LTA 114: February 2023 1

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
• Allison Sheridan from the NosillaCast Podcast – @podfeet@chaos.social
• Barry Fulk – @fulkb@friendsofdesoto.social

This month Bart is joined by Allison Sheridan from the NosillaCast Podcast and first-time guest Barry Fulk. The show starts with just one followup from the previous show, one piece of legal news, and a few stories from Apple’s various services before moving on to the three main stories — Apple’s HR re-organisation, the EU’s updated anti-trust complaint against Apple, and Linux support for M1 processors. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other Apple-related stories that made the news in February.

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!

Updates & Followup

Quick updates to long-running stories the show continues to track, and to stories covered in recent shows.

• Narrators from a smaller audio book firm are angry Apple seemingly snuck in a clause in their contracts saying their voices could be used to train AI have tasked their union with fighting for fair compensation for their work, and they have succeeded in having the problematic clause in their contracts suspended — appleinsider.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple -v- AliveCor: President Biden has declined to step in a block the possible Apple Watch import ban on foot of AliveCor’s patent dispute with Apple. Appeals are on-going, and the ban is stayed until all appeals are exhausted — appleinsider.com/… & arstechnica.com/… (AliveCor won the ban, Apple have won a case to invalidate the patents, and AliveCor are actively appealing the invalidation)

Apple Services & Original Content Highlights

• Apple Maps: Apple Maps brings Look Around to Finland, Norway, and Sweden — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple TV+:
  • Apple have rolled out some improvements to their Major League Soccer season pass — appleinsider.com/… (more and better camera angles, higher resolution, Dolby 5.1 audio, etc..)
  • Apple TV+ needs more content and they will train directors to get it — appleinsider.com/…
  • Awards:
    • Apple scores Bafta win for best British short animation — appleinsider.com/…
    • Apple TV+ ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’ wins two Annie awards — appleinsider.com/…

Main Stories

1. Apple re-organises HR, with Deirdre O’Brien returning to being just the head of Retail again, and Carol Surface has been hired as Apple’s first Chief People Officer — appleinsider.com/… & www.cultofmac.com/…

   • “Previously she was Chief Human Resources Officer at Medtronic, where she worked since 2013. Before then, she was head of HR at Best Buy and worked in the HR department at PepsiCo.”

   • Related: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff — appleinsider.com/… & Here’s what the Apple Glasgow retail store union negotiated for itself — appleinsider.com/…
   • Other Apple HR News:
     • Apple taps Swedish politician to advise on ‘global trends’ — appleinsider.com/…(former minister for foreign affairs Ann Linde)
2. The EU has updated its anti-trust complaint against Apple — appleinsider.com/…
   • Summary: The European Commission has updated it’s Statement of Objections to shift the focus from in app purchases, to “the contractual restrictions that Apple imposed on app developers … which prevent them from informing iPhone and iPad users of alternative music subscription options at lower prices outside of the app and to effectively choose those”. Apple now have a right to reply before the Commission issue an actual ruling. The worst-case outcome would be a fine of 10% annual world-wide revenue!
   • Apple & Spotify have responded to the new Statement of Objections — appleinsider.com/…

     • Apple: Apple will continue to work with the European Commission to understand and respond to their concerns, all the while promoting competition and choice for European consumers. We’re pleased that the Commission has narrowed its case and is no longer challenging Apple’s right to collect a commission for digital goods and require the use of the In-App Payment systems users trust. The App Store has helped Spotify become the top music streaming service across Europe and we hope the European Commission will end its pursuit of a complaint that has no merit

     • Spotify: Today, the European Commission sent a clear message that Apple’s anti-competitive behavior and unfair practices have harmed consumers and disadvantaged developers for far too long … We urge the Commission to reach a swift decision in this case to protect consumers and restore fair competition on the iOS platform.

   • Related:
     • Apple and Google abuse market dominance, says Japan antitrust regulator — appleinsider.com/…
     • Biden demands antitrust action against Big Tech during State of the Union — appleinsider.com/…
     • DOJ escalates antitrust probe into Apple’s alleged anticompetitive practices — appleinsider.com/…
     • After attending a closed-door hearing with the European Commission, a coalition of Norwegian banks released a statement calling for the Commission to take urgent action against Apple to force them to open NFC on iOS to banking apps — appleinsider.com/…
3. Basic support for M1 processors has been merged into the main line Linux kernel in version 6.2 — appleinsider.com/…, www.cultofmac.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
   • An important step towards Mac support from major Linux distros, but only a step — this is support for the M1 processors, not for Mac hardware!
   • This is up-streamed code from the Asahi Linux project — asahilinux.org/…
   • Still missing many important drivers, as can be seen on Asahi Linux’s feature status page — github.com/…

Quick Stories

• Apple released new resources for Europe’s Safer Internet Day, including a new Today at Apple session named ‘Your Kids and Their Devices’ — appleinsider.com/… & www.apple.com/…
  • Related: Apple are rolling out iMessage child protection features to six more countries (Belgium, Brazil, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea & Sweden) — www.cultofmac.com/…
• Apple appears to be trying to push their Car Key feature with the release of a testing app for use by auto makers looking to get certified for the feature — www.cultofmac.com/…
• New App Store benchmarks let devs compare app performance to peers — appleinsider.com/…
• Microsoft gives official blessing to Windows 11 for ARM on Parallels — appleinsider.com/…
• Microsoft is bringing iMessage to Windows with the Phone Link app — appleinsider.com/…
• Both Mozilla & Google, anticipating the enforced opening up of iOS to 3rd-parry browser engines thanks to the EU DMA, have started work on porting their browser engines to iOS — www.cultofmac.com/… & 9to5mac.com/…
• Reminder: Apple’s annual shareholder meeting will be held on March 10th
  • Related: NLPC seeks to kick Tim Cook, Al Gore from Apple board of directors — appleinsider.com/…

Legend

Note: When the textual description of a link is part of the link it is the title of the page being linked to, when the text describing a link is not part of the link it is a description written by Bart.