Mark Zuckerberg joined the wave of criticism Apple is receiving for the use of its App Store. Meta's CEO asserted in an interview at the DealBook summit hosted by the New York Times that the Apple company's app store presents a serious "conflict of interest" because of the policies it enforces:
It is problematic for one company to be able to control what app experiences end up on a device. The vast majority of profits in mobile ecosystem go toward Apple. Apple obviously has their own interests. The fact that companies have to deliver their apps exclusively from platforms controlled by competitors, there is a conflict of interest there.
In addition, the creator of the metaverse assured that Apple is the only one that maintains tight control over which apps reach its devices and compared the power exercised by the company led by Tim Cook with another of the technological giants, Google:
If you look at all the major competing platforms that have existed — iOS, Android, Windows — Apple stands out. It is the only one where one company can control what apps get on the device. I don’t think it’s sustainable or good.
Google might control what goes in the play store, but they have always made it so you can side-load and have other app stores and work directly with phone manufacturers.
Musk and Cook calm the waters
Zuckerberg's statements came just days after Elon Musk, the new CEO of Twitter, declared war on Apple for, according to him, threatening the social network with removal from the App Store.
However, on the same day that the Meta executive criticized the Apple company, Musk and Cook met to try to solve the problems between Twitter and Apple. And they did so, as the CEO of the social network revealed in a tweet:
Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2022
In addition, according to a report published by the technology blog Gizmodo, Cook had already taken action before meeting with Musk. Thus, on the same day that the Twitter executive published tweets accusing the technology giant of withdrawing advertising, Apple invested more in advertising on the social network:
Apple spent $84,615 on Twitter ads that very same day, according to data from Pathmatics, a digital ad analytics company. The day before that, Apple spent a full $104,867.
The data contradicts Musk’s claims that the iPhone maker 'mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.' Apple’s Twitter advertising purchases actually grew from October to November, Pathmatics’ research showed. Apple spent $1,005,784 on Twitter ads in the first 28 days of November.
