Inklings #025 📧

Apple Fellow Phil Schiller has stepped down from overseeing the App Store, a move coinciding with Tim Cook's departure as CEO and potentially signaling new leadership under John Ternus to reform the store's policies. Meanwhile, Tesla launched its Cybercab with only 45 units manufactured, and the event notably lacked press and CEO Elon Musk, raising legal questions about the vehicle's lack of a steering wheel.

Inklings 025 📧 Big week for the frontier AI model race https://spyglass.org/ai-frontier-race/ with GPT-6 Astra, Fable/Mythos 5.1, and to less extents, Gemini 3.8 Flash and Must Spark 1.3 all pushed out the door, which is obviously not a coincidence. Next week, all eyes turn to Apple to see if they can turn foldables into a mass scale thing. A $2,000 starting point would be rough though somewhat mitigated https://spyglass.org/apple-as-a-service/ , but all other signs https://spyglass.org/iphone-ultra-blackberry-typing/ and predictions https://spyglass.org/10-big-predictions-for-2026/ :~:text=The%20%27iPhone%20Fold%27%20is%20a%20big%20hit%20at%20launch point to 'yes'. Happy September, American college football and English futbol is very much in the air. 🍂🏈⚽️ I Note... 👋 Phil Schiller Abdicates App Store Throne – On one hand, yes, it's a natural time https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/09/03/schiller-steps-down?ref=spyglass.org for him to step down with Cook leaving the CEO perch. On the other, it's a little weird this news leaked at the exact same time of that transition – couldn't everyone have waited, I don't know, a couple weeks? Unless perhaps the move is a key part of that transition, with John Ternus looking to turn a new leaf with the App Store and developers? I know this sounds a bit conspiratorial, and yes, I've been predicting it https://spyglass.org/apple-app-store-cut-death/ :~:text=So%20yeah%2C%20they%20need%20Epic%20to%20settle.%20Can%20a%20CEO%20change%20at%20Apple%20somehow%20make%20that%20happen%3F%20Might%20Tim%20Sweeney%20need%20to%20see%20other%20concessions%3F%20Perhaps%20new%20leadership%20for%20the%20App%20Store%20itself%3F%20This%20isn%27t%20game%20over%2C%20but%20it%27s%20close... , but, well, there are signs https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/2094556865824690398?ref=spyglass.org that this points to some bigger changes in direction https://spyglass.org/the-pledge-the-ternus-the-prestige/ forthcoming for the store. Which are long https://500ish.com/the-app-store-commandments-a867a0409dff?ref=spyglass.org overdue https://spyglass.org/play-store-30-percent-cut-app-store/ and have put Apple in a precarious spot both legally https://spyglass.org/tear-down-the-app-store-walls/ and from a business-perspective https://spyglass.org/epic-apple-beatdown/ , all around the world https://spyglass.org/apple-eu-app-store-new-rules/ . I'm just saying it's possible One more thing: Schiller also oversaw all Apple events. Might we see a move back to live onstage keynotes? Also https://spyglass.org/over-oiled-apple/ long https://500ish.com/the-too-slick-apple-event-70c579ccec0f?ref=spyglass.org overdue https://spyglass.org/sweet-iphone-16-2/ , IMO. Bloomberg 🔒 🚕 The Unusually Muted Tesla Cybercab Launch – Look, to their credit, it's 2026 and Tesla has indeed manufactured some Cybercabs https://spyglass.org/tesla-cybercab/ . 45 of them to be exact . They're gold and, if we're being honest, pretty hideous. They look sort of cheap and tacky? Slightly better than the Cybertruck, but also in a color that only Donald Trump or Auric Goldfinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auric Goldfinger?ref=spyglass.org could love. I guess they stand out though, like the yellow taxis of old. Still, I must prefer the Zoox aesthetic https://zoox.com/?ref=spyglass.org . And, to be fair, I've never been a fan of the Tesla look https://spyglass.org/rivian-looks-nicer-than-tesla/ and feel. I'm not sure this launch event was quite what everyone was looking for as the most notable element seems to be what wasn't there: the press or even Elon Musk . Still, they did manage to ship, so kudos on that. No steering wheel Legally? Unclear https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-cybercab-event-set-thursday-with-few-details-2026-09-03/?ref=spyglass.org at this point https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/business/tesla-cybercab-nhtsa-investigation.html?ref=spyglass.org . But that's pretty par for Elon's course. It also may perform miracles https://x.com/ZacksJerryRig/status/2095651384448462875?s=20&ref=spyglass.org ? Let's see how 2027 goes, that's when the real promises kick in https://spyglass.org/teslas-tenuous-timelines/ . Can Tesla scale Cybercab to compete with Waymo? Or even Uber? Will they actually sell these cars to consumers? For $30,000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo-uubnajWM&ref=spyglass.org ? Or will it all end up a part of SpaceX's mission https://spyglass.org/spacex-tesla-xai-cursor-mistral-ai/ ? Verge ☁️ Microsoft Shifts Reporting Structure – While this is being framed as the company trying to be more transparent with regard to Azure, there's certainly an argument to be made https://x.com/mgsiegler/status/2095425402994864214?ref=spyglass.org that it actually makes the business more opaque in certain ways https://x.com/CZituo/status/2095470091856936975?ref=spyglass.org – notably, it's now harder to back into just how much of Microsoft's Cloud business might be directly tied to OpenAI... It's also interesting just how top-heavy this makes Microsoft from a segment perspective – 'Agents & Infra' is now $75B versus just $15B or so for 'Devices & Consumer' on a quarterly basis. That almost seems like https://bsky.app/profile/grork.bsky.social/post/3mulzgpvh522w?ref=spyglass.org they're trying to position the latter to eventually be cleaved off/spun-out? There's a long history of such a movie, with HP being a prime recent example, but would Nadella dare put Windows in an actually separate company https://bsky.app/profile/mgsiegler.com/post/3mulzznuhtc2e?ref=spyglass.org ? I mean, maybe if it's small enough Certainly it gives them a way to ease the Xbox headache https://spyglass.org/the-resuscitation-of-xbox/ ... But that's undoubtedly reading too much into it – at least for now. The easier story is that Azure is now a $100B/year business, so it's a natural time to further break it out. But there are second-order effects WSJ 🔒 ⚖️ Google Avoids a Breakup of its Ad Tech Business – Who could have foreseen? Except pretty much everyone – well maybe not Lina Khan https://spyglass.org/earth-to-lina-khan/ , Tim Wu https://spyglass.org/modern-antitrust-keeps-failing/ , and their contemporaries https://spyglass.org/mopping-the-floor-with-antitrust/ . I wrote about why such outcomes were going to keep happening in April 2025 https://spyglass.org/google-meta-antitrust/ – even in the cases the government technically wins https://spyglass.org/google-apple-and-mozilla-win-in-the-antitrust-case-google-lost/ – because there's an obvious and natural mismatch between litigating the past and trying to fix the future https://spyglass.org/google-antitrust-ai/ . I mean, that's generally true, but with tech, things move far too fast and in many cases, natural "disruption" https://spyglass.org/google-disrupted-microsoft/ of the things being litigated are already underway, as was the case in the Google cases, which made the proposed remedies pointless at best https://spyglass.org/google-chrome-spin-out/ and problematic at worst https://spyglass.org/big-tech-antitrust-broken/ – imagine if the government had forced Meta to sell off Instagram, they'd effectively be destroying their overall business https://spyglass.org/without-instagram-meta-is-screwed/ . This is all going to get worse with AI, where things are moving even faster. Good luck. NYT 😎 Can Evan Spiegel Sell the World on $2,195 Smart Glasses? https://www.wsj.com/tech/can-evan-spiegel-sell-the-world-on-2-195-smart-glasses-3fb9b8ca?ref=spyglass.org – A very Betteridge's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s law of headlines?ref=spyglass.org headline from WSJ here. Also, my own such headline https://spyglass.org/snap-specs-way-too-expensive/ was better three months ago. Look, I don't want to be a dick, but doubling down here with a big launch in a couple of weeks just looks stubborn, if not stupid. I get that Snap is sort of out of options after failing to entice outside investors and pouring so many resources into this project with the promise of a 2026 launch, but the timing is just all wrong. Not only are the glasses an order of magnitude too expensive – a lesson https://spyglass.org/vision-pro-launch-disaster/ even mighty Apple had to learn https://spyglass.org/apple-vision-pro-mistake-smart-glasses/ the hard way – but there's now growing backlash https://spyglass.org/airpods-vision/ against such wearables thanks to https://spyglass.org/i-am-the-great-glassholio/ their old nemesis Meta https://spyglass.org/meta-smart-glasses-snap/ . Yes, AR is different from AI, but the public is not going to care about that difference, if they care about the product at all And unlike Meta with Quest, Snap doesn't have the profits https://spyglass.org/meta-apple-ai-strategy/ to weather this being a dud. Hard to see how this ends; I still think the company should try to go private again https://spyglass.org/snap-adds-ads/ if they're going to insist on such efforts. Get an AI narrative and the investors will come for that user base alone... WSJ 🔒 I Wrote... I Quote... "There’s a saying here in Tennessee. Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered." – Jonathan Skrmetti , Tennesse's attorney general, in a meeting https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/technology/meta-states-settlement.html?ref=spyglass.org to urge his fellow AGs to take Meta's $17B offer to settle the social media case against them. As the quote so wonderfully illustrates, that's a lot of money to those states. It is not a lot of money to Meta https://spyglass.org/metas-poke-on-the-wrist/ . Certainly not $200B, let alone $1.4T . As the settlement makes clear – and the reporting that they were trying to settle before the trial even started – Meta was terrified of losing the case. Beyond the money, it was going to be yet another blow to their reputation – undoubtedly the biggest one yet https://spyglass.org/big-techbacco/ – just as the company is trying to move on from social media, looking towards their AI future https://spyglass.org/meta-ai-context-watermelon-hatch/ . Thoughts On... Asides... - Conflicts of interest https://spyglass.org/ai-conflict-of-interest/ for VCs may no longer matter for Big AI https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/technology/anthropic-ipo-investors-winners.html?ref=spyglass.org , but they still seem to for smaller AI startups , particularly in the "personal assistant" https://spyglass.org/the-swiss-assistant/ space... Upstarts https://www.upstartsmedia.com/p/scoop-town-fundraise-vc-reshuffle?ref=spyglass.org - Anthropic has officially licked enough https://spyglass.org/amodei-another-day/ Trump administration boots to be back in https://spyglass.org/anthropic-becomes-the-villain/ the good graces. Well, maybe not https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-03/pentagon-says-its-anthropic-ban-is-on-despite-lutnick-remarks?ref=spyglass.org . Axios https://www.axios.com/2026/09/02/lutnick-anthropic-trump?ref=spyglass.org - But they should be back with large enterprise customers thanks to the data retention changes. Let's see what it does to the Fable numbers https://spyglass.org/thoughts-on-nvidia-perplexity-fables-stalled-growth/ :~:text=Anthropic%27s%20Fable%20Plateau... ... CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/01/anthropic-data-retention.html?ref=spyglass.org - But they should be back with - MapQuest , last heard from around the time of "Lazy Sunday" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRhTeaa B98&ref=spyglass.org is um, atop the App Store . Blame Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA&ref=spyglass.org if you want, but unlike Google and Apple https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/us/lake-ontario-america-name-apple-maps-mapquest.html?ref=spyglass.org , they refuse to budge on the ' Lake America ' naming nonsense. MacRumors https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/31/mapquest-tops-app-store-charts/?ref=spyglass.org - Meta mandating Slack usage across the company is wild to those of us https://x.com/aunder/status/2095297699717472394?ref=spyglass.org who recall the company's attempt to directly compete in the space. AI, bringing former enemies together. Microsoft dropping Teams for Slack next? 🤣 BI https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-switching-from-google-chat-slack-for-ai-agents-2026-9?ref=spyglass.org - I'm sure ' Google Pics ' – their new AI-centric Canva/Adobe competitor – won't be confused with Google Photos like every single day. Verge https://www.theverge.com/tech/987423/google-pics-ai-image-editor-generator?ref=spyglass.org - As Howard Stern cuts back to one show a week on SiriusXM, he is putting a video version on HBO Max – sort of backing into podcasting https://spyglass.org/apple-howard-stern-podcasts-plus/ , in a way THR https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/howard-stern-new-hbo-max-deal-weekly-siriusxm-show-1236685643/?ref=spyglass.org - Has Steve Ballmer sunk the Clippers ? It sure looks that way. From the logo redesign https://spyglass.org/los-angeles-titanics/ to the Kwahi Leonard shitshow, it's not a great look. But I prefer to think https://x.com/mgsiegler/status/2095631556450701779?ref=spyglass.org that it was to move them to Seattle to be reborn as the Supersonics. FOS https://frontofficesports.com/article/clippers-kawhi-leonard-steve-ballmer-punishment-spotlight/?ref=spyglass.org I Spy... Oh look, Apple sees some success https://spyglass.org/macbook-neo-thoughts/ with an idea https://spyglass.org/macbook-neo/ – here: low-priced, colorful laptops – and the industry https://www.theverge.com/tech/988765/lenovo-ideapad-vibe-laptop-macbook-neo-competitor-ifa-colors-price-specs?ref=spyglass.org quickly follows https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/987839/dell-14s-student-laptop-ifa-2026-price-specs?ref=spyglass.org . The problem, of course, will be that they lack Apple Silicon and run Windows. But otherwise, yeah, similar. Who could have known https://spyglass.org/macbook-colors/ such a simple formula https://spyglass.org/new-macbooks/ would be a success https://spyglass.org/cheap-macbook-color/ ?... 🎶 Listening to "See Out Loud" by Interpol 🍺 Enjoying a Stroud Brewery LOL Light Lager 🇬🇧 Sent from London, England