French intelligence investigators have confirmed that Pegasus spyware has been found on the phones of three journalists, including a senior member of staff at the country's international television station France 24. Pegasus is the hacking software -- or spyware -- that is developed, marketed and licensed to governments around the world by NSO Group. The malware has the capability to infect billions of phones running either iOS or Android operating systems. It enables operators of the spyware to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. The Guardian reports: It is the first time an independent and official authority has corroborated the findings of an international investigation by the Pegasus project -- a consortium of 17 media outlets, including the Guardian. Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organization, and Amnesty International initially had access to a leaked list of 50,000 numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of Israeli firm NSO Group since 2016, and shared access with their media partners.

France's national agency for information systems security (Anssi) identified digital traces of NSO Group's hacking spyware on the television journalist's phone and relayed its findings to the Paris public prosecutor's office, which is overseeing the investigation into possible hacking. Anssi also found Pegasus on telephones belonging to Lenaig Bredoux, an investigative journalist at the French investigative website Mediapart, and the site's director, Edwy Plenel. Forbidden Stories believes at least 180 journalists worldwide may have been selected as people of interest in advance of possible surveillance by government clients of NSO.

Le Monde reported that the France 24 journalist, based in Paris, had been selected for "eventually putting under surveillance." Police experts discovered the spyware had been used to target the journalist's phone three times: in May 2019, September 2020 and January 2021, the paper said. Bredoux told the Guardian that investigators had found traces of Pegasus spyware on both her and Plenel's mobile phones. She said the confirmation of long-held suspicions that they had been targeted contradicted the repeated denials of those who were believed to be behind the attempt to spy on them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In iOS 14, Apple added a "privacy" section to the app store, requiring app developers to list the data they collect and how they use it. Google -- which was one of the biggest targets of Apple's privacy nutrition labels and delayed app updates for months to avoid complying with the policy -- is now aping the feature for Google Play. Google posted a demo of what the Google Play "Data privacy & security" section will look like, and it contains everything you'd expect if you've looked at the App Store lately. There's information on what data apps collect, whether or not the apps share the data with third parties, and how the data is stored. Developers can also explain what the data is used for and if data collection is required to use the app. The section also lists whether or not the collected data is encrypted, if the user can delete the data, and if the app follows Google's "Families" policy (meaning all the usual COPPA stuff).

Google Play's privacy section will be mandatory for all developers in April 2022, and starting in October, Google says developers can start populating information in the Google Play Console "for review." Google also says that in April, all apps will need to supply a privacy policy, even if they don't collect any data. Apps that don't have an "approved" privacy section by April may have their app updates rejected or their app removed. Google says, "Developers are responsible for providing accurate and complete information in their safety section." All of this information is basically just running on the honor system, and on iOS, developers have already been caught faking their privacy labels.

Epic, which sued Apple last year and has expressed concerns about the exorbitant fees the iPhone-maker charges on App Store (30% on each transaction on year 1 for apps that are not games and 15% on year 2 and beyond), has found a new backer in the court of public opinion: Elon Musk. In a tweet Friday, Musk likened Apple's App Store charges to "a de facto global tax on the Internet." He added, "Epic is right."

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney added today: The Apple Tax is far more pernicious than many realize. "It only applies to digital goods accessible on iOS," they say -- but in the future all physical goods will have a digital presence, and Apple will tax and gatekeep world commerce. Apple must be stopped.
Friday's remarks follows Musk sniping at Apple during an earnings call earlier this week. From that story: Apple's walled garden is facing scrutiny from lawmakers and other companies, including in an antitrust trial that took place earlier this year after it was sued by Epic Games over App Store fees and policies. "I think we do want to emphasize that our goal is to support the advent of sustainable energy," Musk said in response to a question about letting competitors use its charger network. "It is not to create a walled garden and use that to bludgeon our competitors which is used by some companies." Musk then faked a cough and said, "Apple."

Facebook said on Wednseday it expects revenue growth to "decelerate significantly." It also announced that it would require anyone working at its U.S. offices to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Google announced a similar policy earlier this morning. Reuters reports: The warning overshadowed the company's beat on Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue, bolstered by increased advertising spending as businesses build their digital presence to cater to consumers spending more time and money online. Facebook said it expects Apple's recent update to its iOS operating system to impact its ability to target ads and therefore ad revenue in the third quarter. The iPhone maker's privacy changes make it harder for apps to track users and restrict advertisers from accessing valuable data for targeting ads.

Monthly active users came in at 2.90 billion, up 7% from the same period last year but missing analyst expectations of 2.92 billion and marking the slowest growth rate in at least three years, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. "The user growth slowdown is notable and highlights the engagement challenges as the world opens up. But importantly, Facebook is the most exposed to Apple's privacy changes, and it looks like it is starting to have an impact to the outlook beginning in 3Q," said Ygal Arounian, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. Brian Wieser, GroupM's global president of business intelligence, said all social media companies would see slower growth in the second half of the year and that it would take more concrete warnings about activity in June and July for anyone to anticipate a "meaningful deceleration."

Fossbytes has an article detailing how you can check to see if your mobile device is infected with the "Pegasus" spyware. What's Pegasus you ask? It's phone-penetrating spy software developed by NSO Group and sold to governments to target journalists and activists around the world. The CEO of NSO Group says law-abiding citizens have "nothing to be afraid of," but that doesn't help us sleep any better. Here's how to check if your device has been compromised (heads up: it's a bit of a technical and lengthy process): First off, you'll need to create an encrypted backup and transfer it to either a Mac or PC. You can also do this on Linux instead, but you'll have to install libimobiledevice beforehand for that. Once the phone backup is transferred, you need to download Python 3.6 (or newer) on your system -- if you don't have it already. Here's how you can install the same for Windows, macOS, and Linux. After that, go through Amnesty's manual to install MVT correctly on your system. Installing MVT will give you new utilities (mvt-ios and mvt-android) that you can use in the Python command line. Now, let's go through the steps for detecting Pegasus on an iPhone backup using MVT.

First of all, you have to decrypt your data backup. To do that, you'll need to enter the following instruction format while replacing the placeholder text (marked with a forward slash) with your custom path: "mvt-ios decrypt-backup -p password -d /decrypted /backup". Note: Replace "/decrypted" with the directory where you want to store the decrypted backup and "/backup" with the directory where your encrypted backup is located.

Now, we will run a scan on the decrypted backup, referencing it with the latest IOCs (possible signs of Pegasus spyware), and store the result in an output folder. To do this, first, download the newest IOCs from here (use the folder with the latest timestamp). Then, enter the instruction format as given below with your custom directory path: "mvt-ios check-backup -o /output -i /pegasus.stix2 /backup". Note: Replace "/output" with the directory where you want to store the scan result, "/backup" with the path where your decrypted backup is stored, and "/pegasus.stix2" with the path where you downloaded the latest IOCs.

After the scan completion, MVT will generate JSON files in the specified output folder. If there is a JSON file with the suffix "_detected," then that means your iPhone data is most likely Pegasus-infected. However, the IOCs are regularly updated by Amnesty's team as they develop a better understanding of how Pegasus operates. So, you might want to keep running scans as the IOCs are updated to make sure there are no false positives.

Chris Lee, a former staff interaction designer at Google, writes in a blog post: Chrome Home was an ambitious redesign of mobile Chrome's main UI. It brought Chrome's toolbar to the bottom of the screen and turned in into a peeking panel that could be swiped to expose additional controls. I created the original concept and pitch for Chrome Home in 2016. It was based off two insights:

1. Phones were growing in size, and we had opportunity to innovate in creating a gestural, spatial interface that would still be usable with one hand.
2. Mobile Chrome was also growing in features - but because its minimalist interface kept everything behind a "three dot" menu, these features were underutilized and hard to access.

The idea caught traction internally, eventually becoming a Chrome org priority. I then led a team to execute and iterate on the concept. Executing on Chrome Home required rethinking not just the toolbar, but almost all of Chrome's UI: search, bookmarks, tabs, prompts, etc. To inform our decisions, we used a variety of prototyping and testing approaches of increasing fidelity. Ultimately, such a fundamental change to a web browser required nothing short of building it into the product and testing it in longitudinal studies and live beta experiments. We heard a mixture of reactions. The feature gained a cult following among the tech community. But for some mainstream users, the change felt disorienting. Chrome serves billions of users around the globe with varying tech literacy. I became increasingly convinced that launching Chrome Home would not serve all our users well. So just as I strongly as I had pitched the original concept, I advocated for us to stop the launch -- which took not a small amount of debate. Lee adds, "oh, and Safari in iOS 15 picked up some similar ideas and criticisms."

Clubhouse announced Wednesday that it would end its waitlist and invite system, opening up to everyone. TechCrunch reports: Clubhouse is also introducing a real logo that will look familiar -- it's basically a slightly altered version of the waving emoji the company already used. Clubhouse will still hold onto its app portraits, introducing a new featured icon from the Atlanta music scene to ring in the changes. "The invite system has been an important part of our early history," Clubhouse founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth wrote in a blog announcement. They note that adding users in waves and integrating new users into the app's community through Town Halls and orientation sessions helped Clubhouse grow at a healthy rate without breaking, "but we've always wanted Clubhouse to be open."

According to new data SensorTower provided to TechCrunch, Clubhouse hit its high point in February at 9.6 million global downloads, up from 2.4 million the month prior. After that, things settled down a bit before perking back up in May when TikTok went live on Android through the Google Play Store. Since May, new Android users have accounted for the lion's share of the app's downloads. In June, Clubhouse was installed 7.7 million times across both iOS and Android -- an impressive number that's definitely in conflict with the perception that the app might not have staying power.

Clubhouse's success is a double-edged sword. The app's meteoric rise came as a surprise to the team, as meteoric rises often do. The social app is still a wild success by normal metrics in a landscape completely dominated by a handful of large, entrenched platforms, but it can be tricky to maintain healthy momentum after such high highs. Opening up the app to everybody should certainly help.

DuckDuckGo is launching a new email privacy service meant to stop ad companies from spying on your inbox. From a report: The company's new Email Protection feature gives users a free "@duck.com" email address, which will forward emails to your regular inbox after analyzing their contents for trackers and stripping any away. DuckDuckGo is also extending this feature with unique, disposable forwarding addresses, which can be generated easily in DuckDuckGo's mobile browser or through desktop browser extensions.

The personal DuckDuckGo email is meant to be given out to friends and contacts you know, while the disposable addresses are better served when signing up for free trials, newsletters, or anywhere you suspect might sell your email address. If the email address is compromised, you can easily deactivate it. These tools are similar to anti-tracking features implemented by Apple in iOS 14 and iOS 15, but DuckDuckGo's approach integrates into iOS, Android, and all major web browsers. DuckDuckGo will also make it easier to spin up disposable email addresses on the fly, for newsletters or anywhere you might share your email.

Activations of iOS and Android devices are now evenly split in the United States, with little sign of movement toward either platform dominating over the past two years, according to data sourced by Consumer Research Intelligence Partners (CIRP). MacRumors reports: CIRP estimates that iOS and Android each had 50 percent of new smartphone activations in the year ending this quarter. iOS's share of new smartphone activations climbed from 2017 to 2020, but has now remained at its peak level for a second consecutive year. CIRP Partner and Co-Founder Josh Lowitz said that the finding is significant because for several years, Android smartphones "had a significant edge, with over 60 percent of customers opting for an Android phone in most quarters. In the past couple of years, though, iOS has closed the gap, and now splits the market with Android."

Both Android and iOS users have had a high level of loyalty historically. Android loyalty has varied very slightly, in a narrow range of 90 to 93 percent in the past four years. iOS loyalty, on the other hand, has gradually increased over the past four years, from a low of 86 percent in early 2018 to 93 percent in the most recent quarter ending in June 2021. Loyalty and tendency to switch platforms may explain some of the change in the share of new smartphone activations, where iOS has gained loyalty in a market with a limited amount of switching.

"This week, a 22-year-old self-described Bitcoin millionaire introduced the Freedom Phone, a $499 device meant to be completely free from 'Big Tech's' censorship and influence," reports PC Magazine.

"But it turns out the same smartphone is actually from China, and probably just a cheap knock-off." The Freedom Phone comes from Erik Finman, who unveiled the device earlier this week. He claims the product has everything Trump supporters could dream of, including an "uncensorable" app store, preinstalled conservative-friendly apps including Parler and Rumble, and even its own anti-surveillance operating system called FreedomOS... However, The Daily Beast noticed the Freedom Phone looks strikingly similar to a budget smartphone device from a Chinese vendor called Umidigi. The device is called the Umidigi A9 pro, and you can actually buy it over on the Chinese e-commerce site AliExpress starting at $119. Finman later told The Daily Beast that the Freedom Phone was indeed sourced from Umidigi, a company that's based in Shenzhen, China...

An uncensorable app store opens the door for hackers and shady developers to circulate malware and data-collecting programs to users. We're also doubtful Freedom Phone has its own operating system if it can run apps such as Parler and Rumble, in addition to Signal, Telegram and Brave
The Daily Beast adds this anecdote: The Freedom Phone's "Freedom OS" operating system is based on Google's Android operating system, according to Finman. But during a livestream video promoting the phone, right-wing activist Anna Khait was confused by her fans' basic questions about the phone. "Is it an Android?" Khait said. "I'm not really sure. No, it's a Freedom Phone."
Gizmodo calls the phone's web site "radically vague on the details." There is no information about the phone's operating system, storage, camera, CPU, or RAM capabilities. It has a list of features, but there are no actual details about them. Instead, under each feature, there's merely a "Buy it now" button which redirects you to the site's shopping cart. The phone's hefty price, combined with the company's total lack of transparency, is ridiculous — essentially asking the buyer to cough up half a grand in exchange for, uh, something...!
But Gizmodo also shares a philosophical thought: Before we get into the specifics of why this device probably sucks, let me just say that the desire to have a phone that is dedicated to protecting your autonomy and privacy is a reasonable one — and should be encouraged. That said, I don't think the Freedom Phone provides that. Actually, aside from its overt partisan bent, it's impossible to tell what kind of device this is because Finman and his acolytes haven't provided any information about it...

The funny thing is, if Trump voters are looking for a way to get off the "Big Tech" grid, there's no need for them to buy this sketchy shit. There are actually entire subcultures within the phone industry dedicated to escaping the Android/iOS paradigm. You can wade into the de-Googled phone sector, for instance — where Android phones are sold that have ostensibly been refurbished to rid the devices of code that will "send your personal data" back to the tech giant. There's also the Linux-based Pinephone, which sells at a fraction of the Freedom Phone's cost (between $150 and $200), and is a favorite of those in the privacy community. All of these come with caveats, obviously, but the point is that there are much more transparent and affordable options than the Freedom Phone...

It'd be nice if Americans could actually come together around the issue of privacy since it's an area where — regardless of political party — we're all collectively getting screwed.

AmiMoJo shares a report from VentureBeat: Apple critics such as Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney have complained about Apple's alleged anticompetitive behavior with the App Store. But Consumer Acquisition's Brian Bowman has frequently sounded the alarm on Apple's decision to favor user privacy over targeted ads by changing access to its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Based on Consumer Acquisition's analysis of $300 million in paid social ad spending, IDFA has had a devastating impact, Bowman said in an interview with GamesBeat. In a report issued today, Bowman said that iOS advertisers are experiencing a 15% to 20% revenue drop and inflation in unattributed organic traffic.

Starting in April, Apple began releasing iOS 14.5, which prompted users to answer whether they would allow their data to be tracked for advertising purposes. Apple believes this puts privacy front and center. But Consumer Acquisition and many of its game developer advertisers worry it will break personalized advertising. Only 20% of consumers are saying yes to Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, which means they will enable apps to personalize ads by tracking their personal data. For the traffic Bowman's company evaluated, performance has faded. Across paid social platforms, downstream event optimization and "lookalike audience performance" is also eroding. [...] Bowman believes -- or at least holds out hope -- that Apple will roll back or soften the IDFA changes by Black Friday.

The Russian state hackers who orchestrated the SolarWinds supply chain attack last year exploited an iOS zero-day as part of a separate malicious email campaign aimed at stealing Web authentication credentials from Western European governments, according to Google and Microsoft. Ars Technica reports: In a post Google published on Wednesday, researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne said a "likely Russian government-backed actor" exploited the then-unknown vulnerability by sending messages to government officials over LinkedIn. Attacks targeting CVE-2021-1879, as the zero-day is tracked, redirected users to domains that installed malicious payloads on fully updated iPhones. The attacks coincided with a campaign by the same hackers who delivered malware to Windows users, the researchers said.

The campaign closely tracks to one Microsoft disclosed in May. In that instance, Microsoft said that Nobelium -- the name the company uses to identify the hackers behind the SolarWinds supply chain attack -- first managed to compromise an account belonging to USAID, a US government agency that administers civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With control of the agency's account for online marketing company Constant Contact, the hackers could send emails that appeared to use addresses known to belong to the US agency. In an email, Shane Huntley, the head of Google's Threat Analysis Group, confirmed the connection between the attacks involving USAID and the iOS zero-day, which resided in the WebKit browser engine.

An anonymous reader shares a report: If you're an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees. Or 68 degrees. Any temperature but 69 degrees, actually, because it turns out that the built-in weather app on some versions of iOS -- including the current version, iOS 14.6 -- will refuse to display the internet's favorite number, even if the actual temperature in a given location is, in fact, 69 degrees. It's not clear if this is a bug or an intentional attempt from Apple to cut down on 69-related humor. The rounding is only visible in the weather app itself: clicking through to Apple's source data from Weather.com will show the proper temperature, as does Apple's home screen widgets.

Earlier this year in April Apple started mandating "App Tracking Transparency," which gives users a choice about whether they can be tracked across app.

Now tlhIngan (Slashdot reader #30,335) writes: The numbers are in and a number of ad companies are reporting lowered iOS spending, but 10% or more increases in Android ad spending. The complaint is, of course, that without the granular data they used to get from tracking it's no longer worth spending on iOS ads.

Interestingly, only about 66% of users have actually denied tracking.
That's based on early data from the ad-measurement firm Branch Metrics (as reported by The Wall Street Journal ). MacRumors write: As a result, the amount of advertiser spending on Apple's mobile platform has fallen by about one-third between June 1 and July 1, while spending on Android rose over 10% for the same month, according to ad-measurement firm Tenjin Inc...

Without proper user tracking, advertisers have significantly less data about a user's interests, preferences, and more. Advertisers and companies, such as Facebook, use that data to compile a profile of a user. The type of data collected from tracking helps advertisers to ensure that their ads are being targeted to potential customers. [According to ad-measurement firm Tenjin Inc], "The shortage of user data to fuel Facebook Inc.'s suite of powerful ad-targeting tools reduces their effectiveness and appeal among some advertisers, ad agencies say."

Epic's legal spat with Apple over App Store practices will spill over to Australia. From a report: After a series of hearings and trials that stretched nearly nine months, Apple and Epic made their final pitches to a US District Court in California on May 24. Both companies now await Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' decision, but that doesn't mean the litigation is over. After a successful appeal Thursday by Epic, the case will soon be brought to an Australian court. At the center of the legal action is Apple's App Store. Epic's ultrapopular Fortnite was kicked off the iOS App Store in August after Epic built a direct payment system into the game that would allow it to bypass Apple's 30% fee for App Store purchases. Epic sued Apple immediately, accusing the company of anticompetitive practice. Epic argues that the App Store is monopolistic, that developers hoping to get their apps to customers have no choice but to go through the App Store -- and pay the fees associated with that. Apple calls Epic's lawsuit a marketing stunt and argues that the App Store gives developers access to a huge audience of iPhone and iPad users.

In November, Epic brought the issue to Australia, initiating proceedings against Apple by arguing that the iPhone-maker's practices contravene Australia's Competition and Consumer Act. Apple was able to appeal against the suit in April, arguing that the case should be settled in the US District Court. Epic quickly counter-appealed, arguing that public policy concerns justify a separate trial. Australia's Federal Court ruled in favor of Epic on Thursday. "This is a positive step forward for Australian consumers and developers who are entitled to fair access and competitive pricing across mobile app stores," an Epic spokesperson said. "We look forward to continuing our fight for increased competition in app distribution and payment processing in Australia and around the world."

One of the new features announced at WWDC 2021 is iCloud Private Relay, a new security feature that lets users hide their real IP address from third-party servers so that they cannot track them across the web. It's called fingerprinting and it is quickly becoming a popular method for advertisers because it allows them to pull together information about your device to pinpoint your identity. As 9to5Mac reports, Apple's new fingerprint-blocking feature has the ad tech industry worried. From the report: As pointed out by a Digiday report, Private Relay comes to join forces with App Tracking Transparency, a feature introduced with iOS 14.5 to prevent apps from tracking users without asking permission. With ATT, Apple relies on developers to update their apps and ask users whether or not they want to be tracked. Private Relay is expected to considerably reduce user tracking at a deeper system level: "And herein lies the rub for ad execs. Apple has told them fingerprinting is off-limits but doesn't seem to be aggressively enforcing this policy. Few execs, however, believe this perceived inaction will last. Eventually, goes the thinking, Apple won't need to enforce a policy like ATT to rid its mobile operating system of fingerprinting -- it will have the technology to block it from ever happening in the first place. The reason: Private Relay."

However, this will probably result in even more companies upset with Apple. Nii Ahene, head of strategy at Tinuiti, warns that Apple needs to be careful to avoid Private Relay being considered "anti-competitive or too dictatorial," as the company has been facing accusations of monopolistic practices. Digiday reports: "'Apple needs to be careful when it uses its market position in a way that could be interpreted as either anti-competitive or too dictatorial,' said Nii Ahene, chief strategy officer at digital agency Tinuiti. 'This is why there's a gradual rollout of Apple's privacy plan. The company communicates what it will do early, starts to have conversations behind the scenes, and then over some time the enforcement of the ATT policy starts to kick in.'" When Apple introduced ATT, companies like Facebook publicly criticized the feature since it directly affects the advertising business, which is responsible for the main income of these companies. Now, it's only a matter of time before more companies speak out against iCloud Private Relay.

Google used anticompetitive practices in an attempt to "preemptively quash" Samsung's Galaxy Store, and prevent it from becoming a viable competitor to its own Play Store. From a report: That's according to an antitrust lawsuit filed by a coalition of three dozen state attorney general, which accuses Google of illegally attempting to control app distribution on Android. The suit also alleges Google paid off app developers to stop them circumventing its store. The allegations challenge one of Google's core defenses of its policies, which is that unlike Apple's iOS rules, Android allows both competing app stores and side-loading apps directly. The lawsuit is effectively claiming that this openness is a facade, because while customers technically have the choice of where to get their apps from, Google's business practices have prevented a viable app store competitor from emerging.

"Google felt deeply threatened when Samsung began to revamp its own app store, the Samsung Galaxy Store," the suit says, and describes Google's approach to the competing store as "a threat it needed to preemptively quash." The suit outlines a range of tactics Google allegedly used to prevent Samsung's store from becoming a viable competitor. It claims Google used revenue share agreements with Android phone manufacturers that "outright prohibited" pre-installing some other app stores, and that it made "a direct attempt to pay Samsung to abandon relationships with top developers and scale back competition through the Samsung Galaxy Store."

If you use an iPhone or Android phone, chances are the majority of your most-used apps were made by Apple and Google. From a report: That's the takeaway from a new Comscore study that ranks the popularity of preinstalled iOS and Android apps, such as Apple's Messages, alongside apps made by other developers. The results show that the majority of apps people use on their phones in the US come preinstalled by either Apple or Google. The first-of-its-kind report was commissioned by Facebook, one of Apple's loudest critics, and shared exclusively with The Verge. Preinstalled services dominate when it comes to basics like weather, photos, and clocks, according to the report, suggesting these categories will be difficult for other apps to compete in. Defaults don't win out exclusively, though: Apple Maps and Music don't appear on the iOS list at all, and Gmail makes the iOS list several entries below Apple Mail.

The timing, as Facebook likely intentioned, is apt: Apple and Google are increasingly under scrutiny for how they favor their own services over competitors like Spotify. US lawmakers are currently reviewing a new set of bills designed to curb the power of Big Tech, including legislation that could potentially bar Apple and Google from giving their services the upper hand against rivals. The pushback stems from how Apple and Google bundle their apps and services with their mobile operating systems in ways that some of their competitors think is unfair. The criticism is harsher against Apple, given that it more tightly controls the apps that come preinstalled on the iPhone and doesn't allow developers to circumvent its App Store.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Apple Insider: Responding to comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook in June, European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager said that Apple shouldn't use privacy and security concerns to stifle competition on the App Store. Vestager, the European Commission's executive vice president, has proposed regulations that could force Apple to allow alternate app stores. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke out against the proposal, stating that they could threaten the privacy and security of iOS.

In an interview with Reuters, Vestager agreed with Cook that privacy and security are important factors for consumers, but warned the Cupertino tech giant against using concerns about them to fend off competition. "I think privacy and security is of paramount importance to everyone," Vestager said. "The important thing here is, of course, that it's not a shield against competition, because I think customers will not give up neither security nor privacy if they use another app store or if they sideload." Vestager added that she was open to changes in her proposals, which need input from EU member states and lawmakers before it can become law. "I think that it is possible to find solutions to this," Vestager said.

The EU competition chief told Reuters that recent privacy changes to iOS, including App Tracking Transparency, aren't currently an antitrust target. In fact, she praised Apple's new privacy controls. "As I have said, I think actually several times, that it is a good thing when providers give us the service that we can easily set our preferences if we want to be tracked outside the use of an app or not as long as it's the same condition for everyone," Vestager added. "So far, we have no reason to believe that this is not the case for Apple."

Browser-based Xbox Cloud Gaming leaves the limited beta it's been in since the end of April and formally rolls out an open beta for iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 (or Windows 11!) PCs. CNET reports: In conjunction, the Backbone One mobile gaming controller for the iPhone [...] joins the Designed for Xbox program, with specific features designed to make you feel more like you're playing on an Xbox or standalone device. Xbox Cloud Gaming, nee Project xCloud, lets you play a subset of Xbox Game Pass games on a device other than a console by streaming them from the cloud, a la Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now. It, like others, follows Amazon Luna's lead of using a web app to circumvent Apple's App Store policies which effectively shut out cloud gaming apps. For Windows PCs, it lets you play games your system might not otherwise have the power or space to run locally via Game Pass for PC.