There’s no way around it: iPad sales continue to slow. That’s not to say the numbers aren’t incredible and that many companies would kill for a product that performed at the level of Apple’s tablet, but the graph doesn’t lie.

iPad sales by quarter

Here’s what Tim Cook said about the device on yesterday’s earning call.

I am still bullish on iPad, with iOS 9 there’s some incredible productivity enhancements coming in with Split View and Slide Over and Picture in Picture, these things are incredible features. The enterprise business is picking up and more and more companies are either contracting for or writing apps themselves.

And I believe that the iPad consumer upgrade cycle will eventually occur, because as we look at the usage statistics on iPad, it remains unbelievably great. I mean, the next closest usage of the next competitor, we’re six times greater. And so these are extraordinary numbers. It’s not like people have forgotten iPad or anything, it’s a fantastic product.

(High five to Jason Snell for the transcript.)

Tim Cook doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean to say on earnings calls, and I believe him when he says he believes in the platform.

iOS 9’s laundry list of iPad-only features are exciting. My iPad is far from my main device, but things like Split View and Picture in Picture are going to make it a lot more useful for the way that I tend to work.

Of course, features don’t exist for themselves, and they aren’t created in a vacuum. As great as these features are, clearly, Apple’s trying to put their foot down on the gas when it comes to iPad sales. There’s nothing wrong with that being a motive; I think it’s smart of Apple to look at what’s happening in the market and make changes to their products accordingly.

The big question — Will this work? — will take some time to answer, but I’m optimistic. While I don’t think iOS 9 will return the iPad to early days, I bet the long-term upgrade cycle may begin to speed up. I know Apple’s counting on it.

As usual, Federico Viticci has the best coverage in town. The iPhone and Mac are up, but the iPad continues to slow down. Continuing with recent trends, Apple is still killing it in China, with the country making up 26% of the company’s revenue for the quarter — more than all of Europe.

David Kravets at Ars Technica:

A federal judge has ruled that Apple must defend a class-action trial, to begin in January, representing thousands of Apple store workers. The employees claim they had to spend as much as 20 minutes off the clock having their bags searched to combat employee theft—known as “shrinkage”—every time they left the premises.

A version of this policy reaches back to my time as an Apple retail employee from 2006-2008. Pre-iPhone, we weren’t allowed to bring in any portable Apple products, and cell phones had to remain locked in the break room. Once the iPhone was out, we had to still lock them up, but had to register our devices with the store. While it certainly was a pain to look for a manager before being able to leave, I don’t remember having them need to do cross-reference the serial numbers with our personal technology cards. As this entire process had to take place after clocking out, it could very often eat into a break.

I know why Apple does this, of course. At my store, we experienced shrinkage on a regular basis, once at the hands of an employee who slipped out numerous notebooks while faking transactions at the register. That said, there’s got to be a way to make things more efficient for retail employees who are just doing their jobs and want to grab lunch in a timely fashion.

You know what to do: fire this up now and call in sick to work, or send it to your read-it-later service.

Matt Birchler:

With this week’s update to the entire iPod lineup, many have been asking “who are iPod’s even for these days?” Well, I worked the last 3 years managing an electronics department for Target, and have sold a lot of Apple devices over that time. Since Apple doesn’t break down demographics for who is buying each device, I thought I would share my experience.

It should of course be noted that I am just one person and my experience may not be 100% accurate with its representation of the market. After doing some quick mental math, it’s fair to say 5,000-10,000 Apple devices moved through my department in my tenure. That’s quite enough to pick up some trends, so here we go.

The details Matt noticed are fascinating. This article is a good reminder that when talking about tech — or anything, really — we should explore views and positions other than our own.