Facebook continues to take aim at Apple for the latter’s introduction of the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature in iOS 14.5. With the majority of iPhone users in the U.S. (94%) and globally (84%) opting out of being tracked, Facebook says that damage is being done to small businesses who depended on the tracking to promote their wares to consumers.
Since Facebook generated approximately $84 billion of its revenue last year from ads, it naturally was against Apple’s ATT feature. CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was so upset about it that he wrote two full-page newspaper ads blasting Apple. However, it turns out that some companies are doing the same amount of data tracking as they were before ATT launched.
As we told you yesterday, marketing strategy consultant Eric Seufert says that third-party apps are still able to collect data from 95% of its iOS users by using IP addresses obtained from their phones and the networks they employ. A technique called “fingerprinting,” banned by Apple, is employed. Zuckerberg yesterday took a shot at the 30% cut of in-app payments that Apple collects in the App Store by forcing developers to use its in-app payment platform for such transactions.
The beleaguered executive said in a Facebook post-Monday, “To help more creators make a living on our platforms, we’re going to keep paid online events, fan subscriptions, badges, and our upcoming independent news products free for creators until 2023. And when we do introduce a revenue share, it will be less than the 30% that Apple and others take.” Zuckerberg added that “We’re also launching a new payout interface so creators can see how different companies’ fees and taxes are impacting their earnings,” another shot at Apple.
But Apple was able to get some revenge by announcing new features yesterday for iOS 15 that will interfere with Facebook’s own app assets. Take the Messages app for iOS which is receiving new features that will allow users to share photos, tunes from Apple Music, articles from Apple News, weblinks and more. These are things that Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp users would be more apt to share (all three of those apps are owned by Facebook).
Zuckerberg has called Apple a major competitor because of apps like FaceTime and Messages which come pre-installed on the 1 million+ active Apple devices in use today. And with that in mind, Apple previewed some new features for FaceTime that will start working with the release of iOS 15 this coming fall. For example, Android and Windows users will be able to tap into FaceTime videos for the first time.
SharePlay will allow a user to host a FaceTime call while sharing with his buddies a streaming video, streaming audio and more. Apple is trying to take the features that you otherwise might find on Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook and place them on iOS 15 with additional privacy features.