App Store

Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a major lawsuit against Apple and the App Store will be allowed to move forward. Now, Apple has responded to that Supreme Court decision, saying that it is confident it will prevail in court.

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A major lawsuit against Apple and its App Store will be allowed to move forward, the United States Supreme Court has decided, affirming the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. The lawsuit relates to Apple’s requirement that apps distributed on the iPhone go through the App Store which is controlled by the iPhone.

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Apple has removed three dating apps from the App Store after they were found to allow kids under the age of 13 to sign up. All three of the apps were operated by a Ukraine-based company called Wildec.

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Apple has released an official company statement in response to the recent controversy surrounding Apple’s decision to remove apps that relied on MDM systems to provide features similar to those introduced by Apple in iOS 12 as Screen Time.

Echoing comments made in an email from Phil Schiller, the statement directly refutes the claims made by The New York Times this week: ‘Contrary to what The New York Times reported over the weekend, this isn’t a matter of competition. It’s a matter of security’.

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Some sizeable number of people are experiencing an issue with the App Store at the moment. On an affected account, when attempting to download a pending app update or a whole new app, users are presented with a dialog to accept new Apple Media Services Terms & Conditions.

The problem is that if you press accept, the same legal screen appears again asking to approve or reject the new terms and conditions. This process repeats indefinitely and the download completely stalls.

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[Update: Quartz India now reports that Apple has removed TikTok from the App Store in India.]

Viral short-form video application TikTok is facing backlash from the government in India. Regulators are said to be concerned with some of the content found within TikTok, and the effects that content could have on children.

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Seemingly in an effort to combat the ongoing problem of accidental App Store subscriptions, Apple has added an extra step to the subscription process in the App Store. Apple will now present users with a “Confirm Subscription” popup before finalizing the details.

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Apple is facing a Dutch antitrust investigation into whether it favors its own apps over those of rival developers. It looks likely to have an initial focus on Apple Music and Apple News, but will probably extend to other app categories, and may also include Google’s Play store.

Spotify has already filed a complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Apple Music has an unfair advantage over Spotify, and today’s report references that and says that ‘apps for news media’ is another focus …

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App Store analytics suggest that Elon Musk may be right in his contention that the big problems have already been solved. While we once had an appetite for new apps, that’s no longer the case: we’re increasingly downloading the more established ones.

The founding CTO of Hulu points to a stark difference in the app charts between 2014 and today …

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The UK wants to get tough on ‘harmful content’ within apps, on social networks and on websites – and is consulting on new legislation which could see companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter fined up to 4% of their worldwide turnover if they don’t act quickly to remove it.

Government minister Jeremy Wright said that “the era of self-regulation for online companies is over” …

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Consumer spending in the App Store is expected to continue increasing at a brisk pace. new data from Sensor Tower today suggests that Apple Store spending will more than double between now and 2023.

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A developer who worked at Apple for seven years has accused the Cupertino company of violating its own App Store guidelines. Dave DeLong says that the Apple News+ sign-up screen is in clear violation of three requirements, with The Verge pointing to another major no-no …

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Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab today announced in a blog post that it has filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service. This comes less than a week after Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission and called Apple a “monopolist.”

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US senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made waves on Friday when she announced proposals to break up big tech – including Apple’s App Store.

Her initial focus was on Amazon, Facebook and Google, but Warren later clarified that one of her proposals would apply to Apple too …

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US senator Elizabeth Warren announced a radical plan today to ‘break up big tech’. As a candidate for the 2020 presidential race, Warren proposes new restrictions on how much freedom tech firms have to control proprietary platforms.

She wants to stop companies, including Apple, from taking advantage of the monopolistic power granted by app stores to levy fees on other developers whilst promoting their own services above others.

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A New York regulator has written to Facebook and the developers behind at least 11 popular iPhone apps found to be sending sensitive data to Facebook, to demand an explanation.

This data included things like weight, BMI, menstrual cycles, alcohol consumption, food consumption, heart-rate, blood pressure and calories burned during exercise – including in one case the category ‘sexual activity’ …

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Throughout March, Apple will be featuring female entrepreneurs, creatives and engineers across its platforms to celebrate International Women’s Day. We have already reported on the upcoming Activity Challenge and special Today at Apple schedule, but Apple is doing even more.

Every day in March, the App of the Day in the App Store will feature apps that are built, led or founded by women. On Fridays, Apple will do richer editorials with female members of the tech industry.

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Update: Just a day after this report about multiple developers gaming the App Store with cloned apps, Apple has removed many of the ones that were pointed out by TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet.

A new report from TechCrunch today looks into how some app developers game the App Store by submitting multiple versions of the same (or very similar) app. While it looks like these apps are breaking the App Store rules, developers of these apps defend the strategy as fair game.

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