Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 12/10 - Wheels For Your Mac Pro Are $400 Extra

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 Tuesday, December 10th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Apple is suing its former chip architect. The Apple card finally makes sense to me. Wheels on the Mac Pro will run you $400 extra. SoftBank abandons wag. Microsoft brings office to Linux, and I want the new tech bubble to be about exoskeletons. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Apple is suing the former chief architect of its iPhone. and iPad microprocessors, those chips that are inside all of your eye devices. Gerard Williams quit Apple in February of this year to launch a data center startup called

Starting point is 00:01:19 Nuvia. Before that, Williams was in charge of Apple's arm-compatible processors for almost a decade. But in a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court, Apple alleges that Williams broke his Apple employment agreement when he launched his new company, quoting the register. Apple's lawsuit alleged Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own business while still working at Apple and drew on his work in steering iPhone processor design to create his new company. Crucially, Tim Cook and company's lawyers claimed he tried to lure away staff from his former employer. All of this was, allegedly, in breach of his contract. The I-Giant also reckoned Williams had formed the startup in hope of being bought,

Starting point is 00:02:07 by Apple to produce future systems for its data centers. Quote, unfortunately, rather than exploiting the technology he was working on for Apple, Williams secretly considered how he could take an opportunity to exploit that technology from Apple, the filing stated. Quote, Williams boasted about starting a new company with technology that he was working on at Apple, that he believed Apple, quote, needed, and that he believed Apple would have no choice but to purchase, end quote.

Starting point is 00:02:37 Apple now seeks injunctions and damages against Williams for breach of contract and breach of duty of loyalty, end quote. Williams, for his part, is fighting back, arguing in court that Apple's employment contract provisions are unenforceable under California law, arguing that they represent a non-compete clause, which is something that is generally hard to enforce in that state. He also accused Apple of essentially wiretapping his communications illegally, saying that Apple obtained his text messages from his work phone, which aren't eye messages encrypted? So that's interesting. Further interesting is the fact that Nuvia has raised

Starting point is 00:03:22 $53 million in funding and has a murderer's row of co-founders, including ex-Google chip guru Manu Gulati, former Google Apple and AMD chip architect John Bruno, former Red Hat chief arm architect John Masters and Intel Marketing Vice President John Carville. Also interesting on the Apple front, remember a couple of years ago when Apple made great fanfare about launching what it called intelligent tracking prevention, a program that would keep websites from tracking you around the web if you're on your iPhone or at least are using a Safari browser. Well, it looks like that has almost completely eliminated the ability of some average advertisers to target specific demographics. And that has had quite an effect. Apparently,

Starting point is 00:04:16 ad rates to reach Safari users have dropped more than 60% because those ads are less desirable, because they're less trackable, naturally. Meanwhile, ad prices for users of Google's Chrome browser have remained steady or risen slightly. This is from the information, quote, the allure of a Safari user in an auction has plummeted, said Rubicon Project CEO Michael Barrett. There's no easy ability to ID a user, end quote. This shift is significant because iPhone owners tend to be more affluent and therefore more attractive to advertisers. Moreover, Safari makes up 53% of the mobile browser market in the U.S. according to Web Analytics Service stats counter.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Only about 9% of Safari users on an iPhone allow outside companies to trade. where they go on the web, according to Nativo, which sells software for online ad selling. It's a similar story on desktop, although Safari has only about 13% of the desktop browser market. In comparison, 79% of people who use Google's Chrome browser allow advertisers to track their browsing habits on mobile devices through cookies. NativeO doesn't have historical data, so couldn't say what those percentages were in the past. Quote, Apple users are more valuable to advertisers based on demographics, higher income, et cetera, said Jason Kint, CEO of Industry Trade Group digital content next.

Starting point is 00:05:42 He argues that Safari users have been wrongly devalued in the short term and says marketers just need to find better ways to reach them online. As an example, Kent points to ads that relate to the article someone is reading, contextual advertising, as a format that doesn't run a foul of privacy issues. He says the format is growing and credits Apple's clamped down for one reason, end quote. Well, if you're Apple, and and you don't make the majority of your money on advertising. I guess you can be all shrug, shoulder emoji about this, right? But bizarrely, as the piece points out and a bunch of other people did on Twitter,

Starting point is 00:06:19 this actually has the knock-on effect of only strengthening the entrenched advertising platforms, like Facebook, Google, Amazon, instead of creating an alternative, since advertisers will merely double down on the platforms that do give them the tracking that they want. Sorry to frontload the show with Apple stuff today, but one more item. As they promised to do, Apple has launched the Apple Cards' interest-free iPhone installment plan. They made it live today. You can buy a new iPhone with your Apple Card and pay it back interest-free over 24 months.

Starting point is 00:07:04 And remember how you get 3% cash back on the Apple Card on all Apple purchases? Well, as a sweetener right now through December 31st, you'll get 6% back on all Apple purchases made on the Apple card. So if you were to buy a new iPhone right now with the Apple card, you're essentially basically getting a 6% discount right off the top. Apple, of course, already had interest-free iPhone purchases via the iPhone upgrade program, but this is completely fee-free now, and you can, of course, manage your payments inside the wallet app on the iPhone. And let me highlight this graph from TechCrunch, quote, Apple says the monthly installment payments will be automatically added to the cardholder's minimum payment. So customers only have one payment to make per month. The percentage back is added to users Apple Cash and thus can be put towards the payment or spent through Apple Pay. The iPhone installment program lays the groundwork for what could grow to become a larger subscription offering in the future. At a later date, Apple could choose to layer in its other subscriptions along with the iPhone purchase to create a bundle of some sort. By doing so, customers could buy the iPhone and the services they want to go along with it,

Starting point is 00:08:18 like ICloud, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple News Plus, or Apple Arcade. Already, the iPhone installment program will allow customers to bundle in AppleCare over the 24-month period, end quote. Okay, so I guess I'm a big dumb-dum, but now I get the point of the Apple card. Once the whole Apple Prime super bundle or whatever they're going to call it of Apple services actually gets rolling, Apple will have brand control over the entire process including payments instead of your various Apple charges showing up on your Capital One Visa card or whatever mixed in amongst your Apple Prime membership, your Netflix subscription, your Disney Plus subscription, your Peloton subscription. Apple can make all of its charges go on its card and can make your monthly bill be the minimum payment on that card. Pretty powerful. One question, though, is that psychologically the right move? What would happen if, you know, I woke up one day and was like, oh my God, my monthly Apple nut is now over $200. I need to cut back on something. Like, if all the charges are spread out around

Starting point is 00:09:33 My whole regular visa bill throughout the year, doesn't that make me less likely to notice all of the charges, to want to go in and cancel things? Like, you can make more money off of me if you hide that stuff from me? I know this is really devil's advocate stuff, but I'm sure Apple has focus group the heck out of this right, and they're confident this isn't going to be leaving money on the table. Microsoft is bringing its first ever office app to Linux with Microsoft Teams, which is now in public beta, quoting Venture Beat. Microsoft has shown a lot of love for Linux lately, open sourcing.net and taking it cross-platform to Mac and Linux, open sourcing PowerShell and extending it to Linux, bringing Visual Studio code to Linux as a snap and so on. An office app on Linux is something else. The operating system, has less than 2% desktop market share.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Still, it's much more popular among developers and business users. If Microsoft wants Teams to be the communication tool for everyone, Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows, and the web isn't enough, end quote. And sorry, one more Apple thing. This just hit right before I was going to record. We do now know the details for the Mac Pro. First, the machines will ship December 19th through 27th if you order today, which remember, you can pre-order today. And if you wanted to soup this bad boy up to the gills, 4 terabyte SSD hard drive, top-of-the-line GPU, the most RAM you could stuff in there, one and a half terabytes worth, fastest 28-core processor, the whole nine.

Starting point is 00:11:27 It would cost you more than $50,000. Also, if you want wheels on this thing, those will cost you $400 extra. The frame without wheels is, of course, the standard configuration. However, as Benedict Evans pointed out on Twitter, quote, if you buy a fully loaded Mac Pro with screen using your Apple card, assuming you have a high enough limit, you'll get $3,585 in rewards, which is enough to buy the new top-of-the-line Macs. MacBook Pro. Buy a Mac Pro, get a free $3,500 laptop, end quote.

Starting point is 00:12:06 Back on the SoftBank Watch, dog walking startup Wagg says SoftBank no longer has seats on its board of directors because sources are saying that SoftBank has sold its stake in Wag back to Wag at what one has to assume would be a hefty loss, quoting the Wall Street Journal. The price at which SoftBank is exiting couldn't be learned but is well below the roughly $650 million valuation at which the Japanese conglomerate invested $300 million early last year. The Vision Fund received two board seats with the Wag investment, which it is now relinquishing. The startup had only been seeking $75 million in funds. Wag had planned to use the cash to expand internationally and move beyond dog walking into related pet services, including grooming, boarding, food, and veterinary care. But it has failed to deliver on its expansion plans and fallen behind rivals,

Starting point is 00:13:07 including Rover. Recently, there was a difference of opinion between the Vision Fund and some other investors in WAG, according to people familiar with the matter, with officials at the $100 billion fund preferring to sell or liquidate the company and other investors preferring to downsize the business while focusing on sustainable growth and profitability. WAG has recently held discussions with potential acquirers, and when the company didn't move forward with a sale, SoftBank opted to take a write-down on its investment and cut its losses, some of the people said, end quote. Well, a write-down on WeWork here, a write-down on Wag there. Pretty soon, you're going to be talking about real money. Well, we talk about Visco for the first time on the show, and suddenly,

Starting point is 00:13:53 they're all over the news. Visco has apparently acquired video editing startup Riloh, which had raised around $38 million lifetime and reached a valuation of $120 million, backed by Sequoia and Asel, among others. Visco refused to reveal the terms of the acquisition, quoting TechCrunch. Founded in 2015, Riloh is best known for its 360-degree camera capable of creating cinematic video in 5.8K resolution. The device previously retailed for nearly $500, but now sells for as low as 250 on Best Buy.com. Under Visco's ownership, Riloh will focus exclusively on building out its mobile video editing tools for mobile. The company tells us it will not continue to manufacture and sell its signature device, but will continue to honor the warranty on previously sold cameras.

Starting point is 00:14:45 Riloh was launched by Alex Carpenko and Chris Cunningham. Carpenko, Riloh's chief executive officer previously founded Luma Camera in 2011, a video capture stabilization and sharing app, acquired by Instagram in 2013. The deal marked Instagram's first ever acquisition. The app was subsequently shut down with Carpenko joining Instagram's team as a software engineer. Carpenco became key developer of Hyperlapse, Instagram's TimeLapse video app. Cunningham for his part focused on eye life, aperture and eye photo for iOS as an engineer at Apple from 2008 to 2013. Cunningham eventually exited Apple for Facebook-owned Instagram, where he worked as an iOS engineer, focused on Instagram direct, end quote. Finally today, as you know, I recently got religion

Starting point is 00:15:37 about augmented reality tech in a work setting, expecting that soon we'll see AR headsets all over factories, construction sites, farms, you name it. But, you know, let's go full cyborg on this. According to ZDNet, robotic exoskeletons from single joint systems to full body kits are starting to make headway in industry and the military, not to mention hospitals. Quote, while medical uses aim to assist with rehabilitation or help people to move who would otherwise struggle, in the commercial world, robotic exoskeletons allow human workers to carry heavier loads than they would otherwise or work in uncomfortable positions such as with their hands overhead for longer periods before feeling strain and fatigue. There are two main

Starting point is 00:16:27 types of exoskeletons, passive, which don't have motors or actuators, and powered, which do. Passive exoskeletons can help support the wearer's body and redistribute weight and physical stress, while powered exoskeletons are typically used to amp up a worker's physical strength, allowing them to move or carry heavier weights. Both are starting to spread in industries that require workers to do repetitive, hard physical labor. Vehicle and aviation manufacturers are among the first big-name adopters. BMW, Audi, Ford, and Boeing have already started rolling out exosuits. Ford announced last year that it was rolling out passive exo vests from exo bionics

Starting point is 00:17:06 across 15 of its plants to, quote, help lessen the physical toll that their job takes on a worker's body when they're asked to do overhead work, according to Ford. The suit supports the employee's arms as they work overhead and gives them five to 15 pounds of lift assistance, end quote. And again, according to the piece, these things are coming to construction sites as well, which makes me hope that someday I'll be seeing folks in one of those mech loaders like Ripley and aliens. But what about Tony Stark Iron Man suits? Maybe for the military, quoting again, smaller units rather than full body systems,

Starting point is 00:17:47 may be the first to be rolled out more substantially by the military. The U.S. Army is trialling a Lockheed Martin-powered exoskeleton, and the onyx, which is worn on the leg to reduce the load on the user's knees, as well as the Delphi Exo Boot, which does a similar job for the ankles. Ryan Witten, a senior analyst at ABI Research, predicts in the short term, that passive suits will be the main bulk of exoskeleton deployments, and that the industry is another 12 to 18 months away from seeing suits rolled out in their thousands and tens of thousands, end quote.

Starting point is 00:18:19 Thanks to all of you for the ride home pitches that have been flooding in. I promise to respond to people eventually, but give us at least until next month, because we're busy managing the Celeb News ride home rollout at the moment, obviously, and then come the holidays. So we won't be able to even begin thinking about the next show to launch until January at the earliest. So if you've gotten in touch, be cool. and if you haven't heard back from us in January, you have my permission to bug us again. But we're thrilled.

Starting point is 00:18:56 So many people have so many great ideas for rides home. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 12/10 - Wheels For Your Mac Pro Are $400 Extra

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