By John Moltz
March 8, 2024 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Closing your rings with exercises in futility
Apple is getting along great with everyone. Thanks for asking. At least it keeps shipping new products.
$potify
The EU hit Apple with a $2 billion fine this week for “anti-competitive behavior” resulting from a complaint by Spotify. Apple responded by responding.
“The App Store, Spotify, and Europe’s thriving digital music market”
Despite that success, and the App Store’s role in making it possible, Spotify pays Apple nothing.
This might have been a time to use your inside voice.
Apple’s pissy missive — a pissive, if you will — goes on for over 1,500 words about how the App Store saved humanity (I skimmed it) and Spotify is just a greedy bunch of jerks, all of it just to say that Apple will be appealing the fine.
I’d say this could have been an email but it turns out Apple’s not great at those, either.
Epic fail
Ugh. We’re still talking about Epic. Look, no one is more upset about this than I am.
Worst rollercoaster ride ever.
Just when Epic thought it was safe to get back in the pool…
“Apple Terminated Epic’s Developer Account”
Do you get your $99 back if Apple terminates your developer account?
Long story short, Phil Schiller emailed Tim Sweeney and asked him to promise Epic would follow the App Store rules in the EU. Tim Sweeney responded, yes, SIGH, we will follow the rules, PHIL. Then Apple said, eh, we still don’t trust you. Banned.
Now, you can argue that Epic’s initial violation of the App Store rules indicates it’s not trustworthy and should never be in the App Store, but if you’re going to do that, why bother emailing Sweeney? Just to be jerks about it?
Sure, that’s something I would do, but I’m not a trillion dollar company.
In response, the EU said it was going to investigate Apple’s termination of Epic’s account and, hey, look at that…
“Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account, clearing path for Epic Games Store on iPhone”
Apple’s response may seem confusing based on how the events here on Earth unfolded, but remember that it’s working on a whole bunch of AI stuff so, clearly, it’s trying it out in the PR department first.
Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.
Confused Nathan Fillion dot gif.
Well. I’m sure that’s that and I can just take long drinks of water all of next week without any worrying about spit-taking all over my MacBook when something else happens. Like, say, first thing Monday morning.
MacBook AIr
Let’s put all that unpleasantness behind us. Do you like new things? Well, these might be your month.
This week Apple released new MacBook Airs with M3 processors. Spoiler alert: they’re faster. Yeah, you heard that right. In fact, many are saying… they’re the fastest MacBook Airs the company’s ever released. Chew on that for a while.
The company also made of point of claiming the new laptops are a terrific platform for AI! Because AI.
Yes, honey. We see you. You’re very AI.
[eye roll]
Apple also released iOS 17.4 with podcast transcripts, which is a wonderful and much-needed accessibility feature but also really annoying for those of us who edit podcasts because now we have to cut out all the inappropriate comments our co-hosts make so they don’t get copy/pasted to social media.
I mean, we don’t make them. It’s just our co-hosts.
The hits should keep coming as Apple is also widely expected to announced updated iPads this month. It’s somehow still managing to get work done in between fights with software developers.
[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.]