Spyglass - Ushering In

It's good that Netflix has been re-thinking their film strategy – while it has long been clear that they can boost pretty much anything, the long-term effects of peddling middling movies was perhaps starting to show – but I'd bet that they also eventually go back on their long-standing aversion to movie theaters. It's a bit counterintuitive right now, with Apple and others pulling back, but it all feels like turbulence before we settle into a new model that works for film distribution. Movie theaters won't be king any more in this world, but they will be important. And as growth naturally slows for the streaming giant, as they run out of human beings to stream to, they'll need to re-think their strategy a bit. As they tend to do from time to time...

Netflix’s Next Backtrack: Movie Theaters

As growth naturally slows, Netflix needs to think bigger picture -- literally

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

I Think…

🍿 ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Producers Sue Elon Musk Over Robotaxis – It's almost as if Elon Musk saw what OpenAI tried to do with the GPT-4o launch evoking Her and decided to try to one-up it by evoking Blade Runner 2049. Honestly, I'm not sure how close either really got to each of those movies in their presentations (the Tesla event did look closer to I, Robot – including in name?), but the allegations that both Sam Altman and Elon Musk tried to reach out to the affiliated entities beforehand, and were rebuffed, isn't a great look. In this case, Alcon Entertainment's crown jewel is clearly the Blade Runner franchise, which they acquired in 2011 and are in the process of making a follow-up series, Blade Runner 2099, with Amazon. So yeah, get the popcorn out. [NYT]

📺 Disney No Longer Doing Signups and Payment Using App Store – This is nothing new for many companies, but Disney is not many companies as they've long had a special relationship with Apple, dating to Bob Iger's move to buy Steve Jobs' Pixar back in the day (thus making him Disney's largest shareholder) and Iger serving on Apple's board for yearly a decade until the streaming conflicts saw him resign in 2019. Still, the two sides have remained close, with Disney even working on content for the Vision Pro when few others are. And I've been hopeful Iger could repair the Epic relationship with Apple given Disney's large investment there. But at the end of the day, these are all businesses, and Disney clearly feels like Apple's cut is not worth it, a complaint for which they'll have to get in an increasingly long line. As MacRumors notes, this change may also impact the way Disney content is showcased on Apple TV. This will be an interesting new pressure point for Apple from a "friend". [MacRumors]

🤖 Anthropic’s New AI Model Can Control Your PC – While the company is saying the new version of 'Claude 3.5 Sonnet' bests other flagship models on various tasks such as coding and reasoning, the real marquee feature is this new PC-control. Others have tried various versions of these concepts, but Anthropic is trying to make this a full "agentic" feature of their models. The demo Anthropic shares offers a compelling glimpse of how it can work, though early real-world tests indicates that... it's early, and error-prone. The screenshot element of how this works will certainly raise some eyebrows amongst those who recall Microsoft's Recall feature which had to be recalled – a huge black eye for the company as it was a (maybe the) flagship AI feature of Windows which had to be retooled and is still not yet fully available. It also brings to mind Apple's "ferret" technology, which seems nowhere near ready for any of Apple's products given the current, simple state of their AI tools in the wild. [TechCrunch]

👂 Apple’s AirPods Hearing Health Features Are as Good as They Sound – This is Apple at their best. Using technology to give the masses functionality that can literally help them live better, healthier lives. Also, adding pretty great functionality after-the-fact via a software update. Good overview by Chris Welch of the new hearing health features coming to the AirPods Pro 2 via iOS 18.1 due out next week (it also carries the first build of Apple Intelligence, so Apple clearly wanted to give this feature its own early spotlight). My wife makes fun of me, but I almost always wear my AirPods Pro when handling our infant. No, I'm not ignoring her, I'm trying to protect my ears (which my Apple Watch constantly tells me I need to do due to baby screams!). Okay, sometimes I'm listening to podcasts too. [Verge]

I Link...

• A massive amount of lithium reserves may have just been found in Arkansas. How much? "There might be five million to 19 million tons of lithium — more than enough to meet all of the world’s demand for the metal..." Which would, of course, alter the battery industry. AI helped with the find, naturally. [NYT]
• In other power news, while most modern solar panels operate with efficiency rates of 22-24% (with a max efficiency around 29%, and likely closer to 26% in production), perovskites, a family of crystalline materials, could boost that true operational rate above 30% (with the max efficiency just over 40%). [Economist 🔒]
• While it seems like some of the more simple, casual games are yielding results for Netflix in their bid to diversify beyond video streaming, the AAA game studio project "Blue" has been shut down before it even launched a game. [Game File]
• Epic has officially opened their 'Fab' marketplace for digital assets. Goods sold will keep 88% of revenue (same as the split on their games store) – and support for Roblox and Minecraft assets are still coming, as they continue to hope that they can unify the Metaverse, it seems... [Verge]
• It's not just that Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a success, "in 60% of the Ray-Ban stores in Europe, in EMEA, Ray-Ban Meta is the best-seller in those stores." That's pretty wild, wonder if Apple thinks this market is interesting enough yet to be "not first, but best"? Also, I had been calling them "Meta Ray-Ban" glasses, but apparently it really is the other way around, which makes sense! Great um, foresight in this partnership by Meta. [UploadVR]

I Quote...

"I’ve always viewed having to sit in a certain place in your living room as really constrained. It’s a lot more pleasant way to watch something than to sit like a statue in front of a TV."

-- Tim Cook, when asked how he uses the Vision Pro in Ben Cohen's WSJ profile.

I mean... what?! Sitting on your couch in your living room is more "constrained" than wearing a bulky, heavy pair of face goggles that make it impossible for your family and friends to enjoy what you're watching? And I guess you could sit like "a statue" while watching TV, but I'd also guess you're far more likely to sit like that while say, wearing said bulky, heavy pair of face goggles!

Look, I really like the Vision Pro as a content consumption device. And I get that Apple is feeling a bit self-conscious about the product. But this is just a ridiculous answer. One I imagine Cook would like to have back.

I Spy...

I watched Alien: Romulus the other night. It was solid. I was a bit annoyed when the franchise broke away from the Prometheus timeline, but this one has some interesting overlap in bridging the worlds and throwing back to OG Alien... Speaking of, while I didn't watch it on VHS, this is very real and amazing...