#ios 15 features

[anitaradix]

Good Morning Tumblrsssss… ask me anything

[astralloom]

iPhone 15 That No One Talks About : Unraveling the Secrets

Amidst the buzz of futuristic gadgets and tech breakthroughs, Apple once again managed to grab headlines with the launch of iPhone 15. But while everyone’s gushing over the headline features, there’s a treasure trove of subtleties and nuanced upgrades that often get overshadowed. Curious about the under-the-radar aspects of this latest tech marvel? You’re in for a treat! Dive with us as we…

[ruben-tech]

The PROBLEM of the APPLE EVENT + Specifications of the iPhone 15 & iPhone 15 Pro Max Which one did you like more? 🔥👉🏿 https://youtu.be/M-mJLDRe7rw

[onlytrending]

https://thewebnoise.com/ios-17-best-17-features/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Are the means of computation even seizable?

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH in TOMORROW (May 15) at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies – taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API – was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit. Weak APIs would be replaced with muscular, unofficial APIs built out of unstoppable scrapers running on headless machines in some data-center. Every time some tech company erected a 10-foot enshittifying fence, someone would show up with an 11-foot disenshittifying ladder.

Those 11-foot ladders represented the power of interoperability, the inescapable bounty of the Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machine, which, by definition, is capable of running every valid program. Specifically, they represented the power of adversarial interoperability – when someone modifies a technology against its manufacturer's wishes. Adversarial interoperability is the origin story of today's tech giants, from Microsoft to Apple to Google:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

But adversarial interop has been in steady decline for the past quarter-century. These big companies moved fast and broke things, but no one is returning the favor. If you ask the companies what changed, they'll just smirk and say that they're better at security than the incumbents they disrupted. The reason no one's hacked up a third-party iOS App Store is that Apple's security team is just so fucking 1337 that no one can break their shit.

I think this is nonsense. I think that what's really going on is that we've made it possible for companies to design their technologies in such a way that any attempt at adversarial interop is illegal.

"Anticircumvention" laws like Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act make bypassing any kind of digital lock (AKA "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM") very illegal. Under DMCA, just talking about how to remove a digital lock can land you in prison for 5 years. I tell the story of this law's passage in "Understood: Who Broke the Internet," my new podcast series for the CBC:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#bruce-lehman

For a quarter century, tech companies have aggressively lobbied and litigated to expand the scope of anticircumvention laws. At the same time, companies have come up with a million ways to wrap their products in digital locks that are a crime to break.

Digital locks let Chamberlain, a garage-door opener monopolist block all third-party garage-door apps. Then, Chamberlain stuck ads in its app, so you have to watch an ad to open your garage-door:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Digital locks let John Deere block third-party repair of its tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

And they let Apple block third-party repair of iPhones:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

These companies built 11-foot ladders to get over their competitors' 10-foot walls, and then they kicked the ladder away. Once they were secure atop their walls, they committed enshittifying sins their fallen adversaries could only dream of.

I've been campaigning to abolish anticircumvention laws for the past quarter-century, and I've noticed a curious pattern. Whenever these companies stand to lose their legal protections, they freak out and spend vast fortunes to keep those protections intact. That's weird, because it strongly implies that their locks don't work. A lock that works works, whether or not it's illegal to break that lock. The reason Signal encryption works is that it's working encryption. The legal status of breaking Signal's encryption has nothing to do with whether it works. If Signal's encryption was full of technical flaws but it was illegal to point those flaws out, you'd be crazy to trust Signal.

Signal does get involved in legal fights, of course, but the fights it gets into are ones that require Signal to introduce defects in its encryption – not fights over whether it is legal to disclose flaws in Signal or exploit them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

But tech companies that rely on digital locks manifestly act like their locks don't work and they know it. When the tech and content giants bullied the W3C into building DRM into 2 billion users' browsers, they categorically rejected any proposal to limit their ability to destroy the lives of people who broke that DRM, even if it was only to add accessibility or privacy to video:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

The thing is, if the lock works, you don't need the legal right to destroy the lives of people who find its flaws, because it works.

Do digital locks work? Can they work? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding no. The design theory of a digital lock is that I can provide you with an encrypted file that your computer has the keys to. Your computer will access those keys to decrypt or sign a file, but only under the circumstances that I have specified. Like, you can install an app when it comes from my app store, but not when it comes from a third party. Or you can play back a video in one kind of browser window, but not in another one. For this to work, your computer has to hide a cryptographic key from you, inside a device you own and control. As I pointed out more than a decade ago, this is a fool's errand:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

After all, you or I might not have the knowledge and resources to uncover the keys' hiding place, but someone does. Maybe that someone is a person looking to go into business selling your customers the disenshittifying plugin that unfucks the thing you deliberately broke. Maybe it's a hacker-tinkerer, pursuing an intellectual challenge. Maybe it's a bored grad student with a free weekend, an electron-tunneling microscope, and a seminar full of undergrads looking for a project.

The point is that hiding secrets in devices that belong to your adversaries is very bad security practice. No matter how good a bank safe is, the bank keeps it in its vault – not in the bank-robber's basement workshop.

For a hiding-secrets-in-your-adversaries'-device plan to work, the manufacturer has to make zero mistakes. The adversary – a competitor, a tinkerer, a grad student – only has to find one mistake and exploit it. This is a bedrock of security theory: attackers have an inescapable advantage.

So I think that DRM doesn't work. I think DRM is a legal construct, not a technical one. I think DRM is a kind of magic Saran Wrap that manufacturers can wrap around their products, and, in so doing, make it a literal jailable offense to use those products in otherwise legal ways that their shareholders don't like. As Jay Freeman put it, using DRM creates a new law called "Felony Contempt of Business Model." It's a law that has never been passed by any legislature, but is nevertheless enforceable.

In the 25 years I've been fighting anticircumvention laws, I've spoken to many government officials from all over the world about the opportunity that repealing their anticircumvention laws represents. After all, Apple makes $100b/year by gouging app makers for 30 cents on ever dollar. Allow your domestic tech sector to sell the tools to jailbreak iPhones and install third party app stores, and you can convert Apple's $100b/year to a $100m/year business for one of your own companies, and the other $999,900,000,000 will be returned to the world's iPhone owners as a consumer surplus.

But every time I pitched this, I got the same answer: "The US Trade Representative forced us to pass this law, and threatened us with tariffs if we didn't pass it." Happy Liberation Day, people – every country in the world is now liberated from the only reason to keep this stupid-ass law on their books:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

In light of the Trump tariffs, I've been making the global rounds again, making the case for an anticircumvention repeal:

https://www.ft.com/content/b882f3a7-f8c9-4247-9662-3494eb37c30b

One of the questions I've been getting repeatedly from policy wonks, activists and officials is, "Is it even possible to jailbreak modern devices?" They want to know if companies like Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, and John Deere have created unbreakable digital locks. Obviously, this is an important question, because if these locks are impregnable, then getting rid of the law won't deliver the promised benefits.

It's true that there aren't as many jailbreaks as we used to see. When a big project like Nextcloud – which is staffed up with extremely accomplished and skilled engineers – gets screwed over by Google's app store, they issue a press-release, not a patch:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/nextcloud-accuses-google-of-big-tech-gatekeeping-over-android-app-permissions/

Perhaps that's because the tech staff at Nextcloud are no match for Google, not even with the attacker's advantage on their side.

But I don't think so. Here's why: we do still get jailbreaks and mods, but these almost exclusively come from anonymous tinkerers and hobbyists:

https://consumerrights.wiki/Mazda_DMCA_takedown_of_Open_Source_Home_Assistant_App

Or from pissed off teenagers:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

These hacks are incredibly ambitious! How ambitious? How about a class break for every version of iOS as well as an unpatchable hardware attack on 8 years' worth of Apple bootloaders?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/25/mafia-logic/#sosumi

Now, maybe it's the case at all the world's best hackers are posting free code under pseudonyms. Maybe all the code wizards working for venture backed tech companies that stand to make millions through clever reverse engineering are just not as mad skilled as teenagers who want an ad-free Insta and that's why they've never replicated the feat.

Or maybe it's because teenagers and anonymous hackers are just about the only people willing to risk a $500,000 fine and 5-year prison sentence. In other words, maybe the thing that protects DRM is law, not code. After all, when Polish security researchers revealed the existence of secret digital locks that the train manufacturer Newag used to rip off train operators for millions of euros, Newag dragged them into court:

https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20250407-01.en.html

Tech companies are the most self-mythologizing industry on the planet, beating out even the pharma sector in boasting about their prowess and good corporate citizenship. They swear that they've made a functional digital lock…but they sure act like the only thing those locks do is let them sue people who reveal their workings.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pregnable/#checkm8

[myrsinemezzo]

Haladriel Positivity Post #3

This fandom has so many wonderful outlets and expressions for our ship from edits to fic to meta to art. And it’s the art and edits that fascinate me the most because my god how do you do it?? So much skill and time and talent goes into them. In comparison, I offer you This!!

J/k 😩 but seriously, that is the limit of my art endeavors when it comes to this fandom so today I’m rounding up links to just a few (seriously just a FEW) of the truly spectacular artists and pieces of art in this fandom. Please link your own favorites if you’d like and spread the love because there is no way I can capture how many people are putting their hearts and souls into what they do <3

I’ll start with the newest art post I’ve seen by @esvvel because holy wow. NSFW behind a cut and truly truly beautiful. Heart-wrenching in its tenderness.

Next up is a recent piece from the lovely @tindu who ripped my heart straight out of my chest with their teeth because this one is so heartbreaking

There’s something so delightful about this one by @artist-alyona-kopnina in the look they manage to capture in his eyes and the subtleties of the crown rising from his brow. Perfection!

Smooches!

This series of smooches fuels me and gives me serious heart eyes. Including this one by @dokkvi that is a quiet moment post-battle. If only!!

And this is one of the most delightful Halbrand/Galadriel ones you can have. It’s all thanks to a deactivated account by artist jesrika. (I weep that I can’t seem to find them on IG or other platforms I’m on.) If anyone knows the artist, please send them my love!

I’ll admit that it took me a while to glom onto Annatar as a facet of my blorbo where Halbrand and Lowden Sauron got me pretty much from the get-go. But this piece of art by @artesdaterramediaby-kithkerulin entrapped me with the pure joy and passion of this epic smooch. Yes please. Love it. (No clue why you have to click through on iOS)

I want to include a few solo portraits that I came across recently of both Galadriel and Annatar because they’re so lovely.

This one fills me with awe just like @samiaescorcio15 always does. Just beautiful.

Galadriel is the queen of my heart, and I have quite a soft spot for this one by @perseruna

And I can scarcely look away from this recent one featuring the piercing eyes and the beloved braid crown by @a-litt1e-emo

I haven’t even gotten into the art I know of inspired by fics but that can be its whole different post sometime soon.

Alright, we’ve moved through the different ages with different facets of the characters and I had to throw on one that captures the humor of this fandom perfectly. So, many thanks to @thegreendragoninn for this piece that made me laugh aloud in public!

Please do feel free to repost artworks you also love (with links only please unless you’re the artist themselves so they get the proper credit) or drop names in comments because we love you guys and you deserve each and every ounce of attention and praise for what you do!!

[jennyfromthebes]

Hey! I wanna talk for a sec about the Live Music Archive. If you're a tMG fan who's on here you probably already at least know about it, but for anyone unfamiliar I want to do a quick post talking about what it is and how you can listen!

The Live Music Archive is a collection hosted by the Internet Archive for audio recordings of concerts. Specifically, the LMA hosts, with permission from the band, user-contributed recordings of concerts. Some fans will go to concerts with recording gear to take a full audio recording of the show and then upload it to the archive under the band's collection. As of writing this post there are almost 450 live tapes uploaded to the tMG LMA collection!

There's a few ways that you can listen to recordings on the Live Music Archive. The webpage works pretty well both on desktop and mobile browsers, and that's what I typically use. You can also listen on web without having to make an account on the Internet Archive, which is convenient for browsing. I also use the webpage to download mp3s of favorite tapes to my phone, so that I can listen to them in my local music player.

However, if you don't mind making a free account and prefer the convenience of something more like Spotify, you can also listen to anything on the LMA via the Taper's Section app for Android or the Live Music Archive app for iOS! (Obligatory disclaimer that I use an Android and can't personally vouch for the iOS app, but afaik they have similar features.) The apps have the same functionality as the webpage in a more streamlined mobile-friendly interface, plus things like notifications when there's a new tape added to a collection you follow and downloading in-app for offline listening. The Android app also has a tab for tapes from today's date, there's often at least one (there are FOUR for today!) and that's a really fun way to find tapes to listen to.

If you're looking at this going, wow, that sounds really cool but there's so many tapes that it's a little overwhelming to get into this, don't worry! I'll leave you with a couple recommendations. As mentioned above, I like to listen to shows from the current date. Another fun way to find shows is looking for a specific song - you can go on the wiki and it'll list every show at which the song has been played live, and then just search until you find one of them that has a tape on the archive. Lastly, a few specific favorite tapes of mine:

- 2014-06-15 has the entirety of Taboo VI: The Homecoming played live + one of my absolute favorite performances of both Woke Up New and The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton.

- 2015-06-01 is the only time Straight Six has ever been played live and it's interestingly pretty different from the EP version, plus a phenomenal back to back Spent Gladiator 1 & 2.

- 2021-08-06 was the first show after the band started playing concerts again post 2020, and it has a really incredible energy and a phenomenal setlist.

- 2024-03-01 is from the recent run of solo shows, this one was at Grace Cathedral and the ambience is truly truly incredible, it feels so ethereal.

Please feel free to add any additional notes or some of your own favorite tapes to the post as well! Happy listening!!

[greypetrel]

Six Song Soundtrack again

Rules: If you're tagged, make a post with links to music and/or lyrics describing six things/ events about your OC/story.

Tagged by @shivunin and @ndostairlyrium and you're both tagged once again, with @dungeons-and-dragon-age . Here's part 2. She was harder to find, but I wanted to because yes. The issue was that I want her playlist to feature female artists only.

Priscilla Laidir's soundtrack

Event that defines your character's past:

Diva - Beyoncé. And also her present let's be serious. But she changed on the "No passenger on my plane" thing. (I was obsessed with this album when it came out and it was so good to review it for Priscilla ;; )

Since 15 in my stilettos, been struttin' in this game (Game) "What's yo' age?" was the question they ask when I hit the stage (Stage) I'm a diva, best believe her, you see how she gettin' paid? (Paid) She ain't callin' him to greet her, don't need him, her bed's made (Made) This is a stick-up, stick-up, I need them bags, all that money We're gonna stick-up, stick-up, you see them ask, "Where that money?" All my ladies get it up, I see you, I do the same Take it to another level, no passengers on my plane

How your character sees themselves:

Bubblegum Bitch - MARINA I'm undecided between this and Primadonna girl. Let's say the whole Electra Heart album. This fits her vibes better.

Queentex, latex, I'm your wonder maid Life gave me some lemons, so I made some lemonade Soda pop, soda pop, baby, here I come Straight to number one

How others view them:

Don't Lose Your Head - SIX the musical I struggled so much with this prompt... Then this came in mind and well. This is the first impression she gives, and how her detractors sees her (just the song not the real Anne Boleyn). Too air-headed, she can't be serious, right? She's just a chick with a shield who's in a place of power because of a connection, right? (No, she's actually a professional.) (also Andrea Macasaet is great.)

Sorry, not sorry 'bout what I said I'm just tryna have some fun Don't worry, don't worry, don't lose your head I didn't mean to hurt anyone LOL, say oh well Or go to hell

Their closest relationship (romantic or platonic)

Città Vuota, Mina this song has MAJOR romanced Neve vibes tell me I'm wrong

Le strade vuote, deserte senza te, leggo il tuo nome ovunque intorno a me. Torna da me, amor, e non sarà più vuota la città ed io vivrò con te tutti i miei giorni All the empty streets, deserted without you, I read your name everywhere around me. Come back to me, love, and the city will be empty no more And I will live all my days with you

A major fight scene:

Spice Up Your Life, Spice Girls. I was about to post it with these last two switched around, but the image of her shield bashing Elgar'nan out of existance with Spice Girls on the background is just to good to leave. Sorry not sorry 'bout what I said 🎶(to keep those vibes).

Slam it to the left (if you're havin' a good time) Shake it to the right (if you know that you feel fine) Chicas to the front (ha, ha) Hai, si, ja! Hold tight

End credits song:

Bad Girls - M.I.A. This was the hardest to find, but I think I settled, that mix of "go fast but also powerful". The sound fits very well for how I imagine her to fight, but also a greeeeeat ending theme.

Leavin' boys behind ‘cause it’s illegal just to kill Shift gear, automatic, damned if I do Who's gonna stop me when I'm coming through?

Blank Version:

Event that defines your character's past:

How your character sees themselves:

How others view them:

Their closest relationship (romantic or platonic)

A major fight scene:

End credits song:

[forgottenporkbun]

Alright people. Buckle up cus it's finally time i tell you the history of Animal Crossing!!!! (After putting it off for awhile)

Originally named どうぶつの森 (Doubutsu no mori) in Japan meaning Animal Forest. It was introduced at Spaceworld 2000 in Japan and many people have claimed there was a playable demo there. I believe there is a bit if footage you can find on it but I may be wrong.

Doubutsu no mori released on April 14, 2001 on the Nintendo 64 exclusively in Japan. Only 8 months later on December 14, 2001 they released Doubutsu no mori + for the Gamecube which contained extra features left out of the 64 version such as the museum and the Able sisters (along with house upgrades I believe) and used the Gamecube's built in clock.

Finally, they localised and released the game under the title Animal Crossing: Population Growing in North America on September 16, 2002, Australia on October 17, 2003, and Europe on September 24, 2004 on the Gamecube

However, on June 27, 2003 Japan release yet another version of the game titled Doubutsu no mori e+ where they added even more new features for villagers such as: extended dialogue, the best friend system, sickness, likes/hates, catching fleas, etc. In this version of the game you could use the e card reader to obtain certain items. In this version of the game you could also buy an island from Tom Nook which you could access through Kapp'n. Once you got to this island you could name it, create a flag, and download it onto your Gameboy Advance to continue interacting with your islander or even trade islands with other players.

Animal Crossing Wild World released for the Nintendo DS in Japan on November 23, 2005, North America and Australia on December 5, 2005, and in Europe sometime in March of 2006.

On June 1, 2006 a Chinese version of Doubutsu no mori called 动物森林 (Dòngwù Sēnlín) was released for the iQue Player, a Chinese Nintendo console. Dòngwù Sēnlín is the original N64 version of the game despite featuring characters from Doubutsu no mori + on the cover.

Animal Crossing City Folk was releases in North America November 16, 2008 for the Wii followed by its release in Japan on November 20, 2008, Australia on December 4, 2008, and Europe on December 5, 2008. City Folk was compatible with the Wii Speak microphone, which allowed you to talk to other players who had it- essentially a form of voice chat. Fun fact: there's an add for the game where it is featured being used!!! One feature i absolutely love in this game is the fountain , where you can throw an axe into it and a special character named Serena will appear and she is how you obtain both the silver and golden axe.

Now onto Animal Crossing New Leaf was released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan and South Korea on February 7, 2013. After that, it released internationally across June of 2003: June 9 in North America, June 14 in Europe, and June 15 in Australia.

Animal Crossing Happy Home designer was released for the 3DS in Japan on July 30, 2015, North America on September 25, Europe on October 2, and Australia on October 3. This game was very different from the others and the main goal was to design houses for villagers.

In November of 2015 we were cursed with Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival for the Wii U. The game only sold 490,000 copies and was considering a failure.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp was released on Android and iOS mobile devices on October 25, 2017 and 40 other territories on November 22, 2017- but other sources say it was the 21. Sadly, in the last year we received news that it will be shutting down, but apparently from what i know they will be making another version of it or something of the sort.

Animal Crossing New Horizons was released on March 20, 2020 internationally for the Nintendo Switch. This game introduced DIY crafting and in later updates, cooking. Eventually they added the Happy Home Paradise DLC on November 5, 2021 which essentially functions like Happy Home Designer, but unlocks new skill you can use on your island.

I must say, we've come a longggggg way with this game. It helped a lot of people through 2020- including me. Can't wait to see what's in store for us next. Hope you enjoyed learning about the history of the games and if you would like to know more (like stuff about merch or even the movie) ask away! :D

[satoshi-mochida]

Suikoden Live broadcast set for May 15 - Gematsu

Konami will host its second Suikoden Live broadcast on May 15 at 7:00 a.m. PT / 10:00 a.m. ET / 23:00 JST, the company announced. You will be able to watch it on YouTube.

The broadcast will cover Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars, Suikoden STAR LEAP, and feature a new series introduction segment called “First Time in Suikoden.”

Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars launched for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Microsoft Store on March 6, and is coming to Switch 2 on June 5. Suikoden STAR LEAP is in development for iOS and Android.

[ruben-tech]

iOS 17.2 en iPhone 11 Prueba de rendimiento & batería 👉🏿 https://youtu.be/_l5VeMzUxmc

SUSCRÍBETE 🙌🏿

[mariacallous]

Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, had always worried that his company’s victory last year in a multimillion-dollar legal battle against Google’s app store monopoly wouldn’t be enough to open up competition. Even if Google could no longer keep alternative marketplaces out of Android, phone manufacturers could make them harder to access. In a US lawsuit filed in San Francisco today, that’s exactly what Epic alleges Google has conspired with Samsung to do.

Some newer Samsung phones have required settings changes to install apps from the web such as Epic’s app marketplace, according to Epic, which also develops Fortnite and Rocket Racing. The requirement became effective by default in July, and Epic launched its app store in August. Samsung claims the feature it calls Auto Blocker protects against “applications from unauthorized sources” and “malicious activity.” But it extends the installation process from 15 steps to 21, Epic alleges. The company says that it has found in the past that the greater the number of hurdles, the fewer people complete the process.

“It is not about reasonable measures to protect users against malware,” Sweeney told reporters in a briefing ahead of the lawsuit filing. “It's about obstruction of competition.”

“Contrary to Epic Game's assertions, Samsung actively fosters market competition, enhances consumer choice, and conducts its operations fairly,” said a Samsung spokesperson in a statement. “The features integrated into our devices are designed in accordance with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy, and user control, and we remain fully committed to safeguarding users' personal data. Users have the choice to disable Auto Blocker at any time. We plan to vigorously contest Epic Game's baseless claims.”

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The litigation builds on an effort Epic launched in 2020 to deliver more choice to mobile users and boost its own bottom line. While downloading apps any which way from just about any source is generally easy on desktops and laptops, Apple and Google have used warnings and varying policy and technical curbs to keep users downloading from the iOS App Store and Google Play, which deliver enormous profits to the tech giants by virtue of sales commissions they collect.

Epic, through a lawsuit, won a minor concession from Apple that is still being fought over; penalties against Google are expected from a judge soon.

In the press conference, Sweeney acknowledged that Epic doesn’t have clear evidence that Google and Samsung collaborated to roll out Auto Blocker. But emails and notes presented by Epic during its jury trial against Google last year showed how the search company regularly engaged in discussions with Samsung aimed at limiting competition. Google denied those accusations.

Early this month, Sweeney reached out to two senior Samsung executives to ask them to rethink the approach with Auto Blocker and allow for a smoother process to download legitimate software. Sweeney said a resolution couldn’t be reached that benefitted all developers, prompting the lawsuit. “We are going to continue to fight until there is a level playing field,” he says. He added that it “sucks” to sue Samsung, which has promoted Epic’s offerings in the past.

Epic has notched over 10 million installations of its mobile app store, short of a goal to reach 100 million by the end of the year, Sweeney says. He believes Auto Blocker and other new impediments, as he views them, have hurt Epic’s ability to gain traction. And his focus on fighting Apple and Google is costing Epic significant sums, with no end in sight to the litigation. “The benefits only come in the future, when the obstructions have truly been eliminated,” he says.

[netscapenavigator-official]

Apple dropping support for the A10X iPad Pro, but keeping support for the A10 iPad base model is exactly why I’d be caught dead before ever considering buying another Apple product.

Also, announcing ChatGPT integration and AI Image Generation baked into iOS 18, but then artificially making it an exclusive to the latest iPhone 15-model is just sad when a smart toaster could connect to your servers and run these ““A.I.”” features.

Like, tell me you’re desperately trying to convince people to buy your newer, enshitifed hardware without telling me you’re desperately trying yo convince people to buy your newer, enshitifed hardware.

[catindabag]

TBOSAS on Crack short take (15)

*The time when the 24 OG Mentors played the “Bring something forbidden to school” game*

Festus: As your ✨Class Representative✨ and the best player of this game, please present your “Forbidden Goods” to the class!

Palmyra: *Raises her hand* Let me start, Fest! You guys will like this! I swear!

Festus: Fire away, Palm!☺️

Palmyra: *pulls out an expired bottle of Nutella* I brought my mother’s secret stash of chocolate spread!

Lysistrata: Is it safe to consume?

Palmyra: Yup! I even saw her eating it yesterday!

Lysistrata: Fascinating! Let me see! *grabs the bottle* It says here that this product was made in 2012.

Festus: 2012?! That was centuries ago!

Clemensia: WTH, Palm! That’s basically poison!😱

Gaius: Does your mother secretly have a death wish?!

Palmyra: Who wants to go next?🙂

Pup: Me! *pulls out a bloody sword* I present you my great great grandfather’s saber!

Juno: Why is there fresh blood on that thing, Pup?!

Apollo: *suddenly licks the sword* Calm down. It’s just ketchup.

Pup: It’s not ketchup.

Diana: Ew! Why did you lick that, bro?! I’m telling mom!

Clemensia: I’m next! *Pulls out the last copy of the 2004 movie: White Chicks* I present you my father’s favorite banned movie!

Livia: Clemmie, you witch! How did YOU get that?!

Sejanus: That was banned ages ago!

Arachne: I’m so jealous!

Coryo: Now that’s really illegal!

Juno: Felix Ravinstill, you better not tell your granduncle about this!

Felix: But-

Juno: Don’t you dare tell the President!

Felix: Why not? My crazy granduncle likes White Chicks.

Coryo: Then why did our government banned it?

Felix: Because it featured Vanessa Carlton’s iconic ✨A Thousand Miles✨ song.

Coryo: And that song is illegal?

Felix: To be fair, any song that’s not praising Panem or the Capitol is automatically banned in my crazy family’s book.😞

Coryo: That’s rough, buddy.

Felix: But who cares! I still secretly love to watch White Chicks with my crazy granduncle.

Juno: Good. Because we are all gonna watch it later!🥳

Lysistrata: Me next! *pulls out 24 illegally manufactured morphling bottles* I stole these.🤫

Persephone: Bestie, you brought drugs?!

Coryo: Again. She brought drugs again.

Lysistrata: Yeah. My parents are doctors. I can get away with these.

Androcles: You better hide that from “You-Know-Who” or he’ll hunt you down and strangle you.

Lysistrata: Noted!😉 Coryo, you’re next!

Coryo: Ok. Don’t laugh. I traded 5 cabbages for these years ago.

Domitia: Just show it already!

Coryo: *Pulls out two very famous banned music albums from the 2020s* I present you the last copy of Taylor Swift’s Midnights Album!

Hilarius: What’s the other one?

Coryo: 1989.

Hilarius: Taylor’s Version?

Coryo: Taylor’s Version.

Hilarius: *starts screaming like a crazy fangirl* Coryo Snow, I love you!

Sejanus: Back off, Hilari! Coryo’s mine!

Vipsania: Where the heck did you get those, Snow?!

Felix: You beautiful gorgeous man, give those albums to me!

Festus: Coryo, my bro, I’ll feed you forever if you give them to me instead!

Io: Coryo, I’ll pay you two more cabbages!

Livia: You lying thief! Where did you steal those treasures?!

Coryo: Black Market.

Dennis: I knew it! I knew my mama really does sell banned music albums for cabbages!

Hilarius: Yo, guys, you don’t have to fight. I brought a banned compatible CD player for this game. So let’s just listen to the songs together.

Coryo: Fine. Let’s listen to my favorite song first.

Sejanus: Snow on the Beach!

Felix: Can I be Lana Del Rey?🥺

Coryo: Sure. Whatever you want, Class Pres. *clicks the play button* Here we go.

Felix: Yey!

Everyone: *skips to the chorus, and sings like no tomorrow* 🎶And it's like SNOW at the beach, Weird but f*ckin' beautiful, Flying in a dream, stars by the pocketful-🎶

Sejanus: Wait! Stop! I haven’t shown mine yet!

Florus: Fine! The stage is yours, Plinth. *clicks to pause*

Sejanus: *pulls out a whole ass body bag from the corner and opens it* This is Marcus! My classmate and friend from District 2!

Livia: What the actual fu-

Sejanus: Say hello, Marcus!☺️

Marcus: *bored AF* Hi, I’m Marcus.

Festus: You freaking brought your Tribute to school?!

Sejanus: To be fair, you said something forbidden.

Domitia: SOME. THING. Not Someone!

Coryo: Not again!

Urban: We’re all getting a demerit from Sejanus Plinth’s stunt!😫

Iphigenia: Or expelled!😭

Arachne: You idiot Plinth!😡🔪

Marcus: Where’s the food?

Livia: *faints from the shock*

Everyone:. . .

Marcus:. . .

Coryo: So should we continue?

Dennis: Yeah. Sure. Why not.

Coryo: Festus, play the song!

Festus: Got it! *clicks to play*

Everyone+Marcus: *nervously starts singing again* 🎶You wanting me tonight feels impossible, But it's comin' down, no sound, it's all around, Like ✨SNOW✨ on the beach, Like ✨SNOW✨ on the beach, Like ✨SNOW✨ on the beach, Like ✨SNOW✨, oh, oh oh🎶

*Drunk!Casca Highbottom lurking in the shadows (again)*

Drunk!Casca: *Sees Marcus inside the classroom* I swear, Sickle! I swear that there were only 24 Mentors in that room! Not 25!

Prof.Sickle: 24 again. Livia Cardew just fainted.

[himejoshikomaeda]

i'm kind of curious what you like about lostword. never really tried it myself n all.

— io

1. really easy to get your favorite characters

2. really easy to make your favorite characters viable no matter who they are

3. game isn’t very hard — no artificial difficulty spikes that force you to spend money to max out a unit or whatever. on that note, leveling up and upgrading units doesn’t take much time at all, allowing you to use lots of your favorite touhou characters if you’d like to.

4. the only characters that would probably require real money to aid in acquiring are the game’s made-up alternate universe versions of characters that i can’t imagine anyone giving a shit about. (sorry guys i’m never going to want to spend money so i can have.. sci fi space warrior sanae)

5. no temptation to buy anything in the store because the prices are all absurdly high. i will literally never be tempted to spend 80 dollars on a microtransaction. i consider this point to be a positive, because what is being sold is completely unnecessary.

6. game is written by perverts.

7. protagonist is a girl. this can’t be changed.

8. the main story is FANTASTIC. it’s really really really cool. finishing chapter 3 is what made me gush last night. the hifuu story is really cute too.

9. this might be something not everyone cares about, but the characters are very touchy-feely with each other, and with the protagonist. it’s very nice. i like when characters are handsy. skinship is compelling to me

10. writers aren’t pussies about yuri (important)

11. there is never not an event story going on (they rerun old events in between new ones), so if grinding event points is fun for you (it’s fun for me), that’s always an option no matter what.

12. great autobattle features. lots of customization for autobattles and auto-rematches for grinding materials.

13. despite what i just said, grinding is honestly optional. you don’t need to grind for levels, because levels come easily, and you don’t need to grind for materials after a while, because they give you so many.

14. story card (equippable items basically) art is cute. where would we be without modelo patchouli and her fat thighs?

15. despite having the usual scarlet devil mansion bias, a LOT of more obscure characters get a lot of spotlight, especially in event stories. one i remember enjoying a lot starred seija, sagume, and.. shizuha aki.. as the main characters (along with the protagonist of course). there are lots of cases like that.

16. characters all feel like they love you without it feeling at all like a harem game. sorry if this is cringe but don’t fucking lie and say you don’t want to be loved by the cast of touhou.

17. less of a point for me because i’ve been playing it since launch, but my girlfriend got into it recently and they have been ABSURDLY generous with her as a new player.

there are obviously criticisms to be had with the game (it’s a mobile game, it’s not perfect or anything by any stretch of the imagination), but you asked me what i liked about it. i’ve had a lot of fun with it in my time playing it, and my girlfriend is, like, obsessed with it, just getting into it.

[live-emotion]

It was midnight when I saw the release on my time zone, but I fell asleep afterwards bc the download took so long lol

When I woke up I downloaded the translation apps(bc my japanese is pretty bad heh) but none recognized Live Emotion, do you know why that happened?

But I gotta say, I'm so happy to play utapri again, even if I can't understand a lot of what's going on on the screen I'll screenshot everything and translate after if necessary

Natsuki I missed you so much !!!!

*Edit: Apparently it could be something to do with the Gaming Mode on your phone! Although I'm not sure what exactly to change to fix it, but maybe look into that.

Damn I'm sorry the translation options weren't working for you, I'm not sure why that might be. It could be a device, settings, or update issue. You can always try an app and device restart.

From the ones I've tested, I think Instant Translate on Screen is the one I'd recommend for now. For me it is perfectly recognising Live Emotion text, and it doesn't seem to have ads which puts it above the others. The translations certainly aren't perfect though. There is a premium version which will auto translate, but the free options for global translate, region translate, and just dragging the overlayed icon to the text has worked well enough for me.

Open the app

Get out of the premium popup

Change 'Translate from' language to Japanese

Tap the power button below and allow the app access

Open live emotion

Should be a white semi circle somewhere on the edge of your screen. If you tap on it, it will open a menu with the different translate options.

Or you can drag the icon over text you want translated.

iOS and Android both have a feature when you take a screenshot to highlight and translate text in the image, but of course that leaves you with hundreds of screenshots.

Another general tip: if youre going through the story and are using a translation app that has ads every 15 or so uses, then you can use the 'log' function top right to show the four most recently said lines, and use the app to translate that screen instead of one by one (so you have less uses, and longer between ads)