Forget bezels and buttons, the iPhone 15’s best new feature will be the App Store

Macworld

We are almost a whole three months into 2023 so let’s check in on how those hot, hot iPhone 15 rumors are heating things up!

“iPhone 15 Pro design leak corroborates revamped mute and volume buttons”

… the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro will have new unified volume buttons and a new “pressing type” mute button.

Okay. Okay. That’s… interesting. Certainly a departure from what we’ve seen in the past. The Macalope looks forward to all the thought pieces on how the old buttons were so much better and Apple ruined everything.

What other rumors are there about the iPhone 15 line?

“iPhone 15 Pro Max to ‘Break Record’ for Thinnest Bezels on a Smartphone”

The Macalope doesn’t know about you, but “bezel” is a word he didn’t know until probably about 10 years ago when reducing them became A Big Deal™. Of course, take a look at the PowerBook Duo and you’ll see that bezels on laptops have been shrinking for decades. But smartphone bezels have gotten to the point of practical non-existence. If shaving about two-thirds of a millimeter off the bezel is a big deal for you, then you’re gonna love the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Enjoy.

Was the Macalope making a face while writing that? Well, he wasn’t not making a face. It’s just… have you seen how small millimeters are? They aren’t big.

It’s not that these updates won’t be nice, but these don’t seem like drastic changes. Of course, the camera will be better and the battery will last imperceptibly longer, and it’ll be THE FASTEST IPHONE THEY’VE EVER SHIPPED. But if we’re looking for big changes to hit the iPhone before Apple figures out how to make folding one compelling, it’s probably not going to be in the hardware.

It’s probably going to be in the App Store.

“Microsoft Wants to Launch Xbox Games Store on iPhone”

Well, sure it does. “COMPANY X WANTS TO TAKE MORE MONEY” isn’t that shocking a headline. Microsoft and Epic and Netflix and Gentleman Gerry’s Virtual Coin Outlet Mall all want to launch their own stores on iOS, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to.

IDG

What might mean they’re going to is a host of regulations around the world that could force Apple to allow companies to set up their own stores. For its part, Apple will certainly continue to try to satisfy the letter of the law while making sure everyone still knows whose platform it is. But it’s possible that we’re in the waning days of the monolithic App Store.

MacStories’ John Voorhees sees any possible opening up to other app stores as a good thing.

The Digital Markets Act has the potential to be the catalyst that opens the door to competition even wider, which I expect will create all sorts of new opportunities for developers and consumers alike.

The Macalope hopes that’s true and he certainly supports the removal of many App Store restrictions as well as the rationalization of the approval process. At the same time, it’s not like all of these companies who say they just want to open up good ol’ fashioned family-run five-and-dime stores on iOS are all that great in the first place.

“FTC Finalizes Order Requiring Fortnite maker Epic Games to Pay $245 Million for Tricking Users into Making Unwanted Charges”

The Federal Trade Commission has finalized an order requiring Epic Games, the maker of the Fortnite video game, to pay $245 million to consumers to settle charges that the company used dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children rack up unauthorized charges without any parental involvement.

By the way, if you’re thinking of making a dystopian iOS game where you’re in charge of an app store and your goal is to trick children into using their parents’ credit cards to buy your Blingo Gems or Gizmo Bucks or whatever, “Dark Patterns” would be a great name. The Macalope is thinking “Papers, Please” but an app store instead of a totalitarian state.

It’s really not much of a stretch at all.

[UPDATE 3/22/2023: An earlier version of this column estimated the bezel of the iPhone 15 Pro being just a quarter of a millimeter smaller rather than two-thirds of a millimeter. The Macalope regrets the error but he was told there’d be no math in this gig.]

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