Following the class-action lawsuit between Apple and app developers, the company has agreed to change several App Store rules, including allowing developers to email users “about payment methods outside of their iOS app” — think Netflix and Spotify offering subscription setups through the internet browser, all without Apple taking a cut. This was a key part of the Epic vs. Apple trial.

The company is also promising more transparency around its app review process and offer more price points to app makers from “fewer than 100 to more than 500.” The agreement also includes a $100 million payout, split among smaller developers who earned $1 million or less. It’s not money for Spotify, Epic and the bigger, most vocal, app owners. There are a few more wrinkles to the App Store changes. Engadget’s Karissa Bell elaborates on what's going on.

— Mat Smith

The Rock has some new Under Armour headphones

Noise cancellation and 45-hour battery life.

Under Armor

Hollywood's busiest man Dwayne Johnson has found time to release another pair of headphones with Under Armour branding and, well, JBL tech. The cans are essentially an updated version of the durable over-ears released in 2018, but now with adaptive noise canceling and 45-hour battery life. With speed charging, you should get two hours of playback time in five minutes.

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Amazon Prime Gaming's free titles for September include 'Knockout City'

Subscribers will also get new loot for 'Genshin Impact' and other games.

Amazon is adding some more free titles for Prime Gaming subscribers. One of the latest additions is Knockout City, a recent release from Velan and EA. It's a cross-platform dodgeball brawler launched in May that's already available through Xbox Games Pass Ultimate and EA Play. Anyone addicted to Genshin Impact — which is free to play everywhere — can get a nice grab bag of loot if they’re a Prime Gaming subscriber.

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After nearly 40 years, the designer of the NES and SNES retires from Nintendo

Lance Barr also helped shape the Wii.

Jason Leung on Unsplash

NES and SNES designer Lance Barr has retired from Nintendo after 38 years and eight months at the company. Although relatively few know his name, he played a role in the rise and rise of Nintendo.

Barr made his biggest mark when he was asked to design the outside of the NES to make the Famicom more palatable for American audiences. As requested, he made it look like it belonged next to a stereo system (complete with a VHS-style cartridge loader) compared to the "soft" Japanese model.

His influence continued at Nintendo, and in more recent times he helped design the Wii and its nunchuk controller.

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HP Pavilion Aero review

It's an affordable laptop that punches well above its own weight.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

HP’s use of AMD’s speedy mobile processors means this machine can do a lot more than other ultraportables in its class. Available for less than $1,000, the cost alone will let you see past some of its more pedestrian features. There are plenty of ports, and while it’s not exactly an inspirational design, you might be pleasantly surprised.

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Finally, all iOS users will get YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode

Only for Premium users to start with.

YouTube is promising picture-in-picture (PiP) viewing to all iPhone and iPad users in the US, starting with volunteers using Premium. You'll have to opt into the test through the experiments website on your computer, but you're all set after that — you can watch clips in a floating window. It’s just the first step: The company hasn't said when it plans to enable PiP for non-Premium subscribers.

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The biggest tech news you might have missed

Apple will take a smaller cut of in-app fees from publishers who use Apple News

Engadget Deals: Apple Watch SE (44mm with cellular) is down to $300 at Amazon

Electrify America's charging station app finally supports Android Auto and CarPlay

'Star Trek: Lower Decks' wants you to know it's OK to like 'Voyager'

Tesla's redesigned iPhone app features two new home screen widgets

Palantir glitch allegedly granted some FBI staff unauthorized access to a crypto hacker's data

Google's YouTube Music app for Wear OS only works with Samsung's upcoming smartwatches

Apple has agreed to change several rules that govern its App Store as part of a settlement with developers who filed a class action lawsuit against the company. The most significant change is that Apple is “clarifying” that developers are permitted to email users “about payment methods outside of their iOS app.” The company has also agreed to publish transparency reports detailing App Store rejection rates and the app review process.

Developing...

Pokémon fans now have even more ways to enjoy the sprawling franchise's offerings on Nintendo Switch. The Pokémon TV app has, at long last, hit the console. It includes hundreds of episodes of the Pokémon anime series, including some full seasons, as well as animated specials. 

Kids (and adults, if we're being honest) can also kick back and stream Pokémon Trading Card Game and video game competitions. They can pick up some training tips too. There's plenty for the youngest Pokémon fans as well. The Junior category includes sing-along songs, nursery rhymes and more. Content in the free app is refreshed periodically.

Pokémon TV emerged in 2010 on the brand's official website. Android and iOS apps followed in 2013.

Though the Switch eShop has hundreds and hundreds of games, there are precious few media apps. You can fire up YouTube, Hulu and Funimation but Netflix and Prime Video are nowhere to be seen (unless you jailbreak your Switch). Another streaming app from a brand that's so entwined with Nintendo's DNA could keep people hooked on their Switch for even longer. Still, it feels like the Pokémon TV app should have been on the console long before now.

Apple thinks it might have a simple way to attract wary publishers to Apple News — give them a larger slice of app sales. TechCrunchreports that Apple has launched a News Partner Program that lowers the tech firm's cut of App Store subscriptions from 30 percent to 15 percent "from day one" if qualified publishers provide their content in the Apple News Format. Outlets previously had to wait until an app's second year on the App Store before Apple's share dropped to 15 percent.

The apps themselves have to deliver "original, professionally authored" news and, unsurprisingly, allow auto-renewing subscriptions through the App Store. If a publisher isn't located in one of Apple News' existing markets (currently the US, UK, Australia and Canada), it can still qualify for the program by providing an RSS news feed.

The move could satisfy publishers that avoided Apple's in-app subscription system, if not the App Store entirely, due to the 30 percent initial cut. You might see more publications on Apple News (if not necessarily News+) as a result. However, it's not clear if antitrust regulators will be thrilled. The program does show that Apple can be more flexible with App Store fees, but it's also an incentive for publishers to dive deeper into Apple's ecosystem.

The GoPro Quik app is getting a bit more useful for subscribers. GoPro is giving them unlimited cloud backups at no extra cost. What's more, the app can back up photos and videos at full source quality.

The mural feature is designed to showcase your favorite memories and maybe free up some space on your phone. Not only can you send captures from your GoPro to the cloud, the app lets you save images and videos from anywhere on your device, including your camera roll, using the share sheet. The latest version of the Android app now includes limited mural storage, and the upgrade is coming to iOS soon.

Being able to upload unlimited images and videos at full quality is a solid improvement for GoPro Quik subscribers. At $2/month or $10/year, it might prove a more attractive storage option than Google One or iCloud. Those service's plans each scale up to $10/month for 2TB of storage. Google Photos ended free unlimited storage in June. You might even use GoPro Quik as a secondary, low-cost backup option for all of your photos and videos.

GoPro merged its namesake app with Quik earlier this year. Mural organizes photos and videos into events and the app can automatically generate highlight videos for you. There are editing tools for your images and videos, filters and access to royalty-free music tracks.

Google's YouTube Music app for Wear OS is now live, a few months after the tech giant promised to release one for the platform. That certainly sounds like great news for users who've been waiting for it after Google retired Play Music for Wear OS in 2020. The bad news is, as noted by 9to5Google, it only currently works on Google's Wear OS 3 platform. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic wearables, which will be available on August 27th, will be the only devices that will be running the OS in the foreseeable future. 

The company killed off the Play Music app for Wear OS watches back in August 2020, weeks before it completely shut the service down in favor of YouTube Music. It quickly released a YouTube Music app for the Apple Watch, but Wear OS users have had to wait for their turn. And, based on what we know now, they may have to continue waiting, unless they're set to get Samsung's new smartwatches tomorrow. In comparison, Spotify's Wear OS app works even on older smartwatches and can be used to stream and download music.

In addition to extremely limited compatibility, the app can't actually be used to stream music. According to 9to5Google's hands-on experience, users will only be able to download tracks on the app. Further, the phone must be plugged in to be able to download anything. For those not bothered by all those limitations and will soon have access to a Galaxy Watch 4, the app is now available on Google Play.

We're not sure who or how many people use Microsoft Office on a Chromebook but if that's you, you're in for a downgraded experience. Microsoft will soon kill its Office app for Android on Chrome OS, the company confirmed Wednesday to About Chromebooks. The app will leave the Google Play Store on September 18th, at which point users will need to sign in through the web via Office.com or Outlook.com. As 9to5Google notes, the Office app will still be available on Android phones, even as it vanishes from Chrome OS.

Though signing in via the web app should work in a pinch, it's clearly an inferior experience to what the Android app has offered until now, not to mention what Google's G Suite can do on its native Google-controlled platform. In particular, be warned that the web app offers almost no offline access, something users have enjoyed on the Google Play Store version. 

It's unclear why Microsoft is making this change, except that the company described the move in a statement to About Chromebooks as an "effort to provide the most optimized experience for Chrome OS/Chromebook customers." Whatever the intention, this is likely to give Chromebook users another reason to give the G Suite a try, if they haven't already. Or hey, perhaps they'll ditch their Chromebooks and download the Android app on Windows 11.

Facebook has started testing a feature that gives users a way to place voice and video calls from within the main app itself, according to Bloomberg. Like with any of the social network's experiments, it will only be available to a limited number of accounts. But those who do get access to the test will be able to call friends on the platform without having to fire up the Messenger app. 

As the publication notes, this looks like a move Facebook is exploring to further streamline its services that include Messenger, which became a separate app in 2014, and WhatsApp. Connor Hayes, director of product management at Messenger, told Bloomberg that it's meant to reduce the need to jump back and forth between the company's main app and its Messenger service.

Facebook already has plans to unify its messaging apps. In September 2020, it enabled the ability to chat and send messages between Instagram and Messenger, and the social network previously said that WhatsApp would also get inter-app messaging capabilities. The company tested putting a simpler version of Messenger within the main app last year, as well. That's something the social network been considering since at least 2019 when Jane Manchun Wong found an experimental feature that takes users straight to a "Chats" section when they tap on the messaging icon. Currently, doing so automatically opens the Messenger app. 

Hayes told the publication that Facebook now considers Messenger as a service instead of a standalone app. We may see more of its technologies across the company's other apps in the future — in fact, Instagram, Oculus and Portal devices already use Messenger's technology for voice and video calls. "You’re going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time," he said.

Oculus is rolling out an update to its Quest VR headsets that includes several tweaks and improvements. The highlight is the ability to auto sync your saved photos and video files directly to the Oculus mobile app. That way, you can manage and share those in-game captures when you're outside of the headset. 

The feature can be activated by opening the Files App from your Quest app library and selecting the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the panel. Your saved files will then be available in the the “Synced Media” section under the Devices tab in the mobile app. Oculus says that media will be unsynced and automatically removed from the app after 14 days.

The improvement is the latest aimed at saved media. In the v29 update earlier this year, Oculus introduced a Browser app that let you download and upload files to websites, making the task more seamless than plugging the headset into a PC.

Additional features include the option to gift games directly from the headset — a process that was previously limited to browsers or the Oculus mobile app. You can now also interact with your Facebook and Oculus friends from the People tab in Messenger.

Finally, Oculus is changing up its fitness-oriented Move feature. It's moving to weekly workout goals instead of daily ones, which will be viewable on the redesigned calendar. Keeping the focus on long-term targets, you'll now see revised suggested calorie goals and move minutes. Plus, you'll be able to share your workout stats to Facebook, including Groups, Messenger, and your timeline. 

While Apple may have released Siri before Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, in many ways its voice-activated assistant is the least advanced of the three. A lot of that has to do with the amount of data and training digital assistants need to understand different languages, dialects and speech patterns. In an effort to improve its digital assistant, Apple recently launched a study to collect speech data and feedback with the help of an app called Siri Speech Study.

“The Siri Speech Study app allows participants to send certain data to Apple for product improvement, as detailed in the informed consent form,” the company says in a listing spotted by TechCrunch. The software is available in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Taiwan. According to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower, Apple uploaded Siri Speech Study to the App Store on August 9th, and recently updated the software on August 18th.

Apple isn’t being exactly secretive about the app, but nor is it advertising its existence either. You can’t find the software by searching for it, nor is it listed as one of the apps published by Apple. Similarly, you can’t join the study simply by installing the software on your phone; you need an invite from Apple to participate. We've reached out to Apple for more information on the app. 

Notably, the app allows those involved to choose what Siri requests they send to the company. That's an important point. In 2019, The Guardian published a report that detailed an Apple program where third-party contractors listened to anonymized Siri recordings to analyze the assistant’s responses. A whistleblower told the outlet there had been “countless instances” where graders listened to private conversations, including some that involved criminal dealings and sexual encounters. Apple subsequently moved the program in-house, and switched to opt-in transcripts.