Nikkei Asia:

Contract chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. told clients Wednesday that it plans to raise prices on products by as much as 20%, in what would be the company’s steepest single increase.

And:

The price increases and the time frames for the hikes differ depending on the client, according to reports by Taiwan’s Liberty Times newspaper and other media outlets. For some companies that received TSMC’s notice, the hikes took effect immediately.

Not clear how much of an impact this will have on Apple, and how much impact this will have on Apple product pricing.

Worth noting, from this post:

“Sources have told Wave7 Research that Apple was able to lock down chipset supply well ahead of time. This was not the case for other OEMs,” says Jeff Moore, principal at Wave7.

Will this put Apple far enough ahead of the curve to carry it past this shortage in the long haul? Will its sheer size allow it to stay in the front of the line, minimize pricing impact?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, quoting an analyst note:

We now estimate that Google’s payments to AAPL to be the default search engine on iOS were ~$10B in FY 20.

And:

We now forecast that Google’s payments to Apple might be nearly $15B in FY 21.

And this, full of juicy tidbits:

We see two potential risks to GOOG’s payments to AAPL: (1) regulatory risk, which we believe is real, but likely years away; we see a potential 4-5% impact to Apple’s gross profits from an adverse ruling; & (2) that Google chooses to stop paying Apple to be the default search engine altogether, or looks to renegotiate terms and pay less. We have noted in prior research that GOOG is likely paying to ensure Microsoft doesn’t outbid it. That said, with payments likely to approach $18 – $20B in FY 22, it not implausible that Google could revisit its strategy.

Imagine Microsoft becoming the default Apple search engine. That would be an odd experience. And might antitrust regulators have some say in this? I’d imagine there’d be a lot of lobbying on all sides if that issue heated up.

Follow the headline link for video of a pair of AirPods dangling securely to the front of someone’s MacBook screen.

I tried this myself, with AirPods Pro on my M1 MacBook Air, though I think my magnet placement was different.

Wondering if there will come a day when your screen is used like MagSafe to charge your AirPods sans case. Seems like Apple had a patent a while back that let the closed Mac act as a wireless charger.

If you’ve not seen one of these little cuties, take a jump over to the Playdate front page and take a look.

Some gorgeous design (thanks to the folks at Teenage Engineering), in a fun yellow package.

If this whet your appetite, follow the headline link to the teardown. This looks pretty easy to take apart, which makes me think it’ll be easy to fix myself, and possible for folks to modify.

Check out the warranty sticker inside the unit. Props for not using scare tactics. Breaking voids the warranty. Opening does not.

Mark Savage, BBC:

Spencer Elden, the man who was photographed as a baby on the album cover for Nirvana’s Nevermind, is suing the band alleging sexual exploitation.

The cover depicts Elden as a four-month-old in a swimming pool, grasping for a dollar bill that’s being dangled in front of him on a fishing line.

Now 30, Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising the use of his image on the album.
He also alleges the nude image constitutes child pornography.

A lot to unpack here but, at its core, lies the issue of parents never signing a release for the photo. I find that incredibly hard to believe.

From this backgrounder on the photo shoot:

Unable to find a stock shot of a submarine tyke, Fisher hired underwater-photo specialist Weddle, who donned a wet suit and set up a studio (complete with lights and waterproof cameras) in an Olympic-size swimming pool in Los Angeles last May. Spencer wasn’t the lone stunt baby: Weddle cast four other infants as well. “You need that many kids,” he says, “because you can’t count on a baby to do anything you want.”

And:

Later, the fishhook was stripped into the photo at Cobain’s direction.

And:

For his skinny-dipping adventure, Spencer was paid $250 (standard hourly rate for a no-name model) and was later presented with a triple-platinum album by Ed Rosenblatt, president of Geffen Records.

Sounds like his parents cashed the check.