Apple Reveals $2K Foldable iPhone & NFL Australia Game Decided by Sleep?

Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to The Intelligence Shift, Morning Brew's new podcast with PWC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guests to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR, and more. Listen to The Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, how sleep could decide tonight's NFL game in Australia. Ben, Apple just released the first ever foldable iPhone. It's Thursday, September 10th. Let's ride. It has come to my attention that an American legend is celebrating its 125th birthday this year. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The lunchbox staple first appeared in the Boston Cooking School. magazine in 1901, introduced by Julia Davis Chandler as a fancy tea time snack for wealthy people. Since then, as mass market peanut butter and machine sliced bread became available, the old PB&J has become ubiquitous, whether in its traditional form or riffed on in all the ways you can imagine. Toby, I know the PB&J is near and dear to your heart. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every single day from kindergarten through high school. Nature's own branded honey wheat. Honey, bread, Jif peanut butter, Smucker's raspberry jelly, literally thousands of them in my life. I consider myself an expert. So if you're looking for ways to judge up your PB&J game, here's some of my advice. Add some salty crunch to it. Very easy to just put some potato chips in there for a little bit of a textural experience. Another idea heated up on the griddle. Sometimes that would be my dessert after my dinner. Just a hot peanut butter and jelly. Delicious. A little butter on the bread. Also a fluffer nutter. Not exactly. Not exactly a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I used to eat them at the camp I went to in Maine. Absolutely delicious. I don't want to know the nutritional value of that. If all else fails, just cut the crust off. Go Uncrustable mode. If Uncrustable has ever wanted to sponsor this podcast, I would be your biggest proponent. But happy 125th anniversary to the GOAT, the peanut butter and jelly. And now a word from our real sponsor, Hotels.com. I just stayed at the same hotel as the competitors in an acapella competition for a work trip. That sounds rough. It was, but business preferences from Hotels.com can prevent horrible things like that from happening. It helps travelers find the right hotels faster by remembering their go-to work trip requirements. Travelers set their preferences once, including fully refundable stays, Wi-Fi, breakfast, gym access, and more. Then future business trip searches automatically surface matching hotels. That way you can book work trips faster. Just set your preferences once and get results tailored to your business travel needs. Sign up for their free rewards program and start earning money. And start earning on every work stay at Hotels.com/MorningBrew. That's Hotels.com/MorningBrew. Loyalty members 18 plus. Apple hasn't entered a new product category since the Apple Watch came out in 2014. That changed yesterday with the announcement of the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable phone. Bringing a little origami to your doom scrolling is Apple's bet that consumers are ready for drastically different and pricier iPhone experience. This thing is built like Marie Vuitton. It's built like Marie's Jones Drew, short and stout. It's inside display stretches 7.6 inches, which is wider than a lot of the other Android foldables on the market, designed for watching video and multitasking. It's outside display is just 5.4 inches shorter than most iPhones to allow it to fit into your pocket. The other thing that will help it fit into your pocket is the fact that you will have no money in it. The Duo starts at $1,999 with the fully tricked out model reaching over $3,000. The Duo will be released in the fall. concerns, particularly with Meta, a company that has struggled to keep user data safe in the past. For Muse, Meta says it's built a fortress around your agent using an extremely secure architecture, all while checking in with you before making any decisions deemed sensitive or important. Toby, have you entered your agent era? I definitely played around with some of these because it's kind of all over social media at this point. I found it difficult to figure out what to do with them. I realized I didn't need to automate most parts of my personal life. The things that I did do is ask it to go through and audit my subscription, see what I was paying for that I didn't need to pay for, and that it literally just combed through my inbox to find that. I also just looked at what other people were doing with them. Look what Zuck was doing with his Muse as he rolled out this new product. He said he instructed Muse to plan a baking project every weekend for him and his three-year-old daughter. He asked it to also look for climbing permits for his older daughter and alert him when one becomes available. In the gym, he says he asked it to review footage of himself fighting. So it's a very vast use case. None of those are necessarily something that are intuitive. It's very person by person. The big question here, though, is how willing are you to give it access to all parts of your life? Because the more access you give it, the better it is. But the more access you give it, the more sensitive information you are putting in the hands of these tech companies. Yeah, so just like Apple, Meta is a little late to the game when it comes to AI assistance. Obviously, the game just started. But there's a number of startups, including one that is favored by the tech community called Instinct. And that's big in the Bay Area. This is a big business. I mean, they have raised $350 million so far at a $2.5 billion valuation. They started last year. And I don't know, five years ago, if we said this company started as one-year-old and they're already at a $2.5 billion valuation, you probably wouldn't believe me. But this is the AI revolution. I actually asked my group. I said, is anyone using Instinct? And they said, no, what is it? And then I explained. And they were like, oh, yeah, but I already use ChatGPT for this. And it seemed like that. And then one of them said, is it weird to put your credit card information into it? And then another guy was like, I don't have any money, so I give it full access. Well, actually, you actually hit on a very important point of why Instinct might be able to achieve mass adoption is the fact that it doesn't live in your chatbot. It doesn't live in ChatGPT. It lives in your iMessage or WhatsApp. So they think that's the killer use case here is that being able to talk to an assistant in the place that you natively talk to everyone else, that is going to help it become ubiquitous. Back to Muse for a second. The reason why they think they're going to become ubiquitous is it lives on top of Instagram and Facebook. It lives on top of your social media. So the biggest use cases I was seeing is, hey, Muse, go through all the bookmarks I have of cafes in New York that I never actually revisit. Put them in a list and tell me which ones I should go to this weekend. Or for us. For us, we're looking at planning a honeymoon. We're trying to go to Japan and we've saved a million videos. Go through all of those saved videos and pull out actual itinerary recommendations. The fact that it is integrated to Instagram might make it the preferred agent for people because so much of their life lives there as well. And Metastock was up over 6% yesterday on the news. So investors definitely like what they heard. Let's move on. The NFL kicked off last night with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks squeezing the life out of the Tepe. But the more intriguing matchup, at least from a travel perspective, is happening 4,000 miles away in Australia. The NFL's first foray down under will see the Rams take on the 49ers in a game where sleep is as big a storyline as anything going on on the field. There is a 17-hour time difference between the U.S.'s West Coast and Melbourne, a problem both teams chose to navigate in exact opposite ways. The 49ers got there early, leaving eight days before the game. So the Rams are going to have to wait a couple of weeks to see who's going to make it to the finals. The team arrived at that conclusion by consulting sleep experts and even sending staffers ahead on trial runs to see how their bodies reacted. The Rams presumably took the time change just as seriously and yet reached the polar opposite conclusion. They rolled in just 24 hours before game time with the hopes of keeping players on normal L.A. time. The reason it has confidence in the last-minute travel plans is because it's worked before. The Rams arrived just before their game in London last season. The team trounced a playoff-caliber opponent, 35-7. As for the NFL, it is the league's first game in the Asia-Pacific region as it kicks off a season that will feature a record nine international games. It will no doubt be hoping it can convert some ball-carrying fans from rugby and Australian rules football over to the American way of doing things. But, Neil, I'm so curious about this logistical battle. Same game, same sleep science available, and yet two very different approaches. Which one do you prefer? Going to Australia. I want to spend as much time as possible there because it is an extremely long flight. And the 49ers have been there for seven, eight days now. Some great quotes coming out of the players and the coaches there. Christian McCaffrey, who's the running back, said, The coffee here is unbelievable. I don't know why no one talks about that as much as they should have. I think it's kind of generally known that Australia has good coffee, but I'm sure in Melbourne it's actually amazing. And then Kyle Shanahan, the coach, said, I don't see kangaroos. I don't see kangaroos and crocodiles everywhere. I was expecting to see that. It looks like a very normal, cool city. I think this guy needs to get out a little bit more. I know. That is a classic American take on Australia. I'm taking the Rams approach, though, because the plane that they took over, it's a Qantas Airbus A380. It is the largest and most expensive commercial passenger airline ever built. And the reason is they have live flat seats for every single member of the team. So the Rams were just posted on social media like, oh, my God, this plane is so bougie. They can fly. They think that they are going to be able to get a good night's sleep, never really deviate from their actual schedule. And that is why they think this is a better approach. I do feel bad for one person in particular in this whole Australia saga, and that is 49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris. He turned 50 years old on Thursday, September 3rd. But that happened to be the day that the 49ers flew to Australia. So they left Wednesday night and arrived Friday morning. So quite literally, his 50th birthday. Just dissolved into a time zone ether. So sorry, Raheem Morris. I hope someone gave you a cake. No matter whose sleep hacking wins out or is more effective for this particular game, it's another step in the NFL's big push internationally. I mean, they're going they're going to be playing at Melbourne Cricket Ground. This is this is this huge stadium. It has more than 100,000 seats. It's the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere. It's sold out. Actually, the 49ers are the biggest, most popular team in Australia. Because when you're in Australia, you're in Australia. When the Globes started paying attention to NFL in the 80s, the Joe Montana and the Niners were really good. So they love the Niners there. Roger Goodell earlier this year, the commissioner has said at some point there will be NFL teams outside the USA. I have no doubt that this will happen one day. And I thought this was interesting. The reason that they picked Australia out of all places in the world. I know they have a lot of cities that they're playing in. But the Olympics are coming to Brisbane in 2032. And they think that this game in. In Australia or in Melbourne, which is, I guess, not that far from Brisbane, will cement the status of flag football in the Olympics. And the NFL uses flag football as a way of reaching its tentacles into the international community to eventually maybe lay the groundwork for a potential for a potential NFL team abroad one day. So they really want to use this as saying people love flag football here in Australia. We need to put it in the Olympics in 2032 for that global visibility. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back with. Neil's numbers right after this. We'll be right back. What a concept. Use promo code morning brew 10 for 10% off your first pair of ultra running shoes at ultra running dot com slash morning brew. That's a L.T.R.A. Running dot com slash morning brew. Cybersecurity, as we know it, is dead. It's a figure of speech. But the truth is the old model was built on protection. Safety nets, recovery plans, systems designed to withstand the last era and maintain the status quo. The A.I. Era demands confidence that you can. 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They said that customers of all ages recovered less than 75 cents for every dollar they sent in each month this year. Those who do sports bet also have less money in the piggy bank than those who don't. Bank of America said that this year, median deposit balances for betting households was at just 59% of non-betting households. Meanwhile, lower-income households account for the largest share of sports bettors at 37% compared to 29% for the higher-income group. Young people are leading the charge. In July, when the World Cup was in full swing, Gen Z and Millennials accounted for 88% of all online betting activity, likely driven by a surge in new gamblers. This summer, the number of first-time bettors was more than triple from January. It's a sign that people view sports betting not as a wager, but instead a 401k substitute. One in five Americans and two in five Gen Zers see sports gambling as an investment tool. That is probably the most alarming stat is that 20% of Americans consider sports betting a type of investment. That's not even to talk about prediction markets that operate in an even murkier part of people's consciousness. Roughly a quarter to a third of most generations, classified prediction market event contracts as some form of traditional investing. The ads, too, are just so inescapable at this point. Just in the last couple of weeks, LeBron is now leading a polymarket campaign. Sidney Sweeney just starred in a Novig campaign for their rollout. You go back, Timothee Chalamet's in Kalshi. It just seems like these ads are muddying the waters even further, making it seem like this is a real investment opportunity when it is much more akin to gambling. Hollywood just had a fantastic, nearly record-breaking summer. Domestic ticket revenue from May 1st through Labor Day, the box office's summer season, came in at $4.76 billion, the highest total since 2013 and the second highest of all time. New installments in long-running franchises played a big role. Spider-Man Brand New Day led the way with almost $1 billion in sales in the U.S. and Canada alone, followed by Toy Story 5. However, Hollywood also scored with a slew of original hits, five movies, The Odyssey, Disclosure Day, Obsession, Backrooms, and Michael, all brought in at least $100 million in domestic ticket sales over the summer, the best performance for originals in five years. So, Hollywood is back, right? Everyone's going to the movies again? Not so fast, because inflation. When you look at the actual number of people who saw movies in theaters, not just dollar grosses, you find a more sobering picture. This year, through mid-August, domestic theaters sold nearly 570 million tickets, a 30% decline from the same period in 2019, and equivalent to 248 million lost moviegoers. But since ticket prices have jumped so dramatically, that shortfall is made up by people paying more. Still, Toby, I think my takeaway for the summer is movie theaters are enjoying a renaissance. Yeah, industry watchers would definitely agree with you, and it was because this is not rocket science. There was a movie out there for everyone. It wasn't just superhero movies. This, if you go down kind of like the biggest tentpole projects of the year, if you're a 20-year-old, you could go see Back Rooms, because that's squarely in your demographic. If you are family, you go see Toy Story 5. If you are a couple, you go watch The Devil Wears Prada 2. If you're just anyone, you go watch The Odyssey. And then, again, if you're just anyone, you go watch Spider-Man as well. So, it wasn't just one demographic that was being fought over. It was multiple demographics and multiple generations that all had something at the theaters, which is why we saw such strong box office performance. For my final number, folks in Southern California have increasingly been forced to deal with an influx of new neighbors. They're swiping food, jumping in swimming pools unannounced, and will hurt you if you're not careful. They are, of course, black bears. According to the New York Times, black bear reports in California surged to over 2,700 last year, compared to just 425 a decade before. For various reasons, these bears have been making like bent folds and rocking the suburbs, where they're coming snout to face with humans. One factor is there's just more of these bears. California has 60,000 black bears, and it's the only bear species out of eight that is growing in number. Now, there are more American black bears than all other bear species combined. Researchers said that the bears may be encroaching on suburban areas after being driven out of their typical homes by a warming climate and wildfires. It's not a good thing for bears or for humans. Doesn't typically end well when a bear or any other animal becomes dependent on human food sources. As Dr. Arjun Deer of the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife told the Times, we want to keep bears wild, a fed bear is a dead bear. The New York Times' origin story for how black bears made it to Southern California is extremely interesting. You can trace it all the way back to 1933 and just 27 bears that were brought by a car salesman from Yosemite to the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains. At the time, Yosemite was dumping garbage into bear pits in order to attract tourists. And this car salesman said, hey, what if we did that in Southern California? So he brought a bunch of bears. Down there, and now there are roughly 2,000 descendants from those original 27 bears, all because a car salesman thought, hey, I can make a buck off of these animals. I mean, California is not, you know, has a long history with bears, especially in the north. Look at the California flag, but it's not a black bear. It's a grizzly bear. And the Cal Berkeley, their mascot is the golden bears. That is the version of the California grizzly bear that went extinct actually in the early 1920s. So maybe California should just change its flag to a black bear because they are everywhere there in the north and the south. And the Hulu show, the bear, maybe. I never actually even seen it. And I know that's in Chicago. It's about cooking. Okay. Let's bring to the finish with some final headlines. Speaking at the GOP's midterm convention, President Trump issued an unusual pledge. He said he'd pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in the November elections, calling it the Trump dividend. The cost would likely exceed $1 trillion, far more than the U.S. brought in from tariffs and nearly as much as the defense budget for 2026. Critics of the proposal called the Trump checks a farce and a bribe. And one thing's for sure, it would need congressional approval. Trump loves this idea of direct checks. He floated one back in 2025, the Doze rebate that all the proceeds that Elon Musk was going to save from the government would go back to Americans' pockets. That didn't happen. There is the 2025, 2026 tariff dividend where everyone was going to get $2,000 coming from all the profits reaped from tariffs. That never happened because of congressional approval. The one thing that did happen was one during his first term, COVID stimulus happened. And then also there's the 1776 warrior dividend that was set to 1.45 million service members back in 2025, December. That actually went through not because it received congressional approval explicitly is because it was $2.9 billion that went towards supplemental military housing. So again, the big question mark here is does this ever get congressional sign off? Probably not given that the U.S. is already running at such a big deficit. This would just contribute to that. Finally, airport dads rejoice. You can hit the terminal even earlier and you don't even need a ticket. For the first time since the post 9-11 security overhaul, some people without a plane ticket can go through security all the way to the gate. The new program is called Gateside by TSA PreCheck and lets PreCheck members get a free day pass to enter the secure side of the airport to send off a family member, meet a friend, or get drunk on $23 airport margaritas without actually having a flight. It's rolling out at 13 airports, including LAX, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Las Vegas with more coming soon. Neil, I better see you waving goodbye at the gate before the next wedding I inevitably have to go to. You know, I'll be there, Toby. I am that airport dad. I ironically like spending time at the airport. I will go there hours before my flight needs to leave because it's just a vibe. But I thought one of the funniest comments, the top rank comment on Morning Brew's Instagram post about this was, ah, yes, exactly what LAX needs. People that have no business being there occupying space. I also saw someone said that this is going to be a startup idea. Someone's going to start a co-working startup that you go and work in airports. And I literally could see you being a customer of like, oh, where do I want to work from today? Let's go to JFK and just take in the sights and sounds. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. To share your thoughts on the episode or anything else, send an email to morningbrewdailyatmorningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MBDailyShow. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Liu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Technical direction by Nina Miller. Hair and makeup is jet lagged. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. We'll be right back. No subscription required. Get started today at stitchfix.com. That's stitchfix.com. Fix.com.