🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #417

It's Wednesday! Time to reflect and keep moving forward!

Lot’s of news related to Apple India today.

#MKBHD - Popular Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee launched their first iPhone app last year - a wallpaper app with subscription of $50 / year. They came under heavy criticism for the pricing - and a year later, they have finally decided to shut down their app.

#ZigLanguage - The Zig Software Foundation has decided to switch away from Github for good. A bug with Github’s CI runner that was known for years and did not receive any fixes seems to have been the final straw for them.

Apple Resists Indian Government's Order To Preload Cybersecurity App
Apple is not planning to comply with an order from the Indian government directing phone manufacturers to preload a state-backed cybersecurity app. Apple plans to tell India’s government that they don’t comply with requests like this due to privacy and security concerns. The app in question, Sanchar Saathi, can be used to track and block lost or stolen phones.

Government Clarifies Sanchar Saathi App Is Optional
The government-backed “Sanchar Saathi” mobile application is entirely optional for users. Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said, "The app is completely optional. If you want to delete it, you can. If you don't wish to register, you shouldn’t register and can remove it anytime".

Amazon Expands Quick Commerce Arm Amazon Now To 300 Dark Stores By Year-end
Amazon India said it plans to open two new dark stores a day for its quick commerce arm Amazon Now. The total count will be over 300 before the year ends. The Amazon Now service currently offers groceries, vegetables, beauty and personal care.

Apple Takes On India's Antitrust Laws
Apple is seeking to block antitrust proceedings in India by challenging a law that allows penalties to be calculated on global turnover. The iPhone maker last month challenged India's antitrust penalty law which allows the regulator to use global turnover when calculating the penalties. Apple denies wrongdoing, saying it is a smaller player than Google's Android platform.

Razorpay Gets RBI Approval For Cross Border Payments
In a significant regulatory development for India’s fintech ecosystem, Razorpay has received the Payment Aggregator – Cross Border (PA–CB) license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This authorization empowers the company to facilitate both inward and outward cross-border payments under full regulatory oversight, marking a major milestone for Indian businesses engaged in global trade.

Apple Hires Indian Origin AI Researcher As Their New VP Of AI
Apple has tapped AI researcher Amar Subramanya as its new VP of AI, replacing John Giannandrea who will retire in 2026 after leading Apple's AI efforts since 2018.

Meesho - Real-time Voice Agent Integration with ElevenLabs Text to Speech for Multilingual Customer Support

YouTube - Introduces Recap feature allowing users to revisit and share their favorite interests, discoveries, and moments.

Opera - Introduces AI-powered browser experiences to Opera One, Opera GX, and Opera Neon with access to Google Gemini models

GitHub - View pull request descriptions directly from the "Files changed" page.

Google Cloud - Introduces Cross-Cloud Interconnect for AWS, a groundbreaking joint specification enabling on-demand, private, and secure connections between Google Cloud and AWS VPCs.

Filemock - a free, browser-based tool for developers and QA teams to instantly generate functional test files, including video, audio, image, and document formats. It is optimized for testing, allowing precise control over file size and format, and is ideal for validating file uploads, API endpoints, storage systems, and CI/CD pipelines, with all generation done securely client-side.

Exposed By Default - a privacy-focused tool that scans and displays the vast amount of system and hardware data your web browser automatically reveals upon visiting a site. It breaks down dozens of subtle traits - from audio sampling rates and font lists to WebGL vendor and CPU core count - to demonstrate how websites can uniquely "fingerprint" your device even without cookies, raising awareness about digital tracking.

Typescript Design Patterns - a comprehensive catalog providing detailed explanations and practical code examples for all 22 classic GoF (Gang of Four) design patterns in the context of the TypeScript language. It helps developers understand, learn, and implement creational, structural, and behavioral patterns to write flexible, maintainable, and well-structured object-oriented code.

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