Gadgets
Apple App Store Concessions Fail to Address Top Concerns of Regulators
Lawmakers and regulators are considering dismantling the App Store business model, an outcome that could cost Apple about 6 percent of its sales – an amount equal to $16 billion (roughly Rs. 1,16,890 crores) in its last fiscal year – and shave up to 15 percent off its profit, according to an estimate last year from analyst firm Cowen.
Among Apple’s most high-profile concessions is allowing Netflix and other subscription services to provide a link to out-of-app paid signups that avoid Apple commissions. But many of the largest such companies had already quit using Apple’s payment systems long ago, so the move is unlikely to affect Apple’s finances.
That is a sign that any fight over Apple’s rules will likely continue even if Apple wins in the threat closest to hand – a US federal judge who is due any day to announce a ruling in an antitrust case brought by Fortnite game maker Epic Games.
“Mobile technologies have become essential to our daily lives, and now just two app stores wield incredible power over which apps consumers can access and how they access them,” US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who sponsored an app store bill, said this week. “When you see this same issue arising all over the world, it is even more obvious that we need to take action.”
Some of the loudest cries are for Apple to allow app stores run by other companies on its iPhone, which would provide a path around the current payments system that gives developers little ability to avoid giving Apple a cut. Critics also want the company to abolish so-called steering rules that stop developers from telling their customers how to pay developers directly for their apps.
Developers could sidestep Apple’s rules altogether if they were allowed to install software on iPhone handsets without going through Apple’s App Store, but Apple disallows this, saying it imperils the safety of its users. Epic seeks that change in the Fortnite antitrust case.
Global scrutiny
A bill introduced by Democratic US Representative David Cicilline and Republican Representative Ken Buck in the US House of Representatives in June would also force Apple to open its iPhone to third-party stores if the measure becomes law.
Virtually every regulator examining Apple around the world – including competition authorities in the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia – is scrutinising Apple’s rules for in-app payments and commissions on digital goods of 15-30 percent. It is also key to the legal complaints filed by Spotify and Epic against Apple.
South Korean lawmakers this week passed a bill that would prohibit both Apple and Alphabet’s Google from requiring use of their payment systems.
That is at the top of a wish list by Spotify, whose CEO, Daniel Ek, tweeted that Apple’s changes to date “don’t solve the problem.”
The issue of “steering rules” was partly addressed by Apple last week when it ended a ban on communicating with users by email about alternative payments and this week said that a small sliver of “reader” apps that access media content purchased elsewhere can now provide a link to paid sign up page.
But game developers who generate most of Apple’s App Store revenue still cannot point their users to a paid signup page or otherwise direct them to make payments that avoid Apple’s commissions.
“Apple’s latest announcement seems to be another attempt to protect their App Store monopoly by dividing developers into winners and losers,” said a statement from the Coalition for App Fairness, a group that includes Epic Games.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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