Grok Shows How Centralized Tech Can Be Manipulated ⇥ techdirt.com

Mike Masnick, Techdirt, reacting to Grok’s Nazi turn:

We need to take back control over the tools that we use.

Especially these days, as so many people have started (dangerously) treating AI tools as “objective” sources of truth, people need to understand that they are all subject to biases. Some of these biases are in their training data. Some are in their weights. And some are, as is now quite clear, directly in their system prompts.

The problem isn’t just bias — it’s whose bias gets embedded in the system. When a centralized AI reflects the worldview of tech billionaires rather than the diverse perspectives of its users, we’re not getting artificial intelligence. We’re getting artificial ideology.

I am half compelled by this argument, and half concerned. I obviously believe we should be skeptical of how much trust we place in corporations. After all, they have given us ample reason to be suspicious of them.

Even before it was “X”, Twitter did not have the best reputation for quality discussion. And then it was bought by Elon Musk. I still do not believe there is sufficient evidence for bias in users’ feeds during the recent U.S. presidential election, but the anti-“political correctness” written into Grok is a plainly obvious problem. Even so, a new version of Grok was launched this week, which consults Musk’s tweets when it gets stuck on a query. All of this should undermine the little bit of trust anyone might have left in X and xAI.

A company with a much better reputation, historically, is Google. Even though it has faced decades of scrutiny and questions about its secret website rankings, it has generally gotten things more right than not. To be clear, I can point to dozens of times when it has been bad at search — especially in the last five years — but it remains what most people think of when they think of searching the web. Yet, because it feels to some like A.I. works like magic, that reputation is on the line with good criticisms and very dumb ones. The Attorney General of Missouri — the state that nearly prosecuted a journalist for viewing the source of a website — is investigating Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI for being insufficiently supportive of the president’s record on Israel–U.S. relations. The Attorney General approvingly cites Missouri v. Biden, which the state lost.

Yet, even with all this in mind, we need to be able to trust institutions to some extent. This is the part of me concerned about Masnick’s piece. I think it is a great suggestion that we should control our own tools, where anyone can “choose your own values, your own sources, and your own filters”. However, most people are unlikely to do these things. Most of us will probably use something from some big company we do not really trust, but it is what ships with the system or is built into the apps we use most, or whatever. We need to ensure the areas where we have little control are trustworthy, too.

What that probably means is some kind of oversight, akin to what we have for other areas of little control. This is how we have some trust in the water we drink, the air we breathe, the medicine we take, and the planes we fly in. Consumer protection laws give us something to stand on when we are taken advantage of. Yes, there are places where this is done better than others, and I think we should learn from them instead of throwing up our hands and pretending this problem will be solved on an individual basis. To be clear, I am not reading Masnick’s writing as some kind of libertarian fantasy or an anti-regulation screed, nor do I interpret that in Alex Komoroske’s manifesto either. But I also believe there should be some regulation because we need to be realistic about the practical limitations of how much time and effort people will invest into controlling their experience.

Columbia University Applicant Data Stolen in Politically Motivated Attack ⇥ theverge.com

Cameron Fozi, Bloomberg:

Personal information about Columbia University students and applicants — including whether they were accepted or rejected by the school — has been stolen, according to a Bloomberg News review of data provided by a person who claimed to have hacked the school in June.

[…]

The alleged hacker, speaking via text and claiming to work alone, said they sought to acquire information about university applications that would suggest a continuation of affirmative action policies in Columbia’s admissions, following a 2023 Supreme Court decision that effectively barred the practice. The Columbia official said the school’s admissions processes are compliant with the Supreme Court decision.

Elizabeth Lopatto, the Verge:

And yet, there has been precious little reporting on the Columbia hack. Wired hasn’t covered it, and, until this story, neither has The Verge. Nor have The Chronicle of Higher Education, CyberScoop, 404 Media, TechCrunch, or Krebs on Security. These — including The Verge — are small to medium-size entities, and there’s any number of possible reasons why they didn’t pick it up. (On our end, it was partly because we were short-staffed during a national holiday, and partly because we didn’t immediately piece together how extraordinary this particular hack is.) But coverage at the much bigger, well-resourced institutions is also scanty. The Wall Street Journal passed on the story. Reuters has a brief on the initial outage; AP has a short write-up as well, which The Washington Post ran as part of their syndication deal.

The most extensive reporting comes from Bloomberg and The New York Times.

It is remarkable how little — and, from the Times in particular, how poor — coverage is of this attack. According to Fozi, the same person has claimed responsibility for two other politically motivated university data breaches. That is an interesting story.

Grok is Made Nazi ⇥ gizmodo.com

Matt Novak, Gizmodo:

Elon Musk recently promised to “fix” his AI chatbot Grok after it gave some answers that he thought were too liberal. But it seems Musk cranked up the far-right extremism dial with this last update, as Grok is now parroting Nazi talking points about Jews. In fact, Grok approvingly invoked the name of Adolf Hitler and seemed to suggest a second Holocaust was needed in tweets on Tuesday.

Bruna Horvath, NBC News:

In the same post, xAI said it would begin publishing Grok system prompts on GitHub so users could see when the company makes changes to the chatbot’s prompts. Under changes that have been made in the past day, the chatbot has been instructed that its responses “should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect,” as well as to “assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased.”

In her exit post today, Linda Yaccarino praised xAI as a “new chapter” for X, which is one way of putting it.

Update: After some thought, I changed the title of this post from “Grok Goes Nazi” to “Grok is Made Nazi”. The former is too passive, as though it decided on its own to become Nazi. The latter is closer to the truth: some person or people made Grok far more likely to respond with hateful and dehumanizing language. It was instructed to be okay with being “politically incorrect”. I regret my original phrasing.

Linda Yaccarino Steps Down As X CEO ⇥ axios.com

Linda Yaccarino:

After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of 𝕏.

Sara Fischer, Axios:

Once the ultimate cheerleader for Madison Avenue, Yaccarino’s relationship with the advertising community shifted when she became CEO of X, then Twitter.

Under Yaccarino, X waged a high-profile lawsuit against a major advertising industry coalition and its members, alleging the group abused its influence over marketers and ad agencies to discriminate unfairly against X, prompting an ad boycott.

I have never gotten a clear sense of whether Yaccarino is a true believer in the Musk vision for X, or simply an opportunist. After so many years in the advertising industry, it is surprising to see what looks like a heel turn to run an ad-supported company so antagonistic toward advertisers. Yet the tense relationship and this lawsuit have been a blueprint for the current U.S. administration. What a legacy.

On the other hand, if Yaccarino was regularly at odds with the owner of X, I am looking forward to the inevitable tell-all book.

The Quiet Exit of the Home Indicator in iOS and iPadOS 26 ⇥ reverttosaved.com

Craig Grannell:

In the ’26’ dev betas, Apple hasn’t provided an off switch in Settings [for the Home indicator], but it has introduced the next best thing. Actually, it’s arguably created something better. When you switch to an app, the Home indicator now elegantly fades. Further interaction with the app doesn’t make it reappear. Instead, you have to make a deliberate upwards swipe from the bottom of the screen to bring it back.

I am not saying I disagree with the change, but I think it is interesting to make this shift just as the Home indicator has gained additional functionality. It also makes it even odder to me that it is one of the things which remains constantly visible on a sleeping iPhone with an always-on display.

Apple Formally Appeals DMA Penalty ⇥ 9to5mac.com

When Apple recently tried again to comply with European competition laws, I noticed some peculiar phrasing in its announcement:

The European Commission has required Apple to make a series of additional changes under the Digital Markets Act: […]

The wording of this sentence makes it sound like the list of specific policies following it were dictated by the European Commission, but I am not sure that is true.

This was not an accidental implication, as it turns out, if you believe Apple’s side of the story.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac, reporting on Apple appealing the fines issued in April:

Furthermore, Apple says that the EU mandated that the Store Services Fee include multiple tiers. […]

Apple says that it was the EU who dictated which features should be included in which tier. For example, the EU mandated that Apple move app discovery features to the second tier.

Manton Reece:

Something isn’t adding up here. If the EU is dictating anything, it should be a 0% fee tier in addition to the standard App Store paid tier. Why would the EU be moving features to the second tier? Either Apple isn’t communicating the full story, or negotiations between Apple and the EU are very dysfunctional.

If regulators have taken on such an involved role in App Store policy, one has to wonder when that started. Was it the result of the April penalty, or has it been an ongoing conversation? If it is the latter, it suggests many other questions.

Transparent Development ⇥ arstechnica.com

One of the stranger qualities of this year’s Liquid Glass visual update is how much it is changing within just a few weeks. One would assume some designers with power at Apple would have recognized the illegibility of the first version before it was made available in June. Alas, it seems Apple is working things out in public now.

“Public” is a relative term. The ’26 operating systems are currently only being previewed to developers or, as it turns out, “developers” like me. Apple has not yet released a public beta. According to data collected by TelemetryDeck, iOS 26 (also referred to as “iOS 19” in their stats) is being used by around 2.5% of users of apps containing its analytics product. Even so, that could be millions of people at the scale of iOS.

Though I know there were changes in different releases of the iOS 7 development cycle, the first thing I thought of was the progression of Aqua in early builds of Mac OS X, first revealed in the second developer preview of 10.0. The most noticeable changes happened in the dock which, in the second and third previews, looked like a set of individual sometimes-underlined tiles. Those builds were released in January and February 2000; by the fourth preview, in May, the dock was closer to the version which eventually shipped. But those changes took place over many months; Mac OS X 10.0 did not ship to the public until March 2001. Complaints about the legibility of various translucent elements, however, were whittled away at for years to come. I have not seen anyone claim this was evidence Apple was misguided from the start with Aqua.

Assuming the entire Liquid Glass concept was a lock for the ’26 operating systems, would it be more or less acceptable for Apple to have shipped with the version debuted at WWDC, with any changes needing to wait until next year? I think it would have been silly to ship something clearly flawed — and flawedly clear, I suppose. It is not evidence Apple has been wrong all along when it comes to the ideas behind Liquid Glass, though it indicates the unique problems faced when working with transparency. But, also, you would think a company that has been working with transparent interfaces for twenty-five years would have some institutional memory and know what to avoid.

This rapid iteration is also a reminder of the pressure of Apple’s annual shipping schedule. As with iOS 7, I expect U.I. adjustments will continue in updates in the coming year.

Liquid Glass Differences Between the Second and Third Betas ⇥ birchtree.me

Matt Birchler:

As many now have commented on, today’s OS 26 betas tone down the liquid glass effect quite a bit on many elements in the operating system, and I’ve collected a few that stand out to me.

Liquid Glass officially has two appearances: clear and “regular”, which is frosted. If there have been any changes to the clear style in any of the betas, I cannot say I have noticed them. But the frosted style has become steadily more opaque since the first developer build of iOS 26 in some places. In particular, when iOS is in light mode and the screen is predominantly white, like the buttons in a Mail message, the effect is now extremely subtle, to the point where I wonder if there is a third Liquid Glass appearance.

I have no evidence for this other than the stark difference I can see between, say, the Notification Centre background — which obviously uses the clear appearance — the buttons at the bottom of, say, Mail or Music, and the edit menu, which appears to be about halfway as opaque. Without hard evidence for a third appearance, I have to assume this is either an optical illusion created by the size of each element, or the edit menu actually has a clear appearance, not regular as I have assumed.

Pressure on Substack ⇥ newsletter.anamariecox.com

Rebecca Falconer, Axios:

Veteran journalist Terry Moran, who abruptly left ABC News after calling President Trump and top aide Stephen Miller “world-class” haters, announced Wednesday that he’s moving to the newsletter platform Substack.

Jessica Testa, New York Times:

In January, the start-up best known for email newsletters gave all users the ability to publish live video. Now it is home to a handful of cable stars marooned from their mainstream media jobs amid reshuffled lineups, salary cuts and other controversies. On Substack, where politics is the most popular and lucrative category, anti-Trump publishers have been performing particularly well.

Nina Jankowicz, the American Sunlight Project:

Substack has gone even further, arguing that they’re not a social media platform, just a newsletter service, so they don’t need to do content moderation in the traditional sense. This may have been true in Substack’s early days when it was truly just a tech stack that sent emails out, but couldn’t be farther from the truth today. Algorithmic recommendations abound. Substack’s “Notes,” was, for about a millisecond, seen as an heir of Twitter. Writers can interact with specific communities they build in “Chats,” similar to Facebook Groups. It’s a social network.

Ana Marie Cox:

Right now, Substack is independent of the political pressures that might have pushed ABC to let Terry Moran go. But it’s utterly dependent on the whims of its investors. Every round of capital deepens the expectation of a big payoff. Substack doesn’t need to be sustainable to survive. It just needs to be buyable.

[…]

The problem isn’t just that Substack makes money off Nazis, it’s that they don’t seem to care who they make it from.

Substack has certainly faced pressure from different groups about — among other things — the extent of its moderation practices, but that is largely because it has made its presence prominent. It is not just another web host or utilitarian provider of paid bulk emails. It is a name brand — an increasingly complex platform. That makes it attractive to venture capitalists who have dumped nearly $100 million into building it up.

It would be odd if the economics of Substack — a collection of writers and publications with paying subscribers — are somehow better than those of, say, a magazine publisher today — also a collection of writers and publications with paying subscribers. It does have a tech sheen and the vibe of social networking, though, and there are no printing costs.

Yet it is still another platform hosted elsewhere. It simplifies the process for writers, podcasters, video creators, and others to publish their work for money. But their stuff is still made available at the mercy of software they do not control — and I bet there will be a time when Substack decides to make a controversial platform-wide change some publishers will want to back away from. The pressure is already there.

Supposed Parallels Between Meta’s ‘A.I. Superintelligence’ Effort and the ‘Metaverse’ ⇥ arstechnica.com

Jonathan Vanian, CNBC:

Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that he’s creating Meta Superintelligence Labs, which will be led by some of his company’s most recent hires, including Scale AI ex-CEO Alexandr Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

Zuckerberg said the new AI superintelligence unit, MSL, will house the company’s various teams working on foundation models such as the open-source Llama software, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects, according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC.

Kyle Orland, Ars Technica:

When I hear Zuckerberg talk about the promise of AI these days, it’s hard not to hear echoes of his monumental vision for the metaverse from 2021. If anything, Zuckerberg’s vision of our AI-powered future is even more grandiose than his view of the metaverse.

Orland allows for key differences, like how people actually use A.I. products, including those from Meta — Zuckerberg says “more than 1 billion monthly actives”. That seems, to me, to be a pretty big caveat. The series 404 Media has been running about A.I. slop on Facebook looks bad, but at it suggests people are using A.I. in connection with Meta’s products, something nobody can say about the metaverse it decided to use as the foundation for rebranding itself. Embarrassing.

A good faith read of Orland’s argument is that Meta is taking advantage of — and growing — the hype around A.I. in the same way as it attempted to do with the metaverse. This is obviously not a new thing for tech companies. They routinely proclaim world-changing advancements without earning it, and Meta is a particularly poor narrator of its own supposed brilliance. I would not trust it — but not because this all sounds a bit like the metaverse. Meta and Zuckerberg personally simply have not demonstrated a capacity for being visionary. The company has a knack for acquisitions and an ability to retain users’ attention. It has not shown an ability to invent the future.

The U.S. Government’s Astonishing Constitutional Claims on TikTok ⇥ lawfaremedia.org

Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Lawfare:

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) release, we now have the letters that Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle regarding their continued business with TikTok. These letters provide a legal rationale (if it can be called that) for the Trump administration’s commitment not to enforce the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACAA), the divestment-or-ban law that the Supreme Court upheld in January. The letters make two central claims, both of which are astonishing in their breadth and implications for executive power.

TikTok is far from the most pressing governance issue of the United States today, but this reasoning should be alarming to anyone paying close attention. I also find the compliance of tech companies in this case far more concerning than in, say, the Gulf of America situation. At least there, they could point to updates made to official documentation. In continuing to provide access to TikTok despite its illegality, however, it is because of a mix of public pressure, group compliance — nobody wants to be the one company refusing to permit TikTok — and cozying up to a kingly president.

Branded Quality in the Age of Slop ⇥ zhenyi.gibber.blog

Zhenyi Tan:

With advertising, the market acts as if all goods are high-quality. When everything claims to be high-quality, consumers no longer know what high quality means. Over time, people can no longer differentiate between high and low-quality products. Then they no longer care. They’ve lost their taste.

Recently, I was trying to buy a watch winder for my father-in-law. I went to Amazon, and every watch winder is from an unpronounceable, alphabet-soup brand. They all had 4.2 stars. How could I tell which one was better? I had no idea. So I checked Reddit, and the only “branded” recommendation was a Wolf watch winder that costs thousands of dollars. I just wanted a machine that rotates a few times per day.

One of the things a brand is supposed to do is to align a set of products with the distinct qualities of their maker. If you buy tickets from Air Canada or WestJet, you understand it to have the backing and reputation of a company interested in maintaining a specific reputation. But this does not always pan out for two reasons. One is that some companies, like Flair Airlines, do not give a single care about how they are perceived and have nothing to lose by being terrible.

The other, though, is what Tan is getting at in this essay: name-brands compromise trust for volume, to the extent it is hard to distinguish them from some Scrabble-bag Amazon seller. This is particularly pronounced in luxury circles — Gucci and Louis Vuitton are not selling belts and card holders and fragrances because they believe they are particularly good examples of their craft — and it is similarly true in the more normal worlds I and (probably) you spend time in. The stuff on Amazon looks an awful lot like the stuff you might buy in a store; it might even be some of the same stuff. But it is difficult to know when everyone seems to be dishonest.

We are rapidly losing any framework we may have had for trust. It is hard not to see the products of A.I. making that worse, at least for now. I am not saying it is suddenly making us believe all sorts of horrible or untrue things we did not think before, but I do think its existence accelerates the ongoing erosion of trust.

Magic Lasso Adblock Now Blocks Ads in Third-Party Apps ⇥ magiclasso.co

Frequent sponsor of the site Magic Lasso Adblock has just released an update bringing its capabilities outside Safari to apps across your system. (This is not a sponsored post.) I have been using this version for about a week now and, while it does not yet eliminate all ads in third-party apps, it has solved a specific iOS frustration.

After iOS began registering taps immediately, I found scrolling apps with interstitial ads — particularly news apps like those from CBC News and the New York Times — to be particularly hostile. I would scroll and then, while intending to stop the scroll, often tap on an ad which would send me to Safari. Irritating. Not all ads are blocked in these apps, but enough are that it has improved my news reading.

More broadly, ad blocking is an ethical dilemma. I find arguments in favour of advertising generally compelling, but I reject how often they are conflated with behaviourally targeted advertising. I think it is fair to use advertising as a financial support — heck, I have ads on this website and I accept sponsorships, including from this very ad blocker. However, I do not think we should relinquish our right to privacy to provide this financial backing. We know ads in third-party apps are among the most capable and precise means of sweeping up vast amounts of our data. It is unfair how little control we have over how much we feed this surveillance machine. We can effectively minimize it only by using wide-ranging tools like ad blockers.

This is a pretty blunt instrument. The VPN-based nature of this in-app ad blocking strategy has no fine-grained controls at the moment — no allow or deny lists, for example. But it is one of the better strategies for improving your privacy.

Google Ends Test of ‘Recipe Quick View’ in Search Results ⇥ bloomberg.com

Julia Love and Davey Alba, Bloomberg:

In recent months, Alphabet Inc.-owned Google has tested Recipe Quick View, which showed some food bloggers’ content in search. The company framed the feature as an attempt to help users determine whether they are interested in a recipe before visiting a website. But some bloggers said they feared that the product would keep users from clicking through to their sites, depriving them of traffic and ad revenue.

Google on Tuesday confirmed it ended the trial. “We continually experiment with ways to make it easier for people to find helpful information on Search,” a spokesperson for Google said in a statement. “Learnings from these experiments help to inform future development and efforts.”

Google began testing this feature around October. While the company did not provide any commentary beyond well-worn lines about “always experimenting”, it is not unreasonable to see it as a reaction to common tactics by recipe bloggers to juice their organic rankings and ad revenue. Google has repeatedly explained that it values just the recipe, but folk wisdom among bloggers indicates that alone is insufficient for ranking well. Alas, I am not sure how much any of this matters in an era of A.I. results.

Also, the word is “lessons”.

Canada to Rescind Digital Services Tax ⇥ canada.ca

The Government of Canada:

To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States. Consistent with this action, Prime Minister Carney and President Trump have agreed that parties will resume negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025.

Is this “elbows up”?

The Digital Services Tax Is the New Reason Our Neighbour Is Angry ⇥ cbc.ca

John Paul Tasker, CBC News:

U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s ending all trade discussions with Canada to hit back at Ottawa for slapping a tax on web giants — and he wants it removed before negotiations can begin again.

His objection is, ostensibly, about its apparent targeting of companies based in the United States. This is a very silly complaint. The U.S. seized the heart of the tech economy and, instead of cooperating with others, used it as leverage around the world. That is one reason for its unrivalled dominance in the industry. Any tax on tech companies will disproportionately affect U.S. businesses, but they have been exerting disproportionate influence around the world for decades.

Brendan Ruberry, Semafor:

Canada’s 3% digital services tax went into effect last year, but its first payments are due Monday, with US companies expected to shell out nearly $2.7 billion. Trump said US tariffs on Canadian goods would be applied within the next week. Last month, the US and UK agreed [to] a trade deal despite Westminster enacting a 2020 digital services tax.

This is just the latest thing our hostile neighbour can use to try and make us crack. If there were no tax, there would be something else to complain about, because we are not dealing with a reasonable administration that wants mutually beneficial trade arrangements.

As far as I can see, this tax makes sense. Unlike the Online News Act, which requires large platforms to pay for some traffic they send elsewhere, this act is specifically about revenue extracted from Canadians by businesses that are only beginning to see antitrust regulation.

Developers React to E.U. App Store Changes ⇥ lapcatsoftware.com

Michal Tsai:

I find this really confusing, but I think when they say “single business model” they mean unifying the CTF and the CTC and the previous “alternative” terms for apps that are not using the traditional App Store model. There are still two models in that you can do the simple flat rate that’s the same throughout the world or the complicated and ever-changing EU model that supposedly satisfies the DMA.

Riley Testut:

Goodbye ridiculous Core Technology Fee, hello slightly-more-reasonable Core Technology Commission 👋

“Slightly” being a key word.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

It’s not zero, but these terms are way more reasonable than the Core Technology Fee bullshit. But it also means that there is, from my understanding, no option for alternative distribution that is completely free. The lowest amount you will pay is 10%

Just to confuse matters, it looks like if you remain in the App Store and have a paid-upfront app, your app purchase commission fees are either 20% or 13% (small business program), down from the 30% and 15% today?

Jeff Johnson:

What I found striking about the search differences between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is that in creating this distinction, Apple clearly considers App Store search to be a developer feature rather than a user feature. In other words, the user’s interest in finding an app via search is disregarded, and Apple is willing to be less helpful to users to the extent that app developers pay a lesser commission to Apple. A common talking point in defense of Apple’s App Store lockdown on iOS is that the App Store is supposed to be for the benefit of users rather than developers. Apple’s new policies give the lie to that notion.

Assuming this meets the policies laid out by the European Commission, I am curious to see how the changes affect different developers. As I wrote yesterday, it seems like this is complicated enough to make comparisons or predictions very difficult. A developer with existing marketing channels may find the more restricted App Store search functionality a smaller issue, but may be stung by the lack of automatic updates. A smaller developer would likely benefit most from a smaller commission to Apple, but may find the App Store limitations too restrictive.

But perhaps users may ultimately come out on top if App Store search is kneecapped. Perhaps Apple’s proposals will encourage more third-party app marketplaces, giving Apple competition for reaching users on its platform. Then, perhaps, the company would find reasons to loosen its reins and change its relationship with developers without being compelled by courts or regulators.

Or maybe Apple will preload Android onto its E.U.-bound iPhones. Seems similarly likely.

Apple Tries Again With E.U. App Distribution Policies ⇥ developer.apple.com

Apple:

The European Commission has required Apple to make a series of additional changes under the Digital Markets Act: […]

The wording of this sentence makes it sound like the list of specific policies following it were dictated by the European Commission, but I am not sure that is true.

John Voorhees, MacStories:

Fees have changed for developers offering external purchases, too, and include:

  • an initial acquisition fee of 2% is charged for sales made within six months of a user’s first unpaid installation of an app;

  • a 5% or 13% store services fee depending on the store services used for any purchases made within 12 months of an app’s download;

  • for apps that offer external purchases, a Core Technology Commission (not Fee) of 5% for purchases made within 12 months of installation will be charged;

[…]

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

For developers on Apple’s standard business terms in the EU, there is a new Core Technology Commission. Instead of the per-install fee, they will pay a 5% commission on sales made through in-app promotion of alternative payments.

Apple also announced today that it will shift to a new unified business model in the EU by January 1, 2026. Under this unified model, a developer will transition from the Core Technology Fee to the newly announced Core Technology Commission, which is paid based on the sales of digital goods and services, rather than app downloads.

Apple:

  • Store Services Tier 1: This tier provides capabilities needed for app delivery, trust & safety, app management, and engagement; and features a reduced store services fee. This tier is mandatory for apps communicating and promoting offers.

  • Store Services Tier 2: This tier is optional, and provides additional capabilities for app delivery and management, engagement, curation & personalization, app insights, and developer marketing.

Developers can move an app between tiers on a per-app, per-storefront basis once a quarter. […]

Notable omissions from apps on the first tier include ratings and reviews, search features other than exact matches, automatic updates, and bulk app management through Business Manager or School Manager. These and other features are apparently worth eight points of app-based digital purchase revenue.

This is complicated. What I would love to see are different practical examples comparing Apple’s distribution policies in most countries, its policies in the U.S. post-ruling, its previous E.U. policies, and these new ones. But there are a lot of variables here to the extent making an accurate comparison may be difficult. A more cynical person may say that is by design, and it would be hard to dispute that. But it is also the result of Apple’s specific and sometimes contradictory monetization decisions.

Adaptive Power Mode in iOS 26 ⇥ macrumors.com

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Last week, we reported that iOS 26 introduces an opt-in Adaptive Power Mode on the iPhone, alongside the existing Low Power Mode.

[…]

iOS 26 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but unfortunately Adaptive Power Mode is only available on the iPhone 15 Pro models and newer. This is because the AI-powered feature requires an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence.

This appears to be the feature Mark Gurman reported in May was coming to this year’s iOS updates, about which I commented:

[…] Gurman says this is “part of the Apple Intelligence platform”, but also says it “will be available for all iPhones that have iOS 19”. This is confusing. Apple has so far marketed Apple Intelligence as being available on only a subset of devices supporting iOS 18. Either Apple’s delineation of “Apple Intelligence” features is about to get even fuzzier, or one of the two statements Gurman made is going to be wrong.

Turns out one of those two statements was wrong.

Apple says Adaptive Power Mode “can make small performance adjustments to extend your battery life, including slightly lowering the display brightness or allowing some activities to take a little longer”. Mysterious. Unlike Low Power Mode, it is not (yet?) available as a toggle in Control Centre. I have turned it on to see what it does in the real world.