At this point, when compared to the CDC, it feels as if Facebook is Mozart, cranking out beautiful compositions for the world to hear in response to crisis. It’s all relative.

The CDC is issuing a new mask guidance today in response to the spread of the Delta variant. In a vacuum, this seems like a fine, prudent thing to do. But we don’t live in a vacuum and we haven’t for a year and a half at this point. And the CDC has a major crisis of confidence on their hands given all the conflicting statements and guidance over the course of the pandemic.

Worse, they’re also, seemingly as always, far too slow to make their often confounding decisions.

To be clear, I’m planning to wear a mask indoors much of the time in public again, as the virus is surging. In fact, I have been. I’m exhausted, but I’m also not a lunatic that doesn’t believe in science. I would choose to do this CDC or not. The reality is that the main reason we need to do this again is because our country is filled with lunatics who refuse to get vaccinated. And rather than do the hard thing, like mandating vaccines, we’re doing the easier thing, mandating masks again.

It’s obviously more nuanced than that. We can’t mandate vaccines until they are fully approved by the FDA, something which we keep hearing promises about, but hasn’t happened yet. We’ve given nearly 350 million doses at this point — 350 million! — we have the data and it says “yes!” Or wait, sorry, it apparently says “wait”. What it really says is “trust us, don’t trust us yet”.

We also, of course, need to get vaccines at least emergency approved for children. I know this is also a tricky situation — believe me, I have a young child — but this is an emergency. We need to stop prolonging this emergency.

And to do that, as has been clear for a while now, we need sticks, not just carrots. Some states and cities and even private enterprises are mandating their own vaccine requirements, which is great. It will help a bit. But we need to full-on mandate if we’re truly going to end this. And it’s still unclear if we’re going to get that, even after full vaccine clearance, because again, we have easier outs, like mask mandates.

Look, it was clear a month ago how this was going to play out. And it’s now playing out that way. This was obvious to seemingly everyone but the CDC, which is now saying the situation has changed so they have to change their rules. The situation actually has not changed. Again, it was clear where we were headed. Look at the UK, look at Israel. We could have and should have known. A lot of people did — from a month ago:

The Delta variant of COVID is starting to sweep through the world. It started in India and it is currently washing over the UK. It’s here in the US already and soon it will be everywhere. If you’re fully vaccinated, it seems to be mostly fine.¹ But not everyone is vaccinated. Not nearly. Like my daughter, who is two years old, for example. That day will come, hopefully soon. But the real concern are the people who can and simply will not get vaccinated. We’ve lost steam as we gained back Anchor Steam.

But the way that this all plays out should be obvious. The Delta variant is going to hit the US hard in the next several weeks. And it’s going to do so in areas and within groups that are hesitant to get vaccinated. It doesn’t care what your rationale is, it just cares that you’re a great, vulnerable host. And while it’s true that many people not vaccinated are young and as such, are less likely to get very sick, and as such, less likely to die, that is almost beside the point now.

The point is returning to normal. Which we are. But there’s a risk that this too is a mirage unless we stop Delta and its inevitable variants.

Where we go from here also seems fairly obvious.

Any new mask mandates are most likely only going to be followed by the people least at risk. And it will almost for sure be rejected by those most at risk. It’s perhaps not quite pointless in theory, but it will be damn close in practice. Thanks, in part, to the CDC who cried “mask!” It’s a crisis in confidence caused by a crisis in communication.

I don’t like this, but it’s the reality of the situation regardless. And the CDC only has themselves to blame.

The Delta variant surge will continue and lots of people who are not vaccinated will be hospitalized and some, sadly, will die. There will be some breakthrough cases amongst the vaccinated, but those people will largely be fine. The surge will peak in a few weeks then subside. The CDC will reverse their masking policy yet again. And round and round we go.

It just feels like we’re pussyfooting around reality here. COVID is not going away. We need to figure out how to live with it. And that means literally, which means getting as many vaccinated as possible. That, in turn, means mandates, first local but if/when we get tired enough of this all (probably with one-to-two more surges), federal. COVID, blunted by vaccines and immunity, will become another illness that comes around at times. We’ll need to figure out Long COVID, but we will.

I’m not a doctor, far from an expert, but if I could suggest something, just based on the rules of common sense and communication, it would probably be this: stop with all the conflicting statements and guidance. Take a step back, realize how this is all likely to play out, and come up with an actual long-term plan.

Here’s one idea, undoubtedly not perfect, but better than what we’ve had to date: instead of whiplash-inducing, infuriating policies, come up with a granular guidance system more akin to the terrorism alert system all travelers are familiar with. This would be tailored for specific areas of the country as the virus starts to spread. So, for example, if Florida is surging, for the areas where it is, raise the COVID alert to “red” and suggest masking indoors. If it goes to “purple”, make masking required. Etc. A constant, consistent set of rules people can follow.

Yes, some people won’t follow rules because they are fools. Then hit them with the vaccine mandates. Get on board or don’t go outside, basically. And without the current state of whiplash, hopefully enough of society will recognize that these rules are in place to keep us all, as a whole, safe. Just like with flying. It’s a pain in the ass, but it works.

The key is to start all of this stuff now. To go on the offensive against the virus and stop playing defense. Worse, slow-to-react defense. We already know much of what we need to in terms of how this plays out and how to ease the cycle. And that’s important because we need to recognize that we’re not going to break the cycle. Again, COVID is not going away. Even with vaccine mandates. But we’re going to blunt it to effective death, to prevent ours. That’s the win here. As I concluded — again me, no expert — a month ago:

So whether stupid or selfish, it doesn’t matter. Do something in your own self interest.⁵ If you want this to be over, you need to get vaccinated. You may or may not get sick if you catch COVID but you’re prolonging this shitshow and hindering a true return to normal. Pay no attention to the current situation in the US. It’s fleeting. Delta is here and it’s going to rip through the un-vaccinated like a fire through kindling. Variants will form. Whispers of lockdowns will return. Then shouts. Get vaccinated. You fools.

Published on July 27, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, CA 🗺

Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻

The CDC Who Cried Mask was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Is gaming their step to Prime or their next Qwikster?

The news that Netflix is going to try to break into gaming cuts two ways.

On one hand, it makes sense because it’s something that is a growing play in the subscription world (Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, Stadia, etc). Netflix, perhaps more so than any other company, is synonymous with the subscription model. And this synonymity is a result of saturation, which is also why this makes sense. Since everyone who wants Netflix, at least in the US, now seemingly has Netflix (hence the declining subscriber numbers here), Netflix needs something else to entice people both to stick around and to continually pay up more money for their subs.

Another way to put this is that Netflix Games would seem to be analogous to Amazon Prime Video. That is, where as Prime Video is a cherry-on-top of Prime itself, Netflix Games would be the same for Netflix. And I think the Amazon parallel runs deeper in that Netflix has stated that their intent is to mine their own IP to create at least some of their games. This is both hoping to differentiate with content no one else can make but also perhaps giving creatives more of an incentive to work with them. Amazon is very clearly running this playbook by cutting Prime Video deals which include the ability to leverage things like Alexa (see the Michael B. Jordan Super Bowl ad) and even the crown jewel: shopping.

The war for talent is in full swing and while Netflix has won in recent years with both money and reach, the money equation changed when Amazon and Apple entered the arena. And the reach equation is changing with Disney and all the rest. Netflix needs to keep adding perks for both subscribers and for talent. Again, I suspect gaming is the first foray here.

As for that other hand…

I also think gaming may be a mistake for Netflix. At least in the way that they’re saying they’re going to go about it. I think simply trying to leverage their IP won’t work. The entire history of gaming is riddled with the carcasses of some of the best IP in the world cut down by mediocre-to-poor games. From the infamous Atari ET game on down. It’s not enough to have great IP.

And frankly, it’s not entirely clear that Netflix actually has truly great IP, but rather perhaps the best vessel ever created to serve up any IP, in the form of streaming video. We actually have already had Stranger Things mobile games for some time. Are they huge hits? I might be wrong, but I don’t think so. House of Cards? Good luck making a compelling game there, Kevin Spacey situation or not. Bridgerton? I mean, maybe? An erotica game? Any number of the movies they make that get watched a ton but I honestly can’t even remember the names of as they’re entirely forgettable? Good luck.

Now, to their credit, it does sound like Netflix may have hired a great executive to lead this charge. But my suspicion would be that he quickly realizes their IP leveraging path isn’t going to work and instead takes them down the path of original games. Of course, that is much easier said than done — just ask… Amazon. But if they are able to do that, then they should leverage Netflix, the streaming service, to create cinematic content based off of those games. In other words, the opposite of the current gameplan. See also: The Witcher. Netflix should already know this!

I also suspect that if Netflix wants to continue down this path, they end up buying successful gaming studios. Creating games is hard. Creating hit games is harder. And creating hit games over and over again, as you would need to for a subscription service is boss level hard. You’re not going to build that overnight. And presumably Netflix wants this offering humming soon.

So, we’ll see. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a bit of a quagmire for Netflix. Perhaps not a Qwikster, but still perhaps one that ends up just as deadster. Instead, to me, it would make a lot more sense to break into other obvious streaming subscription plays — ones more directly compatible and easier to execute. Perhaps podcasts or audiobooks.¹ Again, go after Amazon! I mean, they’re sort of doing it with apparel (and teaming up with Shopify, no less).

These are less sexy and more importantly from Netflix’s perspective, eat up less time than, say, gaming.² So we get why they’re going down that path. I still think they end up heading over to the sports arena eventually, but they’re going to need to break their mindset around on-demand to make that happen. I think this happens, but it will take years, once other streamers offer live sports as exclusive parts of their bundle.³

One more thing: the Netflix name strikes me as slightly problematic for building this streaming kingdom. I mean, Facebook has kind of made it work (albeit, mostly through acquisitions — and I still think the ‘Facebook’ name should be reserved for the ‘Blue App’ and everything else should be under a different, Alphabet-like umbrella). And others like Apple made it work by dropping “Computer” from their name. It will be harder for Netflix to drop the ‘flix’ of course. And, damnit, I already made my Qwikster joke.

It is worth considering just how smart Amazon was to go with such a generic name instead of ‘Bookster’ or whatnot. For the first 20+ years of their life, Netflix proved to be the perfect name. They were taking on a world where people would have to take time to drive to a video store, make a selection, drive home, watch the movie, drive back and return the movie. Netflix made this significantly easier and less time-intensive at first by utilizing the internet and the good old U.S. Postal Service. Then, they were able to double down on the “net” when internet speeds got fast enough for streaming. And now we have a $200B+ company. But it’s not clear what the next evolution of the core service is here, or that there is one. Hence, the branching out. But again, the branding isn’t really set up for that. I think it’s fine, but they didn’t nail this as Amazon did. It’s the old ‘iTunes’ problem, but as an entire company.

Published on July 28, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, CA 🗺

Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻

¹ I have to believe they won’t do music as it remains a money sinkhole, but it’s also sort of table stakes now for Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc…

² If sleep really is the competition, maybe they buy Calm or the like? That certainly eats up a lot of hours!

³ One other thought: just as Spotify is trying to becoming synonymous with audio, what if Netflix does the same for video? What if, say, they bought Masterclass?

Netflix, Hold the “Flix” was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sometimes, the plots write themselves.

It’s not crazy that Scarlett Johansson would be upset that Disney went for a same-day Disney+ release for Black Widow. I mean, obviously. She’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world. This is a move directly threatening, or at the very least, changing, that world. Yes, the world has also changed thanks — no thanks! — to COVID. But it seems highly unlikely that the movie genie goes fully back in the theatrical bottle. This matters for a lot of people. But it mainly matters for two groups right now: movie theaters and movie stars.

The latter group is interesting because they have been morphing to this new world. People used to wonder if Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise would be the last of the capital ‘M’ movie stars, holding out against streaming. The answer is now clearly Cruise as DiCaprio’s next two projects are for Netflix and Apple. They’ll undoubtedly play in theaters too, but Tom Cruise is the last man standing in the theater. Down up front, Cruise!

‘Man’ is a keyword there since Johansson is definitely a part of this discussion too. (Though she herself has already done a Netflix movie.) She’s clearly saying here, by way of her lawyers, that she was sold a different bill of goods for Black Widow. And she undoubtedly was, since it’s a Marvel movie.

Per this story by Brooks Barnes and Nicole Sperling in The New York Times:

Making “Black Widow” available on Disney+ could cost Ms. Johansson more than $50 million, according to two people briefed on her contract, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private agreement. That is how much Ms. Johansson would have made if “Black Widow” had approached $1 billion in global ticket sales; “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” both exceeded that threshold in prepandemic release.

Black Widow currently stands at $327M. It’s not hitting a billion at the box office, obviously. But it also shouldn’t matter. Again, the world has changed! What’s surprising here is that Disney didn’t get ahead of this and make sure Johansson was happy as they charted their new path forward. Perhaps they tried. And perhaps no deal was reached. Still, this comment to the public is sort of crazy town!

Disney’s statement called the lawsuit “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” The company added, “Disney has fully complied with Ms. Johansson’s contract and furthermore, the release of ‘Black Widow’ on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20 million she has received to date.”

They specifically call out her front-end salary. But also accuse her of profiteering on the pandemic! That is wild. If they’re not quite calling her an opportunistic scarlet witch, they’re one step away. One of the biggest stars in the world! One of their biggest stars! What the Feige?!

I mean, my god, get your mouse house in order, Disney. I don’t care how big of a star Johansson is, you’re fighting down here. And you’re doing this in the middle of a pandemic that is disrupting the movie industry, no less. And Warner, as a result of the Jason Kilar bold bet, already went through this. You didn’t need to be Dr. Strange to see this coming!

Is this a Bob Chapek issue? Mr. Business? You just can’t give the comment you made. What’s the upside? To swing public approval to your side that this Avenger is overpaid? Versus a $300B company? My god. Grow up.

Published on July 29, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, CA 🗺

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

Black Widow, Black Window, Black Eye was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Yet another free idea for Netflix…

If you’ve ever stayed in an Airbnb, you’ve likely run into this predicament: the host has a streaming device with Netflix, but is signed into it with their own account. Do you dare watch a movie on their Netflix account? Or do you sign them out of their account and sign in to your own? What do you do? What? Do? You? Do?

The answer is far from simple because the options are both bad. If you use their account, you’re going to mess up their recommendations and/or risk showing off your great/awful/weird taste in content to your Airbnb host. If you sign out of their account and sign in with your own, you’re likely looking at a journey of pulling up passwords and hunting-and-pecking to enter them on a device like Apple TV, a process that at best, frankly, sucks.

And then you have to remember to sign out. Or hope your host does. And if the host does, then they have to sign back in to their own acount. A process that at best, frankly, sucks.

The best case scenario right now is that your host has a guest account set up on their Netflix app. I’ve stayed in many Airbnbs recently — thanks, pandemic — this is almost never the case, in my experience. But it has been a few times, and even then it’s less than ideal because it’s not the default account, of course. The devil, as always, is in the defaults.

Which leads me to an obvious solution: a ‘Guestflix’ of sorts. That is, Netflix should come up with a simple way to tie your account to a device from which you don’t intend to use any of your main profiles. Sure, this may seem directly against something they’re actively trying to avoid, the sharing of accounts/passwords, but it’s actually a real and legit use-case. And again, an increasingly common one. If someone is staying at your house, and you have Netflix, shouldn’t they be allowed to watch your Netflix along with all the other things in your house you’ve granted them access to?

And really, Netflix should look at this from the opposite side: these are people you could possibly get to sign up for Netflix while using it on a trip. Imagine they start watching a show and get hooked and want to finish it when they leave the Airbnb… I imagine this happens a lot.¹ Sure, the user may and probably does already have Netflix, but perhaps not? Either way, what’s the downside here, besides a better user experience for everyone?

Perhaps an easier solution would be to create an “Incognito Mode” of sorts for Netflix. That is, a way to have someone watch on your account without that data altering your account. Again, yes, you can do this through profiles. But is a guest really going to set up a new profile in your house? That would be both awkward and more time consuming than just clicking the buttons that default. As someone whose own Netflix account is now littered with content meant for a three-year-old, I know this issue well.

Anyway, just a thought. I tend to have a lot of these. Sometimes they run with them. Sometimes they don’t — yet. And this is a seemingly obvious thing for Netflix to get better at from a product perspective.

Published on August 8, 2021 📆

Written from London, England — like Ted Lasso! 🇬🇧⚽️

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

Drinking a Meantime London Lager 🍻

¹ Also, I imagine this must be increasingly the case at hotels as well? And this would also be the perfect solution there. “Sign up now and we’ll immediately transfer over the shows you started at this Marriott. Also, here’s a discount…” — that sort of thing.

Guestflix was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I mean, my god this was an obvious communication failure…

They see you when you’re sleeping. They know when you’re awake. They know if you’ve been bad or good. So…

Did you hear the news? Apple is about to start looking at all your photos. One by one. The blanket rationale is to catch pedophiles, but they want to see it all! Beautiful, isn’t it?

Or, at least, that’s what the focal point of most articles about this topic largely seem to suggest. And that’s too bad because there is a really interesting debate and conversation to be had here. But we’re largely missing it as a result of such headlines about the world’s most valuable company.

And it’s largely Apple’s own fault. Perhaps feeling left out by the constant communication own-goals by Facebook, Apple set up the mother of all self-owns.¹ It’s hard to think of a more massive communication fuck up, honestly. Again, because this topic is so big, so important, and so sensitive. Apple probably should have had an event, or at the very least a large-scale pre-brief with journalists and bloggers to talk through these issues.²

Instead, they put the news out there in the world — yes, backed up by a good amount of data and papers, but come on, can we really expect such things to make headlines without a lot of hand-holding? In a perfect world, perhaps. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Which, at a very high level, is exactly why Apple is also working on such a feature.

Based on my own experience as a former Apple reporter, I’m guessing that Apple PR has been in damage control overdrive for the past few days, trying to get their rationale out there in the world. You’d think it would be easy to assume Apple isn’t doing this for nefarious reasons because they’re not a company full of James Bond villains. But! Some may also disagree about making such assumptions. It honestly doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the rationale is more likely than not coming from a good place — perhaps this is step one towards full end-to-end iCloud backup encryption? — but that’s still not a good enough reason to do it.

I found this post from Marc LaFountain compelling. He previously worked on some of these issues for Tumblr, a network, which, of course, needed such issues worked on. Marc’s post isn’t overly incendiary, but it brings up a few real downsides of Apple’s presumed good intent here. The one that resonates most is the notion that this is a Pandora’s Box which Apple may regret opening in the future.

And that’s because if they roll out such capabilities, other, less altruistic types, will attempt to pressure Apple to take advantage of them. To use an awful analogy here, it’s “if you give a mouse a cookie…” Apple can, and, in fact, is saying the right things on the matter. But obviously we can’t be so naive, because again, we don’t live in a perfect world. And we know this because Apple itself struggles in our actual world. For one elephant-in-the-room example, having to deal with the rules China imposes on Apple’s services if they wish to operate in that country.

Will China create new rules to get Apple to use their new functionality to find any sort of content they deem to be bad? Who knows. But we know they could, and we know they could compel Apple to follow such rules. That’s a nice way of saying force. Legally! Will Apple be willing to pull out of China over such a stance? Does that also mean they’ll move iPhone and other device manufacturing? These are real questions! And while again, we assume Apple is not nefarious, nefariousness and business reasons can sometimes look very similar. Because at the end of the day, who cares if you’re doing the wrong thing for a slightly less bad reason? You’re still doing the wrong thing.

Did Apple pre-brief China on these changes to get ahead of the issue by saying they would under-no-circumstances use such technology for anything beyond the stated purpose? Maybe! But would you feel better or worse about Apple pre-briefing and in essence, seeking permission on such a move?³ It’s a tough call! Also, how on Earth would you trust any country on such a matter? Things change all the time, as do those in power…

Two more quick thoughts on the matter.

First, while Apple already does notify authorities about such images in question that they find on iCloud servers, it’s fascinating just how few flags they send, certainly relative to their big tech peers. This suggests that criminals know not to use iCloud in this way. And as such, they’ll probably know not to use the iPhone itself in this new way. That may be a good thing in Apple’s book — drive the pedophiles elsewhere! But again, it’s potentially a massive trade-off for that upside (as it is if the upside is “fully” end-to-end iCloud).

Second, this is all more than a little ironic given the whole “backdoor” debate Apple forcefully stood up against when government agencies sought to force Apple to build in a way to get into iPhones. Tim Cook was adament that Apple had no way to do this, and should not build it. If they didn’t exactly just create a way, they created a huge loophole that officials are going to test like velociraptors against an electric fence. Until they find the weakness… That’s what Apple set up here. The thing they stood up against! Apple can say all the right things. They also have to abide by laws. And laws are man-made things. Which change.

Anyway, smarter people than myself have already made such points, and will continue to make such points. I think it’s worth piling-on because this is that important. But I also think it’s worth pointing out just how big of a mistake Apple made in announcing such changes the way they did. Obviously, this was going to be the reaction.

Read the fucking room, not our iPhones, one might say.

Published on August 9, 2021 📆

Written from London, England 🇬🇧

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

¹ Which sounds decidedly like “cellphones”…

² I’m assuming they did brief at least some folks on the matter, but it honestly wasn’t enough. The negative headlines overwhelmed, which should have been obvious.

³ And here I’m reminded that Apple didn’t seek permission from their own carrier partners when they originally launched iMessage. They just did it. I’m guessing they did the same thing here — at least with China, presumably they did talk to U.S. authorities about this change…

Apple Fails to Justify the Means and Forgets to Justify the Ends was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Samsung’s latest devices. Yay?

I love gadgets. Some might say that I’m a gadget fiend. Certainly, my wife would, who routinely secretly throws out some of my gadgets knowing that I likely won’t notice. But sometimes I do. Those aren’t great days. Anyway, my love of Apple products has long been known, first and foremost as I was reporter for a number of years writing about such things.

But clearly in recent years I would say that I’m more critical and skeptical of Apple, as I’ve long said I would be if I feel like it was warranted. I feel like it is, except that I also still believe their products to be by far and away the best. Obviously, that’s subjective, but I trust my taste and my gut. Apple, for the most part, still makes the best tech products. There are a number of reasons for this — at a high level, the union of hardware and software — but I’m sometimes surprised that I’m not at least intrigued by other gadgets.

Take, for example, the most recent stuff Samsung just announced. The Galaxy Z Fold 3, the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the Galaxy Buds 2, and the Galaxy Watch 4. We’ll put aside the branding nightmare for a moment — they have two ‘3s’, a ‘2’, and a ‘4’ all released in the same event — and I’ll just note that reading the descriptions of these products could not entice me to even try any of these.

Part of it is because I am wedded to the Apple ecosystem and it would be a huge pain in the ass to switch. But again, I love gadgets, I would do it if the gadget were great. I once switched from diehard Windows lover to Mac, after all! But here, all of these devices just still seem inferior or worse, gimmicky.

I’ve long been on the record about this with regard to the Folds and Flips, and disastrous roll-out aside, I’m sure they’re getting better. But I still just have no desire for such a form factor? What’s the use case that really pushes the need for this type of device? (Same with Microsoft’s Surface Duo, by the way.) It’s still in the phone-that-folds phase, which just makes for a fatter phone in your pocket rather than a larger one. I suspect when — and it will be when, of course — Apple enters this market, they’ll only do so if they can come up with some use-case with software suited for it.

It’s a big part of the reason why Android tablets have not worked. And all the Apple Watch competitors, to a lesser extent (which is why Samsung and Google are working more directly together here on the Galaxy Watch 4). The software just isn’t there. Apple may fail in the foldable world as well, but they’ll make some compelling software for it, no doubt.

Samsung is trying to market their way to success here. I happen to be traveling, which means I actually have television (whereas at home, we long ago “cut the cord”), and the company is pushing these new devices non-stop here in the UK, just a few days after announcement. It will undoubtedly work to some extent — at the very least, they look different, if not interesting — but I doubt it works to the point of massive success. Again, why do these exist?

Also, if the 5th iteration of the Fold isn’t called the Galaxy Ben FoldZ 5, we’ve all failed.

Published on August 13, 2021 📆

Written from London, England 🇬🇧

Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻

Flips and Folds was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In between carrots and sticks, some handcuffs…

This is a fascinating time in the COVID pandemic in the U.S. As expected, the carrots put out there to entice people to get vaccinated did not work — or at least, not to the extent they needed to in order to change the trajectory of the situation. Not nearly. As a result, the sticks are coming out. But they’re not exactly Billy Clubs. And they’re not being wielded by the Feds. That is to say, this isn’t your parent’s vaccine mandate. At least not yet.

Part of the reason why is obvious: the FDA still has not formally approved any of the vaccines yet. This despite over 350 million doses now having been given. The data isn’t just clear, it’s screaming in their ears. But hey, what’s another few thousand dead amongst friends? Anyway, we’re going to get that approval at some point, and then we’ll see how quickly the federal government moves to mandate vaccines. But my guess, at least right now, would be that they still wait a bit.

First, it seems likely that by the time the FDA does approve the vaccines, the Delta variant will be on the decline in most parts of the country, as was the case in India, the UK, and elsewhere. For whatever reason, there seems to be a natural “burn out” or “burn through” course this variant is taking, perhaps because it’s more contagious. Second, on a more bullshit level, the vaccines are fully politicized. So if a Biden administration lays the hammer down, it’s just going to pour gasoline onto the raging fire of stupidity.

To be clear, it would still probably work, but I’m guessing they want to use this as a last resort. If, say, Delta doesn’t get under control soon. Or a new variant appears. It’s the “break glass” option here.

And that’s because private enterprise is stepping up to the mandates that the FDA won’t allow for on a federal level and that the federal government doesn’t want to have to do yet. Each and every day we’re getting a new swath of businesses that are mandating the vaccines. Some for employees. Some for customers. Many for both. It feels like it’s cascading at this point, and we’re essentially backing into a vaccine mandate.

Yes, governments in some Republican-led states are trying to overrule these. Because everyone knows Republicans hate private, free enterprise? But those challenges will undoubtedly fail time and time again in the courts. Thanks in part to the judges largely put in place by Republicans who actually believe in Republican ideals and aren’t just political jellyfish.

Funny that.

So yeah, if you can’t go into your favorite restaurant, your favorite bar, root for your favorite team, go see your favorite band, what are you going to do? Some people will still undoubtedly sit at home in protest, but most will get the vaccine because life has been made an un-fun pain in the ass.

Again, it’s not exactly a stick, but it’s sort of a pair of handcuffs. And again, it still won’t entice everyone — and actually, those that it doesn’t could be particularly troublesome, I imagine, and worry — but it should get us close enough. And that’s undoubtedly the hope at the federal level as well. So the true sticks don’t have to come out.

Published on August 14, 2021 📆

Written from London, England 🇬🇧

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

Drinking an Anspach & Hobday Porter 🍻

Backing Into Mandates was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A couple tweaks has mobile Safari close in iOS 15…

Granted, I’m like 24-hours in, but I think Apple may have threaded the needle with the new version of Safari in the latest beta build of iOS 15. For the first time, it just feels right. And feels mostly polished.

Take into account that I’m someone who actually liked the first, rather bold reinvention in the first developer builds of iOS 15. And I disliked some of the initial backpedaling they did, perhaps as a result of backlash, perhaps not (come on, obviously some of it was related — that awful refresh button?!). But this is the first build that feels like something Apple would actually ship.

Yes, the URL bar is still at the bottom by default. Yes, you can change this. Both in the Settings app but also, cleverly, in the ‘aA’ area of the URL bar. Hitting that spot when the bar is on the bottom gives you an option to ‘Show Top Address Bar’ at the top of the menu. And, brilliantly, when the bar is at the top, there’s a ‘Show Bottom Tab Bar’ at the bottom of that same menu.

Well played, Apple.¹

While the URL bar remains at the bottom — as it should, because most human beings don’t have 11-inch thumbs — the real compromise Apple made in this build is the return of the toolbar below that area. This is the same toolbar found in the current bottom area of Safari, now it’s just below (and attached to) the URL area. It’s chunky but I think it’s fine.² Again, a decent compromise.

The main issue I have with it actually isn’t the chonk, it’s that it’s redundant in a few ways. The buttons for forward/back can be done with swipes of any pages to the left or right, but this has long been the case. Newly redundant is the tab button, which brings up all your open tabs, but swiping up on the URL bar at the bottom now also does this. Lastly, the ‘Refresh’ button, while thankfully shifted back to the far right of the URL bar (instead of right next to the URL, which was maddeningly close and small) is also now redundant as “pulling down” on any website also refreshes the page.

Yes, I get it. This is the old gestures vs. buttons debate. And Apple’s answer is effectively now the ‘why not both?’ meme. I think it’s fine. But I also hope it’s a temporary band aid, as it’s just a huge waste of space.

When you think about it, it is weird how much pushback Apple got against these changes since this is all a similar UI to what they’ve been doing in Apple Maps. (And they could perhaps even learn more from that UI, with the pull-up elements.) On the other hand, Safari has to be one of the most — if not the most — used apps on the iPhone. You have to take baby-steps with drastic change at that scale.

The key is that it now looks and feels good. Again, a good compromise. A nice mix of old and new that feels not only natural to use, but in some ways fun. My only real request is a way to customize that chonky menu bar a bit. So if, say, I don’t need the button to pull up my tabs because I use the swipe-up gesture for that, maybe let me sub that out for a ‘new tab’ button.³

Published on August 18, 2021 📆

Written from London, England 🇬🇧

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

¹ This is especially nice as there are some sites not well situated to handle the URL bar at the bottom of the screen (whinch yes, Apple called the ‘Bottom Tab Bar’), often due to ads, but sometimes due to menus as well.

² The transition effect from the tab overview to the individual tabs with the URL on the bottom is very nice.

³ My only real complaint here is that it’s still too cumbersome to open a new tab. You either have to go to the zoomed-out tab view and hit the ‘+’ there, or long-press the tab button to bring up a menu. Or yes, you could swipe all the way to the right with the bottom URL bar enabled, but’s that’s even less obvious and easy to do.

Keeping Tabs was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some initial thoughts on Facebook Horizon Workrooms

I’ve gone out of my way not to read any of the coverage of Facebook’s new VR meeting system, Horizon Workrooms, yet because I’ve wanted to jot down some gut reaction thoughts first. Obvious and fun snark aside, it’s interesting in ways both good and bad.

First and foremost, Facebook continues to straddle a very fine line with all of their recent PR work. The company is in the crosshairs more and more each day for being too ingrained in our lives and as such, influencing humanity in ways that are at best unknown and at worst, potentially disastrous. And so they… launch a product where you must strap a computer to your face with screens just inches from your eyes to more fully immerse yourself in Facebook. Okay.

I get it. We all get it. They’re in a tight spot and yet have to keep innovating. But I mean, can we just take a breather for like six months and not launch Meetings Book for your Face? Blasphemous in innovation-first Silicon Valley, I know. But at some point, the room has to be read. This is all certainly not turning down the heat.

At the same time, I was wrong (well, sort of) in this regard with their Portal product. Back then, the company announced a Facebook-connected camera for your living room — complete with the ability to follow you around! — at the height of the Cambridge Analytica privacy fiasco. Sheesh. And yet, it ended up being a good product and more importantly, in the right place at the right time (which they could not have known at the time) given the COVID lockdowns everyone was about to enter. This was a product Apple should have built but Facebook did, and so kudos to them for doing it even when they had no business doing it from an optics perspective, if nothing else.

And maybe that’s the key here too. If the Horizon Workrooms product is actually great — awful name, aside — maybe it can overcome the various stigmas. Both on the VR front but also the Facebook front. And the company is clearly betting that this is the right time once again, with the world perhaps forever changed with regard to remote work.

Facebook sees an opening to own this future and is going for it, pushback and dystopian snark be damned. If they’re right, the PR headaches of now ultimately won’t matter, as they never do. But are they right?

For a system like this to work, you have to believe that everyone in the near future owns an Oculus, or at least some VR headset. That’s almost for sure not going to be the case naturally, as it hasn’t been the case over the first several VR hype cycles dating back decades.¹ But Facebook has been pushing the industry forward in spite of pushback. To their credit, unlike so many companies which move into a field and quickly retreat when it looks like a money pit that will never move the bottom line, Facebook continues to pour resources into VR. And it is moving that world forward, albeit slowly.

Still, again, for Horizon Workrooms to work we need headsets in every home. The most obvious way to do that is to have companies subsidize them for employees, just as they issue laptops. You could see Facebook doing this, of course. But would other companies, especially if it’s a Facebook product they’re subsidizing? Again, maybe, if the product is good enough. If it’s something which is actually increasing productivity at home and enabling this future of work.

But this type of thing fails if not everyone is bought in.² And that’s both technical but also social. We’ve all heard by now about the notion where “hybrid” work leads to a bifurcated workforce of the in-office “somebodies” and the at-home “nobodies”. This need for a more level playing field is a real concern. Facebook will say Horizon Workrooms is an answer, but again, only if everyone — including those in the office — are doing meetings in Horizon Workrooms. In VR.

Maybe this is an entry point into the Metaverse which Mark Zuckerberg wants to exist. But maybe it also backfires if this works and Horizon Workrooms and by extension, Facebook, becomes synonymous with work in VR and so they can’t cross the chasm between work and play in the same way that people don’t want to use the tools they use at work all day when they leave the office.

Aha! But if you’re never at an office to actually leave…

Anyway, Facebook clearly feels the need to keep pushing here because they clearly feel the pressure from pretty much all sides that Facebook, the core service, is now bad for the world and its reign needs to end, either naturally or through regulation. If it’s not quite rotten, it’s rotting. And most everyone has had enough, including everyone still addicted to it. The problem was inherent: once Facebook got to worldwide scale, it reflected back the world which it swallowed. That is to say, Facebook might not be bad by itself, but some people are bad. And by way of onboarding the world, Facebook also took on those people. And those people tend to try to do things to ruin the world for everyone else. Facebook inadvertently gave them the best tool ever created for that at scale in the form of a little blue app.

So it’s time to move on from that app. Zuckerberg keeps trying. But like Michael Corleone, they keep pulling him back in. Because Facebook also needs those billions of users to have any shot of launching their next big thing. Which is undoubtedly why we’re getting Facebook, but for work, strapped to your face.

Do I think this will work? I mean, no. I think it boils down to a combination of factors not working in their favor. I think the perception challenges are a bit too acute right now and will be for the foreseeable future. I think the hardware scale challenges aren’t going to be overcome anytime soon. And I think we don’t yet know what the “future of work” is actually going to look like. (My boring guess would be that when the pandemic finally subsides, it will look more like it did right before the pandemic than say, everyone in VR collaborating with cartoon avatars.)

There’s that snark again. But you know what I mean. This isn’t meant to be harsh, it’s meant to be reality. Kudos to Facebook for continuing to push the envelope here even in the face of endless fiascos and clearly just not giving much of a fuck about the perception. But they’re going to need to keep pushing. Hard. For a while, I suspect. And that sadly means keeping the little blue machine printing money and pain.

Published on August 20, 2021 📆

Written from London, England 🇬🇧

Written on an iPhone 12 Pro 📱

¹ Let’s see… 1992’s The Lawnmower Man (the movie, not the Stephen King short story which had nothing to do with VR). Who could forget this brilliant scene in 1994’s Disclosure? 1995’s Virtual Boy. And on and on. GV invested in AltspaceVR several years back (which now clearly just seems ahead of its time, and is still going) before it was acquired by Microsoft, with some of the team going on to work at… yes, Facebook.

² And beyond the idea of companies subsidizing this, as a consumer product, we probably need to get closer to the $100-$200 price points for mass adoption to be viable. Even then, need I remind everyone that they’re rather bulky computers that you strap to your face?

Book Your Face was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The latest App Store press release drips with disingenuousness

It would be great if Apple would just tell it like it is. Not the watered-down PR-speak that exactly zero people are fooled by. We’re all adults here. We get that there’s nuance. That every story has two sides. Sometimes more. Just give it to us straight.

Instead, we get this.

Let’s dive in:

Apple today announced a number of changes coming to the App Store that, pending court approval, will resolve a class-action suit from US developers. The terms of the agreement will help make the App Store an even better business opportunity for developers, while maintaining the safe and trusted marketplace users love. Apple appreciates the developer feedback and ideas that helped inform the agreement, and respects the ongoing judicial review process.

I mean, right off the bat, it’s a little weird. “Apple today announced”? By that they mean, they issued a press release, this press release, on a Thursday night. It’s true that they did announce one change, with regard to news publishers, earlier in the day. But that also looks weird now with this new release. It was sort of an attempt to look like they were magnanimously extending a carrot right before they got hit with a stick and had to throw out an entire bag of carrots. Many of which are rotten.

As for the terms making the App Store an even better business opportunity for developers, I mean, sure, maybe slightly. It seems pretty clear that these changes, which we’ll get to, aren’t going to change much of anything, actually. But Apple is of course saying they will, hoping that will be good enough to settle the matter, quite literally.

But the last sentence there really takes the cake. “Apple appreciates” — that is a very nice sentiment from a… two and a half trillion dollar corporation. They appreciate the feedback and ideas which had simply never crossed their minds before. The super-ultra-mega-corp also respects the law. Does it also give out hugs?

The agreement clarifies that developers can share purchase options with users outside of their iOS app; expands the price points developers can offer for subscriptions, in-app purchases, and paid apps; and establishes a new fund to assist qualifying US developers. The updates constitute the latest chapter of Apple’s longstanding efforts to evolve the App Store into an even better marketplace for users and developers alike.

“Clarifies” — did anyone need that clarified? I don’t think so. The clarification is that Apple can’t stop a developer from talking about — outside of their app — that other purchase options exist. I mean, Jesus Christ, I hope not! I hope Apple isn’t allowed to do some sort of mass surveillance — too soon? — to ensure the other payment options are never uttered in say, a park.

The key element not clarified here — because it’s not changing — is that you still can’t talk about the other purchase options inside the app. Even if you’d need to make the purchase elsewhere, like on the web. That remains utter bullshit. Full stop.

But the only real change that would matter here would be allowing apps to use any purchase capability they wish (sure, providing it’s not fraudulent, etc) and forcing Apple to compete for the payments by having the best offering. Just to clarify, this does not change any of that.

Expanding price points is whatever. It’s a Kleenex on an open gunshot wound. But the last part is the icing on the gunshot wound. “The latest chapter”? It’s like the second chapter, if that? And any other “chapters” were also the result of direct pressure being applied by the developer community. “Longstanding” — the only thing “longstanding” are the many App Store ridiculous policies which are outdated by a decade. Who is Apple kidding with this nonsense?

“From the beginning, the App Store has been an economic miracle; it is the safest and most trusted place for users to get apps, and an incredible business opportunity for developers to innovate, thrive, and grow,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow who oversees the App Store. “We would like to thank the developers who worked with us to reach these agreements in support of the goals of the App Store and to the benefit of all of our users.”

“An economic miracle”! Jesus Fucking Christ. It’s an awesome business. For developers, yes. But especially for Apple. Read the room, Apple Fellow. Tone down the “miracle” nonsense. This is capitalism, not Catholicism.

“We would like to thank” the Academy for this performance.

“Following a productive dialogue” we get the seven deadly wins:

In a validation of the App Store Small Business Program’s success, Apple and the developers agreed to maintain the program in its current structure for at least the next three years. Businesses earning less than $1 million annually will continue to benefit from the reduced commission, while larger developers pay the App Store’s standard commission on app purchases and in-app payments.

Yes, this was one of the first “chapters” of changes Apple was forced to make to the App Store rules under pressure. Now it stays for… three years? What a strange mandate. Why not thirty years? Why not three months? Who the hell knows what the world will be like in three years? Maybe this ends up being a bad thing?

App Store Search has always been about making it easy for users to find the apps they’re looking for. At the request of developers, Apple has agreed that its Search results will continue to be based on objective characteristics like downloads, star ratings, text relevance, and user behavior signals. The agreement will keep the current App Store Search system in place for at least the next three years.

I mean, what? Most developers tend to think App Store Search sucks, no? It’s gamed by ads from the competition just like every other search engine is. And now that stays in place for three years. Yay?

Also, now I just want to know how on Earth Apple was thinking about changing App Store Search — let’s call it A.S.S. for short — that they felt the need to commit not to change it for three years. Was it going to be based on non-objective characteristics? Curated search? Apple is framing this as a huge concession to developers, is that true? On either side?

To give developers even more flexibility to reach their customers, Apple is also clarifying that developers can use communications, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app. As always, developers will not pay Apple a commission on any purchases taking place outside of their app or the App Store. Users must consent to the communication and have the right to opt out.

Again, this is the main bullshit. “Such as email” — oh, thank you so much Apple for that privilege. Apple is committing not to shoot down any carrier pigeons bringing word of outside-of-apps payment mechanisms. Unless the users don’t opt-in to carrier pigeons. Then Apple can shoot away. What about smoke signals? Legal or nah?

Apple will also expand the number of price points available to developers for subscriptions, in-app purchases, and paid apps from fewer than 100 to more than 500. Developers will continue to set their own prices.

I mean, great. What a grand, epic gesture of tweaking like five lines of code.

Apple will maintain the option for developers to appeal the rejection of an app based on perceived unfair treatment, a process that continues to prove successful. Apple has agreed to add content to the App Review website to help developers understand how the appeals process works.

Thank you, Sir! May I have another?

Over the last several years, Apple has provided a great deal of new information about the App Store on apple.com. Apple agreed to create an annual transparency report based on that data, which will share meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.

This is 2021. The golden age of transparency reports. We have transparency reports about transparency reports. They weren’t already doing this?!

Apple will also establish a fund to assist small US developers, particularly as the world continues to suffer from the effects of COVID-19. Eligible developers must have earned $1 million or less through the US storefront for all of their apps in every calendar year in which the developers had an account between June 4, 2015, and April 26, 2021 — encompassing 99 percent of developers in the US. Details will be available at a later date.

I mean, the last sentence says it all. This is priority number seven of seven for Apple. Perhaps not a forced gesture of goodwill, but not exactly an unforced one either. Also, I hope no developer made $1.01M in say, 2018.

Nice attempt at some sort of heartstring vote with the COVID-19 call out?

Oh and then, did they mention the News Partner Program? Oh, that’s right, we got an entirely different press release about it earlier in the day when normal press releases go out. And guess what? A wave of good press as a result. It’s almost like this was coordinated. But it’s also just weird to have this program mentioned in two separate press releases in the same day.

And, I mean, is it a good deal for publishers? Maybe. But it’s also maybe a bad one if it transfers the customer relationship from them to Apple. It’s perhaps selling your rolodex (and future) for 15%.

I suspect we’ll see similar “carrots” for other App Store verticals in the future so that Apple can look good in lowering the 30% cut while also getting something in return. Because why do the right thing for free when you can get paid to do the right thing? I’m fine with this, and it extends a practice Apple had been quietly doing behind-the-scenes to get video streamers on Apple TV, for example. But come on, how many times do we get the word “support” in this release? The funny thing is that this is more about supporting Apple News than supporting the actual news, of course.

Anyway, here’s what I wish Apple would have said in this release:

Look, we’re obviously under a lot of pressure and scrutiny to change some of the App Store policies. We get it, we’re a $2.5T company. And it’s 2021, not 2011. A lot has changed, and Apple has changed. But we haven’t been as quick to change some of these policies as we probably should have been, so we’re doing it now under some pressure. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. And it will probably benefit everyone, including us, in the long run because it will keep developers happy alongside our users.

So today, effective immediately, we’re lowering our in-app purchase cut to 15% across the board. We can probably get away with a higher cut in certain verticals, like games, but we want to keep it simple and fair. For developers who make less than $1M a year, we’re lowering it to 10%.

We’re also going to allow approved third-party payment providers to be used for in-app payments. We’re going to vet these to make sure there’s no funny business. But as long as it’s an upstanding payment provider, that will be fine. We are going to ask that developers still give the option to use our payment stack, but we’re aiming to compete for the business. We believe our stack is the best, most seamless way to pay on our devices, and we think developers and customers will agree.

If you’d rather use a non-approved third-party payment provider, you can do that on your own website. And you can leave a message in your app to point users there, but if this is flagged as nefarious in some way, we may ask you to remove such language.

We appreciate that some of these changes are long overdue. We don’t always get it right, and here, we may have lost sight of the goal a bit. But we hope these changes showcase our commitment to our ecosystem and our openness to changing with the times.

To address the elephant who is sadly no longer with us in the room, I obviously don’t think Steve Jobs would acquiesce to all these demands. But I do think he would have been much more straightforward in talking through the pluses and minuses of such changes. Or, at the very least, he would have been more blunt. And that would have been infinitely better than this disingenuous press release that ultimately amounts to very little.

Published on August 26, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸

Written on a 2020 13-inch M1 MacBook Air 💻

Thank You, Apple! May We Have Another? was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

…and tries to eliminate the negative

In another life, perhaps Bing Crosby was an Apple PR lead. Sing it with me:

🎶 You’ve got to accentuate the positive… Eliminate the negative…🎶

That was clearly — clearly — the marching orders from Apple’s actual PR team in announcing the settlement with app developers in which Apple gave up some major… er, wait, no — in which Apple gave up basically nothing. But that wasn’t how the initial group of stories around the matter read. And even I too was thrown at first. And now it’s clear why.

To be clear, it’s obviously the goal of every PR person around every single announcement to accentuate the positive as much as possible. No one can fault Apple for that, of course. But if this bit of reporting by Jack Nicas of The New York Times is to be believed — and I believe it is to be believed given my own experiences in such matters — Apple’s positioning and tactics were decidedly more slippery than just your standard PR spin.

The core bit is a ways down the story:

There was a lot of confusion after the settlement was announced in part because of how Apple announced it. The company told reporters about an evening press briefing two hours before it was set to start and then posted a muddied news release just as the briefing was beginning.

That meant that as an Apple executive described the settlement as a win for developers, reporters were already rushing to tweet and file first drafts of articles. The incentives of digital news today reward those who are first, not those who are more nuanced or accurate. (An Apple public-relations official required reporters to not name or quote the executive in order to hear the briefing.)

As a result, news headlines initially framed the change as a major avenue for companies to avoid Apple’s commission. This was good for Apple, as any perception that it was making substantive changes to its App Store rules could help appease developers, the courts, regulators and lawmakers.

In reality, it appears that Apple has paid a small price to get rid of a potentially big legal headache.

Some people find the sausage-making details of how a story is put out there into the world boring. And most of the time, it is. But here, it actually is intriguing because Apple nearly successfully turned a lump of coal into a diamond. By giving reporters a two-hour heads up that something was coming and posting their decidedly disingenuous press release just as that call was starting; while at the same time, not allowing anyone to actually quote the executive giving the details, let alone name them, Apple was essentially trying to tie reporters’ hands behind their backs and weights around their ankles while asking them to swim laps in their Olympic-sized pool.

You can almost hear the press conference:

Unnamed Apple Fellow: Today, we’re announcing a substantial set of changes to our App Store policies designed to ensure our developer community can take even further advantage of the unprecedented capabilities which Apple has bestowed upon them with the App Store.

*Insert a fifteen minute filibuster of bluster about the App Store.*

Reporter: Thanks for that. Can I just ask, are these actually substantial changes, it would seem that…

Apple PR Person On The Line: [cuts in] …well, thanks for your time, we have to run now. The release is live on the site. If you have any further questions, we’ll find some time for you and he-who-shall-not-be-named later. 

Reporter: Just one…

Apple PR: Have a nice night!

Remember, this was at 6pm PT/9pm ET on a Thursday night. Not exactly standard press release time. In fact, Apple had already put out a tangential release earlier in the day around the in-app cut for publishers who agree to put their content on Apple News.

That leads to the question of why this was all so hastily put together. Was it an attempt to bury the news? To more fully guide the narrative? Was there some legal reason for the timing? That’s not entirely clear. But what is clear is that Apple’s tactics when they did decide on the timing were fully set to push this in the press as a huge win for developers and also a magnanimous concession by Apple. It was neither.

At best, these were slight wins for developers. But they were all actually huge wins for Apple because it means that they don’t really have to change anything meaningful to the App Store right now. Remember, the biggest change was actually about “clarifying” a position, not actually changing one. And the hope, of course, is that this will settle the broader battles going on. It will not, obviously. But good effort?

Anyway, again, this is in many ways the job of Apple PR. And so kudos on the spin. But as both sides who have been around this long enough know, it’s not tenable to do these types of maneuvers. At the end of the day, the job should really be for both sides to do their jobs — and, critically, to be given the time to do their jobs — to the best of their ability. To lay out a perspective and to acknowledge there are other perspectives. Not to ram home a perspective at the end of a day and call it a day.

Published on August 29, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨

Apple Accentuates the Positive was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The way Apple is making App Store changes is wild, but the changes themselves are not…

By my count, we’re about a dozen lawsuits and/or threats of legislation away from the App Store being great again.

I’m being facetious, but I’m also not. This is actually happening. For the second week in a row, Apple is making App Store policy changes (or “clarifications”) by way of a settlement press release. It’s wild.

I’ll admit that at first I was once again thrown tonight. When the news was hitting the Bloomberg Terminals that Apple was about to reverse a major App Store policy and allow developers to link to websites (imagine that!) from their apps, survivor bias kicked in. Obviously, this was in response to the backlash Apple was facing due to their nothing burger announcement last week, right? Wrong. Well, at least not directly.

By way of another press release under the cover of night — this one far more excusable, as it’s the morning in Japan — Apple announced they were settling a matter with Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, bringing their App Store investigation to a close:

Apple today announced an update coming to the App Store that closes an investigation by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC). The update will allow developers of “reader” apps to include an in-app link to their website for users to set up or manage an account. While the agreement was made with the JFTC, Apple will apply this change globally to all reader apps on the store. Reader apps provide previously purchased content or content subscriptions for digital magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video.

The key sentences are the second and third ones. With the latter, Apple clearly notes this is a new worldwide policy shift. And it is entirely possible, perhaps even probable, that Apple at least somewhat felt the need to do this given the recent backlash. Certainly the “techlash” overall played a role? But between this and the recent South Korea ruling about in-app payment processors, Apple was also running the risk of being forced to put a bunch of fingers in a leaky dam. Running the App Store with so many different rules — almost all of them entirely arbitrary to begin with — in different markets around the world obviously isn’t tenable.

At the same time, that second sentence is still a bit of a nut kick. The definition of “reader” apps has long been another kind of arbitrary joke within the App Store. As they point out, “reader” apps include apps you listen to and watch. It’s a definition Apple made up to suit their own business needs rather than to actually make sense. And they’re sticking to it, for now, at least. As I immediately quipped, perhaps we just need another country to sue for the non-“reader” apps and presto!

This whole thing is just strange. John Gruber and I discussed the situation leading up to this most recent change on his Talk Show podcast this week. And if anything, this just reinforces several things we discussed. Namely, Apple should be getting ahead of these changes they’re being backed into. How much more powerful would it be to see the company leading with a Steve Jobs-esque “Thoughts on Flash” or “Thoughts on DRM” statement rather than these legal settlement statements?

Apple must see where the puck is going. Yes, it’s away from where they’d like it to, but if they get ahead of it, they could at least guide it a bit. Instead we have these reflexive moves of appeasement. Apple clearly hopes they’ll be enough to stem the tide, to plug the damn, but they won’t. At best, they’ll buy some time by spin, spin, spinning the narrative as much as possible. But for what? One extra quarter of better services revenue? How inspiring.

That said, I do think this is perhaps a savvy/cynical move from Apple’s perspective in that they already gave up on much of the App Store profits in this regard. That is, services like Netflix and Spotify (you know, “reader” apps, obviously) had already pulled the ability to sign up via in-app, so… this just ends a battle Apple already lost. And it perhaps alleviates some pressure on the battles they haven’t yet fully lost, namely with games (though they have with Epic, hence, the lawsuit everyone is now watching with greater interest by the day!).

But this also is history repeating itself so…

One thing Gruber and I discussed was the idea that perhaps they could reach a middle-ground with developers and let them offer vetted third-party payment solutions, using the App Store review policies to enforce this in a way to ensure their trust and safety requirements were being adhered to. Same with linking to external sites for payments, as I discussed last week. Today, Apple basically stated that they’re going to do this for these external links:

Before the change goes into effect in early 2022, Apple will update its guidelines and review process to make sure users of reader apps continue to have a safe experience on the App Store. While in-app purchases through the App Store commerce system remain the safest and most trusted payment methods for users, Apple will also help developers of reader apps protect users when they link them to an external website to make purchases.

“Help” is a funny way to put it, but we get it. Thank you, Apple Nanny!

“Trust on the App Store is everything to us. The focus of the App Store is always to create a safe and secure experience for users, while helping them find and use great apps on the devices they love,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow who oversees the App Store.

I think there are some countries in the world that may beg to differ with the Apple Fellow here, but okay. This is a good first step, provided it is in fact just a first step. The release goes on to almost imply that it is (or, perhaps, the last in a series of steps dating to the ones mentioned last week).

Again, this is all fairly obvious. Apple was always going to have to change these things one way or another. And there are other things — the 30% cut, the in-app payments stack — that will undoubtedly change as well with time. We all just wish Apple would be more proactive about these changes. None of these are set in stone. They were handed down from Steve Jobs. He is not God, all evidence within Apple’s policy team to the contrary.

Published on September 1, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸

Written on a 2020 13-inch M1 MacBook Air 💻

Drinking a Boekenoogen 2018 Pinot Noir 🍷

Apple is Being Sued into App Store Submission was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Apple v. Epic indeed…

It depends on what your definition of a link is. Or really, in some ways, what your definition of the internet is. If it’s all really just a series of tubes, it’s not entirely clear that a link you click to take you somewhere else actually takes you somewhere else versus a link that allows you to pay for something on a page as that’s also essentially taking you somewhere else. It’s confusing, yes. But this is probably what it’s all going to boil down to in the next battle of Apple v. Epic.

Apple says they won. Epic says they lost. That should be cut and dried, no? But maybe, just maybe, both sides are saying what they think they need to say for appearances sake. Perhaps there’s actually quite a bit of nuance and gamesmanship here — surprise!

My read is that Apple did win — exactly what everyone always knew they would win. But in winning that battle, they actually lost something far more important. There is no way around it: the judge’s order to stop App Store anti-steering is a big one. And seemingly one Apple did see coming given the Japanese settlement a few weeks back. But this is still a major blow because it both continues and accelerates the boulder rolling down the hill of real reforms to the App Store.

Apple may think that they’re doing enough in a piecemeal fashion to stave off major change, but they’re not. If anything, they need to make a major change to stanch the bleeding. But they won’t do that. They’re both too proud and too arrogant. They’re so sure that they’re in the right here that they don’t see that it actually doesn’t matter.

Epic, I think, sees that. They’re coy about it, but my suspicion is that they’re a lot smarter about all of this than they’re letting on. And that we’ll only find that out well after the fact. After the App Store has been majorly reformed by Epic’s “losses” here.

As I’ve said before, this is some Sun Tzu shit.

And I’m really not sure Apple sees this. They’re failing to read the room and more importantly, the courtroom. They’re going to interpret this court order in the way that best serves Apple, obviously. But others are going to challenge that, obviously. Regardless of who wins, it just continues the bad vibes yielding bad blood within Apple’s own developer community. And it’s going to keep the pressure on them, politically.

I mean, someone inside Apple must see all of this. It’s obvious. But hubris is blinding those in the position to do something about it, clearly. Apple should just take a look around, see which way the wind is blowing, and make some major changes to appease the courts and to please their developers. End this.

They should open things up to win these arguments on the product side of the equation — something which they’re uniquely situated to do thanks to about two dozen aspects of the iPhone. They should compete on the playing field in which they already have home field advantage.

And that’s the craziest part of all of this. They would undoubtedly still win far more often than not. Both because of those inherent iPhone advantages, but also because their product offerings on the in-app and Apple Pay side are very good! Let them stand on their merits! That, in turn would also likely help Apple in a number of ways!

But they don’t see it that way. And the bigger fear is that they don’t see it at all. Instead, we’re about to battle about what the definition of a link is. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll get into the weeds of MFNs. Appeal after appeal. Delay after delay. Buy time for other revenue to fill in the inevitable gaps. Meanwhile, all of this will just continue the appearance that a $2.5T company is nickle and diming their developers to death. Not a great look.

Published on September 10, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸

Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻

Apple Won a Battle to Lose the War was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some thoughts on the iPhones 13 event…

No one loves California more than Apple does. Maybe John Muir? But probably not. Maybe Gavin Newsom after yesterday? But still, probably not. That’s my main takeaway from yesterday’s Apple event. For once, the invites meant something. Apple fucking loves California.

Why? Unclear. Yes, the company was born here and is based here. But I dunno, it was a weird vibe, to be honest. Like they wanted to say more but didn’t. Instead, we got an intro video with some California soul. We got a “I really love the incredible energy of that opening” from Tim Cook, which felt less forced than rote. Then we got a lot of interstitials of California nature love throughout the show. But what was the point? To showcase how much they love the state on this weird recall election date? To showcase how much they love it in the face of the exodus narrative? In the face of the Texas anti-abortion decision? I honestly don’t get it. Is it pandering to California to protect them from the federal pressures? Just to try to give us a sense of place as we approach year two of work-from-home? To be more like Snap? Something else? Dunno! Moving on…

Apple TV

Hey, Apple TV has a lot of Emmy nominations! Ted Lasso! Fun. Don’t forget The Morning Show is back this week! I’m fairly excited about that, but the only thing I was truly interested in here was a few brief glimpses at Foundation. Please be good, please be good, please be good.

iPad

Some great growth during the pandemic, which makes sense. I’m both surprised that this “standard” iPad is the most popular one, but also not. It’s a great product, at a great price. But I am sort of surprised how much Apple kept reiterating it was the most successful iPad. It’s almost like they were apologizing for the stage time. Which I sort of get because everything announced was just features previously announced for other iPad SKUs. It was trickle down upgrades. Hard to get too excited here.

But again, this is about a battle with Chromebooks and Android tablets. Better front facing cameras. Center Stage! True Tone! You still can only use the first iteration of the Apple Pencil and we still have some very big bezels. But hey, eventually trickle down product development will upgrade those as well.

iPad mini

Yeah, this thing looks and sounds fantastic. It’s both the most “just a big iPhone” product yet, and yet, also the product I want the most. It’s just such a great size, and now with a larger screen (8.3") thanks to the reduction in bezels and the movement of the TouchID sensor to the power button, like the iPad Air.¹ Also, new colors! Though a bit too pastel-y? What does one have to do for a nice blue? Also, the first of many ‘Starlight’ colors announced today.

I bought one immediately. I had hoped there would be a Smart Keyboard too, but that was clearly a bridge too far. Instead, I should use my old, trusted Logitech keyboard here, I guess. I’m okay with that, it’s a great size!

5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me up when Hans is back on stage to announce this.

USB-C and second generation Apple Pencil support, two “finallys”.

And yet, as far as I recall, no talk of the actual chip inside here. Perhaps that was to save it for the iPhone unveil (Tim Cook later mentioned it in his summary of the day — it’s the A15 Bionic, huge!).

Apple Watch

Jeff Williams takes the stage — sorry, the field on a cliff — to talk about biking. And to showcase rocks hitting the Apple Watch, which gave me PTSD, thinking back to this.

The Apple Watch Series 7 has a larger display and thinner borders. The UI has been redone in subtle ways to take advantage of this, which basically means bigger buttons. Also there’s now a digital keyboard. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is whittling down his fingers to toothpicks.

The Apple Watch is now dust resistant, just in time for the Burning Man which is not happening. It also now charges faster — thank god — thanks to USB-C, it would seem. And we have five new colors for the aluminum variety: ‘Midnight’, ‘Starlight’, ‘Green’, ‘Blue’, and ‘Project Red’. They look nice, if not as entirely new as Apple is touting. There are still steel and titanium finishes as well. Most importantly, the old bands still work. Kudos to Apple for making this happen for a second enlargement cycle.

And the opposite of kudos for keeping the Series 3 around for sale. It’s so comically old in basically every measurement, including literal screen size measurements. It was silly to keep it around last year, now it’s just sort of insulting. At least make the Series 4 the “new” Series 3 this year? Or, if you must keep the 3 around for manufacturing reasons, don’t keep it at $199, make it $99. A sub-$100 Apple Watch, even the Series 3, would be a huge deal. A $199 four year old Apple Watch is less of a big deal. It honestly may even be a bad deal. Get the SE for $80 more?

There was also no talk of what chip was inside the new Series 7, but perhaps that’s just because it’s not entirely clear when this thing is shipping. It’s just “later this Fall” which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but is still fairly surprising. Perhaps that’s why Apple also unveiled the new iPads today?

The Fitness+ updates seem solid. Pilates. Guided Meditation. Group workouts for up to 32 people, though they only showed what it looked like for two — perhaps because it’s another feature coming later this year. The ad for the service is clever and feels right, especially in our age of COVID: there is no door to this club. Something else that feels right: grouping these updates with the Apple Watch updates. Apple knows this audience now.

iPhone 13

Also as expected, but in some superstitious ways surprising, we now have the iPhone 13. It has diagonal lenses and yes, comes in ‘Starlight’ (as well as ‘Pink’, ‘Blue’, ‘Midnight’, and ‘Project Red’). And yes, the mini is still here too. One last hurrah, sadly?

There’s a six-core A15 Bionic chip, because no matter what, we can’t lose the all-important “Bionic” moniker. And there’s a smaller camera notch area. But a bigger battery! 1.5 hours longer for the 13 mini (versus the 12 mini) and 2.5 hours longer for the 13 (versus the 12). Assuming those are accurate, that would be pretty amazing.

Beyond the bigger battery, Apple implies they’re getting better battery thanks to software, which sounds a lot like judiciously shutting off 5G when it’s not needed. Which is quite often, in my experience. Still there was a whole section devoted to how impressed we should be with the utterly unimpressive 5G service. At least Cameo got a shout out.

‘Cinematic Mode’ looks legitimately cool. One of those things that “just works” that everyone will rush to try to copy. I suspect it won’t be so easy…

Less cool is releasing a MagSafe Wallet with Find My support right after I bought the last MagSafe Wallet without Find My support. Also, they were able to bake Find My support into the MagSafe wallet but not the new Apple TV remote?!

Lastly, farewell to the 64GB iPhone models, you shall not be missed.

iPhone 13 Pro

I’ll give Apple credit, rather than try to shy away from how massive the camera bump is getting on the back of the iPhones Pro, they’re leaning in. The intro tease video makes the cameras look like goddamn skyscrapers.

The new blue, ‘Sierra Blue’ looks beautiful. For some reason, there’s no ‘Starlight’ here and instead we have the similar-looking but comparatively bland sounding ‘Silver’. ‘Gold’ is back and ‘Graphite’ is black.

Again, while the camera bump is bigger, the True Depth ‘chin’ is smaller. Or, at least narrower. More Jay Leno-like. And the battery is bigger here too. 1.5 more hours for the 13 Pro (versus the 12 Pro), 2.5 more hours for the 13 Pro Max (versus the 12 Pro Max). As someone who “downgraded” to a non-Max the last time around, this massive battery in the Pro Max is going to bring me back this time. Apple claims it’s the longest battery life for an iPhone ever, and I’m here for it. Bathe me in battery.

The iPhones Pro also seem to come with one more GPU core. And yes, you can get a 1TB option for the first time ever. No word on RAM — I know the larger capacity iPads Pro have more RAM, for example. If that’s the case here, I’d likely get the 1TB model, even though I don’t need that much space. [Update: from everything I can tell and read, all the iPhone 13 Pro models feature 6GB of RAM — same as the iPhone 12 Pro models — so it would seem that there’s no boost in RAM for the larger storage option.]

A ‘ProMotion’ display sounds great, curious how it will feel in practice. Apple is obviously a bit late to the 120Hz game…

Apple is calling this year’s models the biggest camera advancements ever. Though I’m fairly certain they also said that in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008. They’re not wrong, they’re just repetitive!

3x optical zoom? Yes. Better low light? Yes. Macro photography? Yes, yes!

If Katheryn Bigelow and Greig Fraser tell me this iPhone has the potential to “change the language of cinema, in a very positive way” I guess I’m inclined to believe them? But I mean, I feel like you could also undersell this and aim to overdeliver. Again, these updates sound awesome. Let them speak for themselves. Not sure how hyperbolic we really need to be here.

Sir, this is an Apple Event.

‘ProRes’ is another “later this year” thing. It’s fascinating how many of these types of later-on features Apple now does regularly…

While the Watches are stuck in limbo, the iPhones are ready to roll at once and on time this year. Pre-order on Friday, get them a week later. All models. The 12 remains. The 11 remains. The SE remains. I’m honestly not sure who buys an 11 versus a 12, but again, I don’t want to downplay the $100. It’s nice that Apple is offering such granular price points here.

For me, the only real question and debate this year is if the 1TB model comes with more RAM, as mentioned. If so, I’ll get it, despite not needing that much storage. If not, I think it will be an iPhone 13 Pro Max with 512GB of storage. [Update: see the update above — it looks like all the iPhones 13 Pro have 6GB of RAM.] Sierra Blue. Goodbye $1,400 to $1,600. But really, goodbye $58 to $66 a month. Expensive, yes. But also the device I use by far the most.

N+1

Speaking of, there was a very real sense that this was perhaps the most ‘S’ year upgrades to the iPhone yet. And yet, this did not get an ‘S’ name. To me, that indicates that this era is over. From here on out, it’s ‘N+1’ iPhones.

The event itself was one hour and seventeen minutes, which felt okay, but Apple easily could have condensed this into an hour. Again, it sort of felt like they pulled forward the iPads here from October since the Apple Watch wasn’t quite ready to go yet. And yet, everyone was expecting a new Apple Watch since that’s been the usual cadence alongside new iPhones.

It does make you wonder what else Apple might showcase if and when they do an October event as well this year. New MacBook Pros seem likely. Perhaps the new AirPods, which were also MIA today. But if there really is going to be another event, they’ll probably want something more. Notably, there was no talk about what the new hardware can do with regard to AR today… Or maybe we’ll get a whole event devoted to a new deal for the App Store? That rather gigantic and relevant elephant in the room which was also not addressed here… (Fat chance.)

Who knows, maybe we’ll just get one event and a series of press releases this year.

Anyway, yesterday’s event felt a bit more muted and also a bit longer than it should have been. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m clearly buying an iPad mini and the new iPhone. But I’m a lunatic. Your own mileage may vary.

How do you not end this event with “California Love” given the opening? Apple sure is acting like they forgot about Dre…

Published on September 15, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸

Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻

¹ I still want this on the iPhone, by the way. But seems like we’re going to wait to get TouchID moved behind the screen there…

Apple’s California Love was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some Kremlinology of Tim Sweeney’s statements…

There’s a scene in the 2002 film version of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears in which Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) makes a passioned case that Alexander Nemerov (Ciarán Hinds), the new President of the Russian Federation, would not have ordered an artillery strike against Chechnya. He makes this case to the President of the United States (James Cromwell) and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, no less. The stakes are high. The stakes are war.

Ryan exits the room and immediately finds himself in front of a TV where Nemerov is giving a statement taking responsibility for the strike Ryan just said he did not do. “Nice going, Ace,” a woman who was in the room for Ryan’s plea says, patting him on the shoulder. This immediately cuts to a shot of Nemerov getting into an elevator with his own advisor and asking, “Who did it?”

The point, of course, is that Nemerov was taking credit for something he did not do, and was doing so publicly to send a message. Not to the United States, but to his own people. “Better to appear guilty than impotent,” Nemerov says as he exits the elevator.

I found myself randomly thinking of these scenes today when reading the statements made by Tim Sweeney with regard to Apple refusing to reinstate Epic’s Fortnite developer account.¹ And my read of this — admittedly, like Ryan, perhaps a bit of a stretch — is that this isn’t as straightforward as it may appear, and as many others think it to be.

I’ve long wondered if Sweeney and Epic weren’t playing a different kind of game than the one Apple is playing, and the moves today don’t dissuade me from that thinking. Yes, it’s entirely possible that Sweeney just wants this to be over with and wants Fortnite back in the App Store following the loss on most fronts with regard to their lawsuit. But actually, that doesn’t seem like the right read to me. Because if they wanted that, Sweeney obviously — obviously — would not have included a few very clear lines in his email (since shared publicly — more on that in a second) to Apple’s Phil Schiller.

I’ll share the whole email below for context, with the key part bolded:

From: Tim Sweeney
Date: Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 5:01 PM
Subject: Fortnite and the App Store
To: Phil Schiller

Hi Phil,

I’m writing to provide clarity on where we stand.

Epic has appealed the court’s decision in our suit over Apple’s policies on In-App Purchase and competing stores. Though we can’t update the Fortnite version that users still have on their iOS devices, we’ve disabled Epic payments server-side, and have paid Apple $6,000,000 as ordered by the court.

Epic has asked Apple to reactivate our Fortnite development account. Epic promises that it will adhere to Apple’s guidelines whenever and wherever we release products on Apple platforms. If we get the account back, we’ll bring Fortnite back to Mac as soon as possible, and we’ll reincorporate Fortnite for iOS in our Unreal Engine development and testing process, which will benefit all of our mutual developers.

Whether Epic chooses to bring Fortnite back to iOS consumers depends on whether and where Apple updates its guidelines to provide for a level playing field between Apple In-App Purchase and other methods of payment.

Epic will resubmit Fortnite to the App Store if you adhere to the plain language of the court order and allow apps to include buttons and external links that direct customers to other purchasing mechanisms without onerous terms or impediments to a good user experience. In that case, our remaining dispute will be about competing stores, and I genuinely believe we could find common ground on the topic if Apple’s position were based solely on user security and privacy rather than commercial interests.

As a provider of developer tools, Epic continues to support Apple platforms and our mutual developers wholeheartedly.

If you have any questions or thoughts, I’m happy to talk.

Tim Sweeney
Epic Games

To me, this entire email is just about that one part. It’s an attempt to drill home the aspect of the lawsuit which Apple “lost”. I believe it’s the only part that really mattered in the entire suit because it’s the only part where there was an opportunity to hit Apple. Because I believe this entire lawsuit hasn’t really been about the legality of the App Store under current laws — those are pretty clear — it’s about showcasing the fact that Epic believes (as do many others) that we need to change those laws.

The lawsuit was a success for Epic in that it revealed just how arbitrary the creation of the App Store rules were. And as such, how ridiculous many of them are. And it did all this on one of the biggest stages possible. The move to strike down anti-steering was the perfect cherry on top of the publicity sundae for Epic. And now they want to make sure they can eat that cherry.

The wording the judge used in terms of what Apple must now allow developers to do in “linking” outside their apps is vague at best. Apple will have one interpretation, but many developers, including Epic, will have another. Epic knows this and makes that very clear here with the plea to “adhere to the plain language of the court order”.

It’s basically saying to Apple: read the intent (and perhaps the room!) of what the judge was going for, don’t try to litigate the language down to the lowest common denominator.

Sweeney is more or less daring Apple to interpret the judge’s order as they read it. If Epic really, truly wanted back into the App Store, Sweeney would not have used that language. Or even brought up that point. It’s so obviously poking the bear. And it’s doing so in a way that I believe was clearly meant to be made public at some point. Undoubtedly because Epic knew it would not compel Schiller and/or Apple. And instead would piss them off. See: the lawyer’s letter in response.

Sweeney’s note at first may read as a “hey, our bad, let’s make up…” but at best it’s “hey, here’s a deal we’re okay making…”. This isn’t an apology, it’s not even an “I’m sorry you’re upset”-type apology. This is a “it’s too bad we’re fighting, here’s how you can make it stop...” It’s really quite something! Given that it’s a deal Epic knows Apple won’t make or take, it’s more like a “hey, we dare you to say ‘fuck you’ to us in public” — it’s goading — to which Apple happily obliged!

While Epic is appealing the case, they’re also shifting the battle here back from a legal one to a PR one. And that makes sense, because that’s the one Epic can actually win.

Now, you could argue that they’re losing that as well. Or that perhaps both sides are. And sure, fine. It’s big company fighting mammoth company, boo hoo. But it is possible that Sweeney truly believes this is a battle which is more important than Epic, and as such, they’re “taking one for the team” to ensure that this both gets elevated and stays elevated. Because the only reason the PR matters — beyond the fact that Apple institutionally hates bad PR — is that it keeps the pressure on Congress to keep the pressure on Apple. They may as well have been CC’d here.

“Wait a minute, that $2.5T company won’t let the game developer back in the App Store even after they lost the lawsuit, paid the fine, and agreed to their demands?!” Apple will take issue with the latter point, but it doesn’t matter. That’s too in the weeds. The headlines are already saying exactly what Epic might want them to say, if you believe Epic is playing the game I believe Epic may be playing.

Again, it’s entirely possible — perhaps even probable — that I’m reading too much into this. The Kremlinology, as it were. But if I were in Epic’s position, trying to affect real change in the App Store, I think I would do exactly what they’ve done so far. They lost a battle for a chance to win a war. And today’s gamesmanship may be just that, in the continued build up to that war. To make statements that would seem to be aimed at one audience, but are actually meant for a different one.

Because it’s better to appear guilty than impotent.²

¹ The film, admittedly, is not great. It’s not as bad as the Chris Pine Jack Ryan movie. But it’s nowhere near the Harrison Ford variety. Nor even the John Krasinski Amazon show. And of course, it’s no Hunt for Red October. I just happened to be watching it recently, and so it popped into my head.

² One more thing: I do expect we’ll see Fortnite in the App Store again. Perhaps not anytime soon given this back-and-forth, but one could easily imagine a “hell freezing over” moment on stage with Sweeney presenting the return of Fortnite at some future WWDC or iPhone keynote. Probably not a 2022 thing, but never is a long time… Remember what this guy used to say about Apple?!

Epic’s Sum of Apple’s Fears was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A decade ago, I was in London. It was my first ever trip to the city. But I couldn’t really enjoy it as my life was in utter chaos. TechCrunch, where I stilled worked at the time, was on fire — in a bad way. I was actually in the middle of negotiating my exit to become a venture capitalist when that news leaked in the middle of my 10-hour flight overseas. When I got off the plane, I was officially shoved out of the reporter nest and into the VC skies. I was a month away from turning 30.

The next evening in London, I went to the Apple Store in Covent Garden to remotely watch the launch of the iPhone 4S — the first phone with Siri. The next morning, I had a private briefing with Apple to go over the device an pick one up to test. A few hours later, Steve Jobs passed away.

There was a lot going on.

Now here I sit a decade later and it feels like a hundred years ago. For one thing, I not only subsequently lived in London for a year, I got married there as well. I’ve now been a VC for far longer than I was ever a reporter — I crossed that line years ago. TechCrunch survived — albeit under a number of subsequent owners. I’m holding a new iPhone 13 Pro in my hands and Apple has added two trillion dollars to its market cap. That is not a typo. I’m about a month away from turning 40. And I have a daughter. Today is her third birthday.

I thought I was going to write this post about a decade of being a VC, but honestly, I’m not sure anyone needs to read that and I’m not sure I want to write that. I was just peering back in time at my calendar from a decade ago and looking at some old posts around that time and could not believe how chaotic it all was. Everything feels much more stable now.

Well, as stable as it can be as we approach year two of a pandemic. It’s all relative. As is time.

Published on October 4, 2021 📆

Written from San Francisco, CA 🗺

Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨️

Enjoying a Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest 🍻

Ten Years Ago… was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ten years after the passing of Steve Jobs, the iPhone endures…

Ten years ago today, the world lost Steve Jobs. In many ways, it feels like an entirely different world. But in one very key and fundamental way it feels the same. There was and remains a single piece of technology which is the most important device that a large percentage of the world uses on a daily basis: the iPhone.

You could certainly make the case that the Mac, as the device which started it all and the one which later saved Apple, was more important for Jobs. And both the iPad and iPod make strong cases for their own importance. But without question, the iPhone has reached a scale which is unparalleled not just for Apple, but for basically any company and product. And it has transformed Apple from a powerful tech company to a $2.5T company. The most valuable company in the world.

Ten years ago, Jobs passed away the day after Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S. And so I thought it was only fitting to jot down some thoughts about its great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great — and I do mean great — grandchild, the iPhone 13.¹

Specifically, I mean the iPhone 13 Pro, the model I chose to get this time around. And that in and of itself is notable for me because I previously had the iPhone 12 Pro. And I believe this is the first time in a while where I’ve gotten the exact same variety of iPhone two years in a row. In the past, I’ve opted to switch things up by getting a ‘Max’ variant (boy, has that word been ruined…) or Apple switched things up enough that the form factor was significantly different. This time, the device both looks and feels almost the same to me. Yes, it’s slightly heavier and baby — sorry, “Sierra” — bluer. But just looking at it head on, it looks the same and it feels largely the same in hand.

And so it has been interesting using it this past week and a half in that regard. In many ways, it doesn’t seem different from using the iPhone 12 Pro. But there are two key day-to-day differences which I do think matter.

The first is the 120Hz “ProMotion” screen. It’s one of those things that is perhaps non-obvious at first. Oddly, it’s even a little hard to discern side-by-side with a non-ProMotion display — for example, the iPhone 12 Pro. But in day-to-day usage, if you’ve used an iPhone long enough, which we all have, you notice it. It’s smoother. Across the board. It’s sort of a weird thing to describe. The best I can do is that it almost feels like the old “Pan & Scan” effect they used to do when converting movies to VHS (so as to avoid the “letterboxes”, for shame). With that context, it sounds like a diss. But it’s not! It’s cool! Very smooooooooth. Like “Retina” screens before it, once you’re used to it, it’s hard to go back.²

The second very noticeable change is the camera system. Simply put: “Macro Mode” is fucking amazing. “Cinematic Mode” is fucking awesome. While I generally try to avoid reading iPhone reviews before I jot down my own thoughts, I have seen on the internets that the latter has gotten some dings for being a bit wonky while the former has gotten some dings for being a little too automatic. I think both are fair critiques to point out, but both will undoubtedly be fixed with time. When they work, they work incredibly well.

And I’ve gotten both to work with minimal effort. I think “Macro Mode” is so cool that it’s one of those things that people will buy this phone for alone. Because even if you don’t really need a super zoomed in picture of a flower to the point of being almost — almost — sexual (I don’t name the parts of a flower, people), you’re gonna want to see it to believe it.

Meanwhile, “Cinematic Mode” is just so lovely, particularly for family videos. I shot one at my little girl’s birthday party over the weekend and when we watched it on our 70" TV via AirPlay it looked almost realer than real. Because, newsflash: your eyes also focus on certain subjects while blurring other things in the background.

I actually thought after the reveal of the iPhone 13 models that I’d find these to be the most “tick” (as opposed to “tock”) devices yet. But those two features changed my mind. While the devices themselves may look the same up front, the camera system in particular is probably worth the upgrade if you care about such things. Which you probably do.

That also comes at a slight cost, of course, beyond the literal one. The camera bump is massive this year. It has been getting larger and larger over time, of course. But this is the biggest bump and jump yet. So much so that I’m not sure it’s even fair to call it a “bump” anymore. It’s more like a plateau. Apple, to their credit, seems to be leaning into it, to own it. But my god, even the official cases need a goddamn bump this year! That means you can no longer lay the thing flat on its back with a case. Which is weird. But hey, for that, beyond the above, you get 3x zoom. I’ll take it, but I wonder where this ends. Fuck it, five blades?³

Let’s see, what else? Massive camera bump aside, the box for the iPhone 13 Pro is amazing. It’s so svelte. I remember when these boxes were full-on bricks. Now they’re half-bricks. It’s impressive.⁴

Because of the massive camera bump, I’ve been slightly more terrified than normal to go case-free thus far, but the ‘Sierra Blue’ is quite nice. I definitely like it more than last year’s ‘Pacific Blue’. But again, I mainly notice it through the window cut out in my case for the camera bump — albeit a large one. (Have I made it clear how big the camera bump is yet? Take what I’m saying and multiply it by 3x.) The large lenses almost look like they’re floating in a shallow sea of blue. It’s a cool effect.

Another key touted element this year is battery life improvements. It’s a big reason why I was okay staying with the ‘Pro’ versus the ‘Pro Max’ — I found the iPhone 12 Pro’s battery lacking a bit, but if I was really going to get another 1.5 hours in the iPhone 13 Pro… The result? Pretty good. It’s definitely lasting longer in day-to-day usage but it’s hard to tell how much of that was the 12’s battery wearing down with usage versus this brand-new 13 battery. On the flip side, I was undoubtedly using the 13 more to test it out in these early days (and, as we all know, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes when you first set up a new iPhone to back things up, optimize, etc). So I feel good about the battery, but it’s not blow-you-out-of-the-water (like, say, the M1 MacBook Air battery upgrade). At least not yet.⁵

The forward-facing “chin” which houses the camera/Face ID elements is indeed smaller this year, but it’s also one of those things you don’t really notice day-to-day.

So, does the thing feel faster overall with the new A15 ‘Bionic’ chip? No. I haven’t noticed any difference, to be honest. I’m sure that’s in part because no app has been designed to take advantage of the new chip yet. But it’s also undoubtedly because I’m not sure any app really ever pushed last year’s chip either. Apple is so far ahead here that they’re just really racing against themselves. I’m sure someone will throw some specs at me about the Samsung Whatever X38382, but come on. Day to day the iPhone is so fast that it has outrun itself. BUT, I do think it’s a good point and worth pointing out that most people are not like me and don’t upgrade from the iPhone 12 Pro to the iPhone 13 Pro. Most people are upgrading from the iPhone XS or X or perhaps earlier. And for them, the speed jump this year will undoubtedly be massive. Almost as massive as that camera bump.

I think it’s also worth pointing out just how easy it is now to do a yearly upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone just by way of trading in an old one. Whereas in the past I’ve been on the iPhone Upgrade Program, I got off it last year mainly because I found it slightly clunky and thought using the Apple Card’s 0% APR and 3% cash back was more seamless and arguably a better deal — especially with that trade-in value.

This year, for the iPhone 12 Pro, you can get $640 off your new iPhone (or $790 if you have the 12 Pro Max). So, depending on your memory configuration, that brings the iPhone 13 Pro cost down to a few hundred dollars. And next year, when you do the same (assuming, of course, that you don’t destroy the device), it will mean roughly the same.

Look, it’s still a lot of money. But again, it’s also undoubtedly your most-used device so it might be worth it — certainly depending on which model of iPhone you currently have.

I’ll close by hearkening back to Jobs’ original iPhone unveil. “An iPod. A phone. And an internet communicator.” Fourteen years later, the iPhone is still all of those things, but there are arguably far more important elements of the device now. A camera. A wallet. A reader. A video conferencing center. A security card. A bus pass. A television screen. Yes, just like the iPhone 4S, a virtual assistant, when she works. A way not just to access your music, but all the music. The list goes on and on and on. That’s quite the legacy for Steve Jobs.

¹ I didn’t do the math, there could be a few more “greats” in there.

² And yes, it has been on the iPads Pro for a bit.

³ In all seriousness, I worry about the lenses more than ever now. Are we going to need lens caps eventually?!

⁴ One upside of no power bricks, I suppose?

⁵ And that matters to me because while I have a battery pack, the one I bought (a Mophie MagSafe one, before Apple’s own version came out) actually no longer fits on the back of the iPhone due to the 13’s massive camera bump!

Some Thoughts on the iPhone 13 Pro was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some thoughts on GV’s investment in Matter

The internet is a big place. It grows larger everyday. And a good percentage of that growth is content. And while a lot of that content is crap, a massive amount is also quite good. Stuff you’d want to consume. But because of said growth in content and a complete lack of growth in time, this is a real challenge. It’s something I’ve long struggled with. With articles in particular, there’s just so much I want to or should read, but just can’t organize it in a way that makes it feasible.

This is, of course, nothing new. In fact, it’s why both Pocket (then called Read It Later) and Instapaper launched back in 2007 and 2008 respectively. They were simple ways to save content to return to later. And they were both brilliant. Two of my most-used services over the past decade-plus. But that latter point is key: it has been well over a decade since those services were created. And while they still exist and are lovingly maintained by new owners, a lot has changed on the internet in the intervening years.

That’s where Matter comes in. As someone who was not just a power user of the last generation of “read it later” services, but perhaps the power user of them, I’ve long been on the look out for anyone coming at the space with fresh eyes and a new product. And so when I met Ben Springwater and Rob Mackenzie, two former employees at Nextdoor, I loved what I heard. They saw the same issues which were getting increasingly worse as the internet expanded with different content types and ways of consuming.

To me, hearing that alignment in vision coming out of YC was enough to make an early bet on this duo going after that problem. But seeing would be believing. And watching Ben and Rob execute and iterate fast and furiously over the first several months of Matter’s life with feature after feature after feature rolling out like a steady beat from a drum machine — just scroll backwards through this list — I was sold. It was time to grow the team and go after this more fully.

And so I’m happy to announce that GV also stepped forward to lead Matter’s Series A round of funding.

Back when I was a reporter (a profession I coincidentally left 10 years ago, this week, by the way), I believe one thing that resonated with my audience was that I was clearly an actual user of many of the products I wrote about. And so today I would also highlight the coverage of Matter by both David Pierce for Protocol in an overview of the current state of the space a few weeks back, and the post today by Sarah Perez at TechCrunch, ostensibly about the funding, but really about the product itself. They’re clearly both users of Matter and that is conveyed well in both pieces.

• Spotify for readers: How tech is inventing better ways to read the internet
• Matter raises $7 million Series A to build a better reading app

As for the Matter product itself, I love it. It’s by no means feature-complete — and yes, notably, it’s still iOS-only (iPhone and iPad — it works on M1 Macs as well!) for now, but web and Android are in the works — but it’s very, very solid. It has of course become my go-to read-it-later app, but also one of my most-used apps, period. They just nail so many little things, with new little things to make it better still coming at that regular cadence.

A couple examples I would highlight (beyond highlights) include the text-to-speech function, which regular readers will know is something I’ve thought about and hacked-together solutions for over the years. And their recent “shuffle” option, which I’ve found solves another issue I’ve long had where we all heavily over-index on reading and sharing what’s “new” when that not only often doesn’t matter with many articles, but causes us to miss so much great writing and content. From day one, Matter set out to solve for this, and often surfaces older posts which are fantastic.

Newsletter integration. Playing nice with paywalls. Tweet threads. Etc. Etc. Etc. Each of these concepts may not be new, but they’re so well executed here in one wonderful package. Again, one built from the ground-up for the 2020s-era internet. And there is a lot more coming.

Oh, and I’ve come this far and haven’t even mentioned just how shitty of an experience it is to read on the web these days. Pop-ups on top of pop-ups. Content squeezed into tiny corners. Slooooowwww loading times. Matter is that glass of ice water in reading on the web hell.

Also fun, you can follow along with what anyone is reading on their profile pages both in-app and on the web (here’s mine, for example). There is, of course, the notion of an explicit share within Matter (and you can do “text shots”, another topic near and dear to me, to share more broadly), but this lightweight way to follow what someone is reading (by way of what they’re highlighting — if they choose to make any of the highlights public) is a cool concept.

And on my Matter page, you may also notice my own articles that I’ve written interspersed. That’s because Matter was built from day one with the concept of being writer-centric, rather than publication-centric. To me, that makes a lot of sense for the 2020s internet of content. Some publications still matter, sure, but more often, I have writers that I follow and want to know when they publish something. (Twitter has served this purpose to an extent, but there’s also a lot of other noise there, to say the least.)

I could go on. They’re calling this roll out a public beta since again, we’re still missing some core things such as the web and Android, but if you have an iOS device, it’s solid even now. I would also just add that there will be a premium plan eventually, and I think it’s important to be straightforward about that, as this is a business. But it will be up to the team and product to prove the value of Matter before we ask people to pay for that value.

So try it!

Matter

A Matter of Time was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Facebook is screwed. At this point, it doesn’t matter what you think about the social network, the fact of the matter is that they’re not coming back from this latest round of body blows against the company. They’re both not dying, but they’re dead. And yes, you may have thought that about the Cambridge Analytica scandal too, but it all plays into this — they were never coming back from that either, stock price aside.

People seem confused because Facebook is still an incredible business that continues to grow. And Facebook cites studies about how vital Facebook is to their core (read: non-tech-press) user base. True! It is a vital service for various forms of communications and connection around the world. And they may or may not take Facebook offline for a few hours to prove the point. But none of that matters.

Facebook is not dying as a business, but they’ve died as a brand. The company needs to move on to ‘what’s next’ as quickly as possible to distance themselves from the social network. This is nothing new, of course — I wrote this over six years ago. They’ve more or less been trying to do this for years. But even in creating an umbrella company, they called it ‘Facebook’, which was dumb. It was the exact opposite of what they should have done. Because, again, Facebook, the brand, is over.

It seems pretty clear that Mark Zuckerberg both realizes this and doesn’t want to realize this. But the latter is his mistake. It’s too late and the longer he and they take to realize this, the worse off the company will be as a result. They might think that all of this will blow over, as it always does, or that all of this is “illogical”, which it also is to some extent. But again, that doesn’t matter. There’s the rationalist world and then there’s the reality of the situation. The powers that be have chosen Facebook as the poster child. The tech elites are tired of Facebook. And the younger generation has no desire to use Facebook. So…

Everyone on to the Instagram lifeboat! But even that brand (and product) is getting tarnished, quickly. And Facebook obviously can’t buy whatever is next at this point, so… it’s a real problem!

The company needs to pivot from the brand from which they’re making all the profits. They can’t just rip off the band-aid and shut down Facebook itself — obviously, OBVIOUSLY — because they need said profits to pull off whatever is next. But they need to do a better job on the branding side to distance the newer projects. It seems like that is starting to happen. It needs to happen more fully.

Again, Zuckerberg is no dummy. He has to know all of this. But as his recent statements have made clear, he’s also clearly a rationalist. The problem is that this is not a rational argument. It’s basically anything but.

Facebook is over because they won. Because they have two billion-plus users. Because they created a service which mirrors humanity. And humanity, as it turns out, is not great. I mean, yeah, sure, there are pockets of great. But there are also pockets of awful. And the awful will always overwhelm the great. And Facebook has created the perfect tool to enable this. At scale.

This both should be obvious and isn’t. The problem with Facebook isn’t actually Facebook. It’s us. It’s human beings. The problem is that Facebook created the greatest tool ever to connect those human beings. And it has led to a world in which the local lunatic is now the global lunatic.

Facebook and Zuckerberg didn’t realize this was the end state because it wasn’t what they envisioned with the original mission. It has blinded them. Connecting people is good! Right? But, as it turns out, it’s not. It sounds good. We all want it to be good. But it’s a fucking disaster. Because humanity is a disaster.

That’s too harsh but you get my point. It’s the one Facebook cannot escape and could never escape. Unlike many, I don’t view them as some nefarious organization — as a bunch of James Bond villains sitting around a table plotting the end of humanity. But their tool created to connect everyone even with the best intentions (we can argue about the “growth at all costs” side of this equation — obviously there weren’t only the best intentions) was long ago usurped. They miscalculated. And we’re all now living with the results of that. And it has painted Facebook into a corner.

Facebook is a brand in crisis to an extent not seen in tech since they heyday of Microsoft during their antitrust trial. And this is actually far worse than that because the real world ramifications extend far greater. The “Big Tobacco” analogy may be overused here, but it really does feel apt in many ways. The poison is digital, but it’s still poison. The original cigarette makers didn’t set out thinking they were creating addictive death sticks. That came later…

So what else can Zuckerberg do? Well, nothing. That sounds extreme but again, these problems are fundamental. They’re inherent to what Facebook, the social network, is. If anything, their PR strategy is just making this all so much worse. They have a quiver of wet noodles armed and ready. I would just shut the fuck up and realize that you can’t fix this because you can’t fix humanity. And I’d keep building whatever is next behind the scenes. And hope to milk those Facebook profits for as long as humanly possible.

Facebook is Too Big, Fail was originally published in 500ish on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.