Siri's Brain Transplant
Apple's Vision Quest • Apple Rings • Paramount Plus Branding • Xitter's Head of Product • Apple's Vision Roadmap
It’s obvious, right? Apple clearly should fully outsource the "brains" of Siri to OpenAI (or Anthropic or someone) until their own internal AI work is up to the task(s). Of course, it seemed obvious before WWDC 2024, let alone before WWDC 2025, when it seemed necessary. And yet, here we are with that latest event in the rearview talking about the possibility for WWDC 2026. But for real this time.
🧠 Hey Siri, Time for that Lobotomy
As predicted, Apple may outsource Siri to ChatGPT (or Claude)!
• Written on an M4 MacBook Air 💻
• Sent from London, England 🏴 Thoughts On…
🥽 Apple's 'Vision' Roadmap
Ming-Chi Kuo's latest report seemingly has some fairly definitive dates and details about the (7!) devices Apple is currently working on in the face-wearables segment. Notably, with an M5 updated Vision Pro coming later this year (seemingly makes sense with current model still running M2 chip) but then a pause until 2027 when the first Apple Smart Glasses may hit. That feels like a long ways away given where Meta is in the market now (and with Google and others about to enter), but Apple also needs their AI house in order for this to be a compelling product so... Meanwhile, he thinks a 'Vision Air' (probably just called 'Vision'?) would come after that in late 2027 for a lighter and cheaper vision of a full-on headset. Interestingly, he doesn't think a "tethered" version of a headset is coming anytime soon, which seemingly contradicts Mark Gurman's reporting on the matter... [Medium]
💍 An Apple Ring
Speaking of, while Gurman makes the case for Apple going down the path of making a smart ring in his newsletter this week, I made the same case almost 18 months ago (to be fair, riffing off a different Gurman report at the time). It makes sense, especially with the Apple Watch now a pretty mature product – an Apple Ring could almost be like an 'Apple Watch mini' or 'nano' with a lot of the same functionality minus the screen but with far better wearability and battery life. My other idea back then: use it to augment the Vision Pro for even better hand-tracking and input. Same idea with Apple now working on Glasses finally. (Gurman also thinks the new visionOS betas point to a future tethered capabilities, per Kuo's thoughts on that being paused above.) [Bloomberg 🔒]
🏔️ The 'Paramount Plus with Showtime' Rebrand
I'm a sucker for these stories. Here, as with HBO Max, they're correcting a wrong since 'Paramount Plus with Showtime' was a ridiculous mouthful of marketing nonsense. 'Paramount Plus Premium' is better, I guess – alliteration, at least? – but also feels more than a little redundant! Paramount+ Plus. But mostly, why are they not just calling the streaming service Showtime?! It's such a great name for exactly what the service does. My god why do I have to spell this out? Make Skydance the company, Paramount the studio, and Showtime the streaming service. It's really not that complicated. Of course in ego-centric Hollywood, it always is. [Verge]
🐦 Xitter's New Head of Product
There used to be a joke that the Head of Product at Twitter was similar to the "Redshirt" character in Star Trek. That is, poor souls, doomed to die. It was funny because it was true as the company churned through product leads at warp speed. It's seemingly less true these days but perhaps only because Xitter is seemingly always in a state of chaos and no one knows what is going on as the company morphs into everything under the sun. Up next: a payments app, because of course. With all that in mind, best of luck to Nikita Bier, who, if nothing else, clearly loves and lives on Xitter. The quintessential growth hacker, hopefully he just makes Xitter Great Again. Maybe make links matter again? [Bloomberg 🔒]
I Wrote…
🏎️ Apple Finally Has a Hit Movie, But at What Cost?
I mean that both literally and figuratively as 'F1' was beyond expensive to make and beyond in-your-face to market
💻 Return of the MacBook?
A colorful, cheaper Apple laptop has been a dream, but reality is often more drab...
…A Lot About Meta’s AI Situation
💸 $100M AI Signing Bonuses
Exaggeration, conflation, a game of Telephone, directional accuracy, brinksmanship, or all of the above?
♠️ Zuck's Eleven
7 from OpenAI, 2 from Google, 1 from Anthropic, 1 from Sesame... But just as interesting is what's *not* mentioned.
🦙 Meta's Open Source AI Mistake
The writing isn't just on the wall for Llama, it's on the new paychecks...
Loose Leaf
Jim Chanos vs. Michael Saylor isn't really a bet for or against Bitcoin in so much as it's a bet for or against financial engineering and irrational markets. And they've both played this game before! [WaPo 🔒]
This is fun: a Tesla drove itself from the factory to an owner. [Verge]
Another day, another new lawsuit against Apple's App Store, this time from Proton Mail, which is Swiss, but is going after Apple in the US and wants a jury trial. [9to5Mac]
Also, a US judge rejected Apple's attempt to have the DoJ's antitrust case against them dismissed. [Reuters]
NASA+ (at least the logo is sort of clever) is coming to Netflix. Which may help counter the rise of Poop Cruise. [NASA]
In other space news, Project Hail Mary looks quite promising. Sort of The Martian (obviously) meets Interstellar meets Arrival meets Sunshine. [YouTube]
The next-gen AI chip from Microsoft – 'Braga' (aka 'Maia 200') – is delayed at least six months and will likely enter the market already behind the 8 ball (NVIDIA). Part of the delay may be due to tweaks OpenAI requested. [Information 🔒]
Insult to the injury? OpenAI apparently just signed up to use Google's TPUs to drive down the cost of inference (the same thing Microsoft's chips are meant for). OpenAI lightly non-denied the story, which is probably less about pissing off Microsoft and more about not pissing off NVIDIA. [Information 🔒]
Having been legally blocked from changing their name to the ‘San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport' the Oakland Airport will now try 'Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport'. I mean, at least it starts with 'Oakland' this time? But my god how ridiculous. And confusing. And pathetic. [SFist]
There's apparently backend code confirming the existence of MacBooks running on A-series Apple Silicon, at least for testing purposes, but hopefully for colorful cheap MacBook purposes... [MacRumors]
I have nothing to say about the Bezos Venetian wedding stuff other than from a pure narrative and spectacle perspective, there's a high risk that it's some sort of temporal marker in hindsight. Then again, we thought the same about Jensen Huang signing the woman's chest... [NYT]
Some 14 years after he tragically passed away, Paul Walker may be back for the final Fast & Furious movie. Unlike when they brought him back with CGI to complete his work on the seventh film, we're now fully in the age of AI. (And will be much more so when this is in post-production in late 2026.) There will be backlash against this, of course. But to what extent? [THR]
Denmark, meanwhile, is working to give people copyright protections over their own physical features (including their voices) to protect them in the AI Age and deep fakes. [Guardian]
In "about two weeks" we should know who the group of "wealthy people" are who President Trump "found" to "buy" TikTok. And they're likely the same wealthy "people" that were going to "buy" before China pulled the plug on the deal: Oracle, Blackstone, a16z, etc. With the tariff situation in a slightly better place, will China sign off this time? Nobody knows. [Bloomberg 🔒]
I Spy...
Per above, here's the visual Ming-Chi Kuo made for his expected Apple face-wearable roadmap. You can certainly expect at least some of these to slip, if all of them even ever see the light of day at all...
