Apple iPhone Duo Debuts, Elon Musk’s Data Center Snag, Will AI Cause Humanity’s Demise?

Akash Pasricha (0:13)

Welcome, everyone, to The Information's TITV. My name is Akash Pasricha. It is Thursday, September 10th. Today on the show, Apple unveiled its long-awaited foldable iPhone. We're going to bring on an analyst who was on site at Apple Park for his review of the device. We're then going to get to our exclusive reporting on how SpaceX is changing the way that its data centers are built, and the trade-offs that come with the new approach. We've also got exclusive reporting on OpenAI, restricting ads in ChatGPT from competitors that offer image and audio generation features. We're going to close out the show with a conversation with the CEO of Asana about the company's latest quarter. It's going to be a great show, so let's get right on into it.

Apple announced its folding iPhone Duo yesterday. It was John Ternes' first keynote as CEO. Executives were touting the continuous interface between the folded and unfolded modes. The phone starts at about $2,000, goes up to around $3,200. Ben Bajarin from Creative Strategies, he is CEO of that company, was on site at Apple Park. I want to bring him on for his review.

Ben, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here.

Ben Bajarin (1:24)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Akash Pasricha (1:25)

So how was John Ternes? Let's start there. This was his first keynote.

Dan Rogers (1:29)

Yeah.

Ben Bajarin (1:30)

I mean, he wasn't a surprise in terms of his presentation style. He's been on camera before, obviously been a part of these events before.

So I don't think his like how natural he was, right? Was a surprise. Everybody knew he had good candor, ability to speak clearly and have that Apple presenter vibe, if you will.

Akash Pasricha (1:51)

Was the vibe different at all compared to the Tim Cook keynotes, or was it literally exactly the same?

Ben Bajarin (1:57)

No. I mean, obviously, right, you sit there, we sit there and watch the same video that others do, right? So there's very little executive presence on stage. But I think in general, there was a good crowd reaction. People were pretty receptive to him.

He did come briefly on stage and do something in advance of that, just talk to us.

And I think what's nice is, to be honest, I've been following, I've been going to Apple events since 2001 So I've seen a lot of them. And what I appreciated was, he stepped into the moment and recognized what I just would loosely say, the inheritance that he has at his app, right? Which is, it is not just a company, it's a culture. It's a way of being, a way of designing products. And I know for a lot of people that breaks their brain, there's something very different about Apple because of the approach and the culture internally. And anytime you get a new leader, you want to know that or have confidence that that culture is going to continue, right? This was the sole concern when Steve Jobs passed away, was that could the culture continue with Tim Cook and beyond? Like that was really everyone's concern, which because that was what makes Apple Apple. And I think knowing that he understands that, he was obviously there in the Steve Jobs era. He gets the culture and that he understands the gravitas, right, of the situation and the inheritance he has, and he's committed to keeping that forward. So I thought that was a great stage setting for him, right, to emphasize that point.

Akash Pasricha (3:30)

Right. Well, look, he stepped in at quite a moment here. I mean, the foldable phone is probably the biggest change to the iPhone that we've seen they say since the iPhone was invented. I think you could probably agree with that. But what were your reviews of the device? You held it in your hand.

What do you think?

Ben Bajarin (3:50)

Yeah. No, it's a great piece of hardware. You know, again, I think that there is a lot of good foldable hardware out there, right? So I wouldn't say, like, in general, Apple's just crushed the competition when it comes to hardware. You've also noticed, right, a lot of these new Chinese smartphones, as well as Samsung, is now adopting this more passport-like form factor.

So they're in line with the trend, but the difference was the software. I mean, really, like, I've used a bunch of foldables. Folks on our team have been deep in foldables, and really the complaint has always been the software, right? It just feels like a candy bar smartphone software that's now on a bigger kind of folding phone. And so I think Apple went to great lengths to make the software highly differentiated and a unique experience for that form factor. And all of the things you did with it, the demos they showed, the stuff we got to do with the hands-on, like really showcased how clean that software is and that it really leverages.