Fortnite on iOS Has Now Earned $100M Since Launch

Popular battle royale game Fortnite has earned more than $100 million in revenue in its first 90 days of availability on iOS devices, according to new data shared by app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

The figure means Epic Games’ title for iPhone and iPad has become the second-fastest app to reach the milestone in its category. Clash Royale retains the top revenue record, earning the same amount in only 51 days.

It took Fortnite’s mobile players 90 days to spend $100 million in the game. We looked at how this compared to its rivals above. Among them, Clash Royale managed the fastest time from launch to the $100 million milestone on iOS, accomplishing the feat in just 51 days. Fortnite, however, reached this point nearly three months faster than Knives Out and Honor of Kings, at 173 and 179 days, respectively.

When it was in beta, Fortnite earned more than $1.5 million, and during its first month of availability on iPads and iPhones, the game brought in $25 million. It only took two weeks for that to double to $50 million. Six weeks later, that figure has also doubled, which is all the more impressive given that Fortnite was invite-only for the first three months.

Fortnite is free to download, but encourages players to buy “V-Bucks” in the app so they can purchase customization items like emotes, outfits, gliders, and more. The minimum in-app purchase is $9.99 for 1,000 V-Bucks, but players can spend more if they want. Players are also able to earn V-Bucks in game, but must invest a lot of play time to do so.

PUBG, another battle royale game that launched shortly after Fortnite, has not been as successful – Sensor Tower estimates that it has grossed around $5.2 million on iOS, and attributes the lower figure in part to its loot box monetization strategy. While Fortnite offers unique items available for a limited amount of time, PUGB only allows players to purchase randomized boxes that can result in duplicate and non-useful items.

Tag: Fortnite
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Oppo Find X review: Finding space

When we’ve talked about full-screen phones in 2018, that’s meant around an 80 percent screen-to-body ratio with a small bottom bezel and a notch housing the front camera. The front-facing camera is an integral part of the phone so this design was necessary — until now.

With the Oppo Find X, the Chinese company follows in the footsteps of fellow BBK-owned phone company Vivo, hiding the camera in the top of the phone. However, Oppo’s approach is a little different the Vivo’s NEX, and feels pretty unique.

Design

The Oppo Find X is a stunning phone. With beveled edges, a beautiful gradient back design and probably the highest screen-to-body ratio available, this thing is quite the looker. The body feels quite similar to the Samsung Galaxy S9 with its curved sides — even the top and bottom contour inwards to create a nearly uniform design.

The most obvious design component here is the omission of the rear and front-facing cameras. While Vivo’s NEX showcased the dual rear cameras on the back of the device, the Oppo Find X takes this design to the next level.

The small curved window on the rear of the phone would make you think the cameras were hiding in the shadows, but in reality the camera mechanism is much more unique. When you launch an app using the camera, the Oppo Find X will lift the shaded window to reveal the cameras beneath.

I know what you’re thinking. Moving parts are a bad idea. I would agree here.

Moving parts seem like a bad idea, but I commend Oppo for trying something innovative

Oppo claims the camera module can be raised and lowered over 300 thousand times, but the phone prompts you to use the camera much more often than you would on a daily basis. The device has no fingerprint reader, instead relying on a 3D face scanning feature, which uses infrared light to create a depth map of your face. It works well, but moving the camera module up and down every time you unlock your phone seems like a bad idea. It remains to be seen how durable it will actually end up being.

The device will be available in Bordeaux red and glacier blue. Be warned the red is definitely purple — at least the one I used was. Nonetheless, the phone is gorgeous. The color is a sloping gradient, transitioning from black in the center to purple on the rims. It looks great, and reminds me a bit of how the OnePlus 6 mirror black edition reflects light.

The right side of the phone houses the power button while the you’ll find the volume rocker on the left side. The bottom of this phone is a little different. It’s got the standard USB Type-C port and bottom firing speakers, but Oppo also opted to place the SIM card tray on the other side of the charging port. I think this is perfect positioning, especially there’s no headphone jack. This placement adds a form of symmetry to the phone. Only the power button and volume rockers off axis. Heck, even the word Oppo is a palindrome.

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Overall, this is one of the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used. Xiaomi told me that its Mi Mix was accepted into some museums as an art piece. I think Oppo deserves to fight for that title.

Display

Besides the camera module, the display is definitely the most striking aspect of this device. The face of the phone is almost completely display, clocking a screen-to-body ratio of 93.8 percent. This is one of the highest screen-to-body ratios we’ve ever seen, only rivaled by the Vivo NEX. The phone’s bottom bezel is comparable to that of the OnePlus 6. It’s often said the newest Oppo phone is the reference design for whatever OnePlus releases next. I’d be happy for the 6T to look this good.

The display is also fairly massive in general, with a size of 6.42 inches and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. This display is curved as well, so if you’ve used a recent Samsung phone you’ll know how that feels. Unfortunately, this can lead to some awkward handling especially while taking photos. Edge detection isn’t great here, and I’ve heard Vivo’s software detects accidental presses much better.

The phone’s 1,080 x 2,340 AMOLED display looks phenomenal. Colors are punchy and vibrant, and I have nearly no issues with it. I’d also like to give a nod to how dim this display can get. I’m the kind of masochist that reads Reddit and Twitter instead of sleeping, so it’s nice to have a display that doesn’t hurt my eyes.

Performance

With some of the latest hardware available on the market, the Oppo Find X performs admirably. The one issue I saw with performance which I also saw on Oppo’s R15 Pro was poor RAM management. My model has 8GB of RAM, but keeping just a few apps open used almost 4.5 GB. Having more RAM to work with doesn’t give you an excuse to manage it badly, and I hope Oppo spends some resources making its skin a bit less taxing.

If you’re into benchmark scores, we ran the Oppo Find X Plus through Geekbench 4 and 3D Mark. Antutu didn’t want to run on this phone for some reason.

Geekbench 4 gave the Oppo Find X a single-core score of 2,391. In comparison, the OnePlus 6 scored 2,454, while the Galaxy S9 scored 2,144. The Find X achieved a multi-core score of 6,216, while the OnePlus 6 scored 8,967, and the Galaxy S9 scored 8,116. Ouch.

The Oppo Find X scored 4,148 in 3D Mark, while the OnePlus 6 and Galaxy S9 scored 4,680 and 4,672, respectively.

Hardware

As I mentioned earlier, the Oppo Find X competes head to head with the latest and greatest from Samsung, OnePlus, and more. No more Snapdragon 600 series — this phone is the real deal.

The Find X packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage, and a 3,730mAh battery. This kept the device running smoothly the entire week or so I had to use it, and I really didn’t notice any hiccups during this time.

This phone flies, packing Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chipset

Weirdly enough, Oppo omitted a fingerprint reader this time around, which really pushes the user to use the 3D face unlock feature. I was pretty hesitant of this at first, because the phone needs to physically open the top portion of the device to reveal the front-facing camera. While I’m not a huge fan of moving parts being actuated every time you want to unlock your phone, I was surprised how fast the process was. It seemed like the phone was unlocked before I even noticed the camera opening and closing itself. I tried to get some friends to unlock the phone quite a few times and it proved secure every time, so I’m pretty confident in Oppo’s engineering.

This 3D face unlock feature works similarly to how the iPhone X and Xiaomi Mi 8 explorer edition do, using infrared light to get an accurate depth map of your face. This makes the phone much more accurate — up to twice as accurate as its fingerprint reader according to Oppo (which doesn’t exist anyway). It’s unfortunate that BBK opted to include the in-screen reader in the Vivo NEX but not the Oppo Find X — I would have liked to see that here.

Editor’s Pick

Best True Wireless Earbuds

What are the best options out there?Sadly you wont find a headphone jack on this device, but Oppo includes a dongle in the box.

There isn’t any water resistance rating on this phone, but I’m not sure how Oppo would make this water resistant. Having the entire top of the phone lift to reveal the cameras is a cool concept, but bad things will happen if you use it in the rain.

There isn’t any expandable storage available on this device. Oppo instead opts for a dual-SIM tray. I would have preferred it added support for a microSD card in this space like many other manufacturers. 256GB is ample storage for a lot of people, but it’s always nice to have more options.

Battery

This device’s 3,730mAh battery performed really, really well. As noted in my Oppo R15 Pro review Oppo doesn’t meter screen-on time in its ColorOS skin, but I got a solid day and a half with this thing before needing to charge it. I don’t play mobile games, but I still use my phone quite a lot in an average day. I’m often jumping back and forth between Twitter, Chrome, Reddit, and a number of messaging apps throughout the day.

See also:

OPPO R15 Pro review: Notch what I was hoping for

Oppo is a company consistently adopting the latest trends to stay relevant in the market. The R9 added dual cameras to compete head-to-head with flagships from Huawei and Honor, and the R11s slimmed down its …

The Find X uses Oppo’s VOOC fast-charging standard, and it juices up the device very quickly. The company has finally moved to USB Type-C after much deliberation, which is really great to see, considering I only have like one microUSB cable left in my house.

Unfortunately there is no wireless charging in this device. We would have liked to see that here since the body is made of glass, but such is life.

Camera

Despite being hidden inside the phone, the cameras aren’t actually that bad.

The rear-facing 16 and 20MP cameras perform quite decently. I found they tended to overexpose images more often than not, but the dynamic range was pretty darn solid. If you want to take a look at the images for yourself, you can see our gallery below, or pixel peep by taking a look at the source files here.

The 25MP front facing camera performed just as well. Selfies seemed to have nice skin tones, but could have been a bit sharper in my opinion.

The biggest issue I encountered with the camera was how long it took to actually launch. Though the mechanism opens up pretty immediately when you launch the camera app, the live view didn’t appear for three or four seconds. Oppo definitely needs to fix this, because it made catching fleeting moments hard.

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Oppo included a portrait mode in this device, and it performed quite a bit better than I expected. Despite the live view’s slowness, the processing did a good job of separating the subject from the background. It still suffers from the over-exposure issues of the general camera, though.

The camera module got dirty very easily. Just keeping the phone in my pocket normally collected quite a bit of dirt and lint, and left me wishing I kept a cloth with me to clean it out every now and then.

Software

If you’re not familiar with ColorOS, it’s basically iOS. There isn’t an app drawer, and all your apps will be spread across your home screens as you download them. You can still make folders and such, but I prefer to hide most of my apps to get as stock an experience as possible.

ColorOS 5.1 is based on Android 8.1 Oreo. I’m glad to see it updated to the latest Oreo version, because the R15 Pro was still stuck on Android 8.0. While ColorOS on the R15 Pro felt slow and laggy, it really flies on this device. This is more than likely due to the Snapdragon 845, but it’s still nice to use an Oppo phone that doesn’t feel like I’m making huge performance compromises.

There was an entire suite of apps installed on this phone out of the box, but I ran the Chinese version. Oppo has announced this phone is coming to the U.S. and some other markets, which will probably come with the Google Play store pre-installed. I had to download the Google Play store from the Oppo app store, but you likely won’t have that issue.

I’m really not a fan of this software, but it’s not terrible. I’d still use a custom launcher like Nova to make the experience more manageable, but I used ColorOS during my time with the device so you won’t have to. You’re welcome.

Specs

Display	6.42-inch AMOLED 2,340 x 1,080 resolution 19.5:9 aspect ratio
Processor	Snapdragon 845 Octa-core, up to 2.8Ghz
RAM	8GB LPDDR4
Storage	256GB
MicroSD	No
Camera	Rear: 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture + 20MP sensors with f/2.2 aperture Front: 25MP
Battery	3,730mAh Non-removable VOOC Flash Charge (5V/4.5A)
SIM	Dual nano-SIM
Headphone jack	No
IP rating	No
Software	Android 8.1 Oreo with ColorOS 5.1
Fingerprint scanner	No
Other features	3D facial recognition

Gallery

Pricing, availability, and final thoughts

The Oppo Find X is coming to multiple markets, including China, Europe, and even the U.S.. We’ve only heard details about the launch in Europe so far, where it will cost 999 euros (~$1,157) and be available in August.

Oppo is also launching a special Lamborghini edition of this device, with 512GB of storage and Super VOOC fast charging. This phone will have a smaller 3,400 mAh cell, but will be able to charge from zero to 100 percent in 35 minutes.

Overall, I really like the Oppo Find X. It needs some software updates to fix the sub-par palm rejection and laggy camera, but the 3D face unlock and enormous screen impressed me quite a bit. This feels like a second generation product in its first iteration, and I’m happy to see Oppo pushing the boundaries of smartphone design. I’m eager to see what Google and Samsung announce for the rest of 2018, but Oppo and Vivo are making other manufacturers seem pretty outdated.

We’ll likely see more traditional flagships adopt the truly bezel-less standard in 2019. If you want one now, the Find X is one of your only options.

What are your thoughts on the Oppo Find X? Is this the future of smartphones? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Norway tests its first all-electric plane with passenger flights eyed for 2025

Avinor

While a growing number of outfits are developing electric-powered vertical take-off and landing aircraft, the plan to use them for taxi-like services in urban areas mean it may be some time before we see the machines appear in a commercial setting.

In the meantime, several companies are working to incorporate battery technology into regular-looking airplanes for greener, quieter, and more efficient flights.

With a view to launching a commercial service using electric planes within seven years — and electrifying the entirety of its local air transport by 2040 — Norway this week witnessed its first-ever electric-powered flight in an Alpha Electro G2 plane, built by Slovenian company Pipistrel, Reuters reported.

The flight was piloted by Norwegian transport minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen and also had on board Dag Falk-Petersen, head of state-run Avinor, which operates most of the country’s airports.

As planned, the flight lasted just a few minutes, taking the pair around Oslo airport before landing safely.

Solvik-Olsen said the demonstration flight was proof that a commercial service using electric-powered planes “is not a far-off vision of the future but a reality achievable within a few years.”

The nation is seen as an ideal place for short-hop services using electric aircraft as it has a large number of remote islands, as well as fjords that could be crossed at speed.

“Electric aircraft are set to significantly improve the environmental consequences of the aviation industry,” Falk-Petersen said in a release. “It could also be cheaper to fly as operating costs for several aircraft models will be considerably lowered, which will have an impact on ticket prices.”

According to Pipistrel, its two-seat Alpha Electro motor has around 50 kilowatts of power and a battery of 21 kWh, enough to keep the aircraft in the air for up to an hour. Range is currently about 80 miles (130 km). Without anyone on board, the Alpha Electro weighs 770 pounds (350 kg) but can handle a maximum take-off weight of 1212 pounds (550 kg).

Current challenges with electric-plane technology include the heavy weight of batteries and limited range, but these are expected to be conquered in the coming years.

Indeed, moving toward overcoming such predicaments, a number of other companies are developing hybrid-electric planes, among them Airbus, which is working with Siemens and Rolls-Royce to develop a larger passenger aircraft in a bid to transform the short-haul market. The E-Fan X program plans to use a 2-megawatt electric motor alongside three jet engines on a BAe 146 aircraft, with a second electric motor replacing another of the jet engines at a later date. With current battery technology, the plane is too big to be electric-only, though such a design is the ultimate goal.

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Quickstarter inspires creators to dream up small but fun Kickstarter projects

Kickstarter wants you to know that your project needn’t be an overly ambitious undertaking that leaves you sweating it out as you gradually begin to wonder how on earth you’re going to meet all those crazy goals you set.

That’s right — projects can be simple and manageable, too.

To inspire people to turn their attention to stress-free projects, the company this week launched Quickstarter, a place for low-budget ideas that can be done and dusted within a short time frame, or “the kind you do mostly for fun,” as the company puts it.

Kickstarter decided to incorporate Quickstarter into its site after hearing about the idea from London-based designer Oscar Lhermitte.

“As exciting as big projects can be, I’ve learned just as much from doing the little ones,” Lhermitte said in a post about the new initiative.

“Kickstarter is a great tool to test out experimental ideas — things that don’t follow traditional models — and working on a small scale can give you the freedom to experiment and explore new things without putting too much on the line.”

The designer points out how a Quickstarter project could work out perfectly for people looking to launch their very first crowdfunding project, in other words, those who might not have the time or money to “hire a videographer, spend months doing PR, or figure out a complex manufacturing process.”

But Lhermitte also points out that a Quickstarter project might also suit more experienced creators who’ve already crowdfunded projects but are feeling the need to “shake things up and try something new.”

According to Lhermitte, a Quickstarter project should not turn into something that takes over your life, or be seen as a job. In a nutshell, it’s about thinking small and having fun.

To help you to focus on a Quickstarter idea, he’s created some rules you might want to follow:
1. The development process — from sketching an idea to launching it on Kickstarter — should take no more than three months.
2. Keep the campaign under 20 days.
3. The funding goal should be below $1,000 (or thereabouts in your local currency).
4. The main reward should be under $50.
5. The video should be shot over one day with whatever camera you have (smartphone highly recommended).
6. Don’t do any PR and media outreach (unless you get contacted).
7. Don’t run any paid ads on social media.
8. No stretch goals.
9. Include “Quickstarter” in your campaign name.

Interested in starting your own Quickstarter project? To see what’s already out there, check out Kickstarter’s dedicated webpage for Quickstarter projects, which currently includes ideas for everything from webcam covers and “envelope bags” to “lazy postcards” and tape stickers. That last one happens to be Lhermitte’s own project.

Thieves nab $100K of Apple gear in ‘Mission: Impossible-style’ raid

Apple products have been targeted by thieves yet again, this time in a raid at a Best Buy store in Dunwoody, Georgia.

Around $100,000 worth of iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, and other Apple kit was taken, but it’s the way the crooks broke in that has surprised local cops, with one describing it as “a Mission: Impossible-style burglary.”

The perpetrators cut a hole in the roof of the store before rappelling down on ropes, bringing to mind the iconic vault scene in the first Mission: Impossible movie where Tom Cruise is lowered into a secure CIA room packed with sensors as he attempts to retrieve important data from a computer.

OK, we’re not saying the thieves had to overcome any of the security technology that Cruise and his gang had to deal with — including retina scans, vocal ID, laser nets, temperature sensors, and pressure sensitive floors — but these particular Best Buy bandits clearly considered it necessary to rappel down on ropes.

Cops said that once inside, the thieves “burrowed” their way into a locked storage area used for holding Apple gear when the store is closed.

The burglary took place on June 8 but no arrests have yet been made.

Apple products are often targeted by thieves because of their high resale value and popularity in the marketplace. The crimes, however, take various forms.

On the cruder side, some have seen gangs using hammers and other tools to simply smash their way into Apple Stores. Others have been carefully planned, such as the time a trio of thieves dressed as Apple Store employees to confuse staff and customers while they quietly stole iPhones from several stores in New York City.

But perhaps the most remarkable effort to date involved a gang stealing more than $500,000 worth of iPhones from a van as it motored along a highway in the Netherlands.

The audacious nighttime raid, which took place in 2017, is believed to have involved the robbers driving a modified van up to the rear of the targeted truck as it drove along the highway.

One of the suspects reportedly climbed onto the van’s hood before forcing his way into the back of the truck carrying the Apple gear. It’s thought he then handed the iPhones to his accomplices via a hole cut into the van’s roof. In that case, police made a number of arrests.

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Apple Pay Debuts in Norway With Nordea and Santander

Just a day after launching in Poland, Apple Pay has debuted in Norway, bringing the total number of supported countries and regions to 24 by our count. Apple has updated its list of participating banks to note that Nordea and Santander Consumer Finance are currently supported in Norway.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Apple’s earnings conference call last month that Apple Pay would be launching in Ukraine, Poland, and Norway in the near future, and with the addition of Norway today those promises have been fulfilled. Apple Pay launched in Ukraine just over a month ago.

(Thanks, TrulsZK!)

Related Roundup: Apple PayTag: Norway
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Kristen Wiig Drops Out of Upcoming Apple Comedy Series Due to Scheduling Issues

Kristen Wiig is no longer set to star in an upcoming Apple comedy series due to a scheduling conflict with “Wonder Woman 1984,” reports Variety. Wiig’s exit from the series and the reason behind it were confirmed by an Apple video spokesperson.

As was announced back in January, Wiig was set to play the lead role in a 10-episode comedy show based on the “You Think It, I’ll Say It” short story collection from Curtis Sittenfeld. The show would have been Wiig’s first regular television role since leaving “Saturday Night Live” in 2012.

Wiig is instead set to play the villain Cheetah in “Wonder Woman 1984,” which is set to be released in November of 2019. The first of Apple’s television shows have also been rumored to be debuting in 2019, explaining the scheduling conflicts.

Curtis Sittenfeld’s book features 10 stories that “upend assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided,” according to its description on Amazon. According to Variety, Apple still wants to develop the series and the producers for the show are regrouping.

Apple has dozens of other television projects in the works at the current time, with a full list available in the original programming section of our Apple TV roundup.

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How to spot spam in WhatsApp

With more than 1.5 billion monthly users, it’s safe to say that WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps in existence. Unlike proprietary services like iMessage, which is only available on compatible Apple devices, the Facebook-owned app allows users to send text, voice, and video messages across a variety of devices, as well as images and other media.

With so many people using the service regularly, however, there are bound to be a few hiccups, one of which is the large amount of spam plaguing the app. Some messages attempt to scrounge your personal data or install malware, while others try to trick you into paying a fee in order to continue using the app. To help you identify and handle the deluge of unsolicited messages — whether from unknown users or contacts whose accounts have been hacked — we’ve put together a few tips.

Keep an eye out for misspellings and grammatical errors

One of the easiest ways to tell the difference between a hoax and a legitimate offer is to watch out for poor grammar and spelling. If an offer is legit, chances are it will have gone through rigorous editing and marketing meetings before being released. Does the message constantly misuse words like “your” and “you’re?” Is there a lot of unnecessary punctuation or random capitalization? If you receive a message from a contact, does the writing style seem different than the messages you typically receive from said contact? If so, chances are it’s spam.

Stop and think

While presentation is a good place to start, it’s not the only thing you should consider if you are trying to determine if a message is spam. Another important thing to consider is if this message is too good to be true. Hoaxes are made to appear too good to pass up. Does the message promise a large sum of money or a gift card for simply pressing a link or entering information like your home address? Would this deal be beneficial to a company if a thousand people (or more) sent them their information? If it seems too good to be true, unfortunately, it probably is.

Avoid messages that ask you to tap a link or share personal info

Another red flag is any message that asks you to tap a link or share personal information, such as your credit card number or birthday. Even seemingly innocuous questions like “what is your mother’s maiden name” or “where did you go to elementary school” should be cause for alarm because questions like these are commonly used for security questions and could be used to reset or acquire a password for one of your online accounts. Never download unknown attachments, either, especially if you aren’t expecting one. All these factors point to spam.

Be aware of legitimate offers and changes to the WhatsApp Terms of Service

2nix/123rf.com

While some messages may obviously seem like spam — especially ones that suggest terms of service may be changing — it is possible that they are true. The best way to determine the validity of a supposed offer or Terms of Service changes is to simply Google it. For example, a quick search of “WhatsApp age requirement” will give you an article from the BBC explaining that WhatsApp actually is changing the minimum age requirement in the EU to 16 in response to new GDPR rules. Another search for “Aer Lingus free flights,” a popular scam that has been making the rounds on WhatsApp as of late, will bring up this article explaining that it is indeed a scam. Aer Lingus even tweeted from their verified Twitter account that they “don’t run promotions on WhatsApp.”

Once you’ve identified spam, report it

If you receive a message from an unknown number and determine that it’s spam, you will be given the option to report that number from directly within the app. If you receive spam from a contact, delete the message — do not click any links or provide any personal information. You should also tell said contact that the message they sent includes spam. They may not have realized that it was spam, but their account may have also been hacked, which will require a password change on their end.

In an effort to reduce the spread of spam messages, WhatsApp is reportedly in the process of testing a new feature that will alert users if they receive a message that has been forwarded multiple times. Sadly, there is no official release date for this feature as of yet.

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Apple v. Pepper: The Supreme Court could rule the App Store is a monopoly

Apple is facing yet another antitrust case. The subject this time? Apps. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Apple Inc. v. Pepper, a case that asks whether or not Apple has monopolized the app market. If the Supreme Court rules against Apple, it could have far-reaching implications for everyone.

At the heart of the dispute is the issue of money. Apple both charges developers 30 percent of their app’s revenue, and prevents iOS devices from being able to install apps from other sources. Because of that, some argue that Apple has inflated the price of iPhone apps in an effort to make more money.

On the other side, Apple argues that the plaintiffs, who are consumers, don’t have the right to sue Apple under current U.S. antitrust laws. The key to that argument, as noted in a report by Wired, is a case from 1977, Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, which resulted in a ruling that you can’t sue for an antitrust case if you didn’t directly purchase goods or services. Because of that, Apple says, it’s not selling apps to customers — the developers are through the App Store.

The only problem with that is that the plaintiffs are arguing that Apple has monopolized app distribution — not necessarily apps themselves. There is evidence of that on Android — users can get apps from the Google Play Store, but they can also get them from Amazon and other third-party stores, too, if they so choose.

The case could result in some major changes for consumers and Apple alike. If Apple wins the case, nothing much will change with how it and developers interact, and developers will still be forced to go through the App Store and abide by Apple’s rules. If the plaintiffs win, however, Apple may have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars — and it may have implications for other large tech companies that sell products from third parties, including the likes of Amazon.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the Supreme Court will hear arguments for nine months starting in October. Safe to say, this case has a long road ahead of it.

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Meet the Italian composer who conducts the world’s biggest all-robot orchestra

Thanks to the digitized instruments found on Pro Tools and GarageBand, any wannabe music producer can command a virtual orchestra in 2018 using no more hardware than a single laptop. If they’re really serious about their craft, they might plug in an MIDI keyboard, a guitar, or a stand-alone sampler to go one step further. That’s nothing compared to Italian electronic music producer Leonardo Barbadoro. For his latest album, he’s still using a computer to program his instruments — but, thanks to some impressive robot technology, the instruments are all real.

In all, Barbadoro’s music is composed using a robot orchestra that’s capable of playing more than 50 acoustic instruments on command. These range from piano and organ to wind instruments and percussion. Barbadoro is able to control these real instruments from his laptop, with the real sound then recorded in a way that he can use it for his compositions. The purpose — perhaps somewhat ironically — is to achieve a more human sound than you’d get from your regular digitally synthesized instruments, due to the playing of actual instruments in a real acoustic space.

“I have been working on this project for a long time now,” he told Digital Trends. “Everything started in 2011 when I was in Ghent, Belgium, to play a show, and a guy there showed me the website of the Logos Foundation. These people have built robots to play acoustic instruments for the past 20 years. It is now the largest robot orchestra in the world. I thought the whole concept was amazing, and finally decided to get in touch with them in 2014. I visited the foundation about 10 times to learn how these instruments work, and then composed and recorded ‘Musica Automata,’ a 10-minute composition for 19 robots controlled by a laptop computer.”

Taken with the versatility of the robots, Barbadoro has expanded this into an album, while also working to build his own robots — including one designed to play an unusual Persian string instrument. To complete the album, Barbadoro is now raising funds on Kickstarter. As a reward, he’s offering the album in various forms, including digital download and vinyl, along with the opportunity to attend a live performance of his robot music.

As ever, we offer our usual cautions about the potential issues that can befall crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you’re interested in getting involved with this blurring of digital music and authentic analog sound, head over to the project’s Kickstarter page for more information. The finished product is due to be delivered in early 2019.

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