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May 05, 2025
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Welcome back! Apple is planning major iPhone upgrades, including an ultra-thin phone and one with an edge-to-edge display. President Trump says he's open to another extension to a deadline for TikTok to find a buyer for its U.S. operations. And Temu tells its China merchants they'll have to fulfill their own orders when shipping to the U.S.
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Apple is planning major upgrades to its iPhones in the coming years such as an ultrathin phone this fall, a foldable phone in 2026 with an eight-inch screen when open and at least one model in 2027 with an edge-to-edge display, The Information reported. It’s also planning to stagger the release of new iPhones, with more premium models debuting in fall 2026 followed by more affordable models in spring 2027, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Apple’s hope is to rejuvenate long-stagnant sales of
the iPhone, its flagship product, which accounts for more than half its revenue. But there are risks involved in the upcoming changes. The thin iPhone, for example, has worse battery life than other models, and Apple’s manufacturing partners are only allocating about 10% of overall iPhone production to the thin model, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That’s in contrast to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which will comprise around 40% of production. The iPhone 17 Pro and standard iPhone 17 will each account for 25% of production, they said.
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President Donald Trump says he’s willing to further extend the deadline for TikTok to sell itself or be banned in America. Trump had already given TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, a 75-day extension in April. The president said he has “a little warm spot” in his heart for the app, which became a key platform for him during last year’s presidential run. Congress passed a bill forcing ByteDance to sell off TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American company last year, and President Joe Biden signed it into law. But Trump’s reelection has offered a reprieve to TikTok even as it has seemed to get caught up in the mounting trade war between the U.S. and China.
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Temu has discontinued its direct-from-China shipping model and now requires China-based merchants to fulfill orders on their own when selling to the U.S. market. The shift marks the online bargain seller’s latest attempt to keep its site stocked as sky-rocketing tariffs make it uneconomical for Temu to send orders to the U.S directly. Temu has already been aggressively recruiting U.S.-based sellers since March last year, as threats of a favorable duty-free import provision disappearing were building, but hasn’t signed up enough U.S.-based sellers who can fill the void left by China-based ones. Temu introduced the new model, dubbed Y2, because the platform “needs a lot of listings,” according to a Temu livestream to merchants viewed by The Information. In order to attract merchants to sign up to the Y2
model, Temu allows sellers to set up new storefronts that inherit sales records and reviews from the direct-from-China stores, according to the livestream. While Temu still dictates the pricing of listings, it told merchants they can submit listing prices at four to five times of the direct-from-China model. Last month, Temu said it will hike prices for goods sold on its platform.
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Mozilla earned $570 million in revenue last year, 85% of which came from Google as a result of a deal Mozilla has to share ad revenue from Google search queries coming via Mozilla’s Firefox browser, the chief financial officer of the internet nonprofit testified on Friday. If Google were not able to pay Mozilla for search distribution—as the government has proposed as part of a broader remedy to fix Google’s illegal search monopoly—Mozilla’s revenue would drop “precipitously” because no other search firm could match Google’s payments, Eric Muhlheim testified. Muhlheim said that Mozilla had talked with Microsoft within the past year about what a revenue share deal could look like. Without Google’s payments, Mozilla would have to cut costs across the business, including investments in its Firefox
browser, which could lead to a downward spiral of users leaving Firefox that could result in Mozilla ultimately having to go out of business, Muhlheim said. In response to questioning from judge Amit Mehta, who is overseeing the case, Muhlheim said that having another search engine of equal quality to Google that could bid against Google could ultimately benefit Mozilla. But, he said, Mozilla couldn’t afford the intervening revenue loss as they waited for that hypothetical competitor to catch up. Muhlheim also said that he thought that it was “not out of the question” that AI companies could become that competitor without additional remedies intervention.
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Warren Buffett plans to retire from Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year and hopes his longtime heir apparent will take his place running the conglomerate, Buffett said in an unexpected announcement at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday. Buffett will recommend to Berkshire’s board that the company’s vice chairman, Greg Abel, replaces him. Buffett had anointed Abel as his preferred successor back in 2021, and he was already running all of Berkshire’s non-insurance business. Nonetheless, Buffett’s announcement was a surprise, since even at age 94, Buffett had given no indication that he had any plans to retire. In building up Berkshire over decades, Buffett largely eschewed investing in tech companies, which he saw as too complicated and too susceptible to fast-paced change. Still, he made
an exception for Apple, and on Saturday, Apple CEO Tim Cook wasted no time in singing Buffett’s praises. “There’s never been anyone like Warren,” Cook wrote on X.
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The Justice Department’s proposal that Google be forced to share its search data with rivals in order to restore search engine competition used a 2010 deal Google struck with Yahoo Japan as the “foundation” for the proposal, a lawyer for the DOJ said in court on Friday. Google has argued that the Department of Justice’s data sharing proposal would create privacy concerns and make it “unviable” for Google to continue investing in research and development at the same rate. The Yahoo Japan agreement included some search index data similar to what plaintiffs are requesting and required Google to provide some search features to Yahoo Japan, according to documents shown in court and testimony from a Google director of product management, Jesse Adkins. However, the search index data shared with Yahoo Japan was for
Google’s Japanese search index, not its global search index, and the agreement was later amended to share less data, Adkins testified. The agreement also restricted how Yahoo Japan could use the data to protect Google’s “trade secrets,” Adkins said, restrictions that do not occur in the plaintiffs’ proposed final judgement.
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MoneyGram, the international money transfer firm, will allow crypto companies to make use of its thousands of physical locations worldwide to provide cash deposit and withdrawals for their users. The company on Friday launched a tool for developers of crypto exchanges, wallets, and stablecoin apps to easily integrate with its global cash network. Crypto companies are aiming to disrupt traditional payment firms like MoneyGram in cross-border transactions and remittance
businesses. But MoneyGram’s CEO Anthony Soohoo says his company can play a key role by solving a major pain point for crypto firms. “The missing link is always the ability to have on-and-off ramp [with] cash in physical locations,” he said. “Our global physical locations are a tremendous asset for us.” MoneyGram will move money using Circle’s USDC coin, with United Texas Bank, one of MoneyGram’s correspondent banks, serving as a settlement bank. It will expand to support more stablecoins in the future, Soohoo said.
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