Apple's week May 2: Judgement Day

Apple's need to control everything has finally caught up in the United States court system. An injunction that threatened an admittedly small revenue source has led to a public black eye that's going to be hard to recover from.

Earnings came and went this week, and of course, all eyes were on tariffs. There's not much to discuss here, except that Apple is expecting to take a $900 million hit even with exemptions.

Also, everyone's got a dummy iPhone 17 model. It makes you wonder how long we are from someone just building an entirely functional iPhone preview before Apple even announces the thing.

As always, you can hear William and I discuss everything going on for the week on the AppleInsider Podcast.

Epic's big win

Apple has struggled with the latest wave of regulations to the point of seeming to commit to what is commonly referred to as aggressive compliance. It follows the law but makes it miserable for everyone involved.

The EU didn't like this when dealing with the DMA, and the US has also shown it won't tolerate it. The latest ruling has forced Apple to completely reverse its external linking and purchase policies, and it can't collect commissions at all at this point.

This has been heralded as a huge victory by Epic Games. The company has even created a system to help other developers build external payment options for their apps. It means never having to pay Apple any commission as long as customers make purchases on an outside website.

It's an unfortunate black eye and may even lead to contempt charges for one of their department heads allegedly lying in court. I expect Apple to appeal and settle, so it'll likely lead nowhere, but the external purchases rules are likely to stick.

The question now is, will Apple just make these the global rules? And if so, will Epic actually bring Fortnite back to the iOS App Store?

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Tariff uncertainty

Earnings went well as usual. Really, it's tough for Apple to truly do "bad" at a quarterly earnings call unless investors have invented a new imaginary field goal they didn't clear.

Even with all of the tariff uncertainty, Apple still proved its strength in the supply chain. No price hikes were announced, and Apple revealed it was going to take the $900 million hit to its income in Q3.

Of course, we didn't hear about what could come later. Price hikes are certainly a possibility for iPhone 17.

Another week

Speaking of iPhone 17, everyone and their mother seems to have dummy models. I'm pretty happy with how the design seems to be solidifying.

I wonder how far these dummy units will go. It seems leaks have escalated over the years to the point we're basically holding the completed object weeks before they are announced.

I'm exhausted from trying to heal from this silly knee injury, so I won't dwell here. Oddly enough, this isn't the most contentious time for Apple prior to WWDC, so like then, I expect Apple will carry on with its plans like nothing is going on.

Only one month to WWDC.