Get In Social Media Losers...
Apple Spinning Siri • Amazon Spinning Movie Theaters • OpenAI + Google Cloud • Alexa+ Users • RIP Brian Wilson • Spaceballs 2!
I’m obviously biased, but I think my breakdown of the recent "hackquisitions” as they relate to the new Meta/Scale AI deal is pretty good. Basically, to borrow a line from my earlier newsletter item on the matter, "get in social media losers, we’re going superintelligencing”.
💸 Hackquisitions & Hackquihires
A look at Meta's Scale deal in relation to other such deals...
💰 Meta's $10B+ AI Reset
Zuckerberg recruits a band of pirates to shake up and wake up their AI efforts – including a new don't-call-it-a-deal for Scale AI talent...
• Listening to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by The Beach Boys 🎶
• Written on an M4 MacBook Air 💻
• Sent from London, England 🏴 Notebook
😵💫 Apple’s Spin on the Personalized Siri
I feel like I’ve written more than enough on this general topic, but I also think it matters in a broader sense because it showcases what I think is a problem within Apple right now from the top down. Gruber, who was at WWDC even though Apple snubbed his show, clearly spoke with a number of folks on the ground and none of them — who seemingly would know — believe that “get mom from the airport" Siri demo showcased last year at WWDC was a real feature at the time of demo. If you listen to the Apple execs attempt to gaslight this topic, they’re only saying that it existed at some point, but not necessarily at the point of the demo — but any reasonable interpretation of what they’re saying suggests they’re implying that it was real at the time of the demo. If it, in fact, wasn’t, this is beyond slippery and into the realm of weasel-y. So that’s really the question — in particular to Joz as the head of marketing, perhaps — in the style of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men: DID YOU ORDER THE DEMO? And did you do so knowing the feature wasn’t real yet? Even if you believed it could be real? Again, who really cares? Well, a lot of people, actually, in that it perhaps showcases a rotting internal core of Apple, indeed. [Daring Fireball]
📽️ Amazon MGM "Heavily Invested In Theatrical"
Talking up their $1B slate of 20 movies, with 10 specifically meant for big theatrical release in 2026, was seemingly a message to this specific audience of buyers, letting them know that the content wasn’t mean to simply travel right to Prime Video — and that they’d be doing massive advertising budgets tied to those releases. But it also seemed to be a message to Hollywood itself that they are not Netflix, with, of course, no real theatrical strategy (except when it’s forced upon them) or even Apple, now pulling back from their theatrical strategy aside from a few major tentpoles (such as the forthcoming F1). It much be a compelling pitch for talent to hear that, but can Amazon stick to it? Presumably only if the movies actually work (which is what has sidetracked Apple in the space). And I still bet that Netflix backtracks and gets fully on board eventually… [Deadline]
☁️ OpenAI Taps Google Cloud Despite AI Rivalry
On the surface, this does seem a bit wild for a few reasons. First and foremost, the two companies are the main rivals right now to control the future of AI. Why would they want to do anything to help the other side out? The answer on one side may be that GCP was able to convince Google that this is a big enough win for that business to outweigh the rivalry. On the other side, OpenAI seemingly just really needs that much compute — no matter from whom — certainly with Microsoft now outsourcing it to others, and before the 'Stargate Project' starts to come online. And it’s also wild that Microsoft, which had apparently previously blocked such a deal, is okay losing that business for Azure to GCP if nothing else! The already insanely complex layer cake of AI interdependencies continues to build. [Reuters]
🗣️ A Million People Now Have Alexa+
Look, I’m not one of them and neither is anyone who works at The Verge, apparently. Nor is anyone in the world I know, which is a little odd. But I can’t believe Amazon is lying about this. I just think it’s a… very targeted roll out. Beyond the whole latest Echo Show requirement, perhaps it’s also limited to people with hazel eyes who are left handed who are aged 18 - 22 with a pet hamster. Are there a million such people? Who is to say? Amazon, I guess. I did see one sort of actual review — from someone who Amazon clearly didn’t realize was a columnist for USA Today — as Panos Panay seems to be militant about not shipping it widely until it’s perfect, per this fairly kids gloves profile — so it’s an inadvertent review at best. And it’s not bad, it just notes that a lot of what was promised isn’t here yet. Which is… not surprising in the least. But hey, at least it’s better than Apple. [Verge]
🏄♂️ Beach Boy Brian Wilson Dies at 82
It’s sort of wild that almost all of The Beach Boys major hits came in just a four-year span from 1962 to 1966 — even more compressed than The Beatles run from 1963 to 1970. Though, of course, The Beatles run ended because they broke up. The Beach Boys run ended as Brian Wilson started to breakdown, mentally. And sadly that happened right after Pet Sounds, unquestionably his magnum opus. And he was just 23 years old while making it. Given everything that went on in his life after, it’s also rather remarkable that he still lived almost 60 more years. Even more wild: he was deaf in one ear since childhood. Also, even though "Surfin" was his first hit song and "Surfin USA" was his first massive hit song, and, of course, The Beach Boys became synonymous with the sport — "Surfin Safari", "Surfer Girl", etc — Wilson didn’t surf. "I tried it once and got conked on the head with the board." After "Good Vibrations" hit number one in 1966, The Beach Boys did have one more #1 hit: 22 years later with "Kokomo" which was written for the (amazingly 1980s) Tom Cruise movie Cocktail — Brian Wilson had nothing to do with it. [NYT]
Spyglass
🤯 The Mind-Blowing Mac-ness of iPadOS 26
Apple embraces the blurring lines between iPad and Mac. Finally.
🍏 Apple's UI Event in the Age of AI
Breaking down WWDC 25 and the myriad issues around Apple...
🎓 Hungry. Foolish.
20 years ago, Steve Jobs reluctantly gave his most famous keynote...
2️⃣6️⃣ While 'iOS 26' Will Ship in 2025, 'Siri 26' Will Ship in 2026
The "coming year" really means "next year"...
Loose Leaf
Meta has riden to the aid of Apple in the form of WhatsApp backing up the fight over iMessage encryption in the UK. [BBC]
It’s sort of wild that Disney and Universal suing Midjourney over AI images is the first such lawsuit? [NYT]
We’re getting to the point wth 'AI Mode' where it’s fair to wonder: at what point does Google Search become a secondary tab on Google.com? [9to5Google]
Google Beam — the artist formerly known as 'Project Starline' — inches closer to real world reality with an HP system. For the low, low price of $24,999 (though obviously aimed at enterprises). [Verge]
Meanwhile, Netflix is inching closer to news programming with a Daily Beast deal. It feels inevitable as the service is now just TV for many people. [Semafor]
Also adding to the AI "layer cake" mentioned above, Crusoe is set to buy $400M worth of AMD chips to give their data center customers a choice beyond simply using NVIDIA chips for their AI workloads. This type of diversification seemingly makes sense for all the neoclouds to do, but will it hurt their chances of landing the latest and greatest NVIDIA chips in a timely manner? [Reuters]
Is Meta just dropping random AI products ahead of their reset? [Verge]
Men in Blazers doing a sort of College GameDay-style show ahead of the World Cup matches in 2026 makes all sorts of sense — and a wild culmination 15 years after the site launched. [NYT]
Given the black cab backlash when Uber rolled out in London, I’m honestly surprised that the first "robotaxis" are set to start testing on the streets next Spring. The partners? Wayve and who else? Uber. Expect some boycotts and strikes, but the UK clearly can’t be left behind here. [FT 🔒]
Of the new iOS/ChatGPT integrations, I’m sort of surprised Apple is okay with putting it into Image Playgrounds given some of the copyright controversy with the viral Studio Ghibli stuff several weeks back. But there it is and 'Anime' is one of the defaults for the integration, no less. [MacRumors]
I’m less surprised to see the first fully AI-created television ad show up so quickly. Kalshi apparently spent just $2,000 using Google’s Veo 3 tool. The result is wild, in good ways and bad. [Verge]
I Spy...
Speaking of Amazon MGM… this is just absolutely fantastic news. And a perfect trailer. I mean, Mel Brooks is 98 years old. Which is decidedly not a joke. Just an incredible fact.