Yesterday vivo sub-brand iQOO announced that it will fully unveil the Neo6 SE smartphone on May 6, while also teasing some of its specs. We had seen some leaks of its specifications, but there was no clue about the device’s design. Well, the wait is over, as a bunch of Chinese retailers already have listings of the iQOO Neo6 SE up, and these all reveal the image you can see below.
The Neo6 SE is thus very reminiscent of the Neo6 in terms of design, which is no surprise given the seemingly identical display specs and size of the two handsets.
The iQOO Neo6 SE is going to be powered by the Snapdragon 870 chipset, and comes with 256GB of storage and 80W fast charging support for its 4,700 mAh battery. Time from 1% to 100% is going to be exactly 30 minutes, and all of these details come straight from iQOO’s teasers released so far.
According to previous rumors, the phone will sport a 6. 62-inch FHD+ 120 Hz OLED screen, but the camera details are still conspicuously mysterious, which leads us to expect some downgrades in that department too compared to the Neo6. Then again, the Neo6 SE should also be cheaper, so there’s that.
Apple services subscribers grow 25% to new high of 825 million
Apple is investing heavily in its services, with Apple Music, Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade among others. Luckily for the company, its efforts have been paying off as Apple now has 825 million subscribers across all its services – which is an all-time record.
The number was confirmed by Luca Maestri, Apple’s Chief Financial Officer, on the day the company shared its earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2022.
According to Maestri, the number of subscribers to Apple services has grown by 165 million since last year, going from 660 million to 825 million subscribers, which is a 25% growth compared to a year ago.
According to Apple’s CFO, the company is “very happy” given all the investment it has been making in services. We don’t have details on each service so it is impossible to know how much of the huge number about Apple Music, Apple TV+ or App Store subscriptions.
For the quarter, Apple reported revenue of $97. 3 billion, an increase of 9% year-over-year. The company reported a profit of $25 billion and earnings-per-share of $1.52. The services category alone accounted for revenue of $19. 82 billion in Q2 2022, outperforming products like the Mac, iPad, and even the wearables segment (with AirPods and Apple Watch).
Apple services now has 825mn subscribers, up 165mn from a year before, says Luca Maestri, chief financial officer.
“We’re obviously very happy given all the investment we made in recent years,” he tells @FThttps://t.co/u1EnczZAER
You can read Apple’s full earnings release in this post on Apple Newsroom. Stay tuned to 9to5Mac for more coverage from the AAPL earnings call with Tim Cook and Luca Maestri next. You can listen live to the AAPL Q2 2022 earnings call audio streaming at the top of the hour here or listen back shortly after the call with Apple Podcasts.
Snapchat’s new $250 drone actually says a lot about the company’s brilliant trend predicting abilities
The photo app has an incredible knack for predicting the biggest trends in social media and tech LONG before they catch on.
Ephemeral photographs, Snapchat was the first to use them, Instagram followed suit. Snapchat’s AR filters were revived and made into Memojis. Snap Spectacles, launched in 2016, Facebook announced the Stories camera-embedded sunglasses in collaboration with RayBan years later. Snap Spectacles, launched in 935, and years later, RayBan collaborated with Facebook to create the Stories camera-embedded sunglasses. Snap announced its latest product today, a $250 drone named Pixy, and even though the drone market is quite saturated at the moment, Snap’s drone is slightly different – while most camera drones are designed to be specialist devices, almost like flying DSLRs or GoPros, Snap’s Pixy is like a flying version of your phone. The Pixy is intuitive and user-friendly. It has a friendly nature which could make it a very popular drone.
The drone, just like Snap’s Spectacles, is an extension of the company’s smartphone app, which already puts it off to a good start. Given that people are much more predisposed to editing videos on the Snap app than on some fancy software on the laptop, Pixy’s ability to interface with your smartphone makes it the perfect entry-level drone camera for most consumers looking to up their social media game. Videos and photos captured on the Pixy get sent right to your smartphone, and Snapchat’s own editing features let you add filters, stickers, and clip/crop/stitch videos to create masterpieces that you can post either to Snapchat or to any other social media app.
What Pixy gets right is that it was expressly designed for social media. The camera captures videos in portrait instead of the usual landscape, and can track people, allowing you to click selfies like never before. The drone’s construction isn’t incredibly intricate on first impression. Designed for first-time users, it has an enclosed propeller design, protected by plastic bumpers all around that prevent the drone from taking any damage. There’s no expensive gimbal system either – just a front-facing camera for photos and videos, and bottom-facing camera that detects your hand so the drone can safely land in your palm.
The drone weighs a paltry 101 grams, which has a big benefit in the fact that you don’t need to register it with the FAA as you would with heavier drones. Pixy’s lightweight design makes it difficult to handle wind. You may notice shaky footage in heavy winds. The drone’s upper half has a knob (similar to the kind you’d see on DSLRs) that lets you cycle between its shooting modes, with orbiting, following, revealing, and landscape shooting patterns built-in. You can control the drone via your smartphone using an app. There is also an emergency landing function that allows you to land quickly if it loses control. It also comes with a detachable battery that can be swapped out and replaced on the go, with a battery capacity that Snap says should last ‘5 flight trips’.
Is this a pitch for people to go buy the Pixy? No. Are you sure Pixy is a success story for consumers? That’s kinda debatable too, because the Snap Spectacles weren’t a runaway success either. However, with the announcement of Pixy, it’s worth noting that Snapchat’s made a trend prediction here that I definitely believe may catch on in the future. Will the Pixy be a strong part of that future? It’s hard to say, but Snap might want you to take a look if it’s worth your while.
Destiny 2’s Guardian Games will make its third annual return to the Tower on May 3. The competition to see which of the three Guardian classes is the second and third best (it’s a poorly kept secret that Titans are obviously first), kicks off Tuesday and will run through the end of the season, May 24.
As usual, players will take on small quests to earn medals and turn them in to increase their class’ standing in the ranks. But this year Bungie is bringing back an oft-requested feature for the duration of the event: Strike Scoring.
Instead of rushing through Strikes, players are given quests that will allow them to cause the greatest damage and kill enemies in new ways. This feature will manifest in two different Strike playlists: Training and Competitive. The Training playlist will be active Tuesday through Thursday each week. The rest of the week — Friday through Monday — players can jump into the Competitive playlist to earn better rewards.
By gaining high scores, players can unlock torches in the Tower, which gives their Guardian a special glow on their right shoulder. Players can get glows on their left shoulders by turning in medals to help their class win. Players will be awarded the “The Title” submachine guns, along with an Origin perk, Classy Contender, that can kill refund class energy and gives them a glow on their left shoulders.
Image: Bungie
Bungie is also making slight tweaks to the weighting of medal deposits for the event — due to the discrepancy in player population among the classes. The event will give proportional multipliers to the classes that are second and third, as well as those who fall behind. This will also take data from last season into account, meaning Titans (who received third last year, despite winning in 2020) will get the largest boost. Warlocks will get a small boost for getting second, and Hunters will receive very little boost since they won in 2021.
Finally, Bungie announced some exciting loot coming to Destiny 2 on May 24, with the new season. The seasonal ritual weapon will be a machine gun called Chain of Command. The Horror’s Least Pulse rifle will be available to players from Nightfalls. Hand cannon. Trials of Osiris will get the Forgiveness sidearm and the Burden of Guilt fusion rifle.
But before players can get their hands on those new weapons, they’ll need to throw down the gauntlet in the 2022 Guardian games. Let the class with the highest score win.
Apple beats estimates with record Q2 earnings: $97. 3 billion revenue
Apple today officially reported its earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2022, covering the calendar first quarter of the year and the months of January, February, and March.
For the quarter, Apple reported revenue of $97. 3 billion, an increase of 9% year over year. The company reported a profit of $25 billion and earnings per share of $1.52.
Head below for full coverage of AAPL’s fiscal Q2 2022 earnings release.
AAPL Q2 2022 earnings details
Coming off an incredibly strong, record-breaking holiday quarter in Q1 2022, analysts again had high expectations for Q2 2022. Apple was expected to report total revenue of $95. 51B, against $89. 58B for the same quarter last year and EPS of $1.53.
Wall Street predicted growth in the iPhone, Mac and Wearables businesses while they forecast a slight decline in iPad revenues.
Apple once again withdrew any guidance from the quarter, citing supply-side concerns. Ongoing COVID-19 disruptions and supply shortages continue to impact Apple’s revenue and its ability to predict future numbers.
Apple does not report unit sales on any product, but rather reports revenue breakdowns by product category. Here is the full breakdown for the fiscal Q2 2022:
iPhone: $50. 57 billion (Up 5. 5% YOY)
Mac: $10. 43 billion (Up 14. 3% YOY)
iPad: $7. 65 billion (Down 2. 2% YOY)
Wearables: $8. 82 billion (Up 12. 2% YOY)
Services: $19. 82 billion (Up 17. 2% YOY)
Apple has also declared a cash dividend of $0. 23 per share of its common stock, an increase of 5%. The board of directors has also authorized an increase of $90 billion to the existing share repurchase program.
AAPL stock response
In light of Apple’s earnings beat, AAPL stock is up over 2% to $167 per share. The company closed at $156. 57 yesterday and rose 4. 52% during trading today before releasing earnings.
Apple executive quotes
Here’s what Apple CEO Tim Cook had to say about Apple’s Q2 2022 earnings results:
This quarter’s record results are a testament to Apple’s relentless focus on innovation and our ability to create the best products and services in the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are delighted to see the strong customer response to our new products, as well as the progress we’re making to become carbon neutral across our supply chain and our products by 2030. We are committed, as ever, to being a force for good in the world — both in what we create and what we leave behind.
And CFO Luca Maestri said:
We are very pleased with our record business results for the March quarter, as we set an all-time revenue record for Services and March quarter revenue records for iPhone, Mac, and Wearables, Home and Accessories. Luca Maestri (Apple’s Chief Financial Officer) stated that the company achieved an all-time record for active device installations due to strong customer demand. “Our strong operating performance generated over $28 billion in operating cash flow, and allowed us to return nearly $27 billion to our shareholders during the quarter.
You can read Apple’s full earnings release in this post on Apple Newsroom. Stay tuned to 9to5Mac for more coverage from the AAPL earnings call with Tim Cook and Luca Maestri next. You can listen live to the AAPL Q2 2022 earnings call audio streaming at the top of the hour here or listen back shortly after the call with Apple Podcasts.
This adjustable phone stand’s Memphis-inspired design even has space for storing a charging cable
The Memphis 2.0 design movement was all about visualizing designs through a geometric lens. Nothing was normal, everything was simple geometry that intersected or interacted with each other. Products were fun, graphics were vibrant, and everything was eye-catching until minimalism came and took over. Hold The Phone, however, holds onto the sheer beauty of Memphis 2.0 with its blockish design language.
Created by the folks at Boem, Hold The Phone is part phone stand, part statement piece. With its simple yet bold design, Hold The Phone does exactly what it says it does, while also hiding a trick up its sleeve. The phone stand is made up of 3 elements – the stand itself, a slab-shaped piece of plastic, with a small cylindrical lip at the bottom to hoist the phone up, and a large cylindrical element at the back that props the entire structure upwards at an angle. This large rear cylinder slides upwards and downwards, adjusting the angle at which your phone rests, giving you the ability to tilt your phone at virtually any angle you need. Moreover, that large cylinder is actually hollow on the inside, allowing you to use it to store items like cables, thumb drives, SD cards, and any other tiny items you’d otherwise end up losing!
The minimalist Memphis phone dock (which looks like a percentage % sign, btw) lets you set your phone at a wide range of angles, thanks to the sliding rear cylinder. It slides up and down effortlessly on the simple rail-and-notch design. The friction fit makes sure your cylinder remains at its original angle, even when your device’s weight causes it to shift.
If you want your own Hold Your Phone, even though it isn’t available traditionally, you can buy the 3D file for EUR 8. 90 ($9. 35) and print as many of your phone stands as you want! Feel like taking things further? How about editing the 3D file and integrating a wireless charger into the stand too?!
Knotwords for iOS and Mac is a clever new logic puzzle similar to crosswords but without the clues
Good Sodoku developers Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger are back again today with the launch of a creative new game for iOS, Mac, Android, and PC. Knotwords offers an easy and simple logic puzzle experience that is both familiar and new.
The rules for Knotwords are straightforward, like a standard crossword puzzle, you need to place letters in each section so all the words are valid across and down.
But, Knotwords doesn’t give you the complete words to use in the puzzles. Instead, it places letters in different sections, but not necessarily in the right order.
By stripping away the clues Knotwords creates a more dynamic game that rewards puzzling out words based on the fundamental properties of spelling vs. primarily solving a trivia question.
While that might sound tricky at first, Knotwords is designed so that it becomes easier to solve the puzzle as you make progress. There is only one solution to each puzzle.
When Zach Gage describes Knotwords: “This game is what I have been trying to create my entire career. I am amazed Jack and me discovered this design. We hope you like it.”
Knotwords has no ads and is a free download for iOS and Mac, Android, and Steam with in-app purchases available to unlock additional puzzles, daily puzzles, themes, statistics, and more.
Here’s a first look at the new Catalyst Black game for iOS and Android coming next month
If you like playing online games, Vainglory is a multiplayer battle arena game where two teams compete to destroy an enemy base. Now Super Evil Megacorp, the company behind Vainglory, is about to release Catalyst Black – a new triple-A-level battleground game for iOS and Android.
Catalyst Black has been in development for some time. In fact, if you watched the iPhone 13 keynote in September last year, there was a brief demo of the game during the A15 Bionic chip and ProMotion display segment.
According to the developers, Catalyst Black’s premise is to create a new world with epic battles, powerful guns and multiple custom abilities.
In Catalyst Black, players will ascend to the skies as they embark on an expedition to acquire rich caches of power discoverable across the exotic Welkin Islands. Floating high above Kyria, the Welkins offer near limitless access to the mystical resource catalyte, but also hold within them the great mysteries of Catalyst Black itself.
With a free-to-play business model, Catalyst Black lets players collect, upgrade, and customize items to improve their game. There will be over 30 different guns and 12 abilities at launch, with more to come in future updates. You will improve your hunting and long-range shooting abilities the more you play.
Catalyst Black includes multiple game modes. Hydra mode allows players to battle other players or a boss. In Slayer mode, you have to defeat enemies to earn points until you win. There’s also an Eventide mode to dispute the control of an ancient fortress. Users can join teams of 5v5 up to 12v12 players.
Although the game is designed for touch screens, it can also be used with controllers. Players will also find options to reduce graphics quality to save battery life if they want, and they can even enable a 120 FPS mode – available exclusively on supported iOS devices at first.
Catalyst Black will be released for both iOS and Android on May 25. Interested users can now pre-register on the game’s website to be notified of the release.
Check out some more screenshots of the game below:
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Stories discussed in this episode:
EU set to announce new anticompetitive charges against Apple, targeting dominance of Apple Pay in iPhone
iOS 16 could expand iCloud Private Relay to hide even more data
iOS 15. 5 blocks ‘Sensitive Locations’ for Photo Memories
Nothing announced today that its Nothing Launcher will be available for Android devices via the Google Play Store.
The Nothing Launcher is a similar launcher for Android that uses no-nonsense, stock Android. It features a set of standard circular app icons and a single custom wallpaper.
For those who love to use widgets the launcher includes two widgets: a clock, and a weather widget. Each launcher comes with the same font matrix dot typography as Nothing branding. Both can have a black or clear background.
The launcher has an additional feature, Max Icons and Max Folders. You can press and hold on any icon or app folder on the homescreen and click a button to supersize it. This makes the icon or folder go from a 1×1 size to 3×3.
Nothing says the launcher will be available on Samsung Galaxy S21 and S22 series, Google Pixel 5, and Google Pixel 6 series, with OnePlus support coming later. However, we were able to install and run the launcher on a OnePlus 10 Pro just fine.
You can download the launcher from the link below. Additional wallpapers and ringtones by Teenage Engineering can be downloaded here.
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