### Issue 2110 - Monday 17th June, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Japan to force Apple & Google (mostly Apple) to allow 3rd party app stores and other fairness measures
- Apple isn't paying to use OpenAI's GPT APIs
- Sonos changes US privacy policy to remove bit about not selling customer data
- Kyoo is a basic alternative to Plex, Jellyfin & Emby
- Cheap TCL TV, Xbox, Sennheiser soundbar & headphones, Pansonic 4K Blu-Ray, Ryzen CPUs, Klipsch 5.1.2 speaker pack, Sonos Move, Refurb iPhone mini, Boost Mobile SIM, free Nokia 4G phone trade-in offer, Fallout 4, refurb 14TB Seagate HDD, Xbox & PS controllers, Sony lenses

## The News

### Japan to force Apple & Google (mostly Apple) to allow 3rd party app stores and other fairness measures

Japan has followed in the EU's footsteps and decided Apple should allow third party app stores on its precious iOS devices, passing a law to make it so. The law will force Apple to also allow developers to use third party payment services, give third party developers the same access to features as Apple's owns apps (e.g: NFC payments), allow users to change default apps during setup (e.g: set a default browser that isn't Safari) and forbids Apple from giving its services preferential treatment in search results and using customer data to benefit its own apps over third parties. All seems very reasonable and fair to me.

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### Apple isn't paying to use OpenAI's GPT APIs

Bloomberg reckons Apple isn't paying a cent to OpenAI for its use of OpenAI's various APIs that hook into Siri/Apple Intelligence. From the paywalled article, "Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments". OpenAI is likely hoping people see how awesome their product is and decide to grab a subscription (of which Apple will get a 30% cut of, lol) to ChatGPT. The deal, isn't even exclusive to OpenAI and Apple could slap in the ability for the user choose between Gemini or Anthropic or whatever alongside ChatGPT, kinda like how Google pays Apple to make sure their search engine is the default.

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### Sonos changes US privacy policy to remove bit about not selling customer data

Louis Rossmann noticed that Sonos quietly changed its privacy policy in the US to remove the line "Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers". That's a pretty significant thing to remove without telling your customers! Sonos gear isn't cheap, but once again we see a company that's already making healthy profits unable to resist the temptation to sell customer data and squeeze a little more juice out of us. Sonos' Australian privacy policy still contains the phrase "Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers" and was updated in June 2024, so maybe the omission in their American policy is a mistake? The Verge reached out to Sonos asking for clarification, but no response yet.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Kyoo is a basic alternative to Plex, Jellyfin & Emby

Not a fan of Plex? Fed up with Jellyfin? Don't like Emby? There's another option for self-hosted media libraries - Kyoo. It "aims to have a low amount of maintenance needed (no folder structure required nor manual metadata edits)" and "media not being scanned correctly (even with weird names) is considered a bug". Kyoo "does not have a plugin system and aim to have every features built-in". Right now there's only a web client and an Android app - "Apple devices are not planned for now because I do not own any of their device, and it requires $100/year". No idea if it's any good, let us know on the forums if you give it a spin.

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## Bargains

- TCL 65" C855 4K QD-Mini LED Google TV - $1,890 (free delivery to most places) at Appliance Central
- Xbox Series X 1TB Console + Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Game - $669 from Big W
- Sennheiser HD820 Closed Back Headphones - $1998 from Addicted to Audio
- Panasonic DP-UB820 4K UltraHD Blu-Ray Player - $538 at JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung 512GB Pro Plus Micro SDXC Card - $69 from DigiDirect's eBay store
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU - $332.62 from Amazon Germany
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU - $822.91 from Amazon USA
- Klipsch 5.1.2 Home Theatre Pack - $2376 from WestCoast HiFi
- Sonos Move - $349 + shipping from Premium Sound
- Refurb ("good" condition) Apple iPhone 12 Mini 64GB - $287.82 from Green Gadgets eBay store
- Boost Mobile 365-day SIM with 170GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $187.50 from Cellpoint
- Trade-in a 3G phone and get a $50 off coupon, then use it to buy a Nokia 110 4G phone for $49 at JB Hi-Fi, making the Nokia phone free
- Fallout 4 GOTY Edition for Xbox - $21.98 on the Xbox Store
- Recertified Seagate X22/X18 14TB 3.5" HDD - $199 + post & surcharge from Pongobyte Computers
- Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max - $1799.10 from Sennheiser
- Xbox Series X/S Wireless Controller - $64 from Amazon
- PlayStation DualSense Controller - $67 from Amazon
- Sony FE 50mm F/1.4 G Master Lens - $1338 after Sony cashback from Digital Camera Warehouse
- Sony FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS Zoom Lens - $1012 + delivery after Sony cashback from Georges Cameras

## Image Of The Day

Collection of posters from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [POSTER 2022-2319]: Radio Australia (National Library of Australia)

## The End

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