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Apple and Google will be made responsible for paying Japanese sales tax on apps and in-app content sold by developers based outside the country, the government has said.

There are two different routes the companies could take to comply with the new policy …

As the Justice Department’s antitrust trial against Google unfolds, we’re learning more about the secretive agreement between Apple and Google over Safari’s default search engine. It turns out Google gives Apple a 36% cut of its search ad revenue generated through Safari.

AAPL’s share price dropped by 11% since the company’s last earnings report in August, losing more than $400B in market capitalization. The fall is discussed a couple of days ahead of Apple’s next earnings report, on Thursday.

A new report notes that this is the first time in eight years that the company’s share price has dropped between WWDC and fiscal Q4 earnings report …

As the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google continues, more details about the company’s relationship with Apple have emerged. This time, testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that Google once pitched Tim Cook on building a version of the Google Search app that would come pre-loaded on every iPhone.

Update: Google wanted to keep the sum confidential, but a judge just ordered that the total sum paid – across Apple and other platforms – should be disclosed in the ongoing antitrust case. More at the bottom.

A new report says that the growing size of the Google payment to Apple to remain the default search engine on Apple devices concerned senior execs at the search giant – and they wanted to use EU law as a mechanism to reduce it …

While the Department of Justice has accused Google of a range of anti-competitive behaviors, the judge in the case has said that the Apple search payment is “the heart” of the matter.

The implication is clear. If that deal is illegal, then Google will lose the case, and the company may have to be broken up. Conversely, if the court finds that the payment was legal, then Google likely wins, as the other charges are comparatively minor …

The Google search payment – the annual amount Google pays to Apple in return for being the default search engine in Safari – reportedly makes up 14-16% of the Cupertino company’s total profits.

With that payment now threatened by the antitrust case against Google, Bernstein analysts look at what that could mean for Apple …

Apple’s long-running battle with Korean antitrust regulators is showing no signs of ending any time soon.

In the latest development, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) has found both Apple and Google guilty of anti-competitive behavior, required changes to their respective app store policies, and warned of possible fines …

At the Made by Google 2023 event this morning the company officially launched its Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, Pixel Watch 2, and more. Follow along for what Google has announced with its iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9 competitors including what the new hardware brings, 7 years of software updates, and other interesting new capabilities.

Will Apple ever compete with Google on building a search engine for the web? Never say never, but Google pays Apple $15 billion per year to not think too hard about it. That’s something the government hopes it can disrupt. If the incentives for Apple were different someday, would Apple have the tools to go to bat against Google?

John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of ML and AI strategy, took the stand this week to testify in the ongoing Department of Justice antitrust suit against Google. During his testimony, Giannandrea specifically pointed to a little-known new feature in iOS 17 related to the iPhone’s default search engine.

A lawyer representing Apple has objected to claims made in court about how much Google pays the Cupertino company to be the default search engine on iPhones and other devices.

The objection was made in a major antitrust case against the search giant, which could see the Department of Justice force the breakup of the company into separate businesses …

As we often report here, it’s common for tech companies to help each other improve their security systems by sharing zero-day exploits found by security researchers. Google, for example, does this a lot. But recently, an Apple employee reportedly found a zero-day exploit in Google Chrome – and that bug was never reported to Apple by that person.

While Vision Pro is getting all the headlines at the moment, it’s likely that a future Apple Glasses device will be the one to turn wearable AR into a mass-market product. Apple was set to face competition from a product codenamed Google Iris, but a new report says that the search giant has now abandoned work on the device.

Project Iris was first reported some 18 months ago, and unlike the ill-fated Google Glass product, it did seem to be something people might actually be happy to wear …

Google I/O 2023 kicked off today with the keynote unveiling Google’s latest hardware, Android 14, a ton of upcoming AI features across the company’s apps, and much more. With our 9to5Google colleagues live at the event, read on for a round-up of everything Google announced today.

Google is holding the 2023 edition of its annual I/O conference today, and the company announced many new things for Android and Pixel products. During the keynote, the company again teased Apple for not providing support for the RCS messaging protocol on the iPhone.

Another aspect of Ookla’s Q1 2023 mobile performance report is how specific devices compare between Apple, Samsung, and Google. While the iPhone 14 Pro Max was king when it came to median download speeds last fall, for Q1 2023, that wasn’t the case. Here are the three smartphones that were faster.

A new report has detailed the depreciation across Apple, Samsung, and Google’s flagship smartphones. Like in the past, the current iPhone lineup retained the most value with Samsung’s new S23 lineup averaging 40% lower resale prices and Google Pixel 7 devices 48% weaker than the iPhone 14 average prices. Follow along for all the details including which iPhone, Samsung, and Pixel models retained the most value and more.

Update: The consultation has now begun, and will last for 12 weeks – see end of piece.

Under a proposal currently being discussed, tech giants could be asked to help pay for European 5G infrastructure, with Apple potentially on the list of companies receiving a bill.

The European Union is planning to consult on the idea of asking companies which generate a lot of Internet bandwidth to contribute to the cost of upgrading the telecoms equipment used to deliver it …

There have been suggestions for years now that the iPhone maker is quietly working on an Apple Search service, to compete with Google. That idea is back in the news today, in a report suggesting that it could be one element of a three-part “silent war” on Google.

Recent developments do support the idea that the Cupertino company is gearing up to take on Google in a much more direct fashion than it has so far …