Edition 142 of my email newsletter went out on Monday.
If you’d like NN delivered to your inbox before it’s posted here, simply enter your email address at this link. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s brief, and few people unsubscribe.
Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes.
Here are ten items worth your time this week:
🍎 1) Apple sees strong quarter ahead as earnings top estimates [Axios] — The micro: iPhone revenue rose 20% compared to a year earlier and services sales rose 31%. The macro, from my colleague Tripp Mickle: The results show how Apple is “finding ways to grow amid a contracting global smartphone market that is roiling its rivals,” he writes. And:
The company’s services business reported record revenue of $9.55 billion, a 31% increase from a year earlier, strengthening the case that Apple is in the midst of a transformation from a device-driven business into one increasingly reliant on sales of subscriptions and software.
💯💯💯💯💯 2) … and Apple later marked a milestone: Apple’s Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion [WSJ] — It’s the first U.S. firm to surpass $1 trillion in market cap. Click through for an amazing graphic showing the stock’s rise.
🔍 3) This week also saw two interesting Google-China stories. First: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal [The Intercept] — The service “will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest,” Ryan Gallagher reports.
🇨🇳 4) And second: Google Developing News App for China [The Information] — The news app “will comply with the country’s strict censorship laws,” Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa report.
⁉️ 5) Bizarre story of the week: What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally [NY Times] — TLDR: It’s super weird and totally nonsensical. There’s more from Know Your Meme.
📚 6) Meet the YouTube Stars Turning Viewers Into Readers [New York Times] — Concepción de León speaks with “BookTubers,” young book fans who have become influencers on YouTube.
🥤 7) The Decline and Fall of Diet Coke and the Power Generation That Loved It [New Yorker] — “To an astonishing extent,” Nathan Heller writes, “the age of Diet Coke — its rise, its reign, its fall — maps onto a historical bracket that began with the launch of MTV and ended with the emergence of social media: the era of the power of the image in a mainstream burnished form.”
💥 8) Venezuela President Maduro survives ‘drone assassination attempt’ [BBC] — Nicolás Maduro was speaking at a gathering in Caracas when “Two drones loaded with explosives went off near the president’s stand, Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said,” the BBC reports. Meanwhile, Reuters’s Joseph Ax has some analysis:
Wherever the investigation leads, Maduro’s allegations raised the specter of unmanned aerial vehicles being used by militant groups or others to launch bombing, chemical or biological attacks, a tactic that has long worried security experts.
💔 9) Tech longread of the week: Growing Up Jobs [Vanity Fair] — Lisa Brennan-Jobs recounts her difficult relationship with her father, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
🌌 10) Mind-blowing video of the week: Stars orbiting the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way [YouTube] — “This time-lapse video from the NACO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile shows stars orbiting the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of the Milky Way over a period of nearly 20 years.”
⛰️ Honorable mention: Formation Wingsuit Terrain Flying at the Mettlehorn in Switzerland [YouTube] — Title says it all. Insane.
If you like this newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If you received this from a pal, you can sign up here.
👊 Fist bump from New Delhi
Newley