Stepping Out 📧
New iPad mini is in hand (Blue) and I'm getting ready to head back out on the road. So forgive me if dispatches over the next week are a bit more sporadic. Also working on a few things behind the scenes around these parts when I'm back in office.
I Think…
📙 Boox Palma 2 with Fingerprint Sensor and Android 13 – While on the surface, this sounds like a pretty niche product – a phone-sized e-reader device that is quite expensive relative to other such devices ($280) – the fact that this second iteration is already sold out around the world, mere hours after being announced is... interesting. Either Boox misjudged demand, can't get enough of the components they need to scale, or there is real demand here. To that last point, I'm sort of surprised Amazon hasn't gone down this path. We've seen them going the opposite direction, with large Kindles (too large, in my book), and while the top-selling Paperwhite is small and light, it's still not smartphone form-factor. If Amazon was keen to explore some areas closer to smartphones again, post-Fire Phone debacle, this could be an interesting thing to at least explore. Especially with color? And Amazon likes to explore! [9to5Google]
🍪 ARM to Scrap Qualcomm Chip Design License in Feud Escalation – This is one of those stories that has such large implications – such a cancellation would kill all of the new Copilot+ PCs made with Microsoft and likely disrupt nearly the entire Android ecosystem – that it almost has to be settled. It all stems from Qualcomm's purchase of Nuvia, the chip team that came out of Apple (which was also suing at one point), which is now instrumental in Qualcomm's own chip internal design (built of ARM's IP, of course). Do you get the sense that a lot of the industry doesn't like Qualcomm too much? After their own legal disputes over years, Apple is working like mad on their own modems to be able to dump Qualcomm. Intel, meanwhile, is working like mad to save itself from a hostile Qualcomm bid. [Bloomberg 🔒]
📲 Apple Intelligence Isn’t Very Smart Yet—and Apple’s OK With That – Nothing too surprising from Joanna Stern's sit-down with Craig Federighi (the full video is here), though it's notable that despite some reporting to the contrary – in the very same WSJ – he said he doesn't think he's ever actually used Microsoft's Copilot. That helped him reiterate the point that while much of it isn't user-facing, Apple has been working on and with AI for a long time. But the user-facing element via Apple Intelligence is going to take time to roll out, which Federighi doesn't shy away from talking about. He frames it as being about getting it right (and secure), and notes that Apple focuses on things like the ability to have Siri open your garage door versus ChatGPT doing poetry or answering questions about quantum mechanics (he also notes that these worlds and capabilities will converge over time, obviously). We're about to see if those trade-offs were the right ones when the system goes live in a very limited capacity next week. [WSJ 🔒]
⚫️ Character.ai Faces Lawsuit After Teen’s Suicide – Just an awful story about a teenager who took his life with his final dark thoughts and feelings confided to a chatbot. This is obviously still very stigmatized in these early days of AI, but such relationships are also clearly more pervasive than anyone cares to admit. And this is likely to ramp quickly as the technology continues to expand. Is tech to blame? This is going to be the thorniest one of these battles yet, you have to imagine. Lawyers and politicians are going to be all over this. It also, sadly, brings to mind the movie Her once again, but pretty much the exact opposite angle of what OpenAI was attempted to evoke a few months ago. [NYT]
🥽 Apple Sharply Scales Back Production of Vision Pro – Everyone knows the Vision Pro isn't selling like gangbusters with even Tim Cook admitting as much in on-the-record interviews. Of course, they frame it more that it was never meant to be a "mass market" device given the price point and is instead a glimpse of the future or whatnot, but that's also obviously at least somewhat of hindsight narration. Apple would have loved for the Vision Pro to sell well, obviously. Now they're left managing inventory in the downside scenario and thus, ramping down supply chains as they clearly have already made enough of the device to meet immediate future demands – which doesn't seem like a great sign for the upcoming holiday season for the device... It is interesting that they apparently told one supplier to be ready to make 4M units over the lifespan of the forthcoming cheaper model – the "Vision" as it were – which would be an order of magnitude more than current model sales estimates. [Information 🔒]
I Wrote…
Couple posts from the back-catalog with Apple Intelligence inbound...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
I Link...
- "That movie sucked" is one way to respond to a lawsuit from a production company behind Blade Runner 2049, which is suing Elon Musk/Tesla for misappropriating IP in their Cybercab launch event. Regardless of the legal merits here, I think can can all agree that the movie did not, in fact, suck. It was actually very good. Perhaps a bit long. [Variety]
- Just in case you somehow weren’t sure yet whether or not Rudy Giuliani was and is shady, here’s a story about how he obtained a set of World Series rings in the 1990s despite not, you know, being an actual member of the New York Yankees team and/or organization. [Daring Fireball]
- Just to follow up on the (wild) piece about Tigran Gambaryan, Binance's head financial crime compliance (who was formerly at the IRS), that I linked to a couple weeks back. He has been released by Nigeria after his case was "discontinued" due to his ill health (sounds like he's dealing with a major herniated disk issue). [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Wondering if it's legal for Elon Musk to give people money to vote? Well, directly, no. But he's perhaps obfuscated it just enough to get away with it. Certainly nothing will be done before the election. [Economist 🔒]
- As someone who distinctly recalls seeing LeBron James play basketball as a high schooler, the fact that he's now playing in the NBA with his adult son is beyond surreal. Great parenthood angle on this story from Jason Gay. [WSJ 🔒]
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's words for Goldman and Apple are harsher than the fines – which are literal pocket change for both companies – for customer service issues with their joint Apple Card. Sort of weird that Apple hasn't found a new partner yet given how long ago the impending breakup leaked? [Bloomberg 🔒]
- It's not just Starbucks high-priced coffee/weird flavored drinks sales that are down – beer sales are down too, reports Heineken. [WSJ 🔒]
I Quote...
"I have a long history of working with leaders across the political spectrum, but this election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world."
-- Bill Gates, in response to an inquiry by The New York Times to confirm if he had given $50M to the Future Forward non-profit (which feeds money into the Super PAC of the same name, which spends money to forward the Kamala Harris presidential campaign). Not only is that not a "no", it's an implicit "yes". I went ahead and highlighted the key bit, just in case it wasn't clear.
As the report details, this is notable because Gates has historically avoided such political stances and affiliation – and has largely been successful in that, unlike certain proteges – since his own philanthropic work and entities have to work with all parties. But Gates clearly felt compelled to do something here, perhaps to combat the overt actions by fellow centi-billionaire Elon Musk in favor of Donald Trump. Regardless, that candidate is not going to like this one bit, and you can expect to hear all sorts of things about it, I imagine. See also: Jamie Dimon, who may very well be the next Secretary of Treasury if Harris wins.
We're now less than two weeks away from the election. Buckle up.
I Spy...
Another data point speaking to the current state of Vision Pro beyond sales: the number of apps being released monthly for the device. If these numbers from Appfigures obtained by WSJ are anywhere near accurate, that's arguably a bigger "yikes" for Apple than headset sales. And it backs up the notion that Apple really badly flubbed the roll-out with developers, if nothing else.
