Mentioned in today’s edition: Tim Cook, Anthropic, Macbook Neo, Microsoft, Jira, Tony Abbott The Onion, and ChatGPT. Plus, deals on Sennheiser headphones, Roborock robot vacuums, and Motorola smartphones.

The News

I'm leaving the Sizzle! I think you'll like the new guy

It feels weird to put this first with all the news today but — just to make sure everyone sees it — I'm finishing up with the Sizzle at the end of this week. 

My real sadness at handing over the reins is salved by the very exciting news that the Sizzle will soon be in very safe and familiar hands. I'm proud to announce the return of Sizzlefather Anthony 'decryption' Agius who will assume his rightful throne starting next week. 

Why am I leaving the Sizzle after 18 months? To be honest, I wasn't planning on a change, but two weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to become the ABC's inaugural AI reporter. As everyone who reads the Sizzle knows, I think AI, and everything surrounding it, is probably the biggest story in the world right now? The opportunity to cover this critically for the public broadcaster was just too important to pass up. 

Anyway, I'll have more to say to you later but I wanted to give Sizzlers the first heads up, before it's public, so you knew what was going on. If you have any questions, send me an email. Love you all. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple's CEO

On to a smaller personnel change: Tim Cook has resigned as CEO after 15 years and will be succeeded by hardware boss, long-tipped heir John Ternus (Verge). Cook announced his decision to leave the chief role in a genuinely touching letter to the public (Apple). The reshuffle will see Cook stay on as "executive chairman" — I think that means Trump whisperer-in-chief (Verge) — and Ternus will be replaced by Johny Srouji, who oversaw the development of Apple's banger in-house chips. 

The Sizzle: Cook's decision to do a low-key step-down instead of announcing it at Apple's 50th anniversary or at the announcement of the new iPhone or Siri was a surprise and, as noted by Apple chronicler John Gruber, very Cook-coded (Daring Fireball). 

Cook is going to have a fascinating legacy. The first post-Jobs CEO was always going to suffer from comparisons to the great man, let alone someone who wasn't really a "product" guy. By all accounts, Cook is a real supply chain sicko and that's not the kind of person who ends up as a mythical cultural character. But you shouldn't mistake that for meaning he's had no influence. In fact, I think he's really made Apple into his own image in an understated way. On the bad side of Cook, Apple hasn't really had a post-Jobs product hit, the services stuff is a money maker but a lot of those services suck too, and there's a lot of despair about design decisions like Liquid (Gl)ass. But, the good side of Cook is what transformed Apple into the most valuable company in the world on a good day that prints money because of the ruthless iterations of its products and genuinely impressive hardware advances. 

Many people will remember Cook for his baby, the Vision Pro flop, but I think Apple's most Cookian product is the MacBook Neo. Cook was able to launch a cheap, good version of a product that is wildly popular thanks to the supply chain wizardry of repurposing an outdated iPhone chip. That's his Mona Lisa. 

Related reading: Don't expect changes from Apple anytime soon, even with new leadership (AppleInsider)

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Is Anthropic really looking at buying Atlassian?

There's a rumour floating around that Anthropic is looking to buy Atlassian (r/Atlassian). There's no credible reporting substantiating that it is even being considered, but I hear Atlassian group chats have lit up with chatter. 

As people will remember, Anthropic's exec team was in Australia earlier this month, purportedly to sign a deal with the federal government, so it's possible that they were kicking the tyres while they were here? On paper, there's certainly some sense to it — Anthropic gets their hooks into a whole bunch of enterprise businesses that use Jira and all that, as well as all the juicy user interaction data etc. — but there are a lot of pain points. Like that Atlassian has somewhere between 2 and 3x as many staff as Anthropic. 

Maybe relatedly: Atlassian Enables Default Data Collection to Train AI (Let’s Data Science)

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of World:

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Oh, Also

Remember Stop Tony Meow?

I took a little stroll down memory lane thanks to a blog post from Aussie developer Matt Kelsh who, in 2013, came up with the genius idea to create a browser plug-in to replace all photographs of then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott with a cat. I won't spoil it all but the Stop Tony Meow story includes the National Library, a surprise cameo from at least one Sizzler and a very expensive FOI request. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Bargains

Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders past and present.