Apple letter urges lawmakers to reject sideloading bill

Apple has written a letter urging lawmakers to reject a bill that would force the company to allow any apps to be installed on its mobile operating systems.

The letter, addressed to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and Republican Chuck Grassley, claims the proposed bill will hurt user privacy and security if passed.

In question is the S. 2710 bill that would allow software downloaded from the web or other sources to be “sideloaded” on iOS.

“Sideloading...

4 February 2022 | App Stores

GitHub incentivises open-source investments with sponsor-only repos

GitHub is launching private repositories that only sponsors have access to, helping to incentivise open-source investments.

Open-source mostly relies on developers voluntarily giving up their time to build and improve projects. Priority is naturally given to work that helps to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table—meaning that open-source projects can be underdeveloped at best or be left with devastating vulnerabilities at worst.

A growing number of...

3 February 2022 | Git

WearOS rocketed from ~4% of the smartwatch market to 17% in Q3 2021

WearOS got the booster shot it needed from the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4.

Google’s smartwatch operating system has struggled for years to gain traction against not only the might of Apple’s WatchOS but also rival platforms from the likes of Huawei, Fitbit, Amazfit, Garmin, and even Samsung.

Samsung was an early supporter of WearOS but eventually gave up on the platform and switched to its own Tizen-based alternative. Earlier this year, a surprise joint...

22 November 2021 | Platforms

Nintendo denies handing out 4K Switch development kits

Nintendo has been forced to refute a Bloomberg report that it provided 4K-capable Switch development kits to select gaming studios.

This week, Bloomberg reported that at least 11 developers – including Zynga – were given kits to develop 4K resolution games for unannounced Switch hardware.

Following the report, Nintendo tweeted:

https://twitter.com/NintendoCoLtd/status/1443366440183074819

It’s a rare denial that has probably been issued out of concern...

30 September 2021 | Gaming

Cardano tops blockchain dev activity for second year, Avalanche witnesses explosive growth

Outlier Ventures has released its blockchain development trends report for Q2 2020/21 and it highlights growing interest around the “Ethereum killers”.

Ethereum is the original smart contract platform and, to this day, hosts the largest number of decentralised applications. With a market cap of $408.3 billion, it’s the second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin ($893.5 billion).

However, Ethereum continues to be plagued by slow transaction speeds and high fees....

17 September 2021 | Blockchain

Nintendo announces Switch OLED with minor improvements

Nintendo has finally announced its long-awaited new Switch model but without many of the rumoured upgrades.

The new Switch OLED, as its name suggests, boasts a new display that should improve some of the complaints about previous models having poor contrast and brightness. However, the rumoured bump to 1080p hasn’t materialised and the screen is still just 720p.

Nintendo has increased the screen size from 6.2-inch to 7-inch so a boosted resolution would have been even...

6 July 2021 | Gaming

Developers claim that PlayStation is particularly difficult to work with

Independent game developers have bemoaned the difficulty of working with PlayStation over Xbox and Nintendo.

Iain Garner of independent game publisher Neon Doctrine recently posted a tirade on Twitter where he suggested that getting prominent promotion on the store of a “very successful console” that “does not have Games Pass” (i.e not Xbox, and presumably meaning PlayStation) costs at least $25,000.

Video game publication Kotaku first published the story and...

2 July 2021 | Gaming

App Annie reveals the most popular SDKs following iOS 14.5’s release

Mobile data and analytics experts App Annie have shared the most popular SDKs following the release of iOS 14.5.

iOS 14.5 delivered significant new protections for user privacy which have drastically limited access to user-level data. A report from Flurry Analytics earlier this month discovered that 96 percent of iOS 14.5 users in the US are blocking ad tracking.

As to be expected, App Annie found that Apple’s own SDKs lead by unique iOS installs globally—taking the...

27 May 2021 | Developer

Class-action lawsuit could force Apple to compensate users for app prices

A class-action lawsuit filed in the UK wants to force Apple to compensate users for potentially inflated app prices.

Until recently, Apple took a 30 percent commission on all app sales. Most app developers feel the cut is unjustifiable and critics believe that it’s an abuse of Apple’s market dominance.

Apple claims the legal action is “meritless”.

Similar criticisms have been made about other app stores but Apple’s grip over its operating system means...

11 May 2021 | App Stores