😕 Apple’s missed opportunity

Guess Apple is letting Google take the next billion smartphone users

David Tvrdon

Mar 11

👋 Welcome to FWIW by David Tvrdon, your weekly tech, media & audio digest.

In this edition

The new iPhone SE should have cost less
Crypto might get energy optimization
A cheaper Disney+ with ads for more audiences

Apple needs a new gateway phone price

Photo by David Zieglgänsberger on Unsplash

It’s going to be remembered as the Mac Studio event as the new form factor is always a thing that sparks debate. However, I will remember the spring Apple event as a missed opportunity to introduce a cheaper iPhone.

Sure, by Apple’s standards, the first and second SE models were already cheap. Though the $399 price turned out to be €479 in Europe and the new model is going to be €519.

The new SE has 5G support, a new A15 Bionic chip like the latest iPhone 13s, a bigger battery but it’s essentially the same phone as two years ago. A15 will allow it to take better photos and make the battery last longer.

Still, it’s a 5 or 7-year-old design, depending on how you count it. This was a chance for Apple to go after those markets I mentioned last November that Google is targeting.

Here is a good assessment by Mark Gurman from Bloomberg:

Third-party resellers are already distributing the current iPhone SE at under $200, and refurbished models are plentiful. If Apple offers its own $199 device, the company could have a hot seller in developing markets. It would also provide an option to shoppers who don’t care about 5G service—and aren’t interested in a $1,000 iPhone 13.
By expanding its user base with a $199 iPhone, Apple could create more long-term services revenue and add people to its ecosystem. Those people may then be more willing to try AirPods, an Apple Watch or – later on – a higher-end iPhone.

As I said, a missed opportunity. Although, some analysts are already saying the budget iPhone will sell particularly well, especially in developing countries where some of Apple’s other iPhones are deemed to be too expensive.

I mean, it’s the cheapest iPhone you can buy, it will sell well in general but won’t be the market mover that a phone with a $199 price-tag could have been.

Here is an 11-minute supercut of the event. I am impressed with Mac Studio and Studio Display, I imagine they will sell well.

TECH

🤔 Why Ethereum is switching to proof of stake and how it will work? One of the world’s biggest blockchains is testing a new way to approve transactions. The move has been many years in the making but doesn’t come without risks. This is a good read for anyone looking at crypto with scepticism, to see where it is and where is might go. [MIT Tech Review]

RELATED: US Treasury launches campaign to educate public about crypto risks. [Reuters]

👨‍🎨 A good profile on the rise of Canva, the $40bn design juggernaut. Some of the biggest challenges it faces are converting free users to paying ones. [Fast Company]

📣 Some Twitter news:

A short profile of Ukraine’s digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov and how Twitter is part of the war effort. [BBC]
How Twitter plans to add its next 100 million users. It started with the recent restructuring under Parag Agrawal, the new CEO, and the plan is to ship product features faster and more Twitter more relevant. [The Verge]
Twitter is looking for younger users. Twitter has tapped Michael Sayman who is known as a prodigy in Silicon Valley when it comes to building products for young people. He dropped out of high school at age 17 after being recruited by Mark Zuckerberg to work for Facebook. Not much reveal here, looking forward to see what Sayman will inspire with the company. [The Washington Post]
Ecommerce is coming to Twitter. Twitter Shops will let sellers showcase more products on their profiles. Currently only rolling out for select businesses on iOS. [The Verge]

⚠️ Google has started rolling out Air Raid Alerts to Android phones in Ukraine and it will be fully available over the next few days. [9to5Google]

🙌 This is a really good interview: Everything platforms know about the war but won't tell us. CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman on social networks' responsibility to open up. [Platformer]

👀 Two Meta stories from the Protocol newsletter that you should read:

A Financial Times deep dive into how Libra fell apart and why it could never survive being a Facebook product.
A Wired profile of Joel Kaplan, the most prominent Republican — and one of the most powerful voices, period — at the company.

🎧 The new season of the Bloomberg Technology podcast Foundering tells the story of Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Subscribe for free here.

MEDIA

🦘 Australia’s media thrives after forcing Big Tech to pay for content. Google and Facebook paid Australian media companies around $146m in the past year because of new regulation that has helped the local industry, according to a new report. [FT]

📲 Substack introduced a new app and immediately sparked controversy. The initial setup had the default option to turn off emails for a Substack blog if you turned on mobile notifications. Apparently, after the pushback, the company reversed course and is not turning this on by default. [Substack]

📺 Disney+ will launch a cheaper ad-supported tier later this year. Netflix is meanwhile still against ads. [CNBC]

😎 Netflix launches its first interactive daily quiz show on April 1st. Remember Trivia? I expect something similar. [Engadget]

👩‍💻 Only 21% of the top editors across 240 major outlets in 12 markets are women, according to a new factsheet published by the Reuters Institute. [RISJ]

➡️ Tortoise’s Katie Vanneck-Smith on podcasts, subscriptions, and the company’s growing intelligence division. Always interesting to hear successful media founders that are willing to share. [FIPP]

🤓 Should journalists be building their own brands? (Yes, if you ask me) There was a little controversy around a recent Insider piece on NYT and how it struggles to handle journalists who want to have side projects. That sparked some Twitter debates and a lot of people weighed in on the matter, here is a selection:

😯 A new study shows that wire stories can actually encourage engagement among less loyal readers. It encourages them to remain subscribers to news outlets. The key is finding the right balance of wire stories that are of interest to readers without inducing “information overload.” [Local News Initiative]

👏 Axios is profiled in The New York Times. Still find it incredibly inspiring what the team behind 'smart brevity' was able to build in just 5 years. The piece focuses on recent push to local news in USA but even more on Axios HQ, the company's CMS for writing in similar style as Axios. Good read but nothing much new here. [NYT]

FROM THE FIX

1️⃣ Five ways news organisations can help Ukrainian media

2️⃣ International fundraising campaign for independent Ukrainian media

3️⃣ How Ukraine is successfully leveraging social media to fight back Russian invasion

4️⃣ Ukraine support: What has been achieved so far

[ 📬 Get The Fix newsletter delivered to your inbox every week with the latest insights, news, and analysis about the European media market. Sign up here > ]

AUDIO

💰 YouTube offers up to $300,000 to get podcasters to make videos. Funds can be used to film episodes or create other content. Move follows the naming of Kai Chuk to lead podcast efforts. Industry insiders are expecting even more push into podcasting from YouTube in the coming months. [Bloomberg]

🎧 Twitter may be adding a built-in podcasts tab. Potentially expanding its audio offerings. [The Verge]

🙌 A good case for why podcasters should focus less on Twitter and more on TikTok. Most new podcasts have an Instagram account, very few have TikTok. And Twitter is significantly over-represented across all podcasts considering its small user base. TikTok accounts linked to podcasts have by far the highest average number of followers. [Rephonic]

👏 Sabrina Tavernise joins ‘The Daily’ as a host. You might have heard her reporting at the moment from Kyiv. [NYT]

😯 Descript introduced transcription in 22 additional languages, among them Slovak, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, but also German, Italian, Spanish and others. [Descript]

🧒 Why studios, streamers and audio platforms are doubling down on children's programming in podcasts? Podcasts in the kids and family category have seen a 20% increase in listenership since 2019, according to NPR and Edison Research’s 2021 Spoken Word Audio Report. [The Hollywood Reporter]

📊 How many podcasts are there? James Cridland thinks the right answer is “more than 4 million”, and not just what’s in Apple. [Podnews]

❓ Poll: Do you think Apple should have a $199 phone?

🙌 Thanks. I used HandyPolls to create this poll (instructions).

Last poll results: How much are you following the war in Ukraine? 35% follow daily, 24/7, can't stop. 24% said they had to stop following, only look at a summary of what's happened the day before. 16% subscribe to special newsletters or follow only the tech angle.

🙏 And big thanks to Celine Bijleveld who helped me edit this newsletter. You can follow her on Substack here.

FWIW by David Tvrdon