EU Fines Apple $2 Billion →

The Verge’s Jon Porter and Jess Weatherbed:

In a press release on Monday, the EU Commission said its investigation found that “Apple bans music streaming app developers from fully informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app,” in addition to preventing app providers from sharing instructions on how to subscribe to such offers.

“For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy. “They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules, so today we have fined Apple over €1.8 billion.”

Apple issued a statement this morning, right before releasing new notebooks:

Despite that success, and the App Store’s role in making it possible, Spotify pays Apple nothing. That’s because Spotify — like many developers on the App Store — made a choice. Instead of selling subscriptions in their app, they sell them on their website. And Apple doesn’t collect a commission on those purchases.

All told, the Spotify app has been downloaded, redownloaded, or updated more than 119 billion times on Apple devices. It’s available on the App Store in over 160 countries spanning the globe.

Apple goes on to list a bunch of ways it says they have helped Spotify achieve success, including features like CarPlay, access to Apple’s APIs, and fast App Store Review times. No one should have expected Apple to take this without a fight.

Apple Reverses Course on PWAs in EU →

Chance Miller with some big news over at 9to5Mac:

Last month, Apple confirmed that iOS 17.4 would remove support for Home Screen web apps in the European Union. At the time, Apple said this decision was due to requirements under the Digital Markets Act related to support for alternative browser engines on iPhone.

Apple is now walking back that decision and says it will “continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU.”

Here is Apple’s full statement to Miller:

Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA. The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS.

We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.

Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the EU can expect the return of the existing functionality for Home Screen web apps with the availability of iOS 17.4 in early March.

When Apple said it was pulling support for PWAs in this release, it said it was because of the new rule that allows third-party browsing engines to run on iOS. Apple claimed that giving those third-party codebases all of the access that “Home Screen web apps” need to work would make the iPhone less secure.

Now, they are here to stay, but it’s important to note that these PWAs will still run atop WebKit, the engine that powers Safari. If you install Firefox or Chrome, and those browsers are using their own rendering engines, those engined will not power any PWAs a user has installed.

This is a move in the right direction. Even though PWAs aren’t widely used among iOS users, cutting them off in the EU with iOS 17.4 was a bad move. I’m curious if this last-minute change is at the behest of the EU, or if Apple is just trying to get ahead of things here. I’m also curious to see if PWAs being tied to WebKit will stand the test of time.

Simple Scan →

Greg Pierce, the developer behind great apps like Drafts, Tally, and more is out with a new app that I am loving. It’s called Simple Scan, and it’s the fastest and least-annoying way I’ve ever seen to scan documents with the iPhone and iPad.

Here is how Greg describe it:

Do you love the Apple Notes document scanner, but would you like more flexibility in sending the scans to email, messages, files, or other apps? Then Simple Scan is for you. Simple Scan is the quick, easy way to scan paper documents to optimized, searchable PDF documents (or images) and send them almost anywhere.

I’ve tried a bunch of different scanning apps over the years and most of them are just too cluttered or come with goofy business models.

Simple Scan is different. Here’s the whole UI:

Simple Scan

This is an app clearly made by the guy who makes Drafts, as it’s all about taking information and sending it somewhere. While I often scan documents in Apple Notes, and know that I can do it in the Files app, this app is the perfect tool for scanning documents to save for later or send to another person.

The business model is also simple, as you can see. It’s just $4.99 a year or $19.99 forever. I instantly did the latter. Simple Scan is in the App Store now.

Apple’s Sports Features are Messy →

Jason Snell:

When I got my first demo of the new Apple Sports app, I admit to being a little surprised: didn’t Apple already do live sports scores? Hadn’t I just seen the Arsenal score and play-by-play on my iPhone on Sunday morning when I was in the kitchen making breakfast?

I had. And it has led to a lot of confusion about what the Apple Sports app does and doesn’t do, which highlights just how scattered Apple’s current effort to bring information to sports fans really is. I imagine that it wasn’t planned to work this way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple connects all of its disparate sports pieces eventually, but in the meantime things are a little confusing.

Let me attempt to clear it up a little bit.

I for one hope that Apple Sports becomes the single stop for all things scores, stats, and news for the teams I follow.

Apple Launches Apple Sports to Track Sports Scores →

Today’s the opening day of MLS, and Apple has a new iPhone app out for sports lovers. Here’s a bit from the company’s press release:

Apple today introduced Apple Sports, a free app for iPhone that gives sports fans access to real-time scores, stats, and more. Designed for speed and simplicity, the app’s personalized experience puts users’ favorite leagues and teams front and center, featuring an easy-to-use interface designed by Apple. Apple Sports is available to download now in the App Store in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada.

Everyone’s favorite Report Card Daddy Cal fan Jason Snell spoke with Eddy Cue about the new app:

“I just want to get the damn score of the game,” Cue says. “And it’s really hard to do, because it seems like it’s nobody’s core [feature].” In a sports data world increasingly driven by fantasy and betting, Apple’s not trying to build an adjunct to some other app business model. (There are some betting lines displayed in the app, but there’s also a setting down in the Settings app to turn them off if you don’t want to see them.)

“We said, ‘We’re going to make the best scores app that you could possibly make,’” Cue said.

I love Eddy Cue.

The app is pretty straightforward. It pulls in any favorite teams you’ve set in the TV app, and you can add additional favorites. If you’re freaking out that your college football team isn’t listed, don’t worry, an update will be coming to add them before they get started later this year.

My beloved Memphis Tigers don’t play basketball until this evening, but in poking around the app this morning I was a little surprised at the lack of notification settings, especially given how much control sports fans have come to expect in this area thanks to apps like ESPN or Sports Alerts. I will report back after I see how this all sorts out.

In terms of data, the app has everything I would expect as a basketball fan, including play-by-plays, team stats and full box scores. However, you can only go back in time one day to see data from previous games. I would like to see Apple have historic data in the app, at least for the current season. I’d also like to see widget support, but I can see that coming in an update easily enough.

Apple Vision Pro Gaming →

I think John Voorhees has played just about every game out for visionOS, but it’s interesting that the software isn’t the biggest issue:

In the final analysis, the trouble with the Apple Vision Pro is its lack of ports. Unless you’re relying on the games available on the App Store, that means you’ll have to contend with some sort of wireless connection. And, although there are some fun games on the App Store, the selection is far more limited than on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS, so it’s worth casting a wider net.

iTunes for Windows is Gone →

Juli Clover:

The Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Devices apps that Apple has been testing for Windows machines have officially launched, ending a long preview period and bringing an end to the iTunes app on some computers.

This comes almost 21 years since iTunes for Windows initially launched. Here’s a bit from the 2003 press release:

Apple today launched the second generation of its revolutionary iTunes Music Store for both Mac and Windows users. The new iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store that Mac users love—with the same music catalog, the same personal use rights and the same 99 cents-per-song pricing. Since its launch six months ago, music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 13 million songs from the iTunes Music Store, making it the number one download music service in the world. With music from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels, the iTunes Music Store catalog is growing every day and will offer more than 400,000 songs by the end of October.

“The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way people legally buy music online, and now it’s available to tens of millions more music lovers with iTunes for Windows,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “While our competitors haven’t even come close to matching our first generation, we’re already releasing the second generation of the iTunes Music Store for Mac and Windows.”

Project Tapestry →

The folks at The Iconfactory have a Kickstarter campaign running for an app built for the open web:

What if you had one app that gave an overview of nearly everything that was happening across all the different services you follow? A single chronological timeline of your most important social media services, RSS feeds, and other sources. All of the updates together in one place, in the order they’re posted, with no algorithm deciding what you should see or when you should see it.

With Project Tapestry, we’ll create a universal, chronological timeline for any data that’s publicly available on the Internet. A service-independent overview of your social media and information landscape. Point the app toward your services and feeds, then scroll through everything all in one place to keep up-to-date and to see where you want to dive deeper. When you find something that you want to engage with or reply to, Tapestry will let you automatically open that post in the app of your choice and reply to it there. Tapestry isn’t meant to replace your favorite Mastodon app or RSS reader, but rather to complement them and help you figure out where you want to focus your attention.

I think this is super interesting, and pitched in $40 as soon as I saw it. I do have one feature request: to rebuild a Nuzzel-like experience, letting me quickly see what links are being talked about most across the sources I have loaded into the app.

A Tour of QuickTime VR →

Michael Steeber:

Despite the profound impact Apple Vision Pro will have on the Apple Retail experience, I’ve scarce mentioned it here on Tabletops, and that’s no accident. A major new platform deserves careful study and an awful lot of context — the kind that’s only possible to grasp when the product is available in stores.

The future makes more sense when you understand the past, which is why I’m sharing this slice of history with you today.

Alternative Browsers Coming to EU iPhones →

As part of the sweeping changes coming to the iOS ecosystem in the wake of the Digital Markets Act, iOS will be opened up to run third-party browser engines, and regardless of their underpinnings, third-party browsers will be presented as options to users. John Voorhees has the details:

One element of the changes coming to iOS in the European Union is that beginning with iOS 17.4, EU users will see a choice of browsers when they first launch Safari that can be set as the systemwide default browser. For each country, that list will contain the 12 most popular browsers from its App Store storefront displayed to the user in a random order.

As you can imagine, there is overlap among EU member countries, but there are plenty of differences, too. If you’re curious which browsers will be listed in your country, check out the lists for each of the 27 EU member countries after the break that Apple has told us will appear the first time Safari is launched in iOS 17.4.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because the EU has been down this road before.

37signals Resubmits Its Calendar App, Includes Dates in Apple History to Get Past App Review

There’s been a lot of news about HEY’s new calendar app being rejected by App Store Review. In a lengthy X thread discussing the issue, David Heinemeier Hansson revealed that HEY has resubmitted the app to Apple, this time with some built-in content that seems awfully familiar:

He goes on:

For each of my three Kickstarters, I’ve included digital versions of the highlighted dates for people to import into their calendar apps.

Here’s HEY’s included calendar data:

HEY History Calendar

…and some of the work I’ve done over the years:

History Calendar Example

To be clear, from these screenshots, it doesn’t seem like HEY copied my direct work or research, and I only came across this after someone sent me a link to DHH’s tweets.

(Also: I think Apple’s rejection of HEY’s app is silly, just as it was last time, despite the company’s history.)

It’s a real bummer to feel like I’ve been ripped off by a much bigger company, seeing them pitch something I’ve worked hard on as a free feature in their app. There’s some irony there.

Update: On January 9, Apple approved Hey Calendar, complete with the demo data.