Week in Review: Apple won’t raise prices — yet | TechCrunch

Welcome again to Week in Overview! We’ve were given quite a lot of information for you these days: Amazon profits, Apple profits, ChatGPT sycophancy, Alibaba’s AI fashions, and a lot more. Let’s get to it!

Smartly? Throughout Apple’s profits name the day past, Tim Prepare dinner printed that the corporate paid $900 million in price lists closing quarter. However regardless of this, the CEO didn’t announce any worth will increase — but.

Large greenbacks: Protection tech startup Mach Industries, which was once based by way of 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, is set to near a recent $100 million in financing, resources advised Techmim. This new investment will have to deliver the startup’s overall investment to about $185 million up to now.

Extra fashions: Alibaba introduced this week that it’s freeing a circle of relatives of AI fashions, referred to as Qwen3, that it claims can outperform OpenAI and Google. Consistent with Alibaba, the Qwen3 fashions are “hybrid” fashions, and so they’re now not but to be had for obtain. 

That is Techmim’s Week in Overview, the place we recap the week’s greatest information. Need this delivered as a publication on your inbox each Saturday? Enroll right here.

Information

Shoot for the celebrities: Amazon’s effort to create a space-based web community started in earnest this week: The corporate fired off its first 27 web satellites on Tuesday. The primary part of the community must be deployed by way of mid-2026 to fulfill the FCC time limit.

AI to your pocket: Meta is rolling out a stand-alone AI app, which it unveiled on the corporate’s first LlamaCon match on Tuesday. The app lets in customers to get entry to Meta AI in an app, very similar to the ChatGPT app and different AI assistant apps.

Blocked: A pass judgement on in India blocked the encrypted e-mail supplier Proton Mail around the nation. This was once in line with a felony criticism filed by way of New Delhi-based M Moser Design Pals, which alleged that its workers had won emails containing obscene and vulgar content material despatched by way of Proton Mail.

Cheaters by no means win: Cluely went viral lately for its daring declare of serving to other folks cheat on the whole lot. However some startups are claiming they are able to catch Cluely’s customers.

Alexa+: Amazon’s new virtual assistant goals to let customers communicate with it in a extra herbal taste and ultimately have agentic skills that permit it to make use of third-party apps on a person’s behalf. Throughout Amazon’s profits name this week, CEO Andy Jassy says that 100,000 customers now have Alexa+.

AI the place it issues: Airbnb appears to be taking a extra measured way with AI. It began rolling out an AI-powered customer support bot within the U.S. closing month. CEO Brian Chesky stated in February that the corporate would use AI for customer support earlier than it began enforcing it for different makes use of like trip making plans or reserving tickets.

Epic ruling: Epic Video games has notched a win in an ongoing felony dispute with Apple. Pass judgement on Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated in a ruling that Apple was once in “willful violation” of a 2021 injunction that prohibited the corporate from implementing anticompetitive pricing. In consequence, Fortnite might be again on iPhones once subsequent week. 

LOL: Following the Epic Video games ruling, Stripe shared documentation that presentations iOS builders keep away from the Apple fee.

Test your settings: Meta emailed Ray-Ban Meta homeowners on Tuesday with a understand that AI options will now be enabled at the glasses by way of default. This implies Meta’s AI will analyze pictures and movies focused on the glasses whilst sure AI options are switched on.

Yikes! OpenAI stated it was once “rolling again” the most recent replace to the default AI style powering ChatGPT, GPT-4o, after court cases about unusual habits, particularly it being overly agreeable and validating. Consistent with OpenAI, the replace, which was once supposed to make the style’s default character “really feel extra intuitive and efficient,” was once knowledgeable an excessive amount of by way of “temporary comments.” Now the corporate pledges to make adjustments that might save you this from going down sooner or later. 

Prior to you pass

Oh the drama: We learn during the 80-page Epic v. Apple determination to tug out the pass judgement on’s juiciest, fieriest feedback. Right here’s one to get you began: “Apple engaged in techniques to lengthen the court cases. The Court docket later concluded that lengthen equaled earnings.”