Linked List: May 17, 2023

Wednesday, 17 May 2023

Porsche Adds Support for Apple Maps EV Routing ★

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Porsche is signing on to be the second EV maker to officially adopt support for EV routing in Apple Maps. This means that Porsche Taycan drivers can now use Apple Maps via CarPlay, signaling Porsche’s continued commitment to CarPlay as other automakers abandon Apple’s platform.

It’s not other automakers plural. It’s just one: GM.

But I’m sure GM knows better than Porsche.

Follow-Up on GM’s ‘Edsel’ Pipe Dream for Tens of Billions in Annual Services Revenue: Apple Makes Most of Its Services Revenue From the App Store ★

In my piece yesterday digging into the numbers on GM’s plan to generate $20–25 billion in annual subscription services revenue by the end of the decade, I originally neglected to mention (but have since added) the single largest source of services revenue for Apple: the App Store. Here’s Kif Leswing reporting for CNBC in January this year:

On Tuesday, Apple said it has paid $320 billion to developers, up from $260 billion as of last year, a jump of $60 billion. Developers receive between 70% and 85% of gross sales, depending on if they qualify for Apple’s reduced rate.

If all developers paid a 30% cut to Apple, Apple’s App Store grossed more than $85 billion in 2022, based on a CNBC analysis. If Apple’s commissions were all 15%, the App Store’s estimated gross would come in lower, around $70 billion.

I’m not quite sure how to square these estimates with Apple’s figures from their quarterly reports — according to Apple’s reports, the company only booked a total of about $80 billion in services revenue for 2022. And we know from the Apple v. Epic lawsuit that 70 percent of App Store revenue comes from gaming.

[Wait wait wait I figured it out: My bad for misreading the numbers (which I think were confusingly described). I mistakenly thought Leswing was saying that Apple’s commissions were $70-85 billion last year. That’s not what he meant and that’s obviously far too high. But the math is really rather simple. $320 billion is the sum of Apple’s cumulative payments to developers from 2008 to 2022. $60 billion is what Apple paid to developers in 2022. Duh. Of course they didn’t pay $320 billion last year alone. So let’s assume that Apple’s average commission from App Store purchases is 25 percent, which seems both fair (given that 70 percent of App Store revenue comes from gaming and in-app purchases carry a 70/30 split) and makes the math really easy for last year. With $60 billion in payments to developers in 2022, Apple’s take was $20 billion. So about one quarter of Apple’s services revenue comes from App Store commissions — that squares perfectly with a common sense estimate. (Also: the fact that almost 20 percent of the App Store’s cumulative revenue was generated last year alone goes to show just how much it’s still growing.)]

How in the world does GM CEO Mary Barra think they’re going to replicate anything like this? Why drop support for the much-liked CarPlay — a feature Apple says 79 percent of new car buyers in the U.S. want — to chase a pipe dream? I can’t put it better than James Dempsey quipped on Mastodon: “It’s like CurrentC, but for cars!”

But it’s even worse than that, because at least the CurrentC consortium’s ill-fated scheme to avoid supporting Apple Pay at brick-and-mortar retail stores came at a time when Apple Pay was nascent. Back in 2014 a survey never would have found that 79 percent of U.S. shoppers wanted Apple Pay support at the register. GM is making this move now, after CarPlay has become both standard and liked by an overwhelming majority of buyers — including GM’s own customers.

Pew Research Center: ‘Majority of U.S. Twitter Users Say They’ve Taken a Break From the Platform in the Past Year’ ★

Pew Research Center:

A majority of Americans who have used Twitter in the past year report taking a break from the platform during that time, and a quarter say they are not likely to use it a year from now, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted about five months after billionaire Elon Musk acquired the site.

The saving grace for Twitter might be that people don’t always follow through with what they tell pollsters. They might answer honestly with what they think they’ll do, or should do, but they don’t really know what they will do. Commission a poll in December and ask people how many books they plan to read next year, or how often they plan to hit the gym, for example.

But with that caveat out of the way, this survey is pretty damning. A lot of Twitter users no longer enjoy Twitter, and Twitter is meant for enjoyment. Musk’s only hope is that people will continue using Twitter even if they don’t enjoy it, and I don’t see that happening. Facebook gets away with that to a large extent because so many people feel obligated to use it to stay in touch with family and friends. Twitter doesn’t carry any sense of obligation.

Elon Musk Defends Anti-Soros Tweets in Bananas Interview on CNBC: ‘I’ll Say What I Want’ ★

CNBC:

Elon Musk told CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday that he doesn’t care if his inflammatory tweets scare away potential Tesla buyers or Twitter advertisers. “I’ll say what I want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” said Musk, who owns Twitter. Musk has for years tweeted controversial items, including conspiracy theories and comments his critics have called broadly discriminatory.

His defense came after Musk caught renewed criticism for a tweet in which he likened liberal billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros to X-Men villain Magneto, a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

“He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity,” Musk tweeted Monday.

There are some moments in this video interview that are just cringe-inducing. Even just the awkward pauses. (Faber, to my mind, did a hell of a job — Musk is obviously a very difficult person to interview.) I’m starting to get real Bobby Fischer vibes from Musk — a genius, yes, but descending into conspiratorial hateful madness. But Fischer became a recluse; Musk is one of the most prominent people in the world.

Jason Snell on Final Cut and Logic for iPad ★

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

Final Cut Pro for iPad seems to be a subset of the Mac version. You can start on iPad and move to Mac, but the migration won’t work the other way, and a bunch of features from the Mac just aren’t there on the iPad.

This is disappointing. Yes, the lack of feature parity is unfortunate — but perhaps a bit understandable? But as someone who rarely uses those pro-level features, it’s also frustrating to realize that even my simple projects won’t be portable in case I need to leave home and run off somewhere with an iPad.

Logic Pro users can roundtrip between Mac and iPad, but as Snell points out, not if you’re using any Audio Unit plugins that are Mac-only.

The lack of roundtripping with Final Cut is disappointing, but I agree with Snell that it’s understandable. Presumably, roundtrip support between iPad and Mac is forthcoming, and requires engineering work that isn’t yet finished — either in iPadOS itself or in Final Cut Pro for iPad (or both). But what would we prefer? To wait for months or another year for Final Cut to hit iPad? After waiting this long, Apple wouldn’t release Final Cut for iPad now if they didn’t think it was a viable product as it stands, even without roundtrip project support with the Mac.

Don’t miss my favorite part of Snell’s piece, where he describes how productive he is editing podcasts on iPad with Ferrite Recording Studio because it has rich support for multitouch. It’s a perfect example of Steve Jobs’s guiding maxim for the iPad when he introduced it in 2010: that it needs to be able to do some things better than either the iPhone or Mac.

Drudge Hints That Laura Ingraham Is Next on Fox News’s Shitcan List ★

Alex Griffing, writing for Mediaite:

The Drudge Report dropped a siren-blaring scoop on Wednesday announcing an imminent shake-up at Fox News, eventually reporting that Sean Hannity will take over at 8 p.m.

“WORLD EXCLUSIVE: FOXNEWS SETS NEW SCHEDULE” read the headline from Matt Drudge on the highly-trafficked website he founded. Drudge eventually updated that headline to note Hannity’s new gig as well as report both Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld would be heading to prime time.

Watters currently hosts one of Fox’s top-rated shows at 7 p.m. while Gutfeld hosts a highly-rated late-night show at 11 p.m. — both co-host Fox’s top-rated program The Five at 5 p.m. Hannity, meanwhile, broke the record for longest-running cable news prime time host in April of 2022, eclipsing Larry King at 25 years, six months, and 15 days.

“FOXNEWS is preparing to announce an ambitious new schedule, the Drudge Report has learned, a schedule where ever hour of primetime will change!” Drudge reported. “TOP SOURCE TELLS DRUDGE: ‘IT’S OUR BOLDEST AND MOST FEARLESS LINE-UP EVER’…”

Ingraham isn’t mentioned by name, but there are only three prime-time hours, so if they go to Hannity, Watters, and Gutfeld, she’s following Tucker Carlson out the door. Tomorrow will mark six years since Roger Ailes’s death. It feels like Fox News was running on autopilot since then — but the Murdochs have woken from their slumber and are shaking things up.