Lobbyists for Apple and Google have reportedly descended on Arizona as the state considers legislation that would allow app developers to use third-party payment systems to circumvent the 15 to 30 percent cut that Apple and Google demand from app sales.
The North Dakota state senate recently voted 36-11 against a bill that would have required tech giants Apple and Google to enable software developers to use their own payment processing software and avoid fees charged by their app stores.
In a recent tweet thread, iOS App Developer Kosta Eleftheriou claims that Apple is doing little to combat a growing number of scam apps in its App Store, with some of these apps generating as much as $5 million a year from unsuspecting users. According to Eleftheriou, “they’ve had many chances now and for years to right this wrong — but they’re now willfully neglecting to do so, in an alarming pattern of behavior.”
A judge has ordered Apple to produce extensive documentation from CEO Tim Cook and Senior VP Craig Federighi in the lawsuit filed by Epic Games over its megapopular game Fortnite.
In the latest update on the legal battle between Fortnite developer Epic Games and Apple, a judge has ruled that Apple cannot be forced to put the popular video game back in its App Store and criticized Epic Games for what she called deceitful practices and intentional breach of contract.
Tech giant Apple reportedly forced the privacy-focused email app ProtonMail to add in-app purchases to its iPhone app despite the service being free for years. Apple’s treatment of the popular privacy-centric email service is another example of Tim Cook’s company flexing its monopoly power. ProtonMail CEO Andy Yen likened Apple’s app store policies to “mafia extortion.”
In a recent House antitrust report, former Apple App Store Director Phil Shoemaker states that Apple uses its App Store rules as a “weapon” against competitors. His testimony is just more evidence that the Big Tech Masters of the Universe use monopoly power to crush the competition.
A new report states that tech giant Apple enjoyed a massive 31 percent spike in App Store revenue year-over-year in Q3, jumping from $14.5 billion last year to $19 billion this year. TikTok has emerged as the highest-earning non-game app on both the Apple and Google app stores.
In a recent court filing, tech giant Apple has accused Epic Games of “starting a fire and pouring gasoline on it” by breaking Apple’s App Store rules.
Tech giant Apple is now seeking damages against Epic Games, the developers behind the wildly popular game Fortnite, which sued Apple alleging that the company took part in monopolistic practices in relation to its App Store.
Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple is now well underway with the game developer scoring a partial win in the first ruling on the case. The court granted the developer a temporary restraining order against Apple following the tech giant’s threat to remove Epic’s Unreal Engine from multiple Apple platforms — an act of retaliation against the Fortnite company that would have impacted thousands of developers working on their own games and entertainment projects.
Epic Games, the studio behind the megapopular game Fortnite, alleges in a new court filing that tech giant Apple is holding its Unreal gaming engine “hostage” by threatening to cut off Epic’s developer tool access. Thousands of other developers in video games and entertainment rely on the Unreal engine to produce games and computer animation.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told Congress that all app developers are treated equally in Apple’s App Store, but a report from Bloomberg alleges that Apple halved its App Store fee to get Amazon Prime Video on its mobile devices and TV set-top box.
Just days after Basecamp co-founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson stated that a handful of companies like Google and Facebook have “colonized the web, and they’re choking it,” Hansson found his new email app banned from Apple’s app store.
Microsoft President Brad Smith has called for antitrust regulators to focus on rival tech giant Apple in a recent interview.
The smartphone market has become a duopoly. Two companies, Apple and Google, have captured almost 99 percent of the global market for smartphone operating systems. Almost every new smartphone made today will either feature Google’s Android operating system, or Apple’s iOS.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has defended the company’s decision to blacklist an app tracking Hong Kong protest and police activity. One Hong Kong legislative counselor commented, “We Hongkongers will definitely look closely at whether Apple chooses to uphold its commitment to free expression and other basic human rights, or become an accomplice for Chinese censorship and oppression.”
Tech giant Apple has reportedly blacklisted an app that allows people in Hong Kong to track protests and police activity in the city, claiming that distributing such information is illegal.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said he would “take a look” at a Saudi Arabian app being hosted by Apple on the App Store, which allows men to track women’s movements and stop them from escaping the country.
Apple and Google are facing criticism for hosting a Saudi Arabian smartphone app on their platforms which allows men to track women’s movements and “stop them leaving the country.”
Pop musician Taylor Swift is shutting down her “Swift Life” social media app just over one year after its launch, informing users that they have under a month to spend their virtual money.
The Supreme Court will hear an antitrust case on Monday that focuses on Apple’s alleged antitrust violations with regards to its App Store practices.
Popular microblogging platform Tumblr, popular with teenagers and college-aged youth, has been kicked off of the Apple App Store, allegedly over issues with “child sexual exploitation” being posted on the social network.
In a sign of infighting between Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe, Apple barred Facebook’s Onavo security app from the App Store after it failed to meet Apple’s privacy standards by collecting user data.
After the InfoWars app overtook CNN on Apple’s charts, ranking as the fourth most popular free app, the cable network lobbied Apple to remove the app from its platform.
A “contraceptive app,” which became certified in the European Union as a “form of birth control,” has been blamed following 37 unwanted pregnancies.
Apple has irrevocably altered mobile gaming with less than 30 words, forcing apps with loot boxes to disclose the odds of what players can expect to get out of them before purchasing.
Popular dating platform Tinder has become the highest grossing app on Apple’s App Store, following the launch of a new paid feature, according to a report.
The New York Times reports that Uber was nearly kicked off the Apple App Store after the ride-hailing company was caught breaking privacy rules.
Apple’s App Store have rejected free-speech Twitter alternative “Gab” for a second time, citing “objectionable” user content on the social network.
