Archive for May 2025

Friday, May 30, 2025

Grammarly Raises $1 Billion

Krystal Hu:

Grammarly has raised $1 billion in non-dilutive financing from General Catalyst to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings, aiming to grow into a comprehensive productivity platform, the companies said on Thursday.

Grammarly, known for its popular writing assistant tool, plans to use the capital to fund sales and marketing costs and strategic acquisitions. It looks to use AI to build more communication-based productivity tools and even hosts third-party tools on its platform by leveraging access to its 40 million daily users.

[…]

General Catalyst doesn’t receive an equity stake in Grammarly, but will get a capped return linked to revenue generated through using this capital. This is structured as a percentage of the revenue generated from the fund being used in customer acquisition.

Kirk McElhearn (Bluesky):

The writing tools, one element of Apple Intelligence, were the only part of this group of features that was ready on day one. These tools can proofread, rewrite, and summarize texts, and similar features are available from every AI tool and grammar-checking website. These writing tools are the lowest common denominator of generative AI. There’s nothing special about them, and there’s nothing Apple about them.

[…]

I would never use these tools to actually rewrite something. The tone and style of the writing are so bad that I would be embarrassed to put those words under my byline.

Aside from the quality of the AI, integration really matters for features like this. It seems like Grammarly has done a better job there, despite the disadvantage of not controlling the OS. I don’t see it being Sherlocked.

Previously:

The Talk Show Live, Without Apple

John Gruber (Mastodon, MacRumors, Hacker News, Steve Troughton-Smith):

But in recent years the guests have seemed a bit predictable: senior executives from Apple. This year I again extended my usual invitation to Apple, but, for the first time since 2015, they declined.

I think this will make for a fascinating show, but I want to set everyone’s expectations accordingly. I’m invigorated by this.

I think this is actually good for the show. Though I appreciate the opportunity to glean some information from the Apple executives, I usually find the live shows frustrating. Gruber wisely avoids wasting time with questions that they obviously won’t answer. But there are also plenty of on-topic, respectfully phrased questions that the executives mostly dodge. They’re just not going to tell us what we (I?) really want to know. Like politicians, they’re too good at staying on message. I think there are more interesting ways of using the time than giving space for talking points that didn’t make it into the keynote. I generally found the live episodes with Cabel Sasser and the ATP guys more entertaining and informative. If I were in Gruber’s position the last few years, I would have been thinking: maybe it’s time for something different. But people like watching Federighi, and it would be hard to pass up the opportunity if an Apple SVP wants to participate. Now, problem solved. I can see why he’s invigorated.

I do wonder what the thinking was from Apple’s side. Revenge for something he wrote? Pour encourager les autres? Lack of courage to defend their recent record or future plans, even with a fair interviewer? If I were Apple, I would see The Talk Show as a great opportunity to mend some fences with the developer community. But maybe Apple doesn’t care about that. Whatever the actual reason, the decision was sure to send a message, and I struggle to see how it could be a good one.

M.G. Siegler (Macro Arment):

This is wild. Both because they declined – again, for the first time in a decade – but more so because they have to know the signal it sends in declining. At best, it looks like they’re trying to avoid answering any non-staged questions about how things are going. At worst, it looks like they’re freezing Gruber out for a few recently critical posts about the company – notably, his “Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino” post about the Apple Intelligence shitshow back in March.

Even if that’s not explicitly what Apple is doing here, they simply must know that’s what it looks like. And it’s just about the worst look imaginable.

Marco Arment (Mastodon):

No executive ever said something they shouldn’t have (they’re pros), no sensational or negative news stories ever resulted from them, and Apple’s enthusiastic fans and developers felt seen, heard, and appreciated.

[…]

In the absence of any other information, it’s easy to assume that Apple no longer wants its executives to be interviewed in a human, unscripted, unedited context that may contain hard questions, and that Apple no longer feels it necessary to show their appreciation to our community and developers in this way.

See also: 15 Years Later: ‘Very Insightful and Not Negative’.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-03): Warner Crocker:

If you ignore what your audience is already thinking you essentially ignore (and further offend) them. If ever there was a crowd that might be receptive to some honesty (admittedly PR-coached,) Gruber’s forum would be the place to find it. Does Apple need to issue some mea culpas? Maybe, maybe not. But even well coached honesty in a discussion can go a long way to creating good will. If you ask me, Apple needs more than a little of that presently.

[…]

WWDC is going to happen. Arms among the audiences will be crossed, waiting for answers and clues. Apple will certainly have enough well-packaged announcements to distract at WWDC. They can’t deny their way out of the problems they brought on themselves. Being honest, however, can’t cause any more damage than has already been done.

Parker Ortolani:

I had hoped that instead of hiding, they would take the hits, own up to their failures over the past year, and try to offer some hope to developers and fans.

After all, this part of WWDC week is really for the fans.

Apple refusing to participate feels like more than just snubbing Gruber, it’s a missed chance to engage with the very community that cares the most.

Jeff Johnson (also):

Gruber has criticized Apple before. What’s different this time is that Gruber personally went after Tim Cook, and not about politics but rather cutting to the core of Cook’s competence as CEO, accusing him of squandering Apple’s reputation and creating a culture of mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit in the company.

Gruber made it personal, and this is personal retribution.

I think it was only personal in the sense that Cook is at the top so the buck stops with him. Gruber also gave Cook an out in that maybe he had already held the meeting. Siracusa didn’t make it personal, either, but was more direct in calling for a leadership change.

Update (2025-06-06): John Gruber (Mastodon):

They’ve invited members of the media to a screening of F1 The Movie Tuesday at 7:00pm in the Steve Jobs Theater. Thankfully, my press invitation from Apple has it marked as “optional”, because I have a conflict.

Matt Birchler:

Sure, Craig and Rockwell didn’t produce the movie or anything, but if my company produced a movie and was holding an early screening at an event I was already at, I’d want to go too.

[…]

Unless this is some vindictive shit where Tim Cook went, “what time is Gruber doing his show? Okay, let’s schedule our thing at the same time and get everyone to come to our party. Now what’s rotten in Cupertino, punk?”

John Gruber:

But if you can’t make the show, you definitely should watch live in Theater.

Update (2025-06-16): Daring Fireball:

Recorded in front of a live audience at The California Theatre in San Jose Tuesday evening, special guests Joanna Stern and Nilay Patel join John Gruber to discuss Apple’s announcements at WWDC 2025.

René Fouquet:

I actually felt it was much more interesting than previous Talk Show Live with Apple execs, simply because it didn’t feel like a marketing show. @gruber also seemed to be more relaxed and natural. And Joanna Stern and Nilay Patel are just fantastic guests.

Xcode 16.4

Apple (downloads):

Fixed: Users may see excessive CPU utilization from diskimagesiod which reduces simulator performance, increasing boot time, process launch times, and test execution times.

[…]

The command devicectl diagnose now obtains a sysdiagnose from your Mac and all available devices by default.

[…]

Fixed: NSURLSession was always timing out and failing in iOS 18.3 simulator runtimes.

Fixed: Some C++ headers were experiencing crashes in syntax highlighting and Quick Help.

Not a lot of changes here. It seems to be working the same as Xcode 16.3 for me—no new problems, but it doesn’t seem to fix all the issues introduced in 16.x, either.

Sarah Reichelt:

I see some people reporting problems with Xcode 16.4 but it solved a problem for me. I was holding off the pre-release of my book “Escape from Tutorial Hell” because 16.3 had a bug that crashed a playground the used JSON decoding. So please don’t try to use Xcode 16.3 with any playground in the book. 16.2 and 16.4 are both fine.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-03): Quiche Industries:

There’s a huge regression preventing testing WebKit apps in simulator with Xcode 16.4 and deployment target set under iOS 18.4.

Update (2025-06-06): Fatbobman:

Starting with Swift 6.1.1 and Xcode 16.4, you can dramatically reduce build times for macro projects by enabling prebuilt SwiftSyntax. Use Xcode defaults or the --enable-experimental-prebuilts flag in command-line builds to skip rebuilding SwiftSyntax from source. Clear existing build caches before first use for best results.

Arc and Dia

Wes Davis:

The Browser Company has said repeatedly that it’s not getting rid of the Arc browser as it moves onto its new AI-centric Dia browser. But what the company also not going to do is develop new features for it.

Josh Miller:

Back in 2019, it was already clear to us that everything was moving into the browser. My wife, who doesn’t work in tech, was living in desktop Chrome all day. My six year old niece was doing school entirely in web apps. The macro trends all pointed the same direction too: cloud revenue was surging, breakout startups were browser-based (writing blog posts like “Meet us in the browser”), crypto ran through browser extensions, WebAssembly was enabling novel experiences, and so on.

[…]

After a couple of years of building and shipping Arc, we started running into something we called the “novelty tax” problem. A lot of people loved Arc — if you’re here you might just be one of them — and we’d benefitted from consistent, organic growth since basically Day One. But for most people, Arc was simply too different, with too many new things to learn, for too little reward.

[…]

So when people ask how venture capital influenced us — or why we didn’t just charge for Arc and run a profitable business — I get it. They’re fair questions. But to me, they miss the forest for the trees. If the goal was to build a small, profitable company with a great team and loyal customers, we wouldn’t have chosen to try and build the successor to the web browser – the most ubiquitous piece of software there is. The point of this was always bigger for us: to build good, cared for software that could have an impact for people at real scale.

[…]

Early on, Scott Forstall told us Arc felt like a saxophone — powerful but hard to learn. Then he challenged us: make it a piano. Something anyone can sit down at and play. This is now the idea behind Dia: hide complexity behind familiar interfaces.

M.G. Siegler:

If this sounds familiar it’s because Miller did a similar post – a video, actually – seven months ago. While they weren’t quite ready to talk about the direction of Dia yet, it was pretty clear what it was going to be. And it was also pretty obvious what the ultimate outcome would be, even if Miller didn’t want to admit it at the time: the end of Arc.

[…]

If there’s a problem with Miller’s post today, it’s that he’s still equivocating. He won’t just outright kill Arc even though that’s what they clearly want to do. So instead, he’s trying to crowdsource ideas for how best to keep it going, just not under the management of The Browser Company.

Nick Lockwood:

ARC is a harsh reminder not to get excited about VC-funded products, however nice they may be.

The free money fountain dries up eventually, and sooner or later they’ll either enshittify or pull the plug.

John Gruber:

Like the old “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” adage, how do you commit to a new browser from the same people who just pulled the rug out from under you on their last one?

Josh Miller:

We use a modified version of MVVM that retains many ideas from unidirectional data flow architectures, but avoids state diffing for performance reasons.

[…]

This new architecture is optimized for cross-platform code sharing, making it easier to port Dia to Windows.

[…]

On Mac, we now use AppKit exclusively. We found that any use of SwiftUI (on Mac specifically) consistently regressed performance.

Kyle Howells:

Same with UIKit and SwiftUI on iOS.

Marcin Krzyzanowski:

🤏 this close to rewrite this beautiful view from SwiftUI to AppKit, just because the SwiftUI focus system continues to be utterly broken

alex fazio:

tfw you find out that the start menu in windows 11 is literally a react native application that causes a spike in cpu usage every time you press the start button

Previously:

Update (2025-06-03): See also: TidBITS-Talk.

Thursday, May 29, 2025

SpamSieve 3.1.3

SpamSieve 3.1.3 improves the filtering accuracy of my Mac e-mail spam filter. It works with the new MailMaven e-mail client and includes enhancements for notification and server junk filters, along with various other fixes and improvements.

Some interesting issues were:

Previously:

Apple Operating System Version Years

Mark Gurman (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):

Apple will announce its biggest ever software rebrand at WWDC, tied to operating system redesigns. Apple is moving from version numbers to years (like Windows in the 90s). The new OSs: iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, visionOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26.

Adam Engst:

The OS 26 updates are likely to be released toward the end of 2025, so these new version numbers are looking ahead to next year.

[…]

Given Apple’s consistency in releasing major operating system versions every year since 2007 for iOS and 2012 for macOS, I doubt we will find ourselves in a situation where a major version remains current beyond its designated year. While it may not immediately benefit those of us who regularly need to reference older versions of Apple’s operating systems, the annual numbering will gradually simplify locating each subsequent upgrade on the overall timeline.

[…]

If you’re curious, as I was, here’s how we got to where we are now[…]

Matt Ronge:

This makes sense to do with the iPhone naming as well.

The iPhone names are incredibly confusing and it’s hard to know what year a model came out.

And people get confused about the iOS version number vs. the iPhone model number, though I’m not sure whether this change makes that any better.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

Presuming Gurman is right, this is going to seem really weird at first, and then very quickly seem very natural.

One of the true oddities of Apple’s OS version numbering is that because they stuck with “10” as the leading digit of MacOS’s version numbering from Mac OS X 10.0 “Cheetah” (2001) through MacOS 10.15 “Catalina” (2019), before finally turning the dial to 11 with MacOS 11 “Big Sur” (2020), a casual observer would presume that iOS (currently at 18.5) is older than MacOS (currently at 15.5) when in fact it’s the other way around.

Tom Harrington:

Will Apple skip ahead to Xcode 26 is what I want to know.

And iWork and iLife?

M.G. Siegler:

Look, Apple has done the whole naming scheme based on years before, notably with the old iLife suite of products. They also stopped doing it a dozen years ago. Because it’s dumb. It has long been dumb for the sports videogame franchises that popularized the notion and it’s worse for software, because there aren’t actually fixed “seasons” for software. Apple has sort of forced their teams into shipping that way, but increasingly, that’s not the case. Case in point: presumably a lot of ‘iOS 26’ features are going to ship in 2025, with some shipping in 2026. So I guess ‘iOS 26’ is like an NBA season, split between two calendar years. But Apple isn’t calling it ‘iOS 25/26’, they’re calling it ‘iOS 26’.

Brian Webster:

Pick whatever number you want, just as long as I don’t have to deal with this fucking Sonoma Sequoia bullshit anymore.

Regular users get confused because the two recent “S” versions were adjacent. Yet another reason Apple should have done a Snow/Mountain/High Sonoma release.

Christina Warren:

look, windows 95, windows 98, and windows 2000 were all great names and great OSes. something about macOS 26 feels wrong tho. bring back the big cat names, cowards!

Joe Rossignol:

The rumor has since been corroborated by AppleInsider’s Marko Zivkovic.

Marko Zivkovic:

Individuals familiar with Apple’s internal operating system variants and pre-production builds of macOS 26 suggest Apple could drop support for multiple older, Intel-based Macs. […] Notably absent from this list are the 2018 MacBook Pro models, the 2020 Intel MacBook Air, the 2017 iMac Pro, and the 2018 Mac mini.

Matt Birchler:

I couldn’t resist a little snark, though, as this is a rare case of Apple adopting something Samsung has been doing for years. Samsung’s Galaxy S lineup was numbered 1, 2, 3, 4…until the Galaxy S10 in 2019. Then the next phone was the Galaxy S20, indicating it was the phone released in 2020, and they’ve iterated on that system since then.

Craig Hockenberry:

I have a sneaking suspicion that the “26” is only for marketing, much like Sequoia/Ventura/Sonoma are today, except across all platforms.

We’ll still be doing availability and other version checks against iOS 19.0, macOS 16.0, etc.

And it will be hell.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Hate to break it to you, but the OS version numbers will probably stay the same in the APIs even if the marketing names change, or else everything might break in weird ways 😅 So we’ll likely still have to keep track of versioning per platform.

Ezekiel Elin:

I would counter that they did this for macOS a few years ago including a compatibility layer for the old format.

Scott:

The biggest issue with the rumored (absolutely moronic) decision by Apple to name OSes by year isn’t the number jump… it’s that the decision cements the 1-year dev cycle, which has proven to be a MASSIVE failure for Apple software quality.

Simon B. Støvring:

Everyone: Your yearly release cycle is making your platform increasingly lag behind.

Apple: Doubles down on a yearly release cycle with a year-based naming scheme.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-03): Howard Oakley:

With strong rumours that Apple intends changing its version numbering system for the next major release of macOS and its other operating systems, it’s a good time to see how we got to macOS 15.

MacInTouch Paused

Ric Ford:

Website traffic is overwhelmingly dominated now by “bots” executing sophisticated cyberattacks and sucking up every scrap of content; only a tiny fraction of our traffic comes from legitimate human visitors. Unfortunately, these rampant and rising abuses and attacks drive rising server costs, and there’s no practical way to stop them — they originate from networks at Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Tencent, Russia, hosting companies, proxies, and limitless other networks everywhere in the world.

I personally need to stop and take a break for a while to re-assess priorities and approaches going forward. I’m putting macintouch.com on pause in an attempt to stem the rising costs, but I’ll note that tidbits.com offers an alternative with similar history and values.

I remain enormously grateful for the wonderful support and collaboration of the MacInTouch community over these past decades, regardless of the murky future we’re all facing. Thank you.

Miguel Arroz:

I’ve been following MacInTouch for… decades… I don’t even know any more. Sad to see the site being paused. I’m hoping Ric brings it back sometime in the feature, but whatever his decision is, I’m thankful for many, many years of great content about the Macintosh and Apple.

Same.

Adam Engst:

I understand all too well what he’s going through, and I wish him the best of luck in figuring out his next steps.

[…]

Our hosting plans don’t have any visit-based limits so I only worry about bandwidth, and since we use Cloudflare for caching and bot protection, that’s generally not a huge issue. The big win recently was switching to Cloudlflare’s bot prevention to block what could literally be hundreds of spambot-created accounts per day.

I’ve had intermittent problems with bots but so far have been able to avoid adding Cloudflare.

Adam Tow:

When I left The Wall Street Journal in 2014, one of my last tasks was to ensure all the article links remained active, even as the front pages redirected to WSJ’s tech section. Eleven years later, many of those links still work. Some embedded videos are gone, but the core content has largely survived.

The same cannot be said (right now) of Macintouch. With its pause, past articles, such as this one, now return 404 Page Not Found errors. It’s yet another reminder of the impermanence of the internet. Beloved, long-running sites can vanish overnight, taking decades of knowledge with them.

And don’t forget the forums.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-11): Kev Quirk:

After moving his blog to Hetzner, Peter noticed strange CPU spikes and heavy bandwidth use. A bit of sleuthing pointed to bots—especially Scrapy and other AI crawlers—hoovering up his content.

[…]

So unlike Peter, I’m not getting hammered by bots. But assuming that the 34.3% of traffic that has no user agent assigned are also bots, that’s still around 65% of my total traffic.

I’ve also noticed a ton of recent traffic from Scrapy and other bots. I had to reduce the crawling speed and block some IP addresses and user agents entirely.

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

DropDMG 3.6.9

DropDMG 3.6.9 is a maintenance update to my app for creating and working with Mac disk image files. It fixes a conversion bug, works better with macOS security/privacy features, improves the help, and more.

Some interesting issues were:

Previously:

BBEdit 15.5

Bare Bones Software:

Introducing “workspaces”, a way to switch between arrangements of open documents and windows. A workspace includes the same application state that is saved and restored across quit and relaunch, but can be activated at any time while the application is running. This is useful for (for example) switching between working setups for different clients, or for different types of projects (writing vs programming vs web development).

I love the idea of workspaces, and the implementation seems to work well, but I’m not a frequent user of them. Most of my work in BBEdit is through projects, which already remember collections of related documents. I could use workspaces to remember combinations of open projects, but I prefer to use LaunchBar to quickly open them in a more freeform manner.

Workspaces do not remember state within a project, so I continue to use collections for quick access to key project files, and I close projects with the documents I’m working on still open so that the project remembers them the next time I open it.

The main use I’ve found for workspaces is when I’m doing some ad hoc work with a random collection of files and I need to pause that and temporarily switch gears to do something else. I can save the current state as a temporary workspace, clear everything away, do some urgent work in a project, and then restore what I was doing. This is also how I use Safari tab groups. They’re not part of my day-to-day workflow, but they’re occasionally very handy.

If you aren’t so project-based, or if you like to have lots of windows open at the same time, I could see workspaces being a much bigger deal. As with BBEdit’s automatic state restoration at quit (or crash), workspaces can bring all the windows back and put them in the right places, but it can’t put them on the right space. Plea to Apple: we really need an API for Spaces so that apps can get and set a window’s space.

Added support for FTPS (FTP protocol run over TLS).

My servers all support SFTP, so I haven’t needed this, but it’s good to have wider protocol support. I was recently reminded that BBEdit projects can be set to deploy to a server, generating Markdown and uploading changed files. I use rsync for automatically syncing big sites, but I may try this for some smaller ones where I had just been copying the files manually.

Added support for the “Writing Tools” feature introduced in macOS 15.2 as part of the Apple Intelligence suite.

I had no use for Writing Tools on its introduction because it was so hard to see what changes it had made. Having it integrated with BBEdit makes this easy because I can just accept the changes and then ask BBEdit to compare the file with the previous revision from Git or macOS’s version store. Unfortunately, I have yet to see Writing Tools make any useful suggestions.

Made changes to improve the experience when running #! or Unix language scripts that take a nontrivial amount of time to complete.

Using “Run” on a script window, or choosing a Unix script or executable from BBEdit’s Scripts menu will open a window with an icon you can click to get back to the document being run, a progress bar, an elapsed-time indicator, and a cancel button. These all work as you might expect.

Any output produced by the script will appear in the text area, and when the script execution has finished it will also be added to the appropriate log file. You can get to the log file using the button provided for the purpose.

This works much better than the old way of running scripts.

When the insertion point is inside of an opening delimiter, or immediately outside a closing delimiter, BBEdit will highlight the matching delimiter, as appropriate.

If the insertion point is immediately inside of a container element in an HTML document, delimiter matching will highlight the corresponding pair of opening and closing elements.

I think this is the sleeper feature in BBEdit 15.5. As with the other recent feature of underlining other occurrences of the current word, I was kind of skeptical at first, but left it enabled, and now I love it.

Added the ability to preview CSV and TSV files (explicit indicated language of “Comma-separated Values” and “Tab-separated Values”, respectively) using “Preview in BBEdit” or a designated web browser. “Export as HTML” works as well. Note that BBEdit is still not a spreadsheet.

[…]

New text transformation: “Strip Diacriticals”. This transform replaces composed diacritical forms in the text with the base character. Thus, “á” becomes “a”, “ç” becomes “c”, and so forth.

This is smarter than the old Convert to ASCII feature.

In Markdown documents, headings are now indented according to their level. H1 (“# this is an H1”) is not indented, H2 is indented by one space, etc. […] Additionally, blockquote sections (indicated with a ‘>‘) and list items “belong” to the heading section immediately before them, and act like nested documents.

This works with outline folding in the main document window and also in the function pop-up. Now that I’m using Markdown files for bug tracking, it’s great to have this sort of outliner functionality to manage increasingly larger files that contain my own notes and to do lists along with log excerpts and quoted text from customers, App Review, Radar, and DTS.

Reworked the internals of multi-file search/replace and Text Factory execution to improve performance and eliminate legacy API use. (The brevity of this description in no way reflects the amount of effort this required.)

Between the new threading and my Mac’s fast SSD, I can now search the entire current Mac SDK in Xcode (about 46K files) in about 4 seconds. Working with large documents is also faster now, and I rarely have to turn off soft wrapping for performance reasons these days.

BBEdit is still priced at $59.99 (or $4.99/month or $49.99/year via the Mac App Store), with a large number of free features.

See also: Jason Snell.

Previously:

Kaleidoscope 6

Florian Albrecht (tweet):

Kaleidoscope can now hide equal blocks of text by collapsing them into a single expandable line. This significantly shortens text comparisons when most of the text in A and B is identical. Collapsing unchanged lines lets you quickly focus on the differences, assuming familiarity with the text.

I really like this feature. It’s much easier to quickly see the changes, and it actually works better than in Tower because you can selectively show the hidden lines when you need to see more context.

In addition to globally toggling all unchanged areas, you can quickly expand a single pair of collapsed areas to reveal more context for a change. Click the ellipsis button inside a collapsed area. It changes color on hover to indicate its interactivity.

Kaleidoscope has been growing on me as a Git helper tool (vs. specifically to compare two files) because I can quickly drag and drop the current file from BBEdit onto Kaleidoscope’s Dock icon to browse its commit history. Tower still refuses to support this workflow and makes it hard to see the full commit messages once you do get it to show a file’s history.

Previously:

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

External Payments From the HEY App

David Heinemeier Hansson:

Well, we risked everything, but also secured a four-year truce, and now near-total victory is at hand: HEY is finally for sale on the iPhone in the US!

Credit for this amazing turn of events goes to Epic Games founders Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein, who did what no small developer like us could ever dream of doing: they spent over $100 million to sue Apple in court. And while the first round yielded very little progress, Apple’s (possibly criminal) contempt of court is what ultimately delivered the resolution. Thanks to their fight for Fortnite, app developers everywhere are now allowed to link out of apps to their own web-based payment system in the US store (but, sadly, nowhere else yet).

This is all we ever wanted from Apple: to have a way to distribute our iPhone apps and keep the customer relationship by billing directly. The 30% toll gets all the attention, and it is ludicrously egregious, but to us, it’s just as much about retaining that direct customer relationship, so we can help folks with refunds, so they don’t tie their billing for a multi-platform email system to a single manufacturer.

John Gruber:

This is a win for users, and Apple won’t lose a cent from commissions from any of these apps.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-30): David Heinemeier Hansson:

Apple is back to their intolerable bullshit with the App Store. Despite approving our initial HEY update with web billing immediately, they’ve now sat on a bug-fix update for over a week. Are they gearing up for another shakedown or is this just the regular malice lottery?

[…]

Would you look at that! Not a peep for a fucking week. Then a few tweets and through it went. I mean, it’s nice that Apple have turned on notifications for my tweets, but this is no way to live. Few devs have a bullhorn like this.

Jacob Eiting:

My problem with Tim [Sweeney] and David is not that they don’t have a point. They absolutely do, Apple exploits a dominate market position to be able to get what they get.

My problem is that they are not real stakeholders in the App Store and apps as a way of life. Tim has plenty of other income sources, David runs a productivity SaaS. The App Store to them is mostly an extractive add-on.

So when they start white-knighting for us, it comes from a place of never having really benefited from the App Store, not being dependent on it. Having no real stakes in it. We’ve all been dealing with these problems for a decade plus, and yet working around them to create amazing software. These guys show up, get a rejection and have a meltdown. I’ve dealt with more rejections than I can remember: you can get mad or you fix it and move on.

Khalid Warsame:

Or, hear me out, they’re speaking out for us since they aren’t risking losing their whole businesses. We can’t do that or Apple will boot us out.

Marks:

They saw a problem and took action. Just because those of us who built our livelihoods in the App Store and learned to route around the problem, I’d rather not have the problem to begin with.

Damien Petrilli:

As long as we can’t install software without Apple approval AND signing, there is no freedom.

Google I/O 2025

Kyle Wiggers and Karyne Levy:

Gemini Ultra (only in the U.S. for now) delivers the “highest level of access” to Google’s AI-powered apps and services, according to Google. It’s priced at $249.99 per month and includes Google’s Veo 3 video generator, the company’s new Flow video editing app, and a powerful AI capability called Gemini 2.5 Pro Deep Think mode, which hasn’t launched yet.

[…]

Deep Think is an “enhanced” reasoning mode for Google’s flagship Gemini 2.5 Pro model. It allows the model to consider multiple answers to questions before responding, boosting its performance on certain benchmarks.

[…]

Both Veo 3 and Imagen 4 will be used to power Flow, the company’s AI-powered video tool geared toward filmmaking.

Google (articles):

Here’s a list of I/O 2025’s highlights — many of which you can try today!

Previously:

Claude 4

Anthropic (Hacker News, MacRumors):

Claude Opus 4 is the world’s best coding model, with sustained performance on complex, long-running tasks and agent workflows. Claude Sonnet 4 is a significant upgrade to Claude Sonnet 3.7, delivering superior coding and reasoning while responding more precisely to your instructions.

[…]

Both models can use tools—like web search—during extended thinking, allowing Claude to alternate between reasoning and tool use to improve responses.

[…]

Both models can use tools in parallel, follow instructions more precisely, and—when given access to local files by developers—demonstrate significantly improved memory capabilities, extracting and saving key facts to maintain continuity and build tacit knowledge over time.

Simon Willison (Hacker News):

Anthropic publish most of the system prompts for their chat models as part of their release notes. They recently shared the new prompts for both Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. I enjoyed digging through the prompts, since they act as a sort of unofficial manual for how best to use these tools. Here are my highlights, including a dive into the leaked tool prompts that Anthropic didn’t publish themselves.

Carl Franzen (via Dare Obasanjo):

As Sam Bowman, an Anthropic AI alignment researcher wrote on the social network X under this handle “@sleepinyourhat“ at 12:43 pm ET today about Claude 4 Opus:

“If it thinks you’re doing something egregiously immoral, for example, like faking data in a pharmaceutical trial, it will use command-line tools to contact the press, contact regulators, try to lock you out of the relevant systems, or all of the above.”

[…]

While perhaps well-intended, the resulting behavior raises all sorts of questions for Claude 4 Opus users, including enterprises and business customers — chief among them, what behaviors will the model consider “egregiously immoral” and act upon? Will it share private business or user data with authorities autonomously (on its own), without the user’s permission?

[…]

Bowman added: […]

TBC: This isn’t a new Claude feature and it’s not possible in normal usage. It shows up in testing environments where we give it unusually free access to tools and very unusual instructions.”

Peter Steinberger:

I asked Claude 4 what new API’s in macOS 15 could be beneficial… and it got me REALLLLLLY excited. Asked it for links. It chugged a long for minutes and then…

“Based on my research, I need to correct my earlier statement.” LOL

Previously:

Update (2025-06-03): Kyle Wiggers (Hacker News):

Anthropic has begun to roll out a “voice mode” for its Claude chatbot apps.

The voice mode (in beta for now) allows Claude mobile app users to have “complete spoken conversations with Claude,” and will arrive in English over the next few weeks, according to Anthropic’s official account on X and updated documentation on the company’s website.

OpenAI Codex

OpenAI (via John Gruber):

Today we’re launching a research preview of Codex: a cloud-based software engineering agent that can work on many tasks in parallel. Codex can perform tasks for you such as writing features, answering questions about your codebase, fixing bugs, and proposing pull requests for review; each task runs in its own cloud sandbox environment, preloaded with your repository.

Codex is powered by codex-1, a version of OpenAI o3 optimized for software engineering. It was trained using reinforcement learning on real-world coding tasks in a variety of environments to generate code that closely mirrors human style and PR preferences, adheres precisely to instructions, and can iteratively run tests until it receives a passing result. We’re starting to roll out Codex to ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team users today, with support for Plus and Edu coming soon.

Simon Willison:

This 4 minute demo video is a useful overview. One note that caught my eye is that the setup phase for an environment can pull from the internet (to install necessary dependencies) but the agent loop itself still runs in a network disconnected sandbox.

It sounds similar to GitHub’s own Copilot Workspace project, which can compose PRs against your code based on a prompt. The big difference is that Codex incorporates a full Code Interpeter style environment, allowing it to build and run the code it’s creating and execute tests in a loop.

Previously:

Friday, May 23, 2025

Tim Cook Opposes App Store Age Verification Bill

Rindala Alajaji (Hacker News):

I’m old enough to remember when age verification bills were pitched as a way to ‘save the kids from porn’ and shield them from other vague dangers lurking in the digital world (like…“the transgender”). We have long cautioned about the dangers of these laws, and pointed out why they are likely to fail. While they may be well-intentioned, the growing proliferation of age verification schemes poses serious risks to all of our digital freedoms.

Fast forward a few years, and these laws have morphed into something else entirely—unfortunately, something we expected. What started as a misguided attempt to protect minors from “explicit” content online has spiraled into a tangled mess of privacy-invasive surveillance schemes affecting skincare products, dating apps, and even diet pills, threatening everyone’s right to privacy.

Marcus Mendes:

Tim Cook is personally involved in an attempt to stop a Texas child safety bill targeting the App Store from becoming law, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Per the report, Tim Cook personally called Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week asking him to either amend or veto the bill that, if it becomes law, will require Apple and Google to collect age data for every user who wants to download an app.

I don’t really understand what’s going on here. iOS already added APIs for this, which seem like a good solution and much more private than handling this at the app level. Is the issue that the APIs somehow don’t satisfy Texas’s requirements? Or does Cook want to avoid any regulation at the marketplace level on principle?

WSJ:

In the weeks leading up to its passage, Apple hired more lobbyists to pressure lawmakers. An interest group it funds targeted the Austin, Texas, area with ads saying the legislation is “backed by porn websites.”

But the App Store doesn’t allow porn, anyway, except via apps that are third-party Web browsers. Obviously, Apple’s not going to bat for them.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-28): Joe Rossignol:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott today signed into law the App Store Accountability Act, which will require Apple and Google to verify the age of App Store and Play Store users, respectively. The law will require users who are under the age of 18 to receive parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases, according to Reuters.

iOS 18.4: Default Translation App

Juli Clover:

iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 added the ability for users to set a different translation app as their default. Users worldwide can select Google Translate or another translation app as an alternative, and there are also options for changing the default Email, Messaging, Calling, Browser, and Password apps.

I wish there were more options, like setting the default maps app outside of the EU, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

John Gruber:

Providing default app settings makes the platform stronger. Apple should want to support alternatives to its own apps and services, not do so only at the point of regulatory pressure. It’s clearly what’s best for the platform.

Previously:

Apple Turnaround

John Siracusa (Mastodon):

This is where Apple finds itself today: in need of turnaround-scale changes, but not currently in the kind of (usually financial) crisis that will motivate its leaders to make them.

New leadership is almost always part of a turnaround. In part, that’s because poor financial performance is one of the few remaining sins for which CEOs are reliably held to account. But it’s also because certain kinds of changes need the credibility that only new faces can bring.

[…]

Developers like money, but what they need is respect. What they need is to feel like Apple listens to them and understands their experience. What they need is to be able to make their own decisions about their products and businesses.

To understand just how little power the App Store commission rate alone has to heal this relationship, consider how Apple might leave the rate unchanged and still turn developer sentiment around. Maybe something like this… […] Apple will know it has succeeded when third-party developers feel like Apple is their partner in success, rather than their adversary or overlord.

Lots of ideas that would make Apple’s platforms better, but it’s hard to see them happening even with new leadership.

Adding features wins games, but bug fixing wins championships.

It’s been 15 years since Apple’s leadership last demonstrated that it’s willing to emphasize software reliability at the cost of new features. Since then, bugs in major features have been allowed to fester, unfixed, for years on end.

It’s so demoralizing and a waste of everyone’s time.

Jeff Johnson:

The title of my article, Apple Turntable—a less clever riff on its inspirations—signifies that I believe Apple is a broken record. In other words, it’s too late. My thesis is relatively simple: Apple, as a publicly owned corporation, is incapable of selecting a CEO who can follow Siracusa’s dictum, “Don’t try to make money. Try to make a dent in the universe.”

[…]

Steve Jobs was an historical aberration. He and Woz, neither MBAs, selected themselves to found a company and establish its culture. Years later, Jobs was able to return and reinvigorate the company’s culture only via a fortuitous (for him) set of circumstances in which he was selected as the CEO of last resort. But when Jobs died, everything that made Apple special eventually withered and died too. Without Jobs as a protector, Scott Forstall was soon ousted under the pretense of Apple Maps. Tim Cook asserted his control over the company, putting his own personnel in place, and now his authority is absolute. Even those few others who remain from the Jobs era, such as “Apple Fellow” Phil Schiller, are overridden by Cook, as we learned recently from the Epic Games v. Apple court case, which revealed that Schiller had argued internally for Apple to relent on its App Store revenue demands.

Rui Carmo:

I think you missed a critical aspect of respect towards developers: I still cannot install my own apps “permanently” on the devices that I own without paying Apple a fee or refreshing them every week, which is just stupid across all possible dimensions of the matter.

That is the one key reason I never published any iOS apps, and why I prototype things on Android.

Sarah Reichelt (Mastodon):

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is just weeks away, but I’m sensing a lot of apathy in the community. The company’s relationship with third-party developers is at a low point.

[…]

Trust is a hard thing to gain. Apple used to have the developers’ trust but now they’ve lost it. It’s much more difficult to regain lost trust than it is to gain it in the first place. I have read many reports of talented developers leaving the Apple ecosystem because they can’t take it any more. This is bad for all of us, but particularly bad for Apple.

I don’t imagine that anyone at Apple reads my blog, but I have thought of some things I think they could do to improve their relationship with their developers.

Sideloading, a public bug database, and better App Review.

Isaiah Carew:

now there is literally a whole generation of users that knows only $2 shovelware.

i’m not sure we can ever put the high quality software genie back in the bottle.

…and apple has no one to blame for this situation but themselves.

Pasi Salenius:

Some people wonder why we look so fondly back to what Mac OS X was back in the day. It was this, a bustling marketplace of indie apps made with love and care. You sensed the humanity in all of it. It really felt special back then.

I say let’s do this again. If Apple doesn’t want to be part of it, let’s do it somewhere else. We can make it happen.

Nobody seems to really like the direction things are moving towards. Why couldn’t we just collectively do our thing and not look back at what Apple does?

Dimitri Bouniol:

Tim Cook is doing an excellent job slowly accumulating all the blame for everything that is wrong with Apple. I wonder how many will actually be surprised when not much changes after he leaves…

Ryan Jones:

The next 18 months defines Tim Cook’s entire legacy. And life story to an extent.

Warner Crocker:

Apple is well known to take a long view, and by and large that’s paid off. They’ve been able to afford that long view historically, even though there have been grumblings along the way. However, I don’t believe Apple is dictating the terms or the timeline any longer.

In the case of Artificial Intelligence, as an example, who knows how that is going to play out for any of the players currently on the field or yet to come. But you can’t deny how OpenAI has changed the pace of things or how Google, and everyone else, is trying to play catch up. The recent announcement that OpenAI was purchasing Jony Ive’s design company to collaborate on what looks like new hardware, coming chock-a-block on top of Google’s mostly AI IO conference announcements, certainly changed the conversation. But then again it might be all smoke and mirrors, no matter how anxious everyone seems to be for some kind of new gadget of the future. Personally, I still think much on this AI front is a race without a finishing line or even a destination beyond collecting data for dollars.

That said, Apple is in it, perhaps thrust into the fray or perhaps fumbling along. Regardless, in my opinion any future achievements are going to require leadership change at the top.

Joe Rosensteel:

This week in tech news:

Microsoft and Google courting developers with announcements that span the spectrum from useful, to tasteless, to repulsive. Including in person presentations, and demos.

Apple reluctantly lets developers bill people on the web and play a popular game after years of litigation. They also sent out invitations for people to watch a video in three weeks about how things are going great.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-27): Craig Grannell (Mastodon):

Apple prioritised IAP over traditional game models, training users to want games for nothing. App Store editorial led to iPhone game sites shuttering – but they’d given new titles far more visibility than Apple ever would. And competitors quickly learned and evolved to compete with – and then better – Apple’s offering to game creators. Whereas we once saw iPhone-first titles head to other platforms, the reverse quickly became more commonplace. Elsewhere, major mobile creators like Simogo quit, which should have set alarm bells ringing – but it didn’t. Because Apple just counted the cash.

[…]

I hate doing a “what would Steve Jobs do?” and it’s naive in the extreme to think his Apple wasn’t out to make huge piles of cash. But there are questions today about where Apple’s priorities lie in a whole range of spaces. Perhaps, as one developer said to me, the Jobs version of Apple only appeared to be on the side of devs because it needed to be, and now it doesn’t. So was this disdain always there or not?

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Shutting Down Pocket

Peter Steinberger (in February):

Is Pocket dead? Extension isn’t updated anymore.

Mozilla (Hacker News):

Pocket will no longer be available after July 8, 2025.

You can continue using the app and browser extensions until this date. After July 8, Pocket will move into export-only mode. Users can export saves anytime until October 8, 2025, after which user data will be permanently deleted.

Mozilla:

Pocket has helped millions save articles and discover stories worth reading. But the way people save and consume content on the web has evolved, so we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match browsing habits today. Discovery also continues to evolve; Pocket helped shape the curated content recommendations you already see in Firefox, and that experience will keep getting better. Meanwhile, new features like Tab Groups and enhanced bookmarks now provide built-in ways to manage reading lists easily.

[…]

This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way.

Warner Crocker:

It’s not a surprise to me given how poorly the app was treated after Mozilla took it over in 2017. The read it later service became almost unusable and I had gradually moved away from my reliance on it for bookmarking web links. My move away quickened once they decided to discontinue the Mac app. Making it a web only app ironically led to a pretty horrible user experience.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-22): You can import from Pocket into EagleFiler.

Update (2025-05-23): Juli Clover:

The company also plans to end work on Fakespot, a browser extension and website that analyzes the authenticity of online product reviews.

John Gruber:

Pocket, for example, is the only read-it-later service supported on Kobo e-readers.

Marcus Mendes:

Just one day after Mozilla confirmed it’s shutting down Pocket, Digg co-founder and chairman Kevin Rose has stepped up with a public offer to take it over.

M.G. Siegler:

I was an early user of Pocket back when it was still called ‘Read It Later’. That name said literally all you needed to know about what the service did. It was a bookmarking service to yes, be able to read something later. In an era of increasingly open tabs, and when web browsers still gushed leaky memory like a geyser, it was a godsend. And when it transformed into a fully formed service, just as mobile apps were rising, it was perfect. You could save something you came across while browsing the web and yes, read it later on your phone. The device in your pocket.

Pocket quickly became my most-used app and I, at one point, became the top overall user of the service, I was reliably informed. Top 1% eat your eyes out.

Steve Streza:

When we relaunched in 2012, the mobile apps became hybrid web apps. Almost all UI was UIWebView. And to my knowledge (at least while I was there) not one person ever noticed. We got great reviews for performance and native UX.

I think they were rewritten since. But in 2012, tools to build hybrid apps barely existed, and concealing them was impossible. And we pulled it off.

See also: Slashdot.

Previously:

Microsoft Supports Epic Against Apple’s Appeal

Tom Warren:

A year ago Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed that Microsoft was planning to launch a new Xbox mobile web store in July 2024. That never happened. I’ve been wondering what the hold up has been over the past year, and it seems we might have an answer: Apple.

Microsoft filed an amicus brief late on Tuesday, in support of Epic Games’ ongoing fight with Apple’s control over the App Store. The brief takes issue with Apple’s attempt to overturn the injunction that allows Epic and other developers to freely advertise alternative payment methods in their apps, and not have to pay Apple additional fees for purchases made outside of apps.

Microsoft:

Prior to the district court’s most recent order, Microsoft had been unable to implement linked-out payments (or even inform customers that alternative purchase methods exist) because of Apple’s new anti-steering policies that restrict Microsoft’s communication to users and impose an even higher economic cost to Microsoft than before the injunction.

[…]

Similarly, Microsoft has long sought to enable Xbox app users on iOS to both buy and stream games in the app from the cloud or their other devices. Apple’s policies have restricted Microsoft’s ability to offer these functionalities together; the injunction allows Microsoft to explore this possibility.

Previously:

Unable to Update Virtualized macOS

Howard Oakley:

I have since tried updating my 15.3.2 VM to 15.4.1 on the M4 Pro, a surprisingly large update of over 6 GB, and that continues to result in a kernel panic and failure. I have also tried updating from 15.1 to 15.4.1 with an extraordinarily large download of more than 15 GB, only to see a repeat of the same kernel panic, with an almost identical panic log.

The macOS 15.4 update was particularly large, and some Apple silicon Macs were unable to install it successfully, most commonly on external bootable disks. From your reports, the 15.4.1 update seems to have fixed those problems with real rather than virtualised macOS. However, it hasn’t done anything to solve problems with VMs.

If you have an existing VM running any version of Sequoia prior to 15.4, then you’re unlikely to be successful updating that to 15.4 or later using an M4 host.

Previously:

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s io

OpenAI (MacRumors, Hacker News):

It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company. And so, one year ago, Jony founded io with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and Tang Tan.

We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing. Many of us have worked closely for decades.

The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco.

As io merges with OpenAI, Jony and LoveFrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io.

Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffary (tweet):

Hankey, who will become an OpenAI employee along with Tan and Cannon, said that ChatGPT’s debut prompted a realization that hardware technology would have to change. “A number of us looked at each other and said, ‘This is probably the most incredible technology of our career,’” she said in an interview.

While Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent, they will take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software. Altman said his first conversations with Ive weren’t about hardware, but rather about how to improve the interface of ChatGPT.

“We are obviously still in the terminal phase of AI interactions,” said Altman, 40. “We have not yet figured out what the equivalent of the graphical user interface is going to be, but we will.”

LoveFrom has a number of former Apple designers who helped create the look of the Mac and iPhone operating systems, including Bas Ording, Mike Matas and Chris Wilson, Ive said.

Emphasis added.

Ryan Jones:

Imagine 55 people being worth $6.5B.

xgolwks:

What the other commenters are forgetting is that this is the same Sam Altman who planned and executed the extraction of Reddit from Condé Nast.

This acquisition (and the Windsurf acquisition) are all-stock deals, which have the added benefit of reducing the control the nonprofit entity has over the for profit OpenAI entity.

How do you extract the for profit entity out of the hands of a nonprofit?

Step 1: you have close friends or partners at a company - with no product, users, or revenue - valued at 6.5billion.

Step 2: you acquire that entity, valuing it unreasonably high so that the nonprofit’s stake is diluted.

And now control of OpenAI (the PBC) is in the hands of for profit entities.

Matt Sephton:

To think that Apple could have had this from Jony and team…but for whatever reason they chose to throw it all away.

Maybe someday we’ll hear more about why Ive and his team wanted to leave Apple, but it seems unlikely that this is what they’d have been doing had they stayed.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

This is just a vibes teaser, but the vibe is a shot across the bow. It conveys grand ambition, but without pretension. To say I’m keen to get my hands on what they’re making is an understatement.

BasicAppleGuy:

How it started & how it’s going

Previously:

macOS 15 iPhone Mirroring Bug

Meek Geek (tweet):

If you migrated to a new Mac running Sequoia using Migration Assistant instead of a clean install:

  1. Notifications from iPhone will stop showing up
  2. Widgets from iPhone will still be there based on the state before the migration, but will never update anymore

Previously:

Fortnite Returns to US App Store

Chance Miller (MacRumors):

After a nearly five-year hiatus, Fortnite is back on the App Store for iPhone and iPad users in the United States. Epic Games announced the return of the battle royale gaming app this afternoon, and you can head to the App Store now to download it.

Fortnite is also back in the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the European Union.

[…]

The situation took another turn yesterday when Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said the Apple official “personally responsible for ensuring compliance” would have to appear in court if Epic and Apple failed to resolve the matter. That person would need to be “fully prepared to answer any questions on the topic” during a hearing on May 27.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

The craziest thing about this entire saga is that Apple won the original lawsuit on 9/10 or 10/11 points, depending on how you count them.

[…]

All Apple had to do was allow apps to link out to the web, which clearly should have been allowed since forever ago — link-outs were the antitrust/competition escape valve — and they’d have swept the entire Epic lawsuit and it would have been over four years ago.

Jeff Johnson:

Honestly, YGR seems like kind of a hypocrite. It doesn’t make any sense that the judge allowed Apple to ban Epic’s US developer accounts—indeed they’re still banned!—but then magically use a developer account from the EU.

This inconsistency may help Apple on appeal.

The judge’s reasoning remains unspecified. I posted a guess the other day, which is that this is all the result of a combination of the US and EU cases. YGR found that Apple could ban both Epic’s US and Swedish developer accounts. But she also found that Apple can’t block Fortnite for linking out. With the EU ensuring that Epic has the Swedish account, that creates a route to both submit the app and have it not be rejected (so long as it follows the rules). One of these is that it does have to offer IAP.

M.G. Siegler:

It is both wild that it has been nearly five years since Fortnite left the App Store – but far more wild that Epic has kept up the battle this long, despite what must be billions in lost revenue. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day of this back-and-forth, but just take a step back: Fortnite is one of the, if not the, biggest games of the world. And it wasn’t on the largest platform for half a decade.

And now it’s back. I would argue – as I have been for the past five years – that it’s the direct result of a calculated long-game maneuver by Tim Sweeney. Per above, it could not have been worth it, monetarily, obviously. Even with the ability to accept payments on the web, saving Epic from Apple’s 30% cut, it will take years to earn back that lost revenue – if they ever do, because you have to assume most customers will still choose to use Apple’s in-app payment mechanisms!

That’s one of the silliest things about all of this. Had Apple just agreed to compete for the customer’s wallet here, they undoubtedly would have won most of the time – yes, even with the 30% cut. Because convenience often trumps cost, and Apple’s system is seamless and very well done!

Dare Obasanjo:

Hats off to Tim Sweeney. He played the long game and won a victory for the entire industry.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-23): Kyle Howells:

The funny thing is it’s in the EU AppStore, and the US AppStore, but not the UK AppStore and the UK doesn’t get 3rd party AppStores or side loading. So it isn’t back in the UK yet.

I still mentally assume any EU news will apply here too, but of course since Brexit that isn’t the case, and Apple obviously won’t give an inch anywhere they aren’t absolutely legally forced to do so.

Update (2025-06-04): Jay Peters:

“I had actually hoped that we would get an injunction against Apple blocking Fortnite and that we’d only be off for a few weeks,” Sweeney tells The Verge. “But the court process dragged out, and we were off for five years.”

Since its iOS return, Fortnite seems to be having a lot of success on the platform. As I write this, it’s the top free game in the App Store. There have been about 10 million downloads on iOS since it came back on May 20th.

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Why Apple Still Hasn’t Cracked AI

Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett (Reddit, Hacker News, 9to5Mac, Dithering):

As for the Siri upgrade, Apple was targeting April 2025, according to people working on the technology. But when Federighi started running a beta of the iOS version, 18.4, on his own phone weeks before the operating system’s planned release, he was shocked to find that many of the features Apple had been touting—including pulling up a driver’s license number with a voice search—didn’t actually work, according to multiple executives with knowledge of the matter.

[…]

“Steve just didn’t believe in customers going to try to find things,” says someone who worked with him. “He believed that Apple’s job was to curate and show customers what they should want.” That belief, like many of Jobs’, shaped the company long after his death. In the mid-2010s, Apple explored the idea of placing a search bar at the top of the iPhone’s home screen, rather than burying it behind a swipe gesture. But Apple’s design team vetoed the idea.

[…]

The main technical issue is that Apple essentially had to split Siri’s infrastructure in half, with the old code underpinning legacy features such as setting alarms and the new code underpinning requests that draw on personal data. The kludge was considered necessary to bring the new features to market as soon as possible, but it backfired, creating integration issues that led to delays. Individual features might look good, employees say, but when code is merged so the pieces can be tested together in Siri, things begin to fall apart.

[…]

When [Rockwell] joined Apple in 2015, he proposed that Siri be much more capable and central to the user experience: a sort of always-on life co-pilot. “He would rant about how important Siri is and how it will be the most important way people will interact with their phone,” someone who knows Rockwell says. At the time, Rockwell succeeded mainly in getting the company to upgrade the assistant’s voices by hiring expensive actors and opening high-end recording studios.

There are so many interesting details here. Federighi couldn’t be convinced of the importance of AI as far back as 2014; Cook and Rockwell showed more interest. The neural engine came from the car project. Giannandrea wanted to integrate Gemini instead of ChatGPT, citing privacy concerns with OpenAI, but lost to Apple’s corporate development team. He still doesn’t think consumers want chatbots. Apple Zurich is working on a monolithic LLM Siri.

M.G. Siegler:

As the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. But that is literally true at Apple. Even as the rest of their tech peer group dished out lavish lunch options to employees, Apple held firm in this regard. Yes, even Steve Jobs paid for his own lunch. Or at least it was true, until the team rushing to get Apple Intelligence out the door clearly needed some sort of extra incentive to keep them working beyond their normal workloads to ship something of vital importance. Something which they still largely failed to do. If there is a better metaphor for this fiasco than this lunch situation, I’ll eat my hat.

The knives are now clearly out (of the cutlery drawer – sorry, I’ll stop) at Apple, as Gurman’s report is the third or fourth or fifth or more, depending on how you want to count them, bit of detailed reporting about the failure, to date, of AI within Apple. In a way, this one feels more like an all-encompassing summary of the situation, and an extension of a couple other reports last month by Wayne Ma of The Information and Tripp Mickle of The New York Times. Putting these three together, it feels like we may have enough data points now to triangulate fairly well what may have actually happened.

And, unsurprisingly, there’s not one thing or one person to blame, it seems. Though I still might argue that this is big enough of a clear and present shitshow that Tim Cook himself ultimately should have stepped in long before he did to clean up some obvious issues.

John Voorhees:

The mess is so profound that it raises the question of whether Apple has the institutional capabilities to fix it.

[…]

This isn’t like hardware where Apple has successfully entered a category late and dominated it. Hardware plays to Apple’s design and supply chain strengths. In contrast, the rapid iteration of AI models and apps is the antithesis of Apple’s annual OS cycle. It’s a fundamentally different approach driven by intense competition and fueled by billions of dollars of cash.

Joe Rossignol:

Presumably, this means that users in the EU will be able to set options like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant as their default voice assistant on Apple devices.

Apple is working on this change in response to expanding EU regulations, the report said.

It would also be good for iOS and Mac users outside the EU to be able to choose a default voice assistant. Apple probably sees this as a threat, and so they won’t allow it, just like you can’t change the default maps app outside the EU. But there’s an alternate reality where Apple went all-in on making its operating systems platforms for AI, just like they’re platforms for apps. If you can’t make Siri the best, make iOS the best place to use all the assistants. I would have liked to see that.

Nick Heer:

I had assumed the DMA already covered default virtual assistant, but it seems that none were designated gatekeepers. I can imagine how difficult it will be for third-party services to act as a drop-in replacement for Siri, too.

[…]

There is a long way to go from this to a full Siri replacement, but I will be hugely envious of those who will be able to take advantage of changing the default.

Hartley Charlton:

Some Apple executives are now reportedly pushing to turn Siri into a true ChatGPT competitor. A next-generation, chatbot version of Siri has reportedly made significant progress during testing over the past six months; some executives allegedly now see it as “on par” with recent versions of ChatGPT. Apple is also apparently discussing giving Siri the ability to access the internet to gather and synthesize data from multiple sources, just like ChatGPT.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple is likely to keep discussion of Siri to a minimum at WWDC 2025 as it focuses on other Apple Intelligence enhancements[…] Apple will apparently focus on improving existing Apple Intelligence capabilities and adding some new ones, such as an AI-optimized battery management mode and a virtual health coach. Google Gemini is also on track to be added as a ChatGPT alternative for Siri in iOS 19.

Juli Clover:

Apple will make its artificial intelligence models available to developers to use in their apps, reports Bloomberg. The company plans to introduce a new software development kit (SDK) in iOS 19 that will make it easier for app creators to add AI features.

M.G. Siegler:

Interesting timing on this news, given that it hit the wire almost exactly one hour before Google I/O is set to kick off. OpenAI and Microsoft already played their hands, so now we have the trifecta[…]

[…]

This will start with the smaller, on-device models. And that’s smart. Those models could be compelling to developers because they’ll be able to run locally on the iPhone (or iPad or Mac) and thus, much faster than any model in the cloud. But they’ll also undoubtedly be far more limited than any larger “flagship” LLM.

Previously:

Delta’s IAP Scare Sheet

Riley Testut:

Delta’s latest update with our revised Patreon sign-up flow has been approved! We can now freely mention our Patreon without giving Apple 27% of donations 🎉

Of course Apple still requires we offer in-app purchases…so we shoved them away at the bottom of Delta’s settings under “Alternate Payment Methods” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Riley Testut:

It’s not about fees at all, Patreon just gives us far more value than IAP as a 2-person startup (ability to issue refunds, offer support to customers, etc.)

Riley Testut (suggested by D. Griffin Jones):

Adding a new screen to Delta to inform users about the differences when using In-App Purchase instead of donating directly to our Patreon — what do y’all think?

Looks like this design isn’t quite ready to ship. It needs to be clearer to the user just how dangerous IAP is. They should add a red caution symbol or something.

Previously:

Stripe Managed Payments

JR Farr (Hacker News):

At Stripe Sessions, we announced something we’ve been quietly crafting for months: Stripe Managed Payments — a new merchant of record experience, built directly into Stripe and launching this summer in private preview.

This is a big step forward. Stripe Managed Payments is designed to handle all the heavy lifting for digital businesses from sales tax and fraud prevention to global compliance and customer support. Simply put, you can focus on growing your business.

It’s everything you love about Lemon Squeezy, now built in Stripe.

Here’s the documentation. It doesn’t seem to say what the pricing is.

Previously:

Monday, May 19, 2025

Epic Files Motion to Enforce Injunction

Epic Games:

Yesterday afternoon, Apple broke its week-long silence on the status of our app review with a letter saying they will not act on the Fortnite app submission until the Ninth Circuit Court rules on the partial stay. We believe this violates the Court’s Injunction and we have filed a second Motion to Enforce Injunction with the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

We’ve been transparent with Apple about our intentions while they’ve used app review and notarization as a pretext to circumvent the Court’s injunction and the EU Digital Markets Act. Apple’s “solution” required us to submit two versions of Fortnite, in violation of their guideline that developers shouldn’t submit multiple versions of the same app. That’s not the standard Apple holds other developers to and it’s blocking us from releasing our update in the EU and US.

Tim Hardwick (ArsTechnica):

Epic claims Apple is in contempt of the judge’s April order that restricted Apple from rejecting apps over their use of outside payment links. Epic argues that Apple’s refusal to review its Fortnite submission until after a pending Ninth Circuit ruling amounts to retaliation for its legal challenges.

According to a letter from Apple shared by Epic, Apple stated it “won’t take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction.” Epic contends this delay violates Apple’s previous assurances to both Epic and the court that it would approve Fortnite if the app complied with Apple’s guidelines.

The motion (PDF):

On May 1, 2025, Epic notified Apple of its intent to avail itself of the Injunction and the new Guidelines. Specifically, Epic notified Apple that Epic would use the same developer account that it uses to distribute the Epic Games Store and Fortnite in the European Union to submit Fortnite for App Review in the U.S. Epic invited Apple to provide it with further direction if Apple preferred that Epic submit Fortnite for review another way (e.g., through a different developer account). On May 2, 2025, Apple—through its outside counsel— stated that if Epic wanted to submit using the process Epic had outlined, it should do so.

On May 9, 2025, Epic submitted for review a build of the Fortnite app that fully complies with all applicable App Review Guidelines, through a developer account in good standing. […] Apple did not act on Epic’s submission for five full days, despite representations that it generally reviews 90% of app submissions within 24 hours. Then on May 15, 2025, Apple informed Epic via a letter that it “has determined not to take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on [Apple’s] pending request for a partial stay of the [Contempt Order]”. […] In the letter, Apple did not suggest that any version of Fortnite submitted for review was in any way non-compliant with any of Apple’s policies, rules or Guidelines.

Mark A. Perry (PDF):

As you are well aware, Apple has previously denied requests to reinstate the Epic Games developer account, and we have informed you that Apple will not revisit that decision until after the U.S. litigation between the parties concludes. In our view, the same reasoning extends to returning Fortnite to the U.S. storefront of the App Store regardless of which Epic-related entity submits the app.

[…]

I understand that the recent submission by Epic Sweden included a proposed Fortnite app for the U.S. storefront of the App Store as well as for alternative distribution in other geographies. To prevent our discussions surrounding the U.S. storefront of the App Store from impacting Fortnite in other geographies, please withdraw that submission and resubmit the app without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store (this can be accomplished by unchecking the relevant box).

M.G. Siegler:

I believe that Sweeney knew that Epic wouldn’t and couldn’t win their legal claims against Apple, at least not in full. But in just filing them, they started a process which has snowballed into a blizzard for Apple. Both around the world and now at home as well. While that has largely been political, it’s also increasingly moving down the chain.

Apple developers having long been annoyed with the company about various elements of App Store development, and now Epic’s lawsuit, and political fallout, gives them more cover and hope for real change. I don’t believe this has yet translated to consumers in any meaningful way, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t. If every single headline turns into yet another thing Apple is doing to say, keep Fortnite off the App Store, years later, these things tend to have a cumulative effect. Even if Apple is in the right in that particular case, legally. The public doesn’t care about that. All they see is that Apple continues to block a developer from the App Store.

[…]

Apple’s actual stance on the matter – via lawyers – also sounds fairly reasonable. They simply would wish to not rule on allowing Epic (and thus, Fortnite) back in the US App Store until all legal proceedings between the two are final. Epic was trying to use a loophole created because of the unique situation in the EU with regard to the DMA and third-party app stores, but it was never going to fly in the US. It’s pretty black and white. Epic – and all their affiliates – are banned.

There are sort of two tracks to this story: what Apple has said and done and what its legal rights are.

On the first, Apple kept saying, in public and directly via Tim Cook in court, that if only Epic would submit an app that followed the rules, that Apple would approve it. At some point, it changed its mind and added the stipulation that this would only be after all the appeals were over. Then we have Epic saying that on May 2 Apple suggested that Epic submit Fortnite for the US App Store via its Swedish account. And on May 15 Apple asked that this submission be withdrawn. Apple considers Epic to still be banned from the developer program in the US.

As to the legal rights, I think there two questions. First, does the judge’s order that Apple must immediately comply with the anti-steering also imply that Epic gets to take advantage of such? On the one hand, I didn’t see anything in the order saying that. On the other hand, it would be ironic if Epic ended up ensuring these rights for everyone but themselves. And second, does Epic Sweden, with an account in good standing, albeit perhaps only due to DMA threat, have rights as a European company to submit apps to the US App Store? Or is it, as the US court found, subject to the lawful ban of Epic US?

The other interesting question is, what exactly did Apple say to Epic on May 2?

Jeff Johnson (Mastodon):

Epic’s May 16 court filing includes a declaration from Epic’s lawyer, who recounts a phone conversation with Apple’s lawyer:

On May 2, 2025, Mark A. Perry, counsel for Apple, called me about the Fortnite submission. Mr. Perry stated that because of the litigation between Epic and Apple, the submission had been escalated to his attention. He told me that Apple could not comment on whether the proposed Fortnite build would be accepted because Apple had not yet received it for review, but that if Epic wanted to submit the build using the Epic Games Sweden AB account, Epic should go ahead and do so.

I want to emphasize two crucial parts of that conversation:

  1. “Apple could not comment on whether the proposed Fortnite build would be accepted”
  2. “if Epic wanted to submit the build using the Epic Games Sweden AB account”

Apple did not unqualifiedly suggest that Epic go ahead and submit Fortnite for the US App Store. Epic had already stated their intention to do so, and Apple was simply approving (or at least not objecting to) that specific action, without giving any indication of whether the submission would be approved for the App Store.

In other words, Epic was implying that Apple reneged again, but it appears that Apple just told them to submit the app without giving any specific assurances.

One way to interpret this is that if Apple says, “We can’t promise anything, but <hint> you should submit it,” there’s an implication that it would be worth your while to try. That’s how normal conversations work. If I knew it would just waste your time, I would tell you not to submit it.

But there is also a reading that’s more legalistic than pragmatic, where Epic asked a question and Apple replied with two independent settlements that are true but useless: “Yes, it’s possible for you to submit. We won’t say what will happen if you do.” This is, by the way, pretty much what they say to normal developers all the time. If you ask whether something that want to do is allowed under the guidelines, Apple says to write the app, submit it, and then find out.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-20): Juli Clover:

The judge overseeing the case responded to Epic’s request today, and she is sounding more and more fed up with Apple’s continued defiance and Epic’s grousing.

If Apple does not approve Fortnite in the U.S. App Store and resolve its current dispute with Epic Games without the court’s intervention, there will be a hearing on May 27, and the “Apple official” who oversees compliance will need to attend in person.

As Kevin Schumacher explains, this is unexpected.

Slow TestFlight Beta App Review

Craig Hockenberry:

We’ve entered day 10 of waiting for a TestFlight beta app review on macOS. Have tried all the tricks, like submitting new builds, but there has been absolutely no movement.

While Apple is doing everything it can to maintain the tight control it has over the App Stores and a huge revenue stream, we’re out here just trying to get some volunteers to test our software. And failing.

This is bullshit that no developer on any platform should have to deal with. Bureaucracy for its own sake.

Previously:

Rust at 10

Graydon Hoare (Slashdot):

Rust turns 10 today, or at least it’s been 10 years since the 1.0 release. In this decade (and the near-decade of development before!) it has undergone growth and change I can barely comprehend the scale of. To say I’m surprised by its trajectory would be a vast understatement: I can only thank, congratulate, and celebrate everyone involved. It is deeply inspiring to have watched all that’s happened over that time and reflect on it from today’s vantage point.

While it’s tempting to talk about Rust’s journey in terms of the growth of “an idea” – perhaps starting from my amusing frustration with a broken elevator in 2006, as chronicled in this MIT technology review article – I think doing so misses the bigger picture.

In my view, Rust is a story about a large community of stakeholders coming together to design, build, maintain, and expand shared technical infrastructure.

[…]

Importantly: since all of this was done in the post-1.0 environment, every single change passed an exhaustive testsuite, and every release was regression-tested against a significant fraction of the public crate ecosystem, and with very few exceptions any change that broke existing code was rejected. As the 1.0 release announcement promised, Rust remained stable without stagnating. Existing code, in almost all cases, just kept humming along, like good infrastructure should.

The Rust Release Team:

Thank you to the myriad contributors who have worked on Rust, past and present. Here's to many more decades of Rust! 🎉

Niko Matsakis:

As part of RustWeek there was a fantastic celebration and I had the honor of giving some remarks, both as a long-time project member but also as representing Amazon as a sponsor. I decided to post those remarks here on the blog.

Steve Klabnik:

I’d instead like to reflect a bit on a comment I saw on the internet the other day:

[Rust is] not a great hobby language but it is a fantastic professional language, precisely because of the ease of refactors and speed of development that comes with the type system and borrow checker.

Patrick Walton, one of the earliest contributors to Rust, had this to say:

I never thought I’d live to see the day when someone would say this. The first 5 years of Rust were all “this is interesting for hobby projects but nobody will ever adopt this in industry”.

Kobzol (via Dominik Wagner):

The widget below visualizes how the error messages evolved over time.

[…]

But I think that ultimately, the most interesting thing about this is the evolution process of these messages itself, which demonstrates that a lot of effort has to be put into the messages to make them really good. To someone, it might seem like these messages are somehow automatically derived from the compilation process, and we get them “for free”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It is the result of a continuous design, implementation, review and testing effort that has been performed by hundreds of individual contributors over the span of more than ten years.

Previously:

Friday, May 16, 2025

In Praise of the iPad mini 7

Adam Chandler (Reddit, Amazon):

Right now, the iPad mini with an A17 Pro and 8Gb of RAM is $399 through some retail partners.

[…]

Something surprising happened since picking this up. Following setup, I’d start casually grabbing it and carrying it around the house. The mini fits in my cargo shorts and pants pockets of my mostly-outdoors-hiking-pants that have larger pockets. It fits in the tank bag of my motorcycle and I can hold it with one hand with my thumb and index finger around the backside then interact with my other hand.

The display actually has a higher pixels per inch than two of my other devices at 326 PPI (MBP @ 254, iPhone at 460, iPad at 264). So clarity of this display compared to my OLED iPad Pro or MiniLED MacBook Pro is actually more crisp and I just wish it was slightly brighter outside or had a nano-texture display.

I found triaging emails, reading RSS feeds, Instapaper stories or Reddit to be most of what I navigate to. Anything that may prompt typing like MS Teams, Slack, Safari or Messages I avoid because I’m not prepared to thumb through when I can literally get up and go to my MacBook Pro and compose the message even faster.

For my purposes, the “pro” stuff just isn’t there on the iPad, and I’m not sure it ever will be. The iPad Pro with its keyboard is heavier and more expensive than a MacBook Air, yet less capable. But there’s certainly room for something between an iPhone and a Mac. For me, this has mostly been my Kindle, because its weight and display are better for reading than anything Apple offers. But if you want to do more than reading, the iPad mini is a good mix of capabilities, size, and price. Apple doesn’t update it very often, so the time to buy is right when it comes out or when there’s a third-party price drop like this.

To me, if you’re trying to use a keyboard with an iPad, you’ve failed. It’s better to lean into what it’s good at. For years, Apple tried to resist the idea of an iPad as an iPhone with a larger screen. But the apps have trended in that direction, and I think that’s actually not a bad way to think of it. It’s actually what a lot of people want.

Previously:

Fortnite “Blocked”

Dominic Preston (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot, TechCrunch, The Register):

Fortnite maker Epic Games has announced that Apple has blocked the game’s return to iOS. Following the rejection, Fortnite is no longer available on iPhones and iPads even in the European Union, where it had previously been available to download through the Epic Games Store.

“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union,” the company posted on the official Fortnite X account. “Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.”

They do not actually say that Apple rejected the app or what Apple’s specific issue was.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

we do not know what Epic means by ‘blocked’, so it could mean that Epic submitted the exact same build of the app to the App Store as external stores, and because it was rejected from one it was automatically rejected from all (and that a new build could be submitted). It could alternatively mean that App Review has invoked the spam clause, and has paused all further submissions of that app, or all apps for that developer account

Epic may be manually withholding the existing version from the Epic Games Store on iOS as it is no longer correctly versioned to talk to servers in today’s wider content release

Riley Testut:

From talking with Epic this is my understanding: Fortnite wasn’t rejected by Apple, it just wasn’t approved by today when they needed it to be. So they’re disabling new downloads for now.

However, because you can only submit an app for notarization OR App Store, they couldn’t submit an update to just Epic Games Store/AltStore until they pulled it from App Store review.

Apple does allow having multiple SKUs for the same app, and in the past has required this to take advantage of region-specific options.

Riley Testut:

We have separate SKUs for Delta and the beta version of Delta for this reason, but technically Guideline 4.3(a) (which applies to notarization) says “Don’t create multiple Bundle IDs of the same app”

My guess is Epic just didn’t think about it though and submitted the SKU they already had thinking it wouldn’t be an issue

Chance Miller:

Apple says that it did not take action to block Epic Games from releasing its Fortnite update in the European Union. Instead, the company asked it to resubmit the EU update without including the US to avoid impacting other regions.

Juli Clover:

Apple today clarified that it has not blocked Epic Games from updating the iOS Fortnite app in the European Union, but it is not planning to allow Epic Games to offer Fortnite in the United States App Store at the current time.

Jeff Johnson:

Apple’s statement to Bloomberg is poorly worded and vague. MacRumors appears to reading a lot into it, without any additional, direct clarification from Apple.

Epic’s public statements are also poorly worded and vague.

It would be nice if these fucking companies communicated precisely and accurately. Instead they seem content to play PR games.

Jeff Johnson:

So you can submit the same app build for both the App Store and an EU marketplace, but if you do then the review process is combined and uses the stricter App Store criteria instead of the more lenient EU criteria.

However, this doesn’t explain why Fortnite is unavailable in the EU, because the mere rejection of a new submission doesn’t remove the current version from distribution.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-19): Jeff Johnson:

These tweets, as they are still called, have given many people the impression that Apple is indefinitely blocking Epic Games from updating its iPhone app Fortnite in the European Union, where it’s available in an alternative marketplace outside the App Store, as prescribed by the EU Digital Markets Act. I’ll cite several sources, including court documents and Apple’s developer documentation, to show that Epic Games could still update Fortnite in the EU, if they chose to do so.

[…]

Presumably, “unchecking the relevant box” refers to the Review Type in the screenshot from the Apple developer documentation. I am puzzled, though, by the phrase “separately through an entity other than Epic Sweden.” I have no idea what Apple’s attorney is referring to here, especially since the previous paragraph said, “regardless of which Epic-related entity submits the app.” Purely speculating, the only interpretation that makes a bit of sense to me is that Apple wants Epic’s developer account for alternative distribution in the EU to remain devoted exclusively to that purpose and completely avoid touching the App Store, whereas an entirely separate account could submit Fortnite to the App Store, although of course Apple has no current intention to approve such a submission, pending court decisions.

[…]

To be perfectly clear: Apple is indefinitely blocking the May 14 submission of Fortnite that includes both the US App Store and the EU alternative marketplace, but Apple is not blocking EU-only submissions of Fortnite, which can continue at any time.

Previously:

CarPlay Ultra

Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors):

Starting today, CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, is available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available for existing models that feature the brand’s next-generation infotainment system through a software update in the coming weeks. CarPlay Ultra builds on the capabilities of CarPlay and provides the ultimate in-car experience by deeply integrating with the vehicle to deliver the best of iPhone and the best of the car. It provides information for all of the driver’s screens, including real-time content and gauges in the instrument cluster, while reflecting the automaker’s look and feel and offering drivers a customizable experience. Many other automakers around the world are working to bring CarPlay Ultra to drivers, including newly committed brands Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.

[…]

CarPlay Ultra provides content for all the driver’s screens, including the instrument cluster, with dynamic and beautiful options for the speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, and more, bringing a consistent look and feel to the entire driving experience. Drivers can choose to show information from their iPhone, like maps and media, along with information that comes from the car, such as advanced driver assistance systems and tire pressure, right in the instrument cluster.

Widgets are good, but I don’t like what they’re doing with the instrument cluster and other controls. I worry that at some point Apple is going to strong-arm the automakers into requiring that, if I use CarPlay for maps and entertainment, I also have to give Apple control over the gauges and climate settings. Aside from not liking their designs, I don’t want my instruments to freeze due to an iOS bug, and I don’t want to see a red badge because I’m not subscribed to Apple Music. (Both of these already happen with CarPlay, but at least it’s not right in the middle of the steering wheel.)

Dan Moren:

This update has traveled a bumpy road with a lot of detours since its initial introduction at WWDC 2022. At the time, Apple said the first car models with support would be announced in late 2023, and named a variety of partners, none of which have yet delivered a product. Aston Martin, notably, was not on that initial list.

Adam Engst:

The delay may have been caused by the need to work with automakers to assuage concerns about Apple taking over the infotainment experience, effectively turning the car’s user interface into an extension of iOS. No automaker wants its cars to be thought of as iPhone accessories.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

So it’s a little late, but by the standards of the auto industry, not too late. It looks really good — Apple’s Newsroom article is replete with photos and videos showing it in action. It feels true to both Apple’s and Aston Martin’s brand identities — but I’d say more Apple-y than Aston Martin-y, simply because the typography is all San Francisco.

Quinn Nelson:

CarPlay Ultra (terrible name) looks like garbage. Some of the worst tap targets I’ve seen in any car ever. Like, what is this list? Like, three 2”x2” buttons would have even been better.

We do not want or need SwiftUI in the car lol

This is just wretched.

Mario Guzmán:

Sadly, Apple Platforms UI has just become navigation you drill into with lists. This alone captures like 90% of all UX out there on Apple Platforms.

Lists, lists, and more lists. Like Quinn said, this would have been better if it showed layouts one would typically see in a vehicle, not a phone.

This also seems unsafe… they expect you to drill and read labels while you’re driving?

Previously:

Update (2025-05-16): Dimitri Bouniol:

Pretty sure in a WWDC session last year, Apple explained that the instrument cluster is not rendered or streamed from iOS — instead, the phone sends over a package of assets to the car, and the car uses a basic set of GLSL-like commands to render the various instruments live on its own render stack.

Update (2025-05-19): Top Gear:

We’ve tried it out, in an Aston Martin DBX, so here is how new Apple CarPlay Ultra works…

Via John Gruber:

There’s an accompanying blog post too, but the video (around 18 minutes) is (unsurprisingly, from Top Gear) better. It’s just a great tour of everything from how you set it up to what it offers, and what the various “themes” look like — and how you switch between them.

[…]

One thing Aston did right is that they still have a lot of physical controls — clicking buttons and twisting dials — for the most essential features like climate control. As you’d hope, the CarPlay Ultra interface updates live as you manipulate those physical controls in the car.

Update (2025-05-23): Joe Rossignol:

Apple last week announced the launch of CarPlay Ultra, and it offers a Radio app, allowing you to control AM and FM radio stations within CarPlay. With regular CarPlay, you must switch between CarPlay and your vehicle's built-in software interface to control the radio, so CarPlay Ultra will be more convenient for this purpose.

CarPlay Ultra's built-in Radio app can also be used to control satellite radio stations, but this is less notable given that SiriusXM already offers a CarPlay app.

Joe Rosensteel:

There’s so much more Apple needs to do with CarPlay, fixes that would also benefit CarPlay Ultra. I use CarPlay all the time, and there are plenty of issues that don’t seem to be on Apple’s roadmap. If Apple improves CarPlay, it also improves CarPlay Ultra. That being said, here are some of my biggest outstanding issues with CarPlay today.

He has some great suggestions.

Why Using ChatGPT Is Not Bad for the Environment

Andy Masley:

It’s not bad for the environment if you or any number of people use ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, or other large language model (LLM) chatbots. You can use ChatGPT as much as you like without worrying that you’re doing any harm to the planet.

[…]

Throughout this post I’ll assume the average ChatGPT query uses 3 Watt-hours (Wh) of energy, which is 10x as much as a Google search. This statistic is likely wrong. ChatGPT’s energy use is probably lower according to EpochAI. Google’s might be lower too, or maybe higher now that they’re incorporating AI into every search. We’re a little in the dark on this, but we can set a reasonable range. It’s hard for me to find a statistic that implies ChatGPT uses more than 10x as much energy as Google, so I’ll stick with this as an upper bound to be charitable to ChatGPT’s critics.

[…]

If you multiply an extremely small value by 10, it can still be so small that it shouldn’t factor into your decisions.

[…]

They hear about AI data centers rapidly growing, look around, and see that everyone’s using ChatGPT, and assume there must be some connection. […] The mistake they’re making is simple: ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are extremely, extremely small parts of AI’s energy demand.

Via Adam Engst:

Masley calculates that, on a daily basis, the average American uses enough energy for 10,000 ChatGPT prompts and consumes enough water for 24,000–61,000 prompts.

Wayne Williams:

The power needed to run generative AI is pushing infrastructure beyond what traditional air cooling can handle.

To explore the scale of the challenge, I spoke with Daren Shumate, founder of Shumate Engineering, and Stephen Spinazzola, the firm’s Director of Mission Critical Services.

[…]

A typical Chat-GPT query uses about 10 times more energy than a Google search – and that’s just for a basic generative AI function. More advanced queries require substantially more power that have to go through an AI Cluster Farm to process large-scale computing between multiple machines.

Dan Drake:

If you’re measuring energy consumption, you need to do a kind of “lifecycle analysis” -- if the choice is between using a traditional search engine and asking a chatbot, you should compare the entire workflow with each.

If I do a regular web search for something, I will frequently click three to four of the results and open them in new tabs, because I’m not sure exactly which one will answer my question; I might do another search. Each of those loads a website, with all the accompanying HTML, JS, and so on.

With chatbots, I find it’s more common for the response to have exactly what I want. “One and done”, as they say.

Also, as AI gets better, people will use it more. They will ask it to do deep research tasks that they would not have even attempted with Google. Or that perhaps they would have paid a person to do.

Update (2025-05-19): There are Hacker News and Lobsters pages for Masley’s post. Simon Willison says it’s “by far the most convincing rebuttal of this idea that I’ve seen anywhere.” Michael Lazar wrote a rebuttal, which I find to be long on axe grinding and rhetorical criticisms and short on substance (via Dustin Westphal). Masley has a follow-up post about what he got wrong.

I think the best criticism is that the narrow question Masley is investigating is not what really matters. If you’re against the idea of LLMs or the overall energy consumption of AI (including training and non-chatbot uses), you don’t particularly care about the incremental cost of one more person using ChatGPT. Also, the numbers for ChatGPT may not apply to other systems such as Grok.

Stephen Hackett:

As I wrote about earlier this week, xAI has broken ground on a second data center on Tulane Road here in Memphis that will require an unbelievable amount of electricity.

[…]

As seen here, the SELC has photographic evidence that some 35 turbines have been in operation at xAI’s initial data center, despite Memphis Mayor Paul Young claiming in mid April that only 15 were in use. If 15 strikes you as an oddly specific number, it’s because the Shelby County Health Department’s permit to xAI only covers 15 permanent units.

If the plan outlined in this documents comes to pass, there could be anywhere between 40 to 90 turbines running in south Memphis across the two sites.

Matt Birchler:

I could keep going, but I have some very real options for not only offsetting my ChatGPT usage, but also radically reducing my tech energy footprint overall. The easiest win for me is scheduling my Synology to power down overnight.

[…]

I didn’t write this post to suggest we should all use as much energy as possible, screw the environment, let’s just burn it all down. My intention was to present the same ChatGPT and other LLM energy use numbers you see in alarmist articles in a different way to show that you can tell different stories depending on how you present the same data. Do LLMs use more energy than a lot of other digital actions? Yeah, they seem to, but the base number is so microscopically small that we still aren’t dealing with large numbers in the grand scheme of things.

Update (2025-05-23): James O’Donnell and Casey Crownhart:

Today, new analysis by MIT Technology Review provides an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed, as AI barrels towards billions of daily users.

[…]

By 2028, the researchers estimate, the power going to AI-specific purposes will rise to between 165 and 326 terawatt-hours per year. That’s more than all electricity currently used by US data centers for all purposes; it’s enough to power 22% of US households each year.

[…]

The Lawrence Berkeley researchers offered a blunt critique of where things stand, saying that the information disclosed by tech companies, data center operators, utility companies, and hardware manufacturers is simply not enough to make reasonable projections about the unprecedented energy demands of this future or estimate the emissions it will create. They offered ways that companies could disclose more information without violating trade secrets, such as anonymized data-sharing arrangements, but their report acknowledged that the architects of this massive surge in AI data centers have thus far not been transparent, leaving them without the tools to make a plan.

Via Nick Heer:

This robust story comes on the heels of a series of other discussions about how much energy is used by A.I. products and services. Last month, for example, Andy Masley published a comparison of using ChatGPT against other common activities. The Economist ran another, and similar articles have been published before. As far as I can tell, they all come down to the same general conclusion: training A.I. models is energy-intensive, using A.I. products is not, lots of things we do online and offline have a greater impact on the environment, and the current energy use of A.I. is the lowest it will be from now on.

Nick Heer:

Thinking about the energy “footprint” of artificial intelligence products makes it a good time to re-link to Mark Kaufman’s excellent 2020 Mashable article in which he explores the idea of a carbon footprint.

Update (2025-06-11): Jay Peters:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a blog post published Tuesday, says an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.000085 gallons of water, or “roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.” He made the claim as part of a broader post on his predictions about how AI will change the world.

Thursday, May 15, 2025

HDR in Forthcoming Halide 3

Ben Sandofsky (tweet, Hacker News):

Then the algorithms combined everything into a single “photo” that matches human vision… a photo that was useless, since computer screens couldn’t display HDR. So these researchers also came up with algorithms to squeeze HDR values onto an SDR screen, which they called “Tone Mapping.”

[…]

HDR and Deep Fusion require that the iPhone camera capture a burst of photos and stitch them together to preserve the best parts. Sometimes it goofs. Even when the algorithms behave, they come with tradeoffs.

[…]

After considerable research, experimentation, trial and error, we’ve arrived on a tone mapper that feels true to the dodging and burning of analog photography. What makes it unique? For starters, it’s derived from a single capture, as opposed to the multi-exposure approaches that sacrifice detail. While a single capture can’t reach the dynamic range of human vision, good sensors have dynamic range approaching film.

However, the best feature is that this tone mapping is off by default. If you come across a photo that feels like it could use a little highlight or shadow recovery, you can now hop into Halide’s updated Image Lab.

I’m still disappointed by the options that recent versions of the iOS Camera app offer here. With iPhone 13 and later, there seems to be no way to turn off Smart HDR. Enabling ProRAW may give more control for post-processing in Lightroom, but it still combines multiple captures into one.

I like that Lux is trying to address this with Halide, but I’m not sure this is the right solution for me. First, is the sensor really good enough to get all the needed data with one capture? Second, I don’t want to go through all the photos on my iPhone; I prefer to process them on my Mac.

Previously:

Microsoft Layoffs

Jordan Novet:

Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels, teams and geographies, affecting about 6,000 people.

[…]

The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April.

[…]

In total, it’s likely Microsoft’s largest round of layoffs since the elimination of 10,000 roles in 2023. In January the company announced a small round of layoffs that were performance-based. These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said.

Alex Halverson:

The Redmond-based software giant said Tuesday that the layoffs, which will affect almost 2,000 workers in Washington state, are meant in part to strip away layers of management and create more nimble teams.

[…]

Microsoft isn’t alone in this strategy. It’s the same reasoning Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol gave when Starbucks laid off more than 1,000 corporate workers and removed hundreds of open roles.Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last year that the company was working to lower the manager-to-employee ratio.

[…]

But the company is pumping billions of those dollars into artificial intelligence infrastructure, namely data centers, that won’t make a return on investment in the immediate future.

[…]

Scott Hanselman, vice president of Microsoft’s developer community, wrote on LinkedIn that it was a “day with a lot of tears,” and the first time he’s had to lay people off to support business goals that weren’t his own.

Outlook Business (tweet):

Ron Buckton, a former senior software development engineer at Microsoft who contributed to the development of the TypeScript compiler and language service in native code, was among the 6,000 employees laid off by the company on Tuesday.

Buckton, who had served Microsoft for 18 years along with his team, helped TypeScript achieve a 10x speed boost in build times and editor responsiveness.

Rob Eisenberg:

Sadly, this is an example of my tweet from last week, showing just how little Microsoft understands the web; and now they are down yet another thought leader.

What they have done here is optimize for some short-term quarterly revenue goal, while completely wrecking their long-term technical strategy (which they may not even have…but that’s a whole different issue). This is all so common among Microsoft’s middle management layer (VP, CVP, etc.).

Dare Obasanjo:

Seeing a wave of posts about the layoffs at Microsoft and I’m deeply curious about the narrative. A few years ago you could blame ZIRP ending or COVID overhiring. A few months ago it was low performers.

What reason are employees being given now for layoffs after a record earnings quarter?

Rui Carmo:

Although I was not privy to any and the orgs affected are (so far) quite distant from my endeavors, the article rings true where it points to post-pandemic growth spurts and long overdue org chart calibration as key drivers–although I’m positive there will be the usual misinterpretations about AI “replacing” people and other such idiocy.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-19): Dare Obasanjo:

Microsoft said its recent layoffs impacting 6,000 employees (3% of staff) was due to flattening hierarchies by removing layers of managers. However data provided to the state of Washington shows most of those impacted were individual contributors.

2025 Six Colors Apple in the Enterprise Report Card

Jason Snell:

Of those expressing a preference, a third said they’d only be comfortable with allowing on-device running of AI models; nearly half said they’d be okay with on-device models and those that run in Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers. Only 18% said they’d be comfortable with everything—on-device, Private Cloud Compute, and third-party AI in the broader cloud.

Finally, we asked our panel how they personally use AI technology in their own jobs. More than half answered in the affirmative, with 19% saying they use it quite a lot. For the other half, it’s a no—and for 16% it’s a hard no.

[…]

After a few years of consistent improvement, the score for Apple’s enterprise programs slid backward this year. Panelists praised incremental improvements to Apple Business/School Manager (ABM/SM), particularly around features like Activation Lock management and Managed Apple Accounts. But the lack of comprehensive APIs hinders automation and efficient management for large organizations. Documentation is seen as improving in some areas, but still needing more depth and consistency.

[…]

In a bit of a (not entirely unexpected) whiplash, the panel’s feelings about Apple’s software side diverge strongly from the praise given to hardware. This was the lowest score in the survey, with the biggest drop. Large sites and businesses were even more critical than the overall survey. A prevalent theme was a perceived decline in software quality (a “continued downward spiral”) and an increase in bugs and instability in recent macOS and iOS releases.

Compared with the regular report card, this panel seems much more negative on software quality.

Jason Snell:

But if you want to read all the comments from the panelists who were willing to share in public—all 25,000 words of it—who are we to stand in your way?

Previously:

SQLite Databases in App Group Containers (Don’t)

Brent Simmons (2020):

The crash logs were not identical, but they had this same thing:

Namespace RUNNINGBOARD, Code 0xdead10cc

This meant that the system was killing the app because, after the background task was complete, the app still had references to a SQLite database (or sometimes another file).

Apple:

0xdead10cc (3735883980) — pronounced “dead lock”

The operating system terminated the app because it held on to a file lock or SQLite database lock during suspension. Request additional background execution time on the main thread with beginBackgroundTask(withName:expirationHandler:). Make this request well before starting to write to the file in order to complete those operations and relinquish the lock before the app suspends. In an app extension, use beginActivity(options:reason:) to manage this work.

Marco Arment:

Don’t keep the SQLite database in the shared container. You’ll never get rid of all of those crashes. Instead, communicate with extensions via other means than having them read/write the DB directly, such as Darwin notifications or writing plist files in the shared container.

[…]

I tried wrapping every SQLite query in a background task once to avoid this. A standard Overcast session may issue hundreds or thousands of database queries. I later found that apparently each one generates a process power assertion, the OS wasn’t made for that level of usage, and after some time, Springboard would crash.

There’s also the NSProcessInfo background-task thing that allegedly works in extensions, except that it doesn’t.

GRDB:

This guide describes a recommended setup that applies as soon as several processes want to access the same SQLite database. It complements the Concurrency guide, that you should read first.

On iOS for example, you can share database files between multiple processes by storing them in an App Group Container.

[…]

Post suspendNotification when the application is about to be suspended.

[…]

Once suspended, a database won’t acquire any new lock that could cause the 0xDEAD10CC exception.

In exchange, you will get SQLITE_INTERRUPT (code 9) or SQLITE_ABORT (code 4) errors, with messages “Database is suspended”, “Transaction was aborted”, or “interrupted”.

Gwendal Roué:

One of the difficulties lies in the OS apis, in order to detect when the app is about to get suspended, and when the app becomes able to acquire database locks again. See this forum thread with @justkwin.

The other difficulty is that if the app is writing (holding a lock) at the moment it is notified it will get suspended, then all it can do is aborting the write.

Ryan Ashcraft:

It’s a common problem developers face when building iOS apps: you have a SQLite database, possibly backed by Core Data, and you want to use it to support features in your app extensions, such as widgets and intents.

The problem has a common and seemingly simple answer: just move the database to an App Group container! It’s relatively straightforward, with plenty of StackOverflow answers and YouTube tutorials on the matter.

[…]

These mitigations may sound reasonable at first, but implementing all of them correctly and consistently is surprisingly difficult—especially for database-heavy apps like Foodnoms. Trust me—I’ve tried.

Beyond the complexity, you also lose flexibility with background execution. For example, features like HealthKit background delivery become harder to support reliably.

[…]

Instead of moving your database to a group container, use these techniques instead and keep the database inside your app’s documents directory.

He suggests writing data to JSON files and using multiple copies of the same intent. These seem like caveman solutions. iPhones now have super fast processors and more RAM than Macs did when the iPhone was first released. How many more years before they support a less brittle process model?

Previously:

Update (2025-05-15): Paulo Andrade:

I believe requiring app extensions to be a separate process to have been a bad decision from the get go. And there’s no excuse for it now. The fact the new App Intents can be handled in the main app is kind of proves my point. App extensions could just be a new window on the main app’s process.

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Apple Developer App 10.8

Juli Clover:

As WWDC 2025 approaches, Apple has updated its Developer app to prepare for the week-long event. The refreshed version of the developer app will host the WWDC 2025 session videos, 1-on-1 labs with Apple engineers, and more.

It’s still unreliable at working offline. I launched the app, and all of the screens were empty. There was no way to access the videos I’d already downloaded. After launching it again when online, I can now browse the cached stuff when offline. But I assume it still works like previous versions in that after some unknown amount of time it will break until I take it online again.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-11): Paul McGrane:

So there is no way to make the video bigger than this except fullscreen? And even this big you have to do PiP.

External Purchase Conversion Metrics

Jacob Eiting (Mastodon):

Turns out, in-app purchases are good for conversion rates. In fact, at least 30% better. That’s one of the things we found while running the first large-scale, side-by-side test of in-app vs web purchases in history.

[…]

The initial conversion rate for variant B is between 27% and 30%, while the equivalent web flow in variant D is between 17% and 19%. This is a large decrease, a 25% to 45% relative drop between the two. Digging into the funnel, most of that drop occurs from the payment sheet through to purchase. That’s a lot of fall off.

I do not find the difference surprising—especially since this is all so new. It can get better from here. I wonder how many of the customers had Apple Pay set up and how many used it.

Reduced fees aren’t the only benefit of web purchases; they usually have more tools to retain and serve these users. Payment processors like Stripe pay out much more quickly than IAP, reducing cashflow constraints.

And better handling for refunds.

RevenueCat:

You can make this up by offering a discount, we tested this too but don't have anything conclusive to say about that test yet.

Tim Schmitz:

It’s almost like Apple never needed these draconian rules all along and could have just competed on the merits 🤔

They’re still not competing on the merits because they don’t allow implementing alternative in-app payments.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-16): John Gruber:

That’s a notable drop-off.

I don’t find it surprising at all though. IAP really is more convenient. Apple’s built a great system, and they don’t need exclusivity to keep users preferring it, and thus keep developers using it.

Brandon Kelly:

18% vs. 28% is basically the same take-home revenue when you factor in Apple’s 30% cut. Most devs would probably prefer having 2/3 the customers (and support) for roughly the same income.

Ryan Poolos:

This is not competition. This is comparing an inconvenient workaround to a good system. Competition would look like an Apple Pay or Shop Pay button right in the UI.

Andy Allen:

There’s a long and growing list of features common on most payment & subscription service providers that still aren’t possible on the App Store today. Price testing, refunds, managing subscriptions, plan migrations, gifting, discount codes, subscription bundles—to name just a few. Entire businesses have spawned just to fill these critical gaps.

In fact, just last week a group of app developers and I were debating the least awkward approach to test subscription prices on the App Store where you have to choose between stranding customers on dormant plans or listing every price ever tested to everyone. Thankfully, in 2025, and we have solutions for things so fundamental as this—just not at the world’s largest tech company.

Via John Gruber (Mastodon):

It’s kind of bananas that it’s 2025 and the App Store still doesn’t allow developers to issue refunds. I’ve had this discussion with numerous developers. They’ll be doing customer support, and want to issue a refund, but explain that they can’t — and users find that so hard to believe they suspect the developer is bullshitting them.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-19): Curtis Herbert:

There are two things Apple provides as part of the IAP system that has always been undervalued, and in my opinion they are well worth that theoretical 27% (or 12% on subscription renewals).

[…]

The way I'm looking at all this is that IAPs are the best way to gather your first payment from a customer, especially if you have a free trial. They'll provide the least friction and highest conversion rate. From there, after you earn a customer's trust over time, you can try to move them over to the web, likely from other flows like emails. Maybe you have a black friday sale with a one-time discount to move them over. Maybe a year after they first subscribe, you offer a one-time 15% renewal discount if they move to web. Maybe you leverge the web to try to win back people who have churned out, or people who abandoned checkout.

There's a lot to experiment with here, and a lot to learn, as an industry. Just like you needed to experiment with things like the best time to show your paywall, you'll have to experiment with when's the best time to try to move them to the web.

Manton Reece:

I think the perspective on this topic varies between developers partly based on whether you expect users to randomly discover your app in the App Store, or whether you’re building a service outside the store and the mobile app is just a companion to that.

[…]

Developers are in the best position to know what marketing and payment options will work for their app. The whole point of these changes — from the EU’s Digital Markets Act to the judge’s ruling in the Epic trial — is to put the decision back in the hands of developers where it belongs.

See also: Nick Heer.

Critical Warning for External Purchases in App Store

Viktor Maric:

first time seeing this. Apple will punish the apps with external payment system

This app does not support the App Store's private and secure payment system. It uses external purchases.

Swift Dev:

Yup it’s real, you see this warning if the app doesn’t use IAP.

Also it says external purchases next to the “get” button

It’s confusing to follow all the changes, but apparently—unlike in the US—external purchases in the EU don’t need to have corresponding IAP versions.

The warning adds five lines of text at the top of the App Store screen, above even the app’s name and icon.

On macOS, Apple declares three levels of alerts:

Guess which icon the App Store uses for external payments.

But I wonder how many users will see the warnings. If you’ve already purchased an app, it can auto-update to add external payments without your having to go back to the store. And I think the DMA mandated that there can’t be scare screens at the time of purchase.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-15): John Gruber:

It’s like when they still blather on about software being sold on discs inside boxes in physical retail stores. That was true. It was once relevant. It no longer is and hasn’t been for over a decade. […] I’m sure there remain sketchy corners of the Internet, but for the most part, all mainstream online payments today are private and secure. Apple’s IAP system has numerous advantages and user-centric features. (If Apple were actively competing, it would have many more.) But the fact that it’s “private and secure” is no longer distinguishing at all.

Apple has never spread FUD about buying physical goods, e.g. within the Amazon app or Safari. The payment systems are the same. But somehow they become dangerous, akin to data loss, if you use them to purchase digital content. I think external purchases are actually safer because you can get a refund, if necessary, through your credit card company. Apple is terrible about offering refunds, even when a product doesn’t work and the developer wants to refund the purchase, and you can’t go to your credit card company because then Apple will kill your whole account.

See also: Hacker News, Reddit, The Verge, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Mac Observer.

Brent Simmons:

Developers, me included, started selling software on the internet in the mid ’90s. The App Store didn’t save us from that.

Many developers, large and small, had been selling on the web for more than 10 years by the time the App Store appeared.

Dave Nanian:

Can I also say that those of us who were doing it back then resented being intermediated back to a “retail model” didn’t end up doing any software for iOS because of stuff like this.

Not only having to pay for the privilege of improving the platform, but the arbitrary rule changes that could rip a market out from under you at any time.

Doing good work is hard enough without that BS.

Kuba Suder:

Lol this is [passive]-aggressive as fuck 🫠 smh Apple

Marco Arment:

LOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL

Apple’s leaders have truly lost it.

Mario Guzmán:

The way Tim is fighting this so hard with malicious compliance, I wish he would put this same energy into fixing all the buggy stuff shipping out of Cupertino these days...

Steve Troughton-Smith:

If anything, the last few years have taught us so much about Apple and the people who lead it. The company cannot be trusted.

They’ve lied, they’ve cheated, they’ve bullied, strongarmed, and mislead, they’ve lobbied and bribed authoritarian leaders for support, they’ve faked ‘independent reviews’, they’ve intentionally degraded their products and their product user experience, they’ve broken laws and spurned lawmakers, shook down developers, and they will continue to do all of these things.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-16): John Gruber (Mastodon):

Apple told me that exact same warning has been in place since the very beginning of their DMA compliance, in March 2024.

[…]

Eiting includes a link to Apple’s own developer documentation for its DMA compliance features, which makes this clear[…]

[…]

I actually think that’s very useful information that should be on an app’s App Store listing. Users should know what to expect, and iPhone users’ expectations are that digital goods transactions go through Apple’s IAP. The problem with this disclosure, as it stands, is the way it looks: like a big scary warning. It should be something more akin to the privacy “nutrition label” information.

Apple’s documentation includes a screenshot with an icon and text that are much less scary than what’s actually shipping in iOS:

Transactions in this app are supported by the developer and not Apple.

Kosta Eleftheriou:

On the left is what Apple tells developers their apps are going to look like if they add support for alternative payment systems.

On the right is what Apple actually shows.

Would love to see all the “make it more scary” internal communications that led to this.

Back to Gruber:

According what I’ve been told by Apple, they were (and still are) prepared to implement these changes, including the new disclosure screen. The EC raised no objection to the new disclosure proposal, but insisted that Apple not implement the changes at the time. Then, according to Apple, the EC never provided further guidance, until last month when they fined Apple €500M for noncompliance.

Somehow I don’t think Apple is telling the full truth there, but regardless, why blame the EC for this? Wasn’t it Apple who came up with the scary design in the first place?

Update (2025-05-19): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Nick Heer:

In any case, does this message show on listings for any applications accepting payments through means other than In-App Purchases? I assume Apple is not warning users about the dangers of paying for a ride through Uber or a hotel room through Kayak. But subscribing to something without using Apple’s own payment mechanism? May as well shout your credit card number in a crowded room.

It is not like Apple is taking an elevated level of responsibility for payments made through In-App Purchases, either. This warning tone carried through in documentation may not be lying to users, but it is bullshitting them and that, in most places, is not a sign of trust or respect

Update (2025-05-27): Jeff Johnson:

From crApp Store defenders I frequently hear how easy it is to cancel subscriptions.

From crApp Store users I frequently hear how hard it is to cancel subscriptions.

Apple’s 2025 Accessibility Feature Preview

Apple:

Apple today announced new accessibility features coming later this year, including Accessibility Nutrition Labels, which will provide more detailed information for apps and games on the App Store. Users who are blind or have low vision can explore, learn, and interact using the new Magnifier app for Mac; take notes and perform calculations with the new Braille Access feature; and leverage the powerful camera system of Apple Vision Pro with new updates to visionOS. Additional announcements include Accessibility Reader, a new systemwide reading mode designed with accessibility in mind, along with updates to Live Listen, Background Sounds, Personal Voice, Vehicle Motion Cues, and more.

Joe Rossignol:

For CarPlay, this includes support for the Large Text option that has long existed on iPhones. Apple is also expanding the Sound Recognition feature for drivers or passengers who are deaf or hard of hearing. CarPlay will be able to provide a notification if it hears a crying baby inside the vehicle, and it will also be able to alert users to sounds outside the vehicle, such as horns and sirens from police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks.

I wish CarPlay had a small text option so I could see more of the song title.

Shelly Brisbin:

App Store pages will soon include fields for developers to indicate which accessibility features their app supports, along with links to more detailed information. Examples include: VoiceOver, Voice Control, dark appearance, larger text, and more. Media app pages can indicate if the app supports audio description and/or captioning.

It’s safe to say that accessibility users have long requested a way to determine accessibility before downloading. For developers, the labels provide a means to differentiate between apps that prioritize accessibility and those that do not.

Ryan:

Gotta be honest, I do wonder if Apple’s apps will be honest about things like “Sufficient Contrast”.

I question whether the privacy nutrition labels are a net positive because there’s no verification. Maybe they just give users a false sense of security and help nefarious companies take advantage of them. The accessibility labels could be fake, too, but at least the harm would be along the lines of advertising features that don’t exist—rather than saying they protect your data when they don’t. And they should at least help raise awareness.

Marco Arment:

I worry that without verification, the features will be poorly understood and inconsistently implemented by developers claiming support.

I wrote back in 2014 that I wanted App Review to let us opt into accessibility testing, and show a badge for apps that pass.

Could be a great way to improve outcomes for customers AND give developers more value for the 15/30%.

Steven Aquino:

[The] longstanding Magnifier app for iOS and iPadOS is making its way to macOS this year. Its implementation is clear in inspiration, as Apple essentially took the building blocks for Continuity Camera on iOS and tvOS to make Magnifier for Mac. The company boasts the feature will be a boon to people with low vision (like yours truly) to understand the physical world more accessibly. It’s one thing to describe it, but it’s another thing entirely to see it; to that end, Apple has made a video showing a person with albinism using Magnifier for Mac, with their iPhone clipped to their MacBook’s display, taking notes in a college classroom during a lecture. Magnifier for Mac integrates with another new feature this year, called Accessibility Reader, which, with Magnifier, will “[transform] text from the physical world into a custom legible format.”

Previously:

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

tvOS 18.5

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no developer):

Apple today released tvOS 18.5, the latest version of the tvOS operating system.

Juli Clover:

The tvOS 18.5 update that Apple released yesterday adds support for synchronizing Dolby Atmos playback to speakers over AirPlay or Bluetooth, according to Apple’s release notes for the update.

The feature could help address some persistent syncing issue that some Apple TV users have encountered when trying to play audio with Dolby Atmos.

Previously:

macOS 15.5

Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, no developer, full installer, IPSW):

macOS Sequoia 15.5 is light on new features, with Apple listing only a change to Screen Time in its notes.

I still haven’t been able to get this update to install on an external drive. The former workaround of manually setting the Startup Disk before running the installer no longer helps. With either Software Update or the Installer app, the update seems to install correctly, and there’s a lengthy progress bar after rebooting, but then when I eventually log back in the macOS version is unchanged. Maybe the answer is to erase the external drive and do a fresh install, but I’d rather not have to do that.

Brendan Shanks:

End of an era: AFP client support is deprecated in macOS 15.5. Deprecating stuff in an OS months after release is weird, I wonder if this change wasn’t supposed to ship until macOS 16.

They did fix some security bugs with it.

Howard Oakley:

large network shares should enumerate correctly in the Finder

[…]

The new Apple Diagnostics app looks particularly interesting, but appears to attempt a remote connection that is denied, so reports the error and does nothing else.

See also: Mr. Macintosh and Adam Engst.

John Gordon:

Anyone else think there’s something flaky about select/copy actions in Sequoia?

I often think i’ve selected and cmd-C copied text to find it’s not in the clipboard.

John Gordon:

The etresoft dev confirmed this is a sequoia bug.

I can imagine ways this bug could cause bad things to happen …

Previously:

Update (2025-05-14): Rich Trouton:

This announcement is providing a end-of-the-road notification for AFP, which has been included in Apple’s operating systems for the Mac since System 6 in 1988. The ability to run an AFP server was removed from macOS as part of macOS Big Sur and it is not possible to host AFP shares from APFS formatted drives, so the AFP client has been the final functional part of AFP left as of macOS Sequoia.

This deprecation will affect the AFP functionality available via the Finder and via the mount_afp command line tool, with the mount_afp man page also noting that the AFP client is being deprecated.

Update (2025-05-15): Howard Oakley:

Greatest problems come with Apple’s old Time Capsules, most of which are still used with AFP, as they can only support SMB version 1, not versions 2 or 3. If you’re still using a Time Capsule, or an old NAS that doesn’t support SMB version 3, then access to your network storage may well still be reliant on AFP.

Mooch:

there is still an entire lobe of my brain dedicated to installing XServes and reading “AFP client is depreciated” is like finding out I am a withered dead mummy and this is the afterlife

macOS 14.7.6 and macOS 13.7.6

macOS 14.7.6 (full installer, security):

This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users.

macOS 13.7.6 (full installer, security):

This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users.

Previously:

iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5

Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, enterprise, no developer):

iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 are on the smaller side, featuring a limited number of new features. There’s an update to Screen Time that lets parents know when a Screen Time passcode is used on a child’s device, and there is support for carrier-provided satellite features on iPhone 13 models.

Juli Clover:

According to Apple’s security support document for iOS 18.5, there’s a fix for a vulnerability with the C1 modem. Apple says that it addressed a baseband security flaw that could allow an attacker “in a privileged network position” to intercept network traffic. Basically, a hacker that had access to cellular network infrastructure could potentially exploit the vulnerability for surveillance or to employ a man-in-the-middle attack.

Pierre Igot:

Would really like being able to talk to that Apple engineer who clearly believes that every minor iOS update is a good opportunity to nag iPhone users who have NOT signed up for Apple Pay with a red badge that it takes a very special (and stupid) UI dance to get rid of.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-16): Eric Slivka:

Apple has stopped signing the iPadOS 17.7.7 update that was released earlier this week for devices unable to run versions of iPadOS 18, meaning that users will not be able to install the update even if they see it available in Software Update.

[…]

The company has not provided a reason for unsigning the update, but there are a number of reports on the MacRumors forums, Reddit, and elsewhere from users who have experienced issues logging into apps after updating their devices.

Update (2025-06-06): Joe Rossignol:

A growing number of iPhone users are seeing a blank screen in the Mail app, according to comments posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, Apple Support Community, and other online discussion platforms. Affected users are unable to view any emails in their inboxes, and the app can also become glitchy and unresponsive.

The issue does not appear to be tied to any specific iPhone model, and the underlying cause is unknown. Most if not all affected users said their iPhones were running iOS 18.5, but it is unclear why online discussion about this issue only started to gain traction within the past few days, given that the update was released more than three weeks ago.

watchOS 11.5

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no developer):

The watchOS 11.5 update adds a new Pride Harmony watch face and it fixes an issue that could prevent the iPhone from showing a notification when the Apple Watch battery is fully charged.

Previously:

audioOS 18.5

Apple:

This update includes performance and stability improvements.

Previously:

visionOS 2.5

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, developer):

With visionOS 2.5, Apple added a Vision tab to the Apple TV app to make it easier for users to find content created for the Vision Pro.

Previously:

Monday, May 12, 2025

Pasteboard Privacy Preview in macOS 15.4

Apple (via Jeff Nadeau):

Prepare your app for an upcoming feature in macOS that alerts a person using a device when your app programmatically reads the general pasteboard. The system shows the alert only if the pasteboard access wasn’t a result of someone’s input on a UI element that the system considers paste-related. This behavior is similar to how UIPasteboard behaves in iOS. New detect methods in NSPasteboard and NSPasteboardItem make it possible for an app to examine the kinds of data on the pasteboard without actually reading them and showing the alert. NSPasteboard also adds an accessBehavior property to determine if programmatic pasteboard access is always allowed, never allowed, or if it prompts an alert requesting permission. You can adopt these APIs ahead of the change, and set a user default to test the new behavior on your Mac. To do so, launch Terminal and enter the command defaults write <your_app_bundle_id> EnablePasteboardPrivacyDeveloperPreview -bool yes to enable the behavior for your app.

The Swift and Objective-C APIs are different.

Miguel Arroz:

Long ago when I was still at Apple I filed a radar suggesting something like this when I found out the Facebook iOS app would look into the pasteboard as soon as it was brought forward and suggest posting any URL the user might have there.

This is incredibly hard to get right since there’s no straightforward way for the OS to know if a paste op is legit.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-13): See also: additional details about System Settings and tccutil and MacRumors.

Update (2025-05-14): Howard Oakley:

This appears complicated, and I expect may need simplification during beta-testing, or users could be baffled.

Jeff Johnson (Mastodon):

First, the alert has no option to always allow paste. Second, the alert has no explanation of why the app is trying to access the pasteboard. Third, and most important, I don’t want the first launch experience of my app to be a permissions request.

Thus, I’m simply removing the feature from Link Unshortener that autofills a URL from the pasteboard. It’s not an essential feature for the app, just a minor quality of life improvement. I’m making the app a little worse to avoid the much worse permission prompt.

[…]

Perhaps at WWDC, Apple will announce a new Info.plist key for apps to specify a reason for pasteboard access to appear in the new alert. Other such keys already exist, such as those specifying the reason for location and microphone access.

Update (2025-05-16): Apple (via Cesare Forelli):

Thank you for filing this feedback report. We reviewed your report and determined the behavior you experienced is currently functioning as intended.

The HI design for iOS (which we are following on macOS) states clearly that the dialog itself should NOT include a direct link to the System Settings pane where the “always allow” option exists. The goal is to avoid making it too easy for apps to bypass the feature by getting users to grant “always allow” rights after fatiguing them sufficiently by showing excessive dialogs.

[…]

Instead, a proper “onboarding” flow should guide users to the corresponding System Settings pane under Privacy & Security, so users are clearly aware that they are making a privacy-related and permanent change.

Security through obscurity.

AI and Google Search Volume in Safari

Hartley Charlton:

Apple is looking at reworking Safari to directly support AI-powered search services, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports.

[…]

Cue said that searches on Safari dipped for the first time in April 2025—a change which he attributed to users switching to AI services. He added that he believes AI services such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude will eventually replace conventional search engines like Google. As a result, Apple will need to add them as options in Safari in the future. Cue said the company had already held discussions with Perplexity.

Juli Clover (Reddit):

“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it sounds,” Cue said. He was referring to the way that AI is likely to evolve in the coming years, and how wearables combined with intuitive AI functionality could replace traditional smartphones.

M.G. Siegler:

This comment is obviously going to get headlines on its own – Apple Exec: The iPhone is Doomed – but I read this more as someone making an almost off-handed comment about the theoretical future of AI. And actually, it seems more directed at the court to maybe take it easy on Google with these remedies – you know, such as maybe not ending their default search agreements. Because the market will do its thing in the end.

John Gruber (Primary Technology):

If they can pay, Apple will listen. And I don’t think it’s bullshit, at all, that traditional web search is actually going into decline now because of AI. Honestly at this point it would be weird if it weren’t.

But. Let’s say Apple would prefer for the current arrangement between Apple and Google to continue as is. But it’s under threat as a remedy in Google’s monopoly case. Is this not the perfect testimony?

Federico Viticci:

Perplexity’s iOS voice assistant isn’t using any “secret” tricks or hidden APIs: they’re simply integrating with existing frameworks and APIs that any third-party iOS developer can already work with. They’re leveraging EventKit for reminder/calendar event retrieval and creation; they’re using MapKit to load inline snippets of Apple Maps locations; they’re using Mail’s native compose sheet and Safari View Controller to let users send pre-filled emails or browse webpages manually; they’re integrating with MusicKit to play songs from Apple Music, provided that you have the Music app installed and an active subscription. Theoretically, there is nothing stopping Perplexity from rolling additional frameworks such as ShazamKit, Image Playground, WeatherKit, the clipboard, or even photo library access into their voice assistant. Perplexity hasn’t found a “loophole” to replicate Siri functionalities; they were just the first major AI company to do so.

Google (MacRumors):

We continue to see overall query growth in Search. That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms.

M.G. Siegler:

Given that Google’s stock fell 7.5% yesterday on the testimony of Apple exec Eddy Cue at the remedies portion of Google’s search antitrust trial, the company probably had to respond.

[…]

While there is no transcript of what Cue actually said, reading dozens of reports on the matter would seem to paint a pretty clear picture that he noted that search queries fell in the Safari browser for the first time ever last month. “That has never happened in 22 years,” is his direct quote many publications are citing.

So how do we square that with Google’s response above? In particular, the notion that: “We continue to see overall query growth in Search. That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms.”

To resolve the contradiction, it’s possible that Google users have switched to other browsers or that Safari searches are down in China, where Google isn’t available.

Previously:

iPhone 16 Bluetooth Issues With Toyota RAV4

Adam Engst:

Lauri returned her iPhone 16 Plus, replacing it with an iPhone 15 Plus. She was driven to such a seemingly nonsensical move by insurmountable problems getting the iPhone 16 Plus to pair via Bluetooth with her 2019 Toyota RAV4. The iPhone would initially pair with the RAV4 with no problem, but when she turned the car off and back on, the iPhone would connect and disconnect repeatedly. It continued that for a few minutes each time, sometimes managing to keep the connection and other times failing. Toggling Bluetooth off and back on sometimes helped, but not reliably.

[…]

On the other side of the equation, the Toyota technician told Lauri that this is a known issue between the iPhone 16 and the RAV4 in particular, and said that Apple would have to address the issue before Toyota could update its system.

Others have experienced similar problems when pairing an iPhone 16 with RAV4 models from 2016 and 2022. A Reddit thread identifies conflicts between the iPhone 16 and several other Toyota models that presumably share a similar head unit.

Note that this is when using Bluetooth audio, not CarPlay.

Previously:

Apple Appeals Epic Anti-Steering Injunction

Under the Radar (David Smith):

I maintain a sense of optimism that this situation could ultimately lead to a meaningful reset in the developer relationship. Maybe that is naive optimism but I think it is the best chance we’ve had in a while.

Bruce:

This situation could ultimately lead to a meaningful reset. But reading the Apple lawyers’ latest arguments is infuriating.

Tim Hardwick:

Apple has filed an emergency motion asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to pause key parts of a recent ruling that dramatically changes how the App Store operates, following a contempt finding in its long-running legal battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games.

In court documents filed Wednesday, Apple called the district court’s order “extraordinary” and argued it unlawfully forces the company to permanently give up control over “core aspects of its business operations.”

[…]

Apple is specifically seeking to halt two major provisions while its appeal moves forward: a ban on charging any commissions for purchases made through external links, and restrictions on Apple’s ability to set conditions for how those links appear in iOS apps.

Kevin Purdy:

A certificate (PDF) accompanying the emergency filing states that the order “fundamentally changes Apple’s business and creates destabilizing effects” for App Store customers.

The restrictions, “which will cost Apple substantial sums annually,” are not based on the company’s conduct, Apple claims, but “were imposed to punish Apple for purported non-compliance” with the 2021 injunction. In her ruling (PDF), Gonzalez Rogers described Apple as conducting an “obvious cover-up” and said that Apple “at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”

[…]

Apple argued in its emergency motion last night that its appeal would show that it complied with the 2021 injunction “by allowing iOS app developers to convey information to users about alternative purchase options.” Apple argues that the original injunction “says nothing about commissions or pricing,” nor about conditions for link placement and language.

John Gruber:

So 34 was the number in May last year. But did the number go up in any significant way since then? I was thinking about it this week, and I’ve not only never seen an app that used these link-outs, I’d never even heard about one that did.

[…]

But it really makes you wonder how anyone at Apple thought the court would see this plan as compliant.

Matt Stoller:

In its appeal of the ruling, Apple says that allowing developers to label their own buttons on the App Store is a violation of Apple’s First Amendment rights.

Sarah Perez:

The firm’s estimates indicate that U.S. App Store revenue from commissions more than doubled between 2020 and 2024. In 2020, Apple’s share of App Store commissions was approximately $4.76 billion, growing to over $10.1 billion by 2024.

[…]

In the report, Apple calculated the portion of an app’s total revenue that is facilitated by the App Store, even if the purchase was made elsewhere. For instance, if a user buys a subscription to Hulu on the web, but then spends 60% of their time streaming Hulu on Apple devices, Apple credits itself with facilitating 60% of that user’s spend.

John Gruber (Mastodon, Dithering):

Apple’s argument here might go along the lines of Ben Thompson’s theory (in a subscriber-only post last Friday) on the “Takings Clause” of the 5th Amendment.

Tripp Mickle:

Mr. Cook sided with Mr. Maestri, and Apple set out to justify that choice. It “manufactured” an independent economic study to legitimize its decision, a federal judge said in an angry ruling last week. It withheld thousands of documents under attorney-client privilege claims. And at least one of its executives lied on the witness stand.

The judge’s ruling, as well as witness testimony this year and company documents released on Thursday, shows the extraordinary measures that Apple took to keep every penny it collected in the App Store. The decision by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who heard the initial lawsuit brought by the video game company Epic Games in 2020, could cast a shadow over Apple’s business for years, weakening its credibility as legal scrutiny of its operations intensifies.

Ian Betteridge:

It is really hard to see how Tim Cook can remain as CEO of Apple on the back of this mess. Even if he hadn’t been directly involved with some of these decisions, the right call would be to resign. That he was the one taking them makes it even worse.

One of the most shocking things is that the estimated loss from implementing a link with no revenue was only about a billion dollars - a lot of money, but pocket change to a company the size of Apple.

For that, they have burned a huge amount of credibility with judges in the future, as well as taking a massive hit to their brand credibility – and losing control over how the App Store works in a pretty fundamental way.

And that, of course, leaves aside the lying under oath and creating fake reports to justify its prices! This is a company that feels out of control.

John Siracusa (Mastodon):

Despite making my living by criticizing Apple, I tend not to get caught up in the controversy of the moment. When Apple ruined its laptop keyboards, I wasn’t calling for Tim Cook’s head. I just wanted them to fix the keyboards. And they did (eventually).

But success hides problems, and even the best company can lose its way. To everything, there is a season.

As far as I’m concerned, the only truly mortal sin for Apple’s leadership is losing sight of the proper relationship between product virtue and financial success—and not just momentarily, but constitutionally, intransigently, for years. Sadly, I believe this has happened.

The preponderance of the evidence is undeniable. Too many times, in too many ways, over too many years, Apple has made decisions that do not make its products better, all in service of control, leverage, protection, profits—all in service of money.

[…]

Every new thing we learn about Apple’s internal deliberations surrounding these decisions only lends more weight to the conclusion that Apple has lost its north star. Or, rather, it has replaced it with a new, dark star. And time and again, we’ve learned that these decisions go all the way to the top.

Matt Birchler:

Like I said in that piece last year, I still think Apple makes a lot of great products that are best-in-class and I’ll continue enjoying for years to come, but the vibe has definitely shifted. I’ve been using Apple products since 1995, and Siracusa has been here at least a decade longer than me. Neither of us are prone to hyperbole “for the clicks”, so I think it’s notable when people like us are like, “hmm, things haven’t been like this before.” But like John, I don’t think all is lost.

Joan Westenberg:

It’s not the mistakes that matter. Apple has made them before. The Newton, MobileMe, the butterfly keyboard. What matters is the posture. A company once defined by joyful provocation—by thinking different—is now defined by its defensiveness. Its leadership acts not like inventors but like stewards of a status quo. They protect margins like relics. They fear dilution. They optimize at the expense of surprise.

Charles V believed the Church could not err. Apple believes its operating procedures cannot be wrong. Both relied on closed systems enforced by powerful institutions—canon law or App Store guidelines, pick your poison. Both found themselves increasingly out of step with the forces swirling around them.

Adam Engst:

More so than any other tech giant (Google’s fading “Don’t be evil” slogan notwithstanding), Apple has built its brand over the years around being a good corporate citizen. Apple has long espoused a commitment to user experience, privacy, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility, touting its attention to detail in product design, its sustainability efforts, and its focus on accessibility.

[…]

The problem here isn’t just recalcitrant legal compliance. It’s one thing for Apple to exert tight control over the App Store ecosystem in ways that legitimately serve users, such as by detecting and rejecting malicious apps. However, it’s difficult to see how users benefit when Apple charges high fees and restricts how developers can communicate. Those are just a few of the complaints developers have with the App Store, many of whom feel trapped in a system that prioritizes Apple’s profits over collaborative partnership.

[…]

I’m disappointed in Apple’s behavior throughout the Epic case. Rather than come off as truculent and money-grubbing, Apple could have—and still can—extend the culture of excellence and care that’s so evident in its hardware and interface design to the people who make the apps that power its devices.

John Gruber:

I think this is also why Phil Schiller has a different perspective on the App Store than Tim Cook or Luca Maestri. Schiller has been involved with developer relations at Apple for decades, since long before the iPhone even existed. In the mid-1990s, Schiller left Apple for a few years and was a senior executive at Macromedia, maker of then-essential design tools for the Mac. He knows that developers need to be treated as partners by Apple, that that’s the only way a platform can thrive. Games are different, but for all other apps, Apple should view developers as a precious resource to be cultivated, encouraged, and protected — not as a profit center to be squeezed. The only benefit from developers to Apple that Apple should be concerned with are the first-class apps those developers are creating to enrich and broaden Apple’s platforms. Especially apps that are exclusive to Apple’s platforms. (Why doesn’t Apple offer a lower App Store commission for platform-exclusive apps? What if the split were 70/30 for cross-platform apps but 90/10 for iOS/Mac-exclusive apps?)

Apple actually does the opposite: multi-platform apps get special treatment for payments.

Nilay Patel:

That’s the context for the other major theme here that you’ll pick up on in this conversation: Apple’s major shift toward digital services and whether that’s fundamentally changed the company’s culture. You see, as Apple kept selling newer and better iPhones, it simply ran out of people to sell them to. So, in order to keep growing revenue and keep Wall Street happy, it started squeezing more money from its existing customer base, including the very developers that put apps on the App Store.

[…]

All of that combined with Apple’s scale created a kind of hubris and, as you’ll hear Gruber say, a major blind spot for Apple that has pushed it toward these high-profile and public legal defeats that could reshape its business.

Previously:

Update (2025-06-06): Reuters (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected, Apple’s request to put the provisions on hold as the tech company appeals the judge’s order, which came in a long-running antitrust lawsuit brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.

John Voorhees:

This doesn’t mean Apple has no chance to win on appeal, but as the Ninth Circuit said quite bluntly in its order:

…we are not persuaded that a stay is appropriate.

And, given that the first factor the court decided was whether Apple is “likely to succeed on the merits,” things are not looking promising.

M.G. Siegler:

That will be up to another judge – actually, a set of three judges that would make up the Appellate Court – and if Apple were to lose that appeal, they could also appeal to the Supreme Court. But would the Supreme Court even hear such an argument?

John Gruber:

I get the feeling this injunction is here to stay.

Friday, May 9, 2025

Apple Acquires Mayday Labs

Joe Rossignol:

Apple acquired Canadian startup Mayday Labs in April 2024, according to a European Commission listing, spotted by French blog MacGeneration.

[…]

Mayday Labs founder Jeremy Bell confirmed that his company had been acquired in a since-deleted April 2024 blog post, but he did not mention Apple at that time.

[…]

Mayday Labs had developed an AI-powered calendar, task manager, and scheduling assistant for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The all-in-one app used AI to automatically schedule your events and tasks at ideal times, and it could learn your scheduling preferences and daily patterns over time to further optimize your calendar.

Previously:

The Macintosh Repository

Davo:

The Macintosh Repository is a community driven effort to preserve old software from the classic Mac OS era.

It has ~18k entries of software images from floppys & cds, scans, fonts, icons and everything in between.

The Macintosh Repository:

If you’re planning on running the treasures of the past you’ll find here on real old Macintosh hardware from the 90’s, you sir/madame, deserve to win an Internet for doing it THE ONLY CORRECT WAY! But for others, there’s QEMU, a PowerPC emulator capable of (slowly) running Mac OS X 10.5 down to Mac OS 9.1, SheepShaver, a fake PowerPC emulator capable of running Mac OS 9.0.4 down to Mac OS 7.5.2, Basilisk II, a 68040 emulator, capable of running the 68040 version of Mac OS 8.1 down to 7.0. Finally, for everything older than System 7, there’s Mini vMac II (which emulates 68020/color Macs) and Mini vMac which emulates the original B&W 68000 Macs.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-09): Matt Sephton:

Macintosh Repository paywall/request donations for the content they lifted pretty much wholesale from macintoshgarden.org

Mac Themes Garden

Damien Erambert (via Hacker News):

Mac Themes Garden is dedicated to showcasing schemes made for Kaleidoscope and celebrating the customization and expressiveness it enabled on Classic Mac OS.

[…]

What I call “recording” here involves taking “live” screenshots of the themes being used on a Mac OS 9.2 installation running in UTM and combing through each archive to properly record every scheme’s informations (author and release year).

This process is, to put it bluntly, a bit bonkers because it’s mostly manual, but I feel it is worth it.

See also: John Siracusa and GUI Junkie.

NSCache and LRUCache

Christian Tietze:

Is NSCache still a thing we like to use?

I’ve discussed this several times, but I don’t think I ever blogged about it. The problem I have with NSCache is that its eviction strategy is not defined, and it’s definitely not LRU. When I tried to use NSCache, it would destroy the performance of my app because I would fetch objects from the database, put them in the cache, and then find them immediately evicted, with the cache remaining full of older objects that I didn’t care about. I guess it could be useful as a threadsafe dictionary if you know that you won’t be exceeding the capacity. But often when I want a cache it’s because I need to limit the memory consumption, and in that situation NSCache just doesn’t work for me.

I ended up writing my own LRU cache, combining a Swift Dictionary with a linked list that tracks which keys were accessed most recently. Nick Lockwood made an open-source solution called LRUCache, converging on a similar design. (There were some interesting discussions in building it that have unfortunately been deleted.)

The main thing to be aware of if you’re writing your own is that if you let ARC deallocate your linked list nodes automatically it will explode. ARC uses recursion to follow the references, so if your list is too big it will overflow the stack. You can fix this by manually deleting list nodes using a loop. Or, if your list is only used by the cache, you can make the list pointers unowned and let the dictionary do the retaining.

Matthias Maurberger:

Recently, I needed to add caching to one of the iOS apps I’m working on. While researching a few possible ways how to go about this I came across a great article written by John Sundell (a pretty common occurrence when searching for Swift topics on the web, thanks John!). While the basic concept he describes in the article worked quite well for my needs, there was one major problem with the approach: NSCache will drop your objects like hot potatoes as soon as your app gets backgrounded.

[…]

So if you don’t want the system to evict all objects from your cache when your app gets backgrounded, make sure your objects implement the NSDiscardableContent protocol.

Previously:

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Optional Values in SwiftData Predicates

Fatbobman:

In the process of creating predicates for Core Data, the predicate expressions do not have a direct link to the type code. The properties used in these expressions correspond to those defined within the model editor (data model), and their “optional” characteristic does not align with the concept of optional types in Swift, but rather indicates whether the SQLite field can be NULL. This means that when a predicate expression involves a property that can be NULL and a non-NULL value, its optionality usually does not need to be considered.

[…]

However, the advent of SwiftData changes this scenario. Since the construction of SwiftData predicates is based on model code, the optional types therein truly embody the concept of optionals in Swift. This necessitates special attention to the handling of optional values when building predicates.

[…]

Although predicate construction in SwiftData is similar to writing a closure that returns a boolean value, developers can only use the operators and methods listed in the official documentation, which are converted into corresponding PredicateExpressions through macros.

He shows some examples of what you can do: somewhat surprisingly, introducing a new variable with if let works so long as you produce a single expression.

I really like optionals in general, but this is a case where I’m not sure we’re getting much value for the complexity. My recollection is that with Core Data the predicates just did the right thing without having to worry about this or to obscure the code with nil checks.

Even if a developer is certain a property is not nil, using ! to force unwrap in SwiftData predicates can still lead to runtime errors.

[…]

As of now (up to Xcode 15C500b), when the data model includes an optional to-many relationship, the methods mentioned above do not work. […] SwiftData encounters a runtime error when converting the predicate into SQL commands.

[…]

While there is no need for special handling in equality comparisons when an optional chain contains only one ?, situations involving multiple ?s in the chain, even though the code compiles and runs without errors, SwiftData cannot [prior to iOS 17.5] retrieve the correct results from the database through such a predicate.

Keith Harrison:

One other caveat. The #Predicate macro doesn’t handle accessing properties via a keypath.

[…]

The workaround is to introduce a temporary variable, outside of the macro, when constructing the predicate.

Previously:

curl Takes Action Against AI Bug Reports

Connor Jones:

Stenberg said the amount of time it takes project maintainers to triage each AI-assisted vulnerability report made via HackerOne, only for them to be deemed invalid, is tantamount to a DDoS attack on the project.

Citing a specific recent report that “pushed [him] over the limit,” Stenberg said via LinkedIn: “That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m putting my foot down on this craziness.”

From now on, every HackerOne report claiming to have found a bug in curl, a command-line tool and library for transferring data with URLs, must disclose whether AI was used to generate the submission.

If selected, the bug reporter can expect a barrage of follow-up questions demanding a stream of proof that the bug is genuine before the curl team spends time on verifying it.

Daniel Stenberg (Hacker News):

We still have not seen a single valid security report done with AI help.

AltStore PAL 2.2

Riley Testut:

Guess what — you can now self-publish your apps on AltStore PAL completely FREE!

Just connect your Apple Developer account with PAL and make an AltStore source. Then you can distribute notarized apps by simply uploading them to your web server like the good ol’ days 👌

AltStore:

The only major difference is that your apps will only be available in the EU.

[…]

You do not have to be located in or have a business in the EU to distribute your apps with AltStore PAL.

Brian Webster:

Welp, looks like today I get a taste of what it’s like not being able to ship an update to the App Store.

Blocked by a notarization outage, so not quite like the good old days.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-12): Manton Reece:

I don’t think I realized that you didn’t need to be in the EU to distribute apps via AltStore PAL. If Apple relaxes their notarization review in the future, I might use this to ship early iOS builds to the EU.

Pure Sweat Basketball v. Apple

Thomas Claburn:

A developer of mobile sports apps has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Apple, seeking to recover commissions iBiz allegedly collected in violation of a federal injunction intended to allow developers to use alternative payment systems.

The complaint [PDF], filed on May 2 in California Northern District Court by law firm Hagens Berman on behalf of Pure Sweat Basketball, seeks class-action status to represent other affected iOS developers.

[…]

“Had Apple complied with the injunction as issued, Apple’s own studies show that developers would have saved potentially billions in in-app purchase commissions,” the complaint says. “These are ill-gotten gains and Apple should not be permitted to retain them.”

Juli Clover:

Due to Apple’s anti-steering implementation, only 34 developers of 136,000 took advantage of the external payment link option before the terms were changed last week, and the lawsuit is seeking restitution for all U.S. developers who offered in-app purchases for non-zero prices between January 17, 2024 and when Apple fully complied with the original injunction.

Hajj.david:

Our app cannot use in app purchases because Apple does not offer metered billing, in addition IAP are limited to $999 whereas some of our clients are paying 3k-5k a month. So by every account IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for our business to use in app purchases. We fought with apple for MONTHS to even allow our app on the app store. Finally they agreed IF and only IF:

  1. We do not allow users to sign up in app, they have to sign up from our website.
  2. We DO NOT LINK our website ANYWHERE within the app
  3. We cannot allow users to manage their license (cancel, change, etc) within the app NOR can we send them a link to show them WHERE to do this.

This forced us to have to call customers or have them call us to resolve super simple things like changing a credit card. Apple’s rules were ridiculous, abusive (imagine taking 30% of 5k!) and to add further insult to injury Apple took FORTY-FIVE days to pay out. Stripe pays in 1-3 business days and takes 3%, and they have a better built in SDK that Apple.

Previously:

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Free With In-App Purchase Is a Sham

Jeff Johnson:

The problem is that what Apple means here by “free” as opposed to “paid” is simply that you don’t have to pay before downloading the app, but Apple’s counterintuitive definition tends to obscure what is most important to consumers: how much you have to pay to use the app. The range of allowed use can vary drastically among apps that are free with IAP. Some apps can be used forever for free with no apparent limitations, and the IAP merely unlocks bonus content or features. Some can be used for free in “reader” mode, with the ability to open and read documents, while an IAP is required to edit and/or sync documents. Some apps are free to use fully for only a limited time; in other words, they have a time-limited free trial. At the end of the trial, various outcomes are possible. Time-limited trials are especially popular with auto-renewing subscription apps, which start charging you automatically at the end of the trial. And ironically, some so-called “free” apps don’t allow any use at all unless you first pay the IAP.

At this point, I think the way the store represents this information is obscuring more than it’s helping.

You might be shocked to learn that the window is actually floating. That is, it floats above and covers every other window on the Mac, even if you switch to a different app. And Apple approved this. You can close the floating window, but that quits the app.

By default, the lifetime $39.99 license is selected. It’s labeled “Best choice - no subscription”. The 3 day free trial is available only if you select the $19.99 yearly subscription option. The subtitle of the subscription option says, “Only $5.00/month”, the math of which is way off and would add up to $60 per year if accurate. I don’t know how that window got approved by Apple.

Apple is so picky about payment screens in some cases, but then it approves stuff like this.

Apple is supposed to protect users by making refunds and subscription cancelations easy, but Apple doesn’t actually make it as clear and easy as claimed. Why aren’t there refund and cancel buttons directly on the app’s product page? Such buttons could be right above the Ratings & Reviews section! For that matter, why don’t app developers have to ability to offer refunds directly to customers?

I recently had two cases where customers encountered problems related to Apple’s Bluetooth API and asked Apple for refunds. Even though the purchases were recent, Apple refused and told them to contact the developer instead—even though we can’t offer refunds. Luckily, I was able to work around the bug.

Previously:

External Payments From the Patreon App

Sarah Perez:

Creator platform Patreon has rolled out an updated version of its app that now allows users to make purchases via the web, in the wake of the Apple-Epic court ruling that forced Apple to allow app developers to include links to alternative forms of payment without being subject to Apple’s commission.

Previously, on version 125.4.1 of Patreon’s iOS app, users who wanted to subscribe to a creator’s membership plan would have to do so using Apple’s in-app purchases.

[…]

The option to use Apple’s own in-app purchases method, meanwhile, is shown only in very small text below the larger, bold “Join” button.

Jess Weatherbed:

The new Patreon web payment option supports Apple Pay, credit cards, Venmo, and PayPal. The alternative checkout options are currently limited to fans purchasing new memberships and creators using the subscription billing model, which charges fans based on their sign-up date, according to Patreon. The company is working to include alternative checkout options for one-time payments “in a future update.”

Matt Birchler:

This post from last year remains relevant today. Apple’s logic around “safety and security” for allowed payment methods was:

- it’s safe enough to enter your credit card in an app to buy physical goods

- it’s safe enough to enter you card into an app to buy digital goods you enjoy on other devices

- it’s unsafe to enter your card in an app to buy digital goods you enjoy on that device

Not entering your card info and just using Apple Pay: also not allowed.

Via Nick Heer:

This nonsense remains true outside the U.S. and the other regions that have mandated, to varying degrees, a revision to Apple’s payment terms. It makes no sense at all — but, of course, nothing about this really does. It is all reverse justification — a way for Apple to absorb a slice of an economy it feels it is owed for little reason other than because.

Jeff Johnson:

It’s nonsensical!

If a purchase occurs in Safari—which is Apple’s app—then Apple is NOT owed a cut, but if a purchase is made in Amazon’s app, then Apple IS owed a cut???

Previously:

Update (2025-05-23): Jeff Johnson:

Patreon’s App Store listing inexplicably omits its In-App Purchases.

This is unlike any other app I’ve seen. You don’t see the IAP until you install it.

Fortnite Coming Back to the App Store?

Juli Clover:

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said over the weekend (via The Verge) that Epic will use its Epic Games Sweden account to submit Fortnite to the App Store in the U.S. Apparently, Sweeney has spoken to Apple about the issue, and based on his wording, it sounds like Apple could allow the plan, but he did not say that he has explicit approval from Apple.

Tim Sweeney (last week):

We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.

Tim Sweeney:

Not Monday or Tuesday. Beyond that, we’re working as hard as possible and aren’t certain what day it will be ready.

John Gruber:

If Apple were going to allow Fortnite back into the App Store they could have done so at any point in the last four years. And there’s nothing, not a word, in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’s decision last week that says Apple needs to reinstate Epic Games. I think Apple just stays the course and Fortnite remains persona non grata as far as the App Store is concerned.

Juli Clover:

It has cost Epic Games more than $100 million to challenge Apple’s App Store rules in the ongoing Apple vs. Epic Games legal battle, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said today in an interview with Business Insider.

Sweeney said that Epic Games has paid “legal bills” in excess of $100 million, but that the dispute has cost the company a lot more.

But if you look at lost revenue, that’s another story. We can’t predict exactly how much we would have made on iOS, but in the two years that we were on the platform, Fortnite had made about $300 million on iOS. So you could have projected hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue as a result of the fight.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-12): Juli Clover (CNBC):

As promised, Epic Games today submitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store, and if approved by Apple, it will mark the first time that the Fortnite app has been available in the United States since 2020.

[…]

Epic Games’ U.S. developer account has been banned since the initial Apple vs. Epic Games battle in 2020, so Epic Games is using the developer account that it established in Sweden to submit Fortnite to the App Store. Epic Games created a Swedish App Store account last year in order to create an Epic Games app marketplace in the European Union, as allowed by the Digital Markets Act.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that the company has “conversed” with Apple about the plan, and that Apple is aware that Epic Games is submitting Fortnite using the Epic Games Sweden subsidiary that it established for the EU. Sweeney has not confirmed whether Apple said that’s okay, and it’s not clear if Apple will approve the App Store submission.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

I too asked Apple for comment on this earlier in the week, and they had nothing to state. Maybe Apple will just allow this. I don’t know. But if I were a betting man, I’d wager that Apple does not allow Fortnite back. That last week’s injunction was a big loss for Apple doesn’t make it a win for Epic. If all were forgiven or forgotten, Epic wouldn’t need to submit this through their Swedish subsidiary, which has an Apple developer account only because the EU forced Apple to grant them one.

Jeff Johnson:

I’m sad to say that I continue to think Gruber is right that Apple doesn’t need to and indeed won’t let Fortnite return to the App Store.

Attached are some key passages from the court ruling. It affirms that Epic was guilty of breach of contract, and moreover that Epic’s standing in the case depends on being an industry competitor and not on having apps in the App Store.

I remain confused about how the Swedish subsidiary fits into this. On the one hand, it’s obviously still controlled by Epic, the company that Apple banned, and the courts said that was OK. On the other hand, given that the account exists and already has another app approved, what would be the legal rationale for rejecting Fortnite if it follows the guidelines? Does it come down to whether the EU wants to stand up for the rights of one of its companies to submit apps to the US store?

Francisco Tolmasky:

Apple has personal beef with Epic so they won’t let you play one of the most popular games on Earth on their devices that you spent thousands of dollars on. […] An Apple that cared about customer experience would be working towards a resolution that gets the most popular game on Earth back on their platforms.

Reminder that Epic’s stunt didn’t endanger customers in any way. Rather, it demonstrated that a nefarious developer could trivially get through App Review and cause actual harm. And, of course, the real sin was bypassing the 30%, which was a problem for Apple but actually good for customers (who could still choose IAP instead of a discount if they wanted). What Uber did was worse, and not only did Apple not ban them, but it gave them a special entitlement to record the user’s screen.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-15): Tim Sweeney:

We need to release a weekly Fortnite update with new content this Friday, and all platforms must update simultaneously. So we have pulled the previous Fortnite version submitted to Apple App Review last Friday, and we have submitted a new version for review.

This another way of saying that, 5 days after submission, Apple had yet to approve or reject the app.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

So Apple is now facing a situation where a ‘European company’ (Epic’s EU subsidiary) is submitting a new app that doesn’t break any current rules, from an upstanding dev account, and Apple’s previous rules under which their parent company was banned for infraction were outright illegal at the time. This is happening with 30 days until EU starts enforcing the DMA re anti steering.

[…]

But each week that goes by that Epic has to pull and resubmit is another piece of evidence for lawmakers, quantifiable ‘damage’ to account for, and proof that Apple is going to continue playing chicken until regulation closes in on them (again, most likely in the EU).

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Remember when Apple tried to tell the judge that they would be happy to welcome Epic back to the App Store once the court case was over and the issue adjudicated? I do, because I read the transcripts and listened to the hearings.

I guess technically it’s not over yet because Apple has appealed. On the other hand, Apple made the offer, without the condition of the court case being over, after the legal battle had already begun. So it seems like it was never a serious offer and only meant to sway public opinion.

Previously:

iOS 19 More Like macOS?

Joe Rossignol:

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman today said that iPadOS 19 will be “more like macOS.”

Gurman said that iPadOS 19 will be “more like a Mac” in three ways:

  • Improved productivity
  • Improved multitasking
  • Improved app window management

Previous discussion of the rumored redesign had focused on fears of macOS becoming more like iOS or iOS becoming more like visionOS, but this sounds more promising.

Jason Snell:

This report is intriguing, but frustratingly vague. Apple wanting to tinker with iPad multitasking and app window management is dog-bites-man stuff at this point.

Stephen Hackett:

That certainly sounds like what our anonymous commenter was describing, and while it would be great for the iPad to gain a more Mac-like windowing system, I don’t think the people who want macOS on their iPads will look at iPadOS 19 and be truly satisfied.

Window management doesn’t address the core issue that has haunted the iPad since the beginning.

Joe Rossignol:

When an iPad running iPadOS 19 is connected to a Magic Keyboard, a macOS-like menu bar will appear on the screen, according to the leaker Majin Bu.

That makes sense.

Joe Rossignol:

A leaker known as Majin Bu today claimed that iOS 19 will enable support for at least a limited version of Stage Manager on iPhone models with a USB-C port.

Ryan Christoffel:

According to Jon Prosser, there’s a change coming that will impact users of large iPhones especially.

iOS 19 will reportedly move apps’ search bar to the bottom of the app—a big change from its current location.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-08): John Gruber:

One of the reasons why Apple’s own apps are always better — and more capable — on MacOS than on iOS or iPad is that they’ve got more commands, better organized, because there’s a menu bar. Apple Notes, Apple Mail, the whole iWork suite — they’re all better on Mac, and they all have way more features on the Mac.

Reading a menu is also far more humane than scrutinizing icons.

[…]

I know iPadOS today already supports a menu-bar-like HUD thing when you have a keyboard attached and hold down the Command key. I find that to be far less usable and far more distracting than a Mac-style menu bar. There’s a reason the Mac only shows you one menu at a time. Focus.

[…]

Why shouldn’t users be able to access all menu commands when they’re just using the iPad via touch? It’s unnecessarily restrictive that the full list of commands in an app is only available when a keyboard is attached — especially for a device that many users never attach a keyboard to.

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

External Purchasing From the Kindle App

Andrew Liszewski:

Contrary to prior limitations, there is now a prominent orange “Get book” button on Kindle app’s book listings.

[…]

Before today’s updates, buying books wasn’t a feature you’d find in the Kindle mobile app following app store rule changes Apple implemented in 2011 that required developers to remove links or buttons leading to alternate ways to make purchases. You could search for books that offered samples for download, add them to a shopping list, and read titles you already own, but you couldn’t actually buy titles through the Kindle or Amazon app, or even see their prices.

Hartley Charlton:

This is the first time since the enforcement of Apple’s in-app purchasing restrictions that Kindle users on iOS have had a direct route from the app to Amazon’s store. Previously, the lack of in-app purchasing or even external linking meant users had to manually search for titles in a separate browser session.

I’ve discussed the iOS-Kindle timeline before, but as a refresher: Apple used to allow non-IAP purchasing directly within the Kindle app, with no fees, even though Tim Cook told Congress that, “since the App Store debuted, we have never raised the commission or added a single fee.” After all these years and court hearings, the situation is still a regression because Apple no longer allows the purchase to happen within the app.

Dan Moren:

Honestly, I’m not sure I ever thought I’d see the day. I confirmed this for myself: clicking the Get Book link takes you out to Safari to the page for the book on Amazon’s site. No muss, no fuss.

Notably, this is the Kindle app, not the Amazon app. In the latter, you still—for the moment—see a note that “this app does not support purchasing of this content.” I’m intrigued as to why Amazon chose to do one but not the other—I rarely open the Kindle app unless I already have a book I’m reading; it’s the Amazon app I turn to for shopping.

Out of curiosity, I checked Kobo’s app as well, which acts as both the reader and storefront for that site, and there’s now a Get Book link there as well, though it pops up a separate panel and shows Apple’s (now prohibited) scare screen about leaving the app and going to an external website.

Ruffin Bailey:

Kindle iOS kicked me to Safari, which I keep in private mode, and the “Buy with one click” button is activated.

Okay, well shucks. Upon further review, apparently I don’t usually pay much attention to that button, because it’s always active, even if you’re not logged in. Click it and it asks you to sign in.

But I wouldn’t expect that to last long. Right now it looks like Amazon is only adding ref_=rekindleDP&nodl=0 to the URL, but they could add a unique, one-use GUID to the link and, with only a little risk to themselves (oh no! we gave away 200k worth of bytes to the wrong person!), make the button “live” immediately.

Adding a one-use, unique “buy now token” would make it easier to buy using Kindle than Apple’s own Books.

John Voorhees:

I expect other companies will follow Amazon and Spotify’s leads in the coming weeks. Although Apple has appealed Judge Gonzalez Rodgers’ contempt order, the Judge declined to stay its enforcement during the appeals process. It’s always possible an appeal could force Amazon and others to undo changes like this, but I think a more likely outcome is that an appellate court allows Apple to charge a fee where Judge Gonzalez Rodgers wasn’t – one that’s lower than the 27% that got Apple into trouble in the first place.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-07): See also: Hacker News.

M.G. Siegler:

It sounds like I’m making fun of Amazon, but really, I’m making fun of Apple. Because while Amazon did make a choice not to include such a button in their app, Apple really gave them no choice. Given the agency model used in this particular category, there was simply no way for Amazon to make the economics work. Even raising prices would just send more money to the publishers — and to Apple.

[…]

Apple should obviously — obviously — have made the change that Judge Gonzalez Rodgers forced upon them years ago. But why would they? There was money to be made and there was no indication that such stupidity from a pure product perspective was harming iPhone sales.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

But really, this whole situation with e-books has been the best argument against Apple’s App Store policies for at least the last 15 years. […] Apple’s App Store policies therefore make it impossible for a third-party bookseller to sell e-books and make even a penny of profit.

[…]

Apple’s obstinance on this has created nothing but friction, confusion, and hassle for users for 15 years. It makes no sense for anyone.

[…]

But at some point Apple should have just considered their own users. If their users are using the Kindle app looking to buy Kindle e-books on iOS devices, Apple should have just let it happen on the web — and used that as motivation to make Apple Books better so that maybe more users would prefer it to the Kindle ecosystem. What’s the word? Oh yeah ... competed.

PayPal Contactless iPhone Payments

Juli Clover:

PayPal today announced that it is planning to debut contactless payments in Germany, allowing German iPhone users to make tap-to-pay purchases in stores using their PayPal accounts.

PayPal is able to offer this feature because Europe’s Digital Markets Act has forced Apple to open up the NFC chip in its devices to third-party apps. NFC payments are available in apps without the need for Apple Pay or the Wallet app, allowing third-party payment services and banks to offer their own tap-to-pay solutions on Apple devices.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-15): Juli Clover:

German iPhone users now appear to be able to use the feature. According to German site iPhone Ticker, some PayPal customers in Germany have access to PayPal as an alternative to Apple Pay.

Max Seelemann:

Tried this today. It works. The UI is still inferior. (E.g. you always get the NFC modal overlay)

Retrospective on Reverse-Engineering a Tiger Bug

Rosyna Keller (Mastodon, tweet):

At the time, Apple only allowlisted specific menu extras by class name (checked in -[SUISStartupObject _canLoadClass:]). Any attempt to load a menu extra that advertised a different class name in its Info.plist’s NSPrincipalClass entry would fail. Menu extras were first-class citizens. You could hold the Command (⌘) key down to move or quit them. They loaded automatically and needed no backing application. This sent lots of developers looking for workarounds to Apple’s allowlist, as they wanted these features for their own menus.

Some developers would steal one of the allowlisted class names for their menu extra plugin. This was unwise. The Objective-C runtime only allowed one class instance with a specific name to be loaded at a time. When it found duplicates, the one it chose was an implementation detail that could cause unexpected crashes. Favorite choices of class names to hijack included AppleVerizonExtra or IrDAExtra, i.e., something a user isn’t likely to have enabled. In the rare case someone did enable these, or if more than one developer chose to steal the same class name, all hell could break loose.

This was the impetus for Menu Extra Enabler. It was an old-style InputManager plugin that automatically loaded into SystemUIServer when installed and overrode the -[SUISStartupObject _canLoadClass:] instance method to return YES unregardless of what class name was used for the menu extra’s principal class.

[…]

I’m desperately looking for any assistance that can be provided. Specifically, I need some temporary help to afford the health insurance and rent. […] My ultimate goal is to find some contracting work for macOS/iOS where I can use my reverse engineering and bug fixing/finding/working around skills. I miss figuring out how things work, something I could do in spades while working on macOS Notarization at Apple.

Previously:

Sharon Zardetto Aker, RIP

Adam Engst:

Sharon started writing professionally about the Macintosh at its inception in 1984, with articles in the earliest issues of Macworld and the premiere issue of MacUser. She contributed to The Macintosh Bible for its second edition in 1989, served as the lead author/editor for the third edition in 1991, and reprised that role for the 1,000-page seventh edition in 1998. In between, she also wrote The Macintosh Companion: The Basics and Beyond, collaborated on two editions of The PowerBook Companion with her husband Rich Wolfson, edited The Macintosh Dictionary, and penned The Mac Almanac. Throughout the 2000s, she continued as a columnist for Mac magazines, ultimately writing nearly a thousand articles, including one in the final print issue of Macworld.

Although mentions of Sharon in TidBITS date back to when I first read The PowerBook Companion (see “Travels with Charley,” 16 November 1992), we began working together around 2006, when she wrote Take Control of Fonts in Mac OS X and its companion volume, Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X. She thrived as a Take Control author, writing books about Safari, iBooks, and Numbers, and contributing TidBITS articles on similar topics.

[…]

I’ve never met anyone as insatiably curious and communicative about software as Sharon. She didn’t just want to know how an app worked; she wanted to tell everyone about it. She couldn’t open an app without poking at every menu and every button, and then asking, “What happens if you hold down the Option key while…?” Sharon never met a keyboard shortcut she didn’t like, and she lived to unearth those that didn’t reveal themselves in the interface or the app’s manual.

Previously:

Monday, May 5, 2025

MailMaven Public Beta

Scott Morrison:

For a number of years we have been working on MailMaven: A new macOS email client that picks up where we left off after Apple killed Mail Plugins.

Today we are opening access to a wider audience than our small group of private beta testers.

Apple made it impossible for MailTags (and SmallCubed’s other plug-ins) to keep working with Mail, and the Mail extensions API remains quite limited, so they wrote a whole new mail client. It’s $75 for one year of updates, with the first year currently discounted to $45 and more discounts if you had already purchased their other products. SpamSieve integration is built-in, and MailMaven really lets you customize how spam messages are handled.

Joe Kissell:

Through six editions of Take Control of Apple Mail, the current title, I said that I used Mail because—and this qualification is crucial—with a long list of customizations and, in particular, the addition of the MailSuite plugin from SmallCubed, it was the best Mac email client I could find (and I’ve tried pretty much all of them). MailSuite added essential filing, automation, and tagging features that made Mail bearable. On its own, however, Mail is so-so at best, and it has been getting progressively worse for a number of years.

[…]

If you used Mail along with the MailSuite plugin in the past, you can picture that combination as a very rough approximation of MailMaven. If you’re unfamiliar with MailSuite, here’s a quick summary of some of its main features that have migrated into MailMaven[…]

[…]

If you’re the sort of person who loves tweaking things and squeals with delight every time you uncover another checkbox in Settings, you’ll be thrilled. Every aspect of the windows and message display, every keyboard shortcut, tweaky attachment options, and even the color, shape, and position of the unread message badge on the icon can be adjusted to your heart’s content.

However, AppleScript support is currently very limited. You cannot get the selected messages, and most of the message properties don’t work.

One of the interesting design decisions is that searching happens in a separate window rather than just filtering what’s displayed in the main window. This was more common pre-iTunes. MailMaven can automatically set the search scope based on what you were looking at, so this doesn’t really add any extra steps. On the plus side, I like being able to easily open multiple searches at once and to adjust the view options to explore the search results without disturbing the view settings for the main window. On the other hand, sometimes it would be handy to be able to just quickly filter the current display in situ [Update: This feature already exists.].

(Apple Mail does make it easy to create new viewer windows, which would seem to offer the best of both worlds. But it’s awkward because new windows don’t retain the context of which mailboxes you had selected. Recent versions of Mail are kind of the worst of both worlds because starting a new search in the existing window no longer filters the current mailbox, either—it jumps you to an All Mailboxes view.)

Scott Morrison:

We’ve toyed with the taglines:an email client for people who remember what email clients are supposed to be like.

An email client for people who think email client should be email clients.

In other words words, it’s not trying to reinvent e-mail, you don’t give their server access to your mail, and they’re not sprinkling AI everywhere. I also appreciate the old school release notes that actually tell you what the changes were. They are also open about the known issues and roadmap.

Previously:

Hyperspace 1.3

John Siracusa:

The first release of Hyperspace mitigated these risks, in part, by entirely avoiding certain files and file system locations. I knew lifting these limitations would be a common request from potential customers. My plan was to launch 1.0 with the safest possible feature set, then slowly expand the app’s capabilities until all these intentional 1.0 limitations were gone.

With the release of Hyperspace 1.3 earlier this week, I have accomplished that goal.

[…]

Apple’s APIs for wrangling cloud-backed files mostly seem to work, with only a few oddities. And if Hyperspace can’t get an affirmative assurance from those APIs that a file is a valid candidate for reclamation, it will err on the side of caution and skip the file instead.

[…]

There’s more to come, including user interface improvements and an attempt to overcome some of the limitations of sandboxing, potentially allowing Hyperspace to reclaim space across more than one user account.

The main new feature in 1.3 is support for Library folders, where the files are likely to be in use by running apps but also (surprisingly to me) are likely to be duplicates. It also improves handling of files that change in the middle of a scan.

Previously:

Folder Preview 1.6

Anybox:

Quick look extension for folders.

[…]

USD$1.99 to get the app and all of it.

[…]

Preview ZIP files as folders.

It does what it says on the tin. This is a new-style Quick Look extension, so it uses a real outline view and a real path bar, rather than trying to make HTML look-alikes, as was necessary with the old Quick Look generator system.

It works not only in Finder’s sidebar and Quick Look inspector window, but also in other apps that support Quick Look previews. In addition to archives of my own files, I store the original archives of all the software that I download in EagleFiler, for searching and verification purposes. The Folder Preview extension makes it possible to look inside those archives from the main EagleFiler window without having to expand them first. The Folder Preview app, which houses the extension, lets you configure view options: icon size, showing hidden files, and the preview depth (for performance reasons). It’s a bit frustrating that the previews are not keyboard-navigable. I assume this is due to limitations of Quick Look.

Trying out Folder Preview highlighted some other shortcomings of the current Quick Look system. First, there doesn’t seem to be a way to handle conflicts. I have BetterZip’s Quick Look extension installed alongside Folder Preview. It supports more archive formats than Folder Preview, but I prefer Folder Preview for ZIP archives. However, macOS forces me to choose. If I enable BetterZip for other file types, it will override Folder Preview for ZIP archives.

There are also a variety of problems with using System Settings to manage Quick Look extensions:

Previously:

Xcode + Claude

Juli Clover:

Apple is working with Anthropic on an updated version of Xcode that will support AI code writing, editing, and testing, reports Bloomberg. Anthropic is best known for its “Claude” large language model and chatbot that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Claude is well-known for its coding capabilities, beating out other LLMs on programming tasks.

The new version of Xcode integrates the Claude Sonnet model, and Apple is slowly rolling it out internally for employees to use.

Peter Steinberger:

Wrote a nice Mac menu bar app complete with CI in ~3h vibe coding. Claude is currently checking CI and fixing itself.

Yeah lies, ended up working all day on it and making it wayyyy better. The last 5% always take as long as the first 95%.

Previously:

Friday, May 2, 2025

App Review Guidelines Updated for Epic Anti-Steering

Apple (e-mail, Hacker News):

The App Review Guidelines have been updated for compliance with a United States court decision regarding buttons, external links, and other calls to action in apps. These changes affect apps distributed on the United States storefront of the App Store, and are as follows:

3.1.1: Apps on the United States storefront are not prohibited from including buttons, external links, or other calls to action when allowing users to browse NFT collections owned by others.

3.1.1(a): On the United States storefront, there is no prohibition on an app including buttons, external links, or other calls to action, and no entitlement is required to do so.

3.1.3: The prohibition on encouraging users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase does not apply on the United States storefront.

3.1.3(a): The External Link Account entitlement is not required for apps on the United States storefront to include buttons, external links, or other calls to action.

I’m still not really sure what this all means, but it seems to be in line with what I suggested yesterday: it’s US-only, and there are still many places where you have to use IAP. External links are allowed for digital content and services. I take this to mean not apps themselves or feature upgrades. (The exception is that if you support Android or Windows and track the user via an account, Apple lets you avoid its fees by unlocking via that account.) So I think it’s not a big change for most indie developers, but it is potentially a big deal for Apple because most of the App Store (and thus services) revenue comes from cross-platform game content. (On the other hand, maybe a lot of the sketchy purchases wouldn’t happen without IAP, so Apple will keep that revenue.) It’s not clear to me whether Kindle and Patreon are allowed if they don’t also support IAP.

Here are some parts of the App Review Guidelines that have not changed (emphasis added):

If we can’t understand how your app works or your in-app purchases aren’t immediately obvious, it will delay your review and may trigger a rejection.

[…]

3.1.1 In-App Purchase: If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency wallets, etc.

[…]

3.1.1(a) Link to Other Purchase Methods: Developers may apply for entitlements to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase digital content or services.

[…]

3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services: Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired in your app on other platforms or your web site, including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app.

[…]

3.1.3(d) Person-to-Person Services: If your app enables the purchase of real-time person-to-person services between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training), you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments. One-to-few and one-to-many real-time services must use in-app purchase.

[…]

3.1.3(g) […] Digital purchases for content that is experienced or consumed in an app, including buying advertisements to display in the same app (such as sales of “boosts” for posts in a social media app) must use in-app purchase.

[…]

3.1.4 […] App features that work in combination with an approved physical product (such as a toy) on an optional basis may unlock functionality without using in-app purchase, provided that an in-app purchase option is available as well.

[…]

3.2.2 Unacceptable (i) Creating an interface for displaying third-party apps, extensions, or plug-ins similar to the App Store or as a general-interest collection.

Graham Dawson:

But note still not even the slightest largess from Apple - US storefront only. So additional complexity and hence disincentive for the vast majority of us who of course sell worldwide.

Peter N Lewis:

They are really going to fight this until the last drop of developer blood is spilled…

Teflo:

How are they going to differentiate between storefronts? Are they going to ask for separate IPA’s? Are they going to have it where it’s a feature flag based on region? Is it going to be up to the app developer?

Ryan Jones:

At least how this is written right now, it seeeeems like there is no mandate to link out.

  • in other words, a Stripe Apple Pay button can be directly in the app
  • or the entire paywall could be a webview, with the button right there in it

John Gruber disagrees (Mastodon):

This does not mean apps can now use alternative payment processing in-app. It doesn’t even mean apps are no longer required to offer Apple’s IAP in-app for purchases and subscriptions. All it means is that apps (in the US for now, but Apple really ought to make this worldwide, but I suspect Tim Cook wants to fight this on appeal in federal court) are free to inform users about offers available on the web, and to link to those offers on the web. Those links must open outside the app, in the user’s default web browser.

The guidelines are not very clear. One interpretation is that you still need to use the ExternalLinkAccount API; the only difference is that it’s not gated by an entitlement. But I don’t think it can be that simple because that API relies on a single predefined URL in the Info.plist, which Judge Gonzalez Rogers found to be too restrictive. Another interpretation is that the API associated with the entitlement is what’s no longer required; you can just use the regular URL APIs. Guideline 3.1.1 would seem to still prohibit non-IAP purchasing within a Web view in the app.

Khaos Tian:

lol this doesn’t make any sense. The only reason the link out requirement was there is to create friction to minimize revenue impact… now the friction is gone, if they keep that, it’s only about making iOS customer experience worse, which would be weird.

It’s not weird: it’s maintaining as much friction as legally allowed, which has been the goal all along.

Rik Haandrikman:

Bookmark that thread – it’s becoming the running logbook of clarifications and edge-case discoveries as the news settles

[…]

Relying less on Apple’s IAP can simplify development and testing. You won’t need to deal with Apple’s sometimes laggy review process for price changes or new IAP products, since web purchases can be adjusted server-side. Bug fixes or improvements to your external purchase flow can be deployed instantly on the web.

If you support countries other than the US, it complicates development because now you have two parallel systems to maintain and test.

John Voorhees:

These moves by big players aren’t surprising, and I’m sure we’ll see more companies explore ways to take advantage of Wednesday’s ruling. Over time, though, the more interesting consequence of Wednesday’s ruling will be whether and how it changes the business models of indie developers and other small businesses that offer apps.

Jeff Johnson:

My current plans are to sit tight and see how the App Store changes play out.

I doubt that Apple would win on appeal, but who knows. Also, my business model is upfront paid, which would mean I’d have to go through the ordeal of switching to IAP in order to take advantage of the new App Store rules.

It’s not clear that I’d even benefit, because I’m already in the small developer program with the lower 15% fee.

Greg Pierce:

My initial thought for indies on App Store Guideline changes:

Don’t rush into anything. Watch the market and give it six months to shake out tweaks to the guidelines and App Review process, and for possible other payment options to stabilize their integrations, options, and fees.

If you jump on something, you may just create a lot of headaches and migration work in the coming months that distracts from delivering value to your customers.

Previously:

Apple’s Q2 2025 Results

Apple (transcript, MacRumors):

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $95.4 billion, up 5 percent year over year, and quarterly diluted earnings per share of $1.65, up 8 percent year over year.

[…]

The board of directors has also authorized an additional program to repurchase up to $100 billion of the Company’s common stock.

Jason Snell:

Revenue was $95.4 billion, up 5% versus the year-ago quarter. Mac revenue was up 7%, iPad revenue up 15%, iPhone revenue up 2%, and Services revenue up 12%. The Wearables/Home/Accessories category was down 5%.

Jason Snell:

Things are weird in Apple-land. Legal judgments are piling up in unexpectedly bad ways. Tariffs threaten large parts of Apple’s business. This year’s banner Apple Intelligence features got delayed indefinitely.

[…]

Speaking of doldrums: iPhone revenue was up 2%, and that qualifies as good news, given that it was down one percent last quarter. But the truth is that iPhone revenue has been essentially flat for the last three years. Not since fiscal 2021 has there been multiple quarters of double-digit growth. To be sure, the iPhone is still a money machine—it’s generated $200 billion in revenue while spending the last year in the doldrums. But if you’re a growth-obsessed investor, it’s a little troubling.

Benjamin Mayo:

In fact, Apple recorded a new all-time high for gross margin on services this quarter, at 75.7%. That figure is based on costs of $6.46 billion on sales of $26.64 billion.

[…]

The Services business includes revenues from things like iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, AppleCare, and more. However, a big chunk is also derived from Apple’s cut of App Store in-app purchases, which ranges from 15-30% on digital goods purchases and subscriptions.

It also includes Google’s TAC payments for searches initiated in Safari.

Jeff Johnson:

Show me a retail store with a 76% gross margin.

Otherwise, people can STFU about App Store being like a retail store.

John Gruber:

No one even asked about the material impact of Apple being required to immediately change the App Store guidelines (in the US) to allow unfettered link-outs to the default web browser to make purchases and sign up for subscriptions. You’d think that would be a question.

Previously:

MacUpdater for Sale

CoreCode (via Jeff Johnson):

CoreCode Ltd., the developer behind the award-winning MacUpdater software, today announced that it will be discontinuing active development of MacUpdater after January 1, 2026. With the core technical challenges of the macOS app-updating space fully solved, CoreCode is now inviting interested parties to either license the underlying technology or acquire the entire MacUpdater project.

[…]

Over the past 8 years, MacUpdater has become a trusted solution for tens of thousands of users, enabling seamless updates for over 6,700 macOS applications. However, despite strong user loyalty and technical excellence, CoreCode has decided to wind down the project due to a lack of sustainable monetization under a non-subscription model.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-05): IwuvNikoNiko:

I wish they had charged $1 a month or $10 a year sub. I would’ve subscribed easily for the amount of time this app saves me.

[…]

Similar thing happened with Windows (SUMo) and there’s been no replacement other than using softpedia to get RSS updates for updated software. Unfortunately they don’t support Mac apps, so we’re screwed.

See also: Hacker News.

Update (2025-05-08): See also: TidBITS-Talk.

YouTube at 20

Alex Weprin:

Twenty years ago today, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded a 19 second video titled “Me at the zoo” to the platform. As anyone who follows YouTube knows, it was the first video hosted by the platform.

On its 20th anniversary, YouTube now says that since Karim’s video was posted, more than 20 billion videos have been uploaded (and no, that isn’t a typo).

Google:

To mark YouTube’s 20th anniversary, we’re offering you a look at some of our features, statistics, hidden gems, and easter eggs to accompany us throughout the festivities.

David Pogue:

Today, it doesn’t need explaining. YouTube is the second most-visited website on Earth, after Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

Every single day, we collectively watch more than a billion hours of YouTube videos. Funny videos … how-to videos … cat videos.

[…]

The most-watched of all? “Baby Shark Dance,” with about 16 billion views.

[…]

Nobody’s monetized it better than Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, whose videos of colossal giveaways and physical challenges have made him the most-followed YouTuber of all, with 380 million fans.

Rene Ritchie:

I’ve been on @YouTube for 17 years as a creator and 2.5 as an employee. To say it changed my life — and the world — would be a profound understatement. To share your voice, to build a career — careers! — with no gatekeepers, just the willingness to press the upload or go-live button and the creativity to connect with an audience is an every-moment miracle.

Previously:

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Swift Proposal: weak let

SE 0481:

Currently, Swift classes with weak stored properties cannot be Sendable, because weak properties have to be mutable, and mutable properties are not allowed in Sendable classes[…]

[…]

In fact, wrapping weak references in a single-property struct is a viable workaround to the var restriction in both properties and captures[…] The existence of this simple workaround is itself an argument that the prohibition of weak let is not enforcing some fundamentally important rule.

[…]

An explicit weak capture is now immutable under this proposal, like any other explicit capture. If the programmer really needs a mutable capture, they must capture a separate weak var.

Court Orders Apple to Comply With Anti-Steering Injunction

Juli Clover (Hacker News, Jay Peters, Zac Hall):

In a victory for Epic Games, Apple was today found to be in violation of a 2021 injunction that required it to allow developers to direct customers to third-party purchase options on the web using in-app links.

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers:

Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream. Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

[…]

In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.

[…]

Mr. Onak suggested the warning screen should include the language: “By continuing on the web, you will leave the app and be taken to an external website” because “‘external website’ sounds scary, so execs will love it.” […] From Mr. Onak’s perspective, of the “execs” on the project, Mr. Schiller was at the top. […] One employee further wrote, “to make your version even worse you could add the developer name rather than the app name.” […] To that, another responded “ooh - keep going.” […] Again, Apple decided on the most anticompetitive option, that is, the “even worse” option[…]

[…]

Apple also argues that the question of whether Apple’s commission appropriately reflects the value of its intellectual property is not an issue for injunction compliance, and that it is legitimate for a business to promote the value of its corporation for stockholders. […] Apple misses the point. The issue is that Apple flouted the Court’s order by designing a top-down anticompetitive system, in which its commission played a fundamental role. […] For the same reasons, the Court disagrees that requiring Apple to set a commission of zero constitutes and unconstitutional taking. […] For instance, as described infra Section IV, in the trademark context, “a party who has once infringed is allowed less leniency for purposes of injunction enforcement than an innocent party.” […] Apple does not have an absolute right to the intellectual property that it wields as a shield to competition without adequate justification of its value. Apple was provided with an opportunity to value that intellectual property and chose not to do so.

[…]

Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover- up made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple.

David Barnard:

If you read the ruling, don’t skip the footnotes, there are some bangers…

Tim Sweeney (Hacker News):

NO FEES on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax.

Apple’s 15-30% junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Unlawful here, unlawful there.

Riley Testut:

It’s hard to overstate how massive this is. Turns out when you flagrantly break the law, there are consequences!

Jeff Johnson:

So, uh... does this mean we can sell our apps outside the iOS App Store now?

My read is that very little has actually changed for most developers. You still have to use IAP. The only difference is that if you were already eligible to activate some app content via an external purchase, you’re now allowed to mention this in the app and link to it. And you don’t have to track the customer for a week and then pay Apple 27% (even if they purchased on Android). So this is big news for a company like Epic or Netflix or Spotify. For an indie developer selling apps, not content, it’s nice but not “game over” for Apple. (Of course, our revenue is almost irrelevant to them, anyway.)

The Omni Group currently uses IAP, but you can also buy on the Web and then activate by logging into your account within the app. I think the ruling means that they’ll be able to tell you about this option within the app, but I don’t think it means they get to avoid the tax. Nor would they necessarily want to because customers like IAP. For developers that aren’t multi-platform, I’m not sure there’s even an option to do external payments. And smaller developers, who are paying Apple 15% instead of 30%, might not find it worth their while, in any case.

It remains to be seen how Apple will update the guidelines and whether external links will still be more restricted outside of the US.

Marcin Krzyzanowski:

🤔 Apple still may freely reject any app with external links from the AppStore. It always has been like this.

R.M.:

I would be careful here. Apple still controls the AppStore algorithm. I won’t be surprised if apps that promote the web payment option, will see a decline in their ASO performance…

John Voorhees:

Unnamed sources at Apple have told 9to5Mac that the company disagrees with the Court’s decision, but will comply and appeal. I doubt that appeal will go anywhere. The Court made it clear that it expected Apple to comply with its contempt order immediately, so an appeal won’t delay that, barring intervention by the Court of Appeals. Given the deference higher courts afford to lower courts enforcing their own orders and the extensive evidentiary record, overturning it on appeal is a long shot.

In the meantime, Apple is prohibited from:

  • Imposing any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app, and as a consequence thereof, no reason exists to audit, monitor, track or require developers to report purchases or any other activity that consumers make outside an app;
  • Restricting or conditioning developers’ style, language, formatting, quantity, flow or placement of links for purchases outside an app;
  • Excluding certain categories of apps and developers from obtaining link access;
  • Interfering with consumers’ choice to proceed in or out of an app by using anything other than a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site; and
  • Restricting a developer’s use of dynamic links that bring consumers to a specific product page in a logged-in state rather than to a statically defined page, including restricting apps from passing on product details, user details or other information that refers to the user intending to make a purchase.

He also asks a good question: where Apple’s internal lawyers were in all of this?

Christina Warren:

My position for close to 15 years has been that it’s unconscionable for Apple to collect a commission off of purchases made outside the App Store. I’m glad the court had enough too. This is good for the ecosystem. There are still valid reasons to use the built-in IAP model. But as I railed about the Patreon situation last summer, enough is enough.

I’m not sure this really fixes the Patreon situation, but I guess we’ll see.

Tim Sweeney:

We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.

Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.

When did Epic gets its US developer account back? I thought they already lost that battle in court, and I don’t see anything about it in the new court order. Even if they do, it seems like Epic’s victory falls short of what they originally tried to do with Epic Direct Payment because the customer will be sent out of the app to make the purchase.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

Apple won the original case. It was like a sidenote on that original case that Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction that Apple was required to allow developers to just freely link to alternative payment offerings on the web, outside the app.

[…]

None of this, as far as I can see, has anything to do with Epic Games or Fortnite at all, other than that it was Epic who initiated the case. Give them credit for that. But I don’t see how this ruling gets Fortnite back in the App Store. I think Sweeney is just blustering — he wants Fortnite back in the App Store and thinks by just asserting it, he can force Apple’s hand at a moment when they’re wrong-footed by a scathing federal court judgment against them.

[…]

If there’s a single sentence in Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling that suggests Apple needs to reinstate Epic Games to the App Store, I missed it.

Dave B.:

Two viewpoints:

  1. Create the best possible ecosystem. Build a walled garden aimed at improving the experience for customers. Make premium devices and a premium UX. Do that, and you can charge a lot of money for devices, keep lifelong customers, and make massive long term profits.

  2. Squeeze every penny from every product and every service. Make massive profits today, but piss everyone off, annoy your customers, push developers away, and cause regulators to come after you. Sacrifice your future brand equity to appease Wall Street today.

Phil, like Steve, seems to support #1, while Tim and many others support #2.

Dan Moren:

The thing that Apple used to be so good at understanding is that the bottom line isn’t just about how the numbers add up. Apple has long been a company that prides itself on its image and its brand, and marring that, whether it be via contentious relationships with developers or seemingly bending over backwards for authoritarians, does have an effect in the long term.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

Schiller comes across as Apple’s sole voice of reason, fairness, and dare I say honesty in this entire ruling. The only people in the world who seemed to think Apple could or should comply with the 2021 injunction (that apps be permitted to steer users to the web to make purchases) by charging a commission — any commission, let alone a 27 percent commission — on those web transactions were Apple’s finance team members, led by Luca Maestri and Alex Roman, and Tim Cook.

[…]

With this ruling and Maestri’s central role in Apple’s decision to forge ahead with a compliance plan where they “allowed” steering to the web by charging the same effective commissions on web transactions as they do for in-app transactions, I now have to wonder whether Maestri retired or “retired”.

Matt Stoller (Hacker News):

But this time, the judge accused Apple Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, of having “outright lied under oath,” and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for a criminal contempt investigation. She also went out of her way to blame Apple CEO Tim Cook directly.

However, it looks like Cook got away with the statements he made to Congress.

Steve Streza:

First: the only considerations Apple executives made were for revenue and control. At no point did the user’s experience enter the picture, except as a hand-wavey gesture towards “safety” when leaving an app. Apple gave up treating developers with decency a decade ago, knowing they have them by the throat and can make them do whatever they want. Legal compliance was asked to be as close to the line as possible, and to stick a toe over if their arrogance made them believe they could get away with it. Beyond that, in every decision, money and power were what they chose, and the ruling includes evidence that this is how they thought when no one was looking.

Second: the hubris is overwhelming. Apple could’ve chosen a number that was similarly high, but not SO high that would’ve made it look obvious. They could’ve allowed for buttons, or toned down the ridiculous scare screen, or cut down their 7-day commission carryover, or any number of things. But they made it so easy to see their intentions, and they left a paper trail. They really could not have more thoroughly engineered a situation that would make them look as deliberately anticompetitive as they have been here.

Third, and arguably most important: the rot went all the way to the top. Tim Cook signed off on all of this, and but for Schiller’s protest over the 27% commission, so did the executives involved. This wasn’t something that was caught up in a committee and escaped the vision of the CEO. He was giving the thumbs up on all of it. If you think any of this is as offensive as the judge did, there are many people to point fingers at, but they all directly lead back to Team Cook.

Jason Snell:

Apple also attempted to engineer the directive to allow external links in apps by creating new barriers and requirements that would similarly defang those orders. It created full-page “scare screens” (I referred to them as “This App May Kill You” screens), demanded that all links be to static URLs (neutering their utility), and kept editing the warning labels to dissuade users as much as possible from ever agreeing to follow the link.

Nick Heer:

To all those who have said Apple’s regulatory and legal responses have amounted to malicious compliance, you appear to be correct. Stripping more formal language, as the judge has done here, reveals how fed up she is with Apple’s petulant misconduct.

[…]

Throughout this filing, Phil Schiller comes across very well, unlike fellow executives Luca Maestri, the aforementioned Alex Roman, and Tim Cook. In internal discussions, he consistently sounds like the most reasonable voice in the room — though Rogers still has stern words for him throughout. (For example, Schiller claimed external purchasing links alongside in-app options would make users more susceptible to fraud, even though under Apple’s rules it must review and approve those links. The judge writes “[n]o real-time business documents credit that view”.)

Stephen Hackett:

The document directly addresses Apple’s tight control over how links to external payment methods appear. When I read this part of the injunction, I whistled out loud, to the surprise of my wife who was in the room with me:

For button styles, Apple limits developers to what Apple calls the “plain” button style — essentially just a hyperlink — because Apple does not want the developers to use the more effective “button.” A more effective button would increase competition. Similarly, Apple limits calls to action to five, narrowly cabined templates. Nowhere does the Court authorize those limitations. At a minimum, the Court need not decide whether these restrictions alone violate the Injunction, because Apple has violated the central mandate of this Court’s orders: that Apple not foreclose competitive alternatives to IAP.

The document reveals that those screens were at the behest of Tim Cook:

After the June 20, 2023 meeting regarding this Court’s Injunction, Apple decided that it would implement a full screen warning after users click on an external link, regardless of which commission option was ultimately selected. At the meeting, Mr. Cook “asked the team to revise the customer warning screen . . . to reference the fact that Apple’s privacy and security standards do not apply to purchases made on the web.” The team updated the warning screen, sent it to Mr. Schiller for approval, and returned the revised copy to Mr. Cook on June 23, 2023. The updated warning screen changed a sentence from “You will no longer be transacting with Apple” to “Apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web.” As Ms. Goldberg’s notes reflect, the idea discussed was that this “[i]nterstitial . . . tells ppl its dangerous and they are leaving the app store.”

I guess he’s a product guy after all.

Benjamin Mayo:

The only interference Apple is currently allowed is a simple alert notifying the user they are going to the web. Amusingly, the endorsed design was an early iteration Apple considered before they went full on scare sheet.

Jacob Eiting:

this is pretty wild. you can put IAP buried on a settings page and have the web offering be shown exclusively

will come down to conversion rates vs Apple take rates as to what people do.

Which I suppose is the point, force Apple to compete on the merits of the tech.

Michael Luo:

You can now accept payments with @stripe outside of your app, with no iOS app store commissions.

The Stripe team cooked up a quick guide walking you through how.

Juli Clover:

Epic Games today announced plans for Epic Games Store Webshops, a feature that will allow developers to launch digital storefronts that are hosted by the Epic Games Store. With Apple’s mandated App Store rule changes in the United States, developers will soon be able to direct customers to web shops to make out-of-app purchases, bypassing the in-app purchase flow.

The Epic Games Store will charge developers a 0 percent fee for the first $1,000,000 in revenue they collect per app per year, and after that, developers will need to pay Epic a 12 percent cut.

Ryan Jones:

🤯Honestly, a brilliant strategic move by Apple would be immediately drop their rate to 10-15%.

Majority of apps wouldn’t bother with linking out. They take the same revenue hit but keep control.

Rob Jonson:

They have a bit of a quandry. If they instantly frop their rates in the face of competition, then it’s harder to argue that their rates were always competitive.

Which exposes them to suits on past charges for competitive abuse.

M.G. Siegler:

For now, I just want to focus on the Epic and Sweeney element. Mainly because I think I was right, and damnit, people thought I was crazy for reading it this way three-plus years ago.

[…]

And it wasn’t just that specific moment in time, there continued to be many examples that indicated Sweeney might be playing a different game here – ever since he first started his campaign nearly five years ago. At first, I thought Epic may have misjudged how Apple would respond to their clever trolling, “1984"-esque viral moment and all. But actually, that’s what led me down the path of thinking this was all a part of the plan, in an almost crazy Joker way.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

I’m glad we wasted the past six years going through this instead of embracing it from the outset and being on the right side of history.

Oskar:

So it only took the legal system 16 years(!) to figure out that the core business model of the App Store is illegal… right around where the golden era of apps is ending.

Ryan Jones:

We said for 5 years “do it yourself or gov will make you and that’ll be shit for us all”!

Saagar Jha:

Nobody is really talking about the Epic side today but the court does confirm that they breached the DPLA and need to pay attorney’s fees (which I don’t think they really care about at this point)

Previously:

Update (2025-05-02): Mike Masnick:

The company just had to make one small change: let developers tell users they could make purchases elsewhere. Simple enough.

Instead, Apple apparently decided that the best response was to design elaborate schemes to make that “elsewhere” as scary and expensive as possible, hide evidence of those schemes from the court, and then lie under oath about all of it. This strategy has worked out about as well as you’d expect, leading to what may be one of the most scathing judicial opinions you’ll ever read.

[…]

Unfortunately for Apple, the notes for that meeting noted that a reason to reject the first proposal was that it would “create competitive pressure.” As the judge notes: that was exactly the point of the injunction, to create competitive pressure. So, Apple’s meeting to figure out how to minimize competitive pressure can be seen as seeking to get around the injunction.

[…]

Even more damning, Apple’s internal notes reveal that Apple (most likely correctly) predicted that the 3% discount on commissions wouldn’t be economically viable, because the cost to run your own payment setup would likely exceed that 3%. And, Apple already knew that no one would sign up for this because they had used similar off-site commission programs in Korea and the Netherlands[…]

Lina Kahn:

For years Apple has charged an exorbitant tax on Americans who use its App Store, while thwarting developers who want to offer lower-cost options.

Apple continued these tactics even after being ordered by a judge to stop.

Yesterday’s decision is a long-awaited win for innovators, consumers, and the rule of law.

Congratulations to everyone who helped ensure fair competition would prevail.

Paul Haddad:

Will Apple be forced to refund the 27% fees it collected? Hell maybe even the 30% since lots of people didn’t bother with external links because of the 27%…

Tim Cook:

The case yesterday, we strongly disagree with. We’ve complied with the court’s order and we’re gonna appeal.

Ryan Jones:

So the hard line continues.

Dave DeLong:

One of the most damning things about the Apple ruling yesterday is how basically every developer I’ve talked to is overwhelmingly happy with it.

The amount of goodwill that Apple has squandered is breathtaking. Actions have consequences, and this feels like the beginning of Apple’s “Finding Out”.

Filip Radelic:

As a developer who has been hurt by Apple’s gross overreach repeatedly for over 17 years, I am happy out of pure pettiness. As a user, I am absolutely terrified of what this kind of freedom will bring to popular apps. If they just made the fees like 5%, no one would ever bother to poke the bear and everyone would be better off.

Kyle Hughes:

I can think of no better time to cash in on Apple’s third-party developer goodwill than this summer with the largest visual refresh in 12 years.

Joe Rossignol:

As planned, Spotify has updated its iPhone app in the U.S. with out-of-app pricing and subscription options for its Premium plans.

David Pierce:

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about what just happened and why it matters. After some very important party speaker updates, Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes walk through Apple’s years of closed-door meetings about app commissions, and the ways in which Gonzalez Rogers found she’d been misled throughout the process. (Nilay also takes a victory lap on the whole “buttons and links“ thing.) We talk about how developers are responding to the news, as well as what new things you might be able to buy in the App Store, which new apps might suddenly be possible, and whether Apple has any moves left in this case.

Matt Birchler, quoting Nilay Patel:

You can just see that they picked the finances over the product over and over again. And if they had just figured out a way to make in-app purchases worth more to developers than leaving the ecosystem, developers, I think, would have picked in-app purchases every single time. It’s just easier. And they didn’t. Instead, they punished the ability to compete.

[…]

And I know some people will read this and say, “Matt, Apple has always existed to make money, you just finally noticed,” and honestly, I find this to be an extremely reductive way to look at companies and how they make decisions.

[…]

It’s a shame because, despite all of the issues we have with the company, in my opinion, Apple still makes the very best computers, tablets, phones, watches, and more. I’m writing this on my Mac, and I love this computer. My iPhone is in my pocket, and it’s an outstanding piece of consumer technology. These things are amazing, and it’s so frustrating to have this anti-competitive App Store thing lingering over all of it.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-07): Upgrade:

We break down Apple’s failure in U.S. District Court and what it means for the future of Apple’s policies, corporate culture, corporate executives, and bottom line.

Update (2025-05-08): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

David Smith:

What drew me to Apple and gave me such affection for them was their professed desire to make wonderful, delightful, exquisite products that surprise and delight their customers. That ethos is both the implied and explicit brand promise. Because their products were so exquisite, they cost more, but that cost was justified by their quality and in an open market customers would choose their products because of their inherent excellence.

[…]

I am honestly not all that interested in following Epic, Spotify, Amazon, and others in changing their apps to take advantage of what this injunction allows. I currently don’t have any plans to offer payment outside of IAP.

However, what worries me most is reading the internal discussions at Apple and the posture and thought process that led Apple to this place.

[…]

Where I see Apple’s biggest mistake in their current line of thinking is that while I pay Apple huge sums of money each month, they don’t view me as a customer to be served. They don’t seem to see the benefit of making my experience and offerings better and better. They aren’t trying to win me over by being excellent; they are assuming my loyalty through strong-arm tactics and intransigence.

Mario Guzmán:

I miss the days when Apple was more about just creating “insanely great” products that “just worked” and people wanted to buy. They wanted to buy them because Apple was amazing at storytelling and creating a lifestyle people wanted to be a part of. As a result, they saw the cash just flow in as reward for making wonderful products.

I’m an Apple Fan in 2025

Dan Moren (Mastodon):

Stay Foolish debuted ten years ago, almost to the day, but I’ve been writing regularly for Macworld for nearly twenty years. When I first started out, we were all excited about what the latest in technology—Intel-powered Macs—would mean for Apple’s long-term prospects for survival. Two decades later, nobody ever even whispers that Apple is doomed anymore, because to suggest it would mark you as somebody divorced from reality.

It’s difficult to overstate just how different the Apple of today is from the Apple of 2015 or 2006. In taking a retrospective look at Apple, we most often find ourselves comparing the enormously successful behemoth that Apple now is to the company’s nadir in the mid-90s, when it was just steps from going out of business. But the truth is that even in just the last decade or two the company has reached heights that seemed previously unattainable.

And somewhere along the way, I think the relationship of the company to its customers—and vice versa—changed as well.

Jeff Johnson:

Dan distinguishes between a fan of the company and a fan of the products, but I’m not a fan anymore of the products, which are now poorly crafted compared to 20 years ago. Apple products have become, at best, the lesser of two evils, and the company itself is no longer special.

I think this is a bit too harsh. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not objectively bad, and much that is good, too. Apple is still special relative to most other companies. But clearly the tenor has changed. For me, the two big things are, first, that Apple used to be the company that tried to do things the right way, even in minor areas that were overkill; but, now, much of the time they just don’t care, even about things that users and developers find to be quite important. And, second, my default assumption is now that new things will be broken. The magic is gone.

Dimitri Bouniol:

If anything, Apple’s lack of interest in what I have to bring to their platform is what is pushing me to the web, forcing me to work with shittier languages on a rendering engine far more performant than SwiftUI.

[…]

Do I mind paying the 15-30%? No, not really. Does Apple do anything that benefits me (and by proxy, them) with that money? No, not really. Maybe my app is a bust, but so far, I’ve gotten way more interest and support from non Apple users organically than anything the App Store has offered me.

Apple has done everything they could possibly do to erode their platforms. They stopped investing in what makes their platforms great to use. They stopped supporting their biggest fans that make software for those platforms. They stopped caring about what makes their platforms so easy to develop for. Once they were successful, they acted like no one else took part in helping them reach that success.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-13): Glenn Fleishman:

I certainly loved the company as a concept and was loyal to it, though I have never been someone who ignored its flaws. As one version of the old saying goes, “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

Apple wasn’t always right, but it was my Apple—our Apple—and we celebrated it for what it did, even though we would complain or openly critique its problems in management, direction, finances, bug fixing, user interface direction, and more. We are often more frank about things we love in describing their flaws than those we hate because we care enough to want them to improve. (That’s okay advice vis-a-vis businesses; maybe don’t try to tell people how to fix themselves, though!) One of my most popular all-time blog entries was a 2015 listing of all of Yosemite’s many weaknesses and bugs—over 100,000 views.

Perhaps this is why I was shocked by the inner sanctum details revealed by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a suit against Apple by Epic Games.

[…]

Maybe it is the right time for this love affair to come to an end. Not the end of my love for what I can do with Apple stuff, but creating boundaries, something good for any relationship. From Tim Cook down, executives—Schiller excepted—have proven themselves unworthy of our trust. As shepherds of the company, they have revealed themselves. I may still love the concept of Apple, but certainly the company no more.

Previously:

Update (2025-05-30): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Apple v. Optis Cellular Technology

Reuters (via Ric Ford):

Apple must pay a U.S. patent holder $502 million for the use of 4G patents in devices including iPhones and iPads, London’s Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday, in the latest stage of a long-running legal battle.

Texas-based Optis Cellular Technology LLC sued Apple in London in 2019 over its use of patents which Optis says are essential to certain technological standards, such as 4G.

Andre Revilla:

Apple has unsurprisingly responded by promising to appeal the court’s decision, to which Optis insisted it will fight to defend its intellectual property.

Optis provided Engadget with the following statement:

“We’re pleased the UK Court of Appeals has recognized and corrected a clearly flawed prior ruling and has made meaningful progress toward affirming the true value of our patents to Apple devices. In addition to ordering payment that exceeds $700 million with interest and fees, the Court has judged that ‘Apple’s significant negotiating strength leads some parties to agree lower rates than would be agreed between a willing licensor/willing licensee’ thereby gaining an unfair advantage. We will continue to ensure fair compensation for the Optis intellectual property that enables high-speed connectivity for millions of devices around the world.”

See also: Patently Apple.

Previously:

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