BONUS: Apple introduces new foldable phone as Gen Z embraces everything 'dumb' and 'vintage'

0:00The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Christie Strasser, you're listening to Audisys on Deadline. We're always looking forward, but every once in a while it's valuable to look behind. In that vein, let's talk about a new flip phone. Did we read that right? Yeah, and it's from Apple. Here's KCBS in the Bay Area. The new device is expected to be announced, include a foldable phone, new Apple watches, an iPhone 18, Josh Kostin, partner with tech venture capital firm, Signal Fire. Josh, thank you for joining us. Talk to me about some of these products. Yeah, the star of the show is expected to be Apple's first foldable iPhone. Now the question is, do people want this more complex approach to a phone? Yes, unfolded, you're going to have a much bigger display. So if you're someone who's predominantly using it for watching movies, Netflix, things like that, this could be a great win. But the size, the shape could make it more difficult to hold, it could be a little bit

1:04more fragile as well. Now Samsung has had foldable phones for quite a while. So the question is, is this something that, with a $2,000 expected price point, is that going to be a big moneymaker for Apple? Again, the other major products we're expecting are new Apple watches, which include blood pressure and heart rate tracking, new Apple AirPods, the non-servant, they have noise canceling, but not the sort of a, including silicone style AirPods Pros. And then the new base level iPhone Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro, which is not supposed to have very substantial upgrades, a little better camera, a little better battery, a little better processor. You've definitely seen Apple's products overall slow down in how overt their product updates and changes are. So this foldable iPhone is one of the first big new form factors for them in almost a decade. Not really talking a lot about artificial intelligence, what seems to be with a lot of major tech companies are pushing these days, pushing these apps. AI, why do you think Apple is taking a back seat?

2:07This is a real issue for Apple. They have got to get AI figured out. And for instance, series dictation is still remarkably inaccurate. And compared to modern products like Whisper Flow, which you can even use on your Mac and iPhone and has almost perfect dictation and accuracy on transcription, you would think that they would have this by now. I can't believe they haven't launched a $10 a month series plus with premium dictation accuracy. But the question becomes when are they ready to really roll out their deeper AI features? They've had some writing assistance, some smarter notifications, but nothing that big of a deal or that's been very popular. But Apple also has this history of saying we don't necessarily want to be the first. They didn't want to be the first smartphone. They didn't want to be the first MP3 player. They want to do it best. They want to wait till the technology is ready for the average person to need it. And so to me, the big question is how do they get iMessage involved? That's been the hottest thing in the startup world right now is new AI agents that use

3:09your text message as the main communication channel. That is how AI goes mainstream, not with some destination product, some new behavior pattern you have to adopt. But the idea of you just texting a computer to do things for you the same way you might text a personal assistant or even ask for a favor from a friend. Another trend from the past is in-person shopping. Who's ready to spend a day at the Mall of America? There's Adam and Jordana and Minneapolis. Cory Van Ute at these viral fads that are showing up at Mall of America. Because I know you and Audrey did this and you wrote about it in Axios about how you went to these, I don't know if they're pop ups or they're new stores at the Mall of America that is specifically targeting the TikTok generation. You know, kids see these things on TikTok. On the TikTok shop, that's a thing, by the way, of course it is. And then they come to life at the Mall of America. Tell us more about them. No, it's a super popular retailer and they sell kind of the blind boxes, the boo boo's,

4:13the different collectibles along with the blind box. Make up, tick, tick. A blind box is all these different collectibles like the boo boo's that people might have heard of where you don't know which one you're getting until you open the box. You know kind of I'm getting this type of figurine or this one called like a fuggler or something quite ugly, a little roll egg doll. But yeah, we have noticed over the past years, so we kept on noticing when the Mall of America announced new stores that they'd say viral Mac and cheese brand, viral claw machine arcade and that viral clothing brand, etiquette, you know, all of, I don't know if I pronounced that one right, but you know, all of these stores were being targeted as viral. All addicted. Okay, that's what it's all you have younger daughters. So you know what? Yeah, the trendy clothes I do not. I stop a j-group factory and tailor mostly. I'm pretty boring. I am not the target audience for these stores, but we decided to check it out and look into

5:13it. And it turns out that this is no surprise here. Part of a strategy to get Gen Z younger shoppers to shop brick and mortar what they're actually doing. And they want the experience. And the idea is that you bring the retailers, something fuzzy, whether it's a pop-mart, whether it's the claw machine or Kate or a Hello Kitty, build a bear special pop-mart, K-pop, a K-pop store, right? That it like draws people in for the experience and because they want to create content there and then they spend money. Here's more on retro technology from Rob Hart in Chicago. And Z is going retro, embracing dumb phones, old game consoles and vintage gadgets. As younger consumers seek simpler, less connected technology. Welcome in tech expert Paul Hockman, former tech editor of the Today Show, president of Humongous Media. Paul, thank you for joining us today. And Paul, I want you to make me feel really sad right now.

6:17What's the definition of retro as far as Gen Z is concerned? Okay, I'm sorry, I'm not going to even go with that. I'm going to actually make you feel good because you used the word dumb old and vintage in your intro there. And that's exactly what I am. So the thing is you and me both Paul. Yeah, well, guess what? The trend is really exciting to me and then we'll get into the numbers, which is big business by the way, but the trend is towards devices and technology that I can actually operate. And it's true, Gen Z is really flocking to what we older people consider to be retro or sort of backward looking. And an easy example, vinyl records, right? Now, this is a trend that's been going on for some time, but they just this year went past a billion dollars in annual sales and annual revenue for vinyl records. Film photography, global film sales grew 127 percent this last year, 40 percent roughly of new film photography customers are under the age of 25 print books, 75 percent year

7:22over year surge, 80 percent of books bought by 13 to 24 year olds are printed copies. Now, this is not this is not a small issue. What what it means, obviously, is big business, but what it also means is is a bit of a kickback against the what is an obvious surge in digital technology in everyday life, whether it's AI or other, a concern for things that are not seeming to be real, a concern about resources is that digital, is that AI slop or is it real person? Am I my eight, almost 18 year old son sort of, you know, said, oh, that's not a good idea that if I'm if you're going to use AI because you're going to use too much water. So my point is not to make fun of that. My point is to say that's a huge business trend and observation anybody in this world is going to should take note of. Well, it's it's very interesting. This dovetails with some new numbers that we're seeing about usage of social media applications, Facebook and other text based social media that millennials embraced because Facebook

8:22was available to them when they were in college and then people my age and our parents are embraced because Mark Zuckerberg opened that up for everybody. But the kids, their kids aren't really embracing social media to the degree that their older siblings and their parents did. And maybe it is that search for authenticity and also a desire to get away from algorithms governing, governing your life. That's exactly right. The only thing I'd amend about your statement is the maybe part. It's quite clear, at least from the data that I've seen that people, especially young people, Gen Z in particular are tired of disbelieving their environment, disbelieving their surroundings. And the disbelief comes from the junk, basically. It comes over the transom driven by an algorithm that Zuckerberg or Musk or somebody else has mastered. So in a nutshell, it's not so much about the medium as it is about the content. Is it real or not? Authenticity really is the word of the day. You want to sell a product these days?

9:24Authenticity is the by word if you're going to be successful. The physical media I understand because once again, it goes back to the algorithm discussion. Do you want to control the experience? On top of that, I remember this from birthdays and holidays. It was a lot of fun to open up a present and there is a VHS or a CD or a record, something you can hold and really look forward to enjoying. You don't have that experience when you purchase it friction-free in an online store. First of all, that's absolutely right. Second of all, I think in addition to the frictionless purchase, which has its own virtues and its drawbacks, in the end, in some ways, which we haven't talked about directly, but I think it's really important. It's about ownership. In the end, a product, a physical product, whether it's a vinyl record or God help us a VHS or something of the like, a camera film camera where the film cartridge has been rolled up and gets sent to somebody. It's a thing you hold.

10:24It's a thing you own. I think the undertone of all this or a lot of it is when people are awash and a digital see, they don't feel like any of that see is owned by them. They feel like they're almost the recipient of all that energy. Instead, if you own a record, if you own the film, if you own the camera, you feel like you're connected to the experience as well as to the device. The pictures that you take on your phone do seem like short moments in time and if you take a picture on film, it just has this depth that in your mind's eye, it looks like it's going to last forever.