Following Apple's acquisition of popular weather app Dark Sky in March 2020, Dark Sky's iOS app and website will be available until the end of 2022, co-founder Adam Grossman said in a Monday update to Dark Sky's blog. The Verge reports: The update about the 2022 shutdown hit the same day that Apple announced new weather features coming to iOS 15 as part of its WWDC keynote presentation. The stock Weather app is getting a new design, full-screen weather maps, next-hour precipitation notifications, and even new animated backgrounds. Dark Sky shut down the Android and Wear OS versions of its apps on August 1st, 2020. But the iOS app is still available for $3.99 on the App Store, if you're interested in buying it ahead of next year's shutdown. The Dark Sky API will also continue to work for existing customers until the end of 2022. Previously, the API was set to stop working at the end of this year; now, it will work for a little while longer.

Microsoft on Thursday announced plans to expand its Xbox Game Pass subscription service to many more screens, including third-party smart TVs and also streaming devices the company is currently building itself. From a report: Microsoft intends to deliver its subscription platform on less powerful hardware via the cloud, as it does now with Android and iOS smartphones using a beta version of its Xbox Cloud Gaming service. "We believe that Microsoft can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining the future of interactive entertainment," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a prerecorded interview with Xbox chief Phil Spencer. "There are really three key areas where we believe we have an incredible competitive advantage: First, our leadership in cloud computing. Second, the resources we have to build our subscription service, Xbox Game Pass. And third, our overall focus on empowering creators." Microsoft says it's in the process of "working with global TV manufacturers to embed the Xbox experience directly into internet-connected televisions," adding that no extra hardware will be required, save a controller. The company is also "building its own streaming devices for cloud gaming to reach gamers on any TV or monitor without the need for a console at all."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Facebook is setting its sights on the creator economy, hoping to allow millions of people to make a living off its family of apps. But the company wants to promote offline transactions between creators and companies in order to avoid Apple's 30% cut of in-app purchases, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said Wednesday. "When there are digital transactions that happen on iOS, Apple insists that they take 30% of that. There's a very few number of exceptions. For transactions that happen in iOS, we're going to have to abide by their rules... but in general we're going to look for other ways to help creators make a living and facilitating transactions that happen in other places," Mosseri told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "So, for instance, if we could help brands and creators vet each other and find each other, they could make those transactions happen offline. For affiliate marketing, it's real goods, not digital goods. So we're going to try and lean in to the places creators can actually make a stable living," he added.

Apple generally takes a 30% rake from purchases of software or digital goods from apps distributed through the App Store. That would mean creators would eventually have to split revenue from goods sold within the app between themselves, Facebook and Apple. (Facebook hasn't said how much of a cut it will take, but did say it will be less than 30%.) In order to skirt around that, Instagram could push for creators to connect offline with brands or other people, in an effort to make money off the iOS operating system. It'll be a key issue for the company, which has spent the past several years feuding with the Apple.

Apple's text selection magnifying glass has reappeared in the iOS 15 beta, and Apple's own site confirms its return by listing it as a feature. The Verge reports: Bringing the feature back is a reversal from when Apple made the decision to dump it in iOS 13, which is a bit of a rare occurrence... The new version of the text magnifier seems to be a bit smaller than the old one (in case you've forgotten what it used to look like, you can see a great demonstration here), but it's at least better than the nothing that appears in iOS 13 and 14.

It will, at the very least, solve the biggest problem with the current selection system: that your thumb is covering the text you're trying to select, which makes it a little difficult to see what's being selected until you pick your thumb up from the screen. Then, if you're like me, you'll probably sigh seeing that the wrong thing is selected, then struggle with the text selection handles to try to highlight what you were actually going for (squinting at the small screen the whole time).

For the first time, you can code, iterate and build apps on the iPad itself. 9to5Mac reports: Using Swift Playgrounds on iPadOS 15, customers will be able to create iPhone and iPad apps from scratch and then deploy them to the App Store. It remains to be seen how limited or not the development experience will be. It is probably notable that Apple chose not to rebrand this as "Xcode," signifying that you aren't going to be able to do everything you can do with Xcode on the Mac. TechCrunch highlights some of the other new features available in iPadOS 15: iPadOS 15 retains the overall look and feel of the current iPad operating system. The updates in the new OS are mostly centered around multitasking. The iPad's widget support gets a big update with iPadOS 15. The widgets are larger, more immersive and dynamic. And, iOS's App Library is finally available on the iPad, where it tweaks the overall user experience. The feature, added to the iPhone in 2020, presents the user with an organized view of the apps on the iPad.

Also added to iPadOS 15 is a new multitasking system. Called Split View, a drop-down menu at the top of the screen unlocks several multitasking, multiwindow options. The system seems much smoother than the current multiscreen option on iPad OS, which is clunky and hidden. With Split View a feature called Shelf makes it easy to switch between different screens and screen grouping.

One of the biggest new features of macOS Monterey, the next version of macOS announced at WWDC, is the ability to share a keyboard and mouse across an iMac, MacBook, and iPad. It's called "Universal Control" and it's coming this Fall. Ars Technica reports: Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi demonstrated the ability to simply set an iPad near a Mac, move the cursor of the latter toward the former, and have the iPad automatically recognize it. This means users can directly drag and drop files between devices, for instance. Apple demonstrated this feature across an iMac, MacBook, and iPad in concert. Beyond that, macOS Monterey will make it possible to AirPlay video, audio, documents, and other items from an iPad or iPhone directly to a Mac.

The update also brings the Shortcuts feature first seen on iPhones and iPads, allowing users to access automated tasks and workflows on the Mac. Apple says the existing Automator app will continue to be supported with Monterey and that users will be able to import existing Automator workflows into Shortcuts. Safari will also receive something of a makeover with Monterey, bringing a thinner and visually cleaner toolbar alongside more compact tabs. Active tab bars will now house the traditional URL and search bar, and tabs can now be grouped together and accessed through Safari's sidebar. These tab groups can then be accessed and updated across Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

The update will include a number of features from the newly announced iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 updates as well. This includes a SharePlay feature that lets users share content or their current device screen over a FaceTime call and a Focus feature that filters and minimizes notifications when users indicate they are in the middle of a particular activity ("coding," "gaming," etc.).

At WWDC today, Apple announced an update to its Wallet app that will let you add information from an ID card in certain supported U.S. states. One of the first partners to support the digital identities will be the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. AppleInsider reports: All of the information in Wallet will be stored in a secure and encrypted fashion. Like an actual ID, it will include a person's legal name, date of birth, photo, and Real ID status. In addition to the support for IDs, Apple is also expanding the types of keys that users can add to Wallet. That includes keys to a smart home lock, keys to hotel rooms, and work badges that can be scanned to gain entry to a workplace. For example, Hyatt is rolling out its support for digital keys in Wallet to more than 1,000 properties later in 2021. The company says your license or state ID will be encrypted and stored in the iPhone's secure enclave. It's also working on adding features for unlocking cars from various manufacturers using their ultra-wideband chip (UWB) found in the new iPhones and Apple Watches.

Android and Windows users will finally be able to join FaceTime calls. From a report: During its WWDC keynote, Apple announced that FaceTime is going to be available on the web so users can call in from Android devices and Windows PCs. The video calling service was previously only available on iOS and Mac devices. Apple is turning FaceTime into a bit more of a Zoom-like video calling service with this update. FaceTime is also going to allow you to grab a link to a scheduled call, so that you can share it with people in advance and join in at the right time.

"Apple's tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams," argues a 3,000-word exposé in Sunday's Washington Post

"Among the 1.8 million apps on the App Store, scams are hiding in plain sight. Customers for several VPN apps, which allegedly protect users' data, complained in Apple App Store reviews that the apps told users their devices have been infected by a virus to dupe them into downloading and paying for software they don't need. A QR code reader app that remains on the store tricks customers into paying $4.99 a week for a service that is now included in the camera app of the iPhone. Some apps fraudulently present themselves as being from major brands such as Amazon and Samsung. Of the highest 1,000 grossing apps on the App Store, nearly two percent are scams, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. And those apps have bilked consumers out of an estimated $48 million during the time they've been on the App Store, according to market research firm Appfigures.

The scale of the problem has never before been reported. What's more, Apple profits from these apps because it takes a cut of up to a 30 percent of all revenue generated through the App Store.

Even more common, according to The Post's analysis, are "fleeceware" apps that use inauthentic customer reviews to move up in the App Store rankings and give apps a sense of legitimacy to convince customers to pay higher prices for a service usually offered elsewhere with higher legitimate customer reviews...

Apple has long maintained that its exclusive control of the App Store is essential to protecting customers, and it only lets the best apps on its system. But Apple's monopoly over how consumers access apps on iPhones can actually create an environment that gives customers a false sense of safety, according to experts... Apple isn't the only company that struggles with this issue: They're also on Google's Play Store, which is available on its Android mobile operating system. But unlike Apple, Google doesn't claim that its Play Store is curated. Consumers can download apps from different stores on Android phones, creating competition between app stores...

When it comes to one type of scam, there's evidence that Apple's store is no safer than Google's. Avast analyzed both the Apple and Google app stores in March, looking for fleeceware apps. The company found 134 in the App Store and 70 on the Play Store, with over a billion downloads, about half on Android and half on iOS, and revenue of $365 million on Apple and $38.5 million on Android. Most the victims were in the United States.

Marco Arment, a widely respected programmer, app developer and commentator on Apple, has analyzed Apple's arguments and its thinking as officially portrayed in its lawsuit against Epic. He writes: Apple's leaders continue to deny developers deny developers of two obvious truths: 1. That our apps provide substantial value to iOS beyond the purchase commissions collected by Apple.
2. That any portion of our customers came to our apps from our own marketing or reputation, rather than the App Store.

For Apple to continue to deny these is dishonest, factually wrong, and extremely insulting -- not only to our efforts, but to the intelligence of all Apple developers and customers. This isn't about the 30%, or the 15%, or the prohibition of other payment systems, or the rules against telling our customers about our websites, or Apple's many other restrictions. (Not today, at least.) It's about what Apple's leadership thinks of us and our work. It isn't the App Store's responsibility to the rest of Apple to "pay its way" by leveraging hefty fees on certain types of transactions. Modern society has come to rely so heavily on mobile apps that any phone manufacturer must ensure that such a healthy ecosystem exists as table stakes for anyone to buy their phones. Without our apps, the iPhone has little value to most of its customers today.

If Apple wishes to continue advancing bizarre corporate-accounting arguments, the massive profits from the hardware business are what therefore truly "pay the way" of the App Store, public APIs, developer tools, and other app-development resources, just as the hardware profits must fund the development of Apple's own hardware, software, and services that make the iPhone appeal to customers. The forced App Store commissions, annual developer fees, and App Store Search Ads income are all just gravy. The "way" is already paid by the hardware -- but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip. And that's just business. Apple's a lot of things, and "generous" isn't one. But to bully and gaslight developers into thinking that we need to be kissing Apple's feet for permitting us to add billions of dollars of value to their platform is not only greedy, stingy, and morally reprehensible, but deeply insulting.

Twitter unveiled its long-awaited subscription service, offering paying customers exclusive features for rescinding tweets and organizing posts as part of a push to ease the social network's dependence on advertising revenue. From a report: Dubbed Twitter Blue, the product will cost $2.99 a month for access to tools including the ability to "undo" a post before it goes out publicly, organize bookmarked tweets into folders, and more easily read long tweet threads. Subscribers will also get faster service for customer-support claims, can choose from new app colors and will have the ability to modify the Twitter app icon on iOS devices. The subscription model could help Twitter diversify its business at a time when the pandemic has underscored the risks of a heavy reliance on digital advertising. [...] The product suite is being pitched to the most prolific of Twitter's 200 million daily users, including journalists, social media managers and those who use the site as their primary news source, said Sara Beykpour, the product lead in charge of subscriptions. "Twitter Blue is aimed at customers who are our most engaged, our most passionate super users who really want to take their experience to the next level," said Beykpour, who declined to estimate the size of the target group. "There is something special about this cohort that we're really learning about."

It's going to get harder for Android apps to track users who've opted out of receiving personalized ads, the Financial Times reports, after Google announced changes to how it'll handle the unique device identifiers that allow marketers to track them between apps. From a report: Starting later this year, Google is cutting off access to these "Advertising IDs" after a user opts out, and will show developers a "string of zeros" in its place. The news was announced in an email to Play Store developers, and Google has also updated its support page for Advertising IDs with the announcement. Google told developers the changes will "provide users with more control over their data, and help bolster security and privacy," the Financial Times reports. The change comes a few short months after Apple overhauled how advertising IDs work on iOS in an apparent attempt to compete with the new policy.

Google is losing one of its strongest champions of the web. Alex Russell, who has led the Fugu project to make web apps as powerful as those running on Google's Android or Apple's iOS software, is leaving the company on Wednesday. From a report: Russell announced his departure on Twitter. He's not quitting in anger or being pushed out. But after 12 years at Google pushing his vision for a more powerful web, "I need some time off," he said in an interview. Russell has been an outspoken advocate for the web, using Chrome's dominant position to help test and introduce new abilities that let programmers build interactive apps on the web, not just relatively static websites. Project Fugu embodies this effort, as does the broader progressive web app, or PWA, movement that lets you install and launch web apps more like those that run natively on smartphones and PCs.

Security researcher Gabi Cirlig's findings, verified for Forbes by two other independent researchers, reveal that on both Android and iOS versions of UC Browser, every website a user visits, regardless of whether they're in incognito mode or not, is sent to servers owned by UCWeb. From a report: Cirlig said IP addresses -- which could be used to get a user's rough location down to the town or neighborhood of the user -- were also being sent to Alibaba-controlled servers. Those servers were registered in China and carried the .cn Chinese domain name extension, but were hosted in the U.S. An ID number is also assigned to each user, meaning their activity across different websites could effectively be monitored by the Chinese company, though it's not currently clear just what Alibaba and its subsidiary are doing with the data.

"This could easily fingerprint users and tie them back to their real personas," Cirlig wrote in a blog post handed to Forbes ahead of publication on Tuesday. Cirlig was able to uncover the problem by reverse engineering some encrypted data he spotted being sent back to Beijing. Once the key had been cracked, he was able to see that every time he visited a website, it was being encrypted and transmitted back to the Alibaba company. On Apple's iOS, he didn't even need to reverse engineer the encryption because there effectively was none on the device (though it was encrypted when in transit). "This kind of tracking is done on purpose without any regard for user privacy," Cirlig told Forbes. When compared to Google's own Chrome browser, for instance, it does not transfer user web browsing habits when in incognito. Cirlig said he'd looked at other major browsers and found none did the same as UC Browser.

An Apple job listing has mentioned "homeOS," an otherwise never-before heard of Apple operating system, ahead of WWDC next week. From a report: Spotted by developer Javier Lacort, the Apple job listing for a Senior iOS Engineer in Apple Music explicitly mentions "homeOS" on two occasions, alongside Apple's other operating systems including iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Interestingly, the job listing mentions homeOS as a "mobile platform," seemingly highlighting it as more akin to iOS and watchOS than systems like macOS and tvOS, but it is not clear why that would be the case.

"The web browser is a crucial part of modern life, and yet it hasn't really been revised since the '90s," writes Protocol. "That may be about to change." The browser tab is an underrated thing. Most people think of them only when there are too many, when their computer once again buckles under Chrome's weight. Even the developers who build the tabs — the engineers and designers working on Chrome, Firefox, Brave and the rest — haven't done much to them. The internet has evolved in massive, earth-shaking ways over the last two decades, but tabs haven't really changed since they became a browser feature in the mid '90s.

Josh Miller, however, has big plans for browser tabs. Miller is the CEO of a new startup called The Browser Company, and he wants to change the way people think about browsers altogether. He sees browsers as operating systems, and likes to wonder aloud what "iOS for the web" might look like. What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to? What if every web app felt like a native app, and the browser itself was just the app launcher? What if you could drag a file from one tab to another, and it just worked? What if the web browser was a shareable, synced, multiplayer experience? It would be nothing like the simple, passive windows to the web that browsers are now. Which is exactly the goal.

The Browser Company (which everyone on the team just calls Browser) is one of a number of startups that are rethinking every part of the browser stack. Mighty has built a version of Chrome that runs on powerful server hardware and streams the browser itself over the web. Brave is building support for decentralized protocols like IPFS, and experimenting with using cryptocurrencies as a new business model for publishers. Synth is building a new bookmarks system that acts more like a web-wide inbox. Sidekick offers a vertical app launcher and makes tabs easier to organize. "A change is coming," said Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. "The question is just the time frame, and what's actually required to make it happen."

They have lots of different ideas, but they share a belief that the browser can, and should, be more than it is. "We don't need a new web browser," Miller said. "We need a new successor to the web browser."

While he was at the White House, Chief Digital Officer (and Miller's boss) Jason Goldman said something Miller couldn't forget. "Platforms have all the leverage," is how Miller remembers it. "And if you care about the future of the internet, or the way we use our computers, or want to improve any of the things that are broken about technology ... you can't really just build an application. Platforms, whether it's iOS or Windows or Android or Mac OS, that's where all the control is."

App developer and scam app hunter Kosta Eleftheriou's latest discovery is a real doozy: an iOS app that refuses to function until you give it at least a 3-star review in the App Store. From a report: Although the UPNP Xtreme app -- which claimed to let users stream video to their TVs -- now appears to have been pulled, we were able to verify that it generates the App Store rating box the second it opens. You can't dismiss the ratings box, nor can you tap the 1 or 2-star ratings, Eleftheriou said. We verified this behavior, but some other users report they were able to dismiss the dialog box or leave a lower rating.

Apple today released macOS Big Sur 11.4, the fourth major update to the macOS Big Sur, operating system that launched in November 2020. From a report: The new macOS Big Sur 11.4 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Preferences. macOS Big Sur 11.4 lays the groundwork for two upcoming Apple Music features: Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio, both of which will be available on the Mac. It also adds support for Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and fixes a number of bugs. Apple today also released iOS and iPadOS 14.6, marking the sixth major updates to the iOS and iPadOS operating systems that initially came out in September 2020. From a report: The iOS and iPadOS 14.5 updates can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to Settings - General - Software Update. iOS 14.6 introduces support for several previously announced features. It lays the groundwork for the Apple Music Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio functionality, but these new Apple Music capabilities aren't expected to launch until June. The update also adds support for Apple Card Family for sharing Apple Cards, it introduces new Podcast subscription options, and it adds new AirTags capabilities, in addition to addressing several bugs.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took his first turn in the witness chair this morning in what is probably the most anticipated testimony of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. But rather than a fiery condemnation of Epic's shenanigans and allegations, Cook offered a mild, carefully tended ignorance that left many of the lawsuit's key questions unanswered, or unanswerable. TechCrunch reports: The facade of innocent ignorance began when he was asked about Apple's R&D numbers -- $15-20 billion annually for the last three years. Specifically, he said that Apple couldn't estimate how much of that money was directed towards the App Store, because "we don't allocate like that," i.e. research budgets for individual products aren't broken out from the rest. [...] This was further demonstrated when Cook was asked about Apple's deal with Google that keeps the search engine as the default on iOS. Cook said he didn't remember the specific numbers.

Apple's software engineering head Craig Federighi had a tricky task in the Epic v. Apple trial: explaining why the Mac's security wasn't good enough for the iPhone. From a report: Mac computers have an official Apple App Store, but they also allow downloading software from the internet or a third-party store. Apple has never opened up iOS this way, but it's long touted the privacy and security of both platforms. Then Epic Games sued Apple to force its hand, saying that if an open model is good enough for macOS, Apple's claims about iOS ring hollow. On the stand yesterday, Federighi tried to resolve this problem by portraying iPhones and Macs as dramatically different devices -- and in the process, threw macOS under the bus.

The second difference is data sensitivity. "iPhones are very attractive targets. They are very personal devices that are with you all the time. They have some of your most personal information -- of course your contacts, your photos, but also other things," he said. Mobile devices put a camera, microphone, and GPS tracker in your pocket. "All of these things make access or control of these devices potentially incredibly valuable to an attacker." That may undersell private interactions with Macs; Epic's counsel Yonatan Even noted that many telemedicine calls and other virtual interactions happen on desktop. Still, it's fair to say phones have become many people's all-purpose digital lockboxes. The third difference is more conceptual. Federighi basically says iOS users need to be more protected because the Mac is a specialist tool for people who know how to navigate the complexities of a powerful system, while the iPhone and iPad are -- literally -- for babies.