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MobilePro #184: GPT-5 release and backlash, iOS 26 Public Beta tweaks, Apple Intelligence upgrade, Epic vs. Google update, and more…

Hi ,

Welcome to the 184th edition of MobilePro!

GPT-5 rolled out a few days ago amidst much fanfare from OpenAI, who claimed it was their smartest model yet. Unfortunately for those at OpenAI, GPT-5 users have vociferously disagreed. We’ve been looking at the reactions coming in since the launch and many users have found it slower and full of glitches. That’s not all though. It seems that GPT-5’s answers are now shorter and more curt, with the creativity stripped back as well. All the warmth from GPT-4o has given way to a colder model that has left many users flustered, with some complaining that it’s affected their productivity too.

With everyone using these models day in and day out, it’s understandable that users might get accustomed to the feel and tone of the ones they speak to. Such drastic changes can affect their relationship with the technology. Have you faced such an issue with your usage of GPT-5 as well? How are you navigating these differences? We’ve also noticed some users mention that they’re willing to switch to Claude Opus 4.1, which released just a couple days before GPT-5. Many are cancelling their subscriptions to OpenAI's service, something we're sure Sam Altman wouldn't have seen coming. While, personally, we haven’t taken that step yet, we’re interested in finding out if any of you have done so. If yes, reply to this newsletter and let us know.

That’s not all that has happened in the past few days of course. Let’s have a look at the choicest news bits from the world of mobile.

✨ iOS 26 Public Beta 2 polishes Liquid Glass UI: Adds Camera Classic Mode, Mail’s Select button, and predictive Siri ahead of launch.
🤖 Apple Intelligence to get GPT-5 this fall: Boosts Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence with smarter AI, despite GPT-5 starting off on the wrong foot.
⚖️ Google wins brief stay in Epic Play Store case: Delays mandated changes like third-party store support.
🛠️ Dart and Flutter Model Context Protocol Server links AI to dev tools: Lets AI run IDE tasks via natural language prompts.
🔤 Jetpack Compose’s BasicText adds auto-sizing: Dynamically adjusts font size to fit layouts.
🔄 React Native 0.81 lands with Android 16 support and blazing-fast iOS builds: Adds edge-to-edge Android 16 compatibility and experimental precompiled iOS builds that cut compile times by up to 10x

Stick around for this week’sDeveloper Tip for advice from three Google engineers on making an app look beautiful across devicesandtheDid You Know? section to learn about AOL ending its dial-up internet service after 34 years.

Let’s dive in!

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Staying sharp in .NET takes more than just keeping up with release notes. You need practical tips, battle-tested patterns, and scalable solutions from experts who’ve been there. That’s exactly what you’ll find in .NETPro, Packt’s new newsletter.

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Join .NETPro — It’s Free

📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?

If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.

Apple

iOS 26 Public Beta 2 refines Liquid Glass UI with usability tweaks and polished features: The second public beta of iOS 26 rolls out ahead of the anticipated September launch, bringing subtle but impactful refinements to Apple’s new Liquid Glass design, like a “Classic Mode” toggle in Camera, a prominent Select button in Mail, and a redesigned AirDrop icon. Other updates include refined UI animations (such as jiggling passcode bubbles), improved Wi-Fi visibility in Control Center, predictive Siri for travel, and an expanded dock visual.
Apple Intelligence to upgrade ChatGPT integration with GPT-5 in iOS 26 this fall: The newly released GPT-5 may have seen some teething issues but that won't stop Apple, who will begin leveraging OpenAI’s GPT-5 model within its Apple Intelligence suite, empowering Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence with deeper reasoning, better voice interaction, and improved coding capabilities. This upgrade, arriving alongside iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe in early fall, aims to deliver a smarter, more responsive AI experience systemwide.
Japan mandates open browser engines on iPhone by December 2025: Japan’s newly enacted Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) prohibits Apple from blocking or undermining third-party browser engines (like Blink or Gecko) on iOS. The guidelines explicitly ban not only outright restrictions but also "unreasonable technical or financial barriers" and require fully functional parity in API access, with enforcement starting December 2025.

Android

Google secures short stay amid Epic’s Play Store antitrust win, but ecosystem shake-up looms: After the Ninth Circuit upheld Epic’s win over Google’s Play Store monopoly, the court mandated sweeping changes, like support for third-party app stores, alternative billing systems, and the end of exclusive preinstall deals. Google has now filed and secured a brief emergency stay, pushing back the two-week compliance deadline and buying time as it appeals to higher courts.

Others

React Native 0.81 adds Android 16 support and speeds up iOS build : This release introduces full Android 16 compatibility with edge-to-edge layouts, deprecates SafeAreaView, and adds community-maintained JavaScriptCore support. It also debuts experimental precompiled iOS builds that can cut compile times by up to 10x, offering a major productivity boost for developers.
Firebase brings KTX into main modules; time to drop legacy -ktx dependencies: In July 2025, Firebase stopped releasing separate KTX modules and removed them from the Android BoM starting with v34.0.0. Now, all Kotlin-friendly APIs previously found in *-ktx packages are available directly in the main Firebase modules, simplifying Gradle dependencies and streamlining support for Kotlin developers.
Firebase JS SDK v12.1.0 boosts AI Logic with hybrid inference for browsers: Firebase’s JavaScript SDK version 12.1.0, released on August 7, 2025, introduces hybrid inference support in the AI Logic module, allowing inference tasks to run in browsers using the new Prompt API. It also includes fixes to Performance Monitoring, improving reliability and developer experience.
JetBrains plots Kotlin's next moves: Swift export, multiplatform polish & K2 enhancements: The Kotlin roadmap outlines core ambitions: evolving the language with more efficient data handling and abstractions, strengthening Kotlin Multiplatform by delivering direct Kotlin-to-Swift export and smoother library workflows, and enhancing tooling, particularly K2 compiler promotion, Kotlin/Wasm improvements, IDE plugin performance, and rich ecosystem support. JetBrains plans to refresh this roadmap every six months, with the next update due August 2025.

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Google engineers suggest a simple three-step process for making apps shine on devices from phones to large screens. First, Abstract your UI widgets and centralize their data. Next, Measure screen dimensions with tools like MediaQuery or LayoutBuilder. Finally, Branch your layouts using size-based breakpoints, choosing the UI version based on window dimensions, not device type.

In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.

💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?

What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.

Dart and Flutter MCP Server bridges AI agents and IDEs for smarter dev workflows: The Dart and Flutter MCP Server brings the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to your development setup, enabling AI assistants to access powerful context-aware tools, like project diagnostics, code fixes, hot reloads, and package searches, directly within environments such as Gemini CLI, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot. It transforms reactive workflows into proactive, intelligent collaboration by letting AI agents perform development tasks through natural language prompts.
Jetpack Compose embraces dynamic UIs with auto-sizing using BasicText: The article explores how BasicText offers robust auto-sizing in Jetpack Compose, allowing text to adapt its font size based on layout constraints—unlike the fixed-size Text composable. It showcases practical usage with parameters like autoSize, maxLines, and layout examples, and reminds developers to use Compose BOM version 2025.04.01 or higher for compatibility.
Enterprise teams face growing pains adopting vibe coding at scale: While vibe coding, i.e., AI-driven code generation from natural language, drives prototyping and innovation, enterprises are grappling with five major hurdles: inconsistent architectural quality, technical debt, security and compliance risks, scaling limitations, and the lack of standardized governance.

📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from Packt

MobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.

A perfect book for developers who have a fundamental grasp of the Swift language and who aspire to take their development skills to the next level by learning some of the advanced topics and techniques of the Swift Language.

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🧠Master the latest Swift 6.2 features to enhance your application development

🤖Learn advanced techniques like concurrency, memory management, Generics, and Swift Testing

💡 Apply best practices in Swift to write clean, scalable, and maintainable code

Mastering Swift 6

Pre-order now at $49.99!

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On September 30, 2025, AOL will officially discontinue its iconic dial-up internet service, along with the AOL Dialer and Shield browser, bringing an end to a connection type that introduced millions to the web. Though once ubiquitous, dial-up has long since been eclipsed by broadband, with only a small fraction of U.S. households still relying on it by 2023.

Sourced from MacRumors.

👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!

Cheers,

Runcil Rebello,

Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro