Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which contains all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy, bite-sized summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a cup of coffee or tea on Monday morning, but it’s also cool if you want to read it during lunch or dinner time.

Trick or retreat

Sometimes retreat is the best form of defence – just ask Leonidas and William the Conqueror. Sometimes a feigned flight can lull your opponent into a false sense of security and lead to reckless misjudgments.

At least that’s Apple’s philosophy. The Cupertino giant has perfected the art of feigning retreat and calculates, down to the second, the optimal moment to give up its shield wall and give way. Only enough ground to discourage an attacker and avoid major losses.

Apple has fought against self-repair on multiple fronts for years, publicly claiming that such procedures could go wrong and privately knowing that the licensed repair network makes a lot of money. But when the right-to-repair movement gained too much momentum to ignore any longer, the company announced a self-repair program that was obviously designed to be as unattractive as possible. “Hey, you won! We’re surrendering and making all these concessions to prove it! I guess there’s no need to campaign on this issue anymore…”

But self-repair is just one example of a strategy that Apple has successfully deployed across its entire company. USB-C, sideloading, environmentalism: the proponents of all these strategies have faced the same uphill battle: first banging on Apple’s locked door, then trying not to fall flat on their faces when it was suddenly and unexpectedly thrown open… only to reveal another locked door just a little further back. And the worst part is that Apple is claiming the concession as altruistic, rather than giving in to insurmountable pressure at the most opportune moment.

The latest fake retreat concerns alternative payment systems for apps, an area where several influential organizations believe Apple is on the wrong side of history. Some of them (Spotify and Epic Games in particular) have a vested interest in this particular game, so to speak, considering how much money they could save by changing the system. But even more ideologically neutral organizations like the European Commission are inclined to agree that iOS app makers should be able to redirect users to third-party payment and subscription systems, saving the company so much money.

Needless to say, although the principle is enshrined in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, it all sounds like a very a bad idea for Apple, and the company has done its best to either not comply at all or to comply as half-heartedly as possible. Last week, presumably through gritted teeth as it typed the press release, it announced that apps can now freely link to websites, other apps, or whatever they want, and that they are no longer restricted in the interface and language they use to do so. But there was an inevitable downside.

Even if you use external payment systems, you’ll still need to get the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement. And there are still a ton of fees: a 5 percent initial purchase fee for each new user, a 10 percent Store Services fee for all purchases made on any platform, and the controversial Core Technology Fee for all new app installs (which you can avoid in some cases, but likely with the result that the Store Services fee will rise to 20 percent). According to my colleague Jason Cross’s expert assessment, it looks like app developers will ultimately pay less in fees than before, but the whole system is unnecessarily complex.

Apple’s opponents recognized the fake retreat strategy and quickly condemned the concessions as inadequate. Spotify told TechCrunch that the move was “intentionally confusing” and “unacceptable.” Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney, meanwhile, called Cupertino’s actions “malicious compliance” and condemned what he called an “illegal new 15% junk fee.”

But these are the condemnatory voices we would expect. After all, Apple isn’t trying to convince Spotify and Epic Games; it’s trying to convince regulators and lawmakers not to impose further restrictions on its business and not to hit it with huge fines. For this reason, it’s too early to say whether this fake retreat has worked or whether it will end up turning into a real retreat or even a large-scale collapse of the walled garden. But whatever happens, you can bet it won’t be Apple’s last attempt.

Have your say

I received an interesting response to my column last week about the iPad misjudgment.

“You live in a bubble,” reader Ted Anderson accused me. “Perhaps you think everyone is like you and your friends. Some of us NEED a touchscreen to run certain music and art apps.”

“I switched from Mac to Windows years ago simply because an app called StaffPad came out that only worked on Windows with a touchscreen. Now I’m switching back to Apple because I can’t tolerate Microsoft’s recall. StaffPad now runs on the iPad, so that’s my only option. I don’t just lie on the couch and stream movies. I compose music, orchestrate it, and play it with the only app that does all that in the highest quality and with exquisite instrument sounds. Nothing comes close.”

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Podcast of the week

The first sentence of Apple Intelligence Features have been released to developers! What features are available? And what’s it like to use them? In this episode of the Macworld Podcast, we talk about our first impressions of Apple Intelligence!

You can listen to any episode of the Macworld podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Rating Corner

The rumor mill

The Mac mini is becomes even smaller with the first redesign in 15 years.

Apple finally brings the iPhone 12 in 2025, claims a leaker.

Apple is planning a series of M4 Mac updates this fall with “dramatic changes” in the store.

Apple Watch SE to get “more child-friendly” with plastic redesign.

Software updates, bugs and issues

Apple has just released a Emergency iPhone and Mac update to fix this iCloud error.

Check your email as Apple may send you a 395 USD Check.

Apple patches decades-old ‘0.0.0.0 Tag’ vulnerability in the upcoming Safari update.

And that wraps it up for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to receive regular summaries, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads or . Þjórsárdalur to discuss the latest Apple news. See you next Monday and stay Appley.