MacRumors

Apple is building a "significant" business centered around creating original, scripted television shows and possibly even movies, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. The content would be made available on Apple Music, falling in line with previous reports and accompanying already-announced projects for the music streaming service, including Carpool Karaoke and Vital Signs.

Apple executives have told Hollywood that the new original content will launch by the end of 2017, according to the new report. In terms of specific genres, HBO's Westworld and Netflix's Stranger Things were both used as comparisons for what Apple is aiming to produce on Apple Music. These proposed series and movies "don’t have any particular relationship to music," unlike Carpool Karaoke and Vital Signs.

Rumors about Apple meeting with Hollywood executives to create original TV shows for Apple Music or iTunes have existed since last year, and now Apple is even looking into producing original films for the service, "though those plans are more preliminary," according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is said to have been in talks with producers over the past few months about purchasing the rights to scripted television programs, as well as seeking out marketing people to come on board and promote the new content. The move is looked at as a way for Apple to gain an edge in its competition against Spotify, rather than become a streaming contender alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Because it is looking at just a handful of carefully selected shows, and potentially films, it doesn’t appear Apple is preparing to spend the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars it would need to spend annually to become a direct competitor to Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video or premium cable networks.

Rather, it would escalate the arms race between Apple Music and Spotify, which both offer essentially the same catalog of tens of millions of songs, by adding other content that could distinguish Apple’s service.

Although most of Apple's plans are still steeped in secrecy, the company has reportedly told producers an advantage it hopes to offer is that it would share its viewer and demographic data on the people who watch the new shows. Netflix has remained infamously private about the specific number of viewers who watch its streaming shows, making it hard to tell what is a successful launch or not, "which has been a source of contention among some in Hollywood."

Last Summer, Eddy Cue said that Apple is "not in the business of trying to create TV shows" when asked about the future of the company and its past relationships with Hollywood, where it once spoke with network programmers to get a live-streaming TV bundle launched before ultimately shelving the plans. At the time, Cue said that Apple would "help" producers whenever it had the chance and that any TV project would serve as "complimentary to the things we're doing at Apple Music."

Apple's iOS ecosystem is on course to generate over $1 trillion in revenues for the company by the middle of this year, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu.

Dediu's prediction is based on several factors, starting with an expectation that Apple will have sold at least 1.2 billion iPhones in its first 10 years, earning it the rank of "most successful product of all time" and laying the foundations for the company's iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, and Apple Watch categories.

In its first 10 years, the iPhone will have sold at least 1.2 billion units, making it the most successful product of all time. The iPhone also enabled the iOS empire which includes the iPod touch, the iPad, the Apple Watch and Apple TV whose combined total unit sales will reach 1.75 billion units over 10 years. This total is likely to top 2 billion units by the end of 2018.

Dediu claims revenue from iOS device sales will total about $980 billion by the middle of this year, and adds to that estimate more than $100 billon in revenues from supporting services (including app content sales), putting the ecosystem's total worth above the $1 trillion mark.

The analyst notes this excludes payouts to iOS app developers of around $60 billion, with the rate of payments now reaching $20 billion per year. Those numbers would appear to tally with comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook last August that the company has paid out more than $50 billion to developers over the lifetime of the App Store, which first launched for the iPhone in 2008.

Dediu points to the locked-in nature of Apple's ecosystem ensuring the iPhone's resilience and longevity, despite strong competition from so-called "iPhone killers" that come and go, while its robust feature set and attached services continue to earn it the market reputation as the premium smartphone to beat.

In addition, the analyst claims that Android users are now more likely to switch to iOS rather than the other way around – a trend supported by previous reports from both market analysts and Apple, including, notably, comments made in the company's Q4 2016 earnings call.

Dediu ends by predicting not another "Big Bang" for the iPhone, but a "process of continual improvement" as the smartphone enters its second decade. Indeed, the analyst expresses more excitement for its network of "ancilliary smart accessories" like the Apple Watch, the AirPods, Apple Pencil, and other possible new wearables that point toward a future where the iPhone is a hub to a mesh of personal devices. "The seamless integration of such devices is what has always set Apple apart," Dediu concludes.

Amid an ongoing decline in worldwide PC shipments, Apple's Mac sales are holding steady, according to new PC shipping estimates shared today by Gartner.

During the fourth quarter of 2016, Apple shipped an estimated 5.4 million Macs worldwide, up from 5.3 million in the year-ago quarter for an estimated growth of 2.4 percent. During the quarter, Apple held 7.5 percent of the market, up from 7 percent during the fourth quarter of 2015, making it the number five PC vendor in the world.

Lenovo, HP, and Dell, the top three vendors, all saw growth during the quarter as well. Dell, which holds 14.8 percent of the market, saw 5.4 percent growth, while HP, responsible for 20.4 percent of the market, saw 4.3 percent growth. Lenovo, the number one PC vendor with 21.7 percent of the market, saw 1.6 percent growth and shipped 15.9 million PCs, up from 15.5 in the year-ago quarter.

Asus (number 4 vendor) and Acer Group (number 6 vendor) both saw declines in growth, with Asus shipping 5.4 million PCs (down from 6 million in 4Q 2015) and Acer shipping 5 million PCs (down from 5.2 million in 4Q 2015).

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 72.6 million units during the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.7 percent decline compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. For the full year, PC shipments totaled 269.7 million, a 6.2 drop from 2015. Apple is estimated to have shipped a total of 18.6 million Macs in 2016, down from 20.3 million in 2015.

"Stagnation in the PC market continued into the fourth quarter of 2016 as holiday sales were generally weak due to the fundamental change in PC buying behavior," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "The broad PC market has been static as technology improvements have not been sufficient to drive real market growth.

There have been innovative form factors like 2-in-1s and thin and light notebooks, as well as technology improvements, such as longer battery life. This end of the market has grown fast, led by engaged PC users who put high priority on PCs. However, the market driven by PC enthusiasts is not big enough to drive overall market growth."

Apple's worldwide numbers held steady, but saw better growth in the United States. According to Gartner's data, Apple shipped an estimated 2.1 million PCs in the United States for 12.8 percent of the market. That's up from 2 million shipments (and 11.8 percent market share) in the year-ago quarter.

HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer all saw growth in the United States, but Asus saw a sharp dip, shipping only 621,000 PCs, down from 1.2 million in 4Q 2015. Overall PC shipments in the U.S. totaled 16.5 million units, a 1.3 percent decline compared to last year.

IDC also released its shipment estimates today, and as expected, its numbers tell a different story, in part because of the difference in the way Windows-based tablets are counted by each firm.

According to IDC, worldwide PC shipments totaled 70.2 million units during 4Q 2016, with Apple shipping an estimated 5.26 million Macs, down from 5.3 million in 4Q 2015 for -0.9 percent growth and 7.4 percent market share (up from 7.3 percent last year). Similar to Gartner, IDC believes Apple shipped a total of 18.5 million Macs in 2016, down from 20.5 million in 2015, for an overall decline in growth of 9.8 percent.

It's important to note that data from Gartner and IDC is preliminary and that the numbers can shift, sometimes dramatically and sometimes less so. Last year, for example, IDC and Gartner predicted worldwide 4Q 2015 shipments of 5.7 million Macs, while the actual number was 5.3 million.

We'll know more about Apple's 2016 performance and how well its new MacBook Pros have been selling following the company's next earnings release on January 31.

Earlier this month, Sonny Dickson shared a collection of images and videos featuring an of the iPhone with an early iPod-style operating system called "Acorn OS," based on a clickwheel interface.

The iPod-like software was developed by "iPod Father" Tony Fadell, who shared some new details on its creation with The Verge in an attempt to clarify the backstory behind the software.

According to Fadell, the longstanding story suggesting there were two teams at Apple (one led by Fadell and one led by Scott Forstall) competing with one another to develop the iPhone's OS isn't quite accurate. There were multiple UI possibilities being explored by both the hardware and the software teams, who were working together.

"It was a competing set of ideas, not teams," says Fadell. "And we were all working on it."

He went on to explain that there were two paths in hardware and software UI development going on at Apple "at all times," and that the software shown off in the video is "just what the UI guys were doing, devoid of any hardware." There was never a hardware prototype running the software shown off in Dickson's video, but someone ported it "just for fun." It was only ever a Mac app.

A virtual clickwheel, as shown in the video, was just one path of iPod-style development, as Jobs had the iPhone team explore every possibility. Other iPod-like ideas included an iPod phone with a smaller screen and a click wheel, which was unrealistic, and a hardware-based wheel with buttons, another idea that didn't pan out.

We tried everything. We tried having little buttons on the clickwheel so you could click. There was a Nokia phone where they had a circular pattern for the numbers, in hard buttons, and Steve was like "Go make that work." So we tried that.

And we went, "Steve, give it up, it's going to be too hard. It's not going to work." So we were halfway through, like four weeks or five weeks into it, and we said "This is not working." We pushed this for like another four, five weeks to keep trying, and we're saying, "This is a waste of time." But we had to be ready, because that's what he wanted.

By the time Fadell took over the iPhone division from Jon Rubinstein, Apple was working on a Linux-based OS backed by Rubinstein and a reduced version of OS X, developed by Scott Forstall and Avie Tevanian. the OS X version, codenamed Purple OS, won out, and the Linux version was killed off within a matter of weeks. Purple OS went on to become the iOS software we know today.

Fadell's full interview with The Verge, which goes into more detail about the iPhone's development process, is well worth checking out.

The wireless headphone market has steadily grown over the past year, new data from research firm Slice Intelligence suggests.

In the U.S. last month, an estimated 75% of revenue from headphones sold online came from wireless models, up from 50% in December 2015, according to Slice Intelligence. Apple's new AirPods led the way, capturing an estimated 26% share of online revenue in the wireless headphone market since launching on December 13.

AirPods stole the top spot from Beats, which took an estimated 15.4% of online revenue in the wireless headphone market, down from 24.1% between the start of 2015 and December 13. Given it owns Beats, Apple appears to have actually taken nearly 40% of online revenue in the market since launching AirPods.

Slice Intelligence said wireless headphone spending on AirPods launch day was ten times greater than the pre-holiday average for 2016. December 13 was also the largest single day of online headphone spending last year, according to the research firm, topping Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

The research suggests 85% of shoppers who purchased AirPods are male, of which 35% are young millennials. Female buyers tended to skew older, with 38% falling in the baby boomer generation. The gender data is based on 2,871 U.S. online shoppers who purchased AirPods between December 13 and December 31.

Apple has not disclosed AirPods sales, with CEO Tim Cook only vaguely claiming the wireless headphones have been a "runaway success" amid "a great holiday" period. AirPods remain estimated to ship in 6 weeks in the U.S. as Apple said it is working to fulfill orders as fast as possible.

Slice Intelligence aggregated its data based on anonymized e-receipts from up to 353,926 U.S. online shoppers—the size of the user base varies per chart. But without official figures, it is impossible to determine if the data is accurate—Apple could easily follow up with very different numbers.

The iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s were the "three most popular smartphones" in the United States in the three month period ending November 2016, when users were purchasing early holiday gifts for friends and family members. According to new data collected by Kantar Worldpanel, the three Apple iPhones captured a total 31.3 percent of smartphone sales in the U.S., while Samsung accounted for 28.9 percent of smartphone sales during the three month period.

In the U.S., iOS grew 6.4 percent in the same three month period, rising to a 43.5 percent share of the market. Android dropped 5.1 percent, but still sits atop Apple with a 55.3 percent share of the market. As Kantar noted, the data marks the sixth consecutive decline for Android in the U.S.

Kantar's data shows that iOS made gains across most regions around the world in the same September to November period, despite a few losses in Germany and China. Apple's mobile operating system saw the biggest year-over-year increase in Great Britain, where it jumped 9.1 percent to account for 48.3 percent of the smartphone market in the country. Both Android and iOS increased their presence across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Great Britain, "largely due to the decline of Windows," according to Kantar.

“In the EU5 countries, Android accounted for 72.4% of smartphone sales during this period, with iOS at 24.6%, a strong year-on-year uptick for both ecosystems as Windows’ share declined to 2.8%.

For Android, this represented a 2.8 percentage point decline from the October period, while strong sales of iPhone 7 boosted iOS,” explained Dominic Sunnebo, Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “The holiday period is always strong for Apple, but it remains to be seen if demand for the latest devices will level out in the first quarter of 2017.”

Despite dropping 5.4 percent in China from the year-ago quarter, Kantar pointed out that iOS market share did in fact increase slightly (by 2.8 percent) from the previous three-month period thanks to the launch of the iPhone 7, which became the best-selling device in Urban China. "Local brands continued to dominate the market," according to Kantar analyst Tamsin Timpson, and Android accounts for a massive 79.9 percent of the smartphone market in the country in comparison to Apple's 19.9 percent presence.

Despite Apple's iOS growth in places like Australia, Japan, and even the U.S., recent reports surrounding the company's manufacturing partner Foxconn have pointed towards "lukewarm" demand for the iPhone 7 as a major cause for the assembler's first-ever profit decline. Apple reportedly shipped 207 million iPhones in 2016, down from 236 million in 2015, but many hope the company can turn around from its own revenue downturn with a profitable 2017 and a major redesign for the "iPhone 8."

A couple days ago Sonny Dickson shared a look at one of two early prototypes for the original iPhone, the iPod Click Wheel-based OS that iPod "Godfather" Tony Fadell was working on. Tonight, Dickson has shared a video pitting Fadell's version against Scott Forstall's icon-based iPhone prototype, which went on to become the basis for iOS.

Fadell's prototype was referred to as P1 while Forstall's prototype was referred to as P2. The two projects reportedly went head to head in 2005 when Steve Jobs pitted the two against each other. While the P1 used the click-wheel interface to navigate the OS, the P2 used a series of touch-based icons to move around the OS.

Both P1 and P2 run a prototype OS Apple codenamed "Acorn OS" internally, though Dickson notes that P1 runs faster because it uses a slimmed down version of Acorn OS. Each prototype also sports a unique logo that pops up after the Acorn OS logo while it boots up.

The P2 loads octopus whereas the P1 has the iPod classic logo. The P2 takes a significantly longer to load because it actually has a real OS, whereas the P1 takes much less time since the OS is slimmer. These P unit prototypes are so early in the development process that they rely on a custom process to be turned off, and can only be powered down during a certain step of the boot process.

The video, and accompanying photos, provide both a look at the choice Steve Jobs and Apple employees faced as they were developing the iPhone and iOS 10 years ago and how Apple explores ideas. As Dickson notes, "P devices" are the first step of any project at Apple. They're barely-functioning devices that allow the company to explore and test concepts, iterating on them until they're satisfied enough to push the project further.

More images of the P2 iPhone prototype are available on Sonny Dickson's website.

Starting in March of 2017, AT&T will raise the prices of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5, according to information obtained by DSLReports. The price hike is AT&T's second price increase in the last 12 months and will raise prices from $35 to $40.

DSLReports forum users began receiving notifications about the $5 price increase in early January, and the site was able to confirm AT&T's plans. AT&T's statement on the new pricing is below:

Our Mobile Share Advantage plans and our AT&T Unlimited Plan provide several benefits that our legacy unlimited plan doesn't. If you have a legacy unlimited data plan, you can keep it; however, beginning in March 2017, it will increase by $5 per month.

AT&T no longer offers standalone unlimited data plans to customers, but a small number of people continue to hold onto unlimited data plans that were purchased before AT&T discontinued them in 2010. Those plans allow customers to use an unlimited amount of data, but throttling does occur with excessive data usage.

AT&T previously raised prices for its unlimited data customers in February of 2016, increasing data plan costs from $30 to $35. AT&T's data plan costs are charged in addition to voice and text plan costs for unlimited customers, putting the minimum price on an unlimited data plan with text and voice (not unlimited) in the neighborhood of $90.

Over the course of the last several years, AT&T has used price hikes, data caps, and throttling to attempt to get its grandfathered unlimited customers to switch to new plans. In 2014, the FTC launched a federal court complaint against AT&T for its throttling practices, which led AT&T to scale them back.

At the beginning of 2016, AT&T reintroduced $100 unlimited data plans but limited them to AT&T users who subscribe to an AT&T DirecTV or AT&T U-Verse plan.