Apple Q2 revenue: iPhone down 10% YoY to $45.96B, Mac up 4% to $7.45B, iPad down 17% to $5.56B, and Wearables, Home, and Accessories down 10% to $7.91B  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook waves to journalists after his meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 17, 2024.

Apple adds carveouts to its EU core tech fee, exempting free app developers and giving those with annual global revenue under €10M a three-year “free on-ramp”  —  Apple is tweaking how it applies a new fee that can apply to iOS developers in the European Union as it continues …

Google says 400M+ Google Accounts have used passkeys since the rollout, logging 1B+ authentications, and expands passkeys to its Advanced Protection Program  —  Google is kicking off World Password Day by updating us on its efforts toward replacing the often hacked, guessed, and stolen form of authentication with passkeys.

Universal Music Group and TikTok strike a new music licensing deal to bring UMG music back to the platform, including “improved remuneration” and AI protections  —  The months-long standoff between Universal Music Group and TikTok over royalty payments and AI policies is finally over …

Apple Watch's AFib history feature gets FDA approval for use in clinical studies, the first digital health tech qualified under FDA's MDDT program  —  The FDA today announced that it has qualified the Apple Watch AFib ( Atrial Fibrillation) history feature as an MDDT (Medical Device Development Tools).

[Thread] California State Senator Scott Wiener defends his AI safety bill, SB 1047, after criticism that it will “crush OpenAI's competitors” and open-source AI  —  AI policy is a new & fast-moving field & it's healthy & important to have a diversity of perspectives. However, this thread contains some extreme inaccuracies — indeed outright fear-mongering — about our AI safety legislation (SB 1047) that need to be corrected: 🧵

Block Q1: revenue up 19% YoY to $5.96B, vs. $5.82B est., gross profit up 22% to $2.09B, Square profit up 19%, Cash App profit up 25%; SQ jumps 7%+ after hours  —  Block Inc logo is seen displayed in this illustration taken, April 10, 2023.  —  Block reported first-quarter earnings after the bell that exceeded analysts' estimates.

Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy steps down, as the company lays off ~15% of its workforce, or ~400 people, its fifth cut since its 2021 peak, when it had 8,600 staff  —  Peloton's CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down after announcing yet another round of layoffs, this time affecting about 15 percent …

A US federal judge grills the DOJ and Google in the closing arguments of US v. Google, as the most consequential tech antitrust case since the 1990s concludes  —  Judge Amit P. Mehta tried poking holes in the closing arguments of a landmark monopoly case as he weighs a ruling that could reshape tech.

WhatsApp told Delhi High Court last week that it will be forced to leave India if required to maintain “traceability” for messages as part of 2021's IT rules  —  Tracing the origins of messages is more complicated than it sounds.  —  Russell Brandom is the U.S. Tech Editor at Rest of World.

Microsoft confirms the April 2024 Windows security updates break VPN connections across client and server platforms on Windows 11, 10, and Server 2008 or later  —  Microsoft has confirmed that the April 2024 Windows security updates break VPN connections across client and server platforms.

As people yearn for the web's “good old days”, bringing those days back is possible with new tech, the possibility of new protocols, and more internet users  —  Listen to a voiceover of this post, download the recording for later, or subscribe to the feed in your podcast app.

Coinbase reports Q1 net revenue up 116% YoY to $1.59B, vs. $1.32B est., net income of $1.18B, consumer transaction revenue of $935M, up 99% QoQ  —  - Consumer transaction revenue almost doubled from last quarter  — Urges ‘caution in extrapolating’ results so far this quarter

Tether partners with Chainalysis to identify risky crypto addresses that could be used for bypassing sanctions or illicit activities, like terrorist financing  —  The monitoring system would help Tether identify risky crypto addresses that could be used for bypassing sanctions or illicit activities …

Sony plans to remove Horizon Zero Dawn, one of its biggest first-party PS4-only games, from PlayStation Plus on May 21, adding to speculation of a PS5 remaster  —  Horizon Zero Dawn to leave later this month.  —  News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief  —  Follow Horizon: Zero Dawn

Sources and documents: Huawei is secretly funding cutting-edge research at US universities including Harvard through an independent Washington-based foundation  —  - Chinese telecom maker is sole funder of optics competition  — Blacklisted company's role kept private by DC-based group

Microsoft announces plans to invest $2.2B in cloud and AI services infrastructure in Malaysia over four years and train 200K people in AI skills in the country  —  - Nadella announces plan for more AI infrastructure in Malaysia  — Tech companies are targeting Southeast Asia as new growth area

Rabbit R1 review: $199 is the right price, fun design, and a good mic, but the best features are all MIA, finicky and slow, and using a phone is better  —  Artificial intelligence might someday make technology easier to use and even do things on your behalf.  All the Rabbit R1 does right now is make me tear my hair out.