LTA 140: April 2025

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bartb.ie

The show starts with some quick followup on a few recently covered and long-running stories before diving into just a single legal story and some highlights from Apple’s services and original content. The four main stories are President Trump’s continuing tariff chaos, Apple’s Q2 2025 earnings, a bad month for Apple’s App Store business model, and the continuing big shakeup within the Apple Intelligence and Siri teams. The show finishes with a rundown of a few other quick 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!

Updates & Followup

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

• There have been no substantive developments, but Apple won their appeal to break the veil of secrecy over the UK government's attempts to break iCloud Advanced Encryption, so we now know this really is happening, it's no longer just reports citing leaks — www.cultofmac.com/…
• Another incremental improvement: iPhone 16e joins Apple's Self-Repair Program — appleinsider.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple Ordered to Pay $700M+ Fine in UK Patent Case — www.macobserver.com/… (4G FRAND patents, lower judge had set a ceiling, higher court ruled that was wrong, so removed it)

Apple Services & Original Content Highlights

• Apple TV:

  • Apple TV+'s Mythic Quest to end with revised fourth season finale — appleinsider.com/… (had ended on a cliff-hanger, so fans are disappointed not to get a whole other season)
  • 3 Apple TV+ shows score BAFTA TV craft awards — www.cultofmac.com/… (Slow Horses, Bad Sisters & The Velveteen Rabbit)

• Apple Arcade: Five new games join Apple Arcade in May, including WHAT THE CLASH?, an exciting addition to the award-winning WHAT THE GAMES? series — Apple PR

  • Nice descriptions of the upcoming games — www.macobserver.com/…

• Apple Sports: Apple brings game card sharing to Apple Sports — appleinsider.com/… (lets you share a snap-shot of the current score as a pretty image)

• Apple Wallet: OMNY Transit Cards Coming to Apple Wallet for New York City Subway Riders — www.macobserver.com/…

• Related: Apple soft-launches all-in-one site to follow celebs — www.cultofmac.com/…

Main Stories

1. The Trump Tariff Chaos Continues

   • The news rollercoaster:

     • When we left the story the nonsense 'reciprocal tariffs' (they're not) had just gone into effect

     • Trump's 104% tariff against imports from China goes live — appleinsider.com/…

     • Trade war escalates: Trump hikes China tariffs to 125%, pauses others for 90 days — appleinsider.com/…

     • Trump Cuts Most Tariffs to 10% but Increases Tariffs on China to 125% — daringfireball.net/… (seemingly spooked by the bond market rather than the stock market which plummeted earlier)

     • Apple Stock Jumps 15% After Tariff Pause and Talk of Exemptions — www.macobserver.com/… (for specific comanies)

     • Trump, Supposedly, Thinks the U.S. Has the 'Resources' Needed to Make iPhones — daringfireball.net/…

       • Apple silent as Trump promises “impossible” US-made iPhones — arstechnica.com/…
       • Later in month: Arms race: Apple's waiting for robotics for US iPhone assembly, says Commerce Secretary — appleinsider.com/…
       • Related analysis: You can’t make the iPhone in the U.S. — sixcolors.com/…

     • AAPL crumble: stock hit again, as White House clarifies 145% China tariff rate — appleinsider.com/…

     • China calls Trump's trade war a joke, jumps tariffs on U.S. goods to 125% — appleinsider.com/…

     • After market tumult, Trump exempts smartphones from massive new tariffs — arstechnica.com/…

       • US launches semiconductor probe to explain away tariff exemptions — appleinsider.com/…
       • Trump confirms he reduced tariffs to help Tim Cook — appleinsider.com/…
       • Senator Warren asks if Apple CEO Tim Cook's Trump playbook is blatant corruption — appleinsider.com/…

     • iPhone & Mac tariff reprieve only temporary — appleinsider.com/… (apparently working on new tariff plan just for chips!)

     • China escalates US tariff war by halting rare earth mineral exports — appleinsider.com/…

     • Trump has not raised big tech China tariffs to 245 percent — appleinsider.com/… (with all the chaos that was briefly reported!)

     • Uncertainty returns for Apple as Trump tariff pause halved for countries not making a deal — appleinsider.com/…

   • Related Stories:

     • Apple supplier Pegatron says tariffs will mean third world-style shortages for US — appleinsider.com/…
     • Two new iPhone factories years in the making open in India — appleinsider.com/…
     • TSMC breaks ground on third plant in Arizona — appleinsider.com/… & Apple CEO Excited as TSMC Expands With New US Chip Plant — www.macobserver.com/…

   • Analysis & Opinion:

     • There were reports of Apple front-loading inventory by chartering planes, but could that really bring in many iPhones? Gruber and others did the math, and at most, that gives just a few weeks of sales — daringfireball.net/…
     • This makes Apple even more dependent on services revenue because services are not included in any of these tariff changes — sixcolors.com/…

2. Apple's Q2 2025 Earnings — Apple PR

   • Good factual summaries:

     • Apple Q2 2025 results and charts: $95.4B revenue — sixcolors.com/…
     • This is Tim: Complete transcript of Apple’s Q2 2025 financial call — sixcolors.com/…
     • Apple Q2 2025 Financials Solid Despite Upcoming Tariff Uncertainty — tidbits.com/…

   • Some key points:

     • Apple Exceeds Q2 Forecasts With $95.4B in Revenue — www.macobserver.com/…

     • Everything other than wearables was up, but wearables now seem to be in the kind of prolonged slide we saw with the iPad in recent years before it recovered again — Apple's justifications about it being a 'difficult compare' are not holding much water with analysts (or me!)

     • Apple included some little sweeteners for investors: Apple to buy back $100 billion in stock, raise dividend by 4% — appleinsider.com/…

     • Confirmation that Apple are re-organising where devices from their existing production capacities around the world are shipped to work around the arbitrary Trump tariffs:

       • Tim Cook: Half of Q2 iPhone sales in US came from India — appleinsider.com/…
       • Everything but iPhone will ship from Vietnam and India in Q3 — appleinsider.com/…
       • This means Chinese capacity will be used to supply most of the rest of the world

     • Apple will not guide for next quarter due to the uncertainty, but did say that if nothing were to change in terms of tariffs, then the current rates would cost them almost $1Bn next quarter — appleinsider.com/… & www.cultofmac.com/…

   • An open question — do these results already include some of the rush to buy now before tariffs get worse, or is that temporary bump still to come in the Q3 results?

     • Apple say these Q2 results don't include demand pull-forward because liberation day came after the quarter closed, but analysts are not convinced because there was a lot of tariff uncertainty well before the date — appleinsider.com/…

3. A bad month for Apple's App Store Business Model:

   1. EU Fines Apple €500 Million for Digital Markets Act Violations — www.macstories.net/…

      • The full judgement — EU Commission

        • Not all bad news — Apple have officially provided sufficient app choices now that iOS forces uses to pick a browser explicitly, and provides the ability to set default apps for all sorts of things in the settings app (mail, maps, messaging, etc.)
        • The key point of contention is the App store business model — the commission do not believe Apple's convoluted and complicated EU-specific model is compliant with the DMA (the confusing mess I termed cantankerous compliance). The continuing anti-steering rules and the core technology fee get called out specifically.

      • A nice summary: Apple’s convoluted iPhone sideloading rules break EU law — www.cultofmac.com/…

      • As Gruber and others have pointed out, the commission are not being clear about what they actually want Apple to do: Clear as Mud — daringfireball.net/…

        "So is the entire idea of the Core Technology Fee disallowed? Or is the fee too high? Does Apple need to just make app distribution free and unfettered, no fees, no restrictions? Who knows?"

      • As is the norm for EU processes, this is an initial Preliminary ruling, and unsurprisingly, Apple is not happy and has already stated it will appeal — www.theverge.com/…

        Apple spokesperson: "Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free. … We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way. We will appeal and continue engaging with the Commission in service of our European customers."

      • In theory, the fine could have been up to 10% annual global revenue, which would be billions of €/$s, so the much lower number is being seen by some analysts as the EU trying to placate Trump, or at least not trigger a big escalation in the trade war, and just as I expected, that nuance appears to have gone un-noticed in the White House — appleinsider.com/… & appleinsider.com/…

      • Related: even these convoluted attempts at compliance have yielded some results: AltStore PAL Releases AltStore Classic for EU iPhone Users — www.macstories.net/… (Enables emulators that use JIT which is not permitted by Apple but necessary to emulate more modern games)

   2. Apple -v- Epic takes an epic turn — www.cultofmac.com/… & appleinsider.com/…

      • US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple “willfully chose not to comply”, and that “Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated” so she has explicitly ordered Apple to remove all anti-steering rules from the US App Store immediately
      • Not only that, but she ruled that Apple’s vice president of finance Alex Roman lied under oath in his testimony to the court and has referred both him and Apple for criminal prosecution!
      • Gruber offers and excellent summary of the ruling: Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers Rules, in Excoriating Decision, That Apple Violated Her 2021 Court Order Regarding App Store Anti-Steering Provisions — daringfireball.net/…
      • A good summary of what the ruling means in practical terms: Epic vs. Apple: What Apple is being forced to do to the App Store — appleinsider.com/…
      • Apple don't agree, but have abided by the judgement and updated their App Store terms accordingly, though only in the US — appleinsider.com/… & daringfireball.net/…
      • The most vocal developers responded very promptly with app updates, which Apple has been accepting — www.macstories.net/… (Spotify, Patreon, Stripe, and Epic Games, though not with a direct app, but with an out-side payment offering for developers of apps that have not been booted from the store like theirs have!)
      • Opinion & Analysis: Apple Lost But That Doesn't Mean Epic Won Anything — daringfireball.net/…

4. Apple's Artificial Intelligence Shakeup Continues

   • Context: just as last month's show was about to be recorded reports emerged that Mike Rockwell would be taking over the product side of Apple Intelligence with the previous head, John Giannandrea, remaining at the head of just the research efforts. We also saw the expected class actions suits emerge!

   • After a ruling from the Better Business Bureau Apple stops describing Apple Intelligence as 'Available Now' — www.macobserver.com/…

   • Apple Shares New Apple Intelligence Demo Video — www.macobserver.com/…

   • Lots more well sourced but unconfirmed reports detailing huge internal changes (I don't usually cover rumours and unconfirmed reports, but these reports are credible and important enough to make an exception!)

     • According yet more unofficial reports from Mark Gurman, Mike Rockwell is now re-arranging the lower level managers now reporting to him — www.macobserver.com/…

       "According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Rockwell is replacing major segments of Siri’s leadership with former Vision Pro executives. Ranjit Desai now heads much of Siri’s core engineering, including its platform and systems. Olivier Gutknecht takes over user experience. Veteran engineers Nate Begeman and Tom Duffy have joined to manage Siri’s foundational architecture."
       "Stuart Bowers, who oversaw data training and evaluation teams, will focus on improving Siri’s response quality. David Winarsky will now lead all voice and speech-related components."
       …
       "The team isn’t just reassigning people. Siri’s core architecture is being reworked. Instead of the current two-system model, Apple plans to shift to a single large language model that powers both basic and advanced tasks."

     • Rockwell acquires even more responsibilities: Apple shifts robotics team away from Giannandrea's AI organization to prioritize hardware — appleinsider.com/…
     • Apple has reportedly begun internally testing a version of XCode using Anthopic's Claude AI for code completion etc., backing up reports that the new management has removed a previous ban on the use of non-Apple models — www.macobserver.com/…

   • The research team is not standing still though: How Apple's new Machine Learning research will help Apple Intelligence get smarter — appleinsider.com/…

   • Apple announced that it is expanding it's Apple Intelligence training, but doing so in a privacy-protecting way — www.cultofmac.com/…

     • For the simple stuff, Apple is expanding it's use of Differential Privacy
     • For complex stuff Apple us using synthetic data generated by LLMs and using differential privacy to verify that their synthetic data is realistic (very clever!)
     • Apple's own detailed description of how it all works — machinelearning.apple.com/… (very approachable)

   • Google CEO Hopes Gemini Will Join Apple Intelligence in iOS 19 — www.macobserver.com/… (in testimony in one of their anti-trust cases with the US DOJ)

   • Apple explains how App Store reviews are summarized with AI(nothing too exciting or controversial)

   • Related: Meta keeps Apple’s AI out of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — www.cultofmac.com/…

Quick Stories

• As has become the norm, Apple celebrates Earth Day by releasing it's annual environmental report and some environmental initiatives:

  • Apple unveils environmental progress, surpassing 60 percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions — Apple PR
  • Get rewarded for recycling with Apple's 2025 Earth Day offer — appleinsider.com/… (in-store only, up to 10% off some devices, and running until May 16th)
  • Apple Expands Clean Energy Charging on iPhone Demo Units in U.S. Stores — www.macobserver.com/… (adjusts when phones charge based on current greenness of local electricity supply)

• Apple Vision Pro immersive video library management utility arrives for Mac — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple rebrands its advertising business as 'Apple Ads' — appleinsider.com/… (was Apple Search Ads, so a sign of expanding ambitions )

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.