Apple continues to remove third-party applications from the Chinese version of the App Store for violating its terms of service. It reportedly removed 718 apps this week.
This isn’t the first time there’s been a purge from this software store. But this time none of the applications were breaking Chinese law, just Apple’s own rules.
Apple’s legal team could soon be headed to the Supreme Court to face an antitrust case being levied against the company.
U.S. Supreme Court justices heard an hour of arguments for an antitrust lawsuit against Apple today. The nine justices appeared to be open to letting the lawsuit move up to the highest court. If Apple loses, we could see huge changes in the App Store.
Apple rakes in billions of dollars from the App Store. However, its future ability to do so could be challenged if a federal court rules against the company.
On Monday, Apple will defend its app pricing structure in a federal appeals court. The case involves whether customers buy apps directly from Apple, or whether Apple is more like a middleman connecting app makers with users.
Ubisoft’s newest Assassin’s Creed game just landed on iOS. Rebellion is a free-to-play strategy RPG in which players assemble a Brotherhood of powerful assassins to fight back against the Templars and the oppression in Spain.
It boasts more than 40 characters, including legendary ones and some brand new to the Assassin’s Creed series — plus limited-time events and premium access if you want it.
Tumblr is gone from the iOS App Store, but exactly why remains a mystery. Still, there’s speculation that Apple cracked down on the blogging app for being used to disseminate content that violates Apple’s guidelines for third-party software.
Oath, the developer of Tumblr, promises that it’s working on the “issue.”
Apple has removed 11 categories from the Mac App Store. The Categories tab now displays just 10 options as opposed to 21, with Finance, Lifestyle, and Sports among those dropped.
The move is a disappointment to app developers who rely on specific categories for discoverability. Many initially believed that the change was a bug, but Apple has since confirmed that the removal of these items is “expected behavior.”
Apple just had its best September quarter of all-time and CEO Tim Cook couldn’t have sounded happier when he got on the phone with investors today. The company is heading into the holiday season with its best lineup ever and expects to set more records next quarter.
Investors did not seem to be too impressed with the results though. Apple’s stock price dropped from $222.22 to as low as $206 in after-hours training. Despite Wall Street’s worries about Apple, there was plenty of achievements for Tim Cook and Luca Maestri to boast about on today’s call.
There were the biggest revelations from today’s call:
Analysts are predicting big things for Apple’s App Store business ahead of the company’s Q4 2018 earnings report coming on November 1.
Search ads from the App Store could generate over $500 million in revenue during all of 2018, according to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Even better, Sacconahi thinks the App Store ad business could be worth a whopping $2 billion by the end of 2020.
Apple is seeming cracking down on some of the dodgier subscription apps in the App Store, following reports highlighting the actions of certain unscrupulous apps and app-makers.
Out of the 17 apps mentioned in a recent Forbes report on these practices, 11 have now been removed from the App Store. Similarly, QR Code Reader and Weather Alarms — two problematic apps highlighted by TechCrunch — have also vanished.
Subscriptions mean big business for app developers, but this success has ushered supposed bad actors into the App Store. A new article by TechCrunch shines a light on some of these apparent scam tactics, which could cause a headache for Apple.
Dragalia Lost, the latest mobile game from Nintendo, has been killing it during its first two weeks of availability — despite being available only in a handful of markets.
New data reveals the action RPG pulled in an estimated $3.5 million during the first five days alone, making it more successful than the beloved Animal Crossing: Fire Camp. More than half of its players are on iOS.
Popular indie farming simulator Stardew Valley is finally making the leap to iPhone and iPad.
The game has proven a smash hit on Mac and PC, selling over 400,000 copies during its first two weeks of availability, and has been well-received on console, with glowing review scores on Metacritic. You’ll be able to play it on iOS later this month.
Minecraft for Apple TV has been scrapped. Users can no longer download the game from the tvOS App Store, while existing players have been informed that the title will no longer receive updates or support.
The game’s removal is being blamed on a lack of players. Developer Mojang explains that it needs to “reallocate resources to the platforms that our players use the most.”
Dragalia Lost, the newest mobile game from Nintendo, is now available to download on iOS in select markets.
The action-packed RPG, which was first confirmed last month, takes players on a journey of adventure as they fight to save the Kingdom of Alberia. It’s free to download and play.
This post is presented by iMobie.
Last year, iTunes 12.7 launched as a version “focused” on music, TV shows, podcasts and audiobooks. The redesign was aimed at cutting bloat, so functions like the App Store, home screen arrangement, and ringtone editing got nixed. Not everyone was happy about that.
Apple’s efforts to encourage developers to use in-app subscriptions continued this week with a new video published to its developer portal.
“Developer Insights” highlights the benefits of a subscription model with reoccurring payments, and features testimonials from app makers who are already enjoying a subscription model. Apple has already held meetings with developers to warn them that one-time purchases are dying.
According to a post on the official App Store Twitter account, the celebrated puzzle adventure game Professor Layton and the Curious Village is on its way to iOS.
Released for the Nintendo DS in Japan back in 2007, and in North America the year after, Curious Village is the first title in the immensely popular Professor Layton series. It was ported to mobile for the Japanese market in June this year, but this is the first time we’ve heard about an English language version for iOS. And we couldn’t be happier!
Alex Jones and Infowars Official have been permanently banned from the iOS App Store.
An Apple spokesperson said it was because company guidelines prohibit software that’s “offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust or in exceptionally poor taste.”
Evernote, the popular mobile app for note taking, organizing, tasks lists, and archiving, is going through some hard times. A new report reveals that it has lost multiple senior executives — including its Chief Technology Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Procurement Officer, and head of HR — in the last month.
A tipster told TechCrunch that that Evernote is in a “death spiral.” They claim that paid user growth and active user numbers remain flat, and that the company’s enterprise product offering has failed to catch on with customers.
Apple takes every opportunity to talk up its pro-privacy agenda — and if you’re a developer being hosted in the App Store you’d better show that same level of commitment to users.
According to a new report, Apple has started telling its developers that they will soon need to host a privacy policy in their apps’ metadata. This change will apply to all new apps and app updates from October 3, regardless of whether or not they connect to the internet.
Facebook has removed its Onavo Protect app from the App Store after reportedly violating Apple’s data-collection policies.
The VPN service was being used to gather information about how people use their devices outside of Facebook. Apple officials informed Facebook that Onavo violated new rules introduced in June, which are designed to limit data collection by app developers.
The App Store is a big money spinner for Apple, but that could change if more developers, helped by regulatory intervention, push back against the commission that Apple currently takes.
In a note to clients, Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter suggests that this could cost Apple up to $16 billion annually. This follows news that Netflix is currently experimenting with a way to circumvent the cash it has to pay Apple.
Apple’s worth a crazy amount of money these days, but what really separates it from previous eras is that it no longer lives or dies by one product. Look at any part of Apple’s business and you’ll find reasons to be optimistic.
The latest example of this comes from Bank of America, which bumped its price target on Apple stock from $230 to $250 a share. Why? Because the bank noticed that the App Store is booming — and not just in the category you might expect.
Apple has pulled a massive 25,000 apps from its Chinese App Store following state media complaints about the company. At least 4,000 of these were tagged with the word “gambling,” which is illegal in China outside of state-sanctioned lotteries.
“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said in a statement. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”
Apple wants developers to stop selling iOS applications and start renting them instead. The reason is simple: this forces users to pay more for software.
Apple held a secret meeting in New York City last year to convince developers to give up charging users a one-time fee for apps, and go instead to reoccurring charges.
