Anthropic's Claude sees tepid reception on iOS compared with ChatGPT's debut | TechCrunch
Unlike ChatGPT, Claude did not become a new App Store hit.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Unlike ChatGPT, Claude did not become a new App Store hit.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The problem is not the media, but the message.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The problem is not the media, but the message.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Video game emulator Delta’s decade-long struggle against the iOS App Store began with a school-issued TI-84 calculator.
When Riley Testut was a sophomore in high school, he showed his friends how to load illicit software onto their bulky graphing calculators. Such behavior was generally discouraged at school, but he wasn’t plotting to cheat on a test. He was simply traversing the Viridian Forest, surfing across the Kanto seas and collecting gym badges.
“The teachers didn’t think we were playing Pokémon,” Testut told TechCrunch. “They were just like, ‘Why is everyone so into their calculators?’”
By 2014, when Testut was a high school senior, the only way to install a retro video game emulator on an iOS device was to jailbreak it. But Testut didn’t want to damage his then-state-of-the-art iPhone 4. So, he spent months building an app that would let him play GBA games on his phone without voiding its warranty. That app became GBA4iOS.
Millions of people swarmed to GBA4iOS, reveling in the glorious experience of playing Game Boy titles on a palm-sized phone. Even Time Magazine wrote about it. But GBA4iOS was too successful for its own good and, soon, Testut had to face an adversary more formidable than Team Rocket: Eight months after the app’s release, Apple patched the loophole that made GBA4iOS possible, quashing his app in the process.
“For a brief, glorious, few months, you had experienced what it was like to make an app that was used by millions — despite it being one that by all accounts ‘shouldn’t exist,’” Testut explained in a recent blog post, reflecting on his experience over the last decade. “You knew you were living on borrowed time, but it just felt wrong that an app this popular can never exist on iOS.”
Video game emulation is complex to pull off, but it’s simple for the users. You download an emulator — usually open source, like ePSXe for PlayStation titles, or OpenEmu, which can emulate a bunch of consoles — and then get games to play on it.
But that’s where the issue lies: Finding a software copy of games, usually housed in a .ROM file, to use with these emulators is not as easy as buying games on the Nintendo eShop. You can buy hardware to legally extract the game file from old video game cartridges or discs that you own, but an easier way to play really old games is to just download their .ROM files for free from the internet — that’s basically piracy.
Downloading an app like Delta has never been illegal, but downloading the game files you need to play can be.
Given his prior experience, Testut was shocked when Apple changed its rules around emulators a few weeks ago. He uploaded Delta, a more refined version of GBA4iOS, and suddenly, he became the developer behind the No. 1 app on the App Store. Two weeks after release, Delta is still topping the charts of entertainment apps and holds the second spot on the free apps charts. According to app intelligence company Appfigures, Delta has been downloaded about 3.8 million times in two weeks.
“It’s surreal how good the reception has been, and how many people are playing it,” he said. “This is the app I’ve been working on for 10 years.”
Testut hadn’t just been a sitting Psyduck since GBA4iOS faded away a decade ago. He went to the University of Southern California to study computer science. Soon after, he happened to attend a Super Smash Bros. players meetup, where he crossed paths with Shane Gill, an engineering student who has now been his roommate for nine years and his business partner for five. They even have the same birthday.
Of course, Gill had also used GBA4iOS in high school, and he was excited to find out that his new friend was behind the app. He shared Testut’s drive to give app developers the freedom to access an audience without Apple as a middleman.
“There are more people like Riley and just so many developers that make these really cool things,” Gill told TechCrunch. “And just because it’s an iPhone, they can’t share it the same way.”
Emboldened by his experiences as a teenage developer, Testut teamed up with Gill in 2019 and launched AltStore, an app store designed for sideloading apps onto iOS devices. For most of its existence, AltStore was only usable on Windows and MacOS, but due to changing regulations in the European Union, it now has a legitimate way to become available on iPhones, as Apple was forced to allow iOS users in the EU to download apps from outside of the App Store.
So why did Apple just change its stance on emulator apps so suddenly? Apple did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. It could have something to do with increased regulatory pressure on Apple, as it was recently sued by the U.S. Department of Justice over antitrust concerns. And according to Testut, it’s a bit too convenient that just as AltStore launched on iOS in the EU, Apple made a small carve-out in its rules to allow Delta to exist.
“Even if the DOJ hadn’t started this [antitrust lawsuit], I think Apple would have done the same thing of allowing emulators in the App Store worldwide,” Testut said. “They just couldn’t have that narrative that the coolest app on iPhone is only in Europe, thanks to European regulators.”
When Gill joined Testut to work on AltStore, he encouraged Testut to set up a Patreon so he could stop taking odd jobs to pay the bills. Now, AltStore’s Patreon earns over $13,000 per month (up from about $10,000 at the beginning of April). In exchange for their monthly contributions, AltStore’s patrons get access to early app betas, like Delta’s test of iPad and SEGA Genesis support, as well as access to a community Discord.
Delta is a free app, so these millions of app downloads aren’t lining the devs’ pockets. Still, Testut and Gill don’t plan to change their monetization model.
“In the App Store, you don’t get this. You don’t have this relationship with your customers. … It’s way more bureaucratic and not personal,” Testut said. “I’m very excited to show that consumers can have a close relationship with developers. I think it works better that way, because we can have Delta be completely free without any paywalls in it, and people can still get access to cool new features early by just donating to us.”
Testut’s vision is pretty emblematic of the game emulation community. At a time when it’s difficult to truly own any of the software you subscribe to, or use, no matter how much money you’ve paid over the years, the effort here isn’t just about reliving childhood gaming memories. It’s archival.
Often, the only way to preserve a 40-year-old game is to rip the software from the old cartridge and build an emulator that can run it, and that’s true for more software than just games.
“This is art that existed 40 years ago. Developers don’t own the IP anymore, and there’s no way to share it with people,” Gill said. “So unless somebody puts it out in some form, it’ll just be lost to time. That’s something that I think is a bit tragic.”
Thanks to Testut and Gill, it’s never been easier to play retro video games for people who don’t want to step beyond the bounds of what Apple deems legal on iPhones. And it’s all because the company just slightly tweaked its developer guidelines. If just one change to App Store policy can unlock a new No. 1 app, what else have we missed out on?
“This was way bigger than we could have ever hoped for, honestly,” said Testut. “Being able to put Delta in the App Store has just made our message so obvious. We’re saying, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make apps that haven’t been able to exist before,’ and then the second Apple allows it, we’re in the App Store and we’re the number one app.”
Instagram is adding a handful of new features for Stories to give users more creative ways to share content and engage with each other, the company announced on Friday. Most notably, the social network is introducing a new “Reveal” feature that lets you post a hidden Story for your followers to uncover by sending you a DM. Instagram is also launching other features that let you share your favorite songs and highlight memories via Stories.
To access to the new Reveal feature you have to tap the stickers icon when creating a Story and the select the “Reveal” option. From there, you will be prompted to type out a hint about your blurred story. Once you post your Story, your friends will only be able to see your Story content if they send you a DM..
Image Credits: Instagram
While the feature could be a nice way to start a conversation with a friend, Reveal is especially useful for creators, as it would allow them to get more engagement for their Stories. Instagram notes that you won’t need to approve every DM for your Story to be revealed, so creators won’t have to worry about getting though thousands of DMs.
Instagram is also launching a new “Add Yours Music” sticker for Stories that lets users share a song that fits their mood while encouraging their followers to share a song as well. The feature builds on Instagram’s “Add yours” sticker that allows users to respond to other users’ Stories with their own following a prompt or a certain topic.
Image Credits: Instagram
In addition, users are getting access to a new “Frames” feature that turns a photo into a virtual polaroid that users can view by shaking their phone (if you don’t want to shake your phone, you can click the “shake to reveal button”). While Stories are traditionally used to share content about what you’re currently doing, this new feature is designed for more of a throwback post.
Once you select an image to feature, the Frames sticker will automatically add the date and timestamp of when the photo was taken. You can also choose to add a caption on the virtual polaroid.
Image Credits: Instagram
Another new feature called “Cutouts” will let users turn part of any video or photo in their camera roll into a custom sticker that they can add to a Story or Reel. The feature is similar to Apple’s image cutout tool, which lets you “pick up” an object from a photo or a video with just a press of your finger.
The launch of the new features comes as Instagram announced on Tuesday that it’s introducing a few new changes to its ranking systems to better highlight content from smaller, original creators. As part of the changes, Instagram is replacing reposts with original content in recommendations, adding labels to reposted content and removing content aggregators from recommendations. The announcement followed months of criticism from creators’ who said their reach has been negatively impacted by the algorithm.
WhatsApp is introducing support for passkey verification on iOS, removing the need for users to deal with SMS one-time passcodes. The iOS launch comes six months after WhatsApp introduced passkey support on Android. The company announced on Wednesday that the feature is rolling out now and will be available to all iOS users in the coming weeks.
Once enabled, iOS users can log back into WhatsApp using passkey verification via facial recognition, biometrics or a PIN stored on Apple’s passkey manager.
Passkey logins make it harder for bad actors to remotely access your accounts, since they would also need physical access to a phone. Passkeys also remove the need to rely on username and password combinations, which can be susceptible to phishing.
WhatsApp users can enable passkey verification by going into their app settings, navigating to the “Account” options, and clicking on the new “Passkeys” button to set up the verification method.
“Passkey verification will make logging back into WhatsApp easier and more secure. We’re excited to launch this on WhatsApp and give users an added layer of security,” said WhatApp’s head of product, Alice Newton-Rex, in an emailed statement.
WhatsApp joins numerous other companies that have launched passkey support recently, including X (formerly Twitter), Google, PayPal and TikTok.
Phone cameras have evolved a lot, with image processing becoming increasingly important and granular controls to help users tweak their images. Despite that, many people are still fond of old-school photography styles and techniques. Developer Alex Fox wanted to focus on that nostalgia while building the Mood.camera app.
The iPhone app lets you switch between different retro filters to capture photos. You can also adjust quality and tone through a dial. You can easily switch between different lenses and adjust exposure from the main screen. All of this sounds familiar, but what you don’t get is the live preview of what the photo would look like once it “Develops” — and that makes for some fascinating results.
Image Credits: Alex Fox
Fox said that with this app, he wanted users to focus on the image in the viewfinder rather than the effects, which is why he did not include a live preview feature — you see the same thing as you see in the default camera app. In the same vein, the app has no editing feature, and you can’t import photos from the gallery to apply filters on old photos.
“Since the first Polaroid camera, photography has been focussed on more convenience and more control, but I think we’ve lost some of the magic along the way,” Fox told TechCrunch over email.
“Some of the design decisions I made were intended to reduce the conveniences we’re used to, urging users to be in the moment instead of worrying about which filter to use or staring at their phone editing.”
Image Credits: Alex Fox/Mood.camera
The developer started working on a prototype of the app in October 2023 and released a beta version on Reddit earlier this year.
Fox said that over the last two months, a group of photographers helped him hone the app better by taking more than 100,000 photos. The app is free to try for seven days, and then you can pay either $1.99 per month or a one-time fee of $14.99.
In the last few years, apps like Lapse, Dispo, and Later Cam have tried to recreate parts of retro cameras by placing limitations on the app’s function. While Lapse and Dispo also attracted investors, their growth eventually slowed down. However, while an indie developer won’t encounter a venture-backed outcome, it could potentially turn their app into a sustainable income and a long-term success.
eBay on Tuesday launched a new generative AI-powered feature to appeal to fashion enthusiasts: a “shop the look” section within its iOS mobile app that will suggest a carousel of images and ideas, based on the customer’s shopping history. The company says its recommendations will be personalized to the end user and will evolve as the customer shops more. The idea is to introduce how other fashion items may complement their current wardrobe.
To do so, “shop the look” will include interactive hotspots that, when tapped, will reveal similar items and outfit inspirations, with the resulting looks including both preowned and luxury items that match the user’s personal style. The feature is powered by eBay.ai, and was developed in collaboration with the company’s Responsible AI team and RAI Principles, eBay notes.
Image Credits: eBay
“Shop the look” will appear to any eBay shopper who has viewed at least 10 fashion items over the past 180 days, the company notes. It will display both on the eBay homepage and the fashion landing page.
For eBay, the addition offers a way to showcase its wide expanse of inventory available for sale differently than before — and one that could potentially encourage more sales, if successful. eBay says it plans to explore expansions to other categories over time and will continue adding more personalization elements to the feature over the new year.
eBay isn’t the only one exploring how AI can improve the fashion shopping experience. Google last summer introduced a way for consumers to virtually try on clothes using a new AI shopping feature, for example. Amazon has also turned to AI to help customers find clothes that fit when shopping online. In those cases, the AI features were meant to help customers find the right fit or size, whereas eBay’s new feature is more focused on fashion inspiration — meaning finding the right style. That can be harder to do, given that personal style is subjective.
“Shop the look” will initially be available on iOS in the U.S. and U.K., with support for Android coming later this year.
X, formerly Twitter, is rolling out support for passkeys, a new and more secure login method compared with traditional passwords, to all iOS users globally. The option debuted in January, but only for iOS users in the U.S.
In an update to the X @Safety account on Monday, the company shared that passkeys are now available as a login option for global iOS users. Similar technology has already been added to other popular apps and services, including PayPal, TikTok, WhatsApp, GitHub and others. Google last fall made passkeys the default sign-in option for all users. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies also support the option.
Passkey technology was initiated by Google, Apple, Microsoft and the FIDO Alliance, alongside the World Wide Web Consortium. The idea is to make passwordless logins available across different devices, operating systems and web browsers. Unlike traditional logins, which require a username and password combination, passkeys use biometric authentication like Face ID or Touch ID, a PIN or a physical security authentication key to validate logins. The process combines the benefits of two-factor authentication (2FA) into a single step, making logins more seamless while maintaining increased security.
For X, the addition could help users protect their accounts against hacks from bad actors. The social network has seen a number of high-profile hacks over the years, including one in January where the U.S. Securities and Exchange’s X account shared an unauthorized post regarding Bitcoin ETF approval. Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was also hacked to post a fake message saying that Donald Trump had passed away. There was also a 2020 crypto scam that saw many larger accounts compromised, including Apple’s, President Biden’s and X owner Elon Musk’s account, among others.
The addition could also help X users who previously relied on SMS 2FA to re-secure their accounts, as X announced last year that option would be removed for non-paying users. X had argued that the cost-cutting measure could be abused by bad actors, such as in the case of SIM swaps. But the reality is that it made X less secure.
X offers users instructions on how to get started with passkeys on iOS. There’s no word yet on when Android users will have the option.
A crypto wallet maker claimed this week that hackers may be targeting people with an iMessage “zero-day” exploit — but all signs point to an exaggerated threat, if not a downright scam.
Trust Wallet’s official X (previously Twitter) account wrote that “we have credible intel regarding a high-risk zero-day exploit targeting iMessage on the Dark Web. This can infiltrate your iPhone without clicking any link. High-value targets are likely. Each use raises detection risk.”
The wallet maker recommended iPhone users to turn off iMessage completely “until Apple patches this,” even though no evidence shows that “this” exists at all.
The tweet went viral, and has been viewed over 3.6 million times as of our publication. Because of the attention the post received, Trust Wallet hours later wrote a follow-up post. The wallet maker doubled down on its decision to go public, saying that it “actively communicates any potential threats and risks to the community.”
Trust Wallet, which is owned by crypto exchange Binance, did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Apple spokesperson Scott Radcliffe declined to comment when reached Tuesday.
As it turns out, according to Trust Wallet’s CEO Eowyn Chen, the “intel” is an advertisement on a dark web site called CodeBreach Lab, where someone is offering said alleged exploit for $2 million in bitcoin cryptocurrency. The advert titled “iMessage Exploit” claims the vulnerability is a remote code execution (or RCE) exploit that requires no interaction from the target — commonly known as “zero-click” exploit — and works on the latest version of iOS. Some bugs are called zero-days because the vendor has no time, or zero days, to fix the vulnerability. In this case, there is no evidence of an exploit to begin with.
A screenshot of the dark web ad claiming to sell an alleged iMessage exploit. Image Credits: TechCrunch
RCEs are some of the most powerful exploits because they allow hackers to remotely take control of their target devices over the internet. An exploit like an RCE coupled with a zero-click capability is incredibly valuable because those attacks can be conducted invisibly without the device owner knowing. In fact, a company that acquires and resells zero-days is currently offering between $3 to $5 million for that kind of zero-click zero-day, which is also a sign of how hard it is to find and develop these types of exploits.
Do you have any information about actual zero-days? Or about spyware providers? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or email. You also can contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.
Given the circumstances of how and where this zero-day is being sold, it’s very likely that it is all just a scam, and that Trust Wallet fell for it, spreading what people in the cybersecurity industry would call FUD, or “fear uncertainty and doubt.”
Zero-days do exist, and have been used by government hacking units for years. But in reality, you probably don’t need to turn off iMessage unless you are a high-risk user, such as a journalist or dissident under an oppressive government, for example.
It’s better advice to suggest people turn on Lockdown Mode, a special mode that disables certain Apple device features and functionalities with the goal of reducing the avenues hackers can use to attack iPhones and Macs.
According to Apple, there is no evidence anyone has successfully hacked someone’s Apple device while using Lockdown Mode. Several cybersecurity experts like Runa Sandvik and the researchers who work at Citizen Lab, who have investigated dozens of cases of iPhone hacks, recommend using Lockdown Mode.
For its part, CodeBreach Lab appears to be a new website with no track record. When we checked, a search on Google returned only seven results, one of which is a post on a well-known hacking forum asking if anyone had previously heard of CodeBreach Lab.
On its homepage — with typos — CodeBreach Lab claims to offer several types of exploits other than for iMessage, but provides no further evidence.
The owners describe CodeBreach Lab as “the nexus of cyber disruption.” But it would probably be more fitting to call it the nexus of braggadocio and naivety.
TechCrunch could not reach CodeBreach Lab for comment because there is no way to contact the alleged company. When we attempted to buy the alleged exploit — because why not — the website asked for the buyer’s name, email address, and then to send $2 million in bitcoin to a specific wallet address on the public blockchain. When we checked, nobody has so far.
In other words, if someone wants this alleged zero-day, they have to send $2 million to a wallet that, at this point, there is no way to know who it belongs to, nor — again — any way to contact.
And there is a very good chance that it will remain that way.
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