Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was recently on The Joe Rogan Experience, speaking to host Joe Rogan about a variety of subjects, beyond his company ending third-party fact-checking to switch over to Community Notes, like Elon Musk’s X.
The switch to Community Notes is likely to pre-empt any further scrutiny on Meta and its apps from incoming President-elect Donald Trump.
Now, in the podcast, Zuckerberg was asked about Apple. He didn’t hold back and dropped some major truth bombs.
“They haven’t really invented anything great in a while,” said Zuckerberg. “It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later. And actually, I think year over year, I’m not even sure they’re selling more iPhones at this point. I think the sales might actually be declining,” he added.
“Part of it is that each generation doesn’t actually get that much better, so people are just taking longer to upgrade than they would before. The number of sales, I think, has generally been flat to declining,” continued Zuckerberg. When you think about it, that’s totally true in our mind.
Questioning how Apple is raking in the profits right now? Zuckerberg said, “Well, they do it by basically, like, squeezing people. And, like you’re saying, like having this 30% tax on developers, um, by getting you to buy more peripherals and things that plug into it.”
Zuckerberg goes on to slam Apple for holding onto its proprietary tech for how AirPods seamlessly connect to the iPhone.
“You know, they build stuff like AirPods, which are cool, but they’ve just thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way,” he said.
“So, I mean, there are a lot of other companies in the world that would be able to build, like, a very good earbud, but it just, um, Apple has a specific protocol that they’ve built into the iPhone that allows AirPods to basically connect to it, um, and it’s just much more seamless, because they’ve enabled that, but they don’t let anyone else use the protocol.”
This is also true. Apple touts the seamless connectivity of AirPods thanks to iCloud and it’s one of the many reasons people choose Apple earbuds and headphones. It just connects like magic.
“If they did, there would probably be much better competitors to AirPods out there. And, um, whenever you push on this, they get super touchy, and they basically wrap their defense of it in, well, if we let other companies plug into our thing, then that would violate people’s privacy and security. It’s like, no, just do a better job designing the protocol, right?”, said Zuckerberg. Again, also true in our opinion.
Zuckerberg then goes on to share a story about asking Apple about getting access to AirPod features for its smart glasses.
“We basically asked them for the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses that we built. Um, can we basically use the protocol they use for AirPod and some of these other things to just make it so we can as easily connect? So it’s not like, you know, a pain in the ass for people who want to use this, and, you know, I think one of the protocols that they’ve used, um, that they built, they basically didn’t encrypt it, it’s like plain text,” said Zuckerberg.
“Um, and they’re like, well, we can’t have you plug into it because it would be insecure. It’s like, it’s insecure because you didn’t build any security into it, and then now you’re using it as a justification for why only your product can connect in an easy way. It’s like, the whole thing is kind of wild,” concluded the Facebook founder.
When I talk to friends and family about iPhone upgrades in the past five years, there hasn’t been a lot because the device has essentially remained the same. The excitement of annual upgrades has definitely diminished. But people will argue there’s only so many ways you can design a rectangle slab. Well, that’s true, but when the price of an iPhone is more than a MacBook, it better be damn well worth it.
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Not much reason for this here blog of yours anymore it seems, then, if that’s how you feel. Also amplifying people like Musk and Zuckerberg lately, too. You’ve lost another reader. See ya.
Ya exactly, this article pretty much says their own website is useless lol I'm out.
Can u please cry harder. The world doesn't revolve around you anymore. Amplifying Zuckerberg? The dude was on your side and you loved him, now he switches sides and you cry so hard. Apple hasn't innovated with the iPhone, that's a fact. What did Zuck say that was inaccurate?
Zucks on No Ones Side dude, Only his own $$$. He doesn't care about you, or anyone only $$$. He makes great Beef on Kauai!! CRY CRY CRY
Not seeing an issue with iPiC mentioning a conversation between two people about all things Apple and Apple resting on their laurels…
Guess the Swifties here can't handle the truth. have fun making your friendship bracelets and paying thousands for tickets Lol
So Zuckerberg is pissed that the Ray-Ban Meta glasses cannot connect like AirPods so that FB can sell more of them? Meta could develop its phone to work with the glasses since it sounded like Zuckerberg knows how to make a better phone.
What Apple has done extremely well IMO (Much better than Meta in any case) is improving their products. Airpods are a great example. They released a product and within a few generations released something remarkable. And they didn't bring out a new version to make you have to buy new ones. They dropped the hearing aid and hearing test features on airpods many of us already purchased 2 years earlier.
Meanwhile Meta bought the popular photos app Instagram in 2012 and what have they done with it in 13 years? They "borrowed" some features from other apps. Completely ignored any improvements on making it an actually better photos app. Unless you count when Meta increased 640px resolution to 1080px resolution (Truly revolutionary stuff lol) back in 2015. And have ignored the photo part ever since. They can't even get an ipad version out. What are they inventing? They buy things and stamp their name on it and never make it far superior to the product they bought.
People in glass houses should STFU.
Comparing Instagram to Airpods is not the proper comparison. If you want to use Instagram as Meta's comparison, better make it a software platform comparison for Apple too. Why don't we look at how Apple has innovated on iTunes since 2012 for a (pardon the pun) apples-to-apples comparison. Oh wait… your whataboutism isn't looking so good now is it?
? Did you read the article? I didn't bring Airpods into the conversation. How many times was Airpods mentioned? Zuckerberg throwing rocks when while Airpods have been more innovated than anything Meta's ever done. I'd be salty too if I was him.
Have you heard of these things called large language models (LLMs)? Or how about virtual/augmented reality – you know the next tech hardware category they are dominating market share in that Apple just tried to enter (and failed)? What about neural-haptics? Meta has been working on the next wave of technologies for many many years and are so far ahead of Apple in the way of innovation it's quite hilarious. But hey as long as Apple sheeple exist whose deep insecurities demand they remain in the iPhone club at any cost they should do fine.
It’s so sad what this site has become…
$$$$$$$
Okay so the same story was covered by many other Apple news sites but I don't see any of you cry babies commenting there, lmao!
LOL like Facebook has been vastly creative lately – just stop Mark, your jealousy is coming through.
Who transcribed this interview? It's standard practice not to include all the incidents of someone saying "um."
Great insight!
Zuckerberg is a slimy greaseball. I wouldn’t trust a word he says
he's clearly switching sides for a reason…nobody trucks the Zuck-meister
Strange how many people here were dumping on Zuckerberg for so long and for good reasons, and now all those reasons and all those opinions have vanished. Never liked him and now he seems even more like a petty envious whiner because his grapes are sour. If Meta could replicate Apple’s success even partially and even in the way he accuses them of doing, he would be on the floor convulsing with joy. One may say anything about Apple but they at least still offer the products that serve a legitimate purpose. What legitimate need of people Facebook is fulfilling?
And what’s with increasingly anti Apple slant lately here? I don’t think the writers have to only sing praises to Apple but if they can’t resist their own negative bias, maybe they shouldn’t write for the Apple centric site and seek more like minded audience elsewhere?