LTA 111: November 2022

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
• Scott Willsey from the Friends with Brews Podcast – @scottaw

The show starts with some followups from previous shows, some regulatory and legal news, some HR news, and some news from Apple’s various services before moving on to the three main stores — China’s very bad COVID month, Elon Musk’s spat with Apple, and Apple delivering the promised iPhone satellite SOS feature and AppleWatch Ultra dive computer app. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other Apple-related stories that made the news in November.

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.

• 🇺🇸 IT was another rocky month for Apple’s labour relations in the US:
  • Shareholders challenging Apple on unions & alleged slave labor — appleinsider.com/…
  • Bloomberg interviews Apple Retail workers to gauge their feelings, and they’re not happy, they feel under pressure to up-sell which they never felt before, and they are interested in unionising to get back to the old ways — www.macobserver.com/…
  • St. Louis Apple Store second to seek IAM union membership — appleinsider.com/…
    • St. Louis Galleria Mall Apple Store has stopped unionization efforts — appleinsider.com/…
    • AppleTogether asks about Apple’s union busting for possible class action suit — appleinsider.com/…
    • Union Organizers Plan Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple for Union-Busting Tactics — www.macobserver.com/…
    • Related: Anti-union talks continue at Apple Store in Reston, VA — appleinsider.com/…
  • Related: Apple’s remote work policy makes it hard for employees to avoid abortion bans — appleinsider.com/…
• The new iCloud web interface is already out of beta — appleinsider.com/…
• As winter arrives season starts we’re discovering another thing that triggers Apple’s Crash detection – skiiing, but first responders don’t want people to disable the feature — www.macobserver.com/…

  • “Somebody could ski and hit a tree and be knocked unconscious and not be visible to other skiers. We do not want you to turn the feature off. We would rather have you be safe. We don’t mind taking that call because if something really did happen, we want to be able to get to you.”

  • Related: Apple releases iOS 16.1.2 with crash detection improvements — appleinsider.com/…

Regulatory Rundown

• 🇦🇺 An interim report from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) recommends major regulatory reforms to curb the power of Apple, Google, and other big tech companies in app stores, search, ads, and social media — appleinsider.com/…
• 🇬🇧 The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially launched an investigation into the smartphone browser market — appleinsider.com/…
• 🇧🇷 Brazilian regulator seizes iPhones from retail stores for not including chargers in box — www.cultofmac.com/…
• 🇰🇷 Apple Promises to Fix App Store Policy that Oddly Charges Korean Developers More Than the 30% App Sale Commission — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇬🇧 Musicians aren’t losing out from streaming music, UK regulator says — appleinsider.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple -v- Epic: Oral arguments were heard in the appeal against the original ruling that mostly favoured apple. Nothing unexpected happened — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple -v- Ericsson: 🇨🇴 Colombia lifts ban on 5G iPhones and iPads after appeal — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple’s new patent countersuit against AliveCor aims to ‘set the record straight’ — appleinsider.com/… (second counter-suit over AppleWatch ECG patent claim)
  • Related: Mayo Clinic Study Highlights One More Way Apple Watch Can Save Lives — www.macobserver.com/… (highlighting cardiac issues)
  • Related: AirPods perform almost as well as premium hearing aids in new study — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple & Pinn settle their lawsuit over AirPods charging cases on the eve of the scheduled retrial — appleinsider.com/…
• 🇺🇸 iCloud class action settlement payout won’t even buy a cup of coffee — appleinsider.com/… (payments start to arrive from March’s settlement for having iCloud data on non-Apple servers)
• 🇺🇸 Court approves Apple’s $50M settlement to end Butterfly Keyboard lawsuit — appleinsider.com/… & Apple will pay up to $395 to people with broken MacBook butterfly keyboards — arstechnica.com

Apple HR & Acquisition News

• Key staff driving Apple search engine leave to rejoin Google — appleinsider.com/… (Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary & Steven Baker, left Google to found Laserlike in 2015, bought by Apple in 2018)
• Apple executive John Stauffer poached by Roblox — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple hires Facebook exec to lead its information systems department — appleinsider.com/… (Timothy Campos)

Apple Services & Original Content Highlights

• Apple TV+:
  • Apple and Major League Soccer Announce MLS Season Pass to Arrive This February — www.macobserver.com/… ($14.99 per month, or $99 for the whole season)
    • Related: Apple launched a World Cup (soccer) news podcast with Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard in Ted Lasso) and NBC Sports host Rebecca Lowe — appleinsider.com/…
    • Related: 🇺🇸 Apple published large billboard ads with Ted Lasso encouraging the US mens soccer team in the World Cup — appleinsider.com/…
  • Mondo is releasing vinyl soundtrack of Apple TV+ show ‘Severance’ — appleinsider.com/…
  • Awards:
    • 🇬🇧 Apple TV+ nominated for nine Royal Television Society awards — appleinsider.com/… (Slow Horses, Bad Sisters, The Essex Serpent, Trying & Prehistoric Planet)
    • 🇬🇧 Apple wins its first BAFTA Children & Young People Awards — appleinsider.com/… (El Deafo, Wolf Walkers, Lovely Little Farm & Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth)
• Apple Launches New Fitness+ Time to Walk Series Featuring Chaka Khan — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇰🇷 Apple Pay set for South Korean launch on November 30 — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple Music launches new Replay experience; reveals 2022’s Top Charts — www.apple.com/…
  • Apple Music Replay gets animated revamp for 2022 — appleinsider.com/…
  • The Kid Laroi and Bieber top Apple Music’s Top 100 Songs of 2022 — appleinsider.com/…

Main Stories

1. 🇨🇳 The COVID crisis in China really picked up, bot from an Apple POV, and from a national POV:
   • Apple breaks silence on iPhone 14 Pro impact from COVID — appleinsider.com/…
   • Foxconn Still Under COVID–19 Lockdown, Expects Revenue Shortfall — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Foxconn to quadruple iPhone factory workforce in India — appleinsider.com/…
   • China asks retired military to fill posts at Foxconn’s iPhone factory — appleinsider.com/…
   • Foxconn needs 100,000 more workers at its Zhengzhou iPhone plant — appleinsider.com/…
   • Foxconn pauses hiring spree over lack of quarantine space — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple’s entire iPhone 14 Pro lineup has historically long wait times — appleinsider.com/… & Apple says it’s too late to get iPhone 14 Pro online before Christmas — appleinsider.com/…
   • Violent protests over COVID–19 controls and pay erupt at world’s largest iPhone plant — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • Foxconn apologizes to rioters, Apple is on the scene — appleinsider.com/…, Foxconn Offers to Pay Workers Who Want to Leave, Apologizes for Technical Errors — www.macobserver.com/… & Foxconn paid 20,000 rioting workers to leave the company — appleinsider.com/…
   • iPhone 14 Pro production down by 6 million after Foxconn protests — appleinsider.com/… & iPhone 14 Pro availability improves despite assembler riots — appleinsider.com/…
   • Struggling for workers, Foxconn is giving ex-workers incentives to rejoin — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple’s iPhone Production Could Be Reduced by 6 Million Due to Worsening Situation at Foxconn iPhone Plant in China — www.macobserver.com/… & Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro shipments may drop by 20M in Q4 says Kuo — appleinsider.com/…
   • Rare Civil Disobedience in China Shows Country’s Frustration With COVID–19 Restrictions — www.macobserver.com/…
   • China lifts lockdown on Foxconn’s iPhone plant in Zhengzhou — appleinsider.com/…
2. Elon Must briefly went to war with Apple:
   • Apple cutting ad spend on Twitter sends Musk to war — appleinsider.com/…
   • Analysis/Opinion: Today, in Twitter-Apple Drama — daringfireball.net/… & Apple’s Ad Spend on Twitter: $48M in Q1 — daringfireball.net/…

     • “Frontloading a fight with @tim_cook with specious nonsense isn’t going to work. Why? For one, he’s not a manic toddler hopped up on Twinkies and weaponry cosplay. Plus, no advertiser like to spend their marketing money in Thunderdome of toxic asininity.” — Kara Swisher

     • “In the first quarter, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending $48 million on ads on the social network, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post that was compiled from internal Twitter data. Apple’s spending accounted for more than 4 percent of Twitter’s revenue that quarter.” — Washington Post

   • Apple’s Twitter ad spend may not have actually dropped — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple never considered removing Twitter, says Elon Musk — appleinsider.com/…
   • Elon Musk appears to reconcile with Apple after Twitter tirade — arstechnica.com (after a tour of Apple’s new campus from Tim Cook)
   • Related Opinion: Twitter Under Elon Musk Seems to Value Free Speech More Than Truth — www.macobserver.com/…
3. Apple delivers on promised updates from September Event:
   1. 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 Emergency SOS via Satellite Launched in the US & Canada, coming to the UK & Ireland in December
      • Apple’s Emergency SOS is coming in November, after $450M investment — appleinsider.com/… (GlobeStar)
      • Emergency SOS via satellite available on Tuesday in US & Canada — appleinsider.com/…
      • How to Practice Using Emergency SOS via Satellite in Demo Mode — www.macobserver.com/…
      • Testing Emergency SOS and Find My via Satellite — tidbits.com/…
      • iPhone Emergency SOS via satellite saves stranded Alaska man — www.cultofmac.com/…
   2. Apple Watch Ultra becomes a diving computer with launch of Oceanic+ — arstechnica.com
      • Hands on with the Oceanic+ app and Apple Watch Ultra — appleinsider.com/…

Quick Stories

• Apple announced some noteworthy partnerships:
  • Apple and PayPal Start Playing Nice, Adding Tap to Pay and Wallet Support — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Microsoft: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members get 3-month Apple TV+ & Apple Music trials — appleinsider.com/…
• App Store Awards celebrate the best apps and games of 2022 — www.apple.com/… & Apple announces the winning apps and games in the App Store Awards — appleinsider.com/…
  • Related: The newest ‘Today at Apple’ session is a coding lab for kids — appleinsider.com/…
• Slow Burn Recognized as the Apple Podcasts’ Show of the Year — www.macstories.net/…
• SwiftKey for iPhone is back on the App Store — www.cultofmac.com/…
• Two special editions from Beats:
  • Apple to Debut Special Edition Powerbeats Pro in Fun Duo-Tone Colors — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Japanese fashion house Wacko Maria reveals new Beats Flex collaboration — 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.