First, a competing tap-to-pay app on an iPhone would need to get the customer to go through the trouble of switching from the default option when the phone is tapped to pay.
It is also not an end-run around Apple. Apple said it would require the developers to have a “commercial agreement” with Apple and “pay the associated fees.” So for example, while Apple Pay typically charges credit-card issuers a fee when their cards are used in the wallet, whether having customers tap a card via the card issuer’s own app is ultimately cheaper, or otherwise more advantageous, might depend on those terms.
I do think, after some off-the-record conversations this week, that both the MacOS and security teams at Apple are trying to get the balance right on these permission issues. I continue to think part of the problem is thinking too small, and requiring what’s effectively whack-a-mole with multiple recurring permission prompts.
SubManager is a simple app that allows you to easily keep track of all of your subscriptions across the web. In a world where it feels like every app wants to charge you monthly for something, this management tool is actually quite helpful!
On Tuesday, Tokyo-based AI research firm Sakana AI announced a new AI system called "The AI Scientist" that attempts to conduct scientific research autonomously using AI language models (LLMs) similar to what powers ChatGPT. During testing, Sakana found that its system began unexpectedly modifying its own code to extend the time it had to work on a problem.
"In one run, it edited the code to perform a system call to run itself," wrote the researchers on Sakana AI's blog post. "This led to the script endlessly calling itself. In another case, its experiments took too long to complete, hitting our timeout limit. Instead of making its code run faster, it simply tried to modify its own code to extend the timeout period."
I sure hope choosing the default NFC app on iPhone to be as easy as switching which card to use for Apple Pay today.
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Thanks for reading.