'They have been so off their game…’ Mark Zuckerberg takes a dig at Apple’s lack of innovation

Mark Zuckerberg

There’s little love lost between Mark Zuckerberg and Apple. Over the years, Zuckerberg has been a vocal critic of the company’s policies and now he has doubled down his criticism. On a podcast with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg said that Apple hasn’t been innovative in the last 20 years. “Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later,” he said in the podcast.

Zuckerberg did give credit to Apple and said that the iPhone is “obviously one of the most important inventions probably of all time.” But said that Apple has some really “arbitrary” rules. The Meta CEO was referring to Apple’s App Store rules, where it charges 30% on all in-app purchases. He said that Meta would be making “twice as much profit” if not for Apple’s rules.

The Meta CEO also criticised Apple for now allowing others to build something that could connect to the iPhone. That was a direct dig at Apple’s ecosystem where the company ensures that all its products work seamlessly together. While Apple has opened it up a bit, third-party products still don’t work the same way. Zuckerberg cited the example of the AirPods.

He said that Apple has “thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way”. He argued that if Apple allowed others to use its protocol “there would probably be much better competitors to AirPods out there.”

He also said that by relying on its own “stuff” will end up hurting Apple. Apple, as per Zuckerberg, has “been so off their game in terms of not really releasing many innovative things.” The tech industry, he added, is “super dynamic” and “if you just don’t do a good job for like 10 years, eventually, you’re just going to get beat by someone,” he said in while taking another dig at Apple.