The Macalope
MacWorld - 04202022-043839
Apple is getting coal this year because the iPhone is doomed
Happy Cutmas, everyone!
Yes, it’s that time of year again as Bloomberg (the outfit that ran the highly refuted story “The Big Hack” ) is here to remind us to put some cookie cutters out for Father Cutmas.
“Apple Tells Suppliers iPhone Demand Has Slowed as Holidays Near”
Okay, well, surprise, we get these stories every year because sales naturally fall after the big fall release. This time it comes with some added global supply chain garment-rending so let’s see if we can follow the logic here. Without taking any dangerous drugs.
Apple Inc., suffering from a global supply crunch, is now confronting a different problem: slowing demand.
Nobody wants iPhones!
…signaling that some consumers have decided against trying to get the hard-to-find item.
We’re in the second sentence and we’ve already careened off Making Sense Blvd., busted through the guardrails and exploded spectacularly over What The Actual Heck Ravine.
No one is buying the phones that Apple cannot make enough of to keep up with demand.
If you wondered why the Macalope drinks… [points accusingly at the quoted sentences above]… this. This is why. Right here. This stuff.
Already, Apple had cut its iPhone 13 production goal for this year by as many as 10 million units, down from a target of 90 million…
So, according to this math, Apple was planning on selling about 80 million units of just the iPhone 13. That’s kind of a lot of units.
The company is still on track for a record holiday season…
IDG
Nobody wants iPhones. Apple records record holiday season. That… you just… I don’t… why…
Apparently the idea here is that Apple is still going to sell gobs of iPhones, it just isn’t going to sell the huge gobs that it thought it was going to sell. We know this because Apple is such an open book. And how Apple can be facing “slowing demand” when it already can’t keep up with the current demand is beyond this furry observer.
Long story short, Apple’s clearly the biggest loser in all of Loserville. So who’s winning?
“Q3’21 Was a Record Quarter for Foldable Smartphones, Samsung Enjoys a 93% Share per DSCC Report”
Huge quarter for foldable phones! Unbelievable! Just mind-bogglingly large! How big is the winning, you ask? Oh, well, why get into the minutia when it’s all right there in the head-
Q3’21 foldable smartphone shipments were larger than the previous four quarters combined and grew 215% QQ and 480% YY…
Wow! Well, that’s all you need to know, then. Case closed. Big winning. Guess we can just close this tab and go back to watching ASMR TikTok videos with the sound off and…
…to 2.6M phones.
Wait, what?
Yes, the entirety of the foldable phone market is practically a rounding error for Apple. And even at that low level, it’s larger than the previous four quarters combined. Why are we even talking about this? Analysts have been saying that Apple better get on the foldable phone bandwagon (disclaimer: no band, no wagon) quick or BE DOOMED as long ago as 2012. Nine years later, the entire market is maybe 3.5 percent of Apple’s quarterly sales.
It is possible Apple might not ship as many phones as it expected. But that’s a number no one really knows, even the company’s suppliers. The Macalope must insist that people chillax themselves before they must ax themselves what they’re so worked up about.
Apple is getting coal this year because the iPhone is doomed
#archive #capture
If a billion Android users switch to the iPhone, the Macalope will eat his horns
Well, there goes the neighborhood because if startling headlines are to be believed, we’re about to get a whole bunch more new iPhone users.
“Apple’s upcoming iPhone SE 5G could help attract billion-plus Android users- J.P.Morgan”
A BILLION?! That’s a lot of users! But hold on to your hats because that “plus” isn’t just, like, five more dudes with money or cheaply made Android phones burning holes in the pockets of their cargo shorts.
The upcoming smartphone has the potential to lure nearly 1.4 billion low- to mid-end Android phone…
That’s like 40 percent more than were in the headline! Very close to that! Like somewhere in the vicinity of, oh, the horny one is going to guess around 400 million users. The Macalope is not good at math! Regardless, this sounds absolutely gigantic.
But is Apple going to lure “nearly 1.4 billion” new users? Of course not. All they’ve done is tell us the size of the market. That’s how many people own low- to mid-end Android phones. Are 1.4 billion people going to switch to the iPhone SE simply because it gets 5G? Of course not. Maybe a fraction will. Ted, for example, is never going to switch. He still has several pockets of his cargo shorts he hasn’t burned through and several more pairs of cargo shorts. It could be years before Ted considers switching.
IDG
5G in and of itself is just another factor in a sea of factors. All providers are not the same but here in the U.S. the major ones require you to upgrade your plan to get the full benefits of 5G, so getting a cheap phone for 5G has an additional cost. And some people just don’t care about 5G.
Despite all the talk of a BILLION Android users, by how much does J.P.Morgan expect Apple to increase shipments next year?
The brokerage raised its estimates for fiscal 2022 iPhone SE unit sales to 30 million units and annual iPhone shipments expectations to 250 million units, 10 million higher than a year earlier.
Well, that’s a letdown. Apple disappoints again.
Of course, there are other reasons to switch to the iPhone than 5G on a cheap but solid device.
“iPhone 13 Depreciates Half as Much as Flagship Android Rival”
Holding value has been one of the more underrated features of Apple products since–let the Macalope just pretend to put on some reading glasses and check his notes here–uh, 1977. “Apple products cost too much!” say people who never take into account the resale value or usable life of the device.
“What is this ‘time value of money’ nonsense?! Get outta here with that! ”
It’s a little awkward for Google that the Pixel 6 line, the aforementioned “flagship Android rival”, isn’t holding up better. But the Pixel’s real competition is less the iPhone than it is other Android phones, against which it probably does quite well.
5G was hyped as a huge game-changing innovation in mobile honk-honk [seltzer bottle spray] [slide whistle] technology and Apple was derided for being “late” to the game. This being the game you couldn’t play anywhere except three or four major markets. But the company managed to do just fine until it shipped 5G phones.
And now that it’s expected to be bringing 5G to its most affordable phone… well, that’s good and it’ll certainly help the company sell more phones. But the Macalope never expected it to be a gigantic change in volume, even before he read “billion” in a headline.
If a billion Android users switch to the iPhone, the Macalope will eat his horns
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When Apple the brand loses, Apple the company still wins
Congratulations, Apple! The legislations that you have been lobbying against has been torpedoed in the Senate! Also, condolences, Apple. Several things you say you are for are going to be harder to achieve now.
President Biden’s Baby Buggy Bumpers bill… no, wait, that’s not it. Banana Bumble Bingo bill. No. No. Uh… Build Back Better bill! That’s it. The one Apple has reportedly been lobbying against for months. How silly of the Macalope. Anyway, it suffered a severe setback in the Senate as Joe Manchin (D-Coal) declared he would not vote for it, saying, and the Macalope is not at all quoting here: “Look at me, look at me, oh, god, please everyone look at me.”
He did not actually say that. It just seems like he’s constantly saying that.
What was in this legislation that has to do with Apple? Well, for a company that loves to tell us how much it values the environment, a clean energy standard that would decarbonize the electric grid. Surely Apple is for that, right? Well, if it is it has a funny way of showing it.
The plan would have also made it harder for companies to manipulate tax loopholes to reduce their effective tax rate to almost nothing or, in many cases, actually nothing. These would be the loopholes that someone from Apple told Congress back in 2013 that the company was in favor of eliminating.
Who was that again? Let’s see. Hmm. Just gonna look it up here… Some Tim Cook fella. Probably a low-level paper pusher. Not familiar with his work.
IDG
Now, this criticism sticks less than the environmental issues because the proposal doesn’t end loopholes, it just tries to do an end-run around them.
But Apple proudly declaring it pays all the taxes it legally has to while using its considerable power to lobby against having to pay what the rest of us pay is, pun very much intended, pretty rich.
The horny one isn’t saying Apple should lobby for the things he wants. They’ve never once lobbied for the Alfalfa Affordability Act. Not once. And that hasn’t stopped the Macalope from having enough Mac boxes in his basement that he could build a considerable fort with them. Not that he’s ever done that. That you know of.
No, he’s saying Apple shouldn’t lobby. At all. It didn’t used to lobby and the Macalope preferred it that way.
Look, the Macalope is not a policy wonk (although he briefly worked in DC). He’s not an expert in climate dynamics (he just listens to experts in climate dynamics). He’s not a tax accountant (although he was once a corporate accountant). He’s not a cereal or a floor wax (although one day we all will be as our atoms are recycled continuously on this planet until the sun one day explodes, sending them back to the cosmos).
But he knows when people are talking out of both sides of their mouths. You don’t have to be much of an expert in anything other than people to recognize that.
Is Apple doing anything that other companies — like Microsoft, Alphabet and Facebook — aren’t also doing? No. And that’s what’s disappointing.
When Apple the brand loses, Apple the company still wins
#archive #capture
Apple's 2021 was the stuff of miracles
[Scene: A snowy streetscape in the early morning. As a young man trudges by, a second-story window opens and an old man sticks his head out.]
OLD MAN: You, there! Boy!
YOUNG MAN: Boy? I’m 22. I have a college degree. I mean, in English, but still…
OLD MAN: What day is it!
YOUNG MAN: [sighs and checks iPhone] December 28th.
OLD MAN: They did it!
YOUNG MAN: Come again?
OLD MAN: I haven’t missed the end of 2021! So many miracles, all in one year!
YOUNG MAN: [looks around] Are we talking about the same world? Because… eesh.
OLD MAN: The Apple world, boy!
YOUNG MAN: Oh. You see, usually, when strange old men yell at me from windows it’s about the government or their underpants or…
OLD MAN: So many Apple miracles this year!
YOUNG MAN: Uh, were there? I guess. Maybe?
OLD MAN: Why, yes!
YOUNG MAN: Name one.
OLD MAN: Getting rid of the Touch Bar for instance! The Touch Bar was a failed attempt at a new input mechanism. And Apple never really committed to it. And now it’s gone! In just one year!
YOUNG MAN: What are you talking about? The MacBook Pro had it for four years.
OLD MAN: Yes! Four long, pointless years! And they got rid of it in one!
YOUNG MAN: That’s… not… The Apple product development cycle… You know what? Never mind. So, Apple got rid of the Touch Bar. What else?
OLD MAN: Well, the company also backtracked on the right to repair! Now anyone can repair their iPhone!
YOUNG MAN: Anyone?
OLD MAN: Anyone who feels comfortable doing it. And has good eyesight. And a steady hand. And would rather do it themselves than have Apple or a licensed third party do it.
YOUNG MAN: So, like five people.
OLD MAN: Five very loud people!
YOUNG MAN: OK, that’s a fair point.
OLD MAN: Well, what about the M1 Pro and M1 Max? These are amazingly powerful processors considering their level of power consumption.
YOUNG MAN: Oh, they’re great. They’re not actual miracles, more the result of a lot of hard work. But they’re outstanding laptop processors. It does remain to be seen what kind of performance per watt the upcoming mobile version of Intel’s Alder Lake will have and how that compares to…
OLD MAN: And Apple did it in one year!
YOUNG MAN: Again, I’m not sure you get how Apple’s product development cycle works. Or, possibly you’ve suffered some form of head trauma.
OLD MAN: And you seem to know a lot about Apple for a random passer-by.
YOUNG MAN: Hmm.
OLD MAN: Hmm.
YOUNG MAN: Well, at least there’s some sign that maybe Intel will stop its pathetic ad campaign against Apple. That’d be a miracle.
OLD MAN: What, and put all those actors pretending to be regular people out of a job?!
YOUNG MAN: Hahahaha!
OLD MAN: Hahahaha!
YOUNG MAN: [looking around] Wait, do you really live above a Hot Topic? What’s that like?
OLD MAN: Say, what about the Apple Watch? 2021 was another banner year for a product that pundits once declared a “flop”!
YOUNG MAN: Sure, yeah, the Apple Watch is a legitimate hit, no matter what anyone says. The Series 7 might not be a dramatic leap forward for the form factor, but it’s a solid entry into a line that’s doing well enough it doesn’t need dramatic updates every year.
OLD MAN: And you can’t deny that back in August Apple made major concessions to app developers!
YOUNG MAN: Yeah, I can! The company gave a relatively small settlement — $100 million is chump change for Apple — and let developers use more price points which it will still take 15 or 30 percent of, so it’s not that big a concession. It also agreed not to ban them for doing things they were supposed to be allowed to do! Wow! Further…
OLD MAN: Now, see here, boy!
YOUNG MAN: Further… it appealed and was granted a delay on the one thing it lost in the Epic case. To top all that off, it’s summarily declared that it’s already in compliance with the law South Korea implemented requiring alternate payment methods in the App Store. Basically, hardly anything has changed since it announced the Small Business Program.
OLD MAN: Ah, but that was a true miracle!
YOUNG MAN: That happened in 2020! Wait, a minute… was this just an excuse to do a lousy clip show and avoid doing an actual column?
OLD MAN: Quiet, you! Now go fetch me a turkey! [flips coin down]
YOUNG MAN: This is a quarter! And I don’t work for you! [throws it back]
OLD MAN: Ow! [shakes fist] Damn Generation Z!
Apple's 2021 was the stuff of miracles
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$3 trillion later, maybe it's time to reset our expectations of Apple
Let’s talk about words.
This week some words were applied to Apple that the Macalope would like to drill down on a bit because he finds them interesting.
No, don’t get up. We’re doing this.
How about “modest”. That’s a word. Here’s Mark Gurman discussing what we might see from Apple in 2022.
After a modest set of device launches in 2021…
Reasonable people may disagree… Well, people may certainly disagree. Is it reasonable to call a year in which Apple announced not one but two professional-level mobile chips that get unheard-of performance per watt “modest”? Just that seems to make it a pretty great year for Apple and that’s not all Apple announced. There might have been one or two other things the company shipped if you look closely.
Also, the company got rid of the Touch Bar. So. QED.
The second half of the sentence is a real bottom slice of bread to this bewildering sandwich.
…Apple Inc. is set for a stronger 2022—with new iPhones, AirPods and potentially a VR headset.
Uh, okay, they had two of those things in 2021 and your third thing is a real maybe.
“Apple stands to have a much better year if it can finally teach monkeys how to fly zeppelins.”
Yeah, wow, that would be something! Probably better than that VR thing.
Which the Macalope may quibble about the use of the word, a “modest” year for Apple is usually a real ripper for any other company so “modest” may be correct from a certain point of view. Like the kind of point of view where I say “Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father” when what I really mean is “He is totally your father and I should know because I’m the guy who cut off his limbs but, in my defense, I told him I had the high ground and he wouldn’t listen so he kinda had it coming.”
IDG
Let’s move on to our next word: trillion.
Oh, but you say “Macalope, that’s a number, not a word.” And the Macalope says to you “I can’t hear you, that’s not how this medium works. You must be thinking of telephone, this is an article.” But if the Macalope could hear you he would say that “trillion” is a word that describes a number. So go back to teaching your pedantics class at Neil deGrasse High.
On January 3rd, Apple became the first company to be valued at $3 trillion based on market capitalization. Huzzah! Apple wins again!
At something that is not exactly meaningless but really doesn’t matter that much.
As Casey Newton quipped on Twitter:
This victory belongs to all of us — families who bought iCloud because the entry-level phone only came with 64GB of storage, developers paying 30 percent of their revenue in perpetuity, people who forget to cancel AppleTV+ in between seasons of Ted Lasso …
This is tongue in cheek but, let’s face it, not all of Apple’s business practices are, uh, super cool, shall we say. But the market, much like the badger who loves honey, does not care. So a lot of that not coolness is baked into this valuation. It’s like chocolate chip cookies with walnuts in them.
Seriously, who does that?
Still, it’s just a number. Or a word representing a number. Apple’s no different than it was last week when it was worth a bit less than $3 trillion. And at some point, another company will reach $3 trillion. And it still won’t matter much.
But thinking about the company’s treatment of App Store developers over its rise to THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, it occurs to the Macalope that if you’re the company that’s worth more than any other company in the history of companies, maybe you can afford to be… what’s the word?
Magnanimous.
That’s the word.
$3 trillion later, maybe it's time to reset our expectations of Apple
#archive #capture
How doomed is Apple? This doomed
IDG
Pundits have been fear-mongering about Apple’s position in China for years. First, it was Xiaomi that was going to beat Apple. Then it was Huawei. Then it was just gravity or the law of big numbers or angry beavers or something.
The Macalope doesn’t know if China has beavers. Supposedly they were going to be imported to destroy Apple. There was a chart and everything.
Back in May, Apple’s small drop in sales after two monster months was A VERY BIG CONCERN, I ASSURE YOU. WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT THE 320 PERCENT INCREASE IN FEBRUARY WHEN YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING AT THE 10 PERCENT DECREASE IN MARCH, UGH, IT’S LIKE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT NUMBER THINGS. YOU’RE CLEARLY NOT A NOTED NUMBEROLOGIST LIKE I AM.
Then a funny thing happened in October. Downright hilarious even.
“Apple Becomes Largest Smartphone Brand in China in October 2021”
Oh. You don’t say.
Now, a lot of this was due to the absolute collapse of Huawei since the summer of 2020 and a sharp spike up by Apple. So, it’s possible things could turn around for Huawei in the long term or that Apple’s current fortunes aren’t sustainable.
Buuuuut…
“Apple Stays on Top for Phone Sales in China”
Apple Inc. secured the top spot for phone sales in China for a second straight month in November, according to market research data, driven by the success of the iPhone 13 series.
The iPhone 13, you will recall, is the phone that nobody likes which is selling so well that it’s back-ordered so Apple will be cutting orders for the phone that it can’t supply enough of because nobody wants one.
Look, the Macalope doesn’t make up the arguments about the iPhone, he just reports them.
Besides, you can’t even make this stuff up.
IDG
Still, though, this was November. That was two months ago. Maybe things have dropped off for Apple since then.
“Apple: Strong Demand Bodes Well for 2022, Says Top Analyst”
“Based on our supply chain checks over the last few weeks,” said [Wedbush’s Daniel Ives], “We believe demand is outstripping supply for Apple by roughly 12 million units in the December quarter which now will add to the tailwinds for Apple in the March and June quarters…”
Welp.
The Macalope is trying to help you, Apple doomsayers, it’s just not that easy! Look on the bright side: if Apple doesn’t announce an AR/VR headset this summer as the rumor mill expects it to, then you can say the company will “disappear in 60 days” if it doesn’t snap to it.
Chin up! After all, Apple doom can never fail, it can only be failed by a lack of imagination!
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How doomed is Apple? This doomed
#archive #capture
So the Mac isn't doomed to fail anymore? Who'd a thunk it?
Remember Macs? No? Well, see, Apple used to make them, and then Windows came out and everyone switched to Windows-based PCs and Apple stopped making Macs and went out of business, the end.
That’s the story to hear some people tell it, anyway.
But, as a point of fact, Apple still makes and sells Macs! No, it’s true! In fact, it’s selling even more of them thanks to the M1 chip.
“Apple gains market share, as Macs grow twice the rate of PCs in Q4”
Macs gaining market share? Perhaps in some upside-down world where fish evolved from humans!
But apparently, both Canalys and IDC agree that the Mac increased its market share, with Canalys estimating that the Mac’s year-over-year growth for the quarter at about 9 percent.
For the full year, Apple shipped an estimated 29 million units, up 28.3%, compared to the broader PC market, which saw a 15% rise in 2021, totaling 341 million units.
To be fair, Apple was probably due for some growth as it had somewhat neglected the Mac in the preceding few years. Anyway, it’s probably just tempor-
“Apple likely to keep taking computer market share due to M1 chips, MS says”
Uh, first of all, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, cutting the Macalope off mid-word like that is very rude. Second of all, please continue.
”We expect that as Intel-powered Mac’s are phased out in favor of a M1-driven Mac portfolio, Apple will continue to see incremental share gains.”
Huberty has clearly not seen the Twitter postings of @Intel4EvahBro69 who believes the mobile version of Alder Lake will smoke the M1 Max and not just with actual smoke from the heat it will generate but, uh, yes, also with actual smoke from the heat it will generate.
IDG
Now, the Macalope would be remiss if he did not point out that these are analysts who are making guesses about what will happen in the future. Sometimes that works out. Other times you get hilarity like this:
“Windows Phone will beat Android in 2013, analyst explains”
The Macalope has linked to that no less than nine million times because it is really just one of the funniest things ever. Even back in 2011 is was clear to anyone with two neurons to scratch together that Android was likely to take most of the smartphone market share, Apple was going to take most of the profit, and Windows Phone was going to take the train to Obscurity, Nevada—which may or may not be a real town, how are you going to tell? This was likely an instance of a research firm looking to say something counter-intuitive in order to get its name in the press. It’s unlikely Pyramid Research really believed what it was saying. At least the Macalope hopes not.
The Macalope has no idea why firms seem to think getting their name in the press for saying something cosmically dumb is a great idea, but maybe it works. Maybe the kind of people who hire high-priced analysis firms do it entirely by just trying to remember the last one they heard about in the news. Looking at the state of the world, that seems perfectly plausible. Frightening, but plausible.
The point is, analysts say lots of things. You can’t always assume they’re right. Seems likely, though, that the Mac might end up having at least a pretty good year.
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So the Mac isn't doomed to fail anymore? Who'd a thunk it?
#archive #capture
Apple's folding phone is the only one that makes sense
Is everyone enjoying their foldable phones? You may recall that a few years back we were being told that foldable phones were all the rage and soon we would all be using one and, sure enough, here we are all folding our phones.
What a magical world we all live in. So foldable. So phone.
No, actually, none of that happened, despite the fevered dreams of pundits which go back as far back as 2017, when people were claiming Apple was behind on foldable phone technology because Microsoft filed a patent for one. And now Microsoft is the largest phone manufacturer.
Nope. Nope. That didn’t happen, either.
Microsoft does now sell a foldable Android phone (not with a foldable display but with two separate screens connected with a hinge). So that happened and you can get one for the low, low price of… [pretends to check something, really just spends a moment sighing and staring at nothing]… $1,499.99.
Surely the company has sold dozens of them. This is indeed troubling for Apple. One thing we know for sure, though, is that it’s Apple that sells products that are priced too high and are niche devices not suitable for most users.
Yeah.
In 2019, pundits said the fact that Apple hadn’t shipped a foldable phone showed the company was “no longer innovative”. After all, Samsung shipped one and it worked just great.
“My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day”
Okay, not great great, just, you know… well, terribly, to be honest. Just awful.
Still, pundits pushed the idea that Apple was somehow behind on these things that didn’t work at all. Apple was “boring” for shipping the iPhone 12 and Microsoft “exciting” for shipping the Surface Duo. This despite the fact that the Duo had buggy software and a lousy camera at the aforementioned high price.
IDG
STILL. Still, though. The phones. They fold. Very exciting, right?
No, still not exciting. And here in the now times, it’s Samsung that’s getting chastised for actually still making foldable phones.
Irony!
“Samsung Falling Behind Apple in AR/VR Space Due to ‘Obsession’ With Foldable Smartphones”
Look, just give them 40 or 50 more tries, they’ll get them right! Admittedly, only after Apple ships one and shows them how it’s done, but still.
Samsung shareholders are said to be concerned by its perceived preoccupation with foldable devices, which is distracting the company’s attention from the need to compete with future AR and VR devices from its main rivals.
What?! But the foldable phone market is seeing explosive growth! To… uh… the levels of a rounding error for iPhones.
Now, while Samsung shareholders may think AR and VR are where future growth is going to come from, that may or may not turn out to be the case. The Macalope has yet to see a demonstration of AR or VR technology that hasn’t had him rolling his eyes or falling asleep or rolling his eyes and then falling asleep and waking up days later in a dumpster outside Canton, Ohio. Maybe Samsung should be investing more in AR/VR, maybe it shouldn’t. The point is, foldable phones were not the next big thing that everyone said it was going to be when they could use it as a club to beat Apple over the head with.
Not that Apple noticed in the slightest. That’s the benefit of having a helmet made out of money.
Apple's folding phone is the only one that makes sense
#archive #capture
If Apple doesn't start losing, nothing's ever going to change
First, an apology.
Last September when the Macalope challenged Paul Thurrott’s assertion that Epic won big in its case against Apple, he made a mistake and for that, he apologizes. It wasn’t in noting that it was Apple that had won big and Epic lost. He was completely right about that and Thurrott was completely wrong. No, the Macalope was wrong in suggesting that Apple would not appeal the ruling. As it turned out, Apple did appeal the ruling!
It just appealed the one small thing it lost on.
Nothing but ultimate victory for Cupertino! Please arrange the spikes with the heads of our enemies on them neatly outside Apple Park. Thank you. Good day.
One other thing the horny one was completely right about in that piece was the final sentence:
While the company is probably right to celebrate this ruling, it continues to ignore the frustration with App Store policies at its peril.
Fast forward to now:
“Apple’s conduct has harmed and is harming mobile app-developers and millions of citizens,” the states said.
”Meanwhile, Apple continues to monopolize app distribution and in-app payment solutions for iPhones, stifle competition, and amass supracompetitive profits within the almost trillion-dollar-a-year smartphone industry.”
Spellcheck says “supracompetitive” is not a word and the Macalope was going to make a joke about Toyota not making the Supra anymore but it actually started making it again in 2019.
See, that’s the kind of rigorous fact-checking you’re going to get in this column from a cartoon antelopehumanMac hybrid in a suit. You’re welcome.
IDG
The Macalope finds it hard to disagree with the states here and it doesn’t look like this situation is going to go away easily for Apple.
The DoJ said the court had interpreted the Sherman Act, an 1890 law prohibiting anti-competitive behavior, “narrowly and wrongly, in ways that would leave many anti-competitive agreements and practices outside their protections.”
It’s a shame that the poster child for opening up the App Store is not a child at all but a carnival barker that wants to sell virtual skins to children. Selling actual skins was once an honorable tradition back when skins were used to keep warm and protect people from the elements (not that this furry creature is a huge fan of such things unless said skins are willingly gifted at the time of natural death). Now it’s a way to shake down the kiddies for their allowance money.
Of course, it is true that Apple helped popularize that particular self-enrichment technique. But you don’t want to replace a despot with a would-be despot. Epic only wants to open the App Store so it can squeeze developers through its funnel instead of having them go through Apple’s.
So, while the Macalope is not an enthusiastic supporter of overturning this verdict, he definitely believes that changes need to be made. You may excuse him for being slightly cynical about the chances of legislation rectifying the situation, but it’s possible and at this point, it doesn’t seem like Apple is interested in making more big changes on its own. Maybe only losing some of these cases will make it change its ways.
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If Apple doesn't start losing, nothing's ever going to change
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Facebook is more valuable than your privacy
Hello. Were you aware that every day in America a company goes to sleep hungry? Hungry for your personal data?
No, don’t get up.
It seems inconceivable that this could happen here, in the self-declared greatest country in the world, but it does. Particularly after a certain selfish company [COUGH apple COUGH] restricted app tracking on its mobile platform, stealing your privacy right off of Facebook’s plate and giving it back to you. You who will surely squander it.
Why just look at these hungry faces.
Hungry Mark Zuckerberg.REUTERS/Stephen Lam
That’s why we’re asking all Americans to give whatever of their personal privacy they can directly to Facebook. It could be as simple as jotting down your social security number on a Post-It note and mailing it to Menlo Park. Maybe you could send an old diary. We find that those who give more generously send their last five tax returns, all passwords to significant websites, and the results of any colonoscopies they’ve had. Your buying habits would also be appreciated. And the names of any pets. Blood types would be good. Just send it all. Facebook doesn’t care.
Soon those hungry faces will turn to ones of delight.
Delighted Mark Zuckerberg.REUTERS/Stephen Lam
Thank you, and God bless.
Yes, pity poor Facebook (disclaimer: do not actually pity it) as its stock tumbled on news last week that privacy changes implemented by Apple will decrease its sales by about $10 billion. Finally, privacy has a price tag!
And if you’re enjoying this heaping helping of schadenfreude, please tuck into the news that the company also lost a million subscribers last quarter.
Oof. That’s… so rich. Not sure the Macalope can eat… any… m…
[chewing noises]
IDG
Can’t imagine why anyone would leave a platform that’s clearly making big bank on your privacy. Baffling, really. Your privacy isn’t going to sell itself to advertisers, you know.
Facebook went on to grouse that Apple was creating a “carve-out” for browsers because Apple makes money from Google search ads. Sure, except as Glenn Fleishman pointed out, Apple has also made one of the most privacy-forward browsers in the industry, certainly the most privacy-forward browser that’s widely used. So, no.
Apple may use privacy as a marketing tool but it also packs it into its devices as a feature, so it’s entitled. This furry observer has long been arguing that product reviews should take privacy into account when evaluating products and platforms.
Certainly, Facebook does.
[Legally mandated “ZING!”]
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- Apple
- Facebok privacy
- iOS 14
- iPhone 13
- Macalope
Facebook is more valuable than your privacy
#archive #capture
With AirTag, Apple's best just isn't good enough
According to The New York Times, the Apple Standard is alive and well.
If you’re not familiar with the Apple Standard, well, where have you been? Not reading this column, certainly. Probably doing something productive like exercising or taking a correspondence course or something.
How dare you.
Anyway, the gist of the Apple Standard is that if Apple is being chastised for something, you can bet your Apple Cash balance that its competitors are way worse about that very same thing. (Notable exceptions include the App Store developer terms, Craig Federighi’s dad jokes and Eddy Cue’s shirt collection. Void where prohibited.)
After the recent press concerning AirTags being used for nefarious purposes such as theft and stalking, The Times’ Kashmir Hill tried tracking her husband (with his permission) using AirTags, a Tile Bluetooth tracker and a GPS tracker.
“I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move”
It’s a great look at the problems with this technology. Interestingly enough, Hill found that while none of the devices provided adequate security to prevent malicious use, AirTags provided the most.
The most! The most is always the best, right? Well, except when the most is not enough.
Another key difference between Tile and AirTag is that if an iPhone detects an unknown AirTag continuously moving with it, the iPhone owner gets a notification…
Great! No problem then. Apple has thought of everything.
Assuming you have an iPhone.
Oh. Right. Turns out there are other phones. Who knew? Certainly not the Macalope. Must be a new thing? Whatever.
There is an app for Android that that lets you manually scan for nearby AirTags, but how many Android-using victims are going to know to download it? Or use it? And why should they have to?
Apple itself has realized the inadequacy of its safeguards and announced improvements this week, including making the devices louder and telling AirTag users that tracking someone without consent is a crime.
Ah! That will surely stop them! If there’s one thing we know it’s that telling people who are about to commit a crime that it is a crime that they are about to commit will immediately stop them from doing all the crimes. Because criminals are always such rational actors.
Still, it’s better than Tile and other types of trackers that currently provide no warning. The GPS tracker Hill tested is made by LandSeaAir which advertises it on Amazon as “The ultimate in discreet tracking”.
Ah! Very cool. Nothing uncool about that. At least its advanced features require an expensive subscription.
IDG
After being tracked and apparently forgiven for going to Dunkin Donuts without his wife (guess the Hills do things differently than the Macalopes), Hill’s husband had this to say:
“For all the bad press the AirTags have gotten, and as flaky as the detection mechanisms were, at least I was consistently getting notifications they were following me,” he said. “The privacy dangers of the other trackers were way worse.”
Which gets us back to the Apple Standard. A lot of reports act like Apple just invented car theft and stalking and faxed instruction manuals to the Dark Web (the Maclaope doesn’t know how the Dark Web works).
Of course, there is a difference between a product being sold by Brand Z Industries (available at finer gas store convenience stations and combination Hardees across the country) and by Apple. Apple is going to make almost any technology easier to use and make more people aware of it. It’s one thing to figure out how to train dolphins to blow up commuter rail trains, it’s another to sell the dolphins at the mall.
Sadly, all of these technologies can be misused by bad actors and companies, Apple included, should think twice before shipping products that can make people less safe. Pretty much any technology comes with a societal price. But it should be up to the companies selling that technology to mitigate it. Give Apple some credit for doing a better job than its competitors, but also demand it does a better job still. Fortunately, in this case it seems like it knows it needs to.
With AirTag, Apple's best just isn't good enough
#archive #capture
Apple's trust issues could end up hurting us all
You remember the App Store’s motto, right?
“The apps you love. From a place you can trust.”
Let’s check in on how that’s going.
To be fair, Apple doesn’t say what you can trust the App Store for. Maybe the App Store will help you move someday. We don’t know. It doesn’t seem right now that you can trust all the apps to be scam-free if that’s what you were thinking it meant. But, is that worth more to you than someone who shows up and loads your comic book collection and dilapidated Casper bed into a rented van and then back out again for the reward of a couple of slices of pizza and a canned IPA?
According to developer Kevin Archer, a copycat app lifted the artwork and text from his app (kinda scammy), asked for a review during the onboarding process (super scammy), and then charged a weekly $3.99 subscription (neon light saying “SCAM” goes off over your iPhone).
(Pro tip: weekly subscriptions are almost always a sign the app is a scam.)
Well, at least it’s easy to get your app onto the App Store! Ha ha haaaaaaa.
Archer went on to say that indie developers regularly get their apps “rejected for silly things,” while others spam [the] App Store with imitations and weekly subscriptions.”
He’s not wrong!
That was last Wednesday. As of Monday, the copycat app has been removed, as has the other sketchy app made by the same company. So… problem solved! All is well! The system of complaining about things on Twitter and getting Mac news sites to write about it works! Not that this particular solution is actually detailed in the App Store rules anywhere. As a matter of fact, Apple rather famously used to tell developers that if they “run to the press and trash us, it never helps.” Seems like that’s the undocumented process now.
Well, now we can put all that unpleasantness behind us.
IDG
And move on to the next complaint about the App Store on Twitter which was posted Sunday.
“Will no one rid me of these turbulent tweets?!” Tim Cook was heard to cry. (Disclaimer: Cook was not heard to cry anything.)
This case revolves around the definition of the “Data Not Collected” checkmark that Apple hands out based on what developers say about their apps. The app in this case, one promoted by Apple, says it does not collect any data but then refuses to launch unless you let it send data to a third party. The app uses a third-party tool that anonymizes data and thus may skate on Apple’s provision that data “not be sent off the device in a way that can identify the end-user or device”. Is that how people think of “Data Not Collected”? Perhaps, but it doesn’t help that the link to the privacy policy for the app doesn’t work.
Well, as unfortunate as this all is, surely Apple is learning from these problems and will soon take the idea of App Store reform ser-
Or not. Yep. Okay.
Apple can afford to pay €5 million fines all day long, of course, and not even notice. Heck, if Tim Cook is granted his new compensation package, he could pay it himself every day for a fortnight and still earn as much as he made in 2020. Not that the guy isn’t worth a lot of money but was the $14.8 million he was already making not “a lot of money”?
Meanwhile, the horny one is pleased to report he no longer buys Safeway Selects tonic.
[adjusts cravat]
Apple seems very confident it will continue to be able to play the same game it’s been playing for years, complaints be damned. The Macalope’s mother was always fond of ruefully warning, “These games end in tears” when the Macalope was running around jumping off the furniture.
Guess we’ll see what happens.
Apple's trust issues could end up hurting us all
#archive #capture
Too big to fine: How do you punish a company that can afford anything?
Apple
Last week, the Macalope wondered how long Apple would continue to play chicken with regulators. It seems like it might be a while yet.
Not to go all the way back to the Dr. Evil well, but it’s as if regulators set up their schedules for fines in the mid-1980s and then never updated them again. These fines might be a lot for some companies, but for today’s gigantocorp they’re laughably small.
How small? Let’s take a look.
“Apple Defends App Store Changes in the Netherlands as Fines Reach €30 Million”
Apple’s “solution” to the Dutch regulatory requirement that it allow third-party payment processing in dating apps was to require developers to submit separate app binaries if they want to use payment processing other than Apple’s. Certainly makes sense for Apple. “Let’s make this as hard as possible for developers so they won’t want to do it.” Nailed it.
The Dutch regulatory body was, shall we say, not impressed. It says Apple is still not in compliance, hence the €30 million fine, which works out to about $34 million.
“$34 million?!” you say. “How will Apple ever manage to…”
Let the Macalope just stop you there, fictional reader who the Macalope can somehow hear. He knows you’re just a facile construct but just slow your imaginary roll. Apple made $123.9 billion in revenue last quarter. Now, the holiday quarter is always Apple’s biggest, but let’s just go with that and do a little math (I know, you were told there’d be no math but sometimes there’s math, okay?). Divide by the number of days in the quarter and then we can see how many days it’ll take Apple to pay… uh, nope, sorry, the number is still hilariously big. We need to do more math. Sorry. Divide further by the number of hours in the day and… criminy, are you kidding? But we’re very close! Our long math nightmare is almost over. Divide again by the number of minutes in an hour and now we have a number we can work with.
IDG
Turns out that Apple made $34 million every 36.8 minutes during the last holiday quarter. The entirety of this penalty is like the company taking a very short lunch in November. In the building. This, in a nutshell, is why Apple feels fine thumbing its nose at regulatory requirements from South Korea, the Netherlands and freaking Narnia, if it wants to (“Mr. Tumnus demands 12 sugar-topped cakes for every day Apple is in non-compliance!”). It considers paying the fines cheaper than giving up total control over payment processing. And at these prices, it is. Not that Apple has actually paid any of it yet. If regulators really want Apple to change, they’re going to have to up the ante.
The Macalope is not an expert at app design, nor is he an expert in payment processing. As an app user, however, and a customer of the App Store, he feels Apple should have always allowed for links to developers’ sites to allow for customers to pay outside the App Store. They can already do that so forbidding developers from letting customers know is just some wicked gaslighting campaign.
Apple consistently says the App Store is the place people love to shop but it always seems afraid to give them the opportunity to actually show that.
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- Apple App Store
- iOS 13
- iPhone 12
- iPhone 13
- Macalope
Too big to fine: How do you punish a company that can afford anything?
#archive #capture
The iPhone SE is forever doomed to fall short of lofty expectations
The third-generation iPhone SE was announced at Apple’s “Peek Performance” event on Tuesday and if estimates are any indicator, almost half of us will be getting one.
“40% of iPhone Users Plan to Buy iPhone SE 3, Survey Indicates”
40… uh… 40 percent, huh? That, uh, that would be a lot! Wow! That is an… interesting estimate!
[whispers] Honey, get your stuff and slowly back toward the door. Don’t make eye contact. When you get out, run as fast as you can. I love you.
All kidding aside, let’s be clear: it’s not going to be 40 percent. Just… no. The Macalope has been warning people off of these surveys of buying intentions for years. People will tell you all kinds of things about what they’re “going” to do. “I’m going to take a correspondence course and learn how to make my own iPhone SE!” Gary, the last time you tried to solder something, you burned down your house and now you have to live in a gully. Stop it with this.
Watch what people actually do, not what they say they’re going to do.
The Macalope has no doubt the new SE will sell pretty well for a number of reasons. First, there are people who prefer Touch ID to Face ID. Second, the addition of 5G will probably get a fair number of people holding on to older iPhones to upgrade. And, last but not least, it’s the most affordable iPhone even at its new $429 price tag.
The Macalope would also mention the size factor, the iPhone SE being the next smallest phone after the iPhone 12 and 13 mini, but that form factor is expected to be discontinued. Despite the Macalope’s personal preference for that size, Apple apparently doesn’t consider it a large enough market to chase. Boo.
IDG
No doubt the third-generation iPhone SE will do just fine. Just not two out of five iPhone owners kind of fine. Not “astoundingly fine.” Not “aggressively fine.” Not “whatever sales are reported are going to look terrible compared to this outlandish prediction fine.”
The company pushing the results of this survey, SellCell, even seems to tug at its collar a bit when talking about the estimate.
This might seem like a high figure…
[Jimmy Stewart voice] “Wh-where will all these sales come from?! Why, why, they’ll come from your house, Ned! And yours, Mary! And, and your grocery store, Al!”
[Angry townsfolk] “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!”
SellCell goes on to note that only 24 percent of respondents said they’d be buying one for themselves. 16 percent said it would be for someone else. Honestly, though, even 24 percent sounds high. The company doesn’t really say how the respondents were selected, it just said it was “an independent survey of 2,549 adult US iPhone owners”.
A somewhat more reasonable estimate comes from IDC which forecasts the third generation iPhone SE will make up about 10 percent of iPhone shipments globally after it launches. Reasonable estimates may disagree. It’s just that 40 percent isn’t a reasonable estimate. The kind that yells loudly at a barista when given full caf instead of half caf in its soy vanilla latte and demands to see a manager to have the barista fired instead of simply taking a replacement. A very unreasonable estimate. [ Editor’s note: IDC is a division of IDG, Inc., which is the parent company of Macworld. ]
Thank you for attending Anthropomorphized Estimate Theater.
Still, it’s better than the 1.4 billion buyers J.P. Morgan was throwing out back in December.
iPhone SE 5G has the potential to attract more than a billion non-premium Android users…
Sure, just as Coke has the potential to attract all Pepsi drinkers and the Red Sox have the potential to attract all Yankees fans. It could happen! You can’t deny it!
Sure. Okay. A non-zero chance is still a chance. At some point, though, the chance gets so close to zero that there’s no real point in writing it up.
The iPhone SE is forever doomed to fall short of lofty expectations
#archive #capture
Apple left out the 'Pro' when it made Mac Studio
It is time once again for another edition of “What Is Up With Macs?!”, our long-running series that details the state of the Mac lineup.
But you say “Macalope, I have just reviewed all of your columns over the last 12 years and you have never once run a feature titled ‘What Is Up With Macs?!’”
To which the Macalope responds, “Oh, yeah? Well, you’re just a fictional construct that the Macalope created for humorous effect. You’re not my real dad. For starters, the Macalope’s real dad doesn’t read these columns.”
[Turns face to window. Watches the rain for three hours while Cat Stevens plays. Single tear.]
Where was I? Oh, right. The VERY POPULAR “What Is Up With Macs?!” feature the Macalope does ALL THE TIME.
The Macalope will preface this with a standard disclosure as required by law that he has no inside information about any future plans for the Mac that Apple may have. He denies ever having met Johny Srouji and the rumors the Macalope once played squash with John Ternus and was absolutely destroyed are unfounded.
Un. Founded.
It was racketball.
(Disclaimer: it was also not racketball.)
As exciting as Apple’s announcement of the Mac Studio last week was, the company still has a few loose ends some of its customers would like tied up.
As Ternus teased toward the end of the presentation, the Mac Pro is the one product that Apple is still making that hasn’t yet been transitioned to Apple silicon. Ternus let people know it was coming “another day”.
WHICH DAY, JOHN? NEXT WEDNESDAY? A DAY IN EARLY JUNE? JOHN? COME BACK, JOHN.
Aaand he’s gone.
IDG
Mark Gurman believes that because the M2 is already getting ready to appear in Apple laptops, the first Mac Pro with Apple silicon won’t ship until the M2 Ultra is ready, which would mean more likely at or after WWDC 2023. This lines up with a tweet previously from Ming-Chi Kuo. The horny one is inclined to think Ternus’s verbal wink to the audience means it’s coming sooner than that, but is an M1 Ultra-based Mac Pro different enough from the M1 Ultra-based Mac Studio to really make that much of a difference?
Well, it better be, or why even have a Mac Pro since Apple has indicated that Ultra is as high as the M1 goes (at least for now). Eventually, the expandability of the Mac Pro and the option for dual M1 Ultra processors will have to be enough to make it an attractive product, so why not ship them this year?
Then there’s the 27-inch iMac, which Apple killed, and the iMac Pro, which is no longer a product. But if there are two things the Macalope has learned from zombie movies, it’s don’t split up your party to explore the abandoned mental asylum, and things are only dead until they aren’t anymore. Again, both Kuo and Gurman believe the iMac Pro will be back next year. Color the Macalope brown and at least a little skeptical as that would lead to a fairly crowded top end of the lineup.
He’s not saying it’s not happening. And he’s not saying it is happening. What he is saying is don’t split up when you’re exploring the abandoned mental asylum.
This leaves us with a gap in the current lineup overall. As Dan Moren noted, you can’t currently buy a desktop Mac with an M1 Pro processor. The Mac mini is currently limited to the base M1 and Intel Core i5 and the Mac Studio starts with the M1 Max. That seems… wrong. Before Apple starts crowding the high end with an embarrassment of riches, it should address the needs of the starving middle class with an M1 Pro Mac mini.
If the Macalope were the betting sort, he’d guess that Apple will announce an M1 Ultra-based Mac Pro at this year’s WWDC and an M1 Pro-based Mac mini either at the same time or in the fall. But just as valid as “don’t split up when exploring the mental asylum” is the adage “don’t bet on predictions made my cartoon Macantelopehuman hybrids in a suit.”
Apple left out the 'Pro' when it made Mac Studio
#archive #capture
Apple is about to make a big mistake with the iPhone 14
It is time once again for one of the Macalope’s quarterly paeans to the small iPhone form factor. If small phones aren’t your thing, feel free to read this week’s column at 1.5X speed.
Writing for The Verge, Sean Hollister says “Please don’t kill the iPhone Mini” (Tip o’ the antlers to Nick.)
Preach.
The Macalope used his first-generation iPhone SE for four years, waiting for the time Apple would ship a modern small smartphone again. Then he had to wait another six months while using a second-generation iPhone SE. Finally—FINALLY!—Apple shipped the iPhone 12 mini. Huzzah!
The huzzahs were not long-lived.
Several months later, rumors said that Apple would ship an iPhone 13 mini and then be done with minis again. As Hollister notes, a recent tweet by Ming-Chi Kuo seemingly confirms it, as far as rumors go: there will be no small phone introduced this fall. This is what is known as the tick-tick-TOOOOOOK strategy. And the Macalope hates it.
Hollister and some of his colleagues agree.
…when I polled my colleagues this week, seven of us still agree that the rest of the world’s too-big phones can shove it.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Much like comic book characters, however, Apple products are only dead as long as they’re dead. The Macalope believes there’s every chance the company will ship another true small phone (the third-generation iPhone SE is a fine phone but it’s not a true small phone) someday. Apple certainly knows better than the Macalope what sells. The company may feel the market is insignificant enough that it can just drop us a bone when it feels like it.
IDG
You can’t build a market on anecdotes, but to back up Hollister and his colleagues at The Verge, the horny one regularly talks to diehard small phone fanatics. Back when the first generation iPhone SE shipped, the father of a friend literally switched platforms in order to get a smaller phone with modern internals, something that was unavailable on Android.
Hollister does get a little desperate, even if the Macalope feels it.
If Apple offered a Mini in 2023 instead of 2022…
Or Apple could bring it back in 2024…
Or… OR… OR!
LOOK, JUST GIVE US THE SMALL PHONE AND NO ONE GETS HURT, OKAY?
Like Hollister, the Macalope would be fine if the company adopted an “every few years” approach to shipping a small phone. But there’s no regularity in Apple’s approach other than seeming continued disdain.
The irony here, of course, is that Apple was famously late to the large phone game.
This piece on Engadget detailing how Steve Jobs said “no one’s going to buy” larger phones is an amusing slice of life from 2010. Of course, Jobs said that kind of thing all the time about stuff Apple wasn’t currently shipping. “No one’s going to buy high-priced, boxy Macs with ports on the front!” What’s funny is the size of phone that was considered “large” back then.
We’re assuming he’s likely talking about the latest crop of 4-, 4.3- and 5-inch phones…
Six years later, Apple’s 4.5-inch iPhone SE would be the smallest phone on the market from a major smartphone manufacturer. Six years after that, the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 and 13 minis are. And while Apple did make substantial strides in screen space by reducing the size of the bezels, the iPhone 13 mini is substantially larger overall than the original SE was. The smallest phone now is only small compared to every other phone currently shipped.
The Macalope isn’t sure how he became the weird, cartoon poster child for small iPhones but it’s a hill he’s going to die on. Apparently over and over again.
Apple is about to make a big mistake with the iPhone 14
#archive #capture
Of course the new iPhone SE is doomed–and in record time too!
It is fitting that the seminal Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect” had its 30th anniversary last week because once again the Macalope feels caught in a time loop.
[Oh, yeah? Well, you try writing a new intro every week.]
As you may recall, expectations for third-generation iPhone SE sales were high. Very high. Because they were set that way. Set that way by stories that Apple could win over up to 1.4 billion Android users with the device. And not only were a billion-plus Android users going to line up for it, 40 percent of iPhone owners were going to switch to it, too!
Yes, it was nothing but blue skies for Apple’s new device! Surely it would set records as people ditched Android and iPhone alike to buy the plucky little phone that cou-
Wow, that was quick.
Jim, is that a record? The Macalope is going to check with Jim the stats guy to see if that’s a record. He won’t get back to you about that as Jim is not a real person, the Macalope does not have a “stats guy”.
Yes, our good friends at Nikkei Asia are back with more tales of iPhone production cuts to astonish. Nikkei is the same outfit that four years ago told us Apple was cutting iPhone X production by a whopping 50 percent because it was such a loser. The iPhone X, as you may recall, went on to sell extremely well.
Just as you should not have believed the lofty expectations of [ pretends to check calendar ] two weeks ago, you should probably also not believe the dire warnings of poor demand now. No one knows what Apple’s expectations for sales were. Just because those of others were lofty doesn’t mean the company is disappointed.
IDG
But production cuts aren’t the only thing that’s making the Macalope wonder if he knocked that glass off the nightstand before. Apple might want to try decompressing the shuttle bay instead of using the tractor beam because…
“Dutch watchdog continues to cash out as it fines Apple tenth time over App Store policy”
The Macalope doesn’t know about you but he settles all his €5-million debts promptly. You don’t want that to go on for long. €5 million here, €5 million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Well, don’t you think eventually for even Apple? No? Okay, maybe not. Carry on, Apple.
It does seem that the company may actually be getting close to satisfying Dutch regulators, so maybe it’ll break out of that time loop soon.
Cheers to the company if it manages to get out of that destructive cycle.
…
Get it? Because Kelsey Grammer? Yeah, you got it.
Of course the new iPhone SE is doomed–and in record time too!
#archive #capture
Apple can make its legendary ease of use extremely difficult when it wants to
IDG
Big—HUGE!—news this week as Apple has actually relaxed an App Store rule, giving developers more flexibility in how they can get customers to pay for apps!
“Apple Will Let Content Apps Like Netflix, Spotify Link to Their Websites to Sign Up Users”
Huzzah! Progress is made! Let us now move forward into this bright new future, hands clasped together in…
However, there are restrictions.
Oh. Okay. Okay. Okay. Some restrictions are fine. Like, you wouldn’t want the links to be a Rickroll. There are probably some other things you wouldn’t want. Links to images of Steve Ballmer. Stuff like that.
But why does the Macalope get the feeling we’re building to a very sad trombone here?
For example, app developers may not include “the price of items available on the website” in their iOS apps…
“Certainly we don’t want to junk up iOS with such tawdry things as prices for digital goods,” says the company that popularized buying coins to play games.
Okay, that’s obnoxious, but not the end of the world. At least developers can add the link and then people who are curious can…
Also, reader app developers must apply for permission to use the External Link Account Entitlement.
Developers may get a link to their website as a treat. Or they may not!
Come on.
Has someone checked the tap on this faucet? The drip of these changes seems so slow that it might just be a loose fitting somewhere in the legal department.
“I found it, Tim! Turns out Ned in Developer Agreements just had to be rotated a half turn to the left. Won’t happen again.”
IDG
On top of these other restrictions, this change only applies to reader apps. So, the apps that already don’t sell any digital goods through Apple’s purchasing mechanism can now ask to add a link to a page that explains how to actually sign up for their service. Wow!
For a company that prides itself on making things easy to use, that was a ridiculously long period for customers to have to jump through an unnecessary hoop like poodles who have to guess where to find the hoop in the first place. And developers still don’t know if they’ll be granted this ability, they have to apply for it.
The Macalope has never pretended to know what the right balance for the App Store is. He remains unsure of how side-loading could best be implemented, what the right percentage split should be, and whether or not should have to stop by Craig Federighi’s house to comb his hair whenever he asks (that one is a rumored requirement). But he knows that where we are now is not how it should be. At a minimum, he believes that any developer, not just those of reader apps, should be able to provide a link to where people can go to pay for an app on the developer’s website outside of the App Store payment mechanism.
Apple loves to tell us how people love the convenience of the App Store but it sure doesn’t act like it, as it persists in maintaining these ludicrous barriers.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
- Apple App Store
- iOS 14
- iPhone 13
- Macalope
Apple can make its legendary ease of use extremely difficult when it wants to
#archive #capture
These hot Apple takes were so bad they've gone rotten
Certain recent events have the Macalope reminiscing about some of his favorite hot takes that have come and gone over the years. And by “favorite” the Macalope means the most hilariously bad.
Let’s just limit this to the last 10 years, otherwise we’ll be here all night. Also, this is not an exhaustive list. The only thing exhausted about this list is the manMacantelope who had to read these opinions.
First up, for no reason at all this week, the idea that Apple should buy Tesla and make Elon Musk the CEO.
These are two separate suggestions. First, that Apple should buy Tesla. Second, should make a man who publicly trashed a company he was taking a financial stake in and was therefore able to buy said stake for less. We’ll start with the first suggestion.
Should Apple have bought Tesla? No. Not at all. Yes, if Apple had bought Tesla, at least it’d be producing electric vehicles now. But it still wouldn’t be producing autonomous electric vehicles, which is what it really wants to do. And, no, it’s not “behind” on making them because no one else is, either. Even the guy who said for years his company was just months away from delivering them. The name of this person escapes the Macalope right now.
As far as the suggestion that Musk should be made CEO of Apple because Tim Cook is… boring or something… (Competence is so boring!) Yeah, sure. Much better to have a toxic narcissist who insists on shooting his mouth off on Twitter and loves to pick fights with the SEC. What? Could? Go? Wrong? The Macalope thinks the years between 2017 when this brilliant idea was floated and now have pretty conclusively driven it into the black hole at the center of the galaxy where it belongs.
IDG
Next up is Facebook Home. Every once in a while the Macalope remembers that this was a thing for a hot, disgusting minute back in 2013. If you don’t recall, Facebook Home was a Facebook-forward front end for Android smartphones. The thinking among certain congealed chunks of walking bio-matter was that Apple was “screwed” because of it. They claimed it gave Facebook “the upper hand” and would soon suck iPhone users away because who wouldn’t want to have their entire smartphone experience controlled by the company that has no regard for your privacy and taught your uncle how not only was the moon landing faked, the moon isn’t even real, you can totally see the strings holding it up?
The evidence for this claim of iPhone doom was that the Facebook Home was made by some admittedly talented ex-Apple employees and, at the time, Facebook had more users than there were iPhone owners. The thought that not every Facebook user was in loooove with the platform and would do anything for it apparently did not occur to those pushing this idea.
Facebook Home’s last major update was in December of 2013 and then, after somehow managing to fail at killing the iPhone, its source code was quietly dropped in a dumpster behind a Sonic on Route 100.
Well, probably not really, but who knows.
Lastly, remember the Fire Phone? Some people complain about the Macalope harping on the Fire Phone for years after its demise but everyone needs a hobby and it keeps him off the streets. Mostly. (On hot summer nights he still drives up and down De Anza Blvd. in his tangerine El Camino, just looking for fools who want to drag.)
When the Fire Phone came out in 2014 pundits predicted it would see “healthy rates of adoption” because of its “innovative features” like… um… well, who can remember, really? Some scrolling thing or something? Alexa? It would explode when someone said the word “union”? Hard to recall as it was canceled after just over a year.
Is continuing to bring these things up in any way important? The Macalope feels it is. Because punditry–including what you’re reading right here–is cheap and yet often still overpriced.
These hot Apple takes were so bad they've gone rotten
#archive #capture
5G is a joke and the iPhone is the well-timed punchline
Have you heard of these nothing burgers? Apparently, they make the entire burger from absolutely nothing. The Macalope doesn’t know how they do it and still make a profit. It’s crazy.
Which brings us to 5G.
You remember 5G, right? It’s the thing on your phone you hardly notice, except when it’s draining your battery for no good reason.
A little over a year ago The Verge reported the 5G situation (and before you say it, “The 5G Situation” is a terrible band name) thusly:
…what we have now is widespread 5G that’s more or less the same speed as (or even slower than) 4G and super-fast mmWave 5G in some parts of some major cities with highly limited range.
A year later, it’s not much better.
Tim Bray recently collected some anecdotal evidence (tip o’ the antlers to John Gruber ) about peoples’ reaction to 5G and it’s a symphony in the key of middling. His conclusion:
It’s perfectly possible that, ten years from now, we’ll look in the rear-view and say “[5G] was a good investment.” I wouldn’t bet on it, but it’s possible.
The modest and spotty improvements brought by 5G might be fine, but as The Wall Street Journal reported, 5G also drains your battery like it’s mining bitcoin on your phone in the background.
It’s probably not really doing that. Right?
Hmm.
Anyway, 5G does seem to offer advantages for a limited number of customers and you can really get great speeds if you’re able to connect to mmWave, which is rare, but this is not what we were promised when pundits were howling that Apple was doomed because it wasn’t the first to ship a 5G phone.
Let’s go back to 2018 when we were told that 5G was “a game-changer”, “the real deal”, and that Apple had “fallen substantially behind”. Yes, Apple was “behind its rivals” who would now have “the chance to define what the future of phones will look like.”
IDG
It was a very dire situation for Apple, let the Macalope assure you. Mmm-hmm.
Three and a half years later we’ve forgotten all about those predictions and now it’s assuredly something else Apple’s behind on. We’ve been through wrap-around screens, foldable phones, 3D screens, even projector phones. Let’s just say it’s quantum phones. The Macalope doesn’t know what that means, but it’s probably a thing. The horny one doesn’t keep up on the Forbes contributor network and gag reflex testing machine much anymore.
None of this is to say that 5G isn’t a vague improvement. It’s definitely a vague improvement. Technology plods ever forward, lumbering toward the future like a rough-hewn golem fashioned of so many half-baked dreams.
The point is that Apple “missed” absolutely nothing. In fact, it probably gained by not forcing battery-hungry modems on users before they could even make use of them. Even if 5G had turned out to be the game-changing real deal those who eat up carrier marketing materials like monkeys eat up monkey chow believed, there was no cost to not shipping a 5G phone in 2018 or even 2019.
Apple’s definitely been behind the curve before (see: DVD-RAM drives and CD burners) and it’ll probably happen again. But it wasn’t 5G.
5G is a joke and the iPhone is the well-timed punchline
#archive #capture