Big Technology Podcast - Amazon Builds a Robot and Threatens Apple — With Wired's Lauren Goode

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Wired senior writer Lauren Goode was on hand this week as Amazon introduced Astro, a home robot, and a Ring home-monitoring drone. Goode joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her reaction to the products. And in the second half, stay tuned for a discussion of how Apple and Amazon are on a collision course even though they build products very differently. 

Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Well, Amazon has a robot. It's a really weird-looking thing, but knowing Amazon's track record, everyone's going to say it's terrible, and then they're going to sell thousands upon thousands of them, if not millions. answer them. That's my prediction anyway. But let's actually speak to someone who knows what she's talking about on this subject. She's the senior writer at Wired and the coast of the Gadget Lab podcast. Lowering Good. It's been a long time coming. Welcome to this show. It's been a long time, Alex. I've just been waiting for my invite to the big technology podcast. I'm thrilled to

finally be joining you. It's great to have you here. You're really fresh out of this Amazon event, which is awesome. So we can sort of get into the details. So first of all, just the obvious question. question, why is Amazon building a robot? Well, Amazon has actually been building or acquiring robots for a very long time. It's just that they've been deploying these robots mostly in its warehouse network, right? And so robots are an important and increasingly important part of the way that Amazon sort of moves things around and its warehouses and distribution centers. I think the question you're asking, though, is why is Amazon getting into home robots? Because we saw a couple of autonomous devices revealed yesterday that suggests that Amazon just wants these things

sort of, I don't know, rolling around or flying around your house without you actually triggering them to do so. And I think it just, like the big picture is that it just ties into Amazon's overall desire to push further and deeper into your home because it wants to sell you on its services ultimately. The hardware game for Amazon has traditionally been either a low or even a no margin business for Amazon. I mean, you can look back on Kindles, which it's been selling now for over a decade, and it's never really made a lot of money on Kindles,

but it makes money on e-books, of course, and people buying books from Amazon. And so I tend to think of the software and the artificial intelligence in these hardware products as kind of the connective tissue or like the sales engine of what's actually, you know, driving revenues for Amazon in the hardware department. Totally. So what does this robot look like?

what does it do? What was your first impression when you saw it? Apparently, in the presentation, they talked about how it was like waiting at the door for them when they came home. Yeah, Dave Limp, who is Amazon's longtime hardware chief, mentioned that in an interview that he did with Wired. A couple of outlets actually got pre-reefed on Astro, the robot. I did not, unfortunately. So my first reaction when I saw it during the virtual event yesterday was I think I tweeted, oh, wow, this robot. incredibly eloquent steering inside it is it is interesting because Bezos had in the past put on

Instagram this video of a Roomba vacuum cleaner driving around his house with like an echo device masking tape to the top oh really I must have missed it out yeah it was a few years ago and it's kind of what they did I don't know of all the Bezos headlines I guess that one just somehow fell under the radar he's had a pretty boring life I guess yeah Yeah, uneventful. Yeah, I mean, I think there were a couple of reactions generally to it. The first was, okay, wow, this robot. The second was it looks like a robot dog, even though Amazon is insistent that it is not really a robot dog

and that the name is not coming from the name of the, what was it, the Jetson's dog was Astro. Yes. And so they say it's not named after that dog. And then the third response was something along the lines of, hmm, it's like a robot vacuum. cleaner that doesn't actually vacuum. What am I paying $1,000 for? Which is fair. So it's kind of like the way I look at it is it's this cobbling together. It's $1,000. It is available by invite only. Your opening statement, it's interesting because I think you're right and that sometimes people tend to underestimate Amazon's hardware products. In fact, Amazon has said as much that they,

like even with something like the echo, they under forecast how well that would do. But in this case, they really are only going to sell a limited number of these robots because it's available by invitation only. They're not going to sell millions, maybe in the thousands, maybe more than hundreds is what I was told, but this is going to be a pretty slow rollout. And I think the way to think about it is it's just this combination. It's like this, I don't know, amalgamation of Amazon technology is kind of put together. It has far-filled microphones so you can summon Alexa on it. The tablet looks like a 10-inch echo show tablet. It integrates with rings, so you can use it as a home security monitor.

It also has cameras in it so you can video chat on us directly. Then there's like the robotics part of it, which means it's using computer vision and artificial intelligence to kind of map the space around you. And then it has these wheels and five motors built inside of it so that it can kind of multi-directionally move around your house. And then, oh, by the way, just in case you wanted to do this. can carry a payload on the back of, you know, something around five pounds or less, right? And I think someone said there's even like a cup holder.

There's a cup holder. I saw that. Maybe you could bring a beer over to you? Yeah. Yeah. That's always been the dream with robots, right? It's everyone's best case scenario for a home robot as it gets a beer for you. But I guess the question is how does that beer get into the robot in the beginning? Yeah, doesn't the robot, after the robot does not have dexterity yet. Cannot open the fridge for you. There's also this like periscope-like thing, this rod that extends from the top of

of it and acts as a periscope camera it is like weird what's that for it's video chatting I guess maybe maybe video chatting at a good angle you know coming from above I do video chatting when you're standing up I'm actually not sure like I haven't but I'll just hear use this in person it just it's uh yeah it's it's interesting but interesting is a nice vague word to talk about the way that you feel. How do you feel about this robot? Yeah. The way I feel about it is the way I described it and wired is that it's a robot without a cause because Amazon is putting this out there into the world as part of their day one program, which is, let's call it it as a beta testing program. They're relying on customers. They're hoping that customers will opt in to sending back

data about how they're using this thing. So that ultimately helps define. the use case for it. Amazon has had time to think about this. They have been building this robot for nearly four years, Dave Lamp told me. And during that time, it's gone through a lot of different iterations. You know, they've had to change course in terms of which processors they're going to use to power it during that time

because the chip industry moves pretty fast. They've had time to think about, like, what this is actually for. And yet yesterday, it still felt like a bit of a shruggy in terms of what it's actually for. Like, is it for elder care? Is it for surveilling your home? Is it for, like, trading it like a pet dog? Is it for using Alexa to, I don't know, control your lights and tell you dad jokes?

It's really unclear. And that, to me, feels like, like with all consumer technology products, I'm constantly evaluating that trade-off that exists. I tend to try to think about them philosophically and think about the trade-off that exists, like what you're getting in exchange for how much data you are giving. these machines. And in this case, the value proposition is just not there. Like, what are you going to get aside from saying, I have a cute $1,000 robot in my house in exchange for giving Amazon more and more data about how you're using its stuff? And that to me just seems like it's not.

I wouldn't put it in my home. Can we speculate a little bit? Like, what do you think some use cases could be? You could just, yeah. I don't think you'd ask Katie, Codipolis from BuzzFeed. Okay. I knew that story was going to come. I'm not even going to say the headline. All right. I'll say the headline. Katie from BuzzFeed, who's an excellent reporter. Yeah, former colleague of mine, dear former colleague.

Excellent reporter and masterful troll said, would you have sex in front of Amazon Astro or something like that? Yeah. Yeah, I don't. I mean, what would you use it for if you had it in your home? Well, not that. I really don't know. I mean, like, I like the idea. Like, maybe it could play music and follow me around.

But I'm also, like, you know, being close to the tech community, I've come across a lot of people who have, like, a natural hesitancy to have any Amazon device in their home. I don't know. Do you have any? You know, I'm trying to think. Yeah. So what's funny is the home. living in right now. Oh, okay. Get into this. Yeah, yeah. Not your house. So I'm renting

from a friend and my next door neighbor happens to be Casey Newton. Some of you may know a friend of the podcast. Friend of the pod. And rents a great substack called Platformer. Everybody subscribe. And so he lives next door. And then I live in this other house and we're both renting from a friend and that friend happens to be Kara Swisher. And some of you may know who she is. I was like, I don't know, are you going to show the identity here? Yeah. Well, I mean, apparently she said on a pivot podcast recently. She'd like refer to me as her tenant. And Scott Galloway was like, what? So the news is out. I've also been podcasting from Kara Swisher's closet. But yeah. Well, because like it's just better, better sound. But that's not where you are now. We're not really nice closet. I'm in a, yeah. I'm known. I'm in a little. So does Kara's house have echoes? So she, so she has a ring, which I have never used. which is owned by Amazon as our listeners. Right. And that's the smart, the smart doorbell where you can, like, see people as they walk in.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So this is my actual first, I think it's my first experience with the ring. Yeah. I know the company has the ring doorbell. Yeah. How do they like it?

And I guess they like it because, but I, if I had that when I was in high school, I would have been screwed. They would have definitely. Because you would have been caught thinking in late. Oh, my God. Yeah. What time do you get in? You know, always you subtract two hours. hours, but you can't get fast in with this thing.

Now as you get older, no, I was going to say, now as you get older, it's the opposite. It's like, oh, boy, I hope you know, Amazon doesn't know. Amazon doesn't know I'm going to bed at 8 o'clock at me. Exactly. You know, it starts like, I don't know, like, it starts marketing with orthopedic in soul scene, which is probably happening, to be honest. But yeah, and then I did have, you know, it's funny. I have this like a little gadget museum here.

I was inspired by Walt Mossberg to start one. I just have all these like these, you know, gadgets of lives passed on a shelf. And one of them is the original echo speaker. It's not unused right now, though. I do have a Google, I can't ever get their naming, right? The Google Home Nest Hub, Google Nest Hub now. I forget, it's just like they've changed the name.

But I have that that I've been trying for a little while because it does some sleep tracking using radar, does not have a camera. I thought that was kind of interesting. And also some of it is on-device processing, which is a big buzzword now in the field of artificial intelligence. So, yeah, I try lots of these things.

But Ring, of course, the Amazon brand ring, has been controversial because of its hundreds of partnerships that it has with the law enforcement community. And some of the devices, such as the one that we saw yesterday, the flying drone for inside your house are being excluded from those partnerships. Wait, wait.

We haven't even covered this. We have to, I know. We got to talk about the drone. Yeah, let's pause there. What is a flying drone that is inside your house? Yes. So this is also a part of Amazon's like invite only launches. And it was first announced last September, September 2020.

And there was a pretty strong reaction to it because from privacy advocates, digital privacy advocates, because it is a drone under the ring brand, has plastic tip propellers and has cameras on board. And you can either press a button to force it to fly around your home or you can sort of create these presets for conditions under which it should autonomously emerge from its dock and fly around your home. And it's basically supposed to record any kind of activity that's happening inside your home. And the pitch for it was, why have multiple cameras, there's multiple ring cameras in different windows or areas of your home, when you can just have one that goes to the area of activity,

whether it's like an intruder or a raccoon. I guess those two things could be synonymous. And so it was like this weird pitch for what this thing should do. And of course, all anyone saw was, oh, my God, surveillance drone inside your home. And there were some concerns raised by digital privacy advocates as to whether or not there were microphones on board because if there were, then that could potentially be in violation of FCC wiretapping laws.

Oh, hold on. But don't do the people buy the drone and put it in their house? So where's the, you know, they willingly do that. So they're surveilling themselves. And it turns out that it actually does not have microphones. It only has cameras. So I actually, as far as we know, as far as Amazon says, does not have microphones. So I got that wrong initially as I think a lot of other people did.

But yeah, I mean, there is a point of, there is, there is the point of, and it's a good one, if you sign up for Amazon day one editions, you know, beta invites and whatnot, early invites, and you opt to buy this thing for $250 and put it in your home, then you are opting into that. But then on the back end, of course, there's the way that Amazon either creates default settings for what's ultimately going to be shared. there's you have to examine the options for opting out even if you opt out of certain things are there instances where certain data could still be shared under I don't know instances of a crime or information being subpoenaed if they say that there's some some of this that some of the artificial intelligence is processing data you know whether in this case it's not voice data it might be video data if it's happening on device how much of that actually is happening on device or locally on the piece of hardware

how much of it is going to Amazon's cloud. There are all kinds of questions that even if you as a consumer say, I'm going to buy this new tech thing, which we do all the time, millions of them, right? Like iPhones or whatever it is. There are still settings that have to be considered in there. And I think a lot of it also comes back to defaults, what the default option is for what is ultimately being shared with the tech company that's selling you the product.

Yeah, and one stuff is in the cloud sort of like, yeah, it's your device, but that company owns that data. You're a customer, but you're a user, and you're sort of governed by the rules of the company that's hosting that stuff. Right. Like, for example, if you're using an Alexa device, Amazon has over the years introduced new features that allows you to every single day if you want to go on, go into your settings and say delete all of the voice recordings, all the queries that I gave to Alexa today. But there are exceptions. Like if you connect your Alexa app to a third party app where there's some kind of financial transaction that happens, which is use it to call an Uber order. a pizza, that's not going to be erased because you're involving a third party and there's a

financial transaction happening there. So there are all these little nuances. And I think in general, people just ask the question, they're up their hands and ask the question, why do you need a drone flying around inside your home? Yeah. Well, this is the one interesting thing about Amazon products is that they first, I remember how dumb the echo seemed to me at first. Now I have three of them in my house all connected to each other. It's actually pretty amazing. Just the old school echoes. Because you can play a

song. No screens. No screens. No, that's a little too much for me. But you can play a song and walk room from room and it's all synced together. It's pretty nice. But you use your Alexis for anything other than summoning a playlist or something

using music, I guess. Music, timers. And alarm. Yeah, that's pretty much. Sometimes I make, oh, and I listen to like AM, well, yeah, I listen to AM radio through it also, like, I'll have it play the sports talk radio show. So, and of course, yeah, we can be big technology podcast listener through the echoes. Just blast on all three. You know, I recommend anyone out there to be doing the same.

It's really great experience. Do you have any parties where you invite people over? Yeah. To listen to the show? Yeah, where you just say, you know, I'm not to play Spotify, Chill Mix number six today. I just, I'm going to just put on some big technology. Yeah. Well, you know, as you know, it's a struggle enough for me to keep my friends,

and so I wouldn't want to make it even harder. Well, that happens when you keep moving away. That's true. That's true. Well, anyway, we'll talk about it during the day. But I wanted to ask one question because I think this will kind of be a nice segue into our next half, but our next segment. But I want to ask one question about the reaction.

You know, I think technology over time, and maybe this has always been, has been about, A, what it does for you, but be about how others react to it, like the iPhone is obviously a status symbol. The Apple Watch is a status symbol. You know, people used to get, like, the coolest new gadget so they could show them off to their friends as much as it would be to use them for themselves. I wonder what you think the reaction from people entering homes with the robot and the drone is going to be. Is it going to be like, oh, this is cool? Or is it going to be, what are you doing? You know, that's a really good question because, I don't know if you remember this, but probably two or three years ago at this point, there were people in tech, covering tech, you know, writing about tech, tech pundits, who were raising the question is whether or not you should alert friends if they're entering your home and you happen to be using a Google mess speaker or an Alexa device. Do you remember this?

it was like a trigger warning for a smart speaker yeah like just so you know there's a yeah you're being surveilled if you're being surveilled or potentially listened to um and then it was a good question to ask it was an important question to ask but then i think it kind of died down and yeah which side do you fall on um i have let people know that there is a google nest hub in my bedroom oh okay how do i say that delicately I think you just did. Yeah. But, and I'm trying to think, I guess I've used, maybe I've used Sonos.

You know, it's funny, I've used a Sonos speaker, too, that has Alexa built in. And I, recently I was using that. And I didn't tell anyone who would, like, sit and watch a movie with me. Like, by the way, this has Alexa built in. And I tend to think of myself as not a huge sort of, like, privacy warrior, but something that I'm very concerned about and think a lot about and think like Wired's coverage

is incredibly important. And so I think at this point, like, you know, I have to say, most people would probably go into a friend's house and they'd say, look at my drone. And then maybe there would be a cascade of questions that come from it, but inevitably the person would be like,

huh, isn't that crazy? That's cool. Or like, look at your cute robot dog. Right? And then it's like, look at what my cute robot dog can do. I think you'll have the occasional outlier who says, like, no way, get that thing out of my face or I would never have that. But I think for the most part, there's this sort of, I don't know, we become a nerd over time, I think, to how many devices that have cameras and microphones are actually present in our lives. Yeah.

And I think that's only, they're only going to proliferate even more. Right. And we carry one in our pocket at all times. So where does this fit exactly in the Amazon mix? Like is it seems like it's, I mean, maybe like the echo, but it's part hardware. It's part commerce, maybe part some of its premium services like Amazon music or I guess like if this thing, thinking about the best case scenario for Amazon, what does that look like and what business does that help the most? And this is for Astro.

Yeah. Yeah, ultimately Amazon wants you to be tied into its services. So whether that's watching some kind of Amazon Prime video, whether it's ordering something using voice control from the bot and then having a display that shows you what you just ordered or puts you into a recurring order, whether it's somehow integrating with Whole Foods, you know, at some point maybe the payload. at some point gets bigger and it's actually like carting your groceries around. Maybe there is a B2B opportunity for this kind of bought to roll around different stores or retail spaces. I mean, I think ultimately Amazon just wants to sell you stuff and this is a better way to do that. It's also a way to get even more data about how people are just living in their households. And Amazon's, they're just, they're putting sensors in our homes.

I don't know if you happen to see, I did a story earlier this year about how I had installed an Amazon smart shelf in my linen closet. Oh, yes. Yeah. The cheapest thing. It's like 20 bucks. It has no design value. It's just a black scale, a black plastic scale. And you can get a small, medium or large. They're all $20. It cracked me up because I was like, there's no differentiation in price between these pieces of plastic. I put it in my linen closet. I programmed it to recognize. when I had toilet paper sitting on the scale. The whole time I was just saying this is so, this is so dystopian.

This is so weird. I can't believe I'm doing this. And, you know, I think I installed it like late 2020, like December 2020. And then the toilet paper started coming in in January. And then every time I was very close to running out of toilet paper, it ordered more.

And this giant box of continental toilet paper would show up at my door. And I have not, I've yet to run out toilet paper. And so there, was this, admittedly, this exchange where I didn't have any visibility into what Amazon was actually ordering for me because I wasn't, sometimes I would just miss the email and I wasn't price checking. But I exchanged that for an extreme convenience, which is here is a replenishable consumer good that I am just now getting over and over and over again. And I think like that's a

very small version of the Amazon dream. We're all just like not thinking about it and these things are just very present and they're just constantly buying a stuff. Yeah, like while you were describing the robot ordering things, like I was thinking like maybe that periscope that you mentioned scans your refrigerator and then sends an order into Whole Foods at some point. Which, you know, and thinking about that, thinking about that, thinking about the scale that you mentioned, like there is a level of convenience there, which is why people kind of like using Amazon stuff.

100%. There's a crowd of people who are determined not to use Amazon products. I mean, good luck with that because of AWS, which supports a lot of the other applications that we use in our day-to-day. But there are some people who say I don't want to buy from Amazon.com and I don't want to use Amazon Prime. They're very specifically sort of calling out those vertipoles. And that's fine and fair.

And I actually, I respect that very much. Like, if anything, maybe not putting the burden of, you know, need it now, two-day shipping on all of the workers who are just working tirelessly and doing backbreaking work for Amazon. Like, I think that's better. And the more that we can all sort of check our consumerism, the better. But then on their hand, like you talk to, I don't know, young parents or new parents, I should say, who like just need diapers. and they don't have a set of free hands or someone can't just go out and get them. And by the way, Amazon also happens to have the best deal at that moment. Like, they're just going to Amazon.

They're getting the same day delivery. They need the thing. There are people who are, you know, they have mobility challenges or they're part of the accessibility community. They can't get around very easily. They need to order things to be delivered to them, right? Like, there are like use cases where Amazon's convenience is incredibly valuable. And then there's just a lot of us who are lazy. So we just order some from Amazon.

Pretty addicted. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure, like, I think what we're saying is like a little bit of conjecture and some anecdotes. But like, I'm sure Amazon has very fine-grained data on exactly what we're describing as well. Yeah. Well, it is interesting that you mentioned over the course of this discussion, this day one program. So let's go to break. And then after the break, I want to talk a little bit about the difference between how,

Amazon and Apple reveal products and, you know, how they think about products differently if you're up for it. I think it's really interesting. I know you've spent a lot of time watching Apple. So why don't we do that right after the break here on Big Technology Podcasts? We're hanging out with Lauren Good. And we'll be back right after this. Hey, everyone. Let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than two million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news.

Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now. And we're back here for the second segment of the big technology podcast. We have Lauren Good with us. She's a senior writer at Wired and the co-host of the great Gadget Lab podcast.

Lauren, welcome back. Thanks, Alex, and thanks for saying Gadget Lab is great. Yes, well, indeed it is. I'm a faithful listener. I wanted to ask you a little bit, and we don't have to go into too much depth about it, but it is kind of interesting to compare the product strategies of Amazon and Apple, where it seems like Amazon just kind of throws everything they can against the wall and hope it sticks.

And Apple is very intentional about what it releases. And I was thinking about this in particular when we talked a little bit about what's a status symbol versus what's like functional technology. And Apple seems to definitely be on the status symbol line, although its products work well, you know, speaking to you through MacBook. And Amazon is just like, let's just throw stuff out there like this robot and see what happens. So I'm curious, like, if you could describe some of the difference, both in terms of strategy and the way that they even present the products is very different, right? When they release yeah this is this is a great point and um although sometimes i do believe and i think i wrote this

recently about the tesla bot and the absurdity of the tesla the dancing Tesla bot that it does seem like a lot of product demonstrations are just like thrown together with digital duct tape wait wait can you let's pause can you talk about what this Tesla bot was because i thought that that was like an absolutely hilarious yeah uh Elon Musk invited a robot that Tesla has been working on that is using its Tesla's custom AI chip invited this robot on stage and the robot sort of walked like very, you know, arthritic and stiff-armed like up on stage and then all of a sudden just bust out into dance. And it was so clear from the fluidity of this robot moving that it was actually a human being just trolling everyone. And then Elon said, you know, I'm paraphrasing,

but said like, but don't worry, there really is a bot. And it's just like, we're just not ready to show off yet, but there will be like a Tesla bot. And I, and I, and I, and I, I thought it was hilarious, too, because I was thinking, oh, wow, like the jokes on us, right? Like, we're so used to these, like, just like people salivating over, like, the product launch. And, like, there's all this stuff going on behind the scenes to make it look all smooth and seamless. And in this case, there's just a, you know, there's just like, here you go. Here's your, here's your dancing robot. That's not actually a robot.

And, oh, by the way, when we make the robot, it's going to replace you at your jobs. So. Sounds awesome. Yeah. Yeah. The future of the big technology and gadget lab podcasts are going to be posted by robots. But, yeah, back to your question about the differences in the launch events. I mean, there are pretty significant differences between Amazon and Apple.

And I would even say between Google and Facebook and Microsoft, too, throw them in the mix. But for the sake of Amazon and Apple, I think the way that they present their new hardware really underscores what their businesses are. Because for a long time, I mean, Apple's services business is growing and has been growing fairly significantly. over the past few years, but Apple makes its money off of hardware, selling us very expensive hardware. And I mean, the margins vary from product line to product line with Apple. And how we actually don't even get as clear of a breakdown in terms of unit sales for different product lines because they stopped doing them. Their earnings reports in recent years. But we know that Apple makes the majority of its revenue from selling hardware, whereas Amazon,

once again, is selling you on commerce and services. And so there is a little bit of that throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach that Amazon has. And it's a little bit more experimental through its day one program because it really is like it's testing AI more or less, right? And it's using us as beta testers for its AI where Apple has to get things right pretty much right out the gate and then hopefully because you love the hardware and are willing to spend $1,000 or more on the hardware, you also get hooked into Apple's services. They also have

very fundamentally, I don't say, I don't know if they'd say very different, but I think fundamentally they have different approaches to how they handle user privacy as well. I mean, another remarkable thing. Apple doesn't always get it 100% right. And I mean, you might think of something like Antenagate from years ago. Or the home pod. Or yeah, the home pod just like honestly didn't gain a lot of traction at all. It's not that, I don't think it's not, it's that it didn't work. It's just it was a really expensive speaker that did very little. Or when you think about, it's a really great encapsulation of the home pod. Yeah. It just didn't offer much. And it was, I think it was like $3 or $400.

And then when you think about the trouble they had with their MacBooks, in particular the MacBook Pros in recent years and the keyboards, and I think there were some overheating issues one summer, they don't always get it right. And then last year, the iPhone launch date slipped a little bit, and then this year the Apple watch launch date has slipped. For the most part, though, Like Apple is an operations company.

The way that they managed to deliver their hardware products, at the same time, you know, every year, you pretty much know what to expect. And the fact that they've been able to do that consistently now for so many years is actually remarkable. Also, given all the supply chain challenges that we know that tech companies are facing right now, it's even more remarkable. Of course, companies like Amazon and Apple make things at scale, so that makes managing that a little bit easier. But I just don't know if there's any other company in hardware right now that has the same grasp on the supply chain that Apple does. And so that may be one of the reasons for the differences between Amazon's approach and Apple's approach as well. Yeah, like Apple would never like throw out a robot and be like maybe a few hundred people will get it and we'll just sort of test it and see what happens. Do you think that gives, I am curious, I wonder, well, I'm going to ask it.

Do you think that gives Amazon some advantage over Apple in building products in the long run? Maybe that's a ridiculous question, but I think it's worth putting out there. And then, like, in terms of the services stuff, like, there must be a little bit of competition in services between Apple and Amazon. I mean, they both have music and, you know, they both sell, you know, there's certain packages of stuff. So, you know, I wonder if you think that there might be some budding competition there as well. Oh, I think there absolutely is competition, because I think what you're describing is they actually are quite aligned in some of their services, businesses. You know, Amazon's not in social. Apple isn't really in social, although I have long said that I think I message is their kind of secret social network. but they're both into original content now, right?

Amazon is making stuff through its Amazon studios and it's winning awards for it and markets it heavily on Prime. Apple has invested in the course of Apple TV Plus in its own originals, and I think Ted Lassow won some awards too, right? So they probably both have statues now. Yeah, good old Ted Lassow. They're both into games, although I do believe Amazon

has the distinct advantage there because of Twitch, it owns Twitch. They are, I mean, they both want you using their cloud services one way or another. I think with Apple, some of that exchange is a little bit more explicit, right? Like, sign up for our cloud service or our cloud bundle and get XYZ, whereas I think Amazon just has its obvious prowess and, like, running, like, the infrastructure of much of our consumer internet. And so, yeah, I think, like, if you just kind of. kind of take away the, you know, the cheap pieces of Amazon hardware versus the custom

design, really sleek, full stack, Apple hardware. And you kind of, and you look at their services businesses, I think there's a lot more convergence happening there than there was in the past. They're also not, neither of them are really like into the like workplace category, the way that Google is, the way that Google and Microsoft have been battling it out. So, yeah, I think I think you're not wrong to like couple the two of them together and ask what the deal is there. Can I throw out another place that I just thought about that they're going to compete in in a pretty big way? Absolutely. Advertising because Apple is building out its own ad platform.

Amazon has like a pretty serious ad platform of its own. A lot of people use Amazon on the web. I don't know. I'm curious what your take on this is, but I feel like the Amazon website plays a much bigger role in Amazon's well-being than let's say the face, the Facebook website does in its well-beat. And so- Describe that a little bit more.

Yeah. Well, I think people who shop on Amazon like to use the desktop website, whereas people who use Facebook like to use the mobile app. I could be completely wrong about this. That at least describes my experience. And the reason why I bring it up is because Apple's recent privacy changes which allow you to opt out really hit Facebook hard. And I think that Amazon has all this interesting purchase.

intent data, and if I'm right about the website being more important to Amazon, then it won't really be hit as hard by Apple. So you could actually end up seeing a very interesting fight between Amazon and Apple on the ad front as well. Do you buy it? You know, you know a lot more about this than I do, having you've worked in ads and you've reported on ads. I don't really cover the advertising business. I mean, I remember, I think it was back in 2016 when Apple did a pretty big overhaul to its app store and it first said that it was going to allow search ads at the top of its app store. And that was a pretty, that was a pretty big shift at the time. And I believe its efforts around that have only increased. But in terms of just

like, I don't know if it's a direct comparison there in terms of what they're doing in mobile advertising to what Amazon does and essentially promoting its own brands or allowing others to promote their brands on the amazon.com website um and i don't know i just i don't know how that's a good question as to how apple's new rules which actually were introduced in ios 14 i believe right but they just started to take effect within the past few months i don't know if how that's actually going to affect amazon's business but it's a good it's a good question i think it will be a yeah go ahead i just think it will be a fascinating competition between those two companies and has like a few less arrows in its quiver to shoot at Amazon the way that it's been shooting at

Facebook. And I also think it'll be this amazing match between the two with these two very different product philosophies, you know, and how they get their devices out in the world and then compete on the services front. It's going to be pretty interesting to watch one of the bigger battles, I think, in the tech world that we'll see moving forward. Well, I'm going to be reading big technology to find out. That's the case. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for the plug. Is there is there, I guess like let's wrap up with this. This was Amazon's first big launch after Andy Jassy has taken over. I know that this stuff has been in the pipeline. We talked a little bit about the Instagram post that Bezos did with his Roomba. But I'm curious

If you have any sense about what the product direction is going to look like under Jassi, I mean, I guess the big question is that people asked is, is Amazon still going to be inventive under him the way it was under Bezos? And this, of course, was definitely a Bezos idea. I mean, you can look at his inscromancy. So I'm curious what you read is on Jassy, you know, whether the company had any noticeable differences at this event under him than it did under Bezos and what we can expect moving forward. It's probably a safe bet to assume that the products we saw yesterday, we're taping this on Wednesday, this Amazon event happened on Tuesday, you know, from the ring always home cam, which is the drone to like ring, you know, new software alerts for ring doorbells and cameras, the blink video doorbells, camera. I honestly can't keep track of all of them.

The thermostat, all of these things are probably in the pipeline now for about 18 to 24 months, I would think. And with something like Astro, the Robot, I think I may have said this earlier, it's been in the works for nearly four years. So I'm going to guess that most, if not all of these products, preceded Jassy taking over the helm of Amazon. And, you know, to be honest, I'm not sure. I think Amazon has deputized, you know, when it comes to its hardware. I think Dave Limp really is the person who is running the hardware business. And I think that a lot of what Amazon has come up with in recent years has not only been on its own, but through strategic acquisitions, whether it's been companies like ERO or Ring or Blink or others. And so I can't imagine, I don't know, I haven't been able to really draw the thread yet and say like how Jassy is going to affect.

the hardware business. So you're asking me a good question because now I feel like I need to go report this. But like I can't imagine that the hardware strategy changes all that dramatically, at least in the near future. Right. I'll be interested to read your story if you end up publishing it. Okay. So let's just do a quick roundup here. So Astro the Robot is going in your house? No Astro the Robot for me. Thanks very much. I will say though that I have I signed up to get alerts when the drone is available. Are you getting the drone? I mean, I don't know.

I mean, maybe I'm actually on some blacklist where Amazon says, like, they scour the list for reporter emails and then they say, no, we're not sending it to them. But I did put my email in to be alerted when I can order the drone because I just feel like I feel obligated to try it. Wow. Well, it's going to, yeah, definitely produce a lot of interesting reviews. Personally, no robot, no drone for me. I'm happy with my three echoes, and that's going to do it.

All right. Lauren, good. Thank you for joining the technology podcast. First time, definitely won't be the last time. Lauren's senior writer at Wired Coast of the great gadget lab podcast, Go read her story. It's called Amazon's Astro is a robot without a cost. Thank you, Lauren.

Thanks, Alex. This is fun. Super fun. Thank you, Nate Gwadney, for editing the audio. We're doing a day of turnarons because we want to do something newsy today. So appreciate your hard work, Nate. Thank you to Red Circle for hosting and selling the ads. And thank you to all of you, the listeners.

We'll be back next week. If all goes according to plan, we're going to have someone who built Facebook products for teens. I think you'll be interested to hear what he has to say. So stay tuned for that. Until next time, I hope you enjoyed. And we'll be with you next week. You know,