Hey everyone 👋
It’s been over 5 years since I set myself on a mission to make tech more ‘fun’ so to say.
Thing is, information has become heavily commoditized - want to know something? Just ask GPT, and chances are in many cases you will get a sufficient answer (hallucinations sold separately).
But it’s comments like below from lovely folks like
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that make me regain my confidence that what we are building here at SK NEXUS, isn’t just information, but it is something bigger than it.
News is everywhere, understanding is scarce. I’m here for the second thing.
Over the years we have tried a lot of things, from doing short blogs, to social media posts, to having a podcast, to now running a newsletter alongside a tech career focused community - all this for one simple reason, spread knowledge by execution, by meaning behind it, by having opinions on it.
And this is also the reason why I started this weekly series WTT - news, but maybe in not a way you typically consume it.
We are a really small team of highly passionate folks into tech, we will never compete with the Verges and the Crunches of the world - but what we want to do is make someone’s day with fun tech coverage - one reader at a time.
That being said, let’s get into it.
Story 1: iPhones Don’t Suck This Year
Phone news? really? why even bother with it? Everyone knows Apple released new phones, and Google did last month, and Samsung will next month - who cares.
I mean, usually I don’t either, but I believe this year there are a couple of things to note that piqued my interest - and might make you think as well.
1 - Pro isn’t just a name anymore
For years it felt like Apple just slaps the ‘Pro’ moniker on their most expensive phone and call it a day. But this year, from the design to the hardware - it feels like we got our first actual Pro Phone. And that too at same-ish prices as last 4 years or so?
And on top of that, the good ol base regular phone FINALLY got a 120Hz display, the only thing that held it back from recommendation by tech bros.
Without going too deep into the specs, this year felt like the biggest year in a while for iPhones, with the ‘most’ kind of options available for anyone to choose from.
Want a good all-rounder? Get the base model
Want something comfortable to use? Get the Air
Want absolute specs? Get the Pro
And if you’re like, I don’t use an iPhone, why should I care? Coz other people do care. And then other companies care, and then we get more options in the market in all spectrums.
If Apple is moving ahead with the gesture of ‘we will offer more for the same price’ - imagine the standard it sets for other players in the market.
2 - Apple Intelligence is Missing
Last year, when Apple talked about AI (Apple Intelligence) AI (Artificial Intelligence) - I actually got hyped. Thing is, in this market, Apple is/was probably the last big player to enter, and the way they wanted to do things was very interesting.
Private cloud compute, security focus, 3rd party integration support, better Siri (oh God pls), on-device processing - the promises were many.
But if you have been following the news, you should know by now that Apple’s Intelligence was probably the worst stain on company’s recent history. From AI gen’d notifications that killed people who are alive, to just straight up non-sense features - Apple Intelligence is an embarrassment, no other words to define it.
And this year at the event, they were very careful to not AI it up again. For good reason, Apple is simply years behind of its peers…..when it comes to doing anything with AI.
Not coz they don’t have the tech, coz their internal structure and politics are just a movie to read through. I implore you to give these pieces a read:
The gist of it is, it’s clear that the internal rumblings of Apple are a big reason that they are so behind in AI.
I along many other folks are calling this similar to how ‘Microsoft missed the smartphone’. Love it or hate it, AI has changed consumer expectations very rapidly over the last few years to the point where it won’t be long that AI features are an expected must in your everyday devices.
Most AI features are a terrible idea, but some that do work, and have become essential to many people’s workflows. If Apple doesn’t crack a good use case anytime soon, their supremacy on hardware and software side might not matter as much.
3 - And the Price Stays The Same
There were a lot of rumors that this would be the year we would finally see a price hike in the phone lineup. Instead what we got was the same prices, and even better starting storage of 256GB across the board.
Apple? Giving us more stuff for a lower price?
Not so Apple -
But this shows that where they are losing mindshare due to being behind in AI, they want to make it up by offering ‘more value’. Very subjective, but not gonna lie that this will work out.
Yes, I just said Apple is behind in AI, but it still takes years to demolish a giant, I wouldn’t be surprised if this year, again, is the best-selling iPhone year because spec-for-spec, the price is hard to beat.
And you know what happens when new devices offer more for same prices? old devices get even more cheaper, and if you’ve browsed the second hand market (especially in Pakistan) - you know iPhones are gonna be up for grabs pretty soon for cheaper than they would have been previously.
To summarize all this, I don’t think the Apple event this year was interesting because the tech was good. But there are very sneaky business decisions in the event that made me interested to write about this. This will impact the industry - let’s hope it’s in a good way.
Story 2: And Another Industry Shifts
Links to refer to:
Speaking of industry, this move of OpenAI into becoming the ‘future of work’ is hard to miss. If you know me long enough, you know that along with tech, another thing we enable for folks is ‘freelancing’.
You can read up on all that here.
The simple fact is that being in Pakistan, options are scarce, and freelancing is the escape for many skilled folks who reside here.
Over the last couple of years, the model is clearly shifting.
We are heading from a ‘project based’ model to a ‘resource augmentation’ model. Where companies used to pride themselves at getting the work done for you, now they are moving to helping you find the right resources.
Overnight,
Software Houses → Tech HR Companies
Gig Based Freelancers → Remote Full Time Hires
And for good reason I think, augmentation is just really good for business and individuals. You get repeat revenue, stable, scalable, easier to hire and train folks, expand as a business. Being salaried also solves a lot of issues with traditional gig based freelancing and is better for most folks looking for ‘security’.
The math is just a win-win-win when we talk about any monthly recurring revenue services vs project based one time cost.
Even platforms like Upwork know this, they recently just went full augment as well with launch of their new platform Go Lifted. Enterprises want resources, and hiring has become a challenge, especially with over regulated regions like EU where apparently its okay to take 6 months for reasons. Ah, wish we had that here…lol.
And OpenAI is wrapping this move with suggesting that the reason for them doing this is to replace the lost jobs with new AI focused opportunities. They will apparently offer education and skill pathways for the new era of AI workers.
It makes sense for an AI company to train people on AI to rent them to companies using AI.
But…the issue is: is AI going to replace everything?
Highly unlikely. So how big is even the market for this?
I don’t think the market for this is big…but I do think this instead.
Another news recently by OpenAI was about how it’s going to enter the consultancy space -
OpenAI launches consulting division…Making Mckinsey, Accenture, Big 4s nervous
A lot of companies in the world want to leverage AI, but don’t want the risk associated with having their info leak out. Guess what they want? On-Prem AI (RIP Cloud).
Having stuff on premises eliminates a lot of the risks of AI. Only problem is that we still don’t have good options for On-Prem, and that is exactly why we are here today -
Who gonna get you On-Prem AI? OpenAI.
Using the workers they just trained on their recruiting platform.
To give you the AI, and the people who are gonna patch up the AI for you.
And that feels more like the play here rather than competition with LinkedIn - what do you think?
And that’s it for this week.
I don’t know if you noticed or not but I switched the format up from being newsy to being more opinionated. Tell me what you think of this style - I think it flows well with the idea in our intro - making tech more fun with new perspectives that you might not have thought of.
If these stories left you curious, confused, or just plain annoyed, send me your questions.
And
As always, with or without my help - I wish you the best.