1) The Pressure Is On for Apple

The next iPhone better have some good features. Another quarter of falling iPhone sales has underscored the need for Apple to come out with blockbuster reasons to upgrade to the next generation of its flagship product, Bloomberg’s Alex Webb reports. “We’re seeing what we believe to be a pause in purchases of iPhone,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said during a conference call with analysts. He said he thought people were holding off because of reports of what the next iPhone would bring. Speaking of which, we’re expecting an overhaul that includes an all-screen front. At the same time, Microsoft is coming out with a $999 Surface Laptop, which has two more hours of battery life than Apple’s MacBook Air.

2) Adidas Is Outpacing Nike in North America

It took a while, but Adidas is getting its groove back in the U.S. The German company posted a 31 percent increase in sales in North America in the first quarter, compared with 3 percent growth for Nike. That’s thanks to sneakers you’d wear anywhere, though more likely on your walk to the gym than on the treadmill itself, such as the Stan Smith and Superstar lines. The retro appeal of the shoes, which were popular in the ’70s and ’80s, has helped Adidas capture roughly 11 percent of the U.S. athletic footwear market, according to Deutsche Bank, compared with Nike’s 55 percent, Bloomberg’s Richard Weiss reports. 

3) Donald Trump May Break Up the Big Banks

President Donald Trump had many Americans brushing up on their Depression-era regulatory terms this week when he told Bloomberg he was actively looking at breaking up the big banks. “There’s some people that want to go back to the old system, right?” he said in the Oval Office. “So we’re going to look at that.” On the campaign trail, he had talked about bringing back a version of the 1933 Glass-Steagall law that separated banks that took deposits and made loans from finance companies that traded in riskier markets and trafficked in more-complicated financial products. Bank shares dipped but recovered.

4) The U.S. Car Market Has Peaked

What’s going on in the U.S. auto market? Sales fell in each of the first three months of the year, and the industry is on pace for an annual decline for the first time since 2009. It may be because the average price of a new car has risen 2 percent over the past year, according to TrueCar Inc. “Honestly, the average American doesn’t come into a new-car dealership,” said Steven Szakaly, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association. “We’re only selling new cars to about 5 percent of the U.S. population.” Consider the $50,000 minivan, Bloomberg’s Jamie Butters and Keith Naughton write: The Chrysler Pacifica has touch screens, automated parallel parking, and other features but isn’t affordable for the average American family.

5) Don’t Try to Book a Table Online for Dinner at 7 p.m.
If you can’t find a reservation available online at 7 p.m., it’s not necessarily because the restaurant is booked up. Bloomberg’s Peter Elliot has uncovered a reason those reservation slots are so often unavailable. He spoke with Nick Kokonas, who created Tock, a competitor to booking service OpenTable. Kokonas says restaurants always set aside tables for their best customers or because they know they can fill them in busy cities with walk-ins. Online services can charge the restaurants what is essentially a commission on those reservations, he says. Read more about the restaurant industry’s dirty little secrets.