In a survey first spotted by ex-Spotify users on Reddit, the company is asking people whether they’d switch back for a $19.99 a month “Platinum” tier that includes HiFi and a bunch of other features. That means, sadly, that whenever HiFi does surface it’s probably going to cost extra.
Ken Kocienda, the longtime Apple designer and current exec at Humane, dropped 12 books he recommends in a tweet thread. They’re not all tech, but they’re mostly tech, and I nodded vigorously at all the ones I’ve read before. Definitely reading Longitude this weekend, too.
Basically: it doesn’t want to compete for broadcast rights, it wants sweeping deals to build new stuff a la the MLS service coming next year. Here’s how Eddy Cue put it during a panel this week:
“There’s all kinds of capabilities that we’re going to be able to do together because we have everything together. And so if I have a great idea, I don’t have to think about, OK, well, my contract or the deal of interest will allow this.”
Ahead of the US midterm elections, The New York Times has some seriously bleak numbers:
In the poll we have in the field right now, only 0.4 percent of dials have yielded a completed interview. If you were employed as one of our interviewers at a call center, you would have to dial numbers for two hours to get a single completed interview.
Pollsters are adjusting in big ways to make sense of these tiny samples — and they’re having to dream up wholly new systems, too.
[The New York Times]
Is the metaverse a place we’ll all spend all our time someday, thus replacing all our current tech with glasses and headsets? Microsoft’s CEO doesn’t think so:
When I think about the Metaverse, the first thing I think about is it’s not going to be born in isolation from everything else that’s in our lives, which is you’re going to have a Mac or a Windows PC, you’re going to have an iOS or an Android phone, and maybe you’ll have a headset.
[Stratechery by Ben Thompson]
We talked all about Meta Connect and the Quest, from Zuck’s thoughts on the Quest Pro to our impressions after using the device to the state and future of VR games. We also have a lot of feelings about what a “VR stylus” is actually good for.
It’s going to be a big day in the metaverse! Here’s where all our coverage lives, and here’s what we’re expecting to see from the Quest Pro. See you in Horizon Worlds, maybe?
[Facebook]
I haven’t seen it yet, but The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel came away thoroughly unimpressed. It’s basically an internal marketing video masquerading as a documentary:
Most of what we see of our billionaire protagonist is a series of shots as he works (often alone) from his various homes and offices, or gets into and out of chauffeured cars and private jets.
It’s hard to make crypto boring! But that’s what Coin does, it appears — and maybe even what it wanted to do.
[Galaxy Brain]
