Today, Apple announced upcoming changes to App Store pricing and developer proceeds. New tax adjustments will take effect immediately in Brazil, and additional pricing updates will roll out in multiple regions over the next few months. Brazil: new tax hits foreign developers As of May 16th, Apple is modifying developer proceeds in Brazil to reflect the introduction of a tax known as CIDE, which stands for Economic Domain Intervention Contributions. The new 10% levy will apply to developers based outside of Brazil and will be deducted from their earnings from paid apps and IAP. Furthermore, starting June 2, if the developer hasn’t selected Brazil as their base storefront in App Store Connect, prices will automatically update in the country to reflect this new tax. Similarly, pricing in Kazakhstan will also be adjusted due to local economic conditions. However, if the developer has either Brazil or Kazakhstan set as their base storefront, prices will remain unchanged. Apple notes that these updates won’t affect auto-renewable subscriptions, nor will any regions where developers manually manage prices instead of using Apple’s automated pricing system. Europe: consent now required for subscription price hikes Starting on August 4, Apple is introducing a new policy for auto-renewable subscription price increases in Austria, Germany, and Poland. Beginning on that date, all subscribers in those countries must explicitly consent to a price increase. If they don’t opt-in, the subscription will automatically lapse at the end of the current billing cycle. Apple will notify users weekly until the user takes action or the subscription ends. It’s worth noting that any subscription price increases scheduled before August 4 will still follow the current notification policies, even if the subscription renews after that date. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Control Center has gotten so much better over the past year, with a fully customizable toolset that’s always expanding. And my most-used Control Center feature, Background Sounds, will get even better in iOS 19 per a recent Apple announcement. iOS 19 will add three new Background Sounds features Background Sounds is Apple’s own built-in white noise-style feature in iOS. The feature has been around for years, but it got better last year in two main ways: New Fire and Night sounds were added and the upgraded Control Center toggle provided more utility than ever Because of these iOS 18 changes, Background Sounds actually became my most-used Control Center feature in the last year. Fortunately, it’s set to get even better in iOS 19. Earlier this week, as part of Apple’s new accessibility feature announcements, we learned about three upgrades coming for Background Sounds. The feature will gain: New EQ settings so you can personalize each sound Option to stop playback automatically after a set period of time (e.g., a sleep timer) More Shortcuts app actions to set up automations Background Sounds already offer some nice features, like the ability to play them even while other audio’s playing, or choose whether playback stops or keeps going when your device is locked. The three iOS 19 upgrades coming should make Background Sounds better for even more users, and likely means it will spend another year as my top Control Center option. If you’ve never tried it out, search ‘Background Sounds’ in Control Center’s control library and give it a shot. Do you use Background Sounds in Control Center? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments. Best iPhone accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Based on more than 200 interviews with former Apple execs and engineers, Patrick McGee’s Apple in China – The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company ought to leave Tim Cook laying awake at night. It makes a convincing argument that the iPhone could be killed overnight should the Chinese government wish it. This is a book reminiscent of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs in its careful research and the detailed inside stories it tells about Apple. The company’s official line is that it’s full of inaccuracies, but the case it makes is an incredibly persuasive one … The beginning of the story is, of course, well-known. By early in 1996, Apple was losing money on every product it sold. The company’s treasurer warned the board that the company would run out of money in around May of that year. To save itself, Apple sold its own manufacturing plants and made the decision to outsource all production. While the company tried a number of different countries along the way, it wasn’t long before production was shifted to Taiwanese companies with manufacturing plants in China. Taiwan and China offered the scale and cost structure needed for Apple products to be profitable, but what they couldn’t offer was the precision and focus on excellence demanded by Steve Jobs. Apple solved this problem by sending plane-loads of its own engineers to the country, embedding them into local factories in order to teach its fledgling suppliers how to make quality products. That wasn’t just in production lines for Apple’s own products, but those of the entire supply chain – many hundreds of companies in all. And Apple didn’t want to have single points of failure in its supply chain, so it brought its money and training to many more Chinese manufacturers than it actually needed, helping train, fund, and modernize a huge chunk of the country’s economy. Apple itself estimates it directly and indirectly trained around 28 million people, and McGee estimates that the company put a staggering $275B into upgrading the country’s manufacturing capabilities during the first five years. Effectively, Apple helped transform China from a cheap source of shoddy products into the most advanced manufacturing center the world has ever seen. In particular, what seemed like a key Apple strength would ultimately prove deeply problematic. The company’s power in negotiating incredibly low pricing meant that the iPhone maker not only taught China how to mass-produce high-quality, premium products – but also how to cut costs without affecting quality. That had three enormous impacts: On Apple On the US economy On the global economy Apple: The company invested so much money and intensive training into Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing plants that, in time, there was nowhere else its products could be made. McGee notes that while Apple makes much of its Made In India iPhones, the reality is that only final assembly is carried out in the country. Everything assembled originates elsewhere, and in most cases that’s Taiwan or China. The US economy: That ability to conduct precision, quality manufacturing at unbeatable prices meant that China became an unstoppable production powerhouse. American companies simply couldn’t compete, and over time more and more US production moved to China. It wasn’t just Apple which was now completely dependent on China, but almost all other American companies too. The global economy: Where consumers once faced a choice between quality western products, and cheap Chinese ones, Apple had taught the country how to make cheap, quality products. That meant that Chinese brands like Huawei started competing on the global market, including in the premium tiers once the preserve of the top western brands. The most chilling claim in the book is that if China ever decides to shut the door on Apple, it can. Overnight. “They can lower the boom on you in a million different ways,” says Brady MacKay, the former US special agent who has witnessed Beijing deploy a number of tactics against other companies to make its point. “Like, raw materials- they can shut that off in a heartbeat,” he says. “Electricity—all of a sudden it’s only available four hours a day.” If China ever decides that manufacturing for Apple is less lucrative than killing the iPhone in order to create massively more demand for premium Chinese brands, Apple is dead in the water. That’s the core thesis of the book – and the argument is very well made. I highly recommend reading it. Apple in China is available on iBooks and Amazon (Kindle, hardback, and audiobook versions). Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

We are less than a month away from WWDC 2025, where Apple is set to announce a redesigned and less glitchy iOS 19 alongside what it’s been cooking over the past year for its other operating systems. While rumors abound regarding what’s to come to iOS 19, there’s one feature I hope to see make its way into the new system. Sadly, it’s probably not going to happen. HDR is excellent… Apple introduced HDR video playback support in the iPhone 8 and iPhone X in 2017, the same year Apple TV gained the feature. In a nutshell, HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a technology that expands the range between dark and bright areas, handling both simultaneously without losing detail in shadows or highlights. It also enhances color accuracy, which is great if you’re watching a movie or TV show that really goes the distance to carefully make the most of this exciting capability. If you’ve watched the final season of Better Call Saul, you know what I’m talking about. It didn’t take long for the streaming world to adopt HDR. In fact, Apple worked with streaming platforms and movie studios to make the most of this new feature. Here’s Eddy Cue, at the September 2017 special event: To experience 4K with HDR, you also need great content. And we’ve been working with the large Hollywood studios to bring all of their 4K and HDR movie titles to iTunes. (…) In addition to iTunes, we’ve been working with leading streaming providers like Netflix to bring their 4K HDR titles to Apple TV and, later this year, Amazon Prime Video, with all of their 4K HDR titles and originals as well. When Apple introduced HDR video recording to the iPhone 12, the YouTube app added HDR playback support right away, which was great for creators who go the extra mile to create something that really stands apart. Then, in 2022, Snapchat got support for it. That’s when things started going awry. …until it’s not Today, every major social platform supports HDR, which sounds great in theory. In practice, it just means every third casually taken photo or video looks uncomfortably bright as it zips across the screen. Unlike a properly mastered show, movie, or even a YouTube video. And while it makes sense that social apps would add HDR support, since they have been trying to compete with actual streaming services, currently, having that enabled on Instagram, for instance, makes for an uncomfortably worse experience than if everything was in good old SDR. In an ideal world, Apple would allow for individually selecting which apps would get to display content in HDR in Settings. But honestly, at this point, I’d settle for a global toggle. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Last week, Epic Games announced that it had submitted Fortnite to the App Store in the United States. The move followed an injunction in which a federal judge said Apple couldn’t charge a 27% commission on out-of-app purchases initiated through in-app links. In a new statement today, however, Epic says that Apple has “blocked” this submission… In a statement posted on social media, Epic Games said: “Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union. Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.” There’s no word on why Apple rejected Epic’s Fortnite submission. It’s also unclear why the game is no longer available via the Epic Games Store in the EU. Before today, Fortnite had been available to download for iPhone users in the EU through Epic’s alternative app marketplace as well as AltStore PAL. The version of Fortnite submitted by Epic used both Apple’s In-App Purchase system as well as an external payment option through the Epic Games Store. Fortnite has been unavailable through the App Store since 2020 when it added a backdoor payment option to circumvent Apple’s App Store Guidelines. Epic is trying to use its EU developer account to bring Fortnite back to the App Store after Apple terminated its original U.S. account. In the legal battle between Apple and Epic, a judge ruled that Apple was lawful in its decision to terminate Epic’s developer account for deliberately breaking App Store Guidelines when it added the Fortnite direct payment option. As such, Apple has no legal obligation to allow Fortnite back in the App Store. In 2021, the ruling concluded: Apple’s termination of the DPLA and the related agreements between Epic Games and Apple was valid, lawful, and enforceable, and (ii) Apple has the contractual right to terminate its DPLA with any or all of Epic Games’ wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’ control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion. We’ll keep this story updated as the situation continues to evolve. My favorite iPhone accessories: Follow Chance: Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, and Mastodon.  Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Apple is launching a brand new Home product in the coming year. I’ve been calling it ‘HomePad,’ and these are five of the core features it will bring with it. 7-inch square display Originally, Mark Gurman reported that the HomePad would have “a roughly 6-inch screen.” More recently though, in his big overview of 2025 products, Gurman bumped the expected size to 7 inches. The device reportedly looks a lot like a square iPad, and is somewhat equivalent to two iPhone 16 Pro Max models placed side by side. Smaller than some might want, but that should help keep the cost lower. Brand new OS Apple’s HomePad will come with a brand new operating system, likely dubbed ‘homeOS.’ Gurman says the interface “looks like a blend of the Apple Watch operating system and the iPhone’s recently launched StandBy mode.” It will also dynamically adjust based on how close or far away you are. For example, from far away it might display status update-type info, but if you get close it would change to offer controls. Unsurprisingly, based on Gurman’s ‘StandBy’ reference, the HomePad is expected to support widgets. You’ll reportedly be able to add these to the Home Screen, just like you can on iPhone and iPad. It’s unclear yet if third-party widgets will be supported, but there’s a good chance they will be. Apple has already built tech into macOS that lets you run iPhone widgets there, so extending that feature to the HomePad seems like a no-brainer. Accessories for fitting in anywhere On its own, the HomePad will look like a simple smart display. But Apple is building various bases and attachments that will make it fit into the different spaces of your home. Gurman writes: Apple has designed different attachments for the device, including ones that affix the screens onto walls like a classic home-security panel. There will be bases with additional speakers that can be placed in the kitchen, on a nightstand or on a desk. These additional accessories seem like another attempt at keeping the HomePad’s cost from ballooning (assuming they’re separate purchases). Importantly though, they also acknowledge the reality that different home spaces will require different HomePad setups. AI-infused Siri Apple’s current Home products, the HomePod, HomePod mini, and Apple TV 4K, don’t support any Apple Intelligence features. This means they’re all stuck with the ‘old’ Siri. But HomePad will offer the new, AI-infused Siri that’s more powerful already (mainly thanks to ChatGPT) but will get substantially more so this fall with iOS 19. Siri will be able to perform hundreds of new in-app and cross-app actions, understand your personal context, and more. If it works as expected, there should be far fewer times Siri has to say, “I’m sorry” on the HomePad—a too-frequent occurrence on HomePod. Apple’s HomePad is expected to offer a lot more functionality than what’s outlined above, including serving as a smart home controller, FaceTime device, and more. But the five features I’ve mentioned provide a solid overview of what to expect from HomePad’s core functionality. Are you interested in buying the HomePad? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments. Best HomeKit smart home accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Today, Apple announced that veteran actor Michael J. Fox will appear in a guest role in Season 3 of Apple TV+’s acclaimed comedy series Shrinking. A poignant guest for a poignant show The news marks Fox’s first on-camera performance since his “second retirement” in 2020, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, a condition he was diagnosed with in 1991 while filming Doc Hollywood. While there are no details on Fox’s character as of yet, his casting is particularly fitting, given that the show explores Parkinson’s disease through Harrison Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhoades. Fox’s involvement in Shrinking also reunites him with series co-creator Bill Lawrence, with whom he previously collaborated on the hit sitcom Spin City between 1996 and 2001. In fact, Lawrence has cited Fox as an inspiration for portraying the condition in an “inspiring rather than tragic” light. Fox’s return to acting comes after his Emmy-winning 2023 documentary, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which was also released on Apple TV+. The documentary chronicled his career and journey with Parkinson’s disease. Season 3 of Shrinking will also feature other new guest stars , including Jeff Daniels, who will play Jimmy’s father, Sherry Cola, and Isabella Gomez. The series continues to follow therapist Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) as he navigates personal and professional challenges, with a cast that includes Jessica Williams, Christa Miller, Luke Tennie, and Michael Urie. There is no word yet on when fans can expect the series’ return, but Apple has already promised “big feelings” up ahead. Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and features hit TV shows and movies like Ted Lasso, Severance, The Studio, The Morning Show, and Silo. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says Apple is keeping Fortnite’s return to the App Store in limbo, having “neither accepted nor rejected” the latest submission for review. The ongoing silence now threatens to delay Fortnite’s next major update, planned for this Friday. Judge ordered Apple to comply, but didn’t require Fortnite’s return The ink wasn’t even dry yet on Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ order for Apple to quit it and do what it was told in the original 2021 injunction, when Epic Games confirmed it would submit Fortnite for Apple’s approval as soon as humanly possible. Which they did, on May 9th. Then… nothing. After five days without response, Epic withdrew the original submission and filed a new version to accommodate a planned Friday update. Since Apple’s own guidelines state that 90% of app submissions are reviewed within 24 hours, this radio silence is highly unusual. But here’s the thing: this may not be radio silence at all, but rather a one-sided stalemate. When Judge Rogers issued her original decision in 2021, she said Apple was not obligated to let Fortnite return to the App Store. She concluded that Epic Games had willingly broken the rules it had agreed to when creating its developer account, so the ban was fair game. So far, Apple has not given any indication whether it will actually let Fortnite back into the App Store. Which is probably why Sweeney has been very active on X about it, knowing that Fortnite fans will pile on (often, mentioning Tim Cook directly). Apple is listening Adding to this entire predicament, Tim Sweeney posted earlier today about how a Fortnite knock-off was available at the App Store. A few hours later, the app was pulled, to which Sweeney posted about yet another knock-off making the rounds. For now, Fortnite fans on iOS remain in wait-and-see mode. Sweeney has not indicated what Epic’s next move will be if Godot never comes. However, with no communication from Apple and the Friday update at risk, the saga between both companies appears far from over. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

It’s the time of year when the NFL schedule for the coming season gets revealed, and one team, the Baltimore Ravens, has gone all-out making a Severance parody video as part of their schedule announcement. NFL’s Baltimore Ravens show deep Severance knowledge in parody Severance may be on a hiatus as work continues on season 3, but the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens have just made a parody worthy of the Apple TV+ show’s high production values. The nearly 7-minute video showcases the team’s deep knowledge of all things Severance, with references to: goats watermelon busts face balloons MDR and a lot more There’s an impressive amount of detail and throwbacks that will delight any Severance fan, whether you care about the NFL or not. You can watch the video below. Apple did a great job marketing Severance season 2 before its debut earlier this year. Ahead of season 3’s arrival, considering the show’s massive success, maybe the company can get more partners in on the fun like the NFL. Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and features hit TV shows and movies like Ted Lasso, Severance, The Morning Show, Silo, and Shrinking. Best iPhone accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Apple’s long-brewing next generation of CarPlay is finally here. CarPlay Ultra officially launched this morning. And while anyone not driving an Aston Martin may be disappointed, Apple’s announcement actually brought good news for all CarPlay users. The future of CarPlay isn’t what Apple thought Three years ago, Apple laid out its plans for the next generation of CarPlay. It’s been a long wait, but today the newly branded ‘CarPlay Ultra’ is here—first on Aston Martin vehicles, and later other automakers. Unless you’re in the market for an ultra-premium new car (or already own one), today’s announcement may seem irrelevant to you. But the details of Apple’s announcement reveal it’s actually good news for all CarPlay users. When Apple originally presented its vision for CarPlay’s future, it felt very much like a ‘CarPlay 2.0.’ In other words, next-gen CarPlay was the future, which meant the existing CarPlay would become the past. Today’s announcement, however, makes very clear that Apple’s not taking that approach. CarPlay Ultra isn’t ‘CarPlay 2,’ and that’s good news for the rest of us For anyone worried about CarPlay’s future now that something new has arrived, Apple has reassurance for you. In its press release announcing CarPlay Ultra’s launch, Apple included a key sentence near the end: CarPlay Ultra joins CarPlay, which is beloved by drivers around the world and has fundamentally changed the way people interact with their vehicles, providing a safer, smarter way to use iPhone in the car. ”CarPlay Ultra joins CarPlay”—the word choice is important, as is Apple’s naming choice. CarPlay Ultra is not a replacement for CarPlay. Apple isn’t eventually going to phase out CarPlay as more and more automakers support its new system. Through its branding, and press release, Apple makes very clear that CarPlay Ultra is not ‘CarPlay 2.’ It’s not a replacement, but rather an alternative. Current CarPlay will continue getting better, alongside Ultra Now that CarPlay Ultra has officially shipped, I’m optimistic Apple will continue investing in the current CarPlay system—perhaps more than it has in a while. We’ve seen signs of this happening already, with new features added to CarPlay in recent iOS updates. Perhaps some of CarPlay Ultra’s features will eventually trickle down to standard CarPlay too. Likely not any time soon, since Apple still needs ways to differentiate the system. But a version of widgets coming to standard CarPlay seems likely eventually. In short: CarPlay Ultra is good news because Apple no longer sees it as the future of all CarPlay offerings. Rather, it’s a new, premium option that “joins” the existing CarPlay. And hopefully before long, all CarPlay users will start to benefit. Best CarPlay accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel