Musk: Apple is threatening Twitter’s presence on the App Store
After Musk publishes a poll, asking if Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers…
Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
…a Twitter user asks if Apple is threatening Twitter’s presence in the App Store or otherwise making moderation demands? Musk:
Yes
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Musk then directly tweets that Apple has threatened to withhold Twitter from its App store:
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
When a Twitter user points out that 97.5% of Apple’s political donations were to the Democratic Party, Musk replies:
Wow, they don’t sound biased at all!
Musk asks Cook: Why has Apple stopped advertising on Twitter?
Musk asks Cook to tell him why Apple has stopped advertising on Twitter.
What’s going on here @tim_cook?
What’s going on here @tim_cook?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Musk will make phone if Apple, Google block Twitter
In response to a Twitter user who says Musk should make his own phone if Apple and Google remove Twitter from their app stores, Musk replies:
I certainly hope it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone
I certainly hope it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
Peer-to-peer payment app
Apple is talking with banks about developing a peer to peer payment service that would let those who own an iPhone send money to one another as easily as they send messages, Apple says it wants a bigger portion of the mobile payments industry. The new service is expected out some time in the coming year.
‘Privacy is a fundamental human right’
In an interview with NPR, Cook says that Apple is committed to its customers’ privacy.
We do think that people want us to help them keep their lives private. We see that privacy is a fundamental human right that people have. We are going to do everything that we can to help maintain that trust…Our view on this comes from a values point of view, not from a commercial interest point of view. Our values are that we do think that people have a right to privacy. And that our customers are not our products. We don’t collect a lot of your data and understand every detail about your life. That’s just not the business that we are in.
Malware discovered
Security firm Palo Alto Networks discovers that login names and passwords for more than 225,000 Apple accounts were stolen by cyber-thieves in China. Apple says hackers embedded malicious code into the App Store by persuading developers to use a counterfeit version of the firm’s own software. The program, dubbed KeyRaider, allows hackers to collect data from jailbroken devices.
We’ve removed the apps from the App Store that we know have been created with this counterfeit software. We are working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps.
VF interview: Talks about Apple letter
Swift talks about her Apple letter in an interview with Vanity Fair.
I wrote the letter at around four A.M. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.
She says she was nervous to post the letter online, after receiving negative feedback for her Wall Street Journal op-ed that had also advocated for fair compensation in the music industry. She says didn’t tell Borchetta, and the only person she ran it through before publishing was her mother
She’s always going to be the one. I just said, ‘I’m really scared of this letter, but I had to write it. I might not post it, but I had to say it.’
She compares Apples’ response with Spotify’s:
Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about. I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine.
Accepts Swift’s request to pay artists
Responding to Swift’s comments, the company agrees to pay artists during the three-month trial period.
We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
Swift responds:
https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/612841136311390209
Criticizes Apple Music’s non-payment of artists
In the note titled To Apple, Love Taylor, Swift criticizes Apple Music’s free three-month trial for users, a period of time in which the service will not compensate artists for what is streamed.
I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.
This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs…
…Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing. I say this with love, reverence, and admiration for everything else Apple has done. I hope that soon I can join them in the progression towards a streaming model that seems fair to those who create this music. I think this could be the platform that gets it right.
But I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.
Stores offline
The Company’s iTunes and App stores are offline for more than eight hours due to a DNS (doman name service) error. During this time customers worldwide are not able to buy or download items. Service for the iBooks Store also was interrupted. A timeline on Apple’s page said the outage started before 5 a.m. Access issues for users of iCloud Mail and other cloud services lasted about four hours, according to the timeline.
We apologize to our customers experiencing problems with iTunes and other services this morning. The cause was an internal DNS error at Apple. We’re working to make all of the services available to customers as soon as possible, and we thank everyone for their patience.
On mobile revolution
Schmidt discusses the impact of mobile technology in the world, and the competition between Apple and Google, in a “Bloomberg TV” interview.
Ten years ago, nobody in our audience was sitting with a mobile phone next to their bed. The internet access was largely in people’s offices and occasionally in homes. The internet has helped improving connectivity. This connectivity and mobile revolution has changed everything.
Android ‘dominates malware market’
Cook criticizes Google for not encouraging users to upgrade to a new version of Android. He says that nine out of ten iDevice users have upgraded to the latest version of iOS, but fewer than one out of ten Android users have the latest version, which introduces security risks:
This [upgrading] is particularly important for Android, which dominates the mobile malware market.