Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
Tim Cook, in Interview With WSJ: ‘Unfortunately, Price Increases Are Unavoidable’
Rolfe Winkler, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link):
Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”
Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone. [...]
Cook said Apple wouldn’t use its cash and silicon expertise to build its own memory and storage factories. “We can’t do everything,” said Cook. “We know what we’re good at.” [...] Cook said during his time working in the electronics supply chain, from IBM to Compaq to Apple, he had never seen a commodity price swing like the one from the past six months. “This is a hundred-year flood,” said Cook. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
Apple, to my recollection, has never before issued a warning about price increases. Keep in mind that Apple deals with prices in a very different way from its competitors. For Apple, prices are part of a product’s brand, so they don’t fluctuate with component costs. The trash can Mac Pro held its $3000 starting price for six years, despite its specs remaining effectively unchanged in that span.
So when Apple raises prices on the iPhone 18 Pro models this September (and, presumably, launches the folding iPhone “Ultra” with an eye-watering price), expect those prices to stick. And if Apple expects RAM and SSD component pricing to continue rising through 2027 — which is what many anticipate — they might build that into the pricing now. Raise prices by (say) $200 now rather than $100 this year and another $100 next year.
Also, credit to Tim Cook for taking this one personally, months ahead of the iPhone 18 launch, rather than leaving it to John Ternus to serve up a surprise shit sandwich in his first keynote as CEO.
Snap Unveils Specs, Its $2,200 AR Glasses, and They’re Fugly
Jay Peters, The Verge (gift link):
Snap is finally launching augmented glasses for the public. Specs, which Snap describes as “a wearable computer built into see-through augmented reality glasses,” will cost $2,195. You can preorder a pair of Specs now at specs.com with a $200 refundable deposit, and Snap says they’re expected to ship “this fall” in the US, UK, and France. [...]
The company says that Specs are “fully standalone, with no puck and no tether.” (Which is perhaps a jab at Apple’s Vision Pro, which is tethered to a separate battery pack.) They’ll be offered in two sizes, a 47mm model weighing 132g and a 52mm model weighing 136g, and will have removable inserts that Snap says will support “a wide range of prescriptions.”
Unlike Vision Pro, Snap is presenting Specs as eyeglasses that users will wear out and about in their daily lives. Viewed perfectly straight-on and photographed by a professional fashion photographer — as presented on the Specs website — they’re a bold look. Viewed from any other angle and captured normally, they look like goggles, not glasses. The frames look orthopedic and the lenses are not even close to clear. They make you look like you forgot to take off your goggles leaving the theater after a 3D movie — goggles that are big enough to wear over regular glasses.
Maybe Specs are useful enough to justify looking so orthopedic, but I doubt it.
Vehicle Motion Cues — a.k.a. Apple’s Weird Anti-Nausea Dots
Thomas Ricker, writing for The Verge:
I’ll just work from the car, I thought. But after a few minutes of staring at my screen on quick mountain switchbacks I could feel the first signs of cold, coagulated nausea bubbling up from that sweaty place in my gut. I looked to the horizon for relief, but nothing helped... until I remembered Apple’s magic dots.
Introduced in 2024, Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues promise to tap into your device’s accelerometer and gyroscope to reduce or, in my case, even eliminate the motion sickness felt when trying to use an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook inside a moving vehicle.
My son has suffered from motion sickness in cars his whole life, and Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues work like a charm for him too. What a great feature.
WWDC 2026 Links
Yours Truly on MacBreak Weekly: Is the New Siri AI Good?
MacBreak Weekly:
John Gruber of Daring Fireball joins the MacBreak Weekly panel this week! A deep dive into Apple’s new Siri following WWDC. Why Apple Intelligence & the new Siri are not coming to the EU initially later this year. And could the iPhone Ultra’s launch be delayed this year?
It’s fun to be the guest, not the host, of a podcast. I took Jason Snell’s usual panelist spot this week, alongside Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, and Christina Warren. Lots to cover, including a week of real-life experience using the new Siri AI. (It’s really good!)
Also, sometimes you just know what the episode title of a podcast is going to be, the moment a phrase is uttered. This was one of those episodes, with “Intimate Functionalities”.