Apple's iPhone X sales continue to impress (The 3:59, Ep. 435)

The 359 is sponsored by USB technology. The USB implementors forum reminds consumers that USB IF logos are displayed on certified USB products. So the next time you're shopping for a reliable USB charger, cable, or device look for the logos. Get the whole story at enablingusb.org. [BLANK_AUDIO] Welcome to the 3:59. I'm Ben Fox Rubin. I'm Alfred Ng. Apple reported stronger iPhone sales in its latest quarter, but it seems the bigger news is the tech giant's transformation into a services company. Services revenue jumped 31% for the quarter as more people used Apple Pay, AppleCare, and iCloud. This could mean that Apple won't really care if you regularly upgrade your phone, because you'll be paying them anyways. I mean I think they should care if you regularly update your phone though, that's where all the security features come in. Yeah, okay, fine. [LAUGH] I think that they would wanna care about that. But yeah, I think most of the revenue coming from that was a bit of a shock to me, just because I thought most of it would come from its hardware. So most of it does come from its hardware, but this was the biggest growth area by far, other than other products. Which includes like the AirPods and the HomePods. Yeah, I was gonna ask. But that's a much, much smaller section. How's the HomePod doing? I mean, like they said, apparently Tim Cook was like very bullish on literally everything. But, as with other tech companies, he doesn't get into a lot od specifics, so that's a bit of an issue. One of the other things that we're really waiting to see is that they're expected to come out in September with three, count them, three, new iPhone Xs One, two, three And their average selling prices on their iPhones is up because the iPhone 10 is $999, the larger iPhone 10 that is expected to come out in September will be $100 more than that. So, just keep giving them your money. Yeah but I think that, originally when they first announced the price of the iPhone 10 I just thought, who is going to buy that? That's not gonna sell at all. And here I am, extremely wrong, because that is a big reason why their revenues have been soaring. Yeah I jumped ship and I switched to Samsung, but apparently I am an extreme outlier because everybody else just willingly handed over their money. Anyway, next up, Facebook said it took down a coordinated quote influence campaign ahead of the midterms Thirty-two accounts and pages were removed. Alfred, that doesn't really sound like a lot to me. I mean, it's not a lot when you consider that it's only these accounts, but if you think about how many other people follow these pages, Facebook had said that in total, 290,000 accounts followed at least one of these pages, which is That's a large amount of people. And then those 32 accounts were responsible for about 30 real life events that had taken place. Really? Where people showed up to and protested, or counter protested, when this was something that was not done genuinely, which is exactly the same playbook that the Internet Research Agency did, which was versus the Russian troll farm, Now that's the same exact play book that they had it was post this really device content whether or not it's not from the left or the right political view the whole idea is to sow chaos and have people People not trust the political system and just generally be angry with each other. That being said, even though it's the same playbook as what Russian trolls did, it's still unclear whether or not they were the same ones that were behind it. But it is clear that this managed to slip through even though Facebook implemented all these measures to basically stop that from happening. So they're Catching on the Facebook's streaks and kind of getting around it again and more of a cat-and-mouse game. Cat-and-mouse game continues. Last up, Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, unveiled new features today to help people limit their screen time on both apps. There's a dashboard that helps you track how much time you spent on either app And alerts that tell you if you've gone over your set time limit. Is this something that you think you would use? As an adult, no, but I think this is more for parents that want to manage their kids. I don't think you're right. No, I think that everybody. If I put this on myself, I can just turn it off. That's correct but I think that like people do need like a light nudge sometimes to say like, hey, you've had your face in your phone [UNKNOWN] I mean, I might be a different case just casue I dont use social media that much, like on my own anyway. MM-hm. So, I don't need an app to tell me not to use it. I just dont use it. But I can understand if somebody else who is weaker than me might not. Ouch. Feel that way. Well everybody remember to follow me on Instagram. Such sweet thirst from Ben Fox Ruben. If you want to read more about these stories check us out on Cnet. I'm Ben Fox Rueben. I'm [UNKNOWN] Thanks for listening.