Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Best Of Bloomberg Technology 20240

Towants facebook and google stop tracking user data. And later, bill gates on how tech rmd is being seriously hampered. His comments from the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. But we begin this hour with apple. The company made news on two fronts this week. The first, president trumps visit to the austin texas factory. Macst to discuss keeping and iphones free from tariffs. The other news involved the way apple tests software changing after a series of bugs marred the last system. We kicked off the conversation thursday. Basically, apples ios software has been bugging the past few years. This particular release cycle, it has been especially buggy. They are going to make it so that engineers earlier in the process can determine what is working in order to hopefully come up with a much more stable operating system when they ship each september. Taylor tom, i know that you cover the fundamentals of the business. In your opinion when you analyze the company, at what point do you have to start to take a look at these Software Glitches and incorporate them into your analysis . Tom to the point it has a dampening impact on unit sales for the company, when you think about apple, they have had some snafus over time with their technology. It is not unusual for them to have issues with their software. But the challenge here is if you think about both new iphone users and then old iphone users who upgrade to the latest software, it is really part of that feel for the consumer of having the latest and greatest apple technology. So it is definitely something they need to improve. But when it has an impact on unit sales that is when i get real concerned about it. Taylor mark, i am curious, in your opinion, you have seen apple come out with these glitches and have to quickly issue new updates. Is it better to do that, to get out to the customer first, or would you prefer to see them roll it out right the first time . Mark they really dont have an option. They have to introduce it every june and release it every september. To toms point, selling new devices is the most important thing. The way these new devices are developed is they are built concurrently with software updates. It would be impossible to ship the iphone 11 without ios 13. So they really have no choice. It is not a matter if they should or should not, there is really no option here besides adding fewer features, which of course they are not going to do because the features are what drives sales. Taylor tom, i want to switch gears and talk about tim cooks visit with trump yesterday at apples new factory in austin, texas. If you look at apple and tim cooks relationship with trump, are tim cook and apple doing the right thing by getting in front of the president , getting the president s ear, showing off these factories, even if it is small in apples terms. Tom the answer is absolutely yes. I would argue that no publicly traded ceo has done a better job managing the relationship with the president then tim cook has travel four apple. For apple. You see that in the recent tariffs to the extent they adjust to the timing of it, which essentially gave apple an opportunity to sell its new iphones one more time without the full impact of tariffs. I think tim cook has done an amazing job. It is interesting to do a compare and contrast with jeff bezos of amazon. Most recently, you look at the jedi contract amazon lost, tim cook is doing a much better job. Apple is doing a great job managing its relationship with the president and tim cook is leading that charge. Taylor mark, react to that. Is tim cook doing the best of all the big tech ceos . Mark i would agree that he is doing what he needs to do from a bottomline perspective, from a financials perspective. Like tom said, he did get tariffs on the iphone delayed and we will see if this dog and pony show yesterday gets apple a further delay on smartphone products. The end of the day, what they showed yesterday was not new in any way. They framed it as some sort of big launch. It is important to note, everything that we saw yesterday, everything you see on the screen right now has been in place since 2013. So this is not new by any means. This is a sevenyearold existing infrastructure basically portrayed as a new thing. And they are going ahead and thanking the Trump Administration for this. On top of that, this is not the iphone, the ipad, the apple watch. This is apples lowest volume product they sell. The impact this would have had on apples bottom line if this was a tariff product they produced in china would have been so slim anyway. So it is unclear what apple is winning by doing this other than getting in this pr situation with the Trump Administration to prevent tariffs on other products like iphones moving forward, which of course is a Smart Business decision but a bad pr move in the interim. Taylor tom, within the pr machine that is apple, is the political savviness of tim cook an undervalued asset . Is that not being reflected in the share price . Tom with the rebound and shares in shares, it is hard to indicate what is not in the share price. So i do think the company, again, tim cook at the charge, has done an amazing job as the Smartphone Market has matured, and starting to diversify his revenue base. You think about what they are doing with all their other hardware devices, including wearables, the watches. When we look at in particular is proprietary content or things they are doing in Financial Services like apple pay and apple card, and also health care. So i do think it is reflected in shares, and it is warranted. They have done an amazing job managing the current administration, and it should be positively reflected in price. Taylor what is your best Case Scenario when it comes to tariffs . Tom great question. I will give a quick example of sonos, another company i covered. They indicated they are moving all of their production into malaysia and out of china. I think the base case is you are going to see more companies that will move their manufacturing operations out of china. In the case of apple, apple may never be able to move its smartphone manufacturing out of china, but it may be able to have more Parts Manufacturers move their own supply chains out of china, which could help it avoid some of the tariffs in addition to tim cooks efforts to manage the administration there. Taylor mark, i want to switch gears a little bit as well. We saw some technical glitches when disney had to keep up with passport thieves and hackers. We have had apple tv plus have some glitches when it comes to the rollout of their films. One of which they had to pull back. Is apple tv plus prepared to be a Media Company . Mark yes. I think apples infrastructure for video streaming, the Application Development it has had for a number of years has been there. So, i think apple, their Cloud Infrastructure on the consumer side is not normally great, but there have really been no glitches. It has been problemfree in terms of rollouts of new shows. I have seen it myself on apple products, every time a new episode hits on friday at midnight, you get a buzz on your phone it is available and ready to stream. Their experience in the app store and itunes movie rentals has really prepared them for this. Password management has been a big focus for apple for the last two years. Apple tv plus is tied directly into family sharing. You can use tv plus on that subscription either free or for five dollars a month with four other family members. From a technology perspective, tv plus has been problemfree. Taylor that was mark gurman and tom forte. Coming up, senator josh holly is making his mark by taking on tech. We hear from the senator on how he plans to make sure Companies Like facebook and google respect your privacy. And if you like Bloomberg News, check us out on the radio. You can listen on the Bloomberg App and in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Taylor google is severely limiting how political advertisers can target people online, a decision made after weeks of debate. The tech company said on wednesday it will stop allowing election ads to be targeted ace on political affiliation. Banning misleading information. However, targeting based on age, gender, and location is still allowed. Josh holly may be a junior senator from missouri but he is making a name for himself by being one of the most outspoken critics on tictac. Tech. Big he has tried to ensure u. S. Consumer data is not spent and stored in countries deemed a National Security threat. We spoke with senator josh holly wednesday but taking on big tech starting with the letter he sent to facebook demanding they explain their inflation Data Tracking policies. Sen. Hawley facebook has said they can turn off location tracking, but it turns out, you cant. Scan allcontinues to of the wifi in your area. It continues to use your cellular location and transmit that information to facebook. So this is another misrepresentation and i would like to know why it is that facebook is telling its users they can stop tracking when in fact they cannot. Google does the same thing and it is one more instance of these companies not being honest about the data they are collecting. Sen. Hawley so you think they are purposefully misleading users . Taylor i dont know how to read it any other way. Read the posts facebook put up for all of its users, saying you can stop facebook from learning your precise location. A lawyerly phrase, turns out. The consumer would never imagine that if they want to turn off Services Facebook is still tracking them. Tracking wifi, using cellular data. I think it is very misleading. Taylor what would you like to hear in response from facebook . Sen. Hawley i would like to hear the facts. I want their excavation for the difference explanation for the difference between what they have told consumers and what they are doing. I would like to hear them explain in their own words. The honest and set out the facts. Honest and set out the facts. This gets to why Congress Needs to pass legislation to give every american the right to opt out of being tracked. Workaround, no every american should say i dont want to be tracked. Sen. Hawley are you also planning on writing a letter to apple and google . Taylor google is already well aware of my concerns. They have a similar problem. They testified to me, under oath, that users can turn off Location Services that is not true. The Android Phone constantly scans for wifi and monitors your cellular network, even if Location Services are off and transmits that information to google. As i say about the companies are all doing the same thing, misrepresenting their position will collecting information. Taylor to be fair, we have heard a lot about data privacy and seen a few existing legislation come out. Why does yours have a chance to go somewhere . Sen. Hawley for one, it has bipartisan support. Track billo not which would give every american the right to say they do not want to be tracked. Dont want anybody to scoop up information about me. It would give every american the right to that. It is sponsored by senator feinstein from california and warren from virginia so we have got bipartisan support. Its something consumers deserve. Taylor i wants to fold in your concerns about data privacy to big tech. The doj has hinted those two things are the same issue. Is this a concern about data privacy . Sen. Hawley one reason concerns are so pressing is because these companies are monopolies sized. If we had a viable alternative that was not scooping up data, i would be less concerned. But the truth is there are not viable competitors and thats a big problem. So i am concerned about their conduct. Im concerned it is making the issues worse. Criticsley taylor would say the competitors are in china. If we break up u. S. Tech, how do we take on china . Sen. Hawley i dont understand how promoting more competition and innovation would hurt our standing. But listen, i have introduced legislation that would stop Chinese Companies from entering the market if they are going to abuse our data collection. I have a bill that would stop Companies Like tictoc from collecting data and sharing it with the government. That is also a major privacy concern. We can address the threat from china in the background threat, which is beijing, while also asking American Companies to compete, innovate, and be honest with consumers. Taylor senator, im going to take the bait lets talk about tiktok and apple. Cant keep china apple out of china and cant keep tiktok out of the u. S. Sen. Hawley tiktok is a simple solution. Tictoc tiktok from transferring any data of americans at the china. We should just make that legal. Illegal. At any time a Chinese Company wants to acquire an american data company, the state department should sign off beforehand. When it comes to apple or any company like apple, they should not be storing data in china in Encryption Keys in china. Should be tiktok under review. Sen. Hawley it already is but it should have been done on the frontend. My bill would change that. Requiring it to be signed off before a company, any three of concern when it comes to security none of those companies in those countries should be able to buy an American Company without preclearance. Taylor what does a realistic tech bill look like . Sen. Hawley i think we could track. Th do not it has huge protection, broad bipartisan support, and is procompetition. It goes to the very Business Model of google and facebook and twitter, for that matter. I would start there. I have said i dont think the goal of comprehensive five is the legislation, we ought not to let that stand in the way. Notuld start with do track and protection for children. Big tech should not be able to advertise or track kids and every parent should have the right have that data needed. Deleted. Taylor europe and the European Union has been much more strict than the u. S. Why have they been able to pass legislation and we havent . Sen. Hawley big tech has purchased a lot of friends here in the capital. They have expanded their Netflix Network of influence for years. They know how to play the game. But consumers are impatient, parents are impatient and fed up with their kids being exploited and tracked online. Consumers are fed up with being tracked and not having anything to say or opt out. I think the American People will demand action by congress. Taylor senator, i want to address another bill about ending support for internet censorship which is intended to address claims of anticonservative bias. The Heritage Foundation said that if enacted, the bill regulates online content what eroding but risks eroding free speech. Howdy respond . How do you respond . Sen. Hawley we need more free speech, not less. Less regulation. My concern is because facebook and google are monopolysized, when they decide they are going to discriminate the basis of political views on the basis of political views, that means those folks are effectively shut out of the digital marketplace. All of these Companies Say that they dont make decisions on the basis of clinical viewpoints. My legislation just told them to that. Holds them to that. If its not accurate, they should not be able to keep special protections. Taylor that was senator josh h awley of missouri. Still ahead, the santander chairman says legislation should be a level Playing Field across sectors. Us later, bill gates joins from the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in beijing. Hear his thoughts on artificial intelligence. This is bloomberg. Taylor the chairman of europes largest bank has said that, in the past, there is a discrepancy between regulatory restrictions. She sat down with Erik Schatzker tuesday for an expose of interview to discuss her views on regulating and partnering with Tech Companies. What is a bank . What is a bank . Does a bank just take deposits and make loans . Of course, but we do payments we , since i arrived, is to be a responsible bank and grow loyal customers. Loyal customers if i asked you who is your bank you will have one bank in your head even though you might have five accounts. Thats true. You are like 99 of americans and most people around the planet. For that to be the case, i need to know you and that is based on data. My question to you is, why should data be regular regulated in a different way . You, as a customer, should be able to share my data but also. Rom other players is not just about banks and payment, it is about transport companies. This is the issue we need to sort out. Some of the big u. S. Banks have started forming partnerships with Tech Companies to provide Financial Services. Will you do that to . Too . We are in favor of innovation and have many partners. We want to take these services and pass them on. The point. Ctly we need everybody else to be open. My question to you, what is a Critical Infrastructure in the digital age . We used to say telcos were Critical Infrastructure. Isnt a device Critical Infrastructure . You could make that are. Argument. A digital wallet. Do you know how many people have a digital while . Wallet . 2 billion. Who should be part of that arrangement . Should be whoever is issuing the cards . These other things we need to make sure we have cla