Image: Apple
Apple’s big App Store mess

Good morning! This Wednesday, the antitrust fight against Apple ramps up, social distancing wearables are everywhere, and Teslas go farther than ever.
(Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get Source Code every day.)
Advertisers can and should push Facebook and others to do better, Nancy Pelosi said:
Regulators should prevent an Amazon-Google voice assistant takeover, BBC director of radio James Purnell believes:
Ed Markey explained why he believes the U.S. needs a new National Broadband Plan:
On Protocol: MongoDB is winning the database race, and now it's working on your local data, too:
Spotify's been complaining to the EU for years that Apple's App Store policies are anticompetitive. Earlier this year, Rakuten filed a similar complaint. And yesterday, the EU responded by launching a formal antitrust investigation into Apple's App Store practices (and a second into whether Apple Pay's NFC capabilities should be opened up to other devices).
Here are both sides of the argument, the best I can tell, minus the "it's what's best for the user" part:
There are fair points on both sides, but the most consistent thing I heard yesterday was that even when Apple's rules are clear, they don't seem to be enforced clearly.
Apple chalked the EU complaints up to "a handful of companies who simply want a free ride, and don't want to play by the same rules as everyone else."
In related news: Remember Zynn, the TikTok clone I mentioned last week? Apple booted it from the App Store.
There was a whole generation of technology — Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb — that was designed to bring people together. It looks increasingly like a new generation will keep people apart.
Amazon introduced its "Distance Assistant," a service that uses the company's extremely precise camera tech to make sure people stay the proper distance apart. If you walk by its enormous screen, you'll see a virtual circle around yourself, which turns red if you're too close to someone else.
It looked like a global tech solution for social distancing was in sight in the form of the exposure tracking system developed by Apple and Google. But it seems that's going to be more complicated, and more expensive, than many developers hoped. Plus, many people just don't want to use it.
Protocol's Transformation of Work Summit
How can tech help identify and match in-demand skills with job opportunity? Hear from the Future of Work Caucus co-chairs Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Representative Bryan Steil (R-WI), followed by our expert panel with CEO of Jobs for the Future Maria Flynn, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies Matthew Sigelman, CEO of Colorado State University Global Dr. Becky Takeda-Tinker, and Chief People Officer of Aon Lisa Stevens. Presented by Workday.
The way things are going, we're about two weeks away from every Google product turning into a giant button that says TRY GOOGLE MEET IT'S LIKE ZOOM BUT FROM GOOGLE. The buttons grow ever bigger in calendar invites, the integration ever more intrusive in Gmail. And yesterday, Google even removed the need for a separate app — you can do Meet calls right there in Gmail's iOS and Android apps.
The two apps are coming at Zoom from opposite sides. Google wants Meet to be the default super-easy-one-click video chat tool. BlueJeans is hoping to win over the security-conscious IT manager who might also like the idea of a service owned by Verizon.
It continues to amaze me how fast we've gone from "all video chat apps are terrible" to being completely spoiled for choice — and as long as the video demand remains at such crazy levels, the competition's only going to get hotter.
Grindr has a new C-suite: Jeff Bonforte is its new CEO, Rick Marini its COO and Gary Hsueh its CFO. They're part of the investment team that bought the app, after its original acquisition by a Chinese company became a national-security problem.
Darren Walker is Square's newest board member. He's the president of the Ford Foundation, and the company's only current (and third-ever) Black board member.
James Baker is Twitter's newest deputy general counsel. He's a former FBI lawyer, and was a central figure in the probe into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia. Should be a totally non-controversial appointment, this one.
Maxim Williams is Roku's new VP of inclusion strategy and talent development. He's been at the company since 2018, and CEO Anthony Wood said he'll "work directly with me on our goals, strategy and culture."
Christie Smith, Apple's head of diversity and inclusion, is leaving the company. She's been there since 2017, and the move has apparently been in the works for a few months.
Tesla hit a big milestone yesterday: Its latest version of the Model S Long Range Plus has an official range of 402 miles, becoming the first electric car to pass the 400-mile threshold. It's been a long time coming. Tesla was going to hit it "soon" a year ago, then "soon" in January, and then Tesla thought it had, but the EPA found the range topped out at 391 miles. On the one hand: Who cares? Most trips are only a few miles, and Tesla's previous 370-mile range was … plenty. On the other, it turns out to be the range consumers have come to expect from their gas cars, and also the magical number at which most people's range anxiety goes away. Call me when the range hits 564 miles, and I can do San Francisco to the Las Vegas Strip in one charge.
Protocol's Transformation of Work Summit
How can tech help identify and match in-demand skills with job opportunity? Hear from the Future of Work Caucus co-chairs Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Representative Bryan Steil (R-WI), followed by our expert panel with CEO of Jobs for the Future Maria Flynn, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies Matthew Sigelman, CEO of Colorado State University Global Dr. Becky Takeda-Tinker, and Chief People Officer of Aon Lisa Stevens. Presented by Workday.
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to me, david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. If you continue browsing. you accept our use of cookies. You can review our privacy policy to find out more about the cookies we use.