In partnership with
Greetings! Your latest quick tech update is here:
☀️ On this day: On August 20, 1977, NASA launched Voyager 2 from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan IIIE-Centaur, sending it up 16 days before its faster twin Voyager 1. It is still the only spacecraft to have flown past Uranus and Neptune, and it discovered 10 new moons and two new rings at Uranus alone. It turns 49 today, sits more than 13.2 billion miles from Earth, and JPL engineers just shut down selected devices in a power saving maneuver they nicknamed the "Big Bang" to keep its last three instruments running.
What’s happening:
📈 Anthropic beat OpenAI on quarterly revenue for the first time
🎙️ Meta releases a Mac app for Meta AI
🎓 Google gives students a free year of AI Pro
📱 Base iPhone 18 won’t be coming this year
🚁 Amazon expands drone delivery to nearly 500 US towns
+ 📊 Daily poll and results
+ 📈 Trending tools and resources
Presented by Shortform
Turn Great Books Into Better Habits.
The best ideas from the best books, distilled into practical insights you can actually use.
Go deeper on ideas like:
Atomic Habits: Build better habits with small, consistent changes.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Develop principles for a more effective life.
The Meaning of Your Life: Explore what actually makes life meaningful.
With Shortform, you get the key ideas, arguments, and insights from thousands of nonfiction books, all in one place.
Why Shortform?
Bite-sized guides you can finish in minutes
Key ideas explained clearly and in context
Practical takeaways you can put into action
New books and ideas to explore every day
Hand-picked news:
📈 Anthropic beat OpenAI on quarterly revenue ↗️LINK
Anthropic posted roughly $11.6 billion in revenue for the quarter ending June, more than doubling its $4.73 billion first quarter, while OpenAI reported $6.7 billion, up 18% from $5.7 billion.
The Wall Street Journal credits Claude Code's pull with developers as ChatGPT growth slows. Anthropic reported $559 million in adjusted operating income, while OpenAI's operating loss widened to $12.3 billion.
That profit figure carries an asterisk. Anthropic excludes stock based compensation from it and has not explained the math, a detail investors will scrutinize once its IPO prospectus goes public.
🎙️ Meta releases a Mac app with voice dictation ↗️LINK
Meta launched a beta Meta AI app for Mac on August 19, adding system-wide dictation powered by its Muse Spark model plus screen sharing that answers questions about your current window.
The app targets businesses and creators, connecting Instagram, Facebook, Meta ad campaigns and Google Workspace so merchants can pull campaign analytics and generate decks. Google Workspace access requires a professional Facebook or Instagram account.
Zuckerberg called enterprise agents a big opportunity on Meta's Q2 2026 earnings call, though this app only reads the window you share. It watches your work without touching it.
🎓 Google gives students a free year of AI Pro ↗️LINK
Google is giving eligible US college students a free year of AI Pro, normally $19.99 a month. The plan includes 4x Gemini usage limits, Gemini Spark, 5TB of storage and Google Health Premium.
Students outside the US get a year of the cheaper AI Plus tier across 140+ markets. Google is running the promo through December 31 and pairing it with new study tools in Gemini.
Both plans auto-renew at full price once the year ends, which makes this cheap customer acquisition. Google is betting students who fill 5TB of storage will not want to move it.
📱 Base iPhone 18 won’t be coming this year ↗️LINK
Apple will skip the base iPhone 18 at next month's event, per multiple reports. Only the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max and the foldable iPhone Ultra arrive this fall, with Bloomberg pointing to September 9.
Apple supplier Pegatron told investors on its Q2 call that the cheaper models ship in Q1 2027. A global memory shortage is squeezing supply, and Apple is feeding chips to Pro models first.
Apple last split an iPhone lineup across two windows in 2017 with the iPhone 8 and X. Budget buyers now wait six extra months while Apple sells only its priciest phones over the holidays.
🚁 Amazon expands Air drone delivery ↗️LINK
Amazon plans to reach nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of 2026, a sixfold jump from 11 drone sites across seven states, with Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta and Boise next.
Drones carry items under 5 pounds that fit a large shoebox. Prime members pay nothing on orders above $50, $2.99 below that, and non-members pay $4.99. Walmart and Wing are scaling too.
That 500 counts every town inside a hub's 175 square mile circle, not 500 new hubs. Amazon also notes most orders land closer to 60 minutes than 30.
Today’s Poll:
Which one do you use the most?
Vote and find out about the result tomorrow.
Yesterday’s Poll Result:
Do you trust Claude to send emails on your behalf?
A) Yes - 16%
B) No - 84% 🏆
Reader’s opinion:
“Given that I'm getting to approve what it sends, I guess I'd be happy to use it. After all, we're using Claude Code in our local machines, where it can run commands in our terminal. Well, that's just my opinion, and I'm no way an AI expert!”
From our partner
Learn how to code faster with AI in 5 mins a day
You're spending 40 hours a week writing code that AI could do in 10.
While you're grinding through pull requests, 200k+ engineers at OpenAI, Google & Meta are using AI to ship faster.
How?
The Code newsletter teaches them exactly which AI tools to use and how to use them.
Here's what you get:
AI coding techniques used by top engineers at top companies in just 5 mins a day
Tools and workflows that cut your coding time in half
Tech insights that keep you 6 months ahead
Sign up and get access to the Ultimate Claude code guide to ship 5X faster.
AI for Managers by Microsoft (free course): In this learning path, managers at all levels of the organization will learn practical ways to enhance their effectiveness with generative AI.
Meco (free app): Meco is a distraction-free space for reading and discovering newsletters, separate from the inbox. Add your newsletters in seconds and liberate your inbox today!
Gamma: Create unlimited presentations, websites, and more in seconds. Everything you need to quickly create and refine content with AI.
Granola: AI notepad that turns your messy meeting notes into clean, structured summaries.
Better Pic: Get Studio Quality AI professional headshots, without a photographer or a photoshoot.
