Yesterday saw the announcement of Apple Q3 2022 earnings. While it was technically a record quarter, the analysts were right that this would be the point at which Apple’s pandemic-boosted growth would tail off.

Mac revenue was down 10% year-on-year, iPad dropped 2%, and wearables (Apple Watch and AirPods) fell 8%. Services continued to rise, of course, but the only good news on the hardware side was the iPhone …

iPhone revenue increased by 3%, and although a small amount, it was enough to show slight growth over the same quarter in 2021. iPhones obviously sell in much larger volumes than other Apple products, so it was enough to see 2% revenue growth overall.

That the quarter was more-or-less flat isn’t really bad news for Apple: It has enjoyed huge increases in demand during the pandemic, as people working and studying from home brought new hardware. So even 2% growth from that starting point is impressive, especially when the company could have made billions more without disruption to its supply chain.

Jason Snell has done his usual fantastic job of helping us visualize Apple Q3 2022 results, through a comprehensive set of colorful charts. Here’s Apple revenue from 2018 to date:

A better way to understand what’s been going on during the pandemic is to look at the increase in revenue per quarter.

We can see here that while Apple has previously enjoyed periods of significant year-on-year growth, and product launches of course have quarterly impacts – it was during 2021 that we saw huge increases – of up to 54%. That impact has been gradually tailing off, down to the 2% growth seen last quarter.

Most hardware revenue was down year-on-year, with Mac the hardest hit.

It was the 3% increase in iPhone revenue that enabled Apple to technically declare a record quarter, whispering the 2% part.

And here’s a good look at the bottom line:

Check out the full set of Apple Q3 2022 charts over at Six Colors.