Updated February 2026: We’ve added a new section on caring for down and some notes on Outdoor Vital’s Zero Stitch fabric.

What Does Down Fill Power Tell You?

The higher the fill power, the greater the loft. Down puffer jackets and sleeping bags keep you warm by trapping the warmth coming off your body, retaining it in air pockets between the down. A higher down fill power means the down has more loft, which means there are more air pockets, which means that more heat is retained. If everything else is equal, that means that a higher fill power garment will be warmer than one with a lower fill power.

Unfortunately, everything else is never equal. Fill power alone is not enough information to know how warm something will be. There is no direct correspondence between fill power and how warm a product will keep you, because there are many other factors to consider, like how much of that fill is in the product, how well it can expand within the baffles or down chambers, how well does the fabric stop the wind, and so on.

To know how warm a down jacket, sleeping bag, or comforter will be, you need to know at least one other number: the fill weight.

What Is Down Fill Weight?

Photograph: Tatiana/Getty Images

Down fill weight is a simple number. It’s the amount of down in the product, usually measured in ounces or grams. Using down fill weight and down fill power together can give you way to compare two items. For example, the relative ability of a puffer jacket to retain heat can be estimated by multiplying the fill power by the fill weight. This means that a 900 fill power jacket with 2 ounces of fill weight will be able to trap about the same amount of heat as a 600 fill power jacket with 3 ounces of fill weight. The big difference between them, and the reason they are priced differently, is the weight of each and the packed size.

In jackets, the weight difference isn’t huge. This is why some of our favorite puffer jackets are 600 fill power. When it comes to sleeping bags, though, things are different. Since there is a lot more down in a sleeping bag, the weight difference between equivalent amounts of fill power is more significant. Unless your budget is unlimited, you’ll want to pay attention to the warmth-to-weight ratio. How much warmth do you need, and how much weight do you mind carrying?

The one downside to down fill weight is that some manufacturers don’t list this. It sounds great to say your puffer jacket as 900 fill power down, but when you have to list that it only has 2 ounces of it, it sounds less impressive. Less reputable companies often don’t advertise the fill weight. We list fill weight of all the jackets we test.

Other Factors to Consider

Courtesy of REI

While down fill power and down fill weight together give us a way to compare items, there are other things to consider to get an idea of overall warmth. The third major factor is the baffles, the compartments that are built into the product. If you just sewed up a single piece of nylon as a shell and shoved some down inside, gravity and movement would push it all down near the hem in a matter of minutes. To avoid this, garment makers add baffles to keep the down in place. Baffle type and shape play a big part in how warm your jacket, sleeping bag, or comforter ends up being.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a pretty easy one, if you’re a fan of a certain major sporting event that’s been going on this month. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Olympics wrap-up.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Arrivederci, Milano Cortina!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• DEAL, FLAP, HALT, THEM, GLAM, FADE, FLAM, THEN, THAT, CLAP, DEAR, CLOSE, CLOSED

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• FLAG, FLAME, MEDAL, ANTHEM, PARADE, ATHLETE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CLOSINGCEREMONY. To find it, start with the C that’s two letters to the right on the top row, and wind around in the shape of a torch.

Advanced monitoring is becoming standard because modern facilities are judged on outcomes—air quality, uptime, safety, energy performance, and documented response—not on whether a checklist was completed last week. Ventilation and indoor air quality expectations are formalised through recognised standards, and newer editions increasingly emphasise controls, performance, and operations, which push organisations toward measurable, continuous data.​

The changing risk profile (visibility is now a liability issue)

Facilities today are dense systems: people, HVAC, access control, OT/IoT, and vendors. The risk surface includes invisible variables (CO₂/ventilation adequacy, particulates, VOCs, temperature/humidity excursions) and failure modes that don’t announce themselves during routine walkthroughs.

ISO 41001 frames facilities management as a management system aimed at the effective and efficient delivery of FM, supporting organisational objectives and consistently meeting stakeholder and applicable requirements—language that aligns naturally with continuous measurement and documented processes.​

Summary: Risk shifted from “obvious hazards” to “system behaviour,” and system behaviour requires instrumentation.​

Real-time data is an operational requirement (not a dashboard hobby)

Real-time monitoring creates a new operating model: detect → triage → respond → document. That shift matters because it reduces the time between anomaly and action, and it creates auditable records of conditions and responses (useful for regulated sectors and insurer scrutiny).

Where standards are explicit about ventilation and IAQ, the operational burden increases. ASHRAE notes that 62.1/62.2 are recognised standards for ventilation and acceptable indoor air quality, and the 2025 edition highlights additional requirements and control sequences (e.g., demand-controlled ventilation control sequences, emergency control requirements, humidity control requirements).​

Summary: Once you’re accountable for continuous conditions, periodic checks no longer scale.​

Hardware built for harsh environments (define “rugged” with specs)

In industrial/institutional settings, monitoring often fails at the edges: vibration, dust, washdown, temperature swings, and physical impact. “Rugged computers” should mean measurable environmental tolerance—especially ingress protection.

IEC 60529 defines IP ratings with two digits: the first (0–6) indicates resistance to solid objects/dust, and the second (0–9) indicates resistance to liquids. In practice, this lets you specify hardware for the environment (e.g., dust-heavy warehouses vs washdown production areas) rather than buying consumer mini-PCs and hoping.​

When NOT to ruggedise: If the device lives in a conditioned IT closet, you may be paying for durability you don’t need; invest instead in redundancy, power protection, and serviceability.

Summary: Reliability is a system property, and edge hardware specs are part of reliability engineering.​

Environmental monitoring beyond compliance (IAQ as performance)

Facilities increasingly monitor more than temperature/humidity: CO₂ as a ventilation proxy, particulates, VOCs, and noise exposure. The point isn’t “more sensors”—it’s closed-loop improvement: correlate excursions with occupancy, HVAC modes, and outcomes (complaints, absenteeism, equipment faults), then adjust operations.

This aligns with how ASHRAE describes 62.1/62.2 as ventilation/IAQ standards and emphasizes updated requirements around filtration, controls, air cleaning, and operations/maintenance—areas where continuous sensing provides feedback rather than guesswork.​

Summary: Environmental data is only valuable when it feeds decisions, not when it fills storage.​

Integration with BMS (monitoring becomes control)

Monitoring is most valuable when integrated with building management systems (BMS) and incident response workflows. Without integration, you get alerts; with integration, you get controlled response: ventilation adjustments, escalations, and unified incident records.

A practical architecture pattern:

• Sensors (IAQ/asset/environment) → edge gateway → secure message bus
• Analytics/rules engine → ticketing/CMMS + BMS actions (where appropriate)
• Audit layer → immutable logs, retention policy, reporting

Summary: Standalone monitoring is reporting; integrated monitoring is operations.

Behavioural monitoring and policy enforcement (high value, high governance)

Behavioural detection (e.g., vape detectors) can reduce blind spots in low-visibility areas, but it introduces governance requirements: clear purpose, minimisation, retention limits, access controls, and documented response rules.

If you deploy behavioural monitoring, treat it like a policy-controlled safety system—not a surveillance toy. The technical bar should include false-positive management, tamper detection, and a defensible incident workflow.

When NOT to deploy: If you can’t articulate “what action follows an alert” and who is authorised to act, you’ll create noise, distrust, and compliance risk.

Summary: Behavioural monitoring is powerful—but only when paired with governance.

Data-driven maintenance (condition-based beats calendar-based)

Predictive maintenance is the economic engine behind monitoring adoption. If you can detect drift (fan performance, vibration anomalies, temperature rise, runtime patterns) you shift maintenance from “fixed schedule” to “based on condition,” reducing unnecessary work and preventing downtime.

Tie maintenance analytics to:

• Asset criticality tiers (what must never fail)
• SLAs (response time, uptime)
• Parts lead time risk

Summary: Monitoring becomes standard when it pays for itself via avoided downtime and targeted labour.

Compliance, documentation, and liability reduction (the audit trail is the product)

Standards-driven environments reward documented control. ISO 41001 emphasises consistently meeting the needs of interested parties and applicable requirements, which is easier to demonstrate when you have objective records of conditions, alerts, and responses.​

The defensible story looks like:

• “Here were the thresholds.”
• “Here were the readings.”
• “Here were the alerts.”
• “Here’s what we did, and when.”

Summary: In modern facilities, data isn’t just insight—it’s proof.

FAQ

What’s the difference between monitoring and a BMS?

Monitoring and alerts: A BMS can control building systems. Value increases when monitoring is integrated into BMS workflows, so data becomes action.

Do we need rugged computers for monitoring?

Only where the environment requires it, IEC 60529 IP ratings define dust/water resistance with two digits, helping you specify equipment for harsh conditions.​

What standards are pushing facilities toward continuous IAQ visibility?

ASHRAE 62.1/62.2 are recognised standards for ventilation and acceptable indoor air quality, and the 2025 edition highlights additional requirements around controls and operations that benefit from continuous data.​

How does ISO 41001 relate to monitoring?

ISO 41001 defines requirements for an FM management system to deliver FM effectively/efficiently and consistently meet stakeholder/applicable requirements, which aligns with measurable monitoring and documented response.​

Key takeaways

• Advanced monitoring is becoming standard because compliance and accountability increasingly require measurable outcomes and documented control.
• Rugged edge hardware should be specified according to environmental standards such as IEC 60529 IP ratings, not by vague marketing claims.​
• The real leap happens when monitoring integrates with operations (BMS + maintenance workflows) and produces audit-ready records.

The generative AI boom minted a startup a minute. But as the dust starts to settle, two once-hot business models are looking more like cautionary tales: LLM wrappers and AI aggregators. 

Darren Mowry, who leads Google’s global startup organization across Cloud, DeepMind, and Alphabet, says startups with these hooks have their “check engine light” on.

LLM wrappers are essentially startups that wrap existing large language models, like Claude, GPT, or Gemini, with a product or UX layer to solve a specific problem. An example would be a startup that uses AI to help students study.

“If you’re really just counting on the back-end model to do all the work and you’re almost white-labeling that model, the industry doesn’t have a lot of patience for that anymore,” Mowry said on this week’s episode of Equity. 

Wrapping “very thin intellectual property around Gemini or GPT-5” signals you’re not differentiating yourself, Mowry says. 

“You’ve got to have deep, wide moats that are either horizontally differentiated or something really specific to a vertical market” for a startup to “progress and grow,” he said. Examples of the deep-moat LLM wrapper type include Cursor, a GPT-powered coding assistant, or Harvey AI, a legal AI assistant.

In other words, startups can no longer expect to slap a UI on top of a GPT and get traction on their product like they could, perhaps, in mid-2024 when OpenAI launched its ChatGPT store. The challenge now is to build sustainable product value. 

AI aggregators are a subset of wrappers — they’re startups that aggregate multiple LLMs into one interface or API layer to route queries across models and give users access to multiple models. These companies typically provide an orchestration layer that includes monitoring, governance, or eval tooling. Think: AI search startup Perplexity or developer platform OpenRouter, which provides access to multiple AI models via a single API. 

While many of these platforms have gained ground, Mowry’s message is clear to incoming startups: “Stay out of the aggregator business.”

Generally speaking, aggregators aren’t seeing much growth or progression these days because, he says, users want “some intellectual property built in” to ensure they’re routed to the right model at the right time based on their needs — not because of behind-the-scenes compute or access constraints.

Mowry has been in the cloud game for decades, cutting his teeth at AWS and Microsoft before setting up shop at Google Cloud, and he’s seen how this plays out. He said the situation today mirrors the early days of cloud computing in the late 2000s/early 2010s as Amazon’s cloud business started taking off.

At that time, a crop of startups sprang up to resell AWS infrastructure, marketing themselves as easier entry points that provided tooling, billing consolidation, and support. But when Amazon built its own enterprise tools and customers learned to manage cloud services directly, most of those startups were squeezed out. The only survivors were the ones that added real services, like security, migration, or DevOps consulting. 

AI aggregators today face similar margin pressure as model providers expand into enterprise features themselves, potentially sidelining middlemen. 

For his part, Mowry is bullish on vibe coding and developer platforms, which had a record-breaking year in 2025 with startups like Replit, Lovable, and Cursor (all Google Cloud customers, per Mowry) attracting major investment and customer traction.

Mowry also expects strong growth in direct-to-consumer tech, in companies that put some of these powerful AI tools into the hands of customers. He pointed to the opportunity for film and TV students to use Google’s AI video generator Veo to bring stories to life.

Beyond AI, Mowry also thinks biotech and climate tech are having a moment — both in terms of venture investment going into the two industries and the “incredible amounts of data” startups can access to create real value “in ways we would never have been able to before.”

Arrow Video has unleashed Excalibur and Westworld in new Limited Edition 4K releases. Are these restorations worthy of Camelot and Delos, or are we about to discover that even legends and lifelike androids can misfire in Ultra HD?

Excalibur

A lifelong passion project for the filmmaker John Boorman, Excalibur favors the legend of King Arthur over historical fact, drawing as much from the distinguished filmmaker’s aborted adaptation of The Lord of the Rings as from Thomas Malory’s sweeping 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur. The results remain unique to this day, a beautiful and often bizarre triumph of production design and notoriously complex costumes, filled with earnest thespians early in their careers, among them Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson.

Taken as either fact or fantasy, it’s one hell of a story: The illegitimate child Arthur, raised humbly, reveals his true identity and divine right to rule by pulling the magical sword Excalibur from the stone. As king, he unites his people and defeats countless enemies, before treachery and betrayal brings his glorious monarchy to a bittersweet end.

A reasonable hit in theaters, the movie has only grown in popularity, largely for its sweeping adventure as captured in its hypnotic visuals. It’s long been a tough title to properly represent on video, with its heavy green mists and the specular highlights bouncing off hand-beaten suits of aluminum armor often reduced to a blocky mess. Arrow’s native 4K scan of the original camera negative is properly framed here at its proper 5:3 aspect ratio for the first time, bringing a newfound stability to the image while the Dolby Vision pass maintains the moody green and red filter effect that cinematographer Alex Thomson intended without blooming into the surrounding forest shadows. While the scenery might be bleak at times, the wide color gamut makes the most of what was shot, notably the lush greens.

The disc defaults to a lossless true mono audio track, and the best I can say here is that it gets the job done, conveying the necessary elements–dialogue, the clinking of swords, the gist of the music–but with no flex whatsoever. Significantly more engaging is the 5.1-channel remix, putting the action all around us without ever trying to sound like a Michael Bay joint. This option is also the best way to enjoy the needle drops by Carl Orff and Richard Wagner that gave the movie its distinctive, operatic feel. Either way, the dialogue is very obviously looped and the spotty lip-synch can be off-putting.

The movie is joined on Disc One by two new expert audio commentaries as well as an archival track by Boorman himself. Disc Two carries a menagerie of substantive new interviews with key talent; a new mini-documentary about Boorman; an archival making-of directed by “creative associate” Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), making its home video debut here; and quite a bit more.

As with some of Arrow’s most highly regarded limited editions, this release also includes an exclusive bonus disc that presents the film in an alternate form: a television cut. To be clear, this is not the fully reconstructed 1980s broadcast version that featured alternate takes, different camera angles, and occasional additional footage. Instead, it is a toned-down edit where sexual content and graphic violence have been adjusted to meet network broadcast standards of the era. With an SD tape from the Warner vault as a guide, this two-hour presentation was reconstructed from the new restoration, in 1080p at the theatrical aspect ratio. Welcome certainly, although not exactly the holy grail that fans have been seeking. (See what I did there?)

Excalibur – Movie Details

• STUDIO: Arrow Video
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (February 24, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR:: 1981
• ASPECT RATIO: 1.66:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, 5.1
• LENGTH: 141 mins.
• MPAA RATING: R
• DIRECTOR: John Boorman
• STARRING: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey

Our Ratings

★★★★★★★★★★ Picture

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound

★★★★★★★★★★ Extras

Where to buy: $59.95 at Amazon

Westworld

On a fateful evening in June of 1993, as I sat in a darkened theater surrounded by enthralled fellow ticket-buyers, I was distracted from the events unfolding onscreen as one nagging thought persisted: “Damn, Jurassic Park sure feels a lot like Westworld.” Whereas Jurassic Park began life as a novel that triggered a high-profile bidding war among several A-list directors before landing at Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton conceived Westworld very differently. Rather than adapting a book, Crichton wrote it directly as an original screenplay and went on to direct the film himself, marking his theatrical directorial debut in 1973.

For his first high-concept sci-fi theme park run amok, he envisioned the ultimate vacation destination for deep-pocketed guests, with three distinct environments populated by robots virtually indistinguishable from people. The cowboy-themed land has attracted a nice-guy lawyer/tourist (Richard Benjamin) and his cavalier buddy (James Brolin) for a week of gun-totin’ fun, but a series of minor malfunctions quickly gives way to deadly consequences, with no human likely to survive. Top-billed Yul Brynner has limited screentime yet steals his every scene as the menacing, black-clad Gunslinger, riffing slyly on his character from The Magnificent Seven.

Arrow’s new 4K/16-bit restoration serves up Westworld at a wide 2.39:1. Nighttime scenes and many of the interiors boast deep shadows that enhance the realism and the organic ‘70s vibe. There’s a lot of beige in the western locales but the trappings of neighboring Medieval World deliver more colorful pop. Grain varies quite a bit but it is definitely in evidence throughout. Director of photography Gene Polito didn’t employ a lot of sharp focus, but in closeups we can really see that crisp 4K sparkle.

The movie packs quite the array of audio options, starting with three original theatrical mixes. The disc defaults to the restored original 4.0 “stereo” (left/center/right/mono surround), along with 2.0 and 1.0, plus a more modern 5.1, all in DTS-HD Master Audio. The 4.0 is quite strong and surprisingly did not reveal much of a difference when we switched to 5.1, each offering an engaging if not jaw-dropping spread across the home theater. The major explosion during the jailbreak sequence lacks real impact across all included audio options, sounding more “.0” than “.1” in practice, with limited low-frequency weight. Meanwhile, Fred Karlin’s eclectic score does much of the heavy lifting, establishing the distinct atmosphere of each themed world before shifting into something far more ominous as the seemingly unkillable androids close in.

Westworld is a single-disc affair yet manages to round up some solid bonus goodies. Arrow corralled the two leads for new on-camera interviews, leading me to believe they probably could have gotten Yul too, if he was still with us. There’s also a producer interview, a middling audio commentary, an interesting “video appreciation,” and one of those terrific old behind-the-scenes featurettes created to promote upcoming films of the era. Well-intentioned but a tad incongruous is the pilot episode of the spurious, short-lived TV spinoff, Beyond Westworld.

As you can see from the photos, both titles arrive in premium packaging: A rigid box holding the plastic disc case with reversible sleeve artwork and a set of six photocards, a perfect-bound companion book and a two-sided poster, all surrounded by a cardboard slipcover. If you’re an Arrow fan, you already know how great these will look on your shelf, just like you know that either or both are destined to sell out.

Westworld – Movie Details

• STUDIO: Arrow Video
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (February 24, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1973
• ASPECT RATIO: 2.39:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0, 2.0, 1.0, 5.1
• LENGTH: 89 mins.
• MPAA RATING: PG
• DIRECTOR: Michael Crichton
• STARRING: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold, Alan Oppenheimer, Dick Van Patten

Our Ratings

★★★★★★★★★★ Picture

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound

★★★★★★★★★★ Extras

Where to buy: $59.95 at Amazon

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People in the European Union are now allowed to access alternative app stores thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a regulation designed to foster increased competition in the app ecosystem. Like Apple’s App Store, alternative app marketplaces on allow for easy access to a wider world of apps on Apple devices, but instead of the apps going through Apple’s App Review process, the apps on these third-party marketplaces have to go through a notarization process to ensure they meet some “baseline platform integrity standards,” Apple says — like being malware-free. However, each store can review and approve apps according to its own policies. The stores are also responsible for any matters relating to support and refunds, not Apple. 

To run an alternative app marketplace, developers must accept Apple’s alternative business terms for DMA-compliant apps in the EU. This includes paying a new Core Technology Fee of €0.50 for each first annual install of their marketplace app, even before the threshold of 1 million installs is met, which is the bar for other EU apps distributed under Apple’s DMA business terms. 

Despite the complicated new rules, a handful of developers have taken advantage of the opportunity to distribute their apps outside of Apple’s walls. 

Beyond the EU, other markets are experimenting with alternative app stores, as well, like Japan. In December 2025, Apple announced its compliance with the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA), which gives developers new options to distribute apps and process payments outside of Apple’s App Store.

This option also requires developers to accept new business terms, like a reduced 10% to 21% App Store commission, a payment processing fee for Apple in-app purchases of 5%, a core technology fee of 5%, and a 15% store services commission on web sales made through a link in the app.

Below is a list of the alternative app stores iPhone users in these markets can try today. 

AltStore PAL (EU)

Co-created by developer Riley Testut, maker of the Nintendo game emulator app Delta, the AltStore PAL is an officially approved alternative app marketplace in the EU. The open source app store will allow independent developers to distribute their apps alongside the apps from AltStore’s makers, Delta, and a clipboard manager, called Clip. 

Unlike Apple’s App Store, AltStore apps are self-hosted by the developer. To work, developers download an alternative distribution packet (ADP) and upload it to their server, then create a “source” that users will add to the AltStore to access their apps. That means the only apps you’ll see in the AltStore are those you’ve added yourselves. 

Some popular apps that users are adding include the virtual machine app UTM, which lets you run Windows and other software on iOS or iPad; OldOS, a re-creation of iOS 4 that’s built in SwiftUI; Kotoba, the iOS dictionary available as a stand-alone app; torrenting app iTorrent; qBittorrent remote client for iOS devices called qBitControl; and social discovery platform PeopleDrop.

Setapp Mobile (EU – closed Feb. 2026)

MacPaw’s Setapp became one of the first companies to agree to Apple’s new DMA business terms to set up an alternative app store for EU users. Unfortunately, this app store didn’t last long — the company announced it would sunset the Setapp Mobile service on February 16, 2026. (Applications on Setapp Desktop weren’t affected.) The company cited Apple’s “still-evolving” and complex business terms as the reason for its decision.

The company had long offered a subscription-based service featuring a selection of curated apps for customers on iOS and Mac. Following the implementation of the DMA, it released the alternative app store for Setapp Mobile for iOS users only in the EU. Similar to its other subscription offerings, the now-shuttered app store had included dozens of apps under a single recurring subscription price, and the number of apps grew over time. The apps were free from in-app purchases or ads and are generally considered high quality. However, it didn’t include big-name apps like Facebook, Uber, Netflix, and others. 

Epic Games Store (EU)

Fortnite maker Epic Games launched its alternative iOS app store in the EU in August 2024, allowing users to download games, including its own Fortnite and others like Rocket League Sideswipe and Fall Guys, with more to come. The company said it’s also bringing its games to other alternative app stores, including AltStore PAL, which it’s now supporting via a grant, as well as Aptoide’s iOS store in the EU and ONE Store on Android. 

The move to launch Fortnite in alternative iOS marketplaces comes more than four years after Apple removed the game from its App Store over policy violations, ahead of Epic’s legal challenge to the alleged App Store monopoly. While U.S. courts decided that Apple was not engaged in antitrust behavior, the lawsuit did pave the way for developers to link to their own websites for a reduced commission. 

Aptoide (EU)

An alternative game store for iPhone, Lisbon-based Aptoide is an open source solution for app distribution. The company, already known for its Google Play alternative, says it scans the apps to ensure they are safe to download and install.

The iOS version of the Aptoide store launched as an invite-only beta in June 2024 before becoming available to all across the EU. As a free-to-use store, Aptoide doesn’t charge its users to cover its Core Technology Fee paid to Apple, but takes a 10% to 20% commission on in-app purchases on iOS, depending on whether they were generated by the marketplace or not. 

Across all platforms, including Android, web, car, and TV, Aptoide offers 1 million apps to its more than 430 million users. 

Mobivention marketplace (EU)

A B2B-focused app store, the Mobivention marketplace allows EU companies to distribute their internal apps that are used by employees, but can’t — or shouldn’t — be published in Apple’s App Store. The company also offers the development of a customized app marketplace for companies that want to offer employees their own app store just for their corporate apps. Larger companies can even license Mobivention’s technology to more deeply customize the app marketplace to their own needs.

Skich (EU)

Last March, Skich announced the launch of an alternative app store for EU users, which differentiates itself by offering a Tinder-like interface for app discovery. That is, users swipe right to “match” with apps they might enjoy. They can also create playlists and see what apps their friends are playing. The new store will replace Skich’s existing app and will see the company taking a 15% commission on all purchases. Instead of filling its app store with apps right away, the store marketed to developers at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Onside (EU and Japan)

Onside is an alternative iOS app store available in both the EU and, now, Japan, as of February 17, 2026, thanks to the new regulations. The company promises it will charge developers lower rates while still offering security, including keeping payment information private. The store currently supports bank card payments and Apple Pay and will later roll out support for other payment methods like iDeal, Klarna, and more.

For consumers, Onside touts a range of top apps and exclusives that can’t be found on other marketplaces within a familiar interface that includes traditional app store features, like editorial collections, ratings and reviews, and automatic updates.

OpenAI is reportedly hard at work developing a series of AI-powered devices, including smart glasses, a smart speaker and a smart lamp. According to reporting by , the AI company has a team of over 200 employees dedicated to the project.

The first product scheduled to be released is reported to be a smart speaker that would include a camera, allowing it to better absorb information about its users and surroundings. According to a person familiar with the project, this would extend to identifying objects on a nearby table, as well as conversations being held in the vicinity of the speaker. The camera will also support a facial recognition feature similar to Apple’s Face ID that would enable users to authenticate purchases.

The speaker is expected to retail for between $200 and $300 and ship in early 2027 at the earliest. Reporting indicates the company’s AI-powered smart glasses, a space currently dominated by , would not come until 2028. As for the smart lamp, while prototypes have been made, it’s unclear whether it will actually be brought to market.

Last year OpenAI ex-Apple designer Jony Ive’s startup io Products for $6.5 billion. Ive is considered largely responsible for Apple’s design aesthetic, having been involved in designing just about every major Apple device since joining the company in the ’90s before his departure in 2019. The acquisition of his sets the stage for Ive to lead hardware product development now for OpenAI.

Since the partnership was forged, there have already due to technical issues, privacy concerns and logistical issues surrounding the computing power necessary to run a mass-produced AI device. Regardless of the behemoths behind the project, the speaker and other future products may still face a consumer that is always listening to and watching its users.