I'm Carl Kintanilla. You're listening to CNBC's Tech Check. Our show is live weekdays at 11 a.m. Welcome to Tech Check. I'm Carl Kintania with Deer Drebosa and John Ford today.

Apple's worldwide developer conference kicks off. The stock has grinded steadily lower. Can Apple change the narrative?

Then a race between the ape and the tortoise,

how the mean trade is distorting the broader market. And later, and out of this world headline,

Jeff Bezos says he's headed to space, Dean.

Also this hour, bullish calls on Etsy and Palaton, and we checked in on crypto after a wild weekend at the Bitcoin conference

in Miami. We will get a download of everything that happened there. Is Bitcoin, John, just

pushing about 36,000? Yeah, Dee, and Apple's Software Spotlight is on this afternoon.

CEO Tim Cook is going to take the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference, well, virtually, in just about two hours, reportedly planning to highlight new advances in

privacy, messaging other apps across devices, maybe some new MacBook pros as well.

And all of this, part of the push to keep users inside the Apple ecosystem.

A company is making the pitch that its vertical integration, its crafted

experiences make better experiences and give developers the opportunity to reap big rewards.

But critics argue no one company should have this much power. This argument on full display

at the recent Epic Games trial, a verdict on Apple's 30% app store fee and other allegedly

monopolistic practices due in the

coming weeks or months. That is the big debate for Apple, and much of the fang trade is big, really so

bad. And Deirdre, I think this is Apple's big moment to make the argument that its iOS ecosystem, its Mac ecosystem, has provided this fertile ground for developers to reach more people in more ways and charge them for the value that they create in ways that they couldn't before.

That's really just an extension of what they were saying in this trial, but WWDC is where they get to connect that argument, at least, to the real world.

Yeah, I mean, can WWDC be a bit of a distraction? We know that, you know, Apple came out of this epic trial, you know, with its legal arguments intact, perhaps having the upper hand,

but reputationally, Carl, it did take some hits. And you've heard more and more developers come

out and say that, you know, perhaps Apple is rent-seeking. So can it get developers excited about a new

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