Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 05/03 – Kuo: Foldable iPhone In 2023!

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Kuo says we’re gonna see a foldable iPhone soon. After the iOS privacy changes, Facebook is giving users popups begging them to turn tracking on. The interesting new “green” cryptocurrency that is launching today. And a backgrounder and breakdown of the Apple/Epic games trial that is kicking off today. Sponsors: PorkBun.com/tld/design use coupon code RIDE Cybereason.com Links: Kuo: Apple to Launch 8-Inch Foldable iPhone in 2023 (Mac Rumors) Verizon sells media businesses including Yahoo and AOL to Apollo for $5 billion (CNBC) Facebook and Instagram notices in iOS apps tell users tracking helps keep them ‘free of charge’ (The Verge) A new green cryptocurrency called Chia uses a less energy-intensive method of minting new coins. Here are 6 things to know about the digital asset before it starts trading on Monday. (Markets Insider) Microsoft explored reducing its Xbox store cut to shake up console gaming (The Verge) Apple’s App Store Had 78% Margin in 2019, Epic Expert Says (Bloomberg) Epic v. Apple: Everything you need to know about the biggest trial in tech (Protocol) 52 Week Newsletter: https://reading-waves.ghost.io/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Monday, May 3rd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Quo says we're going to see a foldable iPhone and soon. After the iOS privacy changes, Facebook is giving users pop-ups begging them to turn tracking back on, the interesting new green cryptocurrency that is launching today, and a backgrounder and breakdown of the Apple Epic Games trial that is also kicking off today. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Ming Chi Kuo has a new research note out saying that Apple is planning to launch a foldable iPhone with an 8-inch QHD plus flexible OLED display in 2023.

Quo says Apple will ship 15 to 20 million of the foldable iPhones that first year of sales, quoting Mac rumors. Quo predicts that foldable smartphones will become a must-have for all major smartphone brands and will boost the next super replacement cycle for high-end models, and he believes Apple is well positioned to be the, quote, biggest winner in the foldable device trend. Quo believes that the upcoming iPhone will adopt a silver nanowire touch solution for the devices display, which will create a, quote,

long-term competitive advantage for Apple in the foldable device market. This display technology will be needed for future foldable devices that support more than a single fold. Quoting now from Quo's note, future foldable devices will require touch technology that supports multiple folds versus only a single fold in current foldable smartphones, rollable, medium to large size displays, and durability.

When comparing the advantages of the above specifications, the silver nanowire is similar or superior to SDC's Yachta, end quote. Quo says that Apple is already using silver nanowire for the touch interface of the HomePod, allowing Apple to, quote, master the technology at a lower cost using small volume production, end quote. It is official, Verizon says it is selling its oath unit, which includes Yahoo and AOL, to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, while keeping a 10% stake in the company. The entire asset is going to be rebranded as Yahoo. Quoting CNBC, the sale will see online media brands under the former Yahoo and AOL umbrellas like

TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, and in Gadget go to Apollo at much lower valuations than they commanded just a few years ago. Verizon bought AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015 and Yahoo, just two years later, for $4.5 billion. Verizon will get $4.25 billion in cash from the sale along with its 10% stake in the company. Verizon and Apollo said they expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2021, end quote. Now that Apple's iOS 14 privacy updates have gone into effect, some Facebook and Instagram users say they are being shown notifications in their iOS apps that tell them to enable tracking in order to help keep Instagram and Facebook, quote, free of charge, quoting the verge. Technology researcher Ashken Soltani first noted the new

pop-up notices on Saturday, but a Facebook spokesperson directed the verge to a blob code from earlier last week that detailed the update. The company refers to the notices as educational screens and said they provided, quote, more details about how we use data for personalized ads, end quote, according to the blog post by Dan Levy, Facebook's vice president for ads and business products. Quote, this version of iOS requires us to ask for permission

to track some data from this device to improve your ads. Learn how we limit the use of this information if you don't turn on this device setting. The screen reads, We use information about your activity received from other apps and websites to show you ads that are more personalized, help keep Facebook free of charge, and support businesses that rely on ads to reach their customers, end quote. The keep Facebook slash Instagram free tactic seems to run counter to Facebook's longstanding tagline, which indicated the company was, quote, free and always will be, end quote.

Of course, Facebook quietly removed that slogan from its homepage in 2019, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, didn't rule out a paid version of Facebook when he testified before Congress in 2018. There will always be a version of Facebook that is free, he said, end quote. Remember that 52-week high newsletter tracking technology stocks hitting 52 or all-time highs on the stock market? One of your fellow listeners gin that up after hearing me talk about needing a tool like it to surface what tech companies were suddenly on the up and up. I didn't mention it last week when I announced it, though I neared did, but in the top 10 list of that very first issue of the newsletter coming in at number eight, actually with 21 new 52-week highs so far this year, was Seagate Technology. Yes, the hard drive

and generally computer storage maker. I'll put a link to the newsletter again at the bottom of the show notes so you can see what I mean. But anyway, I saw that and I thought, well, that's odd. like I don't tend to think of hard drives as a hot sector of tech, but I didn't get a chance to delve deeper until I saw this article from Business Insight Air across my transom this morning. Apparently, there is a new cryptocurrency called Chia that is debuting today, or at least it is debuting for trading today. It's been getting a lot of buzz in crypto circles and on Hacker News. And get this, it is a crypto that relies more on storage, as opposed to to raw computing power. And apparently that might be what's leading to a sharp rise in hard drive

and SSD sales. Quoting Insider. A new green cryptocurrency called Chia is set to start trading today. It was created by Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, and uses what's called proofs of space and time to farm rather than mine new coins. The model is a less energy-intensive method of producing digital assets compared to Bitcoin's proof-of-work concept, which has led that currency to be criticized for using as much energy as some entire nations. Chia and the network behind it, Chia Network, have already attracted significant attention from investors. Chia Network boasts big-name backing from the likes of Andresen Horowitz, Neval Ravacant, and Cypunc holdings, according to data from Crunchbase. The proofs of space and time model is central to Chia's value

proposition. The idea is that users called farmers will seed their hard drives or solid state drives with software that puts cryptographic numbers into specific plots. These plots are then awarded with blocks from the blockchain based on the percentage of total space a farmer has compared to the entire network. Then a VDF server known as a Time Lord verifies that block allowing the chain to move forward and awarding XCH to the farmer. Chia Network says the system will provide better security than Ethereum and reduce energy expenditure costs required by Bitcoin's proof-of-work model. A recent report from Digitimes revealed the Taiwanese memory and storage manufacturer A-data has seen a 500% increase in SSD orders since the start of April. The South China Morning Post

also reported that Chinese e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba's Taubo and J.D.com, have seen multiple models of enterprise-grade hard drives with large capacities selling out. Many people have inquired about large hard drives for chia mining in the past few days, one customer service agent at Taubow online told the South China Morning Post, the rise in hard drive and SSD sales is a result of the new requirements for storage to farm chia. If the cryptocurrency ends up being anywhere near as popular as other altcoins, the business model could put real pressure on memory and storage manufacturer's supplies and pricing moving forward, end quote. So there you go. Now I know why maybe Seagate stock has been rising this year. Sure enough, if you look at the

stock chart. There's a big surge right about at the beginning of April. See why a tool like this is useful for me? Anyway, please see the article to learn more about Chia. This is the first I'm hearing of it also. It's got its own smart transaction programming language called Chia Lisp. Chia has no hard cap on the number of coins in the ecosystem, but does have a strategic reserve to allow for predictable inflation. As mentioned, Chia has a formal company behind it, which says it plans to go public within the next six to 12 months. So there's an interesting startup story here as well. And listen to this. Quote, at home users will have the capability to complete and earn XCH by seeding their SSDs or hard drives. And at least for now, the lack of competition should allow

for a more profitable experience. Chia is also a very accessible cryptocurrency. Gene Hoffman, the CEO and president of Chia Network, said it was designed that way on purpose. Quote, it is super simple. Just download the Mac or Windows version and double click, Hoffman told Coin Desk. I'm pretty sure this will be the easiest cryptocurrency to validate for normal people ever, end quote. Finally today, guess what? The big Apple versus Epic Games trial begins today. There's been a slow drip drip of new information trickling out over the last few days because of the documents that are being shuffled around in preparation for this trial. For example, we have learned that Microsoft plan to reduce its cut from 30% to 12% for Xbox games.

A document filed as part of Epic versus Apple in January shows. We miss this, by the way, over the weekend, Microsoft said it is reducing its cut for PC games in the Microsoft store from 30 to 12% starting August 1st, but that is largely likely a bid to compete with Steam. This is slightly different, quoting the verge. A table reveals, quote, all games will move to 88 slash 12 in CY21, which means Microsoft had been planning a significant cut to Xbox

transactions for some point in the 2021 calendar year. While Microsoft has announced its PC cut, which is also listed in the same table, the company has stayed quiet about any Xbox plans. A change to 12% would be significant, particularly because Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all currently take 30% on digital game sales. This document is part of it. of the Epic Games versus Apple trial that commences on Monday, and there could be questions over Microsoft's fee plans here. Both Epic and Apple are calling on Microsoft's Lori Wright, VP of Xbox business development as a third-party witness next week, end quote. So is this a cascading thing where the whole idea of the 30% cut is maybe in danger, maybe going away? If so, that's going to be a big deal

for the console businesses like Xbox and PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Maybe because your margin is my opportunity, as Jeff Bezos once famously said. Being a software platform is a good business, a fat margin business. Expert testimony from the epic side based on internal Apple Docs claimed that the App Store, Apple's App Store, had an operating margin of 77.8% in 2019. Apple says the estimates are wrong. quoteing Mark German in Bloomberg. The figure comes from Ned Barnes, a financial and economics researcher who said he obtained documents, quote, prepared by Apple's corporate financial planning and analysis group and produced from the files of Apple CEO Tim Cook, end quote. As part of

the pretrial information sharing process, Barnes said that an Apple employee told him that the numbers from the company's internal documents don't show the full picture. Barnes said he then made additional calculations which resulted in higher margin estimates of 79.6% for both 2018 and 2019. In a statement Saturday, the Cupertino-California-based technology giant said, Epic experts' calculations of the operating margins for the App Store are simply wrong, and we look forward to refuting them in court, end quote. Barnes said he also obtained documents prepared inside Apple that show profit and loss estimates for fiscal year 2020. He said Apple had been tracking App Store profits for years,

and that he also obtained such statements for 2013 through 2015, end quote. So if Microsoft does go ahead and cut its take on Xbox sales to 12%, is this a case of some of Apple's competitors being willing to burn down the 30% infrastructure to Shiv Apple? I don't think it's only that. I think it's more likely that 30% was an unusually fat rake, that natural competition is maybe finally causing to collapse. has a market structure. Maybe Apple is just fighting a losing rearguard action against something that is crumbling under its own weight anyway. Anyway, how is this trial going to work? Well, David Pierce

at Protocol has you covered, and it seems we're in for a lot of fireworks in a short period of time. Quote, Epic versus Apple starts Monday and is estimated to last about three weeks. In total, each side will have 45 hours to present its case. The judge, Gonzalez-Rogers, has been overseeing the case since the beginning and will preside over the trial as well. The trial will be held largely in person, but with only six people per side allowed in the courtroom at a time. A few witnesses will testify over Zoom. Masks have been a contentious issue with the court ruling that attorneys will be required to wear masks, but witnesses will be given transparent masks for when they're testifying. The biggest question for this specific case is not about app stores or Fortnite,

but about how to define a monopoly. That's the biggest issue facing enforcers in general right now, really, how to approach digital markets and separate vigorous competitors from those damaging the whole process to maintain their dominance, even as would be reformers pushed to go beyond the long-held consumer harm readings of the Sherman Act and toward a definition that makes more sense for huge internet platforms. Epic wants people. and Gonzalez Rogers to see it as the white knight fighting on behalf of developers, gamers, and little guys everywhere. Apple instead wants to paint Epic as another tech giant, eager to keep more profit for itself and says Epic's entire Project Liberty plan to pick this

fight is a little more than a thinly disguised money grab. 30% is an industry standard for commissions. Google charges the same for Play Store apps, though Epic's suing over that too. and most similar platforms offering apps and games use the same 70-30 split. Apple says that's lower than brick-and-mortar splits and that Apple shouldn't be penalized for doing the same thing as everyone else. Epic says Apple started the 30% trend and that it also gives special deals to companies like Amazon. But what about game consoles? One of the biggest arguments put forth by Apple Defenders is the lack of alternative app stores

and 70-30 revenue split on console platforms like PlayStation and Xbox. Epic says in a recent filing that computing devices like smartphones are differentiated from consoles because, quote, video game consoles operate under a radically different business model than smartphones, end quote. But the existence of alternative platforms with similar restrictions bolsters Apple's argument that the App Store has an industry standard approach with regard to gaming platforms. It turns out the Mac model might be sort of a wrinkle here. A big part of Epic's argument hinges on the fact that the Mac, has an app store with in-app purchases, but still allows people to buy and sell stuff in other ways.

Apple touts the Mac as a secure device, Epic argues, so what gives? And then there are web browsers. Apple has long made the case that if you don't want to buy things through Apple's in-app systems, no problem, just open up Safari and do it there. Part of Apple's defense will be that there's no way it could be a monopoly simply because Safari exists, and so do web apps. and it will surely point to things like Microsoft's new cloud gaming service, which wasn't allowed in the app store, but is now coming to iOS through Safari, end quote. Get your popcorn out, people, because as mentioned, this is only going to be a three-week trial. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic is slated to testify, as well as Tim Cook, Eddie Q, Craig Federigi, and Phil Schiller, among others, for the Appleside. Let's get ready to rumble.

So I downloaded that Chia app on my iMac. I've set up a plot, I think. So I guess I'm farming now, I think. It's hard to say. Chia is definitely overselling how easy it is to set up a node and start farming, I think. And boy, did it make my fans run at first. But now it seems to be running in the background relatively easily. Maybe we're going to need to get Brady Dale back on a Twitter space soon if this Chia

proves to be an interesting story this week. Talk to you tomorrow.