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.
Popular indie game “The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth” has been rejected from the Apple App Store for supposedly portraying “violence against children.”
A day after Apple began the mass purge of applications depicting the Confederate flag, the Nazi Swastika is still featured prominently in some games. The choice to ban a purported symbol of slavery from historical games, but not of mass genocide, reveals how tech companies struggle to apply hate speech guidelines — often with strange inconsistency.
Apple has updated its App Store policies to allow the use of marijuana-themed applications and images while “enforcing” a ban on “images of guns” in App Store screenshots.
