The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Apple over allegedly monopolistic smartphone practices. The federal agency is not alone in the matter, bringing 15 states and the District of Columbia into the mix as well. Apple, as you might imagine, disputes the allegations. Potential impacts are myriad, from consumer messaging to smartphones to smart watches. […]

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In its wide-ranging antitrust complaint against Apple and its iPhone business, the U.S. Justice Department takes specific aim against Apple’s massive financial business, specifically how it uses Apple Pay to prohibit competition and make large amounts of money in the process, to the tune of billions in annual revenues. The DOJ alleges that is not […]

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Well, that was fast. After a House subcommittee gave its assent to a bill that would force the divestment of TikTok or ban it in the United States, the House itself voted in the affirmative, albeit with a few dozen votes of dissent. Now it’s off to the Senate, where high-profile support has already been […]

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Google announced a major change to its Safe Browsing feature in Chrome today that will make the service work in real time by checking against a server-side list — all without sharing your browsing habits with Google. Previously, Chrome downloaded a list of known sites that harbor malware, unwanted software and phishing scams once or […]

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A startup out of Paris that began life building marketing tools has raised $22 million after making a successful pivot into billing — a space it discovered was even more broken among potential customers. Lago, developer of an open-source billing platform, has picked up the funding across two rounds of funding it’s revealing to coincide […]

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Spotify is enhancing its audiobooks streaming service with a feature that may be familiar to the app’s music consumers: Countdown Pages. These YouTube-like Countdown Pages were launched alongside other new additions for Spotify’s artists last year, offering a dedicated space on artists’ profiles where a timer could count down to a new release. Now, that […]

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Spotify is adding music videos to its mobile and desktop apps in some markets. They are tightly integrated with the company’s music library as the streaming giant lets you seamlessly switch between audio and music videos in its mobile and desktop apps. However, music videos are only available in beta in 11 select markets for […]

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Investors know that most startups fail, but something that may be less understood is how few mobile apps actually make money. According to a new analysis of the subscription app economy from mobile subscription toolkit provider RevenueCat, the top 5% of apps generate 200 times the revenue of the bottom quartile after their first year, […]

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Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky is adding to its ranks by scooping up a member of its developer community. London-based software engineer Samuel Newman, who built the well-received third-party Bluesky client, Graysky, is joining the startup, where he will now help develop Bluesky’s official app along with the rest of the frontend team. Given his change […]

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Apple will allow iOS developers located in the European Union to distribute apps from the web, rather then via its App Store. The option, which it says will be made available to qualifying developers “later this Spring”, is being offered in response to the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) which puts obligations on how Apple […]

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Block Party, a startup developed by software engineer and tech diversity advocate Tracy Chou, was among the victims of Twitter’s (now X’s) API changes earlier this year, forcing it to pivot its business. At the SXSW conference in Austin this weekend, Chou presented a glimpse of what Block Party is now up to with its […]

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Would-be Twitter/X rival Bluesky is looking to more directly invest in its developer community in order to foster growth. The company last week announced “AT Protocol Grants,” a new program that will dole out small grants to developers building on its new social networking protocol. Initially, Bluesky said it would release $10,000 in grants of […]

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