Apple’s Down Quarter, Facebook Paying Teens for Info; Samsung Bows 1 TB Storage Chip for Phones

Apple announced earnings yesterday. According to cnet.com, they were down less than 1% at $19.9 billion for the quarter…$418 per share, beating the Street by a penny. The interesting item is that iPhone sales by revenue were down 15%. The iPhone still accounts for 60% of Apple sales. Some have attributed this to the higher pricing. Interestingly, sales were off in Europe, greater China, and Japan, but ‘the rest of Asia Pacific (like Australia) and the Americas had increased sales. Apple warned that the next quarter will be soft. As we noted earlier, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts the 2nd half of the year will be at least flat…which compared to other smartphone sellers’ dropping sales and revenue will look good.

Just when you think all the creepy, intrusive stuff about the net is out there, something else bubbles up. Engadget.com reports that Facebook has been secretly paying teenagers about $20 a month to use a VPN app called ‘Facebook Research’, that lets the company have full access to all of their phone and web activity! This app appears to have the same features as Onavo Protect, an app that Facebook had which was pulled from Apple’s App Store last year for violation of privacy policies. This App is downloaded from a separate Facebook URL in order to skirt Apple’s iron hand….although it is running as something under Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program, which is really for internal developer use. Apple has now killed Facebook’s ability to distribute internal iOS apps…so Cupertino ‘is not amused.’ They say Facebook is in clear breach of their agreement. Stay tuned for more fur to fly!

In the ongoing race to get more storage, Samsung has bowed a 1 TB storage chip for smartphones. 9to5google.com says it’s a good bet the roomy chip will be introduced in the Galaxy S10. It is the same size as Samsung’s other storage chips, too! It’s likely that the phone with this monster chip will have a crazy high price, but Samsung notes that for those shooting a lot of video and other RAM-hungry applications, it will be a great addition. The Galaxy S10 will debut February 20th.