iOS 17 Getting Mood Tracker, AI Health Coach Next Year; Microsoft Beats Market Predictions; Google Revenues; Chrome Getting Universal Cam & Mic Toggles

More leaks about Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 which should be previewed at World Wide Developers Conference in June. Macrumors.com reports that the system will be getting several new health-related features, as well as a mood tracker. Oh, great…now your iPhone will probably get a lock screen color changing display like a mood ring! Joking aside, the Health app is getting ported to the iPad for the first time, which will be cool. You could get more metrics on your screen on the iPad than on the phone’s app. A journaling app is also coming, as previously reported. Interestingly, an AI based health coach is on the drawing board, but that looks like it will be out in 2024, not in the upcoming version of iOS. The elusive blood pressure monitoring and non-invasive blood glucose monitoring are still a ways away. 

Microsoft beat market expectations, hauling in $52.9 billion in their third quarter. The stock jumped 4% on the news. According to geekwire.com, Redmond had a 7% increase in revenue over last year. Continued growth in the cloud powered the gains. Gains are good, but 18 months ago, Microsoft had a 20% increase, so as they are looking good compared to some other tech companies, their huge gains are history for the time being. A lot of the easing is due to the worldwide slowdown in PC shipments…that caused a 28% decrease in Windows income for Microsoft. 

Alphabet announced earnings for first quarter, and revenues were up 3% from the same quarter a year ago, but lower than the final quarter of 2022. Cloud revenue was up, but YouTube revenue was down from $6.87 billion to $6.69 billion. Other revenues…that’s the Play Store, and non-ad YouTube revenues were up from $6.82 billion a year ago to $7.41 billion the first 3 months of 2023. 

With hybrid work, we are all still doing plenty of Zoom and Teams calls. Ever keep checking to make sure that mic is off, or need to turn off the cam? Chrome is riding to your rescue. Arstechnica.com reports that ChromeOS is getting universal mic and camera toggles, so you can avoid some of what we’ve all seen in memes and posts…half naked roommates or naked kids in the background, or the need to suddenly mute when commotion is going on at home. Not only are there new settings to turn off the mic and cam, but if an app tries to access either when you log in, a prompt will pop up and let you know the mic and or cam are on or off. It’s always good to affirmatively turn that cam on, not let the app do it the minute you log in.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.