Slow but smart

Do you remember the dramatic rise and fall of Netscape, the pioneering company that popularized one of the first easy-to-use web browsers?

I remember being thrilled by Netscape Navigator and the amazing world of the internet that it enabled.

I wasn’t alone. Just a year and a half after the company was formed in 1994, Netscape dominated the nascent browser market and enjoyed one of the most spectacular IPOs in Silicon Valley history, way before the company turned its first profit.

The IPO was so successful it sparked a new term — the so-called Netscape moment — to describe a big splash that heralded the dawn of an entirely new industry: the internet itself.

Of course, it all turned to dust when Microsoft bundled its own browser with Windows and quickly choked off Netscape’s air supply.

And who remembers Netscape today, except, possibly, as the source of venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s fortune?

We might be living through a similar moment in AI history, when a white-hot early player like OpenAI is enjoying its own Netscape moment, with a fast-growing app and a high-profile deal with Jony Ive.

But if history is anything to go by, OpenAI and other pioneers of the AI industry might not even be around in a decade or so, let alone dominating.

And which company has been through it all, and emerged (relatively) unscathed? That’d be Apple — which is arguably in the catbird seat when it comes to the emerging AI industry. Here’s why.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• Apple just launched its annual Back to School sale with free AirPods or other accessories with the purchase of an iPad or Mac. OK, but which AirPods exactly?

• It took more than a decade, but ads are finally coming to the megapopular WhatsApp. Ugh, basically.

• You can’t just mount a film camera on a speeding F1 race car. The high-speed driving might rattle the camera to pieces. Or the cam could throw off the car’s carefully balanced aerodynamics. So Apple instead turned to iPhone tech for filming the upcoming F1: The Movie.

• Adobe’s generative AI app Firefly sounds pretty impressive. It can conjure up a range of image and video offerings, and taps into a wide range of AI models. And it runs on your humble iPhone.

• We have dueling Mac mini dock/enclosures today: One that goes on top and adds up to 8TB of storage, and another that goes on the bottom, adding similar amounts of storage plus seven handy ports.

• We have dueling noise-canceling earbuds deals, too: Beats Studio Buds for more than 30% off and Sony LinkBuds Fit for more than 50% off.

• Spigen’s got a cute new Apple Watch charger inspired by the good old iMac G3. Translucent is back, baby!

• We hands-on review a fiddly looking origami case-cum-stand that folds into various positions to hold or elevate your iPad — and find it’s pretty great and useful.

• Today is the day in Apple history that the iPhone finally gained copy-and-paste functionality, two whole years after the device launched. Oddly, this central feature proved harder to implement than expected.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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Today’s poll

Results from yesterday’s poll: Which Apple TV+ show do you like better, "Your Friends & Neighbors" or "Murderbot"?

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