Elon Musk will make iPhone rival if Twitter is ejected from App Store
Elon Musk
AppleInsider could earn an affiliate fee on purchases made by means of hyperlinks on our web site.
If Apple and Google have been to kick Twitter out of their on-line shops, Elon Musk warned he would make his personal “alternative phone” for the iPhone and Android units.
Twitter has undergone many adjustments in its time below the possession of Elon Musk, together with some huge ones. However, adjustments to insurance policies relating to moderation insurance policies, in addition to different main occasions, could drive app shops to take motion down the street as issues go downhill.
In the potential occasion that Apple has to drag Twitter from the App Store, or that Google does the identical for the Play Store, Musk is not anxious about it. Instead, he says he will act like Futurama’s Bender and make his personal smartphone.
In a Friday response to a tweet suggesting Musk may make a smartphone if Apple and Google do push Twitter out, the billionaire hopes “it doesn’t come to that, but yeah, if there’s no other choice, I will make an alternative phone.”
Musk does not go into element concerning the smartphone plan, so this may very well be thought-about a throwaway remark, but it surely’s additionally not one thing to put in writing off. Musk created The Boring Company and offered “flame-throwers” on-line, each seemingly on a whim, and with important funding rapidly in every.
Given his huge sources and groups of staff available, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that Musk has the flexibility to create a competitor to the iPhone and fashionable Android units. Whether it turns into fashionable sufficient to maintain the general public’s consideration and entice it to purchase is one other matter.
Despite being a big service, there is at all times an opportunity that Apple might pull entry to the app from the App Store, because it has to stick to the identical App Store insurance policies as anybody else. These embrace guidelines that drive social apps to have some content material moderation in place, which Apple has beforehand acted towards.
In early 2021, Apple pulled the controversial social media app Parler from the App Store for not submitting to moderation tips, in addition to for internet hosting offensive content material. Apple later allowed the app again into the App Store as soon as it made adjustments.
With Friday’s statement of an incoming suspended account “amnesty,” Musk could quickly check those self same App Store guidelines.
