Sunday, July 7, 2024

Image Credits: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Fortnite maker Epic Games and Apple continue to butt heads over Apple's platform rules.

Enabled by Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Epic announced plans earlier this year to bring Fortnite back to iOS, along with Epic's own alternative app store. This week, however, the video game publisher claimed that Apple has rejected the Epic Games Store twice for elements (notably the in-app purchase label) that supposedly look too similar to parts of the Apple App Store.

"Apple's rejection is arbitrary, obstructive, and in violation of the DMA, and we've shared our concerns with the European Commission," Epic said.

The company's decision to go public with its complaints, along with the threat of additional regulatory scrutiny, seem to have paid off, as Apple then approved the Epic Games Store under the condition that Epic make corrections in an update.

Keep reading to see what TechCrunch has been covering this weekend.

Weekend news and opinion

Image Credits: Peter Dazeley / Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase's CIO on AI, resilience, and more: Lori Beer talks to our own Ron Miller about her work overseeing a 63,000-person team and $17 trillion budget. Their conversation covers JPMorgan Chase's attempts to build resilient systems, as well as how the firm is "leaning hard" into AI. Read more

Delivery drones are getting shot out of the sky: While incidents of drones getting shot down are rare, Brian Heater examines the potential legal issues around it. In one case in Florida, a man who allegedly shot down a Walmart drone was charged with discharging a firearm and "criminal mischief." Read more

How to set up parental controls on social media: While debates continue around whether social media platforms are doing enough to protect younger users, Aisha Malik offers a practical guide around what parents can do to control their children's experiences on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, Facebook, and even X. Read more

How tokens contribute to generative AI's shortcomings: Kyle Wiggers looks at the token-based approach that generative AI models use to process text, noting several ways this approach can create challenges when generative AI tries to solve math problems, or when it tries to complete tasks in languages other than English. Read more

What else we're reading 📖

It's been a full year since Meta launched its Twitter competitor Threads, which now has more than 175 million monthly users. Over at Platformer, Casey Newton spoke to Threads chief Adam Mosseri about what he's learned in the past and about long-standing questions like how Threads handles politics and news. ("I just don't think it's our place to be showing you political takes from people you don't follow.") Read more

Meanwhile, The New York Times looks at the latest startup funding stats from PitchBook, with AI accounting for nearly half of the $56 billion that U.S. startups raised in Q2. Read more