577: Colorful Criticism
07 Mar 2024Apple continues to release great products while needlessly antagonizing just about everyone.
Episode Description:
- Pre-show: Old men talk about old car stereos
- Follow-up:
- John’s notes export via
privacy.apple.com - Apple Vision Pro & Project Titan (via James Anthony)
- JIBO
- gita (the robot Casey was thinking of)
- Gurman’s article (or on Apple News)
- Apple Vision Pro’s
inevitable
future (via Matt Johnson)
- John’s notes export via
- M3 MacBook Airs
- Apple fined $2 billion by EU for App Store practices
- AltStore has received its MarketplaceKit entitlement
- Apple terminates Epic’s developer account
- Post-show Ask ATP: If we could solve one of Apple’s legal problems, what would it be? (via Marc Robinson)
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Chapters
- Play my music after this song
- Notes exports
- Car-project fallout
- Sponsor: Squarespace (code ATP)
- From Vision Pro to glasses
- Sponsor: Trade Coffee
- M3 MacBook Air
- Apple vs. the world
- AltStore in EU
- Schiller vs. Epic
- Ending theme
- #askatp: Solve one Apple legal problem
Play my music after this song
⏹️ ▶️ Marco My son learned a valuable lesson tonight.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We were eating dinner at the table and I had some jam band music playing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by Goose over the speakers. And he said, can I put my music
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on after this song?
⏹️ ▶️ John You know what the kids call that, Marco? Let’s see how tuned in you are to your, what, tweezy tweezy tween now, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John The tween lingo. What is that called?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know. I have no idea.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, Casey doesn’t know. His kids are too young. All right. Well, I’ll leave it as a mystery to you and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey no I need to know now
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, you can’t do that. Everyone listens to our show is old like us I feel like because when I say things like this, no one chimes
⏹️ ▶️ John in it’s like you old dummies. It’s blank So this is a test for people. I don’t know. Should
⏹️ ▶️ John I do that? I don’t know if we want a week’s
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey worth No, no, no, no, we don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey let her rip. Let her rip
⏹️ ▶️ John We should give the chat room give a chat room a chance
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The chat room is just making fun of us and suggesting you old dummies as titles.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t have any idea either They’re all like us
⏹️ ▶️ John chat young people in the chat room. What is it called? Adam, Marco’s young son, wanted to
⏹️ ▶️ John be able to play his music through, presumably through the speakers or whatever you’re listening to. What is that called?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Isn’t that just called being a kid? Like, doesn’t every kid want to play their music instead of their parents’ music?
⏹️ ▶️ John No, there is a modern slang phrase for that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m assuming DJing is not the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco answer. Yeah, do they even know what DJs are?
⏹️ ▶️ John We have a 23-year-old who doesn’t know, a 35-year-old who doesn’t know. No one knows. 37-year-old is all fogeys. Listen,
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re in an IRC channel. Let’s be honest, you’re probably pretty old. an IRC channel for a podcast.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let’s be clear, like this is not a young person’s game here.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. Hit the aux, suggest somebody in the chat.
⏹️ ▶️ John There you go. Somebody knew it. Adam asked you to put him on aux. That’s what they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have never heard that before.
⏹️ ▶️ John And now you know why, as olds we know why they call it that. It’s back in the old days when you had an aux
⏹️ ▶️ John input in a car, the auxiliary input, it was like a headphone jack that you could plug an audio source into
⏹️ ▶️ John in your car and it would play, or like in any, like in a stereo system, there’d be a headphone jack. has AUX on it,
⏹️ ▶️ John and that’s you plug in a Walkman or an iPod or whatever. So they say, put me on
⏹️ ▶️ John AUX. It means give me control of the thing that is playing music so that I can play my music through it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the time of the Walkman did not overlap the time of the Auxjack very much.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The Discman, maybe.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, no, it did. The Auxjack, as I said, you’d buy those stereos. I had, you know, you’d buy those stereos
⏹️ ▶️ John with dual cassette tapes in them so you could copy cassettes, and they had an AUX input on the thing. So you could put the Walkman into
⏹️ ▶️ John the AUX input and then record on
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey the cassette.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But John, you’re missing Marco’s point. It wasn’t a Walkman because you are even older than us. And normally that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey doesn’t make a big difference, but in this one particular circumstance it does, it would be a Discman or Discman or whatever you want
⏹️ ▶️ John No, I’m saying it went as far back as the Walkman. The one with the cassette tape in it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Auxi-jacks existed back then, like on stereo equipment, but you would never have one like in a car or on any kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco speaker anybody was using. No, they were in cars still,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco In the era of portable cassette players, there were auxi-jacks in cars. I don’t think so.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Yeah, yeah. There were
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I really think the markos right about this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they came out during the iPod era
⏹️ ▶️ John So you could play from your cassette player through the car stereo No But the car stereos had cars had
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco cassette player if you
⏹️ ▶️ John had a if you had a car that didn’t have a cassette deck or if Your cassette deck was broken
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cars that were so early or low-end enough to not have cassette decks also wouldn’t have had aux jacks anyway
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Aux jacks are not
⏹️ ▶️ John universal because I remember lots of my Accords didn’t have them I had to add one through a stupid header thing So I’m not saying that they were commonplace,
⏹️ ▶️ John but they did exist because because it’s just it’s literally just a headphone jack
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Are you really pulling an infinite timeline style argument on us
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m clarifying that they weren’t common.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, the funny thing is, like, oxygen actually did not have a very long era of popularity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in cars because they were mostly added during the late stages of the iPod era and in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco early stages of the smartphone era. But then Bluetooth took over pretty effectively.
⏹️ ▶️ John My cars still have them. I mean, I know my cars aren’t that old, but a 2014 and 2017, they both have oxygen. Well, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Marco, you skipped a step. You are broadly correct. But yeah, they started becoming a thing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey during the iPod era to me. I’m yes, John. I’m sure a few cars had it before then, but realistically,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if the aux jack became popular during the iPod era, and then yes, there was Bluetooth not too
⏹️ ▶️ Casey long after, but you’re skipping the USB. Like what was that? It was like an iPod
⏹️ ▶️ Casey protocol. Yeah. And there was a couple of years of that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Don’t forget the FM adapters. Those were so bad.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, those were early FM and cassette. Yeah. And cassette adapters were actually pretty good. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John Because that adapters were better than FM, but only barely. Oh, no, they were way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco better. Yeah, they were almost a perfect line in like it was a very very
⏹️ ▶️ John I had a lot I had bad luck with the cassette adapters in terms of them being reliable and continuing to function and they sounded
⏹️ ▶️ John bad And yes, FM sounded bad, too but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no that honestly cassette cassette after sounded very close to a real line and because like the way they worked is actually very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco clever and Extremely simple.
⏹️ ▶️ John Maybe I just had bad ones that they kept breaking and flaking out
⏹️ ▶️ Casey now I we had one for literally like 20 years. There’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no moving parts. How did they?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I maybe it was the wire maybe I was like the what the little skinny wire that would
⏹️ ▶️ John dangle out of the thing Maybe it was the cassette tape part and the stupid like, you know, like the way it clipped
⏹️ ▶️ John into the thing I don’t know. I just had really bad luck with them and FM FM adapter things. I also had bad luck with well
⏹️ ▶️ John Those were always garbage cuz Honda didn’t have aux jacks forever. I had to add them to my 2004 accord I had
⏹️ ▶️ John to remember that I opened up the whole dashboard and wired in the aux jack Anyway kids kids knew it from
⏹️ ▶️ John from the iPod era like kids kids who say this I assume they picked it up because when they were kids they had an iPod
⏹️ ▶️ John and they wanted to hear it in their parents old car and their parents old car had a thing for iPods to play through and so put
⏹️ ▶️ John me on aux continue and I bet a Lot of people using that phrase today who have no idea what it means because you know once
⏹️ ▶️ John it goes into the lingo You don’t really question it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco put me on aux if that’s the actual phrasing they are using like that doesn’t make a lot of sense
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John No, it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and also like how how would the parent connect the kids phone themselves? Like, wouldn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the kid have to, like, take the
⏹️ ▶️ John let me go on aux or whatever. Like, ask Adam if he knows this phrase. I will. Is he
⏹️ ▶️ John awake? Send him a message now. No, I’m not
⏹️ ▶️ John Real-time follow-up,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we need it. OK, hold on.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Adam, come here. Oh, gosh. Hey, while Marco is paging Adam, you know, I was looking up a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Wikipedia link for the show notes, and I’ll give you one guess what happened in Chrome just now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Come here, we have a question for you. All right. Hi. Hi, what’s up? All right. They want to know, are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you familiar with the phrase, put me on aux.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh no. Oh no. If you wanted me to have you put your music on the speakers, is there a phrase you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would use for that?
⏹️ ▶️ John Can you put on my music?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s that’s very straightforward. Thank you, son. You’ve proved my
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John point. That is what I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because that makes sense. I’m going to go play forger now. Okay. All
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right. We have our
⏹️ ▶️ John follow up. You’re wrong. It’s the no, it’s it is a phrase. It’s just Adam doesn’t know it yet.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Anyway, thank you to Anticomposite, the 23-year-old in the chat room with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the rest of the old people who got us across the line on that, or got the two of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey us across the line on
⏹️ ▶️ John that. Yeah, people are suggesting it’s also pass the aux or I’m on aux. Yeah, there are many variants. That’s so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco weird. Anyway, so the lesson he learned earlier was when he did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John not ask to be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco aux, but when he instead asked could he play his music over the speakers after my song was over,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco he has a jam band dead, and my song was 35 minutes long. Jeezy peezy.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was halfway through, it only had like 17 minutes left. Oh my god. Oh goodness.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so I’m like, yes, sure, we agree to this. And then I told him like a minute later, by the way,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s 16 more minutes left.
⏹️ ▶️ John should learn to be tech savvy. He’s like, can I just glance at the now playing screen on
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco your phone to see,
⏹️ ▶️ John Is it like where the progress bar is maybe? How
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco many minutes are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, it would have looked… It was right in the… And thanks to our modern iOS design… It doesn’t tell you time remaining. It does,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it’s the tiniest, dimmest text on the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Good eyes. Yeah, and on the Mac, of course, it would require hover. But, you know, on iOS, we don’t have that luxury. So they designed it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco away into tiny little low contrast text.
Notes exports
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John, you have received your notes export. It came via carrier
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pigeon, I’m quite sure. What was the result?
⏹️ ▶️ John Disappointing. So it was 337 megabytes, which I thought was promising. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John like, oh, this must have all the stuff that I want. And what I got was a whole bunch of folders, which I
⏹️ ▶️ John think were basically named after like my notes folders, kind of. And in those folders were
⏹️ ▶️ John dot txt files, plain text files. So all my like, you know, bold
⏹️ ▶️ John headings, all of them, All of my style text, all that gone. All of my links
⏹️ ▶️ John mostly gone or expanded into the plain URLs. And then a bunch of image files in subdirectories
⏹️ ▶️ John below that. So wherever I placed those images in the document, however I scaled them or cropped them or did anything
⏹️ ▶️ John with them, all that is also gone. So this is not a faithful reproduction of the
⏹️ ▶️ John work I put into each one of these notes, right? Like, for example, I was looking for my one about sofas, right? It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John just a text file with a bunch of text and there’s kind of like blank lines between sections
⏹️ ▶️ John of text where I know that images should go, like this image goes with that, but also the images are like as I originally
⏹️ ▶️ John downloaded it from web pages before I cropped them and everything, so you can show a smaller portion. It’s just,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not great. Like it’s better than nothing if you really wanted to have a backup and like, oh, I really wanna have that important
⏹️ ▶️ John text that was there and those important images, but it does not preserve the rich text nature
⏹️ ▶️ John of notes, which is a shame. but this is Apple’s own export. I know there are tons of utilities that will do this for you,
⏹️ ▶️ John that will try to preserve it, that will try to make an RTF file out of it, that’ll make a PDF out of them,
⏹️ ▶️ John but Apple should really up its game here. It’s great that they offer a text file and images, like I don’t object to
⏹️ ▶️ John that being an option, but it’s not a backup of all of the work that I put into my
Car-project fallout
⏹️ ▶️ Casey James Anthony writes, the potential overlap between Apple’s car project and Apple Vision Pro with regard
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to spatial computing could be huge. How about this? Instead of making a massively expensive, high-stakes, fully
⏹️ ▶️ Casey autonomous robot to transport human beings safely across Earth, try developing a robotic product at any size
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or price point that can transport anything of any size or weight, any distance inside of my own home or office.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Despite the advances in cameras and AI and robotics, in 2024 there still exists no consumer product
⏹️ ▶️ Casey at any price point capable of moving from room to room, room, locating a physical object and manipulating it. Nothing that can go press
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a button or turn a knob or open or close a cabinet drawer, lid, door or window. Nothing that can hide
⏹️ ▶️ Casey dust or fold laundry or check on and feed your pet, let alone make you a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sandwich or bring you a beer. Hey, hearing the car project people getting reassigned to the AI team
⏹️ ▶️ Casey makes perfect sense to me and I’m glad to hear it. You know, this reminds me of I can’t remember the name of the thing, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there’s this little like orb of a robot that I think I saw advertised on Instagram a lot that would follow
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or something? What was that called? I don’t remember. You know what I’m thinking of. And I think it was mostly meant for city dwellers. And I don’t mean
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that derisively at all. But it was meant for city dwellers. Like you’re in New York City, you go to like your local bodega
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or whatever, or maybe, you know, local grocery store and you’re only picking up a few things and you put it in this little pod that falls
⏹️ ▶️ Casey behind you and it will follow you home and so on and so forth. You don’t have to carry your groceries. And it was both
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the most ridiculous and dumb thing I’ve ever seen. And I wanted one immediately.
⏹️ ▶️ John Jibo, right? I just put the Jibo link in the chat room, but what you described is not this, I’m assuming.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ve seen that though, I think it was on like college campuses or something? I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John remember, but yeah. They do have a lot of delivery robots on college campuses. We talk about delivery robots on robot or not a
⏹️ ▶️ John lot that deliver food from place to place.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, that’s probably where I heard about it. It was probably on robot
⏹️ ▶️ John or not. Yeah, yeah. So on this topic, this is actually
⏹️ ▶️ John somewhat relevant, mostly because of Elon Musk. One of his many ridiculous things
⏹️ ▶️ John that he thinks he’s doing is like, we’re going to make a humanoid robot, you know, that whole thing. And he had the person come out and like
⏹️ ▶️ John a person come out of like resuit and say this is what it would be like but robot.
⏹️ ▶️ John The interesting thing about robots like household robots that do
⏹️ ▶️ John more than like a Roomba, you know what I mean? I’m not going to say that the the smarts
⏹️ ▶️ John part of it is not hard because it is. But surprisingly, the main
⏹️ ▶️ John barrier as far as I can tell, is the the boring parts what what cars have going
⏹️ ▶️ John for them is we figured out the thing about making a machine that you can ride inside that travels from place
⏹️ ▶️ John to place on roads. Like we have, we figured that out. You put wheels, you have brakes,
⏹️ ▶️ John we have traffic controls and signs and roads that we’ve paved and we plow
⏹️ ▶️ John them. It’s like, you know, we’ve got that part sorted out. Now we just need something to drive
⏹️ ▶️ John them. That turns out to be really hard, right? Inside the house for a thing that you’re going to buy for like, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, like a Roomba type level of device, I think the moving from place to place and doing
⏹️ ▶️ John useful things is actually, like we’re not even over that hurdle. Like that
⏹️ ▶️ John is the first thing that you have to do before you get to the point where, okay, now technically we have something that can
⏹️ ▶️ John do that. Now put in the smart so it, you know, does something useful because to make anything
⏹️ ▶️ John that can move around your house and do useful things, even if it’s just like getting you something out of the fridge,
⏹️ ▶️ John requires an amount of mechanical machinery that probably pushes the price of this
⏹️ ▶️ John too high to be useful in the market. Like Roombas could be better if they cost 10
⏹️ ▶️ John times as much. You can make a house cleaning robot that is a lot better than a Roomba, but it would be
⏹️ ▶️ John so much more expensive. They really have to control costs on that. That’s why it’s so limited, right? That’s why
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like, why can’t you just make it go up and down stairs? We can make robots go up and down stairs. College kids do it all the time. It’s not hard,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s just expensive. And I think that is actually the difficult barrier,
⏹️ ▶️ John making a cost-effective thing that can traverse your home and
⏹️ ▶️ John grab things and transport them. And if you somehow are able to do that, then it’s like, okay, now how
⏹️ ▶️ John do you get it smart enough to do that without like killing your pets or doing other terrible things
⏹️ ▶️ John that it can do? Like, I’m not saying it’s easier than self-driving because the stakes are lower, speeds are lower.
⏹️ ▶️ John If it knocks over a drink instead of bringing it to you, oh, well, it’s not that bad. Probably won’t kill your pet because
⏹️ ▶️ John you just make sure it’s really weak and can’t actually kill a pet. but it depends on the pet.
⏹️ ▶️ John The hard part of this, I think, is actually the robot for not too much money part. And
⏹️ ▶️ John so I would suggest Apple not go into this business.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It doesn’t seem like it’s exciting enough for them. And I don’t think there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much value to extract from the car project to apply to that kind of thing. By the way,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know if you saw yet, a couple hours ago, Mark Gurman published this giant feature story in Bloomberg.
⏹️ ▶️ John I was gonna put that as the fourth topic.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all about the, like, just detailing all sorts of insider info about the car project over
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time. Like, all the different phases they allegedly went through, you know, angles they allegedly tried to,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, and how they allegedly tried to
⏹️ ▶️ John do it. Yeah, and by the way, I think everything that was in that article had been leaked before, but this is more like confirmation,
⏹️ ▶️ John just reminding you now that people are willing to talk. All that stuff was more or less true. Because I remember reading about all those things individually,
⏹️ ▶️ John but individually, you’re like, really? And now, all together, as a summary, when the project’s done, over, I’m like, okay,
⏹️ ▶️ John I kind of buy it now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, it just seems on so many levels. First of all, I didn’t know all that stuff. I knew about half of it, I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco think, already. So a lot of it was news to me, at least. And there’s a lot of commentary woven throughout
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from different sources, people who had literally worked on it. But it was really something to see
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what was basically a decade of this failed project, like all the different phases it went through, what they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thought they wanted at each point, different partnerships from different companies that ended up falling through for whatever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reason. There must be such a big story to tell there, and we’re only getting a little bit of it. It’s kind of shocking as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an Apple fan to see like how long they wasted away for so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco long on that project for how much money and how much talent all for what seemed to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have begun as a Johnny Ive vanity project.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know, it’s not a Johnny Ive vanity project. Although at one point they said that according to whatever their source was
⏹️ ▶️ John that they considered buying McLaren because it would make Johnny Ive happy. It’s like, talk about a bad reason to do something.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, he’s becoming disengaged with the company. He seems like he might leave. We should buy McLaren, because he likes that. They need to have a car
⏹️ ▶️ John design studio in the UK. It’s like, no, don’t buy a company to satisfy
⏹️ ▶️ John your super important person. I’m glad they didn’t do that. Oh, yeah. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think it was a vanity project for him. But the problem is, we’ll put a link in the show
⏹️ ▶️ John notes to the article. I think you need a Bloomberg subscription to read it. Or Apple News. They had a bunch of different ideas.
⏹️ ▶️ John And we talked about this. That’s why I didn’t want to cover it this week, because we kind of covered the car project. And there’s nothing really new to talk about with
⏹️ ▶️ John really But this kind of outlines the whole, like, it should drive itself and not have a steering wheel
⏹️ ▶️ John stuck around for a really long time. And there were proponents. Obviously, there were strong, influential proponents of
⏹️ ▶️ John that strategy inside the company. And only towards the end, when the rumors came out, they said,
⏹️ ▶️ John how about not, and we just put a steering wheel in? And that was like eight years into
⏹️ ▶️ John the program, right? And as we said, it turns out they couldn’t make the car without the steering wheel. And by the way, all
⏹️ ▶️ John their ideas of what the car without the steering wheel should be like I think would have been disastrous. This is one
⏹️ ▶️ John thing I didn’t get to talk about when we talked about the car thing, that I think Apple vastly
⏹️ ▶️ John underestimates and also has no idea how car styling works. Like car styling is
⏹️ ▶️ John such an important part of making cars, and it is deadly and fraught and
⏹️ ▶️ John way more difficult than I think Apple realizes. All of their ideas were pretty bad.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like we just hear vague rumors or whatever, but I think it shows a misunderstanding
⏹️ ▶️ John of what makes people buy a $100,000 car, or an $80,000 car or hell, any car. Car
⏹️ ▶️ John styling is so dangerous and so complicated and so culturally enmeshed. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s so easy to get wrong and so hard to get right. And I think Apple would have just
⏹️ ▶️ John disastrously blown it. Obviously if the car drove itself, no one would care, but they couldn’t do that. So
⏹️ ▶️ John if they filled in a regular car and they tried to style anybody, Johnny Ive, anybody at the company,
⏹️ ▶️ John like the only way it would be okay is if they got just actual car people car companies to style it and didn’t let Johnny Ive anywhere
⏹️ ▶️ John near it. But every time I hear the descriptions of the Johnny Ive influenced car, I’m like,
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, nobody, nobody with that much money would want that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And by far my favorite little tidbit in this story was that allegedly Johnny Ive wanted to offer the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco car only in white.
⏹️ ▶️ John Are you serious? Yeah. With white interior, white cloth interior. Have you ever been in anything?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I was rolling like what is this 1950 all over again
⏹️ ▶️ John for us Johnny I have to go to New England in winter
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From Vision Pro to glasses
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Matt Johnson writes, I keep hearing tech people, including ATP, talking about Apple Vision Pro saying various things indicating
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that Apple’s ideal and eventual form factor for the Vision Pro is a pair of glasses. This seems logical, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it also seems like many of the touted features in this version one are dead ends. Theater mode, immersive environments,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and more all seem to rely heavily on a fully controlled VR environment, even when they are mimicking AR. That I think
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that any glasses will always struggle to provide. Maybe these are just features that sell the current product until
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple can get where it wants to go. And when it does, they’re no longer important anyway. We’ve also had plenty
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of other devices that have tried to attack the problem from the AR side first. The Xreal, Rokid,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Ray-Ban Meta, et cetera, have all tried various things, albeit with less polish
⏹️ ▶️ Casey than Apple can provide, and they’ve barely registered notice. And when they have, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey often received ridicule. For example, way ahead of its time, Google Glass. So are glasses
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actually the end goal and how can Apple Vision Pro get from here to there? Would working from the other direction,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey even with Apple’s polish, have been a bad idea? And I’ve been thinking about this a bit
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in part because of Matt’s feedback and I’ve been thinking about it from hearing similar things from other people.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can’t help but wonder if there will eventually be two versions of the Vision Pro and, you know, whatever the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey naming may be, that’s mostly irrelevant, but like one of them is completely uh, immersive like it is today.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And one of them is a more sleek, more AR oriented thing because Matt’s right.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Like some of the best things to me about the vision pro today anyway, are
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when it’s fully immersive, watching a movie in it is incredible. Looking at panoramas are incredible.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know, it’s incredible to do that. Some of those things to Matt’s point would not be better with a more
⏹️ ▶️ Casey glasses like a form factor. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they kind of fork this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing for lack of a better term and go two different directions concurrently, because you might want to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be immersed, say on a plane or something like that. You might want that. Or if you’re watching a movie, or you might not
⏹️ ▶️ Casey want that if you’re around family or in the real world or whatever the case may be.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. It seems, it seems like they, the glasses imagined version of this.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s just glasses. It’s not like that’s close. What the vision pro is today, all the different challenges
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it faces, um, especially just in terms of physical realities of like the batteries
⏹️ ▶️ Marco required, the computer hardware required, all like, yes, a glasses version would have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco different requirements. Some of them would be lesser. Like there was no screen, obviously. Well, no traditional style screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s some kind of projecting something in there, but we are so far from
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that. That I think it’s, it’s, it would have to almost be two different products
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because if that’s, if that was actually their end goal for this product, we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wouldn’t even have this yet because we’re nowhere near that it’s probably almost like the difference between
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an iPhone and an Apple Watch. Like, yeah, those are both based on a lot of the same, you know, core components and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some of the shared software underneath it. But an iPhone and an Apple Watch do a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very different things and are designed very differently with very different capabilities and different priorities. And similarly, like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the, like, clear glasses version of whatever Vision Pro, you know, whatever AR glasses that would be,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that would have so many restrictions on it compared to anything that can have any kind of bulk
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to it, like a headset, it would be a very, very different feature set. Way fewer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the current Vision Pro’s features. And I think it would be more like an Apple Watch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the sense that it would do a small number of focused things that can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco be done within a very, very tight power envelope. And that’s not at all what the Vision Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is. The Vision Pro is a whole laptop on your face. The Vision Pro is doing very, very different things with extremely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco different classes of hardware and classes of size and weight. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re talking about different products at this point. Whether they can ever actually do those like clear glasses thing, who knows?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I don’t consider what we see the Vision Pro today, I don’t consider that even in the same lineage
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as AR glasses, because think about how many things are different. Like first of all, there’s no closing out the world
⏹️ ▶️ Marco visually, like you can’t. That takes out all of the most popular features so far with Vision
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pro, which is mainly about immersion and movie watching. those would both be terrible on clear glasses. It would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco also have an interesting challenge of like, well, how does it see your hands? Well, where do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you put all these cameras? The Vision Pro right now has, what, like six cameras on it or something? Where do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you put all those on glasses? And then where does the power come from? Where is the hardware? Where’s the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computational hardware? Is it just in the stems? There’s not that much space or weight available there.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So like there’s all sorts of major challenges. I don’t think it’s the same product at all.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, so the reason everyone talks about glasses in the context of Vision Pro, partly because
⏹️ ▶️ John that was one of the rumors and partly because Apple has always talked about AR so much and
⏹️ ▶️ John with respect to AR, obviously clear glasses solve the pass-through problem because hey, you’re looking at the world.
⏹️ ▶️ John It also solves the giant heavy thing on your face problem, the seeing people’s eyes problem, like tons of
⏹️ ▶️ John problems that Vision Pro has are solved by the glasses form factor. I do think that it is the
⏹️ ▶️ John same lineage. If you look at some of the existing devices that are essentially glasses that you can see through that also
⏹️ ▶️ John have images they can project on them. HoloLens does that. What was the, what is the other one called? Magic
⏹️ ▶️ John think the X-Reel thing. There’s a bunch of like sort of, Ray-Ban has like kind of cheapish glasses
⏹️ ▶️ John that you can buy that stick a bunch of electronics in these stems as we call them,
⏹️ ▶️ John but they’re actually called the temples. So we can always forget that and just call them stems.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I thought, because I was going to say sticks and I knew that was wrong. I’m like, oh, I think it’s called stems.
⏹️ ▶️ John some of them have wires to go down or whatever, but like there are a bunch of products that do this. Obviously the screens
⏹️ ▶️ John in them are terrible, but anyway, that’s why this person says, hey, people do that and they haven’t really
⏹️ ▶️ John caught on. It’s because the screens are terrible and because they’re not actually as slim as you want them to be.
⏹️ ▶️ John The reason I think it’s the same lineage is you’re gonna need to do a lot of the same
⏹️ ▶️ John things. Setting aside where you hide the cameras, and I think there are clever places to hide them, especially if they get much, much
⏹️ ▶️ John smaller or whatever, you still kind of have to solve a lot of the same problems with
⏹️ ▶️ John augmenting reality by painting things over the real world in a way that is useful.
⏹️ ▶️ John Having the computing, working on screen tech. Granted, it’s different screen tech, but it probably is vaguely related.
⏹️ ▶️ John If you look at the existing ones in the market, they don’t, they all use kind of screens that kind of project themselves into your field of view.
⏹️ ▶️ John The way I would think about it in a future when it actually is possible to get something
⏹️ ▶️ John decent looking in glasses for $3,500 or whatever, is that it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John an acrobatic core, right? If you have the glasses and they can show high-res, bright
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff like Vision Pro can, that is a subset of the block out the world. If you have those
⏹️ ▶️ John glasses, it’s pretty easy to put a thing over them that now makes it immersive, because now
⏹️ ▶️ John you’d put the whatever, whatever you would call it, the light shield, let’s say, over it, and now you’ve blocked
⏹️ ▶️ John all your vision except for the screens, which presumably would fill even more of your field of view than the current Vision Pro does, especially
⏹️ ▶️ John if they’re like wraparound type glasses or whatever. And there you’ve got your immersive VR
⏹️ ▶️ John Vision Pro experience. And maybe that the light shield thing has additional sensors for
⏹️ ▶️ John pass through or whatever. But like, if you can do the glasses, you can do the VR thing. And I don’t even
⏹️ ▶️ John think they need to be separate products if you go to a robotic core and say, this is the smallest that can be. But
⏹️ ▶️ John if you want the immersive experience, add this thing onto it to essentially block out the rest of your vision. Blocking
⏹️ ▶️ John out your vision is pretty easy to do. It’s all the other stuff that’s hard. So I don’t think this is anywhere close to being
⏹️ ▶️ John here. And Matt’s question about like, should Apple have started in the other direction? I think the answer is definitely no, because everyone who
⏹️ ▶️ John started in the other direction has sort of aimed to be like inexpensive, lightweight
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that you can watch movies on in like 1080p in a kind of dim way with poor color reproduction.
⏹️ ▶️ John That doesn’t wow anybody. I really would not want to use like my Max virtual screen inside one
⏹️ ▶️ John of those things. The resolution’s too low. They, to Marco’s point, they don’t have any cameras or sensors for hand control on them or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not close enough to be useful. It’s not anything impressive or useful
⏹️ ▶️ John now. It’s way more or less expensive than $3,500, but Vision Pro, at least what it has going for it, is
⏹️ ▶️ John it does impressive things. It does things better than anyone has done them, and it fits into Apple’s ecosystem.
⏹️ ▶️ John Using your iPad apps, controlling your Mac, it’s trying to be useful today, as opposed to
⏹️ ▶️ John just saying, oh, if you’re on a plane, you can watch not great looking movies and not great
⏹️ ▶️ John looking screens on these glasses that look like really bulky glasses. The Vision Pro says, if you’re willing
⏹️ ▶️ John to put this giant thing on your face, we can look way better and we think you’ll like it. So I don’t think they started
⏹️ ▶️ John from the wrong direction, but it’s gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John a long, to Marko’s point, it’s gonna be a long time before they can do the glasses, even as well as Vision
⏹️ ▶️ John Pro. And by the time they can, the Vision Pro caliber $3,500 thing that you stick on your face is gonna be even
⏹️ ▶️ John better. So it’s not gonna be within the next few years. So just be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco patient. Yeah, and that’s important too, like to point out that as the technology gets better and more miniaturized
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to do maybe those, you know, the clear glasses down the line, everything else will also get faster
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and better and the resource levels will go up and expectations will go up. That’s why, even though the Apple Watch has now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco been out for almost 10 years, right? This is the 10th year, I believe?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But it hasn’t replaced phones. And the current trajectory is for it not to replace
⏹️ ▶️ Marco phones, you know, effectively ever, probably. And the reason why is because our expectations
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of what everything does and what technology is able to do with a given amount of space and power
⏹️ ▶️ Marco goes up over time. And so, while the Apple Watch is today, might be as fast as the iPhones 10
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years ago, and they might have a lot of the same kind of hardware capabilities at the raw level
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as phones 10 years ago did, our phones are now that much better when you apply more power and more space
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and more money. And also the watch’s screen
⏹️ ▶️ John is still roughly the same size. Sure, yeah. Like that’s the biggest limiting factor on the utility of the watch, is it’s just so darn
⏹️ ▶️ John small and it’s on your wrist and you can’t use it with two hands.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, and that’s the thing, those are like physical form factor restrictions that will always
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keep the watch a certain amount behind the phone in terms of hardware capabilities, well, the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco same thing is going to apply with these two types of eyewear, you know, the headset versus the glasses.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They’re both things in front of your eyes, though. They are, but the headset is always going to have way more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco space and weight budget in it for things like a bigger battery or higher computational power
⏹️ ▶️ Marco components. Whereas the glasses will always need to be lighter, smaller,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thinner, like everything will be more restricted there.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, but what they both have going for them, though, is the watch is limited by its form factor, because it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a watch, and human wrists aren’t really changing size, and the fact that we only have two hands isn’t really changing rapidly.
⏹️ ▶️ John But putting things in front of your eyes, eventually, this is, you know, eventually,
⏹️ ▶️ John eventually, you reach the limits of human perception. Audio quality in the music we listen to,
⏹️ ▶️ John not that it is the best it could possibly be, but it has reached a point where pursuing better audio quality
⏹️ ▶️ John for consumer audio is not fruitful. Screens are getting close to
⏹️ ▶️ John that for like desktop screens like retina is, you know, I think they go a little bit farther, but you’re pretty close
⏹️ ▶️ John to exhausting in terms of resolution. We could do better on color and brightness,
⏹️ ▶️ John but like we’re getting close to limits of human perception. So for the VR thing, once
⏹️ ▶️ John the $3,500 thing or whatever equivalent is starts to reach the limits of human
⏹️ ▶️ John perception in terms of resolution, then the AR glasses can essentially catch up because
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s no sense in going higher resolution. There’s still, you know, light field cameras and be able to focus your eyes. There’s always another
⏹️ ▶️ John frontier to jump to, but there is a reasonable point of equilibrium because they’re both competing to put
⏹️ ▶️ John screens in front of your eyes. So I think there will be there will be an area where there is overlap between
⏹️ ▶️ John them until the next breakthrough comes that requires a $3,500 thing. By the way,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco While we’re in our Vision Pro corner, I discovered a new pro and a new
⏹️ ▶️ Marco con for Vision Pro usage this week. The con, which kind of goes along with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what John was just saying, is in movie experience,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I miss the subwoofer. When you watch a movie with decent
⏹️ ▶️ Marco speakers and a subwoofer, you get those awesome low bass sounds and parts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the music and everything. in the Vision Pro, since it’s all headphone based, you don’t get that, no matter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what you’re wearing, because headphones don’t really do that. Just put your Vision Pro on aux.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco up to your stereo
⏹️ ▶️ John system. Send the sound through your home theater system, which has surround speakers, of course. Oh no, at least you
⏹️ ▶️ John have a subwoofer. Sick burn.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Wait, real quick though, are you using the audio pods? You’re not using like AirPods or anything like that?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I tried both, but the thing is, headphones, look, I love headphones. I’m a huge headphone nerd. Headphones in general
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do not have the kind of low bass response that subwoofers have, they can’t. Like it’s just,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you run into physics problems. Even like the very best headphones that have the very best low frequency response
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cannot reach as low as a subwoofer can.
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re not gonna feel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that rumble in your chest. Exactly. And that is part of a good movie experience, in my opinion, for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many movie types. So I do kind of miss that. The Pro, I discovered, is that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the Vision Pro is the first computing device that I can use while I have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco moisturizer or other lotion on my hands without it like gumming up the screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like it’s winter, my hands are always so dry and usually I like before bed, I like put moisturizer on my hands and then I’m like, well now what
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do I do? Like I gotta like wait for it to dry.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, you gotta be careful touching the things, the glass that’s in front of the cameras though.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But you don’t have to touch it. You put the Vision Pro on and then you put the moisturizer in your hands and then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you can sit there and let it dry. Okay, all right. Well then when you’re taking it off. Yeah, well by that time it’s dry.
⏹️ ▶️ John All right, I’m not a moisturizer person. I don’t know the parameters of the moisture problem. I’m like, oh yeah, I wouldn’t want to
⏹️ ▶️ John touch electronics with moisturizer either. But because you have to touch the Vision Pro on like the glass and aluminum part, you can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John grab it by the light shield. So anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Look, John, not all of us are oily like you are. Some of us need a little synthetic oil.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m like that all the time. I’m not putting anything on. It goes on all my devices. You don’t need moisturizer.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco don’t. Don’t use it.
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M3 MacBook Air
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Let’s talk about the semi-breaking news. There are now M3 MacBook Airs.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, actually before we get, German had a rumor right before this broke that he was saying, hey, there’s not going to
⏹️ ▶️ John be any March event for Apple stuff that they’re releasing,
⏹️ ▶️ John iPads, Macs, et cetera. And shortly after he posted that, sure enough, MacBook Airs came out
⏹️ ▶️ John and there was no event for them. When he first posted this,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m like, really? No event for the first redesign of the iPad Pro in six years
⏹️ ▶️ John or wherever it’s been? But since Apple press release, you know, you know, release
⏹️ ▶️ John the MacBook Airs, maybe, maybe there’s they don’t want to have an event for like, I just feel like
⏹️ ▶️ John for the iPads, I would think they would want to explain stuff, but who knows? So so far, he’s one for one,
⏹️ ▶️ John M3 MacBook Airs, no event, just a press release.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, it was surprising. There was a very brief gate, if you will,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very, very brief kerfuffle about the fact that it is stated in the, I guess, press release or whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that it now supports up to two external displays, which first of all, heck yeah, that was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one of the biggest complaints I saw of the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs, that they only support
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one external display.
⏹️ ▶️ John Although when you saw it, Casey, didn’t you think, wait a second, I remember as one of the hosts
⏹️ ▶️ John of ATP that we had many discussions about how the M3 system on a chip
⏹️ ▶️ John cannot support three monitors.
⏹️ ▶️ John why the M3 don’t, you know, like the limitations from the M2 haven’t
⏹️ ▶️ John changed. That thought occurred to you?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was pouring over the tech specs right afterwards. I’m like, how did they do this? I’m like, how is it different from the 14 inch
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, we talked about it so much. It was like, we had a whole thing of like this. They just decided that for the M3, they, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, they’re sticking to what they did in the M2 and you can have three monitors, right? But the answer to that
⏹️ ▶️ John was eventually evident.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, so they say that the only way you get two external displays is if you close the lid on the MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Air. So you can clamshell it to get two external displays. And honestly, I don’t think that’s an
⏹️ ▶️ Casey unreasonable tradeoff. Like, obviously, in a perfect world, you would want to be able to do three displays, you know, one,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the onboard and two externals. But I mean, that’s what the other chips are for. And we have a little bit more information about this.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But suppose to say one external display up to 6K. at 60 Hertz. So you can drive
⏹️ ▶️ Casey your beloved XCR display, or you can close the lid to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey get two 5K displays at 60 Hertz. And I think that’s pretty decent.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think that passes muster for me anyway. But how is this working? So Hector Martin, who is,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think basically the primary if not only developer of what is it? Asahi? Asahi? Something like that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Asahi? Thank you. The Linux that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey destined for the Apple Silicon Macs, Hector writes, Apple introduced
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this capability into the M2 already. What? It’s why the M2 Mac mini supports two displays
⏹️ ▶️ Casey over Type-C or Thunderbolt, while the original M1 Mac mini does not. The laptops are logically equivalent
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to a Mac mini with the HDMI port hardwired to the internal panel. Whoa.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The only reason this wasn’t enabled on M2 laptops so far is that it requires extra firmware support to disable the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey internal panel and reconfigure the primary display pipe for external mode. The firmware has lots of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey special support for the internal panel, so it’s not quote-unquote just another screen connected to the system. There’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a lot of stuff that has to be done properly to make this work as intended. Now the question is whether Apple will backport this to the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey M2 or not. DCP firmware nominally has an identical interface synced between all platforms,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so it should be a common code base, so it should be easy to do, but they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey might explicitly lock it out. I learned
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, so this makes perfect sense because obviously we’ve known the m2 can support two displays So that’s just because I have a built-in one
⏹️ ▶️ John and of course the MacBook Air supports two displays the built-in one and one external one And so allowing it to ignore
⏹️ ▶️ John the external one makes sense As for this being backported to the m2
⏹️ ▶️ John this definitely smells like something that Apple wouldn’t bother doing unless
⏹️ ▶️ John They essentially get it free as Hector was saying like look if it’s if it’s a shared code base and they just have to do the firmware,
⏹️ ▶️ John everybody gets it. And related to that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So there was a brief window of time, several hours, where everyone was losing their mind, and mostly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey understandably, that, hey, there’s a 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey exists in the world that cannot do this. It’s not the M3 Pro, it’s not the M3 Max, it’s just the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey straight up M3 MacBook Pro. It can’t do this. What the what?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, Apple gets on the horn with 9to5Mac and says, Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’re gonna backport that. So Apple’s confirmed to 9to5Mac, that software update for the 14-inch MacBook Pro will
⏹️ ▶️ Casey gain the ability to drive two external displays with the lid closed. This feature will work identically to how it works with the new M3 MacBook Air.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We don’t know yet which software update.
⏹️ ▶️ John Of course, that’s also an M3. So the question remains, will it be backported to M2?
⏹️ ▶️ John And even if Apple sort of gets it for free because it’s like a shared firmware base or whatever, this
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of strikes me as one of those cases where Apple would be like, you know what? It’s a good differentiator for the M3 models to be able to
⏹️ ▶️ John do this in the M2, not. People who bought the M2s bought them without an expectation that they would have this feature.
⏹️ ▶️ John Even if it’s technically possible, I do wonder if Apple’s going to bother backporting it. So I’m glad
⏹️ ▶️ John the M3s are all getting it. I’m glad they essentially backported it to an M3 product that existed before
⏹️ ▶️ John the M3 MacBook Air. I think this is a good compromise. I do continue to hope that in the M7
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever the hell timeline allows them to make changes based on feedback, they will say, you know
⏹️ ▶️ John what, to display controllers in the M3 line might be
⏹️ ▶️ John limiting, not for desktops, but for the laptops, because I mean, we’ll see, we’ll see how people like
⏹️ ▶️ John the M3. Like people are annoyed, like when I dock my laptop at work, I can’t use my two monitors. Well, now you can. Are you happy
⏹️ ▶️ John now? Are you still annoyed that you can’t also have your lid open and use the built-in display?
⏹️ ▶️ John And as we pointed out, when we looked at this, when we were originally discussing this, why did they not make the changes
⏹️ ▶️ John in the M3? The display controllers take up space on the die. They cost money. this is the
⏹️ ▶️ John lowest end M chip. How do you wanna spend the money in that space in that power budget
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever? It still might be the right thing for Apple to
⏹️ ▶️ John do on its lowest end laptops to only support two, but at a certain point as transistors shrink, I
⏹️ ▶️ John think they should spend some of that bounty of additional transistors to put maybe another display controller on
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Indeed. So some of the features that are a little bit different for audio, voice isolation
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and wide spectrum microphone modes and enhanced voice clarity in audio and video calls.
⏹️ ▶️ John Do you think that is? Do you think that’s just like software using the M3’s better neural engine? That doesn’t strike
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco differences. It doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sounds a lot like, because they’ve done similar tricks in the past where they’re like, the webcam got better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it’s like the same component just with better software and image processing. So it’s probably the same thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John And why would it be M3 as opposed to M2? Like the M3 does have a better neural engine, you know, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know. But anyway, there’s not a lot of differences. So we’re reading you all of them.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Indeed. Connectivity moves from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 6E. And with regard to the environment,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the new MacBook Air is the first Apple product to be made with 50% recycled content, including 100% recycled
⏹️ ▶️ Casey aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled rare earth elements and all magnets, and in another first
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for Apple, 100% recycled copper in the main logic board. MacBook Air meets Apple’s high standards
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for energy efficiency and is free of mercury, brominated flame retardants, and PVC. The
⏹️ ▶️ Casey packaging is 99% fiber-based, bringing Apple closer to its goal to remove plastic from all packaging by 2025. Well done. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John every product they come out with, it’s nice to see like they get new stuff to brag about to show that they’re making incremental
⏹️ ▶️ John progress towards their goals, which is nice. There’s one more important feature that the M3 MacBook Airs has.
⏹️ ▶️ John It is, quoting from Apple’s documentation, available in midnight, which features a breakthrough
⏹️ ▶️ John anodization seal to reduce fingerprints. Remember that coating that the black one, the black MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ John has got? This makes me think that the midnight one is getting that coating too, which will really help because the Midnight One
⏹️ ▶️ John looked awful when anybody touched it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The M2, not the M3, but the M2 13-inch MacBook Air is still for sale, starting at a thousand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey bucks. This is in comparison to $1,100 for the M3. The M1 MacBook Air is no longer
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for sale, brand new. Sad,
⏹️ ▶️ John sad, the M1 MacBook Air is gone because, you know, basically the M2 replaces it in
⏹️ ▶️ John the line at the same price point. I’ll miss the wedge. I think there was a Verge story about specifically missing the wedge,
⏹️ ▶️ John but I think we’ve all mourned this when, you know, the
⏹️ ▶️ John MacBook Air was redesigned. But I still think that M1 MacBook Air is so great. Obviously it would have been
⏹️ ▶️ John better if it had MagSafe, but you can’t have everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, this honestly, yeah, it had a great run. The M1 is pretty old now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It was time to let it go out of the lineup. I bidded a fond farewell. I love that computer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It was extremely important and amazing. But yeah, it’s old now, so it was time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to bid it farewell.
⏹️ ▶️ John And honestly, I was consulting with some people about like, should I buy this? You know, someone I was asking, I
⏹️ ▶️ John wanna buy a cheap laptop, what should I get? And I said, well, you should get an M2 MacBook Air but the M3 is gonna come out soon. And
⏹️ ▶️ John this was like weeks ago, lo and behold, the M3 did come out. But what I said was like, look, the M3 is gonna come out
⏹️ ▶️ John but it’s not better in any ways that you care about probably. So wait for the M3 to come
⏹️ ▶️ John out and then get the M2 cheaper. And you can do that right now. Like, I don’t know how long they’re gonna sell the M2, maybe just like
⏹️ ▶️ John they did the M1 for the entire duration. But you can configure an M2 for
⏹️ ▶️ John up to like several hundred dollars cheaper and you used to be able to configure it a couple days before. And
⏹️ ▶️ John are you gonna notice the M3 differences? Maybe the dual display thing, if they don’t backport it, if that’s important
⏹️ ▶️ John to you, but the speed difference or anything like that in this class of machine is not going to be impactful
⏹️ ▶️ John to you. The battery life, Apple’s rating them exactly the same. This is a good time
⏹️ ▶️ John to get a cheap M2. Maybe towards the end of this year, then the M2 will
⏹️ ▶️ John be a little bit longer in the tooth, but right now you can get a good deal on M2 MacBook Air, and that’s a good machine. And if
⏹️ ▶️ John you swapped out someone’s M3 MacBook Air with an M2 one and they didn’t use two external displays, how long would it take
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, it depends on whether they get the navy blue model or not.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John one pretty quickly. The fingerprints would show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up. Yeah, no, but that’s great. Because again, like the MacBook Air, it’s so important to hit low price
⏹️ ▶️ Marco points with that computer. You know, the M2 version has all the modern stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It has the MagSafe, it has the new design, it has the new finishes, like all the stuff that the M1 version
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t have. And now it’s that low priced option. That is fantastic.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I love the MacBook Air line. It is just a delightful computer to use. It’s amazing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to pick up and hold and bring places. It is a great all-around computer, and it is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by far the default choice for almost any needs. If somebody says, I want a computer, you can just say, get
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the MacBook Air. Unless you know specifically that they have some really good reason why they can’t get their work done on a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco MacBook Air, that’s the default for everybody, and it’s great that it got better, and the low-end model got better,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it’s just great news all around.
Apple vs. the world
⏹️ ▶️ John Speaking of great news now, actually, what’s the opposite of that? Speaking of I guess this is like
⏹️ ▶️ John a category that’s been a category in the show and a category in the news for it seems like years now.
⏹️ ▶️ John I guess we would call it Apple versus the world.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Seriously. All right. So Apple was fined approximately two
⏹️ ▶️ Casey billion US dollars. That’s billion with a B billion dollars by the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey EU for App Store practices. This is covered in the Verge from the Verge’s summary. Apple’s been hit with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a fine of 1.84 billion euros, or about 2 billion bucks, by the European Union
⏹️ ▶️ Casey antitrust regulators over its App Store rules, and has been told it cannot stop music services from advertising cheaper subscription deals
⏹️ ▶️ Casey outside of Apple’s store. Apple issued a scathing response to the ruling, which I’m sure we’ll talk about, saying the commission
⏹️ ▶️ Casey failed to quote, uncover any credible evidence, quote, of consumer harm or anti-competitive behavior.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The company also says that Spotify wants to quote, rewrite the rules of the App Store, quote, to gain competitive advantages
⏹️ ▶️ Casey while paying nothing to Apple, despite Apple claiming the App Store was crucial to Spotify’s current market domination.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple says it will appeal the decision. I think, maybe I’m reading this wrong, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the thing that struck me so funny about, I think it was from
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The Verge, the summary from The Verge, but the way they wrote it just struck, stuck out to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey me. The quote is, this decision sent a powerful message. No company, not even a monopoly like Apple, can
⏹️ ▶️ Casey wield power abusively to control how other companies interact with their customers. is so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey funny to me because this is an example of like Apple’s perspective leaking into the Verge’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey coverage of it. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, who do you think there refers to though? It’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, that’s the thing. That’s why I said maybe I’m misreading it. But I read that as this is Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yet again saying these are our customers. They’re not Marco’s customers, your customers, and my customers for, you know, call sheet
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and overcast and whatnot. It’s Apple’s customers.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I think your read is right. Looking at the sentence again.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s that’s gross, man. That’s so gross.
⏹️ ▶️ John mean, that’s that’s that’s the way Apple is frames
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey it. Oh, I know it is. I know. I
⏹️ ▶️ John forgot I forgot to give my my framing of this. I got too distracted by Apple versus the world.
⏹️ ▶️ John I do want to talk about just to summarize. This is a specific ruling. Apple’s going to appeal and blah,
⏹️ ▶️ John blah, blah. And the news here is like the fine is bigger than I thought it was going to be, because there was a leak that it was going to be like 500 million.
⏹️ ▶️ John Turns out it’s two billion. And we’ll talk more about that in a second. But I do want to sort of give the overview
⏹️ ▶️ John of this, because I think it is It is instructive and kind of sort of define, sketches
⏹️ ▶️ John the outline of this whole debate in a way that is easy to miss because of all the details
⏹️ ▶️ John that we’re going to get into. This is the European Union, we’ve said this before but we
⏹️ ▶️ John reiterate, deciding that there’s insufficient competition in certain markets and they want
⏹️ ▶️ John to increase the competition. I know this sounds stupid but bear with me. In the US, people who are in the US are
⏹️ ▶️ John familiar with, you know, study history or social studies class or whatever, the Sherman Antitrust Act. The idea that there’s
⏹️ ▶️ John like say only one company in the United States that can sell cars, that’s bad for consumers because if
⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t like the cars from that one company, you don’t have a choice where to buy something
⏹️ ▶️ John else. And you’re like, well, someone will just start a competing car company. That’s capitalism. But then if you try
⏹️ ▶️ John to start a competing car company, and of course, car companies get all their parts from this part supplier network, and you’re like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m going to buy, you know, you start a new car company and you go try to buy tires from the tire company.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the one big car company says, hey, if you sell tires to that startup, we’re not going to buy any of your tires anymore and
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re going to go out of business. That would be an example of abusing monopoly power. And we have laws against
⏹️ ▶️ John that. That’s what the Sherman Antitrust Act is about in this country to say, if there is what
⏹️ ▶️ John we call in a monopoly, one big giant company that controls too much stuff, it’s bad for consumers
⏹️ ▶️ John for exactly that reason. It’s not illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to say to the tire manufacturer, If you
⏹️ ▶️ John sell tires to any of those startups that are trying to compete with us, we will cut you off and you will go
⏹️ ▶️ John out of business. That’s abusing monopoly power. The EU says there’s insufficient
⏹️ ▶️ John competition in, you know, smartphones or whatever, like whatever, whatever, however they define the market there.
⏹️ ▶️ John But in the EU, they don’t have the same rules as we do about like there needs to be one big
⏹️ ▶️ John giant company that is overall dominant. They’ve decided that Apple and Android as sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John a duopoly with two companies more or less dividing up the entire market for like smart phones, for example,
⏹️ ▶️ John it doesn’t matter that, you know, neither one of them is the only game in town. It’s like, well, if
⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t like Apple, you can go to Android. And if you don’t like Android, you can go to Apple, see competition. The EU has decided that’s not enough
⏹️ ▶️ John competition. So everything they’re doing is based on that
⏹️ ▶️ John theory that there’s not enough competition. And when there’s not enough competition, it’s not good for consumers.
⏹️ ▶️ John More specifically, there happens to be a few important companies in Europe, like, say, Spotify, that
⏹️ ▶️ John obviously lobby them and have a vested interest in saying, you know, Apple is being real unfair
⏹️ ▶️ John to us on their platform, and we don’t like this, and so on and so forth. That’s kind of details, though I just want to know the big
⏹️ ▶️ John picture is, in theory, not enough competition, according to the EU, and
⏹️ ▶️ John their rules are different than ours. And they want to find a way to make more competition
⏹️ ▶️ John with varying degrees of success. I think keeping that in mind,
⏹️ ▶️ John helps to frame this not as like, who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy,
⏹️ ▶️ John who’s right, who’s wrong, Apple should be able to do this, why can’t Apple do what it wants with its customers?
⏹️ ▶️ John Is the EU being mean? Is the EU being good? Like, you can have your opinions about
⏹️ ▶️ John it, but what the EU is trying to do makes sense if you understand
⏹️ ▶️ John their worldview. From a US perspective, it doesn’t make, like you just read in that thing, like that Apple,
⏹️ ▶️ John was this quote from The Verge? no company, not even a monopoly like Apple, the thing that you just
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey read, I’m pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sure it was from the verge. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John A monopoly like Apple, American reads that and says, Apple’s not a monopoly.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like in the smartphone, in no market is Apple a monopoly. Like they don’t have like 99%
⏹️ ▶️ John smartphone share. They don’t have 99% share of like, even like AirPods or like they’re, they’re not a monopoly. And it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John like, that’s the EU doesn’t care that they don’t dominate. The EU cares that they’re too big.
⏹️ ▶️ John There’s no percentage market share, percentage profits, or whatever. They said, it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John matter that they’re not the only game in town. There’s too few games in town. There’s not enough
⏹️ ▶️ John competition. And we read that and saying, that’s unfair. I’ve said this in the past, trying to say, according
⏹️ ▶️ John to US laws or whatever. It’s like saying Honda has a monopoly on Honda cars. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s kind of tautological, right? But it’s like, but there are other car makers. And the EU has said, essentially,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s not enough. There’s not enough competition. And so we need to make this playing
⏹️ ▶️ John field more level. Gruber had a post about some of the things we’re gonna talk about today as well, saying like, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John what is the EU saying? Who should decide who gets to like, do things on Apple’s platform? Shouldn’t Apple get to
⏹️ ▶️ John decide that? Is the EU saying they should get to decide it? And my answer to that is, yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco that’s what they’re saying.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’re saying, you, Apple, because you’re too big and Android and whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ John we are going to impose rules on you. Even though you made the platform, is your company, you do the thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John and in your American sensibilities and your American concept of monopoly, you say, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want. I’m a
⏹️ ▶️ John private company. Who is the government to tell me who I can and can’t allow on the app store? If I say Spotify can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John put a link to alternate payment methods, it’s my platform. I make the, if they don’t like it, they can go somewhere else. And E.E.
⏹️ ▶️ John was saying, that would be fine if there was more competition, but there’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not. And so we’ve decided we’re going to impose rules on you. And that I think gets
⏹️ ▶️ John lost in a lot of this discussion. I mean, I feel almost like it kind of got lost in Gerber’s thing of like him not under not
⏹️ ▶️ John even understanding what they’re saying. It’s like, yeah, that’s 100% what they’re saying. That’s their whole point.
⏹️ ▶️ John Not enough competition. Government steps into, in theory, restore competition for
⏹️ ▶️ John the good of consumers. Now, are they successful at that? Like the DMA? We don’t know how it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John going to work. We talked about it many past shows, but we have some questions and same thing here. But I do want to just
⏹️ ▶️ John put this long winded framing up front to put everyone in the right mindset of like what’s happening in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’ve talked about this so much. And I don’t know that there’s much more. Well, of course,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there’s much more to say because the three of us, but I’m trying not to go down the rabbit hole that we find ourselves in so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey much about Apple’s attitudes towards third party developers. But I mean, I’m I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not upset by this, to be honest with you. Like, I feel I feel like the more I read
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about the more maybe it’s a little more narrow than I want it to be. So let me read some excerpts
⏹️ ▶️ Casey from the EU’s actual press release about it, which to the best of my knowledge is the only real documentation we have so far.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But the EU press release reads in part, Apple is currently the sole provider
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of an app store where developers can distribute their apps to iOS users.
⏹️ ▶️ John This is them essentially saying Honda has a monopoly on Honda cars.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. The commission’s investigation found that Apple bans music streaming app developers from fully informing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app and from providing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey any instructions about how to subscribe to such offers. These anti-steering provisions are neither necessary nor
⏹️ ▶️ Casey proportionate for the protection of Apple’s commercial interests in relation to the app store on Apple’s smart
⏹️ ▶️ Casey mobile devices and negatively affect the interests of iOS users who cannot make informed and effective
⏹️ ▶️ Casey decisions on where and how to purchase music streaming subscriptions for use on their device.
⏹️ ▶️ John This is them essentially, like they’re not saying this, but the implication is that look, users
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t have a choice to go elsewhere. If you assume users are stranded on iOS, like there’s no real
⏹️ ▶️ John choice for them to go elsewhere, which we know is not true, they can go to Android, but they’re basically saying there’s not enough choice so that
⏹️ ▶️ John your normal answer of saying, hey, whatever we do on our platform, man, they don’t like
⏹️ ▶️ John it, they can leave. The premise of this is that
⏹️ ▶️ John they can’t make effective decisions on how to purchase streaming music or whatever. Yeah, they can’t do that on
⏹️ ▶️ John iOS because of Apple’s rules, but why do they have to be on iOS? And the EU is like, it’s too much, man, There’s only two
⏹️ ▶️ John companies and they both do very similar things. And so the out is not for Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John or Android to say if they don’t like it, they can go to our one competitor. The EU says, just assume they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John stranded, given that they’re stranded, given that like they have no choice, like like it’s like the public airwaves,
⏹️ ▶️ John like there’s only one set of public airwaves or whatever. There’s only, you know, air pollution. There’s only one atmosphere for all of us, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John There’s only one iOS for all of us at Android and iOS. And we all have to be there to live our lives. This is
⏹️ ▶️ John why the EU has decided there’s insufficient competition on these two important platforms. They’re dispensing with
⏹️ ▶️ John the notion that there is any real competition and that people can make choice and they’re saying given that people are
⏹️ ▶️ John essentially trapped Again, I know they’re not but that’s what given the people that are where they are and realistically There’s nowhere
⏹️ ▶️ John else for them to go We have to make sure that this place where they’re effectively trapped is Fairer
⏹️ ▶️ John than it is and that I think is really interesting because again when Apple looks at this they’re like what the
⏹️ ▶️ John hell man It’s our platform. We should be able to do what they want and the EU is like well given that people are stuck on your platform I was like, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John how are they stuck on our platform? They can just go to Android. And Android does the same thing about Apple. And honestly,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not the way we do things in the US, but I see their point of view. And I also see how
⏹️ ▶️ John a duopoly is, especially with respect to the Sherman Antitrust Act and our monopoly laws, having a
⏹️ ▶️ John duopoly like Android and iOS is a very convenient kind of get out of jail
⏹️ ▶️ John free card according to US laws. If it’s like, we’re not a monopoly and never will be. So
⏹️ ▶️ John now if we in Android more or less do kind of similar things, that’s competition,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? And we all know like we all have to have mobile phones. And there’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s no place for us to go, except for the other company that does exactly the same thing. So I kind of I kind of do feel that there’s insufficient competition
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. And just to quickly reiterate and recap the issue, or at least the way I understand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the issue is that Apple forbids, generally speaking, forbids people from saying, hey,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey If you don’t want to buy our thing on the app store, but the using an app purchase or whatever, go to, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey www.spotifyischeaperontheweb.com and we’ll sell it to you there for less money because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the, the implied thing there is we’re not paying 30% to Apple. And Apple has made it very plain
⏹️ ▶️ Casey since I can remember that that is forbidden. That’s the anti-steering thing. You are not allowed to steer
⏹️ ▶️ Casey your customers, not Apple’s customers, your customers to your own
⏹️ ▶️ Casey website in order to establish a relationship with them, you’re not you’re not allowed to steer them
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to your own website in order to sell at a cheaper rate than what you would sell
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on Apple’s platforms. None of that is allowed. And that’s the crux of the issue.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, Spotify doesn’t like it, they can just get off the iOS platform, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John a perfectly viable thing for Spotify to do? What’s the problem? 100%?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t I don’t know why they’re whining.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s what you feel like, you know, maybe there’s a better analogy, like instead of users being trapped, like, that’s not an option for Spotify.
⏹️ ▶️ John Just just stop selling to 50% of the population. What’s the big deal? Spotify,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey In setting the level of the fine, the Commission took into account the duration
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and gravity of the infringement as well as Apple’s total turnover and market capitalization. It also factored in that Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey submitted incorrect information in the framework of the administrative procedure. In addition, the Commission decided to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey add to the basic amount of the fine an additional lump sum of 1.8 billion euros
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to ensure that the overall fine imposed on Apple is sufficiently deterrent. In addition, the fine must be
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sufficient to deter Apple from repeating the present or a similar infringement and to deter
⏹️ ▶️ Casey other companies of a smaller size and with similar resources from committing the same or a similar infringement.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Commission has also ordered Apple to remove the anti-steering provisions and to refrain from repeating the infringement
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or from adopting practices with an equivalent object or effect in the future.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Dear Apple, get f***ed, love the EU.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well I don’t know if two billion dollars is a, see I’ll do it nicely, is a get f***ed response because Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John might be like, this annoys us but we make two billion dollars in Start the Stopwatch.
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not nothing, but Apple makes a lot of money. So I do, like it’s so hard to figure out what is a deterrent
⏹️ ▶️ John versus what is like, you know, what is the amount that makes Apple leave the EU versus what is the amount
⏹️ ▶️ John that is too cheap for Apple to notice. I think this kind of hits the right level because Apple seems pretty annoyed
⏹️ ▶️ John about it, but I’m not sure it deters Apple from anything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, keep in mind, though, like, you know, the amount the European Commission is, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco assigning as a fine seems arbitrary enough that if Apple does just blatantly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco say, all right, fine, we’ll pay it and keep doing what we’re doing, they can just then find them a lot more next time.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, yeah. No, I don’t think they’re going to keep doing it. I think they’ll, I mean, because a lot of the stuff, this is part of the debate on this is
⏹️ ▶️ John this is a previous ruling that is superseded by the DMA, which disallows the anti-steering
⏹️ ▶️ John thing anyway, which is part of Apple’s response.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Steven McCue And I expect we’re going to be debating and they’re going to be going through court for years
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on whether their DMA response is compliant with the DMA or not. Paul
⏹️ ▶️ John Sherman I don’t know if that’s a court for years thing, but we still don’t know the answer to that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Steven McCue Yeah, I think it’s going to be, I assume Epic’s going to fight it, we’ll get to that in a bit. I assume Spotify
⏹️ ▶️ Marco might continue to kind of lobby against it in the background. We’ll get to that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. No, there have been many people filing filing briefs essentially saying hey, we saw Apple’s response to the DMA
⏹️ ▶️ John and we company that’s out here thinks it’s totally not compliant just for what’s that worth what for what’s that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John worth go ahead European Commission and tell us whether it’s really compliant,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, what hits home here for us is we have Apple continuing to tell
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this, you know storyline to themselves and the press and the courts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the world that effectively says that developers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bring nothing to the platform and that we owe Apple for all of our business and that we provide
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no value to the platform that certainly you know the iPhone doesn’t need Spotify. Spotify needs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the iPhone. The iPhone doesn’t need any of our apps. The iPhone would sell itself without any apps whatsoever.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know we are just sucking on on the value that they’re providing and we owe them everything.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think Apple has ever said that. That’s how you feel and that’s a lot of things that Apple says in
⏹️ ▶️ John that direction. But Apple has never, I’m gonna be fair to Apple, they’ve never come straight out and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco said that. No, but that’s basically their argument here. And in their response to this, they really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lean on that pretty heavily.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And by the way, this response. Is something, it is something. First of all, yeah, it’s terribly written. Like whoever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wrote this, it had to be a very high up executive because whoever wrote it didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get edited enough. And so it had to be somebody so high up that they couldn’t get edited enough. Whoever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wrote this should not be writing things for Apple’s press releases.
⏹️ ▶️ John In a future topic, we have some things that Apple wrote that actually have names signed to them. So you can tell me if you think
⏹️ ▶️ John it sounds like the same person. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco poorly written. It sounds juvenile. It sounds petty. Oh, god, yes. And I wonder, the whole time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m reading this, I’m wondering, who is this for? Who are they writing this for?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Is it for the public? Because it’s not a good look. Is it for regulators? Because I don’t think they need to write
⏹️ ▶️ Marco press releases to regulators. Is it to courts? I doubt it. That’s not really the venue for that either. Who is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it for? I think it’s to the media. Did they
⏹️ ▶️ John think this would make them look good, though? The reason we have this link is because every single article that talked
⏹️ ▶️ John about this linked to Apple’s response and quoted it. So that’s what it’s for. There’s going to be stories on this fine, and
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple wants to have its say on those stories, and this is Apple’s say. Apple should not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have this say. It’s for their own good. They should not be saying this in this way.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know how well he jobbed it, but that’s the target audience.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think you’re both right. I think Marco is 100% correct that this is extremely petty,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey extremely juvenile, extremely vindictive. Somebody in the chat room just said
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they’re acting like a petulant child, couldn’t agree more. But I also think that John is right. The purpose for this is to have some sort of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey official statement for the press. So let’s read a few excerpts. Today, the European Commission announced a decision claiming
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the App Store has been a barrier to competition in the digital music market. The decision was reached despite
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm and ignores the realities of a market is thriving,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey competitive, and growing fast.
⏹️ ▶️ John So on that, on the consumer harm, again, from an American perspective and the
⏹️ ▶️ John various laws and cases that have been on things like this, they’re usually pretty well-defined.
⏹️ ▶️ John Things that you have to show to be evidence of consumer harm, very often
⏹️ ▶️ John in US law, it’s fixated on prices. Has the price of x gone up or down over
⏹️ ▶️ John time? And if the price hasn’t gone up, then where is the harm to consumers? Obviously,
⏹️ ▶️ John we know, and I think most people involved in these cases know, that consumer harm
⏹️ ▶️ John can take more forms than just high prices. Lack of choice, things
⏹️ ▶️ John that consumers never even get a choice to pay money for because they’re disallowed, all of that is
⏹️ ▶️ John harm that is not as simple as saying, hey, look at the price of this thing. That would be such a ham-fisted
⏹️ ▶️ John way to do it, like the Amazon model of, we’ll put everyone else out of business, and once we have a dominant
⏹️ ▶️ John market share, then we’ll just crank up the prices. That that’s like a, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John evil pharmaceutical bro level of because that has happened to pharmaceuticals,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? But and it’s like naked label, but like the smarter strategy is just to maintain your dominant
⏹️ ▶️ John position, reap your good margins and not not kill the golden goose by suddenly jacking up the prices a thousand percent
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever. So Apple saying there’s no consumer harm. I think the whole EU thing says like look,
⏹️ ▶️ John here’s what we consider consumer harm. They don’t have a choice. the Spotify can’t explain a better deal to
⏹️ ▶️ John them. And yeah, like the prices may be the same or lower or flatter, not, you know, not changing
⏹️ ▶️ John that much, but there are many other ways to judge harm. So this is a place where Apple and the EU essentially disagree
⏹️ ▶️ John or Apple is being disingenuous and saying, we don’t see any consumer harm, show us the consumer harm. The EU is like, we’re trying
⏹️ ▶️ John to show you the consumer harm, but it’s not as simple as look how the price has gone up.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey If you took your fingers out of your ears, maybe we could talk to you about it. Anyway, going back to Apple’s response, Spotify has a 56%
⏹️ ▶️ Casey share of Europe’s music streaming market, more than double their closest competitors, according to who
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I wonder, but anyway, and Apple pays, and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world. See, this is where I think Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I jump in and say, this is it, this is Apple saying, we did all the work.
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, but they say a large part of their success is due to the App Store. They don’t say all of their success, 100% of their
⏹️ ▶️ John success. they say a large part. They don’t even do a percentage. Come
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on. I don’t think a lot of people are discovering Spotify through the App Store.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m pretty sure people know about Spotify who want to search for it, and they just need to download the Spotify
⏹️ ▶️ Marco app. I don’t think the App Store is really delivering a lot of value there.
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple is not saying that they’re bringing no value to the platform, that Spotify brings no value to the iOS platform
⏹️ ▶️ Casey They’re towing the line. They’re coming right up the line and saying,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m just saying, like, I know it makes you feel that way, away. And that is the emotional impact of it. But they literally
⏹️ ▶️ John aren’t saying that. And as for the market share, this is a great one. Because I believe that Spotify has a free tier.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yes, that’s a huge part of their business. And that’s got a massively impact their market share, how many
⏹️ ▶️ John people pay for Spotify versus how many people pay for Apple Music? What does that share break down
⏹️ ▶️ John to? Because, you know, Spotify doesn’t make money from free customers, like it wants to convert them into paying
⏹️ ▶️ John customers. But like, it has to pay money for the for the music that the free customers stream.
⏹️ ▶️ John They are negative, right? And so yes, Spotify that has a free tier has 56% market share.
⏹️ ▶️ John That is actually damning for apples that said, look, your competitor has a free option and they’re barely
⏹️ ▶️ John ahead of you. Or I don’t know what Apple share is. Maybe it’s not the other, you know, remaining 44% or whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ John other players, but Apple’s a pretty big one. But yeah, like, like I would citing this market share and by the way, market share is not
⏹️ ▶️ John the be all end all, but citing this market share when Spotify has a free tier is really not particularly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Continuing, we’re proud to play a key role
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John supporting Spotify
⏹️ ▶️ Casey success, a key role in supporting Spotify success as we have for developers of all sizes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey from the app stores earliest days. The European Commission is issuing this decision just before their new regulation, the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Digital Markets Act comes into force. Apple is set to comply with DMA in days and our plans include changes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the rules challenged here. What’s clear is that this decision is not grounded in existing competition law.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s an effort by the commission to enforce the DMA before the DMA becomes law.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’ll say, look, you already scolded us for this and we’re changing it and we’re totally compliant, aren’t we?
⏹️ ▶️ John So I don’t know why you’re doing this fine for. And it’s like, Apple, you got in trouble for this before
⏹️ ▶️ John the DMA. Like you have to sort of, I know things take a long time and they overlap with each other, but like it’s a timeline of
⏹️ ▶️ John events. It’s like, you did this bad thing and then we passed the DMA and now you have to comply with that. But
⏹️ ▶️ John just because like, you already passed the law that’s making me fix this, you still get punished for doing it. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John again, I don’t necessarily agree Like you can say the EU shouldn’t it’s like if you want to sell things in the
⏹️ ▶️ John EU you got to deal with the EU and their rules and this is how their system works and
⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t get to erase your past fine because now you’re doing something That makes the
⏹️ ▶️ John bad thing you did impossible anyway, as far as you’re concerned again, assuming you comply So not a strong
⏹️ ▶️ John response, but I think it could have been worse And I I do think that apple is trying to thread the needle
⏹️ ▶️ John They even had a thing the one thing I think you can really call them on it’s not quoted here I’ll try to do it from memory. But at one point they said,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, App Store is great. It’s a level playing field for everybody. Like this is not the exact language.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Today, developers compete on a level playing field on the App Store. Apps are reviewed according to a comprehensive set of rules
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which are designed to protect our users. And meeting those rules means developers of all sizes can reach more than a billion devices
⏹️ ▶️ John All right. So that’s their level playing field argument. And they’ve said that before or whatever. And then in the same document,
⏹️ ▶️ John I believe they say, hey, we flew Apple engineers out to Spotify to help them with their app.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s not a level playing for how many Apple engineers has Apple flown out to you Casey to help you with your
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m not saying this is wrong I say it makes perfect sense But like Apple can’t do both arguments in the same document
⏹️ ▶️ John and say it’s a totally level playing field Everybody gets the same shot, but we flew engineers to Spotify. Just
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t say it’s level playing field It’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and also why might it have been valuable to fly engineers to Spotify,
⏹️ ▶️ John Right? Yeah Why does Spotify get but you get different treatment?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, maybe it’s because an iPhone that didn’t have a Spotify app would be less valuable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to iPhone customers. Hmm. Yep. What a
⏹️ ▶️ John concept. Yeah. I mean, and again, I’ve said for since the first time we discussed it years ago,
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple should do that. Big customers and the good customers. That’s one of my complaints about the App Store that
⏹️ ▶️ John being a quote unquote good developer that makes quality apps doesn’t get you enough privileges in
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Apple’s book. Right. Agreed.
⏹️ ▶️ John Agreed. same document, they also want to say it’s a level playing field. And
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s obviously not, nor should it be in this way. Obviously, the EU wants to make there be more competition.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the main playing field they’re trying to level is not between different companies
⏹️ ▶️ John in the App Store. It is always between all the EU stuff is between all the companies in the App Store.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the person who owns the App Store, the company that owns the App Store, it’s always between Apple and n developers.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not between like Spotify and title that The EU is not trying to level the playing field between
⏹️ ▶️ John Spotify and Tidal because they think Spotify is getting unfair preferential treatment from Apple. That could
⏹️ ▶️ John be a thing that they could complain about, but that’s not what they’re complaining. They’re complaining that Apple, who owns the platform
⏹️ ▶️ John and doesn’t pay itself 30%, has a huge advantage over Spotify.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We’ve even flown our engineers to Stockholm to help Spotify’s teams in person, and the result is that when a user opens
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the Spotify app, listens to music on their computer, asks Siri to play a song from their library, everything just works. And again, Spotify
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pays Apple nothing.
⏹️ ▶️ John Those engineers that they fly out there, they should have them work on Apple Music because sometimes it doesn’t just work there.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Also, earlier, or just a bit earlier in the same document, our app review team has reviewed and approved 421 versions
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the Spotify app, usually with same day turnaround in frequently expedites reviews at Spotify’s request.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But yes, all of us are equal. Yeah, it must be frigging nice.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, in all fairness, app review has been a lot faster recently for everybody.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you’re right, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey right. It is,
⏹️ ▶️ John but yeah, they’re getting nice treatment. And again, I think they should, but like that’s, you know, It’s just weird
⏹️ ▶️ John for them to say in the same document, level playing field, they’re all developers treated the same.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One of the, and the thing is, and I think Apple actually, they do make some good points in this document,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which is why, like, I see what they were going for. They do have some good points.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One of the best points they make is that Spotify for some reason does
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not use the Reader app exception.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We should explain real quick what it is. So, Reader apps, which is a very poor
⏹️ ▶️ Casey name, but it’s the name that Apple landed on. Are apps like ebook apps, Netflix,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey things where basically you’re getting new content regularly and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey certain apps fall into this category, like Netflix and Spotify, where they can apply
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for and get an exception to this anti-steering thing. And that only has happened in the last few years, I think.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t remember exactly when it was.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I think it was a year and a half ago or so. And it’s specifically, it isn’t just apps that have new content. It’s apps
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where the primary purpose of the app is to access media
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that you have purchased on their website or have a streaming subscription or something. And so like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Netflix, the Kindle, like stuff like that, that is the main purpose of the app is to consume certain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco predefined types of content, audio, video, books. And this allows them to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco link out to their website by putting up first, putting up a scare sheet that using Apple SDK saying,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re about to leave the web, you’re about to leave this app and Apple can’t protect you from the scary
⏹️ ▶️ Marco scammy website. stuff’s gonna get stolen. Ah! But you can get an exception.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You can have a single fixed link that your app can link out to with certain design
⏹️ ▶️ Marco requirements around what the link has to look like that basically says, you can create an account on Netflix.com and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then Netflix.com can be an underlined blue label that you can click on and it will show the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco scare sheet and then kick you out to Netflix in the web browser. And they are allowed to then have you purchase
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things there without paying Apple any commission with no, that’s it, Apple’s out of the game, no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco requirements after that. It is like the one major exception to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco App Store, like, you know, no external payment kind of integration at all. It’s the one big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco exception. Apple made this exception for this one category of apps, the reader quote category,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and Spotify qualifies. And for some reason, they don’t do it.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think I can understand why they don’t, because it’s so limiting. Like, they want more, essentially. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, they want freedom to basically be able to have a big flashing banner that says, say, 30 percent lower
⏹️ ▶️ John price dollar sign. That’s like all the rules that Apple has about that link are so incredibly restrictive
⏹️ ▶️ John I think, strategically decided that, like, look, let’s continue to lobby the EU regulation body
⏹️ ▶️ John to say, we’re a European company, we’re getting screwed by Apple. We want you to fix things. And it makes their case stronger to
⏹️ ▶️ John say, look at the state of our app. We don’t even have a way to let people go over there. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe if they had done this, then Apple would say, look, with, they’re already linking to us. There’s no problem to be solved. And I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know if it makes their case stronger or weaker, but either way, I don’t think Spotify is satisfied
⏹️ ▶️ John with the reader exception. And so their argument now has clarity of saying, look, here’s the app.
⏹️ ▶️ John We can’t link out to our things. We should be able to. We should be able to without draconian restrictions
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, and because the main restrictions on it are, first of all, the link you link out to has to be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like a statically defined URL. So you You cannot have a user ID appended
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the end of it or something. And so to use it to actually bump someone out of the app,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco buy something on your website, and then kick back into your app can be very cumbersome for the user and would have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a low conversion rate as a result. And Apple knows that. That’s one of the reasons why they require it to be a fixed URL with no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco parameters. So that’s one reason. But also, they have actually rules against, like you can’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco say around the link in your UI, this is cheaper on our website. Go get it here for only $10 instead
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of $13 or whatever. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John let alone by how much cheaper it is. Like you can’t do like basic marketing. Like this, you will save this amount of
⏹️ ▶️ John money by clicking here.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, you can’t even say you will save money by clicking here. You can say nothing about it. You can simply say
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in neutral language, like you can create an account on our website here.
⏹️ ▶️ John create an account on our website. You can attend a lab, but don’t say anything else.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then also, if you use the external payment reader app exemption,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that app is not allowed to also use an app purchase. So Apple’s saying, fine, you know what? you’re gonna
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have competition with our system, you don’t get our system at all. And so for some apps, they would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rather offer both because then they can get the higher conversion rates of people who will only use in-app purchase,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then they get them as well. But Apple says, nope, if you apply for this exemption, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are not allowed to use our system at all. We’re gonna take our ball and go home, which honestly, I think that’s their prerogative to do.
⏹️ ▶️ John But at that point, it’s not fair because they’re, it’s like, oh, so we can make our own system
⏹️ ▶️ John that looks as nice and works as well as in-app purchase? no, you’re literally not allowed to not that you’re not
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco technically capable of
⏹️ ▶️ John it. You’re literally not allowed to make something that’s as nice as an app purchase. And that purchase can show you the prices,
⏹️ ▶️ John it can send information loop you back through like you don’t lose any like it’s just they are disallowed
⏹️ ▶️ John technique there by by rules not allowed to make something that actually is competitive with
⏹️ ▶️ John an app purchase. And that’s ridiculous.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But that being said, like, I think the reader app exemption is by far the the biggest
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hole Apple has opened up in their tight grip on when I AP Spotify qualifies to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use it and they don’t use it. I see why they wanted to do what you were just saying like strategically. They
⏹️ ▶️ Marco want to be able to go to regulators and say we’re not going to do this this, you know, highly restrictive half-baked solution because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is not what we want, but I think it leaves Apple a huge counter argument to then say look we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gave them this door and they’re willingly not taking it.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m not sure that’s much of a counter argument though given who they’re arguing to which is the European Commission and Spotify
⏹️ ▶️ John is the European company and like I just when you’re you’re not in some, there’s not like legal precedent or whatever, because
⏹️ ▶️ John these are government bodies made like, it’s a difference when we talk about these things in the US, and we’ll talk about epic in a second.
⏹️ ▶️ John But like, when there’s court cases, and there’s law and there’s precedent and there’s rules of evidence, it’s different than
⏹️ ▶️ John like, a lot of those court cases, what they say is like, look, if you don’t like the decision, then you know, Congress should pass
⏹️ ▶️ John a law that changes this. And in the EU, it’s not a court case where they’re trying to
⏹️ ▶️ John interpret current law and say, whether you violated the EU is basically just saying, Like, look, we’re making a bunch of rules.
⏹️ ▶️ John The DMA is a bunch of new rules that is the equivalent of, like, here are some new rules
⏹️ ▶️ John that you have to follow if you want to be here. In the US, we just accept the fact that Congress can’t actually pass any laws.
⏹️ ▶️ John But in the EU, they can make up new regulations, apparently with
⏹️ ▶️ John reasonable efficiency. Are those regulations good or well written? No, but they make them. And so it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John like, oh, they have a strong argument here. Because the EU will say, yeah, no, we decided. We don’t buy
⏹️ ▶️ John that. That’s why we made these new rules. So do it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I get the argument that Apple makes that look, they put in a lot of money and a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of time and a lot of effort making this platform that we are all as developers and as users
⏹️ ▶️ Casey eager to use. And they deserve to be compensated in some way, shape or form for that effort.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so far, so far, I think I’m with them. But it’s what Marco said, right? First of all, they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pretty handsomely compensated. And second of all, I don’t feel like I am getting 30%
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of value from what they give me. And that’s, I think the disconnect
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is if they were doing a whole bunch more in, in maybe, you know, sometime we can argue
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about what that would look like, but if they were doing a whole bunch more, a whole bunch more for me, maybe I wouldn’t grumble so much
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about 15 to 30%, but I feel like I’m getting very little
⏹️ ▶️ Casey from the app store and I feel like I’m getting poked in the eye from
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple on a regular basis with regard to all these policies. Well, maybe not me. I shouldn’t say that I’m not personally
⏹️ ▶️ Casey getting poked in the eye, but I’m seeing all of these other developers getting poked in the eye and it kind of makes you wonder, all right, when
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is, when is it my turn? And. And it’s tough because it’s hard for me
⏹️ ▶️ Casey taking, trying to take myself out of this situation as much as possible and trying to be a neutral third
⏹️ ▶️ Casey party. I get Apple’s point. Like they made the platform. They want to be compensated for it. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey get that, but I think that they’ve really lost sight of, and we said this a while ago, they’ve lost sight of the fact that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that platform would be a piece of shit if it wasn’t for all of these third-party apps, right? I don’t think they’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really embraced or understood this. And I don’t know that they ever will short of all of us,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you know, unifying and deciding to pull our apps from the app store for a few days, which will never fricking work anyway. But I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just don’t think they’ll ever get it. And it’s that like, like entitled attitude
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I just, it just makes my skin crawl. And that’s what I find so upsetting. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when something like this happens, I’m like, yeah, all right, cool. I’m here for it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. And, and again, like, and it hurts them in so many other areas. Like, again, look at vision pro here’s a brand new platform desperately
⏹️ ▶️ Marco needs software and no one’s there for it. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if we want to over index on that. I know, I know we said that and it’s, it’s a narrative that makes sense, but like also
⏹️ ▶️ John they haven’t sold a lot of them and it’s expensive and I think a lot of the people who I think it’s part of the reason developers
⏹️ ▶️ John sat out as sort of a they protest, but honestly, they’re gonna come, they’re gonna make apps for it if the platform is successful. Like that’s,
⏹️ ▶️ John in the end, that is how these things usually work. Like maybe they’ll make them gradually and maybe they won’t be great and
⏹️ ▶️ John it won’t be as popular as the iPhone platform or whatever, but I suspect that
⏹️ ▶️ John if they sell many millions more Vision Pros, all those companies that sat out
⏹️ ▶️ John will suddenly be like, all right, I guess we have to make an app for this thing too. But to your point, it’s not going to be
⏹️ ▶️ John the vibrant developer ecosystem where everyone is anxious to hop on board like the iPhone was in the early
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It just continues kind of the sour attitude that Apple keeps creating among developers,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and small and large. Obviously the large companies are not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco huge fans of Apple right now and have not been for a while because of all this stuff. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’ve also now, they keep souring the small developers with their attitude too. And I think it’s going to be,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it’s gonna be difficult for them to keep drumming up developer interest
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in ways that will benefit their platforms tremendously. And it is, I think, a long-term
⏹️ ▶️ Marco strategic error, as I’ve said before, that they don’t loosen up any further
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it causes all these problems that will potentially affect their platforms in much larger ways.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, whatever profit they’re making on the difference between
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what they make now from the App Store and what they would make if they loosened the grip a little bit, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nothing compared to what they make from a new platform’s hardware sales, like the iPhone,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the Apple Watch, like the iPad, like the, they have these platforms that need
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good app ecosystems. They need people to want to develop apps for them. They need new apps that are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco coming on the market to be developed for them first or only. And right now,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the customer volume on mostly the iPhone is really the main driving
⏹️ ▶️ Marco factor there. They’re really losing a lot of the developer goodwill. They’ve burned it all over
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the course of the last 15 years or so. Like, they’ve lost so much of it. Developers used to be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco willing to make a lot of apps for platforms that didn’t have massive numbers of users,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like, historically, almost everything Apple’s ever made. And now that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco attitude has been severely eroded by the Tim Cook era of like squeezing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco every single penny out of developers. And then as you start seeing,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, some of the hardware products mature and the growth slow down, you start scrounging around the couch cushions,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hey, where can we squeeze next? And you start doing really ridiculous things like some of the internet purchase rules
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and, you know, starting to eye companies and saying, hey, you’re making money, how can we get a piece of that? And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, it does make the money in the short term, but I think that is very much being counter-thinking and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco missing the big picture of what is this doing to the long-term health of our platforms
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and specifically our hardware platforms where we make way more money than this little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco piddly app store tax.
AltStore in EU
⏹️ ▶️ John Let’s hear from one small developer who’s happy about Apple. Oh, but only because of the rules that they
⏹️ ▶️ John just had to comply with.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Exactly. So Riley Tested, who runs Altstore, which is a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey kind of side loading marketplace sort of thing
⏹️ ▶️ John that was using like it was using like enterprise certificates or some other technical test.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t recall exactly how it works. I thought you had to do something with the developer account.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. Did that start in the jailbreak era? Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s what it sounds like. like an alternative store was a place where you could go to install apps onto your phone that’s not the app
⏹️ ▶️ John store. And you’re like, wait a second, I thought that was impossible. Well, they were using every possible trick in the book to try to use
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple’s supported schemes like enterprise certificates or Tesla. I don’t actually know what they use, but like it was
⏹️ ▶️ John never a mainstream thing because it was always on the fringes of allowability. So as you can imagine
⏹️ ▶️ John with the digital marketplace act and Apple’s in theory compliance with it, now Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John supports third-party marketplaces. And you would imagine that AltStore would be first in line. and
⏹️ ▶️ John setting aside how the hell they got a 1 million euro.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, they don’t have to. Did you not see that? Apple has changed the rules.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, no, I didn’t see that. Please tell me that. It was like yesterday, I think, that came out. Too much news, man.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey I know, it’s a big week.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Suffice to say, it might have even been on Apple’s developer site. Again, I don’t know if we’ll be able to put my finger on a
⏹️ ▶️ John This should have been a follow-up. I’m sorry, if I had seen this, I would have put it there.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Nevertheless, they made a few small tweaks to their rules and procedures and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey policies regard to the DMA stuff. And one of them was, and I can’t remember the specifics,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but basically, you don’t always or perhaps don’t ever need a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey line of credit or whatever that term is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Letter of credit,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah. But basically, they said it isn’t always, always, always required,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as they had previously said.
⏹️ ▶️ John So anyway, the story is AltStore got its Marketplace Kit entitlement, which in developer speak
⏹️ ▶️ John means they got the thing from Apple that says you are now allowed to use the framework
⏹️ ▶️ John that you have to use to make a third party marketplace. So AltStore is going to make a third party
⏹️ ▶️ John marketplace. If you’re wondering whoever under these rules is actually going to make a third party marketplace now that they don’t have to have
⏹️ ▶️ John a million euros in the bank, the answer is for one AltStore. So I guess
⏹️ ▶️ John good for them, assuming that what Apple has done is compliant with the DMA, which we still don’t know the answer to.
⏹️ ▶️ John But hey, everyone’s making app stores and you know who else is excited to make an alternate marketplace
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Before you get the real time follow up. So from a different page linked from that newsroom
⏹️ ▶️ Casey post, or that developer newsroom post, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can do either of the following. Number one,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey provide Apple with a standby letter of credit in the amount of 1 million euros from a financial institution that’s at least
⏹️ ▶️ Casey A-rated or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s, and maintain that standby
⏹️ ▶️ Casey letter of credit as long as your alternative app marketplace is in operation. Or, and I think this is the new thing, be a member
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more
⏹️ ▶️ Casey than 1 million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior
⏹️ ▶️ John What a weird set of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey requirements. I mean, yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I guess if your junk is popular and you’re going to owe us the whatever it is, the fee, the core technology
⏹️ ▶️ John There was also, like I said, the charity and nonprofit exceptions in there, but I guess that doesn’t apply to Altstar.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t think so, but who knows. That’s apparently the breaking
Schiller vs. Epic
⏹️ ▶️ John So one of the bits of news that we didn’t get too many weeks ago was that Epic, the game company
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s been in big fights with Apple, had said, we’re totally going to have our own alternative
⏹️ ▶️ John marketplace for iOS in the EU. And you’d be like, Epic, how can you do that? You don’t even have a developer account. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John like, no, we got one. We made a new developer account in like Sweden or something. And
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple gave it to us. And that was a story several weeks back. We didn’t get to because we have too much content. But basically, Epic got a
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple developer account for like some other subsidiary name thing or whatever. Like it’s not their old account
⏹️ ▶️ John back. It’s like a new account. And then Epic’s like, we’re going to use this one to make a third party
⏹️ ▶️ John store. And they were super excited about it until like yesterday or today, I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. Well, cause what changed?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. So on the verge, uh, Epic says that it’s iOS game store plans are stalled
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because why? Because Apple has banned its developer account.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, not that one. The new one.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, exactly. The new one.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the verge epics plans to release its own third party app store on the on iOS and you could be in trouble
⏹️ ▶️ Casey after Apple terminated the developer account it planned to use in a blog post published today. The company shared
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a letter sent by Apple’s lawyers which called epic quote verifiably untrustworthy quote Apple does
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not believe that epic will comply with its contractual commitments under its developer agreement.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, so all right. So let me just finish. So Epic, we only have Epic side of this, which is always suspect because,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, there’s a lot of bad blood there or whatever. Epic posted a bunch of images of text because they’re dumb,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco of email exchanges.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like the emails between them and Apple. I’m sure this is not an exhaustive list of emails.
⏹️ ▶️ John So it’s not every back and forth. It’s the back and forth Epic wanted us to see. But just in those back and forth,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s lots of juicy stuff. I don’t know, like Apple did approve this account. Like they had to
⏹️ ▶️ John go through talks with Apple and say, hey, you know, we know we’re like, we’re Epic and we would like to make
⏹️ ▶️ John a new account cause we’re gonna make a third party store. Is that cool? Like we didn’t see that exchange, but that obviously happened. Like Apple didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know that it did because why it’s all automated. Like if I wanted to create a new store account right
⏹️ ▶️ John now. No, no, I’m pretty sure Epic even said, hey, we work with Apple to get our developer account.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco It’s not like Apple just
⏹️ ▶️ John noticed it, it appeared. Apple allowed this account to exist. And then I think
⏹️ ▶️ John through some ill-advised exchanges, Like Epic was complaining to Apple that they didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John get access to something and they thought it should be treated well. Well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did you see the Verge had the emails? Like the Verge posted the emails between Epic’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people and Phil Schiller.
⏹️ ▶️ John But again, we don’t know if it’s all the emails, but what I’m saying is how did Epic begin conversing
⏹️ ▶️ John in an adversarial way that eventually led to, and we’re gonna get to exactly how, because it’s funny,
⏹️ ▶️ John led to their banning? Because it’s kind of like you had the account, if you had just kept your mouth shut
⏹️ ▶️ John and not antagonized Apple and gotten into a fight, maybe you’d still have your developer
⏹️ ▶️ John account because the reason their account was rejected, again, it’s not because Apple didn’t know they created one and was surprised to
⏹️ ▶️ John see it and said, oh, we totally need to ban that. Apple allowed it to be created, knew it had been created,
⏹️ ▶️ John but then essentially, I think Epic basically like made a poor choice to
⏹️ ▶️ John get in a fight with Apple. And so let’s just go through the broad strokes
⏹️ ▶️ John of that fight. You can see the emails will link to them. You can look at the stupid images or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ John But here’s what it boils down to. You should read Phil Schiller basically explaining
⏹️ ▶️ John why Apple has decided to ban this account after allowing it to be created.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey In the past, Epic has entered into agreements with Apple and then broken them. For example, you testified that Epic Games Inc. entered
⏹️ ▶️ Casey into the developer program with full understanding of its terms and then chose to intentionally breach the agreement with Apple.
⏹️ ▶️ John And by the way, you in this, you as this is Epic. He’s talking to Tim Sweeney in Epic.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You also testified that Epic deliberately violated Apple’s rules to make a point and for financial gain. More recently,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you have described our DMA compliance plan as quote, hot garbage, quote, a quote, horror show,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey quote, and a quote, devious new instance of malicious compliance, quote, and you have complained
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about what you called quote, junk fees, quote, and quote, Apple taxes, quote. Your colorful, colorful
⏹️ ▶️ Casey criticism of our DMA compliance plan coupled with Epic’s past practice of intentionally violating contractual provisions
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with which it disagrees, strongly suggests that Epic Sweden does not intend to follow the rules.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Another intentional breach could threaten the integrity of the iOS platform as well as the security and privacy of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey users. You have stated that allowing enrollment of Epic Games Sweden in the developer program is a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey quote a good faith move by Apple quote. We invite you to provide us with written assurance that you are also acting in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey good faith and that Epic Games Sweden will, despite your public actions and rhetoric, honor
⏹️ ▶️ Casey all of its commitments. In plain and qualified terms, please tell us why we should trust Epic this time.
⏹️ ▶️ John So this is Phil Schiller, a named person, in an actual email to Epic saying, hey, you burned us before. Remember
⏹️ ▶️ John that time where you intentionally broke the rules and we had a lawsuit and we won and we kicked you out of the store? Do you remember that? And now
⏹️ ▶️ John we let you have this, you know, Epic Games Sweden thing and you’re telling us you want an alternative app store?
⏹️ ▶️ John Tell us you’re going to be good. Provide us with written assurance that you’re acting in good faith.
⏹️ ▶️ John Tell us that you’re going to follow the rules. So here’s Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic. Here’s Tim Sweeney’s reply.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Thanks for reaching out. Epic and its, it’s such corporate speak, I love it. Epic and its subsidiaries
⏹️ ▶️ Casey are acting in good faith and will comply with all terms of current and future agreements with Apple and will be glad to provide Apple with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey any specific further assurances on the topic that you’d like.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s the entire email, by the way. That’s it. So Phil Schiller says, Epic, you’ve been bad.
⏹️ ▶️ John Are you gonna be good? Tell us in writing you’re gonna be good. Tim Sweeney says in a very short
⏹️ ▶️ John paragraph, we are totally gonna be good. We will comply with all your terms, current and future. If there’s anything
⏹️ ▶️ John specific you want us, any specific assurances, if you want us to say specifically, we won’t like TP
⏹️ ▶️ John your house, like we’ll say it, just let us know. So I saw this exchange and I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John like, all right, well, so Phil Schiller is basically saying, look, we don’t like you, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John bad, you’re saying mean things about us. Seems like you’re gonna break the rules. Tell us you’re not gonna break them. Tim
⏹️ ▶️ John Sweeney says, we’re totally not gonna break the rules. Here’s Apple’s response.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. He’s the CEO.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey How is that not credible? Anyway, it boiled down to an unsupported trust us.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, well, yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John What did he want? What could be in that document in text, in written form
⏹️ ▶️ John that would not be trust? Is there some kind of like blockchain derived,
⏹️ ▶️ John like trusted intermediate? He needs it notarized. You ask for written assurances.
⏹️ ▶️ John You got written assurances and it’s like, yeah. They were wholly insufficient.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like, was there not enough groveling? Did he not apologize for the hot garbage?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have to assume there’s a lot more going on here that was not part of the correspondence.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is not all the emails, maybe. There has to be more to this than this. I mean, because, first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of all, I mean, look, this is really stupid that this even happened. It’s like a flame-worn news net. It totally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is. It is. And I understand if Apple really wants
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to still stick their finger in Epic’s eye, but then why let them create the second account in the first
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. It’s almost like they changed their mind. Anyway, finish reading Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey response here, the part that
⏹️ ▶️ John we’ve excerpted from it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right. So again, Apple’s response. Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request is wholly insufficient and not credible. It boiled down to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an unsupported trust us. History shows, however, that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Hence the request for meaningful commitments. And the minimal assurances in Mr. Sweeney’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey curt response Not enough groveling. were swiftly undercut by a litany of public
⏹️ ▶️ Casey attacks on Apple’s policies, compliance plan, and business model. They provide an example tweet.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, okay, so now I think we have to, as, since we’ve made this running joke for,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, years and years now, we have to now say, this is a legit example where running to the press
⏹️ ▶️ John did not help. That’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Because they’re like, you’re still being mean to us in tweets.
⏹️ ▶️ John Basically they’re saying, you are unverifiably untrustworthy. So like, why ask
⏹️ ▶️ John for assurances from somebody who no matter what you say, you’re not going to trust them? And then they’re saying, and also,
⏹️ ▶️ John you keep being mean to us. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why, again, like, what, whenever they gave them the new account, like two weeks ago, whenever that was, like, what
⏹️ ▶️ Marco changed between the lawsuit a few years ago and that, that then changed back?
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple thought they were like this, this, the reason I refer this to like a flame war like an argument online
⏹️ ▶️ John is like, this is no longer a company versus company. It’s so nakedly person versus person.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like I don’t like you and I don’t like your face and you’re not being sufficiently deferential and
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t trust you and I asked for assurances but you weren’t nice enough and you’re making mean tweets about us. So
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah. And again, I’m not saying whether this is right or wrong, legally, legal or whatever. I’m just characterizing what we’re seeing
⏹️ ▶️ John here. And in the end, a lot of these corporate things do boil down to that, because corporations are run by individuals, and individuals
⏹️ ▶️ John have feelings and emotions and do stuff like this. But you almost never, especially when it comes
⏹️ ▶️ John to Apple, get to see this personal indignity.
⏹️ ▶️ John And this final one, by this Apple response, I think they went through their law firm
⏹️ ▶️ John to do it or whatever, but it still reads like it’s Phil Schiller saying it personally. Yeah, so continuing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Moreover, a recent submission in the Australian litigation suggests that Epic Games Sweden AB is part of a global
⏹️ ▶️ Casey effort to undermine or evade Apple’s rules. It’s a grand insidious conspiracy. Apple is rightly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey concerned that Epic Games Sweden AB does not intend to adhere to its contractual commitments to Apple and is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in fact a vehicle to manipulate proceedings in other jurisdictions. And by the way,
⏹️ ▶️ John Epic Games Sweden AB, that’s the account that they got to make their app store.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Given the past and current conduct of Epic, Apple cannot allow Epic Games Sweden AB to be part of its ecosystem.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Please be advised that Apple has effective immediately terminated the developer program membership of Epic Games Sweden AB. As you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in addition to the concerns we have outlined above, the US judgment expressly provides that quote, Apple has
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the contractual right to terminate its DPLA with any or all, and then I lost
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the rest of the quote.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Yeah, sorry.
⏹️ ▶️ John The last thing that was cut off. But what they’re basically saying is, hey, remember that court case we won against in the US? Part of the judgment was we can
⏹️ ▶️ John totally deny you for any reason.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And guess what? We’re going to, um, um, um, we’re going to deny you and we don’t need to tell you why.
⏹️ ▶️ John But they did. They said, you’re mean to us and we don’t like you and we don’t trust you. And even though you said you’re going to
⏹️ ▶️ John follow the rules, we don’t think you are. In fact, we think this company is part of this wider effort
⏹️ ▶️ John to undermine us and other jurisdictions. And, you know, the Apple Epic won a court case against Apple in the
⏹️ ▶️ John US, not in the EU and the Epic versus, you know, what the EU
⏹️ ▶️ John is going to say about Apple versus Epic, if anything, will be interesting to see. But this
⏹️ ▶️ John is just like. I’m going to say it’s unseemly, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John unseemly for all parties, but Epic, I feel like Tim Sweeney has always just been out there as a personality and
⏹️ ▶️ John he is who he is. And especially in the gaming world, this is unfortunately not as
⏹️ ▶️ John uncommon as you might think where there are big personalities trash talking each other in the press or whatever, but that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not how Apple usually works. And this is not like discovery in a court case because we saw so
⏹️ ▶️ John many good things in the Epic trial, for example. This is Apple emailing with a big company
⏹️ ▶️ John and the big company doing one of the rudest things you can do as an individual is like, I’m just going
⏹️ ▶️ John to post all our private emails that we’ve back and forth because they show you to be a jerk. That’s right up their
⏹️ ▶️ John alley, right? And by the way, did Epic show all the emails? Is Epic, you know, like, well, we’ll see.
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple’s MO is usually not to say, hey, you didn’t post all the emails, but it’s more like to, you know, give responses to their lawyers.
⏹️ ▶️ John This is mostly, I know this just seems like it’s a silly thing and honestly
⏹️ ▶️ John it is. I just thought it was super entertaining. I don’t think there’s any big news here other than
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple’s DMA compliance and third-party marketplaces, that whole thing, even if it is compliant,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not going great for anybody. I mean, AltStore got their marketplace kit thing, but they are a small
⏹️ ▶️ John player in the grand scheme of things. Epic, it seemed like Apple and Epic were patching things up, but somehow
⏹️ ▶️ John Epic got reentangled and pissed off Apple again and got booted out again, and it’s just,
⏹️ ▶️ John where are all these third-party marketplaces giving increased competition to the people in the EU. We talked about it when we talked about
⏹️ ▶️ John the DMA compliance. Is this actually, is DMA actually achieving the ends
⏹️ ▶️ John that the EU wants it to achieve? I’m gonna say the answer remains
⏹️ ▶️ John no. It’s not, it’s not working well.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s because, you know, because the Apple’s compliance with the DMA is incredibly restrictive, because
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple is still wielding sort of personally vindictive power against the people doesn’t want to have
⏹️ ▶️ John stores and the number of people who would even like Epic is one of the few people who would want to have
⏹️ ▶️ John a store because they’d want to have it out of spite Essentially like even if it costs the money they just want to have it and be in there
⏹️ ▶️ John and everyone else is like these terms Don’t look great. So Things things are not going
⏹️ ▶️ John well In I don’t know if they’re not going well for the EU. They’re not going to Apple I say both they’re not going well for
⏹️ ▶️ John either parties This whole thing and Apple we didn’t have time to put this in the notes But
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple just released iOS 17.4, which has all their supposed to make appliance and all the scare
⏹️ ▶️ John screens and all the pick your default browser and all that stuff. And people who are looking at that are saying
⏹️ ▶️ John this. I mean, the choice is good and, you know, making Apple comply and giving people browser choices, good
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever. But the user experience is worsened because of the kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of passive aggressive way that Apple has implemented all of this. So So,
⏹️ ▶️ John and here we are in the US where we don’t get any of this, which is both a blessing and a curse,
⏹️ ▶️ John but we do get to watch it play
⏹️ ▶️ Marco out. I think part of the problem is that the EU regulations
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seem to be written, I mean, look, this is all maybe above our heads, but it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seems from the outside that they are written with a certain degree of optimism about how they will be followed.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And over and over again we see Apple dodge and weave and find new ways
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be prickly and stingy. It seems like no matter what regulation has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in mind for how things quote should be in the regulator’s mind,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple finds ways around it very easily and very deftly. And then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the whole thing is kind of a joke and doesn’t really achieve what they want to achieve. I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why anyone thinks it’s going to be different, with different attempts at the same
⏹️ ▶️ John thing. Well, if they say Apple’s DMA compliance is, in fact, not compliant, then
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple would have to go back and change things to make it more compliant. And I don’t know how long
⏹️ ▶️ John that can go back and forth, but I think the teeth that the EU put on the DMA are bigger than
⏹️ ▶️ John the we’ll just fine you. It’s like some percentage or something. It’s some number that would be monstrous for Apple.
⏹️ ▶️ John So somehow Apple and the EU are gonna have to work this out. At this point, I really hope the EU
⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t say, we looked at Apple’s response and we have determined that it is compliant because that’s basically them admitting
⏹️ ▶️ John we screwed up when we wrote our regulation, right? Because if this is compliant, you screwed up.
⏹️ ▶️ John If they say it isn’t compliant, then how does that resolve itself? What do you want Apple to change? How do they have to, and they do that
⏹️ ▶️ John back and forth. And it’s not, this is not great. Like this is one of the benefits of the
⏹️ ▶️ John more, the system that people in America are more used to is like, oh, it’s competition between
⏹️ ▶️ John companies and they all work in their best interests and the marketplace sorts it out. But all these things
⏹️ ▶️ John that we’re talking about here is like, well, when that stops working, when there’s too little competition, how do
⏹️ ▶️ John you solve that? It’s like, well, that’s when the government has to step in. That’s why we have antitrust laws. And doing that, essentially
⏹️ ▶️ John taking a competitive marketplace that has become insufficiently competitive,
⏹️ ▶️ John your opinion, and putting the competition back in, not by adding
⏹️ ▶️ John new competitors, but by essentially making the players who are dominating it now, saying
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s certain things that they can’t do, it’s really hard because it’s like the government saying, be
⏹️ ▶️ John less successful companies, and that’s not a
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that companies like, and that’s also kind of a form of impairing competition. So trying
⏹️ ▶️ John to restore competition through regulation is actually really, really hard. It’s an important thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s the role of government to do that. They shouldn’t shirk that because it’s hard, but I do want to acknowledge that it
⏹️ ▶️ John is hard because a lot of things that you can do either don’t work or make things worse.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Thanks to our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Trade, and thanks to our members who support
⏹️ ▶️ Marco us directly. You can join us at atp.fm slash join, and we will talk to you next
Ending theme
⏹️ ▶️ John Now the show is over,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they didn’t even mean to begin Cause it was accidental,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was accidental John
⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn’t let him Cause it was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was accidental And you can
⏹️ ▶️ John find the show notes at atp.fm And if you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John into Twitter, you can follow them at
⏹️ ▶️ Marco C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that’s Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Auntie Marco Armin,
⏹️ ▶️ John S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John accidental, they didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mean to Accidental, check podcast so long
#askatp: Solve one Apple legal problem
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So we didn’t have time for Ask ATP this week, but we have one relevant Ask ATP topic that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we thought maybe we could bump into the after show. Mark Robinson writes, If
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you were Apple CEO for a day and only had enough time to resolve just one of Apple’s many legal problems,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which problem would you resolve and how? Very good question. John, can we get all your whining
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and moaning about the parameters of the question out of the way real quick so we can then answer it?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, my main one is what defines a single legal problem?
⏹️ ▶️ John Of course because like we take the EU for example the anti-steering thing Is that
⏹️ ▶️ John one legal problem or can you combine that with the DMA or are those two separate legal problems?
⏹️ ▶️ John And you’d have to pick which one you want to resolve. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John court case? Anyway difficult I know what they’re getting at though I understand the spirit of the question if the letter of it is
⏹️ ▶️ John very difficult to define
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Also, we’re gonna we’re gonna breeze right over the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to solve anything in one day Yes, we are.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, but it’s the, I think it’s like a magic wand. Like you have, you have a, you know, a magic wand that can do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it. Yeah. Solve one legal problem ish somehow.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. We’re not saying how to solve it. I’m, I’m, I’m going to say it’s the magic wand thing. Cause otherwise it’s like, well, how do you solve it? If there was
⏹️ ▶️ John an easy solution, Apple would have done it by now or well, not really. Anyway, magic
⏹️ ▶️ John wand, magic wand is in play.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right. Magic wand is in play. So I’m going to pull a top four and deviate from the purpose
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the question and answer a slightly different question entirely. If I were Apple CEO for a day and I only had enough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey time to resolve one problem that maybe is legal but maybe isn’t, I would get the heck out of China,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like as best as I can. And I think that includes, you know, having handed over
⏹️ ▶️ John that a legal problem?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just, I already said I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John taking a turn.
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re bad influence, Marco.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I know, it’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John It’s the devil on my shoulder.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think I would, it makes me feel really gross what they’ve done with, you know, handing over or
⏹️ ▶️ Casey having all their software running on, on China controlled servers for iCloud, or I forget the details. I might have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that slightly wrong, but you get the point I’m driving at. Uh, I don’t love that. I don’t love that all the manufacturing is there.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I get why I get why they did the iCloud thing. I get why the manufacturing is there, but I would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey divest from China. Using my magic wand, I would divest from China as quickly and as effectively
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as I possibly could. Because to me, I think that is the number one
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing that should keep Apple up at night. And I don’t know that it is, it might be, but that’s the thing that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey scares me the most and that’s what I would do,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John which I know is not.
⏹️ ▶️ John In two ways, so I think that in one way, that’s a good use of a magic wand because that is like incredibly hard to do. I believe Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John is doing it, but it’s gonna take like just so many years and so difficult to do. But on the other hand, it is the worst
⏹️ ▶️ John thing to use a magic wand on because if you did have that magic wand and you used it, that would invoke
⏹️ ▶️ John maximum retaliation from China. Essentially Apple would be out of China, which is a huge market, which part of the reason
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple is doing things the way they are and slowly kind of trying to disentangle
⏹️ ▶️ John from China real slow, but not real slow is because they want to continue to sell products to
⏹️ ▶️ John the billions of people in China.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Oh yeah, I get
⏹️ ▶️ John it. And if you were to magic wand your way out of China, China would be like, sorry, you’re gone. Kind of like Facebook,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? It’s like, no, no, no more China for you. I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done by
⏹️ ▶️ John magic wanding a gigantic supply chain into existence and presumably magic wanding millions of people
⏹️ ▶️ John to work that supply chain. This is definitely not a legal problem that you can solve, and it’s really stretching the
⏹️ ▶️ John magic wand because replacing China in manufacturing is such a gargantuan problem
⏹️ ▶️ John that it’s like a multi-decade thing that only Apple could possibly
⏹️ ▶️ John even have a chance of doing, and I still don’t know if they’re going to be successful. But I
⏹️ ▶️ John like your chutzpah, even
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey though you can’t read the question and didn’t solve a legal
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right. All right. hoping that you will also take a left turn or perhaps a right turn to my left
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m going to continue on the theme of the episode a little bit.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco My action would be to try to diffuse
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the tension around App Store payments in a way that is most likely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to actually be somewhat palatable to Apple and least likely to disrupt their their precious
⏹️ ▶️ Marco services revenue while also providing the maximum amount of relief on the pressure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco around this. And so my proposal here is, remember that reader rule we were talking about earlier?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The reader exception where quote reader apps that have like AV services or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco books or whatever can link out to external payments after showing a scare sheet with a whole
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bunch of qualifications and restrictions on what the URL can be and how it’s displayed.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But once you’re linked out to Safari for the payments, You owe Apple no commissions, you have to track
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nothing, you have to have them audit your books, never. Like, there’s no other restrictions
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on it. But right now it’s only for those reader apps. My proposal would be,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco allow all apps except games to use that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco exception, with a few modifications. So, you would still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have the ability to link out, just like the current system. You would have to apply and get that entitlement
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so Apple can track it and look at it and make sure it works the way they want it to. It would still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco show the scare sheet first to warn people you’re going out to a website, this is not gonna be through
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple, et cetera. You still pay Apple no commissions on those sales. What I would modify,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco besides what apps are allowed to use it would be remove the restrictions on the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco URL being a single URL, let it have a query parameter, I don’t care. Remove the restrictions
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the language around the UI of the URL. Let people say, create an account on our website and save
⏹️ ▶️ Marco money, whatever. They already can’t use IAP. I would retain though, the one rule
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that requires part of the reader exception rule now is you are required to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use the store kid API to check to see if purchases are enabled on the device. Because there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are situations like if you have a device for a young kid, where a lot of times parents will use the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco parental controls to disable in-app purchase for that device entirely, just to keep the kid from getting in trouble.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that is one feature that makes sense. Other than that, remove all the restrictions on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how it needs to be designed, all the, you know, not being able to tell people you can go make a purchase
⏹️ ▶️ Marco here. Just let all apps choose if they want to, to link out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco using the scare sheet and using this framework. And they would still have the trade-off of then not supporting Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in-app purchase system, because that wouldn’t be allowed anymore. But fine, if apps want to choose that, that’s fine. And by
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not letting games do it, by letting all other apps do it except games, you remove
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a huge amount of anti-competitive accusations
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and regulatory pressure from them because most types of businesses that are being worst affected
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by Apple’s in-app purchase policies and taxes would then have this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major relief valve to get out if they want to. And then by not letting games do it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you keep the vast majority of your services revenue because it turns out, as we’ve learned from various court cases and disclosures,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It turns out that the huge vast majority, I think it was like 87%, according
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to a court case like a year or two ago, the vast majority of Apple’s in-app purchase tax revenue
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is from games. So it’s not like the Netflixes of the world, because most of them don’t use in-app purchase
⏹️ ▶️ Marco anymore. Anyway, they wouldn’t even lose that much from this, because the actual revenue
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they make is mostly game-based. If you did this and let all apps use this if they wanted
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to, with those trade-offs, I think you really lift a lot of the pressure off Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in terms of all the scrutiny of this. And you give up almost no revenue.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s also a very, very good answer. I dig that.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s not very magic wandy. And I’m not sure which legal problem it’s solving. You could say it’s solving the anti-steering
⏹️ ▶️ John thing, but in a different way. But Apple would say they already solved the anti-steering thing. Only Apple believes
⏹️ ▶️ John that. Yeah. So I’m going to use that same loophole to say that the one legal problem I would solve
⏹️ ▶️ John is the DMA. And you would say, well, Apple already solved that. But we don’t have a ruling on that yet. Apple thinks they solved it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Jury’s still out, but it’s not a jury. Anyway, so I’m going to pick the DMA, and I would magic wand that one.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the reason I would is because I think that is the most comprehensive legal challenge
⏹️ ▶️ John they face, because it gets at the, as I said before, it gets at the heart of the issue, which is like, there’s not enough
⏹️ ▶️ John competition, and this is trying to restore that competition. And that is a legal problem for Apple, because Apple doesn’t want to do
⏹️ ▶️ John that. That’s the one I would magic wand. How I would magic wand it,
⏹️ ▶️ John since both of you offered solutions, especially Marco with more details, I would say, um,
⏹️ ▶️ John essentially realign incentives within Apple to
⏹️ ▶️ John make your digital marketplace, the app store compete based on the quality
⏹️ ▶️ John of the marketplace, as opposed to competing because it’s, you know, because you make rules that make it so that you always
⏹️ ▶️ John have an advantage and all that stuff, whatever. So open the marketplace up, run your own app store,
⏹️ ▶️ John not at break even, but do the Marco thing of like, almost no commissions for anybody except for games because they can tolerate
⏹️ ▶️ John it and compete based on what you have going for you. It’s I mean, including some of the
⏹️ ▶️ John things that only the app store can do, but mostly do it based on like, look, you’re not going to go to another store because your commissions
⏹️ ▶️ John are low. We basically do that cost. We just charge for that, you know, our payment processing things 30%.
⏹️ ▶️ John How about 3% for everybody except for you games? In that purchase is
⏹️ ▶️ John a good system. No restrictions on what you can do. You can make your own awesome system, you can link out or whatever, but we think you’ll use ours because
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s good. Oh, you don’t. You want some features from that purchase? You want better features in App Store Connect? We’ll compete
⏹️ ▶️ John based on that. Compete like I think Apple would still win that competition
⏹️ ▶️ John a because they have such a huge head start with historical like the historical momentum of what people expect
⏹️ ▶️ John from that platform that they could coast on not only being a little bit better for years,
⏹️ ▶️ John but be realign your incentives. Everyone working on the App Store should have third party
⏹️ ▶️ John app stores that they look at and say, we need to make our store better than those stores
⏹️ ▶️ John for consumers and developers by doing things that people like, not by
⏹️ ▶️ John applying rules to them to tell them they can’t do things that developers like they can’t do
⏹️ ▶️ John things that customers like because we won’t let them have it we do things that developers and customers
⏹️ ▶️ John like to keep the hundred percent market fair we currently have. And yes, some of the market share would bleed
⏹️ ▶️ John out or whatever. But like, that’s, that’s the legal problem that I would solve. And I would solve it by like, it sounds
⏹️ ▶️ John from Apple’s first today’s Apple perspective, they say, What do you mean give up? I’m like, if that’s how you have to say it to
⏹️ ▶️ John yourself. Yeah, but basically, like, you know, I’m not saying run the app store break even like you can still get your money
⏹️ ▶️ John from games because I think they will tolerate that but make your app store you’re gonna purchase your payment
⏹️ ▶️ John processing your stuff when because they are the best for consumers and developers not Not because
⏹️ ▶️ John you forbid anyone else from doing anything better than you.