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A GTA 5 player over on TikTok has gone viral after uncovering a secret feature, or at least a glitch nobody still playing the Grand Theft Auto game on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S seems to know about. Whether or not this secret is truly a new discovery, remains to be seen, but millions have viewed the video, and many have revealed they had no clue about this glitch/secret feature, which isn’t very consequential, but is certainly good to know, especially if you use bikes a lot.

The clip in question [which can be viewed here] reveals a different way to customize bikes. To recreate it, you first need open up “Pedal and Metal” on the in-game phone. From here, select a bike you want to customize and then hit the home button on the URL bar before proceeding to Legendary Motorsport. At this point, select the Z-type vehicle , select the color you want, and then select Clock. Once you do all of this, head back to Pedal to Metal and buy your BMX, and you’ll have said bike in whatever color you chose, which you normally can’t do.

Now that this secret feature is widely known, it may very well be patched in a future update, assuming it’s not the product of design, but the product of a glitch. That said, so far this hasn’t happened. While Rockstar Games is quick to fix glitches involving in-game currency, it’s not as quick to fix glitches that have minimal impact on its ability to generate money. In fact, there are several glitches that have been in the game for a very long time, so there’s no guarantee that even if Rockstar Games does see this that its response will be to fix it, let alone fix it quickly. 

As always, feel free to hit the comments section with your thoughts or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. Did you know about this glitch? Meanwhile, for more coverage on GTA 5, GTA Online, GTA 6, and all other things Grand Theft Auto, click here.

Apple has a message for iPhone users with high-power motorcycles, mopeds, and scooters: Don’t attach your phone to them you value your camera.

In a support document with a uniquely-long and oddly-specific title published on Friday—which was called, “Exposure to vibrations, like those generated by high-powered motorcycle engines, might impact iPhone cameras,” in case you were wondering—Apple said that attaching your iPhone to these vehicles can expose them to high-amplitude vibrations within certain frequency ranges. Consequently, this can lead to the degradation of the phone’s optical image stabilization, or OIS, and closed-loop autofocus systems over time.

Considering that these are these are the systems that help your iPhone take great pictures even if you accidentally move and help it counteract the effects of gravity and vibration, it’s not a good idea to mess them up. Doing so will reduce the quality of your photos and videos. All iPhones beginning with the iPhone 6 Plus have either an OIS or closed-loop autofocus system.

Technically speaking, the OIS system contains a gyroscope that reduces image motion and blur. When you move, the camera lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope, which ensures you take a nice picture. Meanwhile, the closed-loop autofocus system uses onboard magnetic sensors to “measure gravity and vibration effects and determine the lens position so that the compensating motion can be set accurately,” according to Apple.

“The OIS and closed-loop AF systems in iPhone are designed for durability,” the company explained. “However, as is the case with many consumer electronics that include systems like OIS, long-term direct exposure to high-amplitude vibrations within certain frequency ranges may degrade the performance of these systems and lead to reduced image quality for photos and videos. It is recommended to avoid exposing your iPhone to extended high-amplitude vibrations.”

Some of you may be asking if this means you can’t carry around your iPhone if you ride a motorcycle. Let’s be clear, you can, but Apple just prefers you avoid putting it in certain places.

“High-power or high-volume motorcycle engines generate intense high-amplitude vibrations, which are transmitted through the chassis and handlebars. It is not recommended to attach your iPhone to motorcycles with high-power or high-volume engines due to the amplitude of the vibration in certain frequency ranges that they generate,” the support document reads.

If you’re more of a moped or scooter type of person, Apple recommends you use a vibration dampening mount to reduce the risk of damage to the iPhone and its OIS and closed-loop autofocus systems. Even in that case though, the company says you shouldn’t attach your iPhone to these vehicles on a regular basis.

After it ended free unlimited storage for Google Photos in June, many Google users had figure out how to store images and other data in the Google accounts. They could keep their Google account stored data under 15GB, or pay for a Google One plan. Options included a 100GB plan for $1.99 per month, a 200GB plan for $2.99 a month, a 2TB plan for $9.99 a month, or a plan with 10TB of storage for $49.99 per month. 20TB and 30TB plans are also available, for $99.99 and $149.99 per month, respectively.

Now Google’s introduced a middle option between 2TB and 10TB, as noticed by 9to5Google. The 5TB Google One plan costs $24.99 per month, a good (and less expensive) option for people who want a little more than 2TB but don’t quite need a plan with 10TB of storage or more.

If you’re sure the 5TB plan will meet your needs, you can save a little money by prepaying for a year’s subscription; it will run you $249.99. Like the 2TB and 10TB plans, the 5TB plan also includes 10 percent off Google Store purchases, the option to add family members, access to Google experts, and a VPN for Android phones.

The Nintendo Switch has seen a lot of games ported across from the Wii U generation, but one many fans are still waiting on is Star Fox Zero. PlatinumGames noted last August how it had no idea if Nintendo would bring the game to the hybrid system, and mentioned how a future port might not even be something it’s necessarily involved with.

Now, just over a year later, Platinum’s head Atsushi Inaba has told our friends over at VGC how the studio is “definitely” up for porting the Wii U Star Fox entry – if the chance came up. Part of the reason Inaba wants to do this is simply to make the game available to more people:

“It’s not cool that people aren’t able to play older games because they’re locked out of the platform, so of course if anything was possible we’d like to bring over any of those older titles to the newer platforms.

“It kind of depends on what’s in the realm of actual possibility, but yeah, if the chance came up it’s definitely something we’d like to think about.”

If something was to go ahead, Inaba says certain design decisions (in reference to a question about the Wii U game’s unique control scheme) would likely be up to Nintendo:

“The important thing to remember there is that because it’s Nintendo’s IP, the ideas are coming from Miyamoto-san himself…if the opportunity came up to bring Star Fox Zero to the Switch again it would be more of a question of what he would like to do in that opportunity, and of course we would respect that again.”

Would you like to see Platinum handle a Star Fox Zero port for Switch? Did you play this game when it originally landed on the Wii U in 2016? What are your thoughts about it years on? Oh, and here’s the latest about Bayonetta 3.

Hold off on purchasing that iPhone mount for your motorbike. In a new Apple Support post first seen by MacRumors, the tech giant has warned that high amplitude vibrations, “specifically those generated by high-power motorcycle engines” transmitted through handlebars, can damage its phones’ cameras. As the publication notes, that damage can be permanent. A simple Google search will surface posts over the past few years by users whose cameras were ruined after they mounted their iPhone on their bike, mostly so they can use it for navigation. 

While Apple didn’t say why it’s issuing a warning now, it did explain the reason why attaching the iPhone to a motorcycle can destroy its camera. The company said that the camera’s optical image stabilization (OIS) and closed-loop autofocus (AF) features can be damaged by long-term exposure to high-amplitude vibrations. A camera’s OIS makes it possible for a device’s gyroscope to sense movement. In turn, the gyroscope changes its angle and the lens moves accordingly to prevent blur when you accidentally move while taking a photo. 

Meanwhile with closed-loop AF, a phone’s onboard magnetic sensors measure vibrations to compensate for the movement, so the lens can be positioned accurately. As MacRumor notes, all models since the iPhone 7 come with both features.

Thus, Apple says it’s not recommended to attach iPhones to motorcycles with high-power or high-volume engines. For mopeds and scooters, you may want to buy a vibration-dampening mount to lessen the risk of damage — or simply just use another GPS device to make sure you don’t ruin a device that costs hundreds to over a thousand dollars.

Google is finally rolling out a dark theme for Search on desktop. The change had been spotted as far back as December, but the feature is now official and rolling out to all users “over the next few weeks,” according to an update from a Google product support manager.

You can get the new, not-quite-black theme by heading to Settings > Search Settings > Appearance and selecting “dark.” There’s also a “device default” option which will automatically update the theme based on your device’s settings.

Though the change is starting to roll out now, it could take a few more days or weeks before it’s available to everyone. 9to5Google further notes that some users have spotted a sun icon that can be used to toggle it on or off without diving into the settings page, though it’s not clear if that’s an official part of the update or another test.

For over two years, TCL has been showing prototypes of possible foldable phones to reporters. One had a 10-inch screen that bent into thirds. Another featured a screen that wrapped around the wrist. Yet another had a large screen that closed like a book, one featured a screen you pulled out to expand it into a tablet and a more futuristic model included foldable and rollable displays in the same device.  

And then there was a clamshell model that looked a lot like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola’s Razr. That device, codenamed the Chicago Project, is the one TCL planned to launch early in the fourth quarter. It aimed to sell the phone for less than Samsung’s $1,000-and-higher foldables and Motorola’s $1,400 Razr. The Chinese giant had the foldable nearly done — and this week even shipped CNET one of the nearly finished prototypes to prove it was real — but ultimately decided to scrap it and start over. 

Now TCL won’t launch its first foldable for at least 12 to 18 months, Stefan Streit, TCL’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview ahead of Friday’s announcement. And when it introduces the device, it won’t be Chicago but a revamped product. For now, hopes for a lower-cost foldable device will have to wait. 

“We could finish this product and bring it to the market, but this felt somehow … not right,” Streit said. “For us, this category is really, really important. We will bring products. We will bring a number of products.” Just not the first device TCL thought it’d launch. 

While TCL has sold phones under the low-cost Alcatel brand for years — and for a brief period under the BlackBerry name — it has only been selling devices under its own TCL branding since early 2020. It’s among the top players in televisions, but TCL doesn’t have the recognition needed in mobile to pull in people willing to try a new product category like foldables. Even Samsung, the world’s biggest phone maker, is still in the early days of getting consumers to trust that foldables are durable enough to withstand normal daily use. 

TCL decided to cancel the introduction of its first foldable because of several “commercial” factors — weakness of its brand, expensive components because of the pandemic and lack of carrier support, Streit said. 

Perhaps most of all, the move by TCL is an acknowledgement that foldables may not be ready for mainstream users — at least not in huge volumes and at low prices. 

Foldables remain a tiny part of the overall smartphone market. This year, vendors should sell about 7 million such devices, according to Strategy Analytics, while companies will sell 1.35 billion regular smartphones. That estimate from last month included potential TCL sales.

It’s not until Apple introduces its first foldables, possibly in the second half of 2023, that the devices start selling in higher numbers, Strategy Analytics analyst Ken Hyers said in August. His firm expects about 15 million foldables to be sold around the world in 2023 and more than double that amount the following year. In 2026, the number of foldables sold across the globe should hit nearly 170 million, Strategy Analytics said. 

TCL had aimed to launch a fully featured foldable by the end of 2021 that cost less than the devices from Samsung, but the lowest price it could reach with its first device was $800, Streit said. Samsung’s new Z Flip 3 starts at $1,000, while its Z Fold 3 retails for $1,800. 

“If somebody can spend $800, he can also spend $1,000,” Streit said. “Probably, he will go for the brand he knows for many years and trusts more.”

Competing with the Z Flip 3

At the same time, some of Chicago’s specs aren’t as high-end as those in the Z Flip 3. The two devices look similar, but TCL’s foldable is a little thicker, a little wider and a little heavier. And the front screen is smaller at 1.1 inches diagonally versus 1.9 inches for the Z Flip 3. The interior screens are about the same size: 6.67 inches diagonally for TCL and 6.7 inches for Samsung.

Chicago isn’t water resistant like the Z Flip 3, and it’s likely not as sturdy, Streit said. It uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G processor, which isn’t as fast or as powerful as the Z Flip 3’s Snapdragon 888. Chicago also has a slower version of 5G and couldn’t be used on Verizon’s ultra-wide-band network. Its fastest download speed is 2.7 Gbps versus the Snapdragon 888’s peak of 7.5 Gbps. 

Chicago would have been available in one color, “Pastel Gold,” which looks like a peach-color matte plastic body with gold metal detailing on the sides and edges of the hinge. When displayed next to Samsung’s cream-color Z Flip 3, it’s sometimes difficult to tell the devices apart. 

One area where Chicago could have had an advantage over the Z Flip 3 is the part of the interior display where it folds in half. The crease in the prototype sent to CNET is less pronounced — both visually and when touching the display — than on the Z Flip 3. CNET’s Patrick Holland, who reviewed Samsung’s foldables, said the Z Flip 3’s crease doesn’t bother him, though it is noticeable when interacting with the middle of the screen. 

TCL decided to cancel Chicago before Samsung’s August Unpacked event, Streit said. But seeing the Z Flip 3 cemented its decision, even though Chicago was finished except for tweaks to features like the software and the hinge. 

“I’m using it every day,” Streit said of Chicago. “Nothing has changed” about how much TCL believes in foldables, he said, but market conditions need to improve before it launches a consumer device. For now, TCL has already started working on the foldable it hopes to actually sell. 

That device, while similar to Chicago, will be thinner and sturdier, Streit said, but it will likely still be a clamshell, high-tech flip phone design. 

“It’s … the most natural step from where we are coming from,”  he said. 

The hope is that in late 2022 or early 2023, the market will be ready for a lower-cost foldable, Streit said. Component prices will likely be back to normal, TCL’s brand will be stronger, 5G will be broadly deployed so carriers can support other phones, consumers will be looking for new types of devices and prices will finally be low enough for wide adoption, he said. 

“We feel like this … is the better time for TCL to then launch something which … hopefully brings it into more mass market segments,” Streit said.

For all of you curious about what might have been, here are the key specs: 

Dimensions and weight

• Unfolded: 164.8 mm x 78.1 mm x 7.35 mm 
• Folded: 86.5 mm x 78.1 mm x 17.9mm 
• Weight: 204.5 grams

Interior display

• 6.67-inch AMOLED, DOTCH display 
• Resolution: FHD+ (1080 x 2400)
• Screen-to-body ratio: 84.6%
• Aspect ratio: 20:9
• Pixel density: 395 PPI, 16.7M colors 
• Brightness: 700 nits (peak), 420 nits (normal) 

Front display

Memory

• 6 GB RAM and 128 GB flash memory

Battery and charging

• Battery capacity: 3,545mAh 
• Wired charging speed: Up to 18W Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0
• Wireless charging speed: Up to 10W wireless charging Connections: Type-C 
• USB-C 3.1 

Rear camera

• 48-megapixel primary camera with optical image stabilization, Sony IMX582 sensor, 0.8μm pixel size
• 16MP ultra wide-angle camera
• Video capture: 4K at 30 frames per second, 720p and 1080p at 30/60 frames per second
• Video playback: 4K at 30 frames per second, 720p and 1080p at 30/60 frames per second

Front camera

• 44-megapixel front camera
• Video capture: 4K at 60 frames per second, 720p and 1080p at 30/60 frames per second

Today a U.S. District Court judge ruled in Epic Games’ favor in its lawsuit against Apple. As a result, Apple can no longer dictate that purchases made in apps on its own devices go through the App Store. Apple had previously collected 30% of the revenue for purchases made in Epic Games’ Fortnite.

Despite representing a significant victory for Epic that reduces Apple’s control over how in-app purchases are conducted, it was far from a sweeping win for the game publisher. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled against Epic on all other counts in the trial. Apple, she concluded, is not in violation of antitrust law, and does not need to allow Epic or other entities the freedom to create their own stores on Apple platforms. Additionally, Apple is not required to allow Fortnite back on the App Store.

Apple also denied Epic’s request to release the iOS version of Fortnite in South Korea, which just passed legislation that states Google and Apple cannot limit app developers to their own payment systems. In a statement to The Verge, the company says it would allow the blockbuster battle royale back onto the App Store if Epic agrees “to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

In 2020, Apple removed Fortnite from the iOS store after Epic offered its users a discount on V-Bucks if they purchased them outside of the App Store. Epic took this move in response to Apple collecting 30% of profits made from V-Buck purchases on Apple devices. The Fortnite developer launched a public campaign using the hashtag #FreeFortnite which framed Apple’s practice as unreasonable. This was quickly followed by Epic filing a lawsuit against Apple in August 2020.

Below is the relevant section of the injunction as ruled by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers:

The Court, having considered the evidence presented at the bench trial in this matter and consistent with its findings of fact and conclusions of law, HEREBY ORDERS as follows:

1. Apple Inc. and its officers, agents, servants, employees, and any person in active concert or participation with them (“Apple”), are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.

What does this mean? In 2022, Apple can no longer require that online purchases made in games or apps on Apple devices go through its own App Store. It must allow developers to redirect users to their own marketplaces for online purchases. The injunction will take effect on December 9 unless it is appointed to a higher court, according to Verge.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, tweeted out a response to the court decision, stating:

This decision has potentially large implications for other online storefronts like Google, which Epic also filed a lawsuit against in July of this year. With Epic Games now being allowed to redirect users playing on Apple devices to its own sites for online purchases thanks to this lawsuit, there could be precedent for developers to be able to do so on other storefronts as well.

Kotaku reached out to Epic and Apple for comment. Epic directed us to Tim Sweeney’s tweet, above. Apple did not respond as of press time.

Update: More information and context from the ruling has been added.