Google Turned Down by Supreme Court, Must Open up App Payments
Google has lost its final effort to delay new, court-ordered app store rules. The US Supreme Court has turned down Google's request to temporarily freeze parts of a key injunction. As as result, starting later this month, Google must allow developers to include external links in apps, enabling users to bypass Google's billing system. Google must comply even as it continues to appeal the case, which was started by Fortnite maker Epic Games. Additional provisions of the upheld injunction come into effect next year, including a requirement that Google allow users to download rival app stores within its Play Store.
AT&T Launches More Capable 5G Nationwide
AT&T has officially launched 5G SA (Stand-Alone) network technology nationwide. Like most US carriers, AT&T initially launched 5G using the NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) version of the technology, which relied on the existing 4G LTE network for some functions. Aside from not needing the 4G network, 5G SA unlocks several advanced capabilities of 5G, including faster upload speeds, ultra-low latency, ultra-high reliability, and edge functions. T-Mobile made the same announcement in 2020. Verizon has yet to formally announce nationwide 5G SA, although observers have spotted Verizon 5G SA running in several parts of the country. The launch of 5G SA is related to the launch of 5G RedCap (Reduced Capability), a simpler version of 5G designed for less powerful (and less demanding) devices, including smartwatches. AT&T confirmed that Apple's newest smartwatches use 5G RedCap, which is likely spurring the current rollouts of 5G RedCap and 5G SA by AT&T and Verizon.
Verizon Appoints New CEO
Hot on the heels of T-Mobile announcing a change in leadership, Verizon has just announced that Dan Schulman will replace Hans Vestberg as CEO, effective immediately. Schulman was previously CEO of PayPal, and has held senior leadership roles at AT&T, Priceline, Virgin Mobile, and American Express. Schulman has served on the Verizon Board of directors since 2018 and was elected Lead Independent Director in December 2024. Vestberg will stay on as Special Advisor through this year and most of 2026, during which time he will be focused on ensuring a smooth transition, including the integration with Frontier Communications.
Apple, Google Remove ICE Tracking Apps
Apple and Google have both removed apps from their app stores that let people report and see the locations of ICE agents. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that "ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs" and "we reached out to Apple [Thursday] demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so". Apple says "We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. ... Based on information we've received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store". Separately but just one day later, Google says it "removed similar apps for violations of our policies". Google says it was not contacted by the Justice Department about the apps. Joshua Aaron, the developer of ICEBlock, says he designed the app to help immigrants who are afraid of being deported. ICEBlock was downloaded more than 1 million times before it was banned.
T-Mobile Launches Limited Data Service Over Satellite
As promised in June, T-Mobile today launched a set of data services on its T-Satellite service (that offers coverage in cellular dead zones using over 650 SpaceX Starlink satellites in orbit). The data services are limited to specific apps, and those apps have been customized to offer "core experiences and critical services" when using satellite coverage. Supported apps include a selection of both device-native and third-party apps, with parity across iOS and Android platforms. Device-native apps supported include Google Messages and Find Hub, Pixel Weather, Apple Music, Weather, and Fitness, and Samsung's Weather app. Third-party apps supported include AccuWeather, X, and WhatsApp, as well as outdoor-focused AllTrails, CalTopo, and onX. WhatsApp supports voice chat, video chat, group chat, and voice memos over satellite. For businesses, newly supported apps include Dialpad, Florian, MultiLine, and T-Mobile Direct Connect.
Qualcomm Scores Another Win in Legal Battle with Arm
A US District Court judge has ruled in favor of Qualcomm in its ongoing licensing dispute with Arm. The ruling brings to a close the original 2022 case where Arm accused Qualcomm of improperly transferring chip-design licenses when it acquired Nuvia. A jury found mostly in favor of Qualcomm in December. Arm has already promised to appeal the case. Separately, Arm has tried to cancel its chip-design licenses to Qualcomm, and Qualcomm has sued Arm for breach of contract. That case is scheduled to go to trial in March 2026.
US, China Agree on Deal for US Version of TikTok
President Trump says that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has given the green light on a deal to create a new, US-controlled version of TikTok for US users. The new company will license the TikTok algorithm from ByteDance, but will retrain the service using US-only data, kept in the US. This should address national security concerns over US personal data flowing to China via TikTok, and China potentially influencing the US public via the TikTok algorithm. The new company will be around 80% US-owned, with a board consisting mostly of US investors. The new company's "owners include many whose business or political interests are tied to Trump, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch, raising questions about whether political influence will be exerted into the platform." A law was passed last year to force the sale of TikTok in the US or face a ban. Tht law was to go into effect in January, but Trump repeatedly used executive orders to delay enforcement of the law.
Nothing Spins Off CMF
Phone maker Nothing is spinning off its CMF sub-brand into an independent subsidiary company. Like Nothing, CMF makes phones and accessories with striking designs, but at more affordable price points. CMF phones sell well in India, and the new CMF will be based in India. (Nothing is based in London.) CMF will partner with Indian ODM (original design manufacturer) Optiemus for manufacturing.
Qualcomm Intros Newest Flagship Chip for Phones
Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen. 5, its newest chip for top-end phones. Qualcomm promises performance and efficiency gains across the board. Compared to last year's chip, (the "Snapdragon 8 Elite",) the new 3rd-generation Oryon CPU design delivers 20% faster CPU performance with a single core and 17% better multi-core performance, with up to 35% power savings. For graphics, the newest Adreno GPU offers 23% better performance and 20% better power efficiency. The new Spectra ISP for camera processing is the first to support 20-bit processing for 4x more dynamic range. It also supports the new APV codec for professional-grade video. Finally, the new Hexagon NPU for AI tasks offers 37% better performance and 16% better power efficiency. The NPU and ISP are also designed to work together to deliver on-device AI processing of images, such as removing reflections when taking photos through windows.
Google Brings Conversational AI Photo Editing to More Phones
Google is rolling out its new AI-powered "conversational editing" feature in Google Photos to more phones, (beyond the Pixel 10 series). When editing a photo, a new "Help me edit" text box at the bottom lets you simply tell it what you want to do, which can be traditional edits, full generative AI, or anything in-between. Google's examples include: "remove the reflections and fix the washed out colors", "restore this old photo", "remove the cars in the background", "make it look like he's in Waikiki and add a tropical drink to the right", or even just "make it better". It can take multiple requests at once, or in series. Google says the new feature is "starting to roll out" to all "eligible" Android users in the US.
Google Revamps Gaming Platform with new Sidekick and Profiles
Google has announced a series of updates to Google Play that focus mainly on gaming. The biggest new feature might be the Play Games Sidekick, an in-game overlay that includes a variety of relevant info, tools, and shortcuts. This includes quick shortcuts for screenshots, screen recording, Do Not Disturb, and going Live on YouTube. It also includes your profile and points, game tips, achievements, streaks, quests, and coupons. For "select" games, a Gemini Live AI assistant can interactively offer verbal game advice, based on what it sees on your screen in real time. Google is also revamping its platform-wide player profiles and points system. Finally, Google is officially launching Google Play Games on PC, expanding its game-platform ambition beyond Android after a beta period.
Verizon Establishes Lab and Group to Work on 6G
Verizon has announced new partnerships and facilities to ramp up work on 6G mobile technology. The new "Verizon 6G Innovation Forum" brings together network vendors Ericsson, Samsung, and Nokia; as well as Meta and Qualcomm. Verizon plans multiple labs for research, prototyping, anf real-world testing of potential 6G technologies, starting with one in Los Angeles. Verizon highlighted some its intended priorities in this effort, including testing new radio spectrum bands and bandwidths. Another stated priority will be working with global standards bodies like the 3GPP to ensure that 6G is a globally-harmonized, interoperable standard.
T-Mobile Gets a New CEO
T-Mobile has announced a change in leadership, with its current COO Srini Gopalan replacing Mike Sievert as CEO this November. Sievert has led the company for five years, and will stay on in a newly-created "Vice Chairman" position to ensure a smooth transition. Gopalan has previously worked at Deutsche Telekom Germany, Vodafone, and Bharti Airtel.
iOS 26 Now Available, with Visual Intelligence
Apple has released the final, public version of iOS 26. It should be available to download now on most recent iPhones. New features include Live Translation of languages, available for in-person conversations as well as in Messages and FaceTime. The feature currently works with English (U.S., UK), French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Spain), and Chinese (simplified). By the end of the year, it will also support Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified), and Chinese (Mandarin, traditional). Also new in iOS 26 is Visual Intelligence, which applies AI to tell you more about anything on your screen at the moment (by taking a screenshot), or anything in front of you in the real world, using the phone's camera. The update also brings new, more granular parental control features, and Apple's new Liquid Glass design language.
Apple's iPhone 17 Series is Nearly Hack-Proof
Apple has revealed that the new A19 chips in the iPhone 17 series (including iPhone Air) are its first chips to support a new security feature in iOS called Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE). This new technology is a big leap in addressing memory safety vulnerabilities, an industry-wide problem and the main attack vector used by mercenary spyware that state-backed hackers use to spy on high-profile targets (among other advanced attacks). One key part of MIE is EMTE (Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension), a memory-safety technology that Apple co-developed with Arm, based on Arm's MTE technology. EMTE assigns a type of security key to each set of data in memory, so applications can't access memory not allocated to them. However, checking those keys can hurt performance, and the timing of the checking process can reveal signals that compromise the keys. Therefore, Apple designed its new A19 chips with separate key-checking hardware that accelerates the process and keeps it secure, enabling real-time EMTE for all critical processes. Apple's research indicates that this technology could all but eliminate the problem of memory safety vulnerabilities. iOS on the iPhone 17 series implements MIE in "the kernel and over 70 userland processes", but Apple is also making this technology available to third-party developers via new Enhanced Security settings in Xcode.
Apple Intros Compact new Fast Charger for iPhone 17 Series
Apple has introduced a new compact fast charger that can charge at up to 60 watts. It employs "Dynamic Power" to charge at 40 watts normally, but up to 60 watts for a limited time, at specific points in the charging cycle. This enables the benefits of faster charging in a smaller form factor than other 60W chargers. Because of this, Apple calls it the "40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max". Unlike other 60W chargers, it's optimized for charging phones, not tablets or laptops. Only the new iPhone 17 series (including the iPhone Air) is compatible with Dynamic Power for the fastest charging speeds. Fold-up plug prongs further contribute to its portability. It's available now from Apple for $39.
Samsung Begins Rollout of Android 16 to Rest of Lineup
Samsung is rolling out its One UI 8 software update — based on Android 16 — to its flagship Galaxy S25 series this week. The company recently launched its new foldables (the Flip7 and Fold7) with the new software. One key new feature is the Now Bar, which shows "real-time app activity and media player progress directly on the front screen". Next to receive the update (in October) will be the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy Z Fold6, Galaxy Z Flip6, and Galaxy S24 FE. By the end of the year, the company will also provide the update for the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy Z Fold5, Galaxy Z Flip5, Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy S22 series, Galaxy Z Fold4, Galaxy Z Flip4, Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy A56 5G, Galaxy A36 5G, Galaxy A26 5G, Galaxy A17 5G, Galaxy A17, Galaxy A07, Galaxy A06 5G, Galaxy A55 5G, Galaxy A35 5G, Galaxy A25 5G, Galaxy A16 5G, Galaxy A16, Galaxy A15 5G, Galaxy A06, Galaxy A54 5G, Galaxy A34 5G, Galaxy A73 5G, Galaxy A53 5G, and Galaxy A33 5G.
Arm's New Designs Optimize for AI Running on CPU Cores
Arm has introduced its Arm v9.3 compute architecture, including new "C1" CPU core designs and "G1" GPU (graphics) core designs. In high-end configurations, Arm calls the new platform Lumex, which focuses on new ways to accelerate AI. The key new feature is SME2 (Scalable Matrix Extensions), which accelerates AI workloads when run on the CPU cores by up to 4.7x. AI historically runs best on GPU cores or AI-optimized NPU cores, but it's generally easier for developers to write code for CPU cores. With the new Lumex platform, AI tasks (classic and generative) run up to 5x faster on CPU cores, and up to 3x more efficiently. Once major AI frameworks are updated to support SME2, other software developers should not need to do anything for their AI apps to take advantage of this technology. The Lumex platform includes the C1-Ultra CPU core design for flagship chips and C1-Premium for sub-flagship devices. The Arm, v9.3 family also includes the new C1-Pro and C1-Nano CPU cores, which are lower-end and can be used as "efficiency" cores in a complete chip design. The Lumex platform also includes the new Mali G1-Ultra GPU core design, which has 20% better overall performance than the Immortalis-G925 it replaces, and 2x performance for ray-tracing. Similarly, the C1-Ultra has 25% better performance than the Cortex-X925 it replaces, and the C1-Pro has 12% better sustained power efficiency compared to the Cortex-A725 it replaces. A typical flagship chip using this new platform might have two C1-Ultra performance cores, six C1-Pro efficiency cores, and 14 Mali G1-Ultra cores. Arm has reference designs that are nearly production-ready. The new platform is optimized for the cutting-edge 3nm manufacturing processes of multiple chip manufacturers.
