Aldi launches £17 video doorbell, Spotify hikes UK subscription prices

Aldi’s middle aisle just got more interesting, as it’s now stocking a new smart home device which could be a great entry point into the world of smart home security. The retailer has launched a new battery-powered video doorbell which comes in at a budget-friendly price of just £16.99. And while its new video doorbell lacks some of the features of bigger brands (which is expected given its price point), it appears to be a decent buy. Unlike leading video doorbell brands that require you to pay a monthly subscription, Aldi’s version does not, thanks to its support for micro SD cards (up to 32GB).  Tech Radar 

Apple could be forced to pay up to £1.5bn in damages after losing a collective legal action court case brought on behalf of 36 million UK iPhone and iPad users, both consumers and businesses. The Competition Appeals Tribunal found that Apple, had abused its dominant position by charging “excessive and unfair” prices in the form of the 30% commission, which it usually levies both on app sales and in-app payments. The claimants argued that this meant that consumers had been overcharged for apps, subscriptions to apps, and when buying digital content in apps. BBC 

Spotify is increasing the cost of its UK premium subscription, the Money blog has revealed. Emails have started going out to subscribers informing them the cost for an individual subscription will rise from £11.99 to £12.99 a month. It equates to an 8.3% increase. It had announced earlier this year that prices would go up in various territories – but it had not been clear if this included the UK. The last hike, also of £1, was introduced in the spring of 2024. SkyNews

A cyber attack that shut down Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) factories led to UK car production falling to a 73-year low last month. New figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed that total vehicle production plunged by 35.9pc in September to 54,319. In particular, car production was down 27.1pc to 51,090, which the trade body blamed on JLR’s sites being brought to a standstill. Telegraph 

Customers of mobile operator O2 may be displeased, if not surprised, to learn that the provider has today followed sibling Virgin Media’s recent increase to their existing mid-contract pricing policy on broadband packages (here), by announcing a similar hike for their own mobile subscribers. Effective from today, O2 will now apply a new fixed annual price rise to Pay Monthly (airtime) mobile customers of £2.50 every April, which is up from the current rate of £1.80. ISPreview

Amazon has revealed the cause of this week’s hours-long AWS outage, which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences. In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascading set of events brought down thousands of sites and applications that host their services with the company. AWS said customers were unable to connect to DynamoDB, its database system where AWS customers store their data, due to “a latent defect within the service’s automated DNS [domain name system] management system”. Guardian 

From a design perspective, 2025 has certainly been an interesting year for Apple. After years of aesthetic stagnation, the company dropped its most radically different iPhone designs last month, including the delightful iPhone Air. And then there’s iOS 26, which represents the biggest software design overhaul since 2013’s iOS 7 kicked off the flat design tsunami. Centered around the Liquid Glass design language, the new software design is splashier (and glassier) than anything we’ve seen before, filled with transparent objects and reflective surfaces. CreativeBloq