Just before I hopped on a plane to head to WWDC, I noticed a new app called Söka, an iOS and iPadOS bucket list tracker by Roddy Munro. I didn’t have time to dig into the details or test it, but there was something about it that caught my eye, so I made a note to revisit it later in the summer. I’m glad I did because it’s one of the best integrations of artificial intelligence that I’ve seen in an app.
Söka takes the friction out of building travel bucket lists with the help of AI. I’ve been using Söka as a way to create travel lists of places I want to visit in North Carolina and Italy, for example. Whether it’s for travel like Söka or media like Sofa, there are a lot of apps built on the idea of creating ‘someday’ lists and tracking your progress. What makes Söka unique is the way it uses AI to remove the friction from the list-building part.
Read more
Today, Casey Liss released a brand new app called Callsheet for looking up cast and crew information about movies and TV shows. The app, which works on the iPhone and iPad, has a lot in common with movie and TV show tracking apps that I’ve covered, except for one very big difference. Callsheet isn’t a tracking app. Instead, it’s an app front end for The Movie DB, a website that offers a crowd-sourced movie and TV show database and an API for developers.
That’s an important distinction to understand. Callsheet is designed for those times that you want to know more about the people behind a movie or TV show but find the ads in apps and on websites, like IMDb, frustrating. If that resonates with you, and you’re not interested in tracking what you’ve watched, Callsheet offers a better experience for finding cast and crew information.
Read more
This week, Federico and John look at how making apps has changed along with the evolution of Apple’s hardware lineup and what that means for the future of apps on those platforms.
Read more
The demise of Van Moof shined a spotlight on what happens when expensive hardware like electric bicycles are dependent on their makers for proprietary parts and apps. (Link) The Verge’s Chris Welsh got a scoop about the Sonos Move 2, which he says is coming in September and will feature an impressive 24 hours of...
Here are the highlights from the Club MacStories Discord this week:
Last week’s conversation about Safari single-site web apps and their limitations continued this week. Members also shared a bunch of excellent HomeKit security camera recommendations. Niléane shared an excellent mini-review of the Beats Studio Pro and how they compare to similar headphones. Want...
Razer Nexus Last fall, I reviewed the Razer Kishi V2 for iOS, a game controller accessory for the iPhone. I loved the hardware but gave the edge to the Backbone One, a similar device because its software was much nicer. This week, Razer updated Nexus, the companion app for the Kishi V2, and it’s...
Since the spring, I’ve been slowly but surely working on my fitness, alternating between walking and running most days. As someone who used to be a serious runner but is now firmly in the jogger camp, I suffer from being overly competitive with myself, which can lead to overdoing workouts and injuring myself. One way...
This week on MacStories Unwind, John is joined by Jonathan Reed and Club member David to discuss the Apple TV+ show, Silo. This week’s show was recorded live in the Club MacStories Discord community as part of the Club MacStories+ AV Club.
- Kolide – It ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today!
Links and Show Notes
Silo
- Watch the show:
- Read the books:
MacStories Unwind+
We deliver MacStories Unwind+ to Club MacStories subscribers ad-free and early with high bitrate audio every week.
To learn more about the benefits of a Club MacStories subscription, visit our Plans page.
Today, Apple announced $81.8 billion in Q3 2023 revenue, a drop of 1% year-over-year that was likely driven by a soft global economy that has caused an industry-wide reduction in smartphone demand. The results mark the third consecutive quarter of revenue declines for the company. With so much of Apple’s quarterly earnings tied to the success of the iPhone, the results aren’t surprising. Going into today’s earnings call, the expectation was for a 1.6% drop in quarterly revenue.
CEO Tim Cook had this to say about today’s results:
We are happy to report that we had an all-time revenue record in Services during the June quarter, driven by over 1 billion paid subscriptions, and we saw continued strength in emerging markets thanks to robust sales of iPhone. “From education to the environment, we are continuing to advance our values, while championing innovation that enriches the lives of our customers and leaves the world better than we found it.
Despite recent revenue declines, Apple’s stock has remained resilient, rising steadily since March, with total gains in 2023 of 51% going into today’s call and analysts targeting it to go even higher.
Although today’s revenue decline is notable for being the third consecutive quarterly decline in several years, a better gauge of Apple’s longer-term fortunes will come later this year when it refreshes the iPhone lineup. With economies around the globe still recovering, it will be interesting to see if rumors of a hardware redesign of the iPhone are sufficient to offset what some speculate will be Apple’s most expensive smartphone ever.
Federico
