Welcome to the Tech Meme Right Home for Monday, August 7th, 2023 I'm Brian McCullough today.

In earnings last week, Apple was forced to admit softness in iPhone sales, but the big question is,

will the iPhone 15 be enough to turn things around?

A stable coin from PayPal, what the world being flooded with cheap AI produced content already means in the real world and a

review of the Samsung Galaxy Z-Flip 5. Here's what you missed today in the world of

Tech.

Wanted to pick up on something from Apple's earnings at the end of last week.

Apple acknowledged for the first time what the whole industry owned up to a long time ago,

i.e. that the U.S. smartphone market has been in decline for the last couple of

quarters. Now, that's going to be an issue because while this new iPhone release next month

should be time for a cycle upgrade will there be enough

new in the iPhone 15 to turn things around at least sales wise quoting Mark

German and Bloomberg the sales prospects of the new iPhone won't hinge on features alone.

Apple will have to work harder to coax shoppers into opening their wallets.

A key theme of its post-earnings conference call Thursday was the slowdown. Sales of the iPhone slid 2.4% to

39.7 billion dollars last quarter coming in just below Wall Street estimates. The device

has had earlier blips including a rough patch in China in early 2019, a COVID-related

launch delay in 2020 and supply chain problems in 2022, but the iPhone doesn't usually suffer

sales declines.

Apple blamed currency headwinds for hurting

results but also admitted that US shoppers aren't spending on its products the

way they used to. Sales in Apple's home country paled in comparison with China which

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