iPhone 17 leads Apple earnings record, new MacBooks near, and a mysterious $2B acquisition

Benjamin and Chance speculate on Apple’s mysterious acquisition of Q.ai, the company’s second biggest acquisition ever. The iPhone 17 is a veritable smash hit, leading to an all-time quarterly earnings record. And Apple redesigns the order flow for buying a new Mac, with new MacBooks just around the corner.

And in Happy Hour Plus, Benjamin realizes he has some overdue spring-cleaning to do on his Desktop folder.

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Hosts

Chance Miller

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• @ChanceHMiller on Threads (threads.net/@ChanceHMiller)

Benjamin Mayo

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• spacey.space/@bzamayo@mastodon.social

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Links

• Apple acquires secretive Q․ai startup for $2 billion (9to5mac.com/2026/01/29/apple-acquires-secretiv…)

• Apple reports record-breaking Q1 2026 earnings (9to5mac.com/2026/01/29/apple-reports-record-br…)

• Apple revamps how you buy a Mac online (9to5mac.com/2026/01/31/apple-revamps-how-you-b…)

• New MacBook Pro release date: Here's when M5 Pro and M5 Max might debut (9to5mac.com/2026/02/01/apple-m5-pro-m5-max-mac…)

• Latest macOS 26.3 beta adds to signs that new Macs are imminent (9to5mac.com/2026/02/04/latest-macos-26-3-beta-…)

• Will the Studio Display 2 have this key upgrade? (9to5mac.com/2026/02/04/will-the-studio-display…)

• Studio Display refresh looms with three key upgrades (9to5mac.com/2026/02/01/studio-display-refresh-…)

• Apple announces agentic coding in Xcode with Claude Agent and Codex integration (9to5mac.com/2026/02/03/apple-announces-agentic…)

• CarPlay Ultra coming to at least one new car later this year, per report (9to5mac.com/2026/02/01/carplay-ultra-coming-to…)

• Tesla still working on CarPlay support, here's what we know (9to5mac.com/2026/02/02/tesla-still-working-on-…)