Apple's App Store policies require that the Chrome browser on iOS uses the WebKit engine rather than the usual Blink, but that isn't stopping Google from indulging in a "what if" scenario. The Register has noticed that Google recently started work on an experiment that would port Blink to iOS. The project is limited to the stripped-down "content_shell" app rather than Chrome, and the Chromium team working on the effort stresses that it's not a "shippable product." It's only meant to test graphics and input performance, the company says.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson told Engadget the Blink port is only a "prototype" that's part of a larger open source initiative. It won't be available to the public, and the company will "continue to abide" by Apple's rules.

It's not clear why Google wants to test Blink on iOS in the first place, though. If Apple's policies stay firm, Google won't be allowed to release any Blink-based software. Only those experienced enough to compile and run content_shell may get a taste of the experience.

The timing may not be coincidental, though. The US government wants Apple and Google to open up their platforms, giving users ways to install apps that aren't governed by first-party store policies. Rumors have also swirled that Apple may allow third-party app stores on iOS to please European regulators. If Apple ever loosens its approach, Google's head start on porting Blink could help it switch Chrome's web engine relatively quickly.

A change like that could shake up browser competition on iOS. Apple's WebKit requirement theoretically aids security by limiting the avenues for web exploits, but it also gives third-party browsers fewer ways to stand out — they can't use custom engines that might be faster or more feature-laden than Apple's Safari. As on Android or the desktop, an alternative browser would offer more than just a different interface.

With its first update of 2023, Telegram is making it easier to communicate with people who might speak a different language than you. The next time someone messages you in a language other than your default language, you’ll see a translate bar at the top of the interface. Tap it to translate their message in real time. If you’re a Premium subscriber, you’ll also have access to this feature when engaging with groups and channels. As you can see from the GIF Telegram shared, this could be handy when planning a trip. Join a channel in the city you plan to visit to see the events and spots locals are talking about. If you want to try Premium, Telegram has also introduced a new annual payment option that allows you to save up to 40 percent on the price of the service if you commit to a full year.

Separately, the update adds a tool for turning stickers and emoji into profile pictures. In addition to using this feature for yourself, you can set or suggest profile pictures for your contacts. Best of all, it’s available to everyone, not just Premium users. And speaking of stickers and emoji, Telegram has made it easier to sort through the dizzying number of options the app offers by organizing them into categories. At the same time, there are new interactive versions of a handful of emoji, and the company has released 10 new custom emoji packs.

A couple of quality-of-life improvements make it easier to manage Telegram’s footprint on your device. To start, Telegram has redesigned the app’s network usage tool. At the top of the interface, you’ll now see the information the tool has to share presented in a handy pie chart with separate tabs for mobile, WiFi and roaming usage. Additionally, Telegram has tweaked the automatic media download settings to support exceptions, giving users more control over the type and size of media the app automatically saves to their phone’s storage. If you don’t have access to the update immediately, be patient. Sometimes these releases take a few days to roll out.

NVIDIA has begun rolling out a fix for a bug that had caused some of its GPUs to perform worse while people had Discord open. In a tweet spotted by The Verge, the company said Windows will now automatically download an app profile update the next time users log into their PC. The update resolves an issue that prevented some NVIDIA GPUs, including RTX 30 series models like the 3080 and 3060 Ti, from pushing their memory as fast as possible when Discord was open in the background. In some instances, NVIDIA users reported their video cards being throttled by as much as 200Mhz, translating to a modest performance decrease in most games.

Reddit and Linus Tech Tips forum users were among the first to spot and document the issue. The bug was introduced in a recent Discord update that added AV1 codec support. With the new codec, RTX 40 series users can stream their gameplay at up to 4K and 60 frames per second over Discord Nitro. The bug did not appear to affect RTX 40 series cards. That said, NVIDIA quickly acknowledged the issue and offered a temporary workaround. 

Instagram might be considering the possibility of offering paid verification to users, based on code seen by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. The developer shared screenshots in the app's code with TechCrunch, showing lines that say: "IG_NME_PAID_BLUE_BADGE_IDV" and "FB_NME_PAID_BLUE_BADGE_IDV." They clearly say "paid blue badge," most likely referencing the blue checkmarks verified users on the platform get. FB and IG stand for Facebook and Instagram, which could mean that Meta is thinking of verifying users for a fee across platforms. IDV, as TechCrunch notes, is a known acronym for "identity verification." Paluzzi has unearthed numerous unreleased features in the past, including a BeReal-like feature and in-app scheduler on Instagram.

In addition, the developer also reportedly discovered code referencing a new type of subscription, though it's unclear if it's directly connected to paid verification. Twitter Blue, as you know, is a subscription service that costs $8 to $11 a month and gives users access to the website's verified checkmark, along with some experimental features. Offering paid verification was one of the earliest moves Elon Musk made upon taking over Twitter, and it did make Blue look more appealing to prospective subscribers. Its launch was pretty disastrous, however, as the company didn't implement safeguards to prevent random users from impersonating companies and high-profile personalities. 

If Meta truly is developing paid verification, it has to find a way not to repeat Twitter's mistake. Especially since Instagram users might scramble to get their profiles verified, considering how hard it currently is to get a blue badge on the app. There's even a black market for Instagram verification, with people paying up to tens of thousands of dollars to get a blue tick next to their name. TechCrunch says Meta chose not to comment on Paluzzi's discovery, though, so whether it truly is working on paid verification is still up in the air.

TikTok is facing yet another call from a prominent lawmaker for the app’s ban, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Apple and Google urging the companies to ban TikTok from their respective app stores.

In the letter, Bennet says that “TikTok, in its current form, [is] an unacceptable threat to the national security of the United States.” The letter, addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, repeats many of the same points that have been raised by other lawmakers seeking to ban the app.

Specifically, Bennet raises the possibility that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, could be compelled to “use its influence to advance Chinese government interests,” via TikTok. “Like most social media platforms, TikTok collects vast and sophisticated data from its users, including faceprints and voiceprints,” Bennet writes. “Unlike most social media platforms, TikTok poses a unique concern because Chinese law obligates ByteDance, its Beijing-based parent company, to ‘support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.’”

TikTok has long denied that such scenarios could play out, and has attempted to downplay its ties to China. In a statement to CNN the company said Bennet’s letter “relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about TikTok, the data we collect, and our data security controls.”

Apple and Google didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

While it seems unlikely either company would take such a drastic step based on a letter from one senator, it highlights the mounting pressure and scrutiny on TkTok. The company has spent the last two years negotiating with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in order to secure its ability to continue to operate in the US. But that process is reportedly stalled, and the company has been waging a new charm offensive in an attempt to win over critics.

TikTok has also been sharing more details around its partnership with Oracle to safeguard US user data and comply with US regulators’ concerns. But lawmakers seem to be in no rush to let TikTok off the hook. The app has already been banned from federal devices, and numerous state governments have passed bans of their own. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify at his first Congressional hearing next month,

ChatGPT has been growing at a rate much, much faster than TikTok or any other popular app or service. According to a new study by analytics firm UBS (via Reuters and CBS), the OpenAI-developed chatbot was on pace to reach over 100 million monthly active users in January. The chatbot only became available to the public on November 30th last year, but its rise to fame has apparently been meteoric. Within its first month of availability, it already boasted 57 million monthly active users, the study said. By January, it was already being visited by around 13 million individual users a day. 

In comparison, it took TikTok nine months after its global debut to reach 100 million monthly users despite its popularity, especially among the younger generation. UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley also pointed out that Meta's Instagram had been around for two-and-a-half years before reaching that point. It remains to be seen, however, if the chatbot can maintain this level of interest in the coming months. "The next question is obviously what its staying power will be. There may be an element of people just coming to look," Walmsley added.

ChatGPT provides users with natural-sounding human-like responses to queries, so much so that educators are concerned that it could be used by students to cheat. While it still has serious accuracy problems — "Models like ChatGPT have a notorious tendency to spew biased, harmful, and factually incorrect content," MIT's Tech Review wrote in a piece — there isn't another public chatbot with comparable capabilities. It has reportedly rattled Google's execs to the point that they decided to declare "code red" and accelerated the company's AI development. The tech giant is working on a few potential ChatGPT competitors, including a chatbot for search, and is aiming to showcase 20 AI products this year. 

ChatGPT remains free to use at the moment, and OpenAI doesn't seem to have any plans to completely lock access to it behind a paywall. However, the startup does intend to start charging for the service and has already started testing a paid ChatGPT plan for $20 per month, which offers faster response times and priority access to new features.

Along with delaying Star Wars Jedi: Survivorby six weeks, Electronic Arts says it's shutting down Apex Legends Mobile less than a year after releasing the game on iOS and Android. The company is also abandoning Battlefield Mobile and closing Industrial Toys, the studio behind that game.

"At Respawn, we aim to provide players with games that are consistently outstanding," Respawn Entertainment said in a statement. "Following a strong start, the content pipeline for Apex Legends Mobile has begun to fall short of that bar for quality, quantity, and cadence. It is for this reason, after months of working with our development partner, that we have made the mutual decision to sunset our mobile game." Tencent and Lightspeed had been working on the mobile version.

EA has already delisted Apex Mobile (which Apple named the iPhone game of the year for 2022) from app stores and halted all in-app purchases with real money. The game will still be playable for a few more months until the servers are switched off on May 1st at 7PM ET. EA says it won't refund real money purchases but suggests that users can request refunds from the App Store or Play Store.

As for Battlefield Mobile, that game hadn't been fully rolled out. EA started testing it in select markets in the fall of 2021. EA says it's still focused on helping the Battlefield series reach its potential (it has ambitious plans for the franchise) and supporting Battlefield 2042, but a mobile version is no longer on the cards for the time being.

Meanwhile, around the same time EA announced the end of Apex Legends Mobile, it emerged that the Epic Games-published Rumbleverse, a pro wrestling-themed battle royale, will shut down at the end of this month. While big players like Fortnite, PUBG: Battlegrounds, the PC and console version of Apex Legends and Fall Guys seem to be doing just fine for now, these closures suggest the battle royale bubble is starting to burst.

Biden administration officials have taken aim at Apple and Google in a new report, describing the pair as “gatekeepers” of the mobile apps that consumers and businesses rely on. The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) states that users “should have more control over their devices” and argues that more legislation is probably needed to bolster competition in the app ecosystem. The agency also claims that "the current ecosystem is not a level playing field."

In a report titled “Competition in the Mobile App Ecosystem” (PDF), the NTIA says it pinpointed two major policy issues that are getting in the way of a more competitive app ecosystem. First, it says that users "largely" can't get apps outside of the Google and Apple-controlled app store model. The report notes that sideloading is not an option broadly available to most iOS users and that alternative app stores such as Amazon Appstore and Samsung’s Galaxy Store "are not currently sufficiently viable options to create robust competition."

The NTIA says the second issue it identified is that Apple and Google impose technical barriers that can make it more difficult for developers to compete. These can include factors such as limits on how apps function and funneling apps through "slow and opaque review processes," the report says.

The agency determined that, while there are some benefits to the current mobile app ecosystem, particularly when it comes to security measures, the cons outweighed the pros. It added that it's still possible to shore up privacy and security in a more competitive marketplace. To get to that point, the NTIA suggests that several changes are required.

First, it says, users should have more control over what they do with their devices, including the option to set their own apps as defaults (something that's already possible on Android and iOS to some degree), a way to hide or remove pre-installed apps and the ability to use third-party app stores. The NTIA argues that operators of app stores shouldn't give their own apps preferential treatment in search results as well.

In addition, there should be measures in place to prevent limits on sideloading, web apps and other app stores "while still preserving appropriate latitude for privacy and security safeguards," the agency said. Moreover, it claimed that "limits on in-app purchasing options should be addressed" by preventing app store operators from forcing developers to use their own payment systems. Google has been testing third-party billing options for certain Android apps, while Apple last year started allowing certain app makers to direct users to their websites to manage payments and accounts.

"We appreciate the report acknowledges the importance of user privacy, data security and user convenience," an Apple spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "Nevertheless, we respectfully disagree with a number of conclusions reached in the report, which ignore the investments we make in innovation, privacy and security — all of which contribute to why users love iPhone and create a level playing field for small developers to compete on a safe and trusted platform.”

In a filing with the NTIA, Apple said it "competes with other products that do not offer the same level of protection and instead choose to let customers load unvetted code onto their devices — which independent studies show leads to more malware and less privacy." The company also claimed that if its "security and privacy protections were regulated out of existence, the result would thus be less competition and less consumer choice."

Engadget has contacted Google for comment.

The NTIA report comes amid a drive from the White House to bolster competition in the tech industry. "My vision for our economy is one in which everyone — small and midsized businesses, mom-and-pop shops, entrepreneurs — can compete on a level playing field with the biggest companies," President Joe Biden wrote last month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

There have been attempts in Congress to increase competition in the mobile app ecosystem. Proposed legislation called the Open App Markets Act failed to pass in the last session despite gaining bipartisan support. It would have required Apple and Google to let developers use third-party app stores and payment systems.

After a few years of staying mostly under the radar, Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a new project. It’s an app called Artifact, a name Systrom told Platformer’s Casey Newton is designed to evoke the project’s three tenants: “articles, facts and artificial intelligence.” In short, it’s a news aggregation app driven by a TikTok-like recommendation algorithm.

When you first launch Artifact, you’ll see a central feed populated by stories from publications like The New York Times. As you read more articles, the app will begin personalizing your feed. According to Systrom, the recommendation system Artifact’s team of seven built prioritizes how long you spend reading about certain subjects over clicks and comments. He added Artifact will feature news stories from both left and right-leaning outlets, though the company won’t allow posts that “promote falsehoods."

In the future, the app will also feature a social component. Systrom and Krieger plan to roll out a feed that will highlight articles from users you follow, alongside their commentary on that content. Additionally, you’ll be able to privately discuss posts through a direct-message inbox. At the moment, Systrom and Krieger are funding the project with their own money. They say Artifact represents a first attempt to imagine what the next generation of social apps could look like. If you want to give what they created a try, you can join a waiting list for the app’s iOS and Android beta. Systrom said the team plans to invite new users quickly.

If you've been thinking about adding Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to your home office, this may be a good day to sign up. Today only, Amazon is offering a 12-month subscription to Microsoft 365 Family bundled with a $50 Amazon gift card for $100. The price of the yearly subscription is usually $100, so you're essentially getting a free gift card for signing up. The deal is only good through the end of the day and the subscription will auto-renew at the end of the year, so set a reminder if you want to cancel before that kicks in.   

The year-long subscription will come as a digital download and runs on PCs or Macs as well as smartphones and tablets running Apple's iOS or Android OS. It covers up to six people and can run on five devices at the same time, with offline access included. Microsoft 365 is the new branding for the well-known Office software and the Family subscription includes access to Word, Excel, Outlook email and PowerPoint. It also comes with the Microsoft Teams video calling app, which updated last year to include a Live Share feature enabling easier real-time collaboration. You also get Clipchamp video editor, which Microsoft acquired in 2021. Included security add-ons like Microsoft Defender and ransomeware protection will help protect your data and devices. 

Each person gets 1TB of OneDrive personal cloud storage, which not only lets you store a large amount of files in the cloud, it lets you share photos and files with other OneDrive users, across pretty much any device. 

The Microsoft 365 family subscription is activated as a digital download, but the $50 gift card will arrive as a physical card in the mail. And as we said, the deal ends today, so take advantage if you want to add Microsoft's productivity apps to your setup. 

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