Earlier this spring, Sony announced the latest addition to its family of portable Bluetooth speakers. Now with summer just starting to get cozy, we’re taking a look at just how the new Sony XB100 speaker stacks up. I’ve been rocking out to the compact serenader for the past few weeks and on top of simply loving the form-factor, have become quite partial to just the speaker is.

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Apollo, one of the most beloved iOS apps used to browse Reddit, will be shutting down due to the company’s new API pricing that will make the app much more expensive to operate.

The app will shut down on June 30th, according to developer Christian Selig. “Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue,” Selig wrote on Twitter.

Selig went into further detail in an extensive post on Reddit. He reiterated that based on Reddit’s current plans for the API pricing, he would have to pay more than $20 million per year to operate the app. “Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days,” Selig wrote. “That’s a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it’s just not economically feasible. It’s much cheaper for me to simply shut down.”

Selig also pushed back on Reddit’s claims that Apollo is “less efficient” than other apps, saying that Reddit is unfairly framing its data, because Apollo uses a fraction of a percent of Reddit’s own previously stated API rate limits.

The Apollo developer’s post also contains a link to a partial audio recording of a conversation between Selig and a Reddit employee — because Selig wants to prove he never blackmailed Reddit for $10 million. (Selig did joke about this, the audio seems to show, but he claims that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is internally accusing him of threatening the company.)

Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt declined to comment but said that the company plans to post more information on Thursday and on Friday. The company will host an AMA with Huffman on Friday “about the latest API updates, including accessibility, mod bots, and third-party mod tools.”

Many of Reddit’s biggest communities will go dark or block new posts on June 12th to protest the platform’s API pricing changes, including r/gaming, r/Music, r/Pics, r/todayilearned, r/art, r/DIY, r/EarthPorn, r/explainlikeimfive, r/gadgets, r/LifeProTips… here’s an unofficial list.

On Tuesday, following the news of that protest, Reddit announced it would create a specific exemption to its new API pricing for makers of accessibility apps, but it doesn’t seem to have made any accommodation that will allow Apollo to survive.

Selig says that he will delete Apollo’s API token “on the evening of June 30th” Pacific Time, and until then, “Apollo should continue to operate as it has.” If you have subscribed to Apollo, Selig says that “over the next few weeks” he is planning to offer a pro-rated refund to get money back for the time left in your subscription.

Update June 8th, 3:33PM ET: Added that Reddit will be doing an AMA with CEO Steve Huffman on Friday.

Apple’s Reality Vision Pro was in some ways one of the company’s worst-kept secrets. We’ve known for years that Apple was working on AR/VR devices, and our renders were close enough to give us a decent preview of the design.

But Apple still knocked it out of the park yesterday! What we witnessed was the most impressive implementation of mixed reality that’s ever been seen, and also the most persuasive (partial) answer so far to the question, Why would anyone use this tech? …

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A report on Friday suggested that initial Apple Reality Pro availability is likely to be very limited, as the Cupertino company is “anticipating some production issues” with its upcoming AR/VR headset.

A new Ming-Chi Kuo report provides a likely partial explanation for this: Apple is reportedly dependent on just one supplier for most of the key components …

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Apple’s case against Corellium isn’t quite over

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on Monday that Corellium’s CORSEC simulator is covered by the fair use doctrine of copyright law, which permits the replication of copyrighted material in certain situations. The appeals court’s assessment covered three aspects of the lower court’s rulings.

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Apple’s case against Corellium isn’t quite over

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on Monday that Corellium’s CORSEC simulator is covered by the fair use doctrine of copyright law, which permits the replication of copyrighted material in certain situations. The appeals court’s assessment covered three aspects of the lower court’s rulings.

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“70 percent of our Ford customers in the U.S. are Apple customers. Why would I go to an Apple customer and say good luck?” he said.

Farley was commenting on car manufacturers that do not support ‌CarPlay‌, like Tesla and General Motors. Tesla has never added ‌CarPlay‌ support into its vehicles, and GM earlier this year announced plans to phase out support for both ‌CarPlay‌ and Android Auto starting in 2023.

GM plans go with a built-in infotainment system co-developed with Google as it transitions from combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. ‌CarPlay‌ will be available in non-electric models, but GM ultimately has plans to switch to an all-electric lineup by 2035.

iPhone users have been asking Tesla to support ‌CarPlay‌ for years, and unsurprisingly, GM’s announcement has not been particularly popular with those who are in the Apple ecosystem. By removing control of the infotainment system from Apple, GM and Tesla have access to more data about their customers, and can also push vehicle-related digital subscription services.

Farley doesn’t think there’s money to be made in the content that car owners consume in their vehicles, with Ford instead focusing on safety, security, autonomy, and productivity features.

In terms of content, we kind of lost that battle 10 years ago. So like get real with it, because you’re not going to make a ton of money on content inside the vehicle. It’s gonna be safety, security, partial autonomy, and productivity in our eyes. So that relationship for content is between you, The Wall Street Journal, and the customer. I don’t want to get in the middle of that, but Tesla and other companies believe differently. They want to have complete control over the interior experience.

Having a familiar navigation and infotainment system in the car is appealing to customers who don’t want to have to transition between two incompatible software setups, so GM’s decision to drop support for ‌CarPlay‌ and Android Auto will be off-putting to those who have become used to the way that in-car solutions from Apple and Google extend the smartphone experience to the vehicle. No ‌CarPlay‌ will be a dealbreaker for some customers, so it will be interesting to see how GM’s transition affects future vehicle sales.

Starting in 2023, Apple plans to roll out a next-generation CarPlay experience that will offer even deeper integration into new vehicles for manufacturers who choose to continue to offer ‌CarPlay‌ as an option.

This article, "Ford Plans to Stick With CarPlay as GM Moves to Phase Out Support" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Twitter emergency alerts were one of the casualties of the company starting to charge for the API access that allows automatic tweeting. Many public services and transport companies were facing unaffordable bills to continue to use the service.

Twitter has now announced a partial U-turn on this, though details remain unclear …

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