Notes From All Over -- Early Morning Edition -- March 18, 2022

Amazon: completely off the radar scope. Washington (DC) keeps talking about big tech companies getting too big, and then completely off the radar scope, Amazon closes on $8.45 billion MGM acquisition. EU regulators also okayed the deal. Huge:

• 4,000 film titles
• "James Bond" franchise; "Rocky" franchise; "Creed";
• "Thelma and Louise"; "The Silence of the Lambs"; "The Magnificent Seven"; "Raging Bull"
• 17,000 television episodes 

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The NFL Page

Monday Night Football:

• ESPN
• Joe Buck and Troy Aikman sign multi-year deals with ESPN, voice of MNF
• 20 years on Fox; now jumping to ESPN
• news last night

Thursday Night Football:

• rumor is that Al Michaels will sign for Amazon
• by the way, Amazon is not a television company -- who is producing TNF for Amazon? NBC

Sunday Night Football:

• Cris Collinsworth, long in the tooth, really long in the tooth, remains
• Mike Tirico joins him, whom NBC hired away from ESPN in 2016
• Mike Tirico pushed Al Michaels out of the NBC booth
  

CBS:

• no change
• Jim Nantz and Tono Romo, paired since 2017

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The Apple Page

iPhone SE: Apple is making a huge change in the way folks can initialize their iPhone SE at time of purchase. 

I first saw the story at MacRumors and now I see Bloomberg is carrying the story. This tells me several things: a) the iPhone is going to be huge; b) the carriers know this;, and c) competition is really, really keen. The article mentions only iPhone SE and only ATT and T-Mobile. 

Mac Studio and Studio Display: this is going to be huge, also; and it's a twofer -- a monitor and a computer:

• the computer, the Mac Studio, starting at $2,000 but quickly escalating to $4,000, is faster than Apple's $13,000 Mac Pro; link here. The Mac display, the Studio Display, that accompanies the computer will set you back another $1,600. This display is now the only 27-inch Apple display available (as the old 27-inch display is phased out)
• this is for professionals; even I can't afford this;
• but it should be huge, and I bet the margins are great for Apple

Mac Studio and Studio Display: Tim Cook said these would be available as of March 18, 202, and apparently customers are already receiving them in Australia and New Zealand. 

Nvidia's top GPU apparently outperforms Apple's M1 Ultra chip; the jury is still out. Some say that Apple cannot match Nvidia in this niche and will take years to catch up.