Important Note
Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.
Verizon Makes Near-Gigabit Broadband Available to 8 Million Homes (Apr 24, 2017)
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★ Amazon Has A Team Working on How to Leverage Autonomous Driving (Apr 24, 2017)
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KGI Reports High-End 2017 iPhone Production May Be Delayed (Apr 24, 2017)
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Tesla Takes Risk by Moving Straight to Final Assembly Line Tooling for Model 3 (Apr 24, 2017)
I’m on record as being very skeptical that Tesla can achieve its production targets for the Model 3, given both its patchy track record on meeting such targets in the past and the massive ramp the Model 3 production schedule entails. This report from Reuters suggests that Tesla is banking in part on an unusual strategy for manufacturing, under which it will move straight to ordering and installing the final assembly line tooling, rather than testing the manufacturing process with “soft tooling”, which is easier and cheaper to replace if something’s not working. That skips a stage in the production ramp, which should accelerate things, but will only work if Tesla’s computer modeling is effective in helping it get the tools order right first time. So it’s definitely a gamble, and one which could either pay off in a big way and allow Tesla to get to its target production more quickly, or actually delay production or lead to defects in the cars. Even with this approach to manufacturing, it’s still not clear to me that Tesla can accelerate its output fast enough to meet its targets. So while there’s some upside in that it may get somewhat closer to meeting its goals, the downside is potentially much bigger if things go wrong. What’s crazy here, of course, is that all these challenging deadlines are entirely self-imposed – it’s Tesla that insists on promising so much and then underdelivering.
via Reuters
Netflix Raising 1 Billion Euros to Cover Negative Cash Flows from Content Investment (Apr 24, 2017)
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Bose Denies Wiretapping or Personally Identifying Users Through Tracking App (Apr 22, 2017)
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Facebook is Now Paying Companies to Produce Non-Live Video (Apr 22, 2017)
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★ Analysis Suggests Apple’s Chinese Market Share Decline is Due to Poor Services (Apr 22, 2017)
Backchannel has a piece out this week which argues that the iPhone’s declining market share in China is due to the poor competitiveness of its services, notably Apple Music and Apple Pay. The piece is well worth reading, but it offers few real answers. It states that Apple fails to compete effectively with its music and payment services in China, but then also says that the music and payments markets in China have been sewn up by strong local competitors, with music rights in particular subject to exclusives from Chinese services. As such, it’s really not clear what Apple could have done differently in these categories. At the end of the day, Apple’s lack of competitiveness in services in China is a symptom of a much broader issue, which is that Apple doesn’t bend much to local custom when it comes to pricing or service structure (see also India). It does localize content stores, and indeed is one of the strongest players in that respect globally, but China is such a massive market, has so many homegrown competitors, and is run by a government which is not afraid to disadvantage foreign interlopers, that it’s hard to see how Apple could compete effectively there on services. As such, I think it’s smart to compete more on its devices, its growing retail presence, and its non-content software and services. But that does mean that the ecosystem Apple has built elsewhere is missing some of the appeal it has elsewhere.
But all that is to ignore the central premise of the argument being made here, that it’s this services weakness that’s at the root of the recent decline in iPhone market share in China. I think that’s debatable at best, and it’s worth remembering that that decline isn’t about ownership but sales, and Apple went through a massive cycle earlier off the back of the iPhone 6 in China, and then came down to earth over the ensuing year, so that change in market share is reflective of cyclical rather than permanent trends, with some signs of recovery recently with the iPhone 7. So overall this piece feels like it makes some interesting points, some of them legitimate with regard to Apple’s services competitiveness in China, but overdoes the narrative about its impact.
via Backchannel
Teardown Suggests Samsung Galaxy S8 Far More Expensive to Make than S7 (Apr 22, 2017)
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Apple Driver Training for Autonomous Vehicles Detailed in Documents (Apr 21, 2017)
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Huawei Uses Sub-Par Memory in Some Phones Due to Supply Shortage (Apr 21, 2017)
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★ Samsung Uses Google Music as Default Option on Galaxy S8 (Apr 21, 2017)
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Apple Hires Google Satellite Execs, Likely for Mapping or Broadband (Apr 21, 2017)
Google recently got out of the satellite mapping business by selling its Skybox / Terra Bella unit to Planet Labs. That unit had mostly been working on mapping imagery, and Google clearly decided it didn’t need to do that work itself to benefit from the results, and effectively outsourced it. Now two executives from that former team have ended up at Apple, under former Dropcam exec Greg Duffy. Given that Apple has nothing whatsoever to do with satellites today, that raises some interesting questions. While it’s true that Google, Facebook, and others have invested in satellite and other new methods for getting connectivity to remote places, Apple has far less incentive to do so, because its users are typically the kind of well-connected people that can afford premium smartphones and computers, not those in remote emerging markets. And to pursue such a play in a market like the US makes little sense either given how satellite broadband has struggled to compete with wired and wireless services because of limited throughput and high latency (just ask DISH). What makes more sense is some kind of mapping play for better imagery, although even there the same logic that led Google to dump its unit would apply to Apple too. These are certainly intriguing additions to the Apple employee rolls, but I’m not yet convinced that either broadband access or mapping are the explanation here.
via Bloomberg
ARM-Based Windows 10 PCs to Arrive in Q4 2017 (Apr 21, 2017)
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Amazon Bans Almost All Ads in Alexa’s Third Party ‘Skills’ Apps (Apr 21, 2017)
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Uber’s Harassment Investigation is Going to Take Longer than Expected (Apr 21, 2017)
The Uber investigation into harassment and discrimination claims is being extended by another month or so because the people running it haven’t finished their work yet, and importantly haven’t been able to interview several key people including HR execs. While it’s certainly better to be thorough than quick in a case like this, that seems worryingly like a sign of lack of cooperation from key people, which makes me wonder how effective the investigation will end up being. One would assume that Arianna Huffington and other board members would be putting significant pressure on executives and employees in general to cooperate, so any barriers to that cooperation are signs of some pretty deep dysfunction within the company (not that that would be surprising at this point). But it also means all this will be hanging over Uber for even longer than previously anticipated.
via Recode
Google’s Tensor Processing Unit Team Loses Key Members to Startup (Apr 21, 2017)
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★ Ad Standards Consortium Considers Action Against Bad Ads (Apr 21, 2017)
This story puts the recent Google ad blocker story in some useful context. That Google story suggest Google was going to act unilaterally in adding an ad blocker to its Chrome browser to target bad ads, though it would use standards developed by the Coalition for Better Ads as its benchmark. This story suggests the Coalition itself is debating taking a unified stand on bad ads, which would give Google useful cover as a member of a broader group rather than a single company transparently acting in its own interests (especially given that the EU Competition Commissioner has already said she’ll watch what Google does here closely). And as I said in the earlier piece, being part of a group which bans bad ads but allows the ones that generate 90% of its revenue would obviously be good for the top and bottom line at Google. Update: see also this later piece from Bloomberg, which adds some useful additional context and detail.
via AdAge
Apple Uses Music Muscle to Promote Young Artists for a Month at a Time (Apr 21, 2017)
Apple is starting a new program through which it will spend a month at a time promoting young relatively unknown artists through its various Apple Music assets, including the streaming service, Beats 1 Radio, and in other venues. When Apple first launched Apple Music, the Connect feature felt like it could be a great way for artists of all sizes to connect organically with their fans through the platform, but it really hasn’t taken off in that way. Meanwhile, SoundCloud and YouTube continue to do better in helping young artists get their start before they get signed to labels. This effort is aimed at a somewhat later stage in the game, but builds on Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe’s reputation for giving artists their big break, but if it’s a monthlong effort it’s hard to see how it will be scalable. However, it’s all part of Apple’s pitch that its service is the best for artists, whether that’s through exclusives, discovery and promotion, or simply getting paid for their work (since it’s one of the few services that doesn’t have a free tier).
via Bloomberg
Apple Enables Web Embedding of Live Photos for Developers (Apr 20, 2017)
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