MyAppleMenu

The One-Trillion Edition Friday, August 3, 2018

Apple Becomes First U.S. Company To Hit $1 Trillion Market Value, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple was worth about $350 billion when Jobs died, so Cook has led the creation of even more stock-market value than his former boss and mentor. Bloomberg News asked him about the $1 trillion target in a February interview.

"I don’t really think about it," he said, suggesting that if the company keeps making successful products, financial success will follow. "I still view Apple as a pretty small company, the way that we operate. I know it’s not numerically, but the way we function is very much like that."

A Look At Apple's Trillion-Dollar World, by Brad Stone, Bloomberg

Now the business founded by Steve Jobs and his pal Steve Wozniak in a Palo Alto garage in 1976 truly stands alone. Apple Inc.’s market capitalization was a paltry $3 billion when Jobs returned to the wounded company in 1996, after it had acquired his startup, NeXT. Passing the $1 trillion mark a little more than two decades later puts an exclamation point at the end of a remarkable run of success—one that started with Jobs's introduction of the iMac, iPod, iPad, and, especially, the iPhone, and was extended by his successor, Tim Cook, who now presides over the most valuable business in modern history.

Apple CEO Calls $1 Trillion Value A 'Milestone' But Not A Focus, by Stephen Nellis, Reuters

In a memo to Apple’s more than 120,000 employees that was seen by Reuters, Cook called the valuation a “significant milestone” that gave the company “much to be proud of.” But he said it should not be the Cupertino, California, company’s focus.

“Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values,” Cook said in the memo.

Apple $1 Trillion Valuation: What Does It Mean?, by Ian Bogost, The Atlantic

Tech magnates crow too often about “changing the world,” but this is what it really looks like, for good and for ill. It’s what railroads did once, and steel too, and oil, and automobiles as well. There is always brutality in the biggest big business, because nothing grows so large without transforming the world it leaves behind utterly, and forever.

iTrain

Apple On The Tracks: iOS On The Railways, by Jonny Evans, Computerworld

“In the railway industry, businesses around the world are using iPhone and iPad to support operations, training, passenger engagement, and maintenance activities,” said Apple's chief financial officer (CFO), Luca Maestri, during the company's Q318 financial call. I thought I’d find out more.

[...]

While paying the fare with an iOS device (particularly an Apple Watch) is a great convenience for consumers, the real value of Apple’s ecosystem sits much deeper inside railway infrastructure.

Apple In Hollywood

Apple Premieres Plans For Store And Event Space In Historic Downtown L.A. Theater, by Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times

Apple’s forthcoming takeover of the theater was long expected, but the company is only now revealing details of the transformation planned for the cinema, which has been mostly closed for decades.

[...]

“Most people think of our stores as the big glass boxes,” Siegel said, but that is not entirely true.

Stuff

Instapaper For Apple Watch Killed Off As Part Of Latest iOS App Update, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

On Apple Watch, Instapaper allowed users to access text-to-speech playback of saved articles.

This UHS-II Card Reader Will Satisfy The Apple User’s Need For Speed, by David Pierini, Cult of Mac

The brushed aluminum Type-C Micro/SD reader will be especially valuable to photographers and videographers routinely pausing their workflow to transfer large, high-resolution files. This reader is equipped with UHS-II, which carries a transfer rate of 312 MB/s.

Develop

Escaping The Sandbox – Microsoft Office On MacOS, by MDSec

You’ve completed your recon, and found that your target is using MacOS… what next? With the increased popularity of MacOS in the enterprise, we are often finding that having phishing payloads targeting only Microsoft Windows endpoints is not enough during a typical engagement.

With this in mind, I wanted to find an effective method of landing a stager on a MacOS system during a phishing campaign. In this walkthrough, I will show one possible way we can go about gaining a foothold by leveraging Microsoft Office on MacOS, and present a method of escaping the MacOS sandbox that we find ourselves trapped inside of.

Notes

Apple’s Ambitious Target For Services Growth May Have Unintended Consequences, by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac

By continuing to offer an inadequate free tier, Apple is forcing customers onto the paid tiers, thereby generating Services revenue. But it’s money gained at the expense of customer satisfaction with the company. Many people pay the fee, but grumble as they do so, and feel that Apple isn’t behaving as it should.

Bottom of the Page

I am enjoying and bingeing on The Good Place The Podcast, and I am feeling an emotion which I think is known as delighted.

~

Thanks for reading.