Hardware

Roku drops ~19% as it braces for a bumpy fourth quarter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 2, 2022Posted in Hardware, Media & Entertainment, rokuNo Comments

As advertisers pull back on spending and supply chain disruptions persist, investors have braced themselves for an unpleasant quarter for Roku. And investors are probably right to be worried. Roku released its fiscal third-quarter earnings results on Wednesday, revealing that it is still experiencing slow growth in active accounts and revenue in a continuously challenging environment. The company also warned investors of a weak fourth quarter, telling shareholders it expects total net revenue of about $800 million, or a 7.5% decline year over year. Roku shares dropped nearly 19% in after-hours trading once investors saw the fourth quarter guidance. “As we enter the holiday season, we expect the macro environment to further pressure consumer discretionary spend and degrade advertising budgets, especially in the TV scatter market. We expect these conditions to be temporary, but it is difficult to predict when they will stabilize or rebound. We, therefore, anticipate Q4 Player revenue and Platform revenue to be lower year over year,” the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. And while Roku reported a total net revenue that beat expectations, the results are still much lower than in the past. Roku noted that its total revenue grew 12% year over year to $761 million, above its own expectation of $700 million. Analysts predicted Roku’s total revenue to reach $696 million this quarter. “Platform revenue grew 15% year over year, which was lower than our historical growth rates but positive given the difficult macro environment. Advertising spend on our platform continues to grow more slowly than our beginning-of-year forecast due to current weakness in the overall TV ad market, and the ad scatter market in particular,” the company said. Roku missed revenue expectations last quarter and reported a total net revenue of $764 million, which was $41 million less than Wall Street’s expectations. The company blamed the slowdown in TV ad spending for missing the mark. Meanwhile, the company also reported a net addition of 2.3 million incremental active accounts in Q3, bringing the total to 65.4 million, up from 61.3 million active accounts in the second quarter. Roku also had total streaming hours of 21.9 billion, up 1.1 billion from last quarter. Its free streaming service, The Roku Channel, saw a jump in streaming hours of 90% year-over-year. Roku continues to invest in The Roku Channel. Just this past month, the company launched the streaming service in Mexico, which marked a significant move for the service. Previously, The Roku Channel was only available in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. The Roku Channel also launched 14 new linear channels through its Live TV Guide and added Paramount+ as a new premium subscription option. Roku tries to be smart(er) Roku made a bold move last month by stepping into the connected home space with the launch of various smart home devices. The Roku Smart Home lineup includes security cameras, video doorbells, smart lights and voice-enabled smart plugs. With Google and Amazon already in the smart home market, it’s likely Roku doesn’t anticipate becoming the first choice for consumers. Still, it makes sense for the company to finally monetize the smart home experience to the many consumers that already have Roku smart TVs in their homes. During a conference call with reporters, Roku chief financial officer Steve Louden said: “Expanding into the smart home ecosystem is a natural extension for Roku. Obviously, we’re a leading TV streaming platform, and smart TV is usually at the center of someone’s smart household. It’s a good extension to leverage our existing 65 million active accounts.” The company added in its letter that it’s still “early days,” but Roku has the “necessary technology and expertise in hardware, software, and connectivity to deliver a smart home ecosystem that is simple, powerful, and delightful.” Roku also recently launched the 2022 version of the Roku Express streaming player, a Roku Wireless Bass, as well as its software update, Roku OS 11.5, which includes new features like a universal watch list, a “continue watching” feature and a discovery hub that features short-form content.

DJI’s latest Mavic drone starts at $1,469 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 2, 2022Posted in DJI, drone, Gadgets, Hardware, MavicNo Comments

Affordability is fairly malleable concept when it comes to consumer drones. We’ve seen plenty of systems positioned as affordable – or even cheap – over the years, but lowering the price point generally comes with its share of tradeoffs. It’s something DJI itself has flirted with a bit itself, with some more basic and entry-level systems. But the Mavic has long been a kind of gold standard, in terms of accessibility and build quality. Certainly its always been more affordable than many non-consumer systems, but you’d have to go out on long limb to position it as “cheap.” In this era of component shortages, inflation and just general economic headwinds, DJI’s positioning the Mavic 3 Classic as its most accessible drone to date. The system, which was announced at an event this morning, runs $1,469. That’s for the drone only. As ever, the company’s got all sorts of additional packages with added batteries, carrying cases and other accessories you can opt into (or not) and quickly drive that price up. The system is built around the 4/3 CMOS 20-megapixel Hasselblad camera as the standard Mavic 3, along with that base system’s stated 46 minutes max flight time. Image Credits: DJI The Classic is part of a growing trend in consumer electronics that finds companies cutting some features for a lower cost iteration of a flagship device. The company effectively brings the product price down by around $400, dropping the telephoto lens, but otherwise not sacrificing a ton to hopefully attract some new customers who were edged out by the price point by just a bit. It’s not an altogether trivial cut, of course. Imaging has long been the core of the line. But if a single (very good) camera is enough for your needs, the Classic ought to cushion the landing a bit. The drone is available starting today.

Lockheed Martin increases its bet on satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital with $100 million investment • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 1, 2022Posted in Hardware, Lockheed Martin, Space, terran orbitalNo Comments

Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is deepening its investment in satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital with a $100 million investment and a cooperation agreement for the development and sale of smallsats through 2035. Terran also announced that it will now build its massive, $300 million space vehicle manufacturing facility in Irvine, California, not Florida as originally planned. CEO Marc Bell told press that the company decided to move the facility to California, where Terran Orbital already has a substantial footprint, because it could move into the facilities faster than in Florida. It’s a big loss for Space Florida, the state’s economic development agency focused on aerospace, which was going to provide the conduit financing for the facility. Boca Raton, Florida-based Terran Orbital is a contract manufacturer, designing and building satellites for the U.S. government and commercial customers. Bell estimated to ZebethMedia in an interview last year that around 95% of the company’s work is related to the Department of Defense and NASA. Lockheed Martin made its first investment in Terran back in 2017; the following year, it led a $36 million investment round. The new funds from Lockheed will go toward acquiring additional assembly space and increasing satellite module production, Terran said in a statement. The smallsat manufacturer also said it planned on expanding its offerings to include a synthetic aperture radar satellite product line and satellite components and subassemblies, like reaction wheels and star trackers. The company was originally planning to launch and operate its own SAR satellite constellation, called PredaSAR, but it decided to pivot from those plans and offer the technology as a product instead. Terran said the conflict in Ukraine showed the need for advanced satellite imagery. Terran Orbital is one of a handful of space ventures that have gone public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition vehicle, or SPAC. The company’s stock price saw a brief price jump with the news about the deal with Lockheed, closing on October 31 at $2.62 a share. Like other companies post-SPAC merger, Terran’s stock value has plummeted since its public market debut: it’s currently down around 72% year to date.

Everything is stupid and bad right now; maybe this $200 portable turntable will fix it • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 1, 2022Posted in Audio Technica, Gadgets, Hardware, Media & Entertainment, record player, TurntableNo Comments

Yeah, yeah. I know. Buying a record player isn’t going to fix everything that’s broken. But it was a nice thought, however fleeting. Long before the iPod, this strange mutant existed. Too weird to live, too strange to die, as someone once famously put it. The Audio-Technica Sound Burger — as it has affectionately come to be known — has also felt like a glimpse into some alternate timeline, where vinyl records didn’t have to go away entirely to make a resurgence. Obviously the size of a 12-inch LP immediately mitigates any pretension of portability, so in the era of the Walkman, a product like this was always destined to be an evolutionary dead end. That, of course, hasn’t stopped countless companies from producing countless knockoffs in the intervening decades. Nor, thankfully, has it precluded Audio-Technica from taking another spin with the delightful AT-SB2022. The newly announced take on the form factor is priced at $199 and is — understandably — a limited edition. The release was specifically timed to coincide with the company’s 60th anniversary. Unlike its ancestor, which was built with wired headphones in mind (and shipped with a pair for that matter), this version has built-in connectivity, so you can pair it with a wireless headset or speakers. There’s also a built-in battery rechargeable via USB-C that can get up to 12 hours in a single go. So, it’s not going to make all the bad news go away, but it sure would be a lot of fun to bring along for an afternoon of crate digging. Image Credits: Audio Technica If your pockets are considerably deeper, there’s always this fully transparent limited edition AT-LP2022 available for a cool $1,200. The belt-drive-operated manual turntable sports a Shibata stylus and carbon-fiber tonearm, all for the price of six Sound Burgers. If that’s not enough, there’s always this $9,000 stereo cartridge with a lab-grown diamond. Maybe that will help drown out the news for a bit.

Evolito, with an axial-flux motor lighter than Tesla’s, starts ramping up its team • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 1, 2022Posted in Hardware, Startups, TransportationNo Comments

Last year YASA, a British electric motor startup with a revolutionary “axial-flux” motor, was acquired by Mercedes-Benz to develop ultra-high-performance electric motors for Mercedes’s AMG.EA electric-only platform. YASA’s axial-flux electric motors had previously garnered a reputation for efficiency, high power density, small size, and low weight. However, the team behind YASA did something quite clever. While Mercedes acquired that automotive rights, they passed on the rights to an aerospace version of the engine. That was taken up by a new entity, complete with YASA’s founders, called Evolito, to develop an electric motor it described as ultra-high-performance, low-weight and best for future EV aircraft. Evolito’s lead investors are Waypoint Capital and Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE). YASA’s ‘axial-flux’ motors makes them one-third the weight of other electric motors, more efficient, and with 3x higher power densities than even Tesla’s, according to the company. It’s now emerged that former YASA CEO Dr. Chris Harris will lead Evolito on its path to commercialize electric flight. Chris Harris, Evolito Harris joined YASA in 2012, scaling the company from 20 employees to more than 300, following 15 years’ leading other high-growth businesses in the UK, Europe and US. He stepped down from his CEO role at YASA in September 2022, but will remain a Non-Executive Director at the wholly-owned Mercedes-Benz subsidiary. A director of Evolito since the company’s spin-out and incorporation, he now becomes Evolito CEO effective immediately. Evolito acquired UK battery company Electroflight in July 2022, which means it can also offer aerospace OEM & eVTOL customers fully-electric powertrain solutions. In a statement, Harris said: “Electric flight requires ultra high-power density, super low-weight electric powertrains. Evolito provides best-in-class powertrain solutions for OEMs, leveraging next-generation axial-flux electric motor technology that’s already proven in automotive.”

Manufacturing firm Bright Machines raises $132M after unfulfilled SPAC deal • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Bright Machines, Eclipse Ventures, HardwareNo Comments

In May of last year, Bright Machines announced plans to embrace the SPAC craze with a merger deal that valued the Bay Area-based manufacturing firm at $1.6 billion. As the temperatures for the phenomenon cooled, however, so too did its plans. The plug was pulled last December, a little over a month before it was planned to go through. Even without the SPAC slowdown, it hasn’t exactly been the ideal economy for such a large deal. Today, the company announced that it’s returned to the more tried and true method of fundraising with a combined $132 million raise — that’s $100 million in equity funding (led by founder Lior Susan’s own Eclipse Ventures) and $32 million in debt (co-led by Silicon Valley Bank and Hercules Capital). All told, the latest round brings the firm up to $330 million since its 2018 founding, when it arrived with a $179 million Series A. The funding comes as the U.S. has taken an aggressive approach toward reinvigorating domestic manufacturing, in part due to economic incentive bills like the CHIPS act. Firms like Intel have been investing billions to help diversify geographic semiconductor production. Bright Machines’ own vision is built around the concept of “micro factories” — software-driven production lines that rely on robotics and automation. The company says it has deployed some 100 such micro factories across 13 countries since its founding. The latest funding will go toward accelerating its roadmap.

Google’s Nest Wifi Pro is a dead simple way to bring Wi-Fi 6E home • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Gadgets, Google, Google Nest Wifi Pro, Hardware, nest wifi, Nest Wifi ProNo Comments

A quick caveat up top. This isn’t a review. ZebethMedia does reviews. This isn’t one. There are several reasons for this. First, last week was Disrupt — I was busy on the other side of the country. Second, this week is my COVID week (third round, otherwise self-explanatory w/r/t a limited output). Third, we very rarely review routers here, for a lot of reasons, including resources. Even so, the Nest Wifi Pro is available now, so I’m committing some of my initial impressions to the page, after setting it up and using it for a few days. I hope this is helpful if you’ve been eyeing one since its unveiling earlier month. If you need something a bit more substantial than my doughy brain can offer up at the moment, I completely get it. We’ve got plenty of big reviews planned over the horizon. Let’s start with what the Nest Wifi Pro is an isn’t. It’s “Pro” in the sense of where it fits in the broader Google Wifi line. It’s a home router, one that looks nice and is easy to set up. There are faster and more powerful routers out there. There are routers that are more customizable and flexible. If, however, you’re looking for a router with Wi-Fi 6E that works right out of the box, it’s hard to beat. Image Credits: Brian Heater That’s an important thing to note with products like this. At $199, this is a solid entry into Wi-Fi 6E territory. If you’re looking for a quick boost to your home internet, and the current dusty old router is starting to give up the ghost, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better “just works” system out of the box. I say this with the authority of someone who spent his own hours on the phone with terrible ISP customer support, because of some phantom ghost in the machine of the company routers. Amazing how often the fix is someone flipping a switch on their end. I was long overdue for a wireless upgrade myself, as someone who hosts a lot of podcasts and video livestreams. There are more embarrassing things that can happen to one on a live broadcast, but we won’t get into them here. Suffice it say that a strong and steady internet connection is an important part of doing my job. Another caveat I should mention before we go further is the one I often give while testing smart home-related tech: I live in New York City. That means, among other, better things, that I have a relatively small dwelling area. Specifically, I’m in a one-bedroom. Google clocks the Nest Wifi Pro’s coverage area as 2,200 square feet (4,400 for a two-pack, 6,600 for the three, etc.). One-bedrooms in NYC tend to range from around 600-800 square feet. Image Credits: Brian Heater With that in mind, a single device was plenty. Speeds can fluctuate during the day, but I found mine to be fairly consistent, regardless of how close I was to the router. If you’re on the fence about whether a single device is enough, it should be more than enough for anything below 1,000 square feet. As you push closer to 2,000 square feet, the bundle starts to make more sense. And the upshot to the UX is that it’s easy to add Google mesh routers down the road (though you won’t get those bundle savings). The setup process will prove familiar if you’ve ever set up most smart home products — Google/Nest stuff in particular, for obvious reasons. There’s not much to the device from the user’s perspective (again, this is intentional). The design is arguably even more minimal than its predecessor. It’s taller and slimmer, the matte color replaced with a shiny, plain job. Your mileage on that last bit will vary, but as with other Nest products, this one is designed — above all — to blend in with its surroundings. There are three ports: power and a pair of Ethernet — one for the modem, the other to hardwire a single device. That last bit is a potential limiter, of course, as is the 1Gbps upper limit on the built-in Ethernet (to help keep the system under $200, one imagines). That may or may not be an issue, depending on your specific plan. If you have fiber, for example, you’re going to get bottlenecked. Me, I’m stuck with Spectrum at the moment (I know, I know), so, um, no issue there. But obviously you don’t want a device that sits between you and the wall slowing down your internet speeds. Either way, the service you’re on will determine your ultimate speeds. Image Credits: Brian Heater Download the Google Home app to get started, and you’ll be walked through a straightforward setup process, sped up if you can snap a shot of the QR code on the product’s underside. The paper startup guide included in the box is three basic steps (plug in router, download app, follow on-screen instructions) and two images spread across two small pages. I’m not going to say that’s definitely all you need, but if you don’t run into any hiccups (always a consideration with networking devices), it should be plenty. Nest Wifi was a fine system, and honestly, if you bought one, you likely don’t need to rush out and upgrade. Its combined speed for Wi-Fi 5 topped out at a stated speed of 2.2Gbps versus the Wifi Pro’s 5.4Gbps. Keep in mind, those are both figured combined across the three bands. Let’s just say they are very optimistic figures. Here’s Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa from 2020 about the upgrade from Wi-Fi 5: 6 GHz will help address the growing need for Wi-Fi spectrum capacity to ensure Wi-Fi users continue to receive the same great user experience with their devices. Wi-Fi Alliance is introducing Wi-Fi 6E now to ensure the industry aligns on common terminology, allowing Wi-Fi users to identify devices that support 6 GHz operation as the

Cruz Foam’s chitin-based packaging brings in $18M as industries scramble to go green • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Climate, cruz foam, Hardware, StartupsNo Comments

The best way to remove plastics from the ecosystem is to make sure they never get there in the first place, and Cruz Foam is well on its way to replacing some of the worst ones out there with its naturally-derived and compostable alternative — and the company just landed an $18M series A to do it faster. Cruz Foam creates materials out of chitin, which is what makes up the shells of most crustaceans, like crabs, shrimp, lobsters and many land insects as well. It’s strong, stable, totally biodegradable, and boy is it plentiful: there are mountains of this stuff for the taking outside every seafood processing plant. The company, whose founder John Felts I met in Alaska during the Accelerator at Sea, has been scrappily humming along prototyping various ways to turn chitin and a few other natural ingredients into a material that can replace polystyrene foam (EPS, like Styrofoam) and other common plastic packaging. They got their first big break last year when Whirlpool tapped them to make a few pieces for their appliance boxes, and now, having proved out the idea, Cruz Foam is getting ready to break into half a dozen more industries. “A lot of what we’re focusing on is those two initial areas – packaging that replaces polyethylene and polystyrene foam. But demand is growing in other avenues: cold chain, CPG [consumer packaged goods], ecommerce, etc. People asking about construction, or how we can do injection molding. It’s exciting to see so much potential,” said Felts. The need to prototype and test these possibilities is one reason for the company raising such a considerably-sized round. They just bought a new extruder (foam like this is essentially printed using specialized equipment) and have been experimenting with all kinds of new form factors, driven by partners and potential partners across many industries. It helps that a number of laws and trends have steadily pushed companies towards eco-friendly alternatives to plastic or even cardboard. “Putting the ownership of waste and the collection back on the people that produce packages, you’re seeing a broad change in ESG goals,” he said. “It used to be, ‘OK, we’re going to be carbon neutral by 2030.’ Like, what does that mean? So we’re seeing real granularity in what that means now — is it packaging, is it energy use, what are the milestones, the two-year, three-year marks? That’s how you know they’re serious.” Cruz Foam enclosures for a piece of consumer electronics. Suddenly, it seems, everyone from goods manufacturers to the people who produce plastic foam are looking for full-stack alternatives, even if there isn’t cost parity. They see the writing on the wall, and the idea of being caught unprepared when a (say) ban on EPS kicks them out of west coast markets is a scary one. Felts said that the company is in talks with several of the largest manufacturers of packaging foam, working with them on a deal that would see them actually making chitin-based materials and sharing the glory with Cruz Foam. The truth there, though, is that neither party has much choice. The manufacturers need to prepare for a greener future, and Cruz Foam doesn’t have even a fraction of the machines it would need to meet demand. Felts said they never intended to actually do the manufacturing. “You literally can’t. Buying this extruder, it took 6 months,” he said, and even that was a miracle. “Can you imagine scaling a business if it took you two years to get one machine? You have to use the infrastructure that’s in place.” A ribbon of foam is extruded. Whoever makes it, you’ll probably be seeing more of their products soon. The company showed me some prototypes and new verticals it was working on, though it can’t announce any of its new partners or customers until the contracts or agreements are finalized, or in some cases until the requisite patents are filed. Suffice it so say that the company is going well beyond simply replacing a foam insert here and a molded shape there. The products Cruz Foam makes are generally compostable in the most broadly accepted sense, that you could just throw them in your yard and they’ll be gone in a month or two (and might even give your plants a boost). But because it’s being mated with cardboard and other materials, the company continues to face the challenge of how to make these things mesh with existing municipal waste systems. Is it recyclable according to Sacramento’s definition of the word? What about yard waste — does it technically break the rule there, and does anyone care? “The government needs to define standards for a new gen of compostable products – you’ve got to make it a no-brainer for customers,” Felts said. At least even if it goes in the wrong bin, it still degrades gracefully. The $18 million funding round was led by “global problem-solving organization” Helena, with participation from One Small Planet, Regeneration.VC, At One Ventures, and SoundWaves. The money will go towards expanding operations as well as R&D. “Out biggest focus is commercial production and revenue generation, until next year,” he said. “We’re filing tons of patents. A lot of growing the operational footprint of this company; we’re moving to new HQ, now up to 30 people.” With Cruz Foam focusing on the creative and sales work and working with existing manufacturers to actually make the stuff, 2023 could be the year the company goes from niche to mainstream. Watch your doorstep for the trademark CF (or as I prefer to see it, interlocking crustacean claws) on or in your delivery.

Galen Robotics looks to assist ENT surgeons with new bot and $15M round • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Biotech & Health, Galen Robotics, Hardware, robotic surgery, Robotics & AINo Comments

Medical devices and robots have been making their way into operating rooms in an increasing number of procedures. Now a new robot is trying to forge its path in the OR and assist surgeons who don’t yet have that advantage. “There are surgeons out there that have really no robotic assistance at all,” said Bruce Lichorowic, CEO of Galen Robotics. “So you have surgeons out there that are doing everything still by hand, using their training to keep their tremor under control to keep themselves stable. Our goal is to see if we can assist them in these areas where there’s really no help today.” The company’s first robot aims to assist in soft tissue surgeries. Called Galen ES, it acts as a support for surgeons performing ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeries, particularly laryngeal cancer operations. Swappable instruments follow the surgeon’s hand movements but allow the user to take a break if needed. According to Lichorowic, the goal is to gain more clearances to help in other ENT, brain, spine, and cardiothoracic procedures. ZebethMedia Clip 10_13_22 v3.mov from David Saunders on Vimeo. The Galen ES fills up the space of a person and the company claims it takes no longer than four minutes to set up. While the device is in use, it tracks and records a surgeon’s movements to later be used for training purposes. The product is currently going under FDA review for clinical use approval, which the company said it hopes will come by Q1 or Q2 of 2023. Although the product is under review, a 2019 study showed surgeons who used the device performed better and had close to a 3 times boost in manual dexterity. The Da Vinci surgical system opened the market to adopting surgical robots. Subsequently, other robots have entered the market addressing general, cardiac and orthopedic surgery needs. According to Galen, its robot will be the first to address neurosurgery and spine surgeries, once clearance is earned. Image Credits: Galen Robotics Hospitals adopting the robot must commit to using the device in 200 cases and pay upwards of $1,500 per use. Though, if a hospital wants to flat-out buy the robot they can do so with a cool $350,000. Surgeons at Stanford, Harvard Medical School, UCSF, USC, and Johns Hopkins have expressed interest in the product according to Galen. The device was originally developed and tested at Johns Hopkins. Galen has garnered support in the form of a $15 million Series A round from Ambix Healthcare Partners. The company has also opened a second close for its Series A, hoping to raise an additional $5 million. ”We watched this team take an early surgical robotic prototype from Johns Hopkins University’s Robotics Lab, develop it into a potential game changer, and submit it to FDA, all during a pandemic,” said Arron Berez, managing director of Ambix Healthcare Partners, in a written statement. “Add to that the current state of supply chain issues, and economic uncertainty, and we’re very impressed with how this team was able to consistently execute and hit their milestones.” This round’s funds will be used to develop a surgeon training program and expand various teams within the company.

Apple earnings see iPhone revenues up, still short of forecast • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, earnings, Hardware, iPad, iPhoneNo Comments

Sometimes earnings leave you wondering how good is good enough. Take, for example, Apple’s Q4, which finds the iPhone maker beating Wall Street expectations overall, but still seeing an extended trading stock dip after iPhone sales were improved, but still managed to miss the mark. Revenue hit $90.15 billion for the quarter, edging out the $88.9 billion estimates and rising roughly 8% over this time last year. iPhone revenue, too, saw a healthy uptick of 9.6% on the strength of the new iPhone lineup, though the $42.63 figure fell short of Wall Street’s $43.21 project enough to see a dip in late trading. Mac revenues saw double-digit revenue gains for the quarter, at $11.51 billion. The ever-important Services sector, meanwhile, saw a (relatively) modest y-o-y bump to $19.19 billion – making it another category that just failed to miss the mark of $20.10 billion. iPads, which only recently saw a refresh, were down 13% from last year. The numbers, of course, arrive in the face of significant economic headwinds. In a release, CFO Luca Maestri notes, “Our record September quarter results continue to demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in spite of a challenging and volatile macroeconomic backdrop.” Tim Cook, meanwhile, used the opportunity to discuss environment concerns. In a separate interview with CNBC, however, Apple’s CEO addressed inflationary and other issues that stalled a potentially larger overall revenue growth for the behemoth. Cook expained, “We would have grown in double digits without the foreign exchange headwinds.” Specifically, the company was hurt by the US dollar’s strength. He added that the company has joined a number of other tech giants in slowing its overall pace of hiring, saying that Apple is instead doing so “deliberately.”