Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California on September 25, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized the rival tech giant Apple for poor innovation efforts and “random rules” in a lengthy podcast interview Friday.
“On the one hand, [the iPhone has] “It’s great, because now almost everyone in the world has a phone, and that’s kind of what allows for some pretty amazing things,” Zuckerberg said in an episode of the show “Joe Rogan Experience.” “But on the other hand… they used this platform to put in place a lot of rules that, in my opinion, seem arbitrary and [I] they feel like they haven’t invented anything great in a while. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re sitting on it 20 years later.”
Zuckerberg added that he believes iPhone sales are struggling because consumers are taking longer to upgrade their phones, as the new models aren’t big improvements over previous iterations.
“So how do they make more money as a company? Well, they do it basically by squeezing people and, like you say, putting this 30% tax on developers by forcing you to buy more peripherals and things that plug it in,” Zuckerberg said. “You know, they’re building things like Air Pods, which are cool, but they’ve completely crippled the ability for anyone to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way.”
Apple defends itself against the reluctance of other companies by asserting that it does not want to violate the privacy and security of consumers, according to Zuckerberg. But he said the problem would be resolved if Apple fixed its protocol, such as improving security and using encryption.
“It’s not secure because you haven’t built any security into it. And now you’re using that to justify why only your product can connect in a simple way,” Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg said that if Apple stopped enforcing its “random rules,” Meta’s profits would double.
He also took photos of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which has had disappointing U.S. sales. Meta sells its own virtual headsets called Meta Quest.
“I think the Vision Pro is, I think, one of the biggest innovations that they’ve tried in a while,” Zuckerberg said. “And I don’t want to give them too much of a hard time, because we do a lot of things where the first version isn’t that good, and you kind of want to judge the third version. But I mean, the V1, it’s definitely not out of the park.”
“I heard it’s really good for watching movies,” he added.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
