Robots & Reboots

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the final week of Tim Cook’s tenure as Apple CEO. Does he have a final trick? Bloomberg reports that a foldable iPhone is coming in September. We also have news on the return of Vines with a new app that’s aimed squarely at humans only. There are more price hikes as AI demand for chips bites, and we see that OpenAI is acting responsibly after those AI cyberattacks. Oh, and there’s robot racing fun, too, as well as all the latest from 3Advance!

🎬 Our Top Take

🍏📱 Apple – A Foldable iPhone May Be Tim Cook’s Final Trick

Next week, Tim Cook will step down from the CEO role that tended to divide opinion. There was plenty of financial success as Apple’s skipper, but questions remain about how much innovation Cook has overseen, especially when Apple’s rivals seem so far ahead with incorporating AI into their products. Nevertheless, it feels fitting that Cook’s final product – his last “One More Thing,” if you will – will be something Apple’s rivals have done years ago, a foldable smartphone. Apple has a launch event expected on September 9 (we’ll cover that for you), and Bloomberg reports that this will include the big reveal of the first foldable iPhone. This type of device has been growing in popularity of late, though still niche in market share, but some now predict we will see a three-way battle for supremacy between Apple, Google (Pixel) and Samsung. Apple may be behind the (literal) curve in this case, but Cook was incredibly adept at selling us iPhones, whether they bend or not. His successor, John Ternus, will likely be the one to reveal the foldable device on stage in a couple of weeks. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says he believes it will be Apple’s most exciting product in years, and that it may “bring the magic back”. Ternus will certainly be hoping so. #TimCooks Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Divine

In many ways, the original Vine platform created the modern web, pioneering the short-form video content that led the way to TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Vine was bought by Twitter in the 2010s but was eventually shuttered as nobody quite knew how to monetize it. Now it’s back, or at least, its spiritual successor is. Divine gives users access to 2.1 million Vines from the original archive, as well as allowing users to create their own 6-second masterpieces. Intriguingly, it claims that AI-generated content will not be allowed. Check out Divine for iOS here and Android here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 60%

📈📉 Amazon – Hardware Price Hikes Across the Board with AI to Blame

A few weeks ago, we covered the crazy inflation in the gaming sector, pointing out that a) it wouldn’t be limited to gaming, and b) that things could get worse. Amazon seems to be in a similar predicament, raising the prices of the Echo, Fire TV and Kindle products by up to 60%. It’s a hefty rise, and it’s all for the same reason: The massive drive to acquire chips for AI data centers is causing prices in hardware sectors to surge. Rumor has it that Apple will soon be raising prices (again), too. #Hikes Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

This is a bittersweet one: longtime 3Advance teammate and friend, Mark Evans, is moving on to his next adventure. Mark’s been with us for nearly 13 years – building brilliant products, solving some really hard problems, and logging what might be an unbeatable number of hours in Slack. But ask anyone who’s worked with him, and they’ll tell you what really made Mark, Mark: he was always the voice for the client in the room. He’s honest, hard-working, deeply committed, supportive – and, depending on who you ask, pretty funny, too. We’ve loved the ups and downs with you, Mark, and the pints even more. We can’t wait to hear how the next chapter goes. I’m out! 👋