Apple's Mysterious 'From Apple' App Updates Spark Concern

Apple asked the U.S. Supreme Court on May 4 to stay a Ninth Circuit order that overturned a prior ruling allowing Apple to keep its App Store commission regime while appealing. The Ninth Circuit’s reversal requires Apple to return to lower court to renegotiate how much it can charge developers who steer users to third‑party payment options. Apple argues the contempt finding against it is improper because the 2021 injunction did not address App Store fees, and says the Ninth Circuit’s approach conflicts with other courts by inferring contempt from the injunction’s “spirit.” Apple seeks a stay while appealing and contends the Supreme Court could narrow the injunction to apply only to Epic Games, not all U.S. developers.

Apple has begun appending mysterious update notes labeled as coming "from Apple" to several App Store apps, including Candy Crush Soda Saga, Mortal Kombat, VLC, Duet Display, Catan Universe, Bluetti and Sentry Mobile. The notes state the update "will improve the functionality" with "no new features," and in at least one case were inserted without any change to the app binary or version number. MacRumors and developers probing app packages found no obvious code changes, and the pattern affects both recently updated and long-dormant apps. The cause and scope remain unclear, raising questions about App Store update processes, transparency around platform-level changes, and potential impacts on developer control and app auditing.