Tech Roundup: Apple iOS 14.5, China Regulatory Crackdown & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• Apple releases iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and watchOS 7.4, allowing Apple Watch owners to unlock with Face ID while wearing a mask, and offically rolls out App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature in a bid to shake up the app economy in favour of expaning its own advertising business with new ad slots in the App Store, as antitrust concerns against the company mount.
• A group of Germany's largest media, tech, and advertising companies, including Facebook and Axel Springer, have filed a fresh complaint against Apple over its new ATT privacy changes in iOS that requires users' explicit consent to track their activity for targeted advertising purposes, warning more apps will have to switch to charging consumers instead of the current ad-supported model and that "if the relevance of ads decreases, consumers will have to spend more time searching to find offerings that are relevant to them."
• Most users are expected to decline to be tracked, dealing a huge blow to how the mobile advertising industry works currently. A similar complaint was made by advertisers in France last October.
• Apple's move to introduce more privacy-oriented features has the side-effect of opening the floodgates on criticism that the company is boosting its own fledgling advertising business, in the process making it somewhat more vulnerable to antitrust investigations. Needless to say, data privacy and antitrust are on a collision course.
• More competition means better privacy protections for users, but the higher the privacy walls, the more closed the ecosystem and higher the competion barrier. The question, therefore, is whether companies like Apple and Google are right to hoard access to user data for their own purposes (like serve ads) while cutting off access to rivals that are in direct competition. Even if the rules are meant to protect user privacy.
• China's food delivery giant Meituan becomes the latest company to face antitrust probe in the country after Alibaba, over alleged abuses including forced exclusivity arrangements known as "pick one of two," wherein companies pressure merchants to choose only one platform as their exclusive distribution channel, as the country's State Administration for Market Regulation expands its antitrust crackdown.
• China's internet watchdog, the the Cyberspace Administration of China, and other regulators jointly release new rules to regulate live-streaming e-commerce, effective May 25, requiring platforms to hire moderators, and bans behaviours such as peddling fake products, falsifying view numbers, promoting pyramid schemes, and engaging in gambling and fraud; says "the rules aim to regulate the internet market order, protect the legitimate rights of the people, promote the healthy and orderly development of emerging business models, and create a clean cyberspace."
• Snapchat reaches 280 million daily active users, an increase of 22% year over year, as its user base in Android finally surpasses that of iOS.
• Google's YouTube makes it easier for creators to change the name and profile picture on their channels without habving to update their name and icon across the entire Google account, as it expands YouTube Kids to Turkey; begins rolling out an optional "App install optimisation" Play Store feature, enabled by default, which makes apps faster to install and run using crowdsourced data, noting "Google can tell which parts of an app you use the first time you open it after installation. When enough people do this, Google can optimize the app to install, open, and run faster for everyone."

• Facebook launches a series of global News Feed ranking tests to solicit feedback from users on posts they're seeing and what posts users find valuable in an attempt to "understand the content people find most valuable"; to bring full-screen ads in Instagram Reels that can run up to 30 seconds in India, Germany, Brazil, and Australia before landing in more countries "in the coming months."
• Music streaming service Spotify reportedly plans to announce a Apple Podcasts Subscriptions competitor that will let podcasters set their own prices without charging them or taking a cut; raises price of many of its subscriptions plans across Europe and the U.S., with family tier increasing from US$ 14.99 to US$ 15.99 (U.S.), £14.99 to £16.99 (U.K.) and €14.99 to €17.99 a month (rest of Europe), while Student and Duo plans jump to £5.99 and £13.99 (U.K.), and €5.99 and €12.99 per month (rest of Europe) respectively.
• Twitter is reportedly working on enabling a tipping button right into users' profiles @TwitterSpaces, permitting followers to tip directly via Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal and Venmo; takes down over 50 tweets, alongside Facebook and Instagram, following an emergency order from the Indian government, some of which were allegedly critical of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic as a devastating second wave sweeps across the nation, and the government becomes increasingly aggressive at stifling online dissent. (The Indian government, however, said it asked Twitter to block those accounts after "they were spreading fake news by posting old pictures to misinform and create panic among the people.")
• Facebook rolls out a miniplayer that will allow Premium users to stream music and podcasts from Spotify through the Facebook app on iOS or Android; tests a new 24-hour limit for disappearing messages in WhatsApp, down from the previous seven days.
• Videoconferencing platform Zoom officially launches Immersive View, which assembles up to 25 video conference participants in one scene, for all free and individual Pro Zoom accounts.
• Ride hailing company Lyft offloads its self-driving unit, called Lyft Level 5 with about 300 employees, to Toyota's Woven Planet Holdings subsidiary for US$ 550 million.
• Basecamp announces a ban on "societal and political discussions" at work, says it's not a social impact company and that "we don't have to solve deep social problems, chime in publicly whenever the world requests our opinion on the major issues of the day, or get behind one movement or another with time or treasure." (It's worth noting that Coinbase enacted a similar policy last September.)
• Apple's upcoming iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 to include upgrades to notifications, redesigned iPad Home Screen, updated Lock Screen, and additional privacy protections, including a "new menu that will show users which apps are silently collecting data about them."