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Text Content

By John Gruber

   
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’Objectified’ Turns 15, Streaming Free Through March 17 ★

> Objectified (2009, 75 minutes) is a documentary film about our complex
> relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who
> design them. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from
> the objects with which we surround ourselves?

A lovely film, and you can’t beat the price this week.

Masimo Proves New Apple Watch Series 9 Units Still Have the Blood Oxygen
Sensor ★

Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:

> The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP webpage). The
> parties’ filings with the appeals court were heavily redacted where they
> discussed the enforcement dispute over Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit
> clearer what technical changes Apple made and why they managed to get their
> workaround Watches cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer
> Watches that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse oximetry
> although all of the necessary components are present. Masimo managed to
> reenable pulse oximetry, but only after jailbreaking older iPhones and using
> them to manipulate the Watch, which constitutes a “significant alteration” of
> the product.
> 
> The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some custom
> software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively means that Apple
> itself can reactivate that feature for its customers in the event it prevails
> on appeal or, in the alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because
> the patents-in-suit expire then).

It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still
present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software,
but this seemingly confirms it.

Speedometer 3.0 Browser Benchmark ★

Ryosuke Niwa, writing on the WebKit blog:

> As announced on browserbench.org today, in collaboration with other browser
> engine developers, Apple’s WebKit team is excited to introduce Speedometer
> 3.0, a major update that better reflects the Web of today. It’s built together
> by the developers of all major browser engines: Blink, Gecko, and WebKit with
> hundreds of contributions from companies like Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft,
> and Mozilla. This post is a deep dive into how the collaborative Speedometer
> project improved the benchmark’s measurements methods and test content.

I care about Speedometer not for comparing different browser engines against
each other on the same machine (even though that’s Speedometer’s primary
purpose), but as a benchmark for measuring CPUs. It measures something very real
and utterly practical: how fast web rendering is in an actual browser.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


APPLE ADJUSTS DMA PLAN TO OFFER DIRECT DOWNLOADING OF APPS FROM THE WEB (WITH A
BIG ASTERISK), CUSTOM LINK-OUT SCREENS, AND MARKETPLACES SOLELY FOR THE
DISTRIBUTION OF A DEVELOPER’S OWN APPS

WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2024

Apple Developer News, yesterday:

> Developers who’ve agreed to the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU
> have new options for their apps in the EU:
> 
>  * Alternative app marketplaces. Marketplaces can choose to offer a catalog of
>    apps solely from the developer of the marketplace.
> 
>  * Linking out to purchase. When directing users to complete a transaction for
>    digital goods or services on an external webpage, developers can choose how
>    to design promotions, discounts, and other deals. The Apple-provided design
>    templates, which are optimized for key purchase and promotional use cases,
>    are now optional.

These two tweaks follow three others from a week ago. The first new one, above,
means a company like, say, Adobe or Microsoft, can offer a marketplace just for
their own suite of apps. The second is a bigger concession — effectively, the
elimination of mandatory Apple-designed scare sheets for link-outs to the web.
It sounds like the second truly eliminates anti-steering provisions for
developers who opt into the new EU rules.

And then, boom, the big one:

> Web Distribution, available with a software update later this spring, will let
> authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a
> website owned by the developer. Apple will provide authorized developers
> access to APIs that facilitate the distribution of their apps from the web,
> integrate with system functionality, back up and restore users’ apps, and
> more. For details, visit Getting ready for Web Distribution in the EU.

So direct downloads — single-app sideloading from developers’ own websites — are
now an option. The devil is in those details though:

> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: [...]
> 
>  * Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two
>    continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million
>    first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
> 
>  * Agree to, among other things,
>    
>    * Only offer apps from your developer account.
>    
>    * Be responsive to communications from Apple regarding your apps
>      distributed through Web Distribution, particularly regarding any
>      fraudulent, malicious, or illegal behavior, or anything else that Apple
>      believes impacts the safety, security, or privacy of users.
>    
>    * Publish transparent data collection policies and offer users control over
>      how their data is collected and used.
>    
>    * Follow applicable laws of the jurisdictions where you operate (for
>      example, the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection
>      Regulation, and consumer protection laws).
>    
>    * Be responsible for handling governmental and other requests to take down
>      listings of apps.

The eligibility requirement of having an app with over 1 million annual
installations in the EU is a high barrier. The intention, obviously, is to limit
web distribution to ostensibly trustworthy developers. But it’s sort of a
catch-22: the entire feature is by definition intended for developers who want
to distribute their apps outside Apple’s App Store (or anyone else’s EU app
marketplace) — but the only way to qualify is to have at least one very popular
app in the App Store or an app marketplace.

If this change is at the behest of the EC, via back-channel feedback, the EC is
seemingly only concerned with large developers. And to me it makes no sense that
this change — a huge one — came from anywhere but back-channel communications
with the EC. Apple’s presentation of its original compliance plan, just six
weeks ago, went out of its way to emphasize that requiring all apps to go
through a marketplace — and requiring stricter eligibility requirements for
marketplace providers than regular developer accounts — was in the name of user
security. If Apple had wanted to offer direct downloads of individual apps from
developers’ own websites, they would have included this from the start. But
given that the feature will be available “later this spring” — which I take to
mean before WWDC — they were seemingly already working on it, preparing for the
EC to say, publicly or privately, that the DMA requires it. But if Apple had
wanted to allow web distribution, it would have been part of the initial
announcement.

Almost all the changes Apple has made to its compliance plan, so far, are merely
policy changes. Marketplace providers no longer necessarily need to obtain a
million-dollar stand-by letter of credit. Developers who opt into the new EU
rules can now change their minds and go back to the original business terms.
Corporations with multiple developer accounts can opt into the new rules on an
account-by-account basis, instead of all-or-none. Companies can create
marketplaces solely for their own apps. All just policy changes. And all of
those policy changes quite likely are the result of direct feedback from
developers. It’s easy to imagine that Apple never considered that a company with
multiple developer accounts might want only to move some of those accounts to
the new business terms. I don’t see why Apple would begrudge any of these
changes, even an iota. They can be filed under “Sure, we just didn’t think of
that.”

That link-out screens may now contain promotional and pricing information, and
don’t need to follow Apple’s templates — that’s a mere policy change too, but
one I suspect Apple does begrudge. And it’s obviously something developers want.
Do you want a very plain-looking, totally unbranded screen, that emphasizes more
than anything that you’re leaving the safe confines of the Apple ecosystem? Or
would you like to design your own screen, in your own style, with your own
emphasis? This, to me, reeks of a change at the behest of the EC.

But then there’s web distribution — that’s both a major policy change and a
major technical one. (How will software updates work for web downloaded apps?
For that matter, how will software updates work for marketplace apps themselves?
Will the Foobar Marketplace app be able to somehow update itself? That doesn’t
seem possible without running a background process.) And as I noted earlier,
Apple specifically described direct web downloads of apps as a bad idea just six
weeks ago.

I have no little birdie information on this, but Apple changing policy on this
issue only makes sense if they have reason to believe the EC considers it
mandatory under the DMA. That it will only be available to longstanding
developers with at least one million-EU-downloads app may well be completely
compatible with the DMA. There’s nothing at all in the DMA about the interests
of small or indie developers.

And as Steven Sinofsky expounded upon at length in his analysis of the DMA, the
DMA wants to have its cake and eat it too. It requires Apple both to open up iOS
to additional methods of software distribution and to keep iOS as secure as
possible. Allowing direct downloads, but only from already-successful
developers, aligns with that. I suspect Apple was ready to go from the start
with web downloads — they knew the EC might demand it — and so they opened their
hand January 25 with the compliance plan they hoped would fly, and are
ratcheting out, piecemeal, with additional changes in the direction of more
openness, as they obtain feedback — both from developers, and whatever EC back
channels they may have. (Officially, the EC doesn’t provide issue-by-issue
feedback to its regulatory subjects.)

The other change that suggests Apple is in unofficial contact with the EC
regarding compliance is the “never mind” on PWAs. Beta versions of iOS 17.4 in
the EU changed Home Screen web apps into bookmarks that open in a new tab in the
user’s default browser. Apple made this change not because they want to “kill”
web apps,1 but because they were under the impression that the DMA required them
to either (a) have no Home Screen web app support at all in the EU, or (b) allow
all third-party rendering engines to save PWAs to the Home Screen using their
rendering engines. Option (c) — the status quo, WebKit-only PWA support on the
Home Screen — is seemingly disallowed under the DMA, as it would constitute
preferencing WebKit over third-party engines. Apple doesn’t have a system in
place in iOS to allow third-party rendering engines to save web apps to the Home
Screen, so, alas, (a) it was — no more PWAs in the EU. The DMA is not clear
about much, but it is seemingly clear that gatekeepers cannot preference their
own web browser or rendering engine. Allowing PWAs — but only via WebKit — is,
obviously, showing preference to WebKit. Apple’s initial decision to remove PWAs
in the EU sucked, but that’s because the DMA sucks, not because Apple hates or
fears web apps. But I think what happened is that when the EC realized the DMA
was going to result in a worse PWA experience, they let Apple know that
WebKit-only PWAs would not be penalized.2

So my gut feeling is that we’re seeing Apple adopt changes in response to
unofficial feedback from the EC. If so, that suggests that the things Apple
isn’t changing — like the Core Technology Fee — are either OK with the EC, or,
if not, that Apple is willing to fight for them. Or perhaps we’ll be right back
here with additional compliance plan changes every Tuesday for the next few
weeks. ★

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 1. If Apple wanted to kill web apps they’d have made this change worldwide in
    iOS 17.4, not limited to the EU. And they wouldn’t have been adding new web
    app features to WebKit, on both iOS and especially MacOS, just in the last
    year. But there exists a contingent of tinfoil-hat-wearing web app zealots
    who think PWAs are like this close to taking over mobile app
    development — the dream of write-once/run-everywhere just within grasp — and
    it’s mean old monopolistic walled-garden-defending Apple that’s holding them
    back, because PWAs threaten the App Store. That’s just nonsense. The truth
    is PWAs just aren’t popular. Almost no normal people use them, or even know
    they exist. “That’s because Apple is holding PWAs back by withholding
    features from WebKit”, goes the conspiracy thinking. Most recently, it was
    mobile push notification support. Then WebKit added that. It’s like desktop
    Linux getting popular, or Bluetooth getting reliable: always “next year”.
    Except with PWAs, web developers can imagine it’s somehow Apple’s fault, not
    the fact that users prefer idiomatic native apps from app stores — including
    on Android, which has always used Chrome’s web rendering engine, and which
    has all the features PWA advocates want from WebKit. ↩︎

 2. I also suspect that Apple, eventually, will support PWAs in iOS in the EU
    using third-party browser engines, if possible. But it’s easy to see how
    complicated that could be. What happens if a user installs Chrome, then uses
    Chrome to install a PWA using Chrome’s Blink rendering engine, and then
    deletes Chrome from their iPhone? How does that PWA continue to function
    after its rendering engine has been removed from the system? It can’t just
    automatically fall back to using WebKit because (a) the PWA might be using
    features only available in Chrome (that’s the whole reason web developers
    are clamoring for third-party rendering engines); and (b) the PWA’s stored
    data is tied to the rendering engine that created it. This is not a simple
    problem to solve. ↩︎︎

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2024

House Passes Bill That Requires ByteDance to Sell TikTok or Face Ban in the
U.S. ★

Cristiano Lima-Strong, Jacob Bogage, and Mariana Alfaro, reporting for The
Washington Post:

> The House overwhelmingly passed a measure Wednesday to force TikTok to split
> from its parent company or face a national ban, a lightning offensive that
> materialized abruptly after years of unsuccessful negotiations over the
> platform’s fate. The legislation, approved 352 to 65, is a sweeping bipartisan
> rebuke of the popular video-sharing app — and an attempt to grapple with
> allegations that TikTok’s China-based parent, ByteDance, presents national
> security risks.
> 
> For years, lawmakers have been introducing proposals seeking to restrict the
> company’s activities in the U.S., and finding limited momentum. But these
> lengthy behind-the-scenes deliberations were hastened, lawmakers said, by the
> Biden administration’s growing support of the effort, coupled with concerns
> about TikTok’s potential to influence U.S. politics, which intensified after
> the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
> 
> Private briefings from national security and law enforcement officials,
> including a classified hearing last week, served as a “call to action” for
> Congress to “finally” take a stand against TikTok, said Rep. Kathy Castor
> (D-Fla.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s unclear
> whether these meetings with the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the
> Director of the National Intelligence surfaced new evidence against the
> company.

It seems pretty clear those briefings did surface alarming evidence. The two
concerns about TikTok are that (a) the Chinese government is using it to surveil
Americans; and (b) that it serves as a powerful propaganda vehicle for the PRC.
It’s the latter concern — propaganda — that has had me calling for a TikTok ban
(or divestiture by ByteDance) for years.

Remember too: China itself bans all foreign social networks. Facebook,
Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Pinterest — none of them are available in
mainland China. It’s bananas that we allow an algorithmically-driven social
media app controlled by China here.

The DMA Has Crippled Google Search in the EU ★

Oliver Bethel, legal director at Google, back in January, on changes to search
results in the EU:

> When you are searching for something like a hotel, or something to buy, we
> often show information to help you find what you need, like pictures and
> prices, as part of our results. Sometimes this can be as part of a result for
> a single business like a hotel or restaurant, or sometimes it can be a
> featured group of relevant results. Over the coming weeks in Europe, we will
> be expanding our testing of a number of changes to the search results page. We
> will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison
> sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page
> to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on
> comparison sites.

Most of those comparison sites are garbage. I suspect these changes will make
Google Search far less useful for hotels and shopping.

> For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for
> comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results
> including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the
> removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights
> unit.

Unreal. Google Flights is the best cross-airline search tool I’m aware of. Years
ago I used Hipmunk — which was great — but, alas, they shut down in January
2020. I presume people in the EU can still go to the dedicated Google Flights
page, but just typing “PHL to SFO” on Google’s homepage or in your browser’s
location field is what most people expect to work.

Google’s EU Choice Screens for Android, for Default Browser and Default Search
Within Chrome, Only Show Up on New Devices ★

Google:

> The browser and search choice screens will begin appearing on new devices
> distributed in the EEA on or after March 6, 2024.

Not clear to me why Apple did this in a software update for all eligible
iPhones, but Google is only doing it for newly-sold ones.

Over 15,000 Hacked Roku Accounts Sold for 50 Cents Apiece ★

Bill Toulas, writing for BleepingComputer:

> Roku has disclosed a data breach impacting over 15,000 customers after hacked
> accounts were used to make fraudulent purchases of hardware and streaming
> subscriptions. However, BleepingComputer has learned there is more to this
> attack, with threat actors selling the stolen accounts for as little as $0.50
> per account, allowing purchasers to use stored credit cards to make illegal
> purchases. [...]
> 
> The company says that once an account was breached, it allowed threat actors
> to change the information on the account, including passwords, email
> addresses, and shipping addresses. This effectively locked a user out of the
> account, allowing the threat actors to make purchases using stored credit card
> information without the legitimate account holder receiving order confirmation
> emails.

More good news for Roku users, including the fact that Roku first discovered the
hack in early January, and waited until now to notify affected users.

Don Lemon Is Shocked — Shocked — That the Face-Eating Leopard Ate His Face ★

Back on January 10, Twitter/X and former CNN host Don Lemon announced a deal for
Lemon to host a new show on the platform.

Last Friday Lemon interviewed Elon Musk for his first episode of the show. Not
liking the questions he was asked, Musk cancelled the show the next day.

Agreeing to a deal with Musk is like agreeing to a deal with Trump. At best
you’ll be paid pennies on the dollar, and probably will never see a nickel.

Help Sarah Perez ★

GoFundMe drive to help longtime (and oft-cited here at DF) TechCrunch reporter
Sarah Perez and her daughter:

> In the early hours of March 13th, Sarah’s world turned upside down. As the
> bright glare of flames illuminated her bathroom window, she was able to escape
> safety with her 14-year-old daughter, Josie, and their dog Princess. They
> escaped the engulfing inferno just in time, but not without losing everything
> they held dear.
> 
> The fire department’s grim assessment confirmed the extent of the devastation:
> severe structural damage rendered their home uninhabitable, leaving them with
> nothing but the clothes on their backs. Sarah, a resilient single mother who
> has always worked tirelessly to provide for her family, now faces the task of
> rebuilding their lives from scratch.

A lot of people, each giving a little, can make a big difference here.

iPulse for iOS ★

Craig Hockenberry, writing at The Iconfactory blog:

> We released the first version of iPulse on a new operating system called Mac
> OS X in 2002. Our unobtrusive and stylish system monitor showcased the
> features of Apple’s new OS and was a hit.
> 
> Now, two decades later, we’re happy to announce that groundbreaking product is
> coming to iOS and iPadOS. And just as it did with macOS, it’s taking a new
> approach with its user interface to get the job done. An app that can monitor
> your device is a great thing to have when you need it, but can get in the way
> when you don’t. On iOS we solved this problem by using Picture in Picture
> technology.

$10 one-time purchase in the App Store. That’s a great deal for a great tool.

There are zillions of “system monitor”-type apps in the App Store. Good luck
finding one other than iPulse that works well, is attractive and well-designed,
and has no ads.


TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024

Steven Sinofsky: ‘Building Under Regulation’ ★

Steven Sinofsky, back on January 27 (two days after Apple announced the first
draft of their DMA compliance plans):

> This week Apple detailed the software changes that will appear in an upcoming
> release of iOS to comply with the European Union Digital Markets Act (DMA). As
> I read the over 60 pages of the DMA when it was passed (and in drafts before
> that, little of which changed in the process) my heart sank over the
> complexity of a regulation so poorly constructed yet so clearly aimed at
> specific (American) companies and products. As I read through many of the
> hundreds of pages of Apple documents detailing their compliance implementation
> my heart sank again. This time was because I so thoroughly could feel the pain
> and struggle product teams felt in clinging to at best or unwinding at worst
> the most substantial improvement in computing ever introduced — the promise
> behind the iPhone since its introduction. The reason the iPhone became so
> successful was not a fluke. Consumers and customers voted that the value
> proposition of the product was something they preferred, and they acted by
> purchasing iPhone and developers responded by building applications for iOS.
> The regulators have a different view of that promise, so here we are.

Sinofsky warns that his essay is long, and it is. At over 18,000 words, it’s
veritably booklet-length. But it’s really worth reading. I read it shortly after
Sinofsky published it, and have been meaning to comment upon sections at length,
but I might as well just link to it. Sinofsky, having been in charge of Windows
when Microsoft went through the same sort of European Commission regulatory
wringer Apple is now, is in a unique position to expound upon the dynamic. His
focus on Apple’s “brand promise” with the iPhone, and how nearly every aspect of
the DMA compliance plan breaks — or at least chips away at — that promise, is
spot on.

The whole point of the DMA is the EC asserting that they know better than Apple
(and Google) how phones should work.

App Store WTF of the Week: DealMachine for Real Estate ★

Message from a DF reader:

> I came across an app that’s getting away with directly linking to a website to
> start a subscription instead of IAP. It’s a straightforward violation of App
> Store rules in the US. If you look at reviews, a lot of people complain about
> fraudulent charges and not being able to cancel. But apparently Apple hasn’t
> stopped them yet.

I downloaded the app and signed up; immediately after confirming your email
address, you get sent to a screen in the app where you choose from account tiers
to begin a free trial. The lowest tier is $100/month, the highest is $500/month.
And after making your selection, you get sent to this page on DealMachine’s
website to pay using Stripe. (That link won’t actually work, because I omitted
the tracking code portion of the URL for the throwaway account I created, so
here’s a screenshot.) Not only are they circumventing in-app payments, they
don’t even offer using them as a choice.

Here’s a review from their App Store Listing:

> No Customer Support / Rough
> Their annual plan is over a thousand dollars. I haven’t used their service in
> months. The renewal comes around, they charge me another thousand dollars. I
> reach out to get a refund, all I get is a robot.

I don’t think DealMachine is a scam. Stripe is as legit as it gets. But when you
handle payments on your own, you handle refunds and subscription cancellations
on your own too. Renewal reminders too. And if you don’t send renewal reminders,
customers don’t get them. And if you don’t feel like issuing a refund for a
$1,000/year subscription that a customer wanted to cancel but didn’t, you can
let the customer sort it out with their credit card company. All that stuff
works awesome, from the user’s perspective, with Apple’s App Store payment
system. So DealMachine offers a taste of what our friends in the EU may be
getting from marketplace apps soon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ONCE MORE UNTO THE APPLE / EPIC / EUROPEAN-COMMISSION BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE
MORE

MONDAY, 11 MARCH 2024

Three weeks ago, when Epic Games announced their approval from Apple for a new
Apple developer account, under Epic’s Swedish subsidiary, and their intention to
use that account to create an Epic Games Store app marketplace in the EU, the
assumption was that this had been approved at a high level inside Apple. It
seemed pretty safe to assume that no one at Apple had forgotten who Epic is, and
that was certainly how Epic presented it, starting with Tim Sweeney graciously
describing it as “a good faith move by Apple amidst our cataclysmic antitrust
battle”.

So the conventional wisdom as to what has occurred from then forward goes like
this:

 1. Epic, seeing the opportunity offered by Apple’s DMA compliance plan in the
    EU, petitions Apple for a new developer account to create an EU marketplace.
 2. Senior Apple executives — perhaps Phil Schiller, head of the App Store,
    personally — consider the petition, and despite having previously banned
    Epic Games’s Fortnite developer account for the 2020 in-app payments Trojan
    horse stunt, decide to grant it.
 3. Epic announces their plans.
 4. Apple then revokes Epic’s newly-granted developer account, citing other
    recent tweets from Sweeney in which he scathingly criticizes Apple’s DMA
    compliance plan.
 5. Epic goes public with the correspondence from Schiller (email to Sweeney,
    asking for assurances) and Apple’s attorney (letter [pp. 1 and 2] to Epic’s
    attorneys, officially terminating the new account, and thus, briefly,
    dashing Epic’s plans for its own EU marketplace.
 6. Everyone, largely assuming item 2 in this list, sees this as astonishingly
    thin-skinned retaliation on Apple’s part for public remarks criticizing
    Apple’s plans. “Everyone” here includes EC commissioner Thierry Breton, who
    tweets that he is immediately opening an investigation.
 7. Under this pressure, Apple relents and reinstates Epic’s newly-created
    account and agrees to allow the Epic Games Store marketplace to proceed.

This list is largely true, but the problem is item 2. Epic, under the assumption
or hope that the DMA demanded Apple permit them to open a store, had simply gone
through the enrollment form on Apple’s developer website and paid the $99 annual
fee. Per Sweeney, responding to a question from me tonight on Twitter/X, that
was Friday, February 9, and their account was approved on the following Monday,
February 12. Epic made their public announcement that they intended to create an
Epic Games Store for iOS in the EU on Friday, February 16.

That announcement, seemingly, was in fact the first time Epic’s plans came to
the attention of Apple’s leadership. Schiller’s email to Sweeney was sent the
following Friday, February 23, and concluded:

> You have stated that allowing enrollment of Epic Games Sweden in the Developer
> Program is “a good faith move by Apple.” We invite you to provide us with
> written assurance that you are also acting in good faith, and that Epic Games
> Sweden will, despite your public actions and rhetoric, honor all of its
> commitments. In plain, unqualified terms, please tell us why we should trust
> Epic this time.

It doesn’t make any sense for Schiller to have asked that on February 23 if any
senior Apple executives had considered the implications — including Epic’s
history of performative non-compliance with the App Store’s terms — and
explicitly approved Epic’s new developer account two weeks earlier. Florian
Mueller was the first observer to note this, in a post on his new site Games
Fray on March 6, this past Wednesday:

> The original grant of the developer account appeared to be a sign of a
> potential improvement of their relationship, but that may have been the result
> of an oversight as opposed to a conscious decision by Apple’s executives and
> lawyers to give Epic a chance to prove to be a reliable app store operator in
> the EU. Right after the developer account was announced (February 16, 2024),
> Epic’s Swedish subsidiary applied for a DMA consultation slot, and five days
> later apparently saw that the request had been turned down. Those
> consultations are offered by Apple to organizations interested in exercising
> certain rights under the DMA with a view to alternative app stores. The fact
> that they weren’t going to talk to Epic about this was already a first
> negative sign.

Stephen Warwick, reporting for iMore, followed up on Florian’s speculation and
confirmed it:

> Apple has confirmed to iMore that Epic Games Sweden entered the DLPA without
> any executive review on Apple’s part, confirming Mueller’s suspicion.

To be clear, regardless of executive review, “Apple” had approved Epic Games
Sweden’s developer account. But that approval was seemingly automated, or mostly
automated, and only after that did Apple executives and lawyers engage Epic in
any back-and-forth regarding assurances of future compliance with Apple’s DMA
guidelines.

So the real order of events is something more like this:

 1. Epic Games Sweden enrolls in the developer program online and gets approval
    after the weekend.
 2. Epic presumes, somewhat reasonably, that this means they have the go-ahead.1
    It is very Apple-like to simply grant the new account without any personal
    contact. Epic knows Apple is doing this through gritted teeth, because Apple
    itself has made clear they don’t agree with any of the demands of the DMA.
 3. Epic announces their plan for an iOS games store.
 4. Now Schiller and others in Apple leadership ponder the question of what to
    do, and a week later Schiller emails Sweeney.
 5. Sweeney responds in the affirmative, replying to Schiller: “Epic and its
    subsidiaries are acting in good faith and will comply with all terms of
    current and future agreements with Apple, and we’ll be glad to provide Apple
    with any specific further assurances on the topic that you’d like.”
 6. Apple considers that insufficient, thinking something to the effect of
    “These guys complained incessantly about the App Store before pulling their
    Fortnite IAP stunt, and we perma-banned them for good reason then. Now
    they’re complaining just as incessantly about our DMA compliance plans, so
    they’re just as likely to pull a rule-breaking stunt again if we grant them
    a developer account to run a marketplace in the EU. Nothing’s changed with
    Epic, so screw ’em, they still don’t deserve to be in the developer
    program.”

I.e., while Apple as an institution granted, revoked, and under public pressure
reinstated Epic’s new account, from the perspective of Apple leadership, they
only revoked a new account that had been created through an automated
system — not for criticism, per se, but for the same reason Epic’s Fortnite
developer account remains revoked and Fortnite remains unavailable on Apple
platforms worldwide: for the 2020 Fortnite IAP Trojan horse stunt. The
“colorful” tweets Schiller quoted and which Apple’s attorney cited were
mentioned as proof that Epic hadn’t changed, not as the reason for revoking the
new account.

I’m farting into the wind by writing about this somewhat subtle distinction,
because the conventional wisdom isn’t going to change. Almost everyone paying
any attention at all to this will continue to believe, forever, that Apple
executives granted Epic a new developer account and then revoked it because Tim
Sweeney tweeted things Apple didn’t like about their DMA plans.2

The bottom line remains as I concluded Friday: Apple played this whole thing
terribly. The automated developer program enrollment form — the one that gave
Epic the impression they’d been granted express permission to proceed with
building an iOS marketplace for the EU — is Apple’s. The whole App Store
bureaucracy is Apple’s. (Or as Sweeney aptly called it tonight, “Apple’s App
DMV”.)

At the beginning of Apple attorney Mark Perry’s letter terminating Epic’s new
developer account, he lays bare Apple’s thinking:

> In the past, Epic has denigrated Apple’s developer terms, including the
> Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA) as a prelude to breaking them.

To Apple executives, it might have made sense to cite in their correspondence
with Epic their ongoing denigration of Apple’s developer terms, as evidence that
Epic remains recalcitrant and untrustworthy. To almost everyone outside Apple
Park, however — most especially (a) third-party developers who have been, for
years, souring on Apple’s App Store policies; and (b) EC commissioners, who are
ebulliently roasting Apple as a regulatory target and feasting on the resulting
publicity — it looks not like a policy of “We’re not going to reinstate
Developer Program privileges to a proven rule-breaker whose stated goal was
then, and remains now, to break our control over our own platform”, but instead
a retaliatory policy of “We’ll terminate the account of any developer who speaks
out against us.”

That Apple couldn’t see how this would play is on them. ★

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 1. I asked Sweeney on Twitter/X about the approval timeline, wondering whether
    it was measured in mere hours (or minutes, even) or days. If it had been
    immediately, or nearly so, wouldn’t it seem likely to have been part of an
    automated approval for new developer accounts, not a dramatic change of
    stance on Apple’s part regarding Epic Games post-Fortnite IAP lawsuit? Apple
    fought hard in court — US court, of course, which now matters — to assert
    its right to revoke Epic’s Fortnite developer account and permanently ban
    Fortnite from the App Store. But if Sweeney is correct and the approval of
    the new account came three days after enrollment — even if over a
    weekend — it seems reasonable for Epic to have assumed they were cleared.
    Not that Apple had a change of heart, but that Apple accepted that the DMA
    changed the ground rules in the EU.
    
    Which, it is now clear, the DMA has indeed done. ↩︎

 2. Apple attorney Mark Perry’s letter to Epic’s attorneys informing them Apple
    was terminating Epic’s new developer program account cited just one tweet,
    in which Sweeney embedded a photo of the two Steves working on an Apple II.
    Sweeney doesn’t mention either Steve by name, but added the photo after
    writing:
    
    > Apple is a few bold and visionary decisions away from being the company
    > they once were and that they still advertise themselves to be: beloved
    > brand to consumers, partner to developers, and overlord to none.
    
    The clear implication being that Apple was different — and better — under
    Steve Jobs. But, Jobs is the guy who, in February 2011, emailed this to Eddy
    Cue and Phil Schiller:
    
    > I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only
    > bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read
    > books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without
    > paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.
    
    So one can imagine that if you worked with Jobs personally, considered him a
    friend, and continue to miss him dearly, you might be a bit annoyed — to say
    the least — by Sweeney’s insinuation that he knows how Jobs would proceed
    today with the App Store better than you. ↩︎︎

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


MONDAY, 11 MARCH 2024

Business Insider Report Claims Apple Is Testing an AI-Powered Ads Platform ★

Benjamin Mayo, reporting for 9to5Mac:

> Apple is said to be testing an AI-powered ads platform with a select group of
> partners, via Business Insider.
> 
> The AI tool chooses where to place ads in the various App Store promoted ad
> placement slots. Right now, this is seemingly being used to improve advertiser
> campaign performance for App Store Search Ads. However, Business Insider
> speculates the technology could eventually be used elsewhere as Apple
> gradually expands its offering of ad-supported services.

If this AI system is so smart, I suggest Apple use it to figure out how to run
the App Store without any ads at all.

Steven Spielberg, FineWoven Case Owner, Photographs His Hamburger at an Oscars
Party Using an iPhone 15 Pro ★

Zoom in on that first image and you can see his case is rather stained.

(Thanks to DF reader Harrison Krebs.)

Roku Locks Devices Until Users Agree to New Terms of Service ★

Scharon Harding, reporting for Ars Technica:

> This month, users on Roku’s support forums reported suddenly seeing a message
> when turning on their Roku TV or streaming device reading: “We’ve made an
> important update: We’ve updated our Dispute Resolution Terms. Select ‘Agree’
> to agree to these updated Terms and to continue enjoying our products and
> services. Press * to view these updated Terms.” A large button reading “Agree”
> follows. The pop-up doesn’t offer a way to disagree, and users are unable to
> use their device unless they hit agree. [...]
> 
> Roku has further aggravated customers who have found that disagreeing to its
> updated terms is harder than necessary. Roku is willing to accept agreement to
> its terms with a single button press, but to opt out, users must jump through
> hoops that include finding that old book of stamps.
> 
> To opt out of Roku’s ToS update, which primarily changes the “Dispute
> Resolution Terms,” users must send a letter to Roku’s general counsel in
> California mentioning: “the name of each person opting out and contact
> information for each such person, the specific product models, software, or
> services used that are at issue, the email address that you used to set up
> your Roku account (if you have one), and, if applicable, a copy of your
> purchase receipt.” Roku required all this to opt out of its terms previously,
> as well.

Requiring a written letter (and a copy of the purchase receipt — how many people
keep that for what may well be a years-old purchase?) is just a huge “fuck you”
to their customers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SPONSORSHIP OPENINGS AT DARING FIREBALL AND THE TALK SHOW, EARLY 2024 EDITION

SATURDAY, 9 MARCH 2024

After being sold out for months, the upcoming sponsorship schedule at DF is
unusually open at the moment — including this upcoming week.

Weekly sponsorships have been the top source of revenue for Daring Fireball ever
since I started selling them back in 2007. They’ve succeeded, I think, because
they make everyone happy. They generate good money. There’s only one sponsor per
week and the sponsors are always relevant to at least some sizable portion of
the DF audience, so you, the reader, are never annoyed and hopefully often
intrigued by them. And, from the sponsors’ perspective, they work. My favorite
thing about them is how many sponsors return for subsequent weeks after seeing
the results.

If you’ve got a product or service you think would be of interest to DF’s
audience of people obsessed with high quality and good design, get in touch. And
again, this coming week remains open.

Also, sponsoring The Talk Show is a great opportunity for a lot of the same
services and products that sponsor the website. And because there are up to
three sponsors per episode, the price is significantly lower than the weekly
sponsorship of the entire site. Advertising in the podcast industry is going
through upheaval, and my show is really feeling it. Those of you who listen to
ATP know they are too, and I’ll bet the same is true for just about all your
favorite ad-based podcasts. What I’ve seen, in broad terms, is that the early
years of podcasting were indie across the board — indie podcasters with indie
sponsors. Then, when podcasting exploded in popularity, advertising agencies
stepped in, and most spots on my show — and most spots on the shows I listen
to — were sold to internet startup brands through ad agencies. The brands and
products were great — companies like Warby Parker eyeglasses, Casper mattresses,
Hullo pillows, you know the type — but dealing with ad agencies was (and
remains) a much, much bigger hassle than dealing with smaller independent
companies directly (which is how I sell almost all my weekly sponsorship spots).

So if you have an app, product, service or whatever that you think is a good fit
for Daring Fireball, I encourage you to consider a sponsorship of The Talk Show.
Small indie products have been vastly underrepresented amongst The Talk Show
sponsors in recent years, but I hope to change that. Again, the number of repeat
sponsors is the best proof I can offer that it’s a great value. (Those big
brands going through ad agencies track their results.) I don’t sell the podcast
sponsorships myself, so if you’re interested, get in touch with Elaine Pow at
Neat.fm. There are a bunch of openings in the next few months, and we’re happy
to offer a discount to first-time sponsors to fill them.

I kind of hate writing these sponsorship-pimping posts, but my job, from an
accounting point of view, is an ad salesman, not a writer/podcaster. The obvious
truth is that I should be publicly promoting these sponsorships — both on the
site and the podcast — far more often than I do. (I’d have been fired from this
sales job years ago if I had a boss.) ★

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SATURDAY, 9 MARCH 2024

‘Your Father Wanted You to Have This When You Were Old Enough’ ★

Jason Kottke:

> When the Star Wars films aired in Chile, instead of cutting away from the
> movie for commercial breaks, the TV station “seamlessly” inserted ads for
> Cerveza Cristal beer. We’re talking Obi-Wan opening a chest to find a
> lightsaber for Luke and instead it reveals an ice-chest full of beer. Or the
> Emperor Force-reaching for a lightsaber and a can of beer flies into his hand.

These commercials aired like 20 years ago, but went supernova-viral last week.
It’s impossible to explain how that works, but they deserved to go crazy viral.
They’re so goddamn funny, even though you know the gag.

(Sidenote: Pitch-perfect redesign over there at the home of fine hypertext
products since 1998.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


APPLE REINSTATES EPIC’S EU DEVELOPER ACCOUNT

FRIDAY, 8 MARCH 2024

Epic Games:

> Apple has told us and committed to the European Commission that they will
> reinstate our developer account. This sends a strong signal to developers that
> the European Commission will act swiftly to enforce the Digital Markets Act
> and hold gatekeepers accountable. We are moving forward as planned to launch
> the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe. Onward!

Tim Sweeney:

> The DMA went through its first major challenge with Apple banning Epic Games
> Sweden from competing with the App Store, and the DMA just had its first major
> victory. Following a swift inquiry by the European Commission, Apple notified
> the Commission and Epic that it would relent and restore our access to bring
> back Fortnite and launch Epic Games Store in Europe under the DMA law.
> 
> A big win for European rule of law, for the European Commision, and for the
> freedom of developers worldwide to speak up. #FreeFortnite!

This is in response to a tweet, just yesterday, from Thierry Breton of the
European Commission (emojis and hashtags untouched):

> 🚨Under the #DMA, there is no room for threats by gatekeepers to silence
> developers.
> 
> I have asked our services to look into Apple’s termination of Epic’s developer
> account as a matter of priority.
> 
> To all developers in 🇪🇺 & 🌍: now is the time to have your say on
> gatekeepers’ compliance solutions!

(I had a version of this post almost ready to publish before I ran out of gas
late last night; I seemingly can’t write fast enough to keep up with Apple’s EU
regulatory adventure. Today’s Dithering is, I think, a particularly good episode
and still relevant, but its shelf life of being up-to-date on the news was about
6 hours.)

Theory A: Apple is playing grandmaster-level chess, and orchestrated this entire
back-and-forth to give the EU a high-publicity win — “Look, the DMA, just one
day old, is already working, showing that we can push Apple around” — regarding
an Epic Games Store that Apple should have just let through from the start. It’s
a lot of publicity for a thing that I don’t expect will amount to a significant
concession by Apple.

Theory B: Apple is flailing erratically trying to deal with their loss of
autonomy.

I vote B, because to me the real win for Apple would have been just letting Epic
use their Swedish subsidiary to open an iOS games store without the
back-and-forth. If Apple had gone that route, the European Commission could
still have taken credit for proof of the DMA’s effectiveness, and Apple would
look like they were complying graciously with the law. But the way things
actually played out makes clear they’re complying begrudgingly, and, worse,
plays into the worst assumptions about Apple’s institutional arrogance and
vindictiveness.

Apple seems to have been particularly wrong-footed (to borrow a sports analogy
even EU citizens might get) by this Epic thing. Again, I think Apple should have
let Epic open an Epic Games Store in the EU. I think Apple could have just made
clear from the moment they announced their DMA compliance plans that Epic
remained ineligible for a developer account because of their flagrant violation
of the App Store rules four years ago. The EC might have — and I think would
have — forced Apple to relent on that, but it could have been adjudicated
without any implication of spite or pettiness on Apple’s part.

But instead Apple played it the worst way possible: They let Epic’s Swedish
subsidiary open a new Apple Developer Account, and proceed far enough toward
building a games store that Epic announced it, and only then revoked Epic’s
developer account, while almost literally justifying it not on the grounds that
Epic can’t be trusted because they’re an egregious rule breaker, but instead
because Tim Sweeney continued to voice his strident (or if you prefer, colorful)
opinions about the App Store being an illegal monopoly. Apple doesn’t revoke
developer licenses for criticizing Apple. But a lot of people — including the
EC! — now think Apple did just that.

How was a “priority” investigation by the EC not going to happen the way Apple
played this? If Apple had just let Epic proceed from the start, they’d have
looked magnanimous. They even had Tim Sweeney calling it “a good faith move”.
But as it stands, Apple looks bitter, and from the EC’s perspective, in need of
close policing. ★

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


WEDNESDAY, 6 MARCH 2024

Signal Introduces Usernames ★

Signal:

> Usernames in Signal do not function like usernames on social media platforms.
> Signal usernames are not logins or handles that you’ll be known by on the
> app — they’re simply a quick way to connect without sharing a phone number.
> [...]
> 
> Usernames simply allow you to initiate a connection on Signal without sharing
> your phone number, and Signal’s robust privacy safeguards remain unchanged.
> Signal is built so that we do not know who you message, what you say, which
> group chats you participate in, who’s in your contact list, and more.
> 
> If you want to create a username, you can do so in Settings > Profile. A
> username on Signal (unlike a profile name) must be unique and must have two or
> more numbers at the end of it; a choice intended to help keep usernames
> egalitarian and minimize spoofing. Usernames can be changed as often as you
> like, and you can delete your username entirely if you prefer to no longer
> have one.

Clever solution. Especially given that these usernames aren’t like social media
handles, I particularly like the “every username gets at least 2 digits
appended” rule.

How iOS Is Determining Eligibility for Alternative App Marketplaces in the
European Union ★

Apple support document:

> To reflect the Digital Markets Act’s changes, users in the European Union are
> able to install alternative app marketplaces and install apps offered through
> alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 or later. The country or region of
> your Apple ID must be set to one of the countries or regions of the European
> Union, and you must be physically located in the European Union.
> 
> Your device eligibility for alternative app marketplaces is determined by
> using on-device processing, with only an indicator of eligibility sent to
> Apple. To preserve your privacy, Apple does not collect your device’s
> location.
> 
> If you leave the European Union for short-term travel, you’ll continue to have
> access to alternative app marketplaces for a grace period. If you’re gone for
> too long, you’ll lose access to some features, including installing new
> alternative app marketplaces. Apps you installed from alternative app
> marketplaces will continue to function, but they can’t be updated by the
> marketplace you downloaded them from.

How long is “too long”? What a confusing mess this is shaping up to be.

Meta’s Plans for E2EE Messaging Interop for WhatsApp and Messenger ★

Engineering at Meta:

> To comply with a new EU law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into
> force on March 7th, we’ve made major changes to WhatsApp and Messenger to
> enable interoperability with third-party messaging services. [...]
> 
> To interoperate, third-party providers will sign an agreement with Messenger
> and/or WhatsApp and we’ll work together to enable interoperability. Today
> we’ll publish the WhatsApp Reference Offer for third-party providers which
> will outline what will be required to interoperate with the service. The
> Reference Offer for Messenger will follow in due course. [...]
> 
> In order to maximize user security, we would prefer third-party providers to
> use the Signal Protocol. Since this has to work for everyone however, we will
> allow third-party providers to use a compatible protocol if they are able to
> demonstrate it offers the same security guarantees as Signal.

Unclear to me whether these third-party providers will, somehow, only function
in the EU, or if Meta is opening this up worldwide. Also unclear to me is who
benefits from this?

Here’s the New iOS 17.4 Default Browser Nag for iPhone Users in Europe ★

Thomas Ricker, writing for The Verge:

> It’s DMA day in Europe, and I’ve immediately been prompted to choose a default
> browser after updating to iOS 17.4. The list is populated with “the most
> downloaded browsers on iOS in that country in the prior year.”

This screen is ridiculous. I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks this
sort of user experience is anything but confusing to a typical user. Someone
who’s been using Safari for a decade, and doesn’t even know what a “default
browser” is, might have to scroll below the fold to even see Safari as an
option, depending on the random order.

From Apple’s developer documentation for this screen:

> Up to 11 of the most downloaded browsers on iOS in that country in the prior
> year that meet the above criteria will be selected for the browser choice
> screen in addition to Safari. Apple will update the list of browsers eligible
> to be shown on the choice screen once per calendar year.
> 
> The current list of browsers shown on the browser choice screen per country
> are below. The lists below are in alphabetical order, on a user’s device
> browsers will be shown in a randomized order per user. Click on a country
> below to jump to it.

If this is a good idea for web browsers, why stop there? Why not mandate the
same sort of choice screen for every app? Mail, Calendar, Notes, Weather,
Camera — why not require all of them to show a choice screen for picking a
“default”?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


APPLE TERMINATED EPIC’S EU DEVELOPER ACCOUNT

WEDNESDAY, 6 MARCH 2024

Welp, so much for my theory that Apple was making nice with Epic Games — letting
bygones be bygones and allowing Epic to open an iOS games marketplace in the EU.
Epic, on their company blog:

> We recently announced that Apple approved our Epic Games Sweden AB developer
> account. We intended to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and
> Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To
> our surprise, Apple has terminated that account and now we cannot develop the
> Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows
> Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices. [...]
> 
> In terminating Epic’s developer account, Apple is taking out one of the
> largest potential competitors to the Apple App Store. They are undermining our
> ability to be a viable competitor and they are showing other developers what
> happens when you try to compete with Apple or are critical of their unfair
> practices.
> 
> If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its
> sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to utilize a third
> party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their
> audience at any time.

Epic seems to be arguing that Apple is forbidden from any sort of oversight over
who runs an app marketplace under the DMA. If Epic can’t run its own game store
marketplace, Apple isn’t complying with the DMA — that seems to be their stance.
Common sense suggests that can’t be right. There’s got to be some sort of line a
developer can cross that would justify Apple revoking their developer account.
One can argue that what Epic did with Fortnite and in-app payments in 2020
doesn’t cross that line. But that’s not what Epic is arguing — they’re arguing
that the DMA forbids any such line, and that Apple does not have the discretion
to decide who can run — and keep running — an app marketplace.

I guess Epic is implying that the EU government, not Apple, should have that
discretion? They don’t say so, but who else but Apple could have that
discretion? But the European Commission isn’t set up for that sort of police
work. That’s not how the EC works. The DMA doesn’t say that the EC now runs app
marketplaces.

Epic quotes from an email from Phil Schiller to Tim Sweeney, back on February
23:

> Your colorful criticism of our DMA compliance plan, coupled with Epic’s past
> practice of intentionally violating contractual provisions with which it
> disagrees, strongly suggest that Epic Sweden does not intend to follow the
> rules. Another intentional breach could threaten the integrity of the iOS
> platform, as well as the security and privacy of users.
> 
> You have stated that allowing enrollment of Epic Games Sweden in the Developer
> Program is “a good faith move by Apple.” We invite you to provide us with
> written assurance that you are also acting in good faith, and that Epic Games
> Sweden will, despite your public actions and rhetoric, honor all of its
> commitments. In plain, unqualified terms, please tell us why we should trust
> Epic this time.

Sweeney’s response:

> Hi Phil, Thanks for reaching out. Epic and its subsidiaries are acting in good
> faith and will comply with all terms of current and future agreements with
> Apple, and we’ll be glad to provide Apple with any specific further assurances
> on the topic that you’d like.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> -Tim

The termination of Epic Games Sweden AB’s Apple developer account was
communicated in a letter from Mark Perry, a lawyer representing Apple, to Epic’s
lawyers:

> Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not
> credible. It boiled down to an unsupported “trust us.” History shows, however,
> that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy, hence the request for meaningful
> commitments. And the minimal assurances in Mr. Sweeney’s curt response were
> swiftly undercut by a litany of public attacks on Apple’s policies, compliance
> plan, and business model. As just one example:
> https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1762243725533532587?s=20.

That Tim Sweeney tweet cited as an example doesn’t seem out of line to me. It’s
strident, to be sure, but we know Sweeney endorses a regulatory structure that
would legally require Apple to treat the iPhone as a platform more or less as
open as the Mac. We know Apple disagrees, vehemently, with that — but I don’t
see how stating that viewpoint ought to disqualify Epic from obtaining a
developer account. Apple ought to stick to Epic’s deliberate breaking of the App
Store rules with Fortnite back in 2020. It’s not even in dispute that they
flagrantly broke the rules then. If Apple wants to make that a “lifetime” ban,
they should just say so.

Citing recent tweets, like Sweeney’s, that are simply critical — even scathingly
critical (or to borrow Schiller’s term, “colorful”) — just makes it look like
Apple’s policy is that if a developer criticizes the App Store’s rules, Apple
will punish them for speaking out. I don’t think that’s Apple’s policy at all,
but some people think it is, and this situation with Epic just reinforces that.

Spotify, for example, is just as vociferous a corporate critic of the App Store
as Epic is, and Apple hasn’t threatened them with revocation of Spotify’s
developer program membership. The difference between Spotify and Epic isn’t in
their rhetoric; it’s in their past behavior.

After Epic’s blog post was published today, Apple issued a statement to The
Verge and 9to5Mac (and perhaps other outlets):

> “Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to
> determine that Apple has the right to terminate ‘any or all of Epic Games’
> wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’
> control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion.’ In light of Epic’s past
> and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right.”

That’s a stronger, thicker-skinned argument. Stick to the fact that Epic
deliberately broke the rules with the Fortnite payments stunt. Ignore the tweets
arguing that Apple is abusing a monopoly.

But why not take an opportunity to look magnanimous? Apple shouldn’t be expected
to grovel, but this looks like they’re going out of their way to look
vindictive. I really thought it would be a clever bit of public relations
jujitsu to make nice with Epic, even if, in Cupertino, it was through gritted
teeth.

Popcorn-eating-wise, I’m genuinely curious about Apple citing a U.S. court
decision as grounds for banning Epic’s Swedish subsidiary from holding a
developer account. What happens if the European Commission doesn’t see that
ruling as applicable? Epic never lost a lawsuit to Apple in the E.U. So how is
this going to pan out? ★

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


WEDNESDAY, 6 MARCH 2024

Vision Pro’s Battery Indicator Is Confusing ★

Apple, in a support document on charging Vision Pro:

> The light next to the battery’s USB-C port can give you a quick look at the
> battery’s current charge state when you’re not wearing Apple Vision Pro. The
> light turns on briefly when you connect the battery to the USB-C Charge Cable,
> when you disconnect it, and when you move or gently tap it.
> 
> Here’s what the light means when you first connect the battery to power, or if
> you move or tap the battery while it’s charging:
> 
>  * Green for several seconds: the battery is charged to capacity.
>  * Amber for several seconds: the battery’s charge level is less than 100%,
>    but has enough charge for you to use Apple Vision Pro.
>  * Amber pulsing slowly: the battery’s charge level is too low to power your
>    Apple Vision Pro. Keep charging the battery for 10 minutes, or until the
>    light shows amber steadily (not pulsing) when you tap the battery.
> 
> Here’s what the light means when you disconnect the battery from power, or if
> you move or tap the battery while it’s not connected to power:
> 
>  * Green for several seconds: the battery is charged to 50% or higher.
>  * Amber for several seconds: the battery’s charge level is between 5% and
>    49%.
>  * Amber pulsing slowly: the battery’s charge level is too low to power your
>    Apple Vision Pro. Charge the battery for 10 minutes, or until the light
>    shows amber steadily (not pulsing) when you tap the battery.

This seems like it could and should have been so much simpler. Why not have 4
lights instead of one, representing 25/50/75/100 percent charge levels? It seems
like madness that green means “charged to capacity” when plugged in, but “50% or
higher” when not. That’s a big difference!

Television for Vision Pro ★

Speaking of new apps from recent guests on my podcast, Adam Lisagor has created
a new app for Vision Pro that he introduces thus, with a clever one-minute
video:

> Welcome to the future of television. I call it ... Television.

The gimmick is that Television offers an assortment of realistic-looking
televisions, old and new, and you can just place them in the world around you.
You can watch videos from your Photos library, and, starting with the 1.1
update, from YouTube and other web streaming platforms.

I don’t know if this is a useful way to watch video but I’m certain that it’s
fun. And I think being fun is exactly what we need from developers in the early
days of a new platform. In a weird way, that stupid beer-drinking iPhone app
mattered. I think Television matters the same way. It’s just fun to plop a
realistic old-time CRT TV on your desk. I get why Apple didn’t go this
way — with skeuomorphic VR objects — with the system design of VisionOS, but
that just means the opportunity is there for the taking for third-party
developers.

It’s just fun.


MONDAY, 4 MARCH 2024

Setapp Mobile ★

MacPaw:

> MacPaw’s Setapp is the first subscription-based platform offering a curated
> collection of Mac and iOS apps to users. The platform empowers developers by
> aligning rewards with apps’ usage and market value, thus fostering a thriving
> ecosystem of innovation. Now, Setapp will be available directly on iOS
> devices, allowing for a more integrated and convenient user experience. This
> expansion promises a diverse selection of premium applications for users and a
> supportive environment for developers.

EU-only, of course. But so much for the notion that “no one” is going build an
alternative app marketplace under Apple’s DMA compliance proposal.

Project Tapestry ★

The Iconfactory:

> What if you had one app that gave an overview of nearly everything that was
> happening across all the different services you follow? A single chronological
> timeline of your most important social media services, RSS feeds, and other
> sources. All of the updates together in one place, in the order they’re
> posted, with no algorithm deciding what you should see or when you should see
> it.
> 
> That’s what we’d like to build.

Already funded, but the stretch goals are sooo… good.

M3 MacBook Airs Are Out ★

Apple’s Newsroom post announcing the speed-bumped M3 MacBook Airs has an entire
section about “AI”:

> World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI
> 
> With the transition to Apple silicon, every Mac is a great platform for AI. M3
> includes a faster and more efficient 16-core Neural Engine, along with
> accelerators in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device machine learning, making
> MacBook Air the world’s best consumer laptop for AI. Leveraging this
> incredible AI performance, macOS delivers intelligent features that enhance
> productivity and creativity, so users can enable powerful camera features,
> real-time speech to text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding,
> accessibility features, and much more.
> 
> With a broad ecosystem of apps that deliver advanced AI features, users can do
> everything from checking their homework with AI Math Assistance in Goodnotes
> 6, to automatically enhancing photos in Pixelmator Pro, to removing background
> noise from a video using CapCut. Combined with the unified memory architecture
> of Apple silicon, MacBook Air can also run optimized AI models, including
> large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally
> with great performance. In addition to on-device performance, MacBook Air
> supports cloud-based solutions, enabling users to run powerful productivity
> and creative apps that tap into the power of AI, such as Microsoft Copilot for
> Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly.

WorkOS ★

My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at DF. WorkOS is a modern identity
and user management platform that enables B2B SaaS companies to accelerate
enterprise adoption. Free up to 1 million MAUs, WorkOS brings a modular approach
to B2B Auth with enterprise-ready features like SSO, SCIM, and User Management.

The APIs are flexible and easy to use, designed to provide an effortless
experience from your first user all the way through your largest enterprise
customer.

Today, hundreds of high-growth scale-ups are already powered by WorkOS,
including ones you probably know, like Vercel, Webflow, and Loom.


FRIDAY, 1 MARCH 2024

Richard Lewis on Letterman ★

So many fond remembrances of Richard Lewis are coming out — he really was “the
menschiest of mensches” — but this highlight reel from his appearances on
Letterman’s show, especially the early ones from the 1980s, hits home for me. He
was a great comedian and an absolutely perfect talk show guest. He was seemingly
always on Late Night back then, and every time he was, as a viewer, it was like,
“Richard Lewis again? Can’t wait!”

Also:

 * Lewis’s first appearance on Late Night in 1982. Hard to overstate how
   forward-thinking this entire segment was.
 * Lewis killing on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show in 1990.
 * Keith Olbermann’s remembrance.
 * Lewis making Bob Costas laugh so hard NBC almost shelved the episode. Here’s
   the whole first appearance on Costas’s (vastly underrated) late late night
   show in 1989.

Weather Up 3.0 ★

One more link from the latest episode of The Talk Show: Weather Up 3.0. If
you’re a longtime reader you know I’m a nut for iPhone weather apps. There are
so many great ones for iOS, starting with Apple’s own. I just love how much
creativity and originality there is in presentation, emphasis, and information
design.

Weather Up 3 stakes out two unique positions. The app itself presents a
map-first design. No other weather app (that I’m aware of) goes map-first
presentation-wise (which, as David Barnard explained on my podcast, is
expensive).

But even more interesting is that Weather Up 3 is really widget-first — the app
interface is secondary to the widget interface, which, for weather, I think is
the right priority — and the widget design is:

 * Information-dense
 * Attractive
 * Original

Just a phenomenally good weather app, that you should definitely try.

‘Great Developers Steal Ideas, Not Products’ ★

David Barnard, in a post from 2011 on the oft-cited (and oft-misattributed)
adage about good artists copying and great artists stealing:

> In dancing around the moral and semantic differences between borrowing and
> stealing, I’ve been missing the greater point. Elliot used the word steal, not
> for its immoral connotation, but to suggest ownership. To steal something is
> to take possession of it.
> 
> When you steal an idea and have the time and good taste to make it your own,
> it grows into something different, hopefully something greater. But as you
> borrow more and more from other products, there’s less and less of you in the
> result. Less to be proud of, less to own.

Barnard quotes the actual origin of the adage, from T.S. Eliot, and that alone
is worth a bookmark. In Eliot’s formulation, it’s not copying vs. stealing, but
imitating vs. stealing. That subtle distinction is clarifying. People who are
creative and ethical generally see the clear distinction between remixing and
ripping off. I add generally there because some people are truly offended when
the ideas behind their own creations are remixed — stolen — by others.

To name one notable example, I’d argue that Android, as a whole, is a remix of
the iPhone. But there are specific Android handsets — starting with some early
Samsung Galaxy models — that are rip-offs of iPhone hardware designs. Steve
Jobs, however, felt otherwise.

(And which is not to say Google hasn’t often been a shameless imitator/copycat.)

The Talk Show: ‘The Essence of Stealing’ ★

Special guest David Barnard joins the show. Topics include the App Store — past,
present, and post-DMA future — and the excellent new update to his app Weather
Up.



Sponsored by:

 * Nuts.com: The world’s best snacks, delivered fast and fresh.
 * Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first
   order.

Links (which I usually don’t post here in Linked List posts for episodes, but
which are exceptionally good this episode):

 * Weather Up.
   * On the App Store.
   * Screenshot of two Weather Up widgets showing somewhat different forecasts
     via two different weather sources.
 * RevenueCat.
 * Sub Club Podcast.
 * “How to Game the App Store” — an unfortunately still-relevant piece David
   wrote back in 2018.
 * Trip Cubby — first link on Daring Fireball to one of David’s apps, in
   September 2008 (just two months after the App Store opened).
 * March 2008 Apple event announcing the iPhone SDK and App Store.
   * Apple Newsroom post.
 * WWDC 2010 keynote: iPhone 4 and iAds announced.
   * Apple Newsroom post.
 * Aaron Hillegass’s acclaimed books on Objective-C and Cocoa programming.
 * Ben Bajarin, Creative Strategies.
 * Fakespot — Mozilla’s tool for identifying scams and fake reviews.
 * City on Fire — Ringo Lam’s 1987 Hong Kong action movie, starring the great
   Chow Yun-fat, that inspired Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.
 * Apple’s nearly ruinous “Look and feel” lawsuit against Microsoft in 1994.
 * “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
 * David, in a blog post from 2011: “Great Developers Steal Ideas, Not
   Products”.
 * David, on Twitter/X, with a more accurate ballpark estimate of Meta’s average
   revenue per user (ARPU) in the EU: roughly $4 per user per app per quarter.
   They could pay Apple’s €0.50 per app installation per year Core Technology
   Fee without breaking a sweat.


THURSDAY, 29 FEBRUARY 2024

Larry David Promoting Siri ★

Speaking of Larry David, remember the never-shown (and now, alas, deleted from
the public internet because of copyright takedowns from Apple (archive))
10-minute video that was supposed to open WWDC 2014, featuring Larry David as an
App Store reviewer? When it leaked, briefly — but long enough for me to snatch a
copy — in 2021, I wrote:

> The whole video is funny in exactly the way Curb is funny, but Curb Your
> Enthusiasm -style humor is not Apple-style humor — and the difference has only
> widened since 2014. I don’t know how this project got so far, but the humor is
> such that I don’t see how Apple could possibly have used it, even in 2014. One
> joke that might have played as funny in 2014 but wouldn’t in 2021 is the
> central conceit of the video — that Apple’s head of app review is a capricious
> jerk who makes approval decisions based on inscrutable whims.

It really was hilarious, but also seemed to prove that Larry David’s humor isn’t
compatible with Apple’s brand.

But, here we are in 2024, and Larry David has created a minute-long commercial
for Siri, embedded right in an actual episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I
wouldn’t think David would go for shameless product promotion like this,* but in
this clip he patiently and thoroughly shows exactly how effective, accurate, and
effortless Siri is to use in day-to-day life.

I’m surprised Apple hasn’t yet put this clip on their official YouTube channel.

* Then again, I wouldn’t have thought he’d do commercials for cryptocurrency
scams either.

Humane, Nearing Launch of Ai Pin, Is Gathering Steam ★

Humane, yesterday:

> This partnership, as part of a strategic investment opportunity, will see
> SoftBank become the exclusive telecom provider for Ai Pin in Japan, leveraging
> SoftBank’s top-class services and compelling customer touchpoints to bring Ai
> Pin to a new market. SoftBank and Humane will also explore bringing CosmOS to
> other mobile devices and be working together on an app-less ecosystem of
> third-party services and AI-driven user experiences in Japan.

And in a separate announcement the day before:

> Humane Inc and South Korea’s biggest mobile telecommunication company SK
> Telecom (SKT) today announced a Telco partnership for the Humane Ai Pin, the
> world’s first stand-alone Ai device and proprietary Ai-driven OS, CosmOS.
> 
> This partnership, as part of a strategic investment opportunity, will see SKT
> become the exclusive telecom provider for Ai Pin in South Korea, combining
> Humane’s groundbreaking AI technology with SKT’s expertise in advanced mobile
> networks, IoT, Cloud, AI, and 5G technologies. Alongside Ai Pin, both
> companies will explore licensing Humane’s CosmOS, creating an entirely new
> operating model between carriers and OEMs.

NeXT shipped their first workstations in 1989, but got out of the hardware
business in 1993 and tried to make a go of just licensing their OS. Humane might
be starting that same pivot two months before their first device ships.

Humane seemingly had a great Mobile World Congress (MWC) this week, winning
awards, garnering crowds, and attracting media attention. Here’s a series of
short videos from Humane’s Sam Sheffer showing off the entire kit of hardware.

I remain deeply skeptical of the form factor, but just like the Rabbit R1 — at
this point, Humane’s only rival — I can’t wait to try it. Whether the form
factor is the right idea or not, the Humane AI assistant sure as shit blows
Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant out of the water.


WEDNESDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2024

Sony Is Laying Off 900 PlayStation Employees, 8 Percent of Workforce ★

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

> Sony says it’s laying off around 900 employees of its PlayStation division, a
> reduction of its global headcount of around 8 percent. Sony’s layoffs will
> impact a variety of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games,
> Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony’s layoffs are the latest in
> a wave that has been impacting the gaming and tech industries throughout 2024.

Seems a little ironic that after all the histrionics over Microsoft deciding to
go cross-platform with some of their Xbox exclusive titles — ostensibly giving
Sony an edge — that Sony is now having layoffs in their first-party, exclusive
game studios.

I hope I don’t jinx them by pointing this out, but you know who isn’t laying
anyone off? Nintendo. Chris Adamson, on Mastodon:

> Someone want to bring back that Nintendo quote about how they don’t do mass
> layoffs because it’s bad for morale? Or maybe notice that Nintendo tends to do
> lots of charming, modestly-ambitious games instead of a handful of $200M AAA
> blockbusters?
> 
> In the end, did Nintendo actually win the Console Wars?

They may not have “won”, but Nintendo has never lost.

Richard Lewis Dies of Heart Attack at 76 ★

Larry David:

> Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of
> my life he’s been like a brother to me. He had that rare combination of being
> the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for
> that I’ll never forgive him.

Here’s a great story about Lewis — “the menschiest of mensches” — from Andy
Lassner.

Are Customers Returning Vision Pros in High Numbers? Seemingly Not. ★

Ming-Chi Kuo:

> According to my survey of the repair/refurbishment production line, the
> current return rate for Vision Pro is less than 1%, with no anomalies.

Does Ming-Chi Kuo really know how many Vision Pros are being returned? I don’t
know. Probably not. But two weeks after Vision Pro went on sale there was a
bizarre rash of stories suggesting they were being returned in droves, probably
driven by this Victoria Song piece for the Verge, with the — I must say — mildly
jacktastic headline “Apple Fans Are Starting to Return Their Vision Pros”.

As far as I can tell there’s no public evidence that Vision Pros are being
returned in higher-than-typical numbers, just click-bait social media posts
making a show of it. And anecdotally, everything I’ve seen or been told is that
returns are neither higher nor lower than typical.

Textpattern Turns 20 ★

Stef Dawson, on the Textpattern blog:

> Twenty years ago, the landscape was very different. There was advertising,
> sure, but nowhere near the scale of today. And, perhaps to celebrate the fact
> that Dean Allen’s newly created CMS was so small, nimble, lightweight, yet
> powerful — or perhaps because its creator was an eccentric genius — the
> fanfare surrounding the official birth of Textpattern was this:
> 
> > Public Gamma 1.10 is up. I’m going to bed.
> 
> (from Textism)
> 
> That was it; the extent of the marketing campaign. Nothing more. Nothing less.
> A factual statement and an indicator that the road to reach it from the
> numerous alpha and beta releases throughout 2001 until its naming in 2003 and
> public release in 2004 had been arduous, yet worth it.

I don’t hear about it much, but I’m so glad to see Textpattern is still going.
And man do I still miss Dean Allen.

Lina Khan Has Been a Terrible FTC Chair ★

Eric Seufert, in a thread on Threads:

> I’ve been critical of the FTC’s strategy under Khan; in a recent podcast
> episode, I likened the FTC to the Washington Generals of technology antitrust.
> As conveyed in the Commission’s report by the FTC’s own staff, Khan seems to
> be engaged in an activist crusade moored to a very specific ideological
> worldview — “Big is de facto Bad” — that has resulted in a series of defeats.
> 
> The excesses of Big Tech should be constrained. But that has yet to be
> achieved with the cases brought by the FTC, many of which, to my mind, are
> predicated on a confused understanding of the way that consumers engage with
> and benefit from technology. I think this is especially true concerning the
> economics of digital advertising and the freemium economy more broadly.

Unless I’m missing something, under Khan’s leadership the FTC has accomplished
nothing. It’s all for show. She ought to be one of the first appointees to be
replaced if Biden wins another term. (Merrick Garland first, though. An
ineffective but showboating FTC chair isn’t actively harming the country;
Garland — obsequious to the beltway cult of Both Sidesism — has been an outright
disaster for democracy itself.)


TUESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2024

Netflix Will No Longer Accept Payments From App Store Billing for Legacy
Accounts ★

Luke Bouma, reporting for Cord Cutters News:

> Are you one of the Netflix customers who still pay your Netflix bill through
> Apple? For years now, Netflix has not accepted new subscribers or rejoined
> members who want to use Apple to pay their bills. If you already had an active
> account, though, that paid through Apple you could continue to do so. Now,
> though, that seems to be coming to an end.
> 
> Today, Netflix started to inform customers that Apple will no longer be
> accepting Apple Pay through iTunes Subscriptions, for example.

Netflix stopped accepting new subscriptions from in-app purchases five years
ago, but until now had allowed existing in-app subscriptions to keep going — and
for many of those users, at lower prices than they currently offer.

Netflix and Apple used to be partners; now they’re rivals. Dropping support for
the remaining legacy iTunes accounts isn’t nearly as big a deal as Netflix
eschewing a native VisionOS app, but still, it’s a sign of how far apart the two
companies are today. Apple TV didn’t have an App Store until the fourth-gen
models (a.k.a. “Apple TV HD”) were introduced in 2015. But back in 2010, Apple
included a Netflix “app” in the second-gen Apple TV, along with YouTube and
Flickr. Those services were integrated right into the system software. That
seems like forever ago.

Also, hats off to Cord Cutter News for their humility. Netflix’s stock was up 2
percent today. Surely that’s because this news came as “a relief to
investors” — but Cord Cutter News took no credit for it.

Apple Is Canceling Electric Car Project ★

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

> Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car,
> according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most
> ambitious projects in the history of the company.
> 
> Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000
> employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be
> identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by
> Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in
> charge of the effort, according to the people.
> 
> The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and
> that many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or
> SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive
> John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an
> increasingly key priority for the company.

Kevin Lynch took over leadership of Project Titan back in September 2021, but
remained in charge of Apple Watch, too. In hindsight that makes me wonder if
Lynch’s mission wasn’t to ship a car, but more to assess what technologies the
group had created could be used to create other products. Whatever progress
Apple has made with “autonomy” ought to be applicable to robots, for example.
Making intelligent robots feels more like something Apple should be doing than
making cars.

> The move came as a relief to investors, who sent Apple shares climbing Tuesday
> after Bloomberg reported the news. The stock was up about 1% at $182.63 by the
> close in New York.

Or, maybe, investors didn’t care at all, and popular stocks typically move up or
down by a percentage point or so every single day. But Bloomberg is going to
Bloomberg.


SUNDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2024

Sonar ★

My thanks to Sonar for sponsoring last week at DF. Sonar is music to my ears: a
brand-new totally Mac-assed app for GitHub and GitLab issues.

Sonar combines the lightweight UI of a to-do app with the power of
enterprise-level issue tracking, all in a native app built by long-time Mac
nerds. The interface is deceptively simple, and very intuitive. Fast and fluid
too. Everything that’s great about native Mac apps is exemplified by Sonar. If
you’ve ever thought, “Man, if only Apple made a native GitHub client...”, you
should run, not walk, to download it.

Sonar saves all your changes directly to GitHub/GitLab using their official
APIs, so your data remains secure on GitHub’s servers — not Sonar’s. Do you have
team members not using Sonar? No problem. Changes you make in Sonar are 100%
compatible with the web UI.

Sonar is free to try for 14 days — no subscriptions or purchases required. Sonar
is my favorite new Mac app of the year. You should try it.

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