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  	<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vh2" />
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Source: http://daringfireball.net/index.xml

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2. <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
3. <title>Daring Fireball</title>
4. <subtitle>By John Gruber</subtitle>
5. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/" />
6. <link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main" />
7. <id>https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main</id>
8.  
9.  
10. <updated>2024-04-24T23:56:56Z</updated><rights>Copyright © 2024, John Gruber</rights><entry>
11. <title>Dumbphones in 2024</title>
12. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-dumbphone-boom-is-real" />
13. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vh2" />
14. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/dumbphones-in-2024" />
15. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40790</id>
16. <published>2024-04-24T23:56:56Z</published>
17. <updated>2024-04-24T23:56:56Z</updated>
18. <author>
19. <name>John Gruber</name>
20. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
21. </author>
22. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
23. <p>Kyle Chayka, writing for The New Yorker:</p>
24.  
25. <blockquote>
26.  <p>Two years ago, they both tried Apple’s Screen Time restriction
27. tool and found it too easy to disable, so the pair decided to
28. trade out their iPhones for more low-tech devices. They’d heard
29. about so-called dumbphones, which lacked the kinds of bells and
30. whistles — a high-resolution screen, an app store, a video camera — that made smartphones so addictive. But they found the process
31. of acquiring one hard to navigate. “The information on it was kind
32. of disparate and hard to get to. A lot of people who know the most
33. about dumbphones spend the least time online,” Krigbaum said. A
34. certain irony presented itself: figuring out a way to be less
35. online required aggressive online digging.</p>
36.  
37. <p>The couple — Stults is twenty-nine, and Krigbaum is twenty-five — saw a business opportunity. “If somebody could condense it and
38. simplify it to the best options, maybe more people would make the
39. switch,” Krigbaum said. In late 2022, they launched an e-commerce
40. company, <a href="https://dumbwireless.com/">Dumbwireless</a>, to sell phones, data plans, and accessories
41. for people who want to reduce time spent on their screens.</p>
42. </blockquote>
43.  
44. <p>Chayka’s story ran under the bold headline “The Dumbphone Boom Is Real”, which is incongruously clickbait-y for The New Yorker:</p>
45.  
46. <blockquote>
47.  <p>Stults takes business calls on his personal cell, and on one
48. recent morning the first call came at 5 a.m. (As the lead on
49. customer service, he has to use a smartphone — go figure.) They
50. pack each order by hand, sometimes with handwritten notes. They
51. have not yet quit their day jobs, which are in the service
52. industry, but Dumbwireless sold more than seventy thousand
53. dollars’ worth of products last month, ten times more than in
54. March, 2023. Krigbaum and Stults noticed an acceleration in sales
55. last October, which they speculate may have had something to do
56. with the onslaught of holiday-shopping season. Some of their
57. popular phone offerings include the <a href="https://www.dumbwireless.com/products/light-phone-2-black">Light Phone</a>, an e-ink device
58. with almost no apps; the <a href="https://www.dumbwireless.com/products/nokia-2780">Nokia 2780</a>, a traditional flip phone; and
59. the <a href="https://www.dumbwireless.com/products/punkt-mp02">Punkt.</a>, a calculator-ish Swiss device that looks like
60. something designed for Neo to carry in “The Matrix” (which, to be
61. fair, is a movie of the dumbphone era).</p>
62. </blockquote>
63.  
64. <p>$70K/month in sales is legit, but far from a boom.</p>
65.  
66. <p>The two things that get me when I ponder, even for a moment, carrying a dumbphone: audio (podcasts/music) and camera. Pre-iPhone I’d leave the house with both a phone and an iPod, and sometimes a camera too. I actually just bought <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/online_photo_storage_is_surely_expensive_but_apple_should_offer_more#fn1-2024-04-09">a new pocket-sized camera</a> last year, but it seems ludicrous to even consider carrying a dedicated device just for audio, and with music streaming, people expect their portable audio player to have always-available networking. Also: AirPods. I’m not going back to wired earbuds, <em>especially</em> in the winter.</p>
67.  
68. <div>
69. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Dumbphones in 2024’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/dumbphones-in-2024">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
70. </div>
71.  
72. ]]></content>
73.  </entry><entry>
74. <title>Ed Zitron: ‘The Man Who Killed Google Search’</title>
75. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/?ref=ed-zitrons-wheres-your-ed-at-newsletter" />
76. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vh1" />
77. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/zitron-google-search" />
78. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40789</id>
79. <published>2024-04-24T22:55:25Z</published>
80. <updated>2024-04-24T23:24:52Z</updated>
81. <author>
82. <name>John Gruber</name>
83. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
84. </author>
85. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
86. <p>Absolutely scathing dissection of what’s gone wrong at Google Search, by Ed Zitron for his newsletter/blog:</p>
87.  
88. <blockquote>
89.  <p>In <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90241011/this-man-has-helped-shape-google-search-almost-from-the-start?ref=wheresyoured.at">an interview with FastCompany’s Harry McCracken from
90. 2018</a>, Gomes framed Google’s challenge as “taking [the
91. PageRank algorithm] from one machine to a whole bunch of machines,
92. and they weren’t very good machines at the time.” Despite his
93. impact and tenure, Gomes had only been made Head of Search in the
94. middle of 2018 after John Giannandrea moved to Apple to work on
95. its machine learning and AI strategy. Gomes had been described as
96. Google’s “search czar,” beloved for his ability to communicate
97. across departments.</p>
98.  
99. <p>Every single article I’ve read about Gomes’ tenure at Google spoke
100. of a man deeply ingrained in the foundation of one of the most
101. important technologies ever made, who had dedicated decades to
102. maintaining a product with a — to quote Gomes himself — “<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90241011/this-man-has-helped-shape-google-search-almost-from-the-start?ref=wheresyoured.at#:~:text=To%20me%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%20the%20guiding%20light%20of%20serving%20the%20user%20and%20using%20technology%20to%20do%20that">guiding light of serving the user and using technology to do
103. that</a>.” And when finally given the keys to the kingdom — the ability to elevate Google Search even further — he was
104. ratfucked by a series of rotten careerists trying to please Wall
105. Street, led by Prabhakar Raghavan.</p>
106.  
107. <p>Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan’s old job was? What
108. Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that
109. has run Google Search into the ground, the guy who is currently
110. destroying search, did before his job at Google?</p>
111.  
112. <p><em>He was the head of search for Yahoo from 2005 through 2012</em> — a
113. tumultuous period that cemented its terminal decline, and
114. effectively saw the company bow out of the search market
115. altogether. His responsibilities? Research and development for
116. Yahoo’s search and ads products.</p>
117. </blockquote>
118.  
119. <p>Long story short, Ben Gomes was a search guy who’d been at Google since 1999,  <a href="https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/06/05/evolution-of-adwords">before they even had any ads in search results</a>. He was replaced by Prabhakar Raghavan, who previously was Head of Ads at the company. So instead of there being any sort of firewall between search and ads, search became a subsidiary of ads.</p>
120.  
121. <p>Zitron’s compelling narrative is largely gleaned through emails released as part of the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google. Is the story really that simple? That around 2019 or so Google Search’s institutional priorities flipped from quality-first/revenue-second, to revenue-first/quality-second? It might be more complicated than that, but the timeline sure does add up.</p>
122.  
123. <p>And as a truism this feels right: if content reports to ads, content will go to hell. Publications, TV networks, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/msft-ads-start-menu">operating systems</a>, search engines — no matter the medium, you can’t let the advertising sales inmates run the asylum.</p>
124.  
125. <div>
126. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Ed Zitron: ‘The Man Who Killed Google Search’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/zitron-google-search">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
127. </div>
128.  
129. ]]></content>
130.  </entry><entry>
131. <title>Why Your Most-Used Keyboard Keys Get Shiny</title>
132. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://mastodon.social/@jgamet/112323590880011048" />
133. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vh0" />
134. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/keyboard-keys-shiny" />
135. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40788</id>
136. <published>2024-04-24T22:26:37Z</published>
137. <updated>2024-04-24T22:26:38Z</updated>
138. <author>
139. <name>John Gruber</name>
140. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
141. </author>
142. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
143. <p>Jeff Gamet on Mastodon:</p>
144.  
145. <blockquote>
146.  <p>Know why you can’t clean the greasy spots off your compute
147. keyboard? Because that isn’t grease. Lots of computer keys are
148. made from ABS plastic, which is soft and cheaper than PBT plastic.
149. Those shiny spots are where you polished the keys by typing.</p>
150. </blockquote>
151.  
152. <p>I’m at least somewhat of a keyboard nerd, but somehow I only learned this a few years ago. The way worn-down ABS keycaps looks greasy, even though they’re not, reminds me of how snakes look wet, even though they’re not.</p>
153.  
154. <p>Over the last 30 years I’ve primarily used two Apple Extended Keyboard II’s at my desk (the “e” key’s switch died on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/albums/72157604797968156/">my first one</a> in 2006) and the only key that’s gotten a tad shiny on either of them is the space bar, where my right thumb hits it. You can literally see <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/2453205626/in/album-72157604797968156/">how the space bar eroded</a> on the one I used from 1992–2006, which, not coincidentally, was a time when I played a lot of games on my Mac. The Extended Keyboard II I’ve been using since 2006 — which I’m using to type this sentence — shows some shine on the space bar, but no erosion.</p>
155.  
156. <p>Those old keycaps clearly weren’t made from cheap ABS plastic. But in recent decades, Apple’s keyboard keycaps <em>have</em> been made from ABS plastic (or, at least, some sort of plastic that develops a greasy-looking shine through use). I’d love to see Apple fix this problem. Apple’s just not known for cheaping out on materials.</p>
157.  
158. <div>
159. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Why Your Most-Used Keyboard Keys Get Shiny’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/24/keyboard-keys-shiny">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
160. </div>
161.  
162. ]]></content>
163.  </entry><entry>
164. <title>Senate Passes Bill to Force Sale of TikTok</title>
165. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/23/tiktok-ban-senate-vote-sale-biden/" />
166. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgz" />
167. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/senate-tiktok-bill" />
168. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40787</id>
169. <published>2024-04-24T02:36:52Z</published>
170. <updated>2024-04-24T02:38:19Z</updated>
171. <author>
172. <name>John Gruber</name>
173. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
174. </author>
175. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
176. <p>Cristiano Lima-Strong, reporting for The Washington Post:</p>
177.  
178. <blockquote>
179.  <p>Congress late Tuesday passed legislation to ban or force a sale of TikTok, delivering a historic rebuke of the video-sharing platform’s Chinese ownership after years of failed attempts to tackle the app’s alleged national security risks.</p>
180.  
181. <p>The Senate approved the measure 79 to 18 as part of a sprawling package offering aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, sending the proposal to President Biden’s desk — with the House having passed it Saturday. Biden issued a statement minutes after the Senate vote saying he plans to sign the bill into law on Wednesday.</p>
182.  
183. <p>Once signed, the provision will give TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, roughly nine months to sell the wildly popular app or face a national ban, a deadline the president could extend by 90 days.</p>
184. </blockquote>
185.  
186. <p>Finally.</p>
187.  
188. <div>
189. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Senate Passes Bill to Force Sale of TikTok’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/senate-tiktok-bill">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
190. </div>
191.  
192. ]]></content>
193.  </entry><entry>
194. <title>Apple Renews ‘For All Mankind’ and Announces New Spinoff Series ‘Star City’</title>
195. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2024/04/apple-renews-globally-acclaimed-hit-space-drama-for-all-mankind-for-season-five-and-announces-new-spinoff-series-star-city/" />
196. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgy" />
197. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/for-all-mankind-season-5" />
198. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40786</id>
199. <published>2024-04-24T01:32:06Z</published>
200. <updated>2024-04-24T01:32:07Z</updated>
201. <author>
202. <name>John Gruber</name>
203. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
204. </author>
205. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
206. <p>Apple Newsroom: </p>
207.  
208. <blockquote>
209.  <p>Following its critically acclaimed fourth season, which has been
210. praised as “the best-written show on all of television” and
211. “superior sci-fi,” Apple TV+’s hit, award-winning space drama
212. series “For All Mankind” has landed a renewal for season five.
213. Additionally, Apple TV+ and “For All Mankind” creators Ronald D.
214. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi will expand the “For All
215. Mankind” universe with a brand-new spinoff series, “Star City,”
216. which will be showrun by Nedivi and Wolpert. [...]</p>
217.  
218. <p>A robust expansion of the “For All Mankind” universe, “Star City”
219. is a propulsive, paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key
220. moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race — when the
221. Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But
222. this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain,
223. showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers and the
224. intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space
225. program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward.</p>
226. </blockquote>
227.  
228. <p>I can’t think of another show quite like <em>For All Mankind</em>. For one thing, there just aren’t many “alternate history” shows or movies, even though I tend to think it’s a great genre — a way to ground fantastic inventions with familiar elements. But the biggest distinction is the way <em>For All Mankind</em> has decade-long gaps in the timeline between seasons. We’ve seen some characters age 30+ years over just four seasons.</p>
229.  
230. <div>
231. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Apple Renews ‘For All Mankind’ and Announces New Spinoff Series ‘Star City’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/for-all-mankind-season-5">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
232. </div>
233.  
234. ]]></content>
235.  </entry><entry>
236. <title>Bertrand Serlet: ‘Why LLMs Work’</title>
237. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwtyIDmhxh4" />
238. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgx" />
239. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/serlet-youtube-llms" />
240. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40785</id>
241. <published>2024-04-23T21:12:18Z</published>
242. <updated>2024-04-23T21:12:18Z</updated>
243. <author>
244. <name>John Gruber</name>
245. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
246. </author>
247. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
248. <p>Bertrand Serlet — <a href="https://daringfireball.net/search/serlet">who was Apple’s SVP of software engineering from 2003–2011</a> and a staple during WWDC keynotes during that era — is now a YouTuber. Great 30-minute lecture explaining how LLMs and AI in general actually work.</p>
249.  
250. <div>
251. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Bertrand Serlet: ‘Why LLMs Work’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/serlet-youtube-llms">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
252. </div>
253.  
254. ]]></content>
255.  </entry><entry>
256. <title>FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes</title>
257. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes" />
258. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgw" />
259. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/ftc-bans-noncompetes" />
260. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40784</id>
261. <published>2024-04-23T21:00:44Z</published>
262. <updated>2024-04-23T21:00:44Z</updated>
263. <author>
264. <name>John Gruber</name>
265. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
266. </author>
267. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
268. <p>The FTC:</p>
269.  
270. <blockquote>
271.  <p>Today, the Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/noncompete-rule.pdf">issued a final rule</a>
272. to promote competition by banning noncompetes nationwide,
273. protecting the fundamental freedom of workers to change jobs,
274. increasing innovation, and fostering new business formation.</p>
275.  
276. <p>“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob
277. the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than
278. 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes
279. are banned,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s final rule to
280. ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a
281. new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”</p>
282. </blockquote>
283.  
284. <p>As I wrote <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/01/06/ftc-noncompete-ban">a year ago</a>, I used to think that noncompete agreements (“agreements”?) were mainly a thing in the tech industry. But their use became so rampant that even <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compete-clauses-following-settlement.html">sandwich shop chains were requiring them</a>.</p>
285.  
286. <div>
287. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/ftc-bans-noncompetes">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
288. </div>
289.  
290. ]]></content>
291.  </entry><entry>
292. <title>NASA Engineers Successfully Debugged Voyager 1 From a Light-Day Away</title>
293. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/" />
294. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgv" />
295. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/nasa-voyager-debugged" />
296. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40783</id>
297. <published>2024-04-23T20:02:54Z</published>
298. <updated>2024-04-23T20:02:55Z</updated>
299. <author>
300. <name>John Gruber</name>
301. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
302. </author>
303. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
304. <p>Happy ending to <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/03/18/nasa-voyager-1-debugging">this saga</a>. Remarkable engineering.</p>
305.  
306. <div>
307. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘NASA Engineers Successfully Debugged Voyager 1 From a Light-Day Away’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/nasa-voyager-debugged">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
308. </div>
309.  
310. ]]></content>
311.  </entry><entry>
312. <title>Charles Edge Dies</title>
313. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://tidbits.com/2024/04/22/take-control-author-charles-edge-dies/" />
314. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgu" />
315. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/charles-edge-dies" />
316. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40782</id>
317. <published>2024-04-23T19:58:15Z</published>
318. <updated>2024-04-23T19:58:15Z</updated>
319. <author>
320. <name>John Gruber</name>
321. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
322. </author>
323. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
324. <p>Adam Engst, writing at TidBITS:</p>
325.  
326. <blockquote>
327.  <p>This one is way too close to home. News started to spread this
328. morning on the MacAdmins Slack, <a href="https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2024/04/22/losing-a-giant/">Rich Trouton’s Der Flounder
329. blog</a>, and <a href="https://tombridge.com/2024/04/22/thank-you-for-everything-charles/">Tom Bridge’s site</a> about how our friend and
330. Take Control author <a href="https://krypted.com/about-2/">Charles Edge</a> died suddenly and
331. unexpectedly on 19 April 2024. He was in his late 40s, and yes,
332. his standard bio picture below gives you a feel for his sense of
333. humor and irreverence.</p>
334. </blockquote>
335.  
336. <p><a href="https://tombridge.com/2024/04/22/thank-you-for-everything-charles/">Tom Bridge</a>:</p>
337.  
338. <blockquote>
339.  <p>I don’t know what we’ll do without him.</p>
340.  
341. <p>But I can tell you how I’ll remember him, always. Charles always
342. had a kind word for people. He always would take your call. He was
343. the kind of friend who’d drop everything to help you, or to see if
344. he could connect you to someone that could if he couldn’t.</p>
345.  
346. <p>I will miss his levity, his wisdom, his inescapable drive for
347. knowledge, his passion for his friends and family, and his
348. humbleness.</p>
349. </blockquote>
350.  
351. <p><a href="https://podcast.macadmins.org/2024/04/22/in-memoriam-charles-edge/">The MacAdmins Podcast has a nice In Memorium page</a>, collecting a slew of other remembrances. Nothing but good thoughts to all of his friends and family.</p>
352.  
353. <div>
354. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Charles Edge Dies’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/charles-edge-dies">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
355. </div>
356.  
357. ]]></content>
358.  </entry><entry>
359. <title>Inside TSMC’s Expansion Struggles in Arizona</title>
360. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/" />
361. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgt" />
362. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/tsmc-rest-of-world" />
363. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40781</id>
364. <published>2024-04-23T19:49:48Z</published>
365. <updated>2024-04-23T19:49:49Z</updated>
366. <author>
367. <name>John Gruber</name>
368. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
369. </author>
370. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
371. <p>Viola Zhou, reporting for Rest of World on TSMC’s massive, but now much-delayed, chip fabrication campus outside Phoenix:</p>
372.  
373. <blockquote>
374.  <p>The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive
375. hierarchies at the company; Taiwanese TSMC veterans described
376. their American counterparts as lacking the kind of dedication and
377. obedience they believe to be the foundation of their company’s
378. world-leading success.</p>
379.  
380. <p>Some 2,200 employees now work at TSMC’s Arizona plant, with about
381. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7dd63d94-f645-45c6-8b82-b1808ee1cb31">half of them deployed from Taiwan</a>. While tension at the plant
382. simmers, TSMC has been ramping up its investments, recently
383. securing billions of dollars in grants and loans from the U.S.
384. government. Whether or not the plant succeeds in making
385. cutting-edge chips with the same speed, efficiency, and
386. profitability as facilities in Asia remains to be seen, with many
387. skeptical about a U.S. workforce under TSMC’s army-like command
388. system. “[The company] tried to make Arizona Taiwanese,” G. Dan
389. Hutcheson, a semiconductor industry analyst at the research firm
390. TechInsights, told Rest of World. “And it’s just not going to
391. work.” [...]</p>
392.  
393. <p>TSMC’s work culture is notoriously rigorous, even by Taiwanese
394. standards. Former executives have <a href="https://tfc-taiwan.org.tw/articles/10344">hailed the Confucian
395. culture</a>, which promotes diligence and respect for
396. authority, as well as Taiwan’s strict work ethic as key to the
397. company’s success. Chang, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-founder-Morris-Chang-backs-U.S.-on-China-chip-curbs">speaking last year</a> about
398. Taiwan’s competitiveness compared to the U.S., said that “if [a
399. machine] breaks down at one in the morning, in the U.S. it will be
400. fixed in the next morning. But in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2
401. a.m.” And, he added, the wife of a Taiwanese engineer would “go
402. back to sleep without saying another word.”</p>
403. </blockquote>
404.  
405. <p>Even the use of <em>wife</em> rather than <em>spouse</em> speaks to the culture clash.</p>
406.  
407. <div>
408. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Inside TSMC’s Expansion Struggles in Arizona’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/tsmc-rest-of-world">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
409. </div>
410.  
411. ]]></content>
412.  </entry><entry>
413. <title>Sonar Is Now Taska</title>
414. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://madebywindmill.com/taska/" />
415. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgs" />
416. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/taska" />
417. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40780</id>
418. <published>2024-04-23T19:19:52Z</published>
419. <updated>2024-04-23T20:53:48Z</updated>
420. <author>
421. <name>John Gruber</name>
422. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
423. </author>
424. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
425. <p>Made by Windmill recently launched a fantastic Mac App for GitHub and GitLab issues. When it launched two months ago (and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/">sponsored DF</a>), it was named Sonar. They’ve changed the name to Taska, but it’s the same great app from the same great team. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/02/25/sonar">As I wrote when thanking them</a> (now with the new name):</p>
426.  
427. <blockquote>
428.  <p>Taska combines the lightweight UI of a to-do app with the power of
429. enterprise-level issue tracking, all in a native app built by
430. long-time Mac nerds. The interface is deceptively simple, and very
431. intuitive. Fast and fluid too. Everything that’s great about
432. native Mac apps is exemplified by Taska. If you’ve ever thought,
433. “Man, if only Apple made a native GitHub client...”, you should
434. run, not walk, to download it.</p>
435.  
436. <p>Taska saves all your changes directly to GitHub/GitLab using their
437. official APIs, so your data remains secure on GitHub’s servers — not Taska’s. Do you have team members not using Taska? No problem.
438. Changes you make in Taska are 100% compatible with the web UI.</p>
439. </blockquote>
440.  
441. <p>Free to try for 14 days — no subscriptions or purchases required. Taska remains my favorite new Mac app of the year. As stated above, Made by Windmill <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/02/25/sonar">sponsored DF back in February</a>, but this post today isn’t sponsored. I just like Taska so much that I want everyone to hear about the name change.</p>
442.  
443. <div>
444. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Sonar Is Now Taska’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/taska">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
445. </div>
446.  
447. ]]></content>
448.  </entry><entry>
449. <title>Apple Announces ‘Let Loose’ Event on May 7, Presumably to Announce New iPad Lineup</title>
450. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/23/apple-event-let-loose-may-7/" />
451. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgr" />
452. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/apple-let-loose-event" />
453. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40779</id>
454. <published>2024-04-23T18:26:28Z</published>
455. <updated>2024-04-23T19:08:02Z</updated>
456. <author>
457. <name>John Gruber</name>
458. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
459. </author>
460. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
461. <p>Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:</p>
462.  
463. <blockquote>
464.  <p>Apple has announced it will be holding a <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-events/">special event on
465. Tuesday, May 7</a> at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern
466. Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1J38FlDKxo">on
467. YouTube</a> as usual. The <a href="https://twitter.com/JoannaStern/status/1782772951365894419">event invitation</a> has a
468. tagline of “Let Loose” and shows an artistic render of an Apple
469. Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event.</p>
470. </blockquote>
471.  
472. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1782785458881302714">Tim Cook, on Twitter/X</a>:</p>
473.  
474. <blockquote>
475.  <p>Pencil us in for May 7! ✏️ #AppleEvent</p>
476. </blockquote>
477.  
478. <p>The entirety of the iPad lineup is due for updates, and the rumor mill expects a new model, a 13-inch-ish iPad Air. It seems clear a new Apple Pencil is forthcoming. The Pencil 2 launched in 2018, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2018/11/the_2018_ipad_pros">alongside the 3rd-gen iPads Pro</a>, which sport A12X chips that benchmark comparably to the then-fastest MacBook Pros available. Those were fantastic iPads that foretold the Apple silicon revolution. My personal iPad remains a 2018 11-inch iPad Pro.</p>
479.  
480. <p>Also rumored: a new Magic Keyboard, with a more MacBook-like (and hopefully more durable) aluminum body and a larger trackpad. The current Magic Keyboards <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/the_ipad_magic_keyboard">are now four years old</a>. Apple might be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjY4tx4ZTJc">settling all iPad family business</a> in two weeks.</p>
481.  
482. <p>What I hope to see:</p>
483.  
484. <ul>
485. <li>New Pencil and new Magic Keyboards (11- and 13-inch) that work with all new iPads, Air and Pro alike. The Pencil compatibility situation has been a mess the last few years; now is the time to clean that up with a Pencil 3 that works across all new iPads.</li>
486. <li>All new iPads with the front-facing camera on the long side, optimized for use in landscape/laptop orientation.</li>
487. <li>Face ID replacing top-button Touch ID in the iPad Airs.</li>
488. </ul>
489.  
490. <p>Why they’re showing the video at 7am PT / 10am ET, I don’t know. (Glad I’ll be on the East Coast though.)</p>
491.  
492. <div>
493. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Apple Announces ‘Let Loose’ Event on May 7, Presumably to Announce New iPad Lineup’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/23/apple-let-loose-event">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
494. </div>
495.  
496. ]]></content>
497.  </entry><entry>
498. <title>‘The Apple Jonathan: A Very 1980s Concept Computer That Never Shipped’</title>
499. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept/" />
500. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgq" />
501. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/apple-jonathan" />
502. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40778</id>
503. <published>2024-04-22T22:09:49Z</published>
504. <updated>2024-04-22T22:09:50Z</updated>
505. <author>
506. <name>John Gruber</name>
507. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
508. </author>
509. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
510. <p>Stephen Hackett, writing at 512 Pixels:</p>
511.  
512. <blockquote>
513.  <p>The backbone of the system would need to accept modules from Apple
514. and other companies, letting users build what they needed in terms
515. of functionality, as D’Agostino writes: </p>
516.  
517. <blockquote>
518.  <p>(Fitch) designed a simple hardware “backbone” carrying basic
519. operations and I/O on which the user could add a series of “book”
520. modules, carrying hardware for running Apple II, Mac, UNIX and
521. DOS software, plus other modules with disk drives or networking
522. capabilities. </p>
523. </blockquote>
524.  
525. <p>This meant that every user could have their own unique Jonathan
526. setup, pulling together various software platforms, storage
527. devices, and hardware capabilities into their own personalized
528. system. Imagining what would have been required for all this to
529. work together gives me a headache. In addition to the shared
530. backbone interface, there would need to be software written to
531. make an almost-endless number of configurations work smoothly for
532. the most demanding of users. It was all very ambitions, but
533. perhaps a little too far-fetched. </p>
534. </blockquote>
535.  
536. <p>I’d go further than “never shipped” and describe this is a concept that never <em>could</em> have shipped. It was a pipe dream. The concepts sure did look cool though.</p>
537.  
538. <div>
539. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘‘The Apple Jonathan: A Very 1980s Concept Computer That Never Shipped’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/apple-jonathan">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
540. </div>
541.  
542. ]]></content>
543.  </entry><entry>
544. <title>Meta to Start Licensing Quest’s Horizon OS to Third-Party OEMs</title>
545. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137284/meta-license-horizon-os-quest-headset-lenovo-asus" />
546. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgp" />
547. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/meta-horizon-os-licensing" />
548. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40777</id>
549. <published>2024-04-22T20:21:21Z</published>
550. <updated>2024-04-22T20:21:21Z</updated>
551. <author>
552. <name>John Gruber</name>
553. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
554. </author>
555. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
556. <p>Alex Heath, The Verge:</p>
557.  
558. <blockquote>
559.  <p>Meta has started licensing the operating system for its <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23906313/meta-quest-3-review-vr-mixed-reality-headset">Quest
560. headset</a> to other hardware makers, starting with Lenovo and
561. Asus. It’s also making <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137334/xbox-vr-headset-microsoft-meta-quest-limited-edition">a limited-run, gaming-focused Quest with
562. Xbox</a>. </p>
563.  
564. <p>On the theme of opening up, Meta is also pushing for more ways to
565. discover alternative app stores. It’s making its experimental App
566. Lab store more prominent and even inviting Google to bring the
567. Play Store to its operating system, which is now called Horizon
568. OS. <a href="https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/meta-horizon-os-open-hardware-ecosystem-asus-republic-gamers-lenovo-xbox/">In a blog post</a>, Meta additionally said that it’s
569. working on a spatial framework for developers to more easily port
570. their mobile apps to Horizon OS. [...] </p>
571.  
572. <p>Zuckerberg has been clear that he wants his company to be a more
573. open platform than Apple’s. Here, he’s firmly positioning Meta’s
574. Horizon OS as the Android alternative to Apple’s Vision Pro. Given
575. how Android was more of a reaction to the iPhone, an analogy he’d
576. probably prefer is how Microsoft built the early PC market by
577. licensing Windows. </p>
578. </blockquote>
579.  
580. <p>It definitely seems more like Windows than Android — there’s no word that Horizon OS is going open source. But we have an answer regarding what Zuckerberg meant when he positioned the Quest platform — now the Horizon OS platform, I suppose — <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/02/14/zuckerberg-vision-pro">as the “open” alternative to Apple’s VisionOS</a>.</p>
581.  
582. <div>
583. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Meta to Start Licensing Quest’s Horizon OS to Third-Party OEMs’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/meta-horizon-os-licensing">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
584. </div>
585.  
586. ]]></content>
587.  </entry><entry>
588. <title>‘LLM in a Flash: Efficient Large Language Model Inference With Limited Memory’ (PDF)</title>
589. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.11514.pdf" />
590. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgo" />
591. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/llm-in-a-flash" />
592. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40776</id>
593. <published>2024-04-22T19:58:51Z</published>
594. <updated>2024-04-22T19:58:52Z</updated>
595. <author>
596. <name>John Gruber</name>
597. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
598. </author>
599. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
600. <p>Re: <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/on-device-ai-craves-ram">my previous item on LLMs being RAM-hungry</a> while iPhones are relatively low on RAM, this certainly isn’t news to Apple. Back in December, a team of eight researchers from Apple published this paper, which states in its abstract:</p>
601.  
602. <blockquote>
603.  <p>This paper tackles the challenge of efficiently running LLMs that
604. exceed the available DRAM capacity by storing the model parameters
605. in flash memory, but bringing them on demand to DRAM. Our method
606. involves constructing an inference cost model that takes into
607. account the characteristics of flash memory, guiding us to
608. optimize in two critical areas: reducing the volume of data
609. transferred from flash and reading data in larger, more contiguous
610. chunks. Within this hardware-informed framework, we introduce two
611. principal techniques. First, “windowing” strategically reduces
612. data transfer by reusing previously activated neurons, and second,
613. “row-column bundling”, tailored to the sequential data access
614. strengths of flash memory, increases the size of data chunks read
615. from flash memory. These methods collectively enable running
616. models up to twice the size of the available DRAM, with a 4-5× and
617. 20-25× increase in inference speed compared to naive loading
618. approaches in CPU and GPU, respectively. Our integration of
619. sparsity awareness, context-adaptive loading, and a
620. hardware-oriented design paves the way for effective inference of
621. LLMs on devices with limited memory. </p>
622. </blockquote>
623.  
624. <div>
625. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘‘LLM in a Flash: Efficient Large Language Model Inference With Limited Memory’ (PDF)’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/llm-in-a-flash">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
626. </div>
627.  
628. ]]></content>
629.  </entry><entry>
630. <title>On-Device AI Craves RAM</title>
631. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/first-real-life-pixel-9-pro-pictures-leak-and-it-has-16gb-of-ram/" />
632. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgn" />
633. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/on-device-ai-craves-ram" />
634. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40775</id>
635. <published>2024-04-22T19:04:40Z</published>
636. <updated>2024-04-22T20:59:52Z</updated>
637. <author>
638. <name>John Gruber</name>
639. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
640. </author>
641. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
642. <p>Ron Amadeo, writing for Ars Technica on a purported leak of a trio of Pixel 9 phones:</p>
643.  
644. <blockquote>
645.  <p>Rozetked says (through translation) that the phone is “similar in
646. size to the iPhone 15 Pro.” It runs a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-pixel-9-reportedly-gears-up-for-satellite-sos-support/">Tensor G4</a> SoC, of
647. course, and — here’s a noteworthy spec — has a whopping 16GB of
648. RAM according to the bootloader screen. The Pixel 8 Pro tops out
649. at 12GB. </p>
650.  
651. <p>Anything could change between prototype and product, especially
652. for RAM, which is usually scaled up and down in various phone
653. tiers. A jump in RAM is something we were expecting though. As
654. part of Google’s new AI-focused era, it wants generative AI models
655. turned on 24/7 for some use cases. Google said as much in a recent
656. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/google-says-the-pixel-8-will-get-its-new-ai-model-but-ram-usage-is-a-concern/">in-house podcast</a>, pointing to some features like a new
657. version of Smart Reply built right into the keyboard, which
658. “requires the models to be RAM-resident” — in other words, loaded
659. all the time. Google’s desire to keep generative AI models in
660. memory means less RAM for your operating system to actually do
661. operating system things, and one solution to that is to just add
662. more RAM. So how much RAM is enough? At one point Google said the
663. smaller Pixel 8’s 8GB of RAM was too much of a “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/google-says-the-ai-focused-pixel-8-cant-run-its-latest-smartphone-ai-models/">hardware
664. limitation</a>” for this approach. Google PR also recently
665. told us the company still hasn’t enabled generative AI smart reply
666. on Pixel 8 Pro by default with its 12GB of RAM, so expect these
667. RAM numbers to start shooting up. </p>
668. </blockquote>
669.  
670. <p>That last link is to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/google-says-the-ai-focused-pixel-8-cant-run-its-latest-smartphone-ai-models/">a story positing</a> that Google’s Gemini Nano runs on the Pixel 8 Pro but not the regular Pixel because the Pro has more RAM (12 vs. 8 GB).</p>
671.  
672. <p>Comparing iPhone RAM to Android RAM has never been apples-to-apples (same goes for battery capacity), but still, it’s hard not to wonder whether Apple’s on-device AI plans are hamstrung by the relatively stingy amounts of RAM on iPhones. <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/18/iphone-ram-list/">Here’s a list from 9to5Mac</a> showing the RAM in each iPhone going back to the original (which had just 128 MB!). iOS 17 supports models dating back to 2018’s iPhone XS and XR (4 and 3 GB of RAM, respectively). If iOS 18 drops those models, the new baseline will be the iPhones 11 and 11 Pro, which all sport 4 GB. The most RAM on any iPhone to date is 8 GB in the 15 Pro models, but 8 GB is what Google deemed insufficient for the Pixel 8 to run Gemini Nano.</p>
673.  
674. <p>Might some <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/21/apple-working-on-on-device-llm/">iOS 18 on-device AI features</a> be limited to newer models with more RAM?</p>
675.  
676. <div>
677. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘On-Device AI Craves RAM’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/22/on-device-ai-craves-ram">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
678. </div>
679.  
680. ]]></content>
681.  </entry><entry>
682. <title>Kolide</title>
683. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://l.kolide.co/43vcTaN" />
684. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgl" />
685. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/21/kolide" />
686. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40773</id>
687. <published>2024-04-22T01:16:00Z</published>
688. <updated>2024-04-22T01:16:51Z</updated>
689. <author>
690. <name>John Gruber</name>
691. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
692. </author>
693. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
694. <p>My thanks to Kolide for sponsoring last week at DF. The September 2023 MGM hack is one of the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">most notorious ransomware attacks</a> in recent years. Journalists and cybersecurity experts rushed to report on the broken slot machines, angry hotel guests, and the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-16/mgm-resorts-hackers-broke-in-after-tricking-it-service-desk?sref%3DqYiz2hd0&amp;sa=D&amp;source=editors&amp;ust=1712079824854339&amp;usg=AOvVaw3-n2gmFr9F-RBRYlWDBxnv">fateful phishing call</a> to MGM’s help desk that started it all.</p>
695.  
696. <p>But while it’s true that MGM’s help desk needed better ways of verifying employee identity, there’s another factor that should have stopped the hackers in their tracks. That’s where <em>you</em> should focus your attention. In fact, if you just focus your vision, you’ll find you’re already staring at the security story the pros have been missing.</p>
697.  
698. <p>It’s the device you’re reading this on.</p>
699.  
700. <p>To read more about what Kolide learned after researching the MGM hack — like how hacker groups get their names, the worrying gaps in MGM’s security, and why device trust is the real core of the story — check out the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">Kolide blog</a>.</p>
701.  
702. <div>
703. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Kolide’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/21/kolide">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
704. </div>
705.  
706. ]]></content>
707.  </entry><entry>
708.    
709.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/making_a_mountain_out_of_molehill-sized_m4_news" />
710. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vgm" />
711. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40774</id>
712. <published>2024-04-22T01:15:00Z</published>
713. <updated>2024-04-22T23:58:28Z</updated>
714. <author>
715. <name>John Gruber</name>
716. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
717. </author>
718. <summary type="text">“*The entire Mac product line is set for annual speed-bump Apple silicon updates*” is, as far I can tell, the actual story. Not “*Mac sales are in the tank and Apple is overhauling the whole product line to change its focus to AI.*”</summary>
719. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
720. <p>Here’s how I see the current state of Apple’s Macintosh hardware lineup, three-and-a-half years into the Apple silicon era and midway through the M3 generation. Apple is a company that in many ways is built around an annual schedule. WWDC comes every June. New iPhones (along with Watches) come every September. The new OS releases (which are announced and previewed at WWDC) ship later each year in the fall. Many Apple products are not on an annual schedule — such as the iPad, to name the most prominent example — but the OSes are, and the iPhones and Watches are. All things considered, I think Apple would like to have more of its products on an annual cycle. This predictable regularity is one of the hallmarks of Tim Cook’s era as CEO.</p>
721.  
722. <p>Launching a new PC architecture is difficult (to say the least). And the M1 launched at the end of 2020, the most tumultuous and disruptive year for the world since World War II. Then, M2 models seemed late — that’s the only logical explanation for the M2 MacBook Pros <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/01/apple-unveils-macbook-pro-featuring-m2-pro-and-m2-max/">not shipping until January 2023</a>, but their M3 successors <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/11/the_2023_m3_macbook_pros">shipping just 10 months later</a>. Just last month Apple shipped the M3 MacBook Airs. It feels to me, as a longtime observer of the company, that with the M3 generation, Apple has started to hit its intended stride. The M1 and M2 generations were like an airplane taking off — a bit rocky and rough. Turbulence is to be expected. But with the M3, Apple silicon hit cruising altitude. The seatbelt light is now off, and new M-series chips are seemingly being developed on the same annual schedule as the iPhone’s A-series chips. (Note that the M3 family <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21116/apple-announces-m3-soc-family-m3-m3-pro-and-m3-max-make-their-marks">uses the same 3nm fabrication process as the A17 Pro</a>.)</p>
723.  
724. <p>If Apple wants to refresh Macs with new generations of M-series chips annually — and I suspect they do — the schedule we’re seeing with the M3 generation makes sense: MacBook Pros in the fall, MacBooks Airs a few months later, pro desktops in the spring. Last year the M3 update to the iMac — a product that skipped the entire M2 generation — shipped alongside the MacBook Pros, but I could see that happening alongside the consumer MacBook Airs in future years. Because the iMacs skipped the M2 generation, they were overdue. That leaves the spring or even early summer for the high-performance Mac Studio and Mac Pro, and the surprisingly-pro-in-many-use-cases Mac Mini.</p>
725.  
726. <p>So I expect we’ll see M3-generation updates to the Mac Studio, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini either in May (alongside the universally-expected lineup of new iPads) or (more likely) at WWDC in June. And then, if all things go according to Apple’s plans, I expect to see M4-generation MacBook Pros in November, M4 MacBook Airs next February or March, and the desktop models just before or at WWDC 2025, 14 months from now. Lather, rinse, repeat, every 12 months for years to come.</p>
727.  
728. <p>And how do we expect the M4 chips to evolve? Everything tends to get incrementally faster between generations: CPU, GPU, I/O, Neural Engine. But it’s the GPU where Apple silicon lags Nvidia’s state-of-the-art in sheer performance, and it’s GPU performance that’s essential for AI model training (although serious training work takes place on server farms, not personal devices), so it’s natural to expect GPU improvements to be an area of focus. Intel-based Mac Pros were configurable with up to 1.5 TB of RAM, but the M2 Ultra Mac Pro maxes out at 192 GB of RAM. Increasing the maximum amount of RAM in high-end configurations is an obvious improvement that Apple’s chip designers should be focused on. So we’ll probably see incremental (15 percent-ish) gains in CPU performance, greater gains in GPU and Neural Engine performance, and perhaps higher capacity for RAM.</p>
729.  
730. <p>No need to follow the rumor mill or to hear any leaks from insiders in Cupertino. The above summary can all be gleaned just by paying attention to Apple’s patterns and industry-wide trends.</p>
731.  
732. <p>That brings us to a report by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg last week: “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-11/apple-aapl-readies-m4-chip-mac-line-including-new-macbook-air-and-mac-pro?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcxMzczOTkxNywiZXhwIjoxNzE0MzQ0NzE3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTQVEzVEVEV1gyUFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIxRjcyQTU4RTM3MDc0QzBFODBCQkFDMTEzQUZDM0NDOCJ9.zMuhtqfM4jSBZNGctGa4-pdeZm0r07HjVK65n5OPh5I">Apple Plans to Overhaul Entire Mac Line With AI-Focused M4 Chips</a>”. Overhauled line-up! AI-focused chips! Big news!</p>
733.  
734. <blockquote>
735.  <p>The company, which released its first Macs with M3 chips five
736. months ago, is already nearing production of the next generation — the M4 processor — according to people with knowledge of the
737. matter. The new chip will come in at least three main varieties,
738. and Apple is looking to update every Mac model with it, said the
739. people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t
740. been announced. </p>
741.  
742. <p>The new Macs are underway at a critical time. After peaking in
743. 2022, Mac sales fell 27% in the last fiscal year, which ended in
744. September. In the holiday period, revenue from the computer line
745. was flat. Apple attempted to breathe new life into the Mac
746. business with an M3-focused launch event last October, but those
747. chips didn’t bring major performance improvements over the M2 from
748. the prior year. </p>
749. </blockquote>
750.  
751. <p>It is true that Mac sales <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/apple-reports-nearly-120b-quarter-full-charts/">were down considerably last year</a>, but Gurman is painting that as the result of the M3 generation being a meh upgrade compared to M2. But (a) the M3 chips only started shipping in the most recently reported quarter; (b) they’re a fine generational upgrade compared to the M2 chips. The real problem is that laptop sales shot up considerably during COVID, with so many people working from home and kids “going to school” via Zoom from home. MacBook sales were pulled forward, so a dip seemed inevitable, no matter how good the M2 and M3 offerings were. And Apple silicon was so good right out of the gate that most people who own M1 Macs — any M1 Macs, including the base MacBook Air and Mac Mini — have little reason to consider upgrading yet.</p>
752.  
753. <blockquote>
754.  <p>Apple also is playing catch-up in AI, where it’s seen as a laggard
755. to Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other tech peers.
756. The new chips are part of a broader push to weave AI capabilities
757. into all its products. </p>
758. </blockquote>
759.  
760. <p>Back in 2007, <a href="https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1844704_1844706_1844587,00.html">Joe Biden dropped a zinger</a> during a presidential primary debate: “Rudy Giuliani, there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.” This year, product rumors need only three things: a noun, a verb, and “AI”.</p>
761.  
762. <blockquote>
763.  <p>Apple shares climbed 4.3% to $175.04 on Thursday in New York, the
764. biggest single-day gain in 11 months. They had been down 13% this
765. year through Wednesday’s close. </p>
766. </blockquote>
767.  
768. <p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/07/apple_gpt_bloomberg">Bloomberg gonna Bloomberg</a>.</p>
769.  
770. <blockquote>
771.  <p>Apple is aiming to release the updated computers beginning late
772. this year and extending into early next year. There will be new
773. iMacs, a low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, high-end 14-inch and 16-inch
774. MacBook Pros, and Mac minis — all with M4 chips. But the
775. company’s plans could change. An Apple spokesperson declined to
776. comment. [...] </p>
777.  
778. <p>The move will mark a quick refresh schedule for the iMac and
779. MacBook Pro, as both lines were just updated in October. The Mac
780. mini was last upgraded in January 2023. </p>
781.  
782. <p>Apple is then planning to follow up with more M4 Macs throughout
783. 2025. That includes updates to the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air
784. by the spring, the Mac Studio around the middle of the year, and
785. the Mac Pro later in 2025. The MacBook Air received the M3 chip
786. last month, while the Mac Studio and Mac Pro were updated with M2
787. processors last year. </p>
788. </blockquote>
789.  
790. <p>If all this pans out, it will indeed be news, but the news will be that Apple has successfully gotten the entire Mac hardware lineup onto an annual upgrade cycle. Whereas Gurman is framing the news as a reactionary response by Apple, “overhauling” the hardware lineup very shortly after a supposedly tepid reaction to the M3 generation of Macs that, at this writing, still hasn’t completed rolling out.</p>
791.  
792. <blockquote>
793.  <p>The M4 chip line includes an entry-level version dubbed Donan,
794. more powerful models named Brava and a top-end processor codenamed
795. Hidra. The company is planning to highlight the AI processing
796. capabilities of the components and how they’ll integrate with the
797. next version of macOS, which will be announced in June at Apple’s
798. annual developer conference. </p>
799. </blockquote>
800.  
801. <p>I’m sure Apple will have much to say about “AI” at WWDC this June, and that M4-based Macs will execute AI features faster and more efficiently than previous chips, but that’s what new chips do for <em>everything</em>. They’re faster.</p>
802.  
803. <p>That they will provide Apple with AI-related performance to brag about just means they’ll have faster GPUs and bigger Neural Engines, which is exactly how Apple silicon has been evolving year-over-year for 15 years, dating back to the original iPad in 2010 and <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/3633/apples-a4-soc-faster-than-snapdragon">its A4 SoC</a>. No one is postulating that M4-based Macs will offer AI features that <em>require</em> M4 chips.</p>
804.  
805. <blockquote>
806.  <p>The Mac Pro remains the lower-selling model in the company’s
807. computer lineup, but it has a vocal fan base. After some customers
808. complained about the specifications of Apple’s in-house chips, the
809. company is looking to beef up that machine next year. [...] As
810. part of the upgrades, Apple is considering allowing its
811. highest-end Mac desktops to support as much as a half-terabyte of
812. memory. The current Mac Studio and Mac Pro top out at 192
813. gigabytes — far less capacity than on Apple’s previous Mac Pro,
814. which used an Intel Corp. processor. The earlier machine worked
815. with off-the-shelf memory that could be added later and handle as
816. much as 1.5 terabytes. With Apple’s in-house chips, the memory is
817. more deeply integrated into the main processor, making it harder
818. to add more. </p>
819. </blockquote>
820.  
821. <p>Raising the memory ceiling from 192 GB to 512 GB is also news, but surely is the natural progression of the platform, not a response to criticism of the M2 Mac Pro being little more than a Mac Studio with more options for I/O expansion. No one knows better than Apple that the first-generation Apple silicon Mac Pros are a bit of a disappointment. Raising the memory ceiling to 512 GB would be a significant improvement from the M2 Ultra, but would still offer just one-third the RAM ceiling of the 2019 Intel-based Mac Pro. Raising the ceiling to 512 GB would be a nice upgrade for Apple silicon, but still not enough for the highest of high-end computing needs.</p>
822.  
823. <p>Anyway, “<em>the entire Mac product line is set for annual speed-bump Apple silicon updates</em>” is, as far as I can tell, the actual story. Not “<em>Mac sales are in the tank and Apple is overhauling the whole product line to change its focus to AI.</em>”</p>
824.  
825.  
826.  
827.    ]]></content>
828.  <title>★ Making a Mountain Out of Molehill-Sized M4 News</title></entry><entry>
829.    
830.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/face_the_critic_ian_betteridge_edition" />
831. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vgk" />
832. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40772</id>
833. <published>2024-04-20T00:53:41Z</published>
834. <updated>2024-04-21T18:09:43Z</updated>
835. <author>
836. <name>John Gruber</name>
837. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
838. </author>
839. <summary type="text">To sum up my stance: Tracking is wrong when it’s done without consent, and when users have no idea what’s being tracked or how it’s being used. Tracking is fine when it’s done with consent, and users know what’s being tracked and how it’s being used.</summary>
840. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
841. <p><a href="https://ianbetteridge.com/2024/04/19/what-a-difference-four-years-makes/">Ian Betteridge</a>, quoting yours truly on non-consensual tracking <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2020/09/online_privacy_real_world_privacy">back in 2020</a> and then <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/edpb_meta_pay_or_ok">my piece yesterday</a> on the EDPB issuing an opinion against Meta’s “Pay or OK” model in the EU:</p>
842.  
843. <blockquote>
844.  <p><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161">I wonder what happened</a> to turn John’s attitude from “no action
845. Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong” to
846. defending Facebook’s “right” to choose how it invades people’s
847. privacy? Or is he suggesting that a private company is entitled to
848. defend people’s privacy, but governments are not? </p>
849. </blockquote>
850.  
851. <p>I’ve seen a bit of pushback along this line recently, more or less asking: <em>How come I was against Meta’s tracking but now seem for it?</em> I don’t see any contradiction or change in my position though. The only thing I’d change in the 2020 piece Betteridge quotes is this sentence, which Betteridge emphasizes: “No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.” I should have inserted an adjective before “tracking” — it’s <em>non-consensual</em> tracking I object to, especially tracking that’s downright surreptitious. Not tracking in and of itself.</p>
852.  
853. <p>That’s why I remain a staunch supporter of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, and consider it a success. Apple didn’t ban the use of the <a href="https://www.adjust.com/glossary/idfa/">IDFA</a> for cross-app tracking, and they were correct not to. They simply now require consent. If I had believed that all tracking was ipso facto wrong, I’d have been opposed to ATT on the grounds that it offers the “Allow” choice.</p>
854.  
855. <p>Also from 2020, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/12/18/steve-jobs-on-privacy">I quoted Steve Jobs on privacy</a>:</p>
856.  
857. <blockquote>
858.  <p>Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain
859. English, and repeatedly. That’s what it means. I’m an optimist,
860. I believe people are smart. And some people want to share more
861. data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make
862. them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your
863. asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do
864. with their data. </p>
865. </blockquote>
866.  
867. <p>That’s what ATT does. And that’s what’s Meta’s “Pay or OK” model in the EU does. It offers users a clear fair choice: Use Facebook and Instagram free of charge with targeted ads, or pay a reasonable monthly fee for an ad-free experience. No less than Margrethe Vestager herself, back in 2018, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">was keen on this idea</a>:</p>
868.  
869. <blockquote>
870.  <p>My concern is more about whether we get the right choices. I would
871. like to have a Facebook in which I pay a fee each month, but I
872. would have no tracking and advertising and the full benefits of
873. privacy. It is a provoking thought after all the Facebook scandal.
874. This market is not being explored. </p>
875. </blockquote>
876.  
877. <p>Now Meta is “exploring” that market, but the European Commission doesn’t like the results, because it turns out that when given the clear choice, the overwhelming majority of EU denizens prefer to use Meta’s platforms free-of-charge with targeted ads.</p>
878.  
879. <p>The best aspects of the EU’s digital privacy laws are <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/">those that give people the right to know what data is being collected</a>, where it’s being stored, who it’s being shared with, etc. That’s all fantastic. But the worst aspect is the paternalism. The EU is correct to require that users be required to provide consent before being tracked across properties. And Apple is correct for protecting unique device IDFA identifiers behind a mandatory “<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102420">Ask App Not to Track / Allow</a>” consent alert. But Jobs was right too: people are smart, and they can — and should be allowed to — make their own decisions. And many people are more comfortable with sharing data than others. The privacy zealots leading this crusade in the EU do not think people are smart, and do not think they should be trusted to make these decisions for themselves.</p>
880.  
881. <p>I don’t like Meta as a company. If a corporation can be smarmy, Meta is that. And they’ve done a lot of <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/03/29/meta-onavo-snapchat">creepy stuff</a> over the years, and for a long while clearly acted as though they were entitled to track whatever they could get away with technically. I suspect they thought that if they asked for consent, or made clear what and how they tracked, that users would revolt. But it turns out billions of people who enjoy Meta’s platforms are fine with the deal.</p>
882.  
883. <p>It’s obviously the case that for some people, Meta’s past transgressions are unforgivable. That’s each person’s decision to make for themselves. Me, <a href="https://www.theredhandfiles.com/what-is-mercy-for-you/">I believe in mercy</a>. Again, I still don’t really like the company, by and large. But Threads is pretty good. And sometimes, when I occasionally check in, Instagram can still make me smile. It’s very clear what I’m sharing with Meta when I use those apps, and I’m fine with that. If you’re not, don’t use them. (I’ve still never created a Facebook blue app account, and still feel like I haven’t missed out on a damn thing.)</p>
884.  
885. <p>To sum up my stance: Tracking is wrong when it’s done without consent, and when users have no idea what’s being tracked or how it’s being used. Tracking is fine when it’s done with consent, and users know what’s being tracked and how it’s being used. Privacy doesn’t mean never being tracked. It means never being tracked without clear consent. I think Meta is now largely, if not entirely, on the right side of this.</p>
886.  
887. <p>It’s paternalistic — infantilizing even — to believe that government bureaucrats should take these decisions out of the hands of EU citizens. Me, I trust people to decide for themselves. The current European Commission regime is clearly of the belief that all tracking is wrong, regardless of consent. That’s a radical belief that is not representative of the public. The government’s proper role is to ensure people <em>can</em> make an informed choice, and that they have control over their own data. That’s what I thought four years ago, and it’s what I think now.</p>
888.  
889.  
890.  
891.    ]]></content>
892.  <title>★ Face the Critic: Ian Betteridge Edition</title></entry><entry>
893. <title>Might Meta Go Pay-Only in the EU?</title>
894. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/the-edpb-invalidates-metas-use-of-pay-or-okay-what-next/" />
895. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgj" />
896. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/meta-pay-only-eu" />
897. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40771</id>
898. <published>2024-04-19T22:10:55Z</published>
899. <updated>2024-04-19T23:20:19Z</updated>
900. <author>
901. <name>John Gruber</name>
902. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
903. </author>
904. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
905. <p>Eric Seufert, writing at Mobile Dev Memo, spitballing how Meta might respond if the EU accepts the recommendation from the EDPB that their “Pay or OK” model is illegal:</p>
906.  
907. <p><em>Charge a nominal fee for the ad-supported versions of Facebook and Instagram</em></p>
908.  
909. <blockquote>
910.  <p>Meta could introduce a small fee to use the ad-supported versions
911. of Facebook and Instagram, rendering them as completely paid
912. products in the EU. By eliminating its free tier, Meta should
913. theoretically sidestep the conditions proposed in the EDPB’s
914. opinion, since the elimination of a free tier supported by
915. personalized advertising renders the Pay or Okay restrictions
916. irrelevant. </p>
917.  
918. <p>As frequent MDM Podcast <a href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/a-deep-dive-on-the-digital-markets-act-dma-and-digital-services-act-dsa/">guest</a> Mikołaj Barczentewicz
919. points out in <a href="https://barczentewicz.substack.com/p/netflix-disney-and-meta-whats-an">this blog post</a>, both Netflix and Disney+
920. target ads behaviorally in their <em>paid</em>, ad-supported tiers. Meta
921. could point to these products as examples of this pricing model
922. being invoked: all options are paid, but the cheapest option is
923. subsidized by behaviorally-supported ads. Of course, the EDPB has
924. given itself latitude with its definition of “large online
925. platform” to only litigate specific instances of commercial
926. strategy. </p>
927. </blockquote>
928.  
929. <p>I didn’t think of this when I spitballed my own ideas for how Meta might respond. Maybe they offer two tiers: €1/month with targeted ads, or €6/month without ads. Maybe they even make the fee for the ad tier truly nominal, say €1/<em>year</em>? The problem with this might be that too few people are willing to pay anything at all for social networking. Because it’s always been free-of-charge, people (not unreasonably!) now think it ought to forever remain free-of-charge.</p>
930.  
931. <p>Regarding the “just exit the EU” option, Seufert writes:</p>
932.  
933. <blockquote>
934.  <p>I don’t believe that Meta will respond by exiting the EU market
935. altogether — at least not in the near term. Per above: the EU is
936. 10% of (what I understand to be) Facebook’s global advertising
937. revenue, and GDPR fines aren’t as significant as those incurred
938. under the DMA. The maximum fine under the <a href="https://gdpr.eu/fines/">GDPR</a> is 4% of
939. annual worldwide turnover, whereas the maximum fine under the
940. <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_2349">DMA</a> is 20% of annual worldwide turnover. While I do
941. believe the EU regulatory regime’s intransigence will influence a
942. scaled, US-domiciled tech company to exit the EU market in the
943. medium term, my sense is that Meta won’t take that course of
944. action in immediate response to this decision. </p>
945. </blockquote>
946.  
947. <p>That 10 percent figure is big but not indispensable. And it’s not much bigger than <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">Apple’s 7 percent figure</a> for App Store revenue from the EU. The EU is indeed a big and important market, but it’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">nowhere near as big or important as the European Commissioners think</a>.</p>
948.  
949. <div>
950. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Might Meta Go Pay-Only in the EU?’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/meta-pay-only-eu">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
951. </div>
952.  
953. ]]></content>
954.  </entry><entry>
955. <title>Twitter Alternative Post News Is Shutting Down</title>
956. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://post.news/@/noam/2fJw4PYRFjya343RpiToiyEQr0x" />
957. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgi" />
958. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/post-post-news" />
959. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40770</id>
960. <published>2024-04-19T21:30:23Z</published>
961. <updated>2024-04-19T21:41:26Z</updated>
962. <author>
963. <name>John Gruber</name>
964. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
965. </author>
966. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
967. <p>Noam Bardin:</p>
968.  
969. <blockquote>
970.  <p>It is with a heavy heart that I share this sad news with you.
971. Despite how much we’ve accomplished together, we will be shutting
972. down Post News within the next few weeks. </p>
973.  
974. <p>We have done many great things together. We built a toxicity-free
975. community, a platform where Publishers engage, and an app that
976. validated many theories around Micropayments and consumers’
977. willingness to purchase individual articles. We even managed to
978. cultivate a phenomenal tipping ecosystem for creators and
979. commenters. </p>
980.  
981. <p>But, at the end of the day, our service is not growing fast enough
982. to become a real business or a significant platform. A consumer
983. business, at its core, needs to show rapid consumer adoption and
984. we have not managed to find the right product combination to make
985. it happen. </p>
986. </blockquote>
987.  
988. <p>Post News was a longshot from the start, going up against (a) the entrenched leader in the space, Twitter/X; (b) the open alternative of Mastodon; (c) Meta-backed and Instagram-derived Threads; and (d) the Jack-Dorsey-funded Bluesky. I’m not sure there’s room for all four of those, let alone a fifth.</p>
989.  
990. <p>But I think Post shot itself in the foot right out of the gate going web-only. They eventually got around to putting an “app” in the App Store but it’s just a thin wrapper around their website — so thin that you can drag-and-drop the tab controller buttons and <a href="https://capacitorjs.com/">see exactly which PWA framework</a> they used <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/post-news-capacitor.jpeg">from the custom URLs shown in the drag proxy</a>. People don’t want to use PWAs; they want real apps. Native iOS apps are so important to social networking that Threads launched app-only for its first two months before launching its web version.</p>
991.  
992. <div>
993. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Twitter Alternative Post News Is Shutting Down’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/post-post-news">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
994. </div>
995.  
996. ]]></content>
997.  </entry><entry>
998. <title>China Orders Apple to Remove WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram From Chinese App Store</title>
999. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-removes-whatsapp-threads-from-china-app-store-on-government-orders-a0c02100" />
1000. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgh" />
1001. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/china-app-store-messaging-apps" />
1002. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40769</id>
1003. <published>2024-04-19T21:13:18Z</published>
1004. <updated>2024-04-22T21:14:03Z</updated>
1005. <author>
1006. <name>John Gruber</name>
1007. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1008. </author>
1009. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1010. <p>Aaron Tilley, Liza Lin, and Jeff Horwitz, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (<a href="https://apple.news/ADnTQt6CvRiCdRPyDEpvVSw">News+</a>):</p>
1011.  
1012. <blockquote>
1013.  <p>Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads as well as messaging
1014. platforms Signal and Telegram were taken off the Chinese App Store
1015. Friday. Apple said it was told to remove certain apps because of
1016. national security concerns, without specifying which. </p>
1017.  
1018. <p>“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we
1019. operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesperson said. </p>
1020.  
1021. <p>These messaging apps, which allow users to exchange messages and
1022. share files individually and in large groups, combined have around
1023. three billion users globally. They can only be accessed in China
1024. through virtual private networks that take users outside China’s
1025. Great Firewall, but are still commonly used. </p>
1026. </blockquote>
1027.  
1028. <p>I’m surprised any of these apps had been available in China until now. Two questions:</p>
1029.  
1030. <ul>
1031. <li><p>Are these apps still on the iPhones of Chinese people who already had them installed? I don’t recall Apple ever using the kill switch that revokes the developer signing for already-installed copies of apps pulled from the App Store. E.g., iGBA, <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/15/apple-removes-igba-from-app-store/">the rip-off Nintendo emulator</a> that briefly rocketed to the top of the charts last weekend — pulled from the App Store early this week, but if you installed it while it was available, you can still use it.</p></li>
1032. <li><p>Do Android phones in China offer sideloading?</p></li>
1033. </ul>
1034.  
1035. <p><strong>Update:</strong> The answer re: sideloading <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193639/huawei-mate-30-google-apps-services-appgallery-p40-preview">is yes</a>, and both <a href="https://signal.org/android/apk/">Signal</a> and <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/android">WhatsApp</a> offer direct downloads of their latest Android builds.</p>
1036.  
1037. <div>
1038. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘China Orders Apple to Remove WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram From Chinese App Store’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/china-app-store-messaging-apps">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1039. </div>
1040.  
1041. ]]></content>
1042.  </entry><entry>
1043. <title>The Best Simple USB-C Microphone: Audio-Technica’s ATR2100x-USB</title>
1044. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07ZPBFVKK/?tag=df-amzn-20" />
1045. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgg" />
1046. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/atr2100x-usb-microphone" />
1047. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40768</id>
1048. <published>2024-04-19T16:28:18Z</published>
1049. <updated>2024-04-19T16:28:19Z</updated>
1050. <author>
1051. <name>John Gruber</name>
1052. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1053. </author>
1054. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1055. <p>Joe Fabisevich <a href="https://www.threads.net/@mergesort/post/C54D3acubu9">asked a common question on Threads</a>:</p>
1056.  
1057. <blockquote>
1058.  <p>What’s the go to simple USB-C podcast mic that sounds good, but
1059. doesn’t have to be top of the line or super expensive? Think more
1060. “I need to sound professional on a podcast or two”, not “I make my
1061. money by recording podcasts.” </p>
1062. </blockquote>
1063.  
1064. <p>My answer: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07ZPBFVKK/?tag=df-amzn-20">Audio-Technica’s ATR2100×-USB</a>. It costs just $50 at Amazon. (That’s an affiliate link that will make me rich if you buy through it.) Spend an extra $4 and get <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ANI6VQ?tag=df-amzn-20">a foam windscreen cap</a>. I mean just look at it — it literally looks like the microphone emoji: 🎤. You can just plug it into a USB-C port and it sounds great. No need for an XLR interface, but it does support XLR if you ever have the need.</p>
1065.  
1066. <p>My main podcasting microphone <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/09/15/marco-arment-mics">remains</a> the $260 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002BACBO/?tag=df-amzn-20">Shure BETA 87A Supercardioid Condenser</a>, which I connect to a $180 <a href="https://amzn.to/44dMKxC">SSL 2 audio interface</a>. But that stays in my podcast cave in the basement. I keep the ATR2100× in my carry-on suitcase, so it’s with me whenever I’m away from home. My <a href="https://dithering.fm/">Dithering</a> co-host Ben Thompson uses the same ATR2100× when he’s away from home, too. It’s a great simple mic and a fantastic value at just $50.</p>
1067.  
1068. <div>
1069. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘The Best Simple USB-C Microphone: Audio-Technica’s ATR2100×-USB’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/19/atr2100x-usb-microphone">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1070. </div>
1071.  
1072. ]]></content>
1073.  </entry><entry>
1074. <title>Google Reorg Puts Android, Chrome, Photos and More Under Leadership of Devices Team</title>
1075. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24133881/google-android-pixel-teams-reorg-rick-osterloh" />
1076. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgf" />
1077. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-reorg-under-devices" />
1078. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40767</id>
1079. <published>2024-04-19T02:15:45Z</published>
1080. <updated>2024-04-19T23:19:44Z</updated>
1081. <author>
1082. <name>John Gruber</name>
1083. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1084. </author>
1085. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1086. <p>David Pierce, writing for The Verge:</p>
1087.  
1088. <blockquote>
1089.  <p>Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced substantial internal
1090. reorganizations on Thursday, including the creation of a new team
1091. called “Platforms and Devices” that will oversee all of Google’s
1092. Pixel products, all of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and
1093. more. The team will be run by Rick Osterloh, who was previously
1094. the SVP of devices and services, overseeing all of Google’s
1095. hardware efforts. Hiroshi Lockheimer, the longtime head of
1096. Android, Chrome, and ChromeOS, will be taking on other projects
1097. inside of Google and Alphabet. </p>
1098.  
1099. <p>This is a huge change for Google, and it likely won’t be the last
1100. one. There’s only one reason for all of it, Osterloh says: AI.
1101. “This is not a secret, right?” he says. Consolidating teams “helps
1102. us to be able to do full-stack innovation when that’s necessary,”
1103. Osterloh says. </p>
1104. </blockquote>
1105.  
1106. <p>I’m sure this <em>is</em> about AI, but I think it’s also about getting the company’s shit together and forming a cohesive strategy for integration with their consumer devices. Lost amid the schadenfreude surrounding the near-universal panning of Humane’s AI Pin is the question of, well, what <em>are</em> the device form factors we need for AI-driven features? I would argue, strenuously, that the phone is the natural AI device. It already has: always-on networking, cameras, a screen, microphones, and speakers. Everyone owns one and almost everyone takes theirs with them almost everywhere they go.</p>
1107.  
1108. <p>Putting all of Android under a new division led by the guy in charge of Pixel devices since 2016 says to me that Google sees AI not primarily as a way to make Android better, in general, but to make Pixel devices better, specifically. Best-of-class AI, only on Pixels, could be the sort of differentiation that actually results in Pixels gaining traction.</p>
1109.  
1110. <div>
1111. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Google Reorg Puts Android, Chrome, Photos and More Under Leadership of Devices Team’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-reorg-under-devices">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1112. </div>
1113.  
1114. ]]></content>
1115.  </entry><entry>
1116. <title>Elizabeth Warren, Still Using Twitter/X: ‘It’s Time to Break Up Apple’s Smartphone Monopoly’</title>
1117. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1781086997014040759" />
1118. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vge" />
1119. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/warren-imessage" />
1120. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40766</id>
1121. <published>2024-04-19T01:55:21Z</published>
1122. <updated>2024-04-19T02:19:09Z</updated>
1123. <author>
1124. <name>John Gruber</name>
1125. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1126. </author>
1127. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1128. <p>Senator Elizabeth Warren seemingly thinks Apple ought to be forced to operate iMessage as a public utility, free of charge. Or something? She doesn’t actually say what she thinks should happen. Is she suggesting Apple be forced to spin off “iMessage” as a separate company? If not, what is she advocating “breaking up”?</p>
1129.  
1130. <div>
1131. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Elizabeth Warren, Still Using Twitter/X: ‘It’s Time to Break Up Apple’s Smartphone Monopoly’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/warren-imessage">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1132. </div>
1133.  
1134. ]]></content>
1135.  </entry><entry>
1136. <title>Google Fires 28 Employees Who Disrupted Workplaces to Protest Israel Cloud Contract</title>
1137. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24133700/google-fires-28-employees-protest-israel-cloud-contract" />
1138. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgd" />
1139. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-fires-28" />
1140. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40765</id>
1141. <published>2024-04-19T01:15:15Z</published>
1142. <updated>2024-04-19T02:19:45Z</updated>
1143. <author>
1144. <name>John Gruber</name>
1145. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1146. </author>
1147. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1148. <p>Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, in a company-wide memo published at The Verge, under the clear subject “Serious consequences for disruptive behavior”:</p>
1149.  
1150. <blockquote>
1151.  <p>Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not
1152. tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all
1153. employees must adhere to — including our Code of Conduct and
1154. Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of
1155. Conduct, and Workplace Concerns. </p>
1156.  
1157. <p>We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read
1158. our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and
1159. communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our
1160. employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are
1161. tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our
1162. policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously,
1163. and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take
1164. action against disruptive behavior — up to and including
1165. termination. </p>
1166. </blockquote>
1167.  
1168. <p>It says a lot about how adrift Google was that “We are a place of business” needed to be stated, but better late than never. I can’t believe they let these goofs occupy Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office for 8 hours before having them arrested. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=google%20employees%20arrested&amp;src=typed_query">They look and act like college students doing a sit-in</a> at the dean’s office, not professional employees protesting their CEO. In college you pay to be there — students are the customers, ostensibly. At work they pay you, at will.</p>
1169.  
1170. <div>
1171. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Google Fires 28 Employees Who Disrupted Workplaces to Protest Israel Cloud Contract’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/google-fires-28">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1172. </div>
1173.  
1174. ]]></content>
1175.  </entry><entry>
1176. <title>Meta Releases New AI Assistant Powered by Llama 3 Model</title>
1177. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24133808/meta-ai-assistant-llama-3-chatgpt-openai-rival" />
1178. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgc" />
1179. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/meta-ai" />
1180. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40764</id>
1181. <published>2024-04-19T01:08:38Z</published>
1182. <updated>2024-04-19T01:08:39Z</updated>
1183. <author>
1184. <name>John Gruber</name>
1185. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1186. </author>
1187. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1188. <p>Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:</p>
1189.  
1190. <blockquote>
1191.  <p>ChatGPT kicked off the AI chatbot race. Meta is determined
1192. to win it. </p>
1193.  
1194. <p>To that end: the Meta AI assistant, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23891128/meta-ai-assistant-characters-whatsapp-instagram-connect">introduced last
1195. September</a>, is now being integrated into the search box of
1196. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It’s also going to
1197. start appearing directly in the main Facebook feed. You can still
1198. chat with it in the messaging inboxes of Meta’s apps. And for the
1199. first time, it’s now accessible via a standalone website at
1200. <a href="http://meta.ai/">Meta.ai</a>. </p>
1201.  
1202. <p>For Meta’s assistant to have any hope of being a real ChatGPT
1203. competitor, the underlying model has to be just as good, if not
1204. better. That’s why Meta is also announcing Llama 3, the next major
1205. version of its foundational open-source model. Meta says that
1206. Llama 3 outperforms competing models of its class on key
1207. benchmarks and that it’s better across the board at tasks like
1208. coding. Two smaller Llama 3 models are being released today, both
1209. in the Meta AI assistant and to outside developers, while a much
1210. larger, multimodal version is arriving in the coming months. </p>
1211. </blockquote>
1212.  
1213. <p>I keep circling back to the notion that OpenAI has no moat. ChatGPT is certainly the best-known LLM, and perhaps still the best, but I don’t think that’s any more of a long-term competitive advantage than some company in 1986 having “the best C compiler”. What’s needed are ways to bring LLMs to users. To give them purpose, in products. That’s what Meta is doing, by integrating their AI into all of their major products.</p>
1214.  
1215. <div>
1216. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Meta Releases New AI Assistant Powered by Llama 3 Model’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/meta-ai">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1217. </div>
1218.  
1219. ]]></content>
1220.  </entry><entry>
1221. <title>Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers Next Year</title>
1222. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/netflix-stop-reporting-subscriber-numbers-starting-2025-1235975341/" />
1223. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vgb" />
1224. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/netflix-numbers" />
1225. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40763</id>
1226. <published>2024-04-18T23:25:08Z</published>
1227. <updated>2024-04-22T19:43:12Z</updated>
1228. <author>
1229. <name>John Gruber</name>
1230. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1231. </author>
1232. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1233. <p>Todd Spangler, reporting for Variety:</p>
1234.  
1235. <blockquote>
1236.  <p>Netflix will no longer report subscriber numbers — which has been
1237. a key metric for streaming services for years — beginning with
1238. the first quarter of 2025. </p>
1239.  
1240. <p>The company made the announcement in releasing <a href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/netflix-subscribers-2024-q1-earnings-1235975242/">its first-quarter
1241. 2024 earnings</a> Thursday. Netflix handily topped expectations
1242. for subscribers net adds, gaining 9.33 million in the period, to
1243. reach nearly 270 million globally. It also beat Wall Street
1244. expectations on the top and bottom lines. [...] </p>
1245.  
1246. <p>Despite the Q1 earnings beat, Netflix shares dropped more than
1247. 4.5% in after-hours trading Thursday, possibly as investors
1248. reacted negatively to the news that the streamer will stop
1249. reporting quarterly sub totals. </p>
1250.  
1251. <p>In its Q1 letter to shareholders, Netflix said that engagement — time spent with the service — is its “best proxy for customer
1252. satisfaction.” As such, it will no longer report quarterly
1253. membership numbers or average revenue per member (which it dubs
1254. “ARM”), as of Q1 2025. Netflix said it will announce “major
1255. subscriber milestones as we cross them” but will cease disclosing
1256. quarterly subscriber numbers. </p>
1257. </blockquote>
1258.  
1259. <p>I don’t think investors should be alarmed. This is what companies do when their growth phase is over. Apple used to break down unit sales for its various devices and stopped long ago. Netflix is no longer an up-and-comer — they’re the established leader in streaming, and should be judged accordingly. Keeping existing subscribers happy and watching is more important at this point than signing up new ones.</p>
1260.  
1261. <div>
1262. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers Next Year’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/netflix-numbers">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1263. </div>
1264.  
1265. ]]></content>
1266.  </entry><entry>
1267. <title>U.S. Court Rules That Police Can Force a Suspect to Unlock Phone With Thumbprint</title>
1268. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/cops-can-force-suspect-to-unlock-phone-with-thumbprint-us-court-rules/" />
1269. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vga" />
1270. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/police-touch-id" />
1271. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40762</id>
1272. <published>2024-04-18T22:40:21Z</published>
1273. <updated>2024-04-19T23:28:02Z</updated>
1274. <author>
1275. <name>John Gruber</name>
1276. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1277. </author>
1278. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1279. <p>Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica:</p>
1280.  
1281. <blockquote>
1282.  <p>The US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protection against
1283. self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing
1284. a suspect to unlock a phone with a thumbprint scan, a federal
1285. appeals court ruled yesterday. The ruling does not apply to all
1286. cases in which biometrics are used to unlock an electronic device
1287. but is a significant decision in an unsettled area of the law. [...]</p>
1288.  
1289. <p>Payne’s Fifth Amendment claim “rests entirely on whether the use
1290. of his thumb implicitly related certain facts to officers such
1291. that he can avail himself of the privilege against
1292. self-incrimination,” the ruling said. Judges rejected his claim,
1293. holding “that the compelled use of Payne’s thumb to unlock his
1294. phone (which he had already identified for the officers) required
1295. no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a
1296. blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking.” </p>
1297.  
1298. <p>“When Officer Coddington used Payne’s thumb to unlock his phone — which he could have accomplished even if Payne had been
1299. unconscious — he did not intrude on the contents of Payne’s
1300. mind,” the court also said. </p>
1301. </blockquote>
1302.  
1303. <p><a href="https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/04/periodic-reminder-never-use-touchid-or-faceid/">Via Jamie Zawinski</a>, who advises never using Touch ID or Face ID. I strongly disagree with that advice. Almost everyone is far more secure using Face ID rather than relying on a passcode/passphrase alone. People who don’t use Face/Touch ID are surely tempted to use a short easily-entered passcode for convenience, and anyone who disables Face/Touch ID while using a nontrivial passphrase is encountering a huge inconvenience <em>every single time</em> they unlock their phone. There’s no good reason to put yourself through that.</p>
1304.  
1305. <p>My advice is to internalize the shortcut to hard-lock an iPhone, which temporarily disables Face/Touch ID and requires the passcode to unlock: squeeze the side button and either of the volume buttons for a second or so. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2022/06/require_a_passcode_to_unlock_your_iphone">I wrote an entire article about this two years ago</a>. Don’t just learn this shortcut, <em>internalize</em> it, so that you don’t have to think about it under duress. Just squeeze the side buttons until you feel the phone vibrate. Then it’s hard-locked. Do this whenever you go through security — be it at the airport, the ballpark, or anywhere. If you see a magnetometer, hard-lock your iPhone. If you get pulled over by a cop while driving, hard-lock your phone before you do anything else. (You can still launch the Camera app from the lock screen to record the encounter, if you wish, while the phone remains hard-locked.) Tell everyone you know how to hard-lock their iPhones.</p>
1306.  
1307. <p>(Also, this ruling is specific to the details of this particular case, and thus only addresses fingerprint authentication, not facial recognition. Those concerned with civil liberties should presume, though, that the same court would rule similarly regarding cops unlocking a device by waving it in front of the suspect’s face. But with “Require Attention for Face ID” — which is on by default — Face ID won’t work if you keep your eyes closed, and I don’t think a court would allow police to force your eyes open. The trick to worry about is the police handing you back your phone, under the pretense that you can use it to make a call or something, and then yanking it from your hands after you unlock it.)</p>
1308.  
1309. <div>
1310. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘U.S. Court Rules That Police Can Force a Suspect to Unlock Phone With Thumbprint’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/police-touch-id">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1311. </div>
1312.  
1313. ]]></content>
1314.  </entry><entry>
1315. <title>Nothing Integrates ChatGPT With Its Wireless Earbuds and Phones</title>
1316. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-chatgpt-features-wireless-earbuds-phones" />
1317. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg9" />
1318. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/nothing-chatgpt" />
1319. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40761</id>
1320. <published>2024-04-18T21:32:34Z</published>
1321. <updated>2024-04-18T21:32:35Z</updated>
1322. <author>
1323. <name>John Gruber</name>
1324. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1325. </author>
1326. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1327. <p>James Pero, writing at Inverse:</p>
1328.  
1329. <blockquote>
1330.  <p>Nothing’s audio products — including the <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-ear-a-wireless-earbuds-price-specs-release-date">newly announced Ear and
1331. Ear A</a> — are bringing what the company calls an
1332. “industry-first” integration with ChatGPT that allows users who
1333. also own a Nothing Phone <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-phone-2a-review-camera-specs-chip-battery">like the recently released Phone
1334. 2a</a> to launch the chatbot with a pinch gesture on their
1335. <a href="https://www.inverse.com/tech/nothing-ear-2-review-wireless-earbuds">Nothing earbuds</a>. </p>
1336.  
1337. <p>“By integrating ChatGPT with Nothing earbuds, including the new
1338. Nothing Ear and Ear A, and with Nothing OS, we’ve taken our first
1339. steps towards change, and there’s more to come,” said Nothing CEO,
1340. Carl Pei, in a press release. </p>
1341. </blockquote>
1342.  
1343. <p>Looks like it’s time for the DOJ to file another lawsuit against Apple for offering tight integration between its phones and peripherals.</p>
1344.  
1345. <div>
1346. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Nothing Integrates ChatGPT With Its Wireless Earbuds and Phones’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/18/nothing-chatgpt">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1347. </div>
1348.  
1349. ]]></content>
1350.  </entry><entry>
1351.    
1352.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/edpb_meta_pay_or_ok" />
1353. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vg8" />
1354. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40760</id>
1355. <published>2024-04-18T02:35:24Z</published>
1356. <updated>2024-04-18T22:49:31Z</updated>
1357. <author>
1358. <name>John Gruber</name>
1359. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1360. </author>
1361. <summary type="text">If Meta caves and complies with this ruling by offering a free tier with significantly lower ARPU, that opens the door for regulators and legislative bodies around the globe to demand the same.</summary>
1362. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1363. <p><a href="https://www.threads.net/@eric_seufert/post/C53UyPNr9lm">Eric Seufert, on Threads</a>:</p>
1364.  
1365. <blockquote>
1366.  <p>The EDPB — the EU’s legislature of privacy authorities — adopted
1367. a draft opinion today determining that large online platforms
1368. can’t offer a “pay or okay” model as a strict binary and must also
1369. offer a third, free choice that doesn’t utilize personalized
1370. advertising. </p>
1371. </blockquote>
1372.  
1373. <p>Given which way the wind’s been blowing in the EU, this is unsurprising, but make no mistake, this is a radical stance. <a href="https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2024-04/edpb_opinion_202408_consentorpay_en.pdf">From the EDPB’s draft ruling (PDF)</a>:</p>
1374.  
1375. <blockquote>
1376.  <p>The offering of (only) a paid alternative to the service which
1377. includes processing for behavioural advertising purposes should
1378. not be the default way forward for controllers. When developing
1379. the alternative to the version of the service with behavioural
1380. advertising, large online platforms should consider providing data
1381. subjects with an ‘equivalent alternative’ that does not entail the
1382. payment of a fee. If controllers choose to charge a fee for access
1383. to the ‘equivalent alternative’, controllers should consider also
1384. offering a further alternative, free of charge, without
1385. behavioural advertising, e.g. with a form of advertising involving
1386. the processing of less (or no) personal data. This is a
1387. particularly important factor in the assessment of certain
1388. criteria for valid consent under the GDPR. In most cases, whether
1389. a further alternative without behavioural advertising is offered
1390. by the controller, free of charge, will have a substantial impact
1391. on the assessment of the validity of consent, in particular with
1392. regard to the detriment aspect. </p>
1393.  
1394. <p>With respect to the requirements of the GDPR for valid consent,
1395. first of all, consent needs to be ‘freely given’. In order to
1396. avoid detriment that would exclude freely given consent, any fee
1397. imposed cannot be such as to effectively inhibit data subjects
1398. from making a free choice. Furthermore, detriment may arise where
1399. non-consenting data subjects do not pay a fee and thus face
1400. exclusion from the service, especially in cases where the service
1401. has a prominent role, or is decisive for participation in social
1402. life or access to professional networks, even more so in the
1403. presence of lock-in or network effects. As a result, detriment is
1404. likely to occur when large online platforms use a ‘consent or pay’
1405. model to obtain consent for the processing. </p>
1406. </blockquote>
1407.  
1408. <p><a href="https://www.threads.net/@eric_seufert/post/C54cNcWxJYI">Seufert again</a>:</p>
1409.  
1410. <blockquote>
1411.  <p>In its opinion on Meta’s use of the Pay or Okay model, the EDPB
1412. effectively says that any sufficiently valuable product must offer
1413. a free version that doesn’t monetize via behavioral ads. That the
1414. quality of being indispensable means consumers must have
1415. unfettered access to it. </p>
1416. </blockquote>
1417.  
1418. <p>What makes this all the more outrageous is that many major publishers in the EU use this exact same “pay or OK” model to achieve GDPR compliance — and none offer a free alternative with non-targeted ads. Don’t hold your breath waiting for <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/">Der Spiegel</a> to offer free access without ads. Christ, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/der-spiegel-pay-or-ok.jpeg">they don’t even let you look at their homepage</a> without paying or consenting to targeted ads. And Spotify quite literally <a href="https://ads.spotify.com/en-US/audience-targeting/">brags about its ad targeting</a>. But Spotify is an EU company, so of course it wasn’t designated as a “gatekeeper” by the protection racketeers running the European Commission.</p>
1419.  
1420. <p>They’re not saying “pay or OK” is illegal. They’re saying it’s illegal only if you’re a big company from outside the EU with a very popular platform.</p>
1421.  
1422. <p>Meta’s only options for compliance with this ruling, as I see it:</p>
1423.  
1424. <ul>
1425. <li><p>Offer a new free tier with contextual, rather than targeted, ads. To achieve an ARPU equivalent to Meta’s paid and free-with-targeted-ads tiers, this new offering would likely have to inundate users with a veritable avalanche of annoying ads. This, I would wager, would be deemed “malicious compliance” and thus also illegal.</p></li>
1426. <li><p>Offer a new free tier with contextual, rather than targeted, ads — but only show roughly the same frequency of ads as their lucrative free-with-targeted-ads tier. This is what the EDPB (and EC) are demanding, and seemingly think they can force Meta to do. Meta would almost certainly see ARPU plummet for all users who opt into this tier. Who knows if the revenue would even be sufficient to break even per such user?</p></li>
1427. <li><p>Invent some novel way to generate as much revenue per non-targeted ad as targeted ones. This is the “nerd harder” fantasy solution, a la demanding that secure end-to-end encryption provide back doors available only to “the good guys”.</p></li>
1428. <li><p>Cease offering Facebook and Instagram in the EU. (WhatsApp doesn’t monetize through targeted ads, so isn’t germane to this ruling.) This is the option <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">the EDPB and EC believe “unthinkable”</a> for Meta to take, because the EU is, in their minds, an indispensable market.</p></li>
1429. </ul>
1430.  
1431. <p>I don’t see how Meta can risk the second choice. Meta could afford to see ARPU plummet solely within the EU, and at first thought, you might think <em>some</em> revenue per EU user is surely better than <em>no</em> revenue at all from the EU. But if Meta caves and complies with this ruling by offering a free tier with significantly lower ARPU, that opens the door for regulators and legislative bodies around the globe to demand the same. Then, <em>poof</em> goes Meta as an industry colossus.</p>
1432.  
1433. <p>I suspect the EU regulatory bodies have some surprises coming regarding how this is going to play out.</p>
1434.  
1435.  
1436.  
1437.    ]]></content>
1438.  <title>★ European Data Protection Board Goes There, Rules Against Meta’s ‘Pay or OK’ Model</title></entry><entry>
1439. <title>‘Oh the Humanity’</title>
1440. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.sandofsky.com/humane/" />
1441. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg7" />
1442. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/oh-the-humanity" />
1443. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40759</id>
1444. <published>2024-04-18T01:21:00Z</published>
1445. <updated>2024-04-18T01:23:02Z</updated>
1446. <author>
1447. <name>John Gruber</name>
1448. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1449. </author>
1450. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1451. <p>Ben Sandofsky:</p>
1452.  
1453. <blockquote>
1454.  <p>An ex-Apple designer who went on to startup success once told me,
1455. “I wish I could give a workshop for Apple alumni jumping into
1456. startups, to help them un-learn The Apple Way.” As someone who
1457. strives to build products with the craft and quality of Apple, it
1458. pains me to admit that The Apple Way can destroy a lot of
1459. startups. Which brings us to Humane. </p>
1460. </blockquote>
1461.  
1462. <p>Great piece. And it brings to mind an observation I’m far from the first to make: There are far fewer startups founded by former Apple employees than one would expect, given Apple’s spectacular run over the past 25 years.</p>
1463.  
1464. <p>Nest is an obvious exception, but Tony Fadell had a very atypical career at Apple. He was brought in as a contractor in 2001 to help create the iPod, and stayed until 2008. He was more “the iPod guy” not “an Apple person”. And the original Nest thermostat couldn’t be more opposite from Humane’s AI Pin — the Nest did exactly what it promised, very well. Even the fact that it included a screen. Most importantly, Nest’s thermostat took aim at replacing existing dumb thermostats, which were terrible. Nest’s product really was something like 10× better than what it aimed to disrupt. The AI Pin took aim at the iPhone, which is insanely great.</p>
1465.  
1466. <div>
1467. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘‘Oh the Humanity’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/oh-the-humanity">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1468. </div>
1469.  
1470. ]]></content>
1471.  </entry><entry>
1472. <title>Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter and Friend, Stole $16 Million to Pay Only a Portion of His Gambling Losses</title>
1473. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/business/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-details.html" />
1474. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg6" />
1475. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/mizuhara-ohtani-16-million" />
1476. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40758</id>
1477. <published>2024-04-18T00:32:47Z</published>
1478. <updated>2024-04-18T00:32:48Z</updated>
1479. <author>
1480. <name>John Gruber</name>
1481. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1482. </author>
1483. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1484. <p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting">Speaking of sports gambling scandals</a>, here’s Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt, reporting for The New York Times:</p>
1485.  
1486. <blockquote>
1487.  <p>Ohtani has many other accounts, of course — he earns more money
1488. from endorsements and business deals than he does from his
1489. lucrative baseball salary. But it was this account, solely for
1490. Ohtani’s baseball earnings, that Mizuhara would scheme to take
1491. control of and then, as he fell deeper into a gambling addiction,
1492. pilfer for years, according to prosecutors. </p>
1493.  
1494. <p>Mizuhara changed the settings of the account so alerts and
1495. confirmations of transactions would go to him, not Ohtani. Drawing
1496. on phone recordings obtained from the bank, prosecutors said
1497. Mizuhara had also impersonated Ohtani to gain the bank’s approval
1498. for certain large transactions. And whenever one of Ohtani’s other
1499. advisers — his agent, tax preparer, bookkeeper or financial
1500. adviser, all of whom were interviewed for the federal
1501. investigation — inquired about the account, Mizuhara told them
1502. that Ohtani preferred the account to remain private. </p>
1503.  
1504. <p>Between November 2021 and January this year, Mizuhara stole $16
1505. million from the account to feed his “voracious appetite for
1506. illegal sports betting,” according to E. Martin Estrada, the U.S.
1507. attorney in Los Angeles.</p>
1508. </blockquote>
1509.  
1510. <p>Sounds like the plot from a Coen brothers movie. At every step where anyone tried to check with Ohtani on this bank account, they went through Mizuhara as a translator.</p>
1511.  
1512. <blockquote>
1513.  <p>This being a baseball story, the criminal complaint was stuffed with numbers:</p>
1514.  
1515. <ul>
1516. <li>19,000 bets.</li>
1517. <li>$142,256,769.74 total winning bets.</li>
1518. <li>$182,935,206.58 total losing bets.</li>
1519. </ul>
1520. </blockquote>
1521.  
1522. <p>That’s 20-some bets per day, for years, for nearly $20,000 per wager on average. Just the frequency alone, setting aside the high stakes, is staggering.</p>
1523.  
1524. <p>It’s good to know, though, that Ohtani was oblivious to all of it.</p>
1525.  
1526. <div>
1527. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter and Friend, Stole $16 Million to Pay Only a Portion of His Gambling Losses’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/mizuhara-ohtani-16-million">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1528. </div>
1529.  
1530. ]]></content>
1531.  </entry><entry>
1532. <title>NBA Bars Jontay Porter for Betting</title>
1533. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://theathletic.com/5423208/2024/04/17/jontay-porter-banned-nba-betting/" />
1534. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg5" />
1535. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting" />
1536. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40757</id>
1537. <published>2024-04-18T00:15:45Z</published>
1538. <updated>2024-04-18T00:15:46Z</updated>
1539. <author>
1540. <name>John Gruber</name>
1541. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1542. </author>
1543. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1544. <p>Joe Vardon, reporting for The Athletic:</p>
1545.  
1546. <blockquote>
1547.  <p>The league said that Porter, who spent part of his time in the NBA
1548. and part of it in its developmental G League, privately told a
1549. sports bettor he was hurt, removed himself from a game to control
1550. prop bets on his own play, and placed his own wagers on NBA games. </p>
1551.  
1552. <p>He is the first active player or coach to be expelled from the NBA
1553. for gambling since Jack Molinas in 1954. </p>
1554.  
1555. <p>According to the results of a league investigation, Porter, 24,
1556. gave a confidential tip about his health to a person he knew to be
1557. a sports bettor, prior to the Raptors’ game on March 20 against
1558. the Sacramento Kings. A third individual, connected to both Porter
1559. and the original recipient of Porter’s health information, placed
1560. an $80,000 parlay bet to win $1.1 million, betting that Porter
1561. would underperform against the Kings. </p>
1562.  
1563. <p>To make sure that the bet hit, the league found, Porter pulled
1564. himself out of that game against the Kings after just three
1565. minutes, claiming he was ill. The investigation also showed that
1566. from January through March, while either playing for Toronto or
1567. the Raptors’ G League affiliate, Porter placed at least 13 bets on
1568. NBA games using an associate’s online betting account. While none
1569. of those bets were on games in which Porter played, he did bet on
1570. the Raptors to lose as part of a parlay bet. The wagers ranged in
1571. size from $15 to $22,000, and totaled $54,000. He netted nearly
1572. $22,000 in winnings on the wagers, the league said. </p>
1573. </blockquote>
1574.  
1575. <p>Porter is a bench player, but in the NBA bench players do well. <a href="https://hoopshype.com/player/jontay-porter/salary/">Porter’s salary this season was $411,000</a>, and he’s earned close to $3 million since he made the NBA four years ago. But how much do you want to bet he’s not the last player in a major sport to get caught up in a point-shaving scam like this?</p>
1576.  
1577. <div>
1578. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘NBA Bars Jontay Porter for Betting’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/nba-bars-jontay-porter-for-betting">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1579. </div>
1580.  
1581. ]]></content>
1582.  </entry><entry>
1583. <title>Of Course Regulation Can Work</title>
1584. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/04/want-apple-to-change-regulation-works/" />
1585. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg4" />
1586. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/of-course-regulation-can-work" />
1587. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40756</id>
1588. <published>2024-04-17T19:47:37Z</published>
1589. <updated>2024-04-17T20:31:39Z</updated>
1590. <author>
1591. <name>John Gruber</name>
1592. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1593. </author>
1594. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1595. <p>Dan Moren, writing last week at Six Colors:</p>
1596.  
1597. <blockquote>
1598.  <p>Lately you can’t throw a digital camera without hitting a story on
1599. the various regulatory and legal challenges Apple’s been facing.
1600. While some have decried these actions as interference in the
1601. internal operations of a company, there’s one salient detail that
1602. I think those opinions often overlook. </p>
1603.  
1604. <p>Regulation works. </p>
1605.  
1606. <p>Here are just a handful of examples from the past few months of
1607. Apple changing its policies due to regulations — or, in some
1608. cases, the mere <em>threat</em> of regulation. </p>
1609. </blockquote>
1610.  
1611. <p>I’d change “regulation works” to “regulation <em>can</em> work” or “regulation <em>sometimes</em> works”. But there’s no question we’re seeing results. Moren cites three recent examples:</p>
1612.  
1613. <ul>
1614. <li>New rules announced by Apple in January <a href="https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f1v8pyay">for game streaming services</a>.</li>
1615. <li>New rules this month <a href="https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=0kjli9o1">eliminating the ban on game emulators in the App Store</a>.</li>
1616. <li>Changes last week in the Self Service Repair program <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-to-expand-repair-options-with-support-for-used-genuine-parts/">regarding used components</a>.<sup id="fnr1-2024-04-17-reg"><a href="#fn1-2024-04-17-reg">1</a></sup></li>
1617. </ul>
1618.  
1619. <p>These changes are all wins. But they’re also all low-hanging fruit. Apple has no major self-interested reasons to fight against any of them, and regulatory scrutiny forced the company to stop ignoring them. It’s similar to how the Japan Fair Trade Commission’s investigation <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/01/apple-anti-steering-relaxation">led to Apple loosening its anti-steering rules for “reader” apps worldwide in 2021</a>. That might not have happened at all without the regulatory scrutiny, and certainly wouldn’t have otherwise happened when it did. But it was the lowest of low-hanging fruit: Apple, to my eyes, lost nothing by loosening those anti-steering provisions.</p>
1620.  
1621. <p>The real regulatory rubber hits the road on the issues that <em>are</em> against Apple’s own interests, or detrimental to the experience of users (which issues are, effectively, against Apple’s interests — Apple is in the business of making its users happy).</p>
1622.  
1623. <div class="footnotes">
1624. <hr />
1625. <ol>
1626. <li id="fn1-2024-04-17-reg">
1627. <p>The parts-pairing stuff is complex. Right-to-repair advocates often wrongly assume that Apple’s repair policies are geared toward making money — either turning a profit on the repairs and replacement parts directly, or by implicitly encouraging users to buy brand-new devices to replace broken ones rather than fix them. That’s just not the case. Repairs are not a profit center for Apple. The complexity Apple is trying to manage is guaranteeing that supposedly genuine replacement components are in fact genuine, and that stolen devices can’t be mined for black-market components. <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-to-expand-repair-options-with-support-for-used-genuine-parts/">Last week’s changes</a> seem to manage a good balance of all these factors.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr1-2024-04-17-reg"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;</a></p>
1628. </li>
1629. </ol>
1630. </div>
1631.  
1632. <div>
1633. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Of Course Regulation Can Work’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/of-course-regulation-can-work">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1634. </div>
1635.  
1636. ]]></content>
1637.  </entry><entry>
1638. <title>Delta Game Emulator Now Available From the App Store</title>
1639. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/17/delta-game-emulator-iphone/" />
1640. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg3" />
1641. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/delta-app-store" />
1642. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40755</id>
1643. <published>2024-04-17T19:04:46Z</published>
1644. <updated>2024-04-19T16:37:32Z</updated>
1645. <author>
1646. <name>John Gruber</name>
1647. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1648. </author>
1649. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1650. <p>Everything is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal">coming up Milhouse this week for Riley Testut</a>. Juli Clover for MacRumors:</p>
1651.  
1652. <blockquote>
1653.  <p>Game emulator apps have <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/15/apple-removes-igba-from-app-store/">come and gone</a> since <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/05/app-store-guidelines-emulators-music-app-links/">Apple
1654. announced App Store support</a> for them on April 5, but now
1655. popular game emulator Delta from developer Riley Testut is
1656. available for download. [...] </p>
1657.  
1658. <p>Delta is an all-in-one emulator that supports game systems
1659. including NES, SNES, N64, Nintendo DS, Game Boy, and Game Boy
1660. Advance. It works with popular game controllers, and supports
1661. cheats, save states, backups, syncing, and more. As this is
1662. Testut’s longtime project, it is more polished and feature rich
1663. than other emulators that have popped up. [...] </p>
1664.  
1665. <p>Delta can be downloaded from the App Store for free, and it does
1666. not collect information or include ads. The app is available in
1667. the United States and other countries, but it is not available in
1668. the European Union where it is instead being offered through an
1669. alternative app marketplace. </p>
1670. </blockquote>
1671.  
1672. <p>An incredibly polished, high-performance game emulator, available free of charge with no ads. That’s some old-school internet awesomeness. (<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/delta-game-emulator/id1048524688">App Store link</a>.)</p>
1673.  
1674. <p>The alternative app marketplace for EU denizens to get Delta is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal">Testut’s own AltStore PAL</a>. (Delta is free there, too, but AltStore PAL requires a €1.50/year subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee.)</p>
1675.  
1676. <p>Now the questions is: Does Nintendo care? <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24090357/nintendo-yuzu-emulator-lawsuit-settlement">Nintendo recently shut down Yuzu</a>, a popular open source Switch emulator. (David Pierce and Sean Hollister <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/4/24121448/why-nintendo-sued-a-game-emulator-out-of-existence-and-what-might-happen-next">made a great episode of Decoder</a> about this whole saga.) There’s a big difference between emulating the Switch — which is still current — and emulating classic consoles, but Nintendo <a href="https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/nintendo-entertainment-system-nintendo-switch-online-switch/">still monetizes those classic consoles via emulation on the Switch</a>.</p>
1677.  
1678. <p><strong>Update:</strong> 24 hours later and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/04/delta-atop-app-store.png">Delta is the #1 app in the App Store</a>. You love to see it. <a href="https://mastodon.social/@_Davidsmith/112298157654492043">David Smith</a>:</p>
1679.  
1680. <blockquote>
1681.  <p>While the App Store is far from perfect, seeing Delta sustain its
1682. position at the top of the App Store is a lovely reminder of its
1683. best feature. </p>
1684.  
1685. <p>That an indie developer can dedicate years honing their craft and
1686. then create something so compelling that it beats out apps from
1687. trillion-dollar companies, enriching the lives of millions of
1688. people along the way. </p>
1689.  
1690. <p>That’s beautiful. That’s inspiring. And just plain awesome. </p>
1691. </blockquote>
1692.  
1693. <div>
1694. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Delta Game Emulator Now Available From the App Store’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/delta-app-store">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1695. </div>
1696.  
1697. ]]></content>
1698.  </entry><entry>
1699. <title>AltStore PAL Launches in the EU</title>
1700. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://rileytestut.com/blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore-pal/" />
1701. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg2" />
1702. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal" />
1703. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40754</id>
1704. <published>2024-04-17T17:57:37Z</published>
1705. <updated>2024-04-17T18:05:00Z</updated>
1706. <author>
1707. <name>John Gruber</name>
1708. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1709. </author>
1710. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1711. <p>Riley Testut:</p>
1712.  
1713. <blockquote>
1714.  <p>I’m thrilled to announce a brand new version of AltStore — AltStore PAL — is launching <em>TODAY</em> as an Apple-approved
1715. alternative app marketplace in the EU. AltStore PAL is an
1716. <a href="https://github.com/altstoreio/AltStore">open-source</a> app store made specifically for independent
1717. developers, designed to address the problems I and so many others
1718. have had with the App Store over the years. Basically, if you’ve
1719. ever experienced issues with App Review, this is for you!</p>
1720.  
1721. <p>We’re launching with <em>2 apps</em> initially: my all-in-one Nintendo
1722. emulator <a href="https://deltaemulator.com/">Delta</a> — a.k.a. the reason I built AltStore <a href="http://rileytestut.com/blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/">in
1723. the first place</a> — and my clipboard manager <a href="https://rileytestut.com/blog/2020/06/17/introducing-clip/">Clip</a>,
1724. a <em>real</em> clipboard manager that can actually run in the
1725. background. Delta will be <em>FREE</em> (with no ads!), whereas Clip will
1726. require a small donation of <em>€1 or more</em>. Once we’re sure
1727. everything is running smoothly we’ll then open the doors to
1728. third-party apps — so if you’d like to distribute your app with
1729. AltStore, please get in touch.</p>
1730. </blockquote>
1731.  
1732. <p>Exciting times for iOS users in the EU. Both of these things can be true:</p>
1733.  
1734. <ul>
1735. <li>The DMA is a bad law that, I believe, will result in more harm than good for most users.</li>
1736. <li>For iOS power users and enthusiasts, alternative app marketplaces are going to be fun and useful. Right now there’s no better place to be an iPhone user than the EU.</li>
1737. </ul>
1738.  
1739. <p>(Also: How fun is the name AltStore <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL">PAL</a>?)</p>
1740.  
1741. <div>
1742. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘AltStore PAL Launches in the EU’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/altstore-pal">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1743. </div>
1744.  
1745. ]]></content>
1746.  </entry><entry>
1747. <title>Donald Trump Writes and Narrates Documentary Short Film on the Battle of Gettysburg</title>
1748. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/Randall_Stps/status/1780295504561131876" />
1749. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg1" />
1750. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/trump-civil-war-doc" />
1751. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40753</id>
1752. <published>2024-04-17T16:30:01Z</published>
1753. <updated>2024-04-17T16:32:40Z</updated>
1754. <author>
1755. <name>John Gruber</name>
1756. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1757. </author>
1758. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1759. <p>Amazing he found time for this amidst his campaigning and legal travails. But like many former presidents, he has a serious interest in history.</p>
1760.  
1761. <div>
1762. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Donald Trump Writes and Narrates Documentary Short Film on the Battle of Gettysburg’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/17/trump-civil-war-doc">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1763. </div>
1764.  
1765. ]]></content>
1766.  </entry><entry>
1767. <title>‘Papyrus 2’</title>
1768. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://kottke.org/24/04/papyrus-2-a-bold-new-look-for-avatar" />
1769. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vg0" />
1770. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/papyrus-2" />
1771. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40752</id>
1772. <published>2024-04-17T01:36:11Z</published>
1773. <updated>2024-04-17T01:36:12Z</updated>
1774. <author>
1775. <name>John Gruber</name>
1776. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1777. </author>
1778. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1779. <p>Jason Kottke:</p>
1780.  
1781. <blockquote>
1782.  <p>Ryan Gosling was on Saturday Night Live this weekend and they did
1783. a sequel to one of my favorite SNL sketches (which is completely
1784. dorky in a design nerd sort of way) ever: <a href="https://kottke.org/23/01/avatar-and-the-papyrus-typeface">Papyrus</a>. Behold,
1785. Papyrus 2. </p>
1786. </blockquote>
1787.  
1788. <p>See also: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbW42uTKYo">Elle Cordova’s “Fonts Hanging Out” trilogy</a>.</p>
1789.  
1790. <div>
1791. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘‘Papyrus 2’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/papyrus-2">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1792. </div>
1793.  
1794. ]]></content>
1795.  </entry><entry>
1796. <title>‘MKBHDs for Everything’</title>
1797. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://stratechery.com/2024/mkbhds-for-everything/" />
1798. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfz" />
1799. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mkbhds-for-everything" />
1800. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40751</id>
1801. <published>2024-04-17T00:57:52Z</published>
1802. <updated>2024-04-17T00:58:37Z</updated>
1803. <author>
1804. <name>John Gruber</name>
1805. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1806. </author>
1807. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1808. <p>Ben Thompson, marking the 10th anniversary of Stratechery as a full-time endeavor:</p>
1809.  
1810. <blockquote>
1811.  <p>Who, though, is to blame, and who benefited? Surely the
1812. responsibility for the Humane AI Pin lies with Humane; the
1813. people who benefited from Brownlee’s honesty were his viewers,
1814. the only people to whom Brownlee owes anything. To think of this
1815. review — or even just the title — as “distasteful” or
1816. “unethical” is to view Humane — a recognizable entity, to be
1817. sure — as of more worth than the 3.5 million individuals who
1818. watched Brownlee’s review. </p>
1819.  
1820. <p>This is one of the challenges of scale: Brownlee has so many
1821. viewers that it is almost easier to pretend like they are some
1822. unimportant blob. Brownlee, though, is successful because he
1823. remembers his job is not to go easy on individual companies, but
1824. inform individual viewers who will make individual decisions about
1825. spending $700 on a product that doesn’t work. Thanks to the
1826. Internet he has absolutely no responsibility or incentive to do
1827. anything but. </p>
1828. </blockquote>
1829.  
1830. <p>The review is now up to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&amp;t=1287s">4.2 million views</a>.</p>
1831.  
1832. <div>
1833. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘‘MKBHDs for Everything’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mkbhds-for-everything">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1834. </div>
1835.  
1836. ]]></content>
1837.  </entry><entry>
1838. <title>Walt Mossberg, Still the King</title>
1839. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wired.com/2004/05/mossberg/" />
1840. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfy" />
1841. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mossberg-king" />
1842. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40750</id>
1843. <published>2024-04-17T00:48:28Z</published>
1844. <updated>2024-04-17T00:48:28Z</updated>
1845. <author>
1846. <name>John Gruber</name>
1847. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1848. </author>
1849. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1850. <p>Regarding the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo">jacktastic argument</a> that Marques Brownlee shouldn’t call the worst product he’s ever reviewed the worst product he’s ever reviewed, I’m reminded of the lede from Alan Deutschman’s 2004 profile of Walt Mossberg for Wired:</p>
1851.  
1852. <blockquote>
1853.  <p>Walt Mossberg is walking through a convention hall at the Consumer
1854. Electronics Show in Las Vegas when a man starts screaming at him.
1855. The screamer, Hugh Panero, blames Mossberg for his company’s
1856. recent problems: falling stock price, a sudden plunge in consumer
1857. interest. Mossberg is annoyed but hardly intimidated. As the
1858. author of the weekly “Personal Technology” column in The Wall
1859. Street Journal, he’s used to dealing with disgruntled execs. He
1860. lets Panero shout. A crowd is gathering. Finally, Mossberg yells
1861. back, “I don’t give a fuck about your stock price!” </p>
1862. </blockquote>
1863.  
1864. <p>Keep reading. The story doesn’t end there.</p>
1865.  
1866. <p>What Mossberg always got right was that he relentlessly focused on his readers. Not what a product was supposed to be. Not what future versions might be. And not the fucking stock price of the company that made it. What he cared (<a href="https://www.threads.net/@mossbergwalt">and cares</a>, in retirement) about was the actual experience of using the actual product, as it actually was, by actual users. He was rewarded with his readers’ trust.</p>
1867.  
1868. <p>That same mentality is what made Siskel and Ebert superstar film critics: they loved movies and they judged them for what they were, from the perspective of fellow moviegoers. They weren’t Hollywood insiders, and in the same way Mossberg didn’t give a fuck about XM Radio’s stock price, they didn’t give a fuck about how their reviews might affect opening weekend box office numbers. They cherished the trust of their TV viewers and newspaper readers, and rewarded them by providing nothing less than their fully honest expert appraisals of the movies they reviewed.</p>
1869.  
1870. <p>Art criticism has a long history, though. Consumer technology criticism does not. Mossberg blazed the trail.</p>
1871.  
1872. <div>
1873. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Walt Mossberg, Still the King’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/mossberg-king">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1874. </div>
1875.  
1876. ]]></content>
1877.  </entry><entry>
1878. <title>Jackass of the Week: Daniel Vassallo</title>
1879. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1779753281960722706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" />
1880. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfx" />
1881. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo" />
1882. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40749</id>
1883. <published>2024-04-17T00:29:39Z</published>
1884. <updated>2024-04-17T00:29:39Z</updated>
1885. <author>
1886. <name>John Gruber</name>
1887. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1888. </author>
1889. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1890. <p>Daniel Vassallo, who has over 172,000 followers on Twitter/X, regarding Marques Brownlee’s scathing but utterly fair (if not bend-over-backwards fair) “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&amp;t=1287s">The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed... For Now</a>” review of the Humane AI Pin:</p>
1891.  
1892. <blockquote>
1893.  <p>I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say this when you have
1894. 18 million subscribers. </p>
1895.  
1896. <p>Hard to explain why, but with great reach comes great
1897. responsibility. Potentially killing someone else’s nascent project
1898. reeks of carelessness. </p>
1899.  
1900. <p>First, do no harm. </p>
1901. </blockquote>
1902.  
1903. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1779928058746617912">Marques Brownlee</a>:</p>
1904.  
1905. <blockquote>
1906.  <p>We disagree on what my job is.</p>
1907. </blockquote>
1908.  
1909. <p>There’s cool, and then there’s <em>cool</em>.</p>
1910.  
1911. <div>
1912. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Jackass of the Week: Daniel Vassallo’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/vassallo">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1913. </div>
1914.  
1915. ]]></content>
1916.  </entry><entry>
1917. <title>No Notes</title>
1918. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.afr.com/technology/apple-s-secret-to-success-don-t-take-notes-and-worry-about-the-numbers-20240415-p5fjuz" />
1919. <link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/vfw" />
1920. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/no-notes" />
1921. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/linked//6.40748</id>
1922. <published>2024-04-16T23:42:36Z</published>
1923. <updated>2024-04-17T01:25:39Z</updated>
1924. <author>
1925. <name>John Gruber</name>
1926. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
1927. </author>
1928. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1929. <p>John Davidson, writing for the Australian Financial Review on Phil Schiller’s testimony in Australia, where Apple is once again facing off against Epic Games (<a href="https://archive.is/N2lpM#selection-1887.0-1922.0">archive link</a> in case FR’s web server goes down):</p>
1930.  
1931. <blockquote>
1932.  <p>The casual approach to its meetings, instituted by Apple
1933. co-founder Steve Jobs when he returned to the company in 1997
1934. after having been fired in 1985, explained why Epic’s lawyers
1935. could find precious few contemporaneous records of Apple’s
1936. decision-making processes since the App Store was first launched
1937. in 2007, Mr Schiller suggested. </p>
1938.  
1939. <p>“When Mr Jobs came back in 1997, in one of the earliest meetings
1940. someone was taking notes, writing down what [Mr Jobs] was saying
1941. about what we’re doing. He stopped and said ‘Why are you writing
1942. this down? You should be smart enough to remember this. If you’re
1943. not smart enough to remember this you shouldn’t be in this
1944. meeting’. We all stopped taking notes and learnt to just listen
1945. and be part of the conversation and remember what we were supposed
1946. to do. And that became how we worked.” Mr Schiller testified. </p>
1947.  
1948. <p>“It was very action-oriented. It was built to be like a small
1949. start-up where we all are working together on the same things, and
1950. we all know what our plans are and what we’re doing.” </p>
1951. </blockquote>
1952.  
1953. <p>And:</p>
1954.  
1955. <blockquote>
1956.  <p>Nor is there much talk in meetings of how profitable the Apple App
1957. Store is, despite the fact it would be the 63rd biggest company on
1958. the Fortune 500 if it were hived off as a separate entity. </p>
1959.  
1960. <p>“Are you telling His Honour that you have no idea whether ... the
1961. App Store has been profitable?” asked an incredulous Neil Young,
1962. KC, leading the cross-examination on behalf of Epic Games. </p>
1963.  
1964. <p>“I <em>believe</em> it is [profitable],” replied Mr Schiller, who has
1965. been in charge of the App Store since the beginning. “I’m simply
1966. saying ‘profit’ as a specific financial metric is not a report I
1967. get and spend time on. It’s not how we measure our performance as
1968. a team,” he said. </p>
1969. </blockquote>
1970.  
1971. <p>Sounds like Epic is getting its hat handed to it once again.</p>
1972.  
1973. <div>
1974. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘No Notes’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/16/no-notes">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
1975. </div>
1976.  
1977. ]]></content>
1978.  </entry><entry>
1980. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://l.kolide.co/43vcTaN" />
1981. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vfs" />
1982. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/kolide_looking_past_the_smoke" />
1983. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/feeds/sponsors//11.40744</id>
1984. <author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
1985. <published>2024-04-16T02:19:41Z</published>
1986. <updated>2024-04-21T22:44:11Z</updated>
1987. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
1988. <!-- H1 2024: Post C -->
1989.  
1990. <p><img
1991. src = "https://daringfireball.net/martini/images/kolide/kolide-art-H12024-C.jpeg"
1992. width = 600
1993. alt = "Illustration of two playing cards: the jack of spades and ace of spades, with the ace labeled “MGM”."
1994. /></p>
1995.  
1996. <p>The September 2023 MGM hack quickly became one of the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">most notorious ransomware attacks</a> in recent memory. Journalists and cybersecurity experts rushed to report on the broken slot machines, angry hotel guests, and the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-16/mgm-resorts-hackers-broke-in-after-tricking-it-service-desk?sref%3DqYiz2hd0&amp;sa=D&amp;source=editors&amp;ust=1712079824854339&amp;usg=AOvVaw3-n2gmFr9F-RBRYlWDBxnv">fateful phishing call</a> to MGM’s help desk that started it all.</p>
1997.  
1998. <p>And, like a slick magic trick, the public’s attention was drawn in the wrong direction. Now, months later, we’re still missing something critical about the MGM hack.</p>
1999.  
2000. <p>That’s because, for many of the most important questions about the breach, the popular answers are either incomplete or inaccurate. Those include: who hacked MGM, what tactics they used to breach the system, and how security teams can protect themselves against similar attacks.</p>
2001.  
2002. <p>Why is that a problem? Because it lets us write off the MGM hack as a one-off story, instead of an example of an <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/10/25/octo-tempest-crosses-boundaries-to-facilitate-extortion-encryption-and-destruction/">emerging style of attack</a> that we’ll certainly be seeing more of. And that leaves companies and security teams unprepared.</p>
2003.  
2004. <h2>Who hacked MGM?</h2>
2005.  
2006. <p>Plenty of news stories have confidently blamed the MGM attack on either the Scattered Spider or ALPHV hacking group, but the truth is still murky, and likely involves <a href="https://www.404media.co/sim-swappers-are-working-directly-with-ransomware-gangs-now/">a dangerous team up</a> between different groups, each bringing their own expertise to the table.</p>
2007.  
2008. <p>Their attacks first use fluent English social engineering skills to get onto networks, where they then deploy sophisticated ransomware that quickly establishes persistence across multiple systems.</p>
2009.  
2010. <h2>What tactics did they use?</h2>
2011.  
2012. <p>The dominant narrative has been that “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/09/a-phone-call-to-helpdesk-was-likely-all-it-took-to-hack-mgm/">a single phone call</a> hacked MGM.” A phone vishing attack to MGM’s IT help desk is what started the hack, but there’s much more to it than that. The real issue is that this help desk worker was set up to fail by MGM’s weak ID verification protocols, and probably wasn’t doing anything “wrong” when they gave the bad actors access to a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366552775/Okta-Caesars-MGM-hacked-in-social-engineering-campaign">super administrator</a> account.</p>
2013.  
2014. <h2>How can security teams protect themselves?</h2>
2015.  
2016. <p><a href="https://sec.okta.com/articles/2023/08/cross-tenant-impersonation-prevention-and-detection">Cybersecurity experts</a> have centered most of their advice on user ID verification. But while it’s true that MGM’s help desk needed better ways of verifying employee identity, there’s another factor that should have stopped the hackers in their tracks.</p>
2017.  
2018. <p>That’s where you need to focus your attention. In fact, if you just focus your vision, you’ll find you’re already staring at the security story the pros have been missing.</p>
2019.  
2020. <p>It’s the device you’re reading this on.</p>
2021.  
2022. <p>To read more of what we learned when we researched the MGM hack — like how hacker groups get their names, the worrying gaps in MGM’s security, and why device trust is the real core of the story — check out the <a href="https://l.kolide.co/3TB3FF8">Kolide Blog</a>.</p>
2023.  
2024. <div>
2025. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Kolide: ‘Looking Past the Smoke and Mirrors of the MGM Hack’’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/kolide_looking_past_the_smoke">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
2026. </div>
2027.  
2028. ]]></content>
2029. <title>[Sponsor] Kolide: ‘Looking Past the Smoke and Mirrors of the MGM Hack’</title></entry><entry>
2030.    
2031.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/04/online_photo_storage_is_surely_expensive_but_apple_should_offer_more" />
2032. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vf2" />
2033. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40718</id>
2034. <published>2024-04-09T22:22:16Z</published>
2035. <updated>2024-04-10T15:45:59Z</updated>
2036. <author>
2037. <name>John Gruber</name>
2038. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
2039. </author>
2040. <summary type="text">Like the stingy U.S. minimum wage — which was last increased, to $7.25/hour, in 2009 — these tiers ought to be adjusted for “inflation” periodically, but aren’t. If Apple really wants iPhone users not to worry about photo storage, they should offer more with iCloud, cost-to-Apple be damned.
2041. </summary>
2042. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
2043. <p>Some follow-up comparison points regarding <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/09/dont-let-me-go-commercial">my gripe today</a> about Apple’s new commercial telling iPhone users they needn’t worry about photo storage:</p>
2044.  
2045. <ul>
2046. <li><p><a href="https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en">The free tier for Google One offers 15 GB of storage</a>. That’s still not much, and only a fraction of the on-device storage for any recent phone, but it’s 3× more than iCloud. 10 extra GB doesn’t sound like much, but 3× is a large factor.</p></li>
2047. <li><p>I shot 2.07 GB of footage (96 photos, 5 videos) on Easter Sunday alone. Those are the keepers, after culling all the blurry and meh shots. (iPhone 15 Pro for videos and a few photos; <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/4617817917/family-reunion-shooting-with-the-ricoh-gr-iiix-on-a-trip-home-to-england">Ricoh GR IIIx</a> for most of the photos.<sup id="fnr1-2024-04-09"><a href="#fn1-2024-04-09">1</a></sup>)</p></li>
2048. <li><p>Google used to offer “unlimited storage for photos and videos” to owners of Pixel phones, but <a href="https://www.droid-life.com/2023/12/20/bring-back-unlimited-google-photos-storage-for-pixel-owners/">they dropped this offer</a> starting with the Pixel 6 in late 2021. That was such an appealing offer — especially considering that much of the appeal of Pixel phones comes from their renowned camera systems. I can only surmise that this proved more expensive to Google than they deemed worthwhile.</p></li>
2049. <li><p>You don’t need to pay for iCloud to back up a large amount of iPhone storage — you can still <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/back-up-iphone-iph3ecf67d29/ios">back up to a Mac or PC manually</a>. I don’t know any non-expert users who do this, though, and there are zillions of iPhone owners who don’t even own a Mac or PC. For the masses, iCloud backup is the only backup.</p></li>
2050. </ul>
2051.  
2052. <p>Here’s a comparison of the current U.S. pricing for cloud storage, including photos, <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/108047">from Apple</a> <a href="https://one.google.com/storage?g1_landing_page=2">and Google</a>:</p>
2053.  
2054. <!-- Markdown table
2055. | Price/month | iCloud | Google |
2056. | :---------: | :----: | :----: |
2057. | Free        | 5 GB   | 15 GB  |
2058. | $1          | 50 GB  | — |
2059. | $2          | — | 100 GB |
2060. | $3          | 200 GB | 200 GB |
2061. | $10         | 2 TB   | 2 TB   |
2062. -->
2063.  
2064. <table>
2065. <thead>
2066. <tr>
2067.  <th align="center" width="100">Price/month</th>
2068.  <th align="center" width="100">iCloud</th>
2069.  <th align="center" width="100">Google</th>
2070. </tr>
2071. </thead>
2072. <tbody>
2073. <tr>
2074.  <td align="center">Free</td>
2075.  <td align="center">5 GB</td>
2076.  <td align="center">15 GB</td>
2077. </tr>
2078. <tr>
2079.  <td align="center">$1</td>
2080.  <td align="center">50 GB</td>
2081.  <td align="center">—</td>
2082. </tr>
2083. <tr>
2084.  <td align="center">$2</td>
2085.  <td align="center">—</td>
2086.  <td align="center">100 GB</td>
2087. </tr>
2088. <tr>
2089.  <td align="center">$3</td>
2090.  <td align="center">200 GB</td>
2091.  <td align="center">200 GB</td>
2092. </tr>
2093. <tr>
2094.  <td align="center">$10</td>
2095.  <td align="center">2 TB</td>
2096.  <td align="center">2 TB</td>
2097. </tr>
2098. </tbody>
2099. </table>
2100.  
2101. <p>Google’s only clear win is at the free tier, and once you start paying $3/month, they’re tied. Both companies offer additional storage beyond 2 TB at the same price: $5/month per extra TB. Google only shows those more-than-2-TB storage tiers <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/thread/218140513/need-more-than-2tb-google-drive?hl=en">if you’re signed in and already pay for storage</a>. $5/month per extra TB is also <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/products">exactly what Dropbox charges</a>.</p>
2102.  
2103. <p>So on the one hand, it’s not like Apple’s iCloud storage pricing is out of line with its competitors. But on the other hand, the free tier of iCloud has been stuck at 5 GB since the day iCloud was announced, which was so long ago <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2011/06/06Apple-Introduces-iCloud/">that Steve Jobs announced it</a> at his final WWDC keynote in 2011. iCloud’s $1/month 50 GB and $3/month 200 GB tiers <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9296883/apple-icloud-storage-prices">have been unchanged since 2015</a>. Like the stingy U.S. minimum wage — which was last increased, to $7.25/hour, in 2009 — these tiers ought to be adjusted for “inflation” periodically, but aren’t.</p>
2104.  
2105. <p>In the case of the minimum wage, “inflation” is, well, <a href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/">actual inflation</a>. In the case of cloud storage, “inflation” should account for factors like increased device storage (2011’s <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/112004">iPhone 4S</a> was offered with 16, 32, or 64 GB) and increased image size (the iPhone 4S only shot video up to 1080p 30 fps, which consumes about 65 MB per minute; <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/111831">today’s iPhone 15 shoots up to 4K 60 fps</a>, which consumes about 440 MB per minute).<sup id="fnr2-2024-04-09"><a href="#fn2-2024-04-09">2</a></sup> [<strong>Update:</strong> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@mikeagore/112243702639727709">Mike Gore reminded me</a> that the iPhone 4S only shot H.264 video, not the more efficient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#:~:text=On%20September%207%2C%202016%20Apple,of%20iOS%2011%20in%202017.">HEVC format that debuted with iOS 11 in 2017</a>. 1080p 30 fps video recording in H.264 is about 130 MB per minute.]</p>
2106.  
2107. <p>It’s very easy for me and you to just declare that Apple ought to just foot the bill to offer more storage for over a billion users worldwide, but we’re not the ones making new TV commercials <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/09/dont-let-me-go-commercial">telling iPhone 15 users they needn’t worry about photo storage</a>. If Apple really wants iPhone users not to worry about photo storage, they should offer more with iCloud, cost-to-Apple be damned.</p>
2108.  
2109. <div class="footnotes">
2110. <hr />
2111. <ol>
2112.  
2113. <li id="fn1-2024-04-09">
2114. <p>Much like with Fuji’s <a href="https://jeffcarlson.com/2024/03/08/photoactive-159-fuji-x100vi-and-the-appeal-of-small-fixed-lens-cameras/">deservedly-heralded X100 line</a>, the fixed-lens Ricoh GR IIIx is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CX13K5JZ?tag=df-amzn-20">seemingly</a> <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1664769-REG/ricoh_15286_gr_iiix_digital_camera.html">backordered</a> everywhere — perhaps because <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/news/0569067557/ricoh-gr-iii-gr-iix-hdr-highlight-diffusion-filter">Ricoh recently announced a minor upgrade</a>. I bought a Fuji X100S in 2014 and loved it; but bought the GR IIIx a little over a year ago because it’s small enough to fit in a pocket and the X100 cameras aren’t. I just find myself carrying the smaller Ricoh more often than I did the X100S. They’re both absolutely terrific cameras.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr1-2024-04-09"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;</a></p>
2115. </li>
2116.  
2117. <li id="fn2-2024-04-09">
2118. <p>Idle thought that just occurred to me: is the paucity of available iCloud storage in the typical user’s account — free or $1/month — the reason why iPhones still default to shooting 1080p video rather than 4K? Default settings really matter. There are surely tens of millions (hundreds of millions?) of iPhone owners who shoot 1080p instead of 4K only because that’s the default. That’s a big difference in resolution for permanent memories. But I suspect almost everyone with 128 GB or more of storage has plenty of available space <em>on device</em> to store 4K video. It’s iCloud where they’re running short on space.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr2-2024-04-09"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;︎</a></p>
2119. </li>
2120.  
2121. </ol>
2122. </div>
2123.  
2124.  
2125.  
2126.    ]]></content>
2127.  <title>★ From the Department of Spending Tim Cook’s Money: Online Photo Storage Is Surely Expensive to Offer, but Apple Should Offer More</title></entry><entry>
2129. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://pokpok.sng.link/Dahqz/tfl2/zk3w" />
2130. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vf0" />
2131. <link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/pok_pok" />
2132. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024:/feeds/sponsors//11.40716</id>
2133. <author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
2134. <published>2024-04-09T02:22:41Z</published>
2135. <updated>2024-04-09T02:22:42Z</updated>
2136. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
2137. <p>Pok Pok is a delightful Apple Design Award and App Store Award winning collection of digital toys for kids aged 2–7. Designed by parents and educators unhappy with the apps they found, it has no ads, no overstimulating sounds, and no addictive gimmicks to get kids hooked. Each toy is playful and open, letting kids explore and discover at their own pace. Toys are expanded and new ones are added regularly to keep play fresh. Try it for free — you and your kid will love it.</p>
2138.  
2139. <div>
2140. <a  title="Permanent link to ‘Pok Pok’"  href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2024/04/pok_pok">&nbsp;★&nbsp;</a>
2141. </div>
2142.  
2143. ]]></content>
2144. <title>[Sponsor] Pok Pok</title></entry><entry>
2145.    
2146.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might" />
2147. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/vel" />
2148. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40701</id>
2149. <published>2024-03-30T00:58:20Z</published>
2150. <updated>2024-04-01T23:57:26Z</updated>
2151. <author>
2152. <name>John Gruber</name>
2153. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
2154. </author>
2155. <summary type="text">On the EU’s share of Apple’s worldwide revenue, and whether, per EC commissioner Thierry Breton, it is “unthinkable” not to serve the 450-million-citizen EU market.</summary>
2156. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
2157. <p>A couple of follow-up items regarding my column the other day, in which I idly speculated about whether the DMA might lead Apple (and/or perhaps Meta and Google) <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">to pull back from the EU market</a>.</p>
2158.  
2159. <p>First, a correction/clarification. Based on <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of-apples-q1-2024-analyst-call/">Six Colors’s transcript</a> of Apple’s Q1 2024 analyst call back in January, I quoted Apple CFO Luca Maestri as saying, in response to a question asking whether investors should be concerned that DMA compliance will hinder services revenue, “Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global <em>absolute</em> revenue.”</p>
2160.  
2161. <p>The word <em>absolute</em> was a transcription error, however.<sup id="fnr1-2024-03-29"><a href="#fn1-2024-03-29">1</a></sup> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6Q7-CKGhE&amp;t=4625s">Listen to the published recording of the call</a>, and it’s clear that what Maestri actually said was specifically in answer to the question: “Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global <em>App Store</em> revenue.” (My thanks to Oliver Reichenstein <a href="https://mastodon.social/@reichenstein/112171885005869415">for the timestamped pointer to the recording</a>.)</p>
2162.  
2163. <p>That’s an important correction that, as ever, I’m happy to make, but it doesn’t really change my speculation. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue">I wrote</a>:</p>
2164.  
2165. <blockquote>
2166.  <p>It’s unclear whether Maestri was saying that the EU accounts for 7
2167. percent of Apple’s worldwide <em>App Store</em> revenue, or 7 percent of
2168. <em>all</em> revenue, but I suspect it doesn’t matter, and that both are
2169. around 7 percent. App Store revenue ought to be a good proxy for
2170. overall revenue — there’s no reason to think EU Apple users spend
2171. any less or any more in the App Store than users around the world. </p>
2172. </blockquote>
2173.  
2174. <p>It’s certainly possible that EU citizens account for significantly more (or even less) than 7 percent of Apple’s overall global revenue, but it strikes me as very unlikely that the EU’s share of Apple’s overall revenue is significantly different from its share of App Store revenue. I struggle to come up with any explanation for why the EU might account for only 7 percent of App Store revenue but significantly more (or less) of Apple’s overall revenue. Why would overall revenue from any region differ significantly from the App Store revenue from the same region, on a percentage basis? But it is an open question. (I hope an analyst asks Cook and Maestri about it directly on the next quarterly call in May.)</p>
2175.  
2176. <hr />
2177.  
2178. <p>Second, I missed that the European Commission, alongside <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1689">its announcement that it had opened non-compliance investigations</a> against Google, Apple, and Meta under the Digital Markets Act, also separately published <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_24_1702">remarks from its two leaders</a>, executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager and commissioner Thierry Breton.</p>
2179.  
2180. <p>From Vestager’s remarks, which were delivered in English:</p>
2181.  
2182. <blockquote>
2183.  <p>The third one relates to the objective of the DMA to open closed
2184. ecosystems to enable competition at all levels. Under Article 6(3)
2185. of the DMA, gatekeepers have an obligation to enable easy
2186. uninstallation of apps and easy change of default settings. They
2187. must also display a choice screen. Apple’s compliance model does
2188. not seem to meet the objectives of this obligation. In particular,
2189. we are concerned that the current design of the web browser choice
2190. screen deprives end-users of the ability to make a fully informed
2191. decision. Example: they do not enhance user engagement with all
2192. available options. Apple also failed to make several apps
2193. un-installable (one of them would be Photos) and prevents
2194. end-users from changing their default status (for example Cloud),
2195. as required by the DMA. </p>
2196. </blockquote>
2197.  
2198. <p>I don’t know what she means by “depriv[ing] end-users of the ability to make a fully informed decision” or “they do not enhance user engagement with all available options”. I can only guess that she’s complaining that <a href="https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1765188112349798551">Apple’s current browser choice screen</a> doesn’t actively encourage users to pick a browser other than Safari? But it doesn’t encourage users to choose Safari, either, and the choices are listed in randomized order each time. <a href="https://www.threads.net/@firerock31/post/C4JmbjoP9Tb">The iOS 17.4 choice screen</a> just says what a default web browser is, and then offers a list of the most popular browsers in the user’s country.</p>
2199.  
2200. <p>As I wrote this week, there aren’t many un-installable apps on iOS. I might be missing some, but the list I came up with: Settings, Camera, Photos, App Store, Phone, Messages, and Safari. Vestager makes clear in her remarks what wasn’t clear in the EC’s announcement of the investigation: they have a problem with Photos. If they follow through with a demand that Photos be completely un-installable (not just hidable from the Home Screen, as it is now), this would constitute another way that the EC is standing in as the designer of how operating systems should work. Photos is not just an app on iOS; it’s the system-level interface to the camera roll. <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/control-which-apps-have-photos-access/">This is integrated throughout the entire iOS system</a>, with per-app permission prompts to grant differing levels of access to your photos. Vestager is saying that to be compliant with the DMA, Apple needs to allow third-party apps to serve as the system-level image library and camera roll. That is a monumental demand, and I honestly don’t even know how such a demand could be squared with system-wide permissions for photo access. This is product design, not mere regulation. Why stop there? Why not mandate that Springboard — the Home Screen — be a replaceable component? Or the entire OS itself? Why are iPhone users required to use iOS? Why are iOS users required to buy iPhones?</p>
2201.  
2202. <p>Then we get to Breton’s remarks, the first half of which were delivered in his native French. Here are two translations of his French remarks, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/03/thierry-breton-remarks-ios-translate.text">from the iOS Translate app</a> and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/03/thierry-breton-remarks-google-translate.text">from Google Translate</a>. To my reading, there are no significant semantic differences between the two translations. Here’s the bulk of it, amalgamating the best from both translations:</p>
2203.  
2204. <blockquote>
2205.  <p>And I will tell you a simple but important thing: in 18 days, the
2206. DMA has moved the lines of the digital giants more than in the
2207. last 10 years. </p>
2208.  
2209. <p>It’s not me who says it, but developers and users who finally see
2210. concrete changes and openness to give everyone the opportunity to
2211. gain market share, for example for browsers. </p>
2212.  
2213. <p>In 18 days, therefore, already very concrete results. Why? </p>
2214.  
2215. <p>Because it is an internal market regulation. This is where the
2216. revolution operates. </p>
2217.  
2218. <p>You know how much I fought for the DMA to be a so-called “domestic
2219. market” regulation, ex ante therefore. Because it is the best way
2220. to promote our continent, Europe, which is an open continent, but
2221. according to our conditions. </p>
2222.  
2223. <p>And a market of 450 million customers is simply unthinkable for
2224. anyone not to be there. </p>
2225.  
2226. <p>Where the digital giants could pay fines of several billion
2227. dollars without batting an eye — by the way, when they had to
2228. pay them, after long years of procedures, which was not
2229. systematic, far from it... — today none of them can afford not
2230. to be in our market. </p>
2231.  
2232. <p>This is the reality of the balance of power of the world in which
2233. we operate. </p>
2234.  
2235. <p>So does everyone play the game perfectly the first time? We are
2236. entitled to doubt it of course and we are here to doubt by
2237. definition in a way I would say. </p>
2238.  
2239. <p>At the very least, to check. </p>
2240.  
2241. <p>And that’s what we’re doing today. </p>
2242. </blockquote>
2243.  
2244. <p>Breton’s remarks in French were, in some ways, far zestier than his subsequent remarks in English. Breton lays bare the EC’s belief that they hold all the cards — that it is “unthinkable” for any of the designated gatekeepers not to conduct business in the EU, and that “none of them can afford not to be in our market.”</p>
2245.  
2246. <p>Perhaps he’s right, and I’m all wet for even speculating that one or more of the gatekeepers will pull one or more of their products from the EU market as a result of the DMA’s onerous demands and the threat of huge fees. But I, for one, consider it very thinkable. (Especially for Meta, as you’ll see next.)</p>
2247.  
2248. <p>From Breton’s remarks delivered in English:</p>
2249.  
2250. <blockquote>
2251.  <p>First, today we are opening a case against Meta. We suspect that
2252. Meta is breaching the DMA rules on data combination [Article
2253. 5(2) DMA]. </p>
2254.  
2255. <p>You all heard about Meta’s “Subscription for No Ads” model. With
2256. this new model, users have to pay if they want to use Facebook and
2257. Instagram without targeted advertising. And this has forced
2258. millions of users across Europe into a binary choice: “pay or
2259. consent”. And if you consent, Meta can use your data, generated
2260. for example on Messenger, to target ads on Instagram. </p>
2261.  
2262. <p>But the DMA is very clear: gatekeepers must obtain users’ consent
2263. to use their personal data across different services. And this
2264. consent must be free! We have serious doubts that this consent is
2265. really free when you are confronted with a binary choice. With the
2266. DMA, users who do not consent should be provided with a less
2267. personalised alternative of the service, for example financed
2268. thanks to contextual advertising. But they do not have to pay. </p>
2269. </blockquote>
2270.  
2271. <p>The EC’s problem here is that when faced with the clear choice between using Meta’s platforms free of charge with targeted advertising, or paying a monthly fee, the overwhelming majority of people choose to use the service free of charge with targeted ads. Just because typical people overwhelmingly prefer free services with targeted ads doesn’t mean that a paid subscription isn’t a fair alternative. Here’s Margrethe Vestager herself, back in 2018, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/competition/interview/vestager-id-like-a-facebook-that-i-pay-with-full-privacy/">in an interview with Jorge Valero of Euractiv</a>:</p>
2272.  
2273. <blockquote>
2274.  <p>My concern is more about whether we get the right choices. I would
2275. like to have a Facebook in which I pay a fee each month, but I
2276. would have no tracking and advertising and the full benefits of
2277. privacy. It is a provoking thought after all the Facebook scandal.
2278. This market is not being explored. </p>
2279. </blockquote>
2280.  
2281. <p>A provoking thought indeed, but apparently this was only worth exploring until they found out that EU citizens would overwhelmingly consent to free services with targeted ads. Privacy fundamentalists can’t seem to accept that most people don’t share their fervor that <em>consensual</em> targeted advertising is inherently wrong. Most people see it as a good deal.</p>
2282.  
2283. <p>The obvious solution would be for the European Commission to pass a law banning targeted advertising. But I suspect they haven’t done that, and won’t, because so many publishers in the EU use targeted advertising (<a href="https://mobiledevmemo.com/pay-or-okay-and-the-prospects-for-digital-advertising-in-the-eu/">along with “pay or OK” subscription offerings</a>). They don’t want to eliminate all targeted advertising, just Meta’s (and Google’s), but that’s hard to put into written law while claiming not to be targeting specific American companies.</p>
2284.  
2285. <p>It’s certainly possible that Meta can devise ways to serve non-personalized contextual ads that generate sufficient revenue per user.<sup id="fnr2-2024-03-29"><a href="#fn2-2024-03-29">2</a></sup> But if they can’t, the rubber hits the road on Breton’s belief that none of the designated gatekeepers “can afford not to be in our market”. Why exactly would Meta choose to remain in the EU if they’re forced to offer their services for pennies on the dollar (or in this case, cents on the euro)? Out of the goodness of Mark Zuckerberg’s heart?</p>
2286.  
2287. <p>Consider too that if Meta goes along with this interpretation by the EC of the DMA’s requirements, and offers a vastly-less-lucrative free-of-charge option to use Instagram and Facebook without targeted ads in the European Union, there’s nothing to stop regulators and legislators around the world from demanding the same. Conceding to this might mean not just generating only a fraction of Meta’s current revenue in the EU, but generating only a fraction of its current revenue worldwide.</p>
2288.  
2289. <p>Breton — after casting a stink eye at Google for presenting its own hotel, flight, and shopping recommendations in web search results, and at Amazon for promoting its own Amazon-branded products (a shocking practice for a retailer — good luck ever finding <a href="https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature.html">Kirkland</a> products at Costco, <a href="https://www.target.com/b/up/-/N-q643leuvcp7">Up &amp; Up</a> at Target, or, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands">say</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNw-l37rXsg">Ol’ Roy dog food</a> at Walmart, right?) — concludes with a threat:</p>
2290.  
2291. <blockquote>
2292.  <p>Should we have indications of ineffective compliance or possible
2293. circumvention of the DMA, we will not hesitate to make use of the
2294. DMA’s full enforcement toolbox, including innovative tools that
2295. did not exist in antitrust enforcement such as the retention
2296. orders. And if our investigations conclude that there is lack of
2297. full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers will face heavy fines. </p>
2298.  
2299. <p>We have a duty: ensuring full compliance with the DMA. And we will
2300. do all we can to create an online space that is fair and
2301. competitive to the benefit of all consumers and businesses
2302. operating in our Single Market. </p>
2303. </blockquote>
2304.  
2305. <p>Turns out, though, that <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1bf9r6n/google_search_of_locations_no_longer_working_as/">actual users</a> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1bc0ttj/integration_on_google_search_page/">don’t agree</a> that removing longstanding features from Google search results is somehow for their benefit. I’m guessing they’d see even less benefit if entire popular services and products were removed from the EU market.</p>
2306.  
2307. <div class="footnotes">
2308. <hr />
2309. <ol>
2310.  
2311. <li id="fn1-2024-03-29">
2312. <p>Jason Snell <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2023/02/automating-podcast-transcripts-on-my-mac-with-openai-whisper/">uses OpenAI’s amazing Whisper</a> to generate the first draft of these transcripts, but he does proofread them. But neither he nor I thought “absolute” sounded weird in that context. Snell, of course, has now corrected the transcript.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr1-2024-03-29"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;</a></p>
2313. </li>
2314.  
2315. <li id="fn2-2024-03-29">
2316. <p>One obvious solution would be to show more ads — a lot more ads — to make up for the difference in revenue. So if contextual ads generate, say, one-tenth the revenue of targeted ads, Meta could show 10 times as many ads to users who opt out of targeting. I don’t think 10× is an outlandish multiplier there — given how remarkably profitable Meta’s advertising business is, it might even need to be higher than that. But showing that many ads would be such a bad experience that I suspect it would land Meta right back where they are today with the paid subscription option, with the EC declaring it non-compliant because users don’t want it.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr2-2024-03-29"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;︎</a></p>
2317. </li>
2318.  
2319. </ol>
2320. </div>
2321.  
2322.  
2323.  
2324.    ]]></content>
2325.  <title>★ More on the EU’s Market Might</title></entry><entry>
2326.    
2327.    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenue" />
2328. <link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/ve9" />
2329. <id>tag:daringfireball.net,2024://1.40689</id>
2330. <published>2024-03-26T19:32:28Z</published>
2331. <updated>2024-03-30T01:11:31Z</updated>
2332. <author>
2333. <name>John Gruber</name>
2334. <uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
2335. </author>
2336. <summary type="text">The DMA allows the EC to penalize “gatekeepers” with fines that are vastly disproportionate to the amount of revenue they generate in EU member states.</summary>
2337. <content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
2338. <p>A few readers have asked about <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/ec_non_compliance_investigations">my speculation</a> that Apple, along with the other DMA-designated gatekeepers (none of which are European companies of course), might reasonably pull out of the relatively small EU market rather than risk facing disproportionately large fines from the European Commission. The DMA allows the EC to fine gatekeepers up to 10 percent of global revenue (which would hit a hardware-based company like Apple particularly hard) for a first offense, and up to 20 percent for subsequent fines. But the EU represents only 7 percent of Apple’s revenue. <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of-apples-q1-2024-analyst-call/">That figure comes from CFO Luca Maestri on Apple’s Q1 2024 analyst call</a>:</p>
2339.  
2340. <blockquote>
2341.  <p><strong>Amit Daryanani, Evercore:</strong> Fair enough, and then as a follow up,
2342. you folks have implemented a fair bit of changes around the apps
2343. for in Europe post the DMA implementation there. Can you just
2344. touch on what are some of the key updates and then Luca, does
2345. NetApp at all, do you see it having any significant impact
2346. financially to your services or the broader Apple P&amp;L statement. </p>
2347.  
2348. <p>[<em>Remarks from Tim Cook omitted.</em>] </p>
2349.  
2350. <p><strong>Luca Maestri:</strong> Yes, and Amit, as Tim said, these are changes that
2351. we’re going to be implementing in March. A lot will depend on the
2352. choices that will be made. Just to keep it in context, the changes
2353. apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global
2354. <s>absolute</s> App Store revenue.</p>
2355. </blockquote>
2356.  
2357. <p>[<strong>Update 29 March:</strong> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_might">See transcription correction here</a>. Maestri said “App Store revenue”, not “absolute revenue”.]</p>
2358.  
2359. <p>It’s unclear whether Maestri was saying that the EU accounts for 7 percent of Apple’s worldwide <em>App Store</em> revenue, or 7 percent of <em>all</em> revenue, but I suspect it doesn’t matter, and that both are around 7 percent. App Store revenue ought to be a good proxy for overall revenue — there’s no reason to think EU Apple users spend any less or any more in the App Store than users around the world.</p>
2360.  
2361. <p>There’s some “<em>7 percent sounds way too low</em>” confusion that stems from the fact that Apple, in its <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf">quarterly consolidated financial statements</a>, breaks results into five geographic regions: Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan, and “Rest of Asia Pacific”. “Europe” accounts for somewhere around 25 percent of Apple’s global revenue. That’s the number most people think about. But there are a significant number of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)">high-GDP countries</a> in Europe that <a href="https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/list-non-eu-countries_en">aren’t in the EU</a> — the UK (most famously), Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, Norway, and Ukraine. More importantly, Apple’s “Europe” includes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Middle_Eastern_countries_by_GDP">the entire Middle East</a>.</p>
2362.  
2363. <p>So EU member states account for only 25–30 percent of Apple’s revenue from “Europe”, and just 7 percent globally. 7 percent is significant, to be sure, and in addition to users, there are of course many iOS and Mac developers in EU countries. I really don’t know what Apple pulling out of the EU would even look like, but it would be ugly. Could they merely stop selling the iPhone there but continue selling other products? Would that create a massive gray market for iPhones imported from outside the EU? How would Apple deal with the hundreds of millions of existing iPhone owners in the EU? I have no idea. It would be a mess, to be sure, but the DMA has already made doing business in the EU a mess for Apple and the other designated gatekeepers. But one can make the case — <a href="https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1764769326182146472">as Eric Seufert has</a> — that American companies have to at least <em>consider</em> the fact that doing business in the EU isn’t worth the risk of fines so vastly disproportionate to the revenue they generate in the EU. </p>
2364.  
2365. <p>And it’s not like the risk is merely a first-offense fine of up to 10 percent of annual global revenue and a single second fine of up to 20 percent — there’s no limit to how many times the EC can fine a gatekeeper for non-compliance with the DMA’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/ec_non_compliance_investigations">arbitrary and vague rules</a>.</p>
2366.  
2367. <p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/04/1235887120/apple-music-spotify-fine-european-union">EC just fined Apple $2 billion</a> for violating article 102(a) of their rules on competition, for hindering Spotify (a European company — surely a coincidence) in the music streaming market. <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A12008E102">The entirety of article 102(a)</a>:</p>
2368.  
2369. <blockquote>
2370.  <p>Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position
2371. within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be
2372. prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as
2373. it may affect trade between Member States. </p>
2374.  
2375. <p>Such abuse may, in particular, consist in: </p>
2376.  
2377. <p><b>(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling
2378.    prices or other unfair trading conditions;</b></p>
2379. </blockquote>
2380.  
2381. <p>Where “unfair” is never defined. That’s as specific as the law gets. Note too that the base penalty for this infraction, per the EC’s 2006 guidelines, was €40 million, but the EC raised the fine by a factor of 45× to €1.8 <em>billion</em> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161">because the guidelines aren’t binding</a>:</p>
2382.  
2383. <blockquote>
2384.  <p>In addition, the Commission decided to add to the basic amount of
2385. the fine an additional lump sum of €1.8 billion to ensure that the
2386. overall fine imposed on Apple is sufficiently deterrent. Such lump
2387. sum fine was necessary in this case because a significant part of
2388. the harm caused by the infringement consists of non-monetary harm,
2389. which cannot be properly accounted for under the revenue-based
2390. methodology as set out in the Commission’s 2006 Guidelines on
2391. Fines. In addition, the fine must be sufficient to deter Apple
2392. from repeating the present or a similar infringement; and to deter
2393. other companies of a similar size and with similar resources from
2394. committing the same or a similar infringement. </p>
2395. </blockquote>
2396.  
2397. <p>Judging from the EC’s actions and statements, there’s no reason to believe that the EC will <em>not</em> pursue maximum fines under the DMA.<sup id="fnr1-2024-03-26"><a href="#fn1-2024-03-26">1</a></sup></p>
2398.  
2399. <div class="footnotes">
2400. <hr />
2401. <ol>
2402. <li id="fn1-2024-03-26">
2403. <p>In addition to weighing revenue generated in the EU vs. the risk of fines of 10–20 percent of global revenue, the designated “gatekeepers” are already paying significant penalties in terms of engineering resources. Every software engineer working on features related to DMA compliance is an engineer not working on new features or improving existing features for the non-EU world. I suspect Apple is currently spending more than a commensurate-with-revenue 7 percent of engineering resources on DMA compliance features and APIs.&nbsp;<a href="#fnr1-2024-03-26"  class="footnoteBackLink"  title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">&#x21A9;&#xFE0E;</a></p>
2404. </li>
2405. </ol>
2406. </div>
2407.  
2408.  
2409.  
2410.    ]]></content>
2411.  <title>★ The EU’s Share of Apple’s Global Revenue</title></entry></feed><!-- THE END -->
2412.  

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