Congressional hearings involving tech executives have lately been dull affairs, with politicians ranting on one side and tech CEOs offering bland assurances on the other. But Wednesday’s Senate hearing into app stores was a different matter. In the testimonies of Tile general counsel Kirsten Daru and Spotify global affairs chief Horacio Gutierrez, we saw two executives speaking passionately and in concrete detail about how Apple had made it difficult for their smaller companies to compete.
Daru, in particular, made for a good witness, describing how Apple’s new AirTag that was unveiled yesterday offers the very feature that Tile wanted to offer but was blocked by Apple from doing so. Statements from Apple’s representative, chief compliance officer Kyle Andeer, that AirTag is a very different product to Tile, came off as disingenuous at best.
