LTA 101: January 2022

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
• Rosemary Orchard from various podcasts – @RosemaryOrchard

The show starts with the usual followups and updates on long-running stories. That’s followed by some some Apple-related legal news, a little Apple HR news, and some highlights from Apple’s original content and subscription services. The four main stories are Intel’s new I9 mobile processor, the controversy around AirTags, more AppStore issues, and Apple’s Q1 2022 earnings call. The show ends with a quick rundown of some smaller Apple-related stories that made the news in January.

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.

• 🇮🇳 The Foxconn plant that was forced to close by a workers revolt last month has re-opened — www.imore.com/…
• 🇫🇷 Apple Stopping Providing HeadPhones With iPhones in France — www.macobserver.com/… (A miss-guided law forcing all smartphones to have headphones to save kids from cellphone radiation has been repealed)

Legal Latest

• 🇺🇸 Apple’s $95 Million Settlement Over Refurbished Replacement Devices Not Being ‘Equivalent to New’ Moves Forward — www.macrumors.com/… (affected customers can now register for inclusion in the settlement, or reject it, allowing them to launch their own suit if they want)
• Apple -v- Ericsson: (5G patents)
  • 🇺🇸 Ericsson sues Apple over patent infringement as licensing talks break down — www.imore.com/…
  • 🇺🇸 Apple Countersues Ericsson Seeking Base Station Import Ban — www.macobserver.com/…
  • 🇧🇷 🇩🇪 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Ericsson files more lawsuits against Apple in Europe and Brazil — www.imore.com/… & Apple comes under more pressure from Ericsson in patent dispute — www.imore.com/…
  • 🇩🇪 Apple files countersuit against Ericsson in Germany — www.imore.com/…
• 🇺🇸 Apple -v- Epic:
  • Epic Games says court got App Store ruling wrong in opening appeal filing — www.imore.com/… (Epic has filed its opening brief in its appeal of last year’s ruling mostly against it)
  • U.S. states, DoJ, and Microsoft declare support for Epic Games in Apple trial — www.imore.com/…
  • Related: Fortnite is coming back to iOS through NVIDIA GeForce Now — www.imore.com/…
• 🇺🇸 An app developer’s lawsuit over rejections and scammers is allowed to proceed, judge rules — techcrunch.com/… (this is the FlickType case)

Apple HR & Acquisition News

• Tim Cook 2021 Pay Totals Over US$98 Million — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Basic Salary: $3M
  • Bonus: $12M (for hitting financial and environmental sustainability goals)
  • Stock Awards: $82.35M worth of shares
  • Other Compensation: ~$1.4M (security, travel, pension, life insurance, vacation cash-out etc.)
• Joe Bass, apparent head of software engineering on Apple’s car project has left Apple for Meta: Almost the entire Apple Car management team from a year ago has left the company — www.imore.com/…
  • Related: Apple has expanded the team testing its self-driving cars in California — www.imore.com/…
• Microsoft has hired semiconductor designer Mike Filippo away from Apple — www.imore.com/…
• Key M1 engineer Jeff Wilcox is leaving Apple to return to Intel — www.tomshardware.com/…
• Apple have reportedly hired Andrea Schubert away from Meta’s AR group — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple Names Kristin Huguet Head of PR — daringfireball.net/… (Huguet has been an Apple spokesperson since 2005, and replaces Stella Low who only joined Apple from Cisco in May 2021!)
• 🇩🇪 Award-winning producer Dr. Franziska An der Gassen signs on at Apple TV+ — www.imore.com/…

Subscription Services Highlights

• Programming Note: starting this month award nominations, regular Apple Arcade releases, and run-of-the-mill service rollouts in new countries won’t make the cut anymore.
• Apple touts its services achievements in tub thumping press release — www.imore.com/…
  • Now more than 200 games on Apple Arcade
  • 90M lossless songs on Apple Music
  • 745M paid subscriptions
• Apple Fitness+ Introducing New ‘Time to Run’ And ‘Collections’ — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple TV+
  • Jason Sudeikis wins a Golden Globe Award for his ‘Ted Lasso’ performance — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple snags two Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for its streaming service — www.imore.com/…

Main Stories

1. Intel launch their new i9 ‘mobile’ CPU (faster than the M1, but much more power-hungry, and hence, heat producing)
   • Intel says its new Core i9 processor is faster than Apple’s M1 Max — www.imore.com/…
   • Benchmarks Confirm Intel’s Latest Core i9 Chip Outperforms Apple’s M1 Max With Several Caveats — www.macrumors.com/…
   • Opinion: Intel Braggadocio — daringfireball.net/…
2. AirTag abuses spark debate/controversy
   • Anecdotes:
     • Driver finds a hidden AirTag in his car ahead of likely theft attempt — www.imore.com/…
     • Model says she was tracked by an AirTag that was left in her coat pocket — www.imore.com/…
     • Military families are using AirTags to track their stuff during station moves — www.imore.com/…
   • Analisys & Opinion:
     • Are AirTags Causing Stalking or Making Us More Aware of It? – MacStories — www.macstories.net/…
     • AirTags: Hidden Stalking Menace or Latest Overblown Urban Myth? — tidbits.com/…
   • Apple adds new AirTag tips to a revised Personal Safety User Guide — www.imore.com/…
   • AirGuard Lets You Detect AirTags on Android Smartphones — www.macobserver.com/… (A third-party app!)
3. The App Store continues to cause trouble for Apple
   • Context: App Store Earnings for Developers has Reached $260 Billion Since 2008 — www.macobserver.com/… & App Annie: Global app stores’ consumer spend up 19% to $170B in 2021, downloads grew 5% to 230B — techcrunch.com/…
   • Regulatory Pressures Continue:
     • 🇺🇸 Developers able to submit claims in $100 million Apple lawsuit settlement — www.imore.com/…
     • 🇰🇷 Apple have told South Korean authorities that they will provide an alternative payment system for App Store developers at ‘a reduced service charge’ — www.imore.com/…
       • Opinion: Apple Presents Plan to Allow External Payment Processing in Apps to South Korea Regulator, Details Currently Scant — daringfireball.net/…
     • 🇳🇱 Apple to allow dating apps to use third-party payments in Dutch App Store — www.imore.com/…
       • Apple’s promise is too little too late, the regulator didn’t just expect Apple to make an announcement by their deadline, they expected Apple to actually implement it too, so they’ve now stated fining Apple — www.imore.com/…
     • 🇺🇸 The senate version of the ‘Open App Markets Act’ has been voted out of committee:
       • Apple are not happy about it — www.imore.com/…
       • The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) agree with Apple — www.macobserver.com/…
       • As does Michael Bloomberg — www.imore.com/…
       • Related: Tim Cook spent 40 minutes on the phone with Ted Cruz over antitrust bill — www.imore.com/…
     • 🇺🇸 Illinois latest state to try and legislate against Apple’s App Store — www.imore.com/…
   • The Wordle Kefuffle
     • Popular word game ‘Wordle’ plagued by App Store clones — www.imore.com/…
     • Developer behind Wordle App Store clone admits he ‘crossed a line’ after being called out — www.imore.com/…
     • The New York Times Acquires Wordle — www.macobserver.com/…
     • Related: an older app named Wordle! that’s not any kind of clone has seen a massive boost in downloads (from 1–2 per day to >200K per week), and the developer has responded by donating the proceeds to charity — www.imore.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
     • Opinion/Analysis: The App Store Is (Well, Was) Lousy With Blatant Wordle Rip-Offs, but One of Them Takes the Cake — daringfireball.net/… & A Five-Letter Word for ‘Rip-Off’ — daringfireball.net/…
     • Related: other problematic apps highlighted by the controversy:
       • Scam app AmpMe rakes in $13 million on the back of thousands of fake reviews — www.imore.com/…
       • Shameless Unpacking Clone Is The App Store’s Top Download — kotaku.com/… (Apple deleted the app after it made news)
   • Apple are continuing to support developers:
     • 🇪🇺 Apple’s App Store Foundations program is expanding to 29 new countries — www.imore.com/…
     • Developers can now use Custom Product Pages with Apple Search Ads — www.imore.com/…
     • https://arstechnica.com/?p=1830317
4. Apple’s Q1 2022 Earnings Call
   • The lead-up & Context:
     • Breaking: Apple Becomes First U.S Firm Worth US$3 Trillion — www.macobserver.com/…
     • The Mac grew more than any other PC brand in 2021 — www.imore.com/… (based on Canalys numbers)
     • Apple takes top spot in China smartphone sales for first time since 2015 — www.imore.com/… (based on Counterpoint numbers)
     • Numbers from IDC show Samsung shipping the most phones for 2021 as a whole, but Apple shipping the most in Q4 — www.imore.com/…
   • The Earnings Call:
     • Apple Earnings Call Transcripts: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the company’s Q1 2022 earnings — www.imore.com/…
       • Apple now commands an active install base of 1.8 billion devices — www.imore.com/…
       • Apple added 165 million paid subscribers for its services last year — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple Posts Another $100 Billion Plus Quarter — www.macobserver.com/…
     • Apple just had the biggest holiday quarter in its history — arstechnica.com
     • Apple Q1 2022: Growth for iPhone, Mac, and services sees $123.9 billion in revenue — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple’s M1 processor drives an $11 billion quarter for the Mac — www.imore.com/…
     • Supply chain issues killed iPad sales in the first quarter of 2021 — www.imore.com/…
     • Related: iPad deliveries still as high as nine weeks as Apple prioritizes iPhone 13 — www.imore.com/…
   • After:
     • Apple shares leap nearly 5% in pre-market following all-time earnings record — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple share price soars 7% following stunning Q1 earnings — www.imore.com/…

Quick Stories

• Apple announces Black History Month celebration across its products and services — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple’s new Black Unity Braided Solo Loop has begun to appear in Apple Stores — www.imore.com/…
• The grace period for iOS 14 is over, to stay secure, users need to update to iOS 15 now — www.imore.com/… & www.imore.com/…
• HomePod appears to be getting ready for a substantial expansion:
  • 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Siri gains Dutch support on HomePod, hinting at a HomePod mini launch — www.imore.com/…
  • 🇸🇪 Apple seeds HomePod minis to testers in Sweden ahead of official release — www.imore.com/…
  • 🇩🇰 🇳🇴 HomePod mini is being tested in Denmark and Norway amid rumored expansion — www.imore.com/…
• Apple Releases iPhone Macro Challenge for iPhone 13 Pro Users — www.macobserver.com/…
• 📌 Apple’s annual shareholder meeting will take place on March 4 — www.imore.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.