By John Moltz
January 19, 2024 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Apple giveth and Apple taketh away
The new year must be in full swing because there’s actual Apple news this week. We got an Epic decision and some of you lucky devils bought Vision Pros. At least the Apple Watch Series 9 I got in November can still tell me my blood oxygen level.
A real Epic
It’s all over but the shouting as Epic’s swing at Apple turns out to be largely a miss.
“Supreme Court rejects Epic v. Apple antitrust case”
Well, I guess we can draw a line under that saga and just walk away without looking back, because surely Jason Voorhees is dead this time.
“Epic to contest Apple’s ‘bad-faith’ compliance plan following Supreme Court ruling on App Store”
Uhnnnnnnn. Come onnnn.
And that’s not all. Apple is subsequently demanding Epic pay it $73.4 million for legal fees per the terms of the suit. That’s 21,000 Vision Pros! But it’s also just 1.33 Dutch App Store fines. I have a hard time making sense of large dollar values.
One lingering effect for Apple, apart from getting reimbursed, is the rescinding of the anti-steering provision. While Apple will now allow apps to link to websites for payment options outside the App Store—surprise!—it still wants its cut of the transaction.
Disclaimer: This should not be a surprise to anyone.
Fine, I’ll just have Fun On My Own
Happy FOMO day to all of us who didn’t get a fancy new spatial computer.
Apple turned the hype knob on the Vision Pro (it’s on the battery pack so you’ve never seen it) up to 11 this week by detailing the Vision Pro entertainment experiences that would be available for the device on day one, including 150 3D movies, a Disney app, tightrope walkers, dinosaurs, and someone name Jean Favreau who is maybe a French mime? I don’t know. Not familiar with his work.
One company that will not be Vision Pronabled (that’s what we’re calling it now) from day one is Netflix. The company said it could not be bothered to make an app for the device or even enable its iPad app on it because, and I fake quote, it “was too busy watching its stories”, un-fake quote.
Not to be out undone, YouTube and Spotify will also not be at the launch day festivities. And you’ve gotta imagine there’s no Instagram app.
On the one hand, it’s unfortunate for Vision Pro users that some very popular apps will not be available immediately. On the other hand, demanding companies commit to development work for 80,000 people is somewhat unreasonable. On the third hand, these are giant, multi-billion dollar companies. Let them fight it out.
Watch it disappear
The legal mill keeps on churning and the Apple Watch Series 9’s blood oxygen sensing technology is just the gristiest. As a result, starting today Apple will be selling the Watch Series 9 without the blood oxygen feature. The sensor is assuredly still there, but the feature has been software-disabled. $5 to the person who finds a way to update whatever plist on the Watch has the setting bloodoxygensensor.active to “TRUE”.
Barring that, if you want blood oxygen measuring in a smartwatch, you’ll be able to get one soon (or at least some day, as this is currently a prototype) from Masimo, the company suing Apple.
Day watch, blood oxygen watch. Easy peasy. Glad we solved that.
Don’t expect this to end any time soon, though. Apple’s clearly of the mind that it’ll just take its ball and go home, while Masimo’s CEO says good riddance. Would they take $73.4 million? Just thinking out loud.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]