Signal: iPhone Unveil Week 📧
Happy iPhone Unveil Week to those who celebrate. While it seems like pretty much everything is known about the iPhone 17 models, I'm personally more excited about the potential for the AirPods Pro 3 – mainly because my AirPods 2 are now twos years old (I bought the updated USB-C version when that came out a year after the original to cut down on cables required to bring with me) and can barely hold a charge after all the overuse. There's a lot below.
I Wrote...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
A Few Thoughts...
📲 Apple's 'iPhone Air' Gamble – I've talked about this before, but I do wonder if the 'Air' strategy isn't sort of a risky one for Apple. While the device will undoubtedly have initial sex appeal because of how svelte it is compared to other iPhones – if you close your eyes, you can probably already see Apple's massive marketing push here, ideally not featuring crushing creativity to death – it will likely be in a strange specs/price no man's land. It will neither be the cheapest nor the fastest iPhone. And while, as Gurman notes, the same was true with the MacBook Air when it launched, the iPhone could play out differently because the portability jump won't be nearly as pronounced – at least not enough to overcome the biggest trade off which matters far more in phones: battery life. And yes, Apple may have a solution of sorts in the form of "there's a battery pack for that", what's the point at that point? Of course, the MacBook Air didn't really make the leap until it was refined to be cheaper and faster, so maybe that's the bet here too. And it almost served as more of a forcing function to push the state-of-the-art forward. But Samsung and others already have super-slim phones. Personally, I'd much prefer more battery life, even if it meant an iPhone thicker than it is right now (as is rumored with iPhone 17 Pro) without question. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🧠 OpenAI's Behavioral Reorg – Making the 'Model Behavior' team a part of the 'Post Training' team seems like a bigger deal than just a management reorg. It's an acknowledgement that AI "personality" is now a crucial part of ChatGPT – which everyone, including OpenAI itself, learned in a loud manner during the GPT-5 backlash. But it undoubtedly goes far beyond that too given all the sad and bad situations unfolding on seemingly a daily basis with regard to people losing their lives in ways that are at the very least tangentially tied to such chats. What perhaps started as a fun part of ChatGPT is now decidedly more serious... At the same time, the former leader of that group starting a new "lab" within OpenAI to focus on "inventing and prototyping new interfaces for how people collaborate with AI" also seems important. Especially as new gadgets arise... If ChatGPT itself was sort of stumbled into, what else might they find with the technology now leaps and bounds beyond those early days? [TechCrunch]
Some Notes...
- Speaking of the tragedies being linked to chatbots, the AGs of California and Delaware, who hold the PBC fate of OpenAI in their hands, make it pretty clear that these situations may be altering their thinking... [FT 🔒]
- 21st Amendment, a craft brewery that anyone who has spent any time in San Francisco in the past 25 years undoubtedly knows, has abruptly shut down. It sadly sounds like a debt issue, and they're looking for buyers of the brand [SFist]
- I can't tell you how many meetings I did in their SoMa tap room in my years in the city, which opened alongside the still-excellent waterfront ballpark for the San Francisco Giants, which is right down the street.
- Speaking of... where the hell is Anchor Brewing? We're now well over a year since the Chobani yogurt billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya "saved" it. And yet, no one seems to know. And when asked, no one seems to talk. [SFGate]
- It's not a new iPhone magnetic purse strap, it's a European Carry-All! (In all seriousness, will this help with phone thefts?) [MacRumors]
- In other last-minute leaks, is the iPhone 17 Pro camera going up to 8x optical zoom? With a new "vapor cooling chamber"? [9to5Mac]
- If Fede Alvarez really doesn't want to direct the sequel to (the very good) Alien: Romulus, might I suggest a fun choice: James Cameron? [THR]
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• ASML's Mistral Investment
• 'X Money' Struggles
• 'Conjuring: Last Rites' Massive Opening
• AI's "Napster Moment"
• OpenAI's New Revenue (and Burn) Projections
• and more...