Enlarge/ The Vision Pro has two micro-OLED displays.
Apple
Research firm Omdia has published the first publicly available educated estimates of how much the materials for each Vision Pro really cost Apple. The analysis sets an overall price tag for the materials and identifies which components cost the most money.
Omdia Senior Research Director David Hsieh estimates that the total bill of materials comes in at around $1,542. The consumer price for the headset starts at $3,499 but can be as much as a thousand dollars more than that, depending on the configuration the buyer chooses.
Vision Pro presents both the real and the virtual worlds to the user with two micro-OLED displays, one for each eye. Together, these dual displays are the most expensive component in the headset, costing $456. Another external display (the one used for EyeSight) costs around $70, Hsieh estimates. That means that Omdia estimates the device’s displays account for about 35 percent of the total cost of the device’s materials.
The runner-up category is silicon; a roll-up cost estimate of both the M2 system-on-a-chip and the R1 processor together lands at $240, or just over 15 percent of the total cost of the device’s materials.
You can see the full table of materials in Omdia’s estimate here, as first seen in one of the firm’s blog posts:
No matter how accurate that $1,542 number is, we should steer clear of the temptation to declare that Apple profits $1,957 on each Vision Pro sold for $3,499, as that’s certainly not the case.
A bill of materials like this doesn’t take into account manufacturing, shipping, or marketing, nor does it factor in the cost of research and development. There’s no way to know from these estimates how much profit Apple earns on each Vision Pro sold, but it’s definitely a lot less than the difference between the price tag and the bill of materials.
Apple has historically maintained substantial profit margins on its hardware products like the iPhone, and Vision Pro could follow in those footsteps, or it could be that Vision Pro is anomalous. Only Apple knows for sure. In any case, analysts expect some of these costs to come down with time.
That round button looks like a digital crown, but it’s just a button.
OnePlus
OnePlus has this very interesting table detailing what chip and OS combo runs which modes.
OnePlus
The first-party watch faces. These are important since these are the only low-power ones.
OnePlus
The app drawer.
OnePlus
Smartwatches are capable little devices, but a big downside is that the battery doesn’t last that long. A smartphone-style smooth-scrolling UI usually leads to smartphone-style battery life, where you have to charge the watch every day or so. Simpler fitness devices with more minimal screens and UIs can last a lot longer, but what if there was a smartwatch that could attain the best of both worlds?
That’s the solution OnePlus and Google have cooked up, with the new “Wear OS hybrid interface” on the OnePlus Watch 2. Basically, the smartwatch is now packing two different sets of CPUs and OSes: One set is geared for low-power and is used for the always-on display, and a second set is for screen-on touch usage. OnePlus claims “market-leading battery life of up to 100 hours” in the OS-switching “smart mode,” though of course, how much you use the watch will make a huge difference.
Wear OS devices have been creeping up to this line for a while. Watches have long shipped with low-power “co-processors” either built right into the system-on-a-chip (SoC) or tacked on as an extra chip. The major step here is the extra OS, which allows the hardware to put Wear OS to sleep when you aren’t actively using the watch. Google isn’t very forthcoming in its blog post about manufacturers wanting to kick the power-hungry Wear OS to the curb, but OnePlus says the watch runs a real-time operating system (RTOS) when in its “efficiency” mode. On the OnePlus Watch 2, the chip layout is a Snapdragon W5 SoC that runs Wear OS, while the RTOS runs on a BES 2700 microcontroller unit (MCU) chipset.
Enlarge/ The “Hybrid OS interface” can be run by either CPU.
Google
Wear OS and the RTOS can both run a “Hybrid OS interface” that just looks like bits of Wear OS. Google’s photos show the notification panel as part of this “hybrid OS interface.” When the screen is idle, you’re getting the efficient OS/chipset combo; the animation shows that when you tap the screen, it switches to Wear OS and Snapdragon in an apparently seamless transition.
Google says, “Bridged notifications will be delivered to the watch without waking up the high-performance AP. Users can read and dismiss these notifications while the watch is still powered by the MCU. The MCU can also handle wearable-specific actions in notifications, such as quick replies or remote actions.” “Bridged notifications” in Wear OS parlance means notifications from apps on your phone, which get sent over Bluetooth to the watch. That’s probably a big hint as to what is going on under the hood here. For a bridged notification, the phone is doing all the processing in terms of connectivity, and it just sends it to the watch. The MCU/RTOS side of the watch most likely has no support for Wear OS app ecosystem code and no Internet connectivity. The BES 2700 is usually used in Bluetooth headphones and certainly has no direct Internet access. It’s not known what any of this means for standalone Wear OS modes—if you were to go jogging and leave the phone at home, presumably the notification panel would have to be high-power, all the time.
OnePlus’ website has a detailed breakdown of the RTOS capabilities that will work in low-power mode. The always-on screen works on the low-power BES/RTOS mode, but only if you use a first-party watch face. Third-party watch faces will still run on the Snapdragon chip and Wear OS and drain a lot more power. Besides low-power notifications, you can use the quick settings panel, swipe through your first-party watchface to check tiles, start a workout through OnePlus’ app, and do sleep and heart rate detection, all without waking up Wear OS. OnePlus’ low-power watch hardware probably doesn’t run very well, since the fine print notes that if users turn on “animation booster” in the settings, Wear OS will instead take over all these duties.
Enlarge/ Notifications can be accessed from either OS/Chipset combo.
Google
Google describes the development of this hybrid interface as a collaboration between it and OnePlus. You can see how OnePlus arrived at this solution. Three years ago, it made the OnePlus Watch 1, which only ran a familiar-sounding proprietary RTOS on top of a collection of low-power chips. Running a proprietary OS with zero apps led to the watch being widelypanned, but the big upside of that limited power was a claimed 14-day battery life. OnePlus’ response for the sequel seems to have been to slap the usual Snapdragon + Wear OS combo on top of the low-power watch it already had, realign the RTOS with Wear OS more, and enable seamless switching.
As for the OnePlus Watch 2, it’s sporting a 2.5D sapphire crystal cover and stainless steel body with IP68 dust and water resistance. The watch band is rubber, but if you can find something else that fits the watch body, it’s removable with pins. The Snapdragon W5 SoC is paired with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a big 500 mAh battery with 7.5 W quick charging. The RTOS lives on a separate 4GB EMMC. The display is a 1.43-inch 466×466 OLED. The watch supports NFC and Google Wallet payments, but there’s no cellular. The watch has two buttons on the right side, and while the top one looks like it would be a scrolling digital crown—and it does actually spin—it’s just a button.
The major downside to throwing hardware at the battery problem is that all that extra stuff takes up a lot of room. The watch measures 47.0×46.6×12.1 mm. The OnePlus Watch 2 ships in the US and Canada on March 4 for $299.99.
Enlarge/ A scene from One Piece, one of the animes that Funimation has distributed.
Sony is making an effort to appease customers who will lose their entire Funimation digital libraries when the anime streaming service merges into Crunchyroll. Currently, though, the company’s plan for giving disappointed customers “an appropriate value” for their erased digital copies isn’t very accessible or clear.
Earlier this month, Sony-owned Funimation announced that customers’ digital libraries would be unavailable starting on April 2. At that time, Funimation accounts will become Crunchyroll accounts. Sony acquired Crunchyroll in 2021, so some sort of merging of the services was expected. However, less expected was customers’ lost access to online copies of beloved anime that they acquired through digital codes provided in purchased Funimation DVDs or Blu-rays. Funimation for years claimed that customers would be able to stream these copies “forever, but there are some restrictions.”
Rahul Purini, Crunchyroll’s president, explained the decision while speaking to The Verge’s latest Decoderpodcast, noting that the feature was incorporated into the Funimation platform.
“As we look at usage of that and the number of people who were redeeming those and using them, it was just not a feature that was available in Crunchyroll and isn’t in our road map,” Purini said.
The executive claimed that Funimation is “working really hard directly” with each affected customer to “ensure that they have an appropriate value for what they got in the digital copy initially.” When asked what “appropriate value” means, Purini responded:
It could be that they get access to a digital copy on any of the existing other services where they might be able to access it. It could be a discount access to our subscription service so they can get access to the same shows through our subscription service. So we are trying to make it right based on each user’s preference.
Clarifying further, Purini confirmed that this means that Sony is willing to provide affected customers with a new digital copy via a streaming service other than Crunchyroll. The executive said that the company is handling subscribers’ requests as they reach out to customer service.
Notably, this approach to compensating customers for removing access to something that they feel like they purchased (digital copies are considered a free addition to the physical copies, but some people might not have bought the discs if they didn’t come with a free digital copy) puts the responsibility on customers to reach out. Ahead of Purini’s interview, Sony didn’t publicly announce that it would offer customers compensation. And since Funimation’s terms of use include caveats that content may be removed at any time, customers might have thought that they have no path for recourse.
But even if you did happen to demand some sort of refund from Funimation, you might not have been offered any relief. The Verge’s Ash Parrish, who has a free-tier Funimation account, reported today on her experience trying to receive the “appropriate value” for her digital copies of Steins;Gate and The Vision of Escaflowne. Parrish noted that Steins;Gate isn’t available to stream off Crunchyroll with a free subscription, meaning she’d have no way to watch it digitally come April 2. Parrish said Funimation support responded with two “boilerplate” emails that apologized but offered no solution or compensation. She followed up about getting compensated for a premium subscription so that she’d be able to stream what she used to digitally own through Crunchyroll but hadn’t received a response by publication time.
Following up with Funimation’s PR department didn’t provide any clarity. Brian Eley, Funimation’s VP of communications, reportedly told Parrish via email: “Funimation users who have questions about digital copies can contact Funimation here. A Funimation account associated with a digital copy redemption is required for verification.” Ars Technica reached out to Crunchyroll for comment but didn’t hear back in time for publication.
The downfalls of digital “ownership”
Sony’s plan to delete access to customers’ digital properties shows the risks of relying on streaming services. The industry is infamous for abruptly losing licenses to programming, changing prices and accessibility to titles, mergers, as is the case here, and collaborations that change what customers are entitled to.
When asked about this broader industry challenge on Decoder, Purini acknowledged customer inconvenience but noted the importance for Crunchyroll to “keep our resources and teams focused on what would help us bring the best experience for the broader audience.”
It’s unclear how many users were using their Funimation digital copies. However, some may consider their digital copies backups that they won’t use unless they’re no longer able to play their physical copy, giving Funimation customers peace of mind.
Although Funimation claimed that digital copies would be viewable “forever,” their terms of use note that Funimation can remove content “for any reason.” However, it’s not uncommon for customers to avoid reading lengthy, wordy terms of service agreements. Terms of service are easy to understand for an industry participant like Purini, he said, but “that might not be the case with a broader general audience.”
That said, with streaming becoming a more substantial part of people’s media libraries, users must understand what they’re spending money on. Access to beloved shows and movies over the Internet isn’t guaranteed, and inconsistent compensation plans are often the result.
Avast, a name known for its security research and antivirus apps, has long offered Chrome extensions, mobile apps, and other tools aimed at increasing privacy.
Avast’s apps would “block annoying tracking cookies that collect data on your browsing activities,” and prevent web services from “tracking your online activity.” Deep in its privacy policy, Avast said information that it collected would be “anonymous and aggregate.” In its fiercest rhetoric, Avast’s desktop software claimed it would stop “hackers making money off your searches.”
All of that language was offered up while Avast was collecting users’ browser information from 2014 to 2020, then selling it to more than 100 other companies through a since-shuttered entity known as Jumpshot, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Under a proposed recent FTC order (PDF), Avast must pay $16.5 million, which is “expected to be used to provide redress to consumers,” according to the FTC. Avast will also be prohibited from selling future browsing data, must obtain express consent on future data gathering, notify customers about prior data sales, and implement a “comprehensive privacy program” to address prior conduct.
Reached for comment, Avast provided a statement that noted the company’s closure of Jumpshot in early 2020. “We are committed to our mission of protecting and empowering people’s digital lives. While we disagree with the FTC’s allegations and characterization of the facts, we are pleased to resolve this matter and look forward to continuing to serve our millions of customers around the world,” the statement reads.
Data was far from anonymous
The FTC’s complaint (PDF) notes that after Avast acquired then-antivirus competitor Jumpshot in early 2014, it rebranded the company as an analytics seller. Jumpshot advertised that it offered “unique insights” into the habits of “[m]ore than 100 million online consumers worldwide.” That included the ability to “[s]ee where your audience is going before and after they visit your site or your competitors’ sites, and even track those who visit a specific URL.”
While Avast and Jumpshot claimed that the data had identifying information removed, the FTC argues this was “not sufficient.” Jumpshot offerings included a unique device identifier for each browser, included in data like an “All Clicks Feed,” “Search Plus Click Feed,” “Transaction Feed,” and more. The FTC’s complaint detailed how various companies would purchase these feeds, often with the express purpose of pairing them with a company’s own data, down to an individual user basis. Some Jumpshot contracts attempted to prohibit re-identifying Avast users, but “those prohibitions were limited,” the complaint notes.
The connection between Avast and Jumpshot became broadly known in January 2020, after reporting by Vice and PC Magazine revealed that clients, including Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey, were buying data from Jumpshot, as seen in confidential contracts. Data obtained by the publications showed that buyers could purchase data including Google Maps look-ups, individual LinkedIn and YouTube pages, porn sites, and more. “It’s very granular, and it’s great data for these companies, because it’s down to the device level with a timestamp,” one source told Vice.
The FTC’s complaint provides more detail on how Avast, on its own web forums, sought to downplay its Jumpshot presence. Avast suggested both that only non-aggregated data was provided to Jumpshot and that users were informed during product installation about collecting data to “better understand new and interesting trends.” Neither of these claims proved true, the FTC suggests. And the data collected was far from harmless, given its re-identifiable nature:
For example, a sample of just 100 entries out of trillions retained by Respondents showed visits by consumers to the following pages: an academic paper on a study of symptoms of breast cancer; Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential candidacy announcement; a CLE course on tax exemptions; government jobs in Fort Meade, Maryland with a salary greater than $100,000; a link (then broken) to the mid-point of a FAFSA (financial aid) application; directions on Google Maps from one location to another; a Spanish-language children’s YouTube video; a link to a French dating website, including a unique member ID; and cosplay erotica.
In a blog post accompanying its announcement, FTC Senior Attorney Lesley Fair writes that, in addition to the dual nature of Avast’s privacy products and Jumpshot’s extensive tracking, the FTC is increasingly viewing browsing data as “highly sensitive information that demands the utmost care.” “Data about the websites a person visits isn’t just another corporate asset open to unfettered commercial exploitation,” Fair writes.
FTC commissioners voted 3-0 to issue the complaint and accept the proposed consent agreement. Chair Lina Khan, along with commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, issued a statement on their vote.
Since the time of the FTC’s complaint and its Jumpshot business, Avast has been acquired by Gen Digital, a firm that contains Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, CCLeaner, and ReputationDefender, among other security businesses.
Disclosure: Condé Nast, Ars Technica’s parent company, received data from Jumpshot before its closure.
Reddit filed to go public on Thursday (PDF), revealing various details of the social media company’s inner workings. Among the revelations, Reddit acknowledged the threat of future user protests and the value of third-party Reddit apps.
On July 1, Reddit enacted API rule changes—including new, expensive pricing —that resulted in many third-party Reddit apps closing. Disturbed by the changes, the timeline of the changes, and concerns that Reddit wasn’t properly appreciating third-party app developers and moderators, thousands of Reddit users protested by making the subreddits they moderate private, read-only, and/or engaging in other forms of protest, such as only discussing John Oliver or porn.
In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), though, Reddit acknowledged that another such protest could hurt its pockets:
While these activities have not historically had a material impact on our business or results of operations, similar actions by moderators and/or their communities in the future could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.
The company also said that bad publicity and media coverage, such as the kind that stemmed from the API protests, could be a risk to Reddit’s success. The Form S-1 said bad PR around Reddit, including its practices, prices, and mods, “could adversely affect the size, demographics, engagement, and loyalty of our user base,” adding:
For instance, in May and June 2023, we experienced negative publicity as a result of our API policy changes.
Reddit’s filing also said that negative publicity and moderators disrupting the normal operation of subreddits could hurt user growth and engagement goals. The company highlighted financial incentives associated with having good relationships with volunteer moderators, noting that if enough mods decided to disrupt Reddit (like they did when they led protests last year), “results of operations, financial condition, and prospects could be adversely affected.” Reddit infamously forcibly removed moderators from their posts during the protests, saying they broke Reddit rules by refusing to reopen the subreddits they moderated.
“As communities grow, it can become more and more challenging for communities to find qualified people willing to act as moderators,” the filing says.
Losing third-party tools could hurt Reddit’s business
Much of the momentum for last year’s protests came from users, including long-time Redditors, mods, and people with accessibility needs, feeling that third-party apps were necessary to enjoyably and properly access and/or moderate Reddit. Reddit’s own technology has disappointed users in the past (leading some to cling to Old Reddit, which uses an older interface, for example). In its SEC filing, Reddit pointed to the value of third-party “tools” despite its API pricing killing off many of the most popular examples.
Reddit’s filing discusses losing moderators as a business risk and notes how important third-party tools are in maintaining mods:
While we provide tools to our communities to manage their subreddits, our moderators also rely on their own and third-party tools. Any disruption to, or lack of availability of, these third-party tools could harm our moderators’ ability to review content and enforce community rules. Further, if we are unable to provide effective support for third-party moderation tools, or develop our own such tools, our moderators could decide to leave our platform and may encourage their communities to follow them to a new platform, which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.
Since Reddit’s API policy changes, a small number of third-party Reddit apps remain available. But some of the remaining third-party Reddit app developers have previously told Ars Technica that they’re unsure of their app’s tenability under Reddit’s terms. Nondisclosure agreement requirements and the lack of a finalized developer platform also drive uncertainty around the longevity of the third-party Reddit app ecosystem, according to devs Ars spoke with this year.
I’ve written before about my nostalgia for the Windows XP- or Windows 7-era “clean install,” when you could substantially improve any given pre-made PC merely by taking an official direct-from-Microsoft Windows install disk and blowing away the factory install, ridding yourself of 60-day antivirus trials, WildTangent games, outdated drivers, and whatever other software your PC maker threw on it to help subsidize its cost.
You can still do that with Windows 11—in fact, it’s considerably easier than it was in those ’00s versions of Windows, with multiple official Microsoft-sanctioned ways to download and create an install disk, something you used to need to acquire on your own. But the resulting Windows installation is a lot less “clean” than it used to be, given the continual creep of new Microsoft apps and services into more and more parts of the core Windows experience.
I frequently write about Windows, Edge, and other Microsoft-adjacent technologies as part of my day job, and I sign into my daily-use PCs with a Microsoft account, so my usage patterns may be atypical for many Ars Technica readers. But for anyone who uses Windows, Edge, or both, I thought it might be useful to detail what I’m doing to clean up a clean install of Windows, minimizing (if not totally eliminating) the number of annoying notifications, Microsoft services, and unasked-for apps that we have to deal with.
That said, this is not a guide about creating a minimally stripped-down, telemetry-free version of Windows that removes anything other than what Microsoft allows you to remove. There are plenty of experimental hacks dedicated to that sort of thing—NTDev’s Tiny11 project is one—but removing built-in Windows components can cause unexpected compatibility and security problems, and Tiny11 has historically had issues with basic table-stakes stuff like “installing security updates.”
Avoiding Microsoft account sign-in
The most contentious part of Windows 11’s setup process relative to earlier Windows versions is that it mandates Microsoft account sign-in, with none of the readily apparent “limited account” fallbacks that existed in Windows 10. As of Windows 11 22H2, that’s true of both the Home and Pro editions.
There are two reasons I can think of not to sign in with a Microsoft account. The first is that you want nothing to do with a Microsoft account, thank you very much. Signing in makes you more of a target for Microsoft 365, OneDrive, or Game Pass subscription upsells since all you need to do is add them to an account that already exists, and Windows setup will offer subscriptions to each if you sign in first.
The second—which is my situation—is that you do use a Microsoft account because it offers some handy benefits like automated encryption of your local drive (having those encryption keys saved to my account has saved me a couple of times) or syncing of browser info and some preferences. But you don’t want to sign in at setup, either because you’re just testing something or you prefer your user folder to be located at “C:UsersAndrew” rather than “C:Users.”
Regardless of your reasoning, if you don’t want to bother with sign-in at setup, you have two options (three for Windows 11 Pro users):
Use the command line
During Windows 11 Setup, after selecting a language and keyboard layout but before connecting to a network, hit Shift+F10 to open the command prompt. Type OOBEBYPASSNRO, hit Enter, and wait for the PC to reboot.
When it comes back, click “I don’t have Internet” on the network setup screen, and you’ll have recovered the option to use “limited setup” (aka a local account) again, like older versions of Windows 10 and 11 offered.
For Windows 11 Pro
Windows 11 Pro users, take a journey with me.
Proceed through the Windows 11 setup as you normally would, including connecting to a network and allowing the system to check for updates. Eventually, you’ll be asked whether you’re setting your PC up for personal use or for “work or school.”
Select the work or school option, then sign-in options, at which point you’ll finally be asked whether you plan to join the PC to a domain. Tell it you are (even though you aren’t), and you’ll see the normal workflow for creating a “limited” local account.
This one won’t work if you don’t want to start your relationship with a new computer by lying to it, but it also doesn’t require going to the command line.
The new app combines the functions of three apps you’d previously have to hunt through—the Nvidia Control Panel, GeForce Experience, and RTX Experience—into one app. Setting display preferences on games and seeing exactly how each notch between “Performance” and “Quality” will affect its settings is far easier and more visible inside the new app. The old-fashioned control panel is still there if you right-click the Nvidia app’s notification panel icon. Installing the new beta upgrades and essentially removes the Experience and Control Panel apps, but they’re still available online.
But perhaps most importantly, Nvidia’s new app allows you to update the driver for your graphics card, the one you paid for, without having to log in to an Nvidia account. I tested it, it worked, and I don’t know why I was surprised, but I’ve been conditioned that way. Given that driver updates are something people often do with new systems and the prior tendencies of Nvidia’s apps to log you out, this is a boon that will pay small but notable cumulative dividends for some time to come.
Proof that you can, miracle of miracles, download an Nvidia driver update in Nvidia’s new app without having to sign in.
Game performance tools are much easier to use, or at least understand, in the new Nvidia app. It depends on the game, but you get a slider to move between “Performance” and “Quality.” Some games don’t offer more than one or two notches to use, like Monster Train or Against the Storm. Some, like Hitman 3 or Deep Rock Galactic, offer so many notches that you could make a day out of adjusting and testing. Whenever you move the slider, you can see exactly what changed in a kind of diff display.
Fubo is suing Fox Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) over their plans to launch a unified sports streaming app. Fubo, a live sports streaming service that has business relationships with the three companies, claims the firms have engaged in anticompetitive practices for years, leading to higher prices for consumers.
In an attempt to understand how much potential the allegations have to derail the app’s launch, Ars Technica read the 73-page sealed complaint and sought opinions from some antitrust experts. While some of Fubo’s allegations could be hard to prove, Fubo isn’t the only one concerned about the joint app’s potential to make it hard for streaming services to compete fairly.
Fubo wants to kill ESPN, Fox, and WBD’s joint sports app
Earlier this month, Disney, which owns ESPN, WBD (whose sports channels include TBS and TNT), and Fox, which owns Fox broadcast stations and Fox Sports channels like FS1, announced plans to launch an equally owned live sports streaming app this fall. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed but is expected to be in the $30-to-$50-per-month range. Fubo, for comparison, starts at $80 per month for English-language channels.
Via a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Fubo is seeking an injunction against the app and joint venture (JV), a jury trial, and damages for an unspecified figure. There have been reports that Fubo was suing the three companies for $1 billion, but a Fubo spokesperson confirmed to Ars that this figure is incorrect.
“Insurmountable barriers”
Fubo, which was founded in 2015, is arguing that the three companies’ proposed app will result in higher prices for live sports streaming customers.
The New York City-headquartered company claims the collaboration would preclude other distributors of live sports content, like Fubo, from competing fairly. The lawsuit also claims that distributors like Fubo would see higher prices and worse agreements associated with licensing sports content due to the JV, which could even stop licensing critical sports content to companies like Fubo. Fubo’s lawsuit says that “once they have combined forces, Defendants’ incentive to exclude Fubo and other rivals will only increase.”
Disney, Fox, and WBD haven’t disclosed specifics about how their JV will impact how they license the rights to sports events to companies outside of their JV; however, they have claimed that they will license their respective entities to the JV on a non-exclusive basis.
That statement doesn’t specify, though, if the companies will try to bundle content together forcibly,
“If the three firms get together and say, ‘We’re no longer going to provide to you these streams for resale separately. You must buy a bundle as a condition of getting any of them,’ that would … be an anti-competitive bundle that can be challenged under antitrust law,” Hal Singer, an economics professor at The University of Utah and managing director at Econ One, told Ars.
Lee Hepner, counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, shared similar concerns about the JV with Ars:
Joint ventures raise the same concerns as mergers when the effect is to shut out competitors and gain power to raise prices and reduce quality. Sports streaming is an extremely lucrative market, and a joint venture between these three powerhouses will foreclose the ability of rivals like Fubo to compete on fair terms.
Fubo’s lawsuit cites research from Citi, finding that, combined, ESPN (26.8 percent), Fox (17.3 percent), and WBD (9.9 percent) own 54 percent of the US sports rights market.
In a statement, Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said the three companies “are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors” and will leave sports streamers without options.
The US Department of Justice is reportedly eyeing the JV for an antitrust review and plans to look at the finalized terms, according to a February 15 Bloomberg report citing two anonymous “people familiar with the process.”
Google went ahead with plans to launch Gemini for Workspace today. The big news is the pricing information, and you can see the Workspace pricing page is new, with every plan offering a “Gemini add-on.” Google’s old AI-for-Business plan, “Duet AI for Google Workspace,” is dead, though it never really launched anyway.
Google has a blog post explaining the changes. Google Workspace starts at $6 per user per month for the “Starter” package, and the AI “Add-on,” as Google is calling it, is an extra $20 monthly cost per user (all of these prices require an annual commitment). That is a massive price increase over the normal Workspace bill, but AI processing is expensive. Google says this business package will get you “Help me write in Docs and Gmail, Enhanced Smart Fill in Sheets and image generation in Slides.” It also includes the “1.0 Ultra” model for the Gemini chatbot—there’s a full feature list here. This $20 plan is subject to a usage limit for Gemini AI features of “1,000 times per month.”
Enlarge/ The new Workspace pricing page, with a “Gemini Add-On” for every plan.
Google
Gemini for Google Workspace represents a total rebrand of the AI business product and some amount of consistency across Google’s hard-to-follow, constantly changing AI branding. Duet AI never really launched to the general public. The product, announced in August, only ever had a “Try” link that led to a survey, and after filling it out, Google would presumably contact some businesses and allow them to pay for Duet AI. Gemini Business now has a checkout page, and any Workspace business customer can buy the product today with just a few clicks.
Google’s second plan is “Gemini Enterprise,” which doesn’t come with any usage limits, but it’s also only available through a “contact us” link and not a normal checkout procedure. Enterprise is $30 per user per month, and it “includes additional capabilities for AI-powered meetings, where Gemini can translate closed captions in more than 100 language pairs, and soon even take meeting notes.”
Counterpoint has a new report on the top-selling phone models of 2023, and for the first time, the top seven sold models for the year are all iPhones. The report tracks worldwide sales of individual smartphone models, and while hundreds of new phones are released yearly, Counterpoint says this top-10 list represents a whopping 20 percent of the worldwide market.
The top three spots are all the iPhone 14 models, with the cheaper base model taking the top spot. 2023 saw the release of the iPhone 15, but only in September 2023. The iPhone 15 models rocketed to spots 5, 6, and 7 with only about three months of sales. Sandwiched in between the 14 and 15 models at No. 4 is the iPhone 13, the cheapest modern-looking iPhone Apple sells.
The actual cheapest iPhone, the iPhone SE, didn’t make the list this year. The dated design and (maybe?) small size isn’t resonating with consumers, and right now, the rumor mill suggests Apple won’t be making another SE. The 2022 version of this report included the SE, so eight of the top 10 devices were Apple phones, but a Samsung phone crept in at spot No. 4.
Speaking of Samsung, the bottom three phones in the list are all Samsung phones, but probably none anyone has ever heard of. Samsung has plenty of expensive flagships, like the Galaxy Z Fold at $1,800, but the phones it ships at volume are all budget devices. Spot No. 8 is the $200 Galaxy A14 5G. No. 9 is the very bottom of Samsung’s phone lineup, the $100 Galaxy A04e, and then, at No. 10, a Galaxy A14 4G (not 5G), which is around $160. We’re trying to go by MSRP for these phone prices, but they all tend not to sell at MSRP. These cheaper devices are frequently on sale or are available as burner phones on a two-year pre-paid plan at a big discount.
It’s hard for any Samsung phone to stand out in the market because Samsung releases so many devices. If we look at the GSM Arena’s database for phones released from 2021–2023, Apple has released 13 phones, while Samsung has 89 different models.
Walmart announced an agreement to buy Vizio today. Irvine, California-based Vizio is best known for lower-priced TVs, but its real value to Walmart is its advertising business and access to user data.
Walmart said it’s buying Vizio for approximately $2.3 billion, pending regulatory clearance and additional closing conditions. Vizio can also terminate the transaction over the next 45 days if it accepts a better offer, per the announcement.
Walmart will keep selling non-Vizio TVs should the merger close, Seth Dallaire, Walmart US’s EVP and CRO who would manage Vizio post-acquisition, told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Walmart expects the acquisition to be finalized as soon as this summer, it told WSJ.
Ad-pportunity
Walmart, including Sam’s Club, is typically Vizio’s biggest customer by sales, per a WSJ report last week on the potential merger. But Walmart’s acquisition isn’t about getting a bigger piece of the budget-TV market (Walmart notably already sells its own “onn.” budget TVs). Instead, Walmart is looking to boost its Walmart Connect advertising business.
Vizio makes money by selling ads, including those shown on the Vizio SmartCast OS and on free content available on its TVs with ads. Walmart said buying Vizio will give it new ways to appeal to advertisers and that those ad efforts would be further fueled by Walmart’s high-volume sales of TVs.
Walmart said today that Vizio’s Platform+ ad business has “over 500 direct advertiser relationships, including many of the Fortune 500” and that SmartCast users have grown 400 percent since 2018 to 18 million active accounts.
Walmart Connect (which was rebranded from Walmart Media Group in 2021) sells various types of ads, including adverts that appear on Walmart’s website and app. Walmart Connect also sells ads that display on in-store screens, including display TVs and point-of-sale machines, in over 4,700 locations (Walmart has over 10,500 stores).
Walmart makes most of its US revenue from low-profit groceries, WSJ noted last week, but ads are higher profit. Walmart has said that it wants Walmart Connect to be a top-10 advertising business. Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are among the world’s biggest advertising companies today. In the fiscal year ending January 2023, Walmart said that its global ads business represented under 1 percent ($2.7 billion) of its total annual revenue. In its fiscal year 2024 Q4 earnings report released today [PDF], Walmart said its global ad business grew 33 percent, including 22 percent in the US, compared to Q4 2023.
Hungry for customer data
Owning Platform+ would give Walmart new information about TV users. Data gathered from Vizio TVs will be combined with data on shoppers that Walmart already gets. Walmart plans to use this customer data to sell targeted ad space, such as banners above Walmart.com search results, and to help advertisers track ad results.
With people only able to buy so many new TVs, vendors have been pushing for ways to make money off of already-purchased TVs. That means putting ads on TV OSes and TVs that gather customer data, including what users watch and which ads they click on, when possible. TV makers like Vizio, Amazon, and LG are increasingly focusing on ads as revenue streams.
Meanwhile, retailers like Walmart are also turning to ads for revenue. Through Vizio, Walmart is looking to add a business with the vast majority of gross profit coming from ads. Data acquired through SmartCast can shed light on ad effectiveness and improve ad targeting, Vizio tells advertisers.
In an interview with WSJ, Dallaire noted that smart TVs and streaming have turned the TV business into a software, not hardware, business. According to a spokesperson for Parks Associate that Ars Technica spoke with, Vizio has 12 percent of connected TV OS market share. WSJ reported last week that Roku OS has more market share at 25 percent; although, a graph that Parks Associates’ rep sent to me suggests the percentage is smaller (Parks Associates’ spokesperson wouldn’t confirm Roku OS’ market share or the accuracy of WSJ’s report to Ars). Roku OS is on Walmart’s “onn.” TVs, but Walmart doesn’t own Roku.
Vizio TVs could get worse
From the perspective of a company seeking to grow its ad business, buying Vizio seems reasonable. But from a user perspective, Vizio TVs risk becoming too centered on selling and measuring ads.
There was already a large financial incentive for Vizio to focus on growing Platform+ and the profitability of SmartCast (in its most recent earnings report, Vizio said its average revenue per SmartCast user increased 14 percent year over year to $31.55). For years, Vizio’s business has been more about selling ads than selling TVs. An acquisition focused on ads can potentially detract from a focus on improving Vizio hardware.
Stuffing more ads into TVs could also ruin the experience for people seeking a quality TV at a lower cost. While some people may be willing to sacrifice features and image quality to save money, others aren’t willing to deal with more ads and incessant interest in viewer tracking for that experience. With Vizio expected to become part of a conglomerate eager to grow its ad business, it’s possible that the ads experience on Vizio TVs could worsen.
Editor’s note: This article was edited to include information from Parks Associates.
One of Google’s most lucrative businesses consists of packaging its free consumer apps with a few custom features and extra security and then selling them to companies. That’s usually called “Google Workspace,” and today it offers email, calendar, docs, storage, and video chat. Soon, it sounds like Google is gearing up to offer an AI chatbot for businesses. Google’s latest chatbot is called “Gemini” (it used to be “Bard”), and the latest early patch notes spotted by Dylan Roussei of 9to5Google and TestingCatalog.eth show descriptions for new “Gemini Business” and “Gemini Enterprise” products.
The patch notes say that Workspace customers will get “enterprise-grade data protections” and Gemini settings in the Google Workspace Admin console and that Workspace users can “use Gemini confidently at work” while “trusting that your conversations aren’t used to train Gemini models.”
These “early patch notes” for Bard/Gemini have been a thing for a while now. Apparently, some people have ways of making the site spit out early patch notes, and in this case, they were independently confirmed by two different people. I’m not sure the date (scheduled for February 21) is trustworthy, though.
Normally, you would expect a Google app to be included in the “Business Standard” version of Workspace, which is $12 per user per month, but it sounds like Gemini won’t be included. Google describes the products as “new Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise plans” [emphasis ours] and implores existing paying Google Workspace users to “upgrade today to Gemini Business or Gemini Enterprise.” Roussei says the “upgrade today” link goes to the Duet AI Workspace page, Google’s first attempt at “AI for business,” which hasn’t been updated with any new plans just yet.
It’s unclear how much of the Duet AI business plan is surviving the Gemini rollout. Duet was announced in August 2023 as a few “help me write” buttons in Gmail, Docs, and other Workspace apps, which would all open chatbots that can control the various apps. Duet AI was supposed to have an “initial offering” price of an additional $30 per user per month, but it has been six months now, and Duet AI still isn’t generally available to businesses. The “try Duet AI” link goes to a “request a trial” contact form. Six months is an eternity in Google’s rapidly evolving AI plans; it’s a good bet Duet is replaced by all this Gemini stuff. Will it still be an extra $30, or did everyone scoff at that price?
If this $30-extra-for-AI plan ever ships, that would mean a typical AI-infused Workspace account would be a total of $45 per user per month. That sounds like a lot, but generative AI products currently take a huge amount of processing, which means they cost a lot. Right now, everyone is in land-grab mode, trying to get as many users as possible, but generally, the big players are all losing money. Nvidia’s market-leading AI cards can cost around $10,000 to $40,000 for a single card, and that’s not even counting the ongoing electricity costs.
