Let’s Talk Apple — Ep. 69 (May 2019)

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Panel:

The show starts with some followup on stories from previous months before getting stuck into some notable numbers and Apple HR changes that made the news in April. The five main stories are Apple’s settlement with Qualcomm, Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings call, the controversy over Apple cracking down on parental control apps abusing MDM, the failure of the Galaxy Fold, and the rapidly evolving world of streaming music and video services. The show ends with a quick rundown of some other Apple-related stories that made the news in April.

You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!

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Followup

  • Apple have released the new TV app promised at their recent services-focused keynote — www.imore.com/…
  • We now know at least some of what Angela Ahrends is doing after Apple, she’s joined the Airbnb board — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Following on from its earnings call last month, Apple has now moved to 3rd on the Fortune 500 list, moving above Berkshire Hathaway, and only trailing Exon and Wallmart — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Following on from a UK investigation into last year’s battery gate faux-scandal, Apple have formally committed to the UK Competition and Markets Authority that it will “notify consumers in a clear manner” if an iOS update “materially changes the impact of performance management” — nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…

Notable Numbers

Legal Latest

  • 🇺🇸 Qualcomm may have settled with Apple, but the case against them by the FTC continued, and they just lost it. Judge Lucy Koh found that Qualcomm’s patent licensing model was anti-competitive resulting in prices that were “unreasonably high”, and ordered the company to re-negotiate new deals that meet the so-called FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) criteria and under court supervision — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple Wins Lawsuit Over Group FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug — www.macrumors.com/…
  • The son an estate of Broadway composer Harold Arlen (of Over the Rainbow fame) has filed a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages against Apple and other music sellers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft & Pandora) over the sale of unauthorised versions of Arlen’s work on their platforms. — www.forbes.com/…
    • Editorial by Bart: This all revolves around quite an elaborate, and apparently common fraud — the infringers register themselves like a legitimate record label would, and then use those legitimate registration details to put unauthorised copies of popular works on the various digital stores and streaming services. Because they are properly registered like a real record label, their submissions pass the automated validation processes these stores have in place. It seems to me that the problem is that the stores are trusting that being registered means you were vetted, but apparently it does not, so some humans will probably need to be added into the process to route-out these kinds of abuses.

Apple HR News

Main Stories

  1. The App Store Under Fire
    1. 🇺🇸 Apple lost their Supreme Court case attempting to block an anti-trust suit filed against them in a lower court from proceeding. This ruling allows the anti-trust case to proceed, it’s not a ruling on the actual antitrust issue, just on whether or not app store customers have standing to sue, which the course has ruled that they do — www.theverge.com/… & arstechnica.com
    2. The WP sparked a lot of controversy with an article highlighting the long-known issue of free apps monetising themselves by selling user data to advertisers and data brokers: It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to? — www.washingtonpost.com/…
      • Editorial by Bart: IMO that article is flawed, conflating utterly legitimate software-as-a-service app analytics and creepy privacy-invading tracking. As a result I think it’s overly sensationalistic and OTT, but that doesn’t mean the problem is not real. For-profit business built around free apps are either going bust, or, somehow monetising their users! In reality that generally means selling their users attention and personal information directly, or, running at intentional losses so they can sell the company to new owners who will then start monetising the amassed user-base directly (freepi or free-for-now by my service/software classification model — www.bartbusschots.ie/…)
      • Opinion: daringfireball.net/…
  2. Apple have made some hardware news by press release in the lead up to WWDC — www.loopinsight.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
    • Updated MacBook Pros with the latest Intel CPUs including a new 8-core option (just a power bump, not a new design, and no price changes) — www.imore.com/…
    • Another supposed fix for their butterfly keyboards (time will tell), and most importantly, a new free repair program for all butterfly keyboards of any generation
      • iFixit’s tear-down of the new MBP with its updated butterfly keyboard concludes that Apple have not changed the design in any way they can see, but have changed the materials used, saying Apple “may be using a revised heat treatment, or alloy, or possibly both” — www.theverge.com/…
    • Apple have announced an updated iPod touch with AR & Group FaceTime support powered by more modern internals, including storage increases, but the same external design and price range (from $199 to $399) — www.imore.com/… & tidbits.com/…

Quick Stories

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