Jason was on Allison Sheridan’s CCATP podcast last week to discuss how he creates his Apple financial charts. It’s full of nerdy fun like how he decides when to use a serape chart vs. a bar chart, how he calculates a rolling average, how he gets the data for the charts, and how he gets the charts from Apple Numbers into his website.
The world is big mad at Apple, as the company gets set to begin the robot apocalypse. Then we’ll look at what just got released and what just got canceled.
Having probably thought he bought his way out of trouble by making a million-dollar donation to the inaugural fund of the current president, Cook may be realizing he is just a pawn in much larger game.
While Apple may not be subject to tariffs, other firms are.
For its part, China doesn’t seem to care that Tim Cook bought himself access. So rude. Moreover, it apparently subscribes to the EU’s informational newsletter.
I miss the days when talking about Apple was mostly just talking about rumors, rumors like this next thing.
I, for one, welcome our robot overlords
After months of rumor that Apple has been working on some kind of desktop robot, the company posted a demonstration of a robotic lamp that is part Luxo, Jr., part Tony Stark’s robotic construction assistants. The adorable device is shown helping the user by doing things like providing light exactly where needed and projecting a how-to video on the wall, all while being more emotive and expressive and human-like than your average tech CEO or member of the current presidential administration.
Not that that’s all that hard or anything.
It doesn’t take wild leaps of fancy to imagine this with an iPad-type device on the end instead of a light bulb. As long as it’s not following me around the room insisting I look at the latest social media panic, I’m in.
What’s in, what’s out
Welcome, Invites, the next service that Apple will probably let wither and die on the vine. The rollout of the new service this week was not without its hiccups, as users ran into endless spinners and odd limitations.
Tim Cook is tired of you meat sacks making his services revenue look bumpy! Be more smooth! There was a lump in September! It was disgusting!
Apple is rumored to have canceled the AR glasses project that was rumored to be in the works last year. This would have been the device that offloaded processing to a Mac, so rather than have a cumbersome headset you’d, uh, just have to carry a Mac around with you. Probably the only really surprising thing is that it took them that long to figure out it wasn’t going to work great.
Finally, if you’re going to the EU, you might want to knock first.
Apple grudgingly “approved” the app but it wanted to make clear that it does not approve of the app or the filthy things Europeans are doing with it. Like that thing with the rubber duck. What even is that? I know they call it “rubber ducking” but why is the guy wearing the oven mitts? It makes no sense.
The company also loudly shrieked “Won’t someone think of the children?!”
We are deeply concerned about the safety risks that hardcore porn apps of this type create for EU users, especially kids.
Are you suggesting that Parental Controls don’t work perfectly, Apple? Because that truly would be shocking.
[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.]
A new Apple app, some EU shenanigans, the Apple Report Card was released, and the UK would like an encryption backdoor. Quiet week? [More Colors and Backstage subscribers also get to hear us talk about Apple’s friendly robotic arm.]
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Sobering story from the Washington Post‘s Joseph Menn (paywalled, unfortunately—here’s a BBC article that confirms it) that the United Kingdom’s government has mandated Apple provide a backdoor for access to end-to-end encrypted data in every country, combined with a gag order preventing the company from disclosing this fact to its users:
One of the people briefed on the situation, a consultant advising the United States on encryption matters, said Apple would be barred from warning its users that its most advanced encryption no longer provided full security. The person deemed it shocking that the U.K. government was demanding Apple’s help to spy on non-British users without their governments’ knowledge. A former White House security adviser confirmed the existence of the British order.
While law enforcement has long been able to access encrypted data for which Apple holds the keys, this move would reportedly apply to end-to-end data in which the user holds the keys, such as Apple’s Advanced Data Protection. This law would target end-to-end encrypted data from Google and Meta as well.
This is red alert, five-alarm-fire kind of stuff. Providing a backdoor would be worrying enough for reasons that should be obvious to anybody who knows the barest inkling about technology—to wit, that there exists no mechanism to keep such a tool out of the hands of malicious actors—but the fact that it would apply beyond the UK borders to other countries is a staggering breach of sovereignty. And, moreover, as Menn points out, such a move would no doubt embolden other powers to ask for access to the same capabilities—such as China.1
Furthermore, requiring that Apple not disclose this is a massive violation of individual rights, letting people go on about their lives under the assumption that their data is safe and secure when in fact it is anything but. It’s hard for me to envision how this doesn’t open Apple up to massive liability in the eventuality—inevitable, to my mind—that this backdoor is compromised by those looking to steal data.
As far as we know, this has not yet been enacted, but the Post report says that while Apple can appeal, it cannot delay in its compliance during that appeal. Ironically, the biggest impediment might come in the form of the European Union, as Apple apparently argued that the implementation would undermine the European right to privacy.
Given how secretive all this is, the most troubling part is that we might not know how it shakes out until it’s too late.
Also, given the current administration of the United States, it is difficult to imagine it would be far behind in supporting the creation of such a backdoor. ↩
Will Carroll returns on Super Bowl week, and we discuss Super Bowl 4K, Tubi, and the enduring power of communal live events. Also: ESPN Flagship and Fox’s streaming play, a new RSN is heard from, Apple and MLS make tweaks, your letters, and TV picks!
What a wild story. While it’s been rumored that Apple researchers have been working on robots, now those researchers have published their results, including a pretty amazing video.
A team of robotics researchers at Apple have designed and prototyped a lamp-like robot with lifelike movements, according to a blog post and accompanying video published last month on the Apple Machine Learning Research website. The lamp, which reminds us of the cute Pixar mascot Luxo Jr., may hint at Apple’s future plans.
If we know anything about Apple is that forthcoming products do not show up in research papers and videos before they’re released. But that doesn’t mean Apple isn’t intending on using this sort of tech in some specific applications down the road.
Gurman’s original report said that Apple “has developed an advanced table-top home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said.” This sure sounds like it’s related to whatever Gurman’s sources were talking about.
I’m not sure I’d bet on anything like what’s depicted in the video becoming a product anytime soon, but it’s a pretty amazing video nonetheless.
It’s been a year since the Vision Pro arrived, and its impact on the world has been nearly nonexistent. Is this a surprise? At the time, I wrote that it was “speculative and impractical.” That judgment still stands. The Vision Pro is simultaneously one of the most impressive and impractical products Apple has ever developed. A year on, I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone buy one. It’s a glimpse of a potential future and a developer kit for potential future Apple platforms, but that’s about it.
Since the Vision Pro is a product about the future, let’s talk about the future, then. Where is this thing going, if anywhere? But first, it’s worth also considering how we got here.
It’s better than before
I’ve got plenty of complaints about how Apple has handled the Vision Pro rollout. There was too much hype for a product like this, it hasn’t produced enough immersive video content despite immersive video being the product’s most eye-popping feature, and in general it has failed to attract enough eager developers ready to build the next big thing.
However, I have to compliment Apple on doggedly improving the product itself. VisionOS offered a bunch of improvements, including new environments, useful new gestures, and keyboard breakthrough. Apple also added spatial personas, which are perhaps the product’s most astounding feature. Personas were, when the product shipped, kind of a disaster. But after a bunch of upgrades and the introduction of free-floating personas in a 3-D space in FaceTime, they’ve gone from being a joke to being brilliant.
Another great feature, Mac Virtual Display, also got a major update with the addition of support for virtual widescreen views that let you use a Mac with an enormous virtual monitor wherever you go.
Over the last year, visionOS has felt like a platform that is moving forward… slowly, but still moving. That’s good, because there’s much more to be done.
Vision Pro is a tremendous video player. I’ve watched college football games on enormous floating TV screens while in a tiny hotel room. I’ve watched 3-D movies in environments superior to any dimly-lit 3-D screening room. I’ve watched Star Trek episodes playing on a virtual television sitting on a table as if it were a real object. And I’ve watched every single second of immersive video Apple has released.
Of course, all of these things I’ve done alone, not with my family, because Vision Pro is a solo device. That’s just part of the deal, and so for me it’s more of an entertainment device for travel or when I’m home alone, not part of any routine. If you live alone, you may feel differently.
3-D movies can be good. Immersive video is great, though, and has the potential to be a real game-changer. And yet it seems that the existence of devices like the Vision Pro wasn’t the only factor limiting the creation of next-generation video content. Apple and its partners have struggled mightily to generate anything of substance in its 180-degree immersive video format. The addition of cameras like the one from Blackmagic that can shoot immersive video should potentially open things up, but it’s clear that shooting and doing post-production on immersive stuff is just brutally hard, or expensive, or slow, or maybe all of those things.
If there’s a single feature that would actually sell Vision Pros, it would be the creation of some sort of killer immersive video content. It could be a series of recordings of live theater performances, or sporting events, or… I don’t know what else. But I know that a motivated theater fan or sports fan with a comfy bank account wouldn’t think twice about paying $3500 for a device that actually enabled an ongoing series of immersive experiences. None of that stuff exists right now, though. It feels like a series of tech demos, though I really did like Edward Berger’s short immersive film “Submerged”.
I’ve also appreciated Sandwich Video’s experiments with the platform. The Television app is really fun, since it plays videos on augmented-reality TV sets you can place in your environment. I had hoped there would be more apps like this, that allow me to populate my world with things that look like physical objects but are actually just software. (Maybe someday.) And the Theater app is trying to bring a broad spectrum of internet content into a virtual movie theater environment.
Beyond video, I’ve found Vision Pro to be an excellent tool for shifting my own personal context. When I’m feeling frustrated or distracted and need to buckle down and get to work, I have frequently put on the Vision Pro, popped in my AirPods Pro, and dialed in an immersive environment (Joshua Tree is my favorite) so I can work with zero distractions.
I wish there were more productivity options in visionOS—I’m mostly still writing using Markdown in the fairly simple Runestone editor—but it gets the job done, and I can always break out my Mac and use a virtual display while sitting on a bed or couch and getting out of my usual desk routine. (I wrote a good deal of this article sitting on the couch, typing into a MacBook Pro, while inside Joshua Tree.)
And, yes, Mac Virtual Display is a winner. It’s not perfect—the video quality of the Vision Pro display is a little fuzzier than a real Retina Display—but it lets me use my laptop in any context, in any space. Laptops are actually kind of bad for you ergonomically since the keyboard is physically close to the display. In Virtual Display mode, I can float the display higher up, allowing me to view it at a more comfortable angle. And thanks to Universal Control, I can operate visionOS apps from my Mac keyboard and trackpad as well. The new wide and ultrawide settings add even more screen space, which is a huge deal for many users of multiple monitors.
And Vision Pro excels as a remote collaboration tool. While so few people have these devices that it’s hard to test, I’m fortunate to know a few people in my line of work who have bought them. We set up an every-two-weeks meeting inside FaceTime using Spatial Personas, and it is legitimately the next best thing to being there in person. Spatial Personas exist in real space, casting shadows. They’ve got heads and shoulders and arms and hands so that you can see facial expressions and hand gestures. When someone gets up and walks around in real space, their persona does so in virtual space. The audio is perfectly spatial and adds to the effect.
Throw in SharePlay, which also works surprisingly well in this context, and you’ve got the start of a real remote collaboration opportunity for people who work together but are very far apart. And just on a personal level, it’s special to be able to spend time with my far-flung group of friends and feel as if we’re just hanging out and shooting the breeze. That’s a thread for Apple to follow here as it envisions the future of this platform.
I also want to generally cite how good I think visionOS is as a computing platform. This is Apple trying to build an entirely new “spatial computing” metaphor on the back of the work it has done in other areas, and I think it’s a great start. There’s more refinement to be done everywhere, but I legitimately love moving windows around and resizing things, and opening apps in visionOS. It’s delightful. I just wish I was doing more with that. I’ve got a sleek designer hammer; now I need nails.
What I’ve learned
In the early days of trying out the Vision Pro, I used it a lot. I wrote in my original review that “I have been able to use it for around six hours a day without discomfort.” It’s true! It can be done! But I never use it for marathon sessions anymore. Thanks to the Belkin Head Strap that Apple should’ve included in the original Vision Pro package, I’m at the most comfortable I’ve ever felt inside the Vision Pro. But really, it’s more of a two- or three-hour session at most.
The problem is that I rarely find myself needing to use the Vision Pro. It’s not that I don’t enjoy using it… in fact, every time I put it on, I find myself wanting to give myself additional reasons to keep on using it because it’s so much fun in there! But the impetus to find a safe place to sit, take off my glasses, slip on a VR headset, and jack into cyberspace doesn’t come along that often. There’s enough of a barrier there that it only happens maybe once or twice a week, at most. (This is also true of my poor, neglected Meta Quest headset, which is super fun to use to play games… but which I also use way too rarely.)
This is the current challenge of Vision Pro: It needs to give users reasons to use it, and it needs to have enough of them to keep them using it. Right now, putting on the Vision Pro tends to lead to a short session in which I do the one thing I wanted to do in there, and then I cast about trying to find reasons to stay… and then I give up. I need more reasons to stay—more apps, more experiences, more use cases. And I need reasons to put it on.
What needs to happen next
I have no idea how long this Vision Pro hardware is going to remain current, but I hope Apple keeps pushing its software forward. Once Siri has been upgraded and App Intents support has been added to the package, Apple Intelligence could potentially be a major upgrade to visionOS. I’m surprised how little I use Siri in visionOS, despite the fact that it’s responsive and always understands what I’m saying (since I’m wearing the device I’m talking to).
Virtual environments are a winning part of the Vision Pro experience, and Apple needs to keep pushing on that front. Environments constructed for use inside individual apps should be able to be used anywhere in the OS. (I’d love to write an article while sitting atop Avengers Tower from the Disney+ app, for example.) Apple should also build some more boring environments that might be more conducive to some people’s focus. They can’t all be Bora Bora, folks.
Most obviously, Apple needs to reach out to developers and encourage visionOS as a platform for experimentation. That probably means throwing out the rulebook and doing things like funding the development of apps, supplying free developer kits, and generally investing in the platform if they want it to succeed. I still believe there’s a killer app or two out there to be discovered, but Apple needs to use some of its plentiful financial resources to encourage developers to spend their time on a platform that’s still in its infancy. It’ll be worth it.
I also keep wondering how much more useful the Vision Pro would be if it could run (for example) all iPad apps, all iPhone apps, and maybe even all Mac apps (without an intermediary). The lack of availability of compatible apps is a black eye for the platform, and Apple needs to make greater efforts to get developers on board, even if it’s via compatibility with their existing apps.
On the hardware side, Apple needs to push as hard as it can to get the price of this device down. I couldn’t believe the early rumors that it would cost over $2000, and look at where we ended up. I actually don’t have any complaints about the specs of the existing device—Apple really did spare no expense. The issue is that it’s all so expensive. So Apple needs to figure out what hardware isn’t actually necessary and get the price down above all else. Cutting the price of the Vision Pro in half won’t make it a hit or even a big seller, but every single dollar that gets lopped off the price of a future version will increase the number of devices sold.
Is this the future?
Here’s the big question: Does the Vision Pro represent a product that’s on a pathway to the future of computing, or is it a dead end?
The Vision Pro represents something inevitable: At some point, we will wear things over our eyes that annotate the world around us. The Vision Pro is Apple’s first attempt to create a product that will lead in that direction. It’s big, clumsy, and expensive because that’s the best anyone can do right now. That’s okay, so long as this is just the beginning of a longer process of evolution.
I don’t know if Apple’s vision of “spatial computing,” of a multi-windowed gestural interface, will be the final form such a device will take, or if it’ll be more of a voice-guided interface, or if everything will be intuited by an AI who’s tracking your eyes and monitoring your heart rate, or what. I do think it’s a fruitful path to explore for now, but there will probably come a time when Apple has to decide if the spatial computer that does everything an iPad, iPhone, or Mac can do is the same product as the wearable appliance that annotates your world as you walk around in it. That might be two products, or it might be that only one of those is a product people want.
Still, I can’t believe that in 2040, there won’t be something you can optionally wear on your face, like a pair of glasses that will mark up the world, whisper in your ear, listen to your speech, and shoot video of everything around you. The Vision Pro is the first step down that path. Apple needs to keep walking it. Let’s see where it leads.
Weird apps Apple should make, the strangest looking tech we own, what will it take for Vision Pro to go mainstream, and the discontinued tech products we’d revive.
Over the last couple decades, Apple has solidified its place at the top of the technology world. Dominant products like the iPod, iPhone, and the iPad have made it a household name, which in turn has elevated the profile of even its more modest businesses, like the Mac and the Apple TV.
Apple has gotten the production of its devices down to a science, and while it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t been wildly successful, it seems as though that success should afford it some opportunities to make things that are, well…less successful. (And no, I’m not talking about the Vision Pro.)
Because in that field of super stardom, something has gotten lost: the weird and wacky Apple. The Apple willing to take chances on products that won’t—and maybe never will—set the world on fire, but that might still find a viable home amongst its hundreds of millions of customers. Fortunately, there are some indications that the company may indeed be open to taking some of these chances—possibly even sooner than we think.
Apple on Tuesday took the wraps off a rare brand-new app: Invites. And it’s more like an Evite competitor, not something designed for business meetings. Invites lets you create events to which you can — yes, you guessed it — invite guests, complete with a playlist and a shared photo album. Events can be customized with a background photo.
Apple today introduced Apple Invites, a new app for iPhone that helps users create custom invitations to gather friends and family for any occasion. With Apple Invites, users can create and easily share invitations, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and engage with Apple Music playlists. Starting today, users can download Apple Invites from the App Store, or access it on the web through icloud.com/invites. iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations, and anyone can RSVP, regardless of whether they have an Apple Account or Apple device.
It’s interesting to note that this app is limited to iCloud+ subscribers—in other words, anyone who is paying Apple at least a little extra for cloud storage.
Invitations come in the form of an iCloud link, sent via Messages, Mail, or by copying the link onto your clipboard. You’ll need to tap through each individual person and choose a format and then send them an invitation manually via a slide-up sheet—it’s a lot more laborious than I expected. Invitations can be accepted by anyone on any platform, and don’t require people to use iCloud or be in the Apple ecosystem.
The app seems perfectly nice, though I do wonder how many people will choose to use a bespoke app over the many other options out there. Also, Apple’s long-term track record with “fun” one-off apps is a little spotty; is this just Clips again? Maybe I’ll send you an invitation for 2028 and we can all meet up then to find out.
I’m a Six Colors Subscriber and someone who likes to draw pictures of data, and Jason Snell kindly asked me if I wanted to have a crack and drawing some additional graphs based on the 2024 Report Card.
The figures Jason makes of his Report Card data are already very good, so there is no point in remaking them just for the sake of it. Instead, I’ll show a few additional views that try to bring out some of the structure in the data.
What kind of structure might we be interested in? We can think of three broad areas: the ordering and distribution of the answers; patterns of non-response to the questions; and the relational structure of answers by question and respondent. Let’s look at each one in turn.
The first “Apple approved” porn app for iPhone is rolling out in Europe, via AltStore PAL’s alternative iOS app marketplace. AltStore PAL developer Riley Testut says that Hot Tub, which describes itself as an ad-free “adult content browser,” has made it through Apple’s notarization review for fraud, security threats, and functionality, and will be available for AltStore PAL users in the EU to download starting today.
AltStore and Testut knew exactly what they were doing when they implied an Apple endorsement of this product, presumably based on Apple’s notarization approval of an iOS app. Legally, Apple must notarize apps so long as they are “free of known malware, viruses or other security threats, function as promised and don’t expose users to egregious fraud.” So you can see that Apple’s hands are tied here. Which is why Apple is deeply unhappy with AltStore’s announcement, releasing this PR statement:
We are deeply concerned about the safety risks that hardcore porn apps of this type create for EU users, especially kids. This app and others like it will undermine consumer trust and confidence in our ecosystem that we have worked for more than a decade to make the best in the world. Contrary to the false statements made by the marketplace developer, we certainly do not approve of this app and would never offer it in our App Store. The truth is that we are required by the European Commission to allow it to be distributed by marketplace operators like AltStore and Epic who may not share our concerns for user safety.
But here’s the thing about notarization: Apple has used it in the past, in the EU, for reasons not covered by the above exceptions. It has refused to notarize emulators, and more than once. In the most recent refusal, it cited the use of “Mac operating system software on devices that are not Apple-branded computers.” Which is most definitely cause for all sorts of legal action, but doesn’t actually seem to be covered under the ways Apple is allowed to use notarization in the EU. Notarization is meant to be a straightforward system to protect users from really bad stuff—not another lever for Apple to pull when it wants to prevent anything from getting in the hands of users for any reason.
Which brings us back to Hot Tub. Apple representatives claim that AltStore is lying by asserting that Hot Tub was approved by the company. (Though it’s not great that Apple’s own emails use the phrase, “The following app has been approved for distribution.”) Instead, they claim that Apple’s hands are tied by the European Commission. And yet… the company has used its lever before to protect users from (checking my notes here) emulators of very old Mac models. Seems dangerous.
So which is it? Is notarization a tool Apple can use to bypass all of Europe’s regulations of Apple whenever it feels like preventing users from running MacPaint on an iPad? Or is it something out of Apple’s hands? If Apple chose to exercise its notarization powers to kill the UTM and Mini vMac emulators, but then let Hot Tub through… doesn’t AltStore have a point? It’s hard for Apple to argue its hands are tied if it’s used those hands in the recent past. (I’ve contacted Apple’s PR representatives and asked if they can explain the disparity in policies to me, and I’ll update this story if they reply.)
Once Hot Tub was announced as being a part of AltStore in the EU, an Apple email appeared in journalists’ inboxes decrying the event. This is what Apple has been waiting for all along. It’s an opportunity to portray App Store policies (under assault in the EU and elsewhere) as benevolent and under attack by the forces of evil, including the European Commission, pornographers and child traffickers, and Epic Games. Now it can complain that the European Commission has opened the proverbial floodgates and that any number of disgusting apps will be available to those who choose to download alternative marketplace apps, seek those apps out, and install them.
AltStore knew it would get a rise out of Apple by advertising a porn app as being Apple approved. (And I believe Apple’s guidelines specifically prohibit implied endorsements of alternative marketplaces by Apple, so AltStore may have stepped in it.) At the same time, Apple’s desperately been waiting for the moment it could point at a dangerous app so it can claim that exerting unchecked control over the App Store and taking a financial cut from every transaction is all in the interests of customers.
Like I said, this was inevitable. But I’m not sure AltStore really needed to poke the bear.
We discuss the results of the Six Colors Apple Report Card for 2024 in depth, with our opinions on every category. Also, Apple had another record financial quarter, and there’s a little bit of Rumor Roundup.
Every year we ask a collection of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people for their opinions about how Apple fared in the year just gone by. You can read our 2024 report card for the average scores and some juicy quotes. But if you want to read the whole thing—all 32,000 words of it—who are we to stand in your way? They wrote it, you read it. That’s how this works.
It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.)
This is the tenth year that I’ve presented this survey to my hand-selected group. They were prompted with 14 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and optionally provide text commentary per category.
As is only fitting for the survery’s tenth year, I’ve made a few adjustments to the questions I asked:
I’ve grouped Apple Watch and the new Vision Pro category under the pre-existing Wearables category, and asked panelists to submit votes for all three (but only gave them a single box to write overall commentary about Apple’s wearables efforts).
I’ve broken the former Software quality category into two separate, connected categories: Apple OS quality and Apple app quality. I felt that the old category tended to cause OS releases to swamp anything else that Apple did during the year in the realm of the many apps it develops alongside its platforms.
Finally, the old Environmental/Social impact category has been renamed World impact. In my mind, this category represents an opportunity to judge how Apple’s deeds live up to its philosophical words about making the world a better place. Panelists are free to define it however they’d like… and, believe me, they always do.
I received 59 replies (a 75 percent response rate), with the average results as shown below:
Since most of the survey categories are the same as in previous years, I was able to track the change in my panel’s consensus opinion. The net changes between 2023 and 2024 are displayed below:
Read on for category-by-category grades, trends, and select commentary from the panelists. (You can also read the entirety of panelist commentary—all 32,000 words—if you like.)
Really interesting interview from The Verge’s Nilay Patel with Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter on a wide range of topics, including the company’s recently launched ebook initiative. They touch on DRM, the big players’ influences in digital reading, and more. Well worth a listen or a read if you’re interested in how the company works, and what Hunter sees as the challenges.
Here’s an interesting and somewhat unexpected take, for example, on the situation with Apple’s 30 percent cut:
And are you expressed as a website? Is there an app? I’m asking about the app because selling ebooks and digital goods on mobile phones is pretty tricky.
Yeah, we launched the app yesterday, and we do not support purchasing in the app. And the reason for that is publishers say that resellers can get 30 percent margins when you sell an ebook. So the publisher gets 70 percent, you as a retailer get 30 percent. Now, if you sell it on the App Store, Apple says we get 30 percent. So that leaves 30 percent for Apple, 70 percent for the publisher. Now that’s 100 percent, so that leaves 0 percent for the bookstore. So you cannot sell ebooks in the app and make even a penny, it’s impossible. So there’s no choice but to circumvent the App Store purchasing and force customers to go to the website to buy the books, which is unfortunate because customers don’t understand that. They just think, “You built this dumb app and I can’t buy ebooks in it, why not?” So you’ve got to try to explain it to them.
I’d say what would be rational is if you were a reseller of a digital good that you would pay Apple 30 percent of the profit margin. Thirty percent of the margin would be reasonable, but by saying it’s a flat 30 percent whether or not you’re a reseller, it makes no sense because if your margins on the product are 30 percent and they take 30 percent, then it’s suddenly impossible to have an ebook app, which is why Kindle, you can’t buy the ebooks in the app either, why you can’t buy audiobooks on Spotify’s app, all of that.
DeepSeek upends the AI market, Apple has totally surprising results (disclaimer: not at all surprising), and the company looks to cement ties with people who are objectively the worst.
You can’t steal stuff! Only we can steal stuff!
Hey, kids! Mom made a big batch of Schadenfreude! Who wants some?!
Yes, DeepSeek’s jump to the top of the app downloads list spelled bad news for AI stocks as it appeared the new model was made more cheaply and with less energy than competing models from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.
You know, sometimes it seems like maybe this AI thing isn’t all thought out yet. And that’s frustrating because it could be a lot more useful… if it wasn’t largely controlled by a collection of yahoos and charlatans.
Expect the expected
Are you sitting down? Because if you thought that was big news, just wait. There’s even bigger news.
Apple… you’re sitting, right? OK. Apple… reported record revenue for the previous quarter.
I know, right? Who saw that coming? (Basically everyone.)
iPhone revenue was actually down 1% and there are indications that the iPhone might have peaked in China. But don’t worry, because Tim Cook was right there with some soothing words.
There’s a lot more to come and I could not feel more optimistic about our product pipeline…there’s a lot of innovation left on the smartphone.
Whew! That’s a relief, and straight from the horse’s mouth. Sure, it’s not the first time Cook has said something like this when analysts got jittery about the iPhone, but look what startling innovations Apple was able to supply in recent years:
Larger
Added a button
So… pretty sure big things are coming for the iPhone. (Spoiler: it is set to get even larger. Wow!)
With this kind of fantastic innovation in the hypeline, it’s no wonder the company was, for the 18th year in a row, ranked by Fortune as the most admired company in the world.
Seriously, who doesn’t admire the ability to print money?
Paying off
Apple is trying to see just how much $1 million gets ya. And it hopes the answer is billions of dollars.
Apple says that because its deal with Google is at stake, it deserves a right to participate, and without a stay, it will “suffer clear and substantial irreparable harm.”
“Gasp… bill-ions… gasp… need… billions…”
Good luck to you, Apple! We’d hate for you to only be rolling in some of it rather than all of it. Pro tip, Apple: while $1 million seems like a lot, have you considered a bribe of $25 million?
Meanwhile, Apple is rumored to be further boosting its rich dude cred by holding talks about resuming advertising on ex-Twitter, apparently because an oligarch has a sad.
The Wall Street Journal says that several major companies are reevaluating their stance on advertising on X. Amazon plans to up its ad spending as well, and the boost in advertising could help X with some of its debt. In January, Musk said that user growth was stagnant, revenue was “unimpressive,” and that the company was “barely breaking even.”
My take is that it couldn’t happen to a Nazi-er guy, but you do you, Tim!
Linux distro Debian, meanwhile, announced that it’s no longer going to even post on ex-Twitter.
X evolved into a place where people we care about don’t feel safe.
It may not be the year of Linux on the desktop, but maybe it’ll be the year of Linux in our hearts.
[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.]
