Mark Zuckerberg criticizes Apple for lack of innovation and ‘random rules’

Meta General director Mark Zuckerberg crushed a competitor of the technology giant an apple for lackluster innovation efforts and “random rules” in a lengthy podcast interview on Friday.

“On the one hand, (the iPhone) was great because now pretty much everyone in the world has a phone, and it’s something that allows you to do some pretty amazing things,” Zuckerberg said in the episode. “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “But on the other hand … they’ve used this platform to introduce a lot of regulations that I think seem arbitrary, and (I) feel like they haven’t come up with anything great in a long time. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re just sitting on it 20 years later.”

Zuckerberg added that he thought iPhone sales were struggling because consumers are taking longer to upgrade their phones because the new models aren’t much of an improvement over previous iterations.

“So how do they make more money as a company? Well, what they’re doing is basically squeezing people and, as you say, putting a 30% tax on developers, forcing you to buy more peripherals and things that plug it in,” Zuckerberg said. “You know, they make things like that , like the Air Pods, which are cool, but they just completely limited the ability for anyone else to make something that could connect to the iPhone in the same way.”

According to Zuckerberg, Apple is protecting itself from pushback from other companies by saying it doesn’t want to compromise consumer privacy and security. But he said the problem would be solved if Apple fixes its protocol, such as improving security and using encryption.

“It’s dangerous because you haven’t built any security into it. And now you’re using that as an excuse why only your product can connect in an easy way,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said that if Apple stopped applying its “random rules,” Meta’s profits would double.

He also shot at Apple Vision Pro headsetwhich have disappointing US sales. Meta sells its own virtual headsets called Meta Quest.

“I think Vision Pro is, I think, one of the biggest steps in creating a new thing that they’ve tried in a while,” Zuckerberg said. “And I don’t want to give them too much time on that because we do a lot of things where the first version isn’t that good and you want to judge the third version. But I mean, the V1, it definitely didn’t hit it out of the park.”

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

Apple did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.