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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><title>Daring Fireball</title><subtitle>By John Gruber</subtitle><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main" /><id>https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main</id> <updated>2024-04-20T01:13:31Z</updated><rights>Copyright © 2024, John Gruber</rights><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/face_the_critic_ian_betteridge_edition" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vgk" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40772</id> <published>2024-04-20T00:53:41Z</published> <updated>2024-04-20T01:13:31Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">To sum up my stance: Tracking is wrong when it’s done without consent, and when users have no idea what’s being tracked or how it’s being used. Tracking is fine when it’s done with consent, and users know what’s being tracked and how it’s being used.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://ianbetteridge.com/2024/04/19/what-a-difference-four-years-makes/">Ian Betteridge</a>, quoting yours truly on non-consensual tracking <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2020/09/online_privacy_real_world_privacy">back in 2020</a> and then <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/edpb_meta_pay_or_ok">my piece yesterday</a> on the EDPB issuing an opinion against Meta’s “Pay or OK” model in the EU:</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161">I wonder what happened</a> to turn John’s attitude from “no action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong” to defending Facebook’s “right” to choose how it invades people’s privacy? Or is he suggesting that a private company is entitled to defend people’s privacy, but governments are not? </p></blockquote> <p>I’ve seen a bit of pushback along this line recently, more or less asking: <em>How come I was against Meta’s tracking but now seem for it?</em> I don’t see any contradiction or change in my position though. The only thing I’d change in the 2020 piece Betteridge quotes is this sentence, which Betteridge emphasizes: “No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.” I should have inserted an adjective before “tracking” — it’s <em>non-consensual</em> tracking I object to, especially tracking that’s downright surreptitious. Not tracking in and of itself.</p> <p>That’s why I remain a staunch supporter of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, and consider it a success. Apple didn’t ban the use of the <a href="https://www.adjust.com/glossary/idfa/">IDFA</a> for cross-app tracking, and they were correct not to. They simply now require consent. If I had believed that all tracking was ipso facto wrong, I’d have been opposed to ATT on the grounds that it offers the “Allow” choice.</p> <p>Also from 2020, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/12/18/steve-jobs-on-privacy">I quoted Steve Jobs on privacy</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain English, and repeatedly. That’s what it means. I’m an optimist, I believe people are smart. And some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data. </p></blockquote> <p>That’s what ATT does. And that’s what’s Meta’s “Pay or OK” model in the EU does. It offers users a clear fair choice: Use Facebook and Instagram free of charge with targeted ads, or pay a reasonable monthly fee for an ad-free experience. No less than Margrethe Vestager herself, back in 2018, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">was keen on this idea</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>My concern is more about whether we get the right choices. I would like to have a Facebook in which I pay a fee each month, but I would have no tracking and advertising and the full benefits of privacy. It is a provoking thought after all the Facebook scandal. This market is not being explored. </p></blockquote> <p>Now Meta is “exploring” that market, but the European Commission doesn’t like the results, because it turns out that when given the clear choice, the overwhelming majority of EU denizens prefer to use Meta’s platforms free-of-charge with targeted ads.</p> <p>The best aspects of the EU’s digital privacy laws are <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/">those that give people the right to know what data is being collected</a>, where it’s being stored, who it’s being shared with, etc. That’s all fantastic. But the worst aspect is the paternalism. The EU is correct to require that users be required to provide consent before being tracked across properties. And Apple is correct for protecting unique device IDFA identifiers behind a mandatory “<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102420">Ask App Not to Track / Allow</a>” consent alert. But Jobs was right too: people are smart, and they can — and should be allowed to — make their own decisions. And many people are more comfortable with sharing data than others. The privacy zealots leading this crusade in the EU do not think people are smart, and do not think they should trusted to make these decisions for themselves.</p> <p>I don’t like Meta as a company. If a corporation can be smarmy, Meta is that. And they’ve done a lot of <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/03/29/meta-onavo-snapchat">creepy stuff</a> over the years, and for a long while clearly acted as though they were entitled to track whatever they could get away with technically. I suspect they thought that if they asked for consent, or made clear what and how they tracked, that users would revolt. But it turns out billions of people who enjoy Meta’s platforms are fine with the deal.</p> <p>It’s obviously the case that for some people, Meta’s past transgressions are unforgivable. That’s each person’s decision to make for themselves. Me, <a href="https://www.theredhandfiles.com/what-is-mercy-for-you/">I believe in mercy</a>. Again, I still don’t really like the company, by and large. But Threads is pretty good. And sometimes, when I occasionally check in, Instagram can still make me smile. It’s very clear what I’m sharing with Meta when I use those apps, and I’m fine with that. If you’re not, don’t use them. (I’ve still never created a Facebook blue app account, and still feel like I haven’t missed out on a damn thing.)</p> <p>To sum up my stance: Tracking is wrong when it’s done without consent, and when users have no idea what’s being tracked or how it’s being used. Tracking is fine when it’s done with consent, and users know what’s being tracked and how it’s being used. Privacy doesn’t mean never being tracked. It means never being tracked without clear consent. I think Meta is now largely, if not entirely, on the right side of this.</p> <p>It’s paternalistic — infantilizing even — to believe that government bureaucrats should take these decisions out of the hands of EU citizens. Me, I trust people to decide for themselves. The current European Commission regime is clearly of the belief that all tracking is wrong, regardless of consent. That’s a radical belief that is not representative of the public. The government’s proper role is to ensure people <em>can</em> make an informed choice, and that they have control over their own data. That’s what I thought four years ago, and it’s what I think now.</p> ]]></content> <title>★ Face the Critic: Ian Betteridge Edition</title></entry><entry> <title>Might Meta Go Pay-Only in the EU?</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/the-edpb-invalidates-metas-use-of-pay-or-okay-what-next/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgj" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/meta-pay-only-eu" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40771</id> <published>2024-04-19T22:10:55Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T23:20:19Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Eric Seufert, writing at Mobile Dev Memo, spitballing how Meta might respond if the EU accepts the recommendation from the EDPB that their “Pay or OK” model is illegal:</p> <p><em>Charge a nominal fee for the ad-supported versions of Facebook and Instagram</em></p> <blockquote> <p>Meta could introduce a small fee to use the ad-supported versions of Facebook and Instagram, rendering them as completely paid products in the EU. By eliminating its free tier, Meta should theoretically sidestep the conditions proposed in the EDPB’s opinion, since the elimination of a free tier supported by personalized advertising renders the Pay or Okay restrictions irrelevant. </p> <p>As frequent MDM Podcast <a href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/a-deep-dive-on-the-digital-markets-act-dma-and-digital-services-act-dsa/">guest</a> Mikołaj Barczentewicz points out in <a href="https://barczentewicz.substack.com/p/netflix-disney-and-meta-whats-an">this blog post</a>, both Netflix and Disney+ target ads behaviorally in their <em>paid</em>, ad-supported tiers. Meta could point to these products as examples of this pricing model being invoked: all options are paid, but the cheapest option is subsidized by behaviorally-supported ads. Of course, the EDPB has given itself latitude with its definition of “large online platform” to only litigate specific instances of commercial strategy. </p></blockquote> <p>I didn’t think of this when I spitballed my own ideas for how Meta might respond. Maybe they offer two tiers: €1/month with targeted ads, or €6/month without ads. Maybe they even make the fee for the ad tier truly nominal, say €1/<em>year</em>? The problem with this might be that too few people are willing to pay anything at all for social networking. Because it’s always been free-of-charge, people (not unreasonably!) now think it ought to forever remain free-of-charge.</p> <p>Regarding the “just exit the EU” option, Seufert writes:</p> <blockquote> <p>I don’t believe that Meta will respond by exiting the EU market altogether — at least not in the near term. Per above: the EU is 10% of (what I understand to be) Facebook’s global advertising revenue, and GDPR fines aren’t as significant as those incurred under the DMA. The maximum fine under the <a href="https://gdpr.eu/fines/">GDPR</a> is 4% of annual worldwide turnover, whereas the maximum fine under the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_2349">DMA</a> is 20% of annual worldwide turnover. While I do believe the EU regulatory regime’s intransigence will influence a scaled, US-domiciled tech company to exit the EU market in the medium term, my sense is that Meta won’t take that course of action in immediate response to this decision. </p></blockquote> <p>That 10 percent figure is big but not indispensable. And it’s not much bigger than <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">Apple’s 7 percent figure</a> for App Store revenue from the EU. The EU is indeed a big and important market, but it’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">nowhere near as big or important as the European Commissioners think</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Might Meta Go Pay-Only in the EU?’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/meta-pay-only-eu"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Twitter Alternative Post News Is Shutting Down</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://post.news/@/noam/2fJw4PYRFjya343RpiToiyEQr0x" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgi" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/post-post-news" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40770</id> <published>2024-04-19T21:30:23Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T21:41:26Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Noam Bardin:</p> <blockquote> <p>It is with a heavy heart that I share this sad news with you. Despite how much we’ve accomplished together, we will be shutting down Post News within the next few weeks. </p> <p>We have done many great things together. We built a toxicity-free community, a platform where Publishers engage, and an app that validated many theories around Micropayments and consumers’ willingness to purchase individual articles. We even managed to cultivate a phenomenal tipping ecosystem for creators and commenters. </p> <p>But, at the end of the day, our service is not growing fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform. A consumer business, at its core, needs to show rapid consumer adoption and we have not managed to find the right product combination to make it happen. </p></blockquote> <p>Post News was a longshot from the start, going up against (a) the entrenched leader in the space, Twitter/X; (b) the open alternative of Mastodon; (c) Meta-backed and Instagram-derived Threads; and (d) the Jack-Dorsey-funded Bluesky. I’m not sure there’s room for all four of those, let alone a fifth.</p> <p>But I think Post shot itself in the foot right out of the gate going web-only. They eventually got around to putting an “app” in the App Store but it’s just a thin wrapper around their website — so thin that you can drag-and-drop the tab controller buttons and <a href="https://capacitorjs.com/">see exactly which PWA framework</a> they used <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/post-news-capacitor.jpeg">from the custom URLs shown in the drag proxy</a>. People don’t want to use PWAs; they want real apps. Native iOS apps are so important to social networking that Threads launched app-only for its first two months before launching its web version.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Twitter Alternative Post News Is Shutting Down’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/post-post-news"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>China Orders Apple to Remove WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram From Chinese App Store</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-removes-whatsapp-threads-from-china-app-store-on-government-orders-a0c02100" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgh" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/china-app-store-messaging-apps" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40769</id> <published>2024-04-19T21:13:18Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T21:13:18Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Aaron Tilley, Liza Lin, and Jeff Horwitz, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (<a href="https://apple.news/ADnTQt6CvRiCdRPyDEpvVSw">News+</a>):</p> <blockquote> <p>Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads as well as messaging platforms Signal and Telegram were taken off the Chinese App Store Friday. Apple said it was told to remove certain apps because of national security concerns, without specifying which. </p> <p>“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesperson said. </p> <p>These messaging apps, which allow users to exchange messages and share files individually and in large groups, combined have around three billion users globally. They can only be accessed in China through virtual private networks that take users outside China’s Great Firewall, but are still commonly used. </p></blockquote> <p>I’m surprised any of these apps had been available in China until now. Two questions:</p> <ul><li><p>Are these apps still on the iPhones of Chinese people who already had them installed? I don’t recall Apple ever using the kill switch that revokes the developer signing for already-installed copies of apps pulled from the App Store. E.g., iGBA, <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/15/apple-removes-igba-from-app-store/">the rip-off Nintendo emulator</a> that briefly rocketed to the top of the charts last weekend — pulled from the App Store early this week, but if you installed it while it was available, you can still use it.</p></li><li><p>Do Android phones in China offer sideloading?</p></li></ul> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘China Orders Apple to Remove WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram From Chinese App Store’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/china-app-store-messaging-apps"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>The Best Simple USB-C Microphone: Audio-Technica’s ATR2100x-USB</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07ZPBFVKK/?tag=df-amzn-20" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgg" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/atr2100x-usb-microphone" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40768</id> <published>2024-04-19T16:28:18Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T16:28:19Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Joe Fabisevich <a href="https://www.threads.net/@mergesort/post/C54D3acubu9">asked a common question on Threads</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>What’s the go to simple USB-C podcast mic that sounds good, but doesn’t have to be top of the line or super expensive? Think more “I need to sound professional on a podcast or two”, not “I make my money by recording podcasts.” </p></blockquote> <p>My answer: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07ZPBFVKK/?tag=df-amzn-20">Audio-Technica’s ATR2100×-USB</a>. It costs just $50 at Amazon. (That’s an affiliate link that will make me rich if you buy through it.) Spend an extra $4 and get <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ANI6VQ?tag=df-amzn-20">a foam windscreen cap</a>. I mean just look at it — it literally looks like the microphone emoji: 🎤. You can just plug it into a USB-C port and it sounds great. No need for an XLR interface, but it does support XLR if you ever have the need.</p> <p>My main podcasting microphone <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/09/15/marco-arment-mics">remains</a> the $260 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002BACBO/?tag=df-amzn-20">Shure BETA 87A Supercardioid Condenser</a>, which I connect to a $180 <a href="https://amzn.to/44dMKxC">SSL 2 audio interface</a>. But that stays in my podcast cave in the basement. I keep the ATR2100× in my carry-on suitcase, so it’s with me whenever I’m away from home. My <a href="https://dithering.fm/">Dithering</a> co-host Ben Thompson uses the same ATR2100× when he’s away from home, too. It’s a great simple mic and a fantastic value at just $50.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘The Best Simple USB-C Microphone: Audio-Technica’s ATR2100×-USB’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/atr2100x-usb-microphone"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Google Reorg Puts Android, Chrome, Photos and More Under Leadership of Devices Team</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24133881/google-android-pixel-teams-reorg-rick-osterloh" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgf" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-reorg-under-devices" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40767</id> <published>2024-04-19T02:15:45Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T23:19:44Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>David Pierce, writing for The Verge:</p> <blockquote> <p>Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced substantial internal reorganizations on Thursday, including the creation of a new team called “Platforms and Devices” that will oversee all of Google’s Pixel products, all of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and more. The team will be run by Rick Osterloh, who was previously the SVP of devices and services, overseeing all of Google’s hardware efforts. Hiroshi Lockheimer, the longtime head of Android, Chrome, and ChromeOS, will be taking on other projects inside of Google and Alphabet. </p> <p>This is a huge change for Google, and it likely won’t be the last one. There’s only one reason for all of it, Osterloh says: AI. “This is not a secret, right?” he says. Consolidating teams “helps us to be able to do full-stack innovation when that’s necessary,” Osterloh says. </p></blockquote> <p>I’m sure this <em>is</em> about AI, but I think it’s also about getting the company’s shit together and forming a cohesive strategy for integration with their consumer devices. Lost amid the schadenfreude surrounding the near-universal panning of Humane’s AI Pin is the question of, well, what <em>are</em> the device form factors we need for AI-driven features? I would argue, strenuously, that the phone is the natural AI device. It already has: always-on networking, cameras, a screen, microphones, and speakers. Everyone owns one and almost everyone takes theirs with them almost everywhere they go.</p> <p>Putting all of Android under a new division led by the guy in charge of Pixel devices since 2016 says to me that Google sees AI not primarily as a way to make Android better, in general, but to make Pixel devices better, specifically. Best-of-class AI, only on Pixels, could be the sort of differentiation that actually results in Pixels gaining traction.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Google Reorg Puts Android, Chrome, Photos and More Under Leadership of Devices Team’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-reorg-under-devices"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Elizabeth Warren, Still Using Twitter/X: ‘It’s Time to Break Up Apple’s Smartphone Monopoly’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1781086997014040759" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vge" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/warren-imessage" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40766</id> <published>2024-04-19T01:55:21Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T02:19:09Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Senator Elizabeth Warren seemingly thinks Apple ought to be forced to operate iMessage as a public utility, free of charge. Or something? She doesn’t actually say what she thinks should happen. Is she suggesting Apple be forced to spin off “iMessage” as a separate company? If not, what is she advocating “breaking up”?</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Elizabeth Warren, Still Using Twitter/X: ‘It’s Time to Break Up Apple’s Smartphone Monopoly’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/warren-imessage"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Google Fires 28 Employees Who Disrupted Workplaces to Protest Israel Cloud Contract</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24133700/google-fires-28-employees-protest-israel-cloud-contract" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgd" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-fires-28" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40765</id> <published>2024-04-19T01:15:15Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T02:19:45Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, in a company-wide memo published at The Verge, under the clear subject “Serious consequences for disruptive behavior”:</p> <blockquote> <p>Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to — including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns. </p> <p>We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination. </p></blockquote> <p>It says a lot about how adrift Google was that “We are a place of business” needed to be stated, but better late than never. I can’t believe they let these goofs occupy Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office for 8 hours before having them arrested. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=google%20employees%20arrested&src=typed_query">They look and act like college students doing a sit-in</a> at the dean’s office, not professional employees protesting their CEO. In college you pay to be there — students are the customers, ostensibly. At work they pay you, at will.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Google Fires 28 Employees Who Disrupted Workplaces to Protest Israel Cloud Contract’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-fires-28"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Meta Releases New AI Assistant Powered by Llama 3 Model</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24133808/meta-ai-assistant-llama-3-chatgpt-openai-rival" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgc" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/meta-ai" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40764</id> <published>2024-04-19T01:08:38Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T01:08:39Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:</p> <blockquote> <p>ChatGPT kicked off the AI chatbot race. Meta is determined to win it. </p> <p>To that end: the Meta AI assistant, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23891128/meta-ai-assistant-characters-whatsapp-instagram-connect">introduced last September</a>, is now being integrated into the search box of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It’s also going to start appearing directly in the main Facebook feed. You can still chat with it in the messaging inboxes of Meta’s apps. And for the first time, it’s now accessible via a standalone website at <a href="http://meta.ai/">Meta.ai</a>. </p> <p>For Meta’s assistant to have any hope of being a real ChatGPT competitor, the underlying model has to be just as good, if not better. That’s why Meta is also announcing Llama 3, the next major version of its foundational open-source model. Meta says that Llama 3 outperforms competing models of its class on key benchmarks and that it’s better across the board at tasks like coding. Two smaller Llama 3 models are being released today, both in the Meta AI assistant and to outside developers, while a much larger, multimodal version is arriving in the coming months. </p></blockquote> <p>I keep circling back to the notion that OpenAI has no moat. ChatGPT is certainly the best-known LLM, and perhaps still the best, but I don’t think that’s any more of a long-term competitive advantage than some company in 1986 having “the best C compiler”. What’s needed are ways to bring LLMs to users. To give them purpose, in products. That’s what Meta is doing, by integrating their AI into all of their major products.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Meta Releases New AI Assistant Powered by Llama 3 Model’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/meta-ai"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers Next Year</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/netflix-stop-reporting-subscriber-numbers-starting-2025-1235975341/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgb" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/netflix-numbers" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40763</id> <published>2024-04-18T23:25:08Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T02:06:41Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Todd Spangler, reporting for Variety:</p> <blockquote> <p>Netflix will no longer report subscriber numbers — which has been a key metric for streaming services for years — beginning with the first quarter of 2025. </p> <p>The company made the announcement in releasing <a href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/netflix-subscribers-2024-q1-earnings-1235975242/">its first-quarter 2024 earnings</a> Thursday. Netflix handily topped expectations for subscribers net adds, gaining 9.33 million in the period, to reach nearly 270 million globally. It also beat Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines. [...] </p> <p>Despite the Q1 earnings beat, Netflix shares dropped more than 4.5% in after-hours trading Thursday, possibly as investors reacted negatively to the news that the streamer will stop reporting quarterly sub totals. </p> <p>In its Q1 letter to shareholders, Netflix said that engagement — time spent with the service — is its “best proxy for customer satisfaction.” As such, it will no longer report quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per member (which it dubs “ARM”), as of Q1 2025. Netflix said it will announce “major subscriber milestones as we cross them” but will cease disclosing quarterly subscriber numbers. </p></blockquote> <p>I don’t think investors should be alarmed. This is what companies do when their growth phase is over. Apple used to break down unit sales for its various devices and stopped long ago. Netflix is no longer an up-and-comer — they’re the established leader in streaming, and should be judged accordingly.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers Next Year’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/netflix-numbers"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>U.S. Court Rules That Police Can Force a Suspect to Unlock Phone With Thumbprint</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/cops-can-force-suspect-to-unlock-phone-with-thumbprint-us-court-rules/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vga" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/police-touch-id" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40762</id> <published>2024-04-18T22:40:21Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T23:28:02Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica:</p> <blockquote> <p>The US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing a suspect to unlock a phone with a thumbprint scan, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The ruling does not apply to all cases in which biometrics are used to unlock an electronic device but is a significant decision in an unsettled area of the law. [...]</p> <p>Payne’s Fifth Amendment claim “rests entirely on whether the use of his thumb implicitly related certain facts to officers such that he can avail himself of the privilege against self-incrimination,” the ruling said. Judges rejected his claim, holding “that the compelled use of Payne’s thumb to unlock his phone (which he had already identified for the officers) required no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking.” </p> <p>“When Officer Coddington used Payne’s thumb to unlock his phone — which he could have accomplished even if Payne had been unconscious — he did not intrude on the contents of Payne’s mind,” the court also said. </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/04/periodic-reminder-never-use-touchid-or-faceid/">Via Jamie Zawinski</a>, who advises never using Touch ID or Face ID. I strongly disagree with that advice. Almost everyone is far more secure using Face ID rather than relying on a passcode/passphrase alone. People who don’t use Face/Touch ID are surely tempted to use a short easily-entered passcode for convenience, and anyone who disables Face/Touch ID while using a nontrivial passphrase is encountering a huge inconvenience <em>every single time</em> they unlock their phone. There’s no good reason to put yourself through that.</p> <p>My advice is to internalize the shortcut to hard-lock an iPhone, which temporarily disables Face/Touch ID and requires the passcode to unlock: squeeze the side button and either of the volume buttons for a second or so. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2022/06/require_a_passcode_to_unlock_your_iphone">I wrote an entire article about this two years ago</a>. Don’t just learn this shortcut, <em>internalize</em> it, so that you don’t have to think about it under duress. Just squeeze the side buttons until you feel the phone vibrate. Then it’s hard-locked. Do this whenever you go through security — be it at the airport, the ballpark, or anywhere. If you see a magnetometer, hard-lock your iPhone. If you get pulled over by a cop while driving, hard-lock your phone before you do anything else. (You can still launch the Camera app from the lock screen to record the encounter, if you wish, while the phone remains hard-locked.) Tell everyone you know how to hard-lock their iPhones.</p> <p>(Also, this ruling is specific to the details of this particular case, and thus only addresses fingerprint authentication, not facial recognition. Those concerned with civil liberties should presume, though, that the same court would rule similarly regarding cops unlocking a device by waving it in front of the suspect’s face. But with “Require Attention for Face ID” — which is on by default — Face ID won’t work if you keep your eyes closed, and I don’t think a court would allow police to force your eyes open. The trick to worry about is the police handing you back your phone, under the pretense that you can use it to make a call or something, and then yanking it from your hands after you unlock it.)</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘U.S. Court Rules That Police Can Force a Suspect to Unlock Phone With Thumbprint’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/police-touch-id"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Nothing Integrates ChatGPT With Its Wireless Earbuds and Phones</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-chatgpt-features-wireless-earbuds-phones" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg9" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/nothing-chatgpt" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40761</id> <published>2024-04-18T21:32:34Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T21:32:35Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>James Pero, writing at Inverse:</p> <blockquote> <p>Nothing’s audio products — including the <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-ear-a-wireless-earbuds-price-specs-release-date">newly announced Ear and Ear A</a> — are bringing what the company calls an “industry-first” integration with ChatGPT that allows users who also own a Nothing Phone <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-phone-2a-review-camera-specs-chip-battery">like the recently released Phone 2a</a> to launch the chatbot with a pinch gesture on their <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-ear-2-review-wireless-earbuds">Nothing earbuds</a>. </p> <p>“By integrating ChatGPT with Nothing earbuds, including the new Nothing Ear and Ear A, and with Nothing OS, we’ve taken our first steps towards change, and there’s more to come,” said Nothing CEO, Carl Pei, in a press release. </p></blockquote> <p>Looks like it’s time for the DOJ to file another lawsuit against Apple for offering tight integration between its phones and peripherals.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Nothing Integrates ChatGPT With Its Wireless Earbuds and Phones’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/nothing-chatgpt"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/edpb_meta_pay_or_ok" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vg8" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40760</id> <published>2024-04-18T02:35:24Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T22:49:31Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">If Meta caves and complies with this ruling by offering a free tier with significantly lower ARPU, that opens the door for regulators and legislative bodies around the globe to demand the same.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://www.threads.net/@eric_seufert/post/C53UyPNr9lm">Eric Seufert, on Threads</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>The EDPB — the EU’s legislature of privacy authorities — adopted a draft opinion today determining that large online platforms can’t offer a “pay or okay” model as a strict binary and must also offer a third, free choice that doesn’t utilize personalized advertising. </p></blockquote> <p>Given which way the wind’s been blowing in the EU, this is unsurprising, but make no mistake, this is a radical stance. <a href="https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2024-04/edpb_opinion_202408_consentorpay_en.pdf">From the EDPB’s draft ruling (PDF)</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>The offering of (only) a paid alternative to the service which includes processing for behavioural advertising purposes should not be the default way forward for controllers. When developing the alternative to the version of the service with behavioural advertising, large online platforms should consider providing data subjects with an ‘equivalent alternative’ that does not entail the payment of a fee. If controllers choose to charge a fee for access to the ‘equivalent alternative’, controllers should consider also offering a further alternative, free of charge, without behavioural advertising, e.g. with a form of advertising involving the processing of less (or no) personal data. This is a particularly important factor in the assessment of certain criteria for valid consent under the GDPR. In most cases, whether a further alternative without behavioural advertising is offered by the controller, free of charge, will have a substantial impact on the assessment of the validity of consent, in particular with regard to the detriment aspect. </p> <p>With respect to the requirements of the GDPR for valid consent, first of all, consent needs to be ‘freely given’. In order to avoid detriment that would exclude freely given consent, any fee imposed cannot be such as to effectively inhibit data subjects from making a free choice. Furthermore, detriment may arise where non-consenting data subjects do not pay a fee and thus face exclusion from the service, especially in cases where the service has a prominent role, or is decisive for participation in social life or access to professional networks, even more so in the presence of lock-in or network effects. As a result, detriment is likely to occur when large online platforms use a ‘consent or pay’ model to obtain consent for the processing. </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.threads.net/@eric_seufert/post/C54cNcWxJYI">Seufert again</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>In its opinion on Meta’s use of the Pay or Okay model, the EDPB effectively says that any sufficiently valuable product must offer a free version that doesn’t monetize via behavioral ads. That the quality of being indispensable means consumers must have unfettered access to it. </p></blockquote> <p>What makes this all the more outrageous is that many major publishers in the EU use this exact same “pay or OK” model to achieve GDPR compliance — and none offer a free alternative with non-targeted ads. Don’t hold your breath waiting for <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/">Der Spiegel</a> to offer free access without ads. Christ, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/der-spiegel-pay-or-ok.jpeg">they don’t even let you look at their homepage</a> without paying or consenting to targeted ads. And Spotify quite literally <a href="https://ads.spotify.com/en-US/audience-targeting/">brags about its ad targeting</a>. But Spotify is an EU company, so of course it wasn’t designated as a “gatekeeper” by the protection racketeers running the European Commission.</p> <p>They’re not saying “pay or OK” is illegal. They’re saying it’s illegal only if you’re a big company from outside the EU with a very popular platform.</p> <p>Meta’s only options for compliance with this ruling, as I see it:</p> <ul><li><p>Offer a new free tier with contextual, rather than targeted, ads. To achieve an ARPU equivalent to Meta’s paid and free-with-targeted-ads tiers, this new offering would likely have to inundate users with a veritable avalanche of annoying ads. This, I would wager, would be deemed “malicious compliance” and thus also illegal.</p></li><li><p>Offer a new free tier with contextual, rather than targeted, ads — but only show roughly the same frequency of ads as their lucrative free-with-targeted-ads tier. This is what the EDPB (and EC) are demanding, and seemingly think they can force Meta to do. Meta would almost certainly see ARPU plummet for all users who opt into this tier. Who knows if the revenue would even be sufficient to break even per such user?</p></li><li><p>Invent some novel way to generate as much revenue per non-targeted ad as targeted ones. This is the “nerd harder” fantasy solution, a la demanding that secure end-to-end encryption provide back doors available only to “the good guys”.</p></li><li><p>Cease offering Facebook and Instagram in the EU. (WhatsApp doesn’t monetize through targeted ads, so isn’t germane to this ruling.) This is the option <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">the EDPB and EC believe “unthinkable”</a> for Meta to take, because the EU is, in their minds, an indispensable market.</p></li></ul> <p>I don’t see how Meta can risk the second choice. Meta could afford to see ARPU plummet solely within the EU, and at first thought, you might think <em>some</em> revenue per EU user is surely better than <em>no</em> revenue at all from the EU. But if Meta caves and complies with this ruling by offering a free tier with significantly lower ARPU, that opens the door for regulators and legislative bodies around the globe to demand the same. Then, <em>poof</em> goes Meta as an industry colossus.</p> <p>I suspect the EU regulatory bodies have some surprises coming regarding how this is going to play out.</p> ]]></content> <title>★ European Data Protection Board Goes There, Rules Against Meta’s ‘Pay or OK’ Model</title></entry><entry> <title>‘Oh the Humanity’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.sandofsky.com/humane/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg7" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/oh-the-humanity" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40759</id> <published>2024-04-18T01:21:00Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T01:23:02Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Ben Sandofsky:</p> <blockquote> <p>An ex-Apple designer who went on to startup success once told me, “I wish I could give a workshop for Apple alumni jumping into startups, to help them un-learn The Apple Way.” As someone who strives to build products with the craft and quality of Apple, it pains me to admit that The Apple Way can destroy a lot of startups. Which brings us to Humane. </p></blockquote> <p>Great piece. And it brings to mind an observation I’m far from the first to make: There are far fewer startups founded by former Apple employees than one would expect, given Apple’s spectacular run over the past 25 years.</p> <p>Nest is an obvious exception, but Tony Fadell had a very atypical career at Apple. He was brought in as a contractor in 2001 to help create the iPod, and stayed until 2008. He was more “the iPod guy” not “an Apple person”. And the original Nest thermostat couldn’t be more opposite from Humane’s AI Pin — the Nest did exactly what it promised, very well. Even the fact that it included a screen. Most importantly, Nest’s thermostat took aim at replacing existing dumb thermostats, which were terrible. Nest’s product really was something like 10× better than what it aimed to disrupt. The AI Pin took aim at the iPhone, which is insanely great.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘‘Oh the Humanity’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/oh-the-humanity"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter and Friend, Stole $16 Million to Pay Only a Portion of His Gambling Losses</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/business/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-details.html" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg6" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/mizuhara-ohtani-16-million" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40758</id> <published>2024-04-18T00:32:47Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T00:32:48Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting">Speaking of sports gambling scandals</a>, here’s Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt, reporting for The New York Times:</p> <blockquote> <p>Ohtani has many other accounts, of course — he earns more money from endorsements and business deals than he does from his lucrative baseball salary. But it was this account, solely for Ohtani’s baseball earnings, that Mizuhara would scheme to take control of and then, as he fell deeper into a gambling addiction, pilfer for years, according to prosecutors. </p> <p>Mizuhara changed the settings of the account so alerts and confirmations of transactions would go to him, not Ohtani. Drawing on phone recordings obtained from the bank, prosecutors said Mizuhara had also impersonated Ohtani to gain the bank’s approval for certain large transactions. And whenever one of Ohtani’s other advisers — his agent, tax preparer, bookkeeper or financial adviser, all of whom were interviewed for the federal investigation — inquired about the account, Mizuhara told them that Ohtani preferred the account to remain private. </p> <p>Between November 2021 and January this year, Mizuhara stole $16 million from the account to feed his “voracious appetite for illegal sports betting,” according to E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.</p></blockquote> <p>Sounds like the plot from a Coen brothers movie. At every step where anyone tried to check with Ohtani on this bank account, they went through Mizuhara as a translator.</p> <blockquote> <p>This being a baseball story, the criminal complaint was stuffed with numbers:</p> <ul><li>19,000 bets.</li><li>$142,256,769.74 total winning bets.</li><li>$182,935,206.58 total losing bets.</li></ul></blockquote> <p>That’s 20-some bets per day, for years, for nearly $20,000 per wager on average. Just the frequency alone, setting aside the high stakes, is staggering.</p> <p>It’s good to know, though, that Ohtani was oblivious to all of it.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter and Friend, Stole $16 Million to Pay Only a Portion of His Gambling Losses’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/mizuhara-ohtani-16-million"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>NBA Bars Jontay Porter for Betting</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://theathletic.com/5423208/2024/04/17/jontay-porter-banned-nba-betting/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg5" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40757</id> <published>2024-04-18T00:15:45Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T00:15:46Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Joe Vardon, reporting for The Athletic:</p> <blockquote> <p>The league said that Porter, who spent part of his time in the NBA and part of it in its developmental G League, privately told a sports bettor he was hurt, removed himself from a game to control prop bets on his own play, and placed his own wagers on NBA games. </p> <p>He is the first active player or coach to be expelled from the NBA for gambling since Jack Molinas in 1954. </p> <p>According to the results of a league investigation, Porter, 24, gave a confidential tip about his health to a person he knew to be a sports bettor, prior to the Raptors’ game on March 20 against the Sacramento Kings. A third individual, connected to both Porter and the original recipient of Porter’s health information, placed an $80,000 parlay bet to win $1.1 million, betting that Porter would underperform against the Kings. </p> <p>To make sure that the bet hit, the league found, Porter pulled himself out of that game against the Kings after just three minutes, claiming he was ill. The investigation also showed that from January through March, while either playing for Toronto or the Raptors’ G League affiliate, Porter placed at least 13 bets on NBA games using an associate’s online betting account. While none of those bets were on games in which Porter played, he did bet on the Raptors to lose as part of a parlay bet. The wagers ranged in size from $15 to $22,000, and totaled $54,000. He netted nearly $22,000 in winnings on the wagers, the league said. </p></blockquote> <p>Porter is a bench player, but in the NBA bench players do well. <a href="https://hoopshype.com/player/jontay-porter/salary/">Porter’s salary this season was $411,000</a>, and he’s earned close to $3 million since he made the NBA four years ago. But how much do you want to bet he’s not the last player in a major sport to get caught up in a point-shaving scam like this?</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘NBA Bars Jontay Porter for Betting’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Of Course Regulation Can Work</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/04/want-apple-to-change-regulation-works/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg4" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/of-course-regulation-can-work" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40756</id> <published>2024-04-17T19:47:37Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T20:31:39Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Dan Moren, writing last week at Six Colors:</p> <blockquote> <p>Lately you can’t throw a digital camera without hitting a story on the various regulatory and legal challenges Apple’s been facing. While some have decried these actions as interference in the internal operations of a company, there’s one salient detail that I think those opinions often overlook. </p> <p>Regulation works. </p> <p>Here are just a handful of examples from the past few months of Apple changing its policies due to regulations — or, in some cases, the mere <em>threat</em> of regulation. </p></blockquote> <p>I’d change “regulation works” to “regulation <em>can</em> work” or “regulation <em>sometimes</em> works”. But there’s no question we’re seeing results. Moren cites three recent examples:</p> <ul><li>New rules announced by Apple in January <a href="https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f1v8pyay">for game streaming services</a>.</li><li>New rules this month <a href="https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=0kjli9o1">eliminating the ban on game emulators in the App Store</a>.</li><li>Changes last week in the Self Service Repair program <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-to-expand-repair-options-with-support-for-used-genuine-parts/">regarding used components</a>.<sup id="fnr1-2024-04-17-reg"><a href="#fn1-2024-04-17-reg">1</a></sup></li></ul> <p>These changes are all wins. But they’re also all low-hanging fruit. Apple has no major self-interested reasons to fight against any of them, and regulatory scrutiny forced the company to stop ignoring them. It’s similar to how the Japan Fair Trade Commission’s investigation <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/01/apple-anti-steering-relaxation">led to Apple loosening its anti-steering rules for “reader” apps worldwide in 2021</a>. That might not have happened at all without the regulatory scrutiny, and certainly wouldn’t have otherwise happened when it did. But it was the lowest of low-hanging fruit: Apple, to my eyes, lost nothing by loosening those anti-steering provisions.</p> <p>The real regulatory rubber hits the road on the issues that <em>are</em> against Apple’s own interests, or detrimental to the experience of users (which issues are, effectively, against Apple’s interests — Apple is in the business of making its users happy).</p> <div class="footnotes"><hr /><ol><li id="fn1-2024-04-17-reg"><p>The parts-pairing stuff is complex. Right-to-repair advocates often wrongly assume that Apple’s repair policies are geared toward making money — either turning a profit on the repairs and replacement parts directly, or by implicitly encouraging users to buy brand-new devices to replace broken ones rather than fix them. That’s just not the case. Repairs are not a profit center for Apple. The complexity Apple is trying to manage is guaranteeing that supposedly genuine replacement components are in fact genuine, and that stolen devices can’t be mined for black-market components. <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-to-expand-repair-options-with-support-for-used-genuine-parts/">Last week’s changes</a> seem to manage a good balance of all these factors. <a href="#fnr1-2024-04-17-reg" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a></p></li></ol></div> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Of Course Regulation Can Work’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/of-course-regulation-can-work"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Delta Game Emulator Now Available From the App Store</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/17/delta-game-emulator-iphone/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg3" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/delta-app-store" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40755</id> <published>2024-04-17T19:04:46Z</published> <updated>2024-04-19T16:37:32Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Everything is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal">coming up Milhouse this week for Riley Testut</a>. Juli Clover for MacRumors:</p> <blockquote> <p>Game emulator apps have <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/15/apple-removes-igba-from-app-store/">come and gone</a> since <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/05/app-store-guidelines-emulators-music-app-links/">Apple announced App Store support</a> for them on April 5, but now popular game emulator Delta from developer Riley Testut is available for download. [...] </p> <p>Delta is an all-in-one emulator that supports game systems including NES, SNES, N64, Nintendo DS, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance. It works with popular game controllers, and supports cheats, save states, backups, syncing, and more. As this is Testut’s longtime project, it is more polished and feature rich than other emulators that have popped up. [...] </p> <p>Delta can be downloaded from the App Store for free, and it does not collect information or include ads. The app is available in the United States and other countries, but it is not available in the European Union where it is instead being offered through an alternative app marketplace. </p></blockquote> <p>An incredibly polished, high-performance game emulator, available free of charge with no ads. That’s some old-school internet awesomeness. (<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/delta-game-emulator/id1048524688">App Store link</a>.)</p> <p>The alternative app marketplace for EU denizens to get Delta is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal">Testut’s own AltStore PAL</a>. (Delta is free there, too, but AltStore PAL requires a €1.50/year subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee.)</p> <p>Now the questions is: Does Nintendo care? <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24090357/nintendo-yuzu-emulator-lawsuit-settlement">Nintendo recently shut down Yuzu</a>, a popular open source Switch emulator. (David Pierce and Sean Hollister <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/4/24121448/why-nintendo-sued-a-game-emulator-out-of-existence-and-what-might-happen-next">made a great episode of Decoder</a> about this whole saga.) There’s a big difference between emulating the Switch — which is still current — and emulating classic consoles, but Nintendo <a href="https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/nintendo-entertainment-system-nintendo-switch-online-switch/">still monetizes those classic consoles via emulation on the Switch</a>.</p> <p><strong>Update:</strong> 24 hours later and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/delta-atop-app-store.png">Delta is the #1 app in the App Store</a>. You love to see it. <a href="https://mastodon.social/@_Davidsmith/112298157654492043">David Smith</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>While the App Store is far from perfect, seeing Delta sustain its position at the top of the App Store is a lovely reminder of its best feature. </p> <p>That an indie developer can dedicate years honing their craft and then create something so compelling that it beats out apps from trillion-dollar companies, enriching the lives of millions of people along the way. </p> <p>That’s beautiful. That’s inspiring. And just plain awesome. </p></blockquote> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Delta Game Emulator Now Available From the App Store’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/delta-app-store"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>AltStore PAL Launches in the EU</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://rileytestut.com/blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore-pal/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg2" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40754</id> <published>2024-04-17T17:57:37Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T18:05:00Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Riley Testut:</p> <blockquote> <p>I’m thrilled to announce a brand new version of AltStore — AltStore PAL — is launching <em>TODAY</em> as an Apple-approved alternative app marketplace in the EU. AltStore PAL is an <a href="https://github.com/altstoreio/AltStore">open-source</a> app store made specifically for independent developers, designed to address the problems I and so many others have had with the App Store over the years. Basically, if you’ve ever experienced issues with App Review, this is for you!</p> <p>We’re launching with <em>2 apps</em> initially: my all-in-one Nintendo emulator <a href="https://deltaemulator.com/">Delta</a> — a.k.a. the reason I built AltStore <a href="http://rileytestut.com/blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/">in the first place</a> — and my clipboard manager <a href="https://rileytestut.com/blog/2020/06/17/introducing-clip/">Clip</a>, a <em>real</em> clipboard manager that can actually run in the background. Delta will be <em>FREE</em> (with no ads!), whereas Clip will require a small donation of <em>€1 or more</em>. Once we’re sure everything is running smoothly we’ll then open the doors to third-party apps — so if you’d like to distribute your app with AltStore, please get in touch.</p></blockquote> <p>Exciting times for iOS users in the EU. Both of these things can be true:</p> <ul><li>The DMA is a bad law that, I believe, will result in more harm than good for most users.</li><li>For iOS power users and enthusiasts, alternative app marketplaces are going to be fun and useful. Right now there’s no better place to be an iPhone user than the EU.</li></ul> <p>(Also: How fun is the name AltStore <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL">PAL</a>?)</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘AltStore PAL Launches in the EU’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Donald Trump Writes and Narrates Documentary Short Film on the Battle of Gettysburg</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/Randall_Stps/status/1780295504561131876" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg1" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/trump-civil-war-doc" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40753</id> <published>2024-04-17T16:30:01Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T16:32:40Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Amazing he found time for this amidst his campaigning and legal travails. But like many former presidents, he has a serious interest in history.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Donald Trump Writes and Narrates Documentary Short Film on the Battle of Gettysburg’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/trump-civil-war-doc"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>‘Papyrus 2’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://kottke.org/24/04/papyrus-2-a-bold-new-look-for-avatar" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg0" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/papyrus-2" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40752</id> <published>2024-04-17T01:36:11Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T01:36:12Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Jason Kottke:</p> <blockquote> <p>Ryan Gosling was on Saturday Night Live this weekend and they did a sequel to one of my favorite SNL sketches (which is completely dorky in a design nerd sort of way) ever: <a href="https://kottke.org/23/01/avatar-and-the-papyrus-typeface">Papyrus</a>. Behold, Papyrus 2. </p></blockquote> <p>See also: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbW42uTKYo">Elle Cordova’s “Fonts Hanging Out” trilogy</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘‘Papyrus 2’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/papyrus-2"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>‘MKBHDs for Everything’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://stratechery.com/2024/mkbhds-for-everything/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfz" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mkbhds-for-everything" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40751</id> <published>2024-04-17T00:57:52Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T00:58:37Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Ben Thompson, marking the 10th anniversary of Stratechery as a full-time endeavor:</p> <blockquote> <p>Who, though, is to blame, and who benefited? Surely the responsibility for the Humane AI Pin lies with Humane; the people who benefited from Brownlee’s honesty were his viewers, the only people to whom Brownlee owes anything. To think of this review — or even just the title — as “distasteful” or “unethical” is to view Humane — a recognizable entity, to be sure — as of more worth than the 3.5 million individuals who watched Brownlee’s review. </p> <p>This is one of the challenges of scale: Brownlee has so many viewers that it is almost easier to pretend like they are some unimportant blob. Brownlee, though, is successful because he remembers his job is not to go easy on individual companies, but inform individual viewers who will make individual decisions about spending $700 on a product that doesn’t work. Thanks to the Internet he has absolutely no responsibility or incentive to do anything but. </p></blockquote> <p>The review is now up to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&t=1287s">4.2 million views</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘‘MKBHDs for Everything’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mkbhds-for-everything"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Walt Mossberg, Still the King</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wired.com/2004/05/mossberg/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfy" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mossberg-king" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40750</id> <published>2024-04-17T00:48:28Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T00:48:28Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Regarding the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo">jacktastic argument</a> that Marques Brownlee shouldn’t call the worst product he’s ever reviewed the worst product he’s ever reviewed, I’m reminded of the lede from Alan Deutschman’s 2004 profile of Walt Mossberg for Wired:</p> <blockquote> <p>Walt Mossberg is walking through a convention hall at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas when a man starts screaming at him. The screamer, Hugh Panero, blames Mossberg for his company’s recent problems: falling stock price, a sudden plunge in consumer interest. Mossberg is annoyed but hardly intimidated. As the author of the weekly “Personal Technology” column in The Wall Street Journal, he’s used to dealing with disgruntled execs. He lets Panero shout. A crowd is gathering. Finally, Mossberg yells back, “I don’t give a fuck about your stock price!” </p></blockquote> <p>Keep reading. The story doesn’t end there.</p> <p>What Mossberg always got right was that he relentlessly focused on his readers. Not what a product was supposed to be. Not what future versions might be. And not the fucking stock price of the company that made it. What he cared (<a href="https://www.threads.net/@mossbergwalt">and cares</a>, in retirement) about was the actual experience of using the actual product, as it actually was, by actual users. He was rewarded with his readers’ trust.</p> <p>That same mentality is what made Siskel and Ebert superstar film critics: they loved movies and they judged them for what they were, from the perspective of fellow moviegoers. They weren’t Hollywood insiders, and in the same way Mossberg didn’t give a fuck about XM Radio’s stock price, they didn’t give a fuck about how their reviews might affect opening weekend box office numbers. They cherished the trust of their TV viewers and newspaper readers, and rewarded them by providing nothing less than their fully honest expert appraisals of the movies they reviewed.</p> <p>Art criticism has a long history, though. Consumer technology criticism does not. Mossberg blazed the trail.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Walt Mossberg, Still the King’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mossberg-king"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Jackass of the Week: Daniel Vassallo</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1779753281960722706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfx" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40749</id> <published>2024-04-17T00:29:39Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T00:29:39Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Daniel Vassallo, who has over 172,000 followers on Twitter/X, regarding Marques Brownlee’s scathing but utterly fair (if not bend-over-backwards fair) “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&t=1287s">The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed... For Now</a>” review of the Humane AI Pin:</p> <blockquote> <p>I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say this when you have 18 million subscribers. </p> <p>Hard to explain why, but with great reach comes great responsibility. Potentially killing someone else’s nascent project reeks of carelessness. </p> <p>First, do no harm. </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1779928058746617912">Marques Brownlee</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>We disagree on what my job is.</p></blockquote> <p>There’s cool, and then there’s <em>cool</em>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Jackass of the Week: Daniel Vassallo’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>No Notes</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.afr.com/technology/apple-s-secret-to-success-don-t-take-notes-and-worry-about-the-numbers-20240415-p5fjuz" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfw" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/no-notes" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40748</id> <published>2024-04-16T23:42:36Z</published> <updated>2024-04-17T01:25:39Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>John Davidson, writing for the Australian Financial Review on Phil Schiller’s testimony in Australia, where Apple is once again facing off against Epic Games (<a href="https://archive.is/N2lpM#selection-1887.0-1922.0">archive link</a> in case FR’s web server goes down):</p> <blockquote> <p>The casual approach to its meetings, instituted by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs when he returned to the company in 1997 after having been fired in 1985, explained why Epic’s lawyers could find precious few contemporaneous records of Apple’s decision-making processes since the App Store was first launched in 2007, Mr Schiller suggested. </p> <p>“When Mr Jobs came back in 1997, in one of the earliest meetings someone was taking notes, writing down what [Mr Jobs] was saying about what we’re doing. He stopped and said ‘Why are you writing this down? You should be smart enough to remember this. If you’re not smart enough to remember this you shouldn’t be in this meeting’. We all stopped taking notes and learnt to just listen and be part of the conversation and remember what we were supposed to do. And that became how we worked.” Mr Schiller testified. </p> <p>“It was very action-oriented. It was built to be like a small start-up where we all are working together on the same things, and we all know what our plans are and what we’re doing.” </p></blockquote> <p>And:</p> <blockquote> <p>Nor is there much talk in meetings of how profitable the Apple App Store is, despite the fact it would be the 63rd biggest company on the Fortune 500 if it were hived off as a separate entity. </p> <p>“Are you telling His Honour that you have no idea whether ... the App Store has been profitable?” asked an incredulous Neil Young, KC, leading the cross-examination on behalf of Epic Games. </p> <p>“I <em>believe</em> it is [profitable],” replied Mr Schiller, who has been in charge of the App Store since the beginning. “I’m simply saying ‘profit’ as a specific financial metric is not a report I get and spend time on. It’s not how we measure our performance as a team,” he said. </p></blockquote> <p>Sounds like Epic is getting its hat handed to it once again.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘No Notes’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/no-notes"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Seeing What One Wants to See</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1779879588715192569" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfv" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/seeing-what-one-wants-to-see" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40747</id> <published>2024-04-16T20:46:17Z</published> <updated>2024-04-16T20:46:17Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Matt Stoller, linking to the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/ft-iphone-market-share">aforelinked FT report</a> on Apple “losing” the top spot in IDC’s phone market share figures:</p> <blockquote> <p>The early signs that Apple is having a Boeing-like slow collapse. </p></blockquote> <p>That’s quite the take. It is true that iPhone sales have been relatively flat for two years — here are the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/iphone-revenue-q1-2024-sixcolors.png">quarterly revenue</a> and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/iphone-revenue-change-q1-2024-sixcolors.png">year-over-year revenue change</a> charts from Six Colors <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/apple-reports-nearly-120b-quarter-full-charts/">for the October–December 2023 quarter</a>. But they’re not in decline. Apple’s problem — or perhaps better said, Apple <em>investors</em>’ problem — is that iPhone sales have peaked because they’ve saturated the globe. Everyone who wants one and can afford one has one.</p> <p>But whatever is going on with iPhone sales, a comparison to Boeing is just dumb. Boeing’s problem isn’t cheap Chinese competition. It’s that when Boeing was <em>Boeing</em> — a truly great American company — it was an engineering-driven company. It was — past tense — in broad strokes similar to Apple in that regard. Then Boeing “merged” with McDonnell Douglas, the McDonnell Douglas CEO became Boeing’s CEO, other executives <em>with zero aviation experience</em> came over from companies like General Electric, and “<a href="https://finshots.in/archive/did-a-1997-merger-ruin-boeing/">a passion for great planes was replaced with a passion for affordability</a>.” The 737 Max isn’t just unpopular — it’s an engineering disaster. The iPhone 15 lineup is, by consensus, the best lineup of phones in the industry — the fastest chips, great reliability, and industry-leading customer satisfaction. Even if iPhone sales were in decline — which only IDC is claiming to be true — it’s not for reasons that bear any resemblance to Boeing at all.</p> <p>Call me when Apple is led by executives who lack a passion for great computers.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Seeing What One Wants to See’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/seeing-what-one-wants-to-see"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>The Financial Times Pretends Apple Plays the Market Share Game</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.ft.com/content/2c13254b-9995-4408-b02b-6f07ce706b8e" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfu" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/ft-iphone-market-share" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40746</id> <published>2024-04-16T20:36:54Z</published> <updated>2024-04-16T20:36:55Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Tim Bradshaw and Michael Acton, reporting for the Financial Times, under the eye-opening headline “Apple Loses Smartphone Crown to Samsung as Chinese Rivals Gain Ground” (<a href="https://archive.is/0QsdR">archive link</a>):</p> <blockquote> <p>Apple lost its lead in the global smartphone market at the start of 2024, with iPhone sales falling 10 per cent as lower-cost Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi experienced rapid growth. </p></blockquote> <p>Sounds bad! Then comes the second paragraph of the report:</p> <blockquote> <p>Samsung regained its position as the world’s largest smartphone maker by volume in the first quarter, according to market researcher International Data Corporation, just three months after Apple claimed the top spot for the first time. </p></blockquote> <p>So we’re talking about unit sales volume (a measure Apple <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2003/07/market_share">has never pursued as a top priority</a>), using numbers from IDC (sketchy at best), and a supposed lead that Apple held for ... three months? Which three months happen to be the holiday quarter, when — <a href="https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/1779964293535990055">every single year</a> — all of Apple’s sales go up, <em>and</em> when new iPhone models drop. Warm up your dictionaries, time to refresh your memory of how to spell <em>beleaguered</em>.</p> <p>The iPhone’s success is so poorly reflected by market share numbers that the Department of Justice invented a fictional category of “performance smartphones” just to make it maybe sorta kinda — if you squint just right — look like they might possibly hold a monopoly under U.S. law.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS52032524">IDC estimated</a> that global iPhone shipments declined 10 per cent to 50.1mn in the first three months of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, giving it a 21 per cent market share. </p></blockquote> <p>Let’s see if there’s a 10 percent drop in iPhone revenue year-over-year when Apple reports results for the January–March quarter on May 2. If so, that’ll be quite the feather in IDC’s cap. If not, I’m sure we’ll see a correction from IDC and the FT.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘The Financial Times Pretends Apple Plays the Market Share Game’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/ft-iphone-market-share"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Not All Web APIs Are Good APIs</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.threads.net/@sdusteric/post/C5y2zJCytBk" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vft" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/not-all-web-apis-are-good-apis" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40745</id> <published>2024-04-16T18:26:10Z</published> <updated>2024-04-16T18:38:11Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Eric Lee on Threads:</p> <blockquote> <p>I was wondering why I haven’t seen websites utilizing Vibration API when I see more and more apps using it including Arc Search and AirChat. Safari doesn’t even support it so there it goes 🫠 </p></blockquote> <p>This exemplifies the broken thinking among many web developers and PWA advocates regarding Safari and WebKit. Just because an API exists and some browsers support it does not mean all browsers should support it. I never ever want a website to be able to vibrate my device. <a href="https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41187053">Ever</a>. Nor do I want websites to be able to prompt me with an alert asking for permission to vibrate my device. Not supporting the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/vibration/">Vibration API</a> is <a href="https://blog.lukaszolejnik.com/privacy-of-w3c-vibration-api/">a feature</a>, not an omission.</p> <p>If you want web apps to have the same full range of capabilities as native apps, iOS is not the platform for you. PWA advocates treat it as axiomatic that web apps should be peers to native apps, but that’s not true for everyone. I think of native apps as software I carefully consider before installing, even from the App Store. I think of websites and web apps as software I will visit/run without consideration, <em>because</em> they’re so comparatively restricted.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Not All Web APIs Are Good APIs’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/not-all-web-apis-are-good-apis"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://l.kolide.co/43vcTaN" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vfs" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/kolide_looking_past_the_smoke" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/feeds/sponsors//11.40744</id> <author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author> <published>2024-04-16T02:19:41Z</published> <updated>2024-04-16T02:19:42Z</updated> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<!-- H1 2024: Post C --> <p><imgsrc = "https://daringfireball.net/martini/images/kolide/kolide-art-H12024-C.jpeg"width = 600alt = "Illustration of two playing cards: the jack of spades and ace of spades, with the ace labeled “MGM”."/></p> <p>The September 2023 MGM hack quickly became one of the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">most notorious ransomware attacks</a> in recent memory. Journalists and cybersecurity experts rushed to report on the broken slot machines, angry hotel guests, and the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-16/mgm-resorts-hackers-broke-in-after-tricking-it-service-desk?sref%3DqYiz2hd0&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1712079824854339&usg=AOvVaw3-n2gmFr9F-RBRYlWDBxnv">fateful phishing call</a> to MGM’s help desk that started it all.</p> <p>And, like a slick magic trick, the public’s attention was drawn in the wrong direction. Now, months later, we’re still missing something critical about the MGM hack.</p> <p>That’s because, for many of the most important questions about the breach, the popular answers are either incomplete or inaccurate. Those include: who hacked MGM, what tactics they used to breach the system, and how security teams can protect themselves against similar attacks.</p> <p>Why is that a problem? Because it lets us write off the MGM hack as a one-off story, instead of an example of an <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/10/25/octo-tempest-crosses-boundaries-to-facilitate-extortion-encryption-and-destruction/">emerging style of attack</a> that we’ll certainly be seeing more of. And that leaves companies and security teams unprepared.</p> <h2>Who hacked MGM?</h2> <p>Plenty of news stories have confidently blamed the MGM attack on either the Scattered Spider or ALPHV hacking group, but the truth is still murky, and likely involves <a href="https://www.404media.co/sim-swappers-are-working-directly-with-ransomware-gangs-now/">a dangerous team up</a> between different groups, each bringing their own expertise to the table.</p> <p>Their attacks first use fluent English social engineering skills to get onto networks, where they then deploy sophisticated ransomware that quickly establishes persistence across multiple systems.</p> <h2>What tactics did they use?</h2> <p>The dominant narrative has been that “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/09/a-phone-call-to-helpdesk-was-likely-all-it-took-to-hack-mgm/">a single phone call</a> hacked MGM.” A phone vishing attack to MGM’s IT help desk is what started the hack, but there’s much more to it than that. The real issue is that this help desk worker was set up to fail by MGM’s weak ID verification protocols, and probably wasn’t doing anything “wrong” when they gave the bad actors access to a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366552775/Okta-Caesars-MGM-hacked-in-social-engineering-campaign">super administrator</a> account.</p> <h2>How can security teams protect themselves?</h2> <p><a href="https://sec.okta.com/articles/2023/08/cross-tenant-impersonation-prevention-and-detection">Cybersecurity experts</a> have centered most of their advice on user ID verification. But while it’s true that MGM’s help desk needed better ways of verifying employee identity, there’s another factor that should have stopped the hackers in their tracks.</p> <p>That’s where you need to focus your attention. In fact, if you just focus your vision, you’ll find you’re already staring at the security story the pros have been missing.</p> <p>It’s the device you’re reading this on.</p> <p>To read more of what we learned when we researched the MGM hack — like how hacker groups get their names, the worrying gaps in MGM’s security, and why device trust is the real core of the story — check out the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">Kolide Blog</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Kolide: ‘Looking Past the Smoke and Mirrors of the MGM Hack’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/kolide_looking_past_the_smoke"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> <title>[Sponsor] Kolide: ‘Looking Past the Smoke and Mirrors of the MGM Hack’</title></entry><entry> <title>The Etak Navigator</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://maphappenings.com/2024/04/11/story-of-etak/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfr" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/the-etak-navigator" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40743</id> <published>2024-04-16T01:52:38Z</published> <updated>2024-04-18T20:59:39Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>James Killick, writing on Map Happenings:</p> <blockquote> <p>Today, I’d like to tell you about the Etak Navigator, a truly revolutionary product and the world’s first practical vehicle navigation system. [...] </p> <p>Nearly everything about the Etak Navigator had to be conceived from scratch. Most important was the self contained positioning system. Remember that back in 1985 GPS was not available. </p></blockquote> <p>Not only was GPS unavailable, neither, of course, was wireless <em>data</em>. Or affordable hard drives. Data for the Etak Navigator was stored on cassette tapes. Tapes offered more storage than floppy disks but it took 6 cassettes just to cover the San Francisco Bay area. And of course Nolan Bushnell was involved. What a story. What a product.</p> <p><strong>Update:</strong> The utterly forgettable 1991 film <em>Nothing But Trouble</em> <a href="https://mastodon.world/@tydalforce/112280425153339504">features several scenes showing the Etak Navigator in action</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘The Etak Navigator’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/the-etak-navigator"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>John Sterling, Radio Voice of the Yankees for 36 Years, Retires at 85</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/john-sterling-retires" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfq" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/sterling-retires" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40742</id> <published>2024-04-16T01:26:29Z</published> <updated>2024-04-16T01:26:29Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Bryan Hoch, MLB.com:</p> <blockquote> <p>The Yankees announced on Monday that Sterling has retired, effective immediately. The 85-year-old Sterling will be recognized in a pregame ceremony on Saturday at Yankee Stadium. He will visit the WFAN radio booth during that afternoon’s game against the Rays. </p> <p>“I am a very blessed human being,” Sterling said in a statement. “I have been able to do what I wanted, broadcasting for 64 years. As a little boy growing up in New York as a Yankees fan, I was able to broadcast the Yankees for 36 years. It’s all to my benefit, and I leave very, very happy. I look forward to seeing everyone again on Saturday.” [...] </p> <p>Known for his gyrating “Sterling Shake” victory call (“Yankees win … theeeeee Yankees win!”), humorous phrases tacked onto play-by-play action (“Back to back, and a belly to belly!”) and personalized home run calls (“Bern Baby Bern!”), Sterling called 5,060 consecutive games from September 1989 to July 2019 — every at-bat of Derek Jeter’s career, every inning of Mariano Rivera’s and more. </p></blockquote> <p>The story includes a slew of his all-time great calls; <a href="https://twitter.com/i/trending/1779962020491850019">more here on Twitter/X</a>. There’s something different about radio announcing from TV announcing. Some guys can do both. But there was something ineffably <em>radio</em> about Sterling. I will always think of stadium announcer <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/how-bob-sheppards-voice-lives-on.html">Bob Shephard</a> as “the voice of the Yankees”, but John Sterling was the voice of Yankee <em>fans</em>. He just unabashedly loved the team, and was ecstatic for every win, and crushed with every loss.</p> <p>And think about this: He called over 5,400 Yankee games over 36 years. He’s legitimately considered a living legend for it. But he didn’t get the job until he was 49 years old.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘John Sterling, Radio Voice of the Yankees for 36 Years, Retires at 85’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/sterling-retires"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Apple’s Mysterious Fisheye Projection</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/747761863530528768/apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfp" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/swanson-apple-fisheye" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40741</id> <published>2024-04-15T21:15:44Z</published> <updated>2024-04-15T21:15:45Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Mike Swanson:</p> <blockquote> <p>If you’ve read my first post about <a href="https://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/744337392062873601/spatial-video">Spatial Video</a>, the second about <a href="https://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/746216801650753536/encoding-spatial-video">Encoding Spatial Video</a>, or if you’ve used my <a href="https://blog.mikeswanson.com/spatial">command-line tool</a>, you may recall a mention of Apple’s mysterious “fisheye” projection format. Mysterious because they’ve documented a <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.apple.com%2Fdocumentation%2Fcoremedia%2Fcmprojectiontype%2Ffisheye&t=ODRlOTU0YjU3ODlkZmFlMTk0NmVlODgyYzBhMGIzMmI4YjNmYTZkZiw1ODY3ZWQ3ZDM0MTVjMzQ2MDE1NDkxYzMxNWViNDk5Yzk3MzRmMGRk&ts=1713118777">CMProjectionType.fisheye</a> enumeration with no elaboration, they stream their immersive Apple TV+ videos in this format, yet they’ve provided no method to produce or playback third-party content using this projection type. </p> <p>Additionally, the format is undocumented, they haven’t responded to an <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.apple.com%2Fforums%2Fthread%2F746382&t=N2U3ZGIyNzAwZDBjMTVhMGRiNDMzM2QxODZjMGM5YTY4YzhkYTI3NSw0NzA5NGQzOTQwYzUwYmE4NWQ3OWUxNDM2MzBjMjJkMzg0ZDhmMjlh&ts=1713118777">open question on the Apple Discussion Forums</a> asking for more detail, and they didn’t cover it in their WWDC23 sessions. As someone who has experience in this area — and a relentless curiosity — I’ve spent time digging-in to Apple’s fisheye projection format, and this post shares what I’ve learned. </p></blockquote> <p>Fascinating deep dive.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple’s Mysterious Fisheye Projection’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/swanson-apple-fisheye"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Nominee for Claim Chowder of the Year 2024: Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023 Award for Humane’s AI Pin</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2023/6327143/humane-ai-pin/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfo" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/claim-chowder-time-humane" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40740</id> <published>2024-04-15T20:47:23Z</published> <updated>2024-04-15T20:59:36Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>When this was published in late October it struck me as deeply weird that Time would give an award to a product that was, at the time of publication, over five months away from actually shipping. And now that it <em>has</em> shipped, and appears poised to go down in history as an Edsel-like infamous bomb, it seems even more weird. But in this case the footnote seemingly explains it:</p> <blockquote> <p><sup>*</sup> (Investors in Humane include Time co-chairs and owners Marc and Lynne Benioff)</p></blockquote> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Nominee for Claim Chowder of the Year 2024: Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023 Award for Humane’s AI Pin’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/claim-chowder-time-humane"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Shocker: ByteDance Still Receives Data From U.S. TikTok Users</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://fortune.com/2024/04/15/tiktok-china-data-sharing-bytedance-project-texas/?showAdminBar=true" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfn" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/fortune-tiktok-china" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40739</id> <published>2024-04-15T19:28:54Z</published> <updated>2024-04-15T19:28:54Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Alexandra Sternlicht, reporting for Fortune (<a href="https://apple.news/AQGXXco6eSvqRNMvJrxwEfQ">News+</a>):</p> <blockquote> <p>Evan Turner, who worked at TikTok as a senior data scientist from April to September in 2022, said TikTok concealed the involvement of its Chinese owner during his employment. When hired, Turner initially reported to a ByteDance executive in Beijing. But later that year, after the company announced a major initiative to store TikTok’s U.S. user data only in the U.S., Turner was reassigned — on paper, at least — to an American manager in Seattle, he says. But Turner says a human resources representative revealed during a video conference call that he would, in reality, continue to work with the ByteDance executive. The stealth chain of command contradicted what TikTok’s executives had said about the company’s independence from ByteDance, Turner says. [...] </p> <p>Nearly every 14 days, as part of Turner’s job throughout 2022, he emailed spreadsheets filled with data for hundreds of thousands of U.S. users to ByteDance workers in Beijing. That data included names, email addresses, IP addresses, and geographic and demographic information of TikTok U.S. users, he says. The goal was to sift through the information to mine for insights like the geographical regions where users watched the most videos of a particular genre and decide how the company should invest to encourage users to be more active. It all took place after the company had started its initiative to keep sensitive U.S. user data in the U.S., and only available to U.S. workers. </p> <p>“I literally worked on a project that gave U.S. data to China,” Turner says. “They were completely complicit in that. There were Americans that were working in upper management that were completely complicit in this.” </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/packyM/status/1779852605201465655">Packy McCormick</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>It’s astonishing that we don’t have the political will to simply ban TikTok.</p></blockquote> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Shocker: ByteDance Still Receives Data From U.S. TikTok Users’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/15/fortune-tiktok-china"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Pok Pok</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://pokpok.sng.link/Dahqz/tfl2/zk3w" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfm" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/pok-pok" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40738</id> <published>2024-04-14T21:51:02Z</published> <updated>2024-04-14T21:51:02Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>My thanks to Pok Pok for sponsoring last week at DF. Pok Pok is a delightful collection of digital toys for kids aged 2–7, for both iPhone and iPad. Designed by parents and educators unhappy with the apps they found, Pok Pok has no ads, no overstimulating sounds, and no addictive gimmicks to get kids hooked. It’s just fun. Each toy is playful and open, letting kids explore and discover at their own pace. Existing toys are expanded and new ones are added regularly to keep play fresh.</p> <p>Pok Pok has won both an Apple Design Award and <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/11/apple-unveils-app-store-award-winners-the-best-apps-and-games-of-2023/">an App Store Award for Cultural Impact just last year</a>. Beautiful graphics, fun sound design, and great haptics. Try Pok Pok for free — you and your kid(s) will love it.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Pok Pok’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/pok-pok"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>The Masters VisionOS App</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-masters-tournament/id309025938" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfl" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/masters-visionos" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40737</id> <published>2024-04-14T20:59:02Z</published> <updated>2024-04-15T18:23:04Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>It’s Sunday at Augusta, the leaderboard is tight at the top, and Augusta National has a pretty damn good VisionOS app. Some cool VR features like tabletop-style VR maps of the holes, with 3D shot-tracking. All free of charge, too, from one of the only major sporting events in the entire world with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0X31SU/">a restrained approach to advertising and sponsorships</a>.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘The Masters VisionOS App’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/masters-visionos"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Underpromise and Overdeliver</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/ericmigi/status/1778819403016265869" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfk" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/humane-underpromise-overdeliver" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40736</id> <published>2024-04-14T20:46:50Z</published> <updated>2024-04-14T20:46:50Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Eric Migicovsky (on a <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/11/automattic-beeper">different</a> subject), in a post on Twitter/X:</p> <blockquote> <p>Aspiring consumer HW makers (big and small) - this may sound obvious, but my rec is to underpromise/overdeliver for your first version. It’s hard because you want to balance sharing the vision for what the product category will become, but get customers adjusted to the reality that you need to ship what’s most likely an MVP for your first version. </p></blockquote> <p>Big or small, old or new — or even hardware or software. It’s always true: underpromising and overdelivering is always the path to delight, but also always devilishly difficult to pull off. That’s the game. The subtext for Migicovsky’s tweet is obviously Humane, whose AI Pin clearly overpromises and underdelivers. Migicovsky links to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/28/3924904/pebble-smartwatch-review">Nilay Patel’s 2013 review of the original Pebble Smartwatch</a>, which concludes:</p> <blockquote> <p>After using the Pebble for a few days, I realized that I was daydreaming about it: I wanted it to do more. That’s unusual — I rarely trust new products to work correctly, especially new products from unproven companies. But the Pebble’s charming simplicity and fundamental competence inspires confidence. It’s so good at what it does now that it’s easy to imagine all other things it might do in the future. There’s no reason it can’t replace a Fitbit or Nike Fuelband, for example, and I’d love to be able to send replies to emails and text directly from the device. </p></blockquote> <p>Pebble obviously didn’t make it, but that’s the sort of 1.0 review you want to see: <em>It’s good at what it already does and I can see how it could do more in the future.</em> The one and only review of the Humane AI Pin that expresses a sentiment like that <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/humane-ai-pin-in-depth-review">is Raymond Wong’s for Inverse</a>.</p> <p><strong>Sidenote:</strong> <a href="https://www.threads.net/@andru/post/C5tvf0sum8l/">Andru Edwards on Threads</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>The fact that people on @hu.ma.ne’s PR team keep leaving, and those who take over are unresponsive has been making the planning of this sit-down interview with them that I’ve been working on for a few months, a challenge to say the least. Just sent another follow-up 😅🤞🏽 </p></blockquote> <p>It’s generally considered a bad sign when a company experiences large-scale turnover in their PR/comms teams right around the launch of the company’s first product.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Underpromise and Overdeliver’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/humane-underpromise-overdeliver"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>More on the Problem With ‘The Problem With Jon Stewart’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/jon-stewart-claims-apple-discouraged-interviewing-ftc-chair-lina-khan-rcna145999" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfj" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/stewart-apple-khan" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40735</id> <published>2024-04-14T17:46:42Z</published> <updated>2024-04-14T18:22:34Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Week-old news I’d been meaning to link to:</p> <blockquote> <p>In a new interview with Khan that aired late Monday on Comedy Central, Stewart claimed Apple leaned on him to avoid talking to Khan, who took over as head of the FTC in 2021.</p> <p>“I wanted to have you on a podcast, and Apple asked us not to do it,” Stewart said. He continued: “They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her,’ having nothing to do with what you do for a living. I think they just … I didn’t think they cared for you, is what happened.”</p> <p>Stewart had a brief stint on Apple TV from 2021 to 2023 with a show called “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” which had an accompanying podcast. The partnership ended over creative differences last fall. Stewart returned to Comedy Central as a part-time “Daily Show” host in February.</p></blockquote> <p>The thing I don’t understand about this is why Apple ever hired Stewart to do that show, or why Stewart agreed to do that show with Apple. Based on, you know, the entire body of Stewart’s work, it’s obvious that Lina Khan is exactly the sort of person he’d want to interview. It’s not like something changed. My only guess is that the part of Apple that agreed to host <em>The Problem With Jon Stewart</em> didn’t get buy-in from the top of the company. But I find that hard to believe. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s like hiring <em>Martha</em> Stewart to do a show and then asking her not to do any cooking segments.</p> <p>Personally, I think Apple should put its big boy pants on and gladly host a topical news show that is free to criticize the company or the technology industry as a whole. John Oliver regularly skewered then-HBO owner AT&T and now skewers new owner Warner Bros. Discovery on <em>Last Week Tonight</em>. It’s an age-old tradition. Letterman lambasting NBC execs. Or the time <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOEBgSBfko0">Letterman tried to deliver a welcoming fruit basket to GE headquarters</a> after they bought NBC (stay with that one through the end to learn the official General Electric corporate handshake).</p> <p>But the real problem with <em>The Problem With Jon Stewart</em> was that the show stunk and no one watched it. I’m a big Jon Stewart fan and watch a bunch of shows in the same basic genre (I never miss <em>Last Week Tonight</em> and most weeks we watch Bill Maher’s <em>Real Time</em>). And now I’m once again enjoying Stewart in his Monday spot hosting <em>The Daily Show</em>. But <em>The Problem With Jon Stewart</em> just wasn’t good. Now, thanks to this outed dirty laundry about a conflict with Apple over political subject matter, there are people who think that’s the sole reason why the show was cancelled. That surely played a part. But the main reason is almost certainly that the ratings stunk. What’s weird about the streaming era of TV is that streaming services are incredibly secretive about ratings — that’s the complete opposite of over-the-air TV and theatrical box office numbers for movies, where viewership numbers were public. If the viewership numbers for <em>The Problem With Jon Stewart</em> had been public, everyone would’ve surmised that Apple cancelled the show because it wasn’t popular, not because he wanted to interview Lina Khan (on the podcast even — not the show itself!) or express misgivings about the tech industry.</p> <p>It’s just a real head-scratcher why Apple ever wanted to host the show in the first place. Even if it <em>had</em> been entertaining and thus popular, it seems clear Apple wasn’t comfortable with Jon Stewart talking about Jon Stewart topics.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘More on the Problem With ‘The Problem With Jon Stewart’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/stewart-apple-khan"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>‘A Tour de Force of International Crisis Management for the Biden White House’</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/call-it-what-it-is" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfi" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/biden-admin-tour-de-force" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40734</id> <published>2024-04-14T17:10:26Z</published> <updated>2024-04-15T22:30:52Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Josh Marshall, writing at Talking Points Memo:</p> <blockquote> <p>Together, Israel, the U.S. and various allied Arab states took down 99% or more of all those devices. Iran launched a massive aerial bombardment and virtually none of it got through. And now the U.S. has managed to get Israel not to launch an immediate and inevitably escalatory retaliation.</p> <p>It goes without saying that no administration works on its own. It comes to the game with the world’s most powerful military and major power status. It’s operating with Arab allies who have been gravitating toward a <em>de facto</em> anti-Iran alliance with Israel for years. And yet, anyone who knows anything about foreign or defense policy knows that most of it is all the endless number of things that can go wrong and the one or two ways they can go right. Navigating the last week to this point today is a <em>tour de force</em> of international crisis management for the Biden White House.</p></blockquote> <p>See also: <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/follow-up-3">Marshall’s previous post</a>, regarding Iran’s intentions for yesterday’s attack. I’m with him. My first thought was that Iran’s attack was performative, a stunt. But the more we learn the more it looks like Iran really tried to hit Israel hard — and, thankfully, were stopped.</p> <p>I went to bed last night with a dreadful feeling I’d wake up to find the U.S. and Israel enmeshed in a regional war. Knock on wood, that hasn’t happened, and might not. And I think that’s entirely thanks to the Biden administration’s diplomacy, and Biden himself.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘‘A Tour de Force of International Crisis Management for the Biden White House’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/14/biden-admin-tour-de-force"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Microsoft Is Testing Ads in the Windows 11 Start Menu</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/12/24128640/microsoft-windows-11-start-menu-ads-app-recommendations" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfh" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/msft-ads-start-menu" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40733</id> <published>2024-04-12T22:49:51Z</published> <updated>2024-04-12T22:49:52Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/microsoft-win10-hard-sell">More Windows news</a> from Tom Warren at The Verge:</p> <blockquote> <p>Microsoft says it’s starting to test ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11. The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store. </p> <p>“This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations),” says <a href="https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/04/12/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22635-3495-beta-channel/">Microsoft in a blog post</a>. </p> <p>The app promotions can be disabled in the Settings section of Windows 11, but it appears that Microsoft will enable these by default. Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it’s possible the company could decide to ditch these ads in development builds of Windows 11 if there’s enough feedback that suggests they’re not going to be a popular addition. </p></blockquote> <p>This feels more like a late (and unfunny) April Fools gag than a serious idea.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Microsoft Is Testing Ads in the Windows 11 Start Menu’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/msft-ads-start-menu"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Joanna Stern’s Humane AI Pin (Mini) Review</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/joannastern/status/1778469290988994741" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfg" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/stern-humane-ai-pin-review" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40732</id> <published>2024-04-12T20:38:49Z</published> <updated>2024-04-12T21:21:55Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Not even worth a full column, just a 90-second social media video. Or “<a href="https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ktwlhaa">vid</a>”, if you will.</p> <p>She points out that Humane only offers a website — no apps — for accessing your captured photos, videos, and notes. I totally get why Humane designed the AI Pin as a standalone device, not a phone peripheral (like Apple Watch or AirPods are) — Apple can make such peripherals do whatever they want because Apple can make the iPhone do whatever they want. (Which, yes, is the wrongheaded foundation of much of the DOJ’s antitrust complaint against Apple.) “If you want things done right, do it yourself” is always true advice.</p> <p>But not making iPhone or Android apps for interacting with Humane’s back-end is just pure stubbornness. Humane cofounder Bethany Bongiorno <a href="https://www.threads.net/@bethanybongiorno/post/C5o31k3POrD">is swearing up and down</a>, now, that “ai pin is not about replacing your smartphone”, but their <a href="https://twitter.com/Humane/status/1549414734570541056"><em>Change Everything</em> teaser film</a> from July 2022 — about which <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/07/20/humane-ships-something">I had</a> some <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/07/22/more-on-humanes-change-everything">thoughts</a> — positioned it as the successor to the phone. The no-screen thing is just stubborn, and the website-but-no-apps thing is stubborn too. If they had an app it could put photos and videos shot with the AI Pin right in your library, for one thing. Imagine if Nest thermostats — also created by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067?tag=df-amzn-20">ex-Apple folks</a> — didn’t have apps. Who would buy one?</p> <p>(My closer on that teaser video from July 2022: “Sometimes a dead canary is just a dead canary, and sometimes a dud ad is just a dud ad, but I’d check the Humane mine for methane just in case.”)</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Joanna Stern’s Humane AI Pin (Mini) Review’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/stern-humane-ai-pin-review"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Cherlynn Low’s Humane AI Pin Review for Engadget</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.engadget.com/the-humane-ai-pin-is-the-solution-to-none-of-technologys-problems-120002469.html" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vff" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/low-humane-pin" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40731</id> <published>2024-04-12T20:08:49Z</published> <updated>2024-04-12T20:08:50Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Cherlynn Low:</p> <blockquote> <p>When you <em>can</em> read what’s on the screen, interacting with it might make you want to rip your eyes out. Like I said, you’ll have to move your palm closer and further to your chest to select the right cards to enter your passcode. It’s a bit like dialing a rotary phone, with cards for individual digits from 0 to 9. Go further away to get to the higher numbers and the backspace button, and come back for the smaller ones. </p> <p>This gesture is smart in theory but it’s very sensitive. There’s a very small range of usable space since there is only so far your hand can go, so the distance between each digit is fairly small. One wrong move and you’ll accidentally select something you didn’t want and have to go all the way out to delete it. To top it all off, moving my arm around while doing that causes the Pin to flop about, meaning the screen shakes on my palm, too. On average, unlocking my Pin, which involves entering a four-digit passcode, took me about five seconds. </p> <p>On its own, this doesn’t sound so bad, but bear in mind that you’ll have to re-enter this each time you disconnect the Pin from the booster, latch or clip. It’s currently springtime in New York, which means I’m putting on and taking off my jacket over and over again. Every time I go inside or out, I move the Pin to a different layer and have to look like a confused long-sighted tourist reading my palm at various distances. It’s not fun. </p></blockquote> <p>One thing all the reviewers seem to agree upon is that the AI Pin feels like an impressive piece of kit: small, lightweight, sturdy, well-made. And it packs a lot into a small factor: camera, laser projector, speaker/microphone. But it’s also seemingly bursting at the seams, battery-life and heat-dissipation-wise. So I get it, me suggesting they should have added something else to the hardware — anything else — would pose a design and engineering challenge.</p> <p>But with that throat-clearing out of the way: it seems obvious that the AI Pin should have a fingerprint scanner for authentication. You have to touch it for all interactions anyway — it doesn’t listen for a trigger word — so why <em>not</em> add the equivalent of Touch ID? Every single review notes the same thing Low complains about above: authenticating with your passcode takes too long, is error-prone, and you need to do it periodically throughout the day.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Cherlynn Low’s Humane AI Pin Review for Engadget’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/low-humane-pin"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <title>Green’s Dictionary of Slang</title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://greensdictofslang.com/" /> <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfe" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/greens-dictionary-of-slang" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40730</id> <published>2024-04-12T19:20:16Z</published> <updated>2024-04-12T19:20:16Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>From its <a href="https://greensdictofslang.com/about/">About page</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>Green’s Dictionary of Slang</em> is the largest historical dictionary of English slang. Written by Jonathon Green over 17 years from 1993, it reached the printed page in 2010 in a three-volume set containing nearly 100,000 entries supported by over 400,000 citations from c. ad 1000 to the present day. The main focus of the dictionary is the coverage of over 500 years of slang from c. 1500 onwards. </p> <p>The printed version of the dictionary received the Dartmouth Medal for outstanding works of reference from the American Library Association in 2012; fellow recipients include the Dictionary of American Regional English, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. It has been hailed by the American New York Times as ‘the pièce de résistance of English slang studies’ and by the British Sunday Times as ‘a stupendous achievement, in range, meticulous scholarship, and not least entertainment value’. </p> <p>On this website the dictionary is now available in updated online form for the first time, complete with advanced search tools enabling search by definition and history, and an expanded bibliography of slang sources from the early modern period to the present day. Since the print edition, nearly 60,000 quotations have been added, supporting 5,000 new senses in 2,500 new entries and sub-entries, of which around half are new slang terms from the last five years. </p></blockquote> <p>I forget when I first came across Green’s Dictionary of Slang, but it’s so astonishingly good, in every possible way that it could be good, that I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a household name like Merriam-Webster. The web edition is beautiful, fast, and free of charge. It doesn’t even have ads. It’s amazing.</p> <p>And now I can’t believe I haven’t recommended it here sooner. Bookmark it, trust me.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Green’s Dictionary of Slang’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/greens-dictionary-of-slang"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> </entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/online_photo_storage_is_surely_expensive_but_apple_should_offer_more" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vf2" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40718</id> <published>2024-04-09T22:22:16Z</published> <updated>2024-04-10T15:45:59Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">Like the stingy U.S. minimum wage — which was last increased, to $7.25/hour, in 2009 — these tiers ought to be adjusted for “inflation” periodically, but aren’t. If Apple really wants iPhone users not to worry about photo storage, they should offer more with iCloud, cost-to-Apple be damned.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Some follow-up comparison points regarding <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/09/dont-let-me-go-commercial">my gripe today</a> about Apple’s new commercial telling iPhone users they needn’t worry about photo storage:</p> <ul><li><p><a href="https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en">The free tier for Google One offers 15 GB of storage</a>. That’s still not much, and only a fraction of the on-device storage for any recent phone, but it’s 3× more than iCloud. 10 extra GB doesn’t sound like much, but 3× is a large factor.</p></li><li><p>I shot 2.07 GB of footage (96 photos, 5 videos) on Easter Sunday alone. Those are the keepers, after culling all the blurry and meh shots. (iPhone 15 Pro for videos and a few photos; <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/4617817917/family-reunion-shooting-with-the-ricoh-gr-iiix-on-a-trip-home-to-england">Ricoh GR IIIx</a> for most of the photos.<sup id="fnr1-2024-04-09"><a href="#fn1-2024-04-09">1</a></sup>)</p></li><li><p>Google used to offer “unlimited storage for photos and videos” to owners of Pixel phones, but <a href="https://www.droid-life.com/2023/12/20/bring-back-unlimited-google-photos-storage-for-pixel-owners/">they dropped this offer</a> starting with the Pixel 6 in late 2021. That was such an appealing offer — especially considering that much of the appeal of Pixel phones comes from their renowned camera systems. I can only surmise that this proved more expensive to Google than they deemed worthwhile.</p></li><li><p>You don’t need to pay for iCloud to back up a large amount of iPhone storage — you can still <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/back-up-iphone-iph3ecf67d29/ios">back up to a Mac or PC manually</a>. I don’t know any non-expert users who do this, though, and there are zillions of iPhone owners who don’t even own a Mac or PC. For the masses, iCloud backup is the only backup.</p></li></ul> <p>Here’s a comparison of the current U.S. pricing for cloud storage, including photos, <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/108047">from Apple</a> <a href="https://one.google.com/storage?g1_landing_page=2">and Google</a>:</p> <!-- Markdown table| Price/month | iCloud | Google || :---------: | :----: | :----: || Free | 5 GB | 15 GB || $1 | 50 GB | — || $2 | — | 100 GB || $3 | 200 GB | 200 GB || $10 | 2 TB | 2 TB |--> <table><thead><tr> <th align="center" width="100">Price/month</th> <th align="center" width="100">iCloud</th> <th align="center" width="100">Google</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr> <td align="center">Free</td> <td align="center">5 GB</td> <td align="center">15 GB</td></tr><tr> <td align="center">$1</td> <td align="center">50 GB</td> <td align="center">—</td></tr><tr> <td align="center">$2</td> <td align="center">—</td> <td align="center">100 GB</td></tr><tr> <td align="center">$3</td> <td align="center">200 GB</td> <td align="center">200 GB</td></tr><tr> <td align="center">$10</td> <td align="center">2 TB</td> <td align="center">2 TB</td></tr></tbody></table> <p>Google’s only clear win is at the free tier, and once you start paying $3/month, they’re tied. Both companies offer additional storage beyond 2 TB at the same price: $5/month per extra TB. Google only shows those more-than-2-TB storage tiers <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/thread/218140513/need-more-than-2tb-google-drive?hl=en">if you’re signed in and already pay for storage</a>. $5/month per extra TB is also <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/products">exactly what Dropbox charges</a>.</p> <p>So on the one hand, it’s not like Apple’s iCloud storage pricing is out of line with its competitors. But on the other hand, the free tier of iCloud has been stuck at 5 GB since the day iCloud was announced, which was so long ago <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2011/06/06Apple-Introduces-iCloud/">that Steve Jobs announced it</a> at his final WWDC keynote in 2011. iCloud’s $1/month 50 GB and $3/month 200 GB tiers <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9296883/apple-icloud-storage-prices">have been unchanged since 2015</a>. Like the stingy U.S. minimum wage — which was last increased, to $7.25/hour, in 2009 — these tiers ought to be adjusted for “inflation” periodically, but aren’t.</p> <p>In the case of the minimum wage, “inflation” is, well, <a href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/">actual inflation</a>. In the case of cloud storage, “inflation” should account for factors like increased device storage (2011’s <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/112004">iPhone 4S</a> was offered with 16, 32, or 64 GB) and increased image size (the iPhone 4S only shot video up to 1080p 30 fps, which consumes about 65 MB per minute; <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/111831">today’s iPhone 15 shoots up to 4K 60 fps</a>, which consumes about 440 MB per minute).<sup id="fnr2-2024-04-09"><a href="#fn2-2024-04-09">2</a></sup> [<strong>Update:</strong> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@mikeagore/112243702639727709">Mike Gore reminded me</a> that the iPhone 4S only shot H.264 video, not the more efficient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#:~:text=On%20September%207%2C%202016%20Apple,of%20iOS%2011%20in%202017.">HEVC format that debuted with iOS 11 in 2017</a>. 1080p 30 fps video recording in H.264 is about 130 MB per minute.]</p> <p>It’s very easy for me and you to just declare that Apple ought to just foot the bill to offer more storage for over a billion users worldwide, but we’re not the ones making new TV commercials <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/09/dont-let-me-go-commercial">telling iPhone 15 users they needn’t worry about photo storage</a>. If Apple really wants iPhone users not to worry about photo storage, they should offer more with iCloud, cost-to-Apple be damned.</p> <div class="footnotes"><hr /><ol> <li id="fn1-2024-04-09"><p>Much like with Fuji’s <a href="https://jeffcarlson.com/2024/03/08/photoactive-159-fuji-x100vi-and-the-appeal-of-small-fixed-lens-cameras/">deservedly-heralded X100 line</a>, the fixed-lens Ricoh GR IIIx is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CX13K5JZ?tag=df-amzn-20">seemingly</a> <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1664769-REG/ricoh_15286_gr_iiix_digital_camera.html">backordered</a> everywhere — perhaps because <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/news/0569067557/ricoh-gr-iii-gr-iix-hdr-highlight-diffusion-filter">Ricoh recently announced a minor upgrade</a>. I bought a Fuji X100S in 2014 and loved it; but bought the GR IIIx a little over a year ago because it’s small enough to fit in a pocket and the X100 cameras aren’t. I just find myself carrying the smaller Ricoh more often than I did the X100S. They’re both absolutely terrific cameras. <a href="#fnr1-2024-04-09" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a></p></li> <li id="fn2-2024-04-09"><p>Idle thought that just occurred to me: is the paucity of available iCloud storage in the typical user’s account — free or $1/month — the reason why iPhones still default to shooting 1080p video rather than 4K? Default settings really matter. There are surely tens of millions (hundreds of millions?) of iPhone owners who shoot 1080p instead of 4K only because that’s the default. That’s a big difference in resolution for permanent memories. But I suspect almost everyone with 128 GB or more of storage has plenty of available space <em>on device</em> to store 4K video. It’s iCloud where they’re running short on space. <a href="#fnr2-2024-04-09" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩︎︎</a></p></li> </ol></div> ]]></content> <title>★ From the Department of Spending Tim Cook’s Money: Online Photo Storage Is Surely Expensive to Offer, but Apple Should Offer More</title></entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://pokpok.sng.link/Dahqz/tfl2/zk3w" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vf0" /> <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/pok_pok" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/feeds/sponsors//11.40716</id> <author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author> <published>2024-04-09T02:22:41Z</published> <updated>2024-04-09T02:22:42Z</updated> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>Pok Pok is a delightful Apple Design Award and App Store Award winning collection of digital toys for kids aged 2–7. Designed by parents and educators unhappy with the apps they found, it has no ads, no overstimulating sounds, and no addictive gimmicks to get kids hooked. Each toy is playful and open, letting kids explore and discover at their own pace. Toys are expanded and new ones are added regularly to keep play fresh. Try it for free — you and your kid will love it.</p> <div><a title="Permanent link to ‘Pok Pok’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/pok_pok"> ★ </a></div> ]]></content> <title>[Sponsor] Pok Pok</title></entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vel" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40701</id> <published>2024-03-30T00:58:20Z</published> <updated>2024-04-01T23:57:26Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">On the EU’s share of Apple’s worldwide revenue, and whether, per EC commissioner Thierry Breton, it is “unthinkable” not to serve the 450-million-citizen EU market.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>A couple of follow-up items regarding my column the other day, in which I idly speculated about whether the DMA might lead Apple (and/or perhaps Meta and Google) <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">to pull back from the EU market</a>.</p> <p>First, a correction/clarification. Based on <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of-apples-q1-2024-analyst-call/">Six Colors’s transcript</a> of Apple’s Q1 2024 analyst call back in January, I quoted Apple CFO Luca Maestri as saying, in response to a question asking whether investors should be concerned that DMA compliance will hinder services revenue, “Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global <em>absolute</em> revenue.”</p> <p>The word <em>absolute</em> was a transcription error, however.<sup id="fnr1-2024-03-29"><a href="#fn1-2024-03-29">1</a></sup> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6Q7-CKGhE&t=4625s">Listen to the published recording of the call</a>, and it’s clear that what Maestri actually said was specifically in answer to the question: “Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global <em>App Store</em> revenue.” (My thanks to Oliver Reichenstein <a href="https://mastodon.social/@reichenstein/112171885005869415">for the timestamped pointer to the recording</a>.)</p> <p>That’s an important correction that, as ever, I’m happy to make, but it doesn’t really change my speculation. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">I wrote</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>It’s unclear whether Maestri was saying that the EU accounts for 7 percent of Apple’s worldwide <em>App Store</em> revenue, or 7 percent of <em>all</em> revenue, but I suspect it doesn’t matter, and that both are around 7 percent. App Store revenue ought to be a good proxy for overall revenue — there’s no reason to think EU Apple users spend any less or any more in the App Store than users around the world. </p></blockquote> <p>It’s certainly possible that EU citizens account for significantly more (or even less) than 7 percent of Apple’s overall global revenue, but it strikes me as very unlikely that the EU’s share of Apple’s overall revenue is significantly different from its share of App Store revenue. I struggle to come up with any explanation for why the EU might account for only 7 percent of App Store revenue but significantly more (or less) of Apple’s overall revenue. Why would overall revenue from any region differ significantly from the App Store revenue from the same region, on a percentage basis? But it is an open question. (I hope an analyst asks Cook and Maestri about it directly on the next quarterly call in May.)</p> <hr /> <p>Second, I missed that the European Commission, alongside <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1689">its announcement that it had opened non-compliance investigations</a> against Google, Apple, and Meta under the Digital Markets Act, also separately published <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_24_1702">remarks from its two leaders</a>, executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager and commissioner Thierry Breton.</p> <p>From Vestager’s remarks, which were delivered in English:</p> <blockquote> <p>The third one relates to the objective of the DMA to open closed ecosystems to enable competition at all levels. Under Article 6(3) of the DMA, gatekeepers have an obligation to enable easy uninstallation of apps and easy change of default settings. They must also display a choice screen. Apple’s compliance model does not seem to meet the objectives of this obligation. In particular, we are concerned that the current design of the web browser choice screen deprives end-users of the ability to make a fully informed decision. Example: they do not enhance user engagement with all available options. Apple also failed to make several apps un-installable (one of them would be Photos) and prevents end-users from changing their default status (for example Cloud), as required by the DMA. </p></blockquote> <p>I don’t know what she means by “depriv[ing] end-users of the ability to make a fully informed decision” or “they do not enhance user engagement with all available options”. I can only guess that she’s complaining that <a href="https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1765188112349798551">Apple’s current browser choice screen</a> doesn’t actively encourage users to pick a browser other than Safari? But it doesn’t encourage users to choose Safari, either, and the choices are listed in randomized order each time. <a href="https://www.threads.net/@firerock31/post/C4JmbjoP9Tb">The iOS 17.4 choice screen</a> just says what a default web browser is, and then offers a list of the most popular browsers in the user’s country.</p> <p>As I wrote this week, there aren’t many un-installable apps on iOS. I might be missing some, but the list I came up with: Settings, Camera, Photos, App Store, Phone, Messages, and Safari. Vestager makes clear in her remarks what wasn’t clear in the EC’s announcement of the investigation: they have a problem with Photos. If they follow through with a demand that Photos be completely un-installable (not just hidable from the Home Screen, as it is now), this would constitute another way that the EC is standing in as the designer of how operating systems should work. Photos is not just an app on iOS; it’s the system-level interface to the camera roll. <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/control-which-apps-have-photos-access/">This is integrated throughout the entire iOS system</a>, with per-app permission prompts to grant differing levels of access to your photos. Vestager is saying that to be compliant with the DMA, Apple needs to allow third-party apps to serve as the system-level image library and camera roll. That is a monumental demand, and I honestly don’t even know how such a demand could be squared with system-wide permissions for photo access. This is product design, not mere regulation. Why stop there? Why not mandate that Springboard — the Home Screen — be a replaceable component? Or the entire OS itself? Why are iPhone users required to use iOS? Why are iOS users required to buy iPhones?</p> <p>Then we get to Breton’s remarks, the first half of which were delivered in his native French. Here are two translations of his French remarks, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/03/thierry-breton-remarks-ios-translate.text">from the iOS Translate app</a> and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/03/thierry-breton-remarks-google-translate.text">from Google Translate</a>. To my reading, there are no significant semantic differences between the two translations. Here’s the bulk of it, amalgamating the best from both translations:</p> <blockquote> <p>And I will tell you a simple but important thing: in 18 days, the DMA has moved the lines of the digital giants more than in the last 10 years. </p> <p>It’s not me who says it, but developers and users who finally see concrete changes and openness to give everyone the opportunity to gain market share, for example for browsers. </p> <p>In 18 days, therefore, already very concrete results. Why? </p> <p>Because it is an internal market regulation. This is where the revolution operates. </p> <p>You know how much I fought for the DMA to be a so-called “domestic market” regulation, ex ante therefore. Because it is the best way to promote our continent, Europe, which is an open continent, but according to our conditions. </p> <p>And a market of 450 million customers is simply unthinkable for anyone not to be there. </p> <p>Where the digital giants could pay fines of several billion dollars without batting an eye — by the way, when they had to pay them, after long years of procedures, which was not systematic, far from it... — today none of them can afford not to be in our market. </p> <p>This is the reality of the balance of power of the world in which we operate. </p> <p>So does everyone play the game perfectly the first time? We are entitled to doubt it of course and we are here to doubt by definition in a way I would say. </p> <p>At the very least, to check. </p> <p>And that’s what we’re doing today. </p></blockquote> <p>Breton’s remarks in French were, in some ways, far zestier than his subsequent remarks in English. Breton lays bare the EC’s belief that they hold all the cards — that it is “unthinkable” for any of the designated gatekeepers not to conduct business in the EU, and that “none of them can afford not to be in our market.”</p> <p>Perhaps he’s right, and I’m all wet for even speculating that one or more of the gatekeepers will pull one or more of their products from the EU market as a result of the DMA’s onerous demands and the threat of huge fees. But I, for one, consider it very thinkable. (Especially for Meta, as you’ll see next.)</p> <p>From Breton’s remarks delivered in English:</p> <blockquote> <p>First, today we are opening a case against Meta. We suspect that Meta is breaching the DMA rules on data combination [Article 5(2) DMA]. </p> <p>You all heard about Meta’s “Subscription for No Ads” model. With this new model, users have to pay if they want to use Facebook and Instagram without targeted advertising. And this has forced millions of users across Europe into a binary choice: “pay or consent”. And if you consent, Meta can use your data, generated for example on Messenger, to target ads on Instagram. </p> <p>But the DMA is very clear: gatekeepers must obtain users’ consent to use their personal data across different services. And this consent must be free! We have serious doubts that this consent is really free when you are confronted with a binary choice. With the DMA, users who do not consent should be provided with a less personalised alternative of the service, for example financed thanks to contextual advertising. But they do not have to pay. </p></blockquote> <p>The EC’s problem here is that when faced with the clear choice between using Meta’s platforms free of charge with targeted advertising, or paying a monthly fee, the overwhelming majority of people choose to use the service free of charge with targeted ads. Just because typical people overwhelmingly prefer free services with targeted ads doesn’t mean that a paid subscription isn’t a fair alternative. Here’s Margrethe Vestager herself, back in 2018, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/competition/interview/vestager-id-like-a-facebook-that-i-pay-with-full-privacy/">in an interview with Jorge Valero of Euractiv</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>My concern is more about whether we get the right choices. I would like to have a Facebook in which I pay a fee each month, but I would have no tracking and advertising and the full benefits of privacy. It is a provoking thought after all the Facebook scandal. This market is not being explored. </p></blockquote> <p>A provoking thought indeed, but apparently this was only worth exploring until they found out that EU citizens would overwhelmingly consent to free services with targeted ads. Privacy fundamentalists can’t seem to accept that most people don’t share their fervor that <em>consensual</em> targeted advertising is inherently wrong. Most people see it as a good deal.</p> <p>The obvious solution would be for the European Commission to pass a law banning targeted advertising. But I suspect they haven’t done that, and won’t, because so many publishers in the EU use targeted advertising (<a href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/pay-or-okay-and-the-prospects-for-digital-advertising-in-the-eu/">along with “pay or OK” subscription offerings</a>). They don’t want to eliminate all targeted advertising, just Meta’s (and Google’s), but that’s hard to put into written law while claiming not to be targeting specific American companies.</p> <p>It’s certainly possible that Meta can devise ways to serve non-personalized contextual ads that generate sufficient revenue per user.<sup id="fnr2-2024-03-29"><a href="#fn2-2024-03-29">2</a></sup> But if they can’t, the rubber hits the road on Breton’s belief that none of the designated gatekeepers “can afford not to be in our market”. Why exactly would Meta choose to remain in the EU if they’re forced to offer their services for pennies on the dollar (or in this case, cents on the euro)? Out of the goodness of Mark Zuckerberg’s heart?</p> <p>Consider too that if Meta goes along with this interpretation by the EC of the DMA’s requirements, and offers a vastly-less-lucrative free-of-charge option to use Instagram and Facebook without targeted ads in the European Union, there’s nothing to stop regulators and legislators around the world from demanding the same. Conceding to this might mean not just generating only a fraction of Meta’s current revenue in the EU, but generating only a fraction of its current revenue worldwide.</p> <p>Breton — after casting a stink eye at Google for presenting its own hotel, flight, and shopping recommendations in web search results, and at Amazon for promoting its own Amazon-branded products (a shocking practice for a retailer — good luck ever finding <a href="https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature.html">Kirkland</a> products at Costco, <a href="https://www.target.com/b/up/-/N-q643leuvcp7">Up & Up</a> at Target, or, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands">say</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNw-l37rXsg">Ol’ Roy dog food</a> at Walmart, right?) — concludes with a threat:</p> <blockquote> <p>Should we have indications of ineffective compliance or possible circumvention of the DMA, we will not hesitate to make use of the DMA’s full enforcement toolbox, including innovative tools that did not exist in antitrust enforcement such as the retention orders. And if our investigations conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers will face heavy fines. </p> <p>We have a duty: ensuring full compliance with the DMA. And we will do all we can to create an online space that is fair and competitive to the benefit of all consumers and businesses operating in our Single Market. </p></blockquote> <p>Turns out, though, that <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1bf9r6n/google_search_of_locations_no_longer_working_as/">actual users</a> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1bc0ttj/integration_on_google_search_page/">don’t agree</a> that removing longstanding features from Google search results is somehow for their benefit. I’m guessing they’d see even less benefit if entire popular services and products were removed from the EU market.</p> <div class="footnotes"><hr /><ol> <li id="fn1-2024-03-29"><p>Jason Snell <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2023/02/automating-podcast-transcripts-on-my-mac-with-openai-whisper/">uses OpenAI’s amazing Whisper</a> to generate the first draft of these transcripts, but he does proofread them. But neither he nor I thought “absolute” sounded weird in that context. Snell, of course, has now corrected the transcript. <a href="#fnr1-2024-03-29" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a></p></li> <li id="fn2-2024-03-29"><p>One obvious solution would be to show more ads — a lot more ads — to make up for the difference in revenue. So if contextual ads generate, say, one-tenth the revenue of targeted ads, Meta could show 10 times as many ads to users who opt out of targeting. I don’t think 10× is an outlandish multiplier there — given how remarkably profitable Meta’s advertising business is, it might even need to be higher than that. But showing that many ads would be such a bad experience that I suspect it would land Meta right back where they are today with the paid subscription option, with the EC declaring it non-compliant because users don’t want it. <a href="#fnr2-2024-03-29" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩︎︎</a></p></li> </ol></div> ]]></content> <title>★ More on the EU’s Market Might</title></entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/ve9" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40689</id> <published>2024-03-26T19:32:28Z</published> <updated>2024-03-30T01:11:31Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">The DMA allows the EC to penalize “gatekeepers” with fines that are vastly disproportionate to the amount of revenue they generate in EU member states.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>A few readers have asked about <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/ec_non_compliance_investigations">my speculation</a> that Apple, along with the other DMA-designated gatekeepers (none of which are European companies of course), might reasonably pull out of the relatively small EU market rather than risk facing disproportionately large fines from the European Commission. The DMA allows the EC to fine gatekeepers up to 10 percent of global revenue (which would hit a hardware-based company like Apple particularly hard) for a first offense, and up to 20 percent for subsequent fines. But the EU represents only 7 percent of Apple’s revenue. <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of-apples-q1-2024-analyst-call/">That figure comes from CFO Luca Maestri on Apple’s Q1 2024 analyst call</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Amit Daryanani, Evercore:</strong> Fair enough, and then as a follow up, you folks have implemented a fair bit of changes around the apps for in Europe post the DMA implementation there. Can you just touch on what are some of the key updates and then Luca, does NetApp at all, do you see it having any significant impact financially to your services or the broader Apple P&L statement. </p> <p>[<em>Remarks from Tim Cook omitted.</em>] </p> <p><strong>Luca Maestri:</strong> Yes, and Amit, as Tim said, these are changes that we’re going to be implementing in March. A lot will depend on the choices that will be made. Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global <s>absolute</s> App Store revenue.</p></blockquote> <p>[<strong>Update 29 March:</strong> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">See transcription correction here</a>. Maestri said “App Store revenue”, not “absolute revenue”.]</p> <p>It’s unclear whether Maestri was saying that the EU accounts for 7 percent of Apple’s worldwide <em>App Store</em> revenue, or 7 percent of <em>all</em> revenue, but I suspect it doesn’t matter, and that both are around 7 percent. App Store revenue ought to be a good proxy for overall revenue — there’s no reason to think EU Apple users spend any less or any more in the App Store than users around the world.</p> <p>There’s some “<em>7 percent sounds way too low</em>” confusion that stems from the fact that Apple, in its <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf">quarterly consolidated financial statements</a>, breaks results into five geographic regions: Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan, and “Rest of Asia Pacific”. “Europe” accounts for somewhere around 25 percent of Apple’s global revenue. That’s the number most people think about. But there are a significant number of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)">high-GDP countries</a> in Europe that <a href="https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/list-non-eu-countries_en">aren’t in the EU</a> — the UK (most famously), Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, Norway, and Ukraine. More importantly, Apple’s “Europe” includes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Middle_Eastern_countries_by_GDP">the entire Middle East</a>.</p> <p>So EU member states account for only 25–30 percent of Apple’s revenue from “Europe”, and just 7 percent globally. 7 percent is significant, to be sure, and in addition to users, there are of course many iOS and Mac developers in EU countries. I really don’t know what Apple pulling out of the EU would even look like, but it would be ugly. Could they merely stop selling the iPhone there but continue selling other products? Would that create a massive gray market for iPhones imported from outside the EU? How would Apple deal with the hundreds of millions of existing iPhone owners in the EU? I have no idea. It would be a mess, to be sure, but the DMA has already made doing business in the EU a mess for Apple and the other designated gatekeepers. But one can make the case — <a href="https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1764769326182146472">as Eric Seufert has</a> — that American companies have to at least <em>consider</em> the fact that doing business in the EU isn’t worth the risk of fines so vastly disproportionate to the revenue they generate in the EU. </p> <p>And it’s not like the risk is merely a first-offense fine of up to 10 percent of annual global revenue and a single second fine of up to 20 percent — there’s no limit to how many times the EC can fine a gatekeeper for non-compliance with the DMA’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/ec_non_compliance_investigations">arbitrary and vague rules</a>.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/04/1235887120/apple-music-spotify-fine-european-union">EC just fined Apple $2 billion</a> for violating article 102(a) of their rules on competition, for hindering Spotify (a European company — surely a coincidence) in the music streaming market. <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A12008E102">The entirety of article 102(a)</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States. </p> <p>Such abuse may, in particular, consist in: </p> <p><b>(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;</b></p></blockquote> <p>Where “unfair” is never defined. That’s as specific as the law gets. Note too that the base penalty for this infraction, per the EC’s 2006 guidelines, was €40 million, but the EC raised the fine by a factor of 45× to €1.8 <em>billion</em> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161">because the guidelines aren’t binding</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>In addition, the Commission decided to add to the basic amount of the fine an additional lump sum of €1.8 billion to ensure that the overall fine imposed on Apple is sufficiently deterrent. Such lump sum fine was necessary in this case because a significant part of the harm caused by the infringement consists of non-monetary harm, which cannot be properly accounted for under the revenue-based methodology as set out in the Commission’s 2006 Guidelines on Fines. In addition, the fine must be sufficient to deter Apple from repeating the present or a similar infringement; and to deter other companies of a similar size and with similar resources from committing the same or a similar infringement. </p></blockquote> <p>Judging from the EC’s actions and statements, there’s no reason to believe that the EC will <em>not</em> pursue maximum fines under the DMA.<sup id="fnr1-2024-03-26"><a href="#fn1-2024-03-26">1</a></sup></p> <div class="footnotes"><hr /><ol><li id="fn1-2024-03-26"><p>In addition to weighing revenue generated in the EU vs. the risk of fines of 10–20 percent of global revenue, the designated “gatekeepers” are already paying significant penalties in terms of engineering resources. Every software engineer working on features related to DMA compliance is an engineer not working on new features or improving existing features for the non-EU world. I suspect Apple is currently spending more than a commensurate-with-revenue 7 percent of engineering resources on DMA compliance features and APIs. <a href="#fnr1-2024-03-26" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a></p></li></ol></div> ]]></content> <title>★ The EU’s Share of Apple’s Global Revenue</title></entry><entry> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/ec_non_compliance_investigations" /> <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/ve6" /> <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40686</id> <published>2024-03-26T01:30:19Z</published> <updated>2024-03-30T01:24:18Z</updated> <author> <name>John Gruber</name> <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri> </author> <summary type="text">You could have set your watch by this announcement dropping the week after the EC held compliance “workshops”.</summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[<p>[<a href="#threats-update">See update below</a>, regarding the EC’s threats.]</p> <p><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1689">European Commission press release today</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s “pay or consent model”. </p> <p>The Commission suspects that the measures put in place by these gatekeepers fall short of effective compliance of their obligations under the DMA. </p></blockquote> <p>You could have set your watch by this announcement dropping the week after the EC held compliance “workshops”. There was no way any of these companies weren’t going to be “investigated” and I doubt there’s any way they won’t eventually get fined. Whether any of them will <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/26/intel-has-1point2-billion-antitrust-fine-overturned-by-eu-court-.html">ever need to pay those fines</a>, that I wouldn’t bet on.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Alphabet’s and Apple’s steering rules</strong></p> <p>The Commission has opened proceedings to assess whether the measures implemented by Alphabet and Apple in relation to their obligations pertaining to app stores are in breach of the DMA. Article 5(4) of the DMA requires gatekeepers to allow app developers to “steer” consumers to offers outside the gatekeepers’ app stores, free of charge. </p> <p>The Commission is concerned that Alphabet’s and Apple’s measures may not be fully compliant as they impose various restrictions and limitations. These constrain, among other things, developers’ ability to freely communicate and promote offers and directly conclude contracts, including by imposing various charges. </p></blockquote> <p>The EC is edging closer and closer to saying that successful platforms have no right to monetize their IP on those platforms. That’s exactly what a lot of anti-capitalist critics of these companies have been rooting for, but it would be a radical step.</p> <blockquote> <p>The Commission has opened proceedings against Alphabet, to determine whether Alphabet’s display of Google search results may lead to self-preferencing in relation to Google’s vertical search services (e.g., Google Shopping; Google Flights; Google Hotels) over similar rival services. </p> <p>The Commission is concerned that Alphabet’s measures implemented to comply with the DMA may not ensure that third-party services featuring on Google’s search results page are treated in a fair and non-discriminatory manner in comparison with Alphabet’s own services, as required by Article 6(5) of the DMA. </p></blockquote> <p>Google is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/03/13/google-search-dma">already sacrificing results quality</a>, and promoting results from some low-quality comparison sites in the name of compliance. And I don’t even know why this announcement from the EC mentions Google Flights, given that Google has <a href="https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/an-update-on-our-preparations-for-the-dma/">removed Google Flights results from web search results in the EU</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p>Apple’s compliance with user choice obligations </p> <p>The Commission has opened proceedings against Apple regarding their measures to comply with obligations to (i) enable end users to easily uninstall any software applications on iOS, (ii) easily change default settings on iOS and (iii) prompt users with choice screens which must effectively and easily allow them to select an alternative default service, such as a browser or search engine on their iPhones. </p></blockquote> <p>Apple’s idea is that out of the box, an iPhone presents a complete experience. This keeps coming up, but it’s worth reiterating that there were no third-party apps at all for iPhone for the first year. “A widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device.” Music, video, web browsing, email, maps, text messaging, contacts, calendar, and more. These apps aren’t just developed in a vacuum and bundled together on a device. On iOS these apps are designed to work together, integrated into a holistic experience. You can — and zillions of iPhone owners do — choose to use alternative apps, but the core apps in iOS are not, as the EU would suggest, a collection of shovelware.</p> <p>But most of the built-in apps in iOS <em>can</em> be removed from your iPhone the exact same way you delete apps from the App Store. There’s a handful that can’t, among them: Settings, Camera, Photos, App Store, Phone, Messages, and Safari. You can remove those apps from your Home Screen, but they remain in your App Library. If the EC is really going to investigate Apple over removing default apps, I presume they’re thinking that Safari, in particular, needs to be deletable, because making it un-deletable is a form of preferencing? It’s all guess work. I further suppose they might want the App Store app to be deletable, but that’s a problem because it’s through the App Store that a user can re-install built-in apps they’ve previously deleted.</p> <blockquote> <p>The Commission is concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA. </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32022R1925#d1e1833-1-1">Here’s article 6(3) of the DMA</a>, in its entirety:</p> <blockquote> <p>The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable end users to easily un-install any software applications on the operating system of the gatekeeper, without prejudice to the possibility for that gatekeeper to restrict such un-installation in relation to software applications that are essential for the functioning of the operating system or of the device and which cannot technically be offered on a standalone basis by third parties. </p> <p>The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable end users to easily change default settings on the operating system, virtual assistant and web browser of the gatekeeper that direct or steer end users to products or services provided by the gatekeeper. That includes prompting end users, at the moment of the end users’ first use of an online search engine, virtual assistant or web browser of the gatekeeper listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9), to choose, from a list of the main available service providers, the online search engine, virtual assistant or web browser to which the operating system of the gatekeeper directs or steers users by default, and the online search engine to which the virtual assistant and the web browser of the gatekeeper directs or steers users by default. </p></blockquote> <p>How this browser choice screen is non-compliant with the above article, I don’t know. And even in the announcement of their investigation, the EC doesn’t say. My best guess, having read Steven Troughton-Smith’s Whisper-generated transcript of last week’s Apple compliance “workshop”, is that the EC’s problem with Apple’s current browser choice screen is that the list of included web browsers in each EU member state is determined by which web browsers are most popular in each country — which in turn means the only browsers included are those which are already in Apple’s App Store. There’s no mechanism for a new browser that was never in the App Store to be included in the choice screen until a year after it becomes popular enough — via sideloading or distribution through alternative app marketplaces — to make the list. But DMA article 6(3) doesn’t actually say that. It just says the choice screens must include “a list of the main available service providers” — which is exactly what the iOS 17.4 browser choice screen does.</p> <p>I’ll bet you, like me, took note of article 6(3)’s clauses regarding search engines and virtual assistants. Google Search is a designated “core platform service” and so Google, the gatekeeper that owns it, <a href="https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/">is obligated to include a choice screen for web search in Android</a>. Apple is obligated to offer a choice screen for browsers, because Safari is a designated core platform service, but not for search, because Google Search is Google’s service, not Apple’s. <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328">But as far as I can see</a>, there are no virtual assistants, on any gatekeeper’s platform, that have been designated core platform services, and so I don’t think either Google or Apple is obligated to provide a choice screen for them.</p> <p><strong>Update:</strong> Turns out Apple has already announced that it’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093355/apple-digital-markets-act-compliance-android-switch-eu">working to allow Safari to be completely uninstalled</a> from iOS by the end of the year.</p> <p>Back to today’s press release from the EC:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Meta’s “pay or consent” model</strong></p> <p>Finally, the Commission has opened proceedings against Meta to investigate whether the recently introduced “pay or consent” model for users in the EU complies with Article 5(2) of the DMA which requires gatekeepers to obtain consent from users when they intend to combine or cross-use their personal data across different core platform services. </p> <p>The Commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta’s “pay or consent” model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers. </p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/03/19/meta-dma-feee">I wrote about this last week</a> — this is the argument that it’s insufficient for Meta to offer a fair price for a no-targeted-ads experience because the overwhelming majority of people will choose to use Meta’s platforms free-of-charge with targeted ads rather than pay. Nothing, seemingly, will do short of Meta offering its platforms both without charge and without targeted ads, even though non-targeted ads would, at best, generate only pennies on the <s>dollar</s> euro. Not only is the EC signaling that Meta isn’t allowed to set its own price for its own services — they’re seemingly arguing that Meta is obligated to provide its platforms effectively free-of-charge. That’s a radically anti-business stance for an ostensibly capitalist government body to take.</p> <hr /> <p><span id="threats-update">At the end of the EC’s press release come the threats. Quote from commissioner Thierry Breton:</span></p> <blockquote> <p>“The Digital Markets Act became applicable on 7 March. We have been in discussions with gatekeepers for months to help them adapt, and we can already see changes happening on the market. But we are not convinced that the solutions by Alphabet, Apple and Meta respect their obligations for a fairer and more open digital space for European citizens and businesses. Should our investigation conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers could face heavy fines.” </p></blockquote> <p>First fine: up to 10 percent of the company’s global revenue. Subsequent fines: up to 20 percent. Not EU revenue, global revenue. This, from a bloc of countries that accounts for only 7 percent of Apple’s revenue. The EC clearly thinks these threats will get these “gatekeeping” companies to ask “How high?” when the EC demands they jump. (The DMA, of course, doesn’t specify how high they need to jump to comply.) Whereas the question they’re actually <a href="https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1764769326182146472">forcing these companies to ask</a> is “Why are we doing business in the EU?”</p> ]]></content> <title>★ European Commission Opens DMA Non-Compliance Investigations Against Google, Apple, and Meta</title></entry></feed><!-- THE END --> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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