Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 03/18 – An April Apple Event?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Thursday, March 18th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. It's an Apple Rumor Thursday from both the boys, German and Quo. Sony is taking what it's learned from the dual sense controllers and bringing that to VR. YouTube rolls out its TikTok rival. Spotify wants you to know it gets artists paid. And I do my best to explain the whole creator economy controversy that has sprung up over at Substack. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Apple Rumor Thursday from both of our favorite rumor mongers. First, Mark German says that faster iPad pros may come as early as April, and I have been seeing rumors of an April Apple event just these past 24 hours or so, which have they ever done in

Starting point is 00:01:19 April event? Is that a new one? Apple is also apparently using mini-l-D in at least the 12.9-inch iPad Pro models, according to German, quote, the devices will have an updated processor that is on par with the faster M-1 chips in the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacMany. the new iPad Pros have used a Thunderbolt connector the same port on the latest Macs with custom Apple processors. The port doesn't require new chargers, but it would enable connectivity with additional external monitors, hard drives, and other peripherals. It's also faster at syncing data than the USBC technology used in the current models. The iPad Pro was last updated in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, adding a tweaked processor, support for the Magic keyboard with Trackpad case, and a LiDAR scanner alongside the camera.

Starting point is 00:02:06 plans to refresh its cheapest iPad aimed at students with a thinner and lighter design later this year. Bloomberg News has reported it's also preparing to launch a new iPad Mini with a larger screen as early as this year, an increase from the 7.9 inch display used since the first model. The iPad Mini was last upgraded in 2019 with support for the Apple Pencil Stilis and a faster processor, end quote. To which Ming Chi Kuo said, Hold My Beer, he expects mini-l-D displays will be used in the MacBook Air by 2022, quote. Quote points out that although Apple will now adopt mini-l-D displays for the new iPad Pro, other iPad models will switch to OLED displays beginning with iPad Air next year. Many LED panels offer the same benefits as OLED, such as deeper blacks, since the backlighting is based on

Starting point is 00:03:00 several small LEDs, but they don't suffer from burn-in. However, as mini-l-ed is a more expensive technology, Apple plans to bring OLED to the cheaper iPads, which includes the iPad Air and the entry-level iPad. According to the analysts, Apple has no plans to bring OLED to its productivity devices because of burn-in concerns, which could be more noticeable by users who work with the same software for hours. Quo says that the MacBook Air will also get a mini-l-D display by 2022, which will also boost the adoption of this technology. end quote. Sony has unveiled new PS5 VR controllers with haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and finger touch detection. So it certainly looks like they're bringing their learnings from

Starting point is 00:03:46 the dual sense over to whatever their new VR is going to be, and it looks like we're going to get Sony's vision for the next steps in VR in drips and drabs instead of, you would think, one overarching event, quoting GameSpot. Ditching PlayStation move at last, the controllers resemble the tracking controller seen on competing systems like Oculus Quest and Valve Index, but they also include some of the PS5's unique features. The PS5 VR controller has an orb shape that Sony says will allow you to hold it naturally. This controller is said to offer a high degree of freedom with no constraints for moving your hands. We also designed the new controller with great ergonomics in mind,

Starting point is 00:04:26 so it's well-balanced and comfortable to hold in each of your hands, PlayStation's Hedecki Nishino said. We applied learnings from testing users, with a range of hand sizes, as well as the decades of insights from controllers across all PlayStation platforms. The result is an iconic design that will change how VR games are played, end quote. The controllers feature a number of unique features such as adaptive triggers that add palpable tension when pressed, similar to the triggers on the PS5's Dual Sense controller. The controllers also have haptic feedback that will allow users to feel the difference based on what they are playing. Sony provided examples like trekking through a rocky desert or engaged in

Starting point is 00:05:03 melee combat. The PS5 VR2 controllers also have finger touch detection, which can detect your fingers without you needing to press anything where your thumb, index finger, or middle finger is. Tracking is done through a tracking ring across the bottom of the controller, end quote. YouTube is rolling out its TikTok rival, which it's calling YouTube shorts, at least here in the US. But Hyam Gartenberg, who has been testing this out, says it's missing a bunch of key features and kind of feels half-baked, quoting The Verge. Like TikTok users will be able to swipe through an endless, algorithmically generated feed of short videos, subscribe to their favorite creators, explore specific hashtags or sounds,

Starting point is 00:05:48 and remix other videos audio tracks. Even the interface looks similar to TikTok's player. But instead of getting its own app, Shorts will live on a new carousel on the home tab of the mobile YouTube app. The company is also experimenting with a dedicated Shorts tab. And while Shorts checks off a lot of the basics, it's missing plenty of features that make TikTok such a unique viral hit. There's virtually no collaborative features available in Shorts at launch, so users won't be able to reply to other videos or join together in a version of TikTok's popular duet or stitch

Starting point is 00:06:19 features. Also missing is a way to view a more curated feed. For now, Shorts only offers its main algorithmic feed, similar to TikTok's For You page, with no option to only view videos from accounts to which you've seen. subscribed, end quote. So maybe a TikTok clone without some of the key features that make TikTok TikTok. You know, for years, we've given Twitter a lot of guff for not shipping and not iterating. But the other day I was thinking about YouTube in the context of this explosion of the creator economy. And considering how YouTube was basically the main game in town for creators to monetize over the

Starting point is 00:06:56 last decade or so, it's basically a scandal that everyone has been able to eat the lunch that should have been YouTube's. Speaking of creators, Spotify wants you to know that they get creators paid. Spotify has launched a site to show how much they pay artists, claiming that they paid out $5 billion artists just in 2020, up from $3.3 billion in 2017. They say around 13,000 artists make more than $50,000 a year in royalties on Spotify, and that was up 80% from 2017, quoting the verge. also notes that there are 1.2 million artists with over 1,000 listeners on the platform. It doesn't say how many artists there are total, and that 15%, or 184,000 of their catalogs generated recording and publishing royalties of at least $1,000. Those payments don't go directly to artists and

Starting point is 00:07:53 are instead paid to their rights holders, like distributors or record labels, which then refer to the contracts they hold with artists to pay them. This means the artist likely didn't receive the full $1,000 from their Spotify streams. On the higher end, only 870 artists catalogs generated $1 million or more in royalties. The site also includes a calculator so artists can see where their work ranks on Spotify, like how a song with 100,000 all-time streams would only be in the top 2,710,000 tracks on the platform. Spotify's increased interest in transparency comes about during a time when a couple of its

Starting point is 00:08:30 competitors are experimenting with new ways to pay artists. Earlier this month, SoundCloud announced that it would pay, indie artists based on their actual listeners rather than a share of overall streams. So a SoundCloud subscriber subscription fee or advertising revenue is divvied up among the artists they actually listen to rather than going to a big pot and being split up and shared with the platform's most popular artists like Spotify, end quote. Staying on the creator economy tip, I wanted to make you aware of a controversy, though I don't know that I have an opinion on the controversy myself, but for months there

Starting point is 00:09:10 were rumors that some writers were being paid big, even six-figure advances to start a newsletter on Substack. I kind of thought this was more than a rumor. I thought this was basically a well-known fact, but maybe it wasn't. I can't say more than that because maybe I was privileged to some information that other people weren't. Well, Substack recently up and shared details on its so-called pro program, after much criticism, saying more than 30 writers with a, quote, diverse set of viewpoint have signed up for Substack Pro. But Substack declined to say who those writers were, and that has pissed a lot of people off, because this is 2021. Some of this is political, with accusations flying that Substack is only paying people from a certain political persuasion. Some high-profile folks like

Starting point is 00:09:58 Felicia Day have already said that they will be taking their newsletters off of Substack. But that's on the one hand. On the other hand, the controversy seems to be, if Substack is paying people, then it's not just that, a neutral platform. Paying some writers and not others is an editorial decision. This is essentially the point made by Annalie Newitz in her substack, The Hypothesis, which I will quote from now because everybody has been tweeting about it all night, quote, Substack is not merely an app. It's actually a publication. Why do I say that? Because Substack's leadership pays a secret select group of people to write for the platform. They call this group of writers, the Substack Pro group, and they are rewarded with advances that Substack co-founder

Starting point is 00:10:43 Hamish McKenzie calls, quote, an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform that's more attractive to a writer than a salary, so they don't have to stay in a job or take one. That's less interesting to them than being independent, end quote. In other words, it's enough money to quit their day jobs. They also get exposure through Substack's now considerable online reach. By doing this, Substack is creating a de facto editorial policy. Their leadership, let's call them editors. are deciding what kinds of writing and writers are worthy of financial compensation.

Starting point is 00:11:13 And you don't know who those people are. That's right. Substack is taking an editorial stance, paying writers who fit that stance, and refusing to be transparent about who those people are, end quote. Newitz goes on to outline her ethical concerns with that, but also goes on to make this point, quote, but you might be saying, substack mostly publishes tons of people who are not staff writers. Look at the thousands of newsletters on the site. that are clearly not written by staff. No, it does not matter that technically anyone can jump on substack and get paid by subscribers. Technically anyone can sing on the street corner and get paid by passers by, but that doesn't mean they are on a level playing field with Megan the Stallion.

Starting point is 00:11:55 An elite group of Substack Pro staffers handpicked by editors have been given the resources to write full time. Everyone else on Substack has to do it for free until they manage to claw and scrape their way into a subscriber base that pays. Realistically, almost nobody will reach that point. The vast majority of substack newsletter writers will never make money that's equivalent to a year's salary, which is what the staffers get. Instead, they will provide substack with free content, hoping to get that sweet subscriber cash one day, and substack will dangle its successful writers in front of its rank-and-file membership to keep them going. You too could have a substack that's as financially successful as this guy's substack,

Starting point is 00:12:34 except you don't know whether this successful substack was bankrolled by the company or not. There's no transparency about that. For all we know, every single one of Substack's top newsletters is supported by money from Substack. Until Substack reveals who exactly is on its payroll, its promises that anyone can make money on a newsletter are tainted. We don't have enough data to judge whether to invest our creative energies in Substack because the company is putting its thumb on the scale by in Hamish's own words, giving a secret group of financially constrained writers the ability to start building a sustainable enterprise. We are, not to put too fine a point on it, being scammed, end quote.

Starting point is 00:13:13 Again, she's referring to co-founder Hamish McKenzie's blog post announcing the Substack Pro program, which I have also linked to in the show notes. You knew it had to be coming, didn't you? Andresen Horowitz's crypto fund has led a $23 million series A round in OpenC, one of the biggest, thus far, most prominent marketplaces for NFTs. Apparently, $95 million in digital merchandise changed hands on OpenC in February, up from, get this, $8 million in January just the month before. Quoting Fortune.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Total sales gushed unexpectedly 100-fold compared with six months ago as the site competes for market share with rivals such as mintable, nifty gateway, and rarable. In a ringing endorsement that the NFT economy is here to stay, traditional investors, not just NFT collectors, are pouring money into OpenC. The startup has raised $23 million in a new round of venture capital funding led by A16Z crypto, the cryptocurrency-obsessed arm of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andresen Horowitz. Other cryptocurrency-focused investors are also participating in the round, including Angelist co-founder Naval Ravacant, Coinbase's former tech chief Balaji Strina Vassin, Linda G of Sclar Capital, Andrew Steinwald of the NFT-focused fund Sferamon,

Starting point is 00:14:36 and Ryan Selkis of Crypto Market Tracker Masari. The startup is also receiving backing from a who's who in tech. Investors range from Pinterest CEO Ben Silberman to Reddit co-founder Alexis O'hanion to Belinda Johnson, Airbnb's former chief operating officer, to Ron Conway, founder of SV Angel, Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner, and Tim Ferriss, and author of the Four Hour Workweek are contributing to the round two. OpenC has worked with Sean Mendez, the singer-songwriter to sell virtual avatar genies of himself, and it is partnered with Rob Gronkowski, the tight-end Tampa Bay Buccaneers football star on collectible Gronk trading cards. The site sells everything from digital real estate in a virtual world called Decentraland

Starting point is 00:15:20 to domain names for Ethereum wallets, end quote. Finally today, Intel has hired actor Justin Long to pitch Intel-based people. in some ads, touting touchscreens and the convertible form factors as a key differentiator from, say, I don't know, Macs, which is funny, because, of course, Justin Long is the guy who played the Mac in those I'm a Mac, I'm a PC Apple commercials from about 20 years ago, quoting the verge. Naturally, the ads focus on Mac versus PC again, with Long mocking Apple's touchbar, lack of M1 multiple monitor support, and the gray and grayer color choices for a MacBook. One even goes all in on Apple's lack of touchscreens in Macs or two-and-one support by

Starting point is 00:16:10 mocking the fact that you have to buy a tablet, keyboard, stylus, and even a dongle to match what's available on rival Intel-based laptops. Another ad also points out that no one really games on a Mac. The return of Justin Long in Mac versus PC ads for Intel comes just months after Apple brought back actor John Hodgman to reprise his role as the PC guy from Apple's I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ad campaign. While Apple kept its reprisal limited to the company's keynote to introduce arm-based M1 MacBooks, Intel has gone a step further and revived this for full commercials, end quote. Yeah, commercial spokespeople, where's their loyalty, huh? Remember when the Can You Hear Me Now guy, Paul McArelli, I think that's his name, Jump Ship from Verizon,

Starting point is 00:17:02 to Sprint slash T-Mobile. But do you know how much money you can make from a multi-decade, ubiquitous commercial campaign? Just ask Flo from Progressive. It's a lot. I have a close friend who's done commercial voiceover for years. Sometimes when you think you hear John Hamm in an ad, it's actually my friend. He takes all the deep voice gigs John Hamm doesn't get. Anyway, he's made plenty of bank over the years, and he's never even shown his face.

Starting point is 00:17:28 If you actually show your face, you get a ton more. consider Gilbert Godfried versus John Hodgman. If I remember correctly, Nick Kroll was one of the Geico Cavemen back in the day, or maybe he was a caveman in that short-lived caveman TV series, which was actually a thing, if you can believe it. Anyway, talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 03/18 – An April Apple Event?

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