By John Moltz

May 24, 2024 2:00 PM PT

This Week in Apple: Carl’s Jr.+

Apple pushes back against regulators as photos come back from the dead. Lastly, I should apparently not write about streaming service bundles around lunchtime.

Not going gentle into that good night

Apple is hoping that the path of legal recourse is a two-way street.

“Apple questions validity of DOJ antitrust lawsuit in bid to dismiss case”

“Your honor, what even is a ‘lawsuit’? Dresswear for bills that have passed Congress? I ask you, have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? Why, even the Bill in the Schoolhouse Rock video upon which our entire system of governance is founded was naked but for a ribbon and a button.”

The company is also pushing back against the EU.

“Apple fights $2B antitrust fine over Spotify complaint, challenging EU in court”

Apple was happy to pony up for previous fines, which were in the paltry hundreds of millions, but a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon Tim Cook is walking down to Apple Legal asking what the hell is going on.

While Apple may be trying to stem the flood, the waters still seem to be rising.

“Apple may soon have to allow third-party app stores in Japan too”

Of course, in Japan it’s considered unusual to not be able to get apps from talking vending machines, clean and well-stocked 7-11s, and capybara cafes so this was probably inevitable.

Shutter bug

Apple recently introduced a new Photos feature allowing you to revisit magic moments that you might have forgotten about because you mistakenly deleted them.

Oh, wait, that’s not a feature, it’s a bug.

Well, now it’s patched, but not after it kind of freaked people out. Thursday afternoon, Apple elaborated to 9to5Mac about the bug, explaining that it was a database corruption problem and affirming that:

• The bug only hit a small number of devices and photos.
• If a device was properly reset before sale, photos would not magically return to it after it was sold (no matter what that dude on Reddit said).
• Photos are not in a state of quantum flux in which they are both deleted and not deleted depending upon the act of observation. It’s just a bug.

Of course, that’s just what a company that has invented a quantum state manipulation device and has clumsily introduced a show about just such a device at the same time would say.

Or is it?

Bundle up

Speaking of changing the state of things, remember how it seemed like every company from HBO to Paramount to Carl’s Jr. was making their own streaming service? Laugh if you want, but the show in which the Big Angus El Diablo Combo was a good cop on the edge was really good and deserved better than to be canceled after two seasons.

Chief: “Turn in your badge, Big Angus El Diablo Combo!”

Big Angus El Diablo Combo: “I’ll turn in my badge… after justice is served! Hot and spicy. With a Coke and fries. See local details for offer.”

Chief: “You’re out of line, Big Angus El Diablo Combo!”

Big Angus El Diablo Combo: “You’re out of line! This whole town is out of line! But get in line for charbroiled burger and breakfast combos daily.”

I could write this all day. His partner is Chicken Tender Wraps. There’s a lot of sexual tension between them.

Anyway, instead of every company having a separate streaming service, what if instead we combined the streaming services into some sort of, oh, package or bundle?

“Netflix, Apple TV+ and Peacock bundle priced at $15/mo for Comcast Xfinity customers”

So, if you’re already paying for Comcast, you can get Netflix, Apple TV+ and the streaming service equivalent of a player to be named later for $8 less a month, as long as you don’t mind ads on two of them.

Honestly, of the two combos I’ve mentioned here, I’d rather have the Big Angus El Diablo.

[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.]