New iPhone, new dongle

Plus: The narcotics supply chain, Africa's economic pain and more. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the best and most capable newsletter that Bloomberg Opinion has ever made. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Apple’s new iPhones come with [a new cord](. - [Drones and missiles]( won’t help the drug crisis. - Africa’s [economic pain]( has no easy fix. - [Miami]( didn’t end up being Silicon Valley. Dingle Dongle Put a [finger down]( if you still have an unusable iHome sitting in your childhood bedroom next to a bird’s nest of charging cables, one of which connects to a Nikon Coolpix, which sits buried in your bookcase next to a dead 2nd generation pink iPod Nano, the one you won in middle school when you sold over 50 magazine subscriptions to your Dad’s colleagues. Oh??? Is it just me putting a finger down? Ugh, fine. But chances are, you have a similar tale of woe. Dave Lee [does](, at least. In 2012, his iPhone speaker dock was blasting out Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe. A year later, it was rendered useless, thanks to Apple’s decision to [replace]( the clunky 30-pin charger with the Lightning connector we all recognize today. “Just like that, millions of peripherals and accessories were rendered obsolete,” he writes. Those who wished to use their “old” speakers and chargers resorted to the dongle life. D-Day (Dongle Day) happened [in 2012]( and again [in 2016]( (headphone jack), and it’s happening yet again [today](, now that Apple announced it’s transitioning new iPhones, AirPods and EarPods [to USB-C](, a move that Dave argues should have happened years ago. But there’s a major difference between the cord switch in 2023 and those that came before it: Apple was [forced]( to do this. EU regulators set a firm deadline at the [end of 2024]( stipulating that all new smartphones must [use USB-C]( for wired charging. The iPhone maker had no choice in the matter. Still, the transition should be far less painful than those in the previous decade. “There are few reasons to plug in an iPhone to anything at all,” Dave writes, pointing to wireless streaming, data-sharing and charging, which have been possible since the iPhone 8 came out. Now, we’re many iPhone models beyond the 8, of course. Today, Tim Cook and his clan unveiled the iPhone 15 and a conga line of fancier, pricier models: the iPhone 15 Plus, and the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Unsurprisingly, he called the fleet “the best and most capable phones that Apple has ever made.” Despite that, these events are [often seen]( as a “dip buyer’s dream,” as Subrat Patnaik and Carmen Reinicke write in Bloomberg News. Today appears to be no different, with shares falling throughout the presentation: I’m sure in 10 more years, we’ll all look back and this and say hahaha, remember when we used [cords](?? By that point, we’ll charge our phones using the pulse of our wrists or something. And nobody will know what the word “dongle” means. Crop Crimes Columbia’s Guinness World Records [include](: - The longest wingsuit flight — nine minutes, six seconds! - The most figures in a nativity village — 339! - The largest parade of Toyota cars — 742! - The longest chorizo — 1,917.8 meters (over a mile)! - The largest game of bingo — 70,080 people! Oh yeah … and then there’s this: Obviously, there is no Guinness World Record for the largest amount of cocaine produced … that’d be weird (and illegal, duh!). But if there was, Columbia would take the cake by a long shot. “Satellite photos show the amount of land planted with coca, the raw material for making the drug, rose to 230,000 hectares (570,000 acres), in 2022, up 13% from the previous year. That’s enough to produce 1,700 tons of refined cocaine, the most ever, according to a report published [Monday]( by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime,” Matthew Bristow [writes]( in Bloomberg News. Despite Columbia’s new record, RAND estimates that cocaine use has actually been on the decline: Americans spent only $24 billion on cocaine in 2016, down from $29 billion in 2011 and $58 billion in 2006. “Shifts in US consumption and policy are reorganizing the entire narcotics supply chain,” Eduardo Porter [explains](, arguing that in Mexico, at least, there’s an opportunity for farmers to escape the narcotics economy entirely. “Narcos Mexico” is a relic, thanks to the legalization of weed across much of the US, he explains. As drug traffickers ditch opium and marijuana for more popular synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, their relationship with Mexican farmers should weaken. In turn, that will open up less-nefarious opportunities for farms that don’t involve catering to cartel drug lords. Some farmers have already [taken the leap](, trading their illicit activities for cash crops like tomatoes and chilies. It’s a far better alternative than the Republican Party’s pyrotechnic proposal to just [bomb]( the farms altogether. Read [the whole thing](. Crash Course “Elon, he went backwards. He's like Benjamin Button, except a jerk — a jerkish Benjamin Button. And so those parts of his personality — as he got to be the richest man in the world, and especially with enablers — started to get really ugly." Kara Swisher Podcast host and tech journalist On the [latest episode]( of [Crash Course](, Timothy L. O'Brien spoke with the host of On With Kara Swisher and Pivot about the evolution of Silicon Valley's tech bros. Telltale Charts “Africa rising” is in freefall, Javier Blas writes: Sub-Saharan Africa GDP per capita peaked in 2014 and has since fallen more than 10%. In the same period, global GDP per capita has risen nearly 15%. Changing the course of the region will be tricky, given the last two decades, which has seen the size of the sub-Saharan population double to 1.2 billion. “Lifting GDP per capita can be a grueling fight against booming population growth,” Javier explains. Of course, the continent’s economic trajectory could change, given how it’s impacted by many more factors than I have space to cover in a measly newsletter: US interest rates, Chinese investment, a dependence on commodities, to name a few. And because of that, I encourage you to check out Javier’s [feature piece in full](, which is free for you to read. For a second there, it really felt as though every person on this planet (and their boss) was moving to Miami, the so-called Silicon Valley of Southeast. But how’d the hyped-up paradise of NFTs pan out for people, business-wise? In all honestly, Miami resident Jonathan Levin [says](, “South Florida never had a prayer of supplanting Silicon Valley” during the pandemic years. “In dollar terms, Chicago actually seized a greater chunk of the market at its peak. Miami, you could argue, was just better at deploying its PR machine to seize the narrative,” he notes. Still, not all hope is lost for the 305: It could still carve out a place for itself as an ecosystem known for early stage companies and Latin American venture capitalists. Here’s a puzzle for you: When Covid took over, economic inactivity spiked across the world as people dropped out of the workforce. That trend has since reversed in every developed country except for Britain, which remains an “international outlier on this issue,” Matthew Brooker [writes](. Why is the UK becoming a sicker society as everyone else gets heathier? The number of people not working because of long-term sickness rose to a record high of 2.58 million as of the second quarter. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to get more of them back into work with a new proposal, but his method for making that happen is a little convoluted. Instead of, I dunno, giving the NHS adequate funding (the root of the problem, probably), the government’s plan might cause some people to lose their benefits or be forced to look for work while still too unwell. Further Reading Deals between [struggling banks]( can make the financial system safer. — Bloomberg’s editorial board The discovery of a huge [new deposit of lithium]( on the Nevada-Oregon border is no surprise. — Tyler Cowen Sofia Coppola's [Lost in Translation]( shows a great affection for Tokyo, but not for its people. (Free read!) — Gearoid Reidy Virginia remains an abortion holdout after the fall of Roe. Its [election]( is a biggie. — Jonathan Bernstein FEMA is not prepared for all the [billion-dollar disasters]( the US has ahead. — Mark Gongloff Households are, well, [house rich](. And they aren’t in the mood to save. — Conor Sen Modi’s new India — [Bharat]( — isn’t about to be a friend to the West. — Pankaj Mishra The UK’s failure to give [offshore wind]( a feasible price will cost the nation dearly. — Lara Williams ICYMI Pets are eating [cheaper food](. McCarthy is ordering an [impeachment inquiry](. McDonald's is getting rid of [self-serve soda](. This could be [the end]( of Aaron Rodgers. WWE officially [merged]( with UFC. Kickers New York City’s [website]( isn’t sponsored by China. (h/t Dave Lee) Nobody wants to buy Ivana Trump’s [townhouse](. The streets of Portugal turned into [a river of wine](. An [ocean world]( might be lurking in outer space. Spicy food [challenges]( have gone too far. Notes: Please send self-serve soda and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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