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(Bonus) WWDC Wrap Up With Rene Ritchie @reneritchie Jun 27, 2020

Show notes

This is a really simple one. WWDC happened this week. Rene Ritchie has been attending it, virtually, of course. So he’s here to break down the keynote, which we all saw, but also to let us know what’s been going on in the developer sessions which have been going on all week. Rene is of course a long time prominent Apple watcher and journalist, who actually just struck out on his own with his own YouTube channel. So search YouTube for Rene Ritchie and subscribe to his channel.

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Fri. 06/26 - Amazon Buys Self-Driving Startup Zoox Jun 26, 2020

Show notes

Amazon is officially in the self-driving car game. Microsoft is officially keeping its retail stores closed… forever. Verizon had joined the Facebook ad boycott. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Links:

Weekend Longread Suggestions:

How India’s Jio Won Facebook’s Heart (The Information)
How a “crazy Dutch guy” won the online food delivery war (Silicon Canals)
How Uber Turned a Promising Bikeshare Company Into Literal Garbage (Vice)
The Credit-Card Fees Merchants Hate, Banks Love and Consumers Pay (WSJ)
Top composers used to head to Hollywood. Now they’re into games (Wired)
Reddit turns 15: The dramatic moments that shaped the internet's front page (Mashable)

Thu. 06/25 – Amazon Has A Counterfeit Crimes Unit (Sounds Like An NBC TV Show) Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

Wirecard is wiped out. Amazon has its own Counterfeit Crimes Unit. Apple quietly made a change that will make things pretty tough on advertisers. Google won’t keep your data forever anymore and Hey basically wins.

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Wed. 06/24 – Oculus Go and Olympus (and Force Touch?) Go Bye Bye Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

Brazil puts the breaks on payments via WhatsApp. Advertisers apply pressure on Facebook via a boycott. Oculus is putting an end to the Oculus Go. Olympus is existing the camera business after 80 years. And what might be the first case of a person wrongfully arrested thanks to facial recognition.

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Links:

Brazilian Authorities Suspend WhatsApp Payments (Bloomberg)
Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing (NYTimes)
Facebook To Stop Selling Oculus Go, Vows No More 3DOF Headsets (UploadVR)
Olympus to Exit Camera Business After 84 Years (WSJ)
watchOS 7 drops Force Touch support, likely ahead of Apple Watch Series 6 hardware changes (9to5Mac)
Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm (NYTimes)
Over 1,000 AI Experts Condemn Racist Algorithms That Claim to Predict Crime (Motherboard)

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Tue. 06/23 – Zoom is No Longer The King of the Work-From-Home Era Jun 23, 2020

Show notes

Wirecard’s former CEO has been arrested. Microsoft pulls out of the other streaming wars by shutting down Mixer. Some analysis and additional details about yesterday’s WWDC news. There’s a new king of the supercomputers. And there’s also a new king of tech companies winning in the post Covid-19 era.

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Links:

Wirecard’s Former CEO Markus Braun Is Arrested (WSJ)
Microsoft is shutting down Mixer and partnering with Facebook Gaming (The Verge)
Japanese Supercomputer Is Crowned World’s Speediest (The Verge)
Zoom is no longer the best-performing work-from-home stock (CNBC)
China launches its final satellite to complete its rival to the US-owned GPS system (CNBC)
Apple update to allow iPhone users to choose default apps (The Guardian)
Thoughts on WWDC 2020 Day One (Six Colors)
The iPadification of the Mac is coming, no touchscreen required (The Verge)

Mon. 06/22 – WWDC 2020 (Virtually) Jun 22, 2020

Show notes

All of the headlines I can manage to cram in from today’s World Wide Developer Conference from Apple. Hey gets approved, by the way. Google’s ad revenue will decline for the first time probably in, well, ever. And why Animal Crossing might have shied Nintendo away from mobile gaming. Again.

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Apple approves Hey email app, but the fight’s not over (The Verge)
TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally (NYTimes)
Google's U.S. Ad Revenue Is Expected to Decline in 2020, eMarketer Says (WSJ)
Nintendo Chills Mobile Ambitions After Animal Crossing Success (Bloomberg)

Fri. 06/19 – It’s Gonna Be An Interesting WWDC… Jun 19, 2020

Show notes

Apple officially says no to HEY and people are pissed, kind of just about the WAY they said it. A look at the internal divisions inside Apple over those rumored Apple Glasses. Twitch is growing as a platform for live music. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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DoubleUp.agency

Links:

Interview: Apple's Schiller says position on Hey App is unchanged and no rules changes are imminent (TechCrunch)
Apple’s Secretive AR and VR Headset Plans Altered by Internal Differences (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Exclusive: Massive spying on users of Google's Chrome shows new security weakness (Reuters)
Facebook Removes Trump Ads With Symbol Used By Nazis. Campaign Calls It An 'Emoji' (NPR)
Wirecard chief quits as crisis deepens (Financial Times)
Japanese insurer Sompo investing $500 million in data analytics firm Palantir (Reuters)
Twitch’s Streaming Boom Is Jolting the Music Industry (Bloomberg)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Why venture capital doesn’t build the things we really need (MIT Technology Review)
Brilliant Hardware in the Valley of the Software Slump (Craigmod.com)
The Grandmaster Who Got Twitch Hooked on Chess (Wired)
healthOS (Divinations newsletter)
The Segway’s Inventor Has a New Project: Manufacturing Human Organs (OneZero)
We spent a fortune on police body cams. Why haven’t they fixed policing? (Fast Company)
What to expect from Apple's WWDC 2020 (TechCrunch)

Thu. 06/18 – Audio Comes To Tweets Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

Apple has rejected a Facebook app five times, so back to that debate again. Twitter lets you add audio to tweets. Door Dash raises a round. Surprise! Reliance Jio raises another monster round. And stick around for the last segment because I’ve got the single weirdest tech story that I think we’ve ever done on this show.

Sponsor:

DoubleUp.agency

Links:

Apple Rejects Facebook’s Gaming App, for at Least the Fifth Time (NYTimes)
Twitter starts rolling out audio tweets on iOS (The Verge)
UK virus-tracing app switches to Apple-Google model (BBC News)
Zoom to Offer All Users Full Encryption, Bending to Pressure (Bloomberg)
Exclusive: DoorDash valued at $16 billion after new funding round (Axios)
India's Reliance Jio Platforms to sell $1.5 billion stake to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (TechCrunch)
Wirecard says €1.9bn of cash is missing (Financial Times)
6 eBay Executives And Employees Charged With Sending Threats, Bloody Pig Mask To Natick Couple (WBZ Boston)
Former eBay Execs Allegedly Made Life Hell for Critics (Wired)

Wed. 06/17 – HEY! The Whole Brouhaha Between Apple And Basecamp Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

We dive deep into the whole HEY brouhaha and wonder if this is the best time for Apple to draw attention to App Store policies. Uber is getting into the software business. TikTok’s business is a pretty good one, it seems like. And the most reliable web business remains the first web business.

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Tue. 06/16 – Apple’s Turn in The EU Antitrust Toolshed Jun 16, 2020

Show notes

The EU is investigating Apple for antitrust. Is Instagram surpassing Twitter as a news source? A look at that new Hey email service. A look at a whole slew of new services from Dropbox. And if you wanted to get your hands on one of those Boston Dynamics four-legged robots, today is your lucky day.

Links:

Links:

EU opens Apple antitrust investigations into App Store and Apple Pay practices (The Verge)
Apple says its App Store facilitated $519B in commerce in 2019 (TechCrunch)
Instagram 'will overtake Twitter as a news source' (BBC News)
Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion (Protocol)
Hey YouTube WalkThrough
Dropbox officially launches its own password manager and a secure vault for your files (The Verge)
Boston Dynamics will now sell any business its own Spot robot for $74,500 (The Verge)

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