Month: May 2026

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2026 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 28, 2025, to March 28, 2026) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Unlike Apple’s Q1, which contains all of the holiday sales, Apple’s Q2 is usually not a particularly interesting quarter. But this year was different: Apple saw revenue of over $100 billion in the quarter, the first time that has ever happened in any quarter besides a Q1. Those are impressive numbers, but as always, what interests me about these conference calls is not the revenue itself as much as what we learn about Apple’s products. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the conference call on this page of Apple’s website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• iPhone revenue for the quarter was just shy of $57 billion, up an astonishing 22% from this time last year. That is the all-time high for iPhone revenue in a Q2, easily beating the record of $51.3 billion in 2023 Q2.
• Cook said that Apple saw all of that revenue even though it couldn’t make iPhones fast enough. When asked if the constraint was the high price of memory right now, Cook said no; it is the limited supply of the advanced chips that Apple uses. Apparently, Apple should have ordered even more. However, Cook suggested that the current high cost of memory is going to have more impact on Apple in the future. It will be interesting to see if Apple is required to raise iPhone prices later this year.
• Cook mentioned that the current top-of-the-line iPhone—the iPhone 17 Pro Max—was used by astronauts during the Artemis II mission.

iPad

• iPad revenue for the quarter was $6.9 billion, up 8% from this time last year. (The all-time high iPad revenue in a Q2 was 2021 Q2, when revenue was $7.8 billion. The all-time high iPad revenue in any quarter was 2023 Q1, when revenue was $9.4 billion.)

Other

• Tim Cook has been attending these calls for well over 20 years, starting even before he was CEO. But in light of the fact that he has announced that he will be retiring as CEO later this year, he had the next CEO, John Ternus, join him for this call. It will be interesting to see in the future if Ternus participates in these calls every quarter, like Cook has done, or if he will only participate from time-to-time, like Steve Jobs did.
• One analyst asked Cook what advice he gave Ternus about being CEO. Cook responded that “one of the most important decisions he’ll make is where to spend his time. And I would spend it where the greatest benefit to the company and the users are, and never forget the north star for the company,” which is “making the best products in the world that really enrich other people’s lives.”
• So far, the AI that is built-in to Apple devices, which Apple calls Apple Intelligence, is limited in what it can do. But Cook said that what makes Apple Intelligence special is that it is “woven into the core of our platforms” and not a “standalone feature.” I mention this because I personally think that this is the future of AI: something that is just built-in to everything that we do. Apple is not yet as far along as I would like, but I like what they are trying to do, and apparently Cook does as well since he chose to emphasis this aspect of it.
• One might argue—especially in a quarter like this one—that the most impressive thing that Apple makes is money. Since 2018, Apple has pursued a net cash neutral position where it didn’t try to build up a pile of cash and instead would use it on investments and on buying up stock. But Apple CFO Kevan Parekh announced that Apple is no longer pursuing a net cash neutral position. Parekh didn’t clarify what that means other than saying that it gives Apple “flexibility while also being very efficient and disciplined,” but it seems obvious to me that it means that Apple is now going to stockpile some of its massive revenue so that it has lots of cash on hand the next time that it wants to make a big acquisition—such as buying an AI company. Apple may soon go on a bit of a buying spree. We’ll see.
• Apple’s services revenue continues to increase every quarter, and it is now up to a record $31 billion, which is 16% higher than this time last year.
• There are 2.5 billion Apple devices currently in active use around the world, an all-time record.
• Cook said that demand for the new Mac Neo has been “off the charts” with “higher than expected demand.” As a result, there is more demand than supply.
• Cook stated that Apple will apply for a tariff refund from the U.S. government, but he promised that Apple would use that money to invest in “U.S. innovation and advanced manufacturing.” And this carefully worded statement is a perfect example of why Cook is the right person to continue to deal with Trump and other world leaders, even after Ternus becomes CEO.

There is more to say about the recent executive changes at Apple, so that is where we start this week’s episode of the podcast. Next, we discuss the future of the Apple Vision Pro and visionOS, the Apple Watch, the fifth anniversary of AirTags, autocorrect on the iPhone, telescopes, my recent review of the Rode Wireless PRO, Ted Lasso, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for adjusting the volume on your iPhone, and I share a tip for using Eufy cameras.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Jazz Fest is happening right now in New Orleans, and it is an amazing opportunity to see fantastic artists perform live in front of thousands of people. My wife and I attended last week to see (among other performances) Jon Batiste, and his show was phenomenal. (He is so talented!) But it is also nice to see artists in a more intimate venue where you are close to the musicians. Blue Frog Studios, a music club in a Vancouver suburb, has been recording live performances and releasing them on YouTube for 15 years. This week, Blue Frog released an app for the Vision Pro that gives you a front-row seat at the club. The quality of the immersive video and audio is astounding, and the musicians are very talented. This app is a perfect example of why I love my Apple Vision Pro so much and why I am convinced that spatial computing is the future. In light of that, I was alarmed by Juli Clover’s assertion in MacRumors this week that Apple is giving up on the Vision Pro. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this didn’t seem right. Indeed, just two weeks ago, I linked to a video in which Apple’s next CEO, John Termus, said that we are “very much in the early innings of spatial computing” and that he was “super excited about it.” Dan Moren of Six Colors also doubted Clover’s assertion for the reasons he explained in this article. Horace Dediu of Asymco pointed out that the Vision Products Group at Apple is currently hiring 14 more people for senior roles, which suggests to me that the product has a future. Similarly, John Gruber of Daring Fireball provides numerous reasons that Clover’s article must be wrong, concluding: “It’s a strange thing for MacRumors to state so categorically something I believe has no truth to it whatsoever.” In just a few weeks at WWDC, Apple will preview the new operating systems coming later this year, and my hope and expectation is that Apple will confirm that great things are coming to visionOS 27. And now, the other news of note from the past week:

• David Sparks of MacSparky says that one reason he is excited about Apple’s new CEO is that, while Tim Cook loved the business, his successor, John Ternus, loves products.
• Virtually all of the recent news about Apple executives has focused on Cook and Ternus. But there is another story worth noting: the promotion of Johny Srouji to Chief Hardware Officer. In an article for Six Colors and Macworld, Jason Snell explains why Srouji is so important to Apple and why it appears that he was promoted.
• David Pogue discusses in his Substack column all of the different things that he does with an Apple Watch. It’s a good list, even though I am surprised he doesn’t use Apple Pay—one of my favorite uses.
• The app Pedometer++ was updated this week. The iPhone app is great, and the Apple Watch app received a significant update this week with a beautiful interface and lots of features, as John Voorhees of MacStories explains in his review.
• Five years ago this week, Apple introduced the first AirTag (my review). Rajat Saini of The Mac Observer notes that five years later, the product “continues to dominate the item tracker market.”
• While I love the AirTag, I also love that third-party products can work with the Find My app. Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors discusses devices that are compatible with Apple’s Find My service.
• Dominic Preston of The Verge discusses two areas in which other smartphones may be better than the iPhone: cameras and batteries.
• On her new website called, appropriately enough, New Things, Joanna Stern explains why she hopes that Apple improves autocorrect on the iPhone.
• Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the Dwarf Mini, a smart telescope that is small but powerful and works with your iPhone to help you take some pretty great pictures. It is $399 on Amazon.
• Mahmoud Itani of Macworld recommends tips for getting more out of the FaceTime app.
• D. Griffin Jones of Cult of Mac says that the Apple News+ game Emoji Game is “infuriating” and “extremely annoying.” I could not disagree more. It is fun, often clever, and I look forward to playing it every single day.
• Speaking of games, I’ve mentioned in the past how impressed I am with the Retrocade game on the Apple Vision Pro, which allows you to play classic arcade games in a 3D environment with perfectly rendered arcade cabinets. Amber Neely of AppleInsider notes that the game was updated yet again this week, now adding a new environment (an incredible arcade in Japan) and more. The list of games currently available in Retrocade is: Asteroids, Bubble Bobble, Breakout, Centipede, Dig Dug, Frogger, Galaga, Haunted Castle, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Tempest, Tetris, and Track & Field. Note that Retrocade, which is free with an Apple Arcade subscription, works on other platforms including the iPhone and iPad, but it really shines on the Vision Pro because it feels so much more like real arcade games in a real arcade.
• Marko Zivovic of AppleInsider discusses how doctors have used the Apple Vision Pro to perform hundreds of cataract surgeries since the first was performed in October 2025 by Dr. Eric Rosenberg. I like this quote from Dr. Rosenberg: “What we accomplished in that operating room is something that has never been done before anywhere in the world. … This isn’t just about a new device, it’s about reimagining what the operating room of the future looks like.”
• The new Apple TV show Widow’s Bay premiered this week. It is a horror comedy starring Matthew Rhys, and, as Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac notes, the critical reception has been very positive. I look forward to watching it tonight.
• And finally, I believe in hope, I believe in believe … and I believe I’m ready for another season of one of my all-time favorite shows, Ted Lasso. This week, Apple TV released the trailer for Season 4 and announced that it will start on August 5, 2026. Until then: be curious, not judgmental.