Federico
This week, Federico and John continue their wish list series with their wishes for iPadOS 17.
Mastering Mona
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App Debuts
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Interesting Links
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Browsers, Task Managers, and AV Club
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An Apple Podcasts Experiment
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Brydge Ceases Operations, Leaving Employees in the Lurch→
Chance Miller published an excellent exposé on the downfall of Brydge, an iPad, Mac, and Microsoft Surface accessory maker. The company got its start with a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, and for a time, its keyboard accessories were a popular choice among iPad users, including me.
However, as Chance explains, Brydge’s fortunes took a turn for the worse as it was forced to compete head-on with Apple’s Magic Keyboard, later spiraling out of control as its cash flow ran out:
Brydge, a once thriving startup making popular keyboard accessories for iPad, Mac, and Microsoft Surface products, is ceasing operations. According to nearly a dozen former Brydge employees who spoke to 9to5Mac, Brydge has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs within the past year after at least two failed acquisitions.
As it stands today, Brydge employees have not been paid salaries since January. Customers who pre-ordered the company’s most recent product have been left in the dark since then as well. Its website went completely offline earlier this year, and its social media accounts have been silent since then as well.
From what former employees told 9to5Mac, it appears that a number of factors contributed to its downfall, but the saddest part of the story is how Brydge treated its employees, keeping them in the dark and, in many cases, unpaid to this day.
MacStories Unwind: A Goat Walks into a Dive Bar
This week on MacStories Unwind, we have important follow-up about potato chip flavors, an exploration of American dive bars, the art of winning an argument by shouting ‘Goat!’, and the record by boygenius.
Sponsored By:
Unite 4 – Turn Websites into Apps on Your Mac.
Show Notes
Chip Follow-Up
Dive Bars
- Wikipedia is a fan
- Chicago dive bars
- My old suburban dive bar
Vittorio Sgarbi
Joint Pick
- the record by boygenius
- Interview with Vogue
- Pitchfork interview
- Genius interview
Apple Reports Q2 2023 Earnings
It’s been a rough year for the tech industry as a whole. In the wake of a COVID-induced spending spree on computers and other gadgets, and faced with rising prices, consumer demand for tech products has taken a nose dive.
The lack of new hardware announcements has undoubtedly been another drag on Apple’s earnings. For several years, Apple held a spring press event to debut device updates but not in 2023.
Although the company has managed to avoid the massive layoffs that have occurred at many tech companies, today’s earning show that it’s not immune from falling consumer demand. For its second fiscal quarter of 2023, Apple reported total revenue of 94.8 billion, which is a 3% year-over-year drop that includes a reduction in Mac sales and a significant drop in iPad sales, dips that were slightly less severe than analyst expectations but still dips. The company also announced stock buybacks of $90 billion and a $0.24/share dividend, which is expected to calm market reactions to its lower sales.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, had this to say about the company’s earnings:
We are pleased to report an all-time record in Services and a March quarter record for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, and to have our installed base of active devices reach an all-time high. We continue to invest for the long term and lead with our values, including making major progress toward building carbon neutral products and supply chains by 2030.
If there’s a silver lining in today’s earnings, it’s that services and iPhones served to mitigate weak sales in other areas of Apple’s product lineup. In any event, Q2 historically hasn’t been a very interesting quarter for Apple. With rumored AV/VR headset on the way at WWDC, it will be far more interesting to see how financial markets react later this year and next.