Mobile

Because queso tater tots are the perfect food, this edition of Short Takes focuses on Steve Ballmer’s falling out with Bill Gates, Slack’s stupid Microsoft ad, Microsoft’s Edge failures, and so much more.

Apple sold fewer iPhones in the previous quarter than it did a year ago, the third quarterly decline in a row. But iPhone sales beat estimates, and the firm earned an astonishing $47 billion in revenues.

Microsoft has a patchy history with offline synchronization for its OneDrive platform. The new synchronization client in Windows 10 is a big improvement, and it was recently announced at Ignite that a preview of the client now provides support for synchronizing SharePoint libraries, which will eventually free organizations from the terrible legacy Groove software that’s currently required.

Microsoft Research says it’s made a major breakthrough in converting human speech to text. Recognising continuous, conversational speech is really hard to do accurately, but Redmond reports it can do it as well as actual people can. The researchers claim their technology makes far fewer mistakes. That’s a bold assertion, given the 40-odd-year history of…

Because my Fitbit is telling me to exact revenge, this edition of Short Takes focuses on Xbox One’s third month on top, an Amazon/VMWare partnership to take on Microsoft, an IBM/Google partnership to take on Intel, the iPhone isn’t more secure than Android, HP job cuts, more.

Microsoft HoloLens is now available in six more countries. Redmond wants more businesses and developers to get going with its augmented-reality Windows headset. As well as the U.S. and Canada, it’s now in four European countries and two down under. That’s where Microsoft is targeting developers next. You can get it in November, if you pre-order now…

Samsung can’t catch a break: After issuing its biggest-ever recall for the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, the firm this past weekend was forced to acknowledge that supposedly-fixed versions of the phone are unsafe as well. So Samsung has temporarily halted production of the device.

Because I’m still sick and I’m taking this entire town down with me, this edition of Short Takes focuses on the PC market nosedive, whether Microsoft should buy Fitbit, Samsung profits are exploding like its phones, Blackberry will try to license its mobile OS, and a lot more.

Because I already miss Atlanta, this edition of Short Takes focuses on Salesforce and Microsoft, Microsoft’s new AI-focused reorganization, Google’s new enterprise cloud push, Xbox strategy changes, China accuses Samsung of discrimination in Samsung Note 7 recall, and a ton of headline riffs.

Because I’m sick and have to fly again on Sunday, this edition of Short Takes focuses on a massive Microsoft stock buyback, a UK consumer watchdog that hates Windows 10, Microsoft goes green, Yahoo reveals massive hack, over half of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 users are idiots, and more.