In this week’s “Sunday Reboot,” scientists somehow say iPhones lowered birthrates, and Musk’s AI prototype story shows that specialist hardware is coming, even if we don’t necessarily want it.
Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get the next week underway with a good first step.
iPhones up, birthrate down, “research” questionable
The iPhone is a mere 19 years old this week, first going on sale on June 29, 2007. It’s old enough to drink in the UK, if not quite in the United States.
Before it flies across the Atlantic to buy a brew from a bar in Basingstoke, some pesky scientists have tried to spoil the party.
Raised on July 1, a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research proposes “Is the iPhone Birth Control?” If we follow Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer is “No.”
The paper proclaims “National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency” in the United States
Apple launched the iPhone in 2007. Scientists say it was too hot for the U.S. Birth Rate – image credit: Apple
Hearing that for the first time, you’d nod and agree with it. That song from the puppet musical “Avenue Q” is right, and so is the abstract.
However, AppleInsider William Gallagher looked into the report and realized that there are some catches to this assumption.
First, that it’s not really a phenomena associated with just the iPhone. I recall there were many different other devices on the market at the time that were capable of being used in illicit ways.
However, the writers decided to focus on data of AT&T users between 2005 and 2011. That’s two years before the iPhone and the years when it was exclusive to AT&T.
Except it doesn’t really take into account the fact that AT&T also sold many other early smartphones too. Blackberries, the HTC-based AT&T Tilt, the Nokia N75, and others were all buyable from the carrier, not just iPhones.
Even the report writers acknowledge this, saying they don’t claim the iPhone was the sole cause of the post-2007 decline.” Indeed, they say the estimates imply that the modern smartphone played a “sizable role” in the decline of US births.
But, before the puritan complainers can get a word in about how smartphones are evil, and demand retribution from the House of Jobs, the report goes on to work against the implied statement.
A graph used as proof the iPhone affected the U.S. birth rate. Except it doesn’t… – Image credit: National Bureau of Economic Research
Searches for “porn” shot up in 2014, but have gone down to almost 2009 levels again by 2024. Almost as if society had the novelty of trying to access specialist content wherever they want, then the novelty wore off.
It’s an odd report that tries to prove a point, but works against itself in many ways, and with too many asterisks to really be taken seriously.
In which case, was it really a clickbait way to try and secure some grant funding during some downtime? Or maybe some scientists placed bets that they could get it published.
Maybe it was an excuse to get to look at adult material while working without needing to face an investigation from HR.
Either way, Betteridge’s law is maintained once again.
Don’t stop believing in AI devices
People working in the tech editorial space, such as this very publication, are all too familiar with the notion of prototypes being shown to others. Especially if it’s for a future product in a category where there’s no real dominant option.
Cue a story about one of the Elon Musk companies supposedly sharing a prototype with investors for an AI device. SpaceX’s xAI apparently did that, though Musk has since called the claim “utterly false.”
Your mileage may vary on whether or not to blame the extremely rich man, but he did threaten to go all Futurama Bender on the iPhone in 2022. As someone in charge of tech companies with massive resources capable of doing just that, there was every chance that Musk would do it.
He didn’t, but the opportunity was there.
What the modern-day report provides in detail is minimal. It was shown to investors and was thinner than an iPhone.
While Musk’s insistence that it’s not happening puts a downer on things, it does, however, mean that there’s still an appetite for something to happen in that area.
The Humane AI pin failed. Won’t stop others from doing the same thing – Image Credit: Humane
After the Humane AI pin’s crash and burn and the Rabbit R1’s lack of popularity with consumers, companies should be treading carefully. Those were two high-profile AI device failures, and no-one wants to pay for the third.
Rumors and patents certainly point to Apple continuing down the path of a more AI-focused future. Sure, there’s the questionable pendant, and the ever-present smart glasses, but it’s also looking at non-standalone items too.
We have had rumors insisting that the AirPods will get cameras, providing an environmental view for Apple Intelligence running on an iPhone.
The key bit here is that it’s all feeding back to an iPhone. Something that is obviously a device that has a lot of AI prowess, and could do the same job as Humane’s pin if you push it.
The only difference is that AirPods with cameras, or smart glasses with cameras, would enable that sort of functionality without needing to touch the iPhone at all.
The AirPods don’t have to be “smart” in their own right. They only have to pass along data to the iPhone as the actual “brain” of the operation.
You don’t really need a dedicated device, just a way to interface with what already exists.
So, with the hardware side “solved,” there’s the actual AI bit to cover. Again, Apple Intelligence on the iPhone comes to the rescue, but there is another way.
Humane was painful, particularly since you had to pay a $24 per month subscription for the AI bit. We may not have liked paying a subscription for questionable AI back in 2023, but in 2026, we’re intimately aware of how much people are spending on access to ChatGPT and Claude.
Weirdly, it only took a few years and society is perfectly fine with one of the biggest stumbling blocks that Humane ran into.
It’s not hard to imagine OpenAI releasing hardware that taps into ChatGPT’s paid services. You don’t even have to imagine, as your friendly LLM can tell you about the hardware work with Jony Ive.
Humane flopped so OpenAI and others can walk, run, or be a patronizing yes-man that really wants to explain your assumptions back at you with a more academic style.
Musk may deny the existence of an xAI hardware prototype now, but it would be astounding if one wasn’t being actively developed.
Putting Grok access on a device like that isn’t hard to imagine. For Musk, with an eye staring at his finance teams, it seems like a natural progression of the form, and he gets his own iPhone rival to boot.
Just hope that we don’t get headlines in 20 years time about Musk’s prototype lowering the birth rate again.
Last week’s Sunday Reboot talked about Apple TV and its fear of gameshows. That, and a reminder that it is also bad at making gameshows.
