By John Gruber

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Photos of Huawei’s Triple-Screen Folding Phone Leak ★

Gillette CEO in an Onion op-ed 20 years ago: “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades”.

Jackass of the Week: Thierry Breton ★

Mark Scott, reporting for Politico:

Thierry Breton, who oversees the bloc’s enforcement of new social media rules, sent Musk a letter posted on X that warned the tech mogul about spreading “harmful content,” ahead of Musk’s livestreamed interview with Donald Trump.

The tech billionaire quickly clapped back. “To be honest, I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme,” Musk wrote to his almost 200 million followers on X, while posting a curse-laden photo from the 2008 Hollywood blockbuster. “But I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible!”

Even the European Commission thinks he was a jackass for sending this letter:

Four separate EU officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Breton’s warning to Musk had surprised many within the Commission. The bloc’s enforcers were still investigating the platform for potential wrongdoing and the EU did not want to be seen as potentially interfering in the U.S. presidential election.

“The EU is not in the business of electoral interference,” said one of those officials. “DSA implementation is too important to be misused by an attention-seeking politician in search of his next big job.”

The Financial Times:

“The timing and the wording of the letter were neither co-ordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners],” it said. An EU official, who asked not to be named, said: “Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking.” [...]

Musk responded to the letter from Breton with a meme from the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, that showed one character yelling: “Take a big step back and literally fuck your own face.”

But, Scott reports, we’ll still have Breton to kick around for the foreseeable future:

Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron backed Breton to serve another term at the European Commission. Breton has been vocal in his eagerness to hold onto his digital files, according to three EU officials with knowledge of the matter.

Saturday, 17 August 2024

Google Gemini Is Conversationally Precocious, But Still Awkward ★

Alex Cranz, writing for The Verge:

But then Gemini Live kept talking. And talking. The Verge team was packed in a glass booth, and as Gemini Live droned on, a friendly Google employee encouraged me to “go ahead and interrupt it.”

It felt weird! I don’t mind interrupting Google Assistant in my car. In fact, I can be downright abusive to most of these bots. I call them names and interrupt them with ease. But Gemini Live felt different. The pleasing masculine tone of the voice, the easy way it spoke. It felt a little too human for me to interrupt.

My next question led to a similar interaction. I asked for ideas on how to entertain my dog, and Gemini Live just started talking. The only way I could get it to stop was to interrupt it. Which I did repeatedly. It was like talking to my 9-year-old godson. Like him, Gemini Live doesn’t know how to read the cues on my face, doesn’t know when to acknowledge that, actually, I don’t care as much about the subject at hand as it does.

The comparison to a 9-year-old is apt. There’s no path to LLM assistants not being socially awkward without going through stages of sometimes-embarrassing awkwardness.

Joanna Stern: ‘Google’s Gemini Live AI Sounds So Human, I Almost Forgot It Was a Bot’ ★

Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link):

I’m not saying I prefer talking to Google’s Gemini Live over a real human. But I’m not not saying that either.

Does it help that the chatty new artificial-intelligence bot says I’m a great interviewer with a good sense of humor? Maybe. But it’s more that it actually listens, offers quick answers and doesn’t mind my interruptions. No “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that” apologies like some other bots we know.

I had a nice, long chat with Google’s generative-AI voice assistant before its debut on Tuesday. It will come built into the company’s four new Pixel phones, but it’s also available to anyone with an Android phone, the Gemini app and a $20-a-month subscription to Gemini Advanced. The company plans to launch it soon on iOS, too.

The catch:

When I asked it to set a timer, it said it couldn’t do that — or set an alarm — “yet.” Gemini Live is a big step forward conversationally. But functionally, it’s a step back in some ways. One big reason: Gemini Live works entirely in the cloud, not locally on a device. Google says it’s working on ways for the new assistant to control phone functions and other Google apps.

It’s a fascinating — but unsurprising — strategic and culture difference that Apple Intelligence runs largely on device, and completely privately even when going to the cloud, and Google Gemini is currently only in the cloud, and with nothing like Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. To be clear, Google’s new lineup of Pixel 9 phones perform a lot of “AI” features on device, but not the Gemini voice assistant.

Epic Games Store Launches for iPhones in the EU ★

Epic Games:

Today the Epic Games Store is available for download on iPhones in the European Union and on Android devices worldwide. The store is launching with Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe and the all-new Fall Guys for mobile, and we are working to enable all developers to launch their games and apps through the Epic Games Store in the future. We are also bringing our games to independent mobile stores including AltStore PAL today.

No iPad support yet, but it’s coming.

AltStore, on Mastodon:

GOOD NEWS EU 🇪🇺 For innovation in app distribution, Epic Games has granted us a MegaGrant grant that we plan to use to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee going forward — and we won’t take it for granted!

What does this mean? AltStore PAL is now FREE — no subscription necessary 🎉 altstore.io.

Beta 6 of MacOS 15 Sequoia Now Prompts Monthly, Instead of Weekly, for Screen Recording Permissions ★

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac:

In macOS Sequoia beta 6, however, Apple has adjusted this policy and will now prompt users on a monthly basis instead. macOS Sequoia will also no longer prompt you to approve screen recording permissions every time you reboot your Mac.

Apple’s initial plan to require authorization weekly prompted a lot of blowback from Mac users, including Jason Snell at Six Colors and John Gruber at Daring Fireball. Apple seemingly heard all of this feedback and determined that a one-month approval window is a fair compromise. [...]

A permission request on a monthly basis is certainly better than one on a weekly basis, but I still think there needs to be a way to permanently grant an app screen recording permissions.

Agreed. Perhaps the seemingly under-documented Persistent Content Capture entitlement, pointed out by Craig Hockenberry (who works on the excellent longstanding Iconfactory utility xScope, the entire point of which requires screen content capture) could be a part of such an exemption?

I do think, after some off-the-record conversations this week, that both the MacOS and security teams at Apple are trying to get the balance right on these permission issues. I continue to think part of the problem is thinking too small, and requiring what’s effectively whack-a-mole with multiple recurring permission prompts. Playing that game of whack-a-mole monthly instead of weekly is absolutely an improvement. But I still think there ought to be a way to grant a properly notarized app permanent permission.

‘The Insane Engineering of the Gameboy’ ★

I always knew that the original Gameboy was remarkably clever, but this video from the Real Engineering YouTube channel shows just how clever it was. The price was low ($89), a set of 4 AA batteries lasted for 30 hours, and, of course, it was fun as hell.

Wednesday, 14 August 2024

U.S. Considers Breaking Up Google as Antitrust Remedy ★

David McCabe and Nico Grant, reporting for The New York Times:

Justice Department officials are considering what remedies to ask a federal judge to order against the search giant, said three people with knowledge of the deliberations involving the agency and state attorneys general who helped to bring the case. They are discussing various proposals, including breaking off parts of Google, such as its Chrome browser or Android smartphone operating system, two of the people said.

Other scenarios under consideration include forcing Google to make its data available to rivals, or mandating that it abandon deals that made its search engine the default option on devices like the iPhone, said the people, who declined to be identified because the process is confidential. The government is meeting with other companies and experts to discuss their proposals for limiting Google’s power, the people said.

The deliberations are in their early stages. Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who is overseeing the case, has asked the Justice Department and Google to come up with a process for determining a fix by Sept. 4. He has scheduled a hearing on Sept. 6 to discuss next steps.

After winning the U.S.-v.-Microsoft case in 2001, the U.S. pursued breaking up Microsoft. It didn’t happen. But at least that made some sort of business sense — the idea at the time was to break the OS business (Windows) off from the app business (Office). Windows was profitable on its own. Office was profitable on its own. In theory they could have been separated and operated as independent businesses.

At a product level, you can see why it might be tempting to say Chrome and/or Android ought to be broken off from Google. But at a business level it doesn’t make any sense at all. Chrome makes no money at all on its own. It’s just a funnel for Google Search. Android maybe sort of kind of makes a little money for Google on its own, through the sale of Pixel devices, but it’s negligible. Like Chrome, Android really only exists as a funnel to keep users using Google search and within the broader Google digital ecosystem.

I mean, let’s say Google was forced to spin Chrome off. How would Chrome Inc. make money? Clearly, they’d make money through TAC fee payments from Google search. Also, if they split off Chrome they’d almost have to split off Android. If Google is disallowed from making its own web browser how in the world can they make an OS? I mean in theory they could make an OS that only offered third-party browsers but that would mean no system-level webview for apps to embed. Some people laughed at Microsoft’s late-1990s argument that Windows needed a built-in browser but that’s obviously true today. It’s no different than including a TCP/IP networking stack or printer drivers.

I don’t know what the remedy ought to be for this case, but I don’t think a breakup is it.

Apple: iOS 18.1 Will Offer API for Third-Party Apps to Offer In-App NFC Transactions Using the Secure Element ★

Apple Newsroom:

Starting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. Using the new NFC and SE (Secure Element) APIs, developers will be able to offer in-app contactless transactions for in-store payments, car keys, closed-loop transit, corporate badges, student IDs, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty and rewards cards, and event tickets, with government IDs to be supported in the future.

Reading between the lines, I do not think this will grant third-party apps access to the double-tap-side-button action to initiate a payment. And, I say, that’s a good thing. That’s something Apple should reserve for Apple Pay. I’m not sure the European Commission will agree with me.

Whoops: I should have read more than the first paragraph:

To make a contactless transaction within an app that utilizes these APIs, users can either open the app directly, or set the app as their default contactless app in iOS Settings, and double-click the side button on iPhone to initiate a transaction.

We regret the error, and the appropriate people have been sacked.

After Years of Legal Wrangling, Apple Now Allows Spotify to Show EU Users Pricing in App, and Tells Them They Can Sign Up on the Web ★

Spotify, in an update to an older post on the company blog:

While we are still many steps from a level playing field, we are beginning to see progress because of the European Commission’s historic decision on March 4, 2024 which found that Apple violated the EU’s antitrust laws and fined them over €1.8 billion. Starting today, Spotify is opting into Apple’s “entitlement” for music streaming services, created after the European Commission’s ruling. This means we will finally be able to offer something as obvious as it is overdue: iPhone consumers in the EU will now see pricing information for Spotify in the app and the fact that they can go to our website to purchase items directly.

Jess Weatherbed, at The Verge:

One thing that’s missing is the ability to click a link to make those purchases from outside the Apple App Store. Spotify says it’s opting into the “music streaming services entitlement” that Apple introduced after being served a €1.84 billion (about $2 billion) EU antitrust fine in March for “abusing its dominant position” in music streaming, rather than accepting the complicated new developer terms Apple outlined last week. Unlike the entitlement, the latter would allow EU developers to link to external payment options with Apple taking a cut of off-platform sales. Spotify clearly doesn’t want to do that, saying that Apple is demanding “illegal and predatory taxes.”

So after all this, all that Spotify’s app is now doing differently in the EU is (a) showing the prices of its available plans, and (b) telling users, without offering a tappable link, that to sign up, they need to go to Spotify’s website. It doesn’t even tell you the URL of the website, it just says “To buy Premium, go to the Spotify website.”

For anyone who isn’t paying close attention to these arguments over Apple’s draconian anti-steering terms for apps, it is surely very surprising that it took years of legal wrangling and a $2 billion fine (which, it should be noted, Apple hasn’t yet paid, and which quite possibly will be reduced or thrown out upon appeal) just to allow Spotify to present this information to users. Just to tell them the price and tell them they need to go to Spotify’s website to sign up.

These anti-steering provisions are indefensible. They make Apple look bad in the court of public opinion, and they look even worse in actual courts of law.

AT&T Says It Won’t Carry Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold ★

Eli Blumenthal, reporting for CNet:

Looking for Google’s new Pixel 9 Pro Fold? You won’t find it at AT&T. The carrier has confirmed to CNET that it will not be offering Google’s newest Pixel Fold to its customers. The decision would be a blow to Google’s device ambitions as it would make it harder for it to reach millions of AT&T customers. In its second-quarter earnings last month the carrier revealed that it had nearly 72 million postpaid phone users. [...]

AT&T sold last year’s original Pixel Fold and still plans to sell much of the rest of Google’s new lineup including the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL and Pixel Watch 3. It will have deals for those looking to upgrade to one of those phones.

Backs up my hunch that none of these foldables — including Google’s, regarded by some as the best — are selling well.

Tuesday, 13 August 2024

New Distraction Control Safari Feature Is Now Available in the iOS 18 and MacOS 15 Betas ★

Juli Clover, writing last week for MacRumors:

Distraction Control can be used to hide static content on a page, but it is not an ad blocker and cannot be used to permanently hide ads. An ad can be temporarily hidden, but the feature was not designed for ads, and an ad will reappear when it refreshes. It was not created for elements on a webpage that regularly change.

To use Distraction Control, go to the Page Menu and select Hide Distracting Items. You can select an area on the page that you want to hide, and static content that you select will remain hidden. It is a good way to eliminate the pesky popovers that show up when browsing online stores, reading articles, and more. iPhone, iPad, and Mac users need to opt in to hiding elements on the page, and Apple says that nothing is hidden that is not proactively selected.

When hiding a cookie banner or GDPR popup with Distraction Control, the function is the same as closing a banner without submitting website preferences at all.

This is a really great feature, and the animations it employs are delightful.

Just last week, I found myself shaking my head at this screenshot posted by Nilay Patel of CBS News’s website. It’s ridiculous and sad that the state of web design has sunk so low, but the web browsers themselves — led by Safari — continue to allow users to fight back.

Subtle Tweaks to the Harris/Walz Logo ★

Jonathan Hoefler, on Threads:

The Harris/Walz logo got a smart and subtle haircut this weekend, which, like the very best typography, is making everything better while drawing very little attention to itself.

I read a lot of comments about political logos… Having helped shape the logo of every Democratic president in the twenty-first century (hflr.io/biden, hflr.io/obama), let me say from experience that campaign typography is completely unlike graphic design: it’s a strange and fascinating agility sport, marked by limited information, a ticking clock, unimaginable pressures, and serious consequences. It’s Iron Chef, but in Adobe Illustrator.

The “Harris” was fine all along, and only ever-so-slightly tweaked in this updated logo. It was the “Walz” that needed help, and got it here. Making the letters in “Walz” just a tad taller makes the whole mark feel significantly more cohesive.

Google’s Pixel 9 Launch Event ★

Emma Roth, writing for The Verge:

Google has finally taken the wraps off its Pixel 9 lineup, which includes three slab phones and a folding phone. The regular lineup consists of a base Pixel 9 with a 6.3-inch display, a Pixel 9 Pro XL with a 6.8-inch screen, and a new, smaller Pixel 9 Pro option measuring 6.3 inches. The trio of devices comes with a redesigned oval-shaped camera housing, Google’s updated G4 Tensor chip, better battery life, and a new satellite SOS feature.

While the Pixel 9’s $799 starting price is $100 more than last year’s model, the Pixel 9 Pro starts at $999, and the Pro XL will cost $1,099 and up. The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro XL start shipping on August 22nd, with availability for the smaller Pixel 9 Pro starting in September.

Almost certainly the best Android phones on the market, all things considered, yet it seems pretty predictable that, just like with all previous generations of Pixel phones, few people will buy them. IDC claims Pixels have 5 percent market share in the U.S. but it sure doesn’t seem to me like one out of every 20 phones I see is a Pixel.

In addition to three new standard Pixel devices, Google showed off the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The refreshed Fold is taller and thinner than its predecessor, offering larger displays measuring 6.3 inches on the outside and eight inches on the inside.

The Pixel Pro Fold costs $1,800. I’ve seen a handful of folding phones in real-world use over the years, but only a handful. These things get a ton of attention in the tech media but seemingly nearly zero traction in the market. I continue to think this will remain true until and if Apple releases one, which I expect will look nothing like the existing ones, and then the Android handset makers will make ones that look like Apple’s, and the Android zealots will attempt to shoot down accusations of copycatting by arguing that the design is obvious.

Google’s Made By event was held live, including the AI demos, which didn’t go well. But I have no snark for that. I like live demos and miss them at Apple events. And part of what I like is the high-wire drama of potential demo failure. Watching a live demo gets your attention in a way that a pre-recorded demo cannot. It’s like watching a live stunt.

See also: Marques Brownlee’s first impressions of the new phones (and the new Pixel Watches and wireless earbuds).

‘He Sounded Like a Disoriented, Racist Daffy Duck’ ★

USA Today columnist Rex Huppke, on Donald Trump’s high-profile return to Twitter/X:

But the online interview went off (the rails) with a multitude of hitches. X users erupted with either frustration or laughter as the planned start time passed, and nothing could be accessed. It took more than 40 minutes before the interview could start and be heard by anyone. It was amateur hour, the last thing a campaign struggling to project competence needed.

Of course, things didn’t get better for Trump once the interview was able to proceed. He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being.

He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck.

Here’s Donald Trump, back in May 2023, when Ron DeSantis launched his primary campaign the same way, in a Twitter Space interview with Musk:

Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!

Patreon Should Consider Calling Apple on Its Threats ★

I neglected to call this paragraph out yesterday in my first link to this announcement from Patreon:

Patreon is home to an incredible range of creators, all with unique circumstances and billing needs. Apple’s in-app purchase system, on the other hand, only supports Patreon’s subscription billing model. Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.

Right now Patreon is offering its creators two options for dealing with the upcoming changes in its iOS app:

• Raise prices for users who subscribe through the app by 30 percent to accommodate Apple’s cut of the transactions. (This is the default.)
• Keep prices the same and pay Apple’s fees out of the creator’s share of the transaction.

What Patreon seems to be suggesting above is that if they offered a third option — not to allow subscriptions within the iOS app, controlled by each creator for their own subscriptions — that Apple has threatened to remove the Patreon app from the App Store.

I humbly suggest Patreon go ahead with that anyway. Let’s see how many of Patreon’s creators tell Apple to bugger off. And if Apple were to respond by removing Patreon from the App Store for offering this choice, how would that not backfire spectacularly in Apple’s face? I believe it would be a positive publicity bonanza for Patreon, and for high-visibility creators on their platform, as well. And this example would be a disaster for Apple publicity-wise and in the face of growing regulatory and antitrust scrutiny, especially right here in the U.S.

From the perspective of creators, this clearly ought to be an option. They don’t want to charge their fans 30 percent extra just to pad Apple’s bottom line. They don’t want to earn less money themselves. Thus, they might not want to participate in App Store in-app payments at all. How is that not a perfectly reasonable choice for Patreon to offer and for some of its creators to make? And then just put right there in the app that this creator’s subscriptions are only available on the web. Dare Apple to strike that down on the anti-steering grounds that are in the bullseye of regulators around the world.

Patreon, with an army of devoted creator fans on its side, should call Apple on this bluff. I don’t think they could lose.

Creator Platforms Should Be a Special Category on the App Store ★

Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie, on Patreon being required by Apple to offer in-app subscriptions through their iOS app:

But we also don’t think that Apple should be wholly blamed. This unfortunate situation, in which creators ultimately bear the biggest costs, is a structural issue rooted in how the commercial internet has evolved (or not) over the past couple of decades. [...]

But creators aren’t Apple’s traditional customers. They’re not app makers or game developers. They don’t actually have a piece of real estate in the App Store. They instead find their distribution through media platforms, including the likes of Patreon and Substack. It might feel weird for someone who publishes a podcast through Patreon, or a publication through Substack, to receive the same treatment from Apple as Netflix.

The emergence of the creator economy presents an interesting challenge and opportunity for Apple, and some delicate questions for Patreon and Substack. We want creators and subscribers to benefit from the power of Apple’s in-app purchases. In fact, at Substack we have been working with Apple to bring in-app purchases into our app, because we believe that anything that reduces the friction of a subscription is great for creators. We’re doing everything in our power to make the implementation of in-app purchases as creator-friendly as possible.

First, a correction: Yesterday I wrote that Substack didn’t offer in-app purchases in its iOS app. I was wrong. They do. How I got it wrong is that I checked, in the app, by looking at a publication to which I was already subscribed at the free tier, to upgrade to a paid account. That showed me a panel that read “You cannot manage your subscription in the app.” But that’s because I started the subscription on Substack’s website. For Substack subscriptions made on the web, you must continue to manage them on the web. This probably isn’t merely about avoiding Apple’s payment fees, but a practical requirement. I don’t think there’s any way, technically, that an individual subscription you started paying for on the web could be migrated on-the-fly to Apple’s payments, or vice-versa. For a Substack publication you aren’t already subscribed to, even at the free tier, you can subscribe via IAP in the Substack iOS app.

What I should have done is look at Substack’s listing on the App Store itself, which clearly shows that it offers in-app purchases. Each Substack publication offers a distinct SKU for each paid subscription it offers, so the Substack app’s listing shows the most popular ones.

Second: McKenzie’s observation that it’s weird for individual creators “to receive the same treatment from Apple as Netflix” is interesting, because Netflix doesn’t receive the same treatment as most apps. Netflix is a “reader app”, a special category Apple carved out in the App Store for “apps that provide one or more of the following digital content types — magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, or video — as the primary functionality of the app”.

It seems obvious to me that creator-platform apps like Substack and Patreon ought to be in a new category of their own, the basic idea of which would be for Apple to take some sort of smaller cut of these transactions.

Monday, 12 August 2024

Nick Heer on Patreon Creators Paying the Full 30 Percent App Store Rate for New Subscriptions ★

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

The 30% fee is also notable. As far as I can tell, only a handful of Patreon users would exceed the million-dollar annual threshold for Apple’s Small Business Program. That is, everyone who earns less than a million dollars per year through iOS Patreon pledges should, in theory, fork over a 15% commission rate to Apple. But it appears it is Patreon itself which is subject to the 30% rate. Whether that decision was made by Apple or Patreon, of if it is something which is a consequence of how App Store billing works, is unclear to me. But one thing is true regardless: Apple’s 30% commission is at least double the rate charged by Patreon itself, and only the latter has any material effect on the relationship between a creative professional and their supporters.

The problem here reminds me of e-books. There’s really only room for one middleman in a relationship between a creator and their audience, and in this case that middleman has been Patreon. But now Apple is saying they’re required to be involved too. But the Patreon app doesn’t qualify for the Small Business Program, so in-app subscriptions through the Patreon app are split 70/30 with Apple for the first year. But the vast majority of Patreon creators would, if they were app developers, qualify for the Small Business Program and the in-app subscription split would be 85/15 instead. But nobody wants each and every Patreon creator to build their own app. The whole point of Patreon is that it’s a centralized platform.

The whole notion of a platform like Patreon just doesn’t fit with the App Store’s model of taking a fee out of every single transaction for digital goods or services. It could, perhaps, if Apple were willing to only accept a commission from Patreon’s own share — a commission on a commission — but they’re not.

Lastly, I suppose it’s implicit here that a lot Patreon users go through the iOS app. But I can’t help but think they should do what Substack does and just not allow paid subscriptions through the app. I just double-checked this was still true, and it seems to be. Substack’s iOS app lets you subscribe only to free subscriptions in-app. If you tap “Manage Subscription” in the app, you’re presented with a sheet that says, unhelpfully, “You cannot manage your subscription in the app.” (It’s Apple’s odious anti-steering rules that disallow apps like Substack from explaining where you can manage your subscription, which, of course, is on the web.)

Correction: Turns out the Substack iOS app does offer in-app subscriptions, but only for subscriptions initiated in-app. What confused me above was that you can’t manage an existing subscription made on the web in the Substack app. See this post for more.

Patreon Had Spent a Decade in an App Store Gray Zone ★

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Despite Apple’s rules and policies, Patreon had existed in an odd sort of gray area, as some of its subscription-based offerings could be consumed in its app while others could not. Another possible reason for the Patreon exception was due to the fact that many users didn’t come to Patreon itself to discover creators and content, Patreon CEO Jack Conte told tech news site The Verge in 2021. Instead, the discovery took place through other channels. Though the company admitted it didn’t have any sort of special contract with Apple to avoid the App Store fees, the app had been able to skirt Apple’s in-app billing requirements for some time.

It wasn’t good that Patreon existed in an unofficial gray zone. But it’s hard to see how this is better for anyone, including Apple.

‘Apple’s Requirements to Hit Creators and Fans on Patreon’ ★

Patreon:

As we first announced last year, Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024.

This has two major consequences for creators:

1. Apple will be applying their 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased in the Patreon iOS app, in addition to anything bought in your Patreon shop.
2. Any creator currently on first-of-the-month or per-creation billing plans will have to switch over to subscription billing to continue earning in the iOS app, because that’s the only billing type Apple’s in-app purchase system supports.

Before we go any further, we want to be crystal clear about one thing: Apple’s fee will not impact your existing members. It will only affect new memberships purchased in the iOS app from November onward.

Patreon’s messaging on this change seems pitch-perfect to me. They’re not whining, they’re not calling for users to get their pitchforks out, but also, they’re making crystal clear that these changes, and the timeline for implementing them, are demanded by Apple — and that Patreon benefits from these changes not at all.

This might epitomize the way Apple can be penny-wise but pound-foolish when it comes to the App Store. However much money they think they might get from these Patreon subscriptions once the Patreon iOS app switches to IAP, I refuse to believe it’s worth the further degradation of Apple’s brand that this dispute with Patreon is incurring. The paying users of Patreon are fans. They are such dedicated and devoted fans of certain creators and artists that they choose to pay those creators money. And now these users are being informed that Apple is putting the squeeze on these creators and inserting themselves into a relationship that these fans see as being between them and the artists they support.

In some sense it’s fair that Apple is applying these rules to Patreon, because there are other Patreon-esque platforms, like Fanhouse, that have been required by Apple to use the App Store’s IAP all along. But the fans of Patreon creators aren’t going to see this as fair at all. How do you put a price on that goodwill? How do you put a price on the number of Patreon iOS users — who are all, by definition, Apple customers — whose view of Apple will shift from “Apple is a company that supports small indie creators and artists” to “Apple is a company that uses its position of power to extract exorbitant rent from small indie creators and artists” because of this change?

‘Objects of Our Life’ — Steve Jobs at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen ★

New from the Steve Jobs Archive: an hourlong video of young Steve Jobs delivering a talk on design in 1983. Jony Ive wrote a splendid introduction:

The revolution Steve described over 40 years ago did of course happen, partly because of his profound commitment to a kind of civic responsibility. He cared, way beyond any sort of functional imperative. His was a victory for beauty, for purity and, as he would say, for giving a damn. He truly believed that by making something useful, empowering and beautiful, we express our love for humanity.

Sunday, 11 August 2024

WorkOS ★

My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. WorkOS is a modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. Start selling to enterprise customers with just a few lines of code. Ship complex features like SSO and SCIM (pronounced skim) provisioning in minutes instead of months.

Today, some of the fastest growing startups are already powered by WorkOS, including Perplexity, Vercel, and Webflow.

For SaaS apps that care deeply about design and user experience, WorkOS is the perfect fit. From high-quality documentation to self-serve onboarding for your customers, it removes all the unnecessary complexity for your engineering team.

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Saturday, 10 August 2024

Susan Wojcicki, Former YouTube CEO and Longtime Google Executive, Dies From Cancer at 56 ★

Sundar Pichai, on X:

Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend Susan Wojcicki after two years of living with cancer. She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her. She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her. We will miss her dearly. Our thoughts with her family. RIP Susan.

Friday, 9 August 2024

Apple Intelligence Foundation Language Models ★

Academic paper from over 100 researchers at Apple:

We present foundation language models developed to power Apple Intelligence features, including a ~3 billion parameter model designed to run efficiently on devices and a large server-based language model designed for Private Cloud Compute. These models are designed to perform a wide range of tasks efficiently, accurately, and responsibly. This report describes the model architecture, the data used to train the model, the training process, how the models are optimized for inference, and the evaluation results. We highlight our focus on Responsible AI and how the principles are applied throughout the model development.

Available here as a PDF.

Thursday, 8 August 2024

Apple Announces New Fee Structure and Updated Guidelines for Apps in the EU That Link Out to the Web for Purchases ★

Benjamin Mayo, writing at 9to5Mac:

Following the EU ruling in June that said Apple’s App Store anti-steering policies are officially in breach of the Digital Markets Act, Apple is announcing changes. Specifically, these changes address the rules around app developers linking out to the web to inform users about alternative payment methods. [...]

If you are operating under the EU alternative business terms, the Core Technology Fee still applies on installs. Additionally, the fees are charged as follows:

• Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
• Store Services Fee: 10% (reduced to 5% for members of the App Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a subscription after one year)

If you are continuing to offer your app inside the App Store under the standard business terms, the Core Technology Fee does not apply (as it never did). But the associated link out commission fee rates are increased:

• Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
• Store Services Fee: 20% (reduced to 7% for members of the App Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a subscription after one year)

This results in a complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs, that developers will need to carefully evaluate. The new terms are available now to review on Apple’s developer website, including an updated fee calculator.

“Complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs” is an understatement. Understanding all of this seems like it requires a CPA. I’ve looked across social media and read a slew of posts about this news, and I haven’t found a single person saying anything other than this is a convoluted mess. I think that’s as much on the DMA as it is on Apple: a convoluted mess of a compliance plan for a convoluted mess of a law.

What many people want is for Apple to just give in, concede, and allow iOS apps in the EU to just collect payments however they want, in-app or through links to the web, freely. Where by freely I mean free-of-charge freely. No CTF for downloads, no tracking of purchases made after users tap a link in the app to the web. What Apple wants is to continue making bank from every purchase on digital goods from an iOS app. We’re left with a mess where no one is happy with the result.

See also:

• Techmeme’s roundup of news coverage.
• Michael Tsai’s roundup of commentary.

‘A Platform That’s Teetering on the Edge of Becoming a User-Experience Joke Akin to Windows Vista’ ★

Jason Snell, “Apple’s Permissions Features Are Out of Balance”:

Some users will make bad decisions. That’s just reality. The wrong reaction is to take the decision out of every user’s hands to protect the ones who might do something stupid. Apple needs to find that balance, that protects people but gives users freedom to do what they want, however dangerous it might be.

Apple’s recent feature changes suggest a value system that’s wildly out of balance, preferring to warn (and control) users no matter how damaging it is to the overall user experience. Maybe the people in charge should be forced to sit down and watch that Apple ad that mocks Windows Vista. Vista’s security prompts existed for good reasons — but they were a user disaster. The Apple of that era knew it. I’d guess a lot of people inside today’s Apple know it, too — but they clearly are unable to win the arguments when it matters.

Never would have guessed I’d still find use for the “Windows Vista” tag in my CMS in 2024, but here we are.

Find Any File 2.5 ★

Developer Thomas Tempelmann just released version 2.5 of Find Any File, his file search utility for the Mac. Find Any File (FAF) has long been my go-to tool for file search. Why use FAF instead of Spotlight? Some feature highlights:

• FAF can find files that Spotlight doesn’t, e.g. on network (NAS) and other external volumes, hidden ones inside bundles and packages, and those in folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search, such as the System and Library folders. It can even search in other user’s folders if you use FAF’s unique root search mode.
• FAF lets you search precisely for many file properties such as name, extension, date range, size, kind etc. [...]
• FAF can also find textual content in plain text, in zip (including Word and Excel files) and even in most binary files. And with the option to include Spotlight results, it can also find text in PDF documents as long as they were indexed by Spotlight.

Amongst other features, FAF supports regular expressions, and you can save frequently-used searches to easily re-run them. There are several other good file search utilities for MacOS — and Tempelmann himself kindly offers a list of them — but FAF is my favorite. Free to download and try, and $6 shareware if you keep it. (Or buy it for $8 from the Mac App Store.)

Wednesday, 7 August 2024

Overriding Gatekeeper Protections in MacOS 15 Sequoia Will Require Clicking Through Panels in System Settings ★

Here’s a developer note from Apple confirming another change in MacOS 15 that many of us were hoping was a bug or glitch in the developer betas:

In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed correctly or notarized. They’ll need to visit System Settings > Privacy & Security to review security information for software before allowing it to run.

Why? Is there any evidence that the Control-clicking shortcut was insufficient? If so, what is that evidence? It seems to me that the sort of technically unsophisticated non-expert users whom these features are meant to protect are the same users who have no idea the Control-click shortcut to launch non-notarized apps even exists.

I mean, if there are exploits running wild because unsophisticated Mac users are Control-clicking malware apps they’ve somehow downloaded, where are they? I can only see two possible explanations for these changes: (a) these decisions that are making MacOS increasingly annoying for expert and power users are being made by cover-your-ass bureaucrats for no good reason, and no one who knows better is shooting them down within Apple; or (b) there’s a serious rash of unreported abuse of these features and Apple is too timid to publicize them to justify the increased frequency and arduousness of these permission nags, lest they admit the Mac has any problems at all.

Neither is a good look.

MacOS 15 Sequoia Adds Weekly — That’s Right, Weekly — Nagging Permission Prompts for Screenshot and Screen Recording Apps ★

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac:

With macOS Sequoia this fall, using apps that need access to screen recording permissions will become a little bit more tedious. Apple is rolling out a change that will require you to give explicit permission on a weekly basis to these types of apps, and every time you reboot your Mac. [...] In the current macOS Sequoia beta, this prompt says:

“[App name] can access this computer’s screen and audio. Do you want to continue to allow access? This application may be able to collect information from any open applications on your desktop while the app is running.”

Users can then choose to “Continue To Allow” that app to have screen recording access, or they can click “Open System Settings” and immediately be taken to the preferences pane for screen recording permissions.

This prompt is designed to appear on a weekly basis. The first time you attempt to use the app each week, you’ll see this prompt and have to decide whether to “Continue To Allow” or change the permission settings. The prompt will also appear each time (for each app) when you use that app for the first time after rebooting your Mac.

I think it shows just how much care and thoughtfulness went into turning up the dial on these nags that the button label incorrectly capitalizes the “to” in “Continue To Allow”. You can say, well, that’s a little thing. But that’s exactly the sort of little thing that almost never shipped from Apple, even in beta, until the last few years.

Having to click through these confirmation nags every week, for every such utility you use, is not a little thing at all. It’s the sort of thing companies do when decisions like this are made by people looking to cover their asses, not make insanely great products.

The Verge: ‘Humane’s Daily Returns Are Outpacing Sales’ ★

Kylie Robison, reporting for The Verge:

Between May and August, more AI Pins were returned than purchased, according to internal sales data obtained by The Verge. By June, only around 8,000 units hadn’t been returned, a source with direct knowledge of sales and return data told me. As of today, the number of units still in customer hands had fallen closer to 7,000, a source with direct knowledge said. [...]

Once a Humane Pin is returned, the company has no way to refurbish it, sources with knowledge of the return process confirmed. The Pin becomes e-waste, and Humane doesn’t have the opportunity to reclaim the revenue by selling it again. The core issue is that there is a T-Mobile limitation that makes it impossible (for now) for Humane to reassign a Pin to a new user once it’s been assigned to someone. One source said they don’t believe Humane has disposed of the old Pins because “they’re still hopeful they can solve this problem eventually.”

Starting to think maybe Humane is in trouble.

Flighty 4.0 ★

Big new update to the amazing flight-tracking app, with a particular focus on flight delays — both predicting them, and explaining them. I was using Flighty 4 in beta over the weekend, when my wife and I were in Montreal for a wedding. Our flight home Sunday was delayed by thunderstorms — both in Montreal and Philadelphia — and the information from American Airlines at the airport was all over the place. The information from Flighty was consistent, and spot-on. Wound up being about a 40-minute delay, no big deal — exactly as Flighty presented.

Flighty costs $48/year for an annual subscription, but has a super clever $4/week option for infrequent travellers. And if you don’t like subscriptions, Flighty offers fairly-priced lifetime purchases.

The Harris-Walz Campaign Logo Is Not Great ★

On the whole I continue to think it’s a tremendous advantage for Kamala Harris to drop into the race as a fresh candidate just three months ahead of the election, but I think this branding effort is one area that shows signs of being rushed. It’s not horrible but it’s not good. It’s just meh, and in no way memorable or distinctive. I don’t see how the two typefaces pair together at all. It’s has nothing like the cohesiveness of the Biden-Harris brand from 2020 (and the first half of 2024).

Also, I think the gist of this Fast Company story, suggesting the logo is a nod to the branding from Shirley Chisholm’s groundbreaking 1972 campaign for the Democratic nomination, is nonsense. “Harris” is presented in all-caps in a compressed sans serif typeface, yes, but it’s not even vaguely the same typeface. If anything, Chisholm’s branding was better, stronger, and more timeless — I wish the Harris branding was more like Chisholm’s. And it’s not like anyone in today’s US electorate actually remembers what Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 campaign posters looked like.

Tuesday, 6 August 2024

Taegan Goddard: ‘Some Quick Thoughts on Tim Walz’ ★

Taegan Goddard, writing at Political Wire:

In many ways, Tim Walz is the person J.D. Vance pretends to be. He’s an authentic, decent and normal guy.

Nate Silver: ‘Tim Walz Is a Minnesota Nice Choice’ ★

Nate Silver:

This was a choice designed to maintain the social fabric of the Democratic Party, and avoid news cycles about a disappointed left and Democrats’ internal squabbling over the War in Gaza. Or at least, that’s what I think it was: we’ll need to learn more about Harris’s deliberation process. I’m not inclined to be too deferential to any political candidate, but it’s plausible that there were vetting issues with the runner-up, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Harris certainly has more information about the internal feeling within the Democratic caucus than I do, or she may just have thought the chemistry of a Harris-Shapiro ticket wouldn’t work.

It’s a nice pick: Walz, a two-term governor and six-term U.S. Representative, is from the family of Tim Kaine-style VP choices: inoffensive, unlikely to cause any harm, “safe”. Although maybe that’s unfair: Walz is likely to be better on the stump than Kaine. If you surveyed Democratic members of Congress, he’d probably be who they’d choose. But I believe he’s probably the wrong choice, a step back toward the Democratic Party’s instincts to triangulate instead of the boldness the Harris campaign has displayed so far. [...]

On Saturday, I made the case that Harris should pick Shapiro. And nothing has really changed since then — although you could argue that Harris’s increasingly strong position in the polls compels greater risk-aversion than when she’d initially appeared to be an underdog against Donald Trump. The basic reasons for picking Shapiro are that he increases the likelihood you win Pennsylvania, he has a demonstrated track record of popularity in the most important swing state, he’s obviously an extremely talented politician and perhaps a future standard-bearer for the party himself. And also, the reasons for not picking Shapiro aren’t great. Democrats in the political bubble overstate the salience of the Gaza issue and understate the benefits of moderation, and that’s before getting into the issue of Shapiro’s Jewishness.

My fear is that Walz is, as Silver also worries, another Tim Kaine. Tim Kaine didn’t lose the 2016 election but he didn’t help win it either. Kaine is a fine senator but a total milquetoast. Zero charisma. As soon as the 2016 election was over he completely disappeared from the national stage. It’s been 8 years and I’ve only seen Kaine in the news once in that entire stretch, and that was because he got stuck on I-95 for 27 hours because of a snowstorm. Bill Clinton picked a running mate who had the charisma and gravitas to run for and win the presidency on his own. (Gore lost by like 600 votes in Florida, of course, but clearly he could have won.) Barack Obama picked a running mate who went on to run for president and beat Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton picked a running mate with the personality of a wet towel.

I’m thinking Walz is more like Biden in 2008 though. Reassuring in-his-60s white guy with a solid career, thorough knowledge of the issues, and good zip on his political-barbs fastball.

Kamala Harris Selects Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to Be VP Running Mate ★

CNN:

During recent remarks at a “White Dudes for Harris” fundraiser, Walz made a rough-and-ready case for [Harris] before would-be small-dollar donors.

“How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come?” Walz asked. “And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his ass, sent him on the road?”

I was hoping for Buttigieg or Shapiro, but that quote alone makes me like the cut of Walz’s jib. Also, Walz is the guy who got the whole “they’re weird” thing going.

Monday, 5 August 2024

1Password ★

My thanks to 1Password — which, earlier this year, acquired longtime DF sponsor Kolide — for sponsoring last week at DF. In a 2023 survey of IT and security professionals, 50 percent of respondents said that their organization’s vulnerability management program had support from leadership to “a large/great extent”. That’s good for them. But it also leaves a full half of respondents without enough support from leadership.

If you’re trying to get buy-in at your own organization, come equipped with the facts about the risks you’re facing, and come with a clear plan to remediate them. To learn more about how vulnerability management is changing, read 1Password’s blog post, and come prepared.

Federal Judge Rules Google Search an Illegal Monopoly ★

David McCabe, reporting for The New York Times:

Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, a federal judge ruled on Monday, a landmark decision that strikes at the power of tech giants in the modern internet era and that may fundamentally alter the way they do business.

Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 277-page ruling that Google had abused a monopoly over the search business. The Justice Department and states had sued Google, accusing it of illegally cementing its dominance, in part, by paying other companies, like Apple and Samsung, billions of dollars a year to have Google automatically handle search queries on their smartphones and web browsers.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta said in his ruling. [...]

Monday’s ruling did not include remedies for Google’s behavior. Judge Mehta will now decide that, potentially forcing the company to change the way it runs or to sell off part of its business.

It’s worth a reminder that under U.S. antitrust law, having a monopoly is not in and of itself illegal. It’s just that monopolies must operate under different rules, and Mehta has ruled that Google broke (and continues now to break) those rules.

And you don’t have to be an expert to know that Google Search is a monopoly. By market share it’s possibly the biggest monopoly in all of computing today. Maybe it’s still Windows, but most estimates peg the Mac’s share of the U.S. PC market at about 15 percent. I wouldn’t be surprised if fewer than 10 percent of Americans even know there exist search engines other than Google, let alone use one as their default.

What the remedies should — or even could — be for Google here, I don’t know. Microsoft lost a similarly huge antitrust case in the U.S. in the 1990s and effectively escaped unscathed.

One possible outcome is that Apple winds up paying a bigger penalty, effectively, than Google. Let’s say the remedies include Google being banned from paying for traffic acquisition. Then Apple changes Safari from making Google the default search engine to prompting users with a choice for default search, and 90 percent of Safari users choose Google — the search engine they’ve been using since forever ago, and for many people the only one they even recognize by name. Now Google gets that search traffic for free and Apple gets bupkis.

See also: Techmeme’s roundup of coverage and commentary.

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Monday, 5 August 2024

Bloomberg Fires One of the Two Reporters Whose Byline Was on Embargo-Breaking Gershkovich-Release Story ★

Charlotte Klein, who wrote the New York Magazine piece over the weekend reporting on how Bloomberg shit the bed by publishing news of Evan Gershkovich’s release in a prisoner swap before he was actually released from Russian custody:

Jennifer Jacobs — one of the two Bloomberg reporters who bylined the embargo-breaking Gershkovich piece — has been fired, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Accountability comes for every organization, eventually.

Update: Jacobs, on X, credibly claims it was her editors at Bloomberg who published the story too early, not her:

In reporting the story about Evan’s release, I worked hand in hand with my editors to adhere to editorial standards and guidelines. At no time did I do anything that was knowingly inconsistent with the administration’s embargo or that would put anyone involved at risk.

Reporters don’t have the final say over when a story is published or with what headline. The chain of events here could happen to any reporter tasked with reporting the news. This is why checks and balances exist within the editorial processes.

Sunday, 4 August 2024

Actual Headline in The New York Times: ‘R.F.K. Jr. Admits He Left a Dead Bear in Central Park’ ★

I knew RFK Jr. was nuts but I had no idea this nuts. You really ought to watch Kennedy’s own video, which, I swear, costars Roseanne Barr. That’s his side of the story, for chrissake. Jiminy.

But. This whole thing — to wit, that it was this shithead RFK Jr. who did this a decade ago, and that it’s coming out 93 days before an election in which he’s a possible Nader-esque siphon-off-some-votes-from-the-fellow-nutjobs spoiler — might be the funniest story ever.

Apple Q3 2024 Results ★

Jason Snell, at Six Colors on Thursday:

On Thursday, Apple announced results for its financial third quarter. Total company revenue was $85.8 billion, a record for its fiscal third quarter, which is traditionally the company’s quietest quarter. Services revenue reached an all-time revenue high of $24.2 billion.

iPhone revenue was down 1%, iPad revenue spiked 24% after major new product releases, and Mac revenue ticked up 2%.

Check out our transcript of Apple’s quarterly conference call with analysts and our video recap of the results.

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