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Anthropic may have lost out on doing business with the US government, but it's gained enough popularity to earn the number one spot on the App Store's Top Free Apps leaderboard. At the top, Claude beat out both ChatGPT and Google Gemini, which respectively sit at the second and third spots on Apple's free apps charts.
The sudden surge in user downloads isn't random. It follows news that President Trump has barred any federal agency from using Anthropic's Claude or other AI tools after the AI company refused to concede on certain guardrails. After declining to have its AI models be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, Anthropic was also threatened with a "supply-chain risk" label by the Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The very public spat led to a wave of user support that finally allowed Claude to dethrone OpenAI's ChatGPT on the App Store as the most downloaded free app.
While OpenAI has stepped into Anthropic's shoes after agreeing to a deal with the Department of Defense, the CEO still offered up some thoughts about the debacle during an AMA on X. Even though Claude is a competing model,
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 Apple has advised its retail store employees to expect a "major rush" of customers this week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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 MWC 2026 officially gets underway on March 2 and will continue through March 5, but the announcements are already coming ahead of its start. We can always count on the annual tech event to bring tons of new phones, laptops and tablets, and we're expecting to see some robots and other gadgets too — plus plenty of AI news, of course. In addition to the announcements, MWC is our chance to get hands-on time with some of the most interesting new devices, like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and Honor's Robot Phone.
Engadget's Mat Smith is on the ground in Barcelona, and we'll be updating this story as the week goes on to keep you in the loop on everything that caught our attention. Keep checking back here for the latest MWC news.
Honor The Robot Phone. (Image by Mat Smith for Engadget)Honor teased its Robot Phone this past fall and we just finally got a proper look at it at MW
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Alaska's House of Representatives unanimously passed HB47, a bill that imposes sweeping limits on when and how minors use social media apps, along with bans on generating or distributing harmful deepfakes of children.
The bill's original form was focused on prohibiting the possession and distribution of sexually explicit images of children using AI, but Alaska lawmakers decided to add amendments that would impose social media restrictions. The proposed limitations include a statewide curfew on using social media between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM, banning "addictive design features" and requiring social media platforms to verify user ages and get parental consent if they are minors.
While the House bill saw 39 votes in favor and zero against, the amendments offered some hints at potential upcoming revisions. Before the bill went to a vote, some of the House representatives expressed concern about adding such broad rules on social media without consulting the companies behind them first.
The bill still has to make its way through the Alaska State Senate, which already has presented a companion bill, and the governor. Alaska is following the footsteps of many other stat
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Owen Poole covers all the leaks and rumors before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Experts are expecting lots of new phones and smart glasses, and even some insights into the future of 6G connectivity.
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