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Posts tagged with "app store"

Apple Removes ICEBlock and Similar Apps From the App Store Under Pressure From the DOJ→

Late yesterday, Apple pulled ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Fox Business News. ICEBlock is a crowd-sourced app used to track the location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so, [Attorney General Pam] Bondi said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

In a statement to Fox, Apple acknowledged pulling ICEBlock and similar apps saying:

We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.

Joshua Aaron, the developer of ICEBlock, which briefly held the top spot in the App Store’s social networking category, told Fox that the app has more than 1.1 million users. Aaron told Fox Business News that he intends to fight ICEBlock’s removal.

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Apple Highlights Apps Using Its Foundation Models Framework

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Earlier today, Apple published a press release highlighting some of the apps that are taking advantage of its new Foundation Models framework. As you’d expect, indie developers and small teams are well-represented among the apps promoted in the press release. Among them are:

It’s a group of apps that does a great job of demonstrating the breadth of creativity among developers who can leverage these privacy-first, on-device models to enhance their users’ experiences.

Apple’s happy to see developers adopting the new framework, too. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, said:

We’re excited to see developers around the world already bringing privacy-protected intelligence features into their apps. The in-app experiences they’re creating are expansive and creative, showing just how much opportunity the Foundation Models framework opens up. From generating journaling prompts that will spark creativity in Stoic, to conversational explanations of scientific terms in CellWalk, it’s incredible to see the powerful new capabilities that are already enhancing the apps people use every day.

Judging what we’ve seen from developers here at MacStories, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I expect you’ll see more and more of your favorite apps adding features that take advantage of the Apple Foundation Models in the coming months.

Two-Day Indie App Sales Event Begins Today with Over 250 Apps

Matt Corey has once again gathered indie developers to organize a huge sale today and tomorrow. Corey, the maker of Bills to Budget and Signals, has organized a collection of over 250 apps that will be offered at a discount through Wednesday. The list is too long to publish here, but it includes many apps we’ve covered here on MacStories and on Club MacStories in the past, including:

There are a lot of great deals, with many apps discounted 50% or more. What’s listed above is a small fraction of the participating apps, so be sure to visit Indie App Sales and support these great indie apps.

Apple Opens Up New App Distribution Options in the EU, Along with New and Updated Fees

To avoid additional fines, Apple is making several new changes to App Store rules in the EU. Today’s changes are a result of an April ruling by the European Commission that levied a €500 million fine against the company and ordered that it “…remove the technical and commercial restrictions on steering and to refrain from perpetuating the non-compliant conduct in the future….”

The changes are complex and wide-ranging, but among the highlights regarding in-app offers are changes that:

  • allow developers to communicate and promote offers for digital goods and services in their apps, which can steer users to the web, an alternative app marketplace, or another app either inside their app via a web view or native code, or outside their app;
  • permit developers to design these offers themselves, which can include pricing and instructions on how to take advantage of the offers outside the app;
  • allow offers to include links to the destination of the developer’s choice; and
  • prohibits developers from making offers outside the App Store using Apple’s In-App Purchase or StoreKit External Link Account entitlement for reader apps on the same OS;
  • require an informational banner in the App Store that shows it offers external purchases.

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;
  • the Core Technology Fee still exists, until the end of the year, for apps that don’t use the external purchase APIs if their installations exceed one million installations on a rolling 12-month basis; and
  • lower fees for Small Business Program developers.

Note, too, that by January 1, 2026, the Core Technology Fee will be replaced by the Core Technology Commission.

Also, developers in the EU will be able to offer their apps not only through alternative app marketplaces, where were already available, but also their own websites. To sell an app via a website, you have to be an Apple Developer in good standing for two consecutive years, obtain a €1,000,000 standby letter of credit, and have an app that has more than one million First Annual Installs on iOS and/or iPadOS in the prior calendar year. As you would expect, developers selling outside the App Store are responsible for managing the purchase process, taxes, and customer service, and failing to do so could result in the revocation of API access by Apple.

All right, that’s a lot and while I’ve tried to boil it down to the core points, there are a lot of details developers should study carefully and understand before taking the plunge of selling their apps outside the EU App Store. The best place to learn more now is from Apple. Start with the developer announcement, which links to more details about the new rules and relevant legal documents. Apple is also offering 30-minute sessions for EU developers to ask questions and provide feedback.

If you’re wondering what Apple thinks of all this, well, it’s not happy. An unnamed spokesperson told CNBC:

The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store. We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The fee structure and rules are complex and will need to be studied closely to evaluate the practical effect of the changes. That said, I’m cautiously optimistic that our readers in the EU will soon have more choice than ever, which I’m glad to see.

2025 Apple Design Awards Winners and Finalists Announced

As WWDC approaches, Apple has announced the finalists for its annual Apple Design Awards, and in a departure from recent years, the winners too.

This year, there are six categories, and each category has a winning app and game, along with four finalists. Unlike last year, there is no Spatial Computing category this year. The 2025 ADA winners and finalists are:

Delight and Fun

Winners:

Finalists:

Innovation

Winners:

Finalists:

Interaction

Winner:

  • App
    • Taobao by Zhejiang Taobao Network
  • Game

Finalists:

Inclusivity

Winner:

Finalists:

Social Impact

Winners:

  • App
  • Game
    • Neva by Developer Digital

Finalists:

Visuals and Graphics

Winners:

Finalists:

The winners and finalists include a broad range of games and apps, including some from smaller developers including Lumy, Denim Art of Fauna, Skate City: New York, as well as titles from bigger publishers.

I’m glad that Apple has announced the finalists for the last few years. Winning an ADA is a big achievement for any developer, but it’s also nice to know who the finalists are because it’s quite an honor among the many apps that could have been chosen, too. Plus as a fan of apps, Apple’s longer finalist list always reminds me of an app or two that I haven’t tried yet. Congratulations to all of this year’s Apple Design Award winners and finalists.

EU Sets DMA Compliance Deadline in App Store Anti-Steering Dispute

Last month, the European Commission (EC) fined Apple €500 million for violating the Digital Markets Act. Today, the EC issued its full 67-page ruling on the matter, giving Apple until July 23 to pay the fine or face accruing interest on the penalty.

The ruling focuses on Apple’s anti-steering rules, which were the focus of the contempt order recently entered by a U.S. District Court Judge in California. According to the EC:

Apple has not substantiated any security concerns. Apple simply states that some limitations, such as linking out only to a website that the app developer owns or has responsibility for, are allegedly grounded in security reasons. However, Apple does not explain why the app developer’s website is more secure than a third party website which the app developer has taken the conscious decision to link out to. It also does not explain why this limitation is objectively necessary and proportionate to protect the end user’s security and therefore has not provided any adequate justifications in this regard.

(EC ruling at p. 22). In other words, “the App Store isn’t more secure than the web just because you say it is.”

Apple has until June 22 to bring the App Store into compliance with the EC’s ruling or face additional periodic penalties (EC ruling at p. 67). As we reported in April, Apple has said that it intends to appeal the EC’s ruling.

Microsoft Eyes Xbox Web Store after Epic Court Decision→

In the wake of U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ decision in Epic Games’ litigation against Apple, I commented on NPC: Next Portable Console that I expected Microsoft to enter the fray with its own web store soon. As reported by Tom Warren at The Verge, it looks like that’s exactly what Microsoft intends to do. Commenting on Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ contempt order in the context of Epic’s recent motion to return Fortnite to the App Store, Warren notes:

It’s a key ruling that has already allowed Fortnite to return to the App Store in the US, complete with the ability for Epic Games to link out to its own payment system inside the game. Microsoft has wanted to offer a similar experience for its Xbox mobile store prior to the ruling, but it says its solution “has been stymied by Apple.”

Ultimately, Microsoft wants its customers to be able to purchase and play its games from inside the Xbox app:

Microsoft started rolling out the ability to purchase games and DLC inside the Xbox mobile app last month, but it had to remove the remote play option to adhere to Apple’s App Store policies. You can’t currently buy an Xbox game in the Xbox mobile app on iOS and then stream it inside that same app. You have to manually navigate to the Xbox Cloud Gaming mobile website on a browser to get access to cloud gaming.

Developers continue to add options to link out to the web to purchase content, but as Microsoft’s court filing shows, the biggest players on the App Store are weighing the cost of setting up their own storefronts against the risk that Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ decision will be reversed on appeal.

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Google Brings Its NotebookLM Research Tool to iPhone and iPad

Google’s AI research tool NotebookLM dropped on the App Store for iOS and iPadOS a day earlier than expected. If you haven’t used NotebookLM before, it’s Google’s AI research tool. You feed it source materials like PDFs, text files, MP3s, and more. Once your sources are uploaded, you can use Google’s AI to query the sources, asking questions and creating materials that draw on your sources.

Of all the AI tools I’ve tried, NotebookLM’s web app is one of the best I’ve used, which is why I was excited to try it on the iPhone and iPad. I’ve only played with it for a short time, but so far, I like it a lot.

Just like the web app, you can create, edit and delete notebooks, add new sources using the native file picker, view existing sources, chat with your sources, create summaries, timelines, and use the Studio tab to generate a faux podcast of the materials you’ve added to the app. Notebooks can also be filtered and sorted by Recent, Shared, Title, and Downloaded. Unlike the web app, you won’t see predefined prompts for things like a study guide, a briefing document, or FAQs, but you can still generate those materials by asking for them from the Chat tab.

NotebookLM’s native iOS and iPadOS app is primarily focused on audio. The app lets you generate audio overviews from the Chats tab and ‘deep dive’ podcast-style conversations that draw from your sources. Also, the audio generated can be downloaded locally, allowing you to listen later whether or not you have an Internet connection. Playback controls are basic and include buttons to play and pause, skip forward and back by 10 seconds at a time, control playback speed, and share the audio with others.

Generating an audio overview of sources.

Generating an audio overview of sources.

What you won’t find is any integration with features tied to App Intents. That means notebooks don’t show up in Spotlight Search, and there are no widgets, Control Center controls, or Shortcuts actions. Still, for a 1.0, NotebookLM is an excellent addition to Google’s AI tools for the iPhone and iPad.

NotebookLM is available to download from the App Store for free. Some NotebookLM features are free, while others require a subscription that can be purchased as an In-App Purchase in the App Store or from Google directly. You can learn more about the differences between the free and paid versions of NotebookLM on Google’s blog.

Apple Previews a Wide Range of Upcoming Accessibility Features to Mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

With Global Accessibility Awareness Day coming up this Thursday, May 15, Apple is back with its annual preview of accessibility features coming to its platforms later in the year. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of the first office within Apple to address accessibility, and there’s no sign of any slowdown in the company’s development on this front. While no official release date has been announced for these features, they usually arrive with the new OS updates in the fall.

In addition to a new accessibility-focused feature in the App Store, Apple announced a whole raft of system-level features. Let’s take a look.

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