Netflix announced that Monument Valley 3, a (surprising?) sequel to the classic indie platformer, is coming December 10. It’ll be in the App Store, but exclusively for Netflix subscribers.
Netflix has been slowly rolling out a big catalog of games, tied to a Netflix login. There are loads out now, including the excellent Lucky Luna and Laya’s Horizon (both from Snowman, developer of the excellent Alto’s series of iOS games).
If you are a Netflix subscriber and haven’t been paying attention to Netflix games—I know it’s hard, they’ve taken over my AppleTV Netflix login screen—you might want to check out that catalog and see what your subscription gets you. You can also see games on the iOS Netflix app by swiping to the Mobile Games row and browsing that way.
Fortnite and Epic return to the (not your) iPhone, Apple opens up NFC and enacts new restrictions on Patreon, Spotify posts a link, and we discuss what is and is not a ‘Tabletop Robot.’
Apple fights the good fight for services revenue, a host of new products are on the horizon, and maybe we should all move to Europe. Is there room?
Sticking it to the man
Apple would like to inform you freeloading… [squints and reads]… small independent artists and creators…
Huh. Sorry, that’s just what it says here.
…freeloading small independent artists and creators that the days of riding high off of its platform…
Again, just reading what it says.
…the platform that’s made it the richest company in the history of companies and also just history… [deep breath] …are over.
I am literally just reading their press release. Don’t shoot the messenger.
OK, that is not strictly speaking from an actual Apple press release, but it is directionally correct as the company has decided to start taking 30 percent of Patreon transactions on iOS.
You know those Patreon creator fat cats, getting rich off their, uh, fan fiction and online cartoons and whatnot. Disgusting how they’re rolling in it. WELL, thank goodness those days are coming to an end.
In addition to getting its hard-earned (?) 30 percent from these deplorable leeches, Apple is also insisting that everyone use a subscription model because Tim Cook is as addicted to services revenue as Doc Holliday was to laudanum.
Oh, you can only create stuff to distribute via Patreon irregularly because you have to work a day job to pay the bills so a subscription doesn’t make sense for you? Sucks to be you. Tim needs a smooth revenue stream.
Someone needs to rent out a suite at an Extended Stay America because that guy needs an intervention.
New stuff!
Well, if you don’t like Apple’s App Store policies (who does?), at least there’s a slew of new products to look forward to.
The iPhone SE 4 is rumored to have 8GB of RAM in order to accommodate Apple Intelligence, which could lead to a lineup conundrum. The iPhone 15 would normally still be sold at a higher price than the SE, but it won’t be able to take advantage of Apple Intelligence. Having seen those Image Playground results, maybe this will be sold as a feature.
Good news for those of you with a “I WANT TO BELIEVE” poster featuring a large iMac pinned up over your desk (you know who you are).
Apple is also apparently pushing ahead with its tabletop robot thingy, which may be available as soon as 2026 at a sub-$1,000 price point. I wouldn’t bank on that date, though, as I seem to recall we were also told we’d all be driving Apple cars by this point and, I cannot stress this enough, that did not happen.
Also still in the pipeline are the iPhone 17 “Air”, for those who don’t want the Pro internals but would still like to pay more, and a cheaper Apple Vision product, which could arrive possibly as early as next year. With great physical products like these coming, who needs services revenue?
Tim Cook, that’s who.
Congratulations, Europe
The EU continues to make headway against Apple on its most egregious App Store policies.
Here in the U.S., we are proud to be protected from such pernicious and dangerous thoughts as the metric system, the existence of the dodecahedron, and prices that you might be able to obtain [shudder] outside of the App Store.
Despite these dangers, the EU is still apparently for the kids.
Boy, the EU has everything. Maybe someone should tell the EU about Patreon.
[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.]
I haven't written a lot about the Vision Pro for a pretty simple reason: I haven't actually had a lot of opportunities to use one. But earlier this week, Apple invited me down to New York City to spend an hour with not only Apple's spatial computer, but also the forthcoming visionOS 2 update.
The demo session I ran through was not dissimilar from the in-store experience1, though I did probably get a slightly longer session that most customers. It gave me enough time to get re-acclimated to using the device, as well as a little more input on what I want to look at. I've jotted down my impressions of my time, as well as some of the thoughts and questions I had along the way.
Gestures of good faith
A lot of what Apple is bringing to visionOS 2 is designed to make it a smoother experience overall. For example, the revamping of Guest User now lets you save someone's data so they don't have to go through the training for eye-tracking and hand-tracking every time they want to use the device. That's a big plus, though I find it a little eye-rolling2 that it can only store data for a single other person. We're still fundamentally talking about a $3500 device, so if you have a household with say, both a partner and a kid who want to use the Vision Pro, you have to pick your favorite? It feels shortsighted and artificial. While I've kind of given up holding out for true multi-user support on the iPad, the Vision Pro really feels like it calls out for it.
Though I haven't spent a lot of time with the original visionOS, I did particularly appreciate version 2's new gestures for accessing the home screen and bringing up Control Center; the less time you have to spend reaching up and using the Digital Crown—good as it is—the more you can sustain the illusion.3 I'd speculate that some of the other things that you need to use the crown for might be controllable via gestures in the future, as Apple's technology continues to improve. (It's also challenging to identify discrete movements that can't be misinterpreted, as I experienced with one gesture that lets you view all your tabs in Safari—it took some patience and a few attempts on my part to get it to work correctly.)
The new Bora Bora environment—available in both day and night versions—is really great: the temptation to stand up and try to run into the water is strong. The environments remain one of the most compelling elements of visionOS, and anything Apple can do to bring in third parties or allow you to make your own would surely be a big hit.
Finally, yes, Apple is letting you rearrange all your apps now. I'm not sure you can issue a "finally" after just a few months, but it's certainly going to make life easier for most Vision Pro users.4
Though that was, for me, the very first day that demos were available. Apple has reportedly revamped the process since, which probably means I'm due to go back! ↩
Honestly, having to interact with the hardware itself is kind of like having to summon the arch in the holodeck. ↩
Perhaps my favorite aspect of this is the reminder that "jiggle mode" is not just a thing that we say, but the actual manner in which Apple refers to the mode for reorganizing your icons. This makes me laugh every single time. ↩
Fans of Gage’s previous games will find a bunch of the games on Puzzmo to be familiar—there are web versions of SpellTower, Really Bad Chess, Typeshift, and others—but it’s also got games you’d expect from a web puzzle site that’s also a collaboration with a newspaper publisher, most notably a daily crossword.
I caught up with Gage last week to talk to him about the latest game in the Puzzmo stable, Pile-Up Poker, and what it’s like to design for a subscription-based game website rather than an app. The most interesting thing I learned is that, with Pile-Up Poker, not only did Gage need to resist some of the darker patterns of poker-based gambling but also the darker patterns of designing game apps that must be ready to offer an infinite amount of engagement.
If Pile-Up Poker were an app, you’d be able to play it forever. On Puzzmo, you can only play five hands per day. “I’ll be honest, five hands is even more than I am sort of into,” Gage told me. “We played this game as much as we wanted during development, and we saw what it felt like… It’s a kind of game that you could play a lot, and you could burn out on.” So the website just won’t let you—instead, it encourages you to branch out and play different games or, y’know, get back to work. One of those.
Here’s my conversation with Gage, edited for length and clarity:
For nearly a decade, Apple has been progressively growing the revenue it makes from services—not just its search-engine deal with Google and its cut of App Store revenue, but everything from AppleCare support plans to iCloud storage to TV+ and News+ and Fitness+. Apple generated more revenue during its last quarter from Services than from its Mac, iPhone, and Wearables categories put together. Its total profit on Services came the closest it’s ever come to Apple’s total profit on products.
Even if recent U.S. court rulings threaten the quarter of Services revenue that comes directly from Google, there’s still an enormous and growing part of Apple that is dedicated to selling us services to go with our iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It’s a huge growth driver, which makes Wall Street happy. But what does the future hold for Apple’s services?
With the 2024 Paralympic Games set to take the spotlight in Paris next week, Apple has released a new short film called “The Relay”. Though paralympians compete against others with disabilities, the film showcases several athletes with disabilities competing alongside athletes without them. (As you might expect, you’ll also see plenty of ways they all use Apple tech in their daily lives and on race day.)
Competition that includes both athletes with disabilities and those without happens all the time, but it’s not what most of us expect. In “The Relay,” eight athletes compete in two teams. There’s a track cyclist with an upper limb difference, a wheelchair racer, a low-vision swimmer and a blade runner, all shown both on the field (or in the pool) and at home, getting ready for the day with an assist from the Apple Watch or iPhone. Some athletes featured in the film are hopefuls for the L.A. games in 2028.
The film shows off Apple Watch fitness features, including wheelchair workouts and sleep-tracking, along with accessibility options like Assistive Touch and iPhone Spoken Content, which announces notifications and other information. Magnifier and its Point and Speak feature give a swimmer with low vision the information needed to locate a lane in the pool.
Third-party apps GoSwim, which helps swimmers analyze their technique on iPad; MATLAB on Mac, which visualizes aerodynamic data; and the my i-limb app for the iPhone, which provides users the flexibility to control the grip of their bionic prosthetics, all get quick shoutouts in the film.
This episode has a lot of layers, as we discuss the Olympics, the Google antitrust ruling, Apple’s new EU fee plan, a tiny new Mac mini, macOS dialog disasters, and the tech world of a decade ago.
This week we’ve got a ruling against Google, prompts for both AI and humans, and teeny tiny Macs!
At least we’ll still have customer sat
Seems like almost everyone is fighting off an antitrust suit these days. This week Google came up a bit short as a judge ruled that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in an antitrust case.
This, of course, has huge implications for Apple, which gets paid something like $20 billion every year to make Google the default search engine in Safari. Upon hearing of the ruling, Tim Cook reportedly looked up and exclaimed “My precious Services revenue!” He then grabbed up several spreadsheets and held them to his chest, sobbing.
It’s worse for Google, of course, and while Apple could see a real hit to its bottom line, it would be a temporary adjustment and one that’s not really reflective of its own well-being as a company. Its platforms are still worth a lot, otherwise Google wouldn’t be paying it so much! It’s just that the firehose of free money would get shut off.
The zinger in this story comes from Apple SVP Eddy Cue, who said during the trial that there was “no price that Microsoft could ever offer” that would get Apple to preload Bing. You can take a minute to walk that one off, Microsoft. Don’t take too long, though, because you also have an antitrust suit to fight off.
What prompted this?
Some beta sleuthers have discovered the prompts Apple is using in Apple Intelligence. They read a bit like a 1950s informational video on how to conduct a successful job interview.
You are an assistant which helps the user respond to their mails.
You might wonder why some of these prompts aren’t used for every AI interaction. Such as:
Do not hallucinate. Do not make up factual information.
That’s all you had to do?! Why haven’t AI companies been using these prompts from day one?! Since it seems to be “just that easy,” here are a few more I’d like to suggest:
Do not suggest I eat rocks and glue.
Do not promulgate anti-democratic conspiracy theories.
Do not activate the orbital laser platform.
Do not conspire with other AIs to exterminate all human life.
That’s not an exhaustive list, but it seems like a good start.
Weekly! Does anyone at Apple actually use these products anymore, or are they all now designed by philosopher-programmers who live in caves and seek Platonic ideals of how an operating system should work as they nod sagely at each other?
Apple philosopher-programmer 1: “Best to ensure the plebeians do not harm themselves with their foolishness and rash undertakings.”
Apple philosopher-programmer 2: “Indeed. One wonders how they manage to conduct their daily affairs without disturbing their humors to the point of intense agitation.”
Maybe they could just give us a… dial or something? You know, so we can adjust between controlling AI on the one side and ruining stuff we use all the time on the other.
The Mac mini mini
There’s a big little rumor swirling around the Mac mini, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the M4-based Mac mini scheduled to be released later this year will be closer to the size of the Apple TV, albeit slightly taller. (Please sign my online petition to change the name to Mac Chonkie-boi.)
While this is likely to cause some consternation from people who have built up a supply of peripherals that match the size of the current Mac mini, I welcome a new form factor and not just because it’ll give us all something to write about that’s not AI or antitrust-related. (Although that is definitely part of it!) The current form factor of the Mac mini is 14 years old. The previous form factor was only around for half that time.
Hey, I get it. It’s tough to let go. But even I finally got rid of that Bondi blue USB hub.
I mean, like, last year. But I did get rid of it.
[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.]
AI incrementalism, more Mac permissions, and a return to Scotland
Dan calls in from Scotland, where he’s trying out experimental phone techniques; Flighty 4.0 tested; Apple’s incremental approach to AI; more Mac permission frustration. [More Colors/Backstage members also get our thoughts about the rumored new small Mac mini.]
My thanks to 1Password for sponsoring Six Colors this week.
Strings of data breaches and other cybersecurity failures have forced greater investment in vulnerability management. The SEC now requires companies to report on how their managers and board of directors deal with vulnerabilities. This is good news for IT and security teams; in a 2023 survey, 50% of respondents said that their organization’s vulnerability management program had support from leadership to “a large/great extent.” But obviously, that still leaves the other half out in the cold.
If you’re trying to get buy-in at your own organization, you’ll need to come equipped with the facts about the risks you’re facing and a clear plan to remediate them. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources available to help prioritize your needs. To learn more about how vulnerability management is changing, read 1Password’s full blog post.
Meg James of the Los Angeles Times joins Jason to discuss Paramount and WBD results, the WBD/NBA conundrum, Peacock and the Olympics, Venu’s price, the NFL dodging the antitrust bullet, a Disney price hike, and the high cost of prestige TV.
Apple Inc. is planning a new version of the Mac mini that will be its smallest desktop computer yet, part of a broader overhaul of the Mac line with AI-focused chips. The new model — due later this year — will mark the first major design change to the mini since it was revamped under Steve Jobs in 2010, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The device will be far smaller than its predecessor, approaching the size of an Apple TV set-top box, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the work is secret.
The Mac mini is made to be a Mac that fits into the cracks of various workflows, a utility knife of a Mac that often gets shoved in a closet or under a desk. Making it physically smaller just seems fitting.
In an attempt to protect Mac users from getting themselves into trouble, Apple introduced numerous permissions pop-ups into macOS Catalina. In the years since, the company has accelerated its approach, adding ever more situations where users must grant specific permission. Often multiple times, in multiple places. (It can be magnified by migrating to a new Mac and getting those requests all at once.)
Microsoft has grappled with this same issue in Windows, allowing Apple to roast Windows Vista in an ad that modern Apple people probably regret. And it doubled down at WWDC 2009.
Now comes the news that things may be getting worse, not better. 9to5Mac reports that macOS Sequoia beta has introduced a new prompt that doesn’t allow a user to permanently grant permission, but requires an occasional re-authorization.
It’s part of a general trend for Apple to continue placing barriers in the way of users who are trying to use software on the Mac. As I noted when I covered the Sequoia Public Beta:
Security prompts appear to have been ramped up a bit, much to my chagrin. When I tried to launch an app that Apple didn’t notarize, I was unable to force it to open by right-clicking and then choosing Open, which was the old standby. Instead, I had to open the Settings app, go to the Security pane, and click through a warning dialog that the app in question was “blocked to protect your Mac.” Once I clicked Open Anyway, I could open the app—but even then, I was forced to put up with another alert, and then forced (as an administrator with full privileges!) to enter my password before the app would launch.
For the past decade, Apple has been trying to tighten the screws on the Mac in order to bring it closer to the level of security offered on iOS. And on iOS, it’s also restricted software features, including a (supremely annoying) feature that repeatedly asks you if you want to continue allowing apps to track your location.
To serve and protect
Here’s Apple’s problem: Apps that track your location, record the contents of your screen, or access your video camera or microphone have the potential to be deeply invasive and violate your privacy in innumerable ways. Since those features are also useful, Apple has built a system of permissions that Apps must request, and then users are prompted to be sure that an app should be granted that kind of access.
You can imagine the scenarios: A domestic abuser installs an app on their partner’s device and grants blanket permission without their knowledge, giving them access to everything they do. Or a scammer convinces a user to install software via social engineering, including clicking exactly the right permissions buttons to grant their software complete control over the user’s system.
One clear way to combat these abuses is to not allow permanent approval but prompt the user later, when they might realize what’s been happening without their knowledge. I get it. It’s a smart approach.
But what Apple’s testing in the latest macOS Sequoia betas is brutal because there’s no end to it. It’s a subscription you didn’t buy and can’t cancel. Yesterday, I was prompted to give temporary permission by an app that I’ve used since the early 1990s to read my screen. Apparently, if I want to use that app, I will just need to keep approving it every so often. Numerous other screen-reading utilities may also be affected.
Asking for permission a second time is not unreasonable for the reasons I mentioned above. But at some point the user must be in charge. When I complain that moves like these by Apple are condescending and insulting because it’s my computer, and I’ll do what I want with it, I’m often confronted by people on social media who insist that Apple’s just looking out for me. What if I agree to something dangerous? Shouldn’t Apple protect me?
My answer is that Apple should try to protect its users but must find a balance between that and the overall experience of using a Mac (or other device). A barrage of permissions dialogs rapidly creates dialog fatigue, where the user will agree to anything if it’ll just let them get back to what they were doing. This sends a subtle signal that the user or the user’s software is doing something that’s potentially wrong. (And if the solution is for developers to update to newer, more privacy-protecting APIs, maybe Apple should tell developers and document them properly.)
Some users will make bad decisions. That’s just reality. The wrong reaction is to take the decision out of every user’s hands to protect the ones who might do something stupid. Apple needs to find that balance, that protects people but gives users freedom to do what they want, however dangerous it might be.
Apple’s recent feature changes suggest a value system that’s wildly out of balance, preferring to warn (and control) users no matter how damaging it is to the overall user experience. Maybe the people in charge should be forced to sit down and watch that Apple ad that mocks Windows Vista. Vista’s security prompts existed for good reasons—but they were a user disaster. The Apple of that era knew it. I’d guess a lot of people inside today’s Apple know it, too—but they clearly are unable to win the arguments when it matters.
Not quite neutral
Some of Apple’s recent behavior also makes this entire situation seem more sinister and frustrating than it should. When Apple introduced a new security regime for macOS in 2018, adding a middle path for apps that were outside the Mac App Store that would allow Apple to cryptographically sign them and scan them for malware, people freaked out that it was the beginning of the end for the Mac as an open platform.
But the advent of app notarization didn’t change the fundamental premise of the Mac: You can still run any software you want on the Mac, if you want. It was a promise an Apple representative made on stage at WWDC 2019, and the company has stuck with it. Unfortunately, the fairly simple workaround to launch non-notarized apps is getting junked up in macOS Sequoia, requiring a visit to System Preferences and approval by the user on launch, which, last time I checked, required entering your password. That’s just overkill. But at least it’s still possible.
Still, Apple’s developer note on this feature gave me pause:
In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed correctly or notarized. They’ll need to visit System Settings > Privacy & Security to review security information for software before allowing it to run.
If you distribute software outside of the Mac App Store, we recommend that you submit your software to be notarized. The Apple notary service automatically scans your Developer ID-signed software and performs security checks. When your software is ready for distribution, it’s assigned a ticket to let Gatekeeper know it’s been notarized so customers can run it with confidence.
It seems reasonable at first glance. If developers want to make it easier for users to launch their apps, they should just get them notarized! It’s that nice middle path again, with no App Store approvals but with some quick scans and cryptographic reassurance. Sounds great. And in the last five-plus years, Apple has treated notarization as it promised, as a neutral scanning system that’s meant to keep users secure, not as a way to extend Apple’s App Store rules elsewhere.
Except back in June, Apple used its iOS notarization process in the EU to make App Store-style policy rejections. Yes, it’s a different process in a specific region, and the whole issue seems to have been cleared up… but it exposed the truth, which is that if Apple wants to use its seemingly neutral notarization process to suppress an app it doesn’t like, it can. It has.
Solving the puzzle
When I discuss this issue on podcasts and social media, most people who respond sound just as frustrated as I am. But there’s also a group who, to their credit, understand the difficult situation Apple is in here. Does Apple not want to make it harder for people to install spyware? Is that not a benefit that outweighs the rest of us having to click through alert dialogs every week?
I appreciate the empathy of those arguments, but they miss an important point: This is Apple we’re talking about. I believe Apple is entirely able to solve difficult problems like this in ways that balance the user experience and the need for protection. I just think, for whatever reason, the company isn’t really trying. The result is a platform that’s teetering on the edge of becoming a user-experience joke akin to Windows Vista.
