'Dynamite'/Apple breaks streak with iPhone rebound

Spurred by strong iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus holiday sales, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company reported first-quarter earnings rose to $3.36 per share on record revenue of $78.4 billion, up 3%, besting Wall Street analysts' estimates.

The results snapped a string of three straight quarters of declining iPhone shipments, which contributed to its first fiscal-year sales drop in more than a decade. And the results sent Apple shares up 3.5% in after-hours trading.

Analysts had forecast earnings of $3.22 per share on sales of $77.3 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Net income fell 3% to $17.9 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC it was a "dynamite" quarter.

A rebound in sales of Apple's flagship product, iPhone, contributed mightily to the financial reversal. Apple shipped 78.3 million iPhones during the quarter, and consumer demand for the higher priced iPhone 7 Plus added to its top line.

Market researcher Factset had predicted sales of 78 million, up from 74.8 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Apple Services had as much to do with the record quarter as iPhone, soaring 18% to $7.2 billion. "It is driving overall revenue growth, and will continue to for the next few years," says Bill Kreher, a technology analyst at Edward Jones. "It reduces the pressure of Apple creating hit products every few years."

The rally could be short-lived, however: Apple gave ho-hum guidance of revenue of $51.5 million to $53.5 million in its current quarter.

Apple's revenue has — and will continue — to depend on iPhone sales, says Thomas Husson, a principal analyst at market researcher Forrester.

Apple also reported a cash pile of $246.1 billion, most of it overseas. Should President Trump make good on his vow to allow companies to return offshore profits without onerous taxes, it would be "very good for the country and very good for Apple," Cook said in a conference call Tuesday.

The news wasn't all good. Apple reported year-over-year revenue declines in China and for iPad.

Shares of Apple have risen 9% since the election, contributing to the Dow Jones industrial average's rise over 20,000, and they're up 25% in the past year. That compares to a 12-month rise of 21% for the Nasdaq Composite.

Apple's ability to protect its turf in the smartphone market as Samsung attempts to rebound from its Galaxy Note 7 recall and Google pushes its Pixel phone will be closely scrutinized by Wall Street over the next few quarters, according to Daniel Ives, senior vice president of finance and corporate development at cloud-computing company Synchronoss Technologies.

What momentum Apple has is expected to build with the highly anticipated introduction of its 10th-anniversary iPhone, expected later this year.

Apple's iPhone sales machine to make a comeback

After three straight quarters of declining iPhone shipments, which contributed to its first fiscal-year sales drop in more than a decade, Apple sales are expected to edge up 1.5% to $77.1 billion from $75.9 billion a year ago, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Some analysts, such as UBS' Steven Milunovich, forecast Apple sales near the high end of its own guidance of $76 billion to $78 billion. Earnings per share are expected to drop to $3.22 from $3.28.

Somewhere in Silicon Valley, Apple executives may be able to exhale.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company reports results for its fiscal first quarter, its strongest seasonally, on Tuesday after the market closes. Sales of iPhone, Apple's top-selling product, as usual will be closely watched. Factset estimates Apple sold 78 million, up from 74.8 million in the same quarter a year ago.

A bang-up quarter would be a welcome respite against a backdrop of flagging iPhone and desktop sales last year. But it could be short-lived amid saturated smartphone and PC markets worldwide.

Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz doesn't expect   Apple shares to rise much this year because more consumers are "mixing down" for iPhone 6s in lieu of iPhone 7. He's also concerned about a potential trade war with China, and Apple's business prospects in India.

Shipments for Apple's iMacs and MacBooks last year plunged 9.8% from 2015, the largest drop among the top five PC makers and the first decline by Apple since 2012, according to market researcher IDC.

Apple shares have risen 10% since the election, contributing to the Dow Jones industrial average's rise over 20,000, and they're up 25% in the past year. That compares to a 12-month rise of 23% for the Nasdaq Composite.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives took 2016 pay cuts after the company was tripped up by lower revenue because of weaker iPhone sales.

Apple has acknowledged the shortfall and focused revenue growth on its high-margin Apple Services business, App Store and Apple Music to shoulder the financial burden.

Apple Services revenue soared 24% to a record $6.3 billion in its last reported quarter. The App Store generated more than $20 billion in sales for developers last year, up 40% from 2015. Apple Music has topped 20 million paid members.

All encouraging stuff. But about those iPhones, the clear bread-winner of Apple's product portfolio?

Things could look up later this year, with the unveiling of the 10th-anniversary version of iPhone.

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Motorola on Why Google’s Project Ara Failed, and How Moto Mods are Different

Motorola is one of the pioneers in telecommunications, having made the world's first commercially available mobile phone, the DynaTAC. That was in 1974, and over the years, Motorola's given the world some of the most memorable handsets in the business. A couple of decades and few ownership changes later today, the company is betting on "Mods" - aftermarket snap-on modular components that can add features such as a powerful speaker, optical zoom, or a projector.

Those are just the ones that the company has launched itself - Motorola has also created a Moto Mod Developer Kit (MDK) that any developer can use to create third-party modules for the Moto Z. To promote the Moto Mod developer ecosystem, Motorola is organising a series of MotoCollide events, the third of which (and the first in India) was held in Bengaluru last week. Gadgets 360 caught up with Stephen McDonnell, Senior Manager for the Moto Mods Ecosystem and Anuj Sharma, Marketing Head for Motorola India to talk about Moto Z and modular computing as a whole.

Was Project Ara too 'geeky'?
Of course, Motorola isn't the first company to attempt a modular future. The most-hyped of these is Google, whose Project Araattempted to create a fully modular phone, where you could swap out the camera as the phone aged. The idea didn't pan out - after a couple of years of attempts, the company gave up on a smartphone that's as configurable as a laptop.

McDonnell is quite dismissive about Ara. "They didn’t really think about the consumer at all," says McDonnell. "Their whole idea was based around technology, what can you do, but not what the customer wants."

"They wanted to do things like change the specs but that doesn’t really change the consumer experience," he adds. "It was exciting for developers, but they got the priority wrong. I think with LG and Friends - they wanted you to switch off your phone to change parts, and it was a whole process, who is going to do that?"

To drive home the point, he compares that to Motorola's solution - the Mods are hot-swappable, and changing them out is as easy as removing the cover from a phone, and putting a new one on. The whole process takes seconds. "People don't want to leave the Mods on all the time, only when they're using them," he says. "You're going to a cricket match, you put on the Hasselblad module for a couple of hours, take a few pictures, and then you take it off again." If the process is more complicated than that, the modules would end up just sitting in a drawer, unused, he believes.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Premium Variant Rumoured to Have Dual-Edge Curved Screen, Ceramic Body, 6GB RAM

• Xiaomi Mi 6 is expected to come in three variants
• Most premium variant will sport Snapdragon 835 SoC, dual-edged screen
• The premium variant will also sport 6GB of RAM, ceramic body

Xiaomi Mi 6, the company's upcoming flagship smartphone of 2017, was recently rumoured to come in three variants and launch at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. While Xiaomi has now confirmed that it will not make an appearance at MWC, a new leak has revealed key features of the Mi 6 smartphone, most significantly that the top variant of the device will have a ceramic body, just like the bezel-less Xiaomi Mi MIX launched last year.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Display and Design

China's MyDrivers reports that the most expensive Xiaomi Mi 6 variant will sport a dual-edged curved screen, with 6GB of RAM, and a ceramic body. The other two flat-screen variants will come with 4GB of RAM.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Key Specifications

As previously reported, the Xiaomi Mi 6 smartphone is said to have three variants - one which will sport a MediaTek Helio X30 processor, while the other two will sport Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 835 chipset. The most premium variant will sport the latest Snapdragon 835 processor and a dual-edged curved screen.

As for optics, all the variants of the Xiaomi flagship are expected to sport a 12-megaixel rear camera with Sony's IMX362 sensor. The Xiaomi Mi 6 will pack a 3000mAh battery, and run on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat (with the MIUI 9 skin on top). The report states that the Mi 6 smartphone will be offered in 128GB and 256GB storage capacity options, however lower storage options should also be made available.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Launch

While the Xiaomi Mi 6 was pegged to launch around MWC 2017, Samsung has reportedly been promised the first supply of the latest Snapdragon 835 chipsets, followed by LG for the LG G6. Thus, the release of the Xiaomi MI 6 is now expected to be soon after the launch of the Galaxy S8 and the LG G6 - most probably sometime in March or April.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Price

As for Xiaomi Mi 6 price, the variant with MediaTek processor will be priced at CNY 1,999 (roughly Rs. 19,800), while the other variant with the Snapdragon 835 SoC will be priced at CNY 2,499 (roughly Rs. 24,800). The third Mi 6 variant with the dual-edged curved display and the latest Snapdragon processor will be priced at CNY 2,999 (roughly Rs. 29,800). Previous reports also claim that the curved screen variant is tipped to be called the Mi 6 Pro

FBI request for Twitter account data may have overstepped legal guidelines

The FBI appeared to go beyond the scope of 

of existing legal guidance in seeking certain kinds of internet records from Twitter (TWTR.N) as recently as last year, legal experts said, citing two warrantless surveillance orders the social media company published on Friday.

Twitter said its disclosures were the first time the company had been allowed to publicly reveal the secretive orders, which were delivered with gag orders when they were issued in 2015 and 2016. Their publication follows similar disclosures in recent months by other major internet companies, including Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) and Yahoo (YHOO.O).

Each of the two new orders, known as national security letters (NSLs), specifically request a type of data known as electronic communication transaction records, which can include some email header data and browsing history, among other information.

In doing so, the orders bolster the belief among privacy advocates that the FBI has routinely used NSLs to seek internet records beyond the limitations set down in a 2008 Justice Department legal memo, which concluded such orders should be constrained to phone billing records.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An FBI inspector general report from 2014 indicated that it disagreed with the memo's guidance.

In a blog post announcing the two NSL disclosures, Twitter said it did not hand over all the information the FBI requested this report  from me

Microsoft's market value tops $500 billion again after 17 years

Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) market capitalization topped $500 billion for the first time since 2000 on Friday, after the technology giant's stock rose following another quarter of results that beat Wall Street's expectations.

Shares of the world's biggest software company rose as much as 2.1 percent to $65.64, an all-time high, in early trading, valuing the company at $510.37 billion.

The last time Microsoft was valued more was in March 2000, during the heyday of the dotcom era, when it had a market value of a little above $550 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Despite the gains, Microsoft still lags Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) market capitalization of about $642 billion and Google-parent Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) market value of a little more than $570 billion.

Microsoft reported second-quarter results on Thursday that beat analysts' average estimate for both revenue and profit, mainly due to its fast-growing cloud computing business

The company's profit and revenue have now topped Wall Street's expectations in seven of the last eight quarters.

Chief Executive Satya Nadella has been trying to reinvigorate Microsoft since taking over the lumbering giant nearly three years ago, and has helped build more credibility around the company's efforts in areas such as cloud-based services.

When he took the top job in February 2014, the company's stock was trading at around $34 and its market value was roughly $315 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"The pieces are falling into place as we are starting to see an important shift in the model, with improving profitability in growth segments," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a note.

At least 11 brokerages raised their price targets on the stock, boosting the median price target to $68.50 from $68.00.

Of the 37 analysts covering the stock, 27 rate it "buy" or higher, eight have a "hold" rating and two "strong sell".

Jio says Airtel misleads in ads, wants it fined

Jio has shot-off a letter to the telecom regulator alleging that in so far as the advertisements issued by Airtel for pre-paid and post-paid tariff packs are concerned, the unlimited calls and free data being offered by Airtel is in gross violation of extant telecommunication laws. Jio has further charged Airtel of misrepresenting the benefits as free unlimited calls without indicating the applicability of Fair Usage Policy (FUP).

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Jio 4G didn't have the kind of start that Reliance was hoping for when it was launched publicly in September last year. Sure, it gathered numbers. Over 6 lakh users joined the network every day in the beginning. But as more people came on-board, the speed of the service nosedived. Jio promised that it would be the fastest 4G service in the country. In the weeks that followed, TRAI data showed that it was the slowest. That, however, changed recently. The same TRAI data now shows that it is the fastest 4G service in India.now that timeBut all of that is data. And data may not always relate to the reality on the ground. So is Jio speed really better or is TRAI just pushing some meaningless statistics? The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

The speed is definitely better. Before Jio's public trial opened in September last year, a handful of million users who were using it were seeing fantastic speeds. On occasions, the service touched 20mbps to 30mbps with ease. But after it acquired more users, the speed started coming down. In its worst days -- I think around October -- it barely worked. When used on phone in an app that wasn't the speed-test app, the Jio network performance was abysmal. if you wanted to use the phone Jio connection to create Wi-Fi hotspot, it was even poorer.

However, there is one thing that TRAI data doesn't show and that is also the area where Jio continues to struggle. Its coverage is still somewhat patchy. Although here too the company has improved, but the problem for the Jio network are the big buildings. Inside shopping malls etc, its coverage doesn't seem as robust as that of Airtel. Although, I must add that even Airtel is not really a shining example of reliability. Its 4G network too has a mind of its own and vanishes from time to time, especially when you are Jio still has over two months to go before it asks people to pay for its services. As part of its Happy New Year Offer the company is offering free unlimited data (1GB per day FUP) and free calls and messages to people until March 31. March 31 is also seemingly the company's deadline to fix the teething issues that are plaguing it since it opened the service to public from September 5 and it seems, from how the Jio network is behaving for the last 5-6 weeks, that the company is hard at work to meet this deadline.

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