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Apple has announced a major milestone for the iOS operating system: 1 billion devices shipped.

CEO Tim Cook says the company reached the milestone on November 22nd: "It was truly a momentous quarter for iOS. On November 22, we shipped our 1 billionth iOS device. It was a space-gray 64-gigabyte iPhone 6 Plus, which we've saved here at Apple. One billion devices is an almost unfathomable milestone and we are all incredibly proud to be a part of it."

The executive added that the company sold about 34,000 iPhones "every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the quarter" totaling a record 74.5 million when all was said and done. iOS is the operating system of choice for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.

Google's Android operating system reached the same milestone last year, as well.

Apple CEO Tim Cook put all the rumors to rest today and announced that the Apple Watch will begin shipping in April.

Cook says development for the watch is "on track" but did not give a specific release date.

Despite an unveiling event in which the company showed off what the device looks like and does, there are still quite a few important details that consumers are in the dark about. Apple says the device starts at $349 for the base model, but we do not know what the more expensive variations will cost. It is also unclear how Apple will sell the device given the fact that there will be plenty of customization options for each of the models. Obviously, the watch will sell online with easy customization but how will that work in stores? Finally, there have been reports recently of disappointing battery life for the watch, which will not likely make it even a full 20 hours before needing a charge, even with little use.

Apple analyst Ming Kuo wrote today in a client note that the company is also seeing supply issues and will not have more than 3 million units available at launch.

It seems that Apple Watch fans will have to wait a little longer to get their hands on the device, or even know how much it is going to cost.

Apple sold a record amount of iPhones over the holiday quarter, easily beating out analyst expectations and crushing their previous sales records.

The company sold 74.5 million of the devices, up 45 percent year-over-year, and up large from the previous quarter. Perhaps even more importantly for Apple, the iPhone average selling price increased to $687, from under $670 previously. This means consumers were buying more expensive devices, like the iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple set their record quarter thanks to finally offering an iPhone with a reasonably large screen. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch display and the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch display, both far and away the largest offered by the company. Millions of Apple fans waited patiently with their iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 to upgrade, and that time was now.

After such a huge quarter, isn't it prudent to think that Apple will sell less devices in the future? Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't think so. The executive says that only 12 percent of Apple's current installed base has upgraded to a new iPhone and that the iPhone 6 had the largest amount of "Android Switchers" since the iPhone 4S, which shows that Google's OS' dominance may be slightly waning. Finally, Cook says the iPhone 6 had millions of sales from consumers buying their first iPhone, or even their first smartphone. For awhile, especially abroad, there will be plenty more of those.

Apple just had its best quarter of all-time, selling an incredible amount of iPhones and bringing in the highest quarterly profit in the history of the world.

For the quarter, the company had revenue of $74.6 billion, up 30 percent year-over-year and a net profit of $18 billion, up 37 percent year-over-year.

The company now has $178 billion in cash, meaning they can buy nearly any tech company in the world with the exception of Facebook, Alibaba, Google and Microsoft.

Gross margins came in at 39.9 percent compared to the 38.5 percent expected, thanks to stronger sales of higher margin items. Across the board, Apple revealed higher sales than expected with the exception of the iPad, which continues to be in "limbo" for the company.

We will break down some of the more important sales figures in upcoming articles.

Earlier this week we reported that Samsung was not happy with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 810 chip which was supposedly overheating.

There were then reports that Qualcomm, to appease a massive customer, would be creating a custom 810 chip for Samsung to make sure they could use it for the upcoming Galaxy S6.

LG, who is using a standard Snapdragon 810 chip for their upcoming devices, is not a fan of this move, and may be seeking legal action against Qualcomm if they do in fact create a custom chip. The anger is not misplaced. Qualcomm has publicly stated that the chip does not overheat, and LG agreed. By creating a custom version, Qualcomm would be admitting to the issue and that could take sales away from LG if consumers are scared their phone may overheat.

So far, LG has announced the chipset for its G Flex 2 curved device which will be officially unveiled at next month's Mobile World Congress event, giving very little time for a full redesign.

Despite a generally disappointing earnings report, there were a few bright spots for Microsoft, who announced some record earnings in a few categories.

In the hardware categories that Microsoft has been focusing on, there were some hits.

The company sold 10.5 million Lumia phones, with revenues of $2.3 billion. Last quarter those figures were 9.3 million and $2.6 billion, showing that the average price for Lumia devices went way down. The company sold $1.1 billion worth of Surface tablets, higher than the $908 million in revenue it brought in for the devices last quarter.

Regardless, the actual amount of phones and tablets sold hit record highs for the quarter, which must make Microsoft happy even if they are not making any money.

Microsoft also sold 6.6. million Xbox consoles, although the company did not break down how many were Xbox 360 and how many were Xbox One. This was a drop year-over-year from 7.4 million but that quarter had the launch of the Xbox One, so the drop makes some sense. Over the holidays, Microsoft slashed the price of the Xbox One, which led to a boost in sales and likely the strongest quarter yet for the next-gen console.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced their quarterly earnings and the company's stock was destroyed today following the not-so-hot results.

The company had revenues of $26.47 billion for their fiscal 2015 Q2, and profits were $0.71 cents per share ($5.86 billion). Both of the headline numbers were in-line with what was expected, but profits were down nearly 9 percent year-over-year.

Despite the seemingly strong numbers, the company's stock fell nearly 10 percent as investors were scared by some of the other data. Commercial licensing of Windows and Office to business customers saw a hiccup overseas due to the conditions in China and Japan and a strong U.S. dollar (nearing 10 year highs) has reduced profits from overseas.

Additionally, now that Windows XP is officially dead, the upgrade cycle for newer Windows is seemingly over, as well and other sales fell across the board for Microsoft. Windows Pro edition revenue fell 13 percent as did non-Pro revenue. Windows volume licensing revenue only grew 3%.

Chinese OEM Dakele has unveiled their latest smartphone, the Dakele 3, a clone of the iPhone 6 that runs Android.

From a design standpoint, the devices are identical. The Dakele 3 has grey aluminum curved edges and a black face. The home button is circular just like the iPhone (although it is notably missing Touch ID). The back is identical, as well, minus the slight bump for the camera.

Under the hood, the device's specs are solid, as well. The Dakele 3 has a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution, 3GB RAM, a 64-bit Mt6752 octa-core processor clocked at 1.7Ghz, Mali-T760 GPU, and 16GB internal storage. Even the cameras are solid, with a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP camera up front for FaceTime, err, video chatting.

Most importantly, the device is priced at just 1500 yuan ($250 USD), a third of the price of an unlocked iPhone 6.

Although still unconfirmed, it appears that Google is expanding its gigabit Internet Fiber service to four new cities, including its biggest metro yet.

According to multiple reports, Fiber is headed to Nashville, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Atlanta, Georgia.

Atlanta would be far and away the largest metro city to receive the fast Internet service which is over 15 times faster than most ISP's "high-speed" options.

Google had placed the four cities on their "Future of Fiber" list, but there is never a time frame for Fiber.

Twitter has unveiled a few features that it previously announced in September, including group direct messages.

Explains Twitter: "The group function lets you start conversations with any of your followers and they don't all need to follow one another in order to chat. You can create a group in just a few taps. When you're added to a group, you'll get a notification. If you're brand new to Direct Messages, here's a good resource to learn more."

The experience will mirror what most mobile users are already doing via other apps, such as WhatsApp, GroupMe or good old texting.

In addition, Twitter will now allow you to capture and edit videos right from within the app.

Says the microblogging giant: "Tweets have been more than 140 characters for some time. The Twitter you experience today is rich and immersive, full of images, gifs, Vines, audio files and videos from some of the world's most recognizable figures and brands. And starting today, everyone will soon be able to seamlessly capture, edit and share videos right from the Twitter app, too.

We designed our camera to be simple to use so you can capture and share life's most interesting moments as they happen. In just a few taps you can add a video to unfolding conversations, share your perspective of a live event, and show your everyday moments instantly, without ever having to leave the app. Viewing and playing videos is just as simple: videos are previewed with a thumbnail and you can play them with just one tap."

According to the WSJ, Google's upcoming mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service will be able to switch between T-Mobile, Sprint and Wi-Fi hotspots instantly to route your voice, text and data traffic through the best available signal.

The service, which was just reported on last week but is still not confirmed by Google, is expected to go live by June and will be nationwide.

For the rumors to be true, Google would have to offer only devices that can connect to all the spectrum bands that Sprint and T-Mobile currently use, and have the ability to dynamically switch when a signal weakens. By breaking dependency on just one carrier, Google appears to be caring more about connectivity than anything else.

The new report also confirmed previous reports that Sprint has added a "volume trigger" to its contract, meaning if Google's service becomes very popular, Sprint can renegotiate or terminate their deal.

MVNOs have seen varying success in the U.S., but FreedomPop, Net10 and Republic Wireless are household names at this point.

Last night, Facebook and a number of other sites went down for around 30 minutes, leading to suggestions that the sites might be under attack.

Instagram, Tinder, MySapce, AIM and Hipchat were also down for varying times and the Lizard Squad, the group that took down Xbox Live and PSN last month, were quick to suggest they were responsible for the downtime. It appears now the group had nothing to do with the site outage.

Facebook says the downtime was "not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems." We have "moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone."

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, well known in the industry for his accurate forecasts on Apple products, says that the Apple Watch will finally see the light of day in March.

The Apple Watch was first announced in September, and given the very broad "by early 2015" time frame for release. Most interpreted that to mean the Q1, and if Kuo is correct, the Watch will be released sometime before the end of the Q1.

Kuo also says Apple is likely to have supply issues with certain parts of the watch which could limit shipments to under 3 million for the quarter. Kuo has accurately predicted new products and their release dates for a few years now.

You can read more about the Apple Watch here at AfterDawn.

According to former Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside, Nexus 6 owners can blame Apple for their device's lack of a fingerprint sensor.

Motorola had planned to place a fingerprint scanner in the dimple on the back of the device that now holds the Motorola logo, but Apple bought fingerprint sensor maker AuthenTec, who was the "best supplier."

When asked why the device has the dimple that is completely unused, Woodside said "the secret behind that is that it was supposed to be fingerprint recognition, and Apple bought the best supplier. So the second-best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren't there yet."

AuthenTec was the first supplier with tech that allowed users to just hold their finger over the sensor for recognition. All other companies at the time required some sort of swiping motion. Apple first used the tech for its Touch ID sensor in the iPhone 5S.

Lizard Squad, the group behind the DDoS that managed to take down Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network on Christmas, has defaced Malaysia Airlines' site today, adding a tasteless joke, as well.

Besides their standard lizard with a top hat and monocle, the site added the text "404-Plane Not Found" referencing flight 370, which disappeared in March, killing over 200 passengers. Additionally, the group said "Hacked by LIZARD SQUAD-OFFICIAL CYBER CALIPHATE," referencing the group that claims association with the extremist terrorist group ISIS.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed the DNS compromise, but said they expect to be fully up and running within 72 hours. All user data is said to be secure, but Lizard Squad still promised a data dump and showed a screenshot purporting to show passenger's itineraries.