Spyglass - Desert Power

Did you get your iPhone 16 pre-order in? I did with no real hiccups, though I'm always surprised that a) they need to take down the entire Apple Store for over an hour before hand and b) that they've never quite on time. It's 2024, we've been doing this for north of 15 years...

Anyway, iPhone secured. As noted yesterday, iPhone 16 Pro Max, 512GB, Desert Titanium. Why? "On Arrakis, we need to cultivate desert power," of course.

Generally, I was pretty underwhelmed by the entire Apple event on Monday – as it seems like many were. The event was just far too long. It needed an editor. And increasingly, I'm wondering if Apple itself couldn't benefit from the same.

The entire marketing around this particular iPhone is strange, given how much of the key touted functionality is going to roll-out in post-production, as it were. But that analogy doesn't even really work as post-production is still done before a release, at least. This is being done after release.

The "Camera Control" button at least seems cool. And potentially points to a more powerful future for Apple with regard to AI. Not necessarily reasoning like OpenAI's "Strawberry" release – sorry, "o1", but more like real world data input at scale. You know, the kind of stuff Intel should probably be thinking about powering. Maybe Microsoft could knock some sense into them?

Speaking of buttons and Apple...

Some Thoughts...

📱 Apple's Ads Showcasing iPhone 16 Pro With Apple Intelligence – The ads, starring Isabella Ramsey (Ellie in The Last of Us, but more importantly, Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones) are fine. In line with previous iPhone ads featuring actors. The weird thing here (as noted above) is they're showing off functionality which will not ship with the iPhone 16. Some of that will come (in beta form) in October. But there's also a video showing off the new version of Siri, which won't be available for months – perhaps well into next year for some of the functionality they're showing off. That seems problematic at best, and misleading at worst for someone looking to buy an iPhone 16 right now. [MacRumors]

🎶 Spotify is Testing a New Way to Keep Kids Songs Out of Your History – When I saw this headline, my immediate reaction was "YES! Finally." Sadly, this still sounds like an awfully convoluted way to solve for this problem which every modern parent likely faces. I don't want a managed account just as I didn't want a separate kids app. The problem is that in our age of connected devices, the kids are going to play wherever the kids are going to play, including in the family room with an Alexa device with music tied to your account. They're not going to log-out and sign in with their account. Or switch to their "managed" account. Same issue with shows/movies on Apple TV (and the like), by the way. The companies just need algorithms to automatically filter such usage from your history and importantly, recs. If only we were living in the ages of machine learning and artificial intelligence... [The Verge]

🗣️ Mark Zuckerberg’s 20-year Mistake – Yesterday, I linked to a more meta (not Meta) post about Zuckerberg's appearance on the Acquired podcast. Casey Newton dives into more of the details about what was actually said here. In many ways, this feels like the culmination of his blitz of appearances this year where he seemingly at least wants to convey how little fucks he's giving these days. It still all feels a bit too staged to me (I think I prefer him not on stage) – or worse – but regardless, there's no question that this is a high point for the Zuck brand, even if it means sort of distancing himself from the Meta one. That will change again, of course, as it always does. So hopefully he can enjoy the victory lap for a bit. Everything falls, even Rome. [Platformer]

Some Analysis...

Should Microsoft Ride in to Save Intel?

Apple’s old white knight can mount that steed again…

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

OpenAI Reasons ‘o1’ is a Better Name than ‘Strawberry’

They’re wrong, but there are other, more pressing product questions…

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

As An Aside...

• With Intel in trouble and nearing record lows, it has been entirely overlooked that IBM just hit an all-time high. That seems mildly crazy – all time? This is the OG tech company. Why now? AI, of course. To be clear, it's not exactly NIVIDIA, but IBM's market cap is now just under $200B – more than double Intel. Watson's revenge! [Bloomberg 🔒] 📈
  • Also booming? Oracle. Their market cap is rapidly approaching $500B, with the stock up 90% since the start of last year. Larry Ellison is on the verge of becoming the second wealthiest person in the world at $200B – yes, after years of the stock being depressed, he now owns 42% of the company (and soon he'll own Paramount). It pays to hoard NVIDIA chips, it seems. [Financial Times 🔒] 🍪
• Speaking of it paying to hoard NVIDIA chips – CoreWeave is talking about doing a share sale at $23B. [Bloomberg 🔒] 🤯
• Speaking of Oracle, they'd seemingly like you to believe that AMD is making actual inroads with their chips when it comes to AI workloads – at least in terms of inference... [The Information 🔒] 🤖
• Speaking of AI investing... it sounds like UAE-backed MGX is circling the OpenAI round as well – which makes sense given the money needed and the G42 ties. The latter may help with any government scrutiny in such a deal since the government helped sanction the Microsoft's involvement there. [The Information 🔒] 💰
  • Sounds like Tiger is in too. Makes sense, since they had been in previously, but clearly all the deep pockets are lining up. Can SoftBank be far behind? [The Information 🔒] 🐅
  • Also noted by Kate Clark and Cory Weinberg – taking control of the OpenAI $150B investment beat — the company is closing in on switching over to a "for profit" business, with the help of banker Michael Klein. That will be a big and hugely controversial move when it happens (as it clearly must at this point). 🤑
• Waymo and Uber are expanding their partnership with self-driving cars being able to be summoned via the app in Atlanta and Austin. Feels like a natural partnership (after years of battling), especially if Tesla is betting the company on going after both of them... [The Verge] 🚙
  • Speaking of, is this the Tesla Robotaxi doing laps around the Warner Bros lot (where an event in planned in a few weeks)? Is it camouflaged? Is it a Micro Machine? [Electrek] 🚕
• The Pac-12 is trying to rebuild itself after its self-immolation. They're targeting Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State to add to the two schools that remained: Washington State and Oregon State. Sort of interesting/fun to think they could rebuild and rebrand as the "State" conference or the like. They need to get to 8 schools to fully qualify as a conference again (before 2026), so I'm happily offering up Ohio State and Michigan State to help their efforts. #GoBlue [Yahoo Sports] 🏈
• What's worse, being regulated by the EU or being deemed too small to be regulated by the EU? Elon Musk will probably tell us soon enough on Tiny Xitter (more on this below)... [Bloomberg 🔒] 🐦
• Speaking of Elon, United Airlines is partnering with Starlink for in-flight internet service. This is great both for United and for everyone else as it's going to push all of the other airlines to upgrade too. As noted yesterday, I wrote my newsletter on an international flight – it was also pretty good, using Viasat, including over the ocean. [WSJ 🔒] ✈️

A Golden Oldie...

The iPad Nano Air Pro

Thoughts on Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad Event

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

And I Quote...

"It’s honestly not used by the vast majority of normal people around the world."

-- Nick Clegg, Meta's head of policy, talking at the Chatham House think tank in London about Xitter, the “tiny platform," as he put it.

Charted...

Here's the list of the most-watched programs TV broadcasts over the past four years. Only these wild debates managed to break the NFL's hold, per Kendall Baker from his great Yahoo Sports AM newsletter:

Fun that it sort of perfectly aligns where Biden-Trump beat out Division Rounds of the playoffs, but couldn't top the Championship games (though it apparently did top the 2023 NFC Championship). Whereas Harris-Trump beat out everything but the Super Bowls.