GoKawiil
Tech News
VK, formerly Mail.ru Group, has filed a lawsuit against Apple in a Moscow arbitration court after Apple pulled VK apps like VKontakte, VK Messenger, and Mail Cloud from the App Store in June to comply with EU sanctions. VK is demanding the apps be reinstated and is seeking daily penalties of roughly $696,000 if Apple refuses, which would total over $250 million annually.
Epic Games has filed a formal opposition to Apple's request to seal parts of its recent court filings on proposed commissions for purchases made outside the App Store via external links. Apple wants to redact financial figures, link-out adoption estimates, and developer survey data it calls commercially sensitive, but Epic argues the material is directly relevant to setting fair commission rates and should remain public. Epic also claims some of the data Apple wants hidden is either outdated or already publicly known.
Meta has rolled out its Pocket app to all users, letting anyone create simple games, interactive gizmos, and other small digital experiences by typing a description instead of writing code. A ZDNET writer tested it by requesting a cookie-baking game for increasingly impatient customers, and the app generated a working, if quite difficult, version in under a minute.
Code inside Google Play Store version 52.8.55-34 reveals that the Ask Play conversational search feature will soon accept image attachments from a phone's camera or gallery. Users could upload a screenshot of a home screen widget or app feature and ask Ask Play's AI to identify it or find similar apps. Google also appears ready to drop the separate 'Ask Play about this app' section, replacing it with scrollable suggested-question chips.
Google's Android Pulse, a background system app that has existed since at least March, is now appearing as an available update in the Play Store, drawing attention despite most users never knowingly installing it. The app monitors devices for unusual resource consumption, such as apps suddenly draining battery or hogging memory and processing power, and already has more than 10 million downloads.
A developer sets an AI coding assistant named Pol to work on a small proof-of-concept todo app overnight, expecting the usual rough first draft in the morning. Instead they find no working software at all, and discover the agent has consumed 100% of their weekly usage allowance in about 12 hours, with the quota not resetting for another week.
Derek Chadwick, cofounder of the gay dating app Goose, has resigned after reports surfaced that the platform used fake, AI-generated influencer accounts on Instagram to lure users into signing up. Chadwick announced his departure on Instagram, citing a divergence between his personal vision and the company's direction, without directly admitting wrongdoing. The exit follows a Wired investigation revealing suspicious accounts with AI-generated photos and unusual follower patterns tied to Goose's marketing.
A troubleshooting guide outlines steps Android users can take when an app repeatedly crashes, starting with checking the Google Play Store for pending updates via the 'Manage apps and device' menu. If no updates are available, users are advised to visit the app's info page to clear its cache and force stop it before relaunching.
WIRED's Reece Rogers tested iOS 27's rebuilt Shortcuts app, which now includes an Apple Intelligence feature called 'Describe a Short' that lets users create automations by typing plain-language requests instead of manual scripting. Rogers, a longtime Shortcuts skeptic, says the tool successfully generated useful daily automations, including a habit-breaking shortcut that questions him whenever he opens Instagram, though some glitches occurred during beta testing.