Notes From All Over -- Why Apple Is Important -- June 26, 2020

When I get back from early morning Uber-granddaughter driving:

• weekly crude oil supply estimates, days, EIA: link here; down from a high of 42.0 days to 39.9 days;
• ISO-New England: link here; renewable energy? supplies 6% of total demand; 92% natural gas and nuclear;
• drop in wages for government works; hits all-time high (?):
  

And, of course, the market.

Other than ZeroHedge, is anyone else reporting this -- Tesla posts abysmal score in JD Power's initial quality study for 2020? Link here.

Aside from a new NHTSA investigation into its Model S touchscreens, a litany of Model Y quality issues and a report out yesterday that Tesla may have knowingly allowed Model S vehicles to roll off its production line with a flaw that could cause them to go up in flames, it's been an otherwise tame week for Tesla.

Oh, wait. There is just one other thing: J.D. Power finally included Tesla in its Initial Quality Survey for 2020 and the brand scored an abysmal 250, placing it below literally dozens of other manufacturers, including names like Land Rover and Audi, in terms of reliability.

The survey has been put out annually for the last 34 years and works by asking buyers of new cars of the current model year what problems they have had within the first 90 days of owning a vehicle. The score is based on the number of problems experienced within those 90 days per 100 vehicles.

Infotainment was the worst scoring category on the survey this year, as people experienced issues with their voice recognition, Bluetooth, GPS and Android/iOS pairing capabilities.

Just yesterday, the NHTSA launched a preliminary evaluation into Tesla's touchscreens on its Model S vehicles.

Personal savings rate plummets: why would anyone be surprised? US savings rate dropped from a record 32% to 23% as government benefits shrank:

Shutting it down: a reader recently asked if I had seen (m)any stories regarding all the retail stores that must be closing. At the time, I said I had not. Today, MarketWatch has a story: almost half of businesses closed on Yelp have shut down for good during the coronavirus pandemic.  But it's pretty much clickbait: only about a couple of restaurants closing its doors in NYC. Happens all the time. Restaurants open; restaurants close. A lot of fake news in the article, like this:

“Restaurants are complicated beasts,” he said in an interview published Thursday. “You have to order food and supplies. You have to make sure you’ve prepped the kitchen and service areas to be easily disinfected.” What’s more, it can be difficult to hire people to work in such a customer-facing position — especially when their unemployment benefits and stimulus payments may give them more stable income than they might get from their hourly wages and tips.

“A lot of people are making $1,200 a week doing nothing,” he said. “That’s good pay.” 

And speaking of shutting it down, it's worse in these seven states, according to United Van Lines via, again, ZeroHedge, ranked in order, #1 to #7.

• New Jersey, blue
• Illinois, blue
• New York, blue
• Connecticut, blue
• Kansas, blue
• Ohio, red, 
• California, blue

This puts the Bakken in perspective: they say eighteen million bbls of sanctioned Venezuelan crude oil is stuck at sea --

...which represents two months of Venezuelan production at current rates. Two counties in North Dakota, maybe three, at most four, are producing upwards of one million bbls of oil per day. 

This is why Apple is important: they are not the first to innovate but they make the innovations so seamless, a caveman can use it. From Yahoo!Finance:

Apple isn't the first to use the browser technology -- it's already available in Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft Edge, for example.

Apple's adoption, however, could push forward the larger biometrics movement.

This is due, in part, to Apple's way of making complicated technology consumer-friendly and taking on the work of user education. Apple also has a sizable community of developers who get excited to roll out Apple's latest technology.

The new system will be, by default, multifactor in nature.

Apple's platform authenticator uses the secure enclave of the iPhone or iPad to provide the private keys, and guarantees they can't leave the device. It also verifies the user by either their fingerprint or facial recognition. That makes it multifactor, as it combines something you have -- the iPhone -- with something you are -- your biometrics information.