Ever since Apple launched the App Store, developers big and small have gotten caught up in the company's approval process and had their apps delayed or removed altogether. The popular messaging app Telegram is just the latest, according to the company's CEO Pavel Durov. On August 10th, Durov posted a message to his Telegram channel saying the app's latest update had been stuck in Apple's review process for two weeks without any real word from the company about why it was held up.
As noted by The Verge, the update was finally released yesterday, and Durov again took to Telegram to discuss what happened. The CEO says that Apple told Telegram that it would have to remove a new feature called Telemoji, which Durov described as "higher quality vector-animated versions of the standard emoji." He included a preview of what they would look like in his post — they're similar to the basic emoji set Apple uses, but with some pretty delightful animations that certainly could help make messaging a little more expressive.
"This is a puzzling move on Apple's behalf, because Telemoji would have brought an entire new dimension to its static low-resolution emoji and would have significantly enriched their ecosystem," Durov wrote in his post. It's not entirely clear how this feature would enrich Apple's overall ecosystem, but it still seems like quite the puzzling thing for Apple to get caught up over, especially since Telegram already has a host of emoji and sticker options that go far beyond the default set found in iOS. Indeed, Durov noted that there are more than 10 new emoji packs in the latest Telegram update, and said the company will take the time to make Telemoji "even more unique and recognizable."
Republicans stepped up calls on Sunday for the release of an FBI affidavit showing the justification for its seizure of documents at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home amid reports of heightened threats against federal law enforcement personnel.
A search warrant released last week after the unprecedented search showed that Trump had 11 sets of classified documents at his home, and that the Justice Department had probable cause to conduct the search based on possible Espionage Act
The U.S. consulate in Tijuana is urging its employees to shelter-in-place until further notice as gang violence intensifies.
Baja, California officials say 24 cars have been hijacked and burned throughout the state. Fifteen of those incidents happened in Tijuana.
Mexican cities have seen widespread arson and shootings by drug cartels; however, this is the first time Tijuana was included in the wave of violence.
Tijuana's mayor has called on drug cartels to stop the violence and to stop targeting innocent civilians.
Mexican government officials say they've detained more than 17 people, seven of whom were from Tijuana.
Dozens of countries, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Turkey, called on Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the surrounding area in a joint statement on Sunday.
"We urge the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its military forces and all other [unauthorized] personnel from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, its immediate surroundings, and all of Ukraine so that the operator and the Ukrainian authorities can resume their sovereign responsibilities," the countries said.
Ukraine and Russia have pointed the blame at each for shelling at the facility, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
FILE - The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. (Dmytro Smolyenko/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Communication lines, radiation monitoring sensors, a nitrogen-oxygen station and other parts of the plant have been damaged by explosions in recent days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of "trying to intimidate people in an extremely cynical way."
"Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our army," he said on Saturday evening. He called the tactic "nuclear blackmail."
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said that Russian forces are targeting the part of the plant "where energy supplying [the] south of Ukraine is stored."
advertising business, I need to address the elephant in the room: how the company’s privacy efforts have stymied third-party advertising on its platform.
Last year, Apple launched a feature called App Tracking Transparency, or ATT. It allows consumers to decide whether apps can track them across other applications and websites—a key way for marketers to gather data and then serve up more relevant ads. Typically, the better the ad, the more money it generates.
The feature is perfectly reasonable, and I can’t fault Apple for adopting it. Users should be able to choose whether they want to be tracked. And yet, there’s no denying that ATT has created some collateral damage: a major revenue hit for companies big and small.
You may not feel too bad for social media giants like Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc. that have claimed to have lost billions of dollars as a result of Apple’s changes, but smaller developers also say the feature has upended their businesses.
There are still a lot of emoji-related improvements in the latest Telegram update, though. The company says it is launching an "open emoji platform" where anyone can upload their own set of emoji that people who pay for Telegram's premium service can use. If you're not a premium user, you'll still be able to see the customized emoji and test using them in "saved messages" like reminders and notes in the app. The custom emoji can be interactive as well — if you tap on them, you'll get a full-screen animated reaction.
To make it easier to access all this, the sticker, GIF and emoji panel has been redesigned, with tabs for each of those reaction categories. This makes the iOS keyboard match up with the Android app as well as the web version of Telegram. There are also new privacy settings that let you control who can send you video and voice messages: everyone, contacts or no one. Telegram notes that, like its other privacy settings, you can set "exceptions" so that specific groups or people can "always" or "never" send you voice or video messages. The new update — sans Telemoji — is available now.
With that in mind, what you’re about to read may seem a bit ironic: Apple is going to, over time, significantly expand its own advertising business.
Let’s begin with the current state of play: Apple’s advertising efforts today consist of display ads inside of its News and Stocks apps, as well as inside the App Store, across the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The App Store also has Google-like search ads. And more recently, Apple put advertising inside of TV+ for its “Friday Night Baseball” deal with Major League Baseball.
Now, a portion of ad revenue from the News app’s Today tab goes to publishers, but it’s not clear how much. Apple also lets publishers advertise within their stories and keep the vast majority of that money. Surprisingly, Today ads also appear if you subscribe to News+ for $10 per month (though it’s a smaller number).
Of course, seeing ads on news websites is commonplace—even behind a paywall—but it’s rare in general for paid services on iOS to have them. And it feels like quite a shift from when Steve Jobs gleefully touted that iCloud would have no ads when he announced it in 2011.
Another ironic detail here is that the company’s advertising system uses data from its other services and your Apple account to decide which ads to serve. That doesn’t feel like a privacy-first policy.
You can disable the ad personalization feature (look under Apple Advertising in the settings app’s Privacy & Security menu), and the company says that 78% of iOS 15 users have done just that. But the system will still leverage data like the identity of your carrier, device type and what you read.
You may ask then, why don’t Apple apps have to ask permission to track users via a pop-up message? That’s what happens with other apps under ATT.
The reason, Apple says, is that the system “does not follow you across apps and websites owned by other companies.” That’s what ATT is designed to prevent. If a third-party app doesn’t track across outside apps and websites, it also doesn’t need to show a pop-up.
This codec will bring more stability and efficiency to the wireless earbuds. Not only that, but this new standard will help AirPods Pro 2 improve the sound quality for voice calls and songs with higher-bitrate support. Although low-energy Bluetooth and LC3 codec don’t promise “Lossless Bluetooth,” they will surely improve sound quality by a lot.
Apple Mixed Reality Headset
Rumors about the Apple Mixed Reality Headset have been ramping up for this past year. During Apple’s September event, the company could revive Steve Jobs’s “One More Thing” phrase to tease the company’s upcoming Mixed Reality headset.
Rumors currently expect it to be unveiled as soon as late this year and start being sold in 2023. The Apple September event could be the perfect timing for Apple to disclose to the public that it’s entering a new market.
For example, early this year, the company teased it’s working on a new Mac Pro without further details.
Are iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13 Ventura, watchOS 9, and tvOS 16 coming during the Apple September Event?
It depends. According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, iPadOS 16 has been delayed for at least a month, as Apple is aiming for an October release – alongside macOS 13 Ventura. During the Apple September Event, its CEO Tim Cook will likely announce the release date for iOS 16, watchOS 9, and tvOS 16.
You can learn more about these upcoming operating systems in the guides below: