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Epic Games is escalating its efforts to pressure Apple to allow its game Fortnite into its App Store, with a new court filing asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to require that Apple “accept any compliant version of Fortnite onto the U.S. storefront of the App Store.” Epic and Apple have been engaged in a years-long legal battle over Apple’s App Store policies, particularly the commissions Apple charges for in-app purchases. The Fortnite publisher scored a major victory last month when Judge Rogers ruled that Apple was in “willful violation” of an injunction on anti-competitive pricing — a ruling that seemed to pave the way for Fortnite to return to the App Store, and more broadly, for developers to offer alternative payment options in their apps. However, Apple said it will appeal the ruling, and on Friday, Epic said Friday the company is blocking Fortnite from both its U.S. App Store and preventing it from being released on the Epic Games store in Europe: “Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.” Apple disputed this characterization, specifically the suggestion that it was blocking Fortnite outside the United States. Instead, the company said it asked Epic Sweden to “resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.” But why block Fortnite in the United States? Epic released a letter signed by Mark A. Perry, an attorney representing Apple, telling Epic’s lawyers that “Apple has determined not to take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction.” In its filing, Epic argues that Apple is denying it “the ability to take advantage of the pro-competitive rules it helped usher in,” and “punishing” Epic “by shutting it out of the very market it has fought so hard to open — while sending a clear message to other developers not to challenge Apple’s practices.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Y Combinator-backed startup Firecrawl is back on the hunt for AI agent employees. As we reported back in February, its first attempt didn’t yield an AI worth hiring. But it’s now placed three new ads on YC’s job board for “AI agents only” and has set aside a $1 million budget total to make it happen. Within about a week after the new job posts went live, it had about 50 applicants, founder Caleb Peffer tells TechCrunch. Firecrawl offers a web crawling tool that scrapes data from websites for LLMs. This is, Peffer admits, a shady part of the AI ecosystem where bad behaving web crawlers can sometimes pound websites like DDoS attacks. But Firewcrawl has gained popularity by trying to bring in some guardrails, he says. For instance, many of its customers are enterprises scraping their own data for internal LLM use. Some websites want their data included in chatbot responses, just like they want Google links, he says. Additionally, the tool honors robot.txt settings and can be set to only scrape a public website once and share the data with others. Consequently, one job opening is for a content creation agent “that never sleeps and always ships” that will autonomously produce “high quality” SEO-pleasing blog posts and tutorials on how to use its product, the startup’s ad says. Firecrawl wants this AI to watch engagement metrics and use that to autonomously improve the audience for its content, too. In other words: the agent should decide what to create, create it, post it, measure the audience, and grow mastery from that feedback, autonomously. If you are a borderline AGI AI made for blogging, this could be the job for you. The advertised pay is $5,000 a month. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW The company is also looking for a customer support engineer agent that will be tasked with crafting the AI workflow that responds to customer issues within two minutes and can handle tickets on its own, knowing when to escalate to a human. Previous experience doing customer support is requested. Pay is also $5,000/month. The third opening is for a junior developer agent who’ll be tasked with prioritizing incoming Github issues, writing documentation and writing code in TypeScript and Go. Once again, the pay also $5,000/month. But here’s the catch: Firecrawl is also hoping to hire human creator or creators behind these bots — and the $1 million budget is for hiring both agents and humans, though it’s not clear how many years the budget is supposed to cover. The startup might hire the humans full time, or as contractors (which might make more sense if they’re creating lots of agents for lots of companies,). Firecrawl is also entertaining bids from other startups that specialize in creating the types of agents that it’s looking for, say in customer service, Peffer says. The truth is, the AI employee of Firecrawl’s dreams doesn’t exist yet. Maybe it never will. “AI can’t replace humans today,” Peffer says. ”The future, what we see, is a world where the next 10x engineers are operating armies of agents, AI systems that they’re building, maintaining, and monitoring. What we want to do is work with people that want to be those agent operators.” Firecrawl is not the only one. YC’s job board is full of jobs for developers of agents. Will their creations ever replace them as Silicon Valley is continuously wishing? That’s the real million-dollar question.

Roblox announced on Thursday that creators can now sell physical merchandise directly within their experiences and games on the platform with the launch of new Commerce APIs. The offering provides creators with a new way to generate revenue beyond the purchases of virtual goods or one-time fees to access specific experiences. The company began testing the ability to buy physical merchandise within a few branded experiences in mid-2024. Last September, Roblox announced that creators would soon be able to sell physical items in experiences thanks to a partnership with Shopify. Now, Roblox is making that integration available to all eligible creators and brands after completing a closed beta test of its Commerce APIs. The ability to purchase physical products will be available in all-ages experiences for U.S. users ages 13 and up. Roblox plans to add more partners and expand the feature to additional markets in the future. For brands, the Commerce APIs offer a new way to reach customers. For example, beauty brand Fenty is going to launch a shoppable experience within Roblox to offer an exclusive Gloss Bomb shade called “Grape Splash.” Image Credits:Roblox Eligible creators and brands can also bundle physical purchases with digital items via the new Commerce APIs. That means you could purchase a physical hoodie and also receive one for your digital avatar. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Roblox’s new Approved Merchandiser Program (AMP) lets creators and brands connect their real-world or online store purchases to avatar items and accessories on Roblox. AMP and a badge on physical products will serve as a mark of authenticity to show consumers that the items are official. Products with the badge will include a code for a unique digital item relevant to the IP that they can use on Roblox. “Our vision for the future of shopping is an experience that’s more exciting and social than the traditional online shopping experience,” the company said in a blog post. “On Roblox, you can explore virtual stores, try on clothes, and share the experience with others. This naturally builds interest and purchase intent. Now we’re taking it one step further, bridging the gap between virtual and real-world shopping by enabling Roblox users to purchase physical items.” Roblox notes that creator studio Twin Atlas used Commerce APIs in their games to sell physical products and ended up seeing six-figure commerce revenue during the first few weeks. Around 90% of their total orders are placed via their in-game commerce integration, Roblox says.

TikTok is launching in-app guided meditation exercises, the social network announced on Thursday. The company began testing the meditation exercises with select teens earlier this year and is now making the feature available to all users on its app. The idea behind the feature is to help users improve their sleep quality and encourage them to put the app down during those late-night endless scrolling sessions. For teens under the age of 18, meditation will be turned on by default. If a teen is using the app after 10 p.m., their For You feed will be interrupted by a guided meditation exercise that encourages them to wind down for the night. The meditation features a calming screen and soft music alongside breathing exercises. Image Credits:TikTok If teens choose to ignore the message and continue to use the app, they will see a second full-screen prompt that will nudge them to go to sleep. TikTok has been introducing new teen safety features over the past few years in response to concerns over the app’s impact on its youngest users. The new meditation feature marks the company’s latest effort to appease lawmakers. Adults who are interested in the meditation feature can turn it on by navigating to the app’s Screen Time settings page. From there, you just need to toggle on the “sleep hours” feature. You can choose what time you want to see the meditation exercise each night. TikTok also announced that it’s going to donate $2.3 million in ad credits to 31 mental health organizations in 19 countries around the world as part of its Mental Health Education Fund. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Chips are a critical component of the AI industry. But new chips don’t hit the market with the same speed as new AI models and products. Cognichip has a lofty goal of creating a foundational AI model that can help bring new chips to market faster. San Francisco-based Cognichip is working to build a physics-informed foundational AI model that can be used by semiconductor companies to speed up the development process of new chips. The company is calling this approach “artificial chip intelligence” and hopes it can help speed up chip production times by 50% and reduce the associated costs as well. This ambitious idea comes from semiconductor industry veteran Faraj Aalaei, who worked at various companies including Fujitsu Network Communications and Centillium Communications. Aalaei told TechCrunch that his company’s origin story begins back in 2015. At the time, Aalaei was a member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which would often meet to talk about what was ailing their industry. He was growing concerned about what was happening in the semiconductor industry. He gave a presentation to the group about the stark drop in venture capital investing into semiconductor companies, which peaked at 200 deals a year in 2000, he said, and dropped to just one or two a year by 2015. “I essentially warned the other CEOs that this cannot be good for us,” Aalaei said. “It cannot be good for the semiconductor industry in America, and that what we needed to do is to fundamentally change things about it. If that trend continues, then we’re going to lose our competitiveness. We’re going to lose the energy that brings in new ideas to the table.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Considering how long it takes new chips to come to market, it’s not surprising these companies weren’t attracting venture investors, he said. Then he sat on the idea for almost a decade. He went on to found Candou Ventures in 2016, and through that fund got to watch the rise in AI startups. When he realized that advancements in generative AI had gotten to a point where it could be used to potentially help solve some of the semiconductor industry’s existent challenges, he decided to launch Cognichip in 2024. Cognichip has been operating in stealth ever since and has amassed a team of AI experts from places like Stanford, Google, and MIT to start building. Aalaei said it will take at least a few years to build the model to “ultimate performance” but said it should be able to help companies before it reaches that goal. “When we get to that point, this artificial chip intelligence, we will be building a system that can actually act like an expert engineer,” Aalaei said. “Once we achieve that vision, then you can actually get the same work done with a fraction of the people and in much, much shorter time.” Cognichip is now emerging from stealth with $33 million in seed funding in a round co-led by Lux Capital and Mayfield with participation from FPV and Candou Ventures. Navin Chaddha, a managing partner at Mayfield, told TechCrunch that when he was introduced to Aalaei, he felt they were “cut from the same cloth.” The vast majority of work in the semiconductor industry is still being done by humans; he said he thinks the timing is right to bring AI into the mix. “This is a major pain point, and the solution this company will provide will be a pain killer and not a vitamin for the semiconductor industry,” Chaddha said. “If you don’t have humans doing the job, can AI do it where there’s shortage of talent? Number one, great team, second, [they are] solving a real pain point in a massive, trillion-dollar industry.” Aalaei said that he hopes Cognichip will also be able to help democratize access to building chips so that more semiconductor companies can get started and land investment. Easier access also means that smaller companies can build more specific chips for specialized or smaller models, too, he said. All of this will depend on when, or if, the company can reach artificial chip intelligence. “What we’re doing is not some incremental change,” Aalaei said. “We’re not building an [electronic design automation] tool, we’re not trying to tweak the process a little bit. We’re trying to set a new goal for our industry and bring some major change.”

Google announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI and accessibility features to Android and Chrome. Most notably, TalkBack, Android’s screen reader, now lets you ask Gemini about what’s in images and what’s on your screen. Last year, Google brought Gemini’s capabilities to TalkBack to give people who are blind or have low vision access to AI-generated descriptions for images, even when Alt text isn’t available. Now, people can ask questions and get responses about their images. Image Credits:Google For example, if a friend texts you a photo a their new guitar, you can get a description of it and ask questions about the brand and color. In addition, you can now get descriptions and ask questions about your whole phone screen. So, if you’re shopping in an app, you can ask Gemini about the material of an item you’re interested in or if there is a discount available. Google also announced today that it’s updating Expressive Captions, Android’s real-time captions feature that uses AI to capture what someone says, and how they say it. Google says it’s aware that one of the ways people express themselves is by dragging out the sound of their words, which is why it has developed a new duration feature on Expressive Captions. Now, you’ll know if a sports announcer is calling out an “amaaazing shot” or when someone isn’t simply saying “no” but “nooooo.” You’ll also start to see new labels for sounds, such as when a person is whistling or clearing their throat. Image Credits:Google The update is rolling out in English in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia for devices running Android 15 and above. Google is also making it easier to access PDFs on Chrome. Until now, you wouldn’t be able to use your screen reader to interact with a scanned PDF in your desktop Chrome browser. Now, Chrome automatically recognizes these types of PDFs, allowing you to highlight, copy, and search for text like any other page and use your screen reader to read them. This is thanks to the introduction of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Google says. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Plus, Page Zoom on Chrome on Android now lets you increase the size of the text you see without affecting the web-page layout. You can customize how much you want to zoom in and then choose to apply the preference to all of the pages you visit, or just certain ones. You can access this feature by tapping the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of Chrome.

A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company’s Claude AI chatbot in its ongoing legal battle with music publishers, according to a filing made in a Northern California court on Thursday. Claude hallucinated the citation with “an inaccurate title and inaccurate authors,” Anthropic says in the filing, first reported by Bloomberg. Anthropic’s lawyers explain that their “manual citation check” did not catch it, nor several other errors that were caused by Claude’s hallucinations. Anthropic apologized for the error and called it “an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority.” Earlier this week, lawyers representing Universal Music Group and other music publishers accused Anthropic’s expert witness — one of the company’s employees, Olivia Chen — of using Claude to cite fake articles in her testimony. Federal judge, Susan van Keulen, then ordered Anthropic to respond to these allegations. The music publishers’ lawsuit is one of several disputes between copyright owners and tech companies over the supposed misuse of their work to create generative AI tools. This is the latest instance of lawyers using AI in court and then regretting the decision. Earlier this week, a California judge slammed a pair of law firms for submitting “bogus AI-generated research” in his court. In January, an Australian lawyer was caught using ChatGPT in the preparation of court documents and the chatbot produced faulty citations. However, these errors aren’t stopping startups from raising enormous rounds to automate legal work. Harvey, which uses generative AI models to assist lawyers, is reportedly in talks to raise over $250 million at a $5 billion valuation. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Coders were hit hardest among Microsoft’s 2,000-person layoff in its home state of Washington, Bloomberg reports. Over 40% of the people laid off were in software engineering, making it by far the largest category, Bloomberg found based on state filings. Relatively few sales or marketing positions were affected, Bloomberg added. To be fair, coders are a big chunk of Microsoft’s workforce, although it doesn’t disclose the exact proportion. The cuts are part of recent layoffs at Microsoft affecting about 6,000 people. Still, these cuts come after CEO Satya Nadella said last month that up to 30% of the company’s code was now written by AI. TechCrunch asked Microsoft if the layoffs were motivated by the rise of AI-assisted coding. The tech giant declined to comment. Microsoft has said the layoffs are aimed at reducing management layers.

On Thursday, Windsurf, a startup that develops popular AI tools for software engineers, announced the launch of its first family of AI software engineering models, or SWE-1 for short. The startup says it trained its new family of AI models — SWE-1, SWE-1-lite, and SWE-1-mini — to be optimized for the “entire software engineering process,” not just coding. The launch of Windsurf’s in-house AI models may come as a shock to some, given that OpenAI has reportedly closed a $3 billion deal to acquire Windsurf. However, this model launch suggests Windsurf is trying to expand beyond just developing applications to also developing the models that power them. According to Windsurf, SWE-1, the largest and most capable AI model of the bunch, performs competitively with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro on internal programming benchmarks. However, SWE-1 appears to fall short of frontier AI models, such as Claude 3.7 Sonnet, on software engineering tasks. Windsurf says its SWE-1-lite and SWE-1-mini models will be available for all users on its platform, free or paid. Meanwhile, SWE-1 will only be available to paid users. Windsurf did not immediately announce pricing for its SWE-1 models but claims it’s cheaper to serve than Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Windsurf is best known for tools that allow software engineers to write and edit code through conversations with an AI chatbot, a practice known as “vibe coding.” Other popular vibe-coding startups include Cursor, the largest in the space, as well as Lovable. Most of these startups, including Windsurf, have traditionally relied on AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to power their applications. In a video announcing the SWE models, comments made by Windsurf’s Head of Research, Nicholas Moy, underscore Windsurf’s newest efforts to differentiate its approach. “Today’s frontier models are optimized for coding, and they’ve made massive strides over the last couple of years,” says Moy. “But they’re not enough for us … Coding is not software engineering.” Windsurf notes in a blog post that while other models are good at writing code, they struggle to work between multiple surfaces — as programmers often do — such as terminals, IDEs, and the internet. The startup says SWE-1 was trained using a new data model and a “training recipe that encapsulates incomplete states, long-running tasks, and multiple surfaces.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW The startup describes SWE-1 as its “initial proof of concept,” suggesting it may release more AI models in the future.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman laid out a big vision for the future of ChatGPT at an AI event hosted by VC firm Sequoia earlier this month. When asked by one attendee about how ChatGPT can become more personalized, Altman replied that he eventually wants the model to document and remember everything in a person’s life. The ideal, he said, is a “very tiny reasoning model with a trillion tokens of context that you put your whole life into.” “This model can reason across your whole context and do it efficiently. And every conversation you’ve ever had in your life, every book you’ve ever read, every email you’ve ever read, everything you’ve ever looked at is in there, plus connected to all your data from other sources. And your life just keeps appending to the context,” he described. “Your company just does the same thing for all your company’s data,” he added. Altman may have some data-driven reason to think this is ChatGPT’s natural future. In that same discussion, when asked for cool ways young people use ChatGPT, he said, “People in college use it as an operating system.” They upload files, connect data sources, and then use “complex prompts” against that data. Additionally, with ChatGPT’s memory options — which can use previous chats and memorized facts as context — he said one trend he’s noticed is that young people “don’t really make life decisions without asking ChatGPT.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW “A gross oversimplification is: Older people use ChatGPT as, like, a Google replacement,” he said. “People in their 20s and 30s use it like a life advisor.” It’s not much of a leap to see how ChatGPT could become an all-knowing AI system. Paired with the agents the Valley is currently trying to build, that’s an exciting future to think about. Imagine your AI automatically scheduling your car’s oil changes and reminding you; planning the travel necessary for an out-of-town wedding and ordering the gift from the registry; or preordering the next volume of the book series you’ve been reading for years. But the scary part? How much should we trust a Big Tech for-profit company to know everything about our lives? These are companies that don’t always behave in model ways. Google, which began life with the motto “don’t be evil” lost a lawsuit in the U.S. that accused it of engaging in anticompetitive, monopolistic behavior. Chatbots can be trained to respond in politically motivated ways. Not only have Chinese bots been found to comply with China’s censorship requirements but xAI’s chatbot Grok this week was randomly discussing a South African “white genocide” when people asked it completely unrelated questions. The behavior, many noted, implied intentional manipulation of its response engine at the command of its South African-born founder, Elon Musk. Last month, ChatGPT became so agreeable it was downright sycophantic. Users began sharing screenshots of the bot applauding problematic, even dangerous decisions and ideas. Altman quickly responded by promising the team had fixed the tweak that caused the problem. Even the best, most reliable models still just outright make stuff up from time to time. So, having an all-knowing AI assistant could help our lives in ways we can only begin to see. But given Big Tech’s long history of iffy behavior, that’s also a situation ripe for misuse.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would start importing iPhones manufactured in India to meet the majority of demand stateside. It seems U.S. president Donald Trump is not happy with that. Speaking at a business summit in Doha, Trump said he met with Cook and asked him to stop building in India and instead increase production in the United States. “I said to him, ‘Tim, you’re my friend, I’ve treated you very good. You’re coming up with $500 billion, but now I hear you are building all over India. I don’t want you building in India. You can build in India, if you want to take care of India because India is one of the highest tariff nations in the world,’” Trump said. Trump, who has been on a tariff offensive against most of the world, said Apple would now be “upping” production in the U.S., though he didn’t give a timeline or any specifics. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this year, Apple said that it would spend $500 billion over the next four years to expand manufacturing in the U.S. by setting up facilities in various locations, opening new units, hiring over 20,000 people, and opening a manufacturing academy. Trump’s comments come a day after India approved a $435 million Foxconn project to manufacture Apple chips in the country. The company has had ambitious plans to ramp up production in India and create alternative manufacturing units that reduce its reliance on China. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW A Bloomberg report in April suggested Apple already produces 20% of its iPhones in India. At the time, the Financial Times also reported that Apple planned to import all iPhones sold in the U.S. from India by 2026.

For years, big tech companies like Amazon and Google have been trying to make virtual try-ons engaging to encourage consumers to shop more online. Startups also tried to solve for inspiration and fit in fashion using AI. A new startup called Doji is now entering this space with an app designed to make apparel try-ons both fun and social. It does so by creating your avatar and then serving you different looks that may inspire you to buy new clothes. So far, early adopters have been impressed by it. Only days after publicly launching on the App Store, the company is announcing a $14 million seed round led by Thrive Capital with participation from Seven Seven Six Ventures. The funding will be used to improve Doji’s AI models, the company says. An app like Doji only exists thanks to recent advancements in AI. The company uses its own diffusion models to create its personalized avatars and to make clothing try-ons more realistic. The startup was founded last year by Dorian Dargan and Jim Winkens — hence the name Doji (Dorian + Jim). Dargan previously worked at Apple on VisionOS and at Meta on games and experiences on Oculus Quest. Winkens was a researcher at DeepMind and also worked on a generative AI-based consumer product at Google. The duo connected on Twitter/X around 2022. After realizing a shared interest in the fashion world, they began exploring side projects to work on together. Later, when the controversial avatar creation app Lensa was released, Dargan saw how deep a connection people had with their avatars. “Lensa was doing stylized avatars with different themes,” Dargan told TechCrunch. “We saw Lensa and thought, what if we could do this for fashion, but in a photo-realistic way?” Thrive Capital partner Miles Grimshaw said he’s been captivated by Doji’s app since the first time he used it. He notes that diffusion models create an opportunity to build a “virtual mirror” to try on clothes. “Going around the web to hundreds of click links to shop is laborious. Doji has an opportunity to make shopping fun as it puts me at the center of the experience. The app also has a social aspect of making me want to share different looks [with friends and family],” he added. Image Credits:Doji What it’s like to use Doji’s app Doji, which is still in invite-only mode, guides users through the process of taking six selfies and uploading two full-body images to create an avatar. The app takes roughly 30 minutes to create an avatar, then notifies you when the avatar is ready. You can also choose your favorite brands during onboarding to see more items from them in the app. Other apps like Google-backed lock screen app Glance have tried to create AI-powered shopping inspiration flow by using a single image. However, Doji opted for a more in-depth setup process to create higher-quality avatars and better match users with the right clothes. By default, the app shows you clothes that might suit you through a series of looks with your avatar. You can scroll through the different tops and bottoms listed on the site and tap on them to create a new look for your avatar. Plus, you can post a link to apparel from the web to check if it would suit you. These two look like different versions of me Image Credits:Ivan Mehta In tests, I felt that some of the images of the avatar made me look thinner or taller than I am. (Doji notes that users have the option of retraining the avatar through a new set of images if they don’t like their results.) While the app lets you try on different clothes to see how certain apparel would look on you, it can’t yet tell you how an item would fit. That’s something the startup wants to tackle later, we’re told. The team is also working to make the virtual try-on process faster and integrate the buying process in the app, instead of directing users to external sites. The startup, whose app is available in more than 80 countries, didn’t specify when it will remove the invite system to allow everyone to use the app. Dargan said that what sets them apart from other try-on apps is that Doji also offers a fun way to explore clothes. Plus, he believes Doji is better at human representation than others, thanks to his experience designing avatars over the years. “I think people who have explored this idea before either haven’t had the technology chops to make it good or the taste to understand what actually makes a person feel good about an image of themselves,” Dargan said. “We have invested a lot in core technology to ensure the way you perceive yourself through images is interesting and inspiring.”

Apple’s next-generation version of its popular CarPlay infotainment software is finally launching three years after it was announced. The company said Thursday that this new version of CarPlay — now known as “CarPlay Ultra” — will start rolling out on new Aston Martin vehicles in the U.S. and Canada, roughly half a year late. While still powered (wirelessly) by an iPhone, CarPlay Ultra takes over both the main infotainment screen as well as the digital dashboard in front of the driver, and is more deeply integrated with the vehicle’s systems. That means the new CarPlay software will display things like the vehicle’s speed, fuel mileage, trip info, and water temperature. CarPlay Ultra will also be able to control certain vehicle settings — provided drivers have an iPhone 12 or later running at least iOS 18.5. Meanwhile, certain functions like backup cameras will still be able to “punch through” the CarPlay UI. Apple said some existing and compatible Aston Martin vehicles will get CarPlay Ultra “in the coming weeks through a software update available at local dealers.” The company also said the Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis brands have signed up to make it compatible in their vehicles. The launch of CarPlay Ultra helps Apple even the playing field with Google, which for years now has helped automakers ship cars with an embedded version of its Android Auto operating system. Just this week, Google announced it was bringing its generative AI Gemini to Android Auto. Apple has implied that the slow rollout of CarPlay Ultra was, in part, related to the work required to make the software fit the “unique brand and visual design philosophies” of its partner automakers. The company said in its press release Thursday that it has crafted these “custom themes” in “close collaboration” with the design team of automakers like Aston Martin. It also said drivers will be able to customize the “colors and wallpapers of themes to match their individual tastes.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW It’s an ambitious leap forward from the basic version of CarPlay, which has proven so popular that an uproar starts pretty much any time an automaker shuns the software. But the rollout is still a far cry from what Apple originally teased at its 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference, when it showed a slide with 14 automaker logos and said those brands were “excited to bring this new vision of CarPlay to customers.” At least one of those, Mercedes-Benz, has since said it won’t use the new CarPlay Ultra.

Apple says the warning messages now appearing next to EU App Store listings that use third-party payment systems are not actually new. According to a number of recent reports, Apple added a warning with a red exclamation mark next to apps that it found were not using its own “private and secure payment system.” The message was seemingly meant to discourage users from using external payment mechanisms, as is now permitted under the new EU law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). However, the iPhone maker confirmed to TechCrunch that these user-disclosure screens have been live on the EU App Store since the beginning of Apple’s DMA Compliance Plan back in March 2024. They were not newly added, as some had reported. It’s understandable that there was concern over the warning screens, given that Apple just suffered a major loss in court to Fortnite maker Epic Games. The court’s decision forced Apple to allow app developers in the U.S. to link to external payment options without having to pay Apple’s commission. The company is appealing that decision, and many likely suspected the added EU warnings were part of some sort of retaliatory plan on Apple’s part. Perhaps the company wanted to send a message to developers that it would not give up commissions without a fight? But since the screens are not new, another explanation is in order. The confusion appears to stem from a single post that gained traction on the social network X on Monday. The post shows an App Store listing for an EU-based app called Instacar that features a message warning users, “[T]his app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system. It uses external purchases.” The cautionary message also points to a link that users can click to “Learn More.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW first time seeing this. Apple will punish the apps with external payment system pic.twitter.com/MBeqi8huW5 — Viktor Maric (@maric_viktor) May 12, 2025 “First time seeing this,” wrote X user Viktor Maric, remarking on the warning screen. “Apple will punish the apps with external payment system [sic].” Maric’s post was liked by thousands of X users and reposted by hundreds, including those in the mobile developer community. Unsurprisingly, most didn’t care for the message, calling it “malicious compliance” and “entitled” behavior on Apple’s part. Opinions aside, the user disclosure screen itself is not new. Apple pointed us to an X post from RevenueCat CEO Jacob Eiting, who, responding directly to Maric, correctly suggested that the disclosures are EU-only and “have been around for a while.” I think this is EU only and might have been around for a while, I just assumed nobody bothered with the DMA implementation for external purchases since they were pointless. Fewer than 100 developers have availed themselves of this option for obvious reasons.… pic.twitter.com/mYdZNbIRky — Jacob Eiting — iap/acc (@jeiting) May 12, 2025 Eiting theorized that people are just now noticing these warnings because few EU developers have bothered to take advantage of the external purchases option that the DMA permits. (Apple critics have called out the company’s DMA Compliance Plan as being confusing and filled with “junk fees” meant to make up for the lost commissions on in-app purchases.) In its response to TechCrunch, Apple also noted that it intended to update the message after initial pushback. In August 2024, the company announced a series of changes to its DMA plan that would have included a change to the user disclosure screen. Instead of warning users of the dangers of using external purchases, the new message would have read: “Transactions in this app are supported by the developer and not Apple.” (See below). Image Credits:Apple The tech giant claims that the European Commission (EC) raised no objection to the updated message but instructed Apple to hold off on making any changes. Without further guidance, Apple kept the existing screen in place. In April 2025, the EC fined Apple €500 million for noncompliance under the Digital Markets Act. Apple is now appealing the decision.

Redpoint Ventures, a San Francisco-based firm that is about a quarter century old, has raised a $650 million 10th early-stage fund, according to a regulatory filing. Redpoint’s new fund matches the size of its prior fund, which was raised just under three years ago. In a market where many venture firms are decreasing their capital hauls, this consistency could indicate the firm’s limited partners are relatively happy with its performance. The firm’s early-stage strategy is managed by four managing partners: Alex Bard (pictured above), Satish Dharmaraj, Annie Kadavy, and Erica Brescia, who joined the firm in 2021 after serving as GitHub’s COO for nearly three years. The early-stage team’s recent prominent investments include AI coding startup Poolside, which was founded by former Redpoint partner and GitHub CTO Jason Warner, a distributed SQL database developer Cockroach Labs, and procurement management platform Levelpath. The multistage firm also runs a growth strategy, led by partners Logan Bartlett, Jacob Effron, Elliot Geidt, and Scott Raney. Last year, Redpoint raised its fifth growth-stage fund at $740 million, a slight increase from its $725 million fund closed three years prior. Redpoint’s recent exits include Next Insurance, which was sold for $2.6 billion in March; food and travel media startup Tastemade, which was scooped up by Wonder for $90 million; and IBM, which acquired HashiCorp for $6.4 billion. Redpoint didn’t respond to a request for comment. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Savings and investing startup Acorns has acquired EarlyBird, an investment gifting platform for families, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, EarlyBird will shut down, and all customer accounts will officially close on June 23. Customers’ funds will be returned to the bank account connected to their account. Founded in 2019, EarlyBird launched a product that combined financial investing with community. The app allowed families and friends to gift investments to children while preserving memories through a digital time capsule. The investments would become the child’s once they turned 18, and they could use funds for things like paying for college, paying a down payment on a home, or seeding their first business. “When we founded EarlyBird, we envisioned creating a platform that would transform how families leave lasting legacies for their children,” said EarlyBird CEO and co-founder Jordan Wexler in a statement. “The opportunity to join Acorns not only reaffirms our vision, but expands our impact to millions of families who also care deeply about building their children’s financial futures.” Wexler and co-founder Caleb Frankel will join the Acorns team to help build out Acorns Early, the startup’s smart money app for kids. Acorns Early offers a debit card designed for kids and teens to help them develop financial literacy and manage their money. The company launched Acorns Early following its acquisition of GoHenry, a startup focused on providing money management and financial education services to 6- to 18-year-olds. Acorns believes that by bringing on Wexler and Frankel, the company will be able to leverage their experience and passion for the space to enhance Acorns Early. “Our vision is to build a financial wellness system for the whole family, creating compound growth at every life stage,” Acorns CEO Noah Kerner said in an email to TechCrunch. “The shared experiences and insights between our two teams will enable us to deliver this vision faster and better so that we create maximum value for everyday American families.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Existing EarlyBird customers will be offered a free one-year subscription to “Acorns Gold,” a plan that offers access to all Acorns products, including Acorns Early. Customers will receive an email detailing the sign-up process. Acorns notes that EarlyBird users will not be able to transfer their EarlyBird funds over to Acorns Early. If users want to continue their investing journey with Acorns, they need to withdraw their funds from EarlyBird and open a new account with Acorns. The company plans to integrate EarlyBird’s digital time capsule feature into the Acorns Early app at a later date. On EarlyBird, the feature allowed users to build out time capsules by recording videos at memorable moments in their lives. For example, if a mother received a promotion and wanted to gift a one-time investment to her child, she could record a video talking to her child about it to commemorate and remember the moment. The acquisition comes as Acorns has doubled its customers on Acorns Gold, its $12 per month subscription plan, over the past year. “Our Gold Plan will be the place to deliver financial wellness for the whole family — products for parents, kids, and all the connective fabric between the family unit,” Kerner said. “This will be the place where the whole family can manage their money as they grow smart money habits together.” Acorns raised $300 million in March 2022 and was valued at $2 billion at the time. The company did not provide an updated valuation.

The Broke Man’s Guide to $2k/Month Affiliate Keywords (No Paid Tools) I haven’t paid for a keyword tool in over 2 years. I don’t need to. Not when I’ve ranked dozens of affiliate pages using free tools, instincts, and a bit of manual digging. Honestly, if you're chasing low competition goldmines, most paid keyword tools just slow you down. They show the same stuff to everyone. If 100 other affiliates are looking at the same KD 8 keyword in Ahrefs... it’s already dead. Let me show you how I actually find keywords no one’s targeting — the kind that rank with AI content, no links, and a new domain. Amazon Autocomplete Is Better Than Any SEO Tool Go to Amazon. Start typing in a product you’re curious about — even something boring like “heated blanket” or “portable shower.” Watch what Amazon suggests. Now tweak your phrasing: Add “for…” → “heated blanket for car” Add “with…” → “portable shower with water tank” Add pain points → “heater that won’t trip breaker” These are actual buyer searches. Real people, typing with purchase intent. And guess what? A lot of those keywords have zero optimized blog content targeting them properly. The trick is this: Whatever Amazon shows you = people want it. Whatever Google shows with weak results = you can rank for it. Cross-check the two. That’s your goldmine. Stalk the Forgotten Pages of Affiliate Sites This one’s dirty but effective. Pick a niche affiliate site that’s been around a while. Check their sitemap or plug them into a free SEO tool like Ubersuggest (if you must). Then scroll straight past the high-traffic pages. Look at the pages that get 0–10 visits/month. Why? Because they once had hope. Someone wrote that article for a reason. They thought it would rank. They wanted that keyword. But they gave up, or it got buried. Now it’s yours to steal, but do it better. Same topic, tighter headline, clearer intent, better formatting. Add visuals. Make it skimmable. Turn a dead keyword into a hit. I’ve had pages like that rank in a week. Mine Reddit & YouTube Comments for Hidden Phrases This one’s lowkey my favourite. Reddit is where people ask real questions — unfiltered, unoptimized, untapped. YouTube comments are raw buyer feedback — frustrations, use cases, “Does this work for X?” What I do: Search Reddit with: site:reddit.com “best [product] for” Sort by recent. Look for posts where people say: “I’m looking for X but I need it to do Y” Copy exact phrases into Google. Check if any blog is covering that long-tail variation. If not? Jackpot. Same thing with YouTube: Find a popular product video Sort comments by “Newest” or “Top” Look for stuff like: “Will this work for someone with arthritis?” “Does this fit on older models?” “Looking for a version that runs on battery.” Each of those is a keyword in disguise. You won’t find them in Ahrefs. But they’re real, rankable, and they convert. My Personal Filter: The “1 Page Rule” Here’s the final litmus test: If I can rank for this keyword with 1 good page, it’s worth targeting. That means: The top 10 results are weak (forums, low DR sites, Quora, outdated posts) No one is targeting the exact phrase in the title The search intent is clearly buyer-related or problem-solving I can hit all the sub-questions in one article I’ve built sites off this alone. No topical authority. No cluster content. No links. Just sniper content around zero comp keywords that buyers are actively searching. I’m not knocking paid tools — they have their place. But if you're starting out (or even if you’re advanced and just tired of the competition), this way of finding keywords is faster, cleaner, and works like hell. Hope this helps someone. It’s what I still do today.

Crypto giant Coinbase has confirmed its systems have been breached and customer data, including government-issued identity documents, were stolen. In a legally required filing with U.S. regulators, Coinbase said a hacker this week told the company that they had obtained information about customer accounts and demanded money from the company in exchange for not publishing the stolen data. Coinbase said the hacker “obtained this information by paying multiple contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States to collect information from internal Coinbase systems to which they had access in order to perform their job responsibilities.” The support staff are no longer employed, the company said. The filing said Coinbase’s systems detected the malicious activity “in the previous months,” and that it has “warned customers whose information was potentially accessed in order to prevent misuse of any compromised information.” Coinbase said it will not pay the hacker’s ransom. According to a social post by CEO Brian Armstrong, the hackers demanded $20 million from the company. The company said the hacker stole customer names, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, and the last four digits of users’ Social Security numbers. The hacker also took masked bank account numbers and some banking identifiers, as well as customers’ government-issued identity documents, such as driver’s licenses and passports. The stolen data also includes account balance data and transaction histories. The company said some corporate data, such as internal documentation, was also stolen during the breach. In a blog post, Coinbase said it was opening a new U.S.-based support hub and will strengthen its security defenses. When reached for comment, Coinbase spokesperson Natasha LaBranche told TechCrunch that the number of affected customers is less than 1% of its 9.7 million monthly customers, per the company’s latest annual report ending March 2025. Coinbase said it expects to incur costs of around $180 million to $400 million relating to incident remediation and customer reimbursements. Do you work at Coinbase and know more about the breach? Contact this reporter via Signal with the username: zackwhittaker.1337 or by email: [email protected] Updated with more from Coinbase.

xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for a bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot that caused Grok to repeatedly refer to “white genocide in South Africa” when invoked in certain contexts on X. On Wednesday, Grok began replying to dozens of posts on X with information about white genocide in South Africa, even in response to unrelated subjects. The strange replies stemmed from the X account for Grok, which responds to users with AI-generated posts whenever a person tags “@grok.” According to a post Thursday from xAI’s official X account, a change was made Wednesday morning to the Grok bot’s system prompt — the high-level instructions that guide the bot’s behavior — that directed Grok to provide a “specific response” on a “political topic.” xAI says that the tweak “violated [its] internal policies and core values,” and that the company has “conducted a thorough investigation.” We want to update you on an incident that happened with our Grok response bot on X yesterday. What happened: On May 14 at approximately 3:15 AM PST, an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot's prompt on X. This change, which directed Grok to provide a… — xAI (@xai) May 16, 2025 It’s the second time xAI has publicly acknowledged an unauthorized change to Grok’s code caused the AI to respond in controversial ways. In February, Grok briefly censored unflattering mentions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of xAI and owner of X. Igor Babuschkin, an xAI engineering lead, said that Grok had been instructed by a rogue employee to ignore sources that mentioned Musk or Trump spreading misinformation, and that xAI reverted the change as soon as users began pointing it out. xAI said on Thursday that it’s going to make several changes to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. Beginning today, xAI will publish Grok’s system prompts on GitHub as well as a changelog. The company says it’ll also “put in place additional checks and measures” to ensure that xAI employees can’t modify the system prompt without review and establish a “24/7 monitoring team to respond to incidents with Grok’s answers that are not caught by automated systems.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Despite Musk’s frequent warnings of the dangers of AI gone unchecked, xAI has a poor AI safety track record. A recent report found that Grok would undress photos of women when asked. The chatbot can also be considerably more crass than AI like Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT, cursing without much restraint to speak of. A study by SaferAI, a nonprofit aiming to improve the accountability of AI labs, found xAI ranks poorly on safety among its peers, owing to its “very weak” risk management practices. Earlier this month, xAI missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework.

Veteran Chipotle executive Jack Hartung was appointed a member of Tesla’s board of directors Thursday, according to a Tesla filing with the SEC. Hartung’s addition to the board comes as Tesla quietly works to finish its 1950s-style diner and charging station in Los Angeles. Hartung brings over two decades of experience as a Chipotle CFO, president, and chief strategy officer to Tesla’s board. He has overseen all finance and accounting at Chipotle, as well as supply chain, strategy, and safety and asset protection as the company has grown to over 3,700 restaurants across the U.S. and globally. Prior to Chipotle, Hartung spent almost 20 years at McDonald’s, where he served as VP and CFO of the restaurant chain’s partner brands group. While Hartung’s business and financial acumen are likely transferable across industries, his debut on Tesla’s board comes as the company gears up to launch the above-mentioned retro-futuristic diner and charging station in LA. Last August, Tesla advertised a role for a Tesla Diner Experience Specialist to work with the charging team to build out great customer service at the up-and-coming diner. TechCrunch has reached out to Tesla and Hartung to learn if the Chipotle executive will offer strategic insight and a network of contacts in the food and beverage industry. Tesla’s regulatory filing announcing Hartung’s appointment also discloses a related-party transaction; his son-in-law has worked as a Tesla service technician since December 2016, and last year took home a $124,000 salary. Tesla says this salary is in line with the company’s standard compensation practices. Hartung will begin his duties on the board, including on the audit committee, effective June 1. He has waived his ability to collect cash compensation, as well as his equity compensation, as the other board members have done. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Epic Games claims that Apple is blocking its Fortnite app from the U.S. and EU App Stores. After winning a decisive victory for app developers in a legal battle with Apple, forcing the tech giant to allow external payments in its U.S. App Store without charging commission, Epic Games attempted to resubmit Fortnite to the U.S. App Store on May 9, 2025. However, Apple failed to accept its submission for a week, leading Epic Games to pull its request and try again. According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, the update was pulled because Epic Games needs to release a weekly Fortnite update with new content, and all platforms must be updated simultaneously. The company then submitted a new version to the U.S. App Store for review on Wednesday, May 14, with the updated content. In a Friday morning post on X, Fortnite said that Apple has blocked its latest U.S. submission and has made it so Epic Games can’t release its app to the European Union, either. “Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it,” the post from Fortnite reads. TechCrunch reached out to Epic Games and Apple for comment. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Apple disputed Epic Games’ characterization of the issue. A spokesperson for Apple said the following: “We asked that Epic Sweden resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies. We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces in the EC.” Updated after publication with Apple’s comment.

The judge in Canoo’s bankruptcy case has blocked an attempt by a mysterious financier to disrupt the sale of the EV startup’s assets. In a hearing Tuesday, Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon ruled the financier, a U.K.-based man named Charles Garson, lacked standing to request the sale to Canoo’s own CEO be vacated. While Garson had told the court he was willing to pay as much as $20 million for Canoo’s assets, he missed the deadline to formally submit that bid. Garson also never made it clear where he was sourcing that money from, causing the bankruptcy trustee in the case to raise concerns the bid could get blocked by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The last remaining challenge to the asset sale comes from Harbinger Motors, a commercial electric trucking startup created by a handful of former Canoo employees. Harbinger objected to the sale before it was finalized in April. The judge denied Harbinger’s objection, but the company has since appealed that decision. Jason Angelo, a lawyer for Garson, framed his client’s attempt to disrupt the sale as a “David versus Goliath type matter.” Angelo tried to make the case during the hearing that Garson’s conversations with the bankruptcy trustee — which were submitted to the court under seal — led him to believe he had until the end of April to formalize a bid. He also repeated the claims made in Garson’s original filing about the sale allegedly being unfair because the assets ultimately went to Canoo’s CEO Anthony Aquila. “I think it would make sense here to allow a redo, so to speak,” Angelo said, citing “the sincerity and earnestness” of his client. “I know that is asking a lot, I do.” Mark Felger, the lawyer representing the bankruptcy trustee, disagreed by saying there was little in dispute and the negotiations were fair. “We think it’s pretty clear-cut in terms of the facts. There’s no he said, she said,” he told the judge. “Your Honor, it’s all in the emails. I’ve read them over many, many times. I don’t see any miscommunication. I don’t see any deception. It was clear how we were proceeding. He knew there was a sale hearing on the ninth, and he chose not to file anything.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Regarding the fairness of the sale process, Felger said he and the trustee “were concerned about this insider sale [to the CEO].” “But they’re the ones who stepped up, right and we negotiated hard. We went back and forth a dozen times on that agreement,” he said. Felger also repeated the trustee’s claims, made in earlier filings and testimony, that the cost of maintaining Canoo’s assets — especially its battery packs — was costing too much money. Letting a sale process drag out for too long could damage the value of the estate, he said. Judge Shannon, after hearing the arguments from Angelo, Felger, and a lawyer for Aquila, ruled swiftly against Garson. He said the financier lacked standing to properly argue his motion to vacate the sale, since he is not owed any money by Canoo and did not submit a formal bid before the deadline. “I am sympathetic to Mr. Garson’s frustration at what I sense and am satisfied is a genuine interest to provide a superior bid and purchase these assets,” Shannon said. “But it was a complex process run by the chapter seven trustee that I don’t think Mr. Garson had a full handle on exactly what the process was, and what was necessary in order to fully engage in that process.” Shannon also pointed out it was made clear to the trustee from the beginning who Aquila was, and that his role as CEO alone did not preclude him from buying his company’s assets. “I came into the process late and had hoped for the opportunity to participate and enter my bid. While the outcome wasn’t what I’d hoped for, I respect the court’s decision and want to extend my congratulations to Tony Aquila,” Garson said in a statement to TechCrunch. This story has been updated with a statement from Charles Garson.

Creator platform Patreon has to modify its app to comply with Apple’s guidelines after a recent update allowed U.S. users to make purchases via the web. The company says that its own web-based checkout option is now the default for U.S. fans, but it has to update its app so that this checkout option opens in an external browser instead, per Apple’s instruction. This creates more steps for fans who want to pay using Patreon directly, but it still allows the company to forgo having to pay Apple a 30% commission on in-app purchases. Patreon first updated its app shortly after a court ruling in the Apple-Epic legal battle that forced Apple to support external payments in apps published on its U.S. App Store without charging commissions. Last week, the Patreon iOS app (version 125.5.0) added an option that let users pay via the web using a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, Venmo, PayPal, and even Apple Pay. These options appeared within an in-app browser, providing a more seamless checkout experience for Patreon users. Now, Patreon’s checkout flow opens in an external browser instead — a change Patreon made based on Apple’s feedback. In addition, the company says creators on older billing models will also be able to accept payments through Patreon’s iOS app. Image Credits:Patreon Previously, Apple didn’t support billing models outside of subscription billing, and it required the exclusive use of its own in-app purchases system. That limited the options for creators on legacy billing models, like first-of-the-month and per-creation billing, Patreon says. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW With the update, creators will be able to use those billing options on iOS, which could make a significant impact on their bottom line. Within the week, Patreon says that U.S. fans will be able to purchase memberships from these creators at the price they’ve set for their tiers in the iOS app. (However, creators will still need to offer subscription billing to sell new memberships outside the U.S.) Currently, approximately 95% of active creators are already using subscription billing, the company notes, as it allows them to use other tools like free trials, discounts, gifting, tier repricing, autopilot, and more. But now it can address the needs of the remaining 5%. Because of this new flexibility, Patreon’s deadline to switch creators to subscription billing is no longer in effect, it says. Last August, Patreon said Apple had given it a deadline to switch all creators to Apple’s iOS in-app purchase system by November 2025 or risk removal from the App Store. “We’ve stayed in close conversation with Apple and have continued advocating for a more flexible approach — one that gives creators more time and choice,” Patreon shared in a blog post. “As a result of the recent ruling and changes on Apple’s end, the November 2025 deadline is no longer in effect, and as of today, no new deadline has been set. This means that, as of now, we can give creators more time and flexibility in when and how they switch while we simultaneously work to resolve issues that have blocked them from switching in the first place,” it said.