Spyglass - Fourth Quarter

The countdown clock is officially ticking for Amazon – with the new Kindles out the door, can they get the new Alexa ready to roll this month, or even this year? Presumably, this Kindle event was a warm up for the main event, as it were. But we're running short on weeks left in the year and a we're all staring down the barrel of complete chaos in a couple weeks in the form of a presidential election. That play clock is winding down...

Is ‘Remarkable Alexa’ Ready for a Prime Time Debut?

Does the “romantic” Kindle event offer a cupcake clue?

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

Some Thoughts...

🅾️ Meta Criticised for Calling its AI models ‘Open-Source’ – The calls are growing louder for Meta to back away from using the term "open source" with regard to their Llama models and now the Open Source Initiative clearly won't be supporting their usage of the term. While Meta is arguing the definition needs to be more malleable given the technology environment, it does feel like using the term "Open-Weight" would be more appropriate here. But that would undercut Meta's marketing advantage. I think usage – adoption does seem great! – should be enough? Easiest prediction in the world: at some point there will be major backlash against a decidedly non-"open" move Meta makes. [FT 🔒]

🔋 Apple Secretly Worked with BYD on Long-Range EV Battery – When you spend a decade working on something, even if it doesn't ultimately ship, the silver-lining is that there's going to be technology that sprung from the effort to use elsewhere. As Gabrielle Coppola and Mark Gurman note, the Apple Car project likely helped with elements of Apple Intelligence, the Vision Pro, and future robotic initiatives. But it sure sounds like it also helped BYD in terms of batteries. And while that may not directly help Apple, it certainly doesn't help Elon Musk, with BYD now the most formidable Tesla competitor, and Apple is likely just fine with that. [Bloomberg 🔒]

🪕 Bon Iver is Searching for the Truth – A nice, long interview with Justin Vernon ahead of the release of Bon Iver's new EP, Sable – his first new (solo) music in five years. A few elements he keeps reiterating are that songs are more important than whomever is singing them, which, of course, is undoubtedly part of why he records under a nom de plume. This also gives the sense that he might be done with touring to support his music. Sable will be out tomorrow, but one track, "Speyside" – which is great – is streaming now. Perhaps the piece resonated with me as he talks a lot about being 43 years old – an age I'm on the cusp of turning in a couple weeks... [New Yorker 🔒]

✈️ Uber Explored Takeover bid for Expedia – While it sounds like these talks are very early, such a deal would obviously be a massive one for Uber – basically an order of magnitude larger than any deal the company has done to date. Of course, they're also in a much stronger position now to do such a deal, as a profitable $175B company. Buying something like Expedia would certainly help in the push to be the one-app-to-rule-them-all when it comes to travel and logistics. One has to wonder if this would be the best deal for Uber though or simply the most obvious/convenient one given Dara Khosrowshahi's previous role atop that company for a dozen years. Interesting idea though! [FT 🔒]

🇪🇺 Musk’s Empire Risks Being Targeted by EU for Potential X Fines – The EC does a lot of ridiculous things when it comes to American technology companies, we've been over this – a lot. But now we've reached a new level of absurdity. They're considering fining Xitter based not off of the revenue it makes in the region, or even the world (as is their comical general rule), but rather based off of revenue of all of the companies Elon Musk controls (read: not including Tesla as it's public and he doesn't have a controlling stake). Add into the confusing mix that this for violations of the DSA, not the DMA, which the bloc just ruled that Xitter was too small and irrelevant to fall under, and you get a shit stew. But at least it will be amusing to watch Musk fight this with what I'm sure will be the actually appropriate level of ridiculousness in defense! [Bloomberg 🔒]

A Golden Oldie...

Being Too Early Is Worse Than Being Late

Amazon owned the AI assistant space -- until the space changed

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

Some Links...

• I'm assuming they intentionally are going out of their way to speak in the most obtuse ways possible about what they're doing, but man, these canned statements about SynthBee, the new startup by Magic Leap creator Ronny Abovitz are next level obfuscation. Or maybe they just don't know yet? Though you'd hope so with a $20M seed round... [VentureBeat]
• Robinhood's new, full-on software suite (still web-based), 'Legends', certainly looks pretty nice compared to what the market is used to as they jockey for day-traders. They're also undercutting fees on both futures and index options. [Reuters]
• As expected, Google is now pushing back harder against the changes to the Play Store required in the Epic ruling, but in particular the fast turnaround time given to implement some of the changes – asking for an emergency stay. Regardless of your stance on the changes, they probably shouldn't have to rush them out the door in a few weeks? [Verge]
• Oddly, it seems that Apple is using a binned version of the A17 Pro chip in the new iPad mini, specifically giving it access to one less GPU core than what the iPhones 15 Pro got... This seems to showcase that the chips weren't just "leftovers" from last year's iPhones (or that they had to be modified) and perhaps it was about ensuring better battery life? (No idea, just a guess – it is pretty weird.) [9to5Mac]
• Apple Pay turns 10 – still no Walmart, but it's basically everywhere else. I use it every day, multiple times a day. What a huge strategic win for Apple early on in the Services narrative. That wasn't always obvious! [MacRumors]
• With the release of the new Kindles yesterday and no mention of the high-end Oasis version (the one I've used the past many years), I assumed it was no more. Assumption: correct. Sadly, this means no more Kindles with physical buttons to turn pages, guess we'll have to do that via touch, sort of like the old days. [Verge]
• Comcast has long been working on a new, massive theme park in Florida to combat Disney. The fact that it's called 'Universal Epic Universe' is just ridiculous. But it's sort of an everything-but-Disney catch-all ranging from Harry Potter (which Comcast doesn't own) to Nintendo (which Comcast doesn't own) to How to Train Your Dragon (which I guess they own via Dreamworks, but was originally distributed by Paramount). It opens in May. [NYT]
• It's pretty strange that a C-suite exec – Chief People Officer Carol Surface – is leaving Apple after less than two years when many have been there for over 20! Apple has never been great about bringing in outsiders in senior roles which likely speaks to the culture in both good and bad ways [Bloomberg 🔒]

And I Quote...

“Maybe the most romantic thing about this product is you can put it in your pocket.”

-- Panos Panay, Amazon's new-ish head of hardware, feeling in the mood for love with the new Kindles. He better be ready to spread the love to Alexa too soon...