Apple to allow iOS app downloads direct from websites in the EU
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Apple is planning to make further changes in EU countries to allow some developers to distribute their iOS apps directly from a website. The new web distribution feature will be available with a software update “later this spring,” according to Apple, providing developers with a key new way to distribute iOS apps in EU markets without the need for a separate app store — as long as they’re willing to adhere to Apple’s strict rules.
While Apple is opening up iOS to more third-party apps here, these are still some key security protections around how apps are distributed via websites — namely, you’ll still have to work within the strict Apple app development ecosystem. “Apps offered through Web Distribution must meet Notarization requirements to protect platform integrity, like all iOS apps, and can only be installed from a website domain that the developer has registered in App Store Connect,” explains Apple.
It’s also not going to be a simple process to install these apps on an iPhone in the EU. “To install apps from a developer’s website, users will first need to approve the developer to install apps in Settings on their iPhone,” says Apple. “When installing an app, a system sheet will display information that developers have submitted to Apple for review, like the app name, developer name, app description, screenshots, and system age rating.”
So this isn’t going to be an open and free way for developers to distribute apps over the web to iOS devices in EU markets. “Apple will authorize developers after meeting specific criteria and committing to ongoing requirements that help protect users,” says Apple. Developers will need to be part of Apple’s Developer Program and be registered in the EU. They’ll also need to agree to a number of key undertakings, as outlined by Apple:
Be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU (or have a subsidiary legal entity incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU that’s listed in App Store Connect). The location associated with your legal entity is listed in your Apple Developer account.
Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
Only offer apps from your developer account.
Be responsive to communications from Apple regarding your apps distributed through Web Distribution, particularly regarding any fraudulent, malicious, or illegal behavior, or anything else that Apple believes impacts the safety, security, or privacy of users.
Publish transparent data collection policies and offer users control over how their data is collected and used.
Follow applicable laws of the jurisdictions where you operate (for example, the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, and consumer protection laws).
Be responsible for handling governmental and other requests to take down listings of apps
That’s a lot of hoops for developers to jump through, and it appears that Apple is limiting this to big developers only thanks to the 1 million installs requirement. Having a good standing developer account for two years may also rule Epic Games out of this particular distribution method. Epic Games is still hoping to launch its iOS game store in the European Union soon, though.
Apple currently allows developers to distribute their apps on third-party marketplaces in EU countries, but if those apps reach more than 1 million annual installs per year, they’ll need to pay that 50 euro cent fee for every additional installation and update. That same Core Technology Fee process is part of web distribution of iOS apps, too. Only nonprofit organizations, select educational institutions, and government entities in the EU are exempt from this Core Technology Fee.
Still, the ability for developers to bring their apps directly to iPhone users in the EU without having to go through the App Store or another third-party store will be useful for some willing to put up with the tight restrictions. There’s some obvious friction for end users, but with some third-party stores requiring fees, this allows iOS developers to avoid stores altogether if they’re willing to host their apps directly and abide by Apple’s rules and policies.
Apple is also changing its strict rules around how developers link to an external webpage to complete purchases for digital goods. Developers can now “choose how to design promotions, discounts, and other deals,” according to Apple. That means Apple’s own design templates are optional, instead of being forced on developers.
Samsung’s new midrange Galaxy A55 arrives with improved security and materials
Samsung’s Galaxy A55, which reportedly features a metal frame. | Image: Samsung
Samsung’s new Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 are the latest additions to its midrange A-series lineup, which often contain the company’s bestselling phones. Both the new A55 and A35 include Samsung’s Knox Vault, a security feature designed to protect sensitive data like your lock screen credentials and encryption keys from software and hardware attacks by physically isolating them from the phones’ main processors and memory. The company boasts that this is the first time the security feature has appeared on its A-series devices.
The Galaxy A55 specifically also includes a metal frame, Android Police reports, which would be an upgrade over the plastic used in last year’s Galaxy A54.
Samsung has announced European pricing for the two models, which are due to be available on March 20th, but exact availability of the different versions varies between markets. The Galaxy A55 starts at €479 (£439, around $524) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, rising to €529 (£489, around $579) for 256GB of storage.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy A35 starts at €379 (around £322 or $415) for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, while the 8GB/128GB model costs £339 (around €398 or $435), and the 8GB/256GB model costs €449 (£389, around $491).
Image: Samsung
Samsung’s Galaxy A35.
Many of the key specs of the A55 and A35 are consistent across the two devices. Both come with 6.6-inch OLED displays with 1000 nits of peak brightness and up to 120Hz refresh rates, and both will be supported by four years of Android OS updates and five years of security patches (slightly lower than the seven years of both Samsung promises for the Galaxy S24 lineup). Per Android Police, both have IP67 ratings for dust and water resistance, 5000mAh batteries that can be fast charged at up to 25W, and support up to 1TB microSD cards.
The biggest differences between the two phones come down to their processors and camera setups. The Galaxy A55 is powered by a newer Exynos 1480, while the A35 uses the same Exynos 1380 seen in last year’s Galaxy A54. There are also camera differences between the two. Both have 50-megapixel main sensors and 5-megapixel macros, but the A55 has a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 32-megapixel selfie camera versus an 8-megapixel ultrawide and 13-megapixel front-facing camera in the A35.
We’ve followed up with Samsung to ask if or when the phones could launch in the US like other A-series devices including the Galaxy A54.
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.
Oscars 2024 winners: Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan lead the way
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Like many of the movies up for Oscars, this year’s Academy Awards ran longer than most viewers probably considered reasonable. But lengthy as the ceremony was, it was marked by enough surprises to make it one one hell of a watch.
Though host Jimmy Kimmel made sure to get a few good jabs in at most of the filmmakers up for Oscars, few of the stars seemed all that phased as they took to the stage to deliver acceptance speeches that spoke to how stiff this year’s competition was. Da’Vine Joy Randolph kicked off the night winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in The Holdovers — which was up for five awards total. And while Hayao Miyazaki wasn’t there to accept his award, The Boy and the Heron took home an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Out of the five awards director Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall was up for, it wound up taking home Best Original Screenplay, while writer / director Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction snagged Best Adapted Screenplay.
Following a surprising bit of nudity from John Cena as he announced Poor Things’ win for Best Costume Design, The Zone of Interest writer / director Jonathan Glazer — who won Best International Feature — gave a pointed and powerful speech about the throughline between his film and the ongoing conflict in Gaza. And while Robert Downey Jr.’s Best Supporting Actor win for his Oppenheimer performance was a bit unexpected, it came as no shock as the Godzilla Minus One creative team carried their Godzilla action figures up on stage to receive awards for Best Visual Effects.
As the night went on, it became clearer and clearer that the Academy really fell in love with Poor Things, which won for Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, and Best Actress — the second Oscar for Emma Stone, who was up against Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone. And in a profoundly unsurprising turn of events, Oppenheimer came out on top in the end as it also snagged Oscars in the Cinematography, Original Score, Best Actor, and Best Director categories.
The full list of Oscar winners can be read below:
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Directing
Justine Triet — Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese — Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan —Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos — Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer — The Zone of Interest
Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening — Nyad
Lily Gladstone — Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller — Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan — Maestro
Emma Stone —Poor Things
Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper — Maestro
Colman Domingo — Rustin
Paul Giamatti — The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy —Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright — American Fiction
Visual Effects
The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon
Cinematography
El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Film Editing
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Photo by Rich Polk/Variety via Getty Images
James Price and Shona Heath at the 96th Annual Oscars.
Production Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Makeup and Hairstyling
Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society of the Snow
Animated Feature Film
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
International Feature Film
Io Capitano
Perfect Days
Society of the Snow
The Teachers’ Lounge
The Zone of Interest
Documentary Short Film
The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island In Between
The Last Repair Shop
Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó
Documentary Feature Film
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupol
Original Song
“The Fire Inside” — Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken” — Barbie
“It Never Went Away” — American Symphony
“What Was I Made For” —Barbie
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” — Killers of the Flower Moon
Animated Short Film
Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko
Live-Action Short Film
The After
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White, and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Photo by Al Seib/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images
Actor in a Supporting Role
Sterling K. Brown — American Fiction
Robert De Niro — Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr.— Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling — Barbie
Mark Ruffalo — Poor Things
Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Maestro
May December
Past Lives
Adapted Screenplay
American Fiction
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Original Score
American Fiction
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Sound
The Creator
Maestro
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest
Costume Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, winner of Actress in a Supporting Role award.
British monarchy rocked by bad Photoshop job
Screenshot by Alex Cranz/The Verge
After months of speculation on the whereabouts of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales and future Queen of England, the Royal Family released an image today that appears to have been edited. It’s so edited that the Associated Press and Reuters issued rare kill notifications for it.
It is incredible in its ineptitude. If the goal was to reassure the public about Middleton’s whereabouts, the image has backfired spectacularly.
The image is unsettling at first glance. Everyone is smiling so brightly they look like a Snapchat filter. Middleton is seated in the image — understandable given she had some sort of undisclosed abdominal procedure in January — but the perspective seems wrong. Are her arms really that long? The more you stare at the image the more you feel like you’re reading Highlights in the waiting room of your dentist. Can you find every problem in the picture?
This image was released months after Middleton disappeared from public view. The Royal Family has been cagey about her health and what has led to her absence, leading to conspiracy theories. Dropping a clearly edited image of her on Mother’s Day in the UK isn’t going to help matters.
And for the British monarchy, image is everything, as revealed in Spare, the memoir by Prince Harry. In it, Middleton’s brother-in-law writes about how he was sacrificed to the British tabloids to distract from stories that might have made his father (King Charles) or his brother (Prince William, heir apparent) look bad. The art of image management is key for the royal family, and has been since Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was broadcast live. An important part of the royals’ jobs is appearing in photos.
The Middleton photo raises some questions. It’s possible this is just a case of shitty Photoshop used to stitch together several photos so that the best expression on each person’s face was used. (Children are notorious for being difficult to photograph.) But the job is so clumsy, particularly around the hands, that one wonders if the intent was to keep us all talking about Middleton’s prolonged absence.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel is coming in 2026
Image: Universal Pictures
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge hit for Nintendo, raking in over $1 billion at the box office, so producing a follow-up movie was an easy decision to make. In a new video, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination Entertainment’s Chris Meledandri shared that the next movie is in development, with a release date set for April 3rd, 2026.
Meledandri says Illumination Studios Paris, which worked on the first film, is storyboarding the movie under the direction, once again, of Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. He added that animation is starting soon. And after the movie’s April 3rd release in the US “and many other markets globally,” it will come to “select territories” throughout the rest of the month.
Miyamoto says that the movie will “have a bright and fun story” that expands on the world established in the first movie.
With the November announcement of a live-action Legend of Zelda film, we now have not one, but two confirmed movies in development based on major Nintendo intellectual properties. There’s not much information about the company’s theatrical plans for Link. Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner trilogy and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, will helm the movie, with Avi Arad and Miyamoto producing.
The perfect music streaming app does not exist
Image: William Joel / The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 29, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I promise I don’t always complain about music streaming, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you a cheap new smartphone, a cheap(er) electric car, a fun new show on Netflix, a high-end webcam, and yet another reason to watch John Oliver. Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you playing / watching / reading / coding / sculpting right now? What are you into that everyone else should also be into? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them, and tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
The Nothing Phone 2A. It has been a long time since I was this excited about a cheap smartphone. It doesn’t work on every network in the US, but a $350 phone that looks good and makes mostly reasonable compromises? More of this, please.
Last Week Tonight’s Boeing segment. Telling you to watch John Oliver is not groundbreaking information, I know. But this is a really good one! And it tells a story about how companies and products change that will sound like an awful lot of the tech industry.
The Logitech MX Brio. This high-end $200 webcam might be two years too late to really be everywhere, but I’ve been looking for a webcam that is both good and simple for… forever and still haven’t found it. Logitech always nails simple, and this one sounds like it might really be good.
The Gentlemen. A high-budget, high-concept Netflix show about fancy people and drugs based on a deeply silly action movie? I’d watch every second of this even if it was awful — but based on the early feedback, it’s not awful at all.
MyMind. This has long been one of my favorite apps: it’s like a personal Pinterest, a place to keep all the stuff you care about and like and want to remember. The newest feature — Serendipity, which resurfaces stuff you’ve saved in a super-focused way — is only on iOS for now, but the MyMind Android app is also getting better fast.
CleanMyPhone. MacPaw makes some of my favorite device cleanup devices (CleanMyMac and CleanMyPC have saved me a million times), and I’m already digging this as a way to clean up my iPhone’s camera roll. The app’s expensive ($24.99 a year), but you can get a lot done in the three-day free trial… just saying.
“The BEST remote control was made in 2005.” I will never stop wanting great universal remotes to be a thing. Never ever ever. This very funny 16-minute video about the Harmony 880, one of the all-time greats, had me eBay shopping for one of my own.
The M3 MacBook Air. I will always miss the wedge design, but I’m already beginning to talk myself into upgrading — the new Air’s battery and performance both sound ridiculous, and I’m extremely into that midnight color. I don’t need a new computer, I don’t need a new computer, I don’t need a new computer.
The Rivian R3. The new R2 also looks good — cheaper, glove compartments, two scroll wheels?! — and is definitely coming sooner. But I’m really into the R3, which is smaller and sportier and gives me vintage Land Rover vibes in a way I very much enjoy.
Group project
Last week, when I mentioned at the end of the newsletter how silly I feel paying for so many music services, I didn’t expect to hear from anyone — except maybe the folks who like to remind me that I’m an idiot. But it turns out, I’m not alone! I heard from a lot of folks who are also struggling to figure out which music service to use, which to pay for, how to switch, and more.
Also, fun fact: the only music services I heard about at all were Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music,Amazon Music, and Tidal. There are a million others out there, but none seem to matter much. Oh, wait! Except for Qobuz! One person mentioned Qobuz! Big day for Qobuz!
Anyway, I thought I’d offer some of the thoughts and guidance you all shared over the last week or so. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Maybe all the music services are bad? I heard from a lot of what I’d call “Begrudging Music Streamers” who hate the interface and the lack of high-quality audio in their app but feel stuck for one reason or another. (Family plans keep us all locked in, it seems.) Spotify was the primary offender here, but even folks who use YouTube Music or Amazon Music seem to be perpetually searching for something better. Except something better might not exist.
Apple Music wins on interface. Almost everyone who told me they liked Apple Music told me they liked its tools for managing playlists and libraries. If you’re the organizing type, there’s no better music app.
But Spotify wins on recommendations. Turns out, the same thing keeps you all hooked on Spotify that has me there, too: personalized playlists like Release Radar and the Daily Mixes, along with being able to see what your friends are listening to. Apple’s new “Heavy Rotation Mix” is a good start, but nobody can touch Spotify in this realm.
Spotify is alsoeverywhere. It’s integrated into Bluetooth speakers, Sonos speakers, lots of car interfaces, fitness trackers, voice assistants, and practically everything else. That was important to a lot of folks — your music service should be available everywhere you want music, and Spotify has that pretty much covered.
YouTube wins by being YouTube. I really thought you’d all make fun of me for spending a billion dollars a month on YouTube Premium, but it turns out, I’m not alone! YouTube Music is kind of a meh app, but it’s included, and the overall YouTube corpus of music is just unbeatable. If I leave Spotify, I think this is where I’m headed.
Tidal is still kicking. I honestly think every single Tidal user emailed me this week to remind me that Tidal is good. I believe you! One person, Marcus, said they Plexamp to stream both Tidal and their local music collection, which is a pretty good trick.
My big takeaway is both sort of bleak and very clarifying: there is no perfect music app, which means both that you can happily stick with the one that you have and also easily bail if you want to save money or try something new. And as a few people reminded me, there are practically always ways to get deals on music services, whether you’re getting free Apple Music when you buy a new device or getting Spotify through your wireless carrier.
Personally, I finally finished using Soundiiz to copy all of my playlists to YouTube Music, and I think I’m going to give that a whirl — but I have a feeling I’ll end up back on Spotify. I just can’t leave my Daily Mixes.
Screen share
Sometimes, The Verge’s Liz Lopatto writes about technology. Just as often, she writes about how much she doesn’t like using technology — or about, like, pens. Which I know she would argue counts as technology, so we’ll call that one a tie.
Anyway, I asked Liz to share her homescreen precisely because of her forever-conflicted relationship to her phone. She immediately told me that, well, actually, her homescreen is her *second* homescreen, for reasons even she couldn’t explain. This is the stuff we love here at Installer.
Here’s Liz’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:
The phone: An iPhone 12 Mini.
The wallpaper: A photo of Jeeves from when she came with me to New York for the SBF trial reporting I was doing last October. We stayed in an apartment on the 27th floor, and she was completely obsessed with the view. I have a ton of photos of her looking out the window, including one where she’s looking down so intently that her little ears are bending from where she pressed them against the glass, but this one is my favorite.
The apps: Google Maps, Fantastical, Slack, Carrot Weather, Green Yogi, Gmail, Phone, Safari, Spotify.
This is the second page of my phone, which is functionally my homescreen. Why did I do it this way? Great question, no idea. My best guess is that 10-ish years ago, when I switched away from BlackBerry, I didn’t bother to move any of the Apple preloaded apps and just started on a fresh page.
You’ll notice I have a “$$$$” and “Finance” folder… one of them is my personal money stuff, and the other is apps I use for reporting. My yoga studio has an app for signing up for classes, so that’s one of my most frequently used apps. I like Carrot for weather better than Apple’s preloaded app even though I find its “sassiness” annoying. The reference folder contains the OED app and my favorite search engine, Wikipedia.
The more I type, the more deranged I feel I sound? But yes, I live like this.
I keep all my social media, etc. stuff out of my direct line of sight when I open my phone, which works really well for keeping my use low. Bluesky, etc. are on the third page, in a folder, and deliberately annoying to get to. Also, I have alerts off for every app except my text messages and work Slack. It’s very peaceful; highly recommend it.
I also asked Liz to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:
Right now, I’m reading the new translation (by Douglas Weatherford) of Pedro Páramo, and I’ve been astonished at how much better I like it than the previous version I read. I’ve kind of been reading it more slowly than I usually read books because I don’t want it to end.
And after writing a goofy pen blog and getting a bunch of reader emails — and a bunch of DMs from my fellow staffers — I bit the bullet and bought a fountain pen, which I quickly fell in love with. Then, I immediately boughtmore. And because the pens are fun to write with, and the ink samples I have are beautiful, I’ve been sending family members old-fashioned mail, pen pal style. I love physical media; touch is such an important sense to me.
In terms of internet stuff, I love “What Makes This Song Stink,” which posts like once every six months — perfect for me, I don’t like trying to keep up with YouTube — and though it seems casual and shaggy, Pat Finnerty actually scripts it tightly. I am so delighted by his writing and editing. Every joke has a payoff! I have inadvertently been learning a bunch of music theory, which has made me appreciate the songs I do like a lot more. I recommend starting with the Weezer episode, which turns out to be a sweet meditation on getting older.
Crowdsourced
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comor message +1 203-570-8663 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.
“Two clutch MagSafe mounts for the bathroom: one for next to the mirror and one for the shower. One says JOYROOM on it, which is hilarious in the context of a bathroom, but if you want to listen to a pod in the shower, it’s unbeatable. The Peak Design mount is better — it’s for watching YouTube TV while I shave.” – Nilay
“I’ve been addicted to the new game mode “No Return” in The Last of Us Part II. The goal is to survive a series of encounters involving an impressive number of maps, objectives, modifiers, and characters that can be randomly picked or manually chosen. I had to improvise a lot, cause the enemies are smart, the modifiers can handicap you severely and dying ends the playthrough. Be warned!” – Xyan
“Missing the iPod click wheel? I bought this macro pad mostly to make it so that rotating the knob with one finger scrolls up and down.” – Miguel
“Listening to the smart kitchen Vergecast episode, I thought I’d share the meal planning service I use from Rainbow Plant Life. Since it does a lot of what was mentioned in that episode just without using cameras and sensors. They send you a weekly grocery list, the recipes, tips, storage instructions, what to do on the weekend vs. in the week. Basically everything you would want to know. This one is set up for 2 people but you can scale the recipes as needed.” – Zach
“Check out newsmap.js. It visualizes Google News in a helpful way.” – Jeremy
“This is the best explainer video you can watch about AR smart glasses tech and why it is so difficult to make them look like regular glasses.” – Dhiliphan
“I’ve been getting into Disney’s trading card game Lorcana. It’s a neat, fun, and surprisingly easy-to-learn TCG that I just got my nine-year-old sister to start playing, and she loves it. I can see myself spending a lot of money on it.” – Bryan
“I’ve been rewatching Michael Fisher’s “When Phones Were Fun” series on YouTube, a delightful dive into a much more interesting time in mobile.” – Josh
“The new season of Tokyo Vice is fantastic! The first season was good enough, with some fun ‘fish out of water’ bits and a compelling Yakuza story but season two is really driving the shit out of the character development- especially the side characters. I love it.” – John
“Fell in love again with Fantastical. The free version is damn good. Great design and what makes me love it more than Amie or Notion Cal is the intelligent natural language input and ability to sync with Todoist.” – Irfan
Signing off
Jacob Collier is one of those people I’ve seen a million times on TikTok and YouTube — big wild hair and cool sweaters, always talking about some esoteric musical theory I don’t understand but nonetheless will watch him talk about for an hour — but I know almost nothing about him. But now, with an album coming out, there’s been a glut of great Collier Content: an interview with Colin and Samir, a really fun Switched on Popepisode, and an interview with CBC. However you feel about his music, the way he thinks about creativity, collaboration, the internet, and streaming, is just fascinating. Also: the sweaters just keep getting better.
Elon Musk Has a Giant Charity. Its Money Stays Close to Home. After making billions in tax-deductible donations to his philanthropy, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX gave away far less than required in some years — and what he did give often supported his own interests.
Sam Altman rejoins OpenAI’s board after investigation into sudden firing
Sam Altman.
An independent investigation commissioned by OpenAI’s nonprofit board has found that CEO Sam Altman’s conduct “did not mandate removal.” After surviving an attempted boardroom coup in November, he will now rejoin the board.
In a press release, board chair Bret Taylor said the law firm WilmerHale interviewed board members, employees, and reviewed “more than 30,000 documents” to reach the conclusion that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman “are the right leaders for OpenAI.”
In addition to Altman, Taylor also announced three more OpenAI board members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nicole Seligman, a former legal executive at Sony, and Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart. They will join Taylor, Altman, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and Larry Summers in governing OpenAI’s nonprofit parent company.
For those seeking to better understand why Altman was suddenly fired from his perch last fall, OpenAI’s public summary of the WilmerHale investigation is frustratingly light on details. The law firm found that the board believed it “would mitigate internal management challenges” by firing Altman suddenly, and that the “decision did not arise out of concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners.”
The investigation summary uses the same vague language OpenAI’s board published to justify its decision at the time: “Instead, it was a consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust between the prior Board and Mr. Altman.” The law firm found that the prior board moved “without advance notice to key stakeholders, and without a full inquiry or an opportunity for Mr. Altman to address the prior Board’s concerns.”
On a short video call with reporters Friday, Altman apologized for believing that “a former OpenAI board member was harming OpenAI through their actions” but declined to go into more detail.
It has been widely reported that Altman tussled with former board member Helen Toner over an academic paper she co-authored that was critical of OpenAI’s approach to safety, and that others expressed concerns about the conflicts of interest posed by Altman’s other investments.
OpenAI said on Friday that it planned to “strengthen” its conflict of interest policy for employees without elaborating, and that it would also create a whistleblower hotline for employees and contractors.
Altman appeared cheerful while sitting next to Bret Taylor on the call with reporters Friday. He said that recent “leaks in the press” intended “to pit us against each other” had “not worked,” and that he is “pleased this whole thing is over.”
Google fired an employee who protested its contract with the Israeli military
Illustration: The Verge
Google has fired an employee who publicly protested the company’s work for the Israeli military. During a presentation by an executive with Google’s Israel branch on Monday, the now-former Google Cloud engineer stood up and shouted, “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance.”
Google confirmed the firing, which was first reported by CNBC, in an email to The Verge. “Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation — interfering with an official company-sponsored event,” Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson says in an emailed statement. “This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies.”
BREAKING—PRO-PALESTINE @googlecloud ENGINEER DISRUPTS @Google ISRAEL DIRECTOR AT GOOGLE-SPONSORED ISRAELI TECH CONFERENCE IN NYC.
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) March 4, 2024
The incident occurred at Mind the Tech, an annual Israeli tech conference in New York, during a presentation from Google Israel managing director Barak Regev. The engineer was protesting Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government contract for access to cloud services from Google and Amazon. “Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger,” the employee said. “No cloud apartheid.” The employee was escorted out of the presentation shortly after.
Google faced pushback over its involvement in Project Nimbus when the contract was signed in 2021. Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees published an open letter to speak out against the deal, saying the technologies “allow for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians.”
No Tech For Apartheid, an organization rallying against Project Nimbus, published a statement about the engineer’s firing on Friday. “Google’s aims are clear: The corporation is trying to silence workers to hide their moral failings,” the organization said. “As a Cloud Software Engineer on critical technology that enables Project Nimbus to run on sovereign Israeli data centers, this worker spoke from a place of deep personal concern about the direct, violent impacts of their labor.”
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last October, employees have staged a “die-in” at the company’s San Francisco offices to protest the cloud services contract, and over 600 employees signed a letter urging Google to stop sponsoring the Mind the Tech conference, according to a report from Wired.
Florida teens arrested for creating ‘deepfake’ AI nude images of classmates
Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge
Two Florida middle schoolers were arrested in December and charged with third-degree felonies for allegedly creating deepfake nudes of their classmates. A report by Wired cites police reports saying two boys, aged 13 and 14, are accused of using an unnamed “artificial intelligence application” to generate the explicit images of other students “between the ages of 12 and 13.” The incident may be the first US instance of criminal charges related to AI-generated nude images.
They were charged with third-degree felonies under a 2022 Florida law that criminalizes the dissemination of deepfake sexually explicit images without the victim’s consent. Both the arrests and the charges appear to be the first of their kind in the nation related to the sharing of AI-generated nudes.
Local media reported on the incident after the students at Pinecrest Cove Academy in Miami, Florida, were suspended December 6th, and the case was reported to the Miami-Dade Police Department. According to Wired, they were arrested on December 22nd.
Minors creating AI-generated nudes and explicit images of other children has become an increasingly common problem in school districts across the country. But outside of the Florida incident, none we’d heard of have led to an arrest. There’s currently no federal law addressing nonconsensual deepfake nudes, which has left states tackling the impact of generative AI on matters of child sexual abuse material, nonconsensual deepfakes, or revenge porn on their own.
Last fall, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on AI that asked agencies for a report on banning the use of generative AI to produce child sexual abuse material. Congress has yet to pass a law on deepfake porn, but that could possibly change soon. Both the Senate and House introduced legislation, known as the DEFIANCE Act of 2024, this week, and the effort appears to have bipartisan support.
Although nearly all states now have laws on the books that address revenge porn, only a handful of states have passed laws that address AI-generated sexually explicit imagery to varying degrees. Victims in states with no legal protections have also taken to litigation. For example, a New Jersey teen is suing a classmate for sharing fake AI nudes.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the Beverly Hills Police Department is currently investigating a case where students allegedly shared images that “used real faces of students atop AI-generated nude bodies.” But because the state’s law against “unlawful possession of obscene matter knowing it depicts person under age of 18 years engaging in or simulating sexual conduct” does not explicitly mention AI-generated images, the article says it’s unclear whether a crime has been committed.
The local school district voted on Friday to expel five students involved in the scandal, the LA Times reports.
Sam Altman to Return to OpenAI’s Board of Directors Mr. Altman was among new additions to the board announced on Friday, more than three months after he was briefly forced out of the company.
Fortnite’s new season brings Greek gods to the battle royale
Image: Epic Games
Fortnite is going even more old school for its next season. Epic just launched Chapter 5: Season 2 of the battle royale game, dubbed “Myths & Mortals,” and it’s all about Greek mythology. That means playing as Greek gods, fighting across Mount Olympus, and wielding Zeus’ thunderbolt. The launch was preceded by a clever in-game event involving Pandora’s box.
First up, the new locations. A number of mythological locales have been added to the map, including Mount Olympus and the underworld, which, naturally, is guarded by Cerberus. To go along with this are a number of power-ups and items to collect, including the Wings of Icarus so you can fly, Zeus’ bolts which let you “rise into the air and hurl lightning bolts at your target,” and a weapon called the Chains of Hades that’s coming later on.
A new season also means a new battle pass, and those who purchase this season’s will be able to unlock a whole bunch of Greek gods, including Aphrodite, Medusa, and an adorable Slurp Juice version of Poseidon. Later in the season, Korra, from Avatar: The Last Airbender spinoff The Legend of Korra, will be unlockable as well. Here’s the full lineup:
Image: Epic Games
Myths & Mortals follows a major shift for Fortnite with the launch of Chapter 5. While the battle royale mode is still going strong, the new chapter also turned Fortnite into more of a platform for other games as well; it launched with Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival.
Stephen Dubner is bullish on the podcast industry
Stephen Dubner speaking at On Air Fest | Alexa Hoyer
This is an excerpt of an interview that took place at On Air Fest on March 1st between Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner and Hot Pod reporter Ariel Shapiro. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Alright so, you know podcasting. You know economics. What do you make of this moment in the podcasting industry?
It really depends on what angle you’re coming at it from. The short version is that there was probably a little bit too much panic, because of the combination of the recession that never quite happened, and then the big iOS adjustment and how it’s playing out in reality and in perception. Additionally, from the platform side, there was just massive, massive acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, consolidation, consolidation, and then it breaks. So it’s confusing. The good news for me is I don’t care that much.
That’s good. Ira Glass was here on Wednesday [February 28th], and he wasquiteupset about iOS.
The thing that I remind myself, and that I really believe and feel, is that we shouldn’t forget that [Apple] essentially plopped down a distribution system that is global, instant, and free. It’s like building railroad tracks to everywhere, and then all of us are free to put whatever trains we want onto those tracks and send them anywhere. And so should we be pissy that they have the control that they do, and sometimes make moves that we don’t like? Sure, you can be if you want.
I’m a writer, that’s really all I am, and I happen to write now for audio and interview people and make shows out of that. If you think about in the old days, the production system had all of these hoops and mechanisms and costs. I was at TheNew York Times Magazine. So if I wanted to write a piece for the magazine, it was all the reporting and thinking and writing, etc., and then the layers of editors, and there are probably fewer layers in podcasting than there were layers of editors at a place like The New York Times. Then it had to go through the photo desk, art desk, fact checking, copy editing, all of which is really good and really useful. But then The New York Times used to own newsprint farms in Canada, because they had to own the material on which it was printed. They had to buy that stuff, truck it to their printing presses, which they also owned, and then they owned trucks to deliver it to people. I mean, just think about how many layers that is and how expensive that is. So of all the bad things that have happened with journalism being cratered, which is bad, the fact is that this technology has given rise to a free, instant, global distribution system. It’s there for all of us to use and abuse and exploit however we want. So I don’t feel it’s my place to gripe about that kind of platform issue.
After the success ofFreakonomics[the book], I’m sure there are a couple of different routes you could have gone. Why did you go into podcasting?
You’re absolutely right. We did have opportunities. There was a lot of flirtation with television. And I decided — I’m sorry, if anyone is offended by this — I do not like television. I do not happen to watch a lot of television. That’s not fair — I like watching television. That’s not untrue. But being a content provider in the television ecosystem, not for me. You just have too little control over your material. And if your material is what you care about, like, why would I want to do that?
What wouldFreakonomicsTV have looked like?
The closest we ever got... I won’t name it, it was a big network. And they were perfectly good people. But it’s a volume business. Not that podcast production isn’t a volume business, but even with the best [television production companies], there was a certain degree of velocity and churn and, not dumbing down, but kind of reaching for a center. And not weird in any way. I’m not a super weird person, but I can’t live without at least a little bit of weird.
So you own Freakonomics Radio, the company, correct?
Yeah.
When there was so much money flooding the podcast market, did you get any offers for outright acquisition?
Oh, yeah. Stupid offers. I would never say who, but name a company and they were there. I have a good agent, Ben Davis [at WME]. Ben is really, really smart and helped develop the whole thing.
If you build a company, like, you know, a Gimlet or a Parcast or whatever — and every company is a little bit different — but if you’re building something that is not you and your blood and your brain, and you want to sell it, that’ll work. I mean, it might not work great. It might work for a handful of people and not great for everybody else. But it might work if you’re building a commodity business. If you’re doing something a little bit different, which is “I just want to make my thing,” I’d rather license it or have a partner.
Did you ever entertain any of the offers to sell?
Absolutely not. I think it can be done well. Like, I think what Sirius XM did with Conan was good. It’s a personal services contract, which is long enough so that they’ll get enough value from it, and then he’s not beholden. But then I don’t know what happens to the shows after. That’s kind of what I would worry about. Look, the Rolling Stones get heard on cat food commercials. And if they’re fine with that, then I’m fine with that, too. And I’m not worried that somebody’s going to buy my show and then use my archive to make MAGA commercials. But you could if you wanted to! Everybody has said everything in that show over the course of 14 years, so you could turn it into anything. I feel stupidly proprietary the way a lot of writers do. So I’m not saying never, but like, this is kind of my thing.
What are you listening to right now?
In terms of podcasts, I don’t listen to a ton. I check out a lot of podcasts. I’m always curious to see who’s doing a new thing and how they do it and always trying to learn.
You’re not keeping an ear on the competition?
I don’t think of them as competition! At some point, we’re gonna run out of ears, but we haven’t yet. There’s still a lot of upside. I mean, there are millions of people who would love what you all are making. They just don’t know it. If we want to fight about something, we should fight about discovery. That’s the problem. So no, I would never consider anybody in this room or any other room of podcasters competition at all, because the only discovery mechanism in the world for podcasting right now is other podcasts. So it’s more like getting someone hooked. If you’re heroin, and I’m crack, we’re buddies. We’re not competing.
Chinese National Accused of Stealing AI Secrets From Google Linwei Ding, a Chinese national, was arrested in California and accused of uploading hundreds of files to the cloud.
The biggest stories from Hot Pod Summit
Ira Glass and Ariel Shapiro on stage at Hot Pod Summit. | Alexa Hoyer
This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign upherefor more.
Hello! I have almost recovered from Hot Pod Summit. Thank you so much to everyone who came out this year. People from across the industry showed up ready to talk business, and we had a lot of lively and challenging discussions about advertising and business models. Did we solve all of the podcasting’s troubles? Hardly, but I know I am feeling more optimistic about the future of the industry. Below, I have some key takeaways from the events of the day.
I also made my first appearance at On Air Fest interviewing Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner. It was a lot of fun to talk craft (plus business, obviously) and get his perspective on the state of the industry today. I’ll have a Q&A from our discussion for Insiders tomorrow.
Before we get into it, I have some acknowledgements to make. Big thanks to our partners at work x work and the whole On Air Fest team for bringing the event together as well as to Wythe Hotel for hosting us. And I can’t forget to mention my Verge colleagues who helped make Hot Pod Summit happen, including Kara Verlaney, Esther Cohen, Jake Kastrenakes, Amrita Khalid, Nilay Patel, David Pierce, Andru Marino, Andrew Melnizek, and Helen Havlak.
Also, thank you to our official lead sponsors: AdsWizz builds the advertising technology powering the world’s leading audio publishers and podcasters. Simplecast is a hosting, analytics, and monetization platform for indie creators.
Additionally, we’re extending our exclusive discount for Hot Pod Summit and On Air Fest attendees on all new annual subscriptions to Hot Pod Insider. Get 25% off an annual subscription with code HPSBK2024 here. You can access an archive of past issues here. This code expires on Sunday, March 10th, at 3PM ET.
Ira Glass is as frustrated with the iOS 17 update as you are
I knew Ira Glass would be willing to get into the nitty gritty of the podcast business, and he delivered. We discussed This American Life’s early embrace of online distribution, how he took the company private after co-owning it with WBEZ for two decades, and what he thinks it takes for a podcast to succeed right now.
Although This American Life has weathered the industry turbulence better than other audio outlets, it’s not immune. He said that the show was impacted by the advertising downturn experienced by everyone else and that, like so many other podcasts, This American Life’s downloads dropped by 20 percent after the iOS 17 update cut down on automatic downloads.
“I’m not crazy about losing money. If those are our numbers, those are our numbers. But it’s sad. It’s emotional. The numbers are emotional,” Glass said. “A year ago, if I called somebody, I could have said ‘here’s the deal, here’s who we are: 4.5 million people hear us each week.’ And now I have to say 3.5 million, which still sounds like a lot. But it is a pain in my heart every time I say it.”
Glass also gave the audience a peek into his own listening habits. In his library: Search Engine, Hacks on Tap, Shameless Acquisition Target, and one of my favorites, Unholy: Two Jews on the News. He claims he has never met another person who listens to Unholy, but we are out here! You can see the full list on Spotify (kindly compiled by Descript’s Arielle Nissenblatt).
Podcasting’s programmatic future
It has been a rough year for podcast advertising, and I was lucky enough to be joined by Kelli Hurley, global head of revenue partnerships at SiriusXM, and Tomas Rodriguez, senior director of audio partnerships at The Trade Desk, to discuss what went wrong and how to move forward. It was a long conversation (an hour!) and included lots of incisive questions from the audience.
Now that money is no longer flowing fast and furious into podcasting, the main problem, everyone agreed, is finding a way to support mid-tier podcasts. It’s the key to sustainable growth in the industry (there can only be so many Joe Rogans or Conan O’Briens), and much easier said than done.
Representing the sell side, Hurley talked about the matchmaking that happens between brands and shows. She advised that creators have advertising plans in mind as they develop their shows. Even so, it’s a high bar to get that kind of direct ad spend. “I would say we’d like to see 100,000 [downloads] at minimum per episode. That’s ideal,” she said. “Now, certainly, we have shows that are smaller than that. I think if you have a niche audience that is more diverse… that’s where I think those smaller audiences hold incredible value.”
On the buy side, Rodriguez pitched programmatic. Programmatic gets a bad rap in podcasting (there have been horror stories about ads not firing off and ads completely mismatched with podcasts), but he argues that it is a way to entice larger companies to put their money into the podcasting space. It also takes the pressure off individual shows to hit certain download metrics, since a brand buying programmatically will have their ads featured on a bunch of different shows. So as long as they get their return on investment, it doesn’t matter if an individual show experiences a listening downturn (like what happened with iOS 17). The CPMs podcasts can charge through programmatic are lower, but they also spend less in time and labor costs scripting and producing host-read ads.
“When I think about how podcasts kind of take that next level, like, I want us to get a little bit bigger,” Rodriguez said. “I want us to make it easier for brands to come into the door and scale against podcasting. I think that’s the role programmatic has.”
Co-ops, so hot right now
Following the layoffs that have hit every part of the industry, from corporate giants like Spotify to public radio outlets like NPR and WNYC to indie darlings like Pushkin Industries, podcasters are becoming increasingly skeptical of traditional models. I was joined by Jasper Wang, Defector Media’s VP of revenue and operations, Eric Silver, creative lead at Multitude Productions, and Yooree Losordo, Radiotopia’s director of network operations. Each was able to speak to a different kind of nontraditional structure, with Wang discussing Defector as a worker-owned cooperative, Silver talking about forming a collective, and Losordo explaining how a network of independents functions.
Defector, which was built by the former staff of Deadspin, has been seen as a success story and representative of how cooperatives can work in media, in no small part because Normal Gossip has become a massive hit. But it is not as utopian as it may appear from the outside. Wang said that if your co-op limits outside investment (which Defector does), then there is no safety net if your product doesn’t work. “Ultimately, it’s sort of like, how much shit are you willing to eat up until the point at which your dream comes true? The answer might be ‘not that much shit’ or ‘the dream is never gonna come true.’”
Radiotopia, which is part of PRX and operates as a network for independent creators, gives podcasters the opportunity to connect with advertisers without relinquishing rights to their shows. “They don’t have to give up IP. Everybody remains in control of their feeds, and their fates,” said Losordo. “When we do sponsorships and sales, we work with an outside agency, they take a cut, and then PRX takes a cut of the net. But the lion’s share still goes to the shows.”
A collective like Multitude splits the difference. Silver said that in addition to helping independent creators sell ads on their shows, Multitude offers consulting and encourages developing multiple streams of income through live shows and subscriptions. But it also expects the creators in the collective to reinforce each other by touring together and featuring fellow Multitude shows in their midrolls. “It’s like a network without top down power,” Silver said.
We had a lot of interest from the audience in how these work, so feel free to send additional questions my way! I will do my best to answer them (maybe enlisting our three panelists for follow-ups).
That’s all for now! I’ll be back tomorrow for Insiders. As for the rest of you, have a great week.
Big American Tech Profits From Chinese Ad Spending Spree Temu, Shein, and streaming and gaming apps looking to break into the U.S. market are spending huge sums to get their wares in front of American consumers.
Google engineer indicted over allegedly stealing AI trade secrets for China
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A federal grand jury has indicted a Google engineer, Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, for allegedly stealing trade secrets around Google’s AI chip software and hardware on March 5th, before he was arrested Wednesday morning in Newark, California. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement that Ding “stole from Google over 500 confidential files containing AI trade secrets while covertly working for China-based companies seeking an edge in the AI technology race.”
Much of the stolen data allegedly revolves around Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) chips. Google’s TPU chips power many of its AI workloads and, in conjunction with Nvidia GPUs, can train and run AI models like Gemini. The company has also offered access to the chips through partner platforms like Hugging Face.
Image: Justice Department
Software designs for both the v4 and v6 TPU chips, hardware and software specifications for GPUs used in Google’s data center, and designs for Google’s machine learning workloads in data centers are among the allegedly stolen files.
Amid a growing arms race around AI technology and US government efforts to ban China from accessing chips built for AI, some Chinese companies have turned to local chip producers to power AI platforms. Late last year, intelligence chiefs of the so-called Five Eyes alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand warned US tech companies about companies in China potentially stealing intellectual property related to AI, quantum computing, and robotics.
The government accuses Ding of transferring those files to a personal Google Cloud account between May 2022 and May 2023.
He allegedly did so “by copying data from the Google source files into the Apple Notes application on his Google-issued MacBook laptop,” and then converting them from Apple Notes to PDFs to avoid detection by Google’s “data loss prevention systems.”
The government says that less than a month after he began stealing files, a Chinese machine learning company named Rongshu offered to make him CTO, he flew to China for five months to raise funds for the company, and he subsequently founded and led a machine learning startup named Zhisuan, all while still working for Google. He resigned from Google in December 2023 — and reportedly booked a one-way ticket to Beijing scheduled to depart two days past his end date — after the company began asking him about his uploads.
The DOJ also claims that in December 2023, he allegedly faked being present at Google’s office in the US by having another employee scan his badge at the door while he was actually in China. Ding has been charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets, so he’s facing up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count if convicted.
Apple Podcasts now includes transcripts
Image: Apple
Apple Podcasts will auto-generate transcripts for podcasts beginning today, thanks to the 17.4 update for iPhones and iPads. Transcripts will automatically appear for new podcast episodes shortly after their publication, while Apple will transcribe podcast back catalogs over time.
The podcast transcripts are searchable, allowing users to type in a specific word or phrase and skip to that part of an episode. Users can find transcripts for individual podcast episodes on the bottom-left corner of the “Now Playing” screen.
Image: Apple
Transcripts are now on Apple Podcasts.
After Spotify rolled out auto-generated transcripts last fall, it’s no surprise that Apple wants its native podcast player to keep up features-wise.
While transcripts are convenient for users (as well as a nonnegotiable for people who are deaf or hard of hearing), many podcasters are wary of the errors that can happen with automated transcription tools. Apple seems to have prepared for this. Podcasters who don’t want to use Apple’s automated transcription can opt to upload their own transcripts via RSS tags or in Apple Podcasts Connect for premium episodes, or they can download and edit Apple’s transcript before reuploading.
Transcripts will be available for Apple Podcasts in over 170 countries, written in English, French, German, and Spanish, but they won’t translate podcast transcripts from one language to another.
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