Apps

The court-ordered change takes effect from March 1st 2027, following similar rulings in the EU, Japan, and Brazil. Apple will have to let Fortnite back in the App Store too — one of the last holdouts after a global return — and allow developers to offer alternative payment methods. Apple told Reuters it plans to appeal.

The company is launching ads for ChatGPT Free and Go users across 26 countries, including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Since bringing ads to ChatGPT in the US in February, OpenAI has rapidly expanded its advertising efforts, which now span 89 countries.

The feature analyzes video and audio signals to determine whether they “may have been altered outside of Zoom.” The video conferencing app is also launching a tool that uses AI to make presenters “appear more engaged,” as well as an AI-powered feature that smooths out voices and accents in real time.

The app, which says it helps renters by splitting up their payments (while tacking on an extra fee for dividing them), is now turning utility, insurance, car payments, and internet bills into buy now, pay later payments, with all of the associated issues and a $5.99 monthly fee for splitting payments on top of other processing charges.

Yelp’s new “Check for Me” feature is starting to roll out on iOS as part of Yelp’s fall product release. The launch also includes updates to Yelp AI’s assistant, including more personalized recommendations and the ability for it to book reservations on OpenTable.

The Android laptops shipped with the tracking app, but it was quickly removed. Now Google has told Android Authority why, blaming laptop sleep settings. It sounds like a better optimized version might come in the future. Mind fixing any other apps while you’re at it?

Toggling on the new “Surveillance” switch in the Map Options on MapQuest adds eyeball icons showing the locations of “known license plate readers” and outdoor surveillance cameras, similar to DeFlock’s ALPR mapping project.

A Reddit user spotted the fake “Chrome” app as a sponsored suggestion above the real version. As Android Authority reports, the app was originally added to the Play Store as a “Ball Bounce” game before the developer reskinned it as a Chrome dupe.

Meta’s Muse app has topped the iOS App Store chart in the US since it launched in early September, but now it’s lost that position to an unexpected tender contender: Dave’s Hot Chicken. It presumably has little to do with AI capabilities, and more the extremely popular free slider promotional offer than ran yesterday, but lets see how long Dave’s can keep the top spot.

Alongside its big Argon 4 launch, Google has announced that it’s embedding Antigravity’s agentic coding interface directly into the Gemini app. Antigravity is only available in the Gemini app with an AI Ultra subscription.

Firefox Enterprise combines the browser with a management console for IT admins with advanced security controls. The pitch is that it’s one of the few browsers that doesn’t run on an engine developed by Google or Apple. It’s rolling out in Europe first, and a Thunderbird Enterprise email client is also in the works.

Users who sideloaded outdated builds of the Fitbit app to avoid being forced to switch to Google Health have found it no longer works. Android Authority reports that a new prompt is appearing for some users that can’t be bypassed without updating the Fitbit app, which forces moving to Google Health anyway.

Gone are the days of starting your Goodreads reviews with “more like a 3.75, but rounding up.” The site has finally added fractions of a star to its rating system, which many of its competitors, like StoryGraph, have supported for quite some time.

Gems will appear on posts and replies “based on the conversation” they create, rather than on views or how many followers someone has, according to a support page.

If you’re tired of the Spotify desktop app gobbling up a big chunk of your computer’s RAM, Spotifast for Linux, macOS, and Windows takes a leaner approach and typically needs just 100 to 250MB. A Spotify Premium account is required to actually stream music instead of just browsing, and if you need another reason to switch, Spotifast includes a Mini Player that supports Winamp 2 skins.

You can ask Anthropic’s AI chatbot to incorporate motion into its output, allowing it to create a 30-second video explainer, add animation to a chart, or make a product walkthrough. The animation will play like a short video, which you can download as an MP4 file.

A few Reddit users have reported seeing a new look that features cleaner text, streamlined controls, and, most importantly, full-width artwork on albums and playlists. It’s a huge improvement over the cramped, boxed-in look of the current app. Hopefully it’ll be rolling out to more users soon.

The app gives you a bunch of tools to tinker and tweak your carousel if you want to spruce it up. Check out how the editor works in the below video from Meta.

The server privacy bot says hackers copied about 12GB of data, including Discord usernames and user IDs, IP addresses, location data, and email addresses. The attackers also took control of the bot’s Discord token, posted links “in about 50 large servers,” and “used a stolen payment key to commit financial fraud on a separate account.”

The feature is rolling out to Spotify Premium subscribers, presenting you with questions about music trivia, album cover art, and audio track previews. You can find a music quiz by scrolling down on the “Now Playing” view of a participating artist’s song.

The revamped Marvel Comics app will include archived and current comic books, with new issues arriving as soon as 30 days after their print release. It’s replacing Marvel Unlimited, which will shut down on December 28th, but Marvel says you’ll be able to transfer your library to the new app after it launches.

You can invite two or more friends to your group and match with other friend groups based on your interests, which starts a new group chat. Group Hangouts are rolling out starting today in the US. Bloomberg says Tinder’s also working on a “group planning tool” to help groups set up in-person gatherings.

The company says the new topic labels in its dedicated app for Facebook groups will help you find more conversations about that topic, highlighting things like “solo travel” or “Korean food” as examples.

A major update for Final Cut Camera is now available that introduces a redesign with customizable overlays and easier access to popular settings like shutter angle, white balance, and the iPhone 18 Pro’s new variable aperture. Apple Creator Studio has also been updated with new template collections and advanced selections for Pixelmator Pro plus trigonometry, statistics, and logic functions for Numbers spreadsheets.

An issue in Firebase’s analytics led some iOS apps that use the Google service to crash on launch, a problem which persisted for hours even after Google’s fix. That’s one more thing to worry about after internet outages and rogue AI attacks.

Along with an updated homepage, the Arts & Culture app has a new AI-powered search feature that allows you to ask questions using natural language. The app also adds two new AI experiments, including Chrono Look for virtually trying on historical attire, and Dial an Artist, which lets you “call” an AI chatbot modeled after a historical artist.