Zuckerberg complains about Apple: “deep bitterness” because of app restrictions

Meta Platforms do not agree to Apple’s app store strategy and anti-tracking measures; This has been known for years. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has complained several times about the so-called App Tracking Transparency (Att), which requires that users be asked by iOS applications before tracking. In addition, Apple’s app-store opening measures are only a sham solution, and Apple never act as altruistic as the iPhone Group there are. Now Zuckerberg is once again criticizing Apple – and speaks, among other things, of feelings of bitterness.

Apple’s platform tests repelled

In an interview with the US IT blog Stratecherywhich took place in the Meta Platforms headquarters, the main focus is on the AI ​​strategy as well as the development of Facebook and other social networks. Nevertheless, Apple also came up. Zuckerberg even remembered early conflicts with the company when Facebook tried to become a platform for Developer – for example with games and other apps directly on Facebook.

The original Facebook platform was intended for the web. “When the use of desktop moved to mobile, Apple simply said: You cannot have a platform within a platform and no apps that use your things.” The distribution of apps on the Facebook platform in 2012, when the IPO took place, was a good 20 percent-“for games and apps”. Because of Apple, however, that had “not much of the future”. It was about the plan to become a kind of super app, as is known in China from Wechat.

Interfaces instead of super app

Facebook then put on the integration of his technology into other apps – via the interfaces Connect And “Sign in”, that is, the opportunity to register with his Facebook account in other apps. The developers would have wanted it to increase their app installations at the time. However, this was ultimately “just an artifact from Apple’s rules” that this adaptation occurred. “I think that led to deep bitterness,” Zuckerberg still recalls today.

This affects not only the topic of the platform app, but also the fact that Apple Meta said that things could not be done “that we consider to be valuable”. This has developed a “certain dynamic” between Meta and Facebook. He wanted a more open mobile platform. Apple is said to have said Meta more often that “different experiences” cannot incorporate it into its apps. That didn’t help meta customers.