I usually try to avoid quoting just the end of an essay (spoilers!) but the closing lines in today’s Stratechery update are great:
"…once upon a time — back when “There’s an app for that” was about developers’ contribution to the iPhone — Apple valued developers; today, when “There’s an app for that” is about Apple’s supposed sacrifice in building developer tools and SDKs, Apple resents them. A legal argument about IP monetization has become a righteous tenet, and Apple is defending said tenet with the fervor and blinders of the true believer."
Apple has lost their way with the App Store.
https://stratechery.com/2024/apple-and-the-dmc-apple-and-or-a-reluctant-apple-apologist/
Almost a little surprised Apple has banned Epic yet again, because it just further supports a potential EU argument that Apple is not in compliance with the DMA. From Epic’s blog post:
"If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to utilize a third party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their audience at any time."
A key part of the DMA is to loosen a gatekeeper’s control over distribution, but even with iOS 17.4, Apple still has all the power.
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/apple-terminated-epic-s-developer-account
Dusting off Android builds for Epilogue this morning, after a new iOS build was submitted to Apple. New versions of Android Studio, React Native, Gradle conflicts, and much more command-line chaos. Might almost have it under control.
Even putting aside the long list of gripes about how Elon Musk ran Twitter into the ground, I’m worried about his influence on the 2024 election. Meeting with Trump to potentially fund his campaign. Twitter overwhelmed with misinformation. It feels precarious.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/us/politics/trump-elon-musk.html
If you’re a fan of Brandon Sanderson, make sure to watch today’s crowdfunding video to the end. I’m excited. Also going to pick up Dragonsteel Prime, but skipping the leatherbound books. 📚
MacStories has a summary of EU rules tweaks today with the arrival of iOS 17.4. For marketplaces, the €1 million line of credit is no longer required if you have 1 million annual installs in the EU. Doesn’t appear to be any meaningful concessions from Apple, and no changes to the CTF that I can see.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/05/apple-tweaks-eu-app-store-business-terms/
Rearranged part of the living room to create a workspace, with new prints from Cameron Moll on the wall.
Craig Hockenberry blogs about some of the questions that are being asked about Tapestry. Whether the app should create new posts or not is interesting. Most feed readers don’t have posting either, and it’s a slippery slope from basic posts to replies to eventually needing your own social network.
Having a difficult time finishing books this year. Keep starting new ones but not ready to officially let the other ones go. So just going back and forth between multiple books. Need a couple short books to get out of this cycle. 📚
Dune, part 2. Stunning. So much there that it was almost overwhelming… Loved it. 🍿
On the latest episode of @coreint, we talk about Apple’s now-cancelled car project, speculate on what Tim Cook meant by “break new ground” on generative AI, and reflect on Apple’s highly-curated public image.
https://coreint.org/2024/03/episode-589-breaking-new-ground/ https://micro.blog/coreint
Early voted today in the Texas primary. Sad to admit I don’t have high expectations for Democrats here this year. Almost impossible to focus on anything except Biden vs. Trump. 🇺🇸
Great news for PWAs: Apple is not disabling them in the EU after all. It seemed like an unnecessary reaction to the DMA, so I’m very glad to see this. Wonder if there was pushback from web folks inside Apple too.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/01/apple-home-screen-web-apps-ios-17-eu/
Victor Wembanyama doing things no one has ever done in the NBA before. Great highlights here: www.threads.net/@nba/post… 🏀
I can’t get over how nonsensical Trump sounds sometimes. From yesterday’s trip to the border:
"…millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages. We have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They are truly foreign languages, nobody speaks them."
What?! 🇺🇸
This goes well with my post yesterday.
Great post on WP Tavern by Ronny Shani about the state of WordPress’s Data Migration initiative. It also mentions Blog Archive format. I’d love to see WordPress just adopt .bar or something similar enough to be compatible with it.
https://wptavern.com/data-liberation-meet-wordpress-orgs-ambitious-plan-for-2024
Happy leap day! Seth Godin blogs about making the leap to blogging every day:
"It wasn’t an external leap. The first hundred blog posts were read by fewer than a dozen people.
It was an internal one. The decision to be a blogger. And then redeciding, each day, not to stop."
The country has been very patient waiting on the Trump trials, and this latest delay with the Supreme Court makes it feel like we’ve been scammed. It has been three years! Guess there’s the NY case but it won’t carry the same weight. 🇺🇸
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/us/supreme-court-trump-immunity-trial.html
Uploading a new beta of Micro.blog for iOS with some more fixes. This should be ready to ship later this week. We’ve also dusted off our app Sunlit, so there will be a new version of that soon too.