The analysis ties the surge to ”agentic coding,” AI-powered tools that let users build apps with minimal coding experience. a16z draws a parallel to 2008, when Apple released the iPhone SDK and the App Store launched with 500 apps but hit one million downloads within a weekend.

The analysis doesn’t prove vibe coding is causing the increase; the correlation could be coincidental. Still, it makes intuitive sense: building an app has become much easier, meaning more people can now ship their ideas to the App Store.

Sophie Turner has said she won’t be watching new Game Of Thrones spin-off A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms because of “anxiety” associated with the show.

Turner, best known for her role as Sansa Stark in the original series, recently spoke about the latest spinoff in the franchise she helped bring to life, and revealed she wouldn’t be tuning in.

During a recent red carpet appearance for the premiere of the new Prime Video thriller Steal, Turner was asked her thoughts on the latest iteration, which is based on George R.R. Martin‘s Tales Of Dunk And Egg novellas, and focuses on squire Ser Duncan the Tall, or Dunk (Peter Claffey).

Never underestimate the power of a middle-aged British man with time on his hands. I should know; my dad is one.

My second-favorite middle-aged British man, who goes by Atomic Shrimp online, leverages that time to be the most entertaining scambaiter I’ve ever seen. (For the uninitiated, scambaiting is the art of purposely playing along with a scam to waste as much of the scammer’s time as possible. It’s great.)

Apple’s federal lobbying spending surged in 2025, reaching a record $10 million after a nearly 30% year-over-year increase. Here are the details.

Apple breaks the $10M barrier in federal lobbying

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported on the overall increase in tech-sector lobbying spending. Notably absent from the report was Apple, which is usually among the industry’s top lobbying spenders.

9to5Mac checked the US Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act records and found that Apple spent an even $10 million on federal lobbying in 2025. That is a 27.9% increase from 2024, and marks the company’s highest annual lobbying total on record.

In addition to denying X and xAI’s demand, the judge also decried the case’s excessive discovery requests and disputes. Here are the details.

Court’s patience wears thin

Last year, X and xAI filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, following Elon Musk’s claim that their partnership to integrate ChatGPT into iOS was preventing competing AI apps from succeeding in the App Store. The accusation was promptly debunked by X’s own users.

Early last year, Apple agreed to settle a class action lawsuit regarding ‘unlawful and intentional recording’ of conversations with Siri. The issue dates back to 2019, and the company denies any wrongdoing. Since then, Apple has taken efforts to improve Siri privacy, but it still settled this case to go forward.

Claims started being accepted mid last year, and now users are starting to receive their payouts.

To qualify for the settlement, you must’ve purchased a Siri-enabled Apple device between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024 and experienced an ‘unintended Siri activation.’