Zuckerberg complains about Apple: "Deep bitterness" over app restrictions
In an interview, Meta CEO Zuckerberg comments on the relationship with Apple. He criticizes ad blockers, app store rules and an "unfortunate dynamic".
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is not a fan of Apple's strategy.
(Image: Frederic Legrand - COMEO/Shutterstock.com)
Meta Platforms does not agree with Apple's App Store policy and anti-tracking measures; this has been known for years. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly complained about App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which requires users to be asked before being tracked by iOS applications. In addition, Apple's App Store opening measures are only a sham solution and Apple never acts as altruistically as the iPhone company claims. Zuckerberg is now once again criticizing Apple – and speaks of feelings of bitterness, among other things.
Platform attempts fended off by Apple
The interview with the US IT blog Stratechery, which took place at Meta Platforms' headquarters, mainly focused on the AI strategy and the development of Facebook and other social networks. Nevertheless, Apple was also discussed. Zuckerberg even recalled early conflicts with the company when Facebook tried to become a platform for developers – with games and other apps directly on Facebook, for example.
The original Facebook platform was intended for the web. "When usage moved from desktop to mobile, Apple simply said: you can't have a platform within a platform and you can't have apps that use your stuff." The distribution of apps on the Facebook platform in 2012, when the IPO took place, amounted to a good 20 percent – "for games and apps". Because of Apple, however, this then "no longer had much of a future". The plan was to become a kind of super app, like WeChat in China, for example.
Interfaces instead of a super app
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Facebook then focused on integrating its technology into other apps – via the Connect and "Sign In" interfaces, i.e. the option of logging into other apps with your Facebook account. The developers wanted this at the time to increase their app installations. However, it was ultimately "just an artifact of Apple's rules and regulations" that led to this adjustment. "I think that led to a deep bitterness," Zuckerberg still remembers today.
This concerns not only the issue of the platform app, but also the fact that Apple told Meta that it couldn't do things "that we thought had value". As a result, a "certain dynamic" developed between Meta and Facebook. He had wished for a more open mobile platform. Apple is said to have frequently informed Meta that it was unable to incorporate "different experiences" into its apps. This did not help Meta customers.
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