Apple had a huge quarter, but revenue growth is slowing

All eyes are on Apple today, after a tumultuous series of earnings reports dropped this week. Google parent company Alphabet missed revenue expectations, while Meta (formerly Facebook) recorded a higher profit than expected this quarter. Apple just released its results and the company has performed respectably in its second quarter of the fiscal year 2022. This was its best March quarter yet, with revenues of $97.3 billion — a 9 percent jump from the same period last year. On today’s earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said the results were “better than we anticipated.” That said, it’s still a drop from its results last quarter, where it broke all-time records with revenues of $123.9 billion. 

Apple also hit a new all-time high on its revenue from Services, which includes things like subscriptions to TV+, Music and Fitness+. With its strong showing on the awards circuit recently, it’s hardly a surprise that TV+ is drawing in subscribers. Apple doesn’t break down how much it makes specifically from each individual service, so it’s hard to say just how much impact shows like Coda or Ted Lasso have had. Notably, Coda‘s winning of Best Picture at the Academy Awards makes Apple TV the first streaming service to win in that category.

The rest of the company’s products continued to do well too, with revenues from Mac, iPhone and “Wearables, Home and Accessories” all having increased year over year. On the call, Cook highlighted the new Mac Studio and Studio Display that were launched in March, as well as the iPhone SE and the M1-powered iPad Air. CFO Luca Maestri also said on the earnings call that the last seven quarters have been “the best seven quarters ever for Mac.” Interestingly, the one segment that faltered was iPad, raking in about $7.6 billion compared to around $7.8 billion the same time last year. That type of up-and-down performance is pretty typical for iPads, though. 

The wearables category was the most eye-catching, with Apple making $19.8 billion this quarter from sales of things like AirPods and watches, compared to $16.9 billion this time last year. That’s more than it made from Macs, which came in at $10.4 billion this quarter (up from $9.1 billion last year). Maestri said on the call that “our wearables business has doubled in three years and is nearly the size of a Fortune 100 business.” If you’re keeping track, that means the Services category made Apple almost twice as much money as Macs, which is the next closest category (aside from iPhones, which came in at about $50.5 billion).

Apple Studio Display
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Maestri attributed some of the Services earnings to a few things. The company’s “install base has continued to grow, reaching an all-time high across each geographic segment,” he said. Paid subscriptions also increased, with more than 825 million paying subscribers across the services on Apple now. Of that number, 165 million signed up in the last 12 months, Maestri added later in the call.

Global supply constraints were a big point of focus on the question-and-answer portion of the call, and when asked about the long lead time on Mac products, Cook cited COVID-related disruptions in China and the ongoing silicon shortage as contributing to the issue. “We’re not really forecasting when we can be out of the silicon shortage,” he said, adding “I think the COVID piece of it — I hope it is a transitory kind of issue and so I would hope that it would get better over time.”

Google takes first steps in rolling out Android’s Privacy Sandbox

At the start of the year, Google announced the Privacy Sandbox on Android project, a new system designed to eventually replace today’s existing third-party cookie schemes and reinvent a more privacy-centered method for serving advertisements. After an initial round of alpha testing and feedback, Google announced on Thursday that the first developer’s preview of the sandbox is now available as part of Android 13 beta 1.

The Privacy Sandbox is a multi-year development effort that will “limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID,” Google wrote in a February announcement. “We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs.” 

This preview provides developers with early looks at the sandbox’s SDK Runtime and Topics API so that they can better understand how they’ll fit into their apps and processes once it is officially released. We first saw Topics API back in January. It pulls data from the Chrome browser to identify the user’s top five interests for the week, based on their search and browsing history. Those topics are then compared against a database of topics from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Google’s own data. Partner publishers can then ping the Topics API, see what the user is currently into, and then serve the most appropriate ads without having to know every nitty-gritty detail about their potential customer.

Developers will also have access to an early version of the Fledge API. This allows sites to run “remarket” to existing users — ie, serving users ads to remind them that they left items in their shopping cart and should just check out already. The Sandbox comes with everything that developers will need to test it, including the Android SDK and 64-bit Android Emulator. The company intends to further refine the toolset over the coming months and welcomes feedback and questions from the developer community 

Activision Blizzard shareholders approve Microsoft’s $68.7 billion takeover bid

Activision Blizzard’s shareholders have overwhelmingly voted in favor of a proposed $68.7 billion takeover by Microsoft. More than 98 percent of the shares that voted at a special meeting held on Thursday approved of the merger.

Though the company called the vote non-binding and advisory, the deal could not have moved forward without the majority of shareholders giving it the green light. The board of directors unanimously agreed it was in the best interest of Activision Blizzard and its shareholders, and recommended they vote in favor.

The planned merger is not finalized and it could still collapse. The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the deal and is expected to closely scrutinize the details. Under chair Lina Khan, the FTC has put the kibosh on NVIDIA’s attempt to buy ARM and revived an antitrust case against Meta over its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will also need regulatory approval from the UK, the European Union, China and some other jurisdictions, according to an SEC filing. The companies expect the deal to close by June 2023.

There are other considerations that may impact the planned Activision Blizzard-Microsoft merger beyond antitrust concerns. The embattled game publisher has been the subject of lawsuits and accusations alleging workplace harassment and discrimination. Meanwhile, some quality assurance workers at Activision studio Raven Software are holding a union election over the next few weeks.

The 2022 Apple iPad Air is $40 off right now

You can grab the newly launched 2022 Apple iPad Air for just $559 right now. While the device dropped to as low as $550 on Amazon for a grand total of eight hours last week, this latest deal shaves $40 off its retail price of $599. That’s a decent discount for a device that only became available in March. The catch is that only the purple version is on sale for $559, though you can still get the other colors for $20 less than retail at $570. 

Buy 2022 Apple iPad Air at Amazon – $559

The 2022 iPad Air gets a huge performance boost over its predecessor from its M1 chip, which also powers the tech giant’s Mac computers and the considerably more expensive iPad Pro. We gave it a score of 90 in our review, mostly thanks to how significantly faster it is at both single- and multi-core tasks than the previous versions of the tablet when we ran Geekbench 5 on it. 

We also praised the device for having an excellent battery life despite the chip upgrade — it even lasted close to 12 hours during our test instead of just 10 like the company’s claim. Apple also upgraded its front cam and gave it a 12-megapixel ultra wide angle camera that enables Center Stage. That’s the tech giant’s feature designed to follow you around and keep you in the frame during video calls. 

The version that’s currently on sale for $559 is the WiFi-only variant, but you also have the chance to grab its 5G-capable counterpart at a discount. Its purple version has been available for $700 at Amazon over the past week: That’s $49 less its retail price and the lowest we’ve seen for the 2022 cellular Apple iPad Air so far.

Buy 2022 Apple iPad Air (WiFi + Cellular) at Amazon – $700

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Apple’s Self Service Repair program is now open to iPhone owners in the US

It took several months, but Apple’s Self Service Repair program is now available in the US. If you have an iPhone 12, iPhone 13 or third-generation iPhone SE, you can buy key parts (such as batteries, cameras and displays) from a dedicated store and consult official repair manuals as you fix a device yourself. You can even spend $49 to rent a toolkit for a week if you’d rather not buy tools you’re unlikely to use often.

The program will expand to other countries later this year, starting with Europe. You’ll also have to wait until later to obtain parts, manuals and tools for Macs. Those kits will be limited to Macs with Apple silicon, so you’ll be out of luck if you want to repair an Intel-based computer.

The debut comes alongside a white paper detailing Apple’s expanding service strategy. The company claimed that it had “nearly doubled” the size of its repair network, and that eight out of 10 of its American customers lived within 20 minutes of an authorized repair provider. It also outlined the rationales behind design and repair decisions, including its emphasis on using official parts (to protect privacy and security) and the lack of schematics for board-level repairs. Board fixes are “best performed” by technicians who can offer high-quality, consistent results, Apple said.

The Self Service initiative is a clear response to mounting pressure to adopt Right to Repair policies. In the US, both federal- and state-level officials have either enacted or proposed Right to Repair rules. There’s also growing advocacy from everyday customers, and leaked emails have suggested that Apple itself has held debates over its sometimes difficult-to-fix products. The program theoretically reduces the incentive to pass repair-friendly legislation, and might soften overall public criticism.

As it is, the fix-it-yourself landscape has changed. Google and Samsung are launching their own self-repair offerings, and companies like Valve are already designing products with repair (if not always by customers) in mind. So long as you’re technically inclined, there’s a real chance you may not have to trust someone else with future repairs.

Apple Music and the App Store are experiencing issues (updated)

If Apple Music and the App Store aren’t quite working as normal for you right now, you’re not alone. Apple’s status page notes that both services are dealing with issues that are impacting all users.

It states that Apple Music users may be experiencing some intermittent issues, which seemingly include song lyrics not being accessible. As for the App Store, Apple simply says users “may be experiencing a problem.” The company hasn’t provided more details, though Down Detector users started reporting App Store problems at around 9 AM ET.

The Apple Music and App Store problems follow an issue with Apple Pay on Sunday. For just over 40 minutes, Interac card holders were unable to make purchases with Apple Pay. Nor could they add, suspend or remove a card.

Update 4/25 5:05PM ET: Apple now says the Music and the App Store issues have been resolved, although it didn’t outline what occurred.

‘Diablo: Immortal’ is coming to mobile and (surprise!) PC on June 2nd

All the way back at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard revealed Diablo: Immortal, which would fill in the gaps of the story between Diablo II and Diablo III. However, the fact it was announced as a mobile-only game didn’t exactly go over well with the publisher’s hardcore fans (to put it mildly). Fast forward nearly three and a half years and not only does the game have a release date, but Blizzard announced it’ll be available on PC after all.

Diablo: Immortal will arrive on PC, iOS and Android in most parts of the world on June 2nd. Folks in some Asia-Pacific regions will need to wait a few extra weeks. It’s a free-to-play title with some optional in-game purchases. The PC version will initially be in open beta, but will have all content and features. All progress and purchases will carry over too.

It will feature cross-play and cross-save support for all platforms, so you should be able to switch between PC and your mobile device with ease. The MMORPG allows players to take on challenges with eight-person parties and it has a faction-based PvP system.

In a blog post, Blizzard says it was of two minds about creating a PC version, which it calls “an experiment.” Ultimately, because a large section of fans would likely try to play it through an emulator anyway, the development team decided to create a dedicated PC build.

Unusually for a Diablo game (which are usually point-and-click titles), Diablo: Immortal will have the option of directional keyboard controls. The mobile control system allows for simultaneous movement and attacks, which Blizzard says wouldn’t be possible solely through mouse control alone. There’s also controller support on PC.

Diablo: Immortal was originally supposed to be released last year. However, Blizzard delayed it to 2022 to add some extra polish, including, evidently, on a PC port.

Word of the Diablo: Immortal release date comes at a particularly busy time for Blizzard. Last week, it announced the next semi-annual expansion for World of Warcraft, while the first closed PvP beta test for Overwatch 2 starts tomorrow.

Parent company Activision Blizzard announced this morning that its Q1 revenue was down 22 percent from the previous year. The company, which is facing lawsuits and accusations alleging harassment and misconduct, is the subject of a pending takeover by Microsoft.

Apple may have begun a new push to remove outdated software from the App Store

Apple may have begun more rigorously enforcing its policy against unused and dysfunctional apps. Back in 2016, the company vowed it would go out of its way to remove applications that had stopped working, not kept up with its latest guidelines or become outdated. After not drawing much attention over the last few years, that policy came back into the public consciousness this week. In a series of tweets spotted by The Verge, a handful of indie developers shared an email notice from Apple prompting them to update their games.

“This app has not been updated in a significant amount of time and is scheduled to be removed from sale in 30 days,” the company states in the email. “You can keep this app available for new users to discover and download from the App Store by submitting an update for review within 30 days.”

Apple notes developers can continue to earn revenue from microtransactions even if it removes their app or game from the store. Moreover, their programs will continue to work for those who have them downloaded to their devices. Some people who shared screenshots of the notice on Twitter expressed concern that the policy disproportionately affects smaller developers.

“This is an unfair barrier to indie devs,” Protopop Games developer Robert Kabwe said. “I’m sitting here on a Friday night, working myself to the bone after my day job, trying my best to scrape a living from my indie games, trying to keep up with Apple, Google, Unity, Xcode, macOS changes that happen so fast my head spins while performing worse on older devices.”

On a support page dedicated to its App Store Improvements initiative, the company states the policy is designed “to make it easier for customers to find great apps that fit their needs.” It also notes it wants to ensure all the software you found on the platform is “functional and up-to-date.”

Obviously, there isn’t an easy answer to the situation. From the perspective of an iOS user, it’s not great when you buy a new Apple device and find apps that aren’t optimized to take advantage of the hardware. I encountered that situation when I bought my 2020 iPad Air and downloaded Klei’s tactical espionage RPG Invisible, Inc. Playing the game for the first time, I was disappointed when I found out the studio had not updated the game to support the iPad Air’s 2,360 by 1,640 resolution. In fact, Klei hasn’t updated the iOS version of Invisible, Inc. since 2016. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the game, but I wish I could play it without black bars letterboxing the interface.

Raven Studio game testers can vote to form a union, NLRB rules

A group of 21 quality assurance testers at Raven Software have received the blessing of the National Labor Relations Board to conduct a union vote, per a 27-page ruling from the agency released Friday. Raven’s parent company — Activision Blizzard —did not respond in time to a request for voluntary recognition for the new union, the Game Workers Alliance, back in January. 

Tensions within the company came to a head last December, when approximately a third of the group’s QA testers were suddenly laid off — after several months of promises to improve compensation. Raven workers began organizing shortly thereafter, and engaged in a weeks-long strike. 

Once they returned to work, however, they were informed their unit would be broken up. “Our QA colleagues will embed directly within various teams across the studio,” was how Raven Studio head Brian Raffel put it at the time, a move the seemed intended to stymie unionization efforts. 

Since then, Activision tried to convince the NLRB that the dispersed nature of the QA team should be grounds to dismiss the vote. But as per today’s ruling, the agency didn’t sign on to that view. According to Jennifer Hadsall, a regional director of the agency, there is “no evidence that Q.A. testers are being eliminated or that their role would fundamentally change with the embed process.” Activision also tried (and failed) to convince the NLRB that the entirety of Raven Studio’s estimated 230 employees would need to be included in the vote.

“We are pleased that after reviewing the evidence, the National Labor Relations Board rejected Raven Software management’s attempts to undermine our efforts to form a union,” a group of Game Workers Alliance organizers told Engadget over email. “It’s now time for Raven management to stop trying to prevent us from exercising our rights. We are looking forward to voting for – and winning – our union.”

According to a statement from Activision, the company is “disappointed that a decision that could significantly impact the future of our entire studio will be made by fewer than 10 percent of our employees.” The company is also seeking avenues to appeal the NLRB’s ruling. 

Raven software was founded over 30 years ago and had a hand in producing some beloved games like Heretic and Hexen during the golden age of first-person shooters. Since its acquisition by Activision in 1997, it’s role has largely been reduced to maintaining the Call of Duty franchise. 

Tensions between Raven and its owners have mirrored those within Activision Blizzard at large, where sexual misconduct claims, allegedly covered up by the company’s top brass have roiled rank-and-file workers. Employees staged a walkout last November in disgust, to voice dissent against the corporate culture in general and CEO Bobby Kotick in specific. Earlier this week it was reported that on two separate occasions, Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg used her influence to allegedly quash negative stories about Kotick, her then-boyfriend, that were in the works at British tabloid The Daily Mail. 

The NLRB will begin mailing out ballots to eligible part-time and full-time QA workers, who will have until May 20 to cast; a vote count is presently schedule to take place on May 23. 

Are you an Activision Blizzard worker with a tip to share? You can reach me confidentially on Signal messengered at 646 983 9846.

Amazon’s Eero Pro mesh routers are up to 25 percent off

Does your lone WiFi router not quite cover your home? This might be a good time to upgrade. Amazon is running a sale on Eero mesh routers that includes particularly steep discounts for higher-end Eero Pro models. The Eero Pro 6 represents one of the better values, and is down to $319 (20 percent off) for a two-pack and $479 (also 20 percent off) for a three-pack. And if you’re happy with WiFi 5, the earlier Eero Pro is down to a record-low $336, or 25 percent off — it’ll even dip to $314 if you have Amazon Prime.

Buy Eero Pro 6 (2-pack) – $319Buy Eero Pro (3-pack) – $336

The allure of Eero Pro routers is simple: they provide a compact, straightforward way to blanket your home in wireless networking with more coverage than you’d get from regular Eero models — a three-pack will cover an enormous 6,000 square feet. They’re unsurprisingly well-suited to anyone steeped in Amazon’s ecosystem, with streamlined setup (if you have an Amazon account), Alexa voice control and a Zigbee hub for compatible smart home devices.

These might not be the best choices if you’re more interested in Apple or Google’s smart home frameworks. However, future-proofing is another concern. Amazon recently introduced the Eero Pro 6E with (you guessed it) 1.3Gbps WiFi 6E support. If you use internet service beyond a gigabit (or expect to upgrade soon), you might want the newer router to make the most of that connection. However, the Pro 6E is also much more expensive at $499 for a two-pack. The ‘old’ Pro 6 offers the same long range and most of the performance for a lot less.

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