The ghost that haunt Apple as the calendar turns to 2024
Christmas may have come and gone but there are still several pesky ghosts haunting Apple as it heads into 2024.
(Look, you try to come up with a fresh holiday theme for a technology column. It’s not easy.)
As we wind down 2023, it’s time to take a look at Apple’s problems heading into 2024. Because that’s a thing that we do.
The Beeper saga
The David and Goliath story of Beeper Mini and Apple appeared to be winding down in the last weeks of 2023. Beeper made a last-ditch effort to enable Android device messages to appear in iMessage threads as native using jailbroken iPhones. It’s very simple. You sign up with Beeper and they rent you a jailbroken for a monthly fee.
Sure, that will scale.
Given this sweet solution, you might have been excused for thinking we were done here, but now it looks like the U.S. government might get involved.
What? What’s next? The government demanding that fan-made episodes of Star Trek Continues be made canon in the main Star Trek universe? Well, Beeper’s argument is that Apple’s position in the U.S. is large enough to make it a de facto monopoly.
This might be true if Apple was a small company. But they aren’t. They control more than 50% of the US smartphone market, and lock customers into using Apple’s official app for texting…
It’s not a terrible argument. And is being able to identify Android-users in your Message threads something you really need or want? The Macalope doesn’t.
The Apple Watch 9 ban
Last week Apple turned off the flow of Apple Watch 9s as it faced an impending ban on the devices due to a ruling by the International Trade Commission that the blood oxygen sensor infringed on a patent held by Masimo.
Apple has said it hopes to get around the patent infringement by issuing a software update, but Masimo’s CEO seems to think it would have to be a magical software update that changes hardware since his company’s patent is for both.
It was rather unexpected to see the airing of “The Year Without An Apple Watch” this holiday season, but if the Macalope had to guess, this issue will probably get resolved by Apple spraying Masimo in the face with a hose that shoots cash instead of water. The Watches must flow.
EU and other governments
Like that kid in math class who’s always reminding the teacher he forgot to assign homework, the EU has been consistently on Apple’s nerves about one thing or another for the last 5,000 years. The government of South Korea has also tried to keep up in the game but, let’s face it, the EU has turned it into an art form.
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All these efforts seem to be chipping away at things that matter to Apple–maintaining the non-steering provisions and keeping other app stores off iOS. But these are unlikely to significantly impact regular users in any negative way at all. Quite the contrary. At any rate, the way that Apple will enable these capabilities if it is indeed really forced to, will likely be in the most grudging of terms possible to render any concerns about a threat to the user experience moot.
So, while Apple would consider this a terrifying Ghost of Christmas Future, with the black robes and bony fingers silently pointing at things like USB C connectors, the rest of us consider it more of a jolly barrel-chested man like the Ghost of Christmas Present or Titus Burgess.
Note for producers planning holiday productions for next year: Titus Burgess would nail it as the Ghost of Christmas Present.
Labor relations
It is a sad thing to have to say that labor relations will continue to be a problem for the richest company in the world next year. Not every problem faced by Apple can be solved by throwing money at it but this is probably one and it’s a bad look on the company that it doesn’t consider doing at least that.
Still, though, don’t let these ham-fistedly holiday-themed ghosts spook you. Apple’s assets obviously outweigh its liabilities. Indeed, with problems like these, who needs worries?
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