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Microsoft negs Activision Blizzard to push through $68.7 billion acquisition

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Apple’s App Store homepage will soon feature ads

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Dell XPS 13 Plus review: Beauty vs. usability

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Apple’s Mac and wearables revenue stumbles as tech sector recedes

After a strong quarter earlier this year, Apple is continuing to break records. According to the company’s financial results posted today, it’s reporting a revenue record of $83 billion, an increase of 2 percent from the same period last year. Apple also said it reached an all-time high for its installed base of active devices “in every geographic segment and product category.” However, the company’s profits are down by a whole 11 percent, and while it continued to see growth in its iPhone sales, revenue from Macs and wearables dropped.

It’s worth noting that Apple’s recently announced MacBook Air with M2 chip only started shipping this month, so the numbers for Macs are likely to increase next quarter. Considering the devices the company is expected to launch in the fall, it’s also possible consumers are holding out for new products and waiting out the ongoing inflation. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a press release “This quarter’s record results speak to Apple’s constant efforts to innovate, to advance new possibilities, and to enrich the lives of our customers.” The company’s CFO Luca Maestri added “Our June quarter results continued to demonstrate our ability to manage our business effectively despite the challenging operating environment.”

During the company’s earnings call, Cook said that iPhone set a “June quarter record for both revenue and switchers to iPhone.” Sales of iPhones indeed grew from $39.6 billion to $40.7 billion year over year. In response to a question about inflation affecting consumer demand, Cook said that while the macroeconomic environment had no obvious impact on iPhones, “Mac and iPad were so gated by supply that we didn’t have enough product to test the demand.” For the wearables, home and accessories categories, though, “we did some impact there that we would attribute to the macroeconomic environment,” he said.

Cook also talked about how the company was able to welcome developers to Apple Park at WWDC this year, calling it “a reminder of the economic miracle the App Store represents.” 

He added that “the iOS app economy supports more than 2.2 million jobs here in the United States and many more around the world.” Apple prevented “nearly 1.5 billion dollars in fraudulent transactions,” Cook said, and stopped “over 1.6 million risky and vulnerable apps and app updates.” 

Maestri said Macs generated $7.4 billion in revenue “despite supply constraints.” The iPad install base reached a new all-time high this quarter, with more than half of subscribers being new users in this time. Meanwhile, revenue from wearables was $8.1 billion, which is down 8 percent from the same period last year “as we faced foreign exchange headwinds, different launch timing for home and accessories products and supply constraints, as well as the overall macro economic environment,” Maestri said. 

Still, the company hit a new all-time record of “installed base of devices in the category.” Over two thirds of people who bought an Apple Watch during the quarter was new to the company, Maestri noted. Apple also saw strong performance in its paid subscription products, with more than 860 million paid subscriptions across the services it offers. 

The PS5 finally gets 1440p support

The PlayStation 5now supports 1440p, at least for gamers with access to its beta software. While the console has supported 1080p and 4K output from the start, 1440p support is still a much-requested feature by players who use monitors instead of TVs. It provides a middle ground between full HD and 4K, after all, and is a popular choice for gamers who also play on their PCs. Testers who get the latest beta software for the PS5 will now see a 1440p HDMI video output option as an additional visual setting when they use the console with a compatible monitor.

Obviously, they can enjoy the full benefits of 1440p rendering if the game they’re playing supports the resolution. But if they’re playing a game that supports 4K, they could also benefit from the feature, because the option downsamples the visuals for 1440p output and that leads to sharper images. As VG247 notes, though, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), which rolled out for the console in April, is only available for 1080p and 2160p. VRR gives the screen the ability to sync its refresh rate with that of the game for a smoother experience, and it’s not quite clear why it’s not available for 1440p output. 

In addition to 1440p support, the latest beta software also gives users a way to create gamelists in their Game Library so that they can better organize all the titles they own. Players can create up to 15 gamelists with 100 games each. Their in-progress activities will now be shown prominently at the top of the game hub when they resume a game, as well, and they can now request party members to share their screens so that they can watch their gameplay. Plus, when they enter a party and a member is playing game they can join, they’ll now receive an alert and then join the game directly from that notification.

Sony has introduced more experimental features with the new beta and has listed them all on the PlayStation blog.