Apple is up to its old tricks again–will they work this time?

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trick or retreat

Sometimes the best defense is retreat—just ask Leonidas and William the Conqueror. Sometimes pretending to run away can lull your opponent into a false sense of security and provoke reckless miscalculations.

That’s certainly Apple’s philosophy, anyway. The Cupertino colossus has perfected the art of feigned retreat, calculating to the second the optimal moment to abandon its shield wall and concede just enough ground to deflate an attacker and avoid more significant losses.

Apple fought self-repair on multiple fronts for years, publicly claiming that such procedures could go wrong and privately aware that the licensed repair network makes a lot of money. But when the right-to-repair movement gained too much momentum to ignore any longer, the company announced a Self Repair Program that was obviously designed to be as unappealing as possible. “Hey, you win! We surrender, and we’re making all these concessions to prove it! I guess there’s no need to campaign on this issue any longer…”

But self-repair is just one example of a strategy Apple has used to good effect across its business. USB-C, sideloading, environmental protections: proponents of each faced the same tedious struggle, first battering away at Apple’s locked door, and then trying not to fall on their faces when it’s suddenly and unexpectedly thrown open… only to reveal another locked door barely any further along. And worst of all, Apple will take credit for the concession as if it was being altruistic, rather than yielding to insurmountable pressure at the most convenient moment.

The latest feigned retreat relates to alternative app payment systems, an area where several powerful bodies think Apple is on the wrong side of history. Some of these (notably Spotify and Epic Games) have what we might call skin in this particular game, given how much money they could save if the system was changed. But even more ideologically neutral organizations such as the European Commission are inclined to agree that iOS app makers should be able to direct users to non-Apple payment and subscription systems, and thereby avoid having to give the company quite so much money.

Needless to say, despite the principle being enshrined in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, this all sounds like a very bad idea to Apple, and the company has been doing its best to either not comply at all, or comply in the most half-hearted way it can get away with. Last week, presumably with teeth gritted while typing the press release, it announced that apps are now free to link to websites, other apps, or wherever they like and that they are no longer restricted in the interface and language used for this purpose. But there was, inevitably, a fly in the ointment.

Even if you use outside payment systems, you still need to obtain the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement. And there are still lots of fees: a 5 percent Initial Acquisition Fee for any new user, a 10 percent Store Services Fee for all purchases made on any platform, and the controversial Core Technology Fee for all new app installs (which you can avoid in some cases, but likely with the result that the Store Services Fee will jump to 20 percent). In the expert assessment of my colleague Jason Cross, it looks like app makers will end up paying less in fees than before, but the whole system is needlessly complex.

Wise to the feigned retreat strategy, Apple’s opponents quickly moved to condemn the concessions as insufficient. Spotify told TechCrunch the move was “deliberately confusing” and “unacceptable.” Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney, meanwhile, described Cupertino’s actions as “malicious compliance” and condemned what he described as “an illegal new 15% junk fee.”

But these are the condemnatory voices we would expect. After all, Apple isn’t trying to convince Spotify and Epic Games; it’s trying to convince regulators and lawmakers not to place further restrictions on its business, and not to slam it with heavy fines. On that basis, it’s too early to tell if this particular feigned retreat has worked, or whether it will end up turning into a real retreat or even a wide-scale collapse of the walled garden. But whatever happens, you can bet it won’t be the last one Apple tries.

Have your say

I got an interesting response to last week’s column about the iPad’s false dawn.

“You are somewhat in a bubble,” reader Ted Anderson accused me. “Maybe you think everyone is like you and your friends. Some of us NEED a touchscreen in order to run certain music and art apps.

“I went from Mac to Windows years ago simply because an app called StaffPad came out and only ran on Windows with a touchscreen. Now, because I won’t tolerate Microsoft’s Recall, I’m switching back to Apple. StaffPad now runs on iPad, so that’s my only option. I don’t just lounge on the couch streaming movies. I compose music and orchestrate and play it with the only app that does all that with super high quality and exquisite instrument sounds. Nothing comes close.”

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Podcast of the week

The first set of Apple Intelligence features has been released to developers! What features are available? And what’s it like to use them? We’re talking about our early impressions of Apple Intelligence on this episode of the Macworld Podcast!

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

Best PDF editor for Mac: Functionality and precision.

Best stylus for iPad: Drawing, designing and note-taking.

The rumor mill

The Mac mini is getting even smaller with first redesign in 15 years.

Apple will finally launch the iPhone Air in 2025, leaker claims.

Apple is planning a mess of M4 Mac updates this fall with ‘dramatic changes’ in store.

Apple Watch SE to get ‘more kid-friendly’ with plastic redesign.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

Apple just issued an emergency iPhone and Mac update to fix this iCloud bug.

Check your mail, because Apple may have sent you a $395 check.

Apple to patch decades-old ‘0.0.0.0 Day’ vulnerability in upcoming Safari update.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, or Twitter for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.