T E C H N O L O G Y
22
17Edited by
Joshua Brustein and
Anne VanderMey● A fight over a privacy
feature for Apple’s iPhones
reveals a deeper rift
It’s tough to pinpoint exactly where things with
Facebook and Apple went wrong, but like so many
relationships gone sour, the first signs of real
trouble looked like petty sniping. In March 2018,
Facebook Inc. was in the midst of a scandal involv-
ing political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica
and was facing serious questions about its steward-
ship of its users’ personal data. A commentator on
MSNBC asked Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer
Tim Cook what he would do if he were in Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s shoes. “I wouldn’t be in
this situation,” Cook said.
A week later, Zuckerberg implied Apple’s prod-
ucts were just for “rich people.” Then Apple
showed off a feature to help phone users cut down
on time spent inside apps. “If you see an app where
you might want to be spending a little bit less time,
you can set your own limit,” said an Apple exec-
utive, while Instagram’s app appeared on a large
screen behind him.
Competition in Silicon Valley can be brutal, but
for much of the past decade, Apple and Facebook
have shared a mutually beneficial relationship,
if not always a friendly one. Facebook relies on
Apple’s iPhones to reach millions of users, and
Apple needs Facebook’s wildly popular apps on its
phones to keep people from going to competing
platforms. Both companies have thrived since the
iPhone’s release, and for the most part they haven’t
made products that compete directly.
But Facebook and Apple find themselves on a
collision course. Their competition on messag-
ing has heated up for years. Facebook is focusing
on products that are also on Apple’s road map,Bloomberg Businessweek February 8, 2021
Allow Facebook to use this
iPhone to track your activity
across other companies’
apps and websites?
Yes, I totally trust Facebook
No way. Thanks for asking, Apple