Apple’s Most Ambitious Roadmap Ever? + OpenAI vs. Google vs. Anthropic Revisited

Alex Kantrowitz (0:00)

Apple is all of a sudden flush with new products. What's happening at that company? And let's reassess the competitive balance between OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. That's coming up with MG Siegler of Spyglass right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Well, we are airing this on Wednesday, September 9th, which means Apple has a big event coming with a slew of new products, and it looks very different from the Apple of old that just seemed to refine the existing products. We actually have some new models and brand new ideas coming from the company, so we're going to discuss all of that. We're also going to talk about the state of the OpenAI, Anthropic and Google competition. Now that OpenAI has released Astra, Anthropic seems to be on the doorstep of an IPO, and Google, of course, is in the middle of some serious changes within its AI effort. So it's good to see you, MG. It's the first week of the month, and here we are back together. Welcome back to the show.

MG Siegler (1:01)

Great to be back, Alex. Back to school, back to Apple. It's all setting up well for the fall.

Alex Kantrowitz (1:06)

Yeah, back to Apple, and we're used to a certain cadence of routine, right? Every September, Apple talks about iPhones, and this event has sort of taken a secondary position compared to WWDC, which is where, if we're being honest, all the action has happened. Everything that's happened within Apple that's been notable recently has been mostly on the software side of things, Apple Intelligence, even a year and a half ago, Liquid Glass, although I don't think we need to really talk about that. But now the iPhone event is taking center stage again, and we have actual new products from Apple, not just a refinement of what has traditionally been the latest iPhone model. So let me just quickly set it up by reading the preview from Bloomberg. This is from Mark Gurman, Apple to kick off Ternus era with its biggest ever slate of new products. Apple has spent much of the past 15 years refining existing product lines and launching services to generate more recurring revenue. That is all about to change beginning at the company's September 9th Surprise and Shine event. So they're even playing up the surprise element. I'll just read the first product then we can get into it. First product coming, the foldable iPhone. It's the centerpiece of this year's product rollout, and it's going to be a foldable smartphone that many people inside Apple refer to as the iPhone Ultra. It will have a large interior screen with a small external display, and it will be about the size of a passport when folded. It has Touch ID support, split view multitasking, and advanced hinge, whatever that means, and a crease that is far less apparent than on prior foldable devices. The price is expected to be $2,000.

New Apple, new phone, new leader. What do you make of all this?

MG Siegler (2:51)

You hit it on the head, I think. It is interesting that the past several years, right, WWDC has taken over that mantle for Apple's big event. And I think you're exactly right. It's because software has mattered so much more, because we've known what we're going to get every single year from Apple on the iPhone and the hardware side. It's basically, since iPhone X, roughly, it's been roughly the same story for, in terms of the flagship iPhone, obviously. There's little tweaks here and there, and there's some size changes and upgrades, for sure. But it's still largely the same overall shape and size that we've had before. This year, something new, finally. Obviously, they haven't confirmed it yet, but this has to be one of the most well-reported on devices now in history, given not only the German reports, but also just the supply chain stuff, right? And now the fact that Samsung has their competitive version of the product already out in market and a few other of the handset makers, Motorola, et cetera, have all done sort of these foldables, even Google, of course, a few years ago. And so everyone has been waiting for this. And we talked about it previously. Like, I think that Apple set this up well. I think it's going to be a huge hit for them, even though, as you noted, it's insane. It's going to be insanely expensive. I think that they teed that up sort of well too, with their new sort of pricing strategy, right? Where they're sort of have some new options to perhaps obfuscate just how expensive everything is.