Mark Zuckerberg slams Apple for lack of innovation and ‘arbitrary rules’

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed the rival technology giant Apple For his lackluster creative efforts and “arbitrary rules” in a lengthy podcast interview on Friday.

“On the one hand,[the iPhone]was great, because now everyone in the world has a phone, and that’s what makes the most amazing things possible,” Zuckerberg said in the episode. “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “But on the other hand … they’ve used that platform to put in a lot of rules that seem arbitrary and[I]feel like they haven’t done any good for a while. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re sitting on it 20 years later.”

Zuckerberg added that he thinks iPhone sales are struggling because consumers take too long to upgrade their phones, and new models aren’t major improvements over previous iterations.

“So how are they making more money as a company? Well, they basically do it by, like, squeezing people and, as you say, getting this 30% tax on developers to make them buy more peripherals and stuff. Screw it,” Zuckerberg said. “You know, they build great things like Air Pods, but they’ve completely blocked their ability to build something that someone else can connect to the iPhone in the same way.”

Apple defends itself against pressure from other companies by saying it doesn’t want to infringe on consumer privacy and security, Zuckerberg said. But he said that if Apple fixes the protocol, such problems as building better security and using encryption will be solved.

“It’s insecure because you didn’t build any security into it. And now you’re using that as justification why only your product can communicate in such a simple way,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg says if Apple stops enforcing its “arbitrary rules,” Meta’s profits will double.

He also took a shot at Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which disappointed US sales. Meta sells its own virtual headset called the Meta Quest.

“I think Vision Pro is one of those big moves to do something new that they’ve tried in a while,” Zuckerberg said. “And I don’t want to give them too much of a hard time on it, because if the first version isn’t that good, we’ll do a lot of things, and you want to judge the third version by its kind.” But I mean, the V1, I definitely didn’t hit it out of the park.

“I heard it’s great for watching movies,” he added.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.