Apple is taking a cue from some of its competitors.

The technology giant’s Apple TV+ monthly subscription is now $12.99, starting Thursday in the U.S. and other countries.

Apple said the new price will hit current subscribers 30 days after their next renewal date. The annual subscription price will not change.

For new subscribers, the $12.99 monthly price begins after a seven-day trial period.

The change marks Apple’s first price hike for its streaming service since 2023. At the time, Apple lifted its monthly price to about $9.99 from $6.99. The company raised the price in 2022 from $4.99.

Apple TV+ is one of the company’s most popular services, but Apple does not release viewership numbers. A report from The Information earlier this year said the streaming service is losing more than $1 billion annually as subscriptions rocketed toward 45 million, citing people familiar with the matter.

Apple isn’t the only streaming company hiking prices this year to either fund new content or reap returns on their investments. Earlier this year, both Netflix and NBCUniversal’s Peacock boosted prices. Music streaming platform Spotify also raised prices in multiple markets.

Earlier this year, Apple introduced its streaming service to Android phones in a move that could open the company to more people worldwide.

The company is fresh off the release of its highest-grossing theatrical film, “F1: The Movie.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

President Donald Trump‘s dealings with Intel and Nvidia amount to a “scattershot method of crony capitalism,” Walter Isaacson said Thursday.

“That state capitalism often evolves into crony capitalism, where you have favored companies and industries that pay tribute to the leader, and that is a recipe for not only disaster, but just sort of a corrupt sense of messiness,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The Tulane University professor, widely known for his recent Elon Musk biography, argued that this method won’t succeed in reviving American manufacturing.

Isaacson’s comments come as the Trump administration wades further into influencing the way companies operate in the U.S.

The White House is pushing for a stake in embattled chipmaker Intel after Trump called CEO Lip-Bu Tan “highly CONFLICTED” and said he should resign.

Earlier this month, both Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices agreed to pay 15% of their China revenues to the U.S. government for export licenses to sell certain chips there.

Isaacson said he’s always been “dubious” of public-private partnerships. He highlighted Trump’s push for Coca-Cola to use cane sugar in its namesake soda as another example of “crony capitalism.”

While Google made a big splash with its Pixel 10 series of smartphones, it was the software features that were strategically important for the tech giant’s bid to compete with players like OpenAI and Perplexity in consumer AI.

As it introduced its latest devices on Wednesday, Alphabet-owned Google showed off a slew of artificial intelligence features that are powered by the firm’s Gemini AI models. “Magic Cue,” for example, can scour various apps for information and deliver it to users when required. “Camera Coach” can give users tips on how to adjust framing and other aspects of a picture for the perfect shot. Live translation for phone calls is also available.

All of this gives a glimpse into the so-called “agentic AI” future that tech giants are hoping to reach, where super-smart AI assistants can carry out complex tasks.

It is a pivotal time for Google to come up with answers, as fears mount that users and revenue from its core search product could be eroded as more people turn to rivals like Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Before Google lies a unique opportunity — the company develops Android, the operating system that is installed across more than three billion devices globally, many of which are smartphones.

“The company is leapfrogging rivals like OpenAI and DeepSeek by leveraging its access to billions of Android users, enabling a more effective distribution, integration, and a wider range of use cases for Gemini at scale,” Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

Ben Wood,  chief analyst at CCS Insight, said the smartphone is the “most pervasive consumer device on the planet” and that Google now has an “opportunity to get people hooked on Gemini.”

Google doesn’t need to sell a high volume of Pixel phones to find AI success with consumers. In fact, Pixel had just a 0.3% share of the global smartphone market in the first half of the year, compared to 23% for Samsung and 11.8% for Apple, according to the International Data Corporation.

But Google’s aim with its smartphones is to show off the best that Android has to offer in terms of software and AI. At that point, Android licensers, which include the likes of Samsung and Xiaomi, may adopt some of those features on their new handsets.

This cycle would in turn spread Google’s Gemini and AI tools to more users.

“This massive user base creates a “flywheel effect” of adoption, usage, and feedback, further solidifying Gemini’s position as a master agent on the most widely used device on the planet—the smartphone,” Shah said.

The timing is also advantageous because of struggles at rival Apple. The Cupertino giant’s lack of AI strategy has concerned investors, with the iPhone showing very few features compared to Google’s offerings.

“Google has their tails up because Apple has dropped the ball. When Apple gets AI right it will be a fantastic experience. But right now, Google and all Android licensees have a window of opportunity,” Wood said.

Yet while there is now a land grab for users between major AI players, questions still linger over how Google will eventually monetize its AI services.