NEWS 08.18
A few things, very brief. A long week last week and some remote work means I’m behind. Pretend it’s Friday though, it’ll make you feel better anyway.

Apple Reportedly in Talks with Aetna to Bring the Apple Watch to Millions of Customers
The first step, of course. “Insight” into the health activities of customers is one thing — it could even be a good thing, if executed appropriately, assisting with early warnings, reminders, etc. As the sensor tech becomes increasingly refined and high resolution, the insurarer — not your doctor, mind you, but the one who pays for services, who has a vested interest not in your health, per se, but in not paying for you to be sick or injured and those value props are very different — will be able to proactively monitor you. The inevitability here is a monitored condition where an insurer could design systems around when you should seek the help that they pay for. The further implementation here is being penalized for not wearing the watch. Who knows, Aetna speculates, what you’re doing with your spare time how many steps you’re getting, how long you’re raising your heart rate to what level. No longer enough to self-report and see a doctor once a year to confirm your status as a healthy individual, it will require constant monitoring to keep your premiums in line. In effect, it will not be a choice. Imagine a world of fluid premiums. Go on vacation and eat richer food than usual yields a microbump in premiums; thresholds and ± tolerances means constantly adjusting coverage rates; new markets emerge that speculate on health futures of individuals, CDO’s on communities who are at risk, leverage based on the packaged collective health, insurance futures. Grim.
Who Owns Your Stuff? It Might Not Be You
You bought it, you have it, but you can’t modify it, fix it, upgrade it. You physically possess the thing, but what is the nature of ownership. Software is increasingly in everything that we own, from the refrigerator to the hearing aid to the water bottle. And with that software comes control, through means like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and DRM. You should care here, because there’s a quiet monopoly that companies have built around their products. You don’t have the right to install the software you want, to find a lower cost or higher power alternative. Not only could you be breaking the warranty, you may, to a degree, be breaking the law. But folks are working on, at minimum, “right to repair” laws — “These laws require that manufacturers make diagnostics and repair tools available to customers, or allow customers to make their own repair tools.” Built into the system are tools are will allow us to participate in the full cycles of our physical things’ existence, creating higher value hardware. We can imagine the future of our physical things with embedded systems where DMCA protections coupled with HaaS ecosystems facilitates a world of sterile objects designed to do one thing, allowing no personalizing, no adaptability to context; when they break, you get a new one, replaced, antiseptic. in fact, you’re forced in get a new thing because the new software won’t run, and your old hardware isn’t going to be supported. Without embedded systems, this wasn’t an issue. Your clothes dryer or television couldn’t power-up and say that in 7 days, they would no longer accept your standard 120v power supply, or that you could keep using the things you have, but if they broke, you wouldn’t be able to get support, and that they might run slower, or become increasingly flawed in other ways. We’ve already tacitly decided that living like this is okay, because it’s been a slow burn towards the loss on control. You’re a renter of the objects that surround you, subject to inscrutable EULA’s, terms of service, and contracts. Your objects constantly update their terms and without complicity comes bricked hardware; this is a reality — Sonos helpfully decided to start collecting an increasingly large volume of customer data in anticipation of deploying smart home tech — and it will be more prevelent in whatever futures come forth.
Essential Phone, Available Now
The reviews are pouring out about likely the most anticipated new phone+company in quite some time. Mostly, they’re good, except that the camera isn’t quite at the level of the iphone and galaxy8. What’s interesting here, far more interesting than the pretty titanium/ceramic/whatever object, is that Andy Rubin’s company has been funded to the tune of +$330 million dollars by a handful of heavy players including Amazon. The Amazon Fire Phone was a failure, by most standards, and they currently don’t have a play in this space. It’s the only piece in the ecosystem that they don’t produce themselves that’s seen as mission critical for the constant eyes and ears of the marketplace. Essential’s billion dollar valuation would be a drop in the bucket. Just a thought.
Essential, in general, is interesting. Rubin describes an open system with total choice and no friction: Ambient OS. It’s a lovely vision of the future. I love the reasons he founded the company, and I hope that he stays loyal to his vision.
Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything on them you don’t want to have.
We will always play well with others. Closed ecosystems are divisive and outdated.
Premium materials and true craftsmanship shouldn’t be just for the few.
Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.
Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying your life.
Simple is always better.
I also want to see this value proposition play put across his entire ecosystem. It would be great to feel like we had another choice in this segment of the market, and it would be great if these ideals carried through. There’s an ethos here of designing for a long(er) term perspective, and we’ll wait and see how it all evolves. It’s also the ethos that we here in smaller companies with nimble flows but less complex product. Given that the phone is just about the ur symbol of our contemporary existence, and that we filter our lives through these things that if we touched and interfaced with a person much as the phone, we would have to say we loved that person — it would be truly rad if there was a real ethic that was expressed by Essential and Rubin.

