Payloads used to dictate the terms of launch. That's finally changing.

Kremlin demands an explanation from Apple after VK apps vanish from the App Store

On Thursday, a clutch of apps belonging to the Russian tech group VK disappeared from Apple’s App Store, and by the afternoon the Kremlin was asking why. Dmitry Peskov, the presidential spokesman, said the government expected an explanation from Apple. He also offered Russians a workaround that doubled as a message: switch operating systems. The [] This story continues at The Next Web

Russia Accuses Apple of Political Motives After Several Popular Apps Vanish From App Store

Russia's Ministry of Digital Development has described Apple's removal of VK Holding applications from the App Store as a politically motivated decision, arguing that the US-based technology giant failed to provide a valid legal basis for the action. According to the ministry, Apple has not presented any substantiated explanation linking the affected applications to sanctions restrictions. Officials stated that legal assessments, including reviews conducted by American law firms, found no grounds that would justify blocking VK services. The ministry also accused Apple of ignoring the social importance of the removed applications, many of which provide communication tools and public information services used by millions of people.

China launches new communications technology test satellite

Launch marks 653rd mission carried out by Long March carrier rocket series

Government issues notice to Meta, seeks explanation on WhatsApp username feature within 3 days

The government has issued a notice to Meta over the introduction of a new username feature on WhatsApp. The company has been asked to submit a detailed explanation within three days regarding how the feature will work and what safety measures are in place, as per sources cited by PTI.

Apple internals: Swift in the kernel

Apple’s Swift has become the de-facto language for Apple’s own developers for a while now, and it seems that with the new operating system releases from the company unveiled during WWDC, Switch is now also being used in the kernel. Naturally I dropped what I was doing and went grepping through the iOS 27 kernelcache. Alas, nothing came of it. All is not lost though: I found the Embedded Swift runtime in macOS 27, sitting in com.apple.kec.pthread of all places. Then I went poking around the root filesystem and it turns out Apple gave the whole effort a name: KernelKit. Let’s dissect it. Josh Maine It’s still quite limited at this time, which makes sense – you don’t want to be too crazy with the core of the operating system that runs on god knows how many PCs, smartphones, and other devices. It’s also entirely contained within a few kexts as embedded runtimes, and the XNU kernel itself remains entirely C and C++.