Apps

Meta has revealed that it plans to test paid subscriptions to Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook – with multiple options apparently on the cards.

The company has so far only provided specifics on the paywalled features for Instagram, with no details yet available about its other services …

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Everyone has thousands of photos in their iPhone’s photo library, but you might not necessarily go back and rediscover them often. In recent iOS versions, the Photos app has gotten better at surfacing old memories – but Phozzle has a unique approach to photo rediscovery.

A large chunk of the United States is set to face a massive winter storm this weekend. In the lead up to that, many people have turned to the Weather app on their iPhone for forecasts.

The problem? The forecasts are often outlandish and inconsistent. Here’s why.

Meta has announced what we all expected: ads are coming to Threads. This follows an initial roll out to select markets last year as part of a test.

Even traditional video-on-demand services are no longer safe, it seems: Netflix vertical video is coming later this year.

The company started testing the idea more than six months ago, and one of its co-CEOs has now confirmed that the move is going ahead …

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’re looking for a fresh set of wallpapers for your iPhone or iPad, Radiance is a great app to check out. It has a nice feeling interface, and it’s completely free of ads.

With a new tool called Mobile Apps by Replit, users can describe their idea, let Replit do its thing, and then scan a QR code to test the app on their iPhones. Here are the details.

OpenAI has announced several important changes to ChatGPT. First, the company says it is rolling out its more affordable ChatGPT Go plan in the United States for $8 per month. OpenAI also confirmed it will soon start testing ads in ChatGPT …

Apple Creator Studio was unveiled earlier this week as a new bundle of powerful creative apps. Despite pushback from some users tired of subscriptions, I think this new Apple offering could be exactly what many of us have long asked for. Here’s how.

EU antitrust legislation forced Apple to allow third-party app stores for iPhone within the bloc, with MacPaw’s Setapp Mobile one of the first to take advantage of this.

The company has now announced that it is closing its iOS store, citing “still-evolving and complex terms.” Apple would likely argue that the EU is responsible for constantly moving goalposts without clearly specifying how it wants the company to respond …

The US was one of a number of countries to escape recent Spotify price increases, but that is now coming to an end.

The streaming music service increased the price of its premium plans in a large number of other countries late last year, while US pricing remained unchanged. Predictably, that was only a temporary respite …

It’s been close to a decade since I first started being grumpy about subscription apps. I did acknowledge the benefits right from the start, including giving many developers a more sustainable income, but expressed my unease about where we were headed.

A few years later, I voiced doubts as to whether it was a sustainable business model. But the trend has continued to grow, with Apple Creator Studio the latest example …

At this point, I kind of have to feel sorry for Roblox. The company came under increasing criticism for failing to adequately protect children, and then courted even greater controversy when it started requiring children as young as nine years old to submit a video selfie for age verification.

The latest development in the saga is that the age verification process appears to be failing badly, with the company saying that you can’t expect everything to work on day one …

Today Apple unveiled Pixelmator Pro for iPad alongside its new Apple Creator Studio subscription. And in a new page on Apple’s website, the company has revealed the fate of its existing Pixelmator and Photomator apps for iOS.

Apple acquired the app-making team at Pixelmator in late 2024, with the acquisition closing nearly one year ago. Now, in the first major change since the acquisition, Pixelmator Pro is coming to iPad alongside the launch of Apple Creator Studio.

Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which it describes as a “groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed to put studio-grade power into the hands of everyone.”

Apple Creator Studio will launch on the App Store on Wednesday, January 28, and will cost $12.99 per month or $129 per year. There will also be a one-month free trial offer. College students and educators can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year.

It may sound morbid, but China’s new top paid App Store app—Are You Dead?—is spiking in popularity among iPhone users who live alone. Here are the details.

If you’ve received an Instagram password reset email, claiming that you requested it, you should ignore it.

Malwarebytes reports that cybercriminals stole Instagram account details for 17.5 million users, but the social network claims that there was no security breach …

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’ve ever found yourself looking into the sky and wondered “huh, that plane looks a little interesting’ – Zephy is a fun plane tracking tool that uses your iPhone’s gyroscope to show you what exactly is around you. It’s rather nifty.

Your iPhone uses preinstalled Apple apps by default for system actions like opening links, making phone calls, and more. But iOS lets you set new default apps in a variety of categories, and the available options expanded in iOS 26. Here are the details.