Linked List: December 26, 2023

Tuesday, 26 December 2023

Amazon Prime Video Will Start Showing Ads Next Month ★

Amazon, in an email to Prime subscribers:

We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month that you can sign up for here.

Prime is a very compelling value.

“Meaningfully fewer ads” than Apple TV+ or Max is not possible, because they have no ads. Netflix has a lower-priced “with ads” tier, but Prime Video is no peer to Netflix. This is a rinky-dink move that solidifies Prime Video’s status as a second-rate streaming service. Maybe if they hadn’t blown $250 million on Citadel and nearly $500 million on Rings of Power — both of which shows were absolutely terrible — they wouldn’t be in this position.

Gurman: Tang Tan, Apple’s Departing VP of iPhone and Watch Design, to Join LoveFrom to Work on ‘AI Hardware’ With OpenAI ★

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

Legendary designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are enlisting an Apple Inc. veteran to work on a new artificial intelligence hardware project, aiming to create devices with the latest capabilities.

As part of the effort, outgoing Apple executive Tang Tan will join Ive’s design firm LoveFrom, which will shape the look and capabilities of the new products, according to people familiar with the matter. Altman, an executive who has become the face of modern AI, plans to provide the software underpinnings, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the endeavor isn’t public. [...]

Tan will lead hardware engineering at the project while working at LoveFrom, the people said. Bloomberg News previously reported that the executive was stepping down as Apple’s vice president of iPhone and watch product design. He isn’t slated to depart until February, though his responsibilities were already divided up this month.

“Aiming to create devices with the latest capabilities” is an empty description, but the overall dynamic is interesting nonetheless.

In all, more than 20 former Apple employees have joined the design firm. [...] Shota Aoyagi, another member of Ive’s storied industrial design team at Apple, has also exited. He just started at LoveFrom.

More designers from Ive’s team at Apple now work at LoveFrom than remain at Apple.

Update 27 Dec 2023: From a little birdie:

An important distinction on Tang Tan that Gurman doesn’t get, or is intentionally vague about: Tang ran mechanical engineering for iPhone (“product design”). He was never part of the industrial design group (“design team” or just “the studio”). Obviously, product design works very closely with the design team.

Bobby Kotick Is Out as Microsoft Takes Control of Activision ★

Tom Warren and Ash Parrish, reporting for The Verge last week:

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is stepping down officially December 29th. Microsoft has not appointed a direct replacement and instead has rolled the suite of Activision Blizzard executives — including Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, Activision publishing president Rob Kostich, and Activision Blizzard vice chair Thomas Tippl — under Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty.

That door finally did hit Kotick’s ass.

52 Interesting Things Jason Kottke Learned in 2023 ★

Two of my favorites:

34. Ernest Hemingway only used 59 exclamation points across his entire collection of works.

42. MLB broadcaster Vin Scully’s career lasted 67 seasons, during which he called a game managed by Connie Mack (born in 1862) and one Julio Urías (born in 1996) played in.