Midweek Update: New Rectangles

Yesterday, Apple announced its new line of iPhones, Apple Watches, and assorted software upgrades. It was underwhelming, and probably won’t solve the issue the of users holding onto their iPhones for three years or longer. Of course, it’s not worth shedding any tears for Apple, a company worth billions of dollars, but it is fascinating to see one of our largest tech companies simply hit a wall with innovation for one of their flagship products. The biggest change on this year’s iPhones is that they now have USB-C charging, and they only made that change because the European Union essentially forced them to (Apple, being Apple, made the change in the Apple-iest way because it’s probably going to take a specific kind of USB-C cable to really get the full benefit of this new port).

On a macro level, you can see how companies are scrambling for new innovations and markets because they can now only make incremental progress where they are now. Smartphones are amazing pieces of technology, but their improvements are going to be somewhat more staid—faster processing, longer battery life, etc. This is worthwhile advancement, but they don’t necessarily capture the public’s curiosity in the same way that a phone that folds does.

This is why there’s now such a rush around a potentially new technology. I honestly don’t know what demand is ever going to be around VR goggles, but Meta feels that there’s a growth market there beyond gamers, and Apple also thinks VR/AR might have something to it.

But there’s also less tangible arenas where we’re told of nebulous improvements to every aspect of life that never materialize. We saw this with crypto and blockchain, and we’re seeing it with A.I. Companies are going all in, partly because they don’t want to miss the next big thing, but also because they don’t seem too enthusiastic about their current successes. And yet people don’t seem to really want A.I. ChatGPT’s traffic has dropped for the third straight month, and Bing’s A.I. chatbot still only has the search engine at 3% market share, which is where it was before it had A.I.

Part of Silicon Valley’s identity has been about innovation. We went through so much technological growth in the span of a few short decades that some assumed such growth would continued unabated. But clearly, even our biggest tech companies—the ones with the most resources—are scrambling for new innovations. While I don’t think they should stop trying to make new things, I also think that perhaps they should take a step back and consider that there’s no shame in small, steady improvements. What can you say about this year’s new iPhones? Faster processors, new ports, and a few other minor improvements. And that’s okay!

Mark Zuckerberg’s adage at Facebook that became a Silicon Valley mantra was, “Move fast and break things.” It may not be a bad idea for the tech industry to go back to an even older maxim: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Recommendations

Spooky season is almost upon us, so I’d recommend picking up the 4K of The Shining for $14.99 if you don’t already have it in your collection. Warner Bros. did an amazing job with the transfer, and while not all Kubrick movies are easy rewatches, I always have fun when I pop on this film.

Over in Substacks, Scott Tobias at The Reveal wrote a great article about our recent collection of corporate-themed movies. It feels like Hollywood has accepted the concept of “corporate personhood,” which means that narratives get centered around companies as lovable underdogs even if those companies are Nike, Frito-Lay, or PlayStation. On the one hand, these films feel almost like responses to the waves of scammer movies and TV shows we saw in from 2020-2022 like WeCrashed and The Dropout. On the other hand, Hollywood celebrating corporate achievement in the midst of two massive labor strikes that show no sign of abating sure is something.

What I’m Watching

I think that if I stay on pace, there’s a very good chance I’ll be able to have watched or rewatched all of Martin Scorsese’s narrative features before I see Killers of the Flower Moon next month. I’ve got about twenty years of movies left to go, specifically: The Age of Innocence (which I feel I owe another shot since being lukewarm on it when I saw it in 2019), Casino, Kundun (never seen it despite Christopher Moltisanti’s recommendation), Bringing Out the Dead, The Aviator, and Hugo. Not every Scorsese film is an out-and-out winner, but even the ones that I feel miss the mark (New York, New York and Cape Fear, for example) at least feel interesting and worthwhile.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working my way through Station Eleven and digging it, but I also decided to finally check out Mark Millar’s The Ultimates because I don’t learn from my mistakes. Millar’s success is kind of baffling to me because I don't think he’s particularly strong writer, and he seems to write with an eye more towards what might be viable in Hollywood than any particular love for comics or their characters. Why I thought The Ultimates would break this trend is beyond me, but I guess I held out hope that it would be like Superman: Red Son, where the material was worthy of the acclaim. Alas, it’s another poorly written, tonally dissonant Millar jaunt where there’s no emotional stakes. The best thing I can say about it is that it got us Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

In other reads:

Disney's wildest ride: Iger, Chapek and the making of an epic succession mess by Alex Sherman [CNBC] - An engrossing and delightful read. I love Stewart B. James’ 2005 book DisneyWar, which is about the friction between Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and this article shows there’s more than enough meat here for a sequel. We like to hail these guys as businesses geniuses because they rose to the top of massive corporations, but Sherman’s article shows how much ego and personality go into decision-making. Because they have MBAs, these guys like to fashion themselves as the adults in the room, but both Iger and Chapek were clearly too vain and insecure to do the serious work of guiding Disney’s future.

Why Rotten Tomatoes Is Roger Ebert’s Fault by Jeremy Smith [/Film] - Among film critics, there’s the idea of Saint Ebert, the Patron Saint of Film Criticism who was a clearheaded voice through massive changes in media. I don’t mean to denigrate Ebert, but I like that Smith hits on the nuance that introducing a “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down” system provided a shorthand in a televised age that circumvented in-depth critique. Roger Ebert knew how to write, but a massive part of his legacy is turning film criticism towards the demands of a televised age, and Rotten Tomatoes is simply an extension of that built for Internet scale.

Chaos, Comedy, and ‘Crying Rooms’: Inside Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Tonight Show’ by Krystie Lee Yandoli [Rolling Stone] - While Fallon has publicly apologized for the behavior described in Yandoli’s article, I kept having the same thought as I read the piece: “Why is anyone enduring this much suffering for Jimmy Fallon?” Fallon was never a particularly talented performer on SNL (some liked him on Update, but he was just as liable to break during a sketch rather than be funny) and his movies were duds. His biggest assets seemed to be that he was cute, had on-stage energy, and Lorne Michaels liked him for the Late Night host job. People shouldn’t have to put up with toxic workplaces, and they definitely shouldn’t have to do it for the mediocrity of Jimmy Fallon playing parlor games with celebrities.

What I’m Hearing

I finally finished S-Town and was underwhelmed. It felt like host and producer Brian Reed was hooked by the idea of murder and corruption in a rural Alabama town. When he got there and found that wasn’t really the case, attention turned to his source, the colorful horologist John B. McLemore. But then there was another twist when McLemore killed himself by drinking potassium cyanide. By the time I reached the end of the podcast, I don’t even think Reed really knew what his show was about other than a depressed man whose depression may have stemmed from his practice of fire-gilding, which likely involved inhaling mercury and the associated mental deterioration that comes from doing so. I also can’t help but feel like part of S-Town’s sensation was a factor of timing—early 2017. The country was still reeling from Trump’s surprise election, and so there was a push to “understand and humanize” the working white class voters who elected him to office (see also Hillbilly Elegy). While I do think S-Town is empathetic, its conclusions ultimately feel banal and its reporting (especially the conflict between Tyler and John’s cousins) comes off as voyeuristic.

What I’m Playing

I’m going to congratulate myself for waiting to play Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I’m loving it, but it’s also an incredibly short game (I’m already over halfway through it). Thankfully, my patience has been rewarded because by the time I’m done with this game, Spider-Man 2 will pretty much be here.

I’m also playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection because it’s nostalgic, and also I’m kind of amazed we ever asked children to get through a game as unforgivingly difficult as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the original Nintendo.