Tech News Roundup for June 24, 2020
Today’s roundup includes stories from the past few days, even before WWDC, since the Monday roundup was focused on that event.
Apple Relents on hey.com App, Makes Minor Changes to App Approval Guidelines
After significantly backlash and a rare rebuke from large companies over its App Store policies, Apple has made a couple small changes to the process in which they approve apps. The company has said that it will no longer deny app updates that contain only bug fixes when there is a dispute with a developer over whether an app meets the App Store guidelines. Apple also says that it will add a mechanism for developers to appeal whether or not their app does violate the guidelines, something that somehow did not exist before. Developers will also be able to challenge the actual guidelines themselves. Considering that Apple continues to take the stance that the guidelines themselves do not need to be changed, it is not clear if that will actually lead to anything meaningful.
This is a very small step towards the eventual goal. I personally don’t think it is enough, and I suspect the EU’s antitrust investigation will not think so either. More has to change, and it is likely that Apple will need to be taken kicking and screaming into it.
Several Companies Pull Facebook Ads Over Stance on Content Moderation
Several companies, including The North Face, Eddie Bauer, and Ben & Jerry’s have announced that they will no longer be advertising on Facebook after the social media company has so far taken a very hands off approach to misleading, manipulated, and racist content. To this point Facebook has pulled one Trump campaign ad that featured a Nazi symbol, but has allowed other content to exist unchecked. This is in contrast to companies like Twitter which have been taking a more aggressive stance, flagging content which it believes attempts to incite violence, is racist, or is provably false.
The current group of companies is likely not enough to make a material impact on Facebook’s total advertising revenue, however if more high profile advertisers begin to pull their ads, and money, from Facebook, the pressure will increase for action from the company that Mark Zuckerberg still largely controls.
Questions Remain after WWDC
Apple announced that they are shifting their Mac computers to Apple designed ARM processors over the next 2 years, but one of the unanswered questions is around how well those computers will actually perform compared to computers with Intel processors. I talked a bit about this here. While I don’t believe Apple will release a product that is objectively bad, It is telling that they haven’t said just how performant those computers will be, just that they will have “industry leading performance per watt” The Verge goes into detail about this, much more than I did. It is worth a read. But I don’t believe it will be long until we have some idea, because developer kits running the Apple A12Z, which is the processor in the iPad Pro, will begin shipping this week to developers who apply and get accepted into the program.
Microsoft Closing Mixer Game Streaming Service
Microsoft announced that it is closing down Mixer, its game streaming service. Mixer was a competitor to Amazon’s Twitch, and to a lesser extent YouTube’s live streaming platform for users to stream video game play live. Microsoft bought the platform, then called Beam, in 2016 and changed the name to Mixer in 2017. Mixer support was built into Windows 10 and the Xbox One. Microsoft tried to drive users to it, signing deals with some of the most well known streamers to stream exclusively on Mixer. Less than one year ago Microsoft signed the game streamer who goes by the name “Ninja” to a deal worth a reported $30 Million USD. However, it appears the service just has not gained enough traction, and Microsoft will be shutting it down on July 22
Microsoft has announced that after July 22 the Mixer service will redirect to Facebook Gaming, and that users who use the platform to stream will be automatically migrated to the Facebook Gaming service. Personally, with the general dislike of Facebook in the streaming community, I believe that many of those streamers will move to Twitch.
Canadian Government’s Contact Tracing App Sinks App Developed in New Brunswick
Here is an interesting one. Apparently Apple and Google are restricting the contact tracing technologies in iOS and Android to one app per country to maximize its effectiveness. I hadn’t considered this, but it makes sense. However, this meant that once the Canadian government announced it was beginning to test a national app in Ontario, it rendered an app that was being developed by the province of New Brunswick useless, as the national app would take precedence of the Apple and Google technologies.
Alberta has its own contact tracing app, and as of this time it is not clear if that app also uses the Apple and Google technologies. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Alberta developed app once the national app begins a wider roll out.