Important Note
Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.
Surface Laptop Reviews Suggest Mostly Good Design; Windows 10 S Lacking (Jun 13, 2017)
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Amazon Provides Partial Fix for Alexa Voice Calling Privacy Issue (Jun 13, 2017)
One of Amazon’s big missteps with its launch of calling and messaging features through its Alexa assistant was the assumption that its users would be happy to receive calls and messages from anyone who had their number, without the ability to block or screen those contacts first. It’s now issued a partial fix, which allows users to block others from calling or messaging them, but still doesn’t appear to have moved to a double-opt-in model under which a user would have to accept someone’s request to connect first before communication can occur. That means it still opens users up to calls and messages from exes and others in way many won’t be comfortable with. That’s how this should have worked from the beginning and the model Amazon should be adopting now.
via GeekWire
★ Uber Investigation Recommends Many Changes; Travis Kalanick Takes Leave of Absence (Jun 13, 2017)
The long-awaited investigation by Eric Holder and Tammy Albarrán of law firm Covington & Burling into the workplace culture at Uber has concluded and its recommendations made public. The fact that the report contains twelve pages of recommendations is evidence in and of itself just how broken the corporate culture at Uber has become, and quite how much it needs to change. That change, the recommendations suggest, needs to start at the top with the composition, independence, and responsibilities of the board, and work its way down through the CEO, Travis Kalanick (some of whose responsibilities should be handed over to others), and on from there. The changes recommended are sweeping, which seems appropriate given just how badly things have gone, and importantly they include many layers of accountability with real consequences attached to both good and bad behavior from performance reviews to financial incentives. Travis Kalanick is apparently going to take a leave of absence, partly to grieve for his mother who was killed recently in a boating accident, but partly also to get some time away from his job and reflect on all that’s gone on, which seems very sensible too. But one of the most notable aspects of this whole thing is just how much of a role Kalanick and the culture he has personally created at Uber is responsible for so many of the issues, and one of the biggest questions remains whether he personally can change enough to fit in with all the other changes that will be made both immediately and over time. All that’s gone on at Uber should also serve as a cautionary tale for many other tech firms, some of which will be looking down at Uber at this time but many of which have many of the same cultural flaws, even if to a lesser degree (or merely less publicly). The recommendations in the Holder report would almost all be considered best practice in the fields they cover rather than merely remedies to be applied after a major failure. I suspect every company would be better off by following the majority or even all of them.
via Recode. See also the full set of recommendations here.
Facebook Working on Offering Paid Subscriptions for Third Party News Sites (Jun 12, 2017)
Facebook has been doing a great deal to reach out to news publications recently and let them know that it has their interests at heart, something which has occasionally been in doubt. However, despite all the soft enticements it’s offered to get publications to work with Facebook and use its Instant Articles feature, the big thing publications have wanted is a business model other than advertising, namely subscriptions. It sounds like Facebook is now working on that feature, which would allow users to pay for subscriptions to publications from within its apps. Apple News, of course, already offers that options, but it’s been a closed rather than open platform so far and though I was expecting it to open up more in iOS 11, there’s no word of that so far from Apple. I would guess Facebook would start with a narrower program too and open up somewhat over time. So although this is good news for whichever pubs get included in the first round, many will likely have to wait even longer. But this is a good first step in giving news publications something they probably want more than anything else from Facebook right now.
via WSJ
Uber SVP Emil Michael Leaves Company and Board Gets a New Female Member from Nestle (Jun 12, 2017)
Any other week, I’d have made this a top post – it’s momentous – but of course we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop on Tuesday in terms of the release of the Holder report to employees at Uber and hopefully to the rest of us too. As such, Emil Michael’s departure merely feels like the tipoff for a week of big announcements and changes. But his departure is also somewhat problematic because many of his missteps also involved or were supported by Travis Kalanick. In other words, if his past actions merited being pushed out of the door (and they certainly did) then Kalanick staying feels like a sign of a double standard. Either those actions warranted those responsible being fired, or they didn’t. However, symbolically, Michael’s departure signals the end of an era in which Kalanick’s top people pretty much got to stay no matter what they’d done, something we’ve seen signs of changing in recent weeks with several other departures, not least that of Anthony Levandowski. Also worth noting is that Uber has hired a new female board member who currently serves as EVP in South Asia at Nestle. Her appointment as an independent director appears to be in line with recommendations from the Holder Report, though it clearly can’t have been brought about that quickly and must have been in the works previously.
via Recode
Uber Board Votes Unanimously to Adopt All Holder Report Recommendations (Jun 12, 2017)
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Microsoft Unifies its Minecraft Apps (Jun 12, 2017)
Alongside its Xbox One X announcement, one other big announcement Microsoft made at E3 is a unification of its Minecraft apps, such that several major versions will now be interoperable and available for social play between different platforms. Interestingly, the original PC version of the game is the one that will be left out from all this interoperability, but the mobile, Xbox, and VR, and even Nintendo Switch will all get it as a free upgrade to the current version. And in-game purchases (DLC) will also be available on each version. In many ways, it’s a quirk of the way the Minecraft apps have developed that they haven’t had this compatibility in the past – surely, many kids (and adults) have wanted to play these games on all their devices all along, and have had to make do with different incompatible versions instead. So this is at least a logical step, though the exclusion of the original PC version still feels a little odd.
via Minecraft
★ Microsoft Debuts Xbox One X, “Smallest” and “Most Powerful” Xbox, at ES (Jun 12, 2017)
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Essential Phone Will be Exclusive to Sprint in US, Further Limiting Appeal (Jun 12, 2017)
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Intel Fires Warning Shot over x86 Emulation as Microsoft Preps Windows on ARM (Jun 9, 2017)
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EU Opens In-Depth Investigation into Qualcomm NXP Acquisition (Jun 9, 2017)
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Apple Announces Developer Preview of Business Chat for iMessage Customer Service (Jun 9, 2017)
Apple didn’t mention Business Chat explicitly during its WWDC keynote on Monday, but details about it have emerged during the week and it held a session on Friday morning at which it detailed the service for developers. What we know now is that Business Chat is an equivalent to Facebook Messenger for business to allow businesses to perform customer service tasks through iMessage. It won’t launch publicly until next year, but Apple is announcing a developer preview and all the tools necessary for businesses to create customer interactions using iMessage. The platform is pretty fully featured, offering not just text messaging but payments through Apple Pay, pickers for time slots, products, and the like, and integration with custom apps through the iMessage apps platform. Between this and the various other changes we’ve seen announced by Apple around iMessage over the past year, it’s evolving iMessage from a mere app to much more of a platform, very much along the lines I outlined in this article I wrote early last year. I think that’s super smart, and one of the best things about it from a customer perspective is that Apple isn’t doing any of this to drive new revenues or push advertising or any of the other things others in this space – notably Facebook – are doing. Apple is very aware of how personal a space iMessage is, and will prevent businesses from ever sending unsolicited messages – every interaction will be initiated by the user, from the first onwards. The platform looks clever, and giving developers and companies lots of time to implement it should mean that by the time this releases to the public next year, it should be really effective.
via TechCrunch (see also Apple’s developer page for Business Chat and the WWDC session on Business Chat)
Taylor Swift’s Music Comes Back to Spotify (Jun 9, 2017)
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Apple Reported to Hold Off on “Gigabit” Modems in Next iPhones (Jun 9, 2017)
I’ll start with my usual caveat on so-called “gigabit” wireless services: though theoretical throughputs on devices with the new modems being discussed here can reach gigabit per second speeds, the real-world experience is going to be a fraction of that. In other words, even if the reporting in this article is correct, Apple isn’t going to be missing out on true gigabit speeds any more than the other device vendors will have them. The second caveat is that even the more realistic speeds will only be available where carriers have upgraded their networks to support them, which will be far from everywhere for the near future. With those caveats out of the way, though, Apple will be one of the few device vendors out there without these faster modems in its devices over the next year. However, as the article rightly points out, Apple has rarely been willing to put cutting edge new modem technology in its devices at the same time as others, generally preferring to wait for the technology to mature before deploying it, as it notably did with both 3G and LTE. There is, of course, this time also the added complication of Qualcomm being the only supplier with a gigabit modem ready to go, and the fact of Apple’s very adversarial relationship with Qualcomm and its decision last year to introduce Intel modems. I’m inclined to believe the reporting here is accurate, but I’m not sure it’s really all that significant – in real-world experience, there will be very little difference for many customers over the next couple of years, and Apple will almost certainly jump on the gigabit modem bandwagon next year, likely through Intel.
via Bloomberg
★ SiriusXM Takes 16% Stake in Pandora, Which Also Sells Ticketfly to Eventbrite (Jun 9, 2017)
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Sprint Offers 6 Months of Free Tidal HiFi to Subscribers (Jun 9, 2017)
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Major Tech Companies to Send Leaders to Trump Administration Tech Summit (Jun 9, 2017)
The Trump administration is holding the first meetings of its American Technology Council, led by Trump son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, later this month. Despite the recent contretemps between the tech industry and the administration, it appears most of the largest companies will still send senior leaders to the meetings, including CEOs or chairmen in many cases. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intel, Cisco, and others will all send at least one senior representative to the meetings. That’s a sign of the realism that still prevails at these companies despite broad opposition within their ranks to any kind of collaboration with the government. These companies still have policy objectives the government can and likely will help with, and disengaging entirely over those issues where there’s disagreement isn’t likely either to drive meaningfully different policies in those areas or achieve their broader goals. But that will make for some uncomfortable times for these leaders, most of whom looked pretty awkward at the first pre-inauguration meetings with Trump and his team. And these companies will face continued criticism from within Silicon Valley and elsewhere for their perceived compliance with the administration regardless.
via Bloomberg
★ Alphabet Sells Boston Dynamics and Schaft Robotics Businesses to SoftBank (Jun 9, 2017)
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Apple Hires Head of Stanford Digital Health Center (Jun 9, 2017)
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Alibaba Provides Bullish Outlook as Slight Hit to Profits Funds Expansion (Jun 8, 2017)
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