Apple's $1 Billion Solar Farm and Forest Buying Spree Raises Eyebrows

It appears that Apple is investing heavily in renewable energy, with a new solar farm being built in the United States. The project, which will cost almost a billion dollars, is expected to be completed soon. However, some are questioning whether this move is enough, given the massive amount of money Apple is spending on other projects. Recently, it was announced that Apple will be spending $2 billion on new data centers in Europe and a solar farm in China.

While some may view these investments as positive steps towards sustainability, others are skeptical about the environmental impact of such large-scale projects. Furthermore, with Apple's ongoing efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, some wonder if this amount is sufficient to make a meaningful difference. One can't help but think that one billion dollars doesn't go very far when considering the scale of these investments.

Meanwhile, in other news, Microsoft has been making headlines with their latest announcements. The company revealed plans to support Objective-C, the programming language used for iOS apps, on Windows 10. This move is expected to make it easier for developers to port their apps from one platform to another. Additionally, Visual Studio will now be available on Macs, allowing developers to create and edit Windows applications directly on the platform.

The implications of this move are significant, as it could potentially increase the availability of popular apps across different platforms. Microsoft also announced that they would be working with Android developers to make their apps compatible with both iOS and Android devices. While some may see this as a positive development, others may wonder why iOS developers would be motivated to create apps for Windows in the first place.

One interesting aspect of Microsoft's announcement is their plans to leverage smartphones as computers. They seem to be pushing forward with this strategy, which has been tried before but never fully implemented. If they can make it work, it could revolutionize the way we interact with technology. The Edge browser, set to replace Internet Explorer, also caught attention. While the logo may look a bit suspiciously similar to its predecessor, one thing is certain: Microsoft is taking a bold step forward.

In a separate development, a wire service story revealed that Microsoft announced Objective-C support for Windows 10. However, the story took an unexpected turn by stating that Apple also announced something called Objective-C. This seems to have sparked confusion among tech enthusiasts and fans alike. It's worth noting that this kind of " Hit and Run" journalism can quickly spread like wildfire on social media platforms.

As we wrap up the news for the week, it's clear that Microsoft is making waves in the tech world. With their announcements, they seem to be pushing forward with innovative ideas that could potentially change the game. Apple, too, has been making headlines, albeit for different reasons. While some may see these developments as exciting, others may have questions about their motivations and impact.

For those interested in staying up-to-date on the latest news and developments from both Apple and Microsoft, there are several ways to do so. Twitter is always a great place to start, with many experts and enthusiasts sharing their thoughts and opinions on the go. Apple Insider, Apple's official blog, provides a wealth of information on all things Apple. And for those who prefer to engage with the community through comments and questions, there's no better way to do so than by rating the podcast in the iTunes Store or leaving feedback directly through the website.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast hello and welcome to the show this is episode 14 and we discuss the latest news about Apple iPhone iPad mac Apple watch of course and more we're recording on Thursday April 30th 2015 on today's episode we're going to talk yes about the Apple watch again our full review is out we spent a week with the device and we're going to talk about that also Apple's earning call and the record breaking numbers there Microsoft brings Visual Studio to Mac and Windows 10 will support Objective C and currency the CEO has been replaced following the news that Best Buy is going to accept Apple pay later this year I'm Mikey I'm Shane and I'm Steven robbles and of course we're going to talk about the watch our full review is out it was posted this week and um it's long I tried to be thorough obviously there's a lot to say about it the bottom line is I gave it three and a half stars and we can talk about why but I thought it was pretty clear there definitely some bugginess you know I like it it's fun it does some cool things but it's not um perfect it's obviously this is the first Apple watch we have you know so it's obviously going to improve but Mikey just got his um so before we talk about real specifics I'd like to hear your thoughts on it um yeah well I mean I just set it up like literally last night um but it's not something that I can you it's something that I could definitely live without it's not something that I could see myself you know needing on a day-to-day basis and we were all living without it last week too so it's you know yeah well I mean yeah it's not it's not going to be a life-changing event for me um it it does make a few things uh easier um especially with glances and the notifications and stuff um but at this point it's just really a first generation product uh has a lot of potential we just have to see what the developers do with that platform so one of my kind of the the criticisms I had in the review and people in comments and other journalists have apparently had differing experiences but it's with Siri um one being that hey Siri is not as reliable as I'd like it to be as far as activating when I just say it um and also I mean just when it comes up so I mean have your experience with Siri been different or or how has it been for you um I've I haven't invoked Siri uh with hey Siri yet um but uh when it it is working it it's working and it's pretty accurate so I mean it's basically just like the the iPhone I was concerned that the mic not may not pick up my uh my voice but it does and it works as expected yeah and one when it's it is listening to me I mean it's pretty accurate dictation is accurate um I wanted to use the hey Siri more often especially like in the car you know my hands already up on the steering wheel and uh you know activate it so again there's been differing opinions different experiences so if it works great for you then it's not so much a complaint I I missed the audio feedback and being able to actually send a message without having to touch anything because it won't it won't say hey you're ready to send yeah that's um well I mean yeah series is really is really limited on Apple watch right now um for instance I you can't go go in and edit events and stuff right you can create an event like I did last night but it went to the wrong it went to my default calendar and I and I didn't want that so I you know tried changing it but of course I got the message no I'm sorry Siri can't do this on Apple watch oh like reminders you can uh create reminders you can get alerts from reminders you already have and you can you know create them with Siri on the watch but there's no Reminders app to actually view your upcoming reminders on the watch and obviously you can't edit it after you create it so and obv again we know it's limited it's on the watch but still those just little tiny things that kind of add up and I also talked about pass book and some people said in the comments that uh you know if you have passbook enabled when you get near like a Starbucks or whatever it is just supposed to activate uh and or like you get a notification then you should be able to just tap the notification and it'll open up the Pass and Pass book and that didn't work for me I drove by a couple Starbucks did you have uh do you have location services enabled for that on the iPhone I did I double checked everything I mean I put alerts on full blast I enabled location services for Starbucks and for background and all that kind of stuff and uh it still didn't show up so I'm and I made sure those stores were my favorites because I know you do the too I I noticed that uh I don't know what um at at what frequency Apple has set Apple watch to you know automatically refresh or you know do these ex extraneous services like location geolocation um tracking and all that stuff but it seems to be um pretty aggressive um as far as you know turning off the those extra features like uh I forgot what app I was using I using anyway whatever it was it was tracking I think it was tracking my location or something and um it just automatically you know shuts off after a set amount of time but that time is not clear to the user it's very it's very vague so I'm not sure what they're going to do they have to do that to save battery life obviously right um I mean and battery life has been pretty good for me um you in the review I I posted the first few days I was using it but since then I make it through it a day fairly easily um you know so that hadn't been a problem and I actually put it on the lowest brightness and it's still very viewable um so you could do that as well but I don't know I mean you've only have for a day but um did you kind of run it down yesterday as you were using it uh I just plugged it in like about a minute ago yeah um it came 80% charged kind of like all other Apple devices um and I kind of played with it around last night for a couple hours um then I put it in my drawer because I I can't leave it out charging because my cat will eat it so I took it out this morning it was around 23% and I walked around with it and it just now hit 10% so I mean the battery life is is pretty good yeah and you got the 42 right yes yeah yeah so supposedly it has a little better battery life I don't know how true that is but as far as apps too you know obviously every everyone who's reviewed the Apple watch has said you know third party apps are one of the biggest weaknesses um and I haven't found too many third party apps that I'm really crazy about um I haven't had a chance to try Uber which is kind of like the def facto everyone I think Uber is the best I accidentally called a car um twice last night just playing with the did you see the video from last week of the CNet guy who accidentally ordered an Xbox One while doing a demo nice oh he was demoing the Amazon app and he it was hilarious because he got to the the part about the the OneTouch purchase and he said there's a big OneTouch purchase button and then below it is the add to wish list button yeah and he said I have to be really careful not to touch the oneclick purchase button and so he went down below and he really care really careful not to touch this and tapped it and added to his switch list and then he was gesturing to say I can't tap this other button and while gesturing tap the other button and immediately ordered an Xbox one it was fantastic wow genius genius that is it is pretty wild that the Amazon app lets you order right from the watch with one click um I really I want to know how many people are supposed to be ordering from anything from the Apple watch yeah and I mean with d you know the dash Amazon dash button that was a little while ago like it would almost make sense if the Apple watch Amazon app was like a dash button like just pre-record like three products like the if this then that do button which is another app on the watch that you can get that I've used you know program like three dash buttons and like those are the only like you know One Tap orders or something like that um yeah because it seems you know to be able to search for you know a thousand product and accidentally just tap your wrist and buy it seem a little dangerous just imagine oh go ahead and imagine doing the normal Amazon I mean for me the normal Amazon flow is search for a broad category of thing and then read 8,000 reviews of different things only to purchase the first one you saw yeah exactly right imagine trying to accomplish that on a watch so the the Amazon app can you does it have that feature where you can automatically cancel it right away on Apple watch or did you have to go into the iPhone app then I'm pretty sure you have to go in the iPhone app oh that sucks yeah so again that's be careful what you search for I guess there oh you know what other app is good is um Hugh's app the Philip Pew Philip H right you guys use yeah it's really responsive so it works quickly pleased yeah okay yeah so I mean again there's a there's a select few I mean the slack app is actually decent you can switch teams and are you kidding me what did you just say that the slack app was decent on an Apple Watch the slack app isn't even decent on the mac o well true but I mean for of all the messaging apps like since I can't reply to emails on the Apple watch and I don't really use many other messaging third parties like I was impressed with the first generation slack app because I mean you can switch teams with a force touch which was not immediately evident kind of had to figure that out but uh to reply to your mentions and direct messages it's not bad you know it's pretty but how do you how can you see I guess my thing is slack is usually pretty high volume communication so how does that translate to a watch so you can't see like uh full channels you basically see your mentions and you see your direct messages oh okay yeah so you can see like your latest if people at mentioned you you'll see your latest those and then you can enter any DM conversation and and reply there so it's it's limited but what it can do you know it's it's fairly simple you know you have two buttons direct messages mentions and you jump into it so not bad not bad um yeah again I think it's just like when the you know when the iPad first came out there wasn't a whole lot of apps I really showcased what a bigger screen is for and I think that's where the stage we're in now I think the next few months especially after WWDC we're going to see more useful apps I think the current apps are going to improve I've been using Marco arman's overcast app to kind of remotely control what plays and that's okay it's pretty good um it's the only podcast app that has that kind of right now but even he tweeted out the other day he's going to totally rework it after actually using it on a physical watch and again that's what a lot of these apps the developers did not have a watch to actually build these on uh you know leading up to the to the launch so the even developers who put apps in the App Store a lot of the third party ones are just now seeing what their app looks like on a watch and uh are going to I'm sure going to have lots of changes so yeah yeah um I there was an there's a developer that has been emailing me recently within the past two days uh complaining about his Apple watch order cuz he was one of the developers who um got into Apple's special program that gave them the watch that no one wants right the 30 was 38 or whatever yeah apparently it it's not shipping out for certain developers I don't some some developers tweeted at us and they did get it and others didn't so the guarantee was not Universal apparently yeah yeah now have you used Apple pay on it no I just set up my I hardly use Apple pay in my daily life anyway so I mean yeah I I use a couple Walgreens and and stuff like that that I go through and and that is one it seems even faster using the watch for some reason I know obviously the phone is pretty quick up on its own did uh did give you did people like give you stairs I I held it out the Starbucks people were kind of the most shocked by it because it's it's the pass book pass so it's just there's the code on the watch face so like I'm holding my arm out the window of the car and they're just kind of looking at me like what are you doing and I was like can you try scanning the watch and they like oh I didn't know what you were doing I was like sorry so and once they do it like they're like oh that's really cool but yeah have you uh have you gotten any comments on um how it looks my my girlfriend says that uh uh it makes me look pretentious but I think that's really just just how I look for me you just overall pretentious yeah maybe makes me more more uh more pretentious I guess it's funny I mean some people I think I feel like um ladies are more likely to say something about how they like what how it looks than guys like when guys see it they're like oh that's pretty cool um but I had a I had a couple a guy and a girl saw it and later that day I saw them in the Apple store looking at the watches so they immediately went and wanted to know more about it so I don't know but not a whole lot less less than I thought you know I thought more people would kind of see it and wonder about it but it hasn't been that much yeah it's kind of like I don't know it's it's more on display than than the the iPhone say when you know people first had that um uh but yeah I got questions all the time about the first gen iPhone it's every single time we were out somewhere be like is that the iPhone is that the iPhone right yeah I think it's maybe because it was a whole different form factor and it's this is just a watch it could be anything there's so many watches out there I do want to um Gruber actually retweeted a photo that someone U mentioned him been It's actually an old picture of Steve Jobs did you see that today yeah and he has a watch pictured on his wrist and I don't know how old the picture is I mean he's pretty young so it's long 70s I think 70s and uh it does it's actually a rounded Square watch face uh with a band and it looks uh freakishly like the Apple watch uh so you mean just how Mark new's um oh God what Shane what was it what his company his watch company um iPod yes just like the IOD looks exactly like the uh the watch the band the bands are almost exactly the same so it's interesting shocking I do want to talk about I will say on a positive note I was in a meeting today uh kind of like one of the big office meetings everyone's in the big in the big room as you do and um I left my phone in my desk so all I had was my watch and I did get a couple texts during the meeting uh which it was discreet I just felt the tap and the caned responses actually worked with how I needed to respond to the text messages so I was actually able to take care of it right away on the watch and that was a convenient use case like that was um that was pretty nice you know my phone wasn't on the table and and everyone didn't see the screen light up it was discreet was able to deal with it so that was a positive experience and again there are times like that where the notifications are are convenient and being able to deal with it and not have your phone you know around is nice uh two things before we get off the watch I want to mention uh there was the uh roll the Apple watch roll out delayed supposedly because of defective taptic engines of there were you know two manufacturers were making the haptic feedback uh sensor and one of them was was providing faulty ones uh again guber got actually a bad one in his first review unit and uh so apparently there's been a couple cases of that but uh and I was saying in the review I wish the taptic engine was actually a little stronger and I tweeted out today there is an option to turn on prominent haptic uh on the watch which basically like gives a pretty like steady Buzz or vibration and then the couple Taps and I actually like that a lot better I don't know what your experience has been but uh I had that on to begin with but I think for me the uh the normal Taps are catch my attention enough maybe maybe it's for the watch wears that have uh desensitized wrists maybe yeah but so for those of you if you if you feel like the taptic engine is not as strong try that prominent haptic it's pretty good and there was the last thing it mentioned in the review and uh we'll say mention it here there was the uh the article that the sapphire screen on the Apple watch model not the sport and the addition obviously um decreases the display quality or it's especially in direct sunlight when you're outside that the sapphire reduces visibility as opposed to the ionx glass that's on the sport model and I just didn't think it was that big of a deal I mean I've been using it for a week I've been outside a number of times and viewing it was perfectly fine and it's I never had it on the brightest setting anyway so have you been outside with yours Mikey I mean is it's yeah I mean I have no had it no problems with that yeah so whatever that's worth don't let that sway you I do like the consumer reports video I don't know if you guys saw that but they did a um scratch test on the screens of all the the watches and um the sport you know they rate the hardness from zero or 1 to 10 as far as what they're scratching the screen with and the sport one scratched at a level of four and the so that was ionx glass and the Fire display actually never scratched even on a setting of nine which is one under the diamond setting um they still couldn't scratch the screen so I thought that was positive at least for durability was this on the mo scale yes is that yes did they try slamming the watch face against something which is how sapphire watch crystals always always always break now did you see that video of the guy smashing his watch I did not okay so someone actually tweeted a video at Apple Insider and he did that with a sport model not the Apple watch it's cheating so yeah it really is but he was like he was really slamming that watch down and and he said I mean he showed it it never scratched so if any if anybody's listening and they've never owned a watch with a sapphire crystal on top they don't scratch at all like it's it's amazing they don't scratch but they shatter really easily so if you if you're like out walk or what happens a lot to me because I live in the big city is you uh you're walking down the sidewalk right and they have they're doing construction and so they put up barricades like over the sidewalk to keep you know steel beams from falling on people and if you're not paying attention and you move the wrong way and you slap your watch against one of the supports you know it's like it's tot not totally uncommon for it to shatter really which really yeah which really pisses me off every time it happens so kind of a I don't know there's a there's a few different uh recipes for Sapphire I guess but I think that have you tried um uh do you own any seikos I don't oh you should try their their Sapphire is really um uh not flexible but I mean it it it has that hardness but it also has a little bit of flexibility I guess you'd say I've never had one of those break on me of course I haven't tried to slam it against so yeah so that's interesting how many times did that happen to you Shane like where you shatter um in my watch wearing life three times wow so okay so if you're working out be careful not to slam it against the dumbbell I guess or yeah or against the arm of the treadmill or whatever right I mean it requires like the the perfect proper flat you know SL hit and slam but it happens huh of course uh we should mention that Shane um goes to work um and he runs parkour so I do all right I will say I was telling what no okay I did tell the guys my stainless steel model has a slight nick uh after a week's use so uh for whatever that's worth don't uh you know I think I mean stainless steel it does scratch right I mean that's just kind of a thing so should have gotten the DLC uh coded version I could just get a case for it oh Jesus I know they have some of those don't don't get a case for it are you one of those people who takes really good care of something until it gets the first Nick and then doesn't care about it anymore uh I've been guilty of that in the past I don't think I'm going to do I totally am yeah I I keep it pristine and then first sign of any uh compromise in the structural Integrity I throw it in the lake but I won't do that here ion do that here anyway I think that's enough about the watch I mean read the read the review if if you want to learn a lot more about it if you have questions you know tweet at us and all that kind of stuff we'll be obviously using them over the next what for I how long and so we have thoughts on it but moving on from the watch let's talk about the other big it was I think a big story this week Apple's earnings call for Quarter Two some pretty impressive numbers um Mikey did you cover this I forgot who covered it yeah we all we all we all did it was a team effort ah very good work very good and so it was 61 1.17 million iPhones sold and that's a record year-over-year I believe and 13.57oz quarter and the one uh blot I guess you could say and that's increasingly uh or regularly decreasing is the iPad sales and it was 12.6 million units this quarter a decrease of 23% from year-over year of last year so I mean this is kind of a regular thing we're seeing iPad sales are on the on the downswing and I don't know if you guys have any theories on that I mean I don't think it's worrisome I I do think we have yet to see what an iPad cycle looks like for the average consumer I don't aside from people who are really into Tech I don't know a lot of people buying iPads like buying their second or third iPad like since they've been out um you know people who you know whether they're affluent maybe they have new ones but no most people like I gave my parents an original iPad and they still use it and you know because they browse the web and do email like that's pretty much it so I I don't think it's really that concerning um I don't know what do you guys think about that I mean I don't think it is either I I totally agree with everybody who says that both the long replacement cycle and the fact that the iPhone 6 Plus exists have hurt the iPad to some degree but I mean it's not going to well eventually probably but in the near term it's not going to go away there's just no reason to replace an iPad every year every two years like there is to replace your iPhone I would still have my I kept my iPad 2 until the iPad Air came out right and a lot of people too I mean a lot of people skip two or three generations if they are on their second or third one and I have an iPad Air too and I mean I I love it when I get to use it you know for casual browsing but it's not often like it's not often where I feel like I should use my iPad for what I'm doing right now usually what I'm doing if it's writing it would be better off on a computer or laptop or if I'm just trying to do something quick usually it's better on my iPhone anyway so it's a great device you know I think some people use it as their main computer but I don't find tons of use cases for it on a regular basis still I think it's it's um it's a Leisure device right I mean that's sort of its purpose at this I mean for a lot of people I think that's sort of its purpose at this point there's a lot of Buzz going on about oh you can't create content in iPad which is totally untrue but while you can I don't think that that's the majority use case I think a lot of people use it like I use mine which is I'm done at the end of the day I'm closing my laptop because for me laptop is it's my main tool that's how I make my living and for me that means work so at the end of the day I close my laptop and if I still want to play a game or browse or whatever it's on my iPad you know if I'm shopping for something it's on my iPad right so for that you don't you know you just don't have to upgrade all the time Mikey do you use an iPad often or um I used to I used to use well first I mean when the first iPad came out I used to use that quite a bit and the mini um kind of took over my um most of my use scenarios which was basically playing games and like Shane shopping but I don't really use it too often these days I'm not sure why just kind of you know yeah something that I just don't really need my life right now right my wife for her she has a she sells an iPhone 5S she hasn't upgraded yet and she also has an iPad mini and for her the iPad Mini is actually her primary computer almost she has a backbook hair too but that is not used nearly as much as the mini she uses it for browsing uh chatting reading all that stuff yeah so and my yeah my wife too her MacBook is pretty old I mean it's probably six maybe even seven years old and it was kind of degrading and we were like well I could get you a new computer but she didn't really need the power of an entire computer for just what she did so I I got her an iPad and she actually and again like you're saying she uses that a lot of time she actually sends mail chimps uh from there uh for her like uh one of the groups that she's in and so she does some work on there she does some email she has a you know a keyboard case kind of thing U she just use it you know a few times a week and that's been enough so but it she has no desire to get a newer one too because it does exactly what she needs to needs it to yeah I I think yeah it you know it does also like Shane said come down to like the um you don't really need to buy the next generation of device when it already does basically what the last one did right there's not really any killer apps out there that you require you to have the latest and greatest Hardware um so these these devices can last you three four years whereas you know like a a smartphone or like an iPhone you may actually want to buy one every every year every other year right well you think it's just not way like the cameras are updated um yeah you know the whatever new like the Apple pay obviously and touch ID like there's usually one or two of those big features that you want on the device you're using every day all the time as far as I'm concerned the only upgrade driving feature that has been added to the iPad since the iPad 2 I'm I use the iPad 2 as the f as the start of the iPad as a mature device right because it had a a front-facing camera and was much thinner and not as you generally awkward but the only upgrade driving feature I have seen is Touch ID that's the only thing that's come along that would make me say or that actually did make me say it's time for a new iPad the only the reason why I went to iPad Air 2 I was using an iPad 3 which was the first retina screen and it was the shortest uh refresh rate basically the iPad 3 was out the shortest then the iPad 4 came out just 6 months later uh with the lightning cable and a faster processor and the iPad 3 was pretty much the only model aside from the one that was just really slow um because the processor was underpowered for doing the retina screen I feel um so going from that to any newer model iPad was a world of difference and actually the iPad 2 was a little faster because it wasn't having to push all those pixels so for that one model I feel like getting off with that uh was a big difference as far as processing power but again for what I was fine I used it for like two years and it was fine too because I just you know stuff yeah I mean the um the one that that you were talking about the the first retina they didn't didn't the the what was that the a a A6 wasn't a I'm trying to think the A5 was the or a5x I believe that maybe that sounds right I don't know but wasn't it rendering um the screen in two parts because it it was it couldn't it couldn't handle the entire the entire Retina display at one time that sounds like it might be true it was a5x you're right there yeah and weren't people experiencing like a screen wobble kind of thing because they're yeah yeah I remember that one my three also had um the yellow leakage from the top or whatever like under the screen did it go away it was supposed to be um a curing agent right yeah it wasn't the glue it was a light leak like you like see between so oh I had a problem with that with my first iPad the the first gen iPad right I had to I remember going into the Apple Store and the guy's like I don't know what you're talking about and I made him I made him uh come under one of the tables with me and and uh prove to him that it was um you know there were these like streaks and never I've never seen that before that's funny I I brought I did brought mine in too with that and he was like they had just come out the iPad 3es and he was like listen I can get you a new one but it might have the same light leak and it might be worse than yours is now so I was like I'll just keep it which is kind of kind of weird because um I I don't I wouldn't notice that on a Mac I don't think but on an iPad since I well I used to use it when I was in bed right it's much more uh it's much more prominence you know I will say quick um a funny story I do a lot of video production like live video and we have like black magic cameras and Blackmagic um interfaces and stuff like that and we were using these Thunderbolt things and uh we had some MacBooks that we were trying to incorporate in this live setup and the MacBooks kept crashing uh whenever we plugged in these Thunder pult accessories and so we made a Genius Bar appointment and we literally went in with like huge racks of stuff and these MacBooks people were looking at us like crazy we went up to the Genius Bar and we were like can we set this up and they let us basically take over a table and we set up all this live production equipment and and they helped us through it I mean they actually walked us through so Kudos on them but anyway uh the last thing we we'll segue in the earnings call was Tim Cook announced that Best Buy is going to start offering Apple pay in the app and later this year they're going to accept Apple pay in the store which is obviously in the face of they were going to be currency only the um Consortium the competitor Apple pay uh MCX they were going to be MCX only but they're going to accept Apple pay later this year and right after that announcement the uh CEO of MCX was ousted and they named shocking and they named it interim CEO which is a Brian V Mooney as um you know hopefully to take over and turn things around so I thought that was I think it's a sign of things to come I think Best Buy is one of the big names that were you know Incorporated with MCX well the Deckers guy the the former CEO he well when currency first you know hits the uh the headlines with after CVS and Right Aid um P support for Apple pay he was really you know Pro currency and their policies and stuff but then later I think he pretty quickly um backtracked and said that no well you know it's going to be an exclusive only for a limited time right then you know we're going to they'll they'll open up the stores to other other systems and then he went quiet for a while and I guess there's been some discussions some uh yeah some back room discussions about you know what what's best but I mean I I don't know it's not like Apple pay is is uh making or breaking certain stores yet no but looking at currency I mean when it actually does come out it's still going to be a pain in the neck to use I mean the Q going to be I think it's going to be dead on arrival but yeah yeah the QR codes and having people to register actual check account as opposed to a credit card I think people it's going to be offputting for a lot of people and uh you know I've seen a lot of the stores like supermarkets and retail stores in my area replacing their uh point of sale systems to accept the chip and pin uh which is going to be kind of standard later this year for credit card chip and signature chip chip and signature thank you and so I see them all and some of the stores it's the exact same model of the point of sale system and some of them have Apple pay enabled and some of them don't so I know basically every store is going to have a system capable of NFC and it's just a matter of whether they're going to allow it in their stores and I think I think I'm sure it'll come to a head and it'll be more it'll be widespread that they'll be able to accept Apple pay but we'll see yeah I mean it's it's all down to the at the end of the day it's all down to the processors um if the merchant wants to accept Apple pay and they their processor accepts it and there's no um there's no extra Apple pay or way it's stuff right it's all standard right it's standard they've got they've got NFC Terminals and they say okay we'll do Apple pay it's not like they have to do anything else I think that's getting to that point the the point where everybody is equipped with NFC and they're comfortable with doing contactless payments is the hard part right so that was the big news there this week um before before we move before we move off of the earnings call can we just take a second um we're recording this at it's 5:53 now on Thursday yep and Apple was down almost $3.50 today for reasons passing understanding well it's all the it's all the shorts 61 million 61 million iPhones profit up 30% year of a year it's the world's biggest company growing at Double Digit rates and it's down they cannot they've reached their Peak it's it's all downhill from here there nowhere to go but down you can't get an Apple Watch because they're out sold out till June um yeah it hit 130 I believe uh a couple days ago yeah it closed at 12515 today yeah wow I don't know I don't know what they I don't know what they need to do to prove themselves but how much let me see how they have uh the money in the bank is uh ridiculous it's uh what $194 billion in cash did you see the analyst who was uh uh wow I just lost that train of thought did you see did you see the analyst who was complaining about Luca Meer and said that Apple should the reason Apple's not trading in a better multiple is because of him and that the only way to restore Apple to its rightful place among corporations is to fire him and rehire Fred Anderson wowu that happen H the global equities guy who's insane oh okay well I don't well his argument was that the borrow he the he called it the borrow and squander strategy that Myer inherited from Peter Oppenheimer has depleted Apple's us cash reserves anded therefore shook shooken shaking shaking wow shooking that was terrible that's it's early or late shaken investor confidence and so we must fire him and replace him with a guy who resigned in disgrace after a backdating scandal well I mean what are they going to do all all huge corporations borrow to boost their stock what do they that's just what they do there's really not much not much uh clever accounting you can you can pull when you're at that level yeah yeah we ignore the fact they would get taxed at the as Clayton would say out the Gazoo if they brought cash back from from overseas right well I mean I think Tim Cook can find that that money in his uh in his Levi's Pockets hanging in his closet it is $171 billion dollar of it is offshore of 171 out of 194 so well technically it's in New York but well yeah it's owned by offshore companies right it's um it's funny that uh I don't know if anyone's going to spin it this way but Apple's going to be paying since they did this once since other companies do this um it could potentially be a huge windfall for for the EU right but that money could have been America's in in their in the US coffers as it were if they um repatriated it earlier or just you know simply assign their packs to main office H yeah so I wonder if they I wonder when the the naysayers are going to come out saying that apple is anti-American because they they cost they already they already have been man it's years every every company that turns a profit and does business overseas as anti-americans not repatriating their money and paying 30% app is spending almost a billion dollars building a solar farm in the United States and they just spend 300 and something million buying forest in the United States that is not enough the have to they have to cancel our deficit come on they're spending two billion on two billion do not one billion but two billion on new data centers in Europe and they have a new solar farm in China yeah well isn't the Mac Pro still manufactured here in the states I mean partially partially okay it's assembled it's assembled here okay well anyway before we go uh run along the um last thing I want to talk about was Microsoft build is going on right now and they had the big Windows 10 announcements um a couple interesting ones um Objective C which is the programming language largely that iOS apps have been built on of course now we have Swift but they're saying Objective C you can now uh and Windows 10 is going to support it quote unquote and basically iOS developers can take their Objective C code and easily compile it to become a Windows app and also Visual Studio which is micr Microsoft's developing development software is coming to the Mac so you can develop Windows apps and visual studio on the Mac uh which is interesting uh and not only iOS but Windows also said uh Android developers they can again Port their apps back and forth easily quote unquote and uh I don't know we we ported apps you can always tell when an app is kind of ported for multiple operating systems so I don't know how this is going to it may get Windows more apps I don't know why iOS developers would be motivated to do that I mean unless they just want I don't know more exposure but I don't know if you about what about Minecraft like a real Minecraft well well but that was I mean that's I don't know if that's built in something that they could then port to Mac or iOS I have I have two notes on interesting story that came out of these announcements for sure the first is actually to me the more interesting story is that they are moving forward with the strategy of using your phone as a computer you see that yes that is true so that's going to be totally awesome I'm on board and if they can actually pull it off and make it worthwhile I will sell all of my Apple equipment and go now this was found Microsoft Insider you know this was done before yeah it's been tried many many times it's never been done in a way that actually is feasible right and it did if you if you look at the screenshots for Windows 10 a lot of the interfaces just look like I like phone apps like phone screens and phone interfaces which not necessarily a bad thing um I think it looks better than some of Microsoft's previous uis um but it is very much you know just looks like a bunch of phone stuff happening on some of the stuff they showed wasn't bad though um their office apps like PowerPoint looked really good okay I did think the edge that Microsoft announced that edge is going to be the new browser uh that's going to be replacing Internet Explorer I think the logo is kind of ridiculous because it looks suspiciously like the E for Internet Explorer um but hey and it's same color same I don't know Edge they had they had to stay with the E I guess explor and Edge but I don't know if you have any thoughts on that but they're turning into Ford they're going to name all their all their web browsers starts with the letter e e yeah my second story that came out of that oh really quick go yeah go ahead was a after the event a wire service story came out and you know wire service stories just propagate all over the place immediately and the wire service story contained a sentence in which it said Microsoft also announced something called Objective C oh yeah yeah I did see someone tweet that out and it's everywhere yeah that was that's amazing power of Hit and Run journalism that's pretty bad those interns have to be used some way right yeah I guess all right so that's the news for the week uh again tweet at us if you have questions about the Apple watch or anything else that we talked about this week Mikey where can people find you on the internet um on twitar uh Mikey Campbell 81 and of course on Apple Insider and Shane as always I am on Apple Insider all right and you can find me on Twitter at Steven robbles and follow us at Apple Insider can tweet us uh questions comments things you'd like to hear on the podcast we'd love to hear from you also don't forget to rate US and leave us a comment in the iTunes Store you can find the link in the post and of course you can comment on the post or email newsapple insider.com to let us know uh comments and questions and all that kind of stuff thanks again for joining us and we'll catch you next week\n"