Epic has launched an appeal against last week’s ruling in its case against Apple’s App Store policies.

On Friday, the court issued a permanent injunction stopping Apple preventing app developers from directing users to payment methods outside the App Store – seen by many as a loss for Apple.

But the court also ruled against Epic on nine out of 10 issues and ordered it to pay millions of dollars in costs.

Epic boss Tim Sweeney said he was “as determined as ever to fight on”.

‘Clear win’
Epic had argued Apple’s tight control of its iOS platform amounted to a monopoly.

But the court found Epic had failed to prove its case.

“The court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist,” judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers said.

Apple has characterised the ruling as a clear win, saying it is about communication between app developers and users.

But the injunction allowing developers to link to their own purchasing mechanisms – the only part of the ruling to have gone against Apple – may mean fewer customers use Apple’s in-app payment systems, which take a 30% cut.

‘Fair competition’
The court has given Apple a 90-day grace period before the ruling takes effect

And the technology giant has yet to decide whether to appeal.

It also remains unclear whether any change would be limited to the US market or rolled out worldwide.

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In the wake of the ruling, Mr Sweeney tweeted: “Today’s ruling isn’t a win for developers or for consumers.

“Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores, for a billion consumers.”

In a filing Sunday with a California district court, Epic gave notice to appeal against the judgement – “and all orders leading” to it – but without much further detail.

A similar court case between Epic and Google, which runs the equivalent Android app store, continues.

A second, or spare, battery can extend the battery life of your laptop. When your primary battery becomes discharged, insert your spare battery to keep using your laptop.

One option you probably ignored when you bought your laptop was getting a spare battery. This item is a must for someone who is seriously on the road or in a remote location, where a long time is spent away from the power socket. Before you use a spare battery, ensure that it’s fully charged.

If your laptop has some type of quick-swapping ability, when the power gets low, you can just eject your laptop’s original, spent battery and quickly insert the spare battery. But be sure that your laptop can survive such a transplant before you attempt it! Perform a test swap in a noncritical situation, just to be sure.

If your laptop doesn’t have the ability to hot-swap batteries, just turn off (or hibernate) the laptop when the original battery is nearly spent. Remove the old battery, insert the fresh one, and then turn the laptop on again. Keep the following points in mind:

• If you plan on pulling this trick often, get a laptop that supports hot-swapping batteries in the first place.
• Label the batteries with a Sharpie so that you don’t get the two (or more) batteries confused and accidentally insert a dead battery.
• You can buy a spare battery from your dealer or from stores that sell extra batteries

This is a rechargeable Datalogic 3.7V 3600mAh 13.3Wh 50-BTEC Battery . High quality and long lifetime, this 50-BTEC battery lets you work seamlessly when you are on the move for business trips or vacations. All our Li-ion replacement batteries for Datalogic 50-BTEC Barcode Scanners have been tested and proven to match and/or exceed original battery performance and are 100% compatible with Original Manufacturer Specifications. Every piece of our replacement battery for Datalogic 50-BTEC has been tested and validated on Datalogic systems to ensure the safety for your Datalogic LYNX BTSC 94ACC0. Increased capacity extends your workable hours at the office, in meetings or classes, or while traveling.

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This is the Replacement Datalogic 50-BTEC Battery, You can extend the life of your 50-BTEC battery significantly through the proper care and handling of your battery.

• Any new 50-BTEC battery should first be fully charged by leaving it plugged in overnight. Once a computer battery is fully charged it will no longer accept any more power. It is a common practice to leave Barcode Scannerss plugged in after they have been turned off so that the battery has a full charge the next time you use your Barcode Scanners. It is probably fully charged within 5 hours.
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• Run on battery power without the AC adapter cord at least once a week to keep the 50-BTEC battery cells active and at their peak potential. When your Barcode Scanners is plugged into the power adapter the battery goes to ‘standby mode’ while your Barcode Scanners runs directly on electricity from the wall outlet.
• Even though your battery indicates it is fully charged, your battery will return to a weakened state again in a few months if it does not get some exercise through partial discharge and recharge cycles while running on battery power alone.
• If your 50-BTEC battery has not been actively used 2 months or more, condition your battery again with 5 partial discharge & recharge cycles to increase the batteries capacity and run time.
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• Increase your memory to 4 Gigabytes. This creates less work for your hard drive. Data is temporarily written to your hard drive when your memory is not sufficient to hold all the data on the many pages you may be accessing.
• Reduce the brightness of your laptop screen. This is the number one drain on your battery by far.

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The Metropolitan Police commissioner has accused tech giants of making it harder to identify and stop terrorists.

The tech giants’ focus on end-to-end encryption was making it “impossible in some cases” for the police to do their jobs, Dame Cressida Dick wrote in the Telegraph on Saturday.

On Wednesday, Home Secretary Priti Patel launched a new fund for technologies to keep children safe.

She also called on tech firms to put user safety before profits.

But cyber-security experts have told the BBC that they are not sure the solutions the government wants are possible to build.

Should encryption be curbed to combat child abuse?
Apple delays plan to scan iPhones for child abuse
Apple regrets confusion over ‘iPhone scanning’
In her piece marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Dame Cressida stressed that advances in communication technologies meant terrorists were now able to “recruit anyone, anywhere and at any time” through social media and the internet.

In response, the UK was needing to constantly develop its own digital capabilities to keep up with terrorists exploiting technology to their advantage.

Her message echoes that of Ms Patel, who launched the Safety Tech Challenge Fund at a meeting of the G7 interior ministers earlier this week.

The fund, open to experts from across the world, is aimed at tackling child sexual abuse online.

Five applicants will be awarded up to £85,000 each to develop new technologies that enable the detection of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online, without breaking end-to-end encryption.

End-to-end encryption is a privacy feature that makes it impossible for anyone except the sender and recipient to read messages sent online.

While tech giants such as Facebook say using such technology will protect users’ privacy, several governments including the US, UK and Australia have repeatedly objected to the idea since 2019.

Controversy over Apple plan
Cyber-security and privacy experts believe that Ms Patel and Dame Cressida’s views could be in response to Apple’s decision to delay a plan to scan iPhones for CSAM earlier this month.

The detection technology, first announced in August, compares images before they are uploaded to iCloud against unique “digital fingerprints”, or hashes, of known CSAM material on a database maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Apple’s technology was widely criticised by privacy groups and the cyber-security industry as setting a dangerous precedent, because it involved using an individual’s own device to check if they could be a potential criminal.

“We already have end-to-end encryption in Apple’s iMessage texting technology – it’s strange that law enforcement and the government haven’t hit out at Apple about that, but it’s all about attacking Facebook and WhatsApp,” Alec Muffett, who led the team that built end-to-end encryption technology for Facebook Messenger, told the BBC.

Much has been written about the wealth of data tech giants possess about the users of their services, particularly the fact they are constantly tracking user behaviour and interests in order to provide personalised ads.

He argues that tech firms already possess the technology they need to detect paedophiles and terrorists, simply by tracking their behaviour – they don’t need to compromise a user’s privacy by looking at all their personal files on their phone.

“If you’ve got an Facebook account of a middle-aged male who is randomly messaging a dozen teenagers out of the blue, then you have a potentially suspicious activity. It might be innocent, but it is certainly an issue worth delving into,” said Mr Muffett, who has more than 30 years’ experience in cyber-security and cryptography.

“The UK government is trying to detect CSAM by looking at the content, as in trying to snoop, rather than trying to observe behaviours.”

On top of this, he says, multiple cyber-security researchers have tested Apple’s NeuralHash algorithm and found that it is mistaking two completely different images, as being the same photo, so they fear Apple will falsely accuse users of having criminal content.

Criticism of new tech fund
One leading cyber-security expert who did not wish to be named told the BBC that what the government wants is not technically feasible.

“You can change the law of the land, but you can’t change the law of science – there’s no way of allowing the mass scanning of devices without undermining the protections of end-to-end encryption,” the expert said.

“If somebody manages to viably protect end-to-end encryption while detecting child sexual abuse imagery, they’re going to make a lot more than £85,000, so I just don’t see what the economics are.”

Another cyber-security boss agrees: “It’s almost like the government is making a statement to make Facebook and other social media organisations do more and give them more access.

“If you read between the lines, Ms Patel is essentially saying they want to recruit hackers.”

Then there’s the privacy concerns. “Can we trust those in power not to abuse these powers?” questions online child safety expert Dr Rachel O’Connell, founder of a secure child age authentication tool TrustElevate.

As far as data protection expert Pat Walshe is concerned, Apple’s solution is not legal. He says he has asked the tech giant to explain how it can be deployed in Europe, and has yet to receive an answer.

“The European Court of Justice (ECJ) says the mobile phone is an extension of our private sphere, and the courts have said that the device and any information on it is part of the private sphere of our lives, meaning it requires protection under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR),” he said.

Mr Walshe, who led a team at the mobile operator Three that was responsible for dealing with the government and law enforcement, also has grave concerns about the tech fund proposal, saying it prompts too many questions about privacy.

Instead, he says, there need to be better, more direct reporting channels to enable both citizens and communication providers to report CSAM to either the tech firms or law enforcement.

“And law enforcement needs to receive a huge boost in training, manpower and funding to deal with the reports,” he stressed.

“I’d like to see a greater emphasis on that, than on breaking technology that keeps us safe every day.”

Apple has been dealt a major blow in its ongoing trial against Fortnite-maker Epic Games.

A court in Oakland, California, has ruled that Apple cannot stop app developers directing users to third-party payment options.

Apple had argued that all apps should use Apple’s own in-app payment options.

In a high profile trial, Epic Games had challenged the up-to-30% cut Apple takes from purchases – and argued that the App Store was monopolistic.

On Friday, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers ruled that “the court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist”.

However she also issued a permanent injunction, stating that Apple could no longer prohibit developers linking to their own purchasing mechanisms.

For example, a movie-streaming service will now be able to tell customers to subscribe via its own website, without using Apple’s in-app purchasing mechanism.

Epic has also taken legal action against Google over its Play Store.

Apple’s closed payments system is hugely lucrative for the tech giant, although the company says it does not know exactly how much it makes.

The ruling effectively states that Apple cannot ban developers from communicating with customers. Often there are cheaper options for consumers away from the App Store, however Apple did not allow companies to tell consumers this.

Epic had argued that this was unreasonable and that developers should be able to inform users that they could make purchases away from the App Store.

However in a win for Apple, the judge also ruled Epic failed to demonstrate Apple was operating an illegal monopoly.

Judge Yvonne Gonzales-Rogers said: “Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinary high profit margins.”

But added: “These factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal.”

A spokesperson for Apple said: “Today the Court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law.

“Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world.”

Epic Games’ chief Tim Sweeney said the ruling was “not a win for developers or consumers” and vowed to “fight on”.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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Music streaming site Spotify said: “We are pleased with [the decision that] Apple engaged in anti-competitive conduct and has permanently prohibited their anti-steering provisions.”

The ruling also revealed that gaming apps account for 70% of App Store revenue.

It’s likely the decision will be appealed, perhaps by both sides.

Apple’s share price has fallen by 3% since the decision, wiping billions of dollars from its valuation.

Apple has been quick to claim victory – calling it a “resounding win”.

It is true that the judge mainly sided with Apple on Epic’s major contention, stating it is not a monopoly.

However the characterisation that Apple has “won” here is misleading.

Epic’s case against Apple was speculative. Many believed they didn’t stand a chance.

That the court has moved to allow in app purchases to be redirected away from the App Store could be a major blow to Apple’s business model.

It was revealed that 70% of Apple’s App Store revenue comes from gaming apps – an astonishing figure.

I say “could be” because it’s unclear how many people would choose to purchase away from the App Store, or to what extent that would dent Apple’s profits.

During the trial, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said he didn’t know how much the company generates from the App Store. That makes trying to assess the damage this ruling could have on the company difficult.

Epic is saying it is disappointed in the ruling, and certainly the judge could have given them more.

But the decision has been welcomed by anti-trust campaigners, who believe Apple use their market dominance to bully developers.