Ged Carroll

Category: hong kong | 香港 | 홍콩 | 香港

哈囉 – here you’ll find posts related to Hong Kong. That includes the territory, the culture, business, creativity and history. I lived and travelled to Hong Kong a number of times, so sometimes the content can be quite random.

In addition, I have long loved Cantonese culture and cuisine, so these might make more appearances on this category. I am saddened by the decline in the film and music production sectors.

I tend to avoid discussing local politics, and the external influence of China’s interference in said politics beyond how it relates to business and consumer behaviour in its broadest context.

Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Apple Daily launched a new ad format that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in branding as well as Hong Kong.

If there are subjects that you think would fit with this category of the blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Apple souled out to China

    Apple designed in California and sold in China. Is it now Apple souled out to China? Apple is often cited as being a technology brand with a purpose and profiitable. It is unique in mobile phones, computers, tablets and set top boxes. It has a throw back model to the pre-Windows age of computing. It is vertically integrated.

    Quisling

    They make key software for their computer. They make the hardware. And in the case of every device except the Mac, they make the key components. It does all this without owning the means of production.

    Apple doesn’t own its factories. It owns some of the machines in assembly plants. But if a legal dispute broke out, it would struggle to get those machines out of a partner factory. It’s production volumes are so vast; this puts a further constraint on partner choice. Apple’s electronic components are made around the world:

    • Germany
    • Japan
    • Korea
    • Taiwan
    • China
    • USA

    The device chassis, battery and assembly happens in China.

    In software, Apple is reliant on two types of partners:

    • The open source community. iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS are all built on open source software. Apple takes them building blocks and innovates on top of them
    • The Apple developer community. Apple’s computers are nothing without software. On the iPhone about half the game developers are China based

    The Apple difference

    Their differentiator for the first thirty years or so was computing for non-technologists. Over time this has been articulated as:

    • Computing for the rest of us. Computers with expert product design that made them friendly in consumer eyes. This was to try and portray computing as an appliance or piece of consumer electronics. Brands as diverse as Sony and Cuisinart cited as inspiration. Critics of the Mac interpreted this focus on product design to call it a toy. They didn’t think that it represented ‘serious’ computing
    https://youtu.be/C8jSzLAJn6k
    • Think different. Apple needed to keep a fraying customer base together. They came up with the brand anthem that highlighted the diverse range of users. This ranged from technologists and scientists to artists and creatives

    https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

    • It just works. It just works was initially used as a way to describe the intuitive Mac interface. My key attraction to the Mac was discovering thoughtful design at every aspect of the software. Even now, once you learn a keyboard short cut it works consistently in all software. In contrast, Ctrl + Q on Windows is inconsistent between some Microsoft apps

    Apple extended this process from the iMac onwards, making it easier to:

    • Get online. The modem was in the iMac’s case. You plugged your phone line into the computer. You plugged the computer in and followed the software instructions. Apple even carefully curated high quality dial-up ISPs (internet service providers)
    • Set your email up
    • Get your address book on to your phone – something that became even easier with the iPhone
    • Get your music on to your phone or iPod

    https://youtu.be/rnzCnPSQM7c

    The pivot to privacy started back in 2003 with the launch of FileVault. It makes it easy to encrypt a hard drive partition, CD ROM or USB key. This was to help the Mac find acceptability within business. It also benefited consumers. Eight years later Apple launches the iMessage service which encrypts text, image and video messages by default. It also launched FaceTime video calling with encryption. Two years later, Apple builds Secure Enclave into the iPhone; encrypting the entire device. Over time, the technology moved from being business friendly, to consumer differentiator. It gave Apple clear separation from Google and Facebook. Privacy fitted into a Cook narrative about a company that promoted social good. This was part of the move to a post-Jobs Apple. One that thought social purpose was more than addressing the education market with high quality products. Tim Cook and Apple stood up for American civil rights and progressive ideals.

    Concepts that in retrospect look rather naive when going into China.

    Compromises in China

    Apple has already given over control and cryptographic keys of its services in China. Apple users in China do not enjoy the kind of privacy and security protections of users elsewhere. Apple has not gone to the mats on behalf of users. Apple’s service offering has been severely restricted. Apple’s book offering had to be withdrawn. The app store is without whole categories of applications. Apple Music has a much reduced catalogue due to censorship. Check out Six times Apple gave in to China | Abacus for more information.

    Compromises to China

    The protests in Hong Kong shone a light on corporate kowtowing that has been going on for years. HKMap Live is similar to map / data mashups done for other protest movements. It plotted crowd sourced reports of police on a map.

    The data offered is not granular in nature. It might give you a pointer if you commute is going to pop-up in the middle of tear gas and baton rounds.

    This means that Tim Cook was gullible, or compromised when he made the following false statement about HKMap.live

    “…we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present.”

    Tim Cook internal memo to staff

    The problem is no one has come out and said in public what these instances were. Apple hasn’t provided any supporting evidence. One could guess that Apple’s calculus was that people can still use Safari to access the HKMap.live site.

    But this comes on the back of Apple removing the Taiwan emoji from all iPhones using Chinese language input. That affects:

    • Chinese
    • Hong Kongers
    • Macau residents

    Tim Cook has gone from progressive corporate citizen to Tolkein’s Gríma (Wormtongue). So what’s Apple’s pay-off?

    Apple’s prospects in China

    You could argue that Apple’s best days are behind it in China. WeChat has effectively built a smartphone OS inside its application. This has meant that the iPhone’s differientators and real world performance compared to Android are moot.

    • Domestic manufacturers are squeezing Apple and Samsung out of the market
    • Tablets are less relevant due to Chinese preference for large smartphones.
    • Apple TV is crowded out of the market by Tencent content deals.
    • The Mac is a niche product that Apple is likely to maintain

    In the face of a changing political environment and rising Han nationalism; Apple is in decline. It’s a question of how fast, which means that Apple feels obliged to placate a mercurial Chinese state.

    Apple’s prospects on Capitol Hill

    Big technology companies under the magnifying glass by lawmakers. Apple doesn’t have the issues that Facebook has. But it did develop most of the tax avoidance measures now used by Facebook, Google and Amazon. And the one thing both Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that China is a bad actor that needs to be confronted. Apple sits nice at the intersection of these two issues. Tim Cook took a high risk gamble positioning Apple in political crosshairs – in the run up to an election. I guess like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook is hoping Elizabeth Warren doesn’t get in.

    This also offers other technology companies a unique proposition. Their lobbyists could throw Apple under the regulatory bus for commercial advantage. Amazon’s lobbyists managed to blunt the threat of Apple Books to the Kindle book store. Do you think they or Facebook won’t offer Apple up as the sacrificial lamb?

    Thinking about trade specifically. Apple has already moved up to a third of iPhone assembly outside China due to the US | China trade difficulties. This leaves the rest of its products under threat:

    • From Chinese government action in the supply chain
    • From US government action against the supply chain

    If you’re an American politician, Apple looks like a corporate Quisling. On the right wing, it acquiesces to Chinese government pressure, yet won’t help the FBI. On the left, it avoids its tax responsibility and kowtows to an authoritarian regime that wants to displace America.

    Apple’s prospects with western consumers

    One can understand why Apple has thought it could get away with Chinese practices. It was something that other companies do:

    • Nike
    • Tiffany
    • Dolce & Gabbana
    • Starbucks
    • Mercedes-Benz
    • Marriott
    • Cathay Pacific
    • Muji
    • Versace
    • Dolce & Gabbana
    • United Airlines
    • Swarovski
    • Gap
    • Google

    Apple hasn’t had significant pushback or scrutiny of its Chinese practices. Unfortunately, Chinese government hubris, 愤青 (fenqing) and the NBA has brought Apple into sharp focus.

    The HKmap.live app is just the tip of a China iceberg:

    • It has handed over all the cryptographic keys for iCloud services in China to the government
    • iCloud hosting in China has been handed over to a Chinese state-owned company
    • Apple has censored books and music on behalf of the Chinese government
    • Apple has got rid of whole categories of apps like VPNs at the request of the Chinese Communist Party
    • It has pulled the Taiwan flag emoji from many devices
    • It’s handing over data to Tencent that bundles IP addresses with URLs. Apple claims its technique protects privacy, unlikely from the Chinese government technologists. Given a wide enough data sets and enhanced interrogation, you can whittle it down
    • Apple has requested that content providers on its new TV service censor themselves – not to offend the feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese people. Guessing South Park won’t be making content for Apple TV+

    This makes Apple look like a hypocrite.

    The San Bernardino lawsuit looks less like a stand for privacy a la Edward Snowden. Instead Apple looks like it prioritises the interests of the Chinese government over the US.

    There is a breach of trust for some Apple customers. Can you now trust Apple in other areas such as privacy?

    • How much of a threat would China have to make in order for Apple to hand over the keys to mail and messaging globally?
    • Or maybe just countries along the Belt & Road, which would include the European Union

    What would China do?

    • Banning the sale of iPhones?
    • Banning Apple Watches in China?
    • Ban the sale of AirPods?
    • Spiking Mac sales?

    Access to Apple’s global data would be an intelligence trove of kompromat. China wouldn’t be able to resist.

    If you’re an Apple customer, you know Apple just isn’t cool. The trust in Apple’s privacy USP is blown. You can’t be sure what Apple won’t do to make China or other governments happy.

    Western consumers are waking up to Apple having shattered an unwritten moral covenant, set by its progressive actions.

    In trying to avoid hurting the feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese people, Apple has burnt the trust of everyone else. And most of those 1.4 billion Chinese people Apple avoids offending won’t buy an Apple product. Which doesn’t look that great when you’re a shareholder.

    Apple and developers

    Prominent developers like Maciej Cegłowski (founder of pinboard.in) have been active in supporting Hong Kong protestors. It has put Silicon Valley developers on the opposite side to Apple. Cook will realise that there will be Apple insiders who sympathise with the Hong Kong protest movement.

    Taking the morality out of the equation for the moment, if you’re an Apple developer or employee; you know Apple won’t have your back. Why should you help them? Why would you help facilitate them use your open source code to build their products?

    More information

    Apple’s China Nightmare Just Got Even Worse | Forbes

    Apple Told Some Apple TV+ Show Developers Not To Anger China | Buzzfeed News

    How safe is Apple’s Safe Browsing? – A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering

    Apple insists it’s totally not doing that thing it wasn’t accused of: We’re not handing over Safari URLs to Tencent – just people’s IP addresses • The Register

    Apple’s decision to pull an app used by Hong Kong protestors shows how much it needs China – Vox 

    Daring Fireball: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Memo on HKmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

    Apple in eye of China-Hong Kong storm | Digital | Campaign Asia

    Apple ditches Hong Kong maps app as China expands ‘loyalty test’ – Nikkei Asian Review

    Hong Kong Is the Latest Tripwire for Tech Firms in China | WIRED

    Chinese online retailers slash iPhone prices for second time this year | Reuters

    Apple’s spectacular $5 billion China black hole | Techinasia

    Apple’s Sales Drop in China Means $5 Billion in Lost Revenue – Bloomberg

    Apple in China Report 2017: A Deep Dive Into Apple’s China Troubles – China Channel

    Apple Starts Selling their HomePod in China, a Very Tough Market owned by Chinese Vendors – Patently Apple

    China retailers slash iPhone prices after Apple sales warning | Reuters

    Apple China warning: US businesses could lose out – CNN

    Apple Faces `Informal Boycott’ From China Consumers, BAML Says – Bloomberg

    Apple’s China Problem : 12 Reasons – Counterpoint Research

    Chinese Smartphone makers took advantage of Apple’s Out-of-Touch Pricing on iPhones & now Apple’s Supply Chain is Worried – Patently Apple

    Apple Warning: Seven Charts That Show the Pressure on China’s Consumers – WSJ

    Chinese Values Are Changing America – The Atlantic – China is transforming the US rather than the other way around

  • Laundry category innovation + more

    Laundry without guilt

    A load of laundry without a load of guilt | Trendwatching – white good manufacturer looks to combat micro fibres. Laundry is a major CPG category and this project offers a potential for partnership with manufacturers, beyond the usual ‘X manufacturer recommends X laundry detergent’.

    Anti-solar panel

    Transmission lines and railroad near Salton Sea. District of Los Angeles smog obscures the sun, May 1972

    The Anti-Solar Panel – A Device That Generates Electricity From Darkness – at a very early stage. What’s interesting the potential for energy handover with other alternative sources to provide constant current

    Branding

    Why strategy should embrace execution | WARC – The Nike ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ campaign was a really long process – about a year. In the beginning we had a vision to get really local. Then about halfway through the process, the terrorist attacks happened in London. And a picture emerged of a man fleeing the scene with a beer in his hand. Everyone inside London said that’s what it means to be a Londoner: no matter what happens, they hold onto their beer. And off the back of that, I wrote the line ‘nothing beats a Londoner,’ which wasn’t supposed to end up as the final line but it did. It just gave the creative more depth and a place to springboard from. It changed the energy of the work.

    Consumer behaviour

    Baby Boomers click with online shopping – Trend-Monitor – interesting statistics around overall spending versus millennials

    The more voters hear no-deal warnings, the more they support it | The Times – Much of this is simply because voters have heard it all before. Trust in politicians and the media, also seen as responsible, is at record lows. The legacy of the 2016 referendum campaign runs deep. Promises from both sides, from the infamous £350 million a week to forecasts of a recession, still endure as easy-to-reach examples as to why you should not trust anything a politician says.  For up to about a year after the referendum, a handful of voters would repeat a number long forgotten in Westminster — that the Remain campaign had said leaving would make households £4,300 a year worse off. This was the archetype of nonsense, largely because of its precision. How could anyone know in such detail, to the nearest hundred, with such certainty, what the effect would be? It can only be a lie. But the aversion to anti-no-deal messages is about more than distrust. Where there is support for no deal in the country, it is fused to a deep sense of patriotism. A feeling that we are British, we have endured so much and thrived, of course we will be okay if we leave without a deal

    The last days of the middle-class world citizen | Financial Times – interesting mix of Extinction Rebellion type environmental despair, economic globalisation, populism and dot.com busts (paywall)

    Design

    Hong Kong students invent self-sanitising door handle | Dezeen – interesting, it is said that brass fulfils a similar self-sterilising role as well

    Legal

    WSJ City | Nike CEO was briefed by banned coach on doping effects – this looks damning for Nike

    US blacklists 28 Chinese entities in latest trade war escalation | Financial Times – interesting that all the companies are focused on surveillance or machine learning (paywall)

    Luxury

    Tiffany deletes ad that looks like Hong Kong protest message – Inkstone – China is getting too sensitive la. FFS its huge, powerful, has nuclear weapons. It needs to grow a skin rather than being raw to the touch

    Off-White, Vetements and The Paradigm of Luxury – “Disruption is evolution. Defining the word ‘luxury’ might be a start for defining disruption and evolution as the word and the concept of luxury has different meanings following the demographics of peoples and cultures according to age, race, religion, gender, ethnicity, income, and education”

    Extreme micro-living in San Francisco | Financial Times – luxury upwards storage. What about the economics of furniture versus technology? (paywall)

  • Nostalgia + more things

    If Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, Why Are We Living in the Past? | Newsweek – Our past keeps growing, and as it does, it continues to crowd out our present, shortening the already narrow nostalgia gap. If Tom Vanderbilt thought treating last month’s music as classic was silly, think about various #TBT (“Throwback Thursday”) posts online, which celebrate historical events that happened a mere seven days ago. 

    We could shrink this gap even further. Like many kids her age, my 20-year-old sister is obsessed with the 1990s. When Netflix announced that it was remaking the ABC television show Full House , she and her friends took to Facebook to share their delight that a show from “their childhood” was coming back. 

    This reaction struck me as odd because my sister was born in 1996: a year after the original series ended. She does the same thing with other ’90s phenomena, taking to social media to share images and songs and neon colors from a decade that she describes not as her favorite , but as her own.– more on consumer behaviour here.

    Why Zero-Emission Hydrogen Is the Best Way to Power the Cars of Future | Robb Report – great article by the Robb Report which highlights my skepticism around Tesla et al

    Why Estée Lauder are spending 75% of their marketing spend on influencer marketing | The Drum – what’s the job to be done that their spend is that skewed?

    Costco grand-opening hoopla gives way to disappointment in Shanghai | News | Campaign Asia – this didn’t look like it was going to end well

    As Hong Kong Churns, Beijing Bankrolls Shenzhen | EE Times – interesting that they are trying to ‘overcook’ Shenzhen

    Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims | TechCrunch – the thing that puzzled me is why China would want to take off data from Chinese SNS that the government has a pipeline into anyway?

  • Carry nothing + more things

    Men Know It’s Better to Carry Nothing – The Cut – Medium – women clean up because fashion allows it. She pointed to the size of women’s bags, which allow us — like sherpas or packhorses — to lug around the tool kits of servitude. A woman is expected to be prepared for every eventuality, and culture has formalized that expectation. Online, lists of necessities proliferate: 12, 14, 17, 19, 30 things a woman should keep in her purse. Almost all include tissues, breath mints, hand sanitizer, and tampons — but also “a condom, because this is her responsibility, too.” (A woman’s responsibility for everyone else’s spills extends to the most primal level.) – I don’t think that this ‘carry nothing’ mentality of men is true any more. One only has to look at the backpacks carried around. Or the whole EDC culture of over-engineered products to optimise the carry experience, making a lie of carry nothing as a concept. For a lot of men, the car is the handbag, but that’s a whole other discussion around the idea of carry nothing. More consumer behaviour related content here

    Gender ad bans set ‘concerning’ precedent, say advertisers | FT – the publishing ban only applies to direct marketing: members of the public, media outlets and sites like YouTube can continue to share banned materials.

    Amazon offered vendors ‘Amazon’s Choice’ labels in return for ad spending and lower prices – Digiday – shit meet fan….

    REON POCKET | First Flight – personal cooling device using Peltier effect to cool behind the neck

    Silicon Valley’s China Paradox | East West Center – the period from 2014 to 2017 as a time of “segmentation and synergy,” two words that on their face are opposites of each other. Their juxtaposition forms the core of what Sheehan labels “Silicon Valley’s China paradox.” While at a corporate level US and Chinese companies were entirely separate, the flow of money, people, and ideas reached an all-time high during this period. “This is when you saw a lot of investors from China showing up in Silicon Valley, some prominent US researchers and engineers joining Chinese companies in positions of leadership, and ideas flowing in two directions,” said Sheehan. He noted that the concept of shared bicycles, now popular in US cities, started in China, and both Chinese and US companies have been active in the development of autonomous vehicles. Even while the relationship between the two national governments was in many ways going sour, “the relationship at the grassroots level, the technology relationship, was still very free-flowing,” he noted. Sheehan suggested that the relationship has now entered a new and uncharted phase, which he termed the new “technology cold war,” with the US government asserting national policies in what was previously considered a private arena. This new phase has three dimensions, he said. The first is an effort to disentangle the interconnected technology com- munities that bind the two countries together. In 2018, the US Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review and Modernization Act (FIRRMA). This new legislation increases US government oversight and supervision of Chinese investment in Silicon Valley, Sheehan pointed out. The US State Department also began restricting visas for Chinese graduate students working in sensitive fields of science and technology. The second dimension is height- ened competition between US and Chinese companies in other countries. In general, “American companies know they can’t win in China, and Chinese companies know they can’t make a dent in the US market,” according to Sheehan. So US and Chinese companies are competing in markets such as India, Brazil, and Southeast Asia. (PDF)

    Why Consumers Aren’t Buying Electric Cars | naked capitalism – no great surprise

    US smart speaker update – (PDF)

    Fake news and cyberwarfare from China in Hong Kong protests | Slate – really good analysis of some of the online events happening in Hong Kong

    The big scoop: what a day with an ice-cream man taught me about modern Britain | Food | The Guardian – “Since Brexit, people have less money, and less confidence in spending money. They haven’t got the money in their pockets they had a few years ago.”

    Apple and Samsung phone sales are down, and $1,000+ prices are one reason why – BGR – less convinced by this explanation – BlackBerry could have fitted into this format as well in its decline

    In-house marketing ‘costing firms lost productivity and creativity’ | Netimperative – but is the pay-off worth it should be the question

    US and China investors battle over Indian digital payments boom | Financial Times – so I think that Payments in India will turn out to be a White Elephant but the FT thinks that its a growth market

    Revealed: Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network | Lynton Crosby | The Guardian – a lot positive advocacy campaigns can learn from this

    Are Companies About to Have a Gen X Retention Problem? HBR – or why are gen-y self entitled snowflakes part 43

    Taiwan primaries highlight fears over China’s political influence | Financial Times – Want Want China Times and Cti TV deny they take instructions from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office like good little United Front puppets. Who would you trust them or the FT?

    TikTok creator ByteDance to enter smartphone market, following deal with Smartisan | SCMP – not convinced by this move

    Boris Johnson to unveil biggest ad campaign since Second World War to prepare for ‘no deal’  – 100 million that realistically would need to be spent in 9 or so weeks. That’s a lot of gaslighting….

    Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain – imagine seeing those tiles whilst well medicated

    Websites are (probably) making less money because of GDPR – MIT Technology Review – the caveats read so wide its hard to conclude anything from this really

  • Celine + more things

    Work & Co.’s clean looking website for Celine. Its a beautiful piece of luxury orientated user experience for Celine. It was founded in 1945 by Céline Vipiana. Celine was originally a made-to-measure children’s shoe business. In 1960, the brand decided to pivot, focusing its business on a ready-to-wear fashion brand for women with a sportswear approach. The brand offered a range of leather goods such as bags, loafers, gloves and clothes. By the 1970s Celine had boutiques in Switzerland, Monte Carlo, the US, Canada and Hong Kong. They were bought by Bernard Arnault in 1987 or 1988 around about the time that he took over at LVMH to build it into the world’s largest luxury conglomerate. More luxury related content here.

    I have deliberately ignored a lot of the brands trying to cling on to the proverbial vapour trail of the Apollo space programme; but this video caught my eye because it showed the amazing engineering chops of Sony. Just look at the detail-orientated design. You can understand why Sony was held in such high esteem as a brand when you watch this video.

    Dentsu (the agency network formerly known as the Dentsu Aegis Network) released its CMO survey (registration wall). From the almost 40 pages of content, one paragraph struck me as being the single most important take out:

    CMOs are often simply not incentivised to deliver long-term change. In terms of performance metrics, they’re primarily accountable for growing the customer base (see Figure 3), while medium/ long-term brand health and digital transformation are way down the pecking order. Coupled with the fact that, in many markets, CMOs often ‘enjoy’ the shortest average tenure of anyone in the C-suite (around three and a half years in the United States, for example) there is little reason for many CMOs to look beyond the near-term.

    2019 Dentsu Aegis Network CMO survey (sample size 1,000 CMOs)

    If you take into account the relatively short tenure of CMOs, it looks like a toxic brew for businesses in the medium to long term.

    It’s like as if this opinion piece was written with marketing in mind…. Watermelons vs. Sesame Seeds | World Bank.

    Interesting academic research paper that reflected on the triad actions against Hong Kong’s civil society and democracy movement in 2014, which seems sensible to revisit. Resurgent Triads? Democratic mobilization and organized crime in Hong Kong – Federico Varese, Rebecca WY Wong, 2018