Epic Games is launching an additional 19 games for its third-party app store in the EU, once some bugs are worked out, and it has also promised to pay the Core Technology Fee for apps on its store.


After the European Union Digital Markets Act mandated that Apple allow third-party app stores, Epic Games jumped on the bandwagon. It launched the store with Fortnite and a slim selection of other titles in July 2024.

According to The Verge, Epic Games is making moves to make its alternative app store more appealing with 19 new third-party titles and some financial incentives for developers. The announcement arrives after it failed to meet a goal of 100 million alternative app store users, reaching only 29 million.


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Despite widespread adoption, Walmart has doubled down and gone on record saying it will not accept NFC-based payments like Apple Pay — in the U.S., at least.


Walmart has more than 4,500 stores in the United States, and exactly zero of them accept Apple Pay. Or Google Pay. Or even tap-to-pay with your credit or debit card.

This is because the big box retailer has decided to eschew NFC-based payments altogether. And it looks like it's going to stay that way, too.


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Apple has released a new developer beta firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4, but it's not clear what the update contains.


Thursday's developer beta increases the build number to 7E5067b, up from the previous 7B21 and 7B20 updates. This beta software release is available for Air Pods 4 and AirPods Pro 2, both the USB-C and Lightning models. The software won't be released for AirPods Max or other non-H2 devices.

Apple periodically releases beta software updates for nearly all its platforms, including AirPods. While beta updates for Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems are released much more frequently, developers still rely on beta software for AirPods to test new features ahead of launch.


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Samsung's latest smartphone launch, the Galaxy S25, is the South Korean tech company's latest attempt to win the mobile AI war. Here's how the entry-level model compares against Apple's iPhone 16.


On January 22, Samsung launched an update to its flagship smartphone line. The Samsung Galaxy S25, along with the Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra, are set to become the biggest smartphones on Android, and possibly in AI.

During the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung promoted its smartphones as a way for anyone to quickly use AI while on the move. Promises were made of natural context-aware mobile experiences, an intuitive interface, and high performance.


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Apple's latest installment of quarterly earnings is on January 30 after market close, and there are five key points that Apple needs to make to satisfy investors.


Morgan Stanley has proven to be one of the more accurate and reasonable firms that cover Apple. In a new note released on Friday by the firm, analyst Erik Woodring notes that the earnings setup feels very similar to a year ago. Like a year ago, he is expecting a street beat, but a lower than expected second quarter revenue predictions.

Specifically, the firm remains bullish on its overweight rating and maintained $273 price target. Woodring expects revenue of $124.0 billion, and $2.31 earnings per share. This all implies a 3.7% revenue growth — which is roughly in line with what Wall Street expects as a whole.


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Amazon wants you to enjoy a stress-free tax season with deals on TurboTax for Mac, allowing you to get a head start on filing your tax return. Deluxe, Premier, and Business versions are all on sale.


Amazon's TurboTax deals apply to both Windows and Mac versions, with discounts up to 44% off. Prices for the Deluxe version start at $36.99, while Premier is marked down to $64.99 and Home & Business has fallen to $75.99.

Save on TurboTax


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The nominees for the 97th Academy Awards have been announced and Apple TV+ is not going to take home another Best Picture Oscar, or anything else — because it didn't try.


Nobody can ever take away from Apple that it was the first-ever streamer to win a Best Picture Oscar for "CODA." It's not going to repeat that in 2025, but unlike Netflix, Apple truly didn't try very hard this time.

That's clear not from the lack of nominations, but from the Oscars shortlist — and before that, from Apple's own PR attempts. Every year studios mount campaigns known as "For Your Consideration," trying to get the Academy's voters to at least watch key films, and Apple pushed four titles.


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It might not be "new year, new me" for the iPhone yet, as scattered reports across social media show that the iPhone is, yet again, failing to wake people up.


Nothing starts the day off on the wrong foot like missing your alarm when you've got somewhere to be or something to do. Unfortunately for some iPhone owners, that seems to be the exact situation they've found themselves in.

Stop us if you've heard this before. A quick check on X shows plenty of iPhone owners reporting that their alarms are not going off or are going off silently. A smaller subset of people are reporting that their alarms are going off at the incorrect time.


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The United Kingdom's competition regulator is investigating Apple and Google once again, with the CMA assessing the "strategic market status" of the two companies in mobile ecosystems.


The Competition and Markets Authority is launching an investigation into the mobile business, once again taking on the dominance of Apple and Google in the smartphone market. As it flexes its new powers to investigate big tech companies like Apple, it's taking on the two companies responsible for the two biggest mobile operating systems.

According to Statcounter, iOS has 47.7% of the mobile operating system market share in the UK as of December 2024. Android is reported at 51.9%.


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A class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple over the use of fluoroelastomer in several Apple Watch bands, saying the company is hiding how it is using dangerous chemicals.


As long ago as 2015, when it filed a patent regarding Apple Watch bands, Apple has been aware of health concerns over the fluoroelastomer material it uses in some bands such as the basic Sport Band. At the time, it was claimed that the particular fluoroelastomer recipe used had been strenuously tested to prevent rashes and other skin reactions.

Ten years later, the company is being sued for the use of this material, and accused of promoting a health device that is unhealthy. The suit targets Apple's Sport Band — which comes as standard with an Apple Watch — plus the Ocean Band, and the Nike Sport Band.


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It's been a few months since Apple launched the black Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the all-new Apple Watch Series 10. Here's how they compare after three months of daily use.


We wore the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for an entire year. Once the new Apple Watch Series 10 was released, we made a chance to the new wearable instead.

This has given us lots of insight into the two models and how they actually compare after prolonged use. We'll go beyond just the specs on a website.


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The Indian government wants its own state-backed apps to be pre-installed on every iPhone and Android phone, but Apple and Google are expected to refuse.


India's government has a thing about pre-installed apps, having previously told Apple it should let its experts examine them before any updates are allowed. That was reportedly in a private discussion in 2023, and appears to have gone nowhere — which might be what happens with the new demand too.

According to Bloomberg, India's latest private discussions with Apple and Google revolve around the government's own apps. It wants its own state-backed suite of apps to be supplied pre-installed on all phones, and also to be downloadable from third-party App Stores without "untrusted source" warnings.


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Having Safari be able to open the same tabs on all your Apple devices is hugely convenient, yet Apple hides the feature away. Here's how to find and make use of it.


This is specifically about what are called iCloud tabs — and they are not the same as Tab Groups. If you use Tab Groups in Safari on one Apple device, the feature is on with the same tabs on all your devices.

In theory, iCloud tabs is always on too, but you have to dig further to find it, and you have to make sure that it is enabled.


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New Samsung Galaxy S25 devices are up for preorder, as Samsung unveils discounts to compete with iPhone 16 incentives.


Announced on Jan. 22, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series includes the S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra — all of which are eligible for preorder deals.

Get the S25 deals


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A proposed class-action lawsuit against Apple, which alleges that the company underpays its female staff, is going forward after all.


Even though Apple claims it takes the issue of gender discrimination seriously, with the company even having an entire webpage dedicated to diversity, the iPhone maker has faced serious criticism. In June 2024, a class-action lawsuit against Apple alleged that the company systematically underpays its female employees across multiple divisions, including AppleCare, engineering, and marketing.

According to the class-action lawsuit, Apple based its employee pay on "prior pay and pay expectations to set starting salaries," meaning that women are paid less from the get-go. The company's performance evaluations are also said to favor men, who are often rewarded with bonuses and raises based on talent, while their female coworkers are not provided with the same treatment.


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The purported specifications of the iPad 11, iPhone SE 4, and 2025 iPad Air models have appeared online, and contradictions include the iPad 11 not getting Apple Intelligence support.


On Wednesday, an anonymous social media account with a verifiable track record published detailed information on multiple unreleased Apple products. Earlier in the day, the leaker claimed that the fourth-generation iPhone SE, the iPad 11, and the 2025 iPad Air models would all ship with iOS 18.3 preinstalled.

The leaker has since returned with even more information on these devices, but some of their recent claims raise more questions than answers.


Rumor Score: 🙄 Unlikely


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A private social media account has claimed the soon-to-release operating system updates will be preinstalled on inbound hardware that could arrive soon, including the fourth-gen iPhone SE and iPad refreshes.


Apple entered the release candidate stage of its operating system updates on Tuesday, meaning the final releases to the public could happen soon. If a social media account is to be believed, new hardware may not be all that far behind.

A private X account with a good track record for accuracy as it pertains to operating system details claims that the 22D8062 build of iOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on the iPhone SE, the fourth-gen model that is anticipated to arrive soon. At the same time, it says build 22D2060 of iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on the 11th gen iPad and iPad Air.


Rumor Score: 🤯 Likely


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Apple resellers continue to issue steep price drops on Apple devices, with the high-end M4 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro eligible for a $350 discount.


The 16-inch M4 Max model is marked down at Amazon, B&H, and Adorama (the latter with the use of coupon code APINSIDER) and comes equipped with a 14-core CPU and 32-core GPU. It also has 36GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, all of which are upgrades from the standard M4 Pro spec.

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Apple's iPhone 16 lineup is shaking up buyer trends, with recent buyers favoring affordability and practicality over flashy upgrades.


In the last month or so, more buyers have been opting for value-focused options instead of splurging on premium models. Data from the 2024 holiday quarter shows that while new Pro models perform well, base and older iPhones are gaining popularity.

According to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) for the December 2024 quarter, the iPhone 16 models collectively held a 68% share of U.S. sales, slightly surpassing the 65% share of the iPhone 15 models in the previous year. However, a closer look reveals notable year-over-year shifts in model preferences.


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In a first of its kind promotion for Apple TV+, the cast of "Severance" appeared in character, working in a pop-up glass office at Grand Central Terminal.


"Severance" has been a critical and popular hit since it started, and is already talked about so much that it probably doesn't need promotion. But that's what it got with an all-star stunt at New York's Grand Central on January 14, 2025.

Apple has now released footage of the stunt, showing stars including Adam Scott, Britt Lower, and Zach Cherry, working in a replica of their "Severance" office set. Placed in a glass cube, the pop-up was big enough for four cubicles and some room to walk around the edges.


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Leveraging an attack vector that's been in play off and on for the last two decades, hackers are targeting Mac users with malware camouflaged as the popular Homebrew tool, and spreading it through deceptive Google ads.


Malicious actors are leveraging Google ads to distribute malware through a counterfeit Homebrew website. The campaign targets macOS and Linux users with an infostealer that compromises credentials, browser data, and cryptocurrency wallets.

Homebrew, a widely-used open-source package manager, enables users to manage software through a command line. Hackers recently exploited its popularity by creating a malicious Google ad.


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Apple Miami Worldcenter is opening on January 24, with the unique storefront designed for accessibility and the environment, complete with a plant-covered roof.


Apple Stores often offer designs that incorporate the retail outlet aesthetic into interesting buildings and structures, beyond the typical mall locations. With Apple Miami Worldcenter, Apple is taking a very outlandish approach.

Photographs shared days ahead of its January 24 opening reveal Apple Miami Worldcenter to be an unusual store design, even for Apple. For a start, while it is a store that is surrounded by skyscrapers, it's a ground-level retail space without stairs or any additional height.


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In a repeat of how it fumbled its costly and entirely failed COVID app, the UK is ignoring Apple Wallet and will instead develop its own digital wallet for documents such as driving licences.


The move to digital driving licences, passports, and so on seems so inevitable that Apple has been working on it for years. So it's no surprise that the UK is following the US's lead and implementing the same idea, yet it's not the surprise it should be that the country is going it alone.

In the official announcement, the UK government says that it is simplifying digital documents and in doing so to save the equivalent of $55 billion. The UK's economy has yet to recover from 14 years of a Conservative government that split the country from the EU, so saving money is clearly a priority.


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Apple's Mac mini with M4 can fit into a lot of use cases, especially because of its new, smaller size, and three months later, it's proven to be one of the most versatile Macs yet.


Redesigns can be fun and eye-catching, but they don't always lead to fundamental changes in what's possible or desired from a platform. The Mac mini with M4 is an exception, as it is now small enough to slot into some unique use cases.

It's not that the previous Mac mini was large by any stretch, and there are certainly smaller desktop-class PCs out there, so a Mac being this small shouldn't be a big deal. Except, portability in Macs is more important than ever thanks to one product in particular — Apple Vision Pro.


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