LTA 119: July 2023

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots

For various reasons, this is another solo show with just Bart. The show starts with some followups, a little regulatory and legal news, some HR news, and some highlights from Apple’s services an original content. The three main stories are Apple’s Q3 2023 earnings call, some App Store changes to fight cross-app-tracking via fingerprinting, and a look at where things stand with Apple & AI. Finally, the show finishes with some other quick Apple-related stories that made the news in July.

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 UK joins the list of countries cranky at Apple’s Crash Detection feature’s imperfections: Apple Watch emergency calls false positives slammed by UK police chiefs — appleinsider.com/…
• More developments with Apple Savings:
  • Those customers we mentioned having troubles withdrawing money last time seem to have been made whole: Select Apple Savings customers credited $100 after over-long withdrawal requests — appleinsider.com/…
  • The service seems to be well received: Apple users have deposited more than $10bn in its savings product — www.siliconrepublic.com/… (Apple’s Press Release: Apple Card’s Savings account by Goldman Sachs reaches over $10 billion in deposits — www.apple.com/…)
• Apple Opens Public Betas for macOS 14 Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, tvOS 17, and HomePod Software 17 — tidbits.com/…
• Vision OS’s launch preparations continued a-pace this month:
  • TestFlight now supports visionOS apps — appleinsider.com/…
  • Unity Launches PolySpatial Beta Program for visionOS Developers — www.macstories.net/… & Unity’s visionOS support has started to roll out—here’s how it works — arstechnica.com
  • Apple Announces visionOS App Evaluation Process, Labs, and Developer Kits — www.macstories.net/… & How developers will test their apps before Vision Pro launches — arstechnica.com
    • Devs aren’t allowed to let Apple’s Vision Pro dev kits out of their sight — arstechnica.com
  • Apple Vision Pro visionOS beta 2 seeded to developers — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple announced that it, along with Pixar, Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, have formed the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) — www.macstories.net/… (OpenUSD is a 3D scene description language developed by Pixar)
• Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit update boosts framerates — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple expands test driver team for its ‘Apple Car’ autonomous vehicle project — appleinsider.com/…
  • Related: SEC sues Apple Car exec over securities rules at former employer — appleinsider.com/… (Ulrich Kranz, for unreasonable revenue projections while he was at Canoo)
• It’s still complicated for Apple in China:
  • Apple continue to try expand their sales in China: Apple targets China sales growth with new WeChat storefront — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple also continue to try diversify production away from China:
    • TSMC delays Arizona plant, blames US labor shortage — appleinsider.com/…
    • Foxconn plans new $500 million investment in India — appleinsider.com/…
• It’s also still complicated for Apple in India:
  • Tata Group will become the first India-native company to build the iPhone — appleinsider.com/… (Taking over the troubled Wistron plant with its history of riots!)
  • India becomes Apple’s fifth-largest iPhone market — www.cultofmac.com/…
  • Without notice, India announced new import rules effective immediately that would require Apple and others to get an import license, then quickly adds a ‘transition period’:
    • India limits iPad and Mac imports in drive to boost local manufacturing — appleinsider.com/… & Apple forced to halt MacBook, iPad imports in India — appleinsider.com/…
    • India delays iPad and Mac import limits until October 31 — appleinsider.com/…

Regulatory Rundown

• The big tech companies, including Apple, have officially confirmed that they are Gate Keepers under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple
  • Alphabet/Google
  • Amazon
  • Meta/Facebook
  • Microsoft
  • ByteDance/TikTok
• New EU regulations mandate user-replaceable batteries in Apple products — appleinsider.com/…
  • Analysis: iPhone is never going to get an easy battery replacement door — appleinsider.com/…
• French competition agency starts probe into Apple’s ATT — appleinsider.com/… (App Tracking Transparency)
• Apple threatens to kill iMessage & FaceTime in UK if controversial law passes — appleinsider.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple -v- Epic:
  • Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. of the 9th US Circuit Court granted Apple leave to appeal to the US Supreme Court, and stayed the Anti-steering ruling from the original judgement, but criticised Apple harshly in the process — appleinsider.com/…

  “… while the arguments in Apple’s motion may not be technically frivolous, they ignore key aspects of the panel’s reasoning and key factual findings by the district court …”

  • Apple taps U.S. Supreme Court in Epic Games legal fight — appleinsider.com/…
  • Epic asks U.S. Supreme Court to enforce lower court’s App Store order — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple -v- Optis (4G patents): A UK Court of Appeals has rejected Apple’s motion to overturn 4G patents held by Optis, there will now be a trial to determine the amount of licensing fees Apple owes. Apple have threatened to pull out of the UK if the fees are excessive — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple hit with class action lawsuit on App Store fees — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple, Amazon hit with $218 million antitrust fine in Spain — appleinsider.com/… (Over limiting sales of Apple products on Amazon to authorised resellers in an attempt to fight counterfeiting)

• ‘Apple Music’ can’t be trademarked, says appeals court — appleinsider.com/… (Technically speaking Apple were denied a re-hearing on a narrower claim of the case they already lost — a musician has been using Apple Jazz since 1985 and his objections have now blocked the trademark registration)

Apple HR & Acquisition News

• Apple continues to fight against their employees organising:
  • CORE Apple Store union negotiations hit a wall of Apple’s design — appleinsider.com/…
  • IAM CORE files another unfair labor practice charge against Apple with NLRB — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple guts internal communication tool, crippling union organization — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple’s wireless tech R&D offices in Irvine expand again — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple names ad industry vet as new creative director — appleinsider.com/… (Graham McDonnell, has worked on brands like the NYT & Time Magazine!)

Apple Services & Original Content Highlights

• Apple TV+:
  • Apple are trying out some new marketing ideas:
    • Get started watching Foundation with gorgeous first episode free on YouTube — www.cultofmac.com/…
    • Lionel Messi debuts on MLS on Apple TV+ tonight, and Apple is promoting it heavily — appleinsider.com/… (Apple’s Press Release)
      • MLS Season Pass sets new viewership record highs with Messi’s debut — appleinsider.com/…
      • Related: based on numbers from the Sports Business Journal the MLS deal seems to be going well with nearly 1M subscribers — appleinsider.com/…
    • Apple TV+ series to be screened on Air Canada — appleinsider.com/… (Including Ted Lasso & Severance)
  • SAG-AFTRA, the US’s main actors union is now also on strike, joining the main writer’s union the WGA. This will obviously impact Apple’s productions — appleinsider.com/…
    • Strikes halting production on ‘Silo’ and ‘Foundation’ — appleinsider.com/…
    • Apple agrees to deal that will keep ‘Tehran’ filming despite actors’ strike — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple celebrates its highest number of Emmy nominations — appleinsider.com/… (54, including for Still, Ted Lasso, Bad Sisters & The Problem with Jon Stuart)
    • Apple’s Press Release
• Apple Pay:
  • Apple Makes Tap to Pay on iPhone Available for UK Merchants — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple Pay Express Mode comes to New South Wales — appleinsider.com/… (Public transit via the Opal Network)
  • Apple Pay has finally arrived in Morocco — appleinsider.com/… (via CIH Bank, though while officially announced, there’s no clear launch date!)
• Apple Arcade:
  • Super-cute Hello Kitty Island Adventure is latest Apple Arcade exclusive — www.cultofmac.com/…
  • Apple Arcade adds new games, including a Sega classic — appleinsider.com/… (Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go)

Main Stories

1. Ho-hum Q3 2023 Earnings — www.apple.com/…
   • The key numbers:
     • Revenue: $81.8Bn ($83Bn YAG)
       • iPhone: $39.7Bn ($40.7Bn YAG)
       • Mac: $6.8Bn ($7.4Bn YAG)
       • iPad: $5.8Bn ($7.2Bn)
       • Wearables etc.: $8.3Bn ($8.1Bn YAG)
       • Services: $21.2Bn ($19.6Bn YAG)
     • Earnings per Share: $1.26 ($1.20 YAG)
   • Causes of drop:
     • ‘Tough Compare’ — new iPads & Mac year-ago-quarter, but not this quarter
     • ‘exchange rate headwinds’ — on a constant currency basis Apple actually made revenue than last year, by about 3%
   • This is Tim: Apple’s Q3 2023 analyst call, transcribed — sixcolors.com/…
   • Apple Q3 2023 Charts: $81.8B revenue, down 1% — sixcolors.com/…
   • Apple Q3 2023 Earnings Down 1% on Exchange Rates — tidbits.com/…
   • 1 billion subscribers push Apple’s services revenue to all-time high — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • iPhone sales are down, but Apple’s subscriptions are growing fast — arstechnica.com
   • Apple’s latest dividend: $0.24 per share on Aug. 17, 2023 — appleinsider.com/… ($0.23 YAG)
   • Related: Apple TV+ has a lot more subscribers than you might realize — www.cultofmac.com/… (Numbers from Antenna, Apple’s numbers are now on a par with the other Netflix competitors, a little ahead of Paramount+ & Max, and little behind Disney+ in the US)
   • Related: Apple’s numbers are holding up well compared to others in contracting markets:
     • IDC: Mac shipments up while PC rivals go down in Q2 2023 — appleinsider.com/… (Global shipment estimates)
     • macOS adoption rates saw a dramatic upturn in 2022 — appleinsider.com/… (based on web stats by StatCounter, 21% of desktop browsing activity, with Windows down to ‘just’ 68%)
     • Apple is still coming out on top of an incredibly bad smartphone market — appleinsider.com/… (numbers by Counterpoint Research — global market down 8% YoY, but Apple only down 2%)
     • Apple holds strong as global smartphone market keeps shrinking — appleinsider.com/… (numbers from Canalys show world-wide shipments down 10%, with Apple down by the about the same, but holding their 17% market share second to Samsung with 21%, also un-changed YoY)
   • Opinion: If this is Apple struggling, everything is going to be just fine — www.macworld.com/…
2. More App Store changes to fight cross-app tracking without consent:
   • Apple cracks down on apps that use device fingerprinting to track users — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • Apple will require app devs to explain exactly why they use certain APIs — arstechnica.com
3. Apple & AI
   • Two high-profile initiatives were launched this month to add guard-rails to AI, and Apple was conspicuously absent from both:
     • The White House secured voluntary commitments from Amazon, Anthropic, Alphabet, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft & OpenAI to cooperate on AI safety — appleinsider.com/…
     • Anthropic, Google, Microsoft & OpenAI have announced the Frontier Model Forum, a new industry group to promote the “safe and responsible development” of AI models — blog.google/…
   • Apple AI in the works leads to high R&D spend — appleinsider.com/…

Quick Stories

• Beats Studio Pro arrives with Spatial Audio, massive battery life — appleinsider.com/…
  • Beats Studio Pro review roundup: ‘Almost AirPods Max Light’ for less — www.cultofmac.com/…
  • Beats Studio Pro versus AirPods Max — compared — appleinsider.com/…
• VMWare Tech Preview 2023 has full hardware 3D acceleration — appleinsider.com/… (DirectX 11 on Windows 11 Arm on M-series Macs)
• The App Store Turns 15 — www.macstories.net/…
  • Related: Bart’s first apps — mstdn.social/…

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.