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Following the 8-hour transfer which consumed almost every waking hour of Friday, quite literally, I was able to actually use the iPhone 16 Pro (Max) this past weekend. Sadly, my quick take is quite boring: it's an iPhone. I do very much appreciate the Camera Control button, but remembering it's there will take some getting used to. The slightly larger screen is pretty imperceptible unless held side-by-side with an older iPhone model. The phone does seem snappier, but that's hard to know if it's related to the new A18 Pro chip or just the fact that it's a new iPhone, without all the old iPhone cruft. Perhaps most interestingly, and obviously anecdotally, anyone who has asked me about the new phone has been far more interested in the color ('Desert Titanium') rather than anything else – including, yes, AI. Which makes sense because AI doesn't really yet exist on the device, despite basically every ad you see for the new iPhones suggesting that it does! While I do really like my 'DunePhone' color, the truth is that it's almost the opposite of the 'ZunePhone' brown/bronze color that was rumored earlier on. If anything, it's closer to a beige/yellow tint depending on the light. It's nice. But judging from social media reactions the real winner is the color palette of the iPhone 16 – the colorful non-Pro models. The 'Pink' and 'Ultramarine' in particular really pop. Boy, if there was ever low-hanging fruit to juice Pro model sales again... More thoughts soon.
Some Analysis...
Some Thoughts...💰 Apollo to Offer $5B Dollar Investment in Intel – Well, it's not Microsoft, but an investment from Apollo would certainly be a vote of confidence. And helpful if there's pressure to talk to Qualcomm, which has swooped in, clearly seeing a deal and opportunity. But it's not clear that $5B is enough money to change Intel's current dynamics all that much? [Bloomberg 🔒] 🏈 Netflix Co-CEO Says the Streamer Wants “Netflix-ify” the NFL – Greg Peters hit on quite a few topics in his chat, but beyond leaving the door slightly ajar to more sports coming to Netflix (obviously, eventually, when the ad model is fully working), he admitted that the company pushed into ads so quickly because they realized the pandemic had screwed up their numbers – as it did for so many – pulling forward would-be subscribers years in advance. In that light (and not surprisingly), rolling out ads to try to counter that challenge would seem to be as much a Wall Street play as anything. But now that they're in that business, they're clearly staying, and so he's clearly annoyed by Amazon's aggressive push which has flooded the market with inventory as they forced everyone into their ad tier – the opposite of what Netflix did. [THR] 💬 WhatsApp Dominates Meta AI Use – No surprise that people aren't using Meta AI like they use ChatGPT given where Meta has shoved it in an attempt to spur usage – everywhere they can. Also no surprise that a stand-alone app is coming (apparently morphing from the Meta View app for their smart glasses) to try to alter that. Also coming: the ability to talk to the service and for it to recognize images – table-stakes stuff now, at least in the non "open source" AI world. Sounds like we'll be hearing a lot more about all of this, this coming week at Meta's Connect event. [The Information 🔒] 🛍️ Perplexity in Talks with Top Brands on Ads Model – I'm fairly skeptical that "sponsored" questions or answers are going to work at scale here. The best part of using AI for search queries is getting one answer back. The likelihood that the best response is perfectly in line with something that can be injected in from an advertiser seems fairly small. The "suggested follow-ups" idea is better, but ideally that first response is perfect and a follow-up isn't needed (and perhaps why they're putting a CPM rather than a CPC model out there...). I suspect ads in such experiences may look more similar to how they do with content now – to the side or intermixed. Perhaps a company can sponsor certain types of queries and wrap the results in brand advertising. But that's a very different model than Google Search, of course. The real money will come with some actual innovation here. I would be curious to know how much these AI tools are being used for commerce-related searches though... [Financial Times 🔒] 🇧🇷 Elon Musk’s X Backs Down in Brazil – Ah yes, a "free speech absolutist" – unless that means losing millions of users and thus, revenue. Revenue that is desperately needed, when the network (and company) is flailing on a number of other fronts, of course. [NYT] ☢️ Microsoft Brings Three Mile Island Back Online to Meet AI Demand – I think this is great and important. And specifically bringing back this facility (though it's 'Unit 1' which was closed in 2019 – not the second unit, which is the one that actually melted down in 1979, and will remain closed) seems hugely symbolic in the sense that it's beyond time to move on from the fears of nuclear power. Still, it's sort of wild that it's the AI boom which is driving this change. I'm mildly upset that Microsoft doesn't get to rebrand the plant, as 'Crane Clean Energy Center' doesn't have the ring of 'Three Mile Island for Workgroups 3.11 with Copilot+ XP 2024 Edition'. [Financial Times 🔒]
Some Links...- A new Nintendo product appears in the FCC filings, but it's not the 'Switch 2'. It's some sort of "wireless device", perhaps a new accessory to squeeze the last bit of juice out of the seven and a half year old Switch before the 'Super Switch' – name is right there for the taking, Nintendo – arrives? [The Verge]
- While Micron's stock boomed with others riding the AI wave, it has since crashed back down as there's growing fear that demand for new PCs will be less robust than anticipated; the so-called 'AI PC' "boomcycle" has hit some early roadblocks... [WSJ 🔒]
- An Indian startup, Oyo, is buying Motel 6 – we're a long way from the "all-cash $6-a-night rate" that took the brand from 1960s California to a national chain that pretty much every American knows. [NYT]
- The other co-CEO of Netflix would like more streaming players to release their viewership data, which is obviously self-serving and easy to request when you're dominating streaming. [The Wrap]
- Matt Mullenweg doesn't pull any punches going after WP Engine (which, despite the name, is a separate service and company from WordPress itself) and their main investor, Silver Lake. And he doubled-down in his own blog post on the matter, calling the service a "cancer". Well, he did pull one punch: he used the word "dang". [TechCrunch]
- Also not holding back? A person who worked on Snap's Spectacles product, calling them "obviously bad" following the unveiling last week. Sour grapes or just hot takes? Regardless, at least Snap isn't trying to actually sell these to the public in such an early state – who would do that? [The Verge]
- Also, also not holding back? John Mulaney at Dreamforce, where he was paid a lot of money to apparently roast the audience. Reading them, the jokes seem pretty harsh, but I'm sure the devil is in the delivery. But also, it's hard to make jokes at the expense of tech today in our post-Silicon Valley world. But really, in a world where that other Mike Judge creation is slowly becoming reality. I just hope Mulaney made fun of the "Agentforce" name. [SF Standard]
Some Quotes..."I think we wasted a huge amount of time going down blind alleys, assuming that this technology was going to eliminate humanity and we're all going to be zapped by a robot with glowing red eyes."
-- Nick Clegg, Meta's President of Global Affairs, is of the opinion that the UK is wasting too much time worried about the downsides of AI and not enough time thinking about the possibilities. Of course a Meta exec is going to say that given their focus, and Meta execs in particular love to talk their own book constantly, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. And his words obviously carry more weight given his history as Britain’s deputy PM from 2010-2015. "I just got a couple of ideas for episodes just walking around the White House. Like, why didn’t we ever do this? Why didn’t we ever do that?"
-- Aaron Sorkin, speaking at The White House about his show about the White House. Notably, this is the first time he's truly sounded open to bringing The West Wing back! But as he notes, it would be so much harder to do in today's political environment.
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