Paul Stenhouse: Impact of US tariffs on Apple, private What'sApp AI chats, Lyft targets an older demographic

Apple has given more details on the US tariffs  

iPhones being sold in the June quarter in the USA will be made in India, while almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products will be made in Vietnam. Products made in China will be sold elsewhere in the world.  

Apple estimates that, pending nothing else changing, the tariffs will cost them US$900 million. Imports going forward will, at this stage, be exempt from the tariffs.  

 

Meta is working to make your WhatsApp AI chats more private  

They'll be creating "private processing" which is effectively a private instance of the AI software running in a cloud only you can access. Meta, WhatsApp, or their third parties can see what's going on. It'll be optional though and you'll need to select it to go into private mode.  

 

Uber's competitor is targeting the silver customer  

Lyft is Uber's the big rideshare competitor in the USA and they want to take a new group of people for a ride: the older, and maybe less tech savvy. The regular Lyft app can be turned into a more straightforward mode – think bigger buttons and larger fonts. They'll be connected to more accessible vehicles and there's even dedicated real human help to call between 8am and 9pm. Lyft says just 5% of their ridership is over 65, and they want to grow that.   

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Paul Stenhouse is our texpert and is here this morning. Hey, Paul, So,
Apple has given a few more details on the US
tariffs and its strategy to try and keep iPhones and
MacBooks and that kind of thing as cheap as possible.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah. Well, remember they filled up a plane, Jack to
try to get as many iPhones into the United States
as possible when these tariffs were first talked about, and
they've now said in their latest earnings call that basically
your iPhone, if you're buying it in the United States
in the next couple of months, will be coming from India, right,

(00:47):
while your iPad, Mac Apple Watch AirPods they're going to
be coming from Vietnam, right And so basically the rest
of the world is going to be getting the output
of the China factory. Right, So they're going to take
all that product that they typically make in China, send
that around the world, and in the USA is going
to get it owned sial products. But it's really interesting

(01:09):
to note that, right they say that if nothing else
about these tariffs change, because who knows they could change,
they seem to change daily. The current estimate is that
it will cost them just for this one quarter nine
hundred million US dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Whoa, okay, so yeah, crazy, like one point seventy zealands. Yeah,
my gosh billion, yeah billion.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah. And so you know, they also are putting out
their guidance their investors saying that because again nothing changing. Yeah,
imports going forward will actually be exempt from the terrifts
because Trump put in that that carve out for semiconductors
and electronic goods and things like that. So this is
sort of like the one quarter where Apple's going to
have to eat it at nine hundred million US dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, that's amazing. I just imagine logistically, because obviously all
those companies are pretty advanced and their you know, production
strategies and all that kind of thing. Just imagine trying
to change all of the logistics for your production and
exports effectively overnight as they've had to do. So, Yeah,
it'd be very interesting to see how things unfold there.
And I suppose for the time being, unless you know, unless,

(02:21):
unless there are other big changes and changes between our
relationship New Zealand's relationship with China Trading relationship. Then basically
iPhones and MacBooks and everything are still going to be
the same price, just as expensive as they've always been
in New Zealand. And whether or not they're cheaper or
expensive relative to products sport in the US, I suppose

(02:41):
depends on whether or not those policies change. So yeah, hey,
Meta is working to make WhatsApp AI chats a little
bit more private.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, Privacy obviously front and center when it comes to
just you know, sending information up to the cloud, right,
and so as you're sending more and more personal data
and having conversations with your AI agent, obviously that's important too.
And so Meta is it's basically calling what creating what
they call private processing. So what it effectively is is

(03:11):
that when you start having your chat with your AI agent,
it's working in your own little say Jack Tame bubble right. Effectively,
it's running like you know, it's own software in the cloud.
You know, it's not doing it in something that's shared.
They're saying that Meta, what'sapp Because Meta obviously owns WhatsApp
or any of their third parties, they can't see what's
going on, so that's going to stay completely private to you.

(03:33):
It is optional though it's in the process of being
rolled out, and when it does get rolled out for
you, you'll actually have to go in and select to use
the private process in private mode. But it's interesting because
Apple's doing this too. Apple strategies a little bit different.
They're going to try and do as much processing as
they can on your device, which is why your new
iPhone has these, you know, specially design AI chips, and

(03:54):
then they go to the cloud and go into private
mode only when they need to. Where meta strategy is,
we're going to do everything in the cloud, but hey,
we're going to try to keep this private where we can.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, very good, Okay, Hey, thanks Paul, appreciate your time.
That is our Textbert Paul Steamhouse.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.