NEWS
Apple's Q2 2016 financials - they sold fewer iPhones than last year For the first time in 13 years, Apple hasn't made a year over year increase in profit. This is predominately because the iPhone 6s just hasn't been selling as strongly as past iPhones and the vast majority of Apple's profit (65% of it) comes from the iPhone. Overall, Apple had US$50.56bn in revenue and profit of $10.516bn. Still a huge amount, but less than the year before it. iPad sales were down and Mac sales were down too. My favourite stat, Apple cash hoarde, currently sits at US$232.9b. Australia currently has US$49.2b in cash & gold. MacStories and Anandtech have the best overview of Apple's financials. Six Colours has some good analysis of what the results mean. Discuss
Twitter's Q1 2016 financials - still no profits Twitter also announced its Q1 2016 financials today and unlike Apple, who are just in a tiny purple patch because they've run out of people to sell iPhones to, Twitter are up against some bigger obstacles. Twitter is still yet to post a profit, losing almost US$80m in Q1 2016 and failed to meet its revenue targets. Growth has stalled for Twitter, with about the same number of people using Twitter this quarter as they did last quarter. It appears that advertisers (Twitter's source of income) just aren't spending the amounts with Twitter that Twitter estimated. Discuss
Dropbox announces Project Infinite Dropbox's Project Infinite is a way to store more stuff in Dropbox than you have capacity on your HDD, but still have those files appear as if they're on your computer. Just open the file and it downloads that file in real time and opens it up. It's basically fancy symbolic links. The Dropbox blog has all the info you want on how it'll work, there's even a nifty video. It's not out yet, but they're slowly rolling it out to business customers first - no word on when regular accounts will get this feature. Discuss
Nokia buys Withings for €170 million Withings, manufacturer of dozens of "smart" health things like scales, blood pressure cuffs and classy looking smartwatches, has been snapped up by Nokia for €170 million (around AUD$25m) - surprising not because Withings isn't worth buying, it's quite a decent company, but that Nokia 1. has money and 2. used it to buy Withings. According to Nokia's CEO, they want to take the plunge into health and wearable tech. God speed you Finnish nerds, god speed. Engadget has a nice summary of why Nokia would bother to buy Withings. Discuss
Dyson made a fancy hairdryer Sir James Dyson has done it again, revolutionising the way we manipulate air. Vaccum cleaners, hand dryers (that apparently spew bacteria), pedestal fans and now, the humble hair dryer has received the loving touch of Sir James. The Dyson Supersonic was announced today in Japan and utilises the "V9 Digital Motor", a mini version of the motors inside their other products. It's well designed and fancy and shit, if you enjoy a luxury appliance, get on it. The Supersonic will launch in the US in September, for US$400, exclusively through Sephora. Discuss
COOL SHIT
Remix OS on a US$79 laptop could be fantastic If you haven't tried out Remix OS yet, do so. It brings Android and all its apps to any crappy computer, using mouse and keyboard input, which is built in to Android. Allwinner, known for their bargain basement ARM chips has developed a laptop using its CPU that could sell for as slow as USD$79, designed to run Remix OS. It might be a bit garbage at that price, but for say, AU$249, you could get something with 4GB of RAM, a relatively fast 32GB of storage and whatever latest SoC Allwinner pump out running Android 6.0. That would be really, really cool. Particularly surrounding the talk of Google allowing Chrome OS to run Android apps any day now. Discuss
The Pipo KB2 folding computer Also in weirdo computer form factor news, take a look at the Pipo KB2. It's a keyboard, that folds in half, that has an Atom X8300-X5 CPU, a battery and some HDMI and USB ports stashed underneath. The Pipo KB1 is similar but doesn't foldd up (but has a trackpad). It reminds me of those old Sinclair or Commodore computers that you just plugged in to a TV. If for some reason you needed to take a computer around with you, but a laptop doesn't do the job, this Pipo thing could be useful. Discuss
What's so good about Minecraft anyway? This New York Times article about Minecraft was great for me, as now I know what all the fuss about Minecraft is. I've never played it, seen kids play it, know that they love the shit out of it and that the dude that made Minecraft is rich and depressed. What an amazing "game" (I dunno if it's even a game really, more like a simulator, of some sort) Markus Persson and subsequently, the team at Mojang created. If you don't know what the big deal about Minecraft is, read the NYT thing about it. Discuss
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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