Amazon

Apple on Friday removed the Fakespot app from the iOS App Store. Fakespot, which is a service for filtering and hiding fake product reviews on Amazon, launched its iOS app last month, but now, the app has been taken down following a request from Amazon itself.

An Apple and Amazon antitrust investigation has opened in Spain, following a similar one in Italy, and earlier concern in the US.

While the Spanish authorities don’t go into much detail, it seems likely this relates to the global deal reached between the two companies back in 2018, and follow-on developments to this …

The Amazon Appstore has now joined Google in following Apple’s lead in reducing commissions for smaller developers – but with an interesting twist. The Amazon Appstore is an alternative place for people to download Android apps.

Apple last year announced its Small Business Program, a clever way to reduce antitrust pressure by reducing its cut of app sales to 15% for all but the very largest developers. Google did the same this year, in a rather fairer way, and now Amazon has come up with its own twist …

Amazon is seemingly taking action against a handful of technology accessory makers after a data breach exposed a fake reviews scam. As first reported by SafetyDetectives, a myriad of Amazon vendors were found to offer free products in exchange for positive fake reviews. Popular Apple accessory makers such as Aukey have also completely disappeared from Amazon.

A survey of 1,500 tech employees found that 77% of them think that Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook have too much power. Only 8% disagreed.

Tech workers were also asked about a wide range of other tech issues, including working with law enforcement, China, and legislating AI…

Amazon is expanding its platform for sharing mobile gaming clips, GameOn, to the iPhone and iPad. If you ever want to record short clips from your gameplay, Amazon’s GameOn app makes it easy.

Amazon had a surprising announcement back in December when it revealed support for Mac instances on AWS. macOS Mojave and Catalina were the only supported operating systems at launch, and now the latest OS for Mac is officially supported.

The Parler app is non-functional, and parler.com has gone offline, as Amazon Web Services discontinued service to the company. Both the website and the app relied on AWS for content distribution.

The social network was set up after Twitter started clamping down on disinformation and hate speech. However, both Apple and Google dropped the apps after it was revealed that Parler was used to help plan the attempted coup at the Capitol, and was being used to plan a second armed attack in DC ahead of the inauguration …

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now offering Mac instances to developers who want to speed up building and testing of Mac, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS apps. The instances are based on physical Mac minis, and you get exclusive access to a machine while you are using it.

While relatively expensive compared to other Mac mini in the cloud services, AWS does offer a couple of significant benefits …

There was controversy back in 2018 when an Apple/Amazon deal was said to risk putting many independent resellers out of business. The deal led to antitrust investigations in the US and Italy, and a third one has now been opened in Germany.

The agreement was reached almost two years ago, providing an official Apple store on Amazon, and limiting sales of Apple products to authorized resellers …

A curious issue is affecting Apple Card users when it comes to using the credit card at Amazon. Some are reporting that not only is Apple Card not working at the retail giant, but it’s also disappearing from their saved payment options.

Amazon Music podcasts are on the way, with the ecommerce giant also planning on making podcasts available on its audiobook service, Audible. This will almost certainly mean that podcasts are natively supported on Echo speakers, rather than requiring third-party skills.

Apple is still the best-known source of podcasts, but Spotify has offered podcasts for a few years now and has really upped its game in the past 18 months – including a controversial $100M exclusive. Other ways to listen to podcasts include TuneIn, iHeart Radio, Pandora, and Radio.com.

Just like Spotify, Amazon is headed for controversy with its approach …

Amazon has debuted an overhauled version of its Alexa mobile app for iPhone, bringing a new focus on personalization and native Amazon Alexa features. As reported by TechCrunch, the redesigned Alexa app removes the emphasis on third-party skills, instead focusing “on how consumers are actually using Alexa.”

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