![\"xbox](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/xbox-controller-and-iphone.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAt\u00a0a virtual product launch in November for Apple\u2019s\u00a0Mac reboot, actor John Hodgman appeared in a nerdy, ill-fitting\u00a0suit before a white backdrop.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop, hang on, wait, one more thing, hi, I\u2019m a PC,\u201d he said, reprising the\u00a0popular Mac vs. PC television commercials of a decade ago that not so subtly telegraphed the idea that\u00a0Apple was cool and Microsoft wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The event\u00a0was held to let Mac fans know the new machines were getting a processor with more sizzle. But the subtext\u00a0was unmistakable: Apple Inc.\u2019s old rivalry with Microsoft Corp. was back.<\/p>\n
For several years, the two companies had found reason to collaborate.<\/p>\n
Microsoft\u2019s Office and other apps began appearing on the iPad and iPhone; Apple even invited Microsoft to a product launch.<\/p>\n
Apple recently made it easier to use Xbox game controllers on Apple devices, while Microsoft made its products compatible with such new Apple features as the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard.<\/p>\n
Last Autumn, Apple even put its TV app on the Xbox.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But around the time the PC character reappeared, Microsoft began bad-mouthing Apple to regulators, saying the company\u2019s App Store was anti-competitive.<\/p>\n
Microsoft had thrown in its lot with Epic Games Inc., which was suing Apple for booting its Fornite title from the App Store and accusing the iPhone maker of monopolistic behavior.<\/p>\n
A Microsoft executive has since testified against Apple at the trial, telling the court that Apple\u2019s tight control of its App Store had hurt Microsoft\u2019s own gaming efforts.<\/p>\n
The tensions are unlikely to ease once a verdict comes down\u00a0because Apple and Microsoft are both looking to dominate the\u00a0next big things in tech\u2014from artificial intelligence and cloud computing to gaming, tablets, custom processors\u00a0and mixed-reality headsets.<\/p>\n
The renewed antipathy between Apple and Microsoft started about a year ago, after Microsoft developed<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>a cloud gaming service for iPhones and iPads called xCloud.<\/p>\n The app would let users pay a monthly fee to Microsoft, enabling them to stream dozens of different gaming titles from the cloud.<\/p>\n The service was supposed to do for gaming what Netflix did for video, appease gamers and turn Apple devices into a more powerful gaming platform backed by Xbox, one of the hottest names in the industry.<\/p>\n But Microsoft never launched the service in its intended form,\u00a0having failed to persuade Apple to loosen\u00a0App Store rules forbidding all-in-one gaming services.<\/p>\n Originally, Microsoft was barred from launching any cloud-based games at all. But a few months after concerns over the ban on streaming apps went public, Apple tweaked the\u00a0rules.<\/p>\n Microsoft can now launch a cloud gaming service, but each game must be downloaded separately, defeating the purpose of an all-in-one solution.<\/p>\n Now Microsoft is rolling out the service on Apple devices via the web, a much less optimal experience than\u00a0a real app.<\/p>\n Around the same time, Microsoft President\u00a0Brad Smith began urging U.S. and European antitrust regulators\u00a0to examine<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Apple\u2019s practices. \u201cThey impose requirements that increasingly say there is only one way to get on to our platform and that is to go through the gate that we ourselves have created,\u201d Smith told a Politico reporter.<\/p>\n He added that he considered Apple\u2019s behavior worse than the actions that landed his company in the antitrust hot seat more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n What might have remained a resolvable dustup escalated instead once the Epic trial got underway.<\/p>\n Lori Wright, Microsoft\u2019s vice president of business development for Xbox,\u00a0testified<\/a><\/strong> that Microsoft is being limited by Apple\u2019s rules when it comes to gaming, backing Epic\u2019s claims that Apple is an antitrust violator.<\/p>\n Apple fired back, saying Microsoft earns $600 million to $700 million a year from its relationship with Epic and is simply defending the game maker because it\u2019s good for business.<\/p>\n Apple argued\u00a0that Microsoft\u2019s Xbox download store\u00a0has similar rules to Apple\u2019s, taking a 30% cut, requiring its own payment system\u00a0and banning alternative digital marketplaces.<\/p>\n Apple also said Microsoft, as an iOS developer, stands to benefit if it\u2019s forced to revamp the App Store.<\/p>\n \u201cWe clearly disagreed with Apple\u2019s refusal to allow game streaming via the App Store,\u201d Microsoft spokesman Frank X. Shaw said in an email. \u201cBut that disagreement won\u2019t keep us from collaborating with Apple on other topics, as we do with Microsoft 365 on iOS and Mac devices.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps, but there is potential for other clashes.<\/p>\n In the booming personal computer market, where the companies compete head to head, Mac sales\u00a0doubled in the first quarter, according to\u00a0International Data Corporation<\/a><\/strong>, more than twice as fast as sales of PCs, which largely run on Microsoft\u2019s Windows operating system.<\/p>\n While Apple holds only 8% of the computer market, its upgrades are popular\u00a0with the legions of Americans who are expected to continue working from home after the pandemic subsides.<\/p>\n Microsoft has explored\u00a0developing\u00a0chips for its line of devices,\u00a0echoing an Apple strategy that has helped boost\u00a0sales.<\/p>\n The two companies are also competing for talent in AI and cloud infrastructure, two key future battlegrounds.<\/p>\n Microsoft is even back to making its own phones, and, of course, they use an operating system from another Apple foe: Google\u2019s Android.<\/p>\n How bad could the animus get? If the past is prologue, pretty testy.<\/p>\n Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously likened the launch of iTunes on Windows to handing someone in hell a glass of ice water, while Apple routinely\u00a0poked\u00a0fun at Microsoft\u00a0software and accused the company\u00a0of copying Apple\u2019s designs.<\/p>\n Microsoft\u00a0recently started running commercials\u00a0pitting its Surface hybrid tablet and laptops against the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro.\u00a0Hodgman,\u00a0who plays PC in the Apple ads, could be hearing from his agent.<\/p>\n After years of relative cooperation and even collaboration, the Apple and Microsoft rivalry heating up again, and things could get far more tense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":397289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57364],"tags":[605,4214,32260,123],"class_list":["post-397275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise","tag-apple","tag-cloud","tag-gaming","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397287,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397275\/revisions\/397287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"apple](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/apple-app-store-and-google.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEpic trial as catalyst for further tension<\/h3>\n
![\"microsoft](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/microsoft-surface-book-and-apple-macbook.jpg\")
\nApple is also planning to release a mixed-reality headset next year, venturing into territory Microsoft staked out years ago with the Hololens.<\/p>\nNow read: Spotify and Tinder executives accuse Apple of power grab with app rules<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"