TechNews

While Apple declared the outcome of its legal battle with Epic Games a “resounding victory,” it was not a complete one. The federal judge in the case ordered Apple to allow developers to link to third-party payment portals in the App Store by Dec. 9, a deadline the company seems to want to push back for a long time.

On Friday, Apple filed a notice of appeal in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to overturn a Sept. 10 decision that largely ruled in its favor in everything but the judgement on the App Store. Until the appeals are resolved, the company also requested a stay, or suspension, of the injunction ordered by federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that requires it to link to outside payment systems. Rival Epic had previously appealed the ruling on Sept. 12.

If the court approves the stay, the addition of alternative payment options in the App Store could be delayed for years while the companies fight it out in court. Allowing developers to link to third party payment portals —via “buttons, external links, or other calls to action”—would allow them to avoid forking over between 15% and 30% of their earnings to Apple, a commission colloquially known as the “Apple tax.”

Considering that Apple never wanted to include alternative payment options in the App Store in the first place, a requirement that would affect its bottom line, its legal moves on Friday are another attempt to get its way.

In its motion for a stay, Apple argued that implementing the court’s requirement in the App Store would harm both the company and customers.

“[P]recipitous implementation of this aspect of the injunction would upset the careful balance between developers and customers provided by the App Store, and would irreparably harm both Apple and consumers,” Apple stated. “The requested stay will allow Apple to protect consumers and safeguard its platform while the company works through the complex and rapidly evolving legal, technological, and economic issues that any revisions to this Guideline would implicate.”

As far as Epic goes, Apple maintains that the developer wouldn’t be affected by the requested stay since it’s banned from the App Store anyway until all litigation is complete.

In typical Epic fashion, CEO Tim Sweeney commented on Apple’s appeal by tweeting a picture of Fortnite character Peely the banana in his “Agent Peely” attire, a reference to Apple’s decision to show a tuxedo-clad Peely in court for the sake of propriety.

“Apple filed a peel,” Sweeney wrote.

Sweeney then lambasted Apple’s claim that “links and buttons to alternate payment mechanisms are fraught with risk,” because the company can’t guarantee that the third-party platform is safe.

“But seriously guys buttons are really dangerous, as Apple explains. Some buttons are big and red. Some buttons launch nuclear missiles. If software is allowed to include buttons, they could maybe cause iPhones to explode and kill you or, worse, void your warranty,” he added.

You’ve just got your Nintendo Switch OLED model, but the screen is not quite what you expected it to be? Don’t worry, Nintendo Life’s American-based video producer, Zion Grassl, has got a fix!

Be warned – by changing your screen brightness settings on this new OLED model, you do potentially run the risk of burn-in.

With that out of the way, here are some ways you can improve the brightness of the screen:

> Hold down the HOME Menu, adjust the brightness and turn off the ‘Auto-Brightness’ setting.

“Please turn up your brightness with caution, maybe it’s best to just leave the auto-brightness on, but if you want more brightness out of your screen, you can turn it up this way – just be cautious”

Alternatively, you can follow the next lot of steps:

> On the HOME Menu, go down to the ‘System Settings’ icon, scroll down to ‘System’, scroll down to ‘Console-Screen Colors’ within this menu, and swap from ‘Vivid’ to ‘Standard’.

“You’ll notice that the screen looks a lot more normal, a bit more softer on the eyes…depending on the game that you’re playing, you may want to change it back to vivid.”

Again, do all of this at your own risk – but hopefully, these extra options can make your own time with the new Switch OLED model a bit more comfortable.

Let us know if this helped you out in the comments below.

One of the best features on the Apple Watch Series 7 is its newly added fast charging system, which Apple claims is 33 percent and capable of charging the watch to about 80 percent charge in about 45 minutes. But if you want to take advantage of the fast charging, you’ll need to make sure to use the charger that comes with the Series 7, which is a brand new “Apple Watch Magnetic Fast Charger” that’s different from the old model (which doesn’t offer similar charging speeds).

The old USB-C charger and the new model look identical from the outside, but only the new cable can charge the Series 7 at full speed (assuming you’ve got a USB-C charger that can put out the proper wattage, that is — Apple recommends its own 20W USB-C charger, of course).

And while Apple has already stopped selling the old USB-C charger that doesn’t offer fast charging on its site, they’re still available from other retailers like Amazon, so you’ll want to make sure you’re buying the right one if you’re looking to pick up a spare. It also means that if you own an existing Apple Watch charging dock or stand that has a built-in charger, you won’t be able to take advantage of the faster charging available on the Series 7.

Of course, none of this matters if you own an older Apple Watch: even if you’re using the proper fast charging cable, the fast charging technology still needs a Series 7 watch to work. As Apple’s website notes: “Fast charging is only compatible with Apple Watch Series 7. Other models will have regular charge times.”

Unless you’ve been living under a giant Morph Ball-shaped rock for the last few months, you’re probably aware that Metroid Dread has launched for Nintendo Switch today. It’s utterly fantastic, and you should definitely go and play it.

Before you do, though, we thought you’d like to check out this special artwork from the team at Bethesda. The studio has congratulated Nintendo on the launch of the new Metroid on social media, sharing a cracking piece of art featuring the Doom Slayer replacing Samus as the box art star.

Here’s a comparison between the piece and Nintendo’s official cover:

Of course, Doomguy now has all the more reason to be associated with Nintendo’s own big guns after being revealed as a Mii Fighter costume for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate earlier this week. Matches between DOOM’s protagonist and Metroid’s Samus will soon be a real possibility – what a crazy world, eh?

Have you picked up a copy of Metroid Dread today? Make sure to let us know in our launch day poll.

Twitch broadcasters’ earnings and other company information that was claimed to have been accessed were made public Wednesday. The 4chan user posted the information there to hurt the Amazon.com Inc. unit’s business, the user wrote.

Twitch confirmed a data leak but declined to comment on what information was accessed.

Such data hasn’t been disclosed by Twitch, which was founded in 2011 and acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million in cash. Though the platform is best known for its videogame streamers, many others broadcast themselves playing tabletop games and music, making crafts, exercising and more. One of its most popular categories is called Just Chatting, where streamers discuss all sorts of topics.

Last month, people spent 1.7 billion hours watching Twitch, which is up more than 20% from a year earlier, according to StreamElements, a provider of tools and services for content creators.

The leak announced on 4chan identifies streamers’ monthly revenue-sharing payments from Twitch since August 2019. Last month alone, a videogame streamer in Canada earned approximately $705,000 from the platform, while a group of Dungeons & Dragons players brought in roughly $311,000.

Twitch streamers typically generate revenue from paid subscriptions to their channels and through the platform’s ad-sharing program, which requires certain viewer metrics. For the most popular streamers, Twitch may cut special deals to prevent them from streaming on competing services.

Separately, some Twitch streamers earn income from viewer tips through third-party services as well as sponsorship agreements with brands such as State Farm Insurance. And large videogame publishers, including Electronic Arts Inc. and Activision Blizzard Inc., pay popular Twitch streamers tens of thousands of dollars apiece to play their latest releases on launch day.

Tanya DePass, a 48-year-old Twitch streamer in Chicago who is sponsored by videogame-accessories maker Logitech G, said the data leak is “wildly inaccurate” for those reasons. Further, she said her Twitch earnings vary greatly from month to month. In June 2020, her channel blew up in popularity, which resulted in her receiving her biggest paycheck ever from Twitch a month later.

Ms. DePass, who is Black, attributed the jump to a sudden interest among viewers in Black streamers in response to the murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 death in police custody was captured on video that went viral. “Anger over George Floyd’s murder mobilized folks to realize we exist,” she said.

Ms. DePass streams herself playing videogames and tabletop games for 10 to 25 hours a week under the name Cypheroftyr. She said she was frustrated by the leak because she thinks it gives people the false impression that streaming is an easy way to make lots of money. In reality, she said it takes a lot of work to promote her channel, keep viewers constantly engaged and handle administrative tasks. Ms. DePass also has had to grapple with racist and sexist taunts. “It’s just exhausting,” she said.

The 4chan user who allegedly posted the Twitch data labeled it “part one,” suggesting there might be more to come.

—Kevin Poulsen contributed to this article.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

The new Nintendo Switch OLED Model doesn’t have a Pentile screen.

That might not mean much to you, and it wasn’t something we were able to confirm definitively during our review process — other than to say that the screen is a huge improvement. Which it is. But there’s been speculation ever since the OLED Switch was announced that its panel might use Pentile technology, which could have had big implications for image quality. Nintendo devices don’t tend to have the best screens, after all.

Pentile is a trademark owned by Samsung that refers to various subpixel matrix layouts most commonly used in OLED display panels. In casual conversation, or as casual as conversations about OLED subpixel layouts can really be, Pentile is now essentially shorthand for “not full RGB,” meaning that red, green, and blue subpixels are shared between pixels rather than each pixel having all three colors itself.

Almost all OLED screens in portable consumer devices use some form of Pentile subpixel layout these days. The benefit of Pentile displays is that they’re cheaper to produce and can last longer. The downside is that they’re functionally lower resolution than an equivalent screen with an RGB stripe, which means you can sometimes see artifacts like dithering and graininess, particularly in high-contrast situations like reading text.

The effect lessens as pixel density increases. Personally, Pentile stopped bothering me on phones when 1080p OLED displays became commonplace, which is to say that I didn’t like the Galaxy S III’s panel but was fine with the Galaxy S4. A 7-inch 720p Pentile screen on a Switch, then, would probably have been an problem. And Nintendo is not known for securing the best screen technologies for its devices — witness the 3DS, where some models randomly came with much better IPS screens than the regular TN LCD panels, with no indication as to which you’d get until you opened the box — so there was reasonable cause for concern over the Switch OLED Model.

Well, turns out there’s no need to worry. My personal OLED Switch preorder just arrived, so of course the first thing I did with it was take a macro photo. Here’s what the screen looks like up close:

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

This is a white area of the screen, so all the subpixels are lit up. The layout is actually a little unusual, with columns of blue subpixels next to smaller, alternating red and green ones rather than arranging them in uniform RGB lines. The Apple Watch does something similar, and I’m not sure what the advantages of this layout are — it presumably relates to the relative efficiency of each color. But what matters is that as you can see, each and every individual pixel is made up of a single red, green, and blue subpixel, or in other words you’re looking at a full RGB display with the same resolution for all three colors.

For comparison, here’s the iPhone 13 Pro:

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

You can see how the subpixels are arranged in a complex diamond layout, alternating blue and green on one line and red and green on the next. On displays like this, each pixel is comprised of fewer subpixels compared to LCDs and RGB OLEDs that reserve three specific subpixels for each pixel in the screen — the “green resolution” is actually higher than the other two colors. As I said before, it’s not really an issue on devices with such sharp panels, but the image quality can break down when pixels are visible to the naked eye.

It’s not necessarily a big surprise that the new Switch went with RGB — the original PS Vita had an RGB-stripe OLED display ten years ago — but you never know with Nintendo. There just aren’t that many 720p OLED displays of this size these days, or RGB OLED displays in general, so it was certainly an open question.

Anyway, glad to clear that up. Now I’m off to play Metroid Dread.

In a tweet earlier today, Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer called on Apple to support RCS, the next-generation texting standard that’s supposed to supplant SMS. He offered an “open invitation to the folks who can make this right” and said “we are here to help.” Translation: the “folks” are Apple and “we are here to help” is Google’s offer to assist Apple in implementing the new standard.

RCS is finally starting to gain traction around the world. Its biggest champion has been Google, which finally landed on using it as the default texting solution for Android phones after trying every other solution. RCS is far from perfect, but it’s clearly superior to SMS (which is, of course, a low bar). After securing deals from US carriers to commit to the standard in the next year, Google is setting its sights on a new target for evangelism: Apple.

Apple has yet to reply with comment to any inquiry from The Verge over several years on whether it intends to support RCS on the iPhone, and declined to comment on this story. It seems unlikely that RCS is coming to iOS anytime soon.

Lockheimer’s tweet followed a cheeky chain of tweets that started with a story about how pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau was breaking iMessage group chats with his green bubbles, which led to the official Android account cringingly drawing a parallel between green bubbles and the famous Masters green jacket. Lockheimer jokes that there is a “Really Clear Solution” (RCS) to group chats not breaking.

RCS has had a long, convoluted (and unfinished) slog towards becoming the default texting experience on Android. Beginning in March 2021, Google began securing deals from US carriers to get them to commit to using Google’s Android Messages app as the default on all Android phones sold on their networks. It started with a blockbuster deal with T-Mobile, followed later by smaller deals with AT&T and Verizon. Once all those deals are implemented, Android users who text each other will switch over to RCS, which supports typing indicators, better group chats, and bigger multimedia messages.

Importantly, RCS on Android Messages also supports end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats. That will mean Android users texting each other will have a higher level of privacy and security than when they text iPhone users — and vice versa. A recent hack on SMS company Syniverse is just the latest example of why encryption is important in messaging — especially for the default.

RCS has problems of its own, though. As with iMessage, it’s possible for messages to get lost in limbo when switching phones. It’s also a standard that is championed by Google but theoretically agreed upon by carriers around the world. The association with Google has tainted RCS in the eyes of many, and of course requiring carriers to agree on anything is a recipe for problems. There are also technical limitations, as Ron Amadeo explains here.

Nevertheless, it seems inevitable that RCS will replace SMS eventually — but only if Apple decides to support it. As more carriers adopt it and as more users realize that SMS is inherently less secure, Apple could begin to feel enough pressure to adopt RCS. Thus far, however, it hasn’t shown any signs of that.

Since 2011, each November of December, YouTube would put a video called “Rewind” that looked back on the platform’s most popular trends and video creators of that year as a celebration of all the great stuff that people had uploaded to YouTube. It was advertising for YouTube, a PR move to make itself look good and promote its community, and it was also advertising for whichever YouTube people were lucky enough to get into the video, none of which should—on its own—be especially controversial.

And yet YouTube has always had a remarkable ability to egregiously fuck things up, and the 2018 video in particular quickly became (at least at the time) one of the most disliked videos on the entire platform. There were multiple reasons for that, with some users being upset that the “Rewind” video prominently featured normal celebrities like Will Smith rather than real YouTube people. Others were upset that prominent YouTube people like Logan Paul and PewDiePie were completely left out, even though this was after they had both done various awful things.

As we pointed out at the time, the backlash was emblematic of the massive gap between how YouTube wants to be perceived—which is as a positive platform for self-expression—and the actual reality we live in where YouTube is often a roiling cesspool of hatred and evil. In 2019, YouTube avoided the potentially unpopular video route and condensed its most popular trends into lists, which also doesn’t seem like the best way to do it.

It was hardly surprising, then, that YouTube finally seemed to get the message in 2020 when it decided that there was really nothing about the platform worth commemorating that year. What were they going to say? “Gather around for the biggest and most star-studded COVID denial videos!”

Now, in a rare move that pretty much everyone can get behind for one reason or another, YouTube has announced that its much-maligned “Rewind” videos are dead forever. Good work, everybody. Well, medium work, because “Rewind” will live on in some other form. According to Tubefilter, YouTube has decided that one annual video can’t represent “the full breadth” of YouTube people’s work, so it’s going to stop “Rewind” and come up with a new kind of “experience” to replace it.

Maybe YouTube can create a few different recap videos for its various audiences? One with YouTube celebrities, one with actual celebrities, and one with the biggest pieces of shit who help YouTube keep the lights on even though nobody will admit it.