Facebook has made a concerted effort to get on the good side of big media companies lately. Mark Zuckerberg himself wants to make sure they are as successful as possible, so he wants to help them sell subscriptions to their publications. And Facebook doesn’t even want a slice of the revenue.
Facebook’s new subscription tool for mobile phones will roll out sometime in the next few weeks. It allows various publishers, such as the Washington Post or Hearst, to set two different types of paywalls around their articles. One is a “metered” paywall, which many publications use already. After reading a certain numbers of articles, you’re directed to their subscription page. The other is a “freemium” version, where publishers can set firewalls around individual articles. In both cases, the goal is to get you to subscribe. Facebook has already said it wouldn’t take any of the revenue generated, and that it won’t capture customer data that results from the transaction.
As MacRumors points out, there’s only one problem – Apple won’t play ball.
The two tech juggernauts have been going at this for months, say many industry insiders. In the end, it all comes down to money. Apple wants a slice of the pie – a fairly big slice – and, as a result, the new Facebook service will only premiere on Android devices when it launches.
Apple is demanding a substantial portion of any subscription fees generated by the new service. According to its own rules, the Cupertino company takes a cut of up to 30 percent on any revenue generated from “in-app“ purchases on its iOS platform. Facebook argues that it’s not an “in-app” purchase, as it takes place at the publisher’s site. Apple’s counter-argument is that since the transaction begins inside the app, it’s entitled to its slice. And so they go round and round.
The rule is in place to prevent a company from advising a user to leave the iPhone app and subscribe on the company’s own website, as a way of dodging the 30 percent Apple tax. Google has said it’s not taking any revenue from media subscriptions using the new Facebook feature.
According to Recode, Apple wouldn’t comment. Facebook wouldn’t comment either. This isn’t the first time Apple has struggled with publishers over its subscription rules, which date back to 2011, when everyone wanted to sell subscriptions to iPads. That never really panned out.
You’d think will all that money to be made, these two could play nice and come to some sort of agreement. After all, the tech companies may not have the upper hand for long, says the New York Times – news outlets are joining together in an alliance to ask Congress for an anti-trust exemption so they can bargain collectively against Facebook and Google.
Are you tired of paying for streaming services you never watch just to get a phone plan feature you actually want? T-Mobile has good news for you! The carrier is rolling out new plans, called T-Mix, in early November to replace its old Experience lineup with a build-your-own perks system called Picks.
The benefits you choose vary from streaming and gaming to food delivery, AI, satellite service, and phone discounts. But if you are satisfied with your existing plan, you can keep it.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.