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★ Spotify’s Car Things to Be Rebranded as Car Bricks

So let’s be clear about Spotify’s position: it’s OK — for them at least — to create a new hardware platform with no support at all for third-party software, but not OK for another company to create a hardware platform that charges a commission for access, if that platform becomes popular.

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge, “Spotify Is Going to Break Every Car Thing Gadget It Ever Sold”:

Unfortunately for those owners, Spotify isn’t offering any kind of
subscription credit or automatic refund for the device — nor is
the company open-sourcing it. Rather, it’s just canning the
project and telling people to (responsibly) dispose of Car Thing.

“We’re discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to
streamline our product offerings,” Spotify wrote in an FAQ on its
website
. […] The company is recommending that customers do
a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly
recycling the hardware. Spotify is also being direct and
confirming that there’s little reason to ever expect a sequel. “As
of now, there are no plans to release a replacement or new version
of Car Thing,” the FAQ reads.

Car Thing was initially made available on an invite-only basis in
April 2021
, with Spotify later opening a public waitlist to
buy the accessory later that year. The $90 device went on
general sale in February 2022 — and production was halted
five months later.

No word in Spotify’s Car Thing bricking FAQ about when they’re dropping support for Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. Oh, that’s right, they never supported any music services other than their own, despite having spent the last decade petitioning their home-turf European Commission to secure unfettered pay-no-commission access to platforms created by Apple and Google. It actually worked for them with Google.

Spotify and European Commission supporters are likely to respond to the above by arguing that Car Thing is totally different from the iPhone and Android. Car Thing was never popular at all, and iPhone and Android combine to form a duopoly that controls the entire market for phones. “Gatekeepers” must play by different rules to rein in their gatekeeping power, and Car Thing was by no means a gatekeeping platform.

That’s all true, but what do you think Spotify planned to do if Car Thing became a hit product? Do you think they planned to open it up to competing streaming services after it became popular? I doubt it. And if you think they not only would have opened Car Thing up to competing services, but would have done so without charging significant commissions or fees, I have a bridge to sell you.

To be clear, I think it’s fine for companies to create hardware exclusively for the use of their own services. And of course I also think it’s fine (great, in fact) to create hardware that is open to third-party software free of charge. But it’s also fine to create console platforms where third-party software is subject to fees and commissions paid to the platform owner. Spotify’s anti-App-Store rhetoric would lead you to believe that Apple only began extracting 30/15 percent commissions from in-app subscriptions after the iPhone became a dominant platform.

But that’s not what happened at all. When Apple announced the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs stated that their goal was to achieve 1 percent market share of the phone market by the end of 2008. At the end of 2008, they surpassed that goal, hitting a whopping 1.1 percent market share:

Nokia, 38.6%
Samsung, 16.2%
LG, 8.3%
Motorola, 8.3%
Sony Ericsson, 8%
RIM, 1.9%
Kyocera, 1.4%
Apple, 1.1%
HTC, 1.1%
Sharp, 1%

2008 was also the year the App Store launched, with support for free apps (no commission charged to developers) and paid apps (30 percent commission). Apple added subscriptions in early 2011, with the same 70/30 split. All of the iPhone’s subsequent success happened with that App Store commission in place, and that commission has only gone down over time — most notably, for Spotify, by dropping the commission from 30 to 15 percent for subscription renewals after the first year, starting in 2016.

The number one free download from the App Store in 2008 was Pandora Radio, a music streaming app. Other early hits included Last.FM and AOL Radio. But when Spotify announced they’d submitted their first version to the App Store in 2009, it was an open question whether Apple would allow it. Paid Content: “Spotify Waves iPhone Buzz Under Apple’s Nose” and “What If Apple Blocks Spotify’s iPhone App?BBC News: “Spotify has been called an ‘iTunes killer’ because of its ease of use and its comprehensive, free library of millions of songs.” TechCrunch: “Spotify in the iPhone App Store – Will Apple Approve It?

And my guess:

But so the big question is whether Apple will accept the app,
despite the fact that Spotify is clearly a competitor to the
iTunes Store. They should. For one thing, competition is good for
Apple. For another, I think rejecting Spotify from the App Store
could result in an antitrust investigation from the EU.

Apple did, of course, accept Spotify into the App Store. They eventually added the ability for third-party apps to play audio in the background too. I was wrong only in thinking that allowing Spotify into the App Store could avoid antitrust scrutiny from the EU.

So let’s be clear about Spotify’s position: It’s OK — for them at least — to create a new hardware platform with no support at all for third-party software, but not OK for another company that owns its own music service to create a hardware platform that offers access to any and all competing services, but charges a commission for access, if that platform becomes popular. Once sufficiently popular, it’s only fair to allow Spotify access to those platforms free of charge, despite the fact that Spotify never allowed third parties access to their own platform at all, and built their own success through access to the App Store, at a time when the iPhone had single-digit market share for phones and low-teens market share among “smartphones”. Got it.

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‘Jerky, 7-Fingered Scarlett Johansson Appears in Video to Express Full-Fledged Approval of OpenAI’

The Onion:

In response to allegations that the artificial intelligence
research organization used the actress’s voice without consent, a
jerky, seven-fingered Scarlett Johansson appeared in a video
Thursday to express her full-fledged approval of OpenAI. “It is
me, Scar Johnson, to express to the internet that everything about
OpenAI is a-okay to me, thank you,” said the shaky, stuttering
Johansson, pausing to give several three-foot-long thumbs-ups
before explaining that OpenAI has all legal rights over her name,
image, and likeness.

Coming soon to Google search results near you.

 ★ 

The Onion:

In response to allegations that the artificial intelligence
research organization used the actress’s voice without consent, a
jerky, seven-fingered Scarlett Johansson appeared in a video
Thursday to express her full-fledged approval of OpenAI. “It is
me, Scar Johnson, to express to the internet that everything about
OpenAI is a-okay to me, thank you,” said the shaky, stuttering
Johansson, pausing to give several three-foot-long thumbs-ups
before explaining that OpenAI has all legal rights over her name,
image, and likeness.

Coming soon to Google search results near you.

Read More 

Some Goofy Results From ‘AI Overviews’ in Google Search

Asked “how many rocks should i eat” [sic], Google Search responded:

According to UC Berkeley geologists, eating at least one small
rock per day is recommended because rocks contain minerals and
vitamins that are important for digestive health. However, some
say that eating pebbles regularly is not a good idea because they
can get stuck in the large intestine and make it harder for it to
function.

Ben Collins, newly-named CEO of The Onion, surmises that Gemini got this nutrition info from America’s finest new source.

In another winner, answering “cheese not sticking to pizza”, Google Search suggested:

Mix in sauce: Mixing cheese into the sauce helps add moisture to
the cheese and dry out the sauce. You can also add about 1/8 cup
of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness.

Maybe don’t eat the pizza at Google’s cafeteria, given that their recipe comes from renowned Reddit chef “fucksmith”. (We’re all rightly dunking on the Elmer’s Glue suggestion, but it’s just as wrong to suggest mixing cheese into the sauce. No one does that.)

Anyway, Apple is behind on AI.

 ★ 

Asked “how many rocks should i eat” [sic], Google Search responded:

According to UC Berkeley geologists, eating at least one small
rock per day is recommended because rocks contain minerals and
vitamins that are important for digestive health. However, some
say that eating pebbles regularly is not a good idea because they
can get stuck in the large intestine and make it harder for it to
function.

Ben Collins, newly-named CEO of The Onion, surmises that Gemini got this nutrition info from America’s finest new source.

In another winner, answering “cheese not sticking to pizza”, Google Search suggested:

Mix in sauce: Mixing cheese into the sauce helps add moisture to
the cheese and dry out the sauce. You can also add about 1/8 cup
of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness.

Maybe don’t eat the pizza at Google’s cafeteria, given that their recipe comes from renowned Reddit chef “fucksmith”. (We’re all rightly dunking on the Elmer’s Glue suggestion, but it’s just as wrong to suggest mixing cheese into the sauce. No one does that.)

Anyway, Apple is behind on AI.

Read More 

OpenAI Shows Records and Plays Recordings for Washington Post Showing They Really Did Hire an Unnamed Actress to Voice ‘Sky’

Nitasha Tiku, reporting for The Washington Post:

But while many hear an eerie resemblance between “Sky” and
Johansson’s “Her” character, an actress was hired in June to
create the Sky voice, months before Altman contacted Johansson,
according to documents, recordings, casting directors and the
actress’s agent.

The agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the
safety of her client, said the actress confirmed that neither
Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI. The
actress’s natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky
voice, based on brief recordings of her initial voice test
reviewed by The Post. The agent said the name Sky was chosen to
signal a cool, airy and pleasant sound.

Joanne Jang, who leads AI model behavior for OpenAI, said that the
company selected actors who were eager to work on an AI product.
[…] Jang said she “kept a tight tent” around the AI voices
project, making Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati the sole
decision-maker to preserve the artistic choices of the director
and the casting office. Altman was on his world tour during much
of the casting process and not intimately involved, she said.

This seemingly clears OpenAI of any suspicion that they were lying about having hired an unnamed actress to provide Sky’s voice, and had actually trained it on recordings of Johansson. I will admit I had my suspicions. (It also speaks to the importance of trusted institutions like the Post.)

But as Tiku elaborates, hiring an unnamed actress to provide the voice doesn’t necessarily get OpenAI out of jeopardy:

He compared Johansson’s case to one brought by the singer Bette
Midler against the Ford Motor Co. in the 1980s. Ford asked Midler
to use her voice in ads. After she declined, Ford hired an
impersonator. A U.S. appellate court ruled in Midler’s favor,
indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use. […]

Several factors go against OpenAI, he said, namely Altman’s tweet
and his outreach to Johansson in September and May. “It just begs
the question: It’s like, if you use a different person, there was
no intent for it to sound like Scarlett Johansson. Why are you
reaching out to her two days before?” he said. “That would have to
be explained.”

Tom Waits won a similar lawsuit against Frito-Lay in 1990, based on the Midler precedent.

 ★ 

Nitasha Tiku, reporting for The Washington Post:

But while many hear an eerie resemblance between “Sky” and
Johansson’s “Her” character, an actress was hired in June to
create the Sky voice, months before Altman contacted Johansson,
according to documents, recordings, casting directors and the
actress’s agent.

The agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the
safety of her client, said the actress confirmed that neither
Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI. The
actress’s natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky
voice, based on brief recordings of her initial voice test
reviewed by The Post. The agent said the name Sky was chosen to
signal a cool, airy and pleasant sound.

Joanne Jang, who leads AI model behavior for OpenAI, said that the
company selected actors who were eager to work on an AI product.
[…] Jang said she “kept a tight tent” around the AI voices
project, making Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati the sole
decision-maker to preserve the artistic choices of the director
and the casting office. Altman was on his world tour during much
of the casting process and not intimately involved, she said.

This seemingly clears OpenAI of any suspicion that they were lying about having hired an unnamed actress to provide Sky’s voice, and had actually trained it on recordings of Johansson. I will admit I had my suspicions. (It also speaks to the importance of trusted institutions like the Post.)

But as Tiku elaborates, hiring an unnamed actress to provide the voice doesn’t necessarily get OpenAI out of jeopardy:

He compared Johansson’s case to one brought by the singer Bette
Midler against the Ford Motor Co. in the 1980s. Ford asked Midler
to use her voice in ads. After she declined, Ford hired an
impersonator. A U.S. appellate court ruled in Midler’s favor,
indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use. […]

Several factors go against OpenAI, he said, namely Altman’s tweet
and his outreach to Johansson in September and May. “It just begs
the question: It’s like, if you use a different person, there was
no intent for it to sound like Scarlett Johansson. Why are you
reaching out to her two days before?” he said. “That would have to
be explained.”

Tom Waits won a similar lawsuit against Frito-Lay in 1990, based on the Midler precedent.

Read More 

How to Make Google’s ‘Web’ View Your Search Default

Ernie Smith, writing at Tedium:

But in the midst of all this, Google quietly added something else
to its results — a “Web” filter that presents what Google used to
look like a decade ago, no extra junk. While Google made its
AI-focused changes known on its biggest stage — during its Google
I/O event — the Web filter was curiously announced on
Twitter by Search Liaison Danny Sullivan. […]

The results are fascinating. It’s essentially Google, minus the
crap. No parsing of the information in the results. No surfacing
metadata like address or link info. No knowledge panels, but also,
no ads. It looks like the Google we learned to love in the early
2000s, buried under the “More” menu like lots of other old things
Google once did more to emphasize, like Google Books.

I haven’t tested it extensively but it sure looks like vastly superior search results than Google displays by default. The trick is to append &udm=14 to the end of your Google search URL. Smith documents how to use this URL structure as your default in a Chrome-derived browser, so that you get these “Web” results by default searches initiated from the browser location field. (Which, lo these many years later, remains the modern command line.)

Safari, uniquely amongst popular web browsers, doesn’t allow users to configure custom search engines. There are ways to get custom search engines in Safari using extensions — Kagi, my default search engine of choice since late 2022, does just this — but it’s kludgy. Why doesn’t Safari support adding custom search engines like every other browser does?

On the Mac, I initiate most web searches from LaunchBar, not Safari’s location field, and LaunchBar makes it trivial to add a custom search using this &udm=14 URL trick. Similar utilities like Alfred and Raycast do too. The downside compared to LaunchBar’s built-in Google search action (and Safari’s location field) is that a simple custom query URL doesn’t provide as-you-type suggested results.

 ★ 

Ernie Smith, writing at Tedium:

But in the midst of all this, Google quietly added something else
to its results — a “Web” filter that presents what Google used to
look like a decade ago, no extra junk. While Google made its
AI-focused changes known on its biggest stage — during its Google
I/O event — the Web filter was curiously announced on
Twitter
by Search Liaison Danny Sullivan. […]

The results are fascinating. It’s essentially Google, minus the
crap. No parsing of the information in the results. No surfacing
metadata like address or link info. No knowledge panels, but also,
no ads. It looks like the Google we learned to love in the early
2000s, buried under the “More” menu like lots of other old things
Google once did more to emphasize, like Google Books.

I haven’t tested it extensively but it sure looks like vastly superior search results than Google displays by default. The trick is to append &udm=14 to the end of your Google search URL. Smith documents how to use this URL structure as your default in a Chrome-derived browser, so that you get these “Web” results by default searches initiated from the browser location field. (Which, lo these many years later, remains the modern command line.)

Safari, uniquely amongst popular web browsers, doesn’t allow users to configure custom search engines. There are ways to get custom search engines in Safari using extensions — Kagi, my default search engine of choice since late 2022, does just this — but it’s kludgy. Why doesn’t Safari support adding custom search engines like every other browser does?

On the Mac, I initiate most web searches from LaunchBar, not Safari’s location field, and LaunchBar makes it trivial to add a custom search using this &udm=14 URL trick. Similar utilities like Alfred and Raycast do too. The downside compared to LaunchBar’s built-in Google search action (and Safari’s location field) is that a simple custom query URL doesn’t provide as-you-type suggested results.

Read More 

Trailer for Marvel’s Intriguing, but Annoyingly-Punctuated ‘What If…? An Immersive Story’

In addition to this immersive VisionOS-exclusive experience from Disney, Apple itself is releasing Parkour, the second episode of its own “Adventure” series, on Friday.

 ★ 

In addition to this immersive VisionOS-exclusive experience from Disney, Apple itself is releasing Parkour, the second episode of its own “Adventure” series, on Friday.

Read More 

Pixar Lays Off 175 Employees, 14 Percent of Staff, Shocking No One Who’s Tried Watching Their Recent Films

Samantha Masunaga, reporting for the LA Times:

Walt Disney Co.-owned computer animation studio Pixar is laying
off 14% of its staff, as it cuts back on the number of streaming
series it produces. The layoffs, which will affect about 175
employees, were signaled as far back as January. […]

But Emeryville, Calif.-based Pixar, in particular, has also
struggled to break out of a pandemic-induced slump at the box
office. While the storied studio known for “Toy Story,” “Finding
Nemo” and “Up” once churned out hit after hit, its recent
performance has been mediocre.

Animated films such as “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear,” released
in 2022, was a disappointment at the box office, as was
2020’s “Onward.” Last year’s “Elemental” opened with weak ticket
sales but managed to recover thanks to strong word-of-mouth
reviews.

After Lee Unkrich’s Coco (2017), Brad Bird’s The Incredibles 2 (2018), and Andrew Stanton’s Toy Story 4 (2019), I couldn’t name a Pixar film off the top of my head. After a few duds I stopped watching new Pixar movies automatically and waited for ones that were well-regarded. And I’m still waiting.

The core “Pixar braintrust” is gone — Steve Jobs is dead, Joe Ranft is dead, Ed Catmull retired, and John Lasseter was driven out of the company by scandal. Unkrich left Pixar in 2019. Stanton is still listed as creative vice president, but hasn’t helmed a Pixar movie since Toy Story 4. Of the braintrust, only Pete Docter — now Pixar’s chief creative officer, and the director Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out — remains. Stanton has directed a lot of live action episodic content since Toy Story 4, including Obi Wan for Disney, Better Call Saul, For All Mankind, and the only good episode of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. His next two projects are live action films, Revolver and In the Blink of an Eye. Brad Bird is directing a cool-sounding “retro-futuristic detective story” titled Ray Gunn, with Lasseter producing, but that’s for Skydance Animation, not Pixar.

There’s just nothing special about Pixar any more. Excellence is fragile, and genius talent is rare.

 ★ 

Samantha Masunaga, reporting for the LA Times:

Walt Disney Co.-owned computer animation studio Pixar is laying
off 14% of its staff, as it cuts back on the number of streaming
series it produces. The layoffs, which will affect about 175
employees, were signaled as far back as January. […]

But Emeryville, Calif.-based Pixar, in particular, has also
struggled to break out of a pandemic-induced slump at the box
office. While the storied studio known for “Toy Story,” “Finding
Nemo” and “Up” once churned out hit after hit, its recent
performance has been mediocre.

Animated films such as “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear,” released
in 2022, was a disappointment at the box office, as was
2020’s “Onward.” Last year’s “Elemental” opened with weak ticket
sales but managed to recover thanks to strong word-of-mouth
reviews.

After Lee Unkrich’s Coco (2017), Brad Bird’s The Incredibles 2 (2018), and Andrew Stanton’s Toy Story 4 (2019), I couldn’t name a Pixar film off the top of my head. After a few duds I stopped watching new Pixar movies automatically and waited for ones that were well-regarded. And I’m still waiting.

The core “Pixar braintrust” is gone — Steve Jobs is dead, Joe Ranft is dead, Ed Catmull retired, and John Lasseter was driven out of the company by scandal. Unkrich left Pixar in 2019. Stanton is still listed as creative vice president, but hasn’t helmed a Pixar movie since Toy Story 4. Of the braintrust, only Pete Docter — now Pixar’s chief creative officer, and the director Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out — remains. Stanton has directed a lot of live action episodic content since Toy Story 4, including Obi Wan for Disney, Better Call Saul, For All Mankind, and the only good episode of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. His next two projects are live action films, Revolver and In the Blink of an Eye. Brad Bird is directing a cool-sounding “retro-futuristic detective story” titled Ray Gunn, with Lasseter producing, but that’s for Skydance Animation, not Pixar.

There’s just nothing special about Pixar any more. Excellence is fragile, and genius talent is rare.

Read More 

Apple Loosens Core Technology Fee for Hobbyists and Small Developers

Apple Developer News, with an item from three weeks ago that I thought I’d already linked to but had not:

Today, we’re introducing two additional conditions in which the
CTF is not required:

First, no CTF is required if a developer has no revenue
whatsoever. This includes creating a free app without
monetization that is not related to revenue of any kind
(physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise). This condition
is intended to give students, hobbyists, and other
non-commercial developers an opportunity to create a popular app
without paying the CTF.
Second, small developers (less than €10 million in global annual
business revenue) that adopt the alternative business terms
receive a 3-year free on-ramp to the CTF to help them create
innovative apps and rapidly grow their business. Within this
3-year period, if a small developer that hasn’t previously
exceeded one million first annual installs crosses the threshold
for the first time, they won’t pay the CTF, even if they
continue to exceed one million first annual installs during that
time. If a small developer grows to earn global revenue between
€10 million and €50 million within the 3-year on-ramp period,
they’ll start to pay the CTF after one million first annual
installs up to a cap of €1 million per year.

The first item is simple. The second isn’t simple, but still makes the CTF far more palatable, and lower-risk, for small developers. But my main takeaway is that by all outward appearances, it seems like Apple’s DMA compliance plans are holding up, including the CTF. I find the European Commission utterly inscrutable, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes. But right now I think what we see from Apple regarding the DMA is what we’re going to get.

 ★ 

Apple Developer News, with an item from three weeks ago that I thought I’d already linked to but had not:

Today, we’re introducing two additional conditions in which the
CTF is not required:

First, no CTF is required if a developer has no revenue
whatsoever. This includes creating a free app without
monetization that is not related to revenue of any kind
(physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise). This condition
is intended to give students, hobbyists, and other
non-commercial developers an opportunity to create a popular app
without paying the CTF.

Second, small developers (less than €10 million in global annual
business revenue) that adopt the alternative business terms
receive a 3-year free on-ramp to the CTF to help them create
innovative apps and rapidly grow their business. Within this
3-year period, if a small developer that hasn’t previously
exceeded one million first annual installs crosses the threshold
for the first time, they won’t pay the CTF, even if they
continue to exceed one million first annual installs during that
time. If a small developer grows to earn global revenue between
€10 million and €50 million within the 3-year on-ramp period,
they’ll start to pay the CTF after one million first annual
installs up to a cap of €1 million per year.

The first item is simple. The second isn’t simple, but still makes the CTF far more palatable, and lower-risk, for small developers. But my main takeaway is that by all outward appearances, it seems like Apple’s DMA compliance plans are holding up, including the CTF. I find the European Commission utterly inscrutable, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes. But right now I think what we see from Apple regarding the DMA is what we’re going to get.

Read More 

Copilot+ Laptops and Stickers

A detail that caught my eye in Sean Hollister’s scathing review at The Verge of the MSI Claw, a Steamdeck-like handheld gaming device, is that the device has an ugly “Intel Core Ultra 7” sticker on it. The sticker doesn’t even look like it’s on straight.

This got me wondering if, in the switch from Intel and AMD x86 chips to Qualcomm ARM chips, PCs might finally get away from those ugly stickers that have been littering laptop palm rests for decades. Based on these product shots from Samsung for their Galaxy Book4 Edge, the answer is no. They still have stickers, just different ones. Maybe that’s just Samsung though? The product shots for Microsoft’s other Copilot+ launch partners don’t show stickers.

 ★ 

A detail that caught my eye in Sean Hollister’s scathing review at The Verge of the MSI Claw, a Steamdeck-like handheld gaming device, is that the device has an ugly “Intel Core Ultra 7” sticker on it. The sticker doesn’t even look like it’s on straight.

This got me wondering if, in the switch from Intel and AMD x86 chips to Qualcomm ARM chips, PCs might finally get away from those ugly stickers that have been littering laptop palm rests for decades. Based on these product shots from Samsung for their Galaxy Book4 Edge, the answer is no. They still have stickers, just different ones. Maybe that’s just Samsung though? The product shots for Microsoft’s other Copilot+ launch partners don’t show stickers.

Read More 

Semafor: ‘As Clicks Dry Up for News Sites, Could Apple News Be a Lifeline?’

Max Tani, writing for Semafor:

Like many digital publishers, The Daily Beast was struggling at
the end of 2023. Facebook, long a primary driver of clicks to the
publication, had turned away from news. Search traffic had become
increasingly erratic, as Google adjusted its algorithm to combat a
flood of AI-powered junk. The site’s paid subscription program had
atrophied since Donald Trump left office.

But it had a new lifeline: Apple.

Late last year, the digital news tabloid (where I worked from 2018
to 2021 as a media reporter) entered into Apple’s partnership
program, called Apple News+. The program made all of the
publication’s buzziest exclusives available to paying Apple
subscribers, behind Apple’s own paywall. And the impact for a
mid-sized news site was immediate, putting the Beast on track to
make between $3-4 million in revenue this year from Apple News
alone — more than its own standalone subscription program, and
without much additional cost.

Apple News+ is yet another example of Apple successfully playing long games, with patience and determination. Apple Pay is another example. When it debuted in 2019 Apple News+ was largely written off. But now I’m seeing more and more stories like this, writing about it as a success.

Could be some lessons here regarding knee-jerk no-patience “Apple is late to AI” takes.

 ★ 

Max Tani, writing for Semafor:

Like many digital publishers, The Daily Beast was struggling at
the end of 2023. Facebook, long a primary driver of clicks to the
publication, had turned away from news. Search traffic had become
increasingly erratic, as Google adjusted its algorithm to combat a
flood of AI-powered junk. The site’s paid subscription program had
atrophied since Donald Trump left office.

But it had a new lifeline: Apple.

Late last year, the digital news tabloid (where I worked from 2018
to 2021 as a media reporter) entered into Apple’s partnership
program, called Apple News+. The program made all of the
publication’s buzziest exclusives available to paying Apple
subscribers, behind Apple’s own paywall. And the impact for a
mid-sized news site was immediate, putting the Beast on track to
make between $3-4 million in revenue this year from Apple News
alone — more than its own standalone subscription program, and
without much additional cost.

Apple News+ is yet another example of Apple successfully playing long games, with patience and determination. Apple Pay is another example. When it debuted in 2019 Apple News+ was largely written off. But now I’m seeing more and more stories like this, writing about it as a success.

Could be some lessons here regarding knee-jerk no-patience “Apple is late to AI” takes.

Read More 

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