Morning Brew Daily - Apple Debuts New iPhone 17 Air & Dairy Milk is So Back

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Episode 667: Neal and Toby break down the Apple event and the debut of the iPhone 17 Air. Will customers buy in? Next up, another revision to the jobs report and how social media played into the protests in Nepal. Then is dairy milk officially back? And the headlines you need to know to start your day. Checkout https://www.indeedfutureworks.com/brew for more Check out Tech Brew Ride Home Here: swap.fm/l/mbd-tbrh-910 Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ 00:00 - Zodiac Signs 02:30 - Apple Reveals iPhone Air 07:50 - Jobs Revision 12:50 - Nepal Protests 17:56 - Milk is back 22:50 - Headlines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAC plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbrewerdaily. That's aflack.com slash morning brewdaily. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman.

And I'm Toby Howell. Today, oopsie. Turns out the economy added half the amount of jobs last year than we thought. Then Apple revealed an ultra-thin iPhone with a chunky price tag. It's Wednesday, September 10th. Let's ride. Anyone celebrating a birthday today, September 10th? You might consider yourself as the quintessential Virgo, practical, analytical, hardworking.

There's just one problem. The actual constellation behind the sun today is not Virgo. it's Leo, the New York Times explained that your zodiac sign is in fact 2,000 years out of date. The signs were created over two millennia ago by the Babylonians based on their view of the stars. But because of astronomical phenomena like the Earth's swabble, our view of the stars has shifted over time, which means that zodiac signs no longer line up with the constellations they're named after. Toby, I never saw you as a Pisces anyway. Neil, it is with great sadness and I must tell you, I'm actually an Aquarius, not a

I did check for you as well. Technically, you're a Leo, but based off the constellation behind the sun when your birthday is, you're still a Leo, so congratulations. But there's one final reason why the 12 signs don't quite align with the zodiac constellations themselves. There's technically a 13th constellation along the sun's path that is called, and I'm going to butcher this, but it's called Ophicius, which means that there should have been 13 zodiac signs. No one really knows why the Babylonians did my boy Ophiqius. dirty. But yeah, hope you didn't make your zodiac sign your entire personality because it might be wrong.

And now a word from our sponsor, Indeed. Neil, how are job seekers supposed to make a connection with employers? Well, there's always Indeed. They're utilizing AI-powered solutions and the scale of their data to accelerate and simplify both job hunting and hiring. Now, that is something I'd like to hear more about. Well, lucky for you. Indeed, FutureWorks is happening right now and Morning Brew is there. They're talking all about how they're reshaping the hiring landscape all day today and tomorrow. To learn more, head to Indeedfutureworks.com slash brew. That's Indeedfutureworks.com slash brew. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton.

Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. Apple held its annual September event yesterday and the star of the show was the new O-Zempic iPhone, otherwise known as the iPhone Air. Apple execs called this device impossibly thin and they're not far off after unveiling a device that is less than six millimeters thick. The crowd seemed to agree giving the loud. reaction of the day. Despite its thin profile, it comes with a couple of bells and whistles,

including a single rear camera that still manages to have two times optical zoom, Apple's new A-19 chip, and an all-day battery. But less phone doesn't mean less money. It will start at $999 when it launches later this month, which is $200 more than the standard iPhone 17 and just $100 less than the pro version. As for that standard iPhone 17, it didn't get a massive redesign, but its front camera may be the most important update of the entire lineup. Apple gave it the widest field of view ever, nearly doubles last year, in a square sensor so you don't have to rotate your iPhone to take a landscape selfie anymore. Believe it or not, that was what got the biggest year when it came to the 17 presentation. Apple also refresh its watches and AirPods, adding health

tracking features like heart rate monitoring from your ears and sleep scores and hypertension detection from your wrists. But one thing was conspicuously absent throughout the event. A.I. Beyond a translation feature in the new Airpods, there was no major announcement with Apple saying its rebuilt Siri won't arrive until spring of 2026. So, Neil, Apple made thinness and selfies the star of the show while leaving AI for another day, kind of what we expected, but did it meet expectation? I'm not surprised that the air did not get the biggest ovation of the event, because as Bloomberg's Dave Lee put it, this is one of the stranger products Apple has ever released. What do people want with their phones right now. They want a better camera and they want improved battery

life. And what does the air sacrifice at the altar of skinniness is those two features exactly? So why are they introducing something new that doesn't necessarily align with consumer behavior? Well, CCS Insights Ben Wood said it's literally just something new. He wrote, it has been a few years since Apple has had new iPhones that you could put on the table in a coffee shop, meeting room or pub. And people would ask, is that the next? new iPhone. So maybe it's the reason that it's just something new, a new form factor, a new design is why Apple went ahead with it. I think the question of whether people will actually shell out the big bucks for a skinny iPhone is exactly right. Brian McCullough, who hosts Tech Brew Ride Home,

a great daily morning brew show if you're interested in tech, gave us his thoughts on if people will make this upgrade. There's a concept in technology circles called the Osborne effect, and that is when a company announces a new product, but people don't buy it because they're anticipating the next product they know that company is going to release next. We know that next year the first ever foldable iPhone is coming. And then in 2027, Apple is going to release some super fancy redesign, possibly all glass or curved glass iPhone to mark the 20th anniversary of the iPhone. So do you buy an iPhone now or wait for those fancier new phones you know are coming? Is the iPhone air sexy enough to get you to pull the trigger or do you sit on your hands and wait for the foldable

maybe. So I think Brian actually answered my question of why release and air, and that's because of this foldable phone coming next year. One of the biggest challenges with foldables is packing all of this technology into a slim form factor. So maybe this is just Apple trying to prove that they can do this on the journey to a foldable phone coming next year. But I do think this newness factor that you've highlighted is something that Apple is trying to pursue with their cameras as well because one other feature is this dual camera recording, which is the ability to record from both the front and the rear cameras at the same time. That is a feature that you would show your friend. You go like, hey, check this out. I can film you and me at the same time. Or come here. Let's take a

selfie. I don't even have to move my phone. That is something that has a little bit of wow factor. And then I go, hey, is that the iPhone 17? Right. Hopefully. Ideally, you say that. And then I do think that that is kind of the path that they're on. They're trying to do this massive three-year refresh. is the air, the sexiest one of those, as Brian sort of put it. Who knows? But I do think that they've seen a lot of success in the past with this playbook. They ran it with the MacBook where they released an Air version. Initially, people are like, why do I even want this thing? It seems to be too expensive. It's not as much performance as the pro versions. But then it became its best selling MacBook ever. So perhaps the same thing could happen with the iPhone.

Zooming out to how Apple is doing for the first time this year, it looks like they have a little wind at their back. Shares are up 38% from an April low. It's added $4333 billion in market value. Got two big wins recently. One was that Trump backed off tariffs on smartphones in India and in China, where Apple makes most of its phones that are shipped to the United States. And then recently a judge in that Google antitrust case allowed Google to continue paying Apple, which $20 billion a year in order to be the default device on. iPhone. So there were two big overhangs on the stock that were lifted. Apple has had a big resurgence recently, but the stock fell yesterday, which it almost always does. Investors

always sell the news in terms of the iPhone release. So no surprises there. We'll see what happens going forward with Apple and whether people will shell out for this new iPhone in the fall. Moving on, yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that employers added 911,000 fewer jobs in the last year ending March than initially expected. That means the economy added just 850,000 jobs, roughly half as many as previously reported. So what is going on with the curious case of the vanishing jobs? Every month, the jobs report we all obsess over comes from a big survey

with about 100,000 businesses. Those monthly reports are good because they're timely, but bad because due to response rates, they're not always precise. So once a year, the BLS goes back and checks those estimates against a much more accurate count, the unemployment insurance records that companies have to file with the government. It's an annual process called benchmarking, and it's treated as the gold standard. In the past, revisions have been relatively small and don't attract much attention,

but this time around, the monthly jobs report overstated job growth by nearly a million jobs, and last year it was off by around 600,000. That's two years in a row of really big revisions. The revisions are especially contentious, too, after the White House fired, the BLS's top official earlier this year following a set of downward revisions. Even more importantly, though, labor market data is really important since the Fed used it to make decisions

about where to set interest rates. So, Neil, if the strong labor market coming out of COVID was more of a mirage, which these downward revisions are suggesting, they'll put even more pressure on Jerome Powell & Co to cut interest rates going forward. So what happened? Why did they miss by half? I mean, that is huge.

We thought that employers added about 147,000 jobs per month in this period, but they ended up adding just 71,000. So it's a huge error. It's a huge miss. And so economists are looking at like, why did this happen? Why is this revision so big? It's actually the biggest on record in terms of percentages. Well, the BLS uses particular models based on historical trends for things like the number of businesses that are opening and closing. And these are assumptions that are based on a lot of years of data. decades of data. But coming out of COVID, just some weird stuff was happening in terms of people were opening so many new businesses and companies you did yourself. And that was not factored

into these particular models. So that is why many economists think that the BLS overstated this particular job growth for this period by so much. And this is something that we have been hearing certain Fed officials call attention to over the past few months. Christopher Waller, he's a Fed governor that's been floated to potentially take over for Jerome Powell. He actually cited this benchmark revision as a reason to support a rate cut earlier. He had been talking about this months ago, essentially saying, hey, we know this big revision is coming because of all the wonkiness coming out of COVID. Maybe we have been overstating the strength of the job market right now. So that is why when we say that this data is so important because it is what the Fed is operating

off of to make decisions about where to set rates. And there has been some contention. within the Fed itself about what to do when you know a big revision is coming. Yeah, even Jerome Powell in that big speech in Jackson Hole last month said he expected the level of employment, quote, will be revised down materially in Tuesday's report. So maybe this this huge revision came as a shock to people like you and me, but the economists in the weeds like Powell and Waller and other folks who are like laser focused on employment records, knew that this big revision was coming because of the wonkiness in the historical models that they've been using.

it wasn't a surprise to people like you and me either because what did the stock market do and reached another all-time high yesterday? So again, people did know this was coming. The size of it may have been a little bit up for debate, but the fact that stocks, you know, reached an all-time high once again so that this didn't really shake expectations that much. And it's an interesting, you know, it's an interesting thought for statisticians trying to balance timeliness and accuracy. When you do a jobs report based on estimates every month, it does give an interesting snapshot as to how things are going. And it's very important for the Fed and other policymakers and businesses to make decisions. But as we're seeing, oftentimes, they are not accurate and you need to wait

for years until those more durable state employment records come in so we can actually see what's going on. And the big problem, according to economists and BLS officials, they don't say that they're rigging the data like the Trump administration is saying. They're saying that we just don't get as many survey responses as we used to, which means we need to make even more assumptions. Prior to COVID, they were getting 65% response rates on this employment survey, and now that is dropped to 50%. They say that is due to budget cuts under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Nepal is facing its worst unrest in decades as young protesters representing Gen Z lash out against what they consider a corrupt government that

denies them jobs and fuels the lavish lifestyles of families with connections. dubbed Nepo Kids. So far this week, 22 protesters were left dead in violent clashes. Government buildings were set on fire, and the Prime Minister and other leaders resigned. The protesters say they won't stop until the current government is dissolved, which would result in the 14th government Nepal has had since 2008. The catalyst for the protest was a ban on social media platforms that went into effect last week.

On Thursday, 26 platforms, including Meta's Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram went dark after they did not sign onto a government order that would empower officials to monitor, quote, undesirable content a bill critic said would result in censorship and stifle opposition voices. But the social media ban, which was later rolled back, was just the fuse that lit the fire. Young Nepalese have much deeper grievances with the government for failing to provide basic economic opportunities and enriching the few at the expense of the many. They recently started a viral social media trend with the hashtag Nepo Kids to expose the chasm between the luxurious lifestyles of politicians' kids

and the 20% unemployment rate that Nepal's youth currently face. Toby, they're calling these protests Gen Z versus Nepo kids. Yeah, but this has been a slow burn crisis in the making. The official unemployment rate for Nepal sits at just under 13%. That's up more than 5% or five points in the last five years. But the stats actually undercount reality a little bit because the majority of Nepalis are working informal jobs. They are mostly farmers.

And so most of the unemployment is concentrated in the young people that are on protests right now. And then the other issue, too, is that a big part of Nepal's economy relies on remittances. These are money that Nepal is working abroad send back to their families that are living domestically that accounted for a quarter of the entire economy. And so when you ban social media, you sever the communications between a lot of the people, a lot of the migrant workers, abroad and their families back home. So just a powder keg of a lot of things coming together, which is why we've seen these unprecedented protests breaking out. Yeah, these young people say there's just no economic opportunity back at home, so they need to leave. They're an estimated 2 million Nepalese working abroad. 741,000 left the country last

year alone, which is a big chunk of the population. This is a population of 30 million people living in Nepal, this very mountainous country that's famously home to Mount Everest. Often they go to oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf to work there or Malaysia, or they also go to India as seasonal migrant laborers. But the key point is that they're leaving. And that's because they just say that there's no opportunity back home. And they say that this is because government officials are enriching themselves and their families by embezzling all kinds of things. And there's been a few examples. Like they just built this new airport. And there was this report that $71 million during the construction process was embezzled by officials which raises outroar, which is why we're

seeing the parliament in Nepal burn right now. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about milk. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and.

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Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to home depot.com slash price match for details. Ready for a blast from the past, got milk ads are going to start popping up in California as the state's milk processor board, which launched the iconic campaign back in 1993, tries to capitalize on momentum for real dairy. In the 90s, the milk processor board was trying to drum up flailing milk sales at a time when this type of teetotalling, get it, was in fashion. But now, according to the Wall Street Journal, it's going on offense, aiming to hit the gas pedal on a car that shifted from reverse to drive. In 2024, U.S. consumption of whole milk rose by 3.2 percent, only the second time

it's increased since the 1970s, and sales of milk overall were up 1.9%. Meanwhile, plant-based milks flew too close to the sun, and while they don't spoil exactly, sales fell 5.9% last year, according to Sircana. Why is dairy the hottest item you need to refrigerate? Analysts point to the three peas, protein, price, and perception. Real milk is high in protein, which is all the rage right now in wellness circles. In terms of price, it's cheaper than plant-based milk, a useful thing to be when consumers are worried about inflation. And finally, perception. Food trends have shifted away from more processed foods and toward the natural, clean, and simple. The first ingredient on a carton of milk is milk. There's not a lot of confusion about what's in it.

Toby, people are starting to come around to the idea that milk is a good choice. The Got Milk campaign has so much lower, so much cultural cachet attached to it, but I do want to go back to 19 to 93 when Goodby, Silverstein and Partners actually did the initial campaign. It went super viral, but it didn't actually drive milk sales. That's the ironic part of this entire campaign that despite the fact that everyone knows the Milk Mustache campaign, everyone knows the Got Milk campaign. but it didn't necessarily lead to a sale. So it is interesting that we're going back to a campaign that historically has a ton of clout but not necessarily a lot of purchase conversions.

At a time when milk is making the comeback, I do want to talk about Altmilks a little bit and why they are cooling off. To me, it's similar to the streaming wars in the sense that they grew a ton and all these different options came on the market and fatigue set in essentially. Like when you go to get a coffee now, you have a laundry list of different milks that you can choose from,

which just, you know, leads to a little too much churn. And then also maybe they double down on the wrong thing, like calcium-rich almond milk was a big thing in the 2010s, but now it's all about protein. So nutrition chance shift, as you mentioned, the three peas. So maybe the nutrition metric de jour of the day is what's going to make the winners and losers. I think they just leaned into this more processed foods at a time when people are moving to more natural. I mentioned the first ingredient in a carton of real milk is milk, the first ingredient on on Otley. I just looked, it's water. And if you're looking at that and saying, I just want something clean to put in my body.

I want fresh produce. I want fresh everything. And you're seeing the long ingredient list on these nut-based milks. And you're seeing the very short ingredient list on something like a card of milk. You know, it's pretty easy to make a decision, at least in 2025. And just look at Otley's stock. the big oat milk producer is down a 98% below its IPO price in 2021. Its North American revenue fell 10.6% year over year in the first quarter of this year.

So maybe almond milk is actually still doing all right. It still has over 50% of the alt milk market share. This isn't going away. Milks, alternative milks. It is still a $10 billion market or it's expected to be one over the next five years. Compared to the dairy market, though, it's much smaller. it's just under $60 billion a year. So I don't know if Altmilk just needs its got milk campaign to, you know, bring it back

to the hearts and minds and wallets of consumers. But right now it is struggling a little bit. And it's not just milk itself. It's cows mills, what the industry calls cows milk-based value-added dairy products. And that sounds like a mouthful. But what I'm talking about is Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and kaffir cultured dairy products. They've seen sales rise 8.2 percent in the. past year. Cottage cheese, look at that. It's been an all-star. Cottage cheese sales were up

nearly 70% year-over-year and 20-24. People are finding it a great source of protein, one of the three peas. Protein is everywhere. And if you can doubt tout your own product as having a lot of protein content, which a lot of these milks do now is a huge part of their marketing campaign, then you will see a lot of success in this current food environment. Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. In a sorry state of affairs, American high school seniors probably can't read what's written on their fake IDs or figure out how old they're supposed to be. Senior scores on major math and reading tests fell to their lowest levels on record, according to data released by the Education Department yesterday. Their average math score was the worst

since 2005 when this test began, while reading fell to its lowest point since 1992 when that test began. To give you an example of what this means, in reading two-thirds of high school seniors could figure out the purpose of a persuasive essay, but only 20% could draw a conclusion from that essay. The results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is given to tens of thousands of students and considered the gold standard in benchmarking how students are faring, and it presents a worrying picture. Student performance was declining in the years before the pandemic, and it's only accelerated since. This so-called learning loss has been pretty broad. It's been pretty substantial, and it's happening to people who were already falling behind.

they are now falling even further behind. Girls scores, on average, tended to drop faster than boys as well. And when you see this data, you want to point to a sort of smoking gun as to why is this happening. Is it the pandemic? No, it was happening before the pandemic. Is it social media? Probably can't point to that either. There has just been a variety of factors in challenges, high absence rates, misbehavior, teacher turnover, distraction within the classroom from a screens.

you can't just look at one particular things. This has just been a broad-based decline going forward, but yeah, it is rough that, I mean, I'm hoping I could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay as well after reading it, but tough to see this data, especially one that is continuing to head in the wrong direction.

Up next, rejoice hoarders for Cracker Barrel has halted its remodeling plans that were set to clean up the famously cluttered homespun restaurant decor. Just weeks after it announced it's keeping its old logo after facing an online firestorm. It also halted any remodeling plans

that ditch the old-timey charm for cleaner, brighter interiors. In a statement titled, We Hear You, the company reistered customers that the rocking chairs on the porch are fireplaces and peg games, unique treasures in our gift shop will be staying. The thing the chain most heard, though,

was a lack of credit card swipes. Cracker barrel sales and foot traffic have fallen since the logo change controversy first erupted in August, according to data seen by the Wall Street Journal. Neil Cracker Barrel cracked under the pressure. They waived the light flag, but I can't help but think back to what Ann Barry, who hosts Brew Markets said on this particular podcast when talking about this story, she said, well, you're

damned if you do and you're damned if you don't because Cracker Barrel was not doing well. Their stock is down 63% in the past five years. Their sales in 2024 were completely flat year over year. They need new customers. Their customer base is getting older. They need to replenish that with younger customers. and they were going to do that through this store remodeling, but they were beaten into submission.

They did not do this particular change the right way. The unfavorable view of Cracker Barrel rose from 10% on August 23rd to 25% two days later. So this was a case of just a very mismanaged remodeling or renovation. But still, Cracker Barrel has to do something different because they can't keep doing the same things that we were doing, or they will just decline into obscurity. I will say after this controversy broke out, I did open up my Apple maps and say, where's the nearest Cracker Barrel? We're in a Cracker Barrel desert here right now, so we're not going to help with any of those

traffic trends, but I have thought about going to Cracker Barrow going forward, so maybe sales will bounce back. Finally, Apple wasn't the only one to roll out a new product yesterday. The Girl Scouts of America are also debuting a new cookie for its upcoming season. Get your wallet and your mouth ready for the Exploremoors, a Rocky Road-inspired chocolate cookie that has a creamy filling with notes of marshmallow and toasted almond. For Explore Moors to live, other cookies had to die. So you have to say goodbye to Smoors and Toastiers, which got booted from the lineup.

But don't worry, the 2026 season is still packed with favorites like Samoas, doceidoes, tagelons, tree foils, and thin mitts, which will go on sale around the new year. Neil, I've never been a Rocky Road ice cream kind of guy, but twist my arm. I'll support the local troops and give it a taste test. Explore Moors, that's a mouthful in more ways than one. I don't know about you, I'm 100% in chocolate cookie, creamy filling with chocolate, almond cream, marshmallow. This is very much my alley. I do like Rocky Road ice cream.

And if you just port that into a cookie, I mean, obviously I'm signing up for that. It looks delicious. Seems like the Girl Scouts are going in this particular Dora, the Explorer route with their naming conventions, because we got the Explore Moors now. And one of the cookies that is in their lineup is called. called Adventureful. So if you need a snack for a hike, the Girl Scouts want to be that. What's wrong with Finvince, though? Finvince, it just tells you exactly what it is. It's still the goat, but you're trying to get all new age with the Explorimor. Just give me the old

classics. Well, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. If you have any thoughts or feedback on today's show, send a note to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lute is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair makeup has got milk. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show day, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Aw. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel

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