Plus: Please remember to delete this email to save water ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

August 13, 2025 | Read online
# Apple-Google loss, Musk whinge and court-ordered selfies Plus: Please remember to delete this email to save water
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Edition 2395
"Computer training" sign (Flickr: soviet)
# The News
### Apple and Google are anti-competitive dogs, Aussie court finds
Apple and Google have misused their market dominance to be anti-competitive, an Australian court has found (Guardian Australia). In a mega-lawsuit that combined Epic Games’ two cases against the mobile makers and a class-action lawsuit, a Federal Court justice found that both company’s ban on external payment providers and Apple’s restriction on side-loading unfairly hurt competition, albeit not intentionally. It wasn’t a straight-sets win for Epic which tried unsuccessfully to argue that a ban on rival app stores was also anti-competitive. Both Google and Apple have flagged an appeal.
| Epic Games Newsroom @EpicNewsroom |
The Epic Games Store and Fortnite will come to iOS in Australia! An Australian court just found that Apple and Google abuse their control over app distribution and in-app payments to limit competition. There are 2,000+ pages of findings that we’ll need to dig into to fully
6:47 AM • Aug 12, 2025
710 Likes 84 Retweets
36 Replies
The Sizzle: The full 2,000-page judgment hasn’t been released, so it’s hard to say too much based but one thing jumped out to me: Apple and Google are facing anti-competition lawsuits around the world. What makes it such a thorny problem is that jurisdictions are finding different bits of their business are anti-competitive. That US case I wrote about last month? They found that the ban on rival apps stores was anti-competitive. But Australia didn’t. Anyway, like I said with the US case, I think we’re about to see some drastic changes to the way Apple and Google’s businesses work.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Elon Musk whinges about Apple not giving Grok special treatment
The world’s richest man is yet again complaining that it should be illegal not to be nice to him. This time, Elon Musk says Apple is being anti-competitive by…. not selecting xAI’s app Grok to be on its top App Store lists (Apple Insider). This led to Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman having a tiff online, which escalated to the juvenile stage of using their competitor’s AI product to ““““prove”””” that they, in fact, were right.
this is all so embarrassing
Charge your phone Elon!!!!!!
The Sizzle: This embarrassing display of childishness from two of the world’s most powerful men aside, Musk is actually right. Apple does pick favourites. Except, it’s Musk who is often the favourite. An example: Last week, xAI released a “spicy” video setting on Grok to its millions of users that immediately made Taylor Swift nonconsensual adult images (The Verge). It says everything that at the same time as indie game platforms are being chased off the internet for having adult content, Musk is free to distribute this reckless technology to millions of people using Apple’s own services and never face any consequences.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### A court has ordered a man to send hourly selfies to police
A Sydney man accused of murder must send hourly selfies to the police as part of his house arrest conditions (Cyber Daily). Ayman Manly, who has pled not guilty to his charges, has been given unique bail conditions while he awaits trial. These include buying an iPhone, sending a photograph of himself to NSW Police every hour between 8am-8pm, and to sharing his location via Find My as part of his bail conditions.
The Sizzle: This is a pretty absurd story — I mean, no one should be forced to buy an iPhone when Samsung has some great new phones /s — but it’s a consequence of a bigger story. Earlier this year, ankle monitoring tech company BailSafe just shut up shop with no warning, leaving courts in the lurch and criminals unmonitored (ABC News). This is what happens when you outsource crucial technical parts of your legal system to private companies who list their head office at a door factory!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Atlassian co-founder and Tech Council of Australia chair Scott Farquhar did not do well in a 7.30 interview last night (ABC) Privacy Commissioner hits back at PC’s ‘privacy retreat’ (InnovationAus, $) ‘OpenAI inks Commonwealth Bank deal (The Australian Financial Review, $) Perplexity AI, in a Direct Challenge to Google, Will Now Answer Your Questions From the Chrome Address Bar (The Wall Street Journal, gift link) ‘Hormone coaches’, wellness educators spreading poor birth control advice online (The Australian, $) High-severity WinRAR 0-day exploited for weeks by 2 groups (Ars Technica) $8 meals: Inside the hidden world of Facebook Marketplace food sellers (The Sydney Morning Herald, $) Crypto founder Do Kwon pleads guilty to US fraud charges (Financial Times, $) How Russian spies hacked the US federal courts (The Verge) Qubic Claims Majority Control of Monero Hashrate, Raising 51% Attack Fears (Yahoo Finance) Is the A.I. Boom Turning Into an A.I. Bubble? (The New Yorker, $) OpenAI Burns The Boats (Ethan Ding's Substack) 50K YouTubers rage against AI spying that could expose identities (Ars Technica) Data Brokers Are Hiding Their Opt-Out Pages From Google Search (Wired, $) Threads is up to 400 million monthly active users (Engadget) alt headline: Instagram has 390 million users who accidentally click the Threads notifications. Yes, Sam Altman will be played by Andrew Garfield in Artificial, but all we want to know is who's playing Elon Musk (TechRadar) iOS 26 will finally add a clear button to the iPhone’s Calculator app (9to5Mac)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Please remember to delete this email to save water
As the UK faces a drought, its top weather boffins have come up with a, um, unusual idea about how to save water: deleting old emails and photos (The Journal). The National Drought Group’s Helen Wakeham urged people to take individual steps to curb their water use “such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails”. Now, it’s not crazy to suggest that data centres are using a lot of water but it does feel a little bit like blaming climate change on people still using plastic straws.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & electronics
$30 Cashback from Commbank Yellow When You Spend $150 on Nespresso Coffee Machines at JB Hi-Fi Olight i3E EOS Mini EDC keychain light with login - Free at Olight Soundcore by Anker A20i TWS - $25.99 at AnkerDirect AU via Amazon AU UGREEN 65W 5 Ports Nexode GaN II Desktop Charger - $39.99 at UGREEN via Amazon AU UGREEN 65W Nexode Pro Travel Charger - $56.52 at UGREEN AU via Amazon AU JBL Jr460 Wireless Noise Cancelling Kids over-Ear Headphones (Blue) - $64 at JB Hi-Fi (Down from $129) Sennheiser Momentum Sport Graphite - $169 at Sennheiser Australia eBay Samsung HW-Q600F Q-Series Soundbar with Subwoofer 3.1.2Ch - $399 at Samsung Online
Computing
Ugreen 40gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure - $79.99 at Amazon AU Simplecom SE640 USB4 to NVMe M.2 SSD 40Gbps USB-C Enclosure - $114 at Amazon AU MSI PRO MP273A 27" Eye Care Ergonomic Business Monitor, FHD 1920x1080, IPS, Frameless, 100Hz, 1ms - $135 at Amazon AU Ugreen 8K-60Hz HDMI KVM Switch - $143 at Ugreen via Amazon AU AOC Q27G11E 27inch 180hz QHD Fast IPS Gaming Monitor - $209 at Scorptec Alienware 34 Curved QD-OLED Gaming Monitor - AW3423DWF - $899 at Dell Outlet (Refurbished)
Mobile
Belong Mobile Data Rich Offer at Belong 80GB Plan for $35/month 200GB Plan for $45/month 240GB Plan for $55/month Motorola Edge 60 Fusion 8GB/256GB (EU Model) - $476 at Tradeinn Samsung Galaxy S24 FE 128GB (Mint / Blue) - $749 at BIG W (Down from $1099) iPhone 16 Pro Max 256GB over 12, 24 or 36 Months with a Mobile Plan - $1748 over the plan at Vodafone
# The End
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