“The public interest in the preservation of intellectual property rights weighs heavily against the injunction sought here, which would force Apple to distribute an app over the repeated and consistent objections of non-parties who allege their rights are infringed by the app,” Apple argued.
Unlike other free apps that continually play ads, Musi only serves ads when the app is initially opened, then allows uninterrupted listening. One Musi user also noted that Musi allows for an unlimited number of videos in a playlist, where YouTube caps playlists at 5,000 videos.
“Musi is the only playback system I have to play all 9k of my videos/songs in the same library,” the Musi fan said. “I honestly don’t just use Musi just cause it’s free. It has features no other app has, especially if you like to watch music videos while you listen to music.”
“Spotify isn’t cutting it,” one Reddit user whined.
“I hate Spotify,” another user agreed.
“I think of Musi every other day,” a third user who apparently lost the app after purchasing a new phone said. “Since I got my new iPhone, I have to settle for other music apps just to get by (not enough, of course) to listen to music in my car driving. I will be patiently waiting once Musi is available to redownload.”
Some Musi fans who still have access gloat in the threads, while others warn the litigation could soon doom the app for everyone.
Musi continues to perhaps optimistically tell users that the app is coming back, reassuring anyone whose app was accidentally offloaded that their libraries remain linked through iCloud and will be restored if it does.
Some users buy into Musi’s promises, while others seem skeptical that Musi can take on Apple. To many users still clinging to their Musi app, updating their phones has become too risky until the litigation resolves.
“Please,” one Musi fan begged. “Musi come back!!!”
Popular music app says YouTube never justified its App Store takedown request.
Musi, a free music-streaming app only available on iPhone, sued Apple last week, arguing that Apple breached Musi’s developer agreement by abruptly removing the app from its App Store for no good reason.
According to Musi, Apple decided to remove Musi from the App Store based on allegedly “unsubstantiated” claims from YouTube that Musi was infringing on YouTube’s intellectual property. The removal came, Musi alleged, based on a five-word complaint from YouTube that simply said Musi was “violating YouTube terms of service”—without ever explaining how. And YouTube also lied to Apple, Musi’s complaint said, by claiming that Musi neglected to respond to YouTube’s efforts to settle the dispute outside the App Store when Musi allegedly showed evidence that the opposite was true.
For years, Musi users have wondered if the service was legal, Wired reported in a May deep dive into the controversial app. Musi launched in 2016, providing a free, stripped-down service like Spotify by displaying YouTube and other publicly available content while running Musi’s own ads.
Musi’s curious ad model has led some users to question if artists were being paid for Musi streams. Reassuring 66 million users who downloaded the app before its removal from the App Store, Musi has long maintained that artists get paid for Musi streams and that the app is committed to complying with YouTube’s terms of service, Wired reported.
In its complaint, Musi fully admits that its app’s streams come from “publicly available content on YouTube’s website.” But rather than relying on YouTube’s Application Programming Interface (API) to make the content available to Musi users—which potentially could violate YouTube’s terms of service—Musi claims that it designed its own “augmentative interface.” That interface, Musi said, does not “store, process, or transmit YouTube videos” and instead “plays or displays content based on the user’s own interactions with YouTube and enhances the user experience via Musi’s proprietary technology.”
YouTube is apparently not buying Musi’s explanations that its service doesn’t violate YouTube’s terms. But Musi claimed that it has been “engaged in sporadic dialog” with YouTube “since at least 2015,” allegedly always responding to YouTube’s questions by either adjusting how the Musi app works or providing “details about how the Musi app works” and reiterating “why it is fully compliant with YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
How might Musi have violated YouTube’s TOS?
In 2021, Musi claimed to have engaged directly with YouTube’s outside counsel in hopes of settling this matter.
At that point, YouTube’s counsel allegedly “claimed that the Musi app violated YouTube’s Terms of Service” in three ways. First, Musi was accused of accessing and using YouTube’s non-public interfaces. Next, the Musi app was allegedly a commercial use of YouTube’s service, and third, relatedly, “the Musi app violated YouTube’s prohibition on the sale of advertising ‘on any page of any website or application that only contains Content from the Service or where Content from the Service is the primary basis for such sales.'”
Musi supposedly immediately “addressed these concerns” by reassuring YouTube that the Musi app never accesses its non-public interfaces and “merely allows users to access YouTube’s publicly available website through a functional interface and, thus, does not use YouTube in a commercial way.” Further, Musi told YouTube in 2021 that the app “does not sell advertising on any page that only contains content from YouTube or where such content is the primary basis for such sales.”
Apple suddenly becomes mediator
YouTube clearly was not persuaded by Musi’s reassurances but dropped its complaints until 2023. That’s when YouTube once again complained directly to Musi, only to allegedly stop responding to Musi entirely and instead raise its complaint through the App Store in August 2024.
That pivot put Apple in the middle of the dispute, and Musi alleged that Apple improperly sided with YouTube.
Once Apple got involved, Apple allegedly directed Musi to resolve the dispute with YouTube or else risk removal from the App Store. Musi claimed that it showed evidence of repeatedly reaching out to YouTube and receiving no response. Yet when YouTube told Apple that Musi was the one that went silent, Apple accepted YouTube’s claim and promptly removed Musi from the App Store.
“Apple’s decision to abruptly and arbitrarily remove the Musi app from the App Store without any indication whatsoever from the Complainant as to how Musi’s app infringed Complainant’s intellectual property or violated its Terms of Service,” Musi’s complaint alleged, “was unreasonable, lacked good cause, and violated Apple’s Development Agreement’s terms.”
Those terms state that removal is only on the table if Apple “reasonably believes” an app infringes on another’s intellectual property rights, and Musi argued Apple had no basis to “reasonably” believe YouTube’s claims.
Musi users heartbroken by App Store removal
This is perhaps the grandest stand that Musi has made yet to defend its app against claims that its service isn’t legal. According to Wired, one of Musi’s earliest investors backed out of the project, expressing fears that the app could be sued. But Musi has survived without legal challenge for years, even beating out some of Spotify’s top rivals while thriving in this seemingly gray territory that it’s now trying to make more black and white.
Musi says it’s suing to defend its reputation, which it says has been greatly harmed by the app’s removal.
Musi is hoping a jury will agree that Apple breached its developer agreement and the covenant of good faith and fair dealing by removing Musi from the App Store. The music-streaming app has asked for a permanent injunction immediately reinstating Musi in the App Store and stopping Apple from responding to third-party complaints by removing apps without any evidence of infringement.
An injunction is urgently needed, Musi claimed, since the app only exists in Apple’s App Store, and Musi and its users face “irreparable damage” if the app is not restored. Additionally, Musi is seeking damages to be determined at trial to make up for “lost profits and other consequential damages.”
“The Musi app did not and does not infringe any intellectual property rights held by Complainant, and a reasonable inquiry into the matter would have led Apple to conclude the same,” Musi’s complaint said.
On Reddit, Musi has continued to support users reporting issues with the app since its removal from the App Store. One longtime user lamented, “my heart is broken,” after buying a new iPhone and losing access to the app.
It’s unclear if YouTube intends to take Musi down forever with this tactic. In May, Wired noted that Musi isn’t the only music-streaming app taking advantage of publicly available content, predicting that if “Musi were to shut down, a bevy of replacements would likely sprout up.” Meanwhile, some users on Reddit reported that fake Musi apps keep popping up in its absence.
For Musi, getting back online is as much about retaining old users as it is about attracting new downloads. In its complaint, Musi said that “Apple’s decision has caused immediate and ongoing financial and reputational harm to Musi.” On Reddit, one Musi user asked what many fans are likely wondering: “Will Musi ever come back,” or is it time to “just move to a different app”?
Ars could not immediately reach Musi’s lawyers, Apple, or YouTube for comment.
Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.
Enlarge/ The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.
Apple is comprehensively restructuring its long-standing App Store team, splitting the team into two separate divisions as the executive who has run it for more than a decade says goodbye to the company.
There will now be one team for the familiar, Apple-run App Store, and another one to handle alternative app stores in the European Union. Apple recently partially opened the platform to third-party app stores in response to the Digital Markets Act, a set of European regulations meant to break up what legislators and regulators deemed to be app store monopolies.
As noted, the restructuring comes with some notable personnel changes, too. App Store Vice President Matt Fischer, who has been at the helm of the platform since 2010, will leave the company.
In a social media post and email to employees, Fischer wrote the following:
After 21 years at Apple, I’ve made the decision to step away from our incredible company. This has been on my mind for some time, and as we are also reorganizing the team to better manage new challenges and opportunities, now is the right moment to pass the baton to two outstanding leaders on my team—Carson Oliver and Ann Thai—both of whom are more than ready for this next chapter.
You can visit his LinkedIn post to see the full statement. According to Bloomberg, Carson Oliver will lead the Apple App Store division, while Ann Thai will head up the alternative app store team. Up to this point, Oliver has been a senior director of business management at Apple, while Thai has had the title of worldwide product director for the App Store and Apple Arcade.
It’s worth noting that Fischer was the overall lead for Apple Arcade, so that service will now be under new leadership.
Apple Fellow and former marketing SVP Phil Schiller will continue to oversee both of the new divisions.
It’s unclear what further changes, if any, will result from this shakeup. Apple has already made significant changes in response to EU regulations, but some developers and competitors are still critical, saying it hasn’t gone far enough.
After a 14-year journey of various states of availability and usefulness amid the shifting policies of Apple’s App Store approval process, MS-DOS game emulator iDOS is back on the iPhone and iPad. It’s hopefully here to stay this time.
iDOS allows you to run applications made for MS-DOS via DOSBox, with a nice retro-styled interface. Its main use case is definitely playing DOS games, but it has seen a rocky road to get to this point. Initially released over a decade ago, it existed quietly for its niche audience, though it saw some changes that made it more or less useful in the developer’s quest to avoid removal from the App Store after it violated Apple’s rules. That culminated in it being removed altogether in 2021 after some tweets and articles brought attention to it.
But earlier this year, Apple made big changes to its App Store rules, officially allowing “retro game emulators” for the first time. That cleared the way for a wave of working console game emulators like Delta and RetroArch, which mostly work as you might expect them to on any other platform now. But when iDOS developer Chaoji Li and other purveyors of classic PC emulator software attempted to do the same for old PC games for MS-DOS and other non-console computing platforms, they were stymied. Apple told them that it didn’t consider their apps to be retro game console emulators and that they violated rules intended to prevent people from circumventing the App Store by running applications from other sources.
PC emulator UTM released a version of its software that worked around Apple’s rules, but it was a subpar experience. But on August 2, Apple amended its App Store rules to explicitly allow emulators of classic PC games. That opened the door for iDOS, which has made its triumphant return and works quite well.
Developer Chaoji Li’s announcement of iDOS 3’s availability didn’t have a tone of triumph to it, though—more like exhaustion, given the app’s struggles over the years:
It has been a long wait for common sense to prevail within Apple. As much as I want to celebrate, I still can’t help being a little bit cautious about the future. Are we good from now on?
I hope iDOS can now enjoy its turn to stay and grow.
P.S. Even though words feel inadequate at times, I would like to say thank you to the supporters of iDOS. In many ways, you keep iDOS alive.
Given that Apple’s policy changes were driven by regulatory concerns, it seems likely it’ll stick this time, but after everything that’s happened, you can’t blame Li for putting a question mark on this.
In any case, if you’re among the dozens (or maybe several hundred) of people looking to play Commander Keen, Might and Magic: The World of Xeen, Wolfenstein 3D, or Jill of the Jungle on your iPhone, today is your day.
Enlarge/ Photos of iGBA that appeared on the App Store before the app was taken down.
Over the weekend, developer Mattia La Spina launched iGBA as one of the first retro game emulators legitimately available on the iOS App Store following Apple’s rules change regarding such emulators earlier this month. As of Monday morning, though, iGBA has been pulled from the App Store following controversy over the unauthorized reuse of source code from a different emulator project.
Shortly after iGBA’s launch, some people on social media began noticing that the project appeared to be based on the code for GBA4iOS, a nearly decade-old emulator that developer Riley Testut and a partner developed as high-schoolers (and distributed via a temporary security hole in the iOS App Store). Testut took to social media Sunday morning to call iGBA a “knock-off” of GBA4iOS. “I did not give anyone permission to do this, yet it’s now sitting at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking),” he wrote.
GBA4iOS is an open source program released under the GNU GPLv2 license, with licensing terms that let anyone “use, modify, and distribute my original code for this project without fear of legal consequences.” But those expansive licensing terms only apply “unless you plan to submit your app to Apple’s App Store, in which case written permission from me is explicitly required.”
Images from the original, circa 2014 version of GBA4iOS.
“To be clear, I’m not pissed at the developer [of iGBA],” Testut added on social media. “I’m pissed that Apple took the time to change the App Store rules to allow emulators and then approved a knock-off of my own app.”
Hurry up and wait
MacRumors reports that Apple cited two sections of its App Store guidelines in removing iGBA: one related to spam (Section 4.3) and one related to copyright (section 5.2). Right now, it’s a bit ambiguous whether the copyright violation refers to the copyright on the emulator source code itself or the emulator’s ability to easily play copyrighted games from Nintendo and others.
As we discussed earlier this month, the wording of Apple’s recent App Store guidelines update makes it unclear if developers can release general-purpose emulators with the ability to play ROMs they don’t control the rights to. Aside from iGBA, a Commodore 64 emulator named Emu64 XL and built off of the open source VICE project was recently launched on the iOS App Store.
Apple has yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica. But Testut wrote early Monday morning that “to Apple’s credit, though, once they were aware of the issue, they did take it seriously. So I really don’t believe this was malicious at all — just an unfortunate situation for everyone involved.” Testut added that iGBA maker La Spina “reached out to me via email to personally apologize for the mess. So no hard feelings there.”
But Testut did have some hard feelings regarding Apple’s treatment of AltStore, an alternative marketplace for sideloading iOS apps that he’s trying to launch under the EU’s new regulations. That would provide Testut with a legitimate way to distribute Delta, a “sequel” to GBA4iOS that emulates many classic Nintendo consoles on Apple devices.
“My frustration stemmed entirely from the fact we’ve been ready to launch Delta since last month,” Tetstut wrote on social media. “This whole situation could’ve been avoided if Apple hadn’t delayed approving us until after changing their rules to allow emulators.”
Epic is suggesting that competition on the Android mobile platform would be opened up if the court orders Google to allow third-party app stores to be distributed for six years in the Google Play Store and blocks Google from entering any agreements with device makers that would stop them from pre-loading third-party app stores. This would benefit both mobile developers and users, Epic argued in a wide-sweeping proposal that would greatly limit Google’s control over the Android app ecosystem.
US District Court Judge James Donato will ultimately decide the terms of the injunction. Google has until May 3 to respond to Epic’s filing.
“Epic’s filing to the US Federal Court shows again that it simply wants the benefits of Google Play without having to pay for it,” Google’s spokesperson said. “We’ll continue to challenge the verdict, as Android is an open mobile platform that faces fierce competition from the Apple App Store, as well as app stores on Android devices, PCs, and gaming consoles.”
If Donato accepts Epic’s proposal, Google would be required to grant equal access to the Android operating system and platform features to all developers, not just developers distributing apps through Google Play. This would allow third-party app stores to become the app update owner, updating any apps downloaded from their stores as seamlessly as Google Play updates apps.
Under Epic’s terms, any app downloaded from anywhere would operate identically to apps downloaded from Google Play, without Google imposing any unnecessary distribution fees. Similarly, developers would be able to provide their own in-app purchasing options and inform users of out-of-app purchasing options, without having to use Google’s APIs or paying Google additional fees.
Notably, Epic filed its lawsuit after Google removed the Epic game Fortnite from the Google Play Store because Epic tried to offer an “Epic Direct Payment” option for in-game purchases.
“Google must also allow developers to communicate directly with their consumers, including linking from their app to a website to make purchases and get deals,” Epic said in a blog post. “Google would be blocked from using sham compliance programs like User Choice Billing to prevent competing payment options inside an app or on a developer’s website.”
Unsurprisingly, Epic’s proposed injunction includes an “anti-retaliation” section specifically aimed at protecting Epic from any further retaliation. If Donato accepts the terms, Google would be violating the injunction order if the tech giant fails to prove that it is not “treating Epic differently than other developers” by making it “disproportionately difficult or costly” for Epic to develop, update, and market its apps on Android.
That part of the injunction would seem important since, last month, Epic announced that an Epic Games Store was “coming to iOS and Android” later this year. According to Inc, Epic told Game Developers Conference attendees that its app-distribution platform will be the “first ever game-focused, multiplatform store,” working across “Android, iOS, PC and macOS.”
Enlarge/ The classic Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog running on an iPhone—in this case, as a standalone app.
Samuel Axon
When Apple posted its latest update to the App Store’s app review and submission policies for developers, it included language that appears to explicitly allow a new kind of app for emulating retro console games.
Apple has long forbidden apps that run code from an external source, but today’s announced changes now allow “software that is not embedded in the binary” in certain cases, with “retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games” specifically listed as one of those cases.
4.7 Mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators
Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games. You are responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws. Software that does not comply with one or more guidelines will lead to the rejection of your app. You must also ensure that the software adheres to the additional rules that follow in 4.7.1 and 4.7.5. These additional rules are important to preserve the experience that App Store customers expect, and to help ensure user safety.
It’s a little fuzzy how this will play out, but it may not allow the kind of emulators you see on Android and desktop, which let you play retro games from any outside source.
Retro game emulators run what are colloquially called ROM files, which are more or less images of the game cartridges or discs that played on console hardware. By now, it’s well-established that the emulators themselves are completely legal, but the legality of the ROM files downloaded from ROM sites on the Internet depends on the specific files and circumstances.
There are ROMs that are entirely public domain or in some license where the creator allows distribution; there are ROMs that are technically copyrighted intellectual property but where the original owner no longer exists, and the current ownership is unknown or unenforced; and there are some ROMs (like many games made by Nintendo) where the owner still has an interest in controlling distribution and often takes action to try to curb illegal sharing and use of the files.
Additionally, many game publishers use emulators to run ROMs of their own retro games, which they sell to consumers either as standalone games or in collections for modern platforms.
It’s not completely clear from Apple’s wording, but our interpretation of Apple’s new rules is that it’s likely only the last of those examples will be possible; companies that own the intellectual property could launch emulator apps for downloading ROMs of their (and only their) games. So, for example, Sega could offer a Sega app that would allow users to download an ever-expanding library of Sega games, either as part of a subscription, for free, or as in-app purchases. Sega has offered its retro games on the iPhone before in emulation but with a standalone app for each game.
“You are responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws,” Apple writes. And it specifically says “retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games” in the list of exceptions to the rules against “software that is not embedded inside the binary”—but it doesn’t list any other method for retro game console emulator apps.
Whatever the case, this update is not limited to the European Union. Apple has been subjected to regulatory scrutiny in both the EU and the United States regarding its App Store rules. It’s likely the company is making this change to preempt criticism in this area, though it did not name its reasons when announcing the change other than to say it has been made to “support updated policies, upcoming features, and to provide clarification.”
Enlarge/ EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton talks to media about non-compliance investigations against Google, Apple, and Meta under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Not even three weeks after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the European Commission (EC) announced Monday that it is already probing three out of six gatekeepers—Apple, Google, and Meta—for suspected non-compliance.
Apple will need to prove that changes to its app store and existing user options to swap out default settings easily are sufficient to comply with the DMA.
Similarly, Google’s app store rules will be probed, as well as any potentially shady practices unfairly preferencing its own services—like Google Shopping and Hotels—in search results.
Finally, Meta’s “Subscription for No Ads” option—allowing Facebook and Instagram users to opt out of personalized ad targeting for a monthly fee—may not fly under the DMA. Even if Meta follows through on its recent offer to slash these fees by nearly 50 percent, the model could be deemed non-compliant.
“The DMA is very clear: gatekeepers must obtain users’ consent to use their personal data across different services,” the EC’s commissioner for internal market, Thierry Breton, said Monday. “And this consent must be free!”
In total, the EC announced five investigations: two against Apple, two against Google, and one against Meta.
“We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA,” antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said, ordering companies to “retain certain documents” viewed as critical to assessing evidence in the probe.
The EC’s investigations are expected to conclude within one year. If tech companies are found non-compliant, they risk fines of up to 10 percent of total worldwide turnover. Any repeat violations could spike fines to 20 percent.
“Moreover, in case of systematic infringements, the Commission may also adopt additional remedies, such as obliging a gatekeeper to sell a business or parts of it or banning the gatekeeper from acquisitions of additional services related to the systemic non-compliance,” the EC’s announcement said.
“These are the cases where we already have concrete evidence of possible non-compliance,” Breton said. “And this in less than 20 days of DMA implementation. But our monitoring and investigative work of course doesn’t stop here,” Breton said. “We may have to open other non-compliance cases soon.
Google and Apple have both issued statements defending their current plans for DMA compliance.
“To comply with the Digital Markets Act, we have made significant changes to the way our services operate in Europe,” Google’s competition director Oliver Bethell told Ars, promising to “continue to defend our approach in the coming months.”
“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations,” Apple’s spokesperson told Ars. “Teams across Apple have created a wide range of new developer capabilities, features, and tools to comply with the regulation. At the same time, we’ve introduced protections to help reduce new risks to the privacy, quality, and security of our EU users’ experience. Throughout, we’ve demonstrated flexibility and responsiveness to the European Commission and developers, listening and incorporating their feedback.”
A Meta spokesperson told Ars that Meta “designed Subscription for No Ads to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA,” promising to comply with the DMA while arguing that “subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries.”
The EC’s announcement came after all designated gatekeepers were required to submit DMA compliance reports and scheduled public workshops to discuss DMA compliance. Those workshops conclude tomorrow with Microsoft and appear to be partly driving the EC’s decision to probe Apple, Google, and Meta.
“Stakeholders provided feedback on the compliance solutions offered,” Vestager said. “Their feedback tells us that certain compliance measures fail to achieve their objectives and fall short of expectations.”
Apple and Google app stores probed
Under the DMA, “gatekeepers can no longer prevent their business users from informing their users within the app about cheaper options outside the gatekeeper’s ecosystem,” Vestager said. “That is called anti-steering and is now forbidden by law.”
Stakeholders told the EC that Apple’s and Google’s fee structures appear to “go against” the DMA’s “free of charge” requirement, Vestager said, because companies “still charge various recurring fees and still limit steering.”
This feedback pushed the EC to launch its first two probes under the DMA against Apple and Google.
“We will investigate to what extent these fees and limitations defeat the purpose of the anti-steering provision and by that, limit consumer choice,” Vestager said.
These probes aren’t the end of Apple’s potential app store woes in the EU, either. Breton said that the EC has “many questions on Apple’s new business model” for the app store. These include “questions on the process that Apple used for granting and terminating membership of” its developer program, following a scandal where Epic Games’ account was briefly terminated.
“We also have questions on the fee structure and several other aspects of the business model,” Breton said, vowing to “check if they allow for real opportunities for app developers in line with the letter and the spirit of the DMA.”
As Apple has stepped up its promotion of its App Store as a safer and more trustworthy source of apps, its operators scrambled Thursday to correct a major threat to that narrative: a listing that password manager maker LastPass said was a “fraudulent app impersonating” its brand.
At the time this article on Ars went live, Apple had removed the app—titled LassPass and bearing a logo strikingly similar to the one used by LastPass—from its App Store. At the same time, Apple allowed a separate app submitted by the same developer to remain. Apple provided no explanation for the reason for removing the former app or for allowing the latter one to remain.
Apple warns of “new risks” from competition
The move comes as Apple has beefed up its efforts to promote the App Store as a safer alternative to competing sources of iOS apps mandated recently by the European Union. In an interview with App Store head Phil Schiller published this month by FastCompany, Schiller said the new app stores will “bring new risks”—including pornography, hate speech, and other forms of objectionable content—that Apple has long kept at bay.
“I have no qualms in saying that our goal is going to always be to make the App Store the safest, best place for users to get apps,” he told writer Michael Grothaus. “I think users—and the whole developer ecosystem—have benefited from that work that we’ve done together with them. And we’re going to keep doing that.”
Somehow, Apple’s app vetting process—long vaunted even though Apple has provided few specifics—failed to spot the LastPass lookalike. Apple removed LassPass Thursday morning, two days, LastPass said, after it flagged the app to Apple and one day after warning its users the app was fraudulent.
“We are raising this to our customers’ attention to avoid potential confusion and/or loss of personal data,” LastPass Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst Mike Kosak wrote.
There’s no denying that the logo and name were strikingly similar to the official ones. Below is a screenshot of how LassPass appeared, followed by the official LastPass listing:
Enlarge/ The LassPass entry as it appeared in the App Store.
Thomas Reed, director of Mac offerings at security firm Malwarebytes, noted that the LassPass entry in the App Store said the app’s privacy policy was available on bluneel[.]com, but that the page was gone by Thursday, and the main page shows a generic landing page. Whois records indicated the domain was registered five months ago.
There’s no indication that LassPass collected users’ LastPass credentials or copied any of the data it stored. The app did, however, provide fields for users to enter a wealth of sensitive personal information, including passwords, email and physical addresses, and bank, credit, and debit card data. The app had an option for paid subscriptions.
A LastPass representative said the company learned of the app on Tuesday and focused its efforts on getting it removed rather than analyzing its behavior. Company officials don’t have information about precisely what LassPass did when it was installed or when it first appeared in the App Store.
The App Store continues to host a separate app from the same developer who is listed simply as Parvati Patel. (A quick Internet search reveals many individuals with the same name. At the moment, it wasn’t possible to identify the specific one.) The separate app is named PRAJAPATI SAMAJ 42 Gor ABD-GNR, and a corresponding privacy policy (at psag42[.]in/policy.html) is dated December 2023. It’s described as an “application for Ahmedabad-Gandhinager Prajapati Samaj app” and further as a “platform for community.” The app was also recently listed on Google Play but was no longer available for download at the time of publication. Attempts to contact the developer were unsuccessful.
There’s no indication the separate app violates any App Store policy. Apple representatives didn’t respond to an email asking questions about the incident or its vetting process or policies.
To comply with European Union regulations, Apple has introduced sweeping changes that make iOS and Apple’s other operating systems more open. The changes are far-reaching and touch many parts of the user experience on the iPhone. They’ll be coming as part of iOS 17.4 in March.
Apple will introduce “new APIs and tools that enable developers to offer their iOS apps for download from alternative app marketplaces,” as well as a new framework and set of APIs that allow third parties to set up and manage those stores—essentially new forms of apps that can download other apps without going through the App Store. That includes the ability to manage updates for other developers’ apps that are distributed through the marketplaces.
The company will also offer APIs and a new framework for third-party web browsers to use browser engines other than Safari’s WebKit. Until now, browsers like Chrome and Firefox were still built on top of Apple’s tech. They essentially were mobile Safari, but with bookmarks and other features tied to alternative desktop browsers.
The changes also extend to NFC technology and contactless payments. Previously, only Apple Pay could fully access those features on the iPhone. Now, Apple will introduce new APIs that will let developers of banking and wallet apps gain more comparable access.
Developers will have new options for using alternative payment service providers within apps and for directing users to complete payments on external websites via link-outs. They’ll be able to use their apps to tell users about promotions and deals that are offered outside of those apps. (Apple warns that it will not be able to provide refunds or support for customers who purchased something outside its own payment system.)
Apple says it will give users in the European Union the ability to pick default App Stores or default contactless payment apps, just like they already can for email clients or web browsers. EU users will be prompted to pick a default browser when they first open Safari in iOS 17.4 or later, too.
Developers can “submit additional requests for interoperability with iPhone and iOS hardware and software features” via a new form.
All of the above changes impact only the EU; Apple won’t bring them to the United States or other regions at this time. There is one notable change that extends beyond Europe, though: Apple says that “developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog.” That opens the door for services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass or Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
Apple notes that “each experience made available in an app on the App Store will be required to adhere to all App Store Review Guidelines,” which could still pose some barriers for game streamers.
Enlarge/ Artist’s conception of iOS developers after today’s Supreme Court ruling, surveying a new landscape of payment options and subscription signaling.
Epic Games
The Supreme Court declined to hear either of the petitions resulting from the multi-year, multi-court Epic v. Apple antitrust dispute. That leaves most of Epic’s complaints about Apple’s practices unanswered, but the gaming company achieved one victory on pricing notices.
It all started in August 2020, when Epic sought to work around Apple and Google’s app stores and implemented virtual currency purchases directly inside Fortnite. The matter quickly escalated to the courts, with firms like Spotify and Microsoft backing Epic’s claim that Apple’s App Store being the only way to load apps onto an iPhone violated antitrust laws.
The matter reached trial in May 2021. The precise definitions of “games” and “marketplace” were fervently debated. Epic scored a seemingly huge victory in September 2021 when a Northern California judge demanded that Apple allow developers to offer their own payment buttons and communicate with app customers about alternate payment options. An appeals court upheld that Apple’s App Store itself wasn’t a “walled garden” that violated antitrust laws but kept the ruling that Apple had to open up its payments and messaging.
Today’s denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its “anti-steering” language anticompetitive. Links and messaging from developers should soon be able to send users to alternative payment options for apps rather than forcing them to stay entirely inside Apple’s App Store, resulting in a notable commission for Apple.
Epic’s goals to see Fortnite restored to the App Store or see third-party stores or sideloading on iPhones remain unfulfilled. This is not the case with Epic’s antitrust suit against Google, which in mid-December went strongly in Epic’s favor. With a unanimous jury verdict against Google, a judge this month will determine how to address Google’s violations—potentially including Epic’s request that it and other developers be allowed to issue their own app stores and payment systems on Android devices.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that the Supreme Court’s denial means the “battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States” and that it was a “sad outcome for all developers.” Sweeney noted that as of today, developers on Apple’s platforms can “tell US customers about better prices on the web.” And he noted that regulatory and policy actions around the world, including the upcoming EU Digital Markets Act, may have further impact.
Apple has yet to comment on today’s Supreme Court decision.
On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the launch of its GPT Store—a way for ChatGPT users to share and discover custom chatbot roles called “GPTs”—and ChatGPT Team, a collaborative ChatGPT workspace and subscription plan. OpenAI bills the new store as a way to “help you find useful and popular custom versions of ChatGPT” for members of Plus, Team, or Enterprise subscriptions.
“It’s been two months since we announced GPTs, and users have already created over 3 million custom versions of ChatGPT,” writes OpenAI in its promotional blog. “Many builders have shared their GPTs for others to use. Today, we’re starting to roll out the GPT Store to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Enterprise users so you can find useful and popular GPTs.”
OpenAI launched GPTs on November 6, 2023, as part of its DevDay event. Each GPT includes custom instructions and/or access to custom data or external APIs that can potentially make a custom GPT personality more useful than the vanilla ChatGPT-4 model. Before the GPT Store launch, paying ChatGPT users could create and share custom GPTs with others (by setting the GPT public and sharing a link to the GPT), but there was no central repository for browsing and discovering user-designed GPTs on the OpenAI website.
According to OpenAI, the ChatGPT Store will feature new GPTs every week, and the company shared a list a group of six notable early GPTs that are available now: AllTrails for finding hiking trails, Consensus for searching 200 million academic papers, Code Tutor for learning coding with Khan Academy, Canva for designing presentations, Books for discovering reading material, and CK-12 Flexi for learning math and science.
Enlarge/ A screenshot of the OpenAI GPT Store provided by OpenAI.
OpenAI
ChatGPT members can include their own GPTs in the GPT Store by setting them to be accessible to “Everyone” and then verifying a builder profile in ChatGPT settings. OpenAI plans to review GPTs to ensure they meet their policies and brand guidelines. GPTs that violate the rules can also be reported by users.
As promised by CEO Sam Altman during DevDay, OpenAI plans to share revenue with GPT creators. Unlike a smartphone app store, it appears that users will not sell their GPTs in the GPT Store, but instead, OpenAI will pay developers “based on user engagement with their GPTs.” The revenue program will launch in the first quarter of 2024, and OpenAI will provide more details on the criteria for receiving payments later.
“ChatGPT Team” is for teams who use ChatGPT
Also on Monday, OpenAI announced the cleverly named ChatGPT Team, a new group-based ChatGPT membership program akin to ChatGPT Enterprise, which the company launched last August. Unlike Enterprise, which is for large companies and does not have publicly listed prices, ChatGPT Team is a plan for “teams of all sizes” and costs US $25 a month per user (when billed annually) or US $30 a month per user (when billed monthly). By comparison, ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per month.
So what does ChatGPT Team offer above the usual ChatGPT Plus subscription? According to OpenAI, it “provides a secure, collaborative workspace to get the most out of ChatGPT at work.” Unlike Plus, OpenAI says it will not train AI models based on ChatGPT Team business data or conversations. It features an admin console for team management and the ability to share custom GPTs with your team. Like Plus, it also includes access to GPT-4 with the 32K context window, DALL-E 3, GPT-4 with Vision, Browsing, and Advanced Data Analysis—all with higher message caps.
Why would you want to use ChatGPT at work? OpenAI says it can help you generate better code, craft emails, analyze data, and more. Your mileage may vary, of course. As usual, our standard Ars warning about AI language models applies: “Bring your own data” for analysis, don’t rely on ChatGPT as a factual resource, and don’t rely on its outputs in ways you cannot personally confirm. OpenAI has provided more details about ChatGPT Team on its website.
