00:00:00 ◼ ► Chance Miller, it's good to have you on the show. You are the one of the ace reporters over at 9to5Mac,
00:00:05 ◼ ► and I've been meaning to have you on for a while. You've started, you've been doing great work over,
00:00:10 ◼ ► I'd say 9to5Mac as a whole has really, really been doing great, and I just wanted to get that out
00:00:17 ◼ ► there. And I think Apple is starting to, or not starting to, but is recognizing it even further,
00:00:31 ◼ ► that go to you. What are some examples? They're the sort of thing Apple doesn't want to write
00:00:44 ◼ ► where they pulled the Apple Watch because of the blood oxygen center stuff, and for whatever reason,
00:00:49 ◼ ► they came to us to break that story. And I guess I can probably say it now, but it was like a
00:00:54 ◼ ► Saturday night briefing. They were clearly down to the wire trying to figure out what was going
00:00:59 ◼ ► to happen with that case, and for whatever reason, they came to us. And there's been a shift for sure.
00:01:04 ◼ ► I don't exactly know why. It's probably, it's, I mean, when you do the grunt work for so long,
00:01:11 ◼ ► I like to think that they realize it and they're more accepting to work with you. I don't know.
00:01:24 ◼ ► sort of a, I would love to be a fly on the wall inside Apple PR for how they made that decision.
00:01:44 ◼ ► ban, which is actually still ongoing. It's still ongoing. But what they gave to us was,
00:01:49 ◼ ► the ITC had ruled that the Apple Watch blood oxygen sensor infringed on a patent from a health
00:01:55 ◼ ► tech company, Massimo, Massimo, Massimo, one or the other, whatever. And basically when they came
00:02:02 ◼ ► to us and when we broke the story, they had a week or so, I think, for the Biden administration to
00:02:08 ◼ ► veto the ITC ruling. And if Biden didn't do it, then the Apple Watch would be pulled because of
00:02:13 ◼ ► that infringement. And they were clearly trying to get the statement to us and get it out there,
00:02:19 ◼ ► like playing checkers with the Biden administration somewhat, trying to get them to blink and say,
00:02:24 ◼ ► "This is what's going to happen. The Apple Watch saves lives. Look, Joe Biden, veto it, veto it."
00:02:31 ◼ ► And he didn't. And that's, yeah, like you said, it's still, you can buy an Apple Watch today still,
00:02:39 ◼ ► Tom: Yeah, let's hold that because let's revisit that and just think about it in the context of
00:02:50 ◼ ► insular, navel gazing, let's say. I could see why they didn't want to put it on Apple Newsroom,
00:03:10 ◼ ► there's going to be a transition. He's not leaving Apple. He's going to take a lesser role.
00:03:30 ◼ ► the CFO is the least interest to us, right? I mean, it's more of a shareholder business world.
00:03:37 ◼ ► In newspaper parlance, business section news, not techno section news. So that goes on Newsroom.
00:03:44 ◼ ► But I think that this Apple Watch ban is not something they want to write a blog post about
00:03:51 ◼ ► on their own site. So why go to 9to5Mac instead of the Wall Street Journal or instead of the New York
00:03:59 ◼ ► Times or the Financial Times? I don't know. I think part of their strategy was maybe that
00:04:06 ◼ ► those places were too big or they didn't want to shake it up that much. And I don't know if they
00:04:12 ◼ ► knew that it would get picked up by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and everybody
00:04:17 ◼ ► after we posted it. It wasn't just going to fly on the 9to5Mac radar and that's all. It was going
00:04:22 ◼ ► to spread. Right. And by the unwritten, unofficial rules of the news media, 9to5Mac needed credit for
00:04:32 ◼ ► originally breaking the news, which is fair. And you got it deservedly so. Yeah, I think it's sort
00:04:38 ◼ ► of a strategic way of Apple PR trying to, trying through their choice of media outlet, trying to
00:04:53 ◼ ► pre-size the news. They want it out there. They certainly wanted the Biden administration to know
00:05:00 ◼ ► and to hopefully rule in their favor, which didn't happen. They kind of needed to announce it in
00:05:07 ◼ ► general. I mean, because if it worked out the wrong way for Apple, which in fact it did, Apple watches
00:05:13 ◼ ► were going to be removed from market. And I think at the time was the thing you had where they also
00:05:19 ◼ ► got to say that they can continue selling them through December 24th, every night or something.
00:05:25 ◼ ► The Christmas deadline was right there. Right. But they somehow either through luck or negotiating,
00:05:31 ◼ ► probably maybe a combination of the two, were able to continue selling the Apple watch as it stood
00:05:38 ◼ ► with the blood oxygen sensor enabled through the end of when any reasonable person would try to buy
00:05:44 ◼ ► a Christmas gift. I mean, I say that being the guy who has occasionally been looking around for who's
00:05:53 ◼ ► still open at 6.30 on Christmas Eve. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty good, I thought that
00:05:59 ◼ ► was a great scoop for you. And again, deserved. And I think it's, I don't know, it just speaks to
00:06:04 ◼ ► the sort of stature that 9to5Mac has at this point in the community on Apple news. Very good.
00:06:13 ◼ ► So on the watch, I think it's sort of interesting to think about with this sensor that I kind of am
00:06:21 ◼ ► surprised. I'm not surprised that the Biden administration didn't veto it. But I wouldn't
00:06:27 ◼ ► have been surprised if they did either. I suspect it was probably considered a close call in there.
00:06:31 ◼ ► But I think that the Biden administration once wanted to and still does want to sort of
00:06:37 ◼ ► convey legitimacy on the international, what does the ITC stand for? International Trade Commission?
00:06:45 ◼ ► David Schanzer That that's how they ruled, let the system sort itself out. Obviously, the way Apple
00:06:52 ◼ ► could settle this is by writing some sufficient check to Massimo, right, to either buy the company
00:06:57 ◼ ► to get all of their IP or just write them a check that gives them a right to the patent that they're
00:07:03 ◼ ► disputing. I am surprised that here we are at the end of August, on the cusp of the new Apple watches
00:07:13 ◼ ► coming out in what, two weeks, and it still isn't settled. That's kind of surprising to me.
00:07:27 ◼ ► And that he says, has relies on the blood oxygen sensor so much that they probably won't be able
00:07:45 ◼ ► soon enough, the debate. In general, though, being an Apple user, the best place to live is the United
00:07:52 ◼ ► States. And with this particular patent dispute, it's the worst place to be because I believe it's
00:07:59 ◼ ► the only country that's yep, that the ban applies. And the way it's been adjudicated so far is if you
00:08:07 ◼ ► own an Apple Watch, and bought it before the ban went into place, and you're have a new enough Apple
00:08:14 ◼ ► Watch that it has a blood oxygen sensor, then it you don't even have to know about this dispute.
00:08:19 ◼ ► It's your watch still has a working blood oxygen sensor. And if you bought an Apple Watch in the
00:08:25 ◼ ► United States after the ban, because it took a couple weeks for Apple to put this software fix
00:08:30 ◼ ► in place. WatchOS now, if you're in the US disables the blood oxygen sensor for units that were bought
00:08:42 ◼ ► after the ban was put in place, some kind of serial numbers starting with this are the ones
00:08:49 ◼ ► from January 2024 onward. And if your watch has one of these serial numbers, then it doesn't and
00:08:55 ◼ ► it gets complicated when it comes to repairs. I actually just wrote about this recently,
00:09:02 ◼ ► and I've already forgotten the details. But it's if your watch has the blood oxygen sensor,
00:09:07 ◼ ► and you bought it before the deadline, and you're getting warranty service like yes, just broke or
00:09:14 ◼ ► you still have Apple Care, you get a replacement watch and the blood oxygen sensor on the
00:09:20 ◼ ► replacement watch will work because you bought it. But if your watches out of warranty has a blood
00:09:28 ◼ ► oxygen sensor and until it broke you were using it. If you pay for warranty or out of warranty
00:09:35 ◼ ► service, you don't get a blood oxygen sensor now. It's confusing and irritating. It's not a message
00:09:45 ◼ ► Apple wants to promote. I wonder how they're going to talk about this at the event. I really do. I
00:09:50 ◼ ► guess if assuming it doesn't get settled beforehand, and this could be one of the things that because
00:09:56 ◼ ► the event is coming up on September 10th, 9th, 9th, 9th, maybe now there's sort of a fire lit
00:10:06 ◼ ► under their butts for these negotiations and it could be the sort of thing that gets settled Sunday
00:10:12 ◼ ► night, September 8th, and then they can talk about it. It does remind me a little bit of the Qualcomm
00:10:19 ◼ ► situation where they were in that big royalty battle. And eventually Apple, I can't remember
00:10:24 ◼ ► what exact deadline or what exact launch app was coming up on where Apple basically had to say,
00:10:29 ◼ ► we need modems. We got to pay Qualcomm whatever they want. And it was like a Friday night news dump
00:10:34 ◼ ► and here we are. The blood oxygen sensor just isn't that big of a deal for the Apple watch
00:10:48 ◼ ► Because it came out in 2020, right? And so it was COVID and everybody jumped to the conclusion that,
00:10:56 ◼ ► oh, you can use it to track your blood oxygen if you get COVID or see it go down if you might get
00:11:01 ◼ ► COVID. But Apple was very clear like, this is just like a frame of reference. Don't use it for that
00:11:07 ◼ ► there. They don't see it as essential to the watches like the heart rate stuff, I think.
00:11:11 ◼ ► Tom Bilyeu (01h00s): Yeah, I definitely don't. And I think very few users do. Because I think anybody
00:11:18 ◼ ► who has a condition that already knows they have some kind of medical condition where they need to
00:11:26 ◼ ► monitor their blood oxygen, they're using a proper blood oxygen monitoring device. They're not
00:11:31 ◼ ► relying on an Apple watch for it. And whatever, hey, this is a nice little extra measurement that
00:11:37 ◼ ► I get in my health stuff from my watch, like sleep hours and everything else. It's nice to have,
00:11:44 ◼ ► but it really is just a bullet point on a slide. So I guess if nothing happens legally to settle
00:11:51 ◼ ► this and the event comes, I'm guessing the event will come. They just don't talk about blood
00:11:57 ◼ ► oxygen monitoring in the keynote because it's not a new feature, right? So that's not really
00:12:02 ◼ ► something to reiterate. And the sleep apnea detection or monitoring, whatever that rumored
00:12:11 ◼ ► feature would be, if they can't announce it because they can't talk about it. I don't know,
00:12:18 ◼ ► it's kind of interesting. It's kind of an interesting call. Would they still talk about it
00:12:22 ◼ ► but admit that nobody in the United States of all countries gets to use it? Or do they leave
00:12:28 ◼ ► the whole feature out and presume that if and when it gets settled in the next year, they'll just
00:12:34 ◼ ► announce it in watchOS 10.2 or whatever the verb. What's the number this year, 11 or 11?
00:12:42 ◼ ► It robs them of being able to talk about it in the keynote, but it doesn't keep them from doing it.
00:12:49 ◼ ► I guess the other weird thing I find about the whole legal situation is that whoever made the
00:12:55 ◼ ► decision, I guess at the ITC, that Apple is still shipping watches that have the sensor.
00:13:19 ◼ ► these questions to Apple PR. They wouldn't even answer at first when they first put the Apple
00:13:24 ◼ ► watch back on sale with this feature disabled. They wouldn't even confirm that the sensor is
00:13:32 ◼ ► present in hardware but disabled in software. They would just point to their newsroom post,
00:13:38 ◼ ► which was ambiguous on that point. But it made no sense to me that they would take the actual
00:13:42 ◼ ► physical sensor out other than the fact that if I owned the patent, if I were Mr. Massimo,
00:13:50 ◼ ► and I really felt like, "Hey, this patent is legit and Apple is screwing me," I would still feel like
00:14:02 ◼ ► United States. I have a patent on it. If you have a patent on X, you can't give people a device with
00:14:08 ◼ ► X. It seems to me you shouldn't be able to give people a device with X in it but just turned off
00:14:14 ◼ ► in software. I think the patent might be for the software algorithm or whatever Apple's—because
00:14:21 ◼ ► you have to think that the actual blood oxygen sensor, you see it light up on the back of your
00:14:26 ◼ ► wrist when it turns red. That's probably just an off-the-shelf part of some sort that Apple is
00:14:33 ◼ ► using their algorithms to perfect, and that's what Massimo's so bad about. I guess. But yeah,
00:14:43 ◼ ► we have no idea. I don't know. Just a little side note to remind people, if you're live watching the
00:14:50 ◼ ► event on September 9th, just pay attention during the watch segment. Do they ever mention blood
00:14:54 ◼ ► oxygen sensing or whatever? Because watchOS 11 has a new vitals app too that correlates
00:15:02 ◼ ► what your respiratory rate, your heart rate, your sleep time, wrist temperature, and if you have an
00:15:08 ◼ ► Apple Watch that supports it, your blood oxygen. But if you have a watch that's not available,
00:15:13 ◼ ► it's blocked because of the lawsuit stuff, it just doesn't include that data point. So that's—they
00:15:28 ◼ ► and that there was something about the micro cellular antenna that lets you get cellular
00:15:34 ◼ ► connectivity in an Apple Watch-sized device. If they weren't able to ship that, they'd be in
00:15:40 ◼ ► trouble because that's a major selling point for some people for the Apple Watch, right? It is a
00:15:45 ◼ ► huge thing for many people to go leave their house for a hike or a jog or something like that with
00:15:51 ◼ ► just their watch and know that they're still connected to the internet even though they don't
00:15:54 ◼ ► have their phone with them. That would be a huge, huge problem for Apple, something they couldn't
00:16:00 ◼ ► ignore, like they've seemingly ignored the blood oxygen thing. I don't know. All right, let me take
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00:17:58 ◼ ► John Green - Apple last week had another of its somewhat regular but unpredictable updates
00:18:08 ◼ ► to compliance plans with the DMA. Let's see. There's the browser choice screen changes.
00:18:27 ◼ ► rather. So you can delete App Store messages, camera, photos, and Safari for the first time.
00:18:34 ◼ ► John Green - Defaults. Right. Set other default apps for some of those things, including
00:18:38 ◼ ► password management, keyboards, translating text, navigation, call spam filters. We'll talk about
00:18:46 ◼ ► all of this. And the other news perhaps related is that long time, probably second in command of
00:18:54 ◼ ► the App Store, Matt Fisher announced that he's going to step down. He announced it on LinkedIn
00:19:01 ◼ ► and sent an email out to everybody on the team. He's going to be replaced by Carson. I'm forgetting
00:19:07 ◼ ► Carson's last name. Carson Oliver, who is sort of hit, I guess, third in command. And they're
00:19:13 ◼ ► splitting the inside Apple. This isn't something users really need to care about, but inside Apple,
00:19:20 ◼ ► under Phil Schiller, they're splitting into two teams. One that Carson Oliver is going to manage,
00:19:26 ◼ ► which is the App Store, the Apple's App Store. And a second one by Anne, I believe her last name is
00:19:34 ◼ ► pronounced Ty. It's spelled T-H-A-I. And Ty is going to lead a new second, like a fork inside
00:19:43 ◼ ► Apple of being responsible for more or less all the DMA stuff. And I guess anywhere other country
00:19:51 ◼ ► like Japan, who seems to be moving towards at least some of this third party App Store type
00:19:57 ◼ ► stuff, marketplaces in Apple's parlance. I don't think it's impossible to tell. I mean,
00:20:03 ◼ ► I don't think Matt Fisher is leaving because under duress. I honestly, he's been there since 2003,
00:20:17 ◼ ► as iTunes grew and became bigger and more and iTunes evolved into the App Store for better or
00:20:27 ◼ ► for worse. And you can definitely talk about the better and worse aspects of it. The App Store
00:20:33 ◼ ► still clearly is derived from what was once the iTunes store for music. I, my hunch, my very
00:20:41 ◼ ► strong hunch is that he really is just done, been there a long time moving on to something else.
00:20:47 ◼ ► I don't think this is a sign that, "Hey, we had to make all these changes again." You're fired.
00:20:52 ◼ ► I don't think so. No. I mean, if Phil Schiller says he's going to restructure things and split
00:20:58 ◼ ► things into two, and Matt Fisher was already maybe thinking about going, that's the best time to say,
00:21:03 ◼ ► "Hey, I'm out. I'm tired of this. 21 years. I'm incredibly rich and I want to go spend time with
00:21:09 ◼ ► my family." Right. I don't know how much fun it ever was to run the App Store. But it seems like
00:21:16 ◼ ► less fun now, even if you got to only run the App Store part like Carson Oliver is now, the anti
00:21:25 ◼ ► part seems like less fun. Yeah. I just think he's moving on. And also, it's probably not a bad time
00:21:31 ◼ ► to mention it alongside this news, but it's, can't rule out based on how secret App it was that
00:21:37 ◼ ► perhaps there's more to it than that. But I don't think so. Let's talk about the browser choice
00:21:42 ◼ ► screen changes first. So there's a big focus on the design. That's the whole thing is the EU is
00:21:53 ◼ ► now in order to select one of the default browsers, you have to scroll through the entire
00:21:58 ◼ ► list. Like when you're reading a quote unquote, reading like the terms of conditions on a website,
00:22:02 ◼ ► it won't let you accept until you actually scroll. That's the design that's now coming to the screen,
00:22:08 ◼ ► which I don't understand. I can't remember what app or website it was, but I know that it was on
00:22:18 ◼ ► my phone just within the last, I'd say about a month ago. I was doing something and got presented
00:22:23 ◼ ► with a very long term, legal terms and conditions. And I'm on the phone and I hit some kind of
00:22:30 ◼ ► buttons and I just want to do what everybody does with those things is just say accept, right?
00:22:35 ◼ ► Even if it was just the one screen, I'm not going to read it. And I don't see how to do it. I'm
00:22:42 ◼ ► like, I don't get it. And I'm like, oh, is this one of those things where I got to scroll to the
00:22:47 ◼ ► bottom and I start scrolling. And even with the accelerated scrolling on the iPhone, it's just
00:22:54 ◼ ► absurdly long. The longer it went, the more I'm thinking this can't be. And then I get to the
00:23:01 ◼ ► bottom and lo and behold, then there's the button, accept. And I'm like, I cannot believe you made me
00:23:06 ◼ ► do that. But I know that came up and I believe it was mentioned at the public hearing. And I think
00:23:16 ◼ ► Matt Fisher was representing Apple there, but it was like back in June or May or something like
00:23:22 ◼ ► that. They had the workshop for, it was like the first time for companies. I know Riley Tested was
00:23:29 ◼ ► there, the guy behind the alt store. And I think it was the hearing where he mentioned that Riley
00:23:44 ◼ ► Matt Fisher (01:01): It was GBA for all, I think was the GBA for iOS and now it's Delta.
00:23:52 ◼ ► Yeah, Delta. But whenever it became popular as a jailbreak type thing and it became very popular,
00:24:02 ◼ ► he's not a charity, he was just a teenager, but paying a dollar per download would be a big
00:24:09 ◼ ► problem if he got a million downloads as a teenager making just a cool Game Boy emulator.
00:24:16 ◼ ► And I think it was Matt Fisher, it might've been Carson Oliver, I don't know, but I think it was
00:24:20 ◼ ► Matt Fisher who just, I think gave the answer of, well, you know what, that's a good point,
00:24:25 ◼ ► we'll look into it. But at that hearing, this whole issue about do you have to scroll through
00:24:31 ◼ ► the whole list came up. Like for whatever reason in Europe, this is like a recurring issue with
00:24:38 ◼ ► these choice screens. I think Microsoft had to do the same thing with their browser choice screen on
00:24:43 ◼ ► Windows. It came up and I just remember seeing in the transcript of the meeting, like for whatever
00:24:51 ◼ ► reason, it sounds slightly trivial. So it's a list of 11 browsers. The list is not that long,
00:25:00 ◼ ► right? So there's only three browsers below the fold, as they say, off screen. But it took up a
00:25:08 ◼ ► surprising amount of time at this public meeting about it. So I took away from the meeting that
00:25:16 ◼ ► Apple's definitely going to have to switch to that. So apparently though, it's like reading
00:25:26 ◼ ► I can only presume is okay. Like the fact that they've, I don't know where the number 11 came
00:25:32 ◼ ► from, but that's how many browsers they show to each user. I guess that's okay. 'Cause I get the
00:25:37 ◼ ► other way out of this would be to switch to seven browsers and then there is no scrolling. So they've
00:25:44 ◼ ► stuck with 11. The order is randomized, which is, I think if you're going to mandate a browser choice
00:25:52 ◼ ► screen by regulation or law for antitrust or for gatekeeping, whatever, this company is too big and
00:26:04 ◼ ► powerful reasons. That randomizing the list, I think is actually, has to be part of the law
00:26:11 ◼ ► because it's very, if Safari were listed first, it would get chosen disproportionately. Like if
00:26:18 ◼ ► they didn't have to randomize it, then they obviously wouldn't put Safari first. And I don't
00:26:24 ◼ ► know if they put Chrome second, 'cause it's probably the one most people want to choose,
00:26:29 ◼ ► or if they would put Chrome last, I don't know. Or would that be too, I don't know what Apple
00:26:34 ◼ ► would do if they didn't have to randomize it. But requiring them to randomize it does make sense
00:26:40 ◼ ► if you're going to force a, for antitrust reasons. I'll just say antitrust, even if this isn't
00:26:46 ◼ ► technically antitrust, because the order really does matter. But having to scroll, it is confusing.
00:26:53 ◼ ► If you see the one you want, whatever the browser, like, "Oh, Safari, I know I just want Safari."
00:26:58 ◼ ► There it is. But you can't tap anything to move on. I actually think it's sort of confusing that
00:27:05 ◼ ► you have to scroll down. I've already made my choice. I've chosen Safari. What do I have to do?
00:27:10 ◼ ► I'm stuck on this screen. I see why Apple didn't make people scroll. But I sort of see why people
00:27:19 ◼ ► complain that you had to scroll. I don't know. Chris: They should have just cut it off at seven,
00:27:39 ◼ ► do they list this, the current, here's from Apple's own browser choice screen on developer.apple.com.
00:27:45 ◼ ► "The current list of browsers shown on the browser choice screen per country for iOS or below.
00:27:56 ◼ ► in a randomized order. Click on a country to jump to it." And supposedly, these are the
00:28:08 ◼ ► I don't know what they're going to do on an ongoing basis. I guess maybe they've even said
00:28:12 ◼ ► so clearly that they'll, in the future, they'll just count browsers, period, not just from the
00:28:19 ◼ ► App Store, but because obviously it's legal now in the EU to make a browser that you only offer
00:28:28 ◼ ► in the EU and that uses its own browser engine, perhaps, which you can only do in the EU.
00:28:33 ◼ ► I don't think there exists such a thing as a popular web browser that's only distributed
00:28:39 ◼ ► outside Apple's App Store, but there could be. So having it in the rules be that it only counts if
00:28:46 ◼ ► it's from, we're only counting popularity from the App Store, doesn't make sense. I think even
00:28:50 ◼ ► people at Apple would agree that doesn't make sense. So let's presume that it'll just be
00:28:55 ◼ ► popular browsers from any source. Have you looked at the list? It's per, and again, I don't know
00:29:00 ◼ ► that you requested this. I don't know if it was Apple's idea. Each of the 27 member states of the
00:29:13 ◼ ► Have you looked at the list? Yeah. And it, I think what I come back to is what happens when a browser
00:29:20 ◼ ► rockets, let's say Arc, for instance, if Arc really takes off and somehow ends up in the top
00:29:26 ◼ ► charts, Apple has to update this list and they have to update it on a country by country basis.
00:29:31 ◼ ► They have to update it on everybody's phone. And then you get into a murky situation where
00:29:36 ◼ ► does Apple need to present a pop-up again saying that there's more browser options now?
00:29:42 ◼ ► How often are they going to have to reprompt? They're saying once a year, I guess, or they'll
00:29:48 ◼ ► update this list once a year. And well, we'll get to more. I have more to say about this. I'm
00:30:02 ◼ ► how like our world, me, you, Chance, the people who listen to this podcast, the people who read
00:30:11 ◼ ► Daring Fireball, the people who read 9to5Mac. I think amongst all of us, we would say, "Oh, Arc
00:30:17 ◼ ► is one of the most interesting alternative browsers on iOS and Mac and surely ought to be on
00:30:25 ◼ ► a list of the top 11, right?" If I had to pick a browser other than Safari, Arc would definitely
00:30:32 ◼ ► be one that I look at for sure, yet isn't on the list for any of these countries measured by
00:30:39 ◼ ► popularity. I'll just go to, I don't know who's most representative, but here's Ireland. Their
00:30:45 ◼ ► list of browsers start, and this is in alphabetical order, Access from the BlackBerry Corporation.
00:30:52 ◼ ► I have never heard of the Access browser and I did not realize, I have heard of the BlackBerry
00:30:57 ◼ ► Corporation. Did not realize they were still around. And that one is only on three of these
00:31:15 ◼ ► It looks like an iOS browser. It's on Android too. It has a built-in VPN though, including
00:31:21 ◼ ► whatever you call geo-relocating by VPN. So you could watch, you could travel to Ireland and watch
00:31:36 ◼ ► Adblock built-in. Brave from Brave Software. I've heard of that and used it. Chrome. I don't know if
00:31:43 ◼ ► you heard of this one. Chrome. Up and comer. From a company called Google LLC. DuckDuckGo. Ecosia,
00:31:51 ◼ ► which is sort of an eco-minded search engine/browser where they plant trees or something.
00:32:00 ◼ ► Edge from Microsoft. Firefox from Mozilla. I'm going to skip one. Opera from Opera Software.
00:32:14 ◼ ► The one I skipped is Onion Browser from Mike Teiges. I will admit I've never heard of this,
00:32:21 ◼ ► but it's on almost all these lists. Maybe every one of them. Onion Browser is on all of these,
00:32:28 ◼ ► at least most if not all of the countries in the EU. And the thing that really is like one of these
00:32:36 ◼ ► things is not like the others is it's not from a company. It's from a guy named Mike Teiges.
00:32:44 ◼ ► I've never used Tor, honestly. Maybe if I were younger, I still would. I mean, I used what I
00:32:53 ◼ ► guess were the equivalent of Tor-like platforms 20-some years ago when I was younger. My
00:33:01 ◼ ► understanding is that Tor is a place where you can find copyright material that's fallen off the back
00:33:06 ◼ ► of a truck. I remember in high school, people would have to use Tor to be able to go to the
00:33:13 ◼ ► websites where you would buy fake IDs. That's how I learned about Tor is people doing that in high
00:33:27 ◼ ► Penn and Drexel have adjacent campuses. There was a bar on Penn's campus that A, would let people
00:33:40 ◼ ► if you talked to the bouncer on certain nights, he would tell you who else to talk to. He'd give you
00:33:45 ◼ ► a phone number to call to get a fake ID. And then would not look too hard at it when you came back
00:33:54 ◼ ► with it. Yeah, yeah. Tor simplifies that process to some extent. I am not surprised that this
00:34:00 ◼ ► product is popular. It does seem to be highly rated. I understand why people would want to use
00:34:05 ◼ ► it. I do think it is a very strange choice to offer as one of only 11 options for 100-some
00:34:14 ◼ ► million iOS users in the EU. Because it's not the equivalent of, you can say Safari, Chrome, Brave,
00:34:24 ◼ ► Edge, DuckDuckGo. If somebody picks one of those by mistake, they don't know what a browser is.
00:34:31 ◼ ► And I know some people, some nerds are like, "Oh, who are these people who don't know what a browser
00:34:36 ◼ ► is?" I'm telling you, there are a lot of people who don't know what a web browser is. There's a
00:34:42 ◼ ► lot of people who don't know what Safari is, but have been using it happily for 10, 15, 20 years.
00:34:48 ◼ ► I don't know how much of an issue it is, but it does occur to me that it's, I think it's always
00:34:55 ◼ ► been true literally since the first iPhone in 2007, that the apps in the dock on your home screen
00:35:01 ◼ ► don't have names below them. If you look at the home screen, all the other apps on your grid have
00:35:08 ◼ ► the names like Calendar, Photos, Maps. But the four that you put in the dock just have the icons.
00:35:14 ◼ ► And Safari has always been one of those apps. So you actually don't see the name Safari on your
00:35:19 ◼ ► phone. I'm not trying to be a jerk here and overestimate how many people don't know that
00:35:29 ◼ ► they actually are Safari users. But I actually don't think it's that ridiculous. I think
00:35:35 ◼ ► they recognize the icon, but they may not know the name Safari. But if you pick DuckDuckGo by
00:35:40 ◼ ► accident, or you just don't know what to do, you don't know what to do. You don't know who to ask
00:35:44 ◼ ► for help. I don't know. I'll just pick this and go forward. Some things are different. The button
00:35:50 ◼ ► for how to get to tabs is different. Your bookmarks, if you've made bookmarks over the years,
00:35:56 ◼ ► aren't going to be there. But you're not going to be confused as to what the hell this is. It does
00:36:02 ◼ ► work like Safari does on the phone. I think if you end up with the Onion browser and you're on the
00:36:07 ◼ ► Tor dark web, you're like, "How did I get here?" It's a very strange browser to be on this list.
00:36:18 ◼ ► So I feel like once you get out of the top five or six or seven popular browsers, that's when you
00:36:24 ◼ ► start to get into the weeds. And that, again, who determined the 11 number? Was it the EU? Was it
00:36:30 ◼ ► Apple? It's just so arbitrary. Yeah. It's very strange in some ways. But I get it if they're
00:36:37 ◼ ► just going to say, "Well, the 11 most popular browsers in each country are the 11 we'll list."
00:36:41 ◼ ► And the Onion browser, as obscure as it is and as nerdy as a Tor browser is, if it's one of the 11
00:36:51 ◼ ► most popular in every country, should be on the list. And I guess it also speaks to how popular
00:36:58 ◼ ► Tor is overall. So what else are they doing policy-wise that's different with the browser
00:37:05 ◼ ► choice screen? So it seems like part of the concessions are to further... It's Safari in
00:37:14 ◼ ► particular that is being targeted. So the choice screen... So they've already shown the choice
00:37:20 ◼ ► screen in iOS 17.4 or something whenever they first debuted this. So for EU users who've
00:37:28 ◼ ► already upgraded to iOS 17, they or you, kind EU listeners who still listen to my podcast,
00:37:38 ◼ ► you've already gone through the first... Apple's first attempt at a compliant browser choice screen.
00:37:44 ◼ ► And if you, in that screen, chose Safari, at some point later this year, you're going to have to
00:37:51 ◼ ► choose again. If you made another choice or if you've already been using Chrome as your default
00:37:58 ◼ ► browser ever since Apple let you change the default browser years ago, worldwide, something
00:38:04 ◼ ► everybody can do, it's not an EU thing to have a default browser. The EU thing is being forced to
00:38:10 ◼ ► make a selection. If you already chose Safari, you're going to have to choose again. I guess...
00:38:18 ◼ ► I'm laughing, but it kind of makes sense that if what Apple first shipped and is currently shipping
00:38:24 ◼ ► has been deemed non-compliant, it makes sense that the whole point of this is that Apple's...
00:38:31 ◼ ► That the idea that Safari is unfairly favored and used by too many people who would otherwise use a
00:38:41 ◼ ► different browser because of Apple's market dominance. And so therefore, if their first
00:38:51 ◼ ► Safari, you have to choose again. But let's face it, it's kind of... Is it a big deal? Is it going
00:38:58 ◼ ► to take you more than 10 seconds? No. But if you want Safari and you knew it, you knew it before
00:39:06 ◼ ► the DMA went into effect, you knew it when you first saw the browser choice screen in iOS 17.4,
00:39:12 ◼ ► and now you've upgraded later this year. I'm going to guess this is like an iOS 18.1 thing,
00:39:25 ◼ ► I don't know what you think, Chance, but I think what they're saying is every time you migrate to
00:39:35 ◼ ► if and only if the user's previously chosen default browser was Safari, the user will be
00:39:39 ◼ ► required to reselect a default browser, i.e. unlike other settings in iOS, the user's choice
00:39:45 ◼ ► of default browser will not be migrated if that choice was Safari. Sounds to me like they're
00:39:50 ◼ ► saying that's in perpetuity. Yes, I think so. It's every time you set up a new iPhone and it's per...
00:39:56 ◼ ► Before these changes, it was per account, per Apple ID, and now it's also per device. So every time
00:40:02 ◼ ► you buy a new iPhone and migrate, if you chose Safari, you have to confirm and choose something
00:40:07 ◼ ► else or whatever. If you buy a new iPad, it's over and over again. That bullet point is the one I was
00:40:12 ◼ ► specifically gonna call out because it just doesn't make sense. And I think Apple knows it doesn't
00:40:17 ◼ ► make sense. I think the fact that they say, i.e. unlike other settings in iOS, it will not be
00:40:22 ◼ ► migrated if your choice was Safari. Right. Part of this seems to be the EU is forcing them to say
00:40:29 ◼ ► that even if a user has asserted they want to use Safari, they need to keep checking on a regular
00:40:35 ◼ ► basis, at least every time they update to... They buy a new iPhone or iPad and making a choice on
00:40:43 ◼ ► your iPhone will not apply to your iPad if you have both. And so this is one of those areas where
00:40:48 ◼ ► the iPad being ruled to be a gatekeeping platform to... I forget if there's ruled to be a separate
00:40:55 ◼ ► gatekeeping platform or it's just, come on, who are you kidding? This is all one platform.
00:41:00 ◼ ► Either way, here's where it matters 'cause I think it's very unusual for people to have two iPhones.
00:41:06 ◼ ► I mean, I do. I've got like a whole shelf full of them. Most people do not for obvious reasons,
00:41:17 ◼ ► Kind of annoying. I think choice screen will not be displayed if a user already has a browser other
00:41:24 ◼ ► than Safari set as default. So that's the flip side of if you chose Safari, you're gonna see it
00:41:31 ◼ ► again. The other thing is if you've chosen any other browser and made it the default in settings,
00:41:47 ◼ ► startup browser made by a single guy. You're using a browser from Chrome from Google. How
00:41:52 ◼ ► is that really any better? You're just locking people into Google's ecosystem instead of Apple.
00:42:10 ◼ ► but I think using percentage numbers are either totally how many users use X or what percentage
00:42:19 ◼ ► of users use X instead of Y. Just as a gut feeling, I would say Chrome is the most dominant
00:42:32 ◼ ► monopoly installable software in the world. I think Google search is the single biggest
00:42:42 ◼ ► monopoly as a product in terms of when people search the web around the globe or in the United
00:42:49 ◼ ► States or in the EU. The share of people who use Google search for web search is bigger than the
00:42:55 ◼ ► share of people who use Chrome as their web browser on a device. But you don't install a
00:43:00 ◼ ► search engine in terms of things where you decide what you're going to install or use or a product
00:43:06 ◼ ► or something like that. I'd say Chrome is the biggest one. And so I can't help but think that
00:43:11 ◼ ► who does this mandatory browser choice screen help? Honestly, I think the single biggest
00:43:26 ◼ ► browsers on the list, the odds of somebody picking one they've never heard of, I would say,
00:43:31 ◼ ► it's pretty slim. The odds of somebody picking Microsoft Edge, not small, but pretty small
00:43:38 ◼ ► comparatively. The choice is Safari or Chrome. Most people, not a lot of people, especially if
00:43:44 ◼ ► they use Windows, they're more familiar with Chrome. They're going to pick Chrome. It benefits
00:43:49 ◼ ► Google. Right. If you're, and again, this is hard to not be condescending to the people that we're
00:44:02 ◼ ► know exactly what browser they want to use and aren't going to be confused by this. And I don't
00:44:09 ◼ ► think the choices, I don't think, and even if you did, even if you're going so fast and you ended up
00:44:15 ◼ ► tapping Brave and then going to the bottom and hitting next, and now Brave is your default
00:44:21 ◼ ► browser and you didn't even mean to do that. Everybody listening to the show knows how to fix
00:44:26 ◼ ► it. They know how to go back to Safari. I think for another, at the other end of the spectrum,
00:44:33 ◼ ► people like my dad, my mother-in-law, people who really just are technically, I really don't think
00:44:41 ◼ ► my dad knows. I think he would recognize the Safari icon. I think if you said, "What web browser do
00:44:47 ◼ ► you use?" I'm not sure he would say Safari. I really don't. And he's been using a Mac for over
00:44:51 ◼ ► 20 years and he loves his iPad. Now he has an iPhone. I'm not sure he knows that that's his
00:45:03 ◼ ► but I asked her when the choice screen first came out. I showed her a screenshot of it. And I said,
00:45:09 ◼ ► "If you saw this the next time you turned on your iPhone," because let's say, you know,
00:45:14 ◼ ► and she has automatic software updates on, and she's familiar with, "Hey, sometimes when you
00:45:19 ◼ ► restart after an iOS update, you get like a first run screen where you have to okay some permission
00:45:24 ◼ ► or something like that." I said, "Let's say an iOS update came in and you saw this screen.
00:45:29 ◼ ► Would you know what to do?" And she like texted me, "Lol, no." I said, "Would you call me?" And
00:45:36 ◼ ► she goes, "Yes." And I said, "Well, that's a good answer and I'm always happy to take her calls on
00:45:41 ◼ ► stuff like this." But she honestly didn't understand what it meant. She just didn't. And she knows.
00:45:46 ◼ ► And I said, "Do you know what web browser you use?" And she said, "Safari?" And I was like,
00:45:51 ◼ ► "Yes, you were correct." She thought I was trying to trick her or something. So she knew her web
00:45:55 ◼ ► browser is Safari. So she might manage it on her own. But the overall issue of what web browser do
00:46:01 ◼ ► you want to use by default, it just confused her. I think at that extreme, I think most people will
00:46:09 ◼ ► just, even if they are what the heck, I think they'll scroll around, see Safari, tap it, move
00:46:16 ◼ ► on and stick with Safari. So no harm done. So let me just say this. I don't think this browser choice
00:46:22 ◼ ► screen is a catastrophe in any way. I just think it's an annoyance. But in the middle, there might
00:46:30 ◼ ► be some people who are just so confused or something. And they'll, like you said, they'll
00:46:38 ◼ ► scroll through this list and maybe the one they recognize is Chrome, right? Because there's a very
00:46:43 ◼ ► good chance they use Chrome at work. There's a very good chance they use Chrome at home if they're
00:46:48 ◼ ► a PC user with an iPhone, right? Chrome by far, how it just said, I think is the biggest dominant
00:46:54 ◼ ► installed market share of any software product in the world. I think they might see Chrome and
00:47:00 ◼ ► think, "I guess Chrome, that's what I use," right? And even if they weren't using it, and even if
00:47:04 ◼ ► they don't want to switch and then they're mad or angry or confused why now when they surf the web,
00:47:10 ◼ ► it looks different and their bookmarks aren't there, now they're using Chrome. I think Chrome
00:47:15 ◼ ► stands to benefit from this more than anybody else. And I think it's almost perverse that a bigger,
00:47:24 ◼ ► more dominant monopolist is being rewarded. Even if you think iOS is a monopoly that needs to be,
00:47:31 ◼ ► needs and ought to be constrained, and that the DMA overall does a good job rectifying it,
00:47:40 ◼ ► - And the other design, confusing design aspect of this is from Apple's notes. They say,
00:47:58 ◼ ► So let's say you go through that screen, you make the wrong selection or you regret your selection,
00:48:03 ◼ ► you say, "Okay, I'll just go back. I know where the Safari icon is on my dock." And you go back
00:48:20 ◼ ► by the EU. That they're like, and I think Apple probably made the case in whatever back channel
00:48:26 ◼ ► communications they have with them as best they can, that this is confusing and that it,
00:48:34 ◼ ► when an app gets renamed, like messages way back in the day used to be called SMS, I think,
00:48:41 ◼ ► or was it called texts? I forget. It might've been called SMS and the first iPhone. I can look it up,
00:48:48 ◼ ► but who cares? But when they changed the name to messages, then it updated automatically,
00:48:54 ◼ ► obviously. Companies, every single developer who's ever changed their app icon will tell you,
00:49:06 ◼ ► if it gets a new icon, some users get angry, some users get confused. I would say actually
00:49:12 ◼ ► changing the app on your home screen, which is a very spatial interface, right? Like people are
00:49:19 ◼ ► used to, and it's one of the nice features in iOS 18 that it's finally going to let you sort of snap
00:49:26 ◼ ► them wherever you want on the grid as opposed to always going from the top left over and filling
00:49:33 ◼ ► out, right? 18 versions in and we can finally put icons wherever we want on the home screen.
00:49:39 ◼ ► But once you stick it in a spot on your first home screen or a certain spot on your second home
00:49:44 ◼ ► screen, it sticks there. So making Apple change their Safari icon to a different browser is
00:49:52 ◼ ► possibly, I don't think it's helping anybody who understands what's going on at all. I think anybody
00:49:59 ◼ ► who really does want to switch to Chrome or Brave or DuckDuckGo as their browser default browser has
00:50:04 ◼ ► already done it, right? You could do this everywhere else in the world. I think this is only going to
00:50:09 ◼ ► make it worse for people who've made a mistake on the browser choice screen. And then they're like,
00:50:13 ◼ ► "Well, I know how to get back to Safari. It's the bottom right icon on my home screen." Nope,
00:50:18 ◼ ► not anymore. Now it's the onion browser. I fielded tech support stuff from like family and friends
00:50:24 ◼ ► where they're rearranging their home screen and an icon for some reason or another flies to the
00:50:37 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. When your first home screen is full and you're... It is actually, it's one of the
00:50:43 ◼ ► worst experiences Apple has ever, in my opinion, that they've ever had, let alone stuck with for
00:50:48 ◼ ► 18 years. It is very fiddly and annoying and feels like you're building a house of cards out of a
00:50:56 ◼ ► rickety old greasy deck of cards even. You know, you can... It's hard to get your icons where you
00:51:02 ◼ ► want, but when the screen is already full and you're dragging a new icon in, the bottom right
00:51:09 ◼ ► icon shoots over to the other screen. And again, if you don't know what just... If you don't know that,
00:51:14 ◼ ► then yeah, it's like it disappeared. I presume that it doesn't save. I presume that when this
00:51:22 ◼ ► happens, this Apple doesn't remove the Safari icon from all of your home screens. It just puts
00:51:38 ◼ ► They're moving it out of the Docker off of the first page and presumably, yeah, just onto page
00:51:42 ◼ ► two or whatever. Right. But I honestly think how many iOS users realize they have more than one
00:51:49 ◼ ► home screen is shockingly... I think it would surprise an awful lot of nerds just how many
00:51:55 ◼ ► people don't even know that there's other home screens or that once they get to one, they don't
00:51:59 ◼ ► know how to get back. And I know you just swipe, but people... When your user base is a billion
00:52:08 ◼ ► people, you really... This whole debate, I don't wanna get sidetracked on it, but this whole thing
00:52:14 ◼ ► over Mac security tightening and stuff like that really just gets to this conflict between what is
00:52:21 ◼ ► best for the non-technical user while not inconveniencing people who do know exactly what
00:52:39 ◼ ► For the bottom tier of users who don't understand everything, there's a balance that can be struck.
00:52:44 ◼ ► But what the problem that jumps out to me is when it is changed for the sake of regulatory reasoning
00:52:53 ◼ ► or alleged regulatory reasoning, if that makes sense. It's not... If Apple makes a change from
00:52:59 ◼ ► a design standpoint that is different, but it's for a good reason, it's for... They're adding a
00:53:02 ◼ ► new feature, they're changing the visual look of something because they think it's better.
00:53:12 ◼ ► who aren't super technical, there is a trade-off. For stuff like this, there's really not a benefit
00:53:26 ◼ ► I'll jump to my overall conclusion. I am interested. I wanted to have you on to talk about
00:53:35 ◼ ► this. I'm going to continue writing about it. I'm going to continue podcasting about it.
00:53:40 ◼ ► I do think overall though, I think Apple is sort of... I do think they're overall winning this DMA
00:53:48 ◼ ► fight over compliance in terms of, is the world really changing for iOS users overall? And is it
00:54:00 ◼ ► even changing that much for iOS users in the EU overall? And I think the answer is no so far.
00:54:07 ◼ ► My mind is open that we're still only a couple months in of any version of iOS supporting the
00:54:14 ◼ ► DMA. The DMA only went into effect in March of this year. And I totally understand how some
00:54:27 ◼ ► the whole platform will seem different worldwide or it will seem truly forked between the rest of
00:54:34 ◼ ► the world and the EU. I'm open to that. I'm just saying so far, I'm not really seeing it. And
00:54:39 ◼ ► I think even with the browser choice screen that's already shipped, I don't really think
00:54:51 ◼ ► it's just too early to know whether Apple's winning it or losing it because we haven't seen
00:54:57 ◼ ► the full impact of things like the alternative app marketplace stuff. Like only last week,
00:55:01 ◼ ► Epic Games finally launched theirs and added Fortnite. And that's the first big name that
00:55:08 ◼ ► people recognize. And people might want to figure out how do I get Fortnite back on my iPhone?
00:55:13 ◼ ► And that's when they become aware of alternative app stores. And all it's going to take is a
00:55:23 ◼ ► Apple starts to lose. Right. Fortnite is such a—it's almost hard to make up a better hypothetical
00:55:30 ◼ ► example because Spotify would be good to think about as the other alternative. But the thing
00:55:36 ◼ ► that's so unique about Fortnite is it is, A, incredibly popular in the mainstream gaming world.
00:55:45 ◼ ► It was very popular on iOS when it was available in the app store. And even though that was four
00:55:53 ◼ ► years ago, and there was certainly a time where a four-year-old video game was not relevant anymore,
00:55:59 ◼ ► but that's not really—as the game industry has evolved, games have sort of become perpetual IP
00:56:08 ◼ ► in a way. Like Mickey Mouse is still Mickey Mouse 100 years after the first cartoon, famously,
00:56:17 ◼ ► now that the copyright expired on Steamboat Willie. Fortnite is still Fortnite, and it's not
00:56:24 ◼ ► available in the app store. Right? That's what makes it so unique. If Epic hadn't pulled that
00:56:31 ◼ ► stunt with the in-app purchase switcheroo to trigger the legal battle that they knew was going
00:56:39 ◼ ► to come from doing it and get kicked out of the app store, I don't even know what would be. I
00:56:45 ◼ ► guess Delta literally would be the biggest draw, but Delta, it's probably why Apple changes their
00:56:52 ◼ ► mind on app store policy. When Delta was going to—poised to become exclusively available either
00:57:01 ◼ ► through jailbreaking, where it's always been, TestFlight, I guess, which is limited in how many
00:57:06 ◼ ► users Riley can distribute it to via TestFlight, or only through the alt store in the EU, then Apple
00:57:15 ◼ ► changes their policy on game emulators in the app store, and Riley put it in the app store, and now
00:57:20 ◼ ► you can get it there. So I can't even think of what second place as an exclusive app that could
00:57:35 ◼ ► The thing that might happen, the thing that I've thought about maybe happening would be if
00:57:40 ◼ ► Meta pulled from the app store and decided to do the Meta marketplace, but I just don't think
00:57:47 ◼ ► that's going to happen. Apple's made the terms of doing the alternative app marketplace stuff just so
00:57:53 ◼ ► onerous that financially, for most people, it doesn't make sense to leave the app store,
00:57:58 ◼ ► and that's exactly what Apple wants, and it's kind of the DMA not accomplishing what it set
00:58:05 ◼ ► out to accomplish, whether again that's because of the EC or because of Apple's being Apple, but…
00:58:10 ◼ ► Well, it depends. I'm not quite sure who else is motivated to make an EU-only app. I guess that's
00:58:18 ◼ ► where I was going. I don't know. I couldn't tell you one. The one that certain people are hoping
00:58:23 ◼ ► will get made is like a version of Chrome that uses Chromium as the web engine under the hood,
00:58:29 ◼ ► because the DMA mandates that that has to be allowed in the EU, and it's contentious amongst
00:58:35 ◼ ► web developers that Apple's rules have always been you can make another third-party web browser,
00:58:46 ◼ ► I've written about that at length. That actually is not nonsense. The security angle is not
00:58:51 ◼ ► nonsense, but it's obviously contentious, but it's only contentious amongst web developers.
00:58:57 ◼ ► I really don't think normal people have any idea. Even people who actually do prefer using Chrome on
00:59:05 ◼ ► their Mac versus Safari, which if you could study them and detail why it is they prefer Chrome,
00:59:19 ◼ ► record this podcast right now, StreamYard, which only works in Chrome or Chromium browsers.
00:59:24 ◼ ► And you could say, "Oh, it's because Chrome uses a different rendering engine under the
00:59:32 ◼ ► But it seems as though none of... I mean, who knows? Maybe Google is sort of like Apple,
00:59:38 ◼ ► and they're just going to be quiet about it until they ship it. But if any of those browser makers
00:59:42 ◼ ► like them or Mozilla are working on releasing iOS versions of their browsers that use their own
00:59:54 ◼ ► No one's... "Ooh, Chrome's already checked this in. You can follow along at chromium.org,"
00:59:59 ◼ ► where they've... Because, like you said, it's just one of the... Speculating about meta,
01:00:05 ◼ ► starting the meta app store, just seems like it's not worth it, right? Because it's only in the EU.
01:00:10 ◼ ► It's obviously a huge technical undertaking to port a web rendering engine to another platform.
01:00:18 ◼ ► Mobile has its own device constraints, screen size. Battery is obviously more... It's an issue
01:00:24 ◼ ► on every laptop, but it's way more important on the phone. And there's stuff like the core
01:00:28 ◼ ► technology fee, right? So Chrome could only ship that. Google could only ship that if they opt into
01:00:35 ◼ ► the new terms, which puts them on the hook for the core technology fee. But then they're paying
01:00:41 ◼ ► Apple 50 cents a year for everybody who downloads that version of Chrome, which would have to be a
01:00:48 ◼ ► different version of Chrome than the one that ships to the rest of the world because the rest
01:00:52 ◼ ► of the world uses WebKit. Or I guess it could still be the same app and just... Nah, I don't
01:00:57 ◼ ► think they could ship such a browser to the rest of the world. Because even if it defaulted outside
01:01:03 ◼ ► the EU, as I think allowed here, to using the system version of WebKit because they're not in
01:01:08 ◼ ► EU, I don't think they're, by the terms of the App Store, allowed to ship the Chromium engine in the
01:01:14 ◼ ► bundle, right? I think they have to be separate bundles, yeah, completely. Right. You can't just
01:01:20 ◼ ► ship this web rendering engine with a just-in-time compiler and pinky swear that you're not going to
01:01:26 ◼ ► enable it. It's not allowed to be there. So they'd only be on the hook for the core technology fee...
01:01:32 ◼ ► No, I guess because if you opt into the terms, then you're still on the hook for the core
01:01:38 ◼ ► technology fee for all of your apps, not just the app that you want to use the new web rendering
01:01:43 ◼ ► engine. So does Sundar Pichai really want to send Apple 50 cents for every iOS user who installs
01:01:49 ◼ ► Chrome around the world? Probably not. I don't know. It just doesn't seem to matter. The European
01:02:00 ◼ ► Commission gets to say, "We've made these rules the law of the land," but it doesn't really change
01:02:06 ◼ ► the practical reality on the ground of what people actually use. Yeah. The other announcements,
01:02:13 ◼ ► the default app stuff, this was an interesting issue. Much like the, "Hey, you have to scroll
01:02:19 ◼ ► to the bottom before you're allowed to move forward in the choice screen list," the issue of
01:02:25 ◼ ► defaults is a huge deal in the European Commission. Margaret Vestager is always talking about defaults.
01:02:32 ◼ ► It seems to be a... I don't know why. It's like an almost obsession with them about default this,
01:02:38 ◼ ► default that. And long-time iOS users will remember that it wasn't until... I don't know,
01:02:45 ◼ ► it doesn't matter. Iowa 7, 8, something like that, where you got to change any of the defaults.
01:02:50 ◼ ► Anytime you clicked a URL in another app, whether it was a messaging app or like an email app,
01:03:01 ◼ ► other defaults. The default for opening a URL was always Safari. The default for a mail to URL,
01:03:09 ◼ ► mail to colon, here's your email address at example.com, would always open in mail or open
01:03:17 ◼ ► the sheet in mail. There were no third-party keyboards, let alone default third-party keyboards,
01:03:24 ◼ ► right? So, Apple added some of that stuff, not seemingly from regulatory pressure, but just from
01:03:31 ◼ ► well, finally got around to it. People want this. People are using other email clients.
01:03:35 ◼ ► People are using other web browsers. So, we'll let you set a default for the web browser,
01:03:40 ◼ ► default for email. And that all makes sense. And I don't know anybody who thinks that it
01:03:45 ◼ ► was anything other than about time, finally. But some of these things, it's like, what is
01:03:51 ◼ ► David Tompkins I don't... Because that's one of the things with the DOJ lawsuit in the United
01:03:58 ◼ ► States too, is it's partially, it's kind of obsessed with the fact that, and it's like,
01:04:03 ◼ ► what is it? SMS can't integrate with WhatsApp. So, people can't really switch to WhatsApp because
01:04:08 ◼ ► they still have to use messages for SMS. And Apple didn't give us any clarification on how or if
01:04:14 ◼ ► that's going to change with this stuff in the EU. Like you can maybe switch your default to WhatsApp,
01:04:19 ◼ ► but not for everything. But you can also be able to delete your messages app. So, I don't understand
01:04:45 ◼ ► Handel incoming SMS messages. And I'm using SMS as a catch-all here for SMS, MMS, and now RCS.
01:05:01 ◼ ► send a message to chance, and then it just knows to open the messages app, right? Like I'm choosing
01:05:09 ◼ ► to send an iMessage. And WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and in other countries line are famously
01:05:20 ◼ ► popular on iOS, right? They're dominant. Country by country, there is a dominant text messaging
01:05:28 ◼ ► platform. And the US is not unique in iMessages strength and therefore the messaging messages app,
01:05:38 ◼ ► but it is a bit of an outlier country if you just go by countries. It's not quite like metric versus
01:05:46 ◼ ► imperial units, not quite as extreme. But it's one of those things that's like that. So, it's not
01:05:53 ◼ ► like WhatsApp isn't not just popular, but it's dominant on iOS throughout Europe. Line is dominant
01:06:02 ◼ ► on iOS in Japan and I think Taiwan and other countries. China obviously has its own universe
01:06:09 ◼ ► of apps with WeChat. I don't know what this default is. And when it comes to, oh no, it's all
01:06:15 ◼ ► about SMS and it's about how unfair it was that Apple got to parlay the popularity of SMS in the
01:06:23 ◼ ► early days of the iPhone into building out the iMessage network by using your phone number as
01:06:29 ◼ ► the same identifier for green texts that were SMS and blue texts that were iMessage. I'm still
01:06:36 ◼ ► sending the phone number to 555-1234, same identifier, no fair. But as it's turned out,
01:06:43 ◼ ► I actually looked into this WhatsApp on Android. Android supports having a third party app handle
01:06:55 ◼ ► Samsung's app for messaging is called Messages. And Google's is called Messages. And so,
01:07:05 ◼ ► it's a support document from Samsung explaining how to switch from messages to messages.
01:07:19 ◼ ► by choice. When you use WhatsApp, you're only communicating over the WhatsApp protocol.
01:07:25 ◼ ► Facebook Messenger does support SMS on Android. Signal supports SMS on Android. But Signal
01:07:33 ◼ ► has published a blog report, I'll put it in the show notes, where they clearly regret it.
01:07:38 ◼ ► And either they've already taken it out or I think it was like a November 2022 blog post.
01:07:50 ◼ ► such a neater, more easily understood idea that if you're using Signal, every single message you
01:08:01 ◼ ► send or receive is over the ultra-secure Signal protocol and has all of the guarantees of end-to-end
01:08:20 ◼ ► Not I guess. It is controversial that iMessage users look down upon Android users in a group
01:08:29 ◼ ► chat because they're the green bubble and they ruin the group text experience and blah, blah,
01:08:43 ◼ ► secure or not. The answer is, well, it is if you're sending iMessages and it's not if you're
01:08:49 ◼ ► sending anything else. And that's the exact reason RCS is still a green bubble. Because if you had
01:09:06 ◼ ► Tom: Well, I don't think… I don't know what they would do if the EU said you have to make them all
01:09:12 ◼ ► blue. I mean, I wouldn't put it past them. But I honestly think Apple would… I don't know. I just
01:09:17 ◼ ► don't see that happening. But unless they literally had to comply with the law, there's no
01:09:25 ◼ ► way that… I don't even think they considered for a second making RCS blue. Blue doesn't mean secure.
01:09:30 ◼ ► Blue means iMessage. And iMessage just happens to be secure. So I think even in the hypothetical
01:09:39 ◼ ► world where the official RCS spec gets end-to-end encryption in the spec and Apple implements it and
01:09:46 ◼ ► Google implements it according to the spec, RCS is still going to be green. Because green means
01:09:52 ◼ ► carrier message. In theory, if they were going to do something else, they would give it a new color
01:09:58 ◼ ► like purple or red or I don't know, orange, pick a color. But they'd never make it blue. Blue means
01:10:05 ◼ ► iMessage not secure. So even if RCS becomes secure… And in fact, if it does become secure,
01:10:10 ◼ ► I would hope Apple would give it a different color or some sort of visual indication to show,
01:10:17 ◼ ► "Okay, now this conversation is over RCS and it's secure," is not just useful information,
01:10:34 ◼ ► I just don't know what else it means though to be default. And I've asked people at Apple,
01:10:40 ◼ ► I've been in briefings talking about, not recently, not like in light of last week's news,
01:10:45 ◼ ► but throughout the year. And when this whole default thing came up, I asked about some of
01:10:50 ◼ ► these. What are some of the other ones? Default, translating text, default for dialing phone
01:10:57 ◼ ► numbers. But just dialing phone numbers? I don't even understand what that means because the phone
01:11:02 ◼ ► apps is one of the few apps that won't be deleteable. I don't know. This seems… And this,
01:11:08 ◼ ► to me, the fact that the other… That's another bugaboo of the European Commission is deleteable
01:11:15 ◼ ► apps, making apps "deletable." I think that the list in the EU after this update comes,
01:11:27 ◼ ► I can totally see this. I mean, it makes sense that settings has to be there. I'm not quite
01:11:36 ◼ ► sure about phone, but I think that's probably that somehow a third-party app could be like…
01:11:52 ◼ ► which data detectors turns into a link, and you say call, that, I guess, is what the new default
01:11:59 ◼ ► phone call thing will do. And so it could be like Skype or something. But I think the reason the
01:12:06 ◼ ► Apple-branded green icon phone app has to stay there and can't be deleted, I'm guessing, is for
01:12:17 ◼ ► In the same way… And this makes sense. I don't think anybody does this begrudgingly, but any old
01:12:21 ◼ ► iPhone on your shelf, even one that no longer has a SIM card, let alone an active SIM card,
01:12:28 ◼ ► can still make a 911 call or whatever the equivalent emergency phone number is. If it has
01:12:34 ◼ ► power and the cellular antenna still works on a network that has service, like an old enough
01:12:40 ◼ ► iPhone that only has edge, maybe they can't even connect to AT&T anymore. But if the phone could
01:12:47 ◼ ► connect to Verizon or AT&T or Sprint, it will and to place a 911 call. So I think that's why the
01:12:54 ◼ ► phone app can't be deleted because the phone… And even the EU, I guess, agrees, yeah, that's
01:12:59 ◼ ► a good reason to keep it around. I don't know. But this, to me, seems like a disaster waiting
01:13:13 ◼ ► With the default stuff, it's not… Setting the defaults for the phone calls, the messaging,
01:13:16 ◼ ► all of that, even though we don't know exactly how it's going to work, that's fine. It's whatever.
01:13:20 ◼ ► Because you have to explicitly go into settings and make that change. There's not going to be a
01:13:27 ◼ ► prompt when you open the messages app and say, "Pick your default messaging app." You have to
01:13:31 ◼ ► explicitly go make that decision. So it's very hard for somebody to accidentally make a change
01:13:36 ◼ ► for that. But the deleteable app stuff, yeah. We were just talking about how messy and confusing
01:13:40 ◼ ► jiggle mode is. Now you throw in this weird equation where you delete your photos app and…
01:13:51 ◼ ► Tom Scott Right. And the two that, to me, are real head scratchers on this list are photos and
01:13:56 ◼ ► camera that you can now not just pick a different default camera app, but you can delete the built
01:14:01 ◼ ► in camera app. I don't know what that means for one of the special graces that the camera,
01:14:08 ◼ ► the official camera app from Apple has, is that slide, you know, from your home screen,
01:14:12 ◼ ► just slide over to the side and you jump right to the camera. iOS 18 worldwide is making it so that
01:14:20 ◼ ► the flashlight and camera buttons on the home screen are now configurable. Again, finally, right?
01:14:26 ◼ ► It's kind of weird that they gave us buttons up top that we can configure with shortcuts and stuff
01:14:32 ◼ ► and widgets a couple years ago, but didn't make those two buttons part of the configurable widget
01:14:45 ◼ ► jump right into the camera app. Will third party camera apps take that spot or will it be like if
01:14:53 ◼ ► you delete the Apple camera app, will sliding to the right do nothing now? Because that isn't
01:15:00 ◼ ► something I think a third party app can quite do. Like the camera app is magic in a lot of ways and
01:15:06 ◼ ► is written under extremely tight memory constraints in terms of the fact that the camera app is sort
01:15:15 ◼ ► of always running to my understanding. The iPhone is famously RAM, you know, short on RAM. I mean,
01:15:25 ◼ ► it's, you know, the whole architecture of iOS is built around the idea that apps in the background
01:15:31 ◼ ► get frozen and frozen apps might be just pushed out of memory completely. Yet you want to be able
01:15:38 ◼ ► to take a picture as soon as you can when you see, "Oh my God, look at this thing going on right now."
01:15:42 ◼ ► And so the camera app is sort of always ready to go in a way that makes it way more than an app and
01:15:50 ◼ ► is legitimately, I think, part of the system software, not an app. You know, I'm friends with
01:15:56 ◼ ► the developers of Halide. There are very, very popular camera apps, third-party camera apps,
01:16:06 ◼ ► one that spelled out the P-L-U-S and one that spelled it with a plus symbol that were like 99
01:16:13 ◼ ► cents and made lots and lots of money. There's lots of camera apps. My phone is, I probably got
01:16:18 ◼ ► a dozen of them on my phone. I have never had a problem using one instead of the Apple camera app.
01:16:25 ◼ ► I'm not quite sure what default means other than that slide from the home screen and the slide from
01:16:29 ◼ ► the home screen isn't really an app, it's part of the system. So I don't get it. What happens
01:16:55 ◼ ► all they say is, "Later this year with iOS 18," and then they just read their notes again.
01:17:09 ◼ ► "What do you even mean by default?" or whatever. And they're just like, "We don't know, but we have
01:17:14 ◼ ► a blog post up and that's where it has all the information you need." And it's, "No, I read that
01:17:17 ◼ ► and that's why I'm asking you this." I don't think it's clear from what Apple is saying,
01:17:30 ◼ ► there was a Files app and there were file providers on iOS. There was no access to anything
01:17:37 ◼ ► vaguely resembling Files, but there was always the camera rule, right? So like the item picker,
01:17:44 ◼ ► "Oh, if you're in a Safari and you need to upload a image or something, the upload button doesn't
01:17:52 ◼ ► go to a file picker. It went to an image picture from the phone's camera rule." I'm not sure what
01:17:59 ◼ ► Apple is saying. I kind of think that doesn't change. The image is like if you delete every app
01:18:07 ◼ ► on your phone except for Settings, Phone, and Halide, and Halide becomes your default camera app,
01:18:14 ◼ ► I still think the images will go to your camera rule. And what you just have no app to manage them
01:18:23 ◼ ► except to go back to Settings and fish through to the app section and reinstall the Photos app.
01:18:30 ◼ ► I think they just want, just because the European Commission wants you to be able to say you deleted
01:18:42 ◼ ► very strange to me. I mean, as a hypothetical, Matt, all right, let's say you go and you buy
01:18:48 ◼ ► a $1,000 or $2,000 Sony SLR, digital SLR, and you turn it on and what do you see? You see Sony
01:19:00 ◼ ► software on the screen and Sony does all of the image processing when you take images with this
01:19:06 ◼ ► camera. Well, what if Sony were to say, and we've added this next generation of our award-winning
01:19:14 ◼ ► cameras, software development kit so that third parties can make image processing camera apps
01:19:21 ◼ ► and so that the phone turns into a device that allows Halide to make an app for a Sony camera
01:19:30 ◼ ► and do their processing. And if you want, and you could go to the Sony camera app store and download
01:19:38 ◼ ► apps for your Sony camera and they'll do the processing they want. And one of them could do
01:19:43 ◼ ► like retro film emulation. One of them could maybe integrate directly with a service like Flickr and
01:19:51 ◼ ► just if the camera's on Wi-Fi, because you're using this camera app on your camera, it automatically
01:19:59 ◼ ► uploads images to an online service. I don't know what else it could do. So, I don't think many
01:20:05 ◼ ► people would want that. I think there's a reason camera companies don't do that. But if they did,
01:20:11 ◼ ► I think everybody would say, well, that's just nice to have if you want it. I don't think anybody
01:20:18 ◼ ► would think that you also therefore should be able to delete Sony's own software from the device
01:20:25 ◼ ► and delete the factory shooting mode that it shipped with. It's just add on. It's just better
01:20:53 ◼ ► talk to your dad on the phone with a phone app, right? It's bananas to me to say that the maker
01:21:01 ◼ ► of a camera, which the iPhone is, it is a camera, isn't allowed to provide their own or has to make
01:21:07 ◼ ► their own camera software removable. And I don't know who this helps. I literally don't know
01:21:14 ◼ ► anybody who thinks, yeah, I wish I lived in the EU or I'm glad I live in the EU so I can get rid of
01:21:19 ◼ ► Apple's cursed camera app. It's very strange. It is very strange. It's and I guess I think I
01:21:27 ◼ ► might've misspoke because I guess you won't be able to set a default for a photos app or the
01:21:32 ◼ ► camera app, which makes it even weirder. What happens if you delete the camera app and you
01:21:39 ◼ ► can't set a default. So you use a third party app, but like you said, what are you missing out on by
01:21:44 ◼ ► not being able to set a third party app as your default or you don't get photos app? It's.
01:21:55 ◼ ► developers of would be competing apps have. I just think they think that it's monopolistic for a
01:22:02 ◼ ► gatekeeper to not let you delete the apps they ship on their phone. That's it. And that all apps
01:22:08 ◼ ► are crap apps in the same way that Windows users are annoyed if you buy a pre-made Windows PC and
01:22:17 ◼ ► it comes with a version of Norton antivirus or something in your taskbar. And it's sort of,
01:22:23 ◼ ► you can't just right click on it and delete it. You have to run an uninstaller or something like
01:22:28 ◼ ► that. That all apps, every single app Apple ships other than settings and phone is in that category
01:22:34 ◼ ► and should be deleteable. It's your device. You should be able to delete it. And I kind of put it
01:22:39 ◼ ► that way and it sounds good on the surface, but it's Apple's platform. They should be able to
01:22:45 ◼ ► define, here's the stuff that you can't remove from it because these are sort of the fundamental
01:22:49 ◼ ► features of the app. And that's exactly what they've done over the past, what, six or seven
01:22:54 ◼ ► years where they've gradually made different apps deleteable. He used to not be able to delete
01:22:58 ◼ ► anything from Apple. But now even before this change, there were, you could delete the notes
01:23:02 ◼ ► app. You could delete the reminders app. Apple had made that calculus that you, yeah, we'll let you
01:23:07 ◼ ► delete those, but no, you're not going to delete your photos app. Now in the EU, you will be.
01:23:18 ◼ ► think it's just making Apple jump through a bunch of annoying hoops. And Apple's doing this, I think,
01:23:24 ◼ ► as best they can. I know so many people use this term malicious compliance, but to me, the
01:23:29 ◼ ► malicious compliance route to complying with the DMA would be to do the least possible technically
01:23:39 ◼ ► and just say, okay, if you're in the EU and you download in a browser, anything, you know,
01:23:46 ◼ ► like a dot app bundle or a zip file containing a dot app, it will get installed in your applications
01:23:53 ◼ ► folder. And now you have any app you want from any developer, including malware and scamware
01:24:00 ◼ ► and annoyance where, and just wash their hands of it. And I think that would be disastrous for
01:24:07 ◼ ► many typical, most, many, if not most typical users in Europe, but I think it would be completely
01:24:13 ◼ ► compliant with the DMA. Apple's trying to make these things and you, you know, what people
01:24:20 ◼ ► who are critical of Apple want them to do is just say, we'll let you develop apps, whatever you want,
01:24:25 ◼ ► we'll let you develop apps for this platform free of charge, like the Mac. We're not going to,
01:24:31 ◼ ► if you want to use your own payment processing, you can just use your own payment processing and
01:24:35 ◼ ► we're not going to charge you something like the core technology fee. Just go and do it.
01:24:40 ◼ ► And that's a separate argument. I think in terms of all of this stuff, like the browser choice
01:24:46 ◼ ► screen and these defaults and stuff like that, they're trying to make the experience as good
01:24:58 ◼ ► in an unwanted situation. And I think that's where we are. I don't really think this is going to be,
01:25:03 ◼ ► I mean, I've just chosen to spend over an hour talking about it with you here on the show,
01:25:10 ◼ ► but I think ultimately this isn't really going to change the life of iOS users in the EU much
01:25:15 ◼ ► at all. Cause I don't think anybody's going to do any of this stuff. No. And I think the biggest
01:25:20 ◼ ► shoe hasn't dropped quite yet on the stuff that I think Apple really cares about more. And the EU
01:25:26 ◼ ► certainly seems to care about more, which is, is the core technology fee allowed under the DMA
01:25:35 ◼ ► I don't know if you've talked about it yet, but the store services fee and the initial acquisition
01:25:40 ◼ ► fee, like it's all of that going to stand under the DMA. Right. We don't know yet. We don't know.
01:25:50 ◼ ► things to critique about it. Sort of gotten a hint, I think before the European commission
01:25:57 ◼ ► took off for their leisurely three month holiday break over the summer. But I think I'd sort of
01:26:03 ◼ ► feel like there's, I don't know how they're going to say it's not allowed, but I kind of feel like
01:26:10 ◼ ► that's where they were heading about these fees that these fees are. Cause these, if these fees
01:26:17 ◼ ► make developers not want to do this, they're going to say that or forward that it's not compliant
01:26:21 ◼ ► with the DMA because the DMA has to be appealing to developers to use. So that's all to be
01:26:27 ◼ ► determined. I don't know where that's going to come out. I, for a while, I thought that Apple
01:26:33 ◼ ► was going to be fine with the core technology fee, but then like around June, some of the comments
01:26:38 ◼ ► from Vestager and others made me think, I don't know. But I do think though, I think part of their
01:26:45 ◼ ► annoyance with Apple is that I do think they realize that by the letter of the DMA, the core
01:26:53 ◼ ► technology fee is clearly not disallowed. And I know that's a double negative, but it's just a
01:27:00 ◼ ► huge and they don't, they do the EU overall, the whole point of the EU basically is to create an
01:27:10 ◼ ► economic marketplace commensurate with, or roughly commensurate with the United States and China and
01:27:18 ◼ ► others that on their own, each individual 27 member state pre EU of Europe was losing economic
01:27:29 ◼ ► clout globally because of how large the US is, how large China already was and was obviously growing
01:27:44 ◼ ► and they're trying to argue that this is pro competition, which is good for business. That's
01:27:48 ◼ ► their argument. And so they don't really want to come out and say that the owner of a platform is
01:27:56 ◼ ► not allowed to monetize the platform that they own. That's why they specifically targeted things.
01:28:02 ◼ ► And I think they kind of thought they gotcha, gotcha Apple, because the only way you guys can
01:28:12 ◼ ► going to say, you can't make the app store the only way to get software. And that even in the
01:28:16 ◼ ► app store, you can't say your own payment processing is the only way to process payments
01:28:20 ◼ ► for digital goods. Gotcha. And Apple was like, well, we'll just charge everybody 50 cents for
01:28:26 ◼ ► download. And I also think that Apple took this opportunity, and I've said this before, but I
01:28:33 ◼ ► really do think it's true. And as time goes on, I think it's more and more true to, okay, we're being
01:28:38 ◼ ► forced to reconsider some decisions. Even if we didn't want to reconsider them, we have to.
01:28:43 ◼ ► So what would we do if we had to do this all over again? And I think the biggest thing Apple missed
01:28:50 ◼ ► with the app store and how big mobile computing became is I just don't think Apple foresaw in 2007,
01:29:01 ◼ ► 2008, 2009 even, how big companies like Facebook and—they knew Google was big, but how big
01:29:10 ◼ ► the platforms that they're building through freely downloadable apps on the phone would become.
01:29:18 ◼ ► Meta is the prime example, though, because their entire business is based on the blue app,
01:29:24 ◼ ► Facebook, Instagram, Now Threads, which isn't monetized yet, but then Facebook Messenger,
01:29:31 ◼ ► WhatsApp. All of these things are apps that every billion users of each one, all for free,
01:29:38 ◼ ► with no payments, and they don't—they want to sell certain things, and they're sort of—Zuckerberg
01:29:44 ◼ ► often complains about the app store payment thing, but none of their business really depends on
01:29:49 ◼ ► getting money from users through the app, right? It's ads. And so they've built like the fourth
01:29:57 ◼ ► or fifth biggest company in the world by market cap entirely on—almost entirely through the
01:30:05 ◼ ► distribution of native apps on iPhone and Android. I mean, yes, Facebook started as a website and
01:30:11 ◼ ► people still go there and use the website, but if Facebook was only on the web, I mean, it would be—
01:30:16 ◼ ► we'd be talking about it now like we talked about MySpace, right? I mean, no relevance at all if not
01:30:23 ◼ ► for the phone. And I don't think Apple ever saw it. I think from Apple's perspective in 2007,
01:30:28 ◼ ► 2008, when they're like, "Okay, now we'll make this app store thing," they're coming from the
01:30:33 ◼ ► world of Mac software, where even they were selling things like pages and numbers and they
01:30:38 ◼ ► used to sell the annual Mac OS X updates. They were $129. So if you were on Mac OS X.2 and you
01:30:45 ◼ ► wanted to go to X.3, you went to the store and bought a box full of DVDs and spent $129 for it.
01:30:51 ◼ ► Apple was coming from a world where the way you monetize software was by selling the software.
01:30:58 ◼ ► And so that's why it's called—that's why it's called the App Store. It's a store to buy apps.
01:31:03 ◼ ► I just don't think they ever foresaw the rise of truly dominant, huge rival companies to them for
01:31:10 ◼ ► user time and attention based on giving away the software. And so the core technology fee,
01:31:17 ◼ ► I think, is sort of a, "Hey, we probably would have been smart to have started with this."
01:31:24 ◼ ► Kevin Anthony 50 cents per app download from Meta would be, even by Apple standards, a meaningful
01:31:34 ◼ ► And for Meta, I think we hear them complain some about the App Store fees, but not as much as a
01:31:40 ◼ ► company like Spotify. And that's the interesting dichotomy, I think, is you have Spotify, which is
01:31:44 ◼ ► a purely subscription-based app that's feuding with Apple in addition to the DMA stuff. There's
01:31:50 ◼ ► the whole separate lawsuit in the EU, which Apple just got fined like a billion dollars for, but
01:31:56 ◼ ► Apple's appealing. And Spotify has repeatedly said that they wouldn't be able to have launched
01:32:02 ◼ ► Spotify today because of the terms of the App Store, because of the dominance of the iPhone.
01:32:11 ◼ ► Then the other side of the coin, there still is Facebook, which isn't as affected by the 30% or
01:32:18 ◼ ► the 15% or whatever, but they're affected by what they believe is Apple's general dominance of
01:32:24 ◼ ► app-tracking transparency. Apple can make a change with iOS 14. That just destroyed their ad business.
01:32:31 ◼ ► It's... And I don't think the full story we know about... I think that's going to be more of a DOJ
01:32:39 ◼ ► thing here in the United States than a DMA thing. Apple's got both of these battles, and that's
01:32:44 ◼ ► where Facebook's anger comes from. Right. It's like on a computer, on a Mac or a Windows machine,
01:32:51 ◼ ► you can... Any app, not through the App Store, because the App Store has rules, but when you
01:32:55 ◼ ► download software over the web and install it on your own, the software can do things like install
01:32:59 ◼ ► a background agent that even when you quit the app, keeps running. So... And it sounds nefarious,
01:33:05 ◼ ► but all sorts of software I use relies on that. I love and have used Fantastical for years and
01:33:11 ◼ ► years and years. Say they've sponsored the show, they sponsored the live show a couple months ago.
01:33:17 ◼ ► So disclaimer, but I love Fantastical, but I'm almost never running the main Fantastical app.
01:33:32 ◼ ► So I have background software or background interchange of data, and have a framework that
01:33:39 ◼ ► other apps can embed that shares data with them. That's the whole thing that app tracking
01:33:43 ◼ ► transparency put the kibosh on. And they're just annoyed by that. Who's Apple to say what our
01:33:49 ◼ ► software can do on people's devices? Philosophically, I get it, but I can't help but think
01:33:55 ◼ ► that if Facebook owned the phone platform, they wouldn't be anywhere near as irate about Apple's
01:34:01 ◼ ► inability to communicate between apps that aren't even theirs on the Facebook phone that had iOS.
01:34:09 ◼ ► In the hypothetical world where Facebook's phone has the market share that iOS has today.
01:34:13 ◼ ► And I will also add that whatever degree that you can say that there's third party software on
01:34:22 ◼ ► Facebook apps and games and stuff like that, they don't really get to do whatever they want behind
01:34:27 ◼ ► the scenes. They're pretty limited APIs, but you know. All right, let me take a break here and
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01:36:36 ◼ ► save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right. There's a big Apple event
01:36:55 ◼ ► we've gotten an invite, like we were saying at the start, hopefully a sign of some change.
01:37:05 ◼ ► simply because it's the iPhone and by far the biggest product Apple makes, the one with the
01:37:13 ◼ ► most attention globally. It's also the only place, I think, for the media to attend. There are times
01:37:20 ◼ ► past they would hold sort of viewing parties in Europe. Maybe they still do. I don't know. Do you
01:37:25 ◼ ► know? They'd have something in Asia and something in London and people could fly there instead of
01:37:36 ◼ ► Last year was my first iPhone event and I was amazed at how many people from outside the United
01:37:43 ◼ ► States were there. That's the conclusion. I think that's where you and I first met in person.
01:37:51 ◼ ► Yeah, it's especially… It was kind of evident pre-COVID how international the media section
01:38:01 ◼ ► had become and then there's this two-year gap from COVID where there were no in-person things.
01:38:07 ◼ ► And coming back to it, it was one of the first things that hit me. The first thing was,
01:38:13 ◼ ► "Hey, it's just good to go. It's nice to go somewhere and mingle and see my other friends
01:38:18 ◼ ► in the media." And then the second thing is, "Holy crap, are there a lot of people from
01:38:22 ◼ ► other countries here." And because it's held in the Steve Jobs Theater, which is much bigger than
01:38:30 ◼ ► the old Town Hall Theater at the old Infinite Loop Campus, is still not that big of a theater.
01:38:36 ◼ ► What was your thought being in there? Were you surprised at the size? Was it about the size you
01:38:41 ◼ ► thought it was or was it…? I still think it's a little bit… I still think it's smaller than
01:38:51 ◼ ► I think it was smaller than I expected. And because of my first time at Apple Park was WWDC
01:39:14 ◼ ► and that reflects on the fact there's just fewer media there. I was hung out with Steve and Hackett.
01:39:21 ◼ ► We were both looking around. We were like, "Where is everybody? This doesn't seem… Seems like
01:39:26 ◼ ► Apple didn't sell out or something." It was like, "No, the UNC Jobs Theater, then it's full."
01:39:33 ◼ ► Yeah. When you're mingling around upstairs before they let people go down and sit in the theater,
01:39:52 ◼ ► But then getting… There's smaller and smaller circles like who gets post-keynote briefings is
01:39:58 ◼ ► obviously the smallest list because it's not necessarily one-on-one, but very small groups,
01:40:03 ◼ ► like two or three media people at a time talking to somebody from Apple product marketing.
01:40:17 ◼ ► That didn't even come close to filling the Steve Jobs Theater. I'm not quite sure how many people
01:40:22 ◼ ► who got press badges were invited to that, how many people just ignored it. But it was clearly
01:40:28 ◼ ► only a fraction of the people who had press/analyst, something other than, "I won the lottery as a
01:40:36 ◼ ► developer to attend passes." Now, the iPhone event is unique on that regard. I mean, and even going
01:40:43 ◼ ► back to old WWDCs in Moscone or the San Jose Convention Center, those are big rooms that sat
01:40:52 ◼ ► 5,000 people. So giving out 500 press badges wasn't that big a deal, right? It just… Like that story I
01:41:01 ◼ ► told you about the time Jobs went bananas because of the Wi-Fi. There really were hundreds of people
01:41:06 ◼ ► in the press, way more people were live blogging against his stated desires than would possibly fit
01:41:13 ◼ ► in the Steve Jobs Theater. It's a tough ticket. Do you know at Steve Jobs Theater what the breakdown
01:41:19 ◼ ► is for the iPhone event? Apple employees versus press? Because obviously, historically, Apple
01:41:25 ◼ ► events, the first 10 rows are employees, and those are the people who stand up and scream.
01:41:34 ◼ ► I think that the whole front section, there's sort of two halves to the Steve Jobs Theater.
01:41:40 ◼ ► And the whole front section is not press. And I think the whole upstairs, like you start going up
01:41:48 ◼ ► steps section, is all press. And it's not just Apple employees, it's Apple employees plus
01:41:55 ◼ ► special guests. Laureen Powell Jobs is often there. I don't know if she is anymore, though,
01:42:02 ◼ ► because she used to always attend with… She always, when she did, after Steve Jobs died,
01:42:08 ◼ ► always, I noted, was sitting right next to Johnny Ive. Johnny doesn't come anymore. I don't know
01:42:15 ◼ ► what his relationship with Apple is exactly. I think it's a little bit more contentious than
01:42:22 ◼ ► not contentious, but I also don't think it's acrimonious. So I wouldn't be shocked if I saw
01:42:44 ◼ ► That might be one of the last ones. I don't know if he had anything to do with Apple Watch Ultra.
01:42:49 ◼ ► I wouldn't be surprised if it's based, but maybe they were noodling ideas like that 10 years ago.
01:42:54 ◼ ► Who knows? Obviously, they're very secretive about stuff like that. But they do have lots
01:42:59 ◼ ► of special guests, Pixar people, although I don't recognize as many Pixar people anymore,
01:43:03 ◼ ► just because so many of the people who I did have left the company. That's where I've met
01:43:10 ◼ ► Lee Unkrich there, and we share an affinity for The Shining. But I don't think he gets invited
01:43:17 ◼ ► anymore 'cause he's not a Pixar employee anymore. I don't know. But there's any other special guest,
01:43:22 ◼ ► people from Nike, Tim Cook's Nike board member friends, who knows? But that's all upfront,
01:43:27 ◼ ► the first half and the second half is all press. And you can kind of hear it 'cause like you said,
01:43:44 ◼ ► because they're live vlogging or taking notes. But in general, there's just a sort of consensus
01:43:51 ◼ ► amongst "journalists" or people in the media that we're not there to cheer Apple. So things like,
01:43:58 ◼ ► I don't know, if they show a movie about a little kid who invents a cure for disease by using their
01:44:08 ◼ ► iPad and everybody might clap. I mean, how do you not cheer for that? But when it's just,
01:44:12 ◼ ► "How awesome are the specs on the A18 Pro chip?" The media isn't gonna cheer. And you can hear it
01:44:24 ◼ ► - I remember walking in to WWDC and I guess I won't say who it was, but I was walking with a
01:44:30 ◼ ► member of the press and you walk through and Apple employees, the people standing along the sides,
01:44:35 ◼ ► trying to hype you up at 9 a.m. in the morning to get you to cheer. They don't know who's press,
01:44:40 ◼ ► who's developer, who's who. And he's just, "We're press, we're press, we're press, we're press.
01:44:44 ◼ ► Don't cheer." And it was a very clear separation between, "Please don't cheer for me. I'm press."
01:44:50 ◼ ► Or, "Yes, hype me up. I'm a developer." Because there's a different line too with some of the
01:44:55 ◼ ► influencers, not to use that term derogatory, but it's just different. How they treat Apple
01:45:02 ◼ ► and how Apple treats them is different than how somebody who worked at Macworld for so many years
01:45:07 ◼ ► treats Apple. - Well, there's no better example than iJustine, right? Did you see the recent
01:45:13 ◼ ► video, Becca Versace? I'm not sure. - Yeah, I did. - I know, but Becca, who's leaving the verge to go
01:45:21 ◼ ► out on her own as a creator, did a nice little 10-minute profile of Justine Azarek, who's been
01:45:27 ◼ ► doing her thing for 19 years, I mean, which is amazing. But Justine is a perfect example,
01:45:35 ◼ ► because I think she's honestly, she doesn't just exemplify being a creator. She's honestly defined,
01:45:48 ◼ ► part of what makes her so incredibly popular and successful in the longevity that she has
01:45:55 ◼ ► is her demeanor on camera in her videos, which is that of an enthusiast. It just is what it is.
01:46:02 ◼ ► Nobody's going to accuse me of being an influencer or a YouTube celebrity with my once-a-year
01:46:10 ◼ ► YouTube videos. But I don't begrudge at all the rising number of YouTube creators who get the
01:46:21 ◼ ► media passes to these events. But there is definite resentment amongst the people of more of
01:46:36 ◼ ► annoyed that spots that might go to reporters who are writing for publications aren't available,
01:46:45 ◼ ► because more and more of them are going to YouTube creators who have a different purpose. They're
01:46:51 ◼ ► doing a different thing. And so they might cheer along with the Apple employees as you enter the
01:46:57 ◼ ► Steve Jobs tier, and they're probably filming it. And it's not like, "Oh, they're embarrassed. Oh,
01:47:03 ◼ ► I got in. I wasn't really thinking I'd never been to one of these before. And I got caught up clapping
01:47:08 ◼ ► and I guess I shouldn't have been clapping because I'm supposed to be a serious member of the press."
01:47:13 ◼ ► No, they're filming it, and then they're going to put it in the YouTube video that somehow they're
01:47:16 ◼ ► going to get out two hours after the keynote is in. They're not hiding it. It's just a different
01:47:22 ◼ ► business. It really is. But it's, I don't know. I wonder if internally Apple regrets the size of the
01:47:31 ◼ ► Steve Jobs Theater. I can only imagine they wish it were bigger, but maybe not. Maybe they like
01:47:36 ◼ ► the artificial constraint of it. But this event, and they could hold this event anywhere, right?
01:47:41 ◼ ► I mean, they could rent a bigger facility. They could put it on the lawn. For all I know,
01:47:47 ◼ ► it will be on the lawn this year. And unbeknownst to me, there are, here you and I have just said
01:47:53 ◼ ► how hard it is to get a press invitation to this. Maybe there's going to be 5,000 of them,
01:47:57 ◼ ► and it's going to be like WWDC out on the lawn. I don't know. Apple's not going to say.
01:48:01 ◼ ► Mad Fientist With the iPad Pro event in March, remember they did the bulk of it in London,
01:48:08 ◼ ► and then they had the satellite. They had their New York City Tribeca loft thing where they had
01:48:22 ◼ ► Jon Moffitt Yeah. They somehow made a viewing area. No, the loft is, A, it's not small.
01:48:39 ◼ ► Jon Moffitt No, especially for New York City. I think, I'm going to guess there were somewhere
01:48:44 ◼ ► between 50 and 75 members of the media. I don't know. I guess we should talk about what we expect
01:48:48 ◼ ► to see, which I guess is the most predictable annual event. And what else is Apple going to do?
01:48:57 ◼ ► Jon Moffitt I think it's the most predictable. This is always the most predictable event,
01:49:02 ◼ ► but this year, especially for the iPhone, it's the most predictable iPhone ever. It's just,
01:49:11 ◼ ► Pete Laskowski Yeah. The most exciting thing, if you could torture Greg Jasviek and get him to
01:49:20 ◼ ► admit, what's the one thing you wish that has already gotten out that you wish could be the
01:49:29 ◼ ► Jon Moffitt I think it's the camera button, but not just the existence of the camera button. It's
01:49:33 ◼ ► the fact that you'll be able to swipe on it to zoom in and out or softly press to bring it into
01:49:39 ◼ ► focus and then push all the way down to take the picture. Like, that gesture is what will be the
01:49:47 ◼ ► Pete Laskowski So for those who aren't following along, but I presume everybody listening has seen
01:49:51 ◼ ► this because it's so widely reported, but the idea is pretty much the catacorner from where the action
01:49:56 ◼ ► button or the old mute switch is, there will be a new extra button. Is it going to be on all models
01:50:06 ◼ ► Pete Laskowski All models are going to have a camera button over there. We don't know what
01:50:10 ◼ ► they're going to call it. Marketing is the, marketing names are one thing that sometimes can
01:50:14 ◼ ► remain secret. Shutter button, camera button, I don't know. Action button's already taken,
01:50:23 ◼ ► I think we know all of this through Gurman's reporting, but Gurman has certainly reported
01:50:28 ◼ ► that much like a dedicated hardware camera, half-press to do autofocus or exposure adjustment,
01:50:50 ◼ ► it's going to zoom in and out. That sounds really clever, cool. I would guess that they wish that
01:50:55 ◼ ► that was secret, but it's not a surprise that it's not. Colors, there's going to be a new color this
01:51:01 ◼ ► year supposedly in titanium that's sort of zoonish? Brownish is something. It might be called desert
01:51:10 ◼ ► titanium. It'll replace the blue. Now I saw the picture of this zoon desert titanium thing and I
01:51:17 ◼ ► was like, I don't care for this. If somebody wants to buy it, it's fine. Then other people were
01:51:23 ◼ ► vehemently against it in our community, in like the Apple world. This is the ugliest color Apple's
01:51:27 ◼ ► made. So I took a picture, there's photos of all four dummy units, the white titanium, black
01:51:33 ◼ ► titanium, natural titanium, and desert titanium. And I showed it to my wife. I said, which one of
01:51:38 ◼ ► these do you like? And she goes, oh, that desert titanium looks great. And I said, really? And she
01:51:43 ◼ ► informed me that that's like the hot color of the year, like the super in trend color. So it makes
01:51:49 ◼ ► sense. Apple knows that stuff. We in the Apple community aren't necessarily fashion experts.
01:51:57 ◼ ► No, we definitely are not. I've been told even, just got informed today by my wife that my socks
01:52:02 ◼ ► are no longer in style. I didn't even know that there was a style for ankle length socks.
01:52:07 ◼ ► Apparently higher socks are now in style. I've spoken to people at Apple and they even,
01:52:13 ◼ ► it's some people who you might think would know, they're like, yeah, I don't really know why,
01:52:17 ◼ ► you know, they have color people. Yeah. Our job is to identify hot trending colors. And for all
01:52:25 ◼ ► of our consternation where I are, it's the same group of podcasters and bloggers and writers like
01:52:32 ◼ ► me and you and everybody, the ATP guys, for all of us who bemoan year after year, the lack of
01:52:38 ◼ ► vibrant colors in iPhones and Apple products in general, there's this part of me that's,
01:52:44 ◼ ► I don't know, I would like to see it, but I don't know fashion. And maybe Apple knows exactly what
01:52:50 ◼ ► they're doing and these pale colors are actually, this is part of why the iPhone and their other
01:52:56 ◼ ► products are so popular. I don't know. I know what I would like to see, but I also fully am aware
01:53:04 ◼ ► that what I would like to see may not be stylish or faddish at all. I don't know. So let's see.
01:53:10 ◼ ► And I also trust that Apple's brown will actually, or sand or desert or whatever they call it,
01:53:18 ◼ ► is really not going to look like the Zune, which really was in person and very unattractive
01:53:25 ◼ ► color of brown. One of the most baffling design choices I can recall in the entire history of
01:53:31 ◼ ► consumer technology, that it was the only choice. I mean, it was bold and it is memorable. Here we
01:53:38 ◼ ► are making jokes about it 20 years later, but new chips, all phones, not unlike last year,
01:53:45 ◼ ► all phones get a new chip. I presume that the pro ones will be binned somehow with more GPU
01:53:51 ◼ ► or something like that. More RAM because Apple, eventually they had to add RAM anyway, but
01:53:58 ◼ ► Apple intelligence, they've even said on the record at my show, very RAM hungry. And so devices
01:54:05 ◼ ► that are overdue for RAM upgrades are getting RAM upgrades. Screens are getting bigger on the
01:54:13 ◼ ► pro models, which I think means that the bezels are shrinking even further. I look at my phone now
01:54:20 ◼ ► and I don't really see much of a bezel. And I think in two weeks, I'm going to look at this
01:54:24 ◼ ► iPhone 15 pro and think, why is there a big black border all around the edges? What else? Anything
01:54:30 ◼ ► else from the iPhone? New colors, new button. The action button on the 16 and 16 plus instead of
01:54:37 ◼ ► just the pro and the pro max, right? The five X optical zoom camera that came to the right 15 pro
01:54:44 ◼ ► max will come to the 16 pro the standard pro. And that does fit the pattern, right? There's not,
01:54:50 ◼ ► it's hard to predict when the big ass phone is going to get a camera feature that's not in the
01:54:55 ◼ ► regular size, right? But every time they've ever done it, where there was something, an extra lens
01:55:01 ◼ ► or whatever, a bigger sensor that was only on the plus models, the next year it shrunk and came to
01:55:08 ◼ ► the other model. So one thing that they've been consistent about is if they ever ship a hardware
01:55:13 ◼ ► camera feature only on the biggest physical size possible, the next year it comes to the smaller
01:55:25 ◼ ► I think just the pro and the pro max is apparently going to be 48 megapixel instead of 12.
01:55:30 ◼ ► Oh, right. Right. Which is good. But I guess probably using the same sort of treat the 48
01:55:36 ◼ ► megapixel sensor as a 12 megapixel sensor with groups of full two by two, four pixel squares as
01:55:43 ◼ ► meta pixels for lack of a better word, should improve the low light performance of the ultra
01:55:49 ◼ ► wide significantly and just overall sharpness. Good. You know, camera gets better every year,
01:55:55 ◼ ► right? Camera gets better. Camera gets better. Apple watch, we are expecting series 10,
01:56:04 ◼ ► which really doesn't seem like it's going to be that radical. It's just a little bit thinner.
01:56:23 ◼ ► I don't know about that. It's it doesn't add up. I don't. And that's the case height too. It's not
01:56:28 ◼ ► the screen size. That's obviously the case height, which is different than the screen size.
01:56:32 ◼ ► Right. Cause that would, it would, it would mean that what we now think of as the larger
01:56:42 ◼ ► would become the smaller Apple watch. I don't buy that. And that didn't come from German that came,
01:56:48 ◼ ► I think Ming Chi Kuo, right? I think, and there were some leaked schematics, but I think
01:56:53 ◼ ► German has said there'll be bigger and thinner. And he said, Oh, I said, I want to get his words,
01:56:59 ◼ ► right. The Apple watch series, the bigger version of the Apple watch series 10 will feature a two
01:57:04 ◼ ► inch display, which is slightly bigger than the Apple watch ultra is 1.93 inch display.
01:57:09 ◼ ► So maybe cause that is a much bigger display. I don't know. We'll see that Apple watch rumors
01:57:22 ◼ ► Rumor reporting for years now, even he fell for the flat sided one a couple of years ago.
01:57:28 ◼ ► Somebody Oh yeah. Me loves, loves to remind him up. I don't know. That seems so weird to me though,
01:57:37 ◼ ► that they would get rid of the 41 ish millimeters. We started at 38 and 42. So that's it. And that's
01:57:44 ◼ ► again, the overall watches though, just don't look that much bigger on a wrist. So if you go to the
01:57:50 ◼ ► Apple store today and don't do this because they're going to have new ones in two weeks,
01:57:54 ◼ ► but if you bought a series nine today and compare it compared it to the original series zero 38
01:58:01 ◼ ► millimeter, unless you get really close to it, it doesn't look much different inside. Yeah. It's
01:58:06 ◼ ► a little bit thinner and a little bit bigger, but it's really only a little and at a couple
01:58:12 ◼ ► feet distance, I think you'd have to have really good eyesight and be intimately familiar with the
01:58:16 ◼ ► different watches over the years to spot the difference on somebody's wrist. But it's been
01:58:21 ◼ ► such a huge selling point for Apple, especially in the earlier years of Apple watch that so many
01:58:27 ◼ ► other smartwatches started so much bigger and chunkier on a wrist. And let's just face it.
01:58:35 ◼ ► It's obviously a huge thing for women who tend to have smaller risks and also more self-conscious
01:58:42 ◼ ► about jewelry and how things look don't really, aren't often, aren't really looking for a tactical
01:58:48 ◼ ► look in their watch. It's been such a selling point and it's been so long that the best article
01:58:54 ◼ ► about it was written by Serenity Caldwell. Oh, wow. Who's been at Apple and obviously hasn't been
01:59:00 ◼ ► blogging for years now, but basically why doesn't any other company make smartwatches for women's
01:59:05 ◼ ► children's size wrists? I can't see them moving away from that. I could see them go into a third
01:59:10 ◼ ► size. Yeah, that would make more sense. I think small, medium, and large. And because the large
01:59:16 ◼ ► would give the user so much more battery life, it seems like that is an enormous selling point for
01:59:22 ◼ ► the Apple watch ultra is the extra days of battery life that Apple, I think has undersold. I think
01:59:30 ◼ ► Apple undersells the battery life of the ultra and ultra too, because I think if they really said
01:59:41 ◼ ► Yeah. And the battery life is why I wear the ultra. I don't put the extreme durability design
01:59:47 ◼ ► to the test, but I like the battery life and I like the bigger screen, which makes the series
01:59:51 ◼ ► 10 debate a little bit different because if you make the screen on the standard series 10,
01:59:56 ◼ ► just as big, if not a little bigger than the ultra, you're kind of undercutting the ultra,
02:00:12 ◼ ► But I just kind of feel, I get that they do an annual update and I think Apple loves annual
02:00:18 ◼ ► updates in general. I think they feel like it's a healthy way for the company to stay focused
02:00:31 ◼ ► is like a series nine all that different from a series seven? Not really. But if they had just
02:00:37 ◼ ► stuck with the series seven and said, hey, let's just wait three years and do a mega update,
02:00:42 ◼ ► that's going to be amazing. That's the sort of thinking that leads to the Windows Vista,
02:00:47 ◼ ► where all of a sudden it's like this thing, big major development project that was supposed to
02:00:53 ◼ ► come out in 2004, it's already 2007 and it's not out yet. It's the annual updates help, but
02:01:05 ◼ ► all that appealing. No, it overall is the most exciting one was the edition of the ultra.
02:01:12 ◼ ► And that was two years ago, sort of a new product. I do. I've detected, he hasn't really mentioned
02:01:18 ◼ ► it, but it's like a year or so ago, Gurman was hinting that just like with the iPhone 10,
02:01:25 ◼ ► as the 10 year anniversary got the most significant rethinking of the iPhone hardware and software
02:01:36 ◼ ► he doesn't really mention that anymore. And it never really made sense to me because watch
02:01:42 ◼ ► OS 10 last year was the one where they rethought how the button, right? Pressing, pressing the crown
02:01:48 ◼ ► does something different. Now you do a different, there's a different way to get to notification
02:01:53 ◼ ► center. Widgets play a much bigger role. They did all that last year and it was all in software.
02:01:58 ◼ ► And I just don't see hardware wise how there's a moment like the iPhone 10 for a watch. So we'll
02:02:05 ◼ ► see what else are we expecting? AirPods, AirPods 4, maybe. And this is kind of interesting because
02:02:12 ◼ ► apparently they're going to, cause right now they sell AirPods 2, AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro.
02:02:18 ◼ ► And according to Gurman AirPods 2 and AirPods 3 will be discontinued and replaced by two
02:02:24 ◼ ► different versions of AirPods 4, one lower end and one higher end and the higher end one will have
02:02:30 ◼ ► some sort of noise cancellation and a case that has Find My Support and the lower end version
02:02:36 ◼ ► will be more like AirPods 2, AirPods 3 as they exist today. And it'll be a design new chips.
02:02:44 ◼ ► Yeah. And the design that Gurman says will be a blend of the AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro,
02:02:50 ◼ ► including like the shorter stems, but they, the AirPods 4 still won't go in here like the AirPods
02:02:56 ◼ ► Pro. So then it's because Gurman's angle on it is that the AirPods 3 haven't sold very well at all.
02:03:03 ◼ ► And right now people primarily choose between the AirPods 2 because they have the original AirPods
02:03:08 ◼ ► design or the AirPods Pro. Right. Or it's really more that everybody is sort of funneled between
02:03:18 ◼ ► being price sensitive or being, "No, give me the best one." And everybody wants the best one is
02:03:23 ◼ ► obviously getting AirPods Pro and everybody who's price sensitive is getting the cheapest one that
02:03:28 ◼ ► Apple offers. And so it kind of makes sense that they don't want to keep selling years old
02:03:33 ◼ ► technology and things like Find My, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know. It makes, that passes this,
02:03:39 ◼ ► in addition to Gurman's unbelievably accurate record in recent years, it just passes the sniff
02:03:47 ◼ ► test of, "Oh, that makes sense." It's actually, yeah. It's actually, and it just seems so much
02:03:52 ◼ ► less confusing coming into the store. Right. Good, better, best. Right. Yep. AirPods 4 are both good.
02:04:04 ◼ ► There's a rumor now that you, I'm sure I'm going to ask Chance Miller, did you see this?
02:04:11 ◼ ► Maybe not. You see everything. There's a shortage of iPad minis. And the last time there was an
02:04:23 ◼ ► update to the iPad mini, it actually did happen at the iPhone event. Yep. September 2021, I think.
02:04:36 ◼ ► I believe it. But here's why. Because I think that it's just a place, an event to put it at,
02:04:42 ◼ ► and it's not being compared to any other iPads because there's no other iPads at the iPhone
02:04:47 ◼ ► event. Whereas if they held it for the fall for an iPad or an iPad combo MacBook event,
02:05:04 ◼ ► So I think it gives the iPad mini this brief two-month moment where it can catch up to the
02:05:10 ◼ ► iPad Air or some other iPad model in terms of which A-series chip is in it and how bright the
02:05:17 ◼ ► screen is and whatever the features. Now it's just like an iPad Air except mini. And two months later,
02:05:22 ◼ ► there's a new iPad Air with the M4 or something like that. Yeah. Because I think some people
02:05:27 ◼ ► want the iPad mini to get like a... They want an iPad mini Pro or an iPad Pro mini or whatever.
02:05:34 ◼ ► Get a better screen. You get the fastest chip. You get ProMotion. And that's not what we're
02:05:38 ◼ ► gonna get. It's going to be a spec bump. And I guess they will improve the display slightly
02:05:43 ◼ ► because of the jelly scrolling problem that people are talking about. But it's not gonna...
02:05:57 ◼ ► put the last one in the iPhone event rather than doing it in an iPad event. It's just the weird way
02:06:02 ◼ ► that the iPad mini is a product in their lineup and it's popular enough and has this devoted
02:06:07 ◼ ► code for whatever reason. It's taken hold in a way that the iPhone minis didn't, unfortunately,
02:06:14 ◼ ► much to the angst of everybody who loves the smallest possible iPhone and is desperately
02:06:20 ◼ ► holding on to their iPhone 13 mini and hoping they don't crack the screen for as many years
02:06:25 ◼ ► as they can. The iPad mini somehow made it and the iPhone minis didn't, but it's made it in a weird
02:06:32 ◼ ► way that's unlike any other iPad where a three-year update cycle is, "Yeah, that's the mini. That
02:06:38 ◼ ► Yeah. And I guess they could add Apple Pencil Pro support if they really wanted to because that's...
02:06:59 ◼ ► ...second generation that the iPad mini supports, I think. So they could do it if they wanted to.
02:07:12 ◼ ► And so you might as well give it the most forward-looking pencil support possible rather
02:07:18 ◼ ► than, I don't know, the weird one that you have to stick into the USB-C port with a dongle.
02:07:24 ◼ ► That was sort of a concession. This would be... This would give it, "Hey, we can leave this
02:07:39 ◼ ► Not that comes to mind. Obviously, the release dates for the software, apparently Sequoia.
02:07:52 ◼ ► I think everybody was sort of counting, again, that Apple's a company of patterns and repeats
02:07:57 ◼ ► itself. But I'm pretty sure last year that macOS Sonoma came out coincident with iOS 18,
02:08:03 ◼ ► and it's the surprise of many Mac developers. So, yeah, 17. You're right. I get my numbers mixed.
02:08:22 ◼ ► Yeah. But I also think, yeah, we'll get those release dates. And I think Apple's recent year
02:08:31 ◼ ► strategy of breaking out features to deliver every couple of months in dot updates to the OSs
02:08:40 ◼ ► throughout the year, I think it's been a success for Apple. I think it's been a success for the
02:08:45 ◼ ► reliability, especially of the dot O release in September and October. But I also think it takes
02:08:51 ◼ ► a lot of the excitement out of the first release of them, right? Because instead of… Part of the
02:08:57 ◼ ► excitement was they tried to give as many of the features they advertised to WWDC at once in the
02:09:02 ◼ ► big update in the fall. And then the other part of the excitement is how much of this is actually
02:09:07 ◼ ► going to work. And so they've fixed both problems, right? They're a lot more reliable, but also
02:09:15 ◼ ► you get these updates throughout the year. So there's never one update that's as big a thrill
02:09:21 ◼ ► as the others. This year, it's especially interesting because of the Apple intelligence stuff.
02:09:26 ◼ ► And Garmin says Apple intelligence will be a big part of the iPhone 16 unveil and marketing,
02:09:31 ◼ ► but Apple intelligence isn't available in 18.0, which is what's going to ship on the new phones.
02:09:37 ◼ ► So that's another thing to put on the Jaws hat and think through how they're going to market that
02:09:49 ◼ ► Yeah, that is a Jaws problem, but they've done it before, right? I can think specifically of
02:09:55 ◼ ► portrait mode for iPhone, where it was a big part of the event and they were showing it and
02:10:02 ◼ ► they said it was coming in an update later this fall to all, whatever the version of iPhone was.
02:10:08 ◼ ► And I remember in particular, they gave an exclusive early access to Matthew Panzorino,
02:10:13 ◼ ► who's of course then still at TechCrunch. And he got to, he got like an exclusive early access beta
02:10:21 ◼ ► to the portrait mode after a week after the iPhone shipped to customers or something and two weeks
02:10:27 ◼ ► before the update came. So they can solve that and just say, they're coming to an update later
02:10:33 ◼ ► this fall. I mean, but it does bring us home to talking about the EU, which as of this moment,
02:10:42 ◼ ► still is, when is Apple intelligence coming to iOS in the EU? Don't know. And I'm really,
02:10:50 ◼ ► really curious in terms of things to listen for in the keynote. Will they talk about that in the
02:10:55 ◼ ► keynote in two weeks? That to me is the question. Also, iPhone mirroring in Sequoia, right?
02:11:03 ◼ ► **Robert Stauffer** Right. So that one, I can't, yeah. I mean, I would love it. And again,
02:11:10 ◼ ► I'm not spiteful about it. So I hope that JAWS or Tim Cook or whoever is going to take that segment
02:11:17 ◼ ► of the keynote can just say, and now we're happy to announce that iPhone mirroring and Apple
02:11:22 ◼ ► intelligence will be coming in an update to EU users in later this year. Just say later this year,
02:11:32 ◼ ► and yes, 18.1 will probably ship in October. And I'm almost certain that one won't go to the EU,
02:11:40 ◼ ► or in the EU, they'll get 18.1, but it won't have Apple intelligence. But I'd love for them to be
02:11:45 ◼ ► able to say that they've worked it out and it's coming in 18.2 to the EU. But I also would not be
02:11:52 ◼ ► surprised at all if they don't comment on it at all. And if the new year comes and Apple intelligence
02:11:59 ◼ ► and iPhone mirroring still aren't available in the EU. **Matt Stauffer** I think Apple intelligence
02:12:03 ◼ ► is a bigger undertaking, presumably, than iPhone mirroring in terms, because the question, I mean,
02:12:11 ◼ ► the question as is always the question with this stuff is what does the EU think? What does the EU
02:12:15 ◼ ► want? And we don't know if Apple even talked to the EU about those two things or if Apple's being
02:12:23 ◼ ► proactive and saying, we don't want to get dinged for this. We need to figure out what's going on.
02:12:27 ◼ ► **Robert Wiblin** It's a whole separate rant. And I have ranted, I have made it, I will make it again.
02:12:33 ◼ ► But I know that there's a contingent of people out there who think Apple is only doing this out of
02:12:37 ◼ ► spite, and that they somehow want to punish people in the EU for having passed the DMA. And so for
02:12:43 ◼ ► spite, they're just going to withhold new cool new features like Apple intelligence and iPhone
02:12:47 ◼ ► mirroring, because obviously that has nothing to do with the DMA because the DMA is all about the
02:12:52 ◼ ► App Store. And it is true that what we've seen from Apple in response to the DMA is largely about
02:12:59 ◼ ► the App Store and alternative distribution, because it's the one, it's all that stuff that's actually
02:13:04 ◼ ► specified specifically in the DMA. And it's this whole thing that's worth a lot of money. And it's
02:13:12 ◼ ► this whole thing that already exists, and therefore Apple has to adjust. Whereas I do, I understand
02:13:18 ◼ ► there's nothing to do with spite. It's about the fact that if you're a gatekeeping platform,
02:13:22 ◼ ► you can't preference your own other products and services. This is the whole reason that they have
02:13:28 ◼ ► to make the camera app deleteable. Because the iPhone is a gatekeeping platform, they can't even
02:13:33 ◼ ► preference their own camera app on the iPhone by making it so you can't delete it from the
02:13:39 ◼ ► home screen. That's, it's obviously not allowed under the DMA because Apple's doing it based on
02:13:46 ◼ ► feedback from the EU. So I think part of why they still, why is iPhone mirroring not allowed? You
02:13:51 ◼ ► don't have to pay for it. There's no App Store. It's because it only works with Macs. So they
02:13:56 ◼ ► can't preference their own line of laptops and desktop computers from their gatekeeping iOS
02:14:04 ◼ ► platform by making this cool feature only work on their own laptops. Is the answer that they have to
02:14:11 ◼ ► make iPhone mirroring available on Windows or any other platform? I don't think they would do it.
02:14:18 ◼ ► I don't even think they could do it because I think having talked to Apple about iPhone mirroring,
02:14:23 ◼ ► it's a lot more than just like VNC. It's not just a VNC connection showing you the window.
02:14:29 ◼ ► There's a lot of security stuff, and it's one of the reasons why, correct me if I'm wrong,
02:14:34 ◼ ► Chance, but it doesn't work on Intel Macs. It only works on Apple Silicon Macs because there's
02:14:40 ◼ ► like a handshake that goes on with the secure enclave, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.
02:14:44 ◼ ► So I wouldn't be surprised if that feature never comes to the EU. Unless the European Commission
02:14:50 ◼ ► were to tell Apple, "We don't care about that feature. You can ship it." And I don't know that
02:14:56 ◼ ► they will. And it's the same thing with Apple Intelligence. I think that what Apple sees as
02:15:02 ◼ ► being contrary to the DMA is that Apple Intelligence put aside the whole partnership with OpenAI,
02:15:07 ◼ ► but all of the stuff below the OpenAI stuff only works with Apple's own large language model,
02:15:15 ◼ ► right? There is no…not even OpenAI gets to work at that level. And I think that what Apple sees
02:15:24 ◼ ► is that the EU could flag the whole thing in the same way that, again, they're literally making
02:15:29 ◼ ► Apple delete the…let you delete the camera app. I think to be compliant, they would make you want to
02:15:36 ◼ ► swap out the default LLM and have another default LLM. And I don't think Apple's going to want to
02:15:42 ◼ ► do that. So again, I hope that they just say the European Commission says, "No, we're going to
02:15:48 ◼ ► tell you that we're not concerned about that. You can ship that." But if they don't, I wouldn't be
02:15:54 ◼ ► surprised if Apple Intelligence never comes to the EU. Never. And I mean that sincerely because I
02:16:00 ◼ ► think that's a feature Apple is never going to build a third-party layer because they actually
02:16:04 ◼ ► don't trust it and think it would be better to never ship it than to build out an infrastructure
02:16:14 ◼ ► Tim Cynova, Chief Information Officer, Google Analytics Especially for the more advanced
02:16:21 ◼ ► "When's my mom's flight get in?" And it goes and looks at your email, looks at your calendar,
02:16:38 ◼ ► drum that Apple is late to AI, late to AI, late to AI, but they were late to AI if they were…if
02:16:43 ◼ ► you want to still say they were late because they were building out all of these privacy protections
02:16:47 ◼ ► and stuff like that. But then it has to be at the system level. So, well, we'll see. But again,
02:16:52 ◼ ► something to keep our ears open for at the event. That about wraps things up in terms of my agenda
02:16:58 ◼ ► for the show. I think I've taken more than enough of your time, Chance. So everybody can, of course,
02:17:03 ◼ ► we've mentioned 9to5Mac several times where you work as an ACE reporter. They can follow you there.
02:17:11 ◼ ► Chance Miller I'm @ChanceHMiller. I'm on Threads. I'm on Mastodon. I'm on Instagram. I will point
02:17:17 ◼ ► on 9to5Mac, we do our…me and Benjamin Mayo do our 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and we just crossed
02:17:58 ◼ ► Squarespace, where you can build your own website, and WorkOS, where you can sign up if you're into