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.
TikTok is introducing a data portability API to help it comply with new European regulations designed to rein in Big Tech’s market dominance through various obligations and restrictions.
Data transfersData portability and interoperability constitutes a major part of the DMA regulations, and tech companies have been bolstering their efforts on this front for several years in preparation.
Thus the data portability API goes some way toward addressing that limitation, allowing third-party developers to build conduits for data to travel from TikTok to their own apps — if the user authorizes this.
Through the API, developers can request access to “all available data,” or individual categories including TikTok posts and profile data, activity, and direct messages (DMs).
The data portability API is available to applicants globally, but the developer must be able to demonstrate a “well-defined use case” before they will be approved.
Apple says it plans to appeal the historic €1.84 billion fine issued today by the European Commission over Apple’s anticompetitive practices in the streaming music market.
Apple again stressed that Spotify pays Apple nothing in terms of App Store commissions because it sells its subscriptions only on Apple’s website.
“They want to use Apple’s tools and technologies, distribute on the App Store, and benefit from the trust we’ve built with users — and to pay Apple nothing for it,” Apple says.
“In short, Spotify wants more.”Apple says that while it respects the European Commission, the facts don’t support the decision, and ” as a result, Apple will appeal.”“Every day, teams at Apple work to keep that dream alive,” Apple wrote.
“We do it by making the App Store the safest and best experience for our users.
Convinced that the infrastructure layer for truly decentralized social apps was lacking, he decided to fill the void, leading to Taiko’s inception in March 2022.
A truly decentralized social networkFor Wang, Taiko provides a critical building block for a social network that is truly owned by users.
The ideal decentralized social app, despite its greater technical challenges, could allow: “1.
Censorship resistance… and thus, freedom of speech.”One of the greatest challenges facing decentralized social apps is content quality and safety.
Each relayer can then filter content that reflects the “unique perspectives” of the underlying decentralized social network, thereby attracting diverse user bases.
Swayy is an iPhone app startup that allows you to share not your current location, but your next intended location.
I also liked the way the Swayy app allows me to create custom groups.
As Westropp pointed out, as a female founder, she’s acutely aware that being able to control precisely who can see her future location is something she hard-wired into the app.
Of course, Swayy is likely to struggle against the tech giants already toying with location as feature.
It will also be an opportunity for Instagram to appeal to people who were fans of Zenly, a social map app that Snap acquired and then shut down in 2022.
After adding 15 hours of free audiobooks listening to its subscription plan late last year, Spotify today is introducing a $9.99 per month option that will allow its free users to also access its audiobooks collection.
With the addition, free Spotify users will able to continue to stream music and podcasts via its ad-supported service, but pay to listen to audiobooks without having to buy a Spotify subscription.
However, the move could allow Spotify to upsell audiobooks to customers who aren’t as interested in its music service, or who regularly use another app for that.
15 hours is fairly generous, as it often encompasses more listening time than one audiobook alone, if not two shorter books.
The company today also offered an update on the interest that free users have for audiobooks, noting that since launching audiobooks for its Premium subscribers, it’s seen a 45% increase in free users searching for and interacting with audiobook content each day.
Facebook plans to shut down its news tab in the U.S. and AustraliaMeta is trying to distance itself from news media-related regulations and payment complexities as it is planning to remove the news tab on Facebook in the U.S. and Australia.
The social media company said that the number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. dropped by 80% in the last year.
“This is part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most.
The fate of Facebook News’ shutdown is due to regulatory moves and Meta’s withdrawal from investing in new products.
Legislations passed in countries Australia and Canada resulted in authorities asking platforms to pay online publishers for their content.
Google is introducing improvements to search suggestions in Chrome, the company announced today.
As part of the changes, users will start to get more helpful search suggestions in Chrome based on what others are searching for, see more images for suggested searches and find search suggestions even with a poor connection.
Search suggestions are the drop-down list of suggested completions that appear before you finish typing out your query in Google.
With these new updates, Google is expanding the availability of search suggestions and using them to boost inspiration.
For example, if you start typing out “bohemian table,” Google will display an image of a bohemian table, bohemian tablecloth, bohemian table runner and bohemian table lamp.
Brave is launching its AI-powered assistant, Leo, to all Android users.
The assistant allows users to ask questions, translate pages, summarize pages, create content and more.
With Leo, Brave is hoping its users won’t have to turn to ChatGPT or other popular LLMs for tasks and queries, and will instead use its service instead.
If you’re not seeing Brave Leo for Android yet, that’s because it will be rolled out in phases over the next few days.
Brave isn’t the only browser company to recently launch an AI assistant, as Opera launched an AI assistant called Aria last year.
If you didn’t know legendary tennis player and seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams had an eye for interior design, consider this your heads up.
Walmart announced in October 2023 that it was developing an interior design assistant that leverages generative AI and AR technology.
Palazzo has ambitious plans for its platform and wants to expand beyond generative AI-powered offerings.
The company will bring on retail partners to include inventory on the platform for Vinci to suggest to potential customers.
Most notably, Palazzo is bringing in notable interior design companies (like V Starr) to contribute designs on the platform and be compensated for their work.
