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Google is officially doing away with its 30 percent cut of Play Store transactions, and rolling out changes to how third-party app stores and alternate billing systems will be handled by Android. Some of these tweaks were proposed as part of the settlement the company reached with Epic in November 2025, but rather than wait for final judicial approval, Google is committing to revamping Android and the Play Store publicly.
The biggest change is to how Google will collect fees from developers publishing apps on Android. Rather than take its standard 30 percent cut of in-app purchases through the Play Store, Google is lowering its cut to 20 percent, and in some cases 15 percent for new installs of apps from developers participating in its new App Experience program or updated Google Play Games Level Up program. Google will also now charge a five percent service fee for developers in the UK, US or European Economic Area (EEA) using its billing system, and "a market-specific rate" in other regions. Of course, for anyone trying to avoid those fees, using alternatives to Google's billing system is also getting easier.
As part of these changes, Google says that developers will be able to offer alternative billing systems alongside its own or "guide users outside of their app to their own websites for purchases." The setup, as described by Google, appears to be more permissive than what Apple settled on in 2025. For iOS apps on the App Store, develo
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 Apple today released iOS 18.7.6 for older devices, addressing an issue that caused some older iPhones in Australia to be unable to connect to emergency services.
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Another live service game bites the dust.
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 Apple is working with German confectionary brand Ritter Sport to offer a unique Apple Music promotion.
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Sometimes you can notice the signs of a failing SSD. For instance, the once-quick transfer speed slows to crawl, there are frequent program or system crashes, or file system access errors or SMART errors occur. If you notice these things, especially in combination, there's a good chance your SSD is on its way out. In that case, it's time to prepare for the worst and do the following:
Back up critical files
It goes without saying that the first thing you'll want to do if you think your SSD is on the blink is to back up your critical data. Backups should be done regularly anyway, but even if you're doing that, you'll still want to make a new backup of your critical files at this point to have them ready to go should your SSD suddenly die.
See our roundups of the best Windows backup software and
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Image Credit: Eric Zeman/ Android AuthorityThe January OTA pack for Google Pixel 6 ("oropiole") and Google Pixel 6 Pro ("raven") has started rolling out. The software update brings fixes from December and January that should help Pixel 6 series smartphones run at full speed after numerous bugs and problems seemed to affect the functionality.
Google has revealed that the January software update for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro is now available as factory images and full OTA images via the Google Play services website (12.0.0 (SQ1D.220105.007), Jan 2022 - specific device/images links can be found in "sources" below). Those who prefer to wait for the OTA package to ar
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