Intelligence by Apple š§
Hello to all the new subscribers coming in through the barrage of WWDC thoughts and analysis. I'll try to distill it all below, but everything both before and after Monday's keynote is captured on this page as well.
The main things I take away from WWDC I broke down in four columns this week ā two free, two paid. First and foremost, the attempt to pivot the narrative from "AI" ā a phrase Apple would only utter to quip against it ā and "Artificial Intelligence" ā something all employees are clearly being told not to use anymore ā is very, very Apple. Remember, there is no "VR" or "XR", it's "Spatial Computing". But I think their attempt to reframe this narrative is smart. Because they're not even attempting to win an arms race here (which, to be clear, they likely could not win, at least not anytime soon). They're trying to come up with ways that people will actually use the technology. Products, not just performance.
All that said, I remain pretty skeptical of what Apple can and will do with Siri here. Simply because of well, history. The technology underneath may be different, but we've been made promise after promise ā over more than a decade ā before. And the fact that we're months ā if not a full year ā away from some of what was showcased just makes it hard to know much of anything right now. Clearly, Apple is talking about a lot of this outside of their comfort zone. But they also didn't have much of a choice.
And that choice appears to have paid off, quite literally. After an initially muted response from Wall Street, Apple's stock came roaring back to life this week, overtaking Microsoft to become the most valuable company in the world once again. There's a three-way race going on right now in real-time between those two and AIDIVN ā sorry, NVIDIA (I can't be the first person to do that, right? Right?!). May the best AI narrative win.
Microsoft's seems... in some trouble all of a sudden! The new "Recall" feature being baked into Windows was being touted as the crown jewel of "Copilot+ PCs". Now it seems more like a cursed stone. Recall, you'll recall, was recalled. And that plus Apple's smart positioning around user data and security has me thinking Microsoft may have to pivot their AI strategy already to get in line with what Apple is doing. Interestingly, they might do that by running Apple's playbook in reverse. And it's not yet clear who will end up more mad at whom: Microsoft or OpenAI?
One more thing: after a number of requests, I'm trying to denote where I'm linking to posts that are behind a paywall with (š°). This is subject to change, just trying to see how it looks for now.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Keep it coming.
WWDCAI
The "AI" stands for "Apple Intelligence" because of course it does... Here are some posts I wrote post-WWDC keynote (more leading up to the event here):
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āļø The Inner Ring āļø
The following are the columns sent to paid Spyglass subscribers this week ā sign up here for full access and future emails...
M.G. Siegler
With 'Apple Intelligence', the company focused what you can actually do with AI...
M.G. Siegler
With security concerns lingering, Microsoft may have to pivot their AI strategy...
Quotable...
"The stores require a maniacal focus on the customer experience, through the eyes of a merchant. The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores."
-- Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on how you turn around the sales slump at the coffee chain. It's the same basic story (and general idea for how to fix it from Schultz) that happens every few years. Might I suggest looking to what James Daunt is doing with Barnes & Noble (and Waterstones before that)?
Some Thoughts On...
š§ Microsoft recalls that Recall should be opt-in...
š ...and then recalls Recall entirely ā a Total Recall, if you will
š¤ How OpenAI's partnership with Apple could have worked
š How Paramount's deal with Skydance could have worked
Quickly...
- Yahoo has resurrected the news app Artifact after the surprise purchase in April. So far, it looks good ā it's obviously very similar to Artifact but more purple. Impressive how quickly they shipped it.
- Euro 2024 kicks off tonight, does the outcome carry any weight on upcoming elections (š°)? Probably not, but fun to think about...
- I love that people once tried to pretend that perhaps the NBA logo wasn't based on Jerry West ā of course it was, which everyone basically admits now. Fun fact: it was also created by the same person, Alan Siegel, who created the MLB logo. RIP, "Typical Jerry".
- How are things going over at Xitter? Still a pure chaotic mess, thanks for asking.
- Tokyo Vice has been cancelled on Max, which is awful news as that show is great. I'm not quite done yet with season 2, so I may have to prolong it indefinitely... But there's still some hope...
- BeReal, the focus of a previous newsletter, ended up being acquired by another app developer (š°), which is both not surprising, but too bad. (Also the actual price is likely being obfuscated by the headline number.)
- The most clear sign yet that Microsoft is working on a handheld Xbox came from the head of that product, Phil Spencer, who basically said as much, as the throwing ideas out there to see what might work continues...
- Absolutely and completely buried under AI news at WWDC, the visionOS 2 updates look pretty nice ā probably what visionOS 1 should have been (š°)...
- TNT may be losing the NBA, but they're hustling to lock up any and every other sport, it seems. Big East basketball and the French Open are the latest two. To stay in that new sports bundle they probably need, you know, sports. And it feels like CBS (and thus, the NFL) are back off the table with the Paramount/Skydance collapse.
- A prediction that AGI will be here by 2027. I'll take the over (š°).
- Then again, Civilization 7 is launching in 2025, which may bring machines closer to AGI on pure gameplay volume...
- In hindsight, the person Netflix paid to create a big budget sci-fi show, but instead of delivering episodes, delivered claims he discovered the secret to how COVID-19 was transmitted as well as a way to predict earthquakes and lightning strikes, was probably peak streaming.
More Missives...
M.G. Siegler
The games have gone sinister...
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The end of Paramount/Skydance -- for now...
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The first (of many?) movie theaters to be owned by movie studios (again)...
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Episode 3 of 'The Acolyte' was a trainwreck...
Dune Two Things...
Ethan Robinson upgraded to the new iOS 18 beta (apps where ever you want! with tinting as ugly as you want!) and made a lovely looking Dune-related homescreen. Then in walked Kory Westerhold...
