At my old house, I had a pair of wired speakers outside, above our patio. It was a setup that pre-dated AirPlay by many years, so it was originally driven by a good, old-fashioned stereo receiver. Eventually, I disconnected the speakers from the receiver and rewired them to a Griffin 20 amp that connected...
Interesting Links
Garmin introduced the $270 Vivomove Trend, a ‘lifestyle’ sports watch that looks more like a traditional watch, has fewer features than other Garmin sports watches, and can run for five days on a single Qi charge (Link) Mark Gurman of Bloomberg wrote this week that with the departure of Evans Hankey, Apple is eliminating...
A Vinyl Scrobbling Shortcut, The Practical Advantages of the Latest Apple TV, and the Future of the iPad
Here are the highlights from the Club MacStories Discord this week:
FedericoDan created a fantastic Shortcut to make it easy to scrobble vinyl using the Vinyl Scrobbler website.
There was an excellent discussion about the iPad following the publication of Federico’s story this week about apps as art. Peter shared the everyday benefits...
MacStories Unwind: The Last of Us, TV Show and Videogame
This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico recommends The Last of Us on HBO Max, and I suggest replaying 2022 remaster of The Last of Us Part I.
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The Last of Us
Federico’s Pick:
- The Last of Us on HBO Max
John’s Pick:
Apple Reports First Year-Over-Year Earnings Drop Since 2019
The past quarter has not been kind to Apple. Today the company announced its first revenue drop since 2019, with total revenue of $117.2 billion, a 5% year-over-year drop. Going into today’s earnings call, the consensus of Wall Street analysts was that Apple would log $121.19 billion of revenue or $1.94/share.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, had this to say about the company’s earnings:
As we all continue to navigate a challenging environment, we are proud to have our best lineup of products and services ever, and as always, we remain focused on the long term and are leading with our values in everything we do. During the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion active devices as part of our growing installed base.
The year-over-year decline was driven by multiple factors, including:
- Shortages of iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max caused by COVID lockdowns in China
- Soft consumer demand resulting from worldwide inflationary pressure
- Adverse effects caused by foreign currency exchange rates
Although Apple did not forecast results for Q1 2023 during its last earnings call, the company warned in November that production disruptions would impact shipments, so the declines today should not be a shock.
Despite Apple’s unusually poor showing today, it’s also important to put it in perspective. The entire technology sector has seen significant declines, with Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon all laying off thousands of workers. To date, Apple has avoided widespread layoffs and there were bright points in its earnings, including the continued growth of its services, which increased to a record $20.8 billion.
With the entire tech industry experiencing substantial financial pressures, the question going forward is how quickly can Apple bounce back. Will the company be able to meet iPhone demand, and how will its rumored bet on a mixed-reality headset play out? With turmoil in the markets at large and a major new product in the wings, Apple’s 2023 should be one of the more interesting years in a long time, both for its investors and fans of its products.
Raycast Adds Deeplinking of Commands
Raycast, the app launcher and command utility that was our MacStories Selects Best Mac app of 2022, introduced URL scheme support for its extensive collection of built-in and third-party commands. The app’s existing system of hotkey and alias triggers is still the best way to send a command to Raycast in most circumstances, but with deeplinks, Raycast has opened up new automation possibilities.
AppStories, Episode 314 – Mastodon Clients for iOS and iPadOS→
This week on AppStories, we cover the iPhone and iPad Mastodon apps we’ve been testing and share what we like and don’t about each.
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On AppStories+, I share my latest experiments with HomeKit lighting and the Loupedeck Live S.
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Artificial Intelligence: Hype Versus Reality
Many people find the hype cycle of the tech world exhausting and off-putting to the point where they block any mention of the hype-du-jour from their lives. I, however, am drawn to a certain subset of these topics, like a moth to a flame. It’s not the click-bait headlines that attract me. Instead, it’s those...
Social Media Management Utility Buffer Adds Mastodon Support
One of the things I immediately missed when I moved to Mastodon was the ability to schedule posts. This isn’t something I do a lot. However, with a busy editorial calendar at MacStories, I’ve used a variety of services over the years, including Buffer, to allow me to set up draft posts in advance when we’ve got a big story or episode of AppStories coming up. Losing that convenience wasn’t the end of the world, but it introduced friction I hadn’t had to deal with in years.
That’s why I’m glad to see Buffer has added Mastodon support to its web and iOS apps today. I’ve been testing Buffer’s beta for the past day, and the best part of the update is that there’s not much to say about it because it’s so easy to use. If you’ve used Buffer before, the process is similar to any other scheduled post you’d create: draft the post, add any media and hashtags you want, and then schedule it. If you want, you can also use Buffer to cross-post to other services.
Managing posts for multiple accounts has always been the sort of thing that can disrupt my other work. It’s too easy for me to get distracted and wind up browsing my timeline after I post something from one of our company accounts. With Buffer’s new Mastodon integration, I’m looking forward to creating those posts as part of our production workflow and avoiding getting sucked into my timeline when I have more pressing tasks.