0:00

Happy Vision Pro Week! Indeed.

0:04

Well, here's the thing. I would

0:06

love to talk about the Vision Pro because now all

0:08

the press reviews and embargoes are lifted and the press

0:11

reviews are all out and everyone who got pre-release access

0:14

got to tell everyone what they thought

0:16

and show everyone and everything. And because

0:18

we didn't, we can't. So even though

0:20

Casey and I had lab experience, we

0:22

still can't talk about that. I

0:24

think maybe ever. And so

0:26

we just have to wait until we can actually have

0:28

our Vision Pros, which is this weekend

0:31

for both of us. That's

0:33

true. You know, even though we all three of

0:35

us agreed not to talk about it, I would like to say

0:37

that we genuinely did not

0:39

get to have any experience with personas

0:42

or anything like that. And

0:44

I probably am not even supposed to say that much, but I say that

0:46

to indicate that any of what I'm about

0:48

to say is not informed by the lab because I

0:50

genuinely have no experience with the whole persona thing. Everyone

0:54

seems to be slagging on two

0:56

different persona related things. The eyesight,

0:58

which is the thing where it

1:00

shows your eyes out the front of the display

1:02

or at the front of the goggles such that

1:04

we're doing an amazing job of not talking about

1:06

the Vision Pro. I know. That's

1:09

exactly what I know. It's my fault this time.

1:11

It's a person for everything. Um, the, the, everyone's

1:13

slagging on the eyesight, both in the terms of,

1:15

you know, seeing the wearer's eyes on the front

1:17

of the, of the headset and

1:19

the whole persona thing where you're like a

1:21

fake version of you in FaceTime and all

1:24

the other places where you would normally use

1:26

a front facing camera on like a phone

1:28

or an iPad. I have

1:30

zero real world experience with this hand to God. I

1:32

really don't have any experience with this. I've

1:35

seen why I see and

1:37

understand why everyone is slagging on it, but

1:40

to me, I don't think

1:42

it's that bad. I'm very curious to see what

1:44

I think when I actually have one that I

1:46

can use in front of me in person because

1:49

it's not great. Like I'm not trying to sit

1:51

here and say it looks fantastic and it looks

1:53

photo realistic or anything like that, but I

1:56

like the idea of those around me being

1:58

able to tell if I'm looking at. Them

2:00

are paying. Zero attention to them or whatever the

2:02

case may be an I like the idea of

2:04

having some mechanism of representing myself. it's not me

2:06

modes eat while I'm on like a free sample.

2:08

was not to say that I expect to do

2:10

this often, but just you know when an indication

2:12

that I do need a front facing camera I

2:14

like those. The approach they've taken it is a

2:16

little bit Uncanny Valley. I'm not trying to say

2:18

it's perfect by any means. everyone seems so it's

2:21

really heated. A bomb. We over there are a

2:23

bunch of reviews here all tied into what we

2:25

were supposed to be talking about. their butts reviews,

2:27

video reviews ancestors came out I think was John

2:29

put a bunch in the show Notes: And I

2:31

concur with John's list. a new way to

2:33

tell the verge. I personally think if we

2:35

get to choose just one that's the one

2:37

I would choose or but also excellent are

2:39

joined serve post eternal A Brian's Hong who

2:41

had not previously heard of maybe have been

2:43

living under a rock A he did a

2:46

very long an hour long review on you

2:48

tube which is very thorough or if you're

2:50

wanting something more along that those lines and

2:52

a group or obviously has written review which

2:54

was excellent as well I wonder Empty Beach

2:56

the is posted as it as just an

2:58

hour or two ago I think has posted

3:00

a. Bet. On boxing which was

3:02

interesting but more importantly a like Sears with

3:04

the vision pro he is it isn't or

3:07

of view it's eight. Here's what let me

3:09

tell you about what it is. Mike tore

3:11

the exactly exact I I liked. Everybody says

3:13

idiot I haven't read, I haven't read and

3:15

seen all of these yet but as obvious

3:18

as he said we are not tell you

3:20

have a threesome pro and of your honor.

3:22

Organ is not about on as be so

3:24

you know unfortunate timing obviously of his Dna

3:26

stuff you do. My stuff came out after

3:28

we had require last week's episode. Are.

3:31

You know, for people who don't know, we record

3:33

our show on Wednesdays. Because.

3:35

Apple usually announces stuff on Tuesdays.

3:38

Ah, but you don't want em all. Sometimes

3:40

they announce something on a, you know, a

3:42

Thursday and we miss it. So that's what

3:44

happened. And it's as well because. Like

3:46

you said, you don't have your vision prose yet.

3:48

They're coming in a few days regular customers don't

3:50

have Now though I do know someone who's delivery

3:53

date was one day earlier. Than. it

3:55

was derived so maybe might get lucky and get a

3:57

derelict know a lot were in store pickup for both

3:59

of us Yeah, okay. Well you're not getting

4:01

it early then. Nope. But yeah,

4:03

so that's, we're going to be talking about the

4:05

EU-DMA stuff that a bunch of other people talked

4:07

about last week if there are podcasts recording allowed

4:09

for it. And then next week,

4:12

when two out of three of

4:14

us have Vision Pros, we will talk a ton

4:16

about it then. But for now, these reviews will

4:18

tide you over. Yeah, and while

4:20

we can't tell you anything that we think about the

4:22

Vision Pro, I can tell you

4:24

that I would recommend

4:26

Neil Eiffel's review with the Verge. Yeah, same.

4:29

In particular. Like Casey, I think

4:31

if you're only going to watch one, I'd say watch

4:33

that one. It is very

4:35

thorough. It covers all of the major

4:37

areas of different uses for it. And

4:40

I think he seemed to be

4:43

very fair about both what's cool,

4:45

what's not, what has potential

4:47

for the future, maybe what doesn't have so much potential for the

4:49

future. Some

4:51

of the things about it that are really weird or

4:53

really different or take some getting used to, and some

4:55

of the things about it that are really nice and really cool

4:57

and really immersive. So I would

5:00

strongly recommend Neil Eiffel's review with the Verge, either

5:02

video or the written one. Actually, I read

5:04

the written one first, and then

5:06

I watched the video, and I found that I

5:09

didn't really need to do both. So I

5:11

would suggest reading the written one if you pick only

5:13

one. Yeah,

5:15

I agree. But anyway, I bring all this up

5:17

mostly to point to all these different reviews and

5:19

whatnot, but also to say I'm really excited about

5:22

a few things with Vision Pro, and maybe we'll

5:24

talk about that later. But I'm

5:26

excited and interested to see what

5:29

I think of eyesight and personas

5:32

for me, like once I have

5:34

them and see them in person or to the degree

5:36

that you can see a persona in person. I'm

5:40

very curious because I don't feel like it's nearly as

5:42

bad as everyone else seems to think it is, and

5:44

so it very well could be next week when we

5:46

record a laugh at this moment and say, oh, how

5:48

wrong I was. But sitting

5:50

here now, I think it's reasonable. You realize the three of

5:52

us are going to have to do a FaceTime call with

5:55

me and you as personas and John as the unfortunate only

5:57

one who's not. Yep. Yep.

6:00

of videos I've seen so far of people doing their

6:02

FaceTime calls with the personas, I do

6:05

not like looking at them. It bothers

6:07

me on a deep level. This

6:10

is the common opinion. Again,

6:12

I don't think they're great, but as somebody

6:14

in the chat said, all these YouTubers were

6:16

immediately recognizable as who they were, which I

6:18

think is an accomplishment. It's not perfect. It's

6:20

not great, but I don't think it's as

6:22

bad as everyone else seems to think. They

6:24

kind of creep me out. They make me

6:26

feel uneasy. Look, we'll

6:29

see when we get these, and we'll see how, because this

6:31

feature is in beta, we'll see how it develops over time.

6:34

My initial opinion, which I am not sure

6:36

is going to change that much anytime soon,

6:39

is if I'm going to be on

6:41

a FaceTime call with you, I'd rather you take your headset

6:44

off and actually be a FaceTime call. If you're going to

6:46

be your fake persona, I think I'd

6:48

rather just have a phone call at that point. Alex

6:52

Chan writes, I've also been programming against YouTube

6:54

API recently. I run into the same quota

6:56

issues that John had described last week and

6:58

week before. I don't think John is

7:00

doing something daft. The quota isn't 10,000

7:03

requests. It's 10,000 quote-unquote quota

7:07

units. A single request can use many

7:09

units. There's a table of quota costs in YouTube's documentation,

7:11

which will link in the show notes. I don't know

7:13

if that fully accounts for you burning through your quota

7:15

so quickly, but maybe it's a clue in the right

7:17

direction. I don't know if it was Alex or John,

7:19

but somebody pointed out that costs, some example

7:21

costs, something a playlist is

7:24

one quota unit. Updating a video is 50

7:26

quota units. Inserting a video or

7:28

perhaps inserting something into a video, I'm not sure, is 1,600

7:30

quota units. John

7:32

Wallis Yeah, and this does account for it because

7:35

when I, the video update thing is like if I'm

7:37

updating the description, yeah, we have

7:39

over 500 videos and if each of them

7:41

costs 50 and I update all of them,

7:43

you burn through your quota real quick. In

7:45

fact, I'm routinely going way over my quota

7:47

relying on the fact that most API

7:50

systems that have a quota are

7:52

essentially eventually consistent and you can blow

7:54

past your quota briefly before the system

7:56

realizes that you've passed it and caps

7:59

you. So that's what I had been doing. So

8:02

that explains it. It's kind of cruddy if that

8:04

explains it. Although eventually Google did get back to

8:06

me and they approved my request for

8:08

many more requests or

8:11

many more, what are these called, quota units. So now

8:13

instead of 10,000, I have 100,000. I

8:16

probably should ask for a million. Anyway, it

8:18

doesn't matter because I'm already done with the development of the

8:20

script. So as predicted, this was all pointless. But

8:22

the more you know, it's quota units,

8:24

not requests. Indeed. John,

8:28

I'm assuming it's John and not Marco that

8:30

wrote this app store versus game consoles. Tell

8:32

me about this. Yeah, this is I'm I

8:35

guess the third shown rotating the same point

8:37

because people keep bringing up topics

8:39

that are related to it. The

8:42

whole idea of developer

8:44

dissatisfaction with Apple and

8:46

comparing that to other developers to

8:48

develop for other platforms that are kind of similar

8:50

to the app store and what their satisfaction is

8:52

like. And we brought up game

8:54

consoles and I said it might seem unfair to you that companies

8:57

that develop for game consoles seem to be

8:59

more OK with the deal than a lot

9:03

of app store developers are. And

9:05

many people wrote in to tell

9:07

us that, well, that's because the game

9:10

console manufacturers sell their hardware at a loss. And

9:12

so they need the profit from the games to

9:14

make up for the fact that they're selling their

9:16

hardware at a loss. And I have two

9:18

things to say for that. First, talk to

9:20

Nintendo. They don't play that game. At least not

9:22

as much as the other companies do. Nintendo

9:25

tends to want to either break even or actually

9:27

make a profit on its hardware pretty much all

9:29

the time. And

9:32

even the other console makers eventually start breaking even trying

9:34

to profit on their consoles and during the lifetime of

9:36

the things. But that's besides the point, because the second

9:38

thing is it doesn't actually

9:41

matter like

9:43

what the reason is, unless that reason is convincing

9:46

to developers. And I have to tell you that

9:48

app store developers who are angry about Apple, they

9:50

already know about game consoles and how the world

9:52

works over there and it does not convince them

9:54

to not be thankful of

9:56

Apple. And that's the

9:59

whole deal here. Most

10:01

of the time, trying to explain to somebody who

10:03

thinks they're getting a not great deal doesn't

10:07

change their mind. Usually because

10:09

you're not providing them with any new information. For

10:11

example, they would say, yeah, I know game consoles

10:13

are sort of lost. Yeah, I know what

10:17

they would say to you, but that doesn't make me feel

10:19

any better about giving Apple 15% or 30% or whatever. You

10:23

have to work with the people and

10:26

the opinions they have, even though if they quote unquote

10:28

don't make sense to you or you think there's some

10:30

reason otherwise. That's the situation

10:32

Apple is in. That is the fundamental

10:34

issue at hand here. Apple

10:36

thinks that there are very good reasons for them to

10:38

get what they want and game developers and

10:41

App Store developers disagree and

10:43

that's where they are. And I don't think at

10:45

this point any amount of explaining why is going

10:48

to change either party's opinion.

10:51

All right, and then tell me about who owns the customer.

10:54

This is something you were talking about last time. Why

10:56

would somebody do this? This is back before the DMA

10:58

stuff. We were talking about the external links to payment

11:00

methods. Why would anybody do that? I said one of

11:02

the reasons is ownership of the customer, as we've discussed

11:04

many times in the past. And I

11:07

talked about reasons why you might want to own the customer

11:09

because then you get the customer information, which may be lucrative

11:11

to you. But

11:13

I once again neglected to mention something that we had

11:15

mentioned for many, many years in the past, so I

11:17

reiterated it again. There are other reasons that you might

11:19

want to own the customer that are not related to

11:21

getting their information and selling it. For

11:24

example, one thing we've discussed many times is

11:26

that developers in the App Store cannot issue

11:28

refunds. Only Apple can. If

11:30

you own the customer, you are now empowered

11:33

to issue refunds because you took their payment,

11:35

you can give their payment back to them.

11:37

That is not something that developers can currently

11:39

do. Same thing with support.

11:41

If a customer is having a

11:43

problem, there's no way for

11:45

you to sort of connect the dots with them in the

11:48

generic App Store relationship because they're Apple's customer,

11:50

not yours. You

11:52

could put an email address on your website, you can have

11:54

a contact form, you can do all that, but there's a

11:56

limited amount of stuff that you can do. Whereas if you

11:58

own the customer, you can provide... better support. Giving

12:01

them a refund yourself is one example of

12:04

better support. And then also, if

12:07

the thing you're providing, that application or service

12:09

or combination of them, if it's on more

12:11

than one platform, you're on iOS, you're on

12:13

Android, you're on PC, you're on Mac, right?

12:16

You can provide a unified experience if you own the

12:19

customer because you can say, well, pay me one price,

12:21

and I'll give you it on all these platforms. And

12:23

there are ways to do that with the App

12:26

Store to try to figure out if they've made

12:28

a purchase on another platform and to give them

12:30

the App Store thing and vice versa. But it's

12:32

so much easier if you have one unified account

12:34

and one unified payment system because you own the

12:37

customer. So there are legitimate

12:39

non-neiferious reasons why you might want to own

12:41

the customer. And like I said, we're talking

12:43

about the external payment things. That is the

12:46

only benefit that you're getting given the set

12:48

of rules that Apple had provided

12:50

because you're not paying Apple any less money.

12:52

You're enduring much more hassle than you were

12:54

before. It is much more difficult. You have

12:57

to allow Apple to audit you and in

12:59

exchange the one and only thing you get

13:01

is customer ownership. I mean, that being said,

13:03

though, there are certain businesses

13:05

where Apple's

13:07

payment system either doesn't have a

13:09

feature that you need to do

13:11

that kind of business or literally doesn't

13:14

allow it. So for instance, if you

13:16

wanted to, say, have a few

13:18

different payment plans for your in-app

13:20

purchase, whatever

13:22

your app service is that you're selling, and

13:24

the top one, if they paid $100 a year, you

13:28

sent them a free t-shirt. You can't do that

13:30

with in-app purchase. In-app purchase can't be used for any kind of physical

13:32

goods. So you literally just aren't allowed to

13:34

do that. Or upgrade pricing is another great example. You

13:36

want to do upgrade pricing? You own the customer, you

13:39

control the payment system, you know what they paid, you

13:41

know they own the version 1.0, you can

13:43

give them upgrade pricing for 2.0. Exactly. And

13:45

there's so many, even just implementation details.

13:47

I have talked before, back when I

13:49

had the idea forever ago and have

13:54

continued to have it once a year and then quickly talking

13:56

to myself out of it, of like, hey, why don't I

13:58

make some kind of overcast premium. thing that like

14:00

pulls money together and then pays the

14:02

podcast that you listen to. And

14:05

to do that, you have to know exactly

14:08

how much money you got from each

14:10

person. Not how much

14:12

money they were charged, you can figure

14:15

that out, how much money you received

14:17

from them, which becomes very tricky when

14:19

you're dealing with foreign currency exchange rates

14:22

or any kind of credit card charge

14:24

back or refund situation. So that

14:26

kind of thing, if you build your own

14:28

system, you can maybe do that a lot

14:30

better. With Apple's system, it's fairly impossible to

14:33

know. Did I actually receive that $7.75 from

14:35

this person in this month or not? And

14:40

that's, by the way, that's why Spotify

14:42

and YouTube Premium and all these

14:44

things, that's why they all

14:46

do the big pool of money approach where

14:48

like your $10 a month doesn't

14:51

get split up between your artists that you listen to. Your

14:54

$10 a month goes into the giant pool of

14:56

money and then the giant pool of money gets

14:59

split up based on how much money there actually

15:01

is in that pool and then how many total

15:03

plays there were in that entire month, which creates

15:05

all sorts of weird opportunities

15:07

for fraud and things like that, but

15:10

it's just much easier. So again, there

15:12

are conditions like that where Apple's system

15:15

just might not support what you want

15:17

to do, even if you are tolerant

15:20

of Apple's fees. So that's

15:23

what's interesting about using other

15:25

payment options is it's not just I'm trying

15:27

to get away with giving Apple

15:29

less or no money, but that's a big part of

15:31

it. But there's also legitimate reasons why

15:33

you might want to do that. Neeru

15:36

Mahasauraranathan writes, I

15:39

recently stopped by an Apple store to repair a cracked

15:41

iPhone screen. Like any security-conscious iOS user, I had stolen

15:43

device protection turned on. The technician asked me as part

15:45

of the regular repair process to turn off Find My.

15:47

When I went to do this, however, stolen device protection

15:49

kicked in and forced me to wait an hour to

15:51

turn Find My off. There wasn't anything

15:53

the technician could do to help. I ended up leaving,

15:56

turning stolen device protection off, and then coming back to

15:58

complete the repair. I presume that Neeru means it.

16:00

that they went home or what have you. Although

16:02

it makes sense, I was still surprised that stolen

16:04

device protection kicked in when turning off Find My.

16:06

Given how it can be tricky for folks to

16:08

schedule time to make it to the Apple store,

16:10

it's worth keeping in mind that you might want

16:12

to turn off stolen device protection at least an

16:14

hour before your appointment. That is interesting. I get

16:16

exactly why all this happened, but it's interesting nevertheless.

16:18

It totally makes sense. You don't want someone to

16:20

be able to turn off Find My. That's

16:23

kind of an important feature, especially if your phone

16:25

is stolen. So yeah, remember when you put that

16:27

delay in, that delay applies to you too. Although

16:29

it doesn't apply if you're in one of your

16:32

safe locations. So if you do it at

16:34

home, maybe you don't have to wait an hour, so just do it

16:36

at home before you leave for the Apple store. And

16:38

I believe the upcoming new version of iOS, I

16:40

think 17.4, they're going to have a setting where

16:42

if you don't want to have safe locations, you

16:44

can turn that off. So

16:46

it's up to you to decide how much inconvenience do

16:48

you want in your life? Yeah, and

16:50

this is probably the kind of thing, we were

16:53

speculating when they introduced stolen device protection recently, we

16:55

were saying like, why don't they just enable this

16:57

by default for everyone? And maybe this kind of

16:59

thing is, maybe this is part of the reason

17:02

why, that maybe they figure this would cause too

17:04

many support headaches or whatever else. Because that's, anytime

17:06

you're looking at like, why something in iOS is

17:08

a little bit insecure, maybe, for instance, why can

17:11

you reset your Apple ID password with just your

17:13

passcode to a phone? Which is the

17:15

whole root of this problem. And the

17:17

answer often to those questions is, it

17:19

turns out in real life, people forget this stuff all

17:22

the time and they need support to help them through

17:24

this problem all the time. And so

17:26

that's probably one of the reasons why this is

17:28

off by default. Indeed, Renee Schatzel

17:30

writes in Europe, or at least in

17:32

UK and Germany, the opticians

17:34

in the store are usually equipped to measure

17:36

your eyesight and essentially, as part of the

17:39

service of buying new glasses, they do just

17:41

this beforehand for free. They're specifically

17:43

trained for that, though, as part

17:45

of their apprenticeship. Obviously, you can also go to

17:47

the ophthalmologist to get a prescription if you want,

17:49

but it's not obligatory. Zeiss actually

17:51

sells a rather smallish device that measures your eyesight

17:53

automatically. It takes about 10 seconds per eye. Obviously,

17:56

having one of those in the Apple store for

17:58

your Vision Pro fitting would provide a... perfect service

18:00

experience. We'll see what happens when they come

18:02

across the pond. This is one data

18:04

point lending credence to the idea that

18:06

there is no actual medical reason for

18:08

it to be as difficult as it

18:10

is to deal with eye prescriptions here

18:12

in the US. But I'm

18:14

still waiting for ophthalmologists or optometrists to tell me otherwise. But

18:17

right now it seems like in other countries you can just

18:19

walk in, they'll measure your eyes, you get a prescription and

18:21

you're done. But in this country, Apple

18:24

is a stickler for having

18:26

a real prescription from a

18:28

licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist before

18:31

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Adblock Pro for sponsoring our show. We

20:38

were talking before the show about how best

20:40

to approach this. And what we're talking about

20:42

is the Apple European Union DMA,

20:45

which is that Digital Markets Act compliance.

20:47

And Apple needs to be

20:49

compliant with the Digital Markets Act by I

20:51

think early March, if I'm not mistaken. And

20:53

late last week, they announced how they're going

20:55

to do that. And just a

20:58

review of the Digital Markets Act is what the

21:00

name kind of says. In Europe,

21:02

they had decided that the market for digital

21:04

goods like the App Store and you know,

21:06

Google Store and everything, or were insufficiently

21:08

competitive. There were a small number

21:11

of companies with too much power.

21:13

There was stifling competition and innovation.

21:15

The EU decided they wanted to

21:18

change that. And so they passed the Digital Markets

21:20

Act and they said big companies like Apple who

21:23

have App Stores need to comply with it. And

21:25

so this is Apple's response of saying, here's

21:27

what we're going to do to comply with the DMA. Indeed.

21:30

So I think what I'm going to

21:32

try to do, and all three of us have agreed with

21:34

each other, famous last words, to just let it plow through.

21:36

We'll see how it goes. But what I'm going to try

21:38

to do is John has done us all

21:41

of service and kind

21:43

of summarized what Apple has said. Now

21:45

this is different than I think reality, which

21:47

we will get to. But I'm going to

21:50

try to get through, here's what Apple says

21:52

is going to happen and they're going to

21:54

do, and then we'll pick it apart afterwards.

21:56

And I think the reason we're going through

21:58

what Apple says is Apple has The

22:00

way up and presents this is also interesting

22:02

like that their attempt to say here's the

22:04

deal his or her during the sub categories

22:06

they break it down into what each individual

22:09

bought point actually is ah as will get

22:11

to eventually like the stuff that we actually

22:13

care about and the stuff that is most

22:15

relevant to the Dna is kind of. Hidden.

22:17

In the science do of stuff but they

22:20

are actually making a lot of changes and

22:22

so we're just to start will go through.

22:24

What? Apple says they're doing. So

22:26

without further do for I O s this

22:29

is only I O S not I pad

22:31

not vision nothing else for I was there

22:33

saying that now and only and thank you

22:35

yes and only me you They're going to

22:37

be new options for distributing I was apps

22:40

on an on alternative Up Marketplaces So think

22:42

of this is app stores not run by

22:44

Apple but they've understandably and I think reasonably

22:46

and use the term Up Marketplaces This includes

22:49

a T I's that enable developers offer their

22:51

I Was apps for download from Up the

22:53

Alternative App marketplaces. There's new frameworks and a

22:55

P eyes. For creating alternative app marketplaces

22:57

are on. I was so cumbersome. I

23:00

know is that not saying app store

23:02

has a trademarked app store and they

23:04

call their that stores. I understand why.

23:06

My god this a cumbersome it is.

23:08

Ah so this enables marketplace developers to

23:10

install apps and memes updates on behalf

23:12

of other developers from their dedicated marketplace

23:15

up. Their. New framework, snape the

23:17

eyes for alternative browser engines. Citizens instead

23:19

of web can't let let me back

23:21

up eating a step further. There are

23:23

other according for web browsers on I

23:25

was today but in order to actually

23:27

converts Html, Css, and Javascript and what

23:29

have you into something easy on screens

23:31

you have to use the same rendering

23:33

engine. Safari was called websites and now

23:36

what Apple was saying. and in the

23:38

future in the E U on I

23:40

O S, you'll be able to use

23:42

browsers that legitimately use their own rendering

23:44

engines. What's the Chrome one? i'm drawn

23:46

a blank links so as already i

23:48

see you could have chrome and you

23:50

in starting march s you could have

23:53

chrome running it's own blink rendering engine

23:55

in theory so new framework save us

23:57

will turn around or passengers interrupt or

23:59

interoperability that enables authorized developers to use browser

24:01

engines other than WebKit for browser apps and

24:04

apps with in-app browsing experiences. New

24:06

APIs to enable contactless payments in

24:08

the EEA. What is that? European

24:11

Economic Area. Thank you, there we

24:13

go. This includes new APIs

24:15

enabling developers to use NFC technology in their

24:17

banking wallet apps. Oh, that's right there, I

24:20

didn't read far enough. European Economic Area. So

24:22

instead of using Apple Pay, you could use

24:24

the same hardware to do

24:26

some other payment scheme. By

24:29

the way, as we go through these bullet points, don't

24:31

think that Apple is doing any of these things out

24:33

of the goodness of their heart. Every single one of

24:35

them is some specific thing that's part of the DMA.

24:37

So this one, for example, about the contactless payments, people,

24:40

companies have been complaining in Europe for ages

24:43

that like Apple essentially didn't allow access to

24:45

like the NFC hardware and like direct access

24:47

to the hardware that was in the phones

24:49

to do contactless payments. You had to use

24:51

Apple Pay or whatever. So they

24:54

said, okay, well, we'll just pass a thing that says

24:56

Apple, you can't stop people from doing that. We want

24:58

you to provide access to that. And that's the same

25:00

thing with the browser engines. There

25:02

are expanded default app controls. This lets users

25:04

select and manage an app marketplace and or contactless

25:07

payment app as their defaults and settings and adds

25:09

a new way to choose a default web

25:11

browser. Interoperability request form. This

25:13

I think is fascinating, but we're not gonna talk

25:15

about it right now. Let's developers

25:17

submit requests for interoperability with iPhone and

25:19

iOS hardware and software features. So you

25:22

can ask Apple, hey, I would like

25:24

to be able to do whatever and

25:27

they will inevitably deny you, I'm sure. Safari

25:29

user choice screen provides users additional ways to

25:31

choose default web browser from a list of

25:33

options. And so this is, these

25:35

are all the iOS changes, right? This

25:37

is a lot of changes. Like we,

25:40

these are one bullet point, like, oh, alternative

25:42

browser engines. You might think that's

25:44

just like a policy change. Okay, developer, you

25:46

can do a thing, but it's not.

25:49

Like if you click through on these things and

25:51

look at the API they added, like browser kit

25:53

engine, it's extensive plumbing

25:55

to essentially allow third parties to

25:58

do what web kit does. on

26:00

iOS, right? These are non-trivial APIs that

26:02

they're exposing and adding. So this is

26:05

actually a fairly large amount of work,

26:07

especially since Apple seems to have wanted

26:09

to do it in

26:11

the safest way possible. So rather than just saying,

26:13

fine, do whatever you want browser engines, that would,

26:15

Apple doesn't want to do that. It would be

26:18

less work for them, but they don't want to

26:20

do that. So they say, here's a new API.

26:22

Same thing with like the marketplace kick, that's like

26:24

a new API for making third-party marketplaces. These are

26:26

big, feature-full new frameworks

26:28

that are surely filled with bugs, because they're

26:32

1.0, to comply with this. And

26:34

so, you know, and these all these iOS changes, I'm pretty

26:37

sure every single one we read, all this is

26:39

just EU only. So this is a large amount

26:41

of work for only a fraction of the planet.

26:44

Indeed. Now there's App Store changes, which

26:46

as far as I know are still only in the EU

26:48

and still only for iOS. But either way, App Store changes.

26:51

New options for using alternative payment service

26:53

providers. So within a developer's app to

26:55

process payments for digital goods and services.

26:57

So hypothetically, you could use like Stripe

26:59

or something like that, while still being

27:01

an app within the App Store. There

27:04

are new options for processing payments via Linkout to

27:06

purchase, where users can complete a transaction for digital

27:08

goods and services on the developers external web page.

27:11

Developers can include information in their App Store apps

27:13

to inform EU users of promotions, discounts, and other

27:15

deals available outside of their app when presenting a

27:17

Linkout. So this is very similar to what's going

27:20

on in America, but with a little bit more

27:23

features, it seems. Analytics.

27:26

And this, I believe, is going to be applicable worldwide.

27:28

Actually, yes it is. So this is not just EU.

27:31

Expanded developer App Analytics provides developers with

27:33

additional and enhanced metrics with more than

27:35

50 new reports from the iOS and

27:37

App Store worldwide in areas like engagement,

27:39

commerce, app usage, and more. Additionally,

27:41

there's a new user data portability API

27:43

to request and transfer App Store account

27:45

data lets developers of app marketplaces request

27:48

user authorization to retrieve and import new

27:50

data about their usage of the App

27:52

Store. Then things get really

27:54

interesting. Business terms. Now we're back to EU

27:56

only. New business terms are available for

27:58

apps in the EU to reflect the the DMA's requirements

28:00

for alternative distribution and payment processing. Apple's

28:03

also sharing new business terms for apps

28:05

in the EU. Developers

28:08

have a choice to remain on Apple's existing terms

28:10

or adopt new terms that reflect the new capabilities.

28:12

We're surely going to spend just a couple of

28:14

minutes on that in a moment. There

28:16

are also terms for alternative distribution and payments in

28:18

the EU. There is reduced commission.

28:21

So iOS apps on the App Store

28:23

will pay a reduced commission of either

28:25

10% for the vast majority

28:27

of developers and for subscriptions after their first year

28:30

or 17% on transactions for digital

28:33

goods and services regardless of the

28:35

payment processing system selected. So

28:37

they're just making it cheaper is apparently what

28:39

they're saying here anyway. There's

28:42

a payment processing fee. iOS apps on the App

28:44

Store can use the App Store's payment processing for

28:46

an additional 3% fee. So

28:48

suddenly that 10, 17 has now become 13 and 20. Developers

28:52

can use a payment service provider within their app or

28:54

link users to a website to process payments for no

28:57

additional fee from Apple. So if you want to use

28:59

Stripe, you'll save 3% which you'll presumably

29:01

be giving to Stripe. This

29:03

is where it gets really dodgy and we're almost done. We're

29:05

doing a great job. I'm proud of all three of us.

29:07

It's so hard. It's so

29:10

hard. I'm very proud of you. I'm not

29:12

kidding. I'm very proud of you. Core technology

29:14

fee for very high volume iOS apps distributed

29:16

from the App Store and or in alternative

29:18

app marketplaces, developers will pay 50 cents. Is

29:22

that true for euros? Half a euro. 50

29:24

euro cents. So half a euro. For each

29:27

first annual install per year over a

29:29

1 million threshold under the new business

29:31

terms for EU apps, Apple estimates that less

29:33

than 1% of developers would pay a core

29:35

technology fee on their EU apps. Developers

29:38

of alternative app marketplaces will pay

29:40

the core technology fee for every

29:43

first annual install of their app

29:45

marketplace including installs that occur before

29:47

1 million. So for regular

29:49

schmoes like the three of us, it

29:51

starts a million and one people or installs.

29:53

The million and first person is the first

29:55

one you pay for. Whereas

29:58

For app marketplaces, it starts with one. And

30:01

there he sees me. A lot of confusion,

30:03

including with me as to whether or not

30:05

updates count as install civil talk for ten

30:07

minutes. Of. All right. So

30:09

for. Before we get to

30:11

the discussion, Is there anything else And

30:13

Sanaria we have one way or one

30:15

one more thing here which is the

30:17

marketplace requirements. How to thank you are

30:20

that's why I was as okay So

30:22

my Voice: Requirements: To qualify for the

30:24

Marketplace entitlements: you Must be enrolled in

30:26

the Apple Developer Program as an organization

30:28

incorporated, domiciled and or registered in the

30:30

European Union, or have a subsidiary legal

30:32

entity incorporated domiciled and or registered the

30:34

You that's listed in App store Connect.

30:36

Those. He's an associate with the legal

30:38

entity is listed in your Apple Developer

30:40

account. You must also provide Apple is

30:42

stand by letter of credit from an

30:44

A rated financial institution of a million

30:47

euros. To. Establish adequate financial means in

30:49

order to guarantee support for your developers and

30:51

users. And there's other stuff. Additionally,

30:53

third party marketplace. Apps will not be

30:56

allowed in the app store. To install one

30:58

you'll need to go to the web. Safari

31:00

will be able to install third party marketplace

31:02

up after you agree to a scare seat

31:04

and perhaps maybe third party browser. See you

31:06

after the call The Seems systems their seed

31:08

who knows but that's the story and are

31:10

very briefly there is a fee calculator was

31:12

some girls what about a minute that helps

31:14

you allegedly talk about their figure out how

31:16

much going a pack. So yes, away with

31:18

what we've gotten done. Reading her is essentially

31:20

a condensed summary of what Apple released in

31:22

has happened like Thursday last week or so

31:24

after. He recorded and I can tell you that

31:27

we were all discussing it amongst ourselves. All the

31:29

apple nerds and people with that podcast and website

31:31

and stuff. Are. And

31:33

I was amazed at how difficult it was to

31:35

understand. And the Fi calculator this the does is

31:37

is messy like oh it's hard to understand but

31:39

whatever your questions are I'm sure you can just

31:42

go to the see calculator and click a bunch

31:44

of buttons on like you do an interview us

31:46

to figure out. okay but like and what about

31:48

in this scenario how much would I pay one

31:50

van a ser and what should I place and

31:52

let me tell you to see Calculated Does not

31:55

answer almost any of those cassette. So we we

31:57

got all this information. we tried to figure out

31:59

what they. And it's like.

32:02

The entire community of I think pretty

32:04

smart people who have been following Apple

32:06

for decades. And least twenty four hours

32:08

to get a handle on this. And so

32:10

by the mean, assists if you address hurt

32:12

as real that noise. But wait, What?

32:14

Does this mean like. So. Like

32:17

what's the deal? is it? Is as

32:19

good as as bad you can be forgiven

32:21

for not from hundred be able to answer that

32:23

question And I love apples and sensually make me

32:25

to promote understand biggest That doesn't make sense

32:27

to me. We're gonna figure it out. We did

32:29

as we'll see in a second figure out

32:31

what the deal is. I think

32:33

it's just that a really poor job of

32:36

communicating and that see calculator is a thing

32:38

that annoys me the most because don't know

32:40

point of view. putting that there is like

32:42

we know it's complicated but if you have

32:44

some scenario in your mind just use this

32:46

web page and it will give you the

32:48

answer. It absolutely does not use him. thought

32:50

answer tons of really good important questions about

32:52

the system uses if he calculator. Ah, but

32:54

thankfully we all as a community figured out.

32:57

Gruber had a great summary on his website

32:59

which we will link and I think it

33:01

is probably the most condensed version of of.

33:03

What? What does

33:05

all that mean and has lost a

33:07

friend there that we went through? It's

33:09

like okay kind of understand about not

33:12

a big deal but in the middle

33:14

there are Casey was talking about business

33:16

terms and the Edu. that's the heart

33:18

of it and that's what grub are

33:20

summarized and and I also think Apple

33:22

has made this like artificially complicated and

33:24

hard to understand what you're what they're

33:26

doing. First of all is. Responding

33:29

and and attending to comply with

33:31

a very large piece of legislation

33:33

like the Dna is huge. There

33:35

are tons of provisions in it's

33:37

There's tons of little detail they

33:39

have to comply with and and

33:41

so. The there there's

33:43

their submission of having to

33:45

do this is. Kind

33:47

of inherently gonna be fairly complicated just

33:49

at all. Even if they did it

33:52

in the most like generous way possible

33:54

it would still be fairly complicated but

33:56

also again. This. Is Apple. and

33:58

this is the app store So and

34:01

it goes further than the App Store, of course, and so they

34:04

are Only doing what they

34:06

need to to comply with this and no

34:09

more than that for the most

34:11

part and so They're you know, if

34:13

the law says you have to do this this and

34:15

this they're not going to make some general solution That's

34:17

gonna make it easier to explain

34:19

if you're gonna say fine We're going to do

34:21

exactly that that and that in the most minimal

34:23

way possible So that's

34:26

again why this is a

34:28

lot There's a lot to digest here and they're

34:31

gonna make sure that they don't give away a

34:33

cent more than they have to and So

34:35

that's again why some of this is complicated.

34:37

But again, I don't think it's artificially so

34:40

I think I just met I think they

34:42

just didn't do a good job communicating though

34:44

because like go ahead Sorry, I'm Gruber summary

34:46

because Gruber summary makes sense and you say

34:48

oh, that's what all that stuff You just

34:50

read means now I get it and and

34:52

this summary we haven't here and this link

34:55

that is on his website is Longer than

34:57

his original summary when he was, you know

34:59

working on this it started off being 14

35:01

lines of text like 14 Not complete lines

35:03

14 bullet point lines of text It

35:05

was less than a quarter of a page of

35:07

text and Apple released pages on pages upon pages

35:10

and text and all of us Scratching our heads

35:12

for an entire day trying to figure out what

35:14

the heck they were talking about. Alright, so Gruber

35:16

summary Number one, you know, these

35:18

are these are your choices Business

35:20

terms you're like wait, but if I have an

35:22

app like what's the deal? I don't happen to

35:24

you What's what is the deal? What are the

35:27

choices and this is essentially the flowchart that choose

35:29

your own adventure So you want to sell an

35:31

app in the EU? Here are your choices Number

35:35

one you can stay in the App

35:37

Store under the current pre DMA rules

35:39

exclusively Developers that take this option

35:41

are not permitted to use any of the new business

35:43

terms available in the EU But new

35:45

iOS platform options for the EU such as

35:48

its alternative allows browser engines are allowed because

35:50

they are required to be allowed Again,

35:53

not none of the goodness of apples heart,

35:55

right because nothing business related changes under this

35:57

option the existing worldwide rules apply for paid

35:59

apps subscriptions and app purchases, including the 30

36:01

or 15% commission to Apple

36:03

and a requirement that apps exclusively

36:06

use Apple's App Store payment system.

36:08

The core technology fee, that's that

36:10

half-year-old thing that we keep dancing

36:12

around, is not collected because

36:14

the business terms haven't changed. Well, and just

36:16

so that's choice number one. Choice number one

36:18

is whatever the pill color that I always

36:21

forget, like take this pill and you'll stay

36:23

in the matrix and nothing changes, right? It's

36:26

like it's the easiest to understand option. Even

36:28

though Apple is doing all this stuff, they're

36:30

still saying, hey, all the stuff that we're

36:32

doing, if you don't understand it or don't

36:34

want it or don't like it, you can

36:36

keep things exactly as they are, which is

36:38

the option that Apple would prefer that you

36:40

take. Indeed. So

36:42

that's number one. Option two, you

36:45

can opt into the new EU rules

36:47

and all sub options that will go

36:49

through available under this choice require paying

36:52

the core technology fee, that's the half-year-old

36:54

thing, for each app with over a

36:56

million downloads in the EU. So

36:59

sub bullet number one. After opting

37:01

into the new EU rules, developers can choose

37:03

to remain in the app store and use

37:06

Apple's app store payment system at

37:09

20 and 13 percent commission plus

37:11

the core technology fee paid to

37:13

Apple automatically. Or

37:15

they can use a custom in app payment system

37:18

like Stripe at 17 and 10 percent, so that's

37:20

a decrease of 3 percent both ways, percent

37:23

commission and the CTF is paid, the core technology

37:25

fee is paid to Apple by hand, if you

37:27

will. Or they can use

37:29

external links from inside apps to the web for

37:32

payments and subscriptions, which is still 17 or 10

37:34

percent and they still have to pay the core

37:36

technology fee to Apple by hand. The

37:38

latter two options, using your own payment system or linking

37:40

out to the web, those

37:42

are similar to the things that happened

37:44

in the US last week, the

37:47

announced last week external payment link

37:49

entitlement policy regarding the developers,

37:52

obligation to track these payments, report sales to

37:54

Apple monthly and submit to audits by Apple

37:56

to ensure compliance. the

38:00

road was. Keep everything the same as they are

38:02

and then the other the other choice the other

38:04

major fork you can take is you get the

38:06

new EU rules. Now once you have the new

38:08

EU rules, well Casey just read is okay, okay

38:10

so you've got the new EU rules. Next choice

38:12

is under the new EU rules

38:15

do you want to still be in the App Store? And that's

38:17

what he read here. It's like okay if you're still in the

38:19

App Store you have a choice. Stay in the App Store, use

38:21

Apple stuff, stay in the App Store, use a different payment process,

38:23

stay in the App Store to just link out to a payment

38:25

thing. Those are the rules. And notice

38:28

if you choose the new EU rules and you

38:30

want to stay in the App Store, every option

38:32

under staying in the App Store under the new

38:34

EU rules is different than if you had not

38:36

chosen the new EU rules and stayed under the

38:38

App Store, right? So if you're like well I've

38:40

just decided I'm gonna stay in the App Store.

38:42

That's not your top level choice. Your top level

38:44

choice is keep everything the same as it was

38:46

or take these new EU rules

38:49

and if you take the new EU rules you can

38:51

still be in the App Store but the deal is

38:53

different. In particular as Gruber

38:55

notes every single one of the options under

38:57

the new rules adds the core technology fee

39:00

to all the different things you can do. And of course

39:02

you have new options because under the EU rules if

39:05

you stay in the App Store you can do things

39:07

like use an entirely different payment process. And there's also

39:09

a couple of you know asterisk on that too. Like for

39:12

instance if you choose to opt in to

39:14

the new EU rules for an app you can never change

39:16

back for that app. So that's

39:18

that's a big thing. That's down at the

39:20

bottom of the thing. So anyway that was

39:23

if you take new EU rules you

39:25

stay in the App Store. Now it's you take the new

39:27

EU rules and what's the next option Casey? So

39:29

then you can distribute apps in one or

39:31

more third-party marketplaces. No option to you you

39:33

have no option to use the Apple App

39:35

Store payment processing because the apps aren't coming

39:37

from the App Store. The only

39:40

money due to Apple is the core technology fee.

39:42

There's no commission percentage or on in-app transactions or

39:44

links to the web. It isn't your you're on

39:46

your own it's the Wild West. You just got

39:48

to pay us a half euro for the million

39:51

and first and so on user

39:53

and install and so on and so forth. Yeah

39:55

which actually like this is this is actually I

39:58

think pretty surprising that Like so

40:01

yes if you totally bail out of

40:03

the app store and if you are

40:05

only distributing your app in a third-party

40:08

app store I'm

40:10

not gonna say at market places. So

40:12

third-party app store Then

40:15

you only pay the course of knowledge if you

40:17

only pay that half euro per per user after

40:19

a million. So that's Actually,

40:21

I think surprisingly

40:23

reasonable in context of

40:25

like what Apple even would consider doing

40:29

I would have guessed that They

40:31

would have done that whole like, you know You know

40:33

submit to us your financial reports and pay us a

40:35

commission kind of thing on this I don't think that

40:37

was allowed in the text of the DMA essentially probably

40:39

not I think that they're they were

40:41

forced to per like that's kind of we'll talk about in

40:43

a little bit That's kind of the reason CTF exists. I

40:45

think the option that you're describing Even

40:48

Apple didn't think they could pretend that

40:50

that's good. Yeah. So yeah, so That's

40:53

basically the story and oh no you forgot the exclusivity

40:55

part options one option one or two next are exclusive

40:57

Options one or two being do you want to stay

40:59

in the app store and do everything the same the

41:01

way it is now? Or do you want to opt

41:03

into the new EU rules? And that's what Marco was

41:05

talking about before Once

41:08

you make that choice, it's a revocable Apple says

41:10

developers who adopt the new business terms at any

41:12

time Will not be able to switch back to

41:14

Apple's existing business terms through the EU apps So

41:16

say you opt into the new EU rules and

41:18

you're like, ah turns out it was a mistake We

41:21

don't like this new system. We want to go back Apple says nope

41:24

You you it's a one-way door if you decide

41:26

you want to use the new EU rules Whether

41:28

you're under the new EU rules in the app

41:31

store or whether you're under new rules outside the

41:33

app store There's no going back. That

41:35

is that So I don't

41:38

know when I first read all this it

41:40

seems super reasonable to me surprisingly reasonable to

41:42

me and Then some

41:44

people started doing the mathematics on wait, this

41:46

is Europe. I believe you mean the math

41:50

Yeah, I'm sorry. Yes. This is the EU after all

41:52

so they did the math actually I guess the UK

41:54

is not in the EU anymore. So you can say

41:56

whatever you want You can know I don't know anything

41:58

math and any other countries See, this

42:00

is why I said mathematics, you big jerk. Yeah. So let's

42:02

slide. Go ahead. Actually, before,

42:04

there's one more minor point of

42:08

the things that Apple described. Like, this is the flow

42:10

chart that Apple didn't provide that I have drawn here

42:12

in the notes. It isn't really

42:14

in Gruber's summary, but it's implied by Gruber's summary, and

42:16

there's a little bit more to know here. What

42:19

is the flow? What is the process diagram? You've got all

42:21

these rules. You can opt into this rule, opt into that

42:23

rule. But say you are a developer. Regardless

42:26

of which path you chose on this little choose your

42:28

own adventure. Option one, option two, EU rules, not

42:30

EU rules, app store, not app store, whatever. How

42:32

does this all work? And the way it

42:34

works if you just have an app, is you are a

42:36

developer and you have an app. Everybody,

42:39

no matter what rule you choose, you take

42:42

your app and you send it to Apple.

42:45

But you don't send it directly to the

42:48

people who review apps right now for the app

42:50

store. Instead, you send it to this new process,

42:53

which I don't know what Apple calls it. I just

42:55

call it Apple review in this diagram. But

42:57

this is a new process that

42:59

is a very tiny subset of

43:01

app review. Apple,

43:03

you will send your app to Apple, for example,

43:06

with your Xcode. And Apple will look at your

43:08

app and they will do a bunch of checks.

43:10

And this is the list from Apple for the

43:12

checks. They're calling a

43:14

notarization for iOS. Although, I feel like

43:16

it's a little bit more than that because they've used it.

43:18

Anyway, they will check

43:21

for accuracy. Apps must accurately represent the

43:23

developer capabilities and cost to users. Functionality,

43:25

binaries must be reviewable, free from serious

43:27

bugs and crashes, blah, blah, blah. Like,

43:30

does it work? The apps cannot manipulate

43:32

software or hardware in ways that negatively impact

43:34

the user experience. Safety, apps cannot promote physical

43:36

harm of the user or public. Security, apps

43:39

cannot enable distribution of malware or suspicious unwanted

43:41

software. They cannot download extra code, read outside

43:43

the container, or direct users to lower the

43:45

security of their system or device. Apps must

43:48

also provide transparency to allow user consent to

43:50

enable any party to access a system or

43:52

device or reconfigure a system or software. And

43:54

privacy, apps cannot collect, transmit, or

43:56

transmit private sensitive data without a user's knowledge in

43:59

a matter of context. to the stated purpose of

44:01

the software, right? And it kind

44:03

of implied in all this is you can't

44:05

use private APIs, right? So this is way

44:07

less than app store review. This is

44:09

like, just does

44:12

your app work? Is it not a

44:14

super obvious scam? Does it not use

44:16

private APIs? Every single app

44:19

under these rules goes through

44:21

this phase. This very limited,

44:23

very strict phase. Importantly, they

44:26

don't care what's in your app. Is

44:28

your app filled with porn? Is

44:30

it a Nintendo emulator? Does it have pictures

44:32

of Star Wars characters all over it that

44:34

you didn't license? This

44:37

phase does not care. It just wants to know, does

44:39

it crash? Does it run? Does it do what it

44:41

say it does? Does it not use private APIs, which

44:43

I think is a pretty big one. Does it not

44:45

steal people's data? Does it not direct them to lower

44:47

the security of their iPhone? That's all they're checking for.

44:50

Every single app will go through this, presumably the ones that go

44:52

to the app store as well, because the app review is doing

44:54

this stuff anyway. Then, after you clear

44:56

that phase, then there's a fork in the road

44:58

and says, okay, well, were you submitting this to

45:01

the app store, or were you submitting this to

45:03

a third-party marketplace? If

45:05

you submitted to a third-party marketplace, the third-party

45:07

marketplace receives the apps that are

45:09

in it from Apple. Developers

45:12

don't submit their apps directly to

45:14

a third-party marketplace. Who

45:17

would make a third-party marketplace? Well, it still

45:19

goes through Apple. So if you're making a

45:21

third-party marketplace, you're getting a funnel of app

45:23

submissions from Apple, because by the time you

45:25

get them, Apple has done

45:27

all these checks to make sure it's not super

45:30

duper terrible. So if

45:32

you're wondering, this takes Apple out of the

45:34

equation, and now they're no longer a bottleneck.

45:37

Everything still has to go through Apple. Yeah, which

45:40

is interesting. I mean, this again is not

45:42

how I would have guessed this would be

45:44

done. And again, a big part of this

45:46

is, Apple

45:50

still wants to have some form of

45:52

app review. Obviously, the DMA and

45:55

whatever related legislation there might be in

45:57

Europe, the DMA is going to limit...

46:00

what they can review and what they can

46:02

prohibit in this way. So yes, they're allowed

46:04

to interfere, basically, with their party app stores

46:06

and say, well, you still can't have

46:08

a virus in there, or you still

46:10

can't have stuff that's misleading

46:12

users. But they can't say

46:15

things like you can't have porn, or as John

46:18

was saying, certain copyright issues. And I was thinking,

46:20

too, all

46:22

the cryptocurrency scam

46:25

apps and scam

46:27

companies, because they're all scams. I was going

46:29

to say, cryptocurrency scam, that's redundant, isn't it?

46:33

I think a lot of crypto stuff would go through,

46:35

because it doesn't technically violate any of these things, even

46:37

though like. That's what I'm saying. That's somebody

46:39

else who might want to use this, because

46:41

Apple's had a lot of rules around certain

46:44

types of content that they found

46:46

either objectionable or just too dangerous

46:48

or messy to deal with, things

46:50

like porn, crypto

46:52

stuff. Oh, real money gambling. Yeah, real

46:54

money gambling, certain political apps. There are certain

46:57

things that Apple just has not allowed in

46:59

the app store, just content-based

47:01

decisions. And it seems

47:04

like under the DMA, through the

47:06

third party marketplace process,

47:08

they don't seem like they're either allowed or

47:10

even interested in policing that kind of thing,

47:12

because they're kind of out of their hands

47:14

at that point. But they are

47:17

allowed to, at least so far, we'll see what

47:19

the European Commission says if they go back on

47:21

any of this stuff. But it seems like they

47:23

are allowed to at least do basic

47:25

functionality checks of, basic

47:27

representation and security matters. Yeah, that's

47:29

written right into the DMA. The

47:32

DMA essentially has language that says,

47:35

just because we're telling you you have to have

47:38

third party app stores, it doesn't mean you can't

47:40

check for very basic. There's

47:42

a whole bunch of language, I think it might be

47:45

lower than what we'll get to eventually. It's like to

47:47

ensure the integrity of the platform. You don't want someone

47:49

to download an app that's gonna fry their phone or

47:51

steal all their data. That is written into the, remember,

47:53

this is the EU, the same body

47:56

that added all those annoying cookie restrictions

47:58

like. So they all, there are. on board

48:00

with trying to do these safety things, and they specifically say

48:02

Apple's not to do it. And

48:04

at the top one, I said, like, what is the DMA?

48:07

It's, you know, the European Union thinking there's insufficient

48:10

competition in the market for digital goods and apps

48:12

in the App Store. And I think there should

48:14

be more of it. I think

48:16

that is the when looking

48:18

at this giant list of rules before you get

48:20

into the nitty gritty details, it's worth considering. Does

48:24

the DMA accomplish that

48:26

goal, assuming what Apple has, you know,

48:28

forward here is compliant, which remains to

48:30

be seen. I think

48:34

in one way, it does.

48:37

And we were just touching on it with this with this the

48:40

Apple review process that they do a minimal number

48:42

of checks, right? Because previously

48:45

before the DMA, there were

48:47

certain kinds of apps that you just could not get

48:50

on your iPhone unless you were like a developer did

48:52

some weird enterprise thing or whatever, right? Because Apple didn't

48:54

want them, right? Under the

48:56

DMA, even under Apple's rules, there

48:59

are kinds of apps that can now get

49:01

on your phone through a regular third party

49:04

app store order that couldn't get there before,

49:06

whether that's porn apps or gambling apps, or

49:08

Nintendo emulators, or just, you know, there's so

49:10

many kinds of apps Apple just doesn't want.

49:12

Oh, that's too much like an Apple app.

49:14

I don't like that because it looks too

49:16

much like springboard. The number of different kinds

49:18

of apps that Apple does not

49:21

allow on the App Store is vast. You might

49:23

not know about them or think about them, because

49:25

they don't get through, right? And if you don't

49:27

see some story about it, you don't know that

49:29

someone was thinking of making an app like X,

49:31

and it got rejected. For some reason, it doesn't

49:33

make any sense to you. All we know is

49:35

there are apps that previously couldn't get through that

49:37

under this new plan, we'll be able to. So

49:39

that is one thing that DMA was trying to

49:41

do, which is like, hey, it seems unfair that

49:43

Apple gets to decide what kinds

49:45

of apps are even allowed. And

49:48

it's not just porn, bad things like that. It's like

49:50

I said, it's apps that like Apple decides, you

49:52

know, have a picture of an iPhone

49:54

in them or mention iOS or look

49:57

too much like springboard or like or

49:59

look too much like an app store or just so

50:02

many things that Apple doesn't allow. It's

50:04

all just going to be like crypto

50:06

farts and copyright infringement. I mean,

50:08

there's going to be a lot of that, but anyway, this is

50:10

a prize that. The second

50:13

thing of like, okay, we don't think there's

50:15

enough competition in the marketplace. The

50:17

complaint that we often talk about in the show

50:19

is developers feel like Apple takes

50:22

too big of a cut of the money

50:24

that is made through the app store. I

50:26

feel like Apple deserves maybe

50:28

some, but they don't think the amount that they're giving

50:30

to Apple seems like too much for what they're getting

50:32

in return. And we've discussed this a million times, whether

50:34

they're right or wrong with it. That's how they feel.

50:37

And that is the second leg of this thing. Does

50:40

the DMA and these rules complying with

50:42

it allow address

50:44

that in any way? And

50:46

I think to spoil by opinion that we'll

50:48

get into the dendigre details of, I

50:51

think that it doesn't. I

50:53

think that Apple has cleverly designed these

50:55

rules such that it is not

50:57

a clear cut financial win to do this.

51:00

And if that was one of the goals of like, there

51:02

should be a way where you can get apps on the

51:04

iPhone and pay Apple a lot less money. I

51:07

don't think overall this provides that. In some

51:09

cases, yes. In some cases, massively

51:11

no. And we'll

51:13

talk about who's going to even run a third party marketplace

51:15

because if nobody runs a third party marketplace, this is moot,

51:17

right? For both of these

51:19

things. And I think Apple has done

51:21

a pretty good job of making sure

51:23

that financially speaking, it's

51:26

not a clear win to go with the

51:28

EU rules. And that I think

51:30

is the biggest

51:32

knock against their compliance because you can say,

51:34

okay, well, they are allowing apps that they

51:36

weren't allowed before, right? You

51:38

can see a path for them to get through to users.

51:41

I see that happening here. But that

51:44

is only one complaint that people had, one aspect

51:46

of competition. The other aspect is Apple is taking

51:48

too much money. And Apple is like, no

51:50

matter what you do, no matter where you go, you

51:52

will always be paying us the same amount of money

51:54

you are now or more. And

51:57

no matter what laws you pass, we're smarter than you. And

52:00

we will make sure that we

52:02

get the same amount of money we're getting now

52:04

or more. And that I think is

52:07

the absolute worst part of this thing. And you may be

52:09

reading and you're just like, what do you mean? Their cuts

52:11

are lower and the other CCF thing, but it's only over

52:13

a million. How are they paying more money? And

52:15

you know, in the week that the story has been going on, people

52:17

have been starting to do the math. And in

52:20

some cases, yeah, you can make more money.

52:22

In other cases, you will be paying Apple

52:24

literally billions of dollars a year for the

52:26

privilege of distributing a free app. Yeah,

52:29

that I think is what I

52:32

think will ultimately happen with this is not

52:34

a lot. Because

52:38

again, Apple, as John said, Apple is

52:40

very good at making sure they keep making money.

52:42

They are very good at that. And

52:44

the same amount of money or more. Exactly.

52:47

And yeah, there might be certain apps where that won't be

52:49

the case for where they can figure out if they can

52:52

squeeze a bit more money out by doing these new terms.

52:54

Yeah, that's the one. Speaking of that, that's the one loophole

52:56

that Apple left here. And it's not really a loophole, but

52:58

I think it's weird and perverse. And it's strange to me

53:00

that Apple didn't think of it. If

53:02

you look at the rules, Gerber's rule, not

53:04

the fee calculator, it may occur

53:06

to you that if you sell a paid

53:08

up front app through a third party app

53:10

store, you pay Apple nothing. You

53:13

also earn nothing. Right. The

53:17

Apple is so sure that paid up front apps

53:19

are just a dud, a relic of the past

53:21

that no one will ever do, that they left

53:23

it open. So say you do a paid up

53:25

front app that costs $20. That

53:28

50% CTF fee, you're like, I'm

53:31

making $20 pure profit minus 3% for

53:33

my payment processor, minus 50 cents for

53:35

Apple. Who cares? Minus whatever the third

53:37

party app marketplace is going to charge

53:39

you, which is not nothing. Right.

53:43

But whatever. The whole point of the third

53:45

party ad marketplace is in theory they'd be competitive with Apple.

53:48

But that's a loophole. And the reason that's there, I have to

53:50

assume, is like Marco said, nobody buys paid up

53:52

front apps. And I

53:54

do wonder if this is

53:57

compliant and goes through in any way, if this will be like

53:59

a perverse incentive. to say everything else is new again. Pay up

54:01

front apps for $10. And you'd be like, why

54:05

is this happening? And it's like, well, the

54:07

rules that Apple laid out allow that

54:09

to be a way to safely make money. It always

54:11

has been a way to safely make money, just no

54:13

one ever wants to do it. That's why it has

54:15

essentially become almost extinct on the app store. Not extinct.

54:17

I mean, I know there are apps out there that

54:19

do that, but it's so much less

54:22

popular than it was in the beginning. Everything

54:24

is free within app purchase. And

54:26

the CTF makes free within app

54:28

purchase a potentially bankrupting thing. It's

54:30

just to be clear why everyone

54:32

is against the CTF. For

54:34

the CTF, after your

54:36

million and first user, you pay 50

54:39

cents for every install per year, no

54:41

matter what that person does with your app. And

54:43

if your app is free to download and that person never

54:45

makes a purchase, you're paying 50% for them year after year.

54:47

If they leave it on their home screen, and

54:50

if you do more than one software

54:52

update per year, that update counts as

54:54

an install. And you're just paying 50

54:56

euro cents per user per

54:58

install year after year after year.

55:00

So you better hope the value

55:03

of your customer is more than 50 cents

55:06

per year. And if you have a free app

55:08

where you don't sell anything, or you have a

55:10

free app with a conversion rate of in-app purchase

55:12

that is too low to provide that, you are

55:14

just bleeding money left and right. So all these

55:17

big companies that have hundreds of millions of customers

55:19

in the EU for a free app, that

55:22

adds up to millions or billions

55:24

of dollars, which may be worth it for these

55:26

big rich companies. But if you are a small

55:28

developer, and you have a, you know, say your

55:30

widget Smith, and your app goes viral, and

55:33

millions of people download your app, and you

55:35

get like a 1% conversion rate, and you're

55:37

like, Oh, now I have to, is

55:39

that 1% conversion rate equal average out to 50

55:41

euro cents per user? Because if it doesn't, I

55:43

am now in the red for my incredibly successful

55:45

app, which is just such a poison

55:47

pill. And I'm not the first to use the

55:49

term poison pill, but it is

55:52

such a poison pill. And on

55:54

the one side, you got to give Apple credit like it's

55:57

slimy, but they made it work and they presented

55:59

it. in a reasonably not slimy

56:01

way, insofar as it seemed like a good deal,

56:03

for which I guess it's even more slimy, right?

56:05

But it seemed like a good deal at first,

56:08

and then the more you eat into it, the

56:10

more you're like, ooh, oh, oh. If I have

56:12

more than a million users, surely I'm making money.

56:15

It's like, by the way, that's not users that's

56:17

installed. Like, how many apps do you have on

56:19

your phone that you install? Yeah, exactly, not install.

56:21

Like, if someone installed it and left it on

56:23

their home screen. Or

56:25

if it installed directly to the app library.

56:27

Like, you'll never see it again. I'm

56:31

just thinking, like, on my own phone, I probably have over

56:33

100 apps on there that I

56:35

installed at some point in the past

56:37

and don't actively use. And auto updates

56:39

is on by default every year. Again,

56:41

if those developers release at least

56:43

one update per year, which let's be honest,

56:45

if your app is actively maintained, you're releasing

56:47

at least one update per year, every year,

56:49

you're costing that person 50 euro

56:52

cents a year after year, and you never use their

56:54

app. You're never gonna buy anything in it with a

56:56

free download. Like, the current model of

56:58

the App Store or the

57:01

popular apps are free to download and they have in-app purchase. That

57:04

model, the CTF makes that

57:06

model incredibly dangerous or

57:09

incredibly known, incredibly costly. For

57:11

the big apps, Facebook, Spotify,

57:14

all these apps that are free to download and have a free way to use

57:16

them, and they

57:18

are distributed in the millions, that's

57:21

gonna cost those companies so much money if they wanna

57:23

be at their third party App Store. And one of

57:25

the things I'm not entirely clear about is, let's

57:28

say Facebook decides they want to accept the

57:30

EU rules and

57:32

distribute to a third party marketplace and

57:34

save 50% per install. Facebook can eat

57:36

that cost, because they'll pay $500 million

57:38

per year every year to Apple,

57:41

whatever, they'll do it, because in exchange,

57:43

they get more information about the user or they

57:45

own the customer or whatever they wanna do. But

57:50

if they do that, do they

57:52

have to remove Facebook from the regular App Store? We

57:54

already know they can't go back to the old rules.

57:57

Can they have the app in both places? Do

57:59

they have to... start a new subsidiary to do

58:01

this to isolate the actual meta from this

58:03

thing. And in that case, could they not

58:06

use the Facebook? Is there just a new

58:08

Facebook EU app? Yeah, can

58:10

they use the Facebook name? All

58:12

these people are talking about, well, I'll just

58:14

make a new legal entity to do this, so I don't

58:16

have to worry about it. Or is Apple going to frown

58:19

upon that? This gets back to the

58:21

whole idea that Apple is the bottleneck for all

58:23

of this stuff. And although they've said they're not going

58:25

to stop certain kinds of apps, what they might stop

58:27

is, oh, I can see that you incorporated a new

58:29

legal entity to try to skirt our rules about you

58:31

not being able to have your cake

58:33

and eat it too. So it remains to be seen if

58:35

that will work. Also, as

58:38

I've talked about in the past before we knew what Apple was going

58:40

to do here, I've mentioned how

58:42

there was this kind of doomsday scenario

58:44

I really hoped wouldn't happen as a

58:46

developer, which is I was

58:48

really hoping that Facebook wouldn't say, you know what,

58:51

once we have third party app stores or side

58:53

loading, I was thinking Facebook would say, all right,

58:55

we're going to pull our apps from the app

58:57

store. These apps that have billions

59:00

of users around the world that everyone has to have on

59:02

their phone. The actual Facebook

59:04

app, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, these

59:06

are like their core apps that

59:08

have just billions of users. And

59:10

I was afraid Facebook would say, all right, we're going

59:13

to make our own app store. Our apps

59:15

will be exclusive to our app store. Therefore,

59:17

everybody will install our app store. And then

59:19

all of a sudden you have a very,

59:21

very powerful third party app store that would

59:23

start interfering with the market in ways that

59:25

would force me as a developer probably to

59:27

play ball with them. So that was my

59:29

doomsday scenario. I really didn't want that to

59:32

happen. It seems like the way

59:34

Apple has implemented this. So first of all,

59:36

I can strongly recommend, speaking of cases saying

59:38

Poison Pill, the episode of

59:40

Upgrade that came out a couple days ago,

59:42

which I believe was titled Poison Pill, Jason

59:44

went through a lot of these details on there. And there

59:46

were some details that he had that I didn't know. So

59:49

for instance, on this point, on third party app store

59:52

point, what Jason reported was that there was a

59:54

clause in here, which I haven't had time to verify. But

59:56

there's a clause that if you run a third

59:58

party app store, you can't just run it. run it

1:00:00

for your own company's apps, which is

1:00:02

a pretty huge clause. So

1:00:04

what that means is Facebook can't run

1:00:06

their own app store that just has

1:00:09

their apps. Now I have no

1:00:11

doubt if Facebook is

1:00:13

going to do something, do a

1:00:15

move here, I have no doubt that they could

1:00:17

do something because what maybe

1:00:19

a lot of non-developers might not know is that

1:00:22

Facebook is a huge source of

1:00:24

app install ads. Many

1:00:26

apps that get installed on many phones

1:00:29

across the world get installed through Facebook

1:00:31

ads in some form. So Facebook

1:00:34

would have a pretty strong incentive to build some

1:00:36

kind of integrated system where you can have, you

1:00:39

pay Facebook to advertise your app, Facebook hosts

1:00:41

your app or through the

1:00:43

third party marketplace system here, Facebook

1:00:46

then can directly install your app directly

1:00:48

from a user tapping an ad or

1:00:50

whatever else. There are

1:00:52

reasons why Facebook might want to build

1:00:54

a larger store system here. Fortunately

1:00:57

for my goal of having that not happen,

1:01:01

I think the core technology fee will

1:01:03

mostly kill that because

1:01:05

the economics of it are so

1:01:08

rough. First of

1:01:10

all, the store itself, if you

1:01:12

make a third party app store,

1:01:14

that is an app that pays

1:01:16

the CTF on every install, even

1:01:18

below a million. Even

1:01:21

how much money does your third party app store make?

1:01:25

You have to make 50% per installed instance

1:01:27

of your app store for every single user

1:01:29

who has it. I love that none

1:01:31

of us know what 50 euro cents are called. We just keep

1:01:33

saying different things. We'll just say half euro. We take 50 cents,

1:01:35

it's fine. But it's not 50 cents. 50 euro cents. Do

1:01:38

they call it that? Probably not.

1:01:40

I don't know, but that's what

1:01:42

I'm calling it. Anyway,

1:01:46

suppose Facebook did this. They're going

1:01:48

to pay 50 euro cents. Euro cents, it's

1:01:50

fine. They're going

1:01:52

to pay a half euro for every

1:01:54

installation of the Facebook app store. Then

1:01:57

they're also, because they have so many users, they're also going to

1:01:59

be way past So they have a half

1:02:01

euro for the App Store app itself, then another

1:02:04

half euro for each of their

1:02:06

installed apps on everyone's phone. That's

1:02:09

going to add up to quite a bit.

1:02:11

And all of this would

1:02:13

only be usable in the EU. So it's

1:02:16

not that they could do this worldwide and

1:02:18

pull their apps from all of the App

1:02:20

Store stuff. They would do

1:02:22

all this and jump through all these hoops and

1:02:24

pay all these fees only

1:02:27

for something that works in the EU. So

1:02:29

that's like I can't imagine this

1:02:32

is going to be used by

1:02:34

pretty much anybody, like huge. Like

1:02:37

the big tech companies, like the big worldwide tech companies,

1:02:39

I can't really see doing this. What

1:02:42

I foresee happening here is

1:02:45

the EU will have a couple of third

1:02:47

party app stores that are going to be

1:02:49

filled mostly with porn and crypto and stuff

1:02:51

like that, that is just not allowed in

1:02:53

the regular App Store. And

1:02:56

the economics of it won't be that

1:02:58

beneficial to almost anyone except

1:03:00

Apple. And

1:03:02

that'll be fine. And I don't even know if those

1:03:04

app stores will be sustainable though. Like I'm trying to

1:03:06

think of who's – like we asked about who's going

1:03:08

to run the third – who's going to use that

1:03:10

linking, third party linking payment thing we talked about before,

1:03:13

the DMA. And it was like the only benefit with

1:03:15

ownership to the customer and some flexibility there. And this

1:03:17

one's even worse because lots

1:03:19

of people may think, I want to run a third party app

1:03:21

store in the EU. But then you look at

1:03:24

what's involved. First of all, you need a million euro

1:03:26

line of credit, which is no problem for any big

1:03:28

company. But if you're just an individual user who thinks

1:03:30

you want to have your own app store, that's

1:03:33

an immediate barrier to entry.

1:03:36

And then what you just said before, Margaret, like Apple's

1:03:38

rules say you can't just have an app store

1:03:40

and like, okay, but the only apps allowed in

1:03:42

the app store are my apps. You can't do

1:03:44

that. You essentially have to make an app store

1:03:46

that allows submissions from anybody who wants to submit.

1:03:48

Now, I'm sure there are loopholes in there, but

1:03:50

you could say, okay, well, I'll be just like

1:03:53

the Apple app store. And I'll

1:03:55

allow submissions from anybody. But have you seen

1:03:57

my set of rules? It's even more Byzantine

1:03:59

than the rules. app store and I

1:04:01

can reject things for any reason because I decide

1:04:03

that you've included a rectangle that is shaped like

1:04:05

my grandma's house and up this clause 13.3.1

1:04:09

if any rectangle is shaped like her grandma's

1:04:11

house I'm rejecting your app like I don't

1:04:13

think Apple can police the rules each app

1:04:16

store provides but you can't say like from

1:04:18

day one sorry we're not accepting submissions you

1:04:20

have to accept and process a submission so

1:04:22

now you are opening the

1:04:24

doors to accept and process submissions even if you're

1:04:26

rejecting them based on lots of stuff so if

1:04:29

you're thinking like an individual developers who goes around a

1:04:32

store are you ready to accept and review app submissions

1:04:34

maybe no more submit to you maybe a million people

1:04:36

will submit to you now you're on the hook to

1:04:38

do a lot of complicated stuff and of course you

1:04:40

have to pay 50 euro cents for every single person

1:04:43

who installs your app and then you have to decide

1:04:45

how much of a cut am I going to take am I going

1:04:48

to take 30% like Apple does am I gonna demand 70% am

1:04:50

I gonna demand 1% like what are the rules of

1:04:52

your app store oh now you have to hold all

1:04:54

the accounting for dealing with those rules and are you

1:04:56

gonna have your own payment processing as part of like

1:04:59

it building a third party app store

1:05:01

a third party marketplace and Apple's parlance

1:05:03

is non-trivial and it's

1:05:06

very expensive to do

1:05:08

to have one at all so it

1:05:10

eliminates a lot of people from doing

1:05:12

it right and then if you

1:05:14

want your app store to be attractive I feel like the

1:05:16

whole point of this is you have to offer probably

1:05:19

something better than what the apples

1:05:22

app store does because otherwise why would people do maybe

1:05:24

the better thing is how let you have porn apps

1:05:26

right but presumably one of the better

1:05:28

things is I'll take less money than

1:05:30

Apple that's the whole point of one big aspect

1:05:32

of the competition if you have third-party app stores

1:05:35

a they'll allow apps that Apple wouldn't and B

1:05:37

they'll take less money from you and so now

1:05:39

you have to do that so now you're already

1:05:41

in a financially disadvantageous situation

1:05:43

you're following the rules set by Apple who runs

1:05:46

their own app store and they set the rules

1:05:48

up so that they know it's gonna be really

1:05:50

hard for you to compete with them but you

1:05:52

have to compete with them otherwise your store isn't

1:05:54

attractive at all good luck making money

1:05:57

there and that's why you know the

1:05:59

only people this probably makes a for

1:06:01

are companies that can eat this. Facebook

1:06:03

will say, all

1:06:05

right, so we're going to pay half a billion dollars

1:06:07

to Apple every year

1:06:09

in perpetuity to have

1:06:11

our own app store. But it's worth it to us because

1:06:13

we have those click-through ads and

1:06:16

now we can track who bought the thing. Or it's

1:06:18

more important for us to own the

1:06:20

customer. They have some strategic reason where

1:06:22

it makes sense. But the reason is not, boy,

1:06:24

we're going to make so much money off this

1:06:26

meta app store in the EU. Directly,

1:06:29

you're probably not. It's probably going to be a cost center,

1:06:31

and you're going to make it up in other parts of

1:06:33

your business and it's strategic to you. And

1:06:36

it's still not entirely clear to me whether, if meta

1:06:38

did that, whether they could no longer have

1:06:40

any of their apps in the plain

1:06:42

old app store in the EU. I don't think that's

1:06:45

the case. I think they're allowed to have both, but

1:06:47

they want it to be separate apps. But they

1:06:49

have to pay the CTF on the ones that are

1:06:51

in the plain app store because once they accept

1:06:53

the EU rules, this is nothing in case it wasn't

1:06:55

clear from before, once you accept the EU rules, even

1:06:58

your apps that are in the Apple app store

1:07:00

are subject to the core technology fee. Oh, wait a

1:07:02

minute. I don't think I knew it. So it isn't

1:07:04

per app? Well, basically, if you have an app

1:07:06

in the app store and you accept the EU rules,

1:07:08

you pay the CTF. Oh, well, let's clarify that. Because

1:07:11

I was right up here. So option

1:07:13

number two, you accept the EU rules and you remain in the app

1:07:15

store, all the options have CTF. Oh,

1:07:18

yeah, no. But I'm saying, could Facebook have the

1:07:20

Facebook app for the rest of the world that

1:07:22

stays the same, but then Facebook EU over here?

1:07:24

Oh, yeah, no. This is just within the EU.

1:07:26

I'm saying within the EU, could you have the

1:07:29

face? You're living in the

1:07:31

EU and you launch the Apple app store. You see

1:07:33

the Facebook app. You're living in the EU and you

1:07:35

launch the meta app store. You see the Facebook app.

1:07:37

Can the Facebook app be in both places as viewed

1:07:39

by somebody in the EU? No, I believe it has

1:07:41

to be a different, I think it has to be

1:07:43

a different bundle ID even. But we'll see. And that's,

1:07:45

yeah. So what I expect to

1:07:48

happen here, and by the way, too, like your breakdown of

1:07:50

the economics of third party app

1:07:52

stores, like two points on that. First

1:07:54

of all, the CTF kills its economics.

1:07:56

So for everybody, for the app store

1:07:58

owner itself. And

1:08:00

for each individual developer, like, you know, if I

1:08:02

wanted to submit my app to a third-party app

1:08:04

store in the EU, first

1:08:06

of all, again, like, you know, I know they're

1:08:09

gonna turn to something, because, like, the only

1:08:11

reason people want to run app stores is

1:08:13

to make the same cut themselves. Like, why

1:08:15

do you think Epic is pushing so hard

1:08:18

against Apple? Epic runs their own game store,

1:08:20

and they take a percentage of all the

1:08:22

sales in it. So, of course, like,

1:08:25

they just want it for themselves. That's why, well, it's not

1:08:27

that they want the cut of other people, they just don't

1:08:29

want to have to pay Apple. So, for example, when Apple

1:08:31

distributes its own apps to the app store, it doesn't pay

1:08:33

itself 30%. Or if it did,

1:08:35

it wouldn't make, it doesn't make any sense, right? That's why the idea

1:08:37

of an Epic app store that only sells Epic

1:08:39

apps, Epic loves that, because, like, sure, we'll pay ourselves 90%. We'll

1:08:41

pay ourselves 100%. Like,

1:08:45

it doesn't matter. They're their own apps. It's their own company,

1:08:47

and that's why Apple has in the rules. Oh, so you

1:08:49

want to have an app store? You can't just have your

1:08:51

own apps in there, essentially, as a way to avoid paying

1:08:54

anything. Because, like, we run the app store, so we don't

1:08:56

have to pay ourselves. That's the advantage that

1:08:58

Apple has. They run the app store. They don't have to pay 30%

1:09:00

of all their, you know, so

1:09:03

Apple has made it so that that is not an attractive thing

1:09:05

to do. Like, no, you have to accept submission. They're like, oh,

1:09:07

do I really want an app, run an app store to deal

1:09:09

with other people's apps? I don't want other people's apps. I just

1:09:11

want to pay less. And then

1:09:14

if you just want to pay less, you may be

1:09:16

out there saying, okay, I'm not going to run my

1:09:18

own app store. I'll just wait to see the sea

1:09:20

of third-party app stores that pop up, and I'll pick

1:09:22

the one that has the lowest rate. And what we're

1:09:24

trying to say is there's not going to be a

1:09:26

sea of third-party app stores, because running a third-party app

1:09:28

store is not a great deal. And if any do

1:09:30

exist, they're probably going to be

1:09:32

similar or worse deals than Apple for everybody

1:09:34

involved, which I feel like is not in

1:09:37

the spirit of the DMA, which is

1:09:39

trying to increase competition. Again, the only

1:09:42

thing I feel like the DMA is

1:09:44

successfully accomplishing, if this is deemed to be

1:09:46

compliant, is apps that you couldn't get before. Now

1:09:48

you can get in the EU. Everything else

1:09:50

is just such a mess that it is not

1:09:53

helping anybody. Yeah, that's

1:09:55

the key. Because even as a developer,

1:09:57

why would I submit my app store?

1:10:00

app to a third party app store. Because

1:10:02

again, that means I'm gonna start eating

1:10:04

the CTF for my app, that

1:10:06

ruins economics. Forever and ever. Yeah, it ruins economics

1:10:09

in the EU for me because it's a free

1:10:11

app. And you can't change back. Yeah, so the

1:10:14

economics of it are terrible. The

1:10:16

only reason, you're right, the only reason is

1:10:19

if my app type or business model or

1:10:21

whatever, if something inherent about my app is

1:10:23

just not allowed in Apple's app store. And

1:10:25

you somehow think you can get 50 cents

1:10:27

of value per customer per year, more than

1:10:29

50% of value per customer per

1:10:31

year. But you have to be pretty confident. Plus

1:10:34

whatever you're paying the app store. Yeah,

1:10:36

you have to be pretty confident that you can do that. Or

1:10:38

you're just so confident that you're never gonna be above a million

1:10:40

users or whatever. Yeah, so that's why I think this

1:10:42

is, Apple

1:10:44

has crafted this ingeniously

1:10:47

so that no one will use it, basically. It's

1:10:50

going to be a very specialized thing that

1:10:52

almost no one's going to use and you're not

1:10:54

gonna hear it. Because the other thing too is

1:10:56

like, suppose somebody

1:10:59

makes a third party app store.

1:11:02

They jump through the hoops, they actually

1:11:04

create one, then they

1:11:06

actually get developers to put their apps in it and

1:11:09

everyone somehow pays for the CTF and everything

1:11:11

else going along with this. You

1:11:14

still have no users for that app store.

1:11:16

How does that get off the ground? And

1:11:18

the more users you get, it's 50 cents

1:11:21

for every single one of those users starting from user

1:11:23

number one. So your idea is like, I really need,

1:11:25

I'm running a third party app store. I need every

1:11:27

single person on earth to install my, oh no, I

1:11:29

don't, I really don't want that. Yeah, exactly. The

1:11:32

economics of it make no sense for

1:11:34

any party involved except Apple. Apple's gonna

1:11:37

keep making their money, of course. And

1:11:39

no developer, again, barring

1:11:41

apps that are just not allowed, no

1:11:44

developer would or should

1:11:46

enter this agreement and

1:11:48

no one's gonna wanna run the stores either. I

1:11:51

do think it is significant that Apple, everything still

1:11:53

goes through Apple. Even though what they've said they're

1:11:55

going to do is like,

1:11:57

okay, well, they said they're all this.

1:11:59

essentially allow things through except for safety or whatever.

1:12:02

The fact that there is a decision point, the

1:12:04

fact that everything still flows through Apple opens the

1:12:06

door to so much abuse of

1:12:08

Apple just deciding, oh, we're

1:12:10

not sure when we're going to get to that app. We're really

1:12:12

backed up right now. Oh, yeah,

1:12:14

we found something we think is a

1:12:17

safety concern. Like, you know,

1:12:19

the spirit of the DMA, the idea that

1:12:21

there shouldn't be this small number of companies

1:12:23

with such outsized control, Apple still has all

1:12:25

that control. They're just saying, we won't use

1:12:27

it in the same way as we did

1:12:30

before. We'll only do the things that you allow

1:12:32

in the DMA. We're just checking for safety and

1:12:34

stuff. And sometimes you might get a little backed

1:12:36

up and, oh, we might have a concern. Oh,

1:12:39

because what's the recourse? If Apple rejects it at

1:12:41

that app review phase before it gets to the

1:12:43

third party app store, Apple's

1:12:45

going to be like, oh, we thought there was a safety

1:12:47

concern or it falls under this letter of thing. How

1:12:50

long does it take to get that resolved? What is the

1:12:52

mechanism to get that resolved? It is like

1:12:55

you're not cutting out of Apple out of

1:12:57

this. You're just basically scolding them

1:12:59

and saying, no, you let through more apps

1:13:01

than you did before. Okay,

1:13:04

I guess we will. And

1:13:07

if we don't, something will happen. And

1:13:10

that's speaking of all this is like, does this comply? We

1:13:12

keep referring to that. The

1:13:14

somewhat delicious irony, although not so delicious if it

1:13:16

turns out that they're compliant. Apple

1:13:18

has to submit this and say, okay, we saw your DMA.

1:13:20

This is what we're going to do to comply with it.

1:13:23

And Apple did all this development and made all these

1:13:25

frameworks and wrote up all this documentation and did all

1:13:27

this stuff. But Apple

1:13:29

doesn't know whether the thing they're proposing is

1:13:31

actually going to be deemed compliant. They only

1:13:33

find that out after submitting it, which is

1:13:35

exactly how every developer feels when they spend

1:13:37

a year developing an application and they have

1:13:40

no idea what they're going to get in

1:13:42

the app store until they submit it. I was

1:13:44

reminded of this today when I was looking at the

1:13:46

tapestry Kickstarter from the folks at Icon Factory,

1:13:49

sort of like a grand unified timeline of all things

1:13:51

accessible on the net. We should put a link to

1:13:53

it in the show notes in

1:13:55

the risk section on the Kickstarter page. Their

1:13:57

number one risk, I believe is we don't.

1:14:00

know if Apple will allow this on the App Store. That

1:14:02

is everybody's number one risk. How many people

1:14:04

just choose not to develop an application because

1:14:06

they were afraid that Apple won't accept it?

1:14:08

And is there a way to get pre-clearance

1:14:10

from Apple? Can you talk to Apple and

1:14:12

say, hey, before we spend a year and

1:14:14

millions of dollars developing this app, can you

1:14:16

just tell us whether you'll accept it on

1:14:18

the App Store? Apple's answer is develop

1:14:21

it, submit it to us, and we'll see. And

1:14:23

that's kind of the EU's thing here too. It's like, the

1:14:25

rules, comply with

1:14:28

them and submit to us and we'll tell you whether

1:14:30

you complied or not. I don't

1:14:32

know what the consequences are if they're not compliant, if they just send

1:14:34

it back to Apple and they keep going back and forth. But

1:14:37

anyway, Apple is in the same situation as developers. They're

1:14:39

not sure if this is going to comply. If

1:14:41

the EU says this does comply, I think they're not

1:14:44

doing a good job because I

1:14:46

feel like this does not comply with the spirit of what

1:14:48

the DMA is trying to accomplish in

1:14:50

the way that it does. But if it doesn't comply, I don't

1:14:52

know what the rest of the process is. But I

1:14:55

do enjoy the fact that Apple is in the same situation as we

1:14:57

are. Of course, the difference is that they have a

1:14:59

whole jillion dollars and we don't. Honestly,

1:15:03

again, because I really don't want

1:15:06

third-party app stores or sideloading on iOS

1:15:08

for lots of reasons, I'm

1:15:10

actually on one level kind of glad that Apple

1:15:12

has found a way to cheat their way into

1:15:14

this so that they maintain all the control. Some

1:15:16

of the things I was worried about

1:15:19

with, for instance, Facebook having less

1:15:22

controlled access to the hardware and software

1:15:24

on so many people's phones, the

1:15:27

way Apple has wedged themselves

1:15:29

into this kind of like half app review

1:15:31

process, even for apps that do this, I

1:15:34

think that's good to try

1:15:37

to help prevent bad actors

1:15:39

like Facebook from doing the bad things that

1:15:41

they do. In the DMA,

1:15:43

it says that platform holders are

1:15:46

allowed to do these minimum things

1:15:48

to essentially protect the integrity of

1:15:50

the platform. I'm

1:15:52

glad overall, I'm glad that Apple

1:15:54

has found a way

1:15:56

to seemingly still do a pretty thorough

1:15:58

job of protecting the basics of

1:16:01

the platform and user experience and security and

1:16:03

things like that. One

1:16:05

kind of downside to this, though, is

1:16:07

like now I

1:16:09

feel like they will be able to keep

1:16:13

their current anti-competitive behavior

1:16:16

everywhere, including in the EU, and

1:16:19

maybe even get worse, get more severe at it, because

1:16:21

now they can point to this and say, look, if

1:16:23

you don't like it, we gave you an escape hatch.

1:16:25

Yeah, if you don't like it, try one of these

1:16:27

third party things. Oh, there aren't any? I don't know

1:16:29

why that happened. There aren't any

1:16:31

except for the porn store. Exactly. I

1:16:33

mean, this is why regulation is

1:16:36

so difficult, because, yeah, they

1:16:38

identified a real problem. I

1:16:41

think the EU was right to look into this

1:16:43

as a problem. But the regulation

1:16:45

they created has a lot

1:16:47

of loophole potential as evidenced by what

1:16:49

Apple is able to do here. And

1:16:52

as a result, the customer outcome, I

1:16:55

don't think will be that much better. In

1:16:58

some ways, it could get worse, because now they

1:17:00

can even ramp up the abuses in their store

1:17:02

that everybody will still be using. So it's

1:17:06

tough to get regulation right. And in this case, it's

1:17:08

hard to point to this and call this a victory.

1:17:11

Well, we'll see if it's compliant, because I pulled out

1:17:13

some. I was trying to look at the DMA text

1:17:15

to see if there's anything that is clearly not compliant.

1:17:17

And the DMA tries in a wishy-washy kind of way

1:17:19

to avoid a situation where

1:17:21

someone complies with the letter, but then essentially the

1:17:23

outcome is that no one would ever want to

1:17:25

have a third-party marketplace, for example. So here's some

1:17:28

text from the DMA. We'll put a link in

1:17:30

the show notes to this exact passage. The

1:17:33

gatekeeper, Apple is the gatekeeper here, because they run the

1:17:35

App Store in this example.

1:17:37

The gatekeeper shall apply fair,

1:17:39

reasonable, and non-discriminatory general conditions

1:17:42

of access for business users to its

1:17:44

software application stores, online search engines, and

1:17:46

online social networking services listed in the

1:17:48

designated decision pursuant to blah, blah, blah,

1:17:51

blah. So they try to basically say,

1:17:53

look, you can't just say, you can have a third-party

1:17:55

App Store. But if you want to get

1:17:57

a third-party App Store, you have to pay us $100 billion.

1:18:00

Like that doesn't pass the DMA, right? So

1:18:02

a fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory conditions, blah, blah,

1:18:04

blah. The question is,

1:18:06

are the financial terms set out

1:18:08

by Apple fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory? They're

1:18:10

probably pretty much non-discriminatory, although you might

1:18:13

say the million dollar line of credit

1:18:15

is slightly discriminatory, right? But

1:18:17

by carefully calibrating the terms to look

1:18:20

more or less like the same deal

1:18:22

as Apple, you could say, well, it's

1:18:25

fair and reasonable because it's kind of the same deal that we have.

1:18:28

But if your goal with the DMA is to

1:18:30

foster competition, if the only

1:18:32

way anyone can have an app store is to

1:18:35

essentially match Apple's terms in terms of the finances,

1:18:37

that's not an option. Developers, it's like,

1:18:39

I want to, you know, you want a competition

1:18:41

to say, hey, here's somebody offering to

1:18:43

take less of my money than Apple. I'm going to go with

1:18:45

them. And Apple set out the rules and say, yeah, it's going

1:18:47

to be pretty much impossible for you to take less money than

1:18:49

we do. In fact, you'll probably

1:18:51

have to take more. But it's fair and

1:18:53

reasonable because it's kind of like what we're doing,

1:18:55

right? It's not a hundred billion

1:18:58

dollars. It's not like, you know, like, for

1:19:00

example, to have a third party app store,

1:19:02

there is an entitlement you need to get.

1:19:04

And Apple gives that entitlement, presumably,

1:19:06

in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory manner, and

1:19:08

you just need a million-year line of credit,

1:19:10

and so on and so forth. I

1:19:13

think they probably passed this bar, but that's the

1:19:15

fault of the DMA. Again, if the goal of

1:19:17

the DMA was let apps exist that couldn't exist

1:19:19

before and allow there to be financial

1:19:22

competition, allow people to compete by saying,

1:19:24

we're going to give you a better

1:19:27

deal than Apple. That is

1:19:29

the only form of financial competition that

1:19:31

is valid or reasonable, is

1:19:33

we're going to give you a better deal,

1:19:35

better terms, different financial arrangement. We'll take a

1:19:37

smaller cut. We'll have a different way that

1:19:39

we make money from you. Like,

1:19:42

that is competition, and Apple

1:19:44

is trying so hard to say, we

1:19:46

will not allow competition along

1:19:48

that axis at all. And

1:19:51

I kind of blame the DMA. If

1:19:53

they decide this is compliant, then

1:19:55

the DMA was very poorly written because

1:19:58

it's not accomplishing its goal. Yeah,

1:20:00

it's interesting. I've read a blog

1:20:02

post from what was it? Steven

1:20:04

Sonofsky? And

1:20:06

it was very long. It

1:20:10

made some interesting points and we'll put a link in the shout

1:20:12

outs. But some of the stuff

1:20:14

that was said was, look, this

1:20:16

is like in Marco since, you

1:20:18

know, it's been so long since you've had a

1:20:20

real job. This probably won't, you probably don't remember

1:20:23

this. But if you go to a boss and

1:20:25

you say, hey, I've got option A, and it

1:20:27

sucks because of one, two, and three. And

1:20:30

I've got option B, and that

1:20:32

sucks because of four, five, and

1:20:34

six. You know, you're the boss. What

1:20:37

do you want me to do? Which one of these do you

1:20:39

want me to do? And most bosses

1:20:41

will say, oh, well,

1:20:44

let's do option C, which eliminates bad

1:20:46

thing one and two and bad thing

1:20:48

five and six. And

1:20:50

it's no, that's not how this works. And

1:20:52

that's what the DMA is kind of requesting

1:20:55

is, you know, I want something that's

1:20:57

open, but it still needs to

1:20:59

be super secure. And you need to consider

1:21:01

users privacy. Well, like,

1:21:04

that might be possible, but

1:21:07

it's not easy. And in Snofsky's

1:21:09

post, in large part was saying,

1:21:12

look, I think

1:21:14

this is a very American point of view. And I mostly

1:21:16

share it, to be honest with you. But, you

1:21:19

know, Steven's point was, look, this

1:21:21

is kind of already a solved problem. Apple

1:21:24

is trading on, we

1:21:26

have a very

1:21:28

discriminate, you know, approach to doing things, we don't

1:21:30

allow everything in the store, we are very upfront,

1:21:32

I mean, whether or not you agree with the

1:21:35

terms, or if you think the terms are fair,

1:21:37

as I guess what I should say, they're

1:21:40

very upfront about the terms. And I don't think anyone

1:21:42

can really debate that Apple has said from the beginning,

1:21:44

this, these are the terms, this is how you play

1:21:46

in our playground. And that is the

1:21:48

Apple way. If you don't like those terms,

1:21:50

or you don't want to play in that playground, that's fine. That's

1:21:53

why Android exists. And you can play in

1:21:55

their playground, and they counterbalance each other in

1:21:57

the same way that Windows and macOS. that

1:22:00

did, you know, years ago. Oh, DMA applies to

1:22:02

Android as well, obviously. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. But

1:22:04

I mean, just in terms of like the stereotypical

1:22:06

open versus closed. And I know it's much more

1:22:08

complicated than that. But for the purpose of that.

1:22:10

There's a lot of asterisks on that open. There

1:22:13

is. But nevertheless, the idea

1:22:15

is, look, it is comparatively easier to do the

1:22:17

things that you want to do in Google

1:22:20

World, where you can side load, and then

1:22:22

it is in the Apple World, where you

1:22:24

can't side load. And it's

1:22:27

just tough. Apple's

1:22:30

kind of in everyone. But Apple's in a no one

1:22:32

scenario. And so to quote from

1:22:34

his blog post, in the over 60 pages

1:22:36

of DMA, there's a little mention of privacy

1:22:38

seven times, security nine times, performance three times,

1:22:40

reliability once, battery life none, or accessibility just

1:22:42

three times. So that is where Apple finds

1:22:44

itself today. It was told essentially to create

1:22:47

a new iPhone release that is as good

1:22:49

as your old one for your existing customers,

1:22:51

but do all these things that run counter

1:22:53

to every lesson and experience that you've had

1:22:55

over decades. Everything you've designed

1:22:57

and architected. Everything you promised customers

1:22:59

you would deliver. That truly sucks.

1:23:03

I agree with him a little bit here, in

1:23:06

that the way that the DMA written puts them in

1:23:08

a difficult situation. But two things on that. One, the

1:23:10

whole point is the EU decided

1:23:13

that, unlike the US, they decided

1:23:15

we want there to be more competition, and we're going to

1:23:17

force you to do it. And it seems unfair to

1:23:19

us, especially if you don't think there's a thing that

1:23:21

happened. But they've already decided that. So that whole idea

1:23:23

of like, it's already fine. You can always pick Android.

1:23:25

The EU said, yeah, that's not fine with us. You

1:23:28

can disagree with them, but they already decided that. Once

1:23:30

they have decided that and made the DMA, them

1:23:34

trying to decide along what access they'll

1:23:36

allow competition, I almost

1:23:38

wish they had reversed it, where right now,

1:23:40

yeah, you can get new kinds of apps, which

1:23:44

potentially induces all the problems that Marco doesn't

1:23:46

want, and all the points that Sanosky is

1:23:48

making of like, what about battery life performance

1:23:50

reliability? Like, you're essentially compromising the iPhone platform

1:23:53

by allowing other people to get their apps

1:23:55

on it. Apps that wouldn't fly on the

1:23:57

App Store that could make the iPhone a

1:23:59

worse. platform, right? And the flip side

1:24:01

of that is, okay, but what about the

1:24:03

financial terms? And I kind of wish they

1:24:05

had said, the financial terms are the

1:24:08

more important thing to us. Allow

1:24:10

Apple to maintain similar level of

1:24:12

control over, you know, better

1:24:14

life performance, security, all that stuff or

1:24:16

whatever, but just structure

1:24:18

it such that there's a way

1:24:20

for competing app stores to exist

1:24:23

that take a lower cut of the money,

1:24:25

right? Because the thing, the brand promise of the

1:24:27

iPhone has nothing to do with how much developers

1:24:29

pay, right? That is not the

1:24:31

brand promise of the iPhone. It has entirely to

1:24:33

do with the safety of the apps, how much

1:24:36

you can trust them, all that things. That

1:24:38

level of trust does not

1:24:40

require Apple to take any specific percentage from

1:24:42

developers, right? And when Steve Jobs rolled out

1:24:44

the iPhone, he was like, we're just trying

1:24:47

to, or the app store rather, a

1:24:49

year after the iPhone, or whenever it was, they're

1:24:51

like, we're just trying to break even on the app store. He

1:24:53

actually said that on stage or something without effect.

1:24:56

It's not, it's not going to end that. Do

1:24:58

you think he believed it? I don't, I'm guessing

1:25:00

even he knew it was a profit center. But

1:25:03

either way, the whole point is that's

1:25:05

not part of the brand promise. That financial

1:25:07

arrangement between Apple and developers, that specific cut,

1:25:09

how much money Apple makes from it is

1:25:11

not part of the brand promise or the

1:25:13

user experience of the iPhone. It is a

1:25:15

background thing that is financially important to developers

1:25:17

and Apple, but the users, users don't even

1:25:20

know that Apple doesn't make all the app

1:25:22

right. Like is, that's not part of

1:25:24

the promise. Everything else is part of the promise. What

1:25:27

kind of apps are available? How secure are there? Has

1:25:29

someone checked them for something? And arguably Apple has not

1:25:31

been fulfilling that brand promise in the app store itself

1:25:33

with all the casino games for children in the scam

1:25:35

apps. That's a separate argument. But like, if

1:25:38

at the end, you can imagine a different version

1:25:40

of the DMA that essentially

1:25:42

would make Sonofsky happy to say, we're not

1:25:44

Apple, we're not going to force you to

1:25:46

break the brand promise of your phone. What

1:25:48

we are going to force you to do

1:25:50

is allow competition on the business terms that

1:25:52

developers get. And the DMA does not does

1:25:55

not do that at all. Instead, it says,

1:25:57

we'll allow a bunch of porn and copyright

1:25:59

violations. but don't worry Apple, you'll still get your

1:26:01

cut. And that is not, to Marko's

1:26:03

point, it's not satisfactory to anybody because even

1:26:05

if you're in favor of third party outsourced,

1:26:07

you'd be like, no, not like that. Like,

1:26:11

I want the iPhone to be continued

1:26:13

to be good. I just want there

1:26:15

to be financial competition about, you know,

1:26:17

in the marketplaces. And that's not what

1:26:19

the DMA is doing. And it's

1:26:22

really sucky. Like, Sanosky spent so long

1:26:24

essentially being angry about the

1:26:26

fact that Microsoft was forced to make their

1:26:28

operating system worse to satisfy the EU. And

1:26:31

Apple is now being forced to make their platform worse to

1:26:33

satisfy the EU. But it's all because

1:26:35

of this fight over Apple, like, you know,

1:26:38

Apple and the EU saying, you know, it's

1:26:40

so important to us that we continue to

1:26:42

make money off the app store. It's like,

1:26:44

it's not, you make money off the phones.

1:26:47

Apple can break even, could actually literally break

1:26:49

even on the app store and still be

1:26:51

making tons of money on the iPhone. It

1:26:53

is a profitable platform without any app store

1:26:56

income whatsoever, but they will

1:26:58

not give that up. Yep.

1:27:01

I don't know. I don't have too much to add. I

1:27:04

don't want to be, I don't, I feel

1:27:06

like the spirit to

1:27:10

a degree of what the EU is trying to do

1:27:13

and you know, make it better for their citizens.

1:27:15

Like, you know, I think that they

1:27:17

come to it from a decent place, but just like

1:27:19

you said, John, I think the execution from the EU

1:27:22

has been subpar or

1:27:25

naive maybe that they're just, they're barking

1:27:27

up the wrong trees. I

1:27:29

couldn't agree more with what you said

1:27:32

about let's change the business agreements. Let's

1:27:34

leave the platform alone. And I don't

1:27:37

know. I don't know a lot of people, maybe I'm living in

1:27:39

a bubble, but I don't know a lot of people that are

1:27:41

like, man, all I want the world is to be able to

1:27:44

use Blink on my iPhone. Like, that's not a problem I feel

1:27:46

like a lot of people have. And I

1:27:48

don't know, I just, this seems like

1:27:50

a whole, much ado about nothing

1:27:52

to me. And it's just unnecessary in

1:27:55

so many ways. I kind of do like the

1:27:57

browser and stuff like that. And by the way,

1:27:59

there's a point. download that's I

1:28:01

don't think part of the DMA thing but it's

1:28:04

like it's it's essentially a hedge to appease some

1:28:06

other companies of them allowing like streaming games like

1:28:08

previously Apple had said hey you can't put an

1:28:10

app in the App Store that when you launch

1:28:12

it as a bunch of streaming

1:28:15

games that you like sell or give access to

1:28:17

or whatever right and Apple's changing the rules around

1:28:19

that for worldwide not just the EU that now

1:28:21

you can have a single app and inside

1:28:24

of that can be a whole library of streaming games

1:28:26

because before Apple said that's too much like an App

1:28:28

Store we wanted to allow that but now they're doing

1:28:30

it specifically with streaming apps mostly to satisfy Microsoft and

1:28:32

other companies that they want on their side during all

1:28:34

this stuff like that stuff like

1:28:36

allowing browser engines and allowing streaming games and

1:28:39

other stuff like there are things that Apple

1:28:41

could give on that I

1:28:43

don't think will hurt Apple and they're just

1:28:45

so they drag their feet on it so

1:28:47

much right the browser engine thing especially what

1:28:50

they've done with browser kit technically impressive because

1:28:52

you may not be aware but like to

1:28:54

allow a different browser engine Safari on iOS

1:28:56

does things so that iOS apps are not

1:28:59

allowed to do spawning multiple

1:29:01

processes having multiple threads doing all like

1:29:03

they do all sorts of stuff we're

1:29:06

just the process architecture and what the app is

1:29:08

doing in the background and how many things are

1:29:10

running and are allowed to remain alive and not

1:29:12

get killed off like to implement all the various

1:29:14

web standards the regular apps are not allowed to

1:29:16

do and there's you know sandbox in the right

1:29:19

way so they're not security holes whatever

1:29:21

it's called browser engine kit or

1:29:23

whatever the thing is that allows

1:29:26

third-party engines is a complicated framework

1:29:28

that allows third parties to implement

1:29:30

a web rendering engine quote-unquote the right

1:29:33

way the way Apple does it the

1:29:35

safe way I

1:29:37

think that's great I think that's the thing they could have done

1:29:39

at any time they just never had any motivation to do it

1:29:41

but things like that I give a thumbs up that

1:29:47

doesn't break the brand promise that that preserves

1:29:49

the brand promise because Apple's saying we found

1:29:51

a way to safely have browser engines in

1:29:53

iOS and you can do it

1:29:56

too in fact blank is based on webkit anyway so it's

1:29:58

not that dark right like

1:30:00

that I give a thumbs up the streaming game

1:30:02

thing it's like Apple just it's

1:30:04

not it's no skin off your back if they

1:30:06

do that I don't honestly I don't you know

1:30:09

let it happen take your cut of it like let

1:30:11

let it's not that's again not breaking the brand

1:30:14

promise I don't think people are gonna be confused

1:30:16

like what is this a game store inside a

1:30:18

game like people will people

1:30:20

will figure it out it's like roblox is

1:30:22

allowed to do it because they have quote-unquote

1:30:25

experiences not games like no one is fooled

1:30:27

everyone can figure it out stuff like that

1:30:29

should have been happening forever and it's getting

1:30:32

tied up and all this is basically

1:30:35

like I don't know it's

1:30:37

it's a happy accident it's a nice that they're being

1:30:39

forced to do it but almost everything else having to

1:30:41

do with this is unrelated

1:30:43

to that and is like essentially asking

1:30:45

to synopses on Apple to break their

1:30:47

brand promise by making the iPhone a

1:30:50

more dangerous and worse platform in

1:30:52

the hopes of providing a more competitive marketplace but don't

1:30:55

worry Apple's gonna make sure that doesn't happen it's

1:30:58

a lot we should also mention

1:31:00

that the official release like the

1:31:02

very broad I think

1:31:04

was like on the Apple homepage or whatever release about

1:31:06

this was the crankiest

1:31:08

piece of P.R. or news release

1:31:11

from a company that I have

1:31:13

seen in a long time it

1:31:16

was probably crankier that's

1:31:18

true but this was close man

1:31:20

this was angry

1:31:22

and I thought they did a pretty good

1:31:24

job people people I mean it

1:31:26

could have been worse like because I think what they

1:31:29

were saying was true they're like look we're being forced

1:31:31

to do this we're doing it in

1:31:33

the best way we can and all their

1:31:35

their language was like here's

1:31:37

how we're doing it to minimize the damage

1:31:40

to our brand promise I know I keep

1:31:42

saying brand promise essentially saying the iPhone it's

1:31:44

a place where it's safe to install apps

1:31:46

and the apps probably aren't scams again see

1:31:48

all the asterisks about how Apple does that

1:31:50

in the app store like and there's one

1:31:52

place to get everything everything simple and all

1:31:54

the sir Apple and you get refunds wrap

1:31:56

like that is the brand promise of the

1:31:58

iPhone and the EU is saying you must

1:32:00

bread now broke that promise and Apple's like here's

1:32:03

how we're minimizing the damage. We

1:32:06

decided to do it this way because this was the

1:32:08

best possible way we figured out

1:32:10

to do this while still being compliant. Everything

1:32:13

they say is like this is

1:32:15

bad but we're trying to make it

1:32:17

as less bad as we

1:32:19

possibly can and that's why it sounds cranky because

1:32:21

they don't sound happy about any of this. They're

1:32:23

not bragging about any of it. The only thing

1:32:25

they're bragging about is we think

1:32:28

this is the least bad

1:32:30

option. When just

1:32:32

paragraph after paragraph of like and here's how

1:32:34

we're trying to mitigate this damage and

1:32:37

again they never actually address the the actual

1:32:39

point which is like hey how

1:32:41

about allowing competition along the axis of business

1:32:43

terms like no that's not a thing. Well

1:32:46

rest assured we're not doing that but within these

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1:34:51

Kelkoff writes, with AirPods Pro or

1:34:53

amateur. Very well done.

1:34:55

As John still prefers, do you guys wear them

1:34:57

in both, always wear them in both ears, or

1:35:00

do you ever do a single ear? If you

1:35:02

go single ears, always the same side, or do

1:35:04

alternate? I suppose that for some folks, charge level

1:35:06

could play a role here. But I find myself

1:35:08

to never be low on AirPod charge. It's

1:35:11

probably because the super sad noise they play when they

1:35:13

do get low is conditioned to never let it happen.

1:35:16

I was actually talking to a friend of mine, Sam,

1:35:19

about this recently. And Sam

1:35:21

has kids who are a bit older than

1:35:23

mine. And actually, roughly your kid's age, John,

1:35:25

just a little bit younger than yours, I

1:35:27

believe. And he was saying

1:35:29

that both of his kids, they

1:35:32

pretty much always have one AirPod in. May or

1:35:34

may not be playing anything, but it's almost like

1:35:36

a aesthetic choice at this point,

1:35:38

which I found very fascinating. But to actually

1:35:40

answer the question, for me, I

1:35:43

will use two AirPods when I am either

1:35:45