The Setapp Mobile alternative app store is now available in open beta for iPhone users in the European Union, featuring 50 different productivity- and lifestyle-focused apps at launch. While most of these apps, like the Tripsy itinerary planner and MindNode mind mapping tool, are already available on the official iOS App Store, Setapp creator MacPaw says its own platform provides a simplified user experience and a fair, performance-based compensation model for app developers.

Setapp was originally released as an app marketplace for macOS before the company launched a mobile version for iOS users. Setapp Mobile launched as a closed beta in May, shortly after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act forced Apple to start allowing iPhones...

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It’s official: Amazon’s second Prime Day event of the year will take place at the beginning of October. The two-day shopping event — which Amazon is calling Prime Big Deal Days for the second year in a row — will begin at 12:01AM PT / 3:01AM ET on Tuesday, October 8th, and run through Wednesday, October 9th, the company announced on Tuesday.

Like last year, Amazon is running the 48-hour promo in an attempt to jumpstart the holiday shopping season, giving Amazon Prime members another chance outside of Prime Day proper to save on everything from home goods to everyday essentials. Although we typically see the lowest sale prices during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon’s fall sale often provides solid deals on a range of tech, including...

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After a disclaimer that nothing we’d hear tonight is financial or legal advice, followed by a 40-minute interview with former President Donald Trump — which touched on the apparent attempt on his life at a Florida golf course, the border, the “evil forces” conspiring against him, and his granddaughter’s foreign language skills — and subsequent conversations with Trump’s sons and associates, the X Space dedicated to announcing Trump’s “crypto platform” more or less got to the point.

The goal of World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new decentralized finance project, is to drive “the mass adoption of stablecoins and decentralized finance,” according to a statement posted on its X account earlier this month. But over the course of the lengthy...

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TikTok — an app used to by 170 million Americans — now has its future resting in the hands of three judges. The company fought for its life during oral arguments on Monday only for the judges to express a great deal of skepticism towards TikTok’s case.

Attorneys for TikTok and a group of creators suing to block the law popularly known as “the TikTok ban” made their case before a panel of three judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Though the bill seeks a divestment of the app from its Chinese owner ByteDance by a January 19th deadline, the company says the ultimatum is in truth a ban that would stifle the speech of TikTok and its creators, and improperly limit the information Americans are able to receive.

The Department of Justice...

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iOS 18 introduces more customization and paves the way for Apple Intelligence.

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OpenAI is turning its Safety and Security Committee into an independent “Board oversight committee” that has the authority to delay model launches over safety concerns, according to an OpenAI blog post. The committee made the recommendation to make the independent board after a recent 90-day review of OpenAI’s “safety and security-related processes and safeguards.”

The committee, which is chaired by Zico Kolter and includes Adam D’Angelo, Paul Nakasone, and Nicole Seligman, will “be briefed by company leadership on safety evaluations for major model releases, and will, along with the full board, exercise oversight over model launches, including having the authority to delay a release until safety concerns are addressed,” OpenAI says....

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JD Vance almost gave the game away. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, the Republican vice presidential candidate came close to acknowledging that rumors about Haitian migrants eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, are completely fabricated — and then backtracked, saying the rumors are true after all.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance said. When Bash asked him to clarify whether he created the story, Vance made an about-face, claiming he had heard “firsthand accounts” from his constituents. “I say that we’re creating a story meaning that we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” Vance...

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Intel is spinning off its chipmaking business as part of its plans to reverse billions in losses and a tumbling stock price. In an announcement on Monday, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said the Intel Foundry will become an independent subsidiary with “clearer separation and independence” from Intel.

With the change, the Intel Foundry will have its own operating board and report its financial earnings separately from Intel. Intel will also stop work on the factories it’s building in Poland and Germany for two years “based on anticipated market demand.” The company is still moving forward with its plants in Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, and Ohio, however.

Additionally, Intel plans on selling part of its stake in Altera, the programmable chip...

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Halide users who’ve upgraded their iPhones to iOS 18 are now able to quickly access the advanced camera app directly from their phone’s lockscreen without having to unlock it first. Previously, only the native iOS camera app could be conveniently accessed that way.

Although Halide offers advanced features like manual shutter speed adjustments and a “Process Zero” option that delivers images without any AI processing, accessing Apple’s camera app was always faster thanks to its lockscreen shortcut. Halide could be made accessible through a lockscreen widget, but actually getting into the third-party camera app required an iPhone to be unlocked using Face ID, Touch ID, or by entering a passcode.

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Tile, one of the leading makers of Bluetooth item finders, has just added a twist — its newest trackers can now send SOS alerts that notify friends, family, and possibly even emergency services.

The 2024 Tile Pro, Tile Mate, Tile Slim, and Tile Sticker are the first new products since Life360 bought the company nearly three years ago, and many facets are unchanged: they should each ring slightly louder and have slightly better water resistance, but the credit card, key fob, and sticker configurations are all roughly the same size and weight. There’s no mention of UWB signals for precision tracking, unlike Apple’s AirTags and Samsung’s SmartTag 2. The Tile Pro is once again the only model that offers a user-replaceable battery.

All but...

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Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It recently discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for the M3 Air, but some retailers are still selling the last-gen laptop starting at $649 — a far cry from the $2,499 starting price of the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro. Purchasing a new MacBook can certainly be a pricey endeavor, but thankfully, finding a deal on a current M3-based model is actually not that difficult.

Although Macs may not experience perpetual discounts, it’s not uncommon to see various models discounted by as much as $400. Alternatively, purchasing refurbished options directly from Apple is another way to save money without waiting for the changing deal...

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Chipotle has a new robot called the Autocado with a key assignment: peeling avocados. The prototype machine “cuts, cores, and peels avocados” by the case before workers mash them up for guacamole in a process Chipotle is describing as using cobots (collaborative robots).

The company says the robot being tested in a store at 20972 Magnolia St. in Huntington Beach, California, will help free employees up for other tasks. The “size agnostic” Autocado machine can get an avocado peeled and seeded within 26 seconds, according to Chipotle.

Chipotle says it has invested money from a $100 million venture fund into both of the companies it partnered with for the two new systems — Vebu...

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For years, Google took the same 20 percent commission for ad transactions that ran through its platform, even though it was higher than what any other industry player charged. Executives privately worried the fee was difficult to defend. Now, the Justice Department argues it’s a key sign of Google’s monopoly over online ads.

Google’s so-called take rate took center stage on the last day of week one in the Justice Department’s second antitrust trial against Google. Citing internal Google documents and the testimony of former Google sell-side ads executive Chris LaSala, the DOJ sought to demonstrate that Google never experienced any real pricing pressure due to its unshakable dominance in the market, despite knowing its fee was higher than...

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The best from Apple, Bose, Samsung, Sony, Beats, Google, and more.

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Amazon employees will be required to return to the office five days per week starting on January 2nd, 2025.

“We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID,” CEO Andy Jassy says in a memo sent to staff on Monday. Employees have been required to work from the office three days per week since May 2023, and Jassy says that “if anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits.”

Jassy says that staffers won’t have to be in the office to deal with things like a sick kid or emergencies. “But, before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also...

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Wordle now has a native app for Meta Quest so that you can easily play the game in virtual reality. The free app is available for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro.

Based on screenshots in a Meta blog post and an NYT video, the game looks like, well, Wordle in VR: you’ll have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. But if you have wanted to play the game in an app on your Quest, that’s now something you can do.

“We’re always looking for unique and creative opportunities to reach audiences with our games,” NYT Games general manager Jonathan Knight says in an interview for Meta’s blog post. “This collaboration reflects our embrace of innovative technologies and exploration of...

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It’s a weird year for iOS.

Usually, the new software version arrives all at once. Not so with iOS 18. The foundational stuff has arrived, and in a normal year, things like RCS support and a redesigned control center would be more than enough. But iOS 18’s headline feature, Apple Intelligence, isn’t even part of this initial release, and we may not see some of its most interesting features until well into 2025. The iOS 18 rollout starts now, and it’s just going to keep on rolling for the foreseeable future.

iOS 18 is an ambitious update, even without Apple Intelligence in the picture. Customization options are at an all-time high, and with some tinkering, you’ll be able to personalize your iPhone like never before. It’s almost...

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Apple has just released watchOS 11, the latest version of its smartwatch operating system, alongside iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. The update, available for the Apple Watch Series 6 and later models, will finally allow users to take rest days without breaking their activity streak and introduces FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection.

Sleep apnea is a condition that can cause a person to stop breathing during sleep and can lead to an increased risk of hypertension and Type 2 diabetes if left untreated. Apple’s sleep apnea detection feature, which uses the accelerometer to monitor for small wrist movements associated with sleep interruptions, was announced alongside the new Apple Watch Series 10 and is now available for both the Apple Watch Series 9...

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Apple officially released macOS Sequoia on Monday, bringing features like the ability to wirelessly mirror your iPhone on your Mac, window tiling tools, and more. There are Apple Intelligence features on the way, too, but they aren’t available yet.

iPhone mirroring is arguably the coolest new feature in macOS Sequoia, and in his testing, my colleague David Pierce said it might change how you use your phone. When you open the phone mirroring app, your iPhone pops up, and you can navigate around it using your mouse and type things with your keyboard. Your iPhone’s notifications can also show up on your Mac. And later this year, you’ll be able to drag and drop things between your iPhone and your Mac.

I’m excited to mess around with the...

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