Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 06/18 – Apple Pumping The Breaks On The Vision Pro?

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Does Apple pumping the breaks on the Vision Pro indicate problems for the category, or was this always the plan? What if AI means bots do the social media-ing for you? Actual RISC-V PCs coming to market. And a review of the new slate of CoPilot+ PCs that are available now. Links: Apple Suspends Work on Next Vision Pro, Focused on Releasing Cheaper Model in Late 2025 (The Information) Former Snap engineer launches Butterflies, a social network where AIs and humans coexist (TechCrunch) The Framework Laptop 13 is about to become one of the world’s first RISC-V laptops (The Verge) Here are all of the Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X chips that were released today (Engadget) ASUS VivoBook S 15 Copilot+ PC Review: Is the Snapdragon X Elite hype real? (Windows Central) 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 Wednesday, June 19th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. Does Apple pumping the brakes on the Vision Pro indicate problems for the category, or was this always the plan? What if AI means bots do the social mediaing for you?

Actual Risk 5 PCs coming to market and a review of the new slate of co-pilot plus PCs that are available now. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Well, this is the main reason you're getting a show today, but also everyone else in the house is still asleep. Dog and I are up and I'm reading the headlines, so why not? A source has told the information that Apple has apparently told at least one supplier it has suspended work on the next generation Apple Vision Pro. Sources still say Apple is still aiming to debut a cheaper model by the end of 2025. I guess Apple Vision without the pro. But is the high end a dead end now? Quote, The pullback comes as analysts and supply chain partners have flagged slowing sales of the $3,500 device.

The company is still working on releasing a more affordable vision product with fewer features before the end of 2025. The person involved in its supply chain and a person involved in the manufacturing of the headset said Apple originally planned to divide its Vision Pro line into two models similar to the standard pro versions of the iPhone, according to people involved in its supply chain and former Apple employees who worked on the devices. Apple's decision to halt work on the next version of its high-end headset is the latest example of the company reshuffling priorities. Apple has wrapped up work on AI-powered features while pairing back money-losing projects like its self-driving car, which it canceled earlier this year after spending nearly a decade on development. Augmented reality is one of Apple's biggest bets. The company aims to eventually replace the iPhone with lightweight glasses, and the Vision Pro is the first step in building consumer and developer interest in that effort.

Although it's possible that Apple could resume work on a high-end vision product down the road, suspending development of the next high-end headset for now could have repercussions for the rest of the AR and virtual reality industry, which views the headset as a litmus test of consumer appetite for a premium device. Meta platforms, for instance, started work in November on a new high-end headset internally codenamed La Jolla, according to multiple current and former meta employees five months after Apple announced the Vision Pro. Before that, in January 2023, Meta had axed plans to build a more expensive Quest headset after it saw weak sales of its $1,500 Quest Pro. A meta-spokesperson didn't reply to a request for comment. Even with a looming international

launch, one supplier that makes components for the Vision Pro cut production by half in May after receiving a forecast from Apple predicting weaker demand through August. The supplier, which has no competitors, made parts for about 460,000 Vision Pros as of April, one of its employees said, and planned to make enough parts for another 100,000 headsets between May and August. The numbers suggest that Apple has, at most, produced about half a million units this year, and doesn't expect to make significantly more than that through August. Apple had been deprioritizing the successor to the high-end Vision Pro for the last year, over time assigning fewer employees to work on the second-generation model,

according to one person who worked on the device until earlier this year. Within Apple, the focus last year shifted to reducing the cost of the first-generation model's components, although development did start on an upgraded Vision Pro display, the person said. Apple began work in 2022 on a cheaper vision product internally codenamed N109, the information previously reported. The company's aim is to make this version as affordable as a high-end iPhone, which retails for up to $1,600. At the time it started the work, Apple aimed to release the more affordable product at the end of 2024. As of earlier this year, Apple still didn't have a firm prototype of N109, according to a person involved in its manufacturing, and the company has been

struggling to find ways to cut the model's cost without losing too many key features, which means the product could likely slip beyond its revised release date for the end of 2025, end quote. So again, I should note this could all be nothing. This could always sort of have been the plan, or at least the product's roadmap, just kind of playing out. As Mark German noted on X, quote, prior to the Vision Pro release, Apple shifted resources to the cheaper one. as I wrote earlier this year. Months ago, the Vision Pro 2 was postponed until the end of 2026 at the earliest so engineers could focus on low end.

Nothing has changed, end quote. So take learnings from the pro, release a cheaper model, come back to the high end, maybe later. That might have always been the plan. Still, it's interesting. A former Snap Engineer has debuted Butterflies, a social network where users can create AI personas that then interact. with users and other AIs via posts and DMs. This is something that people have been speculating about

as potentially the future of social media in the AI era. Instead of having online personas ourselves as representations of ourselves, but in the digital world, we would have actual factual digital avatars or bots representing us on our behalf. This is the first iteration of this idea that I've seen. Quoting TechCrunch, Anyone can create an AI persona called a butterfly in minutes on the app.

After that, the butterfly automatically creates posts on the social network that other AIs and humans can then interact with. Each butterfly has backstories, opinions, and emotions. When you open the app, you see a traditional social media feed filled with humans and AIs posting updates about their days. For instance, you might see a butterfly who's a woodworker posts their latest creation, or you may come across a butterfly CEO of a Costco in an alternative universe who is hell-bent on keeping hot dogs priced at $1.50. Yes, someone actually created this butterfly. The app's beta phase gave tens of thousands of users access to the social network. During the beta, the company says users spent an average of one to three hours interacting with AIs on the app.

In one instance, two friends created two butterflies simultaneously and gave them their own backstories to have them interact on their behalf and see where they ended up. Another person created a version of themselves that lived in Game of Thrones' fictional continent of Westeros, while someone else recreated themselves as a Dungeons and Dragons character. Butterflies was founded by Voo Tran, a former engineering manager at Snap. Voo came up with the idea for butterflies after seeing a lack of interesting AI products for consumers outside of generative AI chatbots. Although companies like Meta and Snap have introduced AI chatbots in their apps, they don't offer much functionality beyond text exchanges. notes that he started Butterflies to bring more creativity to humans' relationships with AI. With a lot of the generative AI stuff that's taking flight, what you're doing is talking to an AI through a text box, and there's really no substance around it, Vue told TechCrunch.

We thought, okay, what if we put the text box at the end and then try to build up more form and substance around the characters and AIs themselves, end quote. Butterfly's concept goes beyond character AI, a popular A16Z-backed chatbot startup that lets users chat with customizable AI companions. Butterflies wants to let users create AI personas that then take on their own lives and coexist with each other. It's fascinating what people are using butterflies for, Voo said. At Snap, I did a lot of user research, but the behavior on butterflies is just so new. Voo says one person spent five hours a day creating 300 personas. He also found that some people connect with other humans on the platform because they resonate over what they have created. Voo says that Butterflies is one of the most wholesome

ways to use and interact with AI. He notes that while the startup isn't claiming that it can help cure loneliness, he says it could help people connect with others, both human and AI, end quote. A couple of hardware stories now. What if I told you we are on the verge of a new hardware paradigm? Quoting the Verge. What if your laptop didn't need a processor from an established brand like Intel or AMD? What if it didn't even rely on proprietary paid architectures like Arm and X86? Risk 5 is one of the answers to those questions. It's free for anyone to use, and modular computer company Framework has just decided to welcome Risk 5 into its laptop lineup.

Specifically, Framework has partnered with deep computing the company behind the very first Risk 5 laptops, to build a main board for the Framework Laptop 13. Framework already sells Intel and AMD mainboards that easily slot into its 13-inch chassis, and Deep Computing now has independently designed a new one you could drop into Framework's laptop or even this $39 cooler master case that turns those boards into many desktops. While it's exciting to see the Open Source Risk 5 become so accessible, you should know it's pretty early days. Framework warns that, the performance and features aren't on par with Intel and AMD. And when Framework says they aren't yet competitive, that may be something of an understatement. Feronics's Michael Larabel points out that

even a Raspberry Pi 4 minicomputer is likely faster than the quad-core 1.5 gigahertz risk 5 star 5 JH7110 system on a chip you're getting here. But this is still an intriguing step in bringing more competition to the chip market, especially now that we no longer live in an age where native X-86 chips and native windows are required to run decades of legacy applications decently well. The Steam Deck, Apple Silicon, and now a wave of Qualcomm and arm-powered Windows laptops are all here to prove that Native isn't always best and that we deserve more. And Risk Five isn't such an outlandish choice as all that. The R in Arm stands for Risk, after all, and Risk 5 chips are already in use in embedded and server applications. The Framework

Laptop 13 even technically already has a Risk 5 chip. It's in the fingerprint reader. There's no release date or price for the Framework Risk 5 mainboard yet. It's still in early development, end quote. Finally today, the co-pilot plus PCs are all shipping. The second to last link in the show notes is to a list of all of the computers released yesterday, ranging from the Surface laptop to things from Dell, Acer, HP, everybody in the Windows ecosystem. That link comes via Engadgett. But I'll just give you one review from Windows Central to stand in for all of these new PCs. They reviewed the AISVVo Book S-15 co-pilot plus PC, which has a Snapdragon X Elite, all-day battery life, a 15.6-inch OLED screen, and only comes in at 1,299

for a one-terabyte SSD and 16 gigabytes of RAM. Quote, for ports, we've got a healthy selection consisting of two left-side USB-4 type C ports, a full-size-HdMI 2.1 port, a micro-SD card reader, and a 3.5 millimeter audio jack, along with two right-side USBA 3.2 Gen 1 ports. The device charges via USBC, meaning there's no dedicated or proprietary charging port or cable in the box. The big selling point of these Copilot Plus PCs is the exclusive set of features you can only find on these devices. These features include live caption translations, Windows Studio Effects, co-creator in paint, and image generation in photos. However, the one flagship feature for Copilot Plus PC's recall has been postponed due to controversy over security concerns.

While this laptop is getting Windows recall, it will only be available initially through Microsoft's Windows Insider program as a preview feature, until it reaches maturity for general release. All of these Copilot Plus features are handled locally on device powered by Qualcomm's new hexagon NPU that outputs 45 tops of power. This power is most noticeable when generating images and photos, which takes a little under 10 seconds to propagate results once you type in a query. Before you ask, yes, photos will reject certain key phrases. The image generator and photos and co-creator in paint follow a similar principle. An image generated, using AI based on the user's inputted prompt. Co-creator in paint follows your drawing to bring to life

whatever basic sketch you've put together in paint, whereas the Photosapp generates an entire image based on your prompt. I can't say either of these features has blown me away, partly because I have very little use for AI-generated imagery in my day-to-day. I'm sure there will be people out there who find these useful, but I think those people might be better served using an online image generator that's more realistic. Photos images are very artistic, which is likely a deliberate choice to avoid spreading fake images that look real. I think the best copilot plus feature is the enhanced Windows studio effects, which simply look great.

There are three illustrative effects that you can apply to your webcam feed, which makes your skin look great, almost like Snapchat filters. There's also a virtual portrait light mode, which attempts to brighten your face using AI, along with a more realistic portrait blur that looks really good. I will talk more about the Windows Studio Effects in the camera section of this review. Lastly, though, I want to mention something I've not experienced on a Windows laptop before. Consistent waking from sleep when opening the lid. Most Windows laptops will hibernate after a few hours of not being touched, meaning it takes longer to wake from sleep. This isn't something the Mac does, and so far the AISVVo Book S15 doesn't do it either. Every time I've gone to open the lid, it's instantly awake and ready for me to start using.

It's really awesome. The laptop is also incredibly light for its size coming in at just 1.4 kilograms or 3.13 pounds. This 15.6 inch laptop can be easily picked up with one hand, making it an excellent option for those needing a travel laptop with a large screen. You won't even notice it in your backpack. So does the Snapdragon X Elite live up to the hype in short? It absolutely does. This chip is a beast outputting incredible performance that you can feel in almost every task. Whether browsing the web with lots of tabs, multitasking through lots of open apps, rendering video and audio, hosting a podcast, or even some gaming, the Snapdragon X Elite can do it all. So does the Snapdragon X Elite live up to the hype in benchmark results? At least in the

AISVVo Book S15, the answer is yes. In almost all our tests, the Snapdragon X Elite trades blows with the Apple M3 and beats Intel's high-end core I7 and core I-9 chips in certain laptops. Our geek bench results saw the AISVVVo Book S-15 earn a score of 2,447 in single core and 14,248 in multi-core, just about in line with what Qualcomm promised these chips would deliver. The Snapdragon X Elite elevates this laptop from a good one to a great one. If it were an Intel laptop, it wouldn't be that special, but Qualcomm's new chip is genuinely impressive, allowing this laptop to do much more than you might expect. It's a competent video editor and multitasker with excellent AI capabilities that up until now

hasn't really been viable in a laptop this thin and light and certainly not for $1,299. The AISVVo Book S15 is the only Snapdragon X Elite PC on the market currently that ships with a 45 watt TDP, which does give it an extra boost in performance, but it's still early days to know just how that compares to the competition. If you need a higher TDP, this is the laptop to get. End quote. Also worth making note of the fact that Nvidia surpassed Microsoft yesterday to become the world's most valuable public company with a $3.34 trillion market cap. Nvidia is up over 9x just since January of 2023. Now worth more than the collective value of every single building in New York City.

More than the gross domestic product of France. More than all the cryptocurrencies in the world. More than the entire U.S. oil and gas industry. more than every ticket for Taylor Swift's 2023-era's tour if she toured for 3,000 consecutive years. Thanks to Kevin Dugan in Intelligencer for compiling that list. Talk to you tomorrow.