The complaint accuses Apple of moulding its privacy and security practices in ways that benefits the company financially.
One quote particularly jumps out where the DOJ calls Apple’s privacy and security justification an “elastic shield”:“Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests,” it says.
“Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct.
It also said that at the moment developers can’t offer a separate app store for children.
Essentially, the DOJ argues that Apple’s privacy and security practices are pretextual in nature and the company chooses “alternative courses” to protect its monopoly.
Beeper gave up on its mission after Apple blocked the app’s efforts late last year.
Each time Beeper issued workarounds and fixes to keep the service afloat, Apple knocked them down one by one.
“Recently, Apple blocked a third-party developer from fixing the broken cross-platform messaging experience in Apple Messages and providing end-to-end encryption for messages between Apple Messages and Android users,” the DOJ complaint reads.
When Apple launched the Apple Watch the following year, it began limiting third-party access to new and improved APIs for smartwatch functionality.
The DOJ notes that Apple prevents iPhone users from responding to notifications using a third-party smartwatch.
Caller ID app Truecaller today blocks between 38 and 40 billion spam calls annually for its 374 million+ users.
The update is Android-only: Apple does not allow Truecaller (or other caller ID services) to check callers’ spammer status to block calls automatically on iOS.
But to get the best out of the app, users have to engage and tweak their own lists.
This isn’t the first AI feature at Truecaller: it provides an AI assistant that screens calls to identify why the caller has dialled the user.
After updating the Truecaller app to v13.58 or later, users can find the new spam-blocking feature by going through Settings > Block.
We looked at X’s official help center page and ran tests of the feature to analyze how the calling feature works and to understand the risks associated with it.
Because of these privacy risks, we recommend switching off the calling feature completely.
When the test account sends a DM to the real account, the message is received but neither account sees the phone icon.
When the real account accepts the DM, the test account can then call the real account.
When the real account follows the test account back, both can contact each other.
Streaming music service Deezer is joining Spotify in cheering the European Union’s €1.84 billion fine imposed on Apple for breaking antitrust rules in the streaming music market.
Apple’s new DMA rules, introduced in January, are a complicated means of providing a path forward for app developers to distribute apps from alternative app marketplaces.
Deezer is among those developers who drafted an open letter to the EC last week, claiming Apple was making a “mockery” of the DMA.
So far, we’ve only heard from MacPaw, the maker of a subscription service for apps, Setapp, which announced it was switching to Apple’s DMA terms last week.
However, larger developers, like Apple critics Spotify and Epic Games, as well as tech companies like Meta, Mozilla, and Microsoft have criticized Apple’s new rules.
Everyone profits together.”In other words, Apple’s App Store was originally seen as a platform that could help the tech giant sell more iPhones, as having easy access to popular apps, like Facebook — an early App Store partner — would be a plus for consumers.
Though it made some concessions for small business developers and others, it sees no model for the App Store that doesn’t involve a commission structure.
Apple's bitter griping simply describes their historic, pre-monopoly relationship with app makers: the device provides great APIs, and apps provide great features to attract users.
In America, the issue is coming before the District Court in Epic v Apple as Epic challenges Apple’s malicious compliance with the court’s anti-steering injunction.
Sweeney also retweeted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s video message about the fine and his concerns that Apple will find a way to avoid full compliance.
Despite the EC ruling favoring Spotify and other streamers over Apple, the company was still cautious about how Apple would proceed.
So we’re looking forward to the next steps that will hopefully clearly and conclusively address Apple’s long-standing unfair practices,” Spotify wrote.
In 2019, Spotify first filed its antitrust complaint against the tech giant, which later led to the EU’s formal investigation of Apple’s App Store announced in 2020.
In April of the following year, the EU issued a statement of objections, accusing Apple of distorting competition in the market for streaming services.
And it noted that Spotify had a 56% share of the music streaming market in Europe, compared with Apple Music’s 11% share.
Google said on Friday it will start removing apps from its Play Store in India if developers fail to comply with its payment policy, taking a definitive stand weeks after the top Indian court granted the Android-maker with relief.
Without naming them, Google said 10 companies in India, including “many well-established ones,” have not paid Google Play’s fee despite being provided with three years to prepare.
“After giving these developers more than three years to prepare, including three weeks after the Supreme Court’s order, we are taking necessary steps to ensure our policies are applied consistently across the ecosystem, as we do for any form of policy violation globally,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“Enforcement of our policy, when necessary, can include removal of non-compliant apps from Google Play.”This is a developing story.
More to come.
On Friday, the streaming music company issued its response to Apple’s new DMA rules, calling the new fees imposed on developers “extortion” and Apple’s compliance plan “a complete and total farce,” that demonstrated the tech giant believes that the rules don’t apply to them.
It will also charge a 3% payment processing fee when developers use Apple’s in-app payments instead of their own.
Apple’s App Store will maintain its power, Ek believes.
Plus, because of the increased fees, Spotify doesn’t even have a choice, Ek explains — it’s forced to stick with the current system.
“With our EU Apple install base in the 100 million range, this new tax on downloads and updates could skyrocket our customer acquisition costs, potentially increasing them tenfold.
MY FIRST X VIDEO MADE OVER $250,000!
Luckily for Musk, MrBeast is a fan of his — but, business comes first.
Throughout MrBeast’s test, though, some users raised concern that the video was being treated by X as though it were an advertisement, which could possibly juice engagement.
Ryan Broderick hypothesized that videos might be wrongly labeled as ads if a pre-roll ad plays before the video, but this still causes a lot of confusion on the user end.
A representative from X did not respond for comment.
