
Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Plex said that the Watchup news feature will be added into the Plex app as its own section sometime in the second quarter of 2017. Investors in Watchup include news veterans and former executives of The Wall Street Journal, and all are now strategic investors in Plex.
According to Plex CEO Keith Valory, the personalization features of Watchup will be integrated into a variety of content categories within Plex moving forward, with the plan to focus on the kind of curated content the company believes that cord cutters need.
“There are a number of other content categories we’re looking at,” he noted. “The key decision criteria for us on that is to what extent do we think it helps round out a cord cutter’s needs?”
“It could be things like kids’ content, documentaries and podcasts – those are the things that haven’t been done well in the top 15 apps, and we think there’s an opportunity where we can solve that,” said Valory.
Plex began as a media server and personal library for content like TV shows, movies, and music, but recently began expanding into areas that focused on supporting users who lack traditional cable subscription packages. Last year, for example, the company launched a DVR feature that can record shows on free digital broadcast channels for those subscribed to Plex Pass.
The acquisition of Watchup is another step towards becoming a true cord-cutting companion, according to Valory, who also said more acquisitions and partnerships could be coming down the line. Plex Pass can be subscribed to for $4.99 per month, $39.99 per year, or $119.99 (currently a limited time offer) for a lifetime subscription. Users can download Plex on the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link].
For a few years now, rumors have suggested Apple will be opening its second retail store in Cologne, Germany. The store is expected to be located on Schildergasse, a major shopping street in the city's core that sees some 13,000 people pass through every hour, making it the busiest shopping street in Europe.
In April 2015, German website Macerkopfshared images of a building with blacked out windows on Schildergasse. The space was previously occupied by European clothing brand Pohland, which vacated the building earlier that year. Renovations have been underway ever since to transform the location into an Apple Store.
The renovation process had led to evidence including Apple's typical blacked out windows and close-up photos revealing Apple-like tables and markings inside. Apple also posted Cologne-based retail job listings in March 2016. And, now, we have our best evidence yet that Apple's second store in Cologne is nearly ready.
German website iFun.de today shared an image of a somewhat covered but still easily distinguishable Apple logo affixed to the building. The report claims the store will likely open in the second half of February. Apple will likely confirm the store's opening on its website in the near future—we'll share details when available.
Last week, French website iPhon.fr reported Apple is also planning to open a second retail store in Belgium in the city of Bruges by 2018.
Nintendo today rolled out an update to Super Mario Run that includes a collection of feature additions and bug fixes, along with a new "Easy Mode." The relaxed mode turns off time limits for each course and provides players with unlimited bubbles, so they can take as long as they want to complete a course and die as many times as needed to get past tricky sections.
The update comes the same day as Nintendo's third-quarter earnings call, where the company announced that Super Mario Run has been downloaded 78 million times globally since its release in December (via The Wall Street Journal). Although unspecified, Nintendo said that "more than 5 percent" of those users have gone on to pay the full $10 price tag required to unlock all of the content in the game, resulting in more than $53 million in revenue so far.
“For a game that charges this much, the performance is pretty amazing,” said Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based mobile game consultant. He said even games that charge only a dollar or two for in-game items usually convert fewer than 5% of downloaders into paying customers.
Today's update to Super Mario Run also includes compatibility with Korean, new events, an adjustment to how many toads are lost and gained in Toad Rally, and more. A few days after the game launched last month, Nintendo began surveying some customers and asking their opinions on how much the game should cost, what modes they liked, and if they would play a sequel, suggesting that the company is willing to take constructive criticism regarding the largely negative feedback to the game's pay structure and tweak it for a potential Super Mario Run 2.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, some gamers remain satisfied with Nintendo's decision to lock most of the game's content behind a $10 pay wall.
However, some users said they liked the idea of paying $10 to unlock all the game functions, rather than paying $1 or $2 for some functions and constantly being pestered to spend more.
“It made me feel safe to download,” said Taku Ojima, a 24-year-old game fan who lives in Miyagi prefecture north of Tokyo, who said he hasn’t paid for extra functions on other free-to-download games.
Also taking place during its earnings call today, Nintendo confirmed that Animal Crossing for iOS would in fact not be launching before March 2017 as originally planned, and would be delayed until the following fiscal year. This means that players could see the game launch as early as April 2017, or as late as March 2018. On the bright side, Fire Emblem Heroeslaunches this Thursday, February 2.
Super Mario Run can be downloaded from the iOS App Store for free before requiring the $9.99 price if players are interested in unlocking every level in the game. [Direct Link]
Apple is scheduled to report its earnings results for the first quarter of the 2017 fiscal year at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time today, revealing how much money it made between September 25 and December 31 of last year. The holiday shopping season typically makes this quarter Apple's most lucrative of the year.
Apple benefitted from an extra week of sales in the quarter—14 versus the usual 13—due to a step it takes every 5 years or so to realign its September-ending fiscal quarter with the typical December-ending calendar quarter. Given the week fell between Christmas and the New Year, the seven extra days of sales could be significant.
Apple's official guidance calls for revenue of between $76 billion and $78 billion, which would be its highest revenue in a single quarter ever—topping its current record of $75.9 billion in the year-ago quarter. Apple also expects gross margin between 38% and 38.5%, compared to 40.1% in the year-ago quarter.
The average expectation among Wall Street analysts is that Apple will report revenue around the $77 billion mark, or roughly the midpoint of Apple's guidance. Herein is a list of some of those predictions, ordered from lowest to highest, based on compiled averages and research notes obtained by MacRumors:
• Mark Moskowitz of Barclays: $76.6 billion • Timothy Arcuri of Cowen and Company: $76.68 billion • Steven Milunovich of UBS: $76.8 billion • Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets: $76.9 billion • Rod Hall of J.P. Morgan: $76.9 billion • Bloomberg News compiled average: $77 billion • Yahoo Finance compiled average: $77.38 billion • Reuters compiled average: $77.4 billion • Brian White of Drexel Hamilton: $77.61 billion • Neil Cybart of Above Avalon: $80 billion
The record-breaking revenue would put an end to Apple's past three consecutive quarters of declining revenue on a year-over-year basis, which resulted in the company's first annual revenue decline since 2001. Prior to 2016, Apple had an impressive streak of 51 consecutive quarters of uninterrupted sales growth.
While iPhone sales dropped for the first time ever last year, the smartphone is still Apple's most important product by far—it accounted for 60% of the company's revenue last quarter. The consensus among analysts is that Apple will have sold around 76 million iPhones, up slightly from 74.8 million in the year-ago quarter.
Most analysts believe a higher ratio of customers purchased a Plus-sized iPhone this launch, with the dual-lens camera in particular enticing customers to choose the 5.5-inch model over the smaller iPhone 7.
Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybart estimates Apple sold 5.6 million Macs in the quarter, a 5% increase over the 5.3 million it sold in the year-ago period. The quarter was highlighted by the launch of long-awaited MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models in late October, which likely inflated sales.
iPad sales may remain on a longstanding downward trend based on units, but more expensive iPad Pro models have led to higher average selling prices and increased revenue for Apple's tablet business. Cybart expects revenue from Apple's growing services category to rise to $6.7 billion, a 22% increase over the $6.1 billion it reported in the year-ago quarter. These earnings are derived from the App Store, iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud storage subscriptions, AppleCare, Apple Pay, licensing, and other services.
Investors will be looking closely at "Other Products" to measure the impact that Apple Watch Series 2 models and AirPods have on the category's revenue, which Cybart forecasts will rise 9% year-over-year. The category also includes sales of the Apple TV, Beats products, iPods, and many accessories.
Cybart expects Apple's guidance will point towards continued growth next quarter, suggesting the 2017 fiscal year will remain on an upward trend.
MacRumors will be providing live coverage of Apple's earnings results conference call with CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time today.
Apple was granted a pair of patents on Tuesday that depict a mobile augmented reality system that can detect objects in the surrounding environment and overlay them with virtual information.
Combining cameras, a screen, and a user interface, the device is described as being ideal for a head-mounted display, but the patent also suggests a use for the system in future smartphones, owing to the power efficient way in which it monitors the environment.
The device is described as having a default low-power scanning mode for normal operation, with high-power modes activated for short periods – when downloading and displaying AR content, for example. The rest of the patent gets quite technical as it details methods of optical tracking and determining camera orientation, two areas of AR that will prove particularly difficult to perfect.
Detecting, matching, and describing environmental features quickly and accurately are two challenges that Apple suggests could be overcome using a combination of dedicated hardware and pre-learned data. One aspect of such a system would use depth detection, achieved via dual-lens cameras similar to those found in the iPhone 7 Plus, which also utilizes depth mapping algorithms to produce Portrait Mode photos.
In one example, a user views an AR city map on a transparent display – or on a smartphone screen feeding a live image from a rear-facing camera – and pulls up information relating to nearby buildings or landmarks.
The patent goes on to suggest using geometry models, depth-sensing, positioning data and other advanced technologies to compensate for shortcomings in current visual modeling systems. The second patent also relies on a dual-camera system for creating a depth map of the immediate environment onto which the virtual data is superimposed.
The described technologies may or may not appear in future Apple products, but it's worth noting that both patents were originally filed for by German AR specialist Metaio just before Apple acquired the firm in 2015. Existing staff would have likely joined Apple's team dedicated to AR/VR research, to help explore how the technologies can be incorporated into future products.
Several times over the last year, Tim Cook has spoken of Apple's deep interest in augmented reality. "AR can be really great. We have been and continue to invest a lot in this. We're high on AR in the long run," he said in July.
Dropbox yesterday officially launched its collaborative editing software called Paper, following six months of public beta testing.
Similar to Google Docs, the service offers Dropbox account holders a minimalist document editor and conversational tools for collaborative projects. Paper lets users review and revise work in a single, shared space which includes an image gallery feature, advanced search across files and comments, and a notifications system that works across both the iOS app and the web version of the service.
Users can see and add Dropbox files in a Paper document, while any changes made are synced automatically and team members are notified of the new version and the author of the changes.
Dropbox says the web version of Paper supports 21 languages, with similar support for the mobile apps in the pipeline. Mobile support for offline workspaces is also coming soon.
In addition to the launch of Paper, the company announced a new Dropbox Business account feature called Smart Sync, which allows users with low disk space to see cloud-stored files and folders on their desktop.
Users working with just 128 GB of hard drive space can easily comb through terabytes of files to find exactly what they need— right from Windows File Explorer or macOS Finder. Now, they won't need to take extra steps—like switching to a web browser— just to view files. And whenever they need to access files stored in the cloud, users can download them with a quick double click.
Finally, Dropbox has announced new price plans for business customers. Its Standard plan costs $12.50 per month per user and offers 2TB of storage and collaborative tools, while the $20 Advanced plan includes additional administration features. A third plan is also available for larger businesses.
Paper is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
Lyft yesterday quietly announced a new calendar integration feature for its popular ride-hailing app, allowing users to sync their calendar to search and select upcoming event locations.
That's right: When requesting a ride, you no longer have to fumble through multiple apps to find the name or address of wherever it is you need to go. Just sync your calendar once and you're all set.
To activate the feature, when entering a destination, users should select "Add from calendar", then tap "Add" to permit Lyft to see calendar event locations. Once activated, users will see upcoming events and location information automatically appear below the destination field.
Lyft notes that users of Google Calendar must sync the calendar with their phone for the feature to work, and further recommends that users input the venue's full address in the location field when adding an event to their calendar.
In addition, Lyft says a coming update will enable users to store their favorite places in the Lyft app as shortcuts, similar to the Home and Work destinations currently available.
Lyft is a free download for iPhone available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
German soccer club FC Bayern Munich announced a sponsorship deal with Apple Music on Monday, offering exclusive playlists and other content to fans of the team that currently tops the Bundesliga, which is regularly broadcast on TV in over 200 countries.
According to iPhone-Ticker.de, Apple Music is to be regarded as FC Bayern's official music service, with the first playlist already available for download and more content on the way. The club's press release offered further details on what's to come:
From today, music fans will be able to get even closer to their favourite team and players from FC Bayern Munich with exclusive playlists and content, curated especially for Apple Music. From inspirational and uplifting songs to listen to during training to celebratory playlists post-match, there will be music for everyone to enjoy throughout the season. The first team playlist is available now. Alongside exclusive content and videos, Apple Music will also be FC Bayern Munich's music service of choice.
The press release goes on to highlight the significance of music to both players and fans, noting that Bayern Munich star Mats Hummels appears in TV commercials advertising Deutsche Telekom and Apple Music. The club says it has also signed an agreement with Apple's Beats by Dre to continue as its "official sound partner".
The deal represents the first known partnership between Apple Music and a professional sports team, suggesting sponsorship will play a big part in Apple's drive to strengthen the intersection of technology and popular culture. Apple recently indicated it is seeking ways continue to grow its Apple Music subscriber base by diversifying the service's offerings beyond music and creating original content, to include TV and movies.
Nintendo on Tuesday announced it is delaying the release of the currently untitled mobile version of Animal Crossing, which was previously slated for release before the end of March (via The Verge).
Nintendo said the much-anticipated mobile game won't appear until the following financial year, which runs from April 2017 to March 2018. Nintendo had originally planned to launch mobile games featuring characters from both the Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem franchises last fall, but delayed them to focus attention on its first official iOS title, the more easily recognizable Super Mario Run. Fire Emblem remains set for release on iOS this Thursday.
News of the delay came during Nintendo's third-quarter earnings call, in which it reported a net profit of 64.7 billion yen ($569 million) and 174.3 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in revenue. Game sales were predominantly driven by Nintendo 3DS titles Pokémon Sun and Moon, which combined sold nearly 15 million copies, followed by Super Mario Maker, also for Nintendo 3DS, selling over two million copies.
During the earnings call, Nintendo also revealed official download and revenue numbers for Super Mario Run, announcing that the game has been downloaded 78 million times globally, earning more than $53 million in revenue so far.
Following the release of iOS 10.2.1 on January 23, Apple has stopped seeding iOS 10.2, the previous version of iOS that was available to consumers.
Customers who have upgraded to iOS 10.2.1 will no longer be able to downgrade their devices to iOS 10.2.
Apple routinely stops signing older versions of software updates after new releases come out to encourage customers to stay up to date. iOS 10.2.1 is now the only version of iOS 10 that can be installed on iOS devices by the general public, but developers and public beta testers can also download iOS 10.3, a future update that is currently being beta tested.
Apple has also stopped signing tvOS 10.1 now that tvOS 10.1.1 has been available for a week.
North Carolina law students who purchased one of Apple's new MacBook Pro models that include a Touch Bar will need to disable much of its functionality to be able to use their MacBooks on the upcoming 2017 Bar Examination, according to a new notice put out today by the Board of Law Examiners of the State of North Carolina.
According to the notice, applicants will need to disable the Touch Bar's ability to be used with apps through the System Preferences before they can use their computers to take the test. The Touch Bar needs to be set to "Expanded Control Strip," which displays options like screen brightness and volume controls without allowing it to show app-specific content that shifts with each app.
This is a notice for all applicants who will be using their laptop at the February 2017 North Carolina Bar Examination. If you are planning to use the newest version of the Mac Book Pro with Touch Bar, you will be required to disable the Touch Bar feature prior to entry into the Bar Examination Site.
To disable the Touch Bar: From the Dock, open System Preferences, then double-click Keyboard, then open the drop-down menu for "Touch Bar Shows," and select Expanded Control Strip.
Please be advised that the Announcing Proctor will make an announcement at the start of the exam session asking anyone who is using a Mac Book Pro with Touch Bar to raise their hand so that a proctor or ExamSoft technician can come to their seat and ensure that the Touch Bar has been disabled.
The notice doesn't include the reason why Touch Bar functionality must be limited, but in a statement, a board staff member said that it has the potential to compromise security, perhaps leading to cheating. An anonymous source also told MacRumors that the ban stems from ExamSoft, the company responsible for making sure test takers have restricted access to the internet, apps, and files. One of the concerns ExamSoft has is the Touch Bar's predictive text feature, which suggests words to users. According to the source, the MacBook Pro is restricted from all tests administered by ExamSoft clients.
Update: It appears the Touch Bar ban expands beyond North Carolina and is even harsher in some states. In California, the Committee of Bar Examiners has decided that the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar can't be used at all on the February 2017 examination and sent out notices to test takers this morning.
The Committee of Bar Examiners has been advised that the MacBook Pro laptop with Touch Bar contains certain embedded features that makes it problematic for use during the upcoming February 2017 administration of the CBX. As a result, applicants will NOT be allowed to use the MacBook Pro laptop with Touch Bar during the February 2017 CBX.
According to the Committee of Bar Examiners, applicants will need to find a different laptop to use during the test. Those who attempt to use a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar will receive a score of zero for the session and will not be allowed to continue the exam.
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Following the release of iOS 10.2.1 on January 23, Apple has stopped seeding iOS 10.2, the previous version of iOS that was available to consumers.
