In a keynote address at the annual Google for Game Developers Summit, Google said its Google Play Games for PC service, which brings Android games to Windows users, will roll out to Japan and other European markets, and gain new titles and tools for game developers. Of note, the service over the next couple of months will add several popular games, including Garena Free Fire, Ludo King (a popular board game in India), and MapleStory M. Meanwhile, Google Play is introducing early access to Machine Translation in the Play Console that will allow game developers to translate their game in more than eight languages within minutes for free, the company said.
Launched into beta testing in January 2022, Google Play Games is designed to expand the reach of Android gaming by allowing consumers to play the mobile titles on their Windows computers, in addition to supported platforms like Android mobile and tablet and ChromeOS. With the service, gamers can pick up where they left off on one device when switching to another — something many Apple-focused game titles already offer when users switch between iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, for instance.
Initially available in overseas markets like Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, the service expanded into the U.S. and other countries in November and is now live in 13 markets, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Now, Google says the service will come to Japan and several European countries over the new couple of months.
It’s also introducing a range of features aimed at game developers, including an emulator offering a developer-focused build of
Google Play Games that’s designed for the debug and build process. This tool allows developers to deploy games directly, including by sideloading APKs via ADB command, and lets them use Android Studio to adjust graphics and hardware settings to validate different player configurations. (Developers will have to sign up here by first expressing interest in the service.)
Explains Google, its partnership with Intel enables it to make it easier for developers to join Google Play Games on PC with their existing mobile builds. If the mobile game already plays well on the desktop, they can now apply to join the service.
The company is also publishing a new release checklist to help game developers verify that they’ve completed all the necessary steps
before submitting their build for approval, and it added more metrics for games in Android vitals. The latter includes recently launched frame rate metrics in Play Console — or through the Developer Reporting API — that allow developers to check if their games offer at least 30 frames per second — the technical quality required for the Google Play Games for PC service. Other technical upgrades aimed at performance and user acquisition were also rolled out, in addition to the new Machine Translation feature that will use Google Translate and transformer-based language models to translate games in over eight languages, including Simplified Chinese and Japanese.
Google additionally teased the coming release of Next Generation Player IDs which will keep a user’s Player ID consistent across platforms for any given games, while still allowing them to be unique across different games. This feature, powered by Play Games Services, will arrive later this year.
Still considered a beta, Google Play Games on PC requires users to run Windows 10 on a PC with 10 GB of available storage on a solid state drive (SSD), with an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU or comparable, 4 CPU physical cores, and 8 GB of RAM. The company has not yet shared an official release date for a public launch.
Google and Microsoft are locked in a head-to-head competition to bring as much generative AI to their productivity services as possible. Only days ahead of Microsoft’s “Future of Work” event, Google today announced a sweeping update to Workspace that will bring its generative AI models to virtually every part of its productivity suite, in addition to new developer solutions that will make Google’s foundation models, including its 540 billion-parameter PaLM large language model for multiturn chats, available to developers through an API and new low-code tools.
The caveats worth mentioning up front: For the time being, these new features will only be available for what Google calls “Trusted Testers.” It’s unclear when they will roll out to a wider audience. There’s also no pricing information available yet, though it sounds like at least a subset of these features will be available to consumers — including those on Google One plans. Basically, this is akin to Google’s LaMDA announcements a few weeks ago: they sound great, but it’ll be a while before you can try any of this in practice.
Image Credits: Google
Google’s plan is to bring its generative AI models to virtually every part of Workspace, be that writing emails for you in Gmail, helping you write (or rewrite) documents in Docs, formula generation in Sheets, capturing notes in Meet, or creating text, images, audio and video in Slides. If I had to take a guess, chances are Microsoft will announce very similar updates later this week.
“Google Workspace has been a longtime pioneer in enabling real-time collaboration, where human beings work together in real time in our products,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said during a press briefing ahead of today’s announcements. “This next phase is where we’re bringing human beings to be supported with an AI collaborator who is working in real time in concert with them.”
Image Credits: Google
Kurian said the company plans to rapidly roll out new features “every couple of weeks.” Throughout the year, trusted testers will get access to the first phase now, which will include getting help in writing emails in Gmail and documents in Docs. The core features here, for now, are getting help with writing and adjusting the tone and style of text. But as Google stressed, that’s just the start (at least for the Trusted Tester group).
Image Credits: Google
The promise here is that Google will eventually infuse AI into virtually every workflow in Workspace. This may mean summarizing an email conversation or brainstorming a Docs document. Of course, because so much of this is chat-based, Google Chat will also get support for some of these features, but so far, Google has only said that it will “enable workflows for getting things done in Chat.”
Image Credits: Google
Maybe the most impressive demo Google showed, though, was combining a lot of this text-based work with generative AI models for image and music generation — and using that to create a full-fledged presentation around it. “With Slides, we’re helping you generate insights and images from text in slides,” Kurian explained. “So you can use images from your rich content library, your brand images — if you’ve got your own company’s images — and private repositories, to generate these images and superpower every person building with slides, including generating soundtracks.”
Image Credits: Google
When asked about pricing, Kurian noted that the company plans to make “these solutions available broadly to our enterprises, to small businesses, to consumers — and even to people who subscribe to Google One.” And that’s pretty much all we know for now, though the mention of Google One is an interesting one, given that Google has been pushing its subscription service — which offers additional cloud storage space as its main benefit — to slowly include more features over time, including its VPN service.
It’s been no secret that Google was going all out with bringing generative AI to the widest possible range of its product. It’s just a bit of a shame that many of today’s announcements feel like vaporware, with only a select number of users getting access to it for now. And while features like Smart Compose and Smart Reply are obviously widely available (and quite useful) Google seemingly remains hesitant to put its latest AI technology into the hands of everyday users.
The strategy here, though, feels right. Google Workspace provides the largest canvas for the company to bring its various AI technologies to users and Gmail and Docs are the lowest-hanging fruit here, so it makes sense for Google to start there. It’s also where large text models shine, all while Google gets to sidestep the issues that Bing and ChatGPT face with their chatbots going off script (though Microsoft seems to have gotten this under control for now) and without any risk to its search business.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
The TikTok-ification of consumer apps, now including Reddit and Spotify
Image Credits: Spotify
The TikTok model had already infiltrated many consumer apps — Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest and several more (even Netflix and Amazon!). Now you can add a handful of other high-profile apps to the list. Most notably, Spotify and Reddit this week announced their own takes on the TikTok feed with significant changes to their respective app’s designs. SoundCloud also introduced video feeds for music as a test.
For Reddit, the changes come only a year into a broader redesign. Reddit on Tuesday unveiled an updated user interface that now separates text-based content and video into separate feeds in the app, dubbed “Read” and “Watch.” The company said that, by doing so, users could switch between text-browsing — Reddit’s historical draw — to a video experience, depending on their current mood. While Reddit had tested other models for integrating video in the app before this change, this puts access to its video feed more front-and-center in the app experience.
Meanwhile, Spotify this week revealed a mobile app overhaul that introduces video-based “discovery” feeds for music, podcasts and audiobooks in an effort to engage users and reclaim some of the time spent on music discovery that had shifted over to TikTok.
What’s interesting about these latest updates is that they involve two apps that aren’t really known for video having found ways to launch their own video-based feeds as key parts of their new user experiences. While it wasn’t as much of a stretch for apps like Instagram or YouTube to adopt short-form video, Spotify and Reddit seemed less likely candidates, as they focused on other types of content, like text and audio.
But Spotify has also watched as TikTok has eaten into its market, becoming a music discovery platform so powerful that it’s now in control of the top charts. TikTok is minting new hits and artists and can even put decades-old music back into rotation when older songs get attached to a viral trend.
This is not great news for Spotify, which wants to be able to sell artists access to marketing tools to get their music found and streamed — and it wants to differentiate itself among consumers by offering better music discovery features. The company’s Discover Weekly playlist is still one of consumer tech’s best products, but it’s no longer enough to sell the service’s ability to connect fans to new music in a world where TikTok now exists.
That brings us to Spotify’s TikTok-ified revamp, which not only introduces video feeds for content discovery but also capitalizes on the format to connect users with their various interests, drilling down different types of music categories, playlists or compilations designed for specific activities. The app’s new feeds introduce video clips from artists (their short, looping Canvas videos, which already accompanied their streams), podcast video clips, podcast audio clips with a static background and animated real-time transcriptions overlaid on top, as well as clips of audiobook narrations.
The changes are radical — and potentially controversial, too.
i’m sick and tired of every app morphing into the same thing….spotify is not a social media app it’s not meant to look like one https://t.co/9zYL8q62VM
But Spotify’s feeds aren’t really a TikTok clone. There are no creators pushing content for likes and comments. There aren’t viral dances and challenges and trends. Its goals are increasing streams and helping people find new things to enjoy. (Well that…and helping Spotify make more money).
Arguably, a multimedia feed is a better format for serendipitous discovery than a carousel that points to albums or playlists. It’s why Netflix has trailers (even annoying autoplay ones). Hearing and seeing is simply more engaging than reading text. That can be true and users can hate it.
Image Credits: Spotify screenshot
Another key thing to note is that Spotify is also using the video feed format to not only serve as a discovery engine across formats but a starting place for connecting users to the specific type of music they want to hear now — without requiring users to type into a search box. Under the music sub-feed, the app will point you to short-form video feeds focused on various genres or even activities, like relaxing, studying or working out, for example.
This shift targets the changing consumer behavior of a younger generation (Gen Z, and soon, Alpha), which remains Spotify’s core demographic. As Google noted last year, younger people are using the web differently — and it’s a potential crisis for its own business. Speaking at an event, a Google Search exec explained how young people now often begin certain types of searches directly on Instagram and TikTok, bypassing Google Search.
Spotify, if it failed to adapt to changing trends, could have faced the same fate.
It may have seen users heading directly to TikTok to find new music, rather than its own app — no matter how many clever, personalized playlists it offered. Rather than waiting for this to be an existential threat (and one possibly accompanied by the launch of a dedicated TikTok Music app, as has been reported), it embraced the trend.
There’s a bit of old man yells at cloud to this early backlash, however. Internet technology is always changing as is consumer behavior. Spotify could have refused to experiment in this area, but in a way, it has a responsibility to do so as a prominent consumer app. If the changes don’t deliver the results it wants — if consumers cancel subscriptions, if engagement and discovery decline — it would likely dial things back.
Image Credits: Spotify
But if it succeeds, it would be a boon for its bottom line.
Going forward, Spotify says more artists can pay for its controversial Discovery Mode tool, which adds a signal to Spotify’s personalized algorithms — algorithms that now inform its video feeds. The feature includes paying Spotify a commission on streams. It’s not exactly an ad, but rather a tool to manipulate what feels more like an organic experience to the end user. Plus, artists can use a new feature called Showcase to place a mobile card in the new video feeds to introduce their music to potential fans. Longer-term, Spotify could insert more ads into this experience, too.
At least we’ll have to credit Spotify with this: It decided not to merely dabble with its TikTok-style features, it went all in. This is no mere add-on to its product, it’s the face of it. Unlike Reddit, which made visiting its TikTok-inspired feed a more intentional choice, Spotify’s feeds are everywhere. It’s a real test for Spotify’s brand and, as CEO Daniel Ek said at the event, the “biggest change Spotify has undergone since we introduced mobile 10 years ago.” Now the ball is in consumers’ court as to what comes next.
More from Spotify
The app’s changes were among many new features Spotify introduced at its Stream On live event in LA.
Podcasters were also pitched new tools that would give them the option to add interactive features — like Q&As and polls. These were previously reserved for Anchor creators only, but Anchor is now being merged into the larger Spotify for Podcasters dashboard. Spotify also expanded access to video podcasts, which now could hold more appeal given the new video feeds.
Artists, meanwhile, are being offered access to new tools for running campaigns, and promoting concerts and merchandise, as well as new Countdown Pages that let fans presave albums, watch exclusive videos, preorder merch, preview tracklists and watch a timer count down to a new release.
The Countdown pages can also showcase Spotify’s new Clips — under-30-second vertical videos that are uploaded directly to Spotify for Artists. These will appear on artist profiles and album pages, as well.
The feature can be used to share the story behind a song, announce an upcoming release, feature a collaborator, show off merch or, for new artists, as an introduction — or anything else an artist may want to share. Unlike on social media platforms, the goal with Clips is not to generate Likes, but rather streams of the artist’s music instead.
It’s another way Spotify is shifting its app to video outside of the TikTok-style feeds.
Corporate takeover of the Fediverse?
At the start of the week, some in the Fediverse user base were upset about Medium’s entry into their open source, decentralized space with news that Medium’s new Mastodon server would involve a fee. (It’s actually just another perk of a Medium membership.) But by the end of the week, a much bigger threat to the status quo had emerged as Meta confirmed it was working on a decentralized, text-based app. The app would effectively serve as a Twitter alternative, but also seemingly would threaten the growth of the free and decentralized web where platforms like Meta have less control.
The app, codenamed P92, would let users log in using their Instagram credentials and would support ActivityPub. The latter is concerning Fediverse advocates who fear Meta’s real interest in this space has nothing to do with their values but rather is just another example of the “embrace, extend, extinguish” approach big tech takes when there’s a threat to its power.
In the case of the Fediverse, however, there may be a tool for fighting back. Server operators could refuse to federate with any Meta-run instances, essentially carving out a space for social networking outside of big tech’s reach. Or servers could choose only to federate if Meta agreed to certain conditions, like account portability or not screwing around with ActivityPub’s development.
Google’s annual I/O developer conference is returning to the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on May 10. The in-person event is still more scaled-down than in pre-COVID years and the keynotes will be livestreamed. Various talks will focus on Google’s OS efforts, like Android and Wear OS.
The second developer preview of Android 14 has shipped, offering new additions that mostly focus on added security and privacy features, rather than consumer-facing ones. One new addition is the updated photo picker which will now ask users if they want to give an app permission to access every photo or only select ones. Android 14 is also adding a credential manager as a platform API, introducing new optimizations to Android’s memory management system, and offering more personalization options to end users for various settings like temperature units and numbering systems.
Google’s Play Console will open release tracks dedicated to Wear OSallowing developers to ship Wear OS updates independently of their core Android release.
Google began rolling out the first Beta for the new Privacy Sandbox on Android to a small percentage of Android devices. The effort is focused on developing new technologies to enable personalized ads for mobile devices with more respect for consumer privacy.
Apple’s new App Store pricing capabilities, announced in December, are now available across all app and in-app purchase types including paid apps and one-time in-app purchases, Apple announced. That means developers can now use more flexible price points and globally equalized prices. In addition, the company said on May 9, 2023, pricing for existing apps and one‑time in‑app purchases will be updated across all 175 App Store storefronts to take advantage of new enhanced global pricing.
Apple’s Emergency SOS feature which connects users to a satellite messaging service when a cell signal is not available is now live in 12 markets, including the U.S. and Canada, after an EU expansion. Newly supported countries include Austria, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Portugal.
Apple rolled out the third iOS 16.4 public beta, which includes the 31 new emoji, Safari push notifications and minor changes to first-party apps, including Podcasts and Apple Music, among other things. This will also be the last beta to require users to install a certificate — going forward, beta updates will be linked to users’ Apple IDs, instead.
Apple released TestFlight 3.3 to its App Store. The company said it includes just stability improvements and bug fixes.
A new consumer survey published by The WSJ (via Daring Fireball) noted that Apple is now beating Samsung in Korea in the key demographic of 18- to 29-year-olds.
App Updates
Messaging
Facebook announced it would begin testing the ability for users to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app. The company had separated the technologies in 2016 in a push to drive users to the standalone Messenger app.
WhatsApp is working on a new anti-spam feature that will allow users to automatically silence incoming calls from unknown numbers.
Telegram launched its new Power Saving Mode on iOS alongside other features. The battery saver was first announced on Mac. The feature disables animations and other effects to extend battery life and can be set to automatically turn on when the battery reaches a certain percentage. Now iOS users can also granularly adjust playback speed for videos, podcasts, voice and video messages; can view when messages were read by individual group members; can send invite links as messages; can mark all chats in a folder as read; and more.
Image Credits: Telegram
Japanese messaging platform LINE added support for ChatGPT in its app, allowing users to send up to five messages for free per day or upgrade to unlimited messages for around $5/month. The feature was so popular it gained 200,000 users in a day.
Discord announced a set of new AI experiences, including an update to its Clyde bot that will integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology. With the release, users will be able to ask Clyde questions, have conversations or ask the bot to perform tasks, like sending you a GIF.
Signal and WhatsApp took a stand against the Online Safety Bill in the UK, along with other secure messaging apps, all of which are refusing to undermine the encryption they use to cater to government demands.
Social
TikTok is now blocking links to app stores from creators’ bios. The company confirmed that only business accounts would now have this ability, which even extends to include links within link-in-bio services like Linktree. While there’s no charge and no ad product involved, the move seems a push to get businesses to buy ads, rather than partnering with creators on CPI campaigns.
In addition to Spotify and SoundCloud, Reddit has also now adopted the TikTok-style format for its own app. The company this week launched a redesign of its app, which includes a new Watch feed for videos while another new feed, Read, will focus on text content. The company believes separating the two will allow users to more easily jump into the experience they prefer.
In addition, Reddit said it’s closing down its Clubhouse clone, Reddit Talk. The company explained its third-party audio vendor was closing up shop and it didn’t have its own in-house resources ready.
Meta said it will stop offering Reels bonuses to creators on Instagram and Facebook after first announcing the incentivized content program in 2021.
An NBC News investigation found creeps and pedophiles on Pinterest, pinning images of young girls. The company said it would launch a feature that would allow users to report boards and more optioning for flagging profiles in the near-term and was planning to introduce age-verification measures at a later date.
Gowalla, a location-based social networking app first launched in 2009, is coming back. The app is making its return just in time for SXSW (again!) to see if the time is now right for its concept to succeed. The new app has an updated look and hopes to capitalize on the void created by Snap’s shutdown of Zenly.
Alongside the new version of its TV OS, which focuses on sports updates and live news, Roku also announced a revamp of its companion mobile app. The company described the new design as more visually immersive and said it would add features that let users access things like account management, privacy and security settings, and devices attached to their Roku account. The app will also now support up to 1,000 photos for photostreams instead of just 100. The new sports experience and “Continue Watching” rows will also be included in the update.
Image Credits: Roku
Entertainment & Streaming
Spotify’s not the only app taking inspiration from TikTok. SoundCloud this week also introduced vertical video feeds that highlight song clips in its new TikTok-style “Discover” and “Following” feeds.
SoundCloud also gained a new CEO: Eliah Seton, who previously oversaw Creator and Roster divisions, strategy, M&A, content partnerships, biz dev, distribution and artist partnerships. Fred Wilson, founder of Union Square Ventures and member of SoundCloud’s board since 2011, was also been appointed as the new chairman of the board.
Image Credits: SoundCloud
TikTok gets a paywall. The company introduced a new feature called Series, which allows creators to sell Collections of up to 80 paid videos of up to 20 minutes long. Initially, creators are allowed to keep 100% of the revenue generated.
SiriusXM announced layoffs of 475 people, or 8% of its total workforce, citing the “uncertain economic environment.” The company runs the satellite radio service as well as Pandora and Stitcher.
Wattpad also announced layoffs of 15% of its staff (42 of 267 people), citing the economic environment.
Sonos said it would add support for spatial audio on Apple Music on March 28, making the company the first partner to bring spatial audio into the home.
Apple launched its Apple Music Classical app for preorder. (More on that below.)
Etc.
Utah is allowing residents to use the GET Mobile ID app to create a digital identity which can then be used to generate a digital driving license remotely. The mobile driving license (mDL) can be used at TSA checkpoints at Salt Lake City International Airport.
Snoop Dogg is among the co-founders of a new app called Shiller that lets creators promote their NFTs, collect virtual tips and engage with a web3 community.
Epic Games is now letting developers self-publish to its Epic Games Store, taking only a 12% commission on game sales and no IAP cut if they use their own payments tool.
Microsoft’s Outlook Mac app is now free, instead of requiring a 365 subscription.
Image Credits: Microsoft
Microsoft’s enterprise-focused Azure OpenAI service made ChatGPT available to businesses looking to add the AI model to their own apps. The Azure OpenAI service already offers other OpenAI technology, including GPT-3.5, Codex and DALL-E 2. ChatGPT is priced at $0.002 per 1,000 tokens, or about 750 words, with billing for ChatGPT usage to begin March 13. Snap has already integrated ChatGPT and others, like Instacart and Office Depot, said they will soon.
Government, Policy and Lawsuits
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced new legislation, the RESTRICT Act, that would allow the administration to restrict or even ban foreign technology, including TikTok if it considers the tech a national security threat. If passed, it would give the Dept. of Commerce the power to “review, prevent and mitigate” software, hardware and services from foreign adversaries.
Meanwhile, TikTok announced Project Clover, a charm offensive focused on EU regulators that will include keeping EU user data on servers in Europe and allowing a cybersecurity audit by a European firm.
EU regulators also asked Twitter to hire more moderators and fact-checkers, the FT said. The policymakers were worried about the company’s plan to lean on volunteers and AI for moderation.
Irish data protection commissioner Helen Dixon said regulators were concerned about Twitter’s decision to roll out its subscription service, Twitter Blue, without notice or discussions with the DPC — a best practice, though not a legal requirement.
Funding and M&A
Gaming startup Believer, founded by ex-Riot execs, raised $55 million from Lightspeed, a16z and others in a Series A round. The company is still being cagey about its plans — including what platforms it will support — but is focused on large, multiplayer “open world” games.
Alongside the launch of new password manager Uno, the startup disclosed a $3 million seed round led by a16z, with participation from Lookout founder Kevin Mahaffey and Dug Song from Duo Security. The app will work on Mac, Chrome and iOS and aims to improve on the designs of other password managers with a more user-friendly experience and interface.
Bach, an app for planning group travel and bachelorette trips, raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital. Available on both iOS and Android, the app lets friends chat about trips, plan an itinerary, split expenses, browse curated experiences and more.
Downloads
Apple Music Classical (preorder)
Image Credits: Apple
Apple announced on Thursday it will soon launch a new music streaming service focused on classical music. Based on its 2021 acquisition of Amsterdam-based streamer Primephonic, the new Apple Music Classical app will offer Apple Music subscribers access to more than 5 million classical music tracks, including new releases in high-quality audio, as well as hundreds of curated playlists, thousands of exclusive albums and other features like composer bios and deep dives on key works.
Users will be able to search by composer, work, conductor or even catalog number, to locate recordings. These can be streamed in high-quality audio of up to 192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless. And thousands of recordings will be available in Apple’s immersive spatial audio, as well.
The service will be included with an Apple Music subscription, including Individual ($10.99/mo), Student ($5.99/mo) and Family ($16.99/mo) plans, and the Apple One bundles. At launch, it will be iOS only (iOS 15.4+) with Android to follow “soon.”
The app is available for preorder on the App Store for a March 28 release.
Google’s Android release cadence for Android has become a familiar annual ritual. A month ago, the company launched the first developer preview of Android 14 and now, a month later, here is the second developer preview. Like with the first release, this is very much a version that’s still meant for developers, with the more public — and easier to install — betas scheduled to arrive in April. So far, most of the features Google has talked about have also been developer-centric, with only a few user-facing features exposed to far. That also holds true for this second preview, which mostly focuses on added new security and privacy features.
Image Credits: Google
Maybe the most important new privacy feature worth calling out here — and one that will be user-facing — is that the new Android photo picker will now ask users if they only want to give an app access to select photos instead of always having to allow access to every photo and video on a given device. Google is asking developers to test this new behavior with their apps to ensure that they can handle this new permission and selection flow.
Android 14 will also feature a new screenshot detection API “to prevent unnecessary access to a user’s data.”
Android 14 is also adding a credential manager as a platform API — and through a Jetpack Library with a Google Play Services implementation, it will support this back to Android 4.4 (that was the KitKat release from 2013). It’ll support passwords and passkeys. And while this was already available in the first preview, Google notes that it has now improved the user interface and made some API changes, too.
With this release, Google is also introducing new optimizations to Android’s memory management system, which will now more quickly disallow background processes from apps that have gone into a cached state.
On the user-facing side, Google will now make it easier for users to more granularly personalize some of Android settings like temperature units, first day of the week and numbering systems. ” A European living in the United States might prefer temperature units to be in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit and for apps to treat Monday as the beginning of the week instead of the US default of Sunday,” Google explains, perfectly describing my own personal preferences as a European living in the United States.
As Google notes, now is the time for developers to start their compatibility testing to get ready for the Android 14 release later this year. System images are available for the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G), as well, of course, images for the Android Emulator.
With Google I/O now happening on May 10, chances are we will hear quite a bit more about Android 14’s consumer-facing features then.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
Amid a lack of U.S. regulation over how social media companies should be protecting their teen and minor users, big tech companies are self-policing, hoping to ward off any coming laws that could impact their businesses. But the companies’ so-called teen safety features and protections now being rolled out are doing little to actually limit the negative impacts of teens’ social media use. At best, they present small roadblocks or annoyances that any teen user could easily bypass. At worst, as in the case of Snapchat’s new Streaks pausing feature, they actually force users to pay for the benefitof a less addictive app and better mental health.
Let’s start with Instagram. The company this week was touting its expanded tests of an age verification feature that asks users to verify their age if they attempt to change their age to an adult (18 or older) in the app. The company offers one of three methods to confirm the user’s age: they can upload a government ID, take a video selfie, or get others to vouch for their age. The ID upload is obviously the most accurate method here, as video selfies can be hit or miss. Still, these first two options may feel a bit more invasive in terms of privacy. Plus, many in the under-18 crowd may not yet have a government ID if they haven’t gotten their driver’s license.
That’s why Instagram offers the third option of “social vouching.”
Image Credits: Instagram
But the way it’s implemented puts the control largely in the teen’s hands. A parent or guardian does not have to be asked to verify the teen’s age. Instead, the teen is allowed to hand-select three users among their mutual followers who will vouch that the teen is the age they say they are. Those vouching for the teen will receive a request, which they have to respond to within 3 days. This request presents several options for them to choose from such as “under 13 years old,” “13-17 years old,” “18-20 years old,” “21 years or older” or “I’m not sure.”
Instagram claims these users must also be at least 18 (assuming their age is real in the first place) and they must meet “other safeguards” but nothing about this option is documented in the site’s Help pages.
In practice, it would be exceedingly simple for a teen to simply ask their three friends to click the “18” option if they were trying to work around the system. As a result, this is not any sort of real preventative measure, it’s simply a roadblock a teen could easily avoid. (And let’s not forget that once the teen is “officially” 18, Instagram can use their data for ad targeting in more expansive and revenue-boosting ways!)
Next, there’s TikTok, which made headlines this week for its new 60-minute limit for teens, if it’s even fair to call it that. While the under-13 users will be blocked from continuing to watch without a parent or guardian’s permission, older teens can choose for themselves.
In the case of the former, the parent would need to enter a passcode to enable 30 more minutes of viewing for their under-13 child. However, all other teens under 18 will simply be prompted to enter a passcode to keep watching TikTok. Even the company acknowledges this isn’t really a limit on TikTok viewing, noting the passcode entry screen is there to require the teens “to make an active decision to extend that time.” It’s also just another roadblock and one designed to be easily bypassed.
Image Credits: TikTok
But while Instagram and TikTok are at least gesturing toward teen safety and better mental health, Snap has decided to outright charge for it.
As any teen knows, one of the company’s most addictive features is the app’s “Snap Streaks,” which tracks how many days in a row two Snapchat users have sent Snaps back and forth to one another. Teens consider this measurement to be an indication of the strength of their friendship, but in reality, the Streaks have little point beyond encouraging repeat app opens and Snapchat addiction. The problem is so bad among teens that it’s been the focus of government intervention and proposed legislation at various times.
This week, Snap said it would test — not launch, mind you, but test — a new feature that would allow users to pay for Streak Restores.
This option would let them reignite a Streak in the event they accidentally let it drop. The option could potentially fend off customer service requests from teens who are so addicted to streaks that they email the company to beg for them back. In addition, Snapchat+ subscriptions will soon gain a feature that would allow users to freeze their streaks any time they needed a break, the company said.
This is an incredible thumbing of its nose by Snap at all the hubbub around teen safety and mental health protections. Not only is it doing nothing to address the root cause of the problem — that it gamified friendships among a psychologically vulnerable demographic — it’s asking users to pay for the privilege of unwinding from their addiction. The fact that the launch is being widely celebrated is only further proof of how desperate Snap’s users have become to have any options to limit their in-app screen time. It’s like charging opioid addicts for their methadone. Truly mindblowing.
Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky hits the App Store and other Fediverse news
Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, hit the App Store this week and more testers are gaining access. Though the app is still only available as an invite-only beta, its App Store arrival signals that a public launch could be nearing.
We hadn’t heard much from Bluesky since October 2022, when the team behind the project shared an update on the Bluesky blog, detailing the status of the social protocol that powers its new Twitter-like app, also called Bluesky. Last year, Bluesky said it had received $13 million to ensure it had the freedom and independence to get started on R&D and noted Jack Dorsey was on its board. (Because apparently, Twitter’s own board is asleep at the wheel!)
AT (originally called ADX, or “Authenticated Transfer Protocol,”) is Bluesky’s main effort while the Bluesky mobile app serves to showcase the protocol in action. Similar to the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon, AT offers the means of creating a federated and decentralized social network.
TechCrunch was able to go hands-on with the Bluesky app this week, which you can read more about here, but found it to be a stripped-down Twitter clone for the most part. Its uniqueness is more about the underlying technology rather than its user interface, it seems.
If there is any Fediverse momentum, it’s from ActivityPub for the time being.
We also checked in with Tumblr to find out where the company was with its own Fediverse ambitions since we hadn’t heard much about it plans lately. Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg told us the company is actually testing all the protocols, including ActivityPub, Bluesky and Nostr.
“Tumblr is quite large, and we don’t want to break anything in the Fediverse by turning things on willy-nilly, so we’re digging into the protocols,” he said. There’s no ETA yet on when the company might make a decision, however.
Tweetbot & Twitterific ask customers to decline refunds in rare App Store exception
Twitter last month officially banned third-party clients, putting a sudden end to popular apps, including Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and others. This week, in an unusual turn of events, two developers have updated their shuttered apps with new functionality: They’re asking their subscribers to decline to receive a refund by clicking a new “I don’t need a refund” button in their nonfunctional apps. And, in the case of Tapbots’ Tweetbot app, users can opt to transfer their subscription to the company’s newest app — its Mastodon client Ivory — instead. The options allow subscribers who are sympathetic to these indie developers’ plight to offer support by not asking for their money back.
It’s an unprecedented situation, to say the least, and one most subscription-based iOS apps wouldn’t ever have to face. In most other scenarios, a company’s decision to put an end to API access, as Twitter did, would have been telegraphed well in advance. This would allow the businesses dependent on the API functionality to communicate with their customers about the change and prepare to take the next steps. The third-party Twitter clients, however, had no warning. Their businesses were ruined overnight though they had done no wrong. What’s more, they would have to pay back users’ pro-rated subscriptions out of pocket.
That situation seems to have paved the way for an equally unusual exception to App Store rules, which typically wouldn’t allow developers to solicit customers to decline refunds for non-functional apps. Subscribers can choose to click a button in the app to allow the developers to keep their money — which, we’d advise, everyone to go do now.
Google announced new Android features at Mobile World Congress this week, alongside updates for Chromebook and Wear OS. Among the changes, Google said Fast Pair will soon work with Chromebook to connect headphones already configured with an Android device; expanded noise cancellation for Google Meet on more Android devices; a Google Keep widget for Home screens; the ability to use a stylus or touch the screen to annotate PDFs in the Google Drive app for Android; and a way to increase the text size in Chrome up to 300% while preserving the layout. Wear OS will receive two new sound and display modes to improve watch accessibility.
Google’s Pixel Watch gained a fall-detection feature that uses motion sensors and on-device machine learning to identify if a user has taken a hard fall. The watch can then connect the user with help, if need be. Apple has offered a similar feature since 2018’s launch of the Apple Watch Series 4.
Google announced upcoming policy changes aimed at improving the quality of apps for Wear OS and how they appear in the Google Play Store. The changes speak to how the app should be designed and how features should appear, among other things. The requirements go into effect on August 31. Google also noted all Wear OS apps must target Android 11 (API level 30) by August 31 as well in order to remain discoverable by users with newer Android OS versions.
Recommended Reading: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater sat down with Android exec Sameer Samat to talk ecosystems, regulation and competition in a wide-ranging interview. You can dig in here.
Apple rolled out iOS 16.4 beta 2 for developers alongside the second developer betas for iPadOS 16.4, tvOS 16.4 and watchOS 9.4. The betas include more hints about Apple Music Classical, the rumored streaming service in development. The software also confirms the coming launch of Apple Pay in South Korea, which had already been given the green light.
The App Store Connect tool was updated to now allow developers to use peer group benchmarks for metrics about their apps. This allows developers to compare their app’s performance with others like them without having to subscribe to a third-party measurement firm’s data.
App Updates
AI
Snap introduced My AI, a new in-app chatbot that uses the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology. The feature, which is only offered to Snapchat’s paid subscribers (Snapchat+), can do things like suggest birthday gift ideas, help with trip planning, suggest recipes, and other less serious tasks. Users can also personalize the AI by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for their chat.
Image Credits: Snapchat
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced the company will build a new top-level product group focused on integrating generative AI into its services and developing “AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways.” In the near term, the company said it will begin testing text-based AI tools in WhatsApp and Messenger, likely similar to ChatGPT. It also said it will experiment with AI-aided filters and ad formats on Instagram as well as video and multi-modal experiences.
Windows 11 added the new Bing to its taskbar after previously bringing it to its Edge desktop browser followed by the Edge, Bing and Skype mobile apps.
Brave Search launched a new “Summarizer” feature, which is powered by different large langue models (LLMs), but not OpenAI’s GPT. the feature will become available within desktop and mobile web browsers but was not yet natively integrated into Brave’s native mobile browser app.
TikTok’s newest viral beauty filter, “Bold Glamour,” appears to be AI, notes The Verge. But TikTok wouldn’t confirm. Unlike other filters, Bold Glamour completely alters’ users’ appearances — but in a way that makes the effect look less cartoonish and more subtle. Experts believe the filter is likely using ML, specifically Generative Adversarial Networks, or GANs. The impressive part is that TikTok has been able to bring this technique to mobile with minimal glitches, the report says.
Social
Apptopia crunched the numbers on social apps’ in-app purchases. Companies are now looking to direct user payments, including subscriptions and other in-app purchases, as Apple’s ATT changes have cut into their ad revenues. Among the highlights, the report found that TikTok has earned $205 million more than Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and Instagram combined on in-app purchases in 2023 so far. The full group has also grown their collective quarterly IAP revenue 91% since the launch of ATT. Snapchat+ is also outperforming Facebook on daily IAP revenue by 20% on average.
VSCO says it’s expanding its social features in Spaces, its collaborative galleries where photographers can upload images around a theme and chat. In mid-March, VSCO will make it possible for users to share text-based posts in Spaces and will allow users to message each other, regardless of follow status. It will also introduce new 9×16 auto-generated images, optimized for Instagram Stories and the like, among other improvements.
Image Credits: VSCO
Reddit added new features including the ability to find comments within a post from the search bar, which will arrive on desktop, iOS and Android. It also noted other improvements, like its subreddit search algorithm that’s been enhanced to surface more relevant subreddits for most searches, updates to autocomplete, and easier ways to browse video results with up and down swipes in video search results.
Twitter’s paid subscription Twitter Blue is now available to more than 20 new countries in Europe, including Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus. The expansion makes the $8/mo plan available in a total of now 35 countries, including the U.S.
Image Credits: Instagram
Instagram began testing its age verification tools in more countries, including Canada and Mexico. The test initially launched in the U.S., then later rolled out in Brazil and Japan in October. If a user attempted to change their age to 18 or up, the app would require them to verify using one of three methods: uploading an ID, recording a video selfie or asking mutual friends to verify their age.
Pinterest is alpha testing a new video advertising product that allows brands to reach consumers from a more prominent position within the company’s mobile app. With the “Premiere Spotlight” ad advertisers will gain access to a premium placement for 24 hours on the Pinterest app’s search page, where they are able to feature an add with Pinterest’s max width video format.
TikTok parent company ByteDance launched Lemon8 in the U.S. and U.K., an app that’s a lot like the Chinese social shopping app Xiaoghongshu (Little Red Book). Like TikTok, the app has a Following and For You feed, but is described more as a lifestyle community. The company has been paying creators in the U.K. to post on the app.
Meta will now allow for longer Facebook Reels of up to 90 seconds, up from 60 seconds previously. It is also added more creative tools, including a new templates feature that lets users create Reels with trending templates, similar to ByteDance’s CapCut.
Streaming & Entertainment
Image Credits: TikTok
Ahead of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before Congress planned for March, the company introduced more well-being features for teens, including screen time controls, new default settings and expanded Family Pairing controls. Notably, every account belonging to a user under the age of 18 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit, and teens will have to enter a code to continue scrolling. It’s also working on Family Pairing controls that would let parents filter videos by words and hashtags as well as customizable daily screen time controls.
A TikTok test in Australia limited the amount of licensed music available to some users on the platform, in an experiment to determine the different ways people interact with the app, Billboard reported. The results could ultimately inform TikTok’s licensing strategy, but users issued numerous complaints over the accompanying “sound removed” messages during the tests.
Spotify is killing its “heart” button for liking songs in favor of the plus button. The change will consolidate likes and adding content to playlists into a single button as one tap will like the track and a second tap will add the track to playlists.
Image Credits: Spotify
Pinterest’s collage maker app Shuffles expanded to nine more countries, including Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. The app lets users pull and edit images from Pinterest or their camera roll to make collages they can share with others in-app or post to social media.
TikTok launched Sounds for Business, a collection of sounds that are designed as templates for easy use by marketers. The collection includes a mix of music, voice-over and other sound cues to help businesses create engaging content.
Amazon-owned Audible is launching its first-ever singing competition series, “Breakthrough,” as an exclusive podcast featuring artists Sara Bareilles and Kelly Rowland as judges. The series debuts on June 1.
Netflix will live stream its first broadcast with Chris Rock’s latest standup, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage.” The airing will take place on Saturday, March 4, at 10 PM Eastern.
Movies Anywhere, a previously Disney-backed app that lets users access their digitally owned movie collection from across services, is shutting down two features, “Screen Pass” and “Watch Together.” The former allowed users to share their movies with friends while the latter was for co-viewing.
Gaming
Image Credits: The Pokémon Company
During this week’s Pokémon Presents livestream, the company announced Pokémon Sleep will become available on iOS and Android this summer, offering users a way to track their sleep habits and analyze them. It also announced integrations between its Pokémon Scarlet & Violet games and the Niantic-produced mobile game Pokémon GO.
Dating
Tinder kicked off a new brand campaign to appeal to Gen Z daters and their inclusive attitudes. It’s also pushing back again at Tinder’s hookup perception, noting that long-term relationships are members’ No. 1 goals — a change from an earlier campaign several years back that had embraced Tinder’s “casual” nature.
Messaging
Microsoft launched Phone Link for iOS which lets iPhone users take calls and respond to iMessage texts from their PC.
Telegram updated its Mac App Store app with a new Power Saving Mode that aims to help prevent the app from draining the computer’s battery. The feature will also automatically turn itself on based on the current battery charge.
Travel & Transportation
Image Credits: Cariad/VW Group
The VW Group announced a new in-car app store will be launched by its software subsidiary Cariad. Starting with select Audi vehicles, the app store will bring dozens of apps to vehicles, including Spotify, Amazon Music, TikTok and gaming hubs Vector Unit and FRVR to cars starting this summer. It will later expand across Audi’s portfolio then to Porsche and Volkswagen.
Waze killed off its iOS widget in its latest update due to low usage. The widget had been designed for the left-most homescreen and allowed users to jump into navigation. It’s unknown if Waze will bring back the widget as a Lock Screen option or full Home Screen widget instead.
Apple Maps’ 3D “Look Around” feature has arrived in Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Uber updated its app with updates for its courier feature Shop and Pay to address concerns with out of stock items, digital payments and order clarity before accepting a tip.
Fintech
Indian fintech CRED announced plans to launch a buy now and pay later service and a tap-to-pay feature that will first roll out to NFC-enabled smartphones.
Public made its Treasury Accounts available to all members. It said members can now take advantage of the current 5.1% yield of Treasury bills, which is higher than savings accounts, while also receiving the “flexibility and ease of access to cash” of a typical bank account.
All-in-one fintech app Revolut reported its first full year of profit, noting it tripled its revenue between 2020 and 2021 and reached 16+ million users by the end of 2021.
The crypto-focused Robinhood Wallet app was officially launched to iOS users globally. The app, which now supports both the Polygon and Ethereum networks, had a waitlist of over 1 million ahead of its launch.
Wealthfront announced an expansion into stocks and fractional shares, allowing investors to now buy individual stocks and discover new investment opportunities.
Gen Z neobank Step launched stock investing allowing users to now invest as well as earn, save, spend and build credit before they turn 18. The company also announced a milestone of 4 million accounts.
Government, Policy and Lawsuits
European Commissioner for Europe fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, gestures as she speaks during an online news conference on Apple antitrust case at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on April 30, 2021. Image Credits: GETTY IMAGES / FRANCISCO SECO/POOL/AFP
The EU confirmed changes to its antitrust case against Apple, dropping objections over in-app purchases on streaming music providers, and instead focusing on Apple’s policies that prevent apps from telling their users about other subscription options. This could still be good news for Spotify if a final ruling is issued, as it could force Apple to adjust its guidelines in addition to a fine. Spotify, however, is not happy with how long it’s taken to reach a decision on the matter.
The Canadian government has followed the U.S.’s lead with an announcement that it plans to ban TikTok from federal mobile devices on February 28 over security concerns.
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24 to 16 to give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok and other apps. Democrats opposed the bill, which was said to be “dangerously overbroad.” The ACLU said it a TikTok ban would violate citizens’ free speech. The bill will have an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democrats still have a narrow majority. The bill follows moves by federal government and several state governments to ban TikTok from government devices.
U.S. civil liberties and digital rights groups, including the ACLU, Access Now, and Fight for the Future, are speaking out against a potential TikTok ban saying that it would violate people’s First Amendment rights.
An open letter penned by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) called on new Twitter owner Elon Musk to bring the accessibility team back to the company, noting disabled users have “reported increased difficulty and frustration using Twitter” since the layoffs.
BetterHelp owner Teladoc Health settled with the FTC for $7.8 million over data mishandling occurring from 2017-2020. The company also agreed to stop sharing data with Meta, Snap, and Pinterest for advertising purposes.
In a new filing late last week, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Google “routinely destroyed” an entire category of written communications in its antitrust investigation against the company. The communications — chat messages between Google employees — were deleted over the course of several years, as Google allowed employees to set messages to auto-delete. A similar issue had been brought up by Epic Games in its ongoing trial involving the Fortnite maker accusing Google of anticompetitive conduct with its Play Store.
CollX, a mobile app for trading card collectors, raised $5.5 million in a seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures. Launched in January 2022, the app claims to have 600,000+ users who have scanned more than 100 million cards.
Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures backed community finance company SoLo Funds, which now has 1 million+ registered users and over 1.3 million downloads, the company claims.
Recipe app and website SideChef raised another $6 million in Series B funding, bringing its total raise to date to more than $16 million. Investors include LG, Ideate Ventures, AB Electrolux, Peacock Capital Group, and others. The app is free to download with a $4.99/mo premium subscription available and offers over 20K recipes.
Chef-prepared meals marketplace Shef, available on web and mobile, raised $73.5 million in Series B funding back in June 2022 (newly announced), including $7 million in debt, led by CRV with participation from a16z and Amex Ventures. The company helps home cooks become small business owners and is now available nationwide.
A new Mastodon app called Mammoth gained 10,000 downloads in the first few days of its availability on the App Store. The app was built by a team that includes the developer of the Aviary app for Twitter, which was among those unceremoniously killed by Twitter earlier this year after new owner Elon Musk decided the wider app ecosystem no longer had a need for third-party Twitter clients. The app offers a range of features for using Mastodon from the expected — like being able to browse timelines and post and turn on a dark mode — to the less common, like picture-in-picture for pinning posts to your screen, tools for viewing media in AR, tools for sentiment analysis and more. But key to the experience is how Mammoth intends to make it easier for newcomers to join the Fediverse with simplified onboarding and a suggested users list.
The app is also backed by Mozilla, which led the company’s pre-seed round. The company behind Mammoth had acquired the app from developer Shihab Mehboob (Aviary 2, Vinyls) and is now led by Bart Decrem, previously of Mozilla, Disney, and other entrepreneurial projects, like KyrptoSign and years back, the Flock browser. Other investors include Long Journey Ventures and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
In a stealth announcement over the weekend, Meta announced a radical change to Facebook and Instagram with news that it would offer to sell its blue verified badge to customers, taking a play from Elon Musk’s Twitter playbook. The paid subscription includes other features as well, including improved impersonation protection and direct access to customer support, plus more visibility through upranked posts. It’s initially rolling out to Australia and New Zealand.
Twitter’s initial attempt at paid verification proved problematic, as users bought the badge then changed their name and profile picture to troll other high-profile accounts (including Musk) and businesses. Twitter had to pause the service and readjust.
Seemingly learning from Twitter’s mistakes, Meta’s paid badge has a few more rules in place.
For starters, users must verify their identity with a government-issued ID card, and then won’t be able to change their profile name, username, date of birth or photo after paying for verification. If they later want to make a change, they’ll need to unsubscribe and then get reverified. This dramatically cuts down on bad actors, though could be a bit of a pain for creators who like to refresh their photos from time to time. However, it may not always be this way — Meta said it’s working on a feature that will eventually allow users to change these settings through a new verification process that won’t require them to cancel and resubscribe… it’s just not ready yet.
Also of note: Meta Verified won’t verify users across Facebook and Instagram — users will have to buy separate plans for the two apps, and Facebook’s subscription, for now, is only sold on the web. That means customers will be shelling out $27 per month at the current prices for access to this badge and other perks across Meta’s apps. (The subscription is $11.99 per month on the web and $14.99 per month on iOS or Android.)
The trend toward paid verification is a potentially fraught move for social networks like Meta and Twitter, as they’re now responsible for services that users believe should be free — things like safety, security and customer service. Being able to identify an account as authentic is seen as a feature the networks should provide to ensure that their users can trust who they’re interacting with. And being able to get help with problems like impersonation or other customer support issues is also considered something that should be a part of the social network’s core service. By stratifying these features into pay-to-play tiers, the networks are setting up a system where people with money have a better class of service than those with less to spend. But security and trust shouldn’t be sold as if they’re upgraded seats on an airplane, they should be baked into the core offering.
Instagram co-founders launch their new app… and it’s for news
Image Credits: Artifact
Artifact, the personalized news reader built by Instagram’s co-founders, is now open to the public, no sign-up required. Last month, Instagram’s creators Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger unveiled their latest venture as an invite-only experience, promising their news app would later evolve to include social elements, like being able to discuss the news with friends. With this week’s launch, Artifact is dropping its waitlist and phone number requirements, introducing the app’s first social feature and adding feedback controls to better personalize the news reading experience, among other changes.
In preparation for expanded social features, the company will now allow users to upload their contacts to see when articles are becoming popular with people in their network. But unlike a similar feature on Twitter, it won’t show you who is reading them.
Image Credits: Artifact personalization and stats
Artifact will also now give users more visibility into their news reading habits with a newly added stats feature that shows you the categories you’ve read as well as the recent articles you read within those categories, plus the publishers you’ve been reading the most. But it will also group your reading more narrowly by specific topics. In other words, instead of just “tech” or “AI,” you might find you’ve read a lot about the topic “ChatGPT,” specifically.
The launch of a brand-new app from Instagram’s founders, and particularly one focused on news, was a surprise — especially given the difficulties of launching a news reader here in the U.S., where it would have to compete with offerings from the tech giants, like Google News, Apple News and, of course — from the founders’ earlier employer — Meta’s own News Feed. But Systrom believes that the underlying machine learning technology being used will help Artifact differentiate itself from others — it’s leveraging the transformer advances that are also powering new AI tools like ChatGPT.
While users are likely curious about the app because of its founders’ pedigree, it remains to be seen if there’s room for another news reader to carve out a niche under the tech giants’ shadow. Before the waitlist was lifted, the app had around 47,000 installs, according to data.ai. As of late this past week, it had climbed to No. 4 in the U.S. App Store’s News category, but hadn’t broken into the Top Free Charts.
Spotify launches an AI DJ
Image Credits: Spotify screenshot
Ah, what a time to be alive! Music streaming service Spotify this week launched an AI DJ to personalize the music listening experience for its users. Similar to a radio DJ, Spotify’s DJ feature will deliver a curated selection of music alongside, in its case, AI-powered spoken commentary about the tracks and artists you like, using what Spotify says is a “stunningly realistic voice.” (The voice is based on Spotify’s Head of Cultural Partnerships Xavier “X” Jernigan, who had hosted Spotify’s morning show podcast, “The Get Up.”)
To access the DJ, you’ll head to the Music Feed on the Home page of Spotify’s iOS or Android app, then tap Play on the DJ card to begin. The DJ will then begin to play a lineup of music and short commentary. As listeners engage with the DJ feature, they’ll be presented with a personalized stream of songs that will include both newer tracks and old favorites, and a variety of genres. But it’s not a long-running playlist. After you move through one style of music or selection (like your summer throwbacks), you’re then presented with another (like your favorite hip-hop tracks). This experience feels more like Spotify tied its personalized playlists together, then interspersed them with commentary.
The interesting thing here is that Spotify said it’s leveraging Generative AI through the use of OpenAI technology to create the commentary, which is meant to scale its in-house music experts’ insights about music, artists and genres. Meanwhile, its AI voice comes from its 2022 Sonantic acquisition. Spotify has led the market for years with its personalization tech for crafting playlists, but now its rivals have their own versions of this type of experience. By adding an AI DJ, Spotify hopes to attract and retain users who want a more lean-back experience while introducing a new feature that can’t be quickly copied by the competition.
Platforms
Apple
Apple is offering new sessions with App Store experts February 28 through April 13 that will focus on measuring with App Analytics and growing a subscription business using App Store features.
The Apple Store app added the ability to share a saved list with friends and family and more ways to access the saved lists from within the app. It’s also now offering more info about your local stores and their surroundings.
Snapchat rolled out new features for Soundsthat let users add licensed song clips, excerpts from TV shows and movies, or their own original audio to Snaps and Stories. One new feature will let you tap an icon to be suggested relevant Sounds to add to a Snap. Another lets you create montage videos that are automatically in rhythm to the beat of audio tracks.
Tumblr’s parody of paid verification delivered a 125% boost in iOS in-app purchase revenue since November, according to a new analysis of the app’s in-app consumer spending by data.ai. The company had launched a sort of tongue-in-cheek rebuttal to the idea that subscription-based verification had any real value by launching paid “double checkmarks” as an IAP. Consumer spending on Tumblr’s iOS app increased since the November 2022 launch of the feature, now totaling $263,000 in net revenue. A small figure, but a boost nonetheless.
Spotify is planning to launch a TikTok-style feed for music discovery in its app, according to Bloomberg, which said the news would be announced at the company’s upcoming Stream On event in March. Spotify previewed the feature at its Investor Day last June.
Podcasts are coming to YouTube Music.YouTube announced that ad-supported podcasts would be made available on YouTube Music, with support for background listening included for free. The feature will include both audio and video podcasts, initially for users in the U.S.
YouTube Music’s redesign brought a new feature that lets users create their own automatically generated radio stationsby picking up to 30 artists and then applying mood filters. The stations can also be further refined with other specific filters like “new discoveries” or “chill songs,” for example.
Image Credits: YouTube
Nexstar Media Group launched a free NewsNation app for streaming devices, including Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and others.
Spotify re-org’d again. After last month’s departure of Dawn Ostroff, who oversaw podcast content and advertising, Spotify’s head of audio talk shows and partnerships Max Cutler is also leaving the company on May 1 as part of a larger re-org. Cutler notably oversaw deals with top creators like Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper (“Call Her Daddy”), after joining the company when it bought his network Parcast. Julie McNamara, who oversaw originals, will now manage exclusives too as Cutler departs.
Clubhouse is adding a “Mutals” feature that lets you see who you know in common with other participants in one of its live audio rooms. The company said it could serve as a good icebreaker for chatting up new folks.
YouTube launched a new multi-language audio feature that allows creators to add dubbing to their videos after creating the dubbed tracks with a third-party partner. The feature was tested by select creators, like MrBeast, and is now expanding to thousands more creators for use in long-form videos.
Xiaomi is shutting down its short-form video app Zili next month, citing an “operational adjustment.”
Gaming
ASO matters! Rovio said it’s delisting Angry Birds on Google Play and renaming it on the App Store because the older game is taking away attention and downloads from its newer versions, like Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds Journey. The older App Store game will be renamed to Red’s First Flight in order to redirect search traffic to the newer titles. The game will remain playable on devices it’s been downloaded to even after the rebranding and removal.
Please read below for an important announcement regarding the availability of Rovio Classics: Angry Birds. pic.twitter.com/a4n4bU5gQJ
Unreal sneak peek ahead. Epic Games said it’s returning to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 22 to give a glimpse of the future of game development with its Unreal Engine. The company promises to “look at some new projects” and “dive into the latest Epic tech.” The keynote will be livestreamed on Twitch and YouTube.
Messaging
WhatsApp was spotted developing a “private newsletter tool“ which would expand on its existing broadcast functionality to allow users to broadcast via newsletter, as well. The reveal follows Meta’s launch of a broadcast channels feature that lets users send a one-to-many message to Instagram users. The same feature is also being tested in Messenger.
Messenger was spotted internally testing another BeReal clone, “Roll Call.” The feature asks users to add a photo or video to a prompt with a timed countdown to share what they’re up to at the moment with a group of friends in a chat.
Google rebranded its chat features in the Google Messages app as “RCS Chat” and now refers to a “Chat Message” as an “RCS Message,” among other changes. The subtle shift in branding is meant to highlight Google’s adoption of the next-gen communication protocol meant to replace SMS. Apple has steadily refused to implement it on its own devices, as RCS offers many iMessage-like features and would reduce its grip on the blue bubble-demanding market.
AI
Two weeks after launching the new AI-enabled Bing on desktop, the new Bing became available in the Bing mobile app and through Microsoft’s Edge browser for Android and iOS. Skype, Microsoft’s messaging app, also now allows you to bring Bing into a text conversation to add additional information with the @Bing command. Bing’s AI has seen some drama since its launch as users trolled and tested the AI’s limits, which pushed Microsoft to adjust some parameters around things like the length of conversations and other things. Unfortunately, that means the AI is now restricting users to six turns per conversation and 60 total queries today.
Image Credits: Microsoft
Google Photos made its AI-powered Magic Eraser photo editing feature available to Android and iOS users with a Google One paid subscription. The feature was previously Pixel-only. The company also rolled out a small handful of other editing tools, as well, like a new HDR video effect and exclusive collage styles.
Image Credits: Google
Etc.
Amazon’s Alexa app was updated with a new feature that allows users to manage and move their music between multiple Echo devices or groups of speakers within the app instead of using voice commands.
Google said it will begin the big Google Tasks merger in March. This will allow users to manage all the tasks created across Google apps like Gmail, Docs and Chat in the Tasks app itself. On May 22nd, it will also move reminders from Calendar and Assistant into Tasks too.
Samsung’s Bixby mobile assistant added a new feature that lets users clone their own voice with AIto answer phone calls, but it’s only available in Korean for now.
Stripe’s Tap to Pay arrived on Android in six countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. The feature supports payment methods using Google Pay, Mastercard, Visa and American Express debit and credit cards. Last year, Stripe was Apple’s first payment partner for “Tap to Pay.”
Mercedes partnered with Google to bring Maps and YouTube to its vehicles via its next-gen car OS. It also said TikTok will come to its cars in 2023, starting with the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class due in the fall.
Security
Researchers found bugs that would have allowed attackers to bypass Apple’s sandbox on iOS and Mac, allowing them to access messages, photos and call history. Apple fixed the bugs before the disclosure was made public.
Twitter dumbly made SMS 2FA a paid subscription feature only…which we suppose is in keeping with the new social networking model where security and customer support are only available to paying customers now.
Apple removed scammy authenticator apps from the App Store which couldn’t even scan QR codes until users subscribed to their service. Some also used dark patterns that should have never gotten through App Review — like tapping on the X to close the paywall would prompt a subscription confirmation.
Let me show you something interesting. This app was released on 02/19/2023 and ranks 5 for "authenticator app" in the US App Store. As you can see from the video, once you tap on "X" to close the paywall, you will get triggered in subscription confirmation. pic.twitter.com/JI7XBcAy1s
Florida’s Republican AG wrote letters to Apple and Google pushing the companies to label the country of origin of the apps on their app stores. The political move follows some lawmakers’ increasing concerns about China’s surveillance, which led to bans of the TikTok app from government officials’ phones.
AliveCor and Apple will take their latest dispute to an appeals court. In December, the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled Apple infringed on AliveCor patents around wearable electrocardiograms and called for a ban on Apple Watch sales. But that order had been on hold as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled the patents were invalid. President Biden’s administration, however, has now upheld the ITC ruling, setting the stage for a broader legal battle to take place.
The European Commission (EC) issued a directive instructing all EC employees to remove TikTok from their corporate devicesas well as on any personal devices that get used for work purposes. The news follows similar rulings among U.S. lawmakers as the threat of Chinese surveillance looms.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
This week’s theme seems to be a decline in growth for some much-buzzed-about apps, including a group of Twitter alternatives, AI photo apps and even the BeReal. Let’s dive in.
Top Stories
How are the Twitter alternatives faring now?
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
Was there a Twitter exodus or just a Twitter pause? Did it even matter? This week, TechCrunch dug into new data in order to take a look at how a range of “Twitter alternatives” have fared in the months following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the popular microblogging network, now that the burst of new installs driven by his takeover has tapered off. The data indicates that many apps continue to grow to a lesser degree while other apps have seen growth decline. But it also shows that Twitter itself was never significantly impacted, at least in terms of new app installs.
Of course, app installs is only one window into this data. But private companies don’t often share figures related to active usage, so tracking consumer demand through app downloads is one way to determine market interest. What’s interesting here is that we found Twitter installs have trended back up after earlier declines. Downloads grew from 16.6 million installs in October to 18.6 million in November as Musk took over, then dropped in December to 16.9 million. Last month, they again jumped back to 18.6 million installs, giving Twitter the same 24.8% growth rate it had in November.
Meanwhile, other Twitter alternatives have seen drop-offs in growth. While our report examined Reddit and Discord, neither of these seem to have had their fortunes directly tied to Twitter’s ups and downs, as it turned out. Other alternatives like Hive, GETTR and Tribel have seen their growth slow. Tribel, for instance, only added 1,100 new downloads in January. Tumblr certainly had a November bump driven by the Twitter exodus as well but is still up slightly higher in December (510,000 installs) and January (480,000) compared with September and October.
Mastodon’s installs were down quite a bit from November’s peak of 2.9 million monthly downloads. It still managed to gain 180,000 new installs in January — that’s 169,000 more installs than it had in September 2022. So it’s not in decline yet.
If anything, the biggest boost to the wider Twitter alternative app ecosystem hinges on new user awareness of the Fediverse and Mastodon. Even if the Mastodon app itself hasn’t transformed into a dominant force, it’s early days. Fediverse growth could ultimately be a trend that plays out over a longer period of time than just a few months post-Twitter acquisition, as more apps join the decentralization movement.
One of the more notable changes coming out of the iOS 16.4 beta is the news that Apple will now allow mobile web applications to function more like native applications by providing them access to iOS’s push notification system. That means web apps that get added to a user’s Home Screen can request permission to receive push notifications if the user opts in — for instance by tapping on a subscribe button to receive updates, as a post on the WebKit blog explains. This would then allow the end user to manage their push notifications for the app in their Settings, just as they would for any other native iOS or iPadOS app.
The notifications would work just like native notifications, too, appearing in all areas where you’d expect to see them, like the Notification Center, Lock Screen and on a paired Apple Watch. The web apps’ icon can also display a badge with a badge count and will work with Focus Modes. What’s more, users can even add multiple versions of the same web app to their Home Screen, each with their own settings — something that can be useful for separating work and personal use of some apps or multiple accounts, the post notes.
Push notifications tied to web browsers is not new technology, but it’s interesting to see Apple embrace the feature now that it’s under pressure to demonstrate that it’s not engaging in anti-competitive behavior. With this change, the company can point to web apps as an alternative to its App Store, claiming they have the same ability to target and reach iPhone and iPad users as native apps do.
Are we still Being Real?
Is the shine wearing off BeReal? Interesting data out this week from Apptopia (via Business of Apps) indicates that BeReal may have already peaked. The app is estimated to have hit 20 million daily active users in October 2022, but that’s since dropped to 10.4 million. In addition, its monthly downloads fell from 12 million in September 2022 to 3.3 million in January, the report noted, citing data from AppMagic.
TechCrunch previously reported there were indications that BeReal wasn’t gaining enough ground to maintain its high ranks after going viral. The app in October was said to be seeing only 9% of its Android users open it daily. The app demands little of its users’ time — its push notification prompts a one-time use per day, and the majority weren’t even giving it that. Some may have felt that data was unfair or unhelpful, particularly given BeReal’s traction with U.S. teens and young adults, most of whom are on iPhone. But in combination with the new data, it’s perhaps more of a concern.
The company has faced challenges as its once-daily notification gimmick has been ripped off by Instagram, Snapchat and BeReal. Meanwhile, the app itself has remained unchanged. There’s nothing to addict or re-engage users — which is kind of the point. The founders’ goal is to create a new type of social experience that doesn’t demand huge chunks of time and strives for authenticity. But they also haven’t laid out a vision for its future, despite a $60 million Series B — a number that suggests a grand plan should be in store or at least monetization. It’s not a lifestyle business, after all. It’s unclear where BeReal is going next at this point.
The AI photo app trend has fizzled
Speaking of apps in decline, that’s where the AI photo app trend has ended up.
Over the past several months, AI-powered photo apps had been going viral on the App Store as consumers explored AI-powered experiences like Lensa AI’s “magic avatars” feature and other apps promising to turn text into images using AI tech. But new data indicates consumer interest in AI photo apps has fallen as quickly as it rose.
At their height of popularity, the top AI photo apps topped 4.3 million daily downloads and ~$1.8 million per day in consumer spending via in-app purchases. As of this past week, the same group of apps saw only around 952,000 combined downloads and around $507,000 in consumer spending, and the numbers continue to fall.
Consumers seemed to respond to the ethical concerns being raised around the apps. As TechCrunch had reported at the time, some people began to leave comments on AI photos and profile pictures posted on social media to tell people not to use an app that steals from artists. This backlash likely quelled some of the demand for AI art. After all, it’s not much fun to use an AI pic for your profile if you’re essentially being accused of theft when doing so.
Apple released iOS 16.3.1, iPadOS 16.3.1 and macOS Ventura 13.2.1 to patch a WebKit vulnerability.On its security update page, Apple wrote that it “is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.”
Apple released iOS 16.4’s first beta, which brings a number of new features,including 31 new emojis like the pink heart and shaking face; the ability for web apps on iPhone and iPad to access push notifications and display badges; support for rich content previews of Mastodon posts in iMessage; and new features for Apple Podcasts including a new “Channels” section and CarPlay updates.
Apple is making it easier for registered developers to install iOS betas by allowing them to register their accounts in order to be opted into a new option that lets them install betas directly from Software Updates. The system will replace the profiles previously required. But this change means only registered developers can install the developer beta — those who aren’t registered can only install the public beta instead.
Apple officially released iOS 16 adoption figures, demonstrating it’s higher than iOS 15 with 81% of all iPhones from 2019 and on running the newest software. In addition, 72% of all iPhones are running iOS 16. Not as many iPads have updated, though, as only 50% of all iPads are running iPadOS 16, while 53% of those introduced in the last four years are.
Google/Android
Google said a small percentage of Android 13 devices will be enrolled in the beta trials of its new privacy sandbox, an interest-based ad-targeting system. Initial ad partners for the trial include TechCrunch’s parent Yahoo, mobile games maker Rovio, mobility firm Wolt, cross-platform games engine Unity and mobile marketing platforms AppsFlyer, InMobi Exchange and Adjust.
Google announced that Play Games Services (PGS) is rolling out next-generation Player IDs. With this change, says Google, “the first time a user plays a game, they will always be assigned a unique next-generation Player ID that will remain consistent regardless of the device or platform a user plays a game on, but which will vary from game to game.”
Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Android phone’s new Message Guard feature is said to prevent zero-click exploits via messaging apps.
App Updates
Social
At its investor day, Snap announced that Snapchat now has 750 million+ monthly active users, up 25% from April 2022 and noted 150 million of those users are in North America. Among a bevy of metrics it shared, it also said its Snapchat+ $3.99/month subscription now has 2.5 million subscribers. The company said it would focus more on its Direct Response ads business going forward, invest in AR and continue M&A. It spoke little about its Spectacles and declined to answer a question on how the latest in AI would impact its business.
Popular Mastodon client Ivory got something Twitter users waited eons for: an edit button.
Twitter began allowing cannabis ads on its platform in U.S. states where it’s legal. The ads will promote brands and offer info but not facilitate direct sales. The move comes after many larger Twitter advertisers put their campaigns on pause, forcing Twitter to recoup its business elsewhere.
Instagram launched Instagram Channels, a broadcast chat feature that allows creators to share public, one-to-many messages with fans and followers. The feature supports both text and images and is initially available to creators in the U.S.
TikTok added new dedicated feeds alongside its For You and Following feeds that let users browse videos by categories like “Sports,” “Fashion,” “Gaming” and “Food.”
AR
Image Credits: Snap
Snapchat said it’s adding ray tracing support to its AR Lens Studio for developers globally. The technical capability allows for realistic renderings of light and shine on AR artifacts. Snap is partnering with Tiffany & Co. to let users try on and purchase bracelets using AR using this new feature.
Commerce
Following Facebook, Instagram will shut down its live shopping feature on March 16, 2023 to instead put its focus on ads that allow users to discover businesses and Shops on the app. With the change, Instagram users will no longer be able to tag products while livestreaming — a capability that has been broadly available to U.S. businesses and creators since 2020.
Meanwhile, TikTok has more brands testing out its own in-app commerce features with TikTok Shop in the U.S. While the tests have been underway since November, TikTok confirmed more companies like PacSun, Revolve and Willow Boutique, as well as beauty brand KimChi Chic, are now on board, follow an Ad Age report.
Media and Entertainment
Big news in the world of YouTube as Susan Wojcicki announced she’s stepping down as YouTube CEO after nine years. The exec, Google’s 16th employee, has worked at the company for nearly 25 years, having led YouTube through the launch of new products like YouTube Premium YouTube TV, and other creator products and services, as well as through challenges around moderation issues and increased lawmaker scrutiny of Big Tech.
Spotify was caught in a backlash after audiobook narrators discovered a clause that let Apple use audiobooks from Findaway Voices to train its synthetic voices. Spotify acquired Findaway in June 2022. Apple launched audiobooks narrated by synthetic voices just last month.
TikTok is launching TikTok Trivia, a livestream trivia quiz game that has a $500,000 prize pool. The game will be hosted daily between February 22 and 26 and will be open to users in the U.S. aged 18 or older. During the first three days, TikTok Trivia will have two live sessions per day that are each an hour long. The first session will begin at 8 p.m. ET, and will have 12 questions. Winners split a $30,000 reward. The second session is at 9 p.m. ET., and winners split a $70,000 reward. After completing “survival rounds” the last group standing will split a $100,000 reward.
China’s games industry shrank for the first time in years, according to the country’s top gaming industry association. The market grossed 265.9 billion yuan ($39 billion) from video gaming sales in 2022, a 10.33% drop year-over-year. The decline was due to a number of factors, including its video game crackdowns, pause on issuing permits and the now lengthier process to become compliant.
The Google Home app can now control the Xbox Series S or Series X, allowing the app to serve as a touch remote for the console.
The Information reported on how Amazon’s Luna gaming service is losing steam, noting that its library has shrunk by about 30% since October, and dozens more titles were on track to exit in the weeks ahead.
Roblox is testing a tool that lets players use natural language to create or change the appearance of their avatars and environment.
Dating
Match-owned dating app Hinge rolled out its new $50/month subscription called HingeX, which offers continually boosted profiles, getting likes seen first, enhanced recommendations and all the other perks of the next tier down, Hinge+ (previously Hinge Preferred).
Relationship app Flamme, previously known as Sparks, introduced a new AI-powered Ask Me Anything tool which caters to couples looking to introduce new and fun experiences to their lives, and also improve communication in their relationship.
TechCrunch rounded up a new group of dating app startups, Candid, Ditto and IRLY, that are incorporating video in different ways, including for profiles, calls and even as a sort of TikTok for dating.
Dating app installs have fallen, Sensor Tower reported around Valentine’s Day. Download levels returned to those seen in 2019 and 2021, and then dropped further in 2022, making last year the lowest number of installs over the past four years, even as revenues grew, peaking at $374 million in gross revenue in Q1 2022. Social discovery apps, however, have been a more dynamic group with most of the top 10 swapping places from 2021-2022.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Etc.
Tile introduced a new anti-theft mode that requires biometric data, a government ID and new Terms of Service that allow the company to share users’ personal info with law enforcement. The changes are meant to serve as a deterrent to the criminal use of trackers for things like stalking and theft. But the company says it won’t wait for a subpoena to turn over data to police — which may deter consumer adoption too.
Two-year-old crypto app Bakkt is shutting down on March 16. The company had partnered with Starbucks, Best Buy and Choice Hotels on its efforts to tie crypto with digital assets, like gift cards, loyalty points and airline miles.
Google Photos’ app began crashing after the release of iOS 16.3.1, requiring a quick update to fix.
Google rolled out new features including partial custom tabs and auto-filling passwordsto make in-app browsing on Android a better experience.
Reddit is reportedly looking to IPO later this year,The Information said, but it will likely be worth less than the $15 billion it had hoped for when it originally filed in Dec. 2021.
Firefox for Android gained an extension that allows users to listen to articles read aloud, and others for hiding email addresses and removing tracking elements before sharing a URL.
Government, Policy and Lawsuits
The Wall Street Journal offered an update on the Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation against Apple, noting the government had now added more litigators to the investigation and increased its consultations with companies related to issues at hand in recent months.
The Washington Post featured an interview with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew who’s trying to convince U.S. lawmakers that TikTok is not a national security threat.
Funding and M&A
Singapore-based neobank Aspire raised $100 million in Series C fundingfrom investors including Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital SEA, PayPal, Tencent, LGT Capital Partners, and others. Over the past 12 months, the startup tripled its annualized TPV to $12 billion and now reaches over 15,000 businesses in Southeast Asia.
Triller closed on its acquisition of influencer marketing firm Julius for an undisclosed sum. New York-based Julius had raised a total of $23.8 million. It’s unclear how Triller has the funds after dealing with multiple lawsuits from UMG, Sony Music and Verzuz in recent months.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
More AI apps are on the way. It was a big week for AI news as both Microsoft and Google took the stage at competing events to intro their AI developments to the public. Microsoft fared a little better with its news that OpenAI’s ChatGPT-like tech was coming to Bing, pushing its companion mobile app up into the App Store’s top ranks. Meanwhile, Google flubbed a bit with its rival AI, Bard, which, in a published demonstration of the technology, shared an incorrect answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope (it was NOT the first to take a picture of an exoplanet, NASA says).
While both AI models will frequently and confidently get things wrong at times, Google’s failure to fact-check the answers it was showing off seemed to indicate the company was rushing out the tech in reaction to Microsoft’s move into its territory…which it was.
Google should have been far ahead in this AI race, having invested in and developed AI technology for years with help from some of the top experts in the field. But it’s been caught off guard — and not only by OpenAI.
Before this current AI race, Amazon’s Alexa became the household name for AI-powered voice assistants. Google, on the other hand, got burned when it showed off some of its more impressive consumer applications of AI. It faced backlash over its consideration of AI ethics when it showed off Duplex’s ability to call restaurants to book reservations while pretending to sound human. Google also often builds neat AI tools — like an AI that can generate music from text descriptions — but won’t release them.
The company has seemed to be slow to move on AI — likely hesitant to upset its search and advertising cash cow that relies on ads sold atop a list of links. Microsoft doesn’t care about that, though, noting that every 1% of search ad share gain it makes is a $2 billion revenue opp.
That’s why what we’ve gotten from Google around AI has been a sort of steady stream of smaller AI-powered feature drops over time, not some big and expensive overhaul of search that could have killed its margins.
Instead, we get things like multisearch, which expands web search to include text and images combined. Google this week announced it was going global and the nearby option, multisearch near me, was also rolling out more broadly.
The company also rolled out other AI-powered improvements to things like translation and Google Maps. For example, Google at this week’s event spoke about its new “immersive view” maps offering more true-to-life scenes, which are created by leveraging an AI technique called neural radiance fields (NeRF). But these maps are only available in a handful of cities. And as cool as they are, they feel more like an iteration on Street View rather than a major AI leap.
Meanwhile, Google used its event to show off a range of other features that weren’t AI search demos or ChatGPT rivals. It introduced Maps’ AR-powered Live View, which Google said is hitting a few more cities. (This requires users to hold up their phones and scan the area — not really a subtle gesture if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re a tourist or even possibly lost!) And it talked about new EV Maps.
The company also cleverly introduced a waitlist for the AI-powered Bing that required people to set Microsoft defaults on their PC and download the Bing app. As a result, the Bing app is now ranked in the top 10 on the U.S. App Store and is the No. 2 Productivity app behind Gmail. To put this in perspective, the Bing app ahead of the AI news had been ranked No. 160 on the U.S. App Store’s Productivity apps chart — in other words, practically invisible.
Google, meanwhile, lost $100 billion in market value as Alphabet’s stock fell after the ad with the AI’s mistake aired ahead of the company’s event.
While the big race in AI apps is still between Google and Microsoft (via OpenAI), AI will soon find its way into a number of mobile apps through integrations. Already, we’ve seen the fake ChatGPT apps arrive and belatedly get the boot from the app stores. Today, a search for the term “ChatGPT” still returns numerous apps that imply they’re associated with OpenAI or simply presume users won’t care, as long as they offer a ChatGPT-like experience. And we’ve seen the AI image generators go viral. Quora this week also introduced an AI playground called Poe, which features a handful of AI chatbots from OpenAI and Anthropic. (See “Downloads” section below.)
Consumers are clearly hungry to see AI put to use in apps. The developments also enliven what’s become a stale App Store over the years, as Apple blocked other new tech, like NFTs, blockchain transactions and Web3 technologies from being fully functional on its App Store, forcing startups to build their own.
Image Credits: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Some browser makers believe they’ll be able to release their own, non-WebKit-powered browser apps in the future, thanks to expected regulations that would force Apple to open up its App Store to more competition.
This week, multiple stories emerged that top browser makers like Mozilla and Google have been working on the development of non-WebKit browser apps for iOS. Google Chromium developers, for instance, have begun building an iOS browser that uses Google’s Blink engine — an app that today would not be allowed on the App Store, as Apple’s guidelines specifically state that browser apps “must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.”
Google, however, downplayed the news, claiming it was only a prototype meant to help it learn about iOS performance.
In a statement, a spokesperson told us, “This is an experimental prototype that we are developing as part of an open-source project with the goal to understand certain aspects of performance on iOS. It will not be available to users and we’ll continue to abide by Apple’s policies.”
Google isn’t the only one dabbling in this area. When reached for comment, Mozilla was far more transparent about its plans when it was spotted working on a Gecko-based version of Firefox for iOS, clearly indicating that its work is in anticipation of a more competitive landscape.
“We abide by Apple’s iOS app store policies, and are simply doing some exploratory work to understand the technical challenges for Gecko-based browsers on iOS if those policies were to change,” a Mozilla spokesperson told us. “We hope the day will come when people can freely decide to use the browser of their choice, including the opportunity to select the engine that underpins it.”
Of course, even if Apple were to open up to non-WebKit browsers, it could theoretically impose other limits on competing apps to dictate how they’re allowed to use system resources. That would be another reason for the companies to experiment now so they’ll be ready to meet any such requirement if and when the App Store opens up.
Kids’ TikTok usage again tops YouTube
Image Credits: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto / Getty Images
TikTok once again found itself as the social app kids and teens are spending the most time using throughout the day, even outpacing YouTube. According to an ongoing annual review of kids’ and teens’ app usage and behavior globally, the younger demographic — minors ranging in ages from 4 through 18 — began to watch more TikTok than YouTube on an average daily basis starting in June 2020, and TikTok’s numbers have continued to grow ever since.
In June 2020, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, with kids watching an average of 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube, according to new data from parental control software maker Qustodio.
This past year, the gulf between the two widened, it said, as kids in 2022 saw their average daily use of TikTok climb to a whopping 107 minutes, or 60% longer than the time they spent watching video content on YouTube (67 minutes).
Image Credits: Qustodio
TikTok was also used more, in terms of average daily minutes, than other social apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.
The study was published in advance of a TikTok-focused Congressional hearing. In March, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the app’s data security, ties to China, privacy concerns and impacts on children.
Social media concerns also got a shoutout during President Biden’s State of the Union address this week when he pressed Congress to pass legislation to protect consumers from Big Tech. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable…It’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.”
A redesigned Home app is due to arrive in the forthcoming iOS 16.4 update. The feature had originally appeared in iOS 16.2 but was pulled out before launch.
Apple’s tvOS and HomePod software was updated to 16.3.1.
Some users have been complaining about iCloud backup issues after updating to iOS 16.3.
Android
Google released the first Developer Preview of Android 14, which supports a range of devices, including tablets and foldable form factors. Among the changes are a lot of background optimizations, support for larger fonts (users can scale them up to 200%), per-app language preferences, various privacy and security updates, customization features, the ability to block the installation of apps (with a targetSdkVersion lower than 23) to protect against malware, passkeys support and more.
Android TV 13 was also finally released. Android 13 has been available for phones and tablets for nearly a year and a half.
Google announced the alpha release of Credential Manager, a new Jetpack API that allows app developers to simplify users’ authentication journey while also adding support for passkeys.
It also rolled out the latest version of the Google Mobile Ads SDK (10.0.0).
App Updates
Gaming
Image Credits: Cyan Worlds
A remastered version of the classic puzzle game Myst arrived on iOS. The new game, Myst Mobile, is based on the remastered game that was already released on Oculus VR headsets and the PC, but has been rebuilt for Apple’s M1 and M2 chipsets on newer devices. The game is free to download and explore the first location but to continue, you’ll need to pay $14.99.
Activision provided insight into its mobile gaming portfolio during Q4 earnings, noting that Call of Duty Mobile grew by double-digits YoY and set a new quarterly record and 10-year-old Candy Crush Saga saw 20% YoY net bookings growth. Overall, King’s revenue grew 6% YoY with net bookings up 9%.
Rogue Games announced multiple new titles coming exclusively to Netflix, including a twin-stick Roguelite shooter Dust & Neon, which won the overall Best of Show award at PAX West; and Highwater, an atmospheric adventure/strategy hybrid. Both games will be available on mobile as well as PC and console, but the Netflix deal provides the games to iOS and Android subscribers for free with no in-app purchases.
Image Credits: Rogue Games
Social
Zenly co-founder Antoine Martin says he’s returning to the social app market with the launch of a new company called Amo. The former Zenly CEO is working with ex-Zenly managing director Michael Goldenstein and others on the new startup, whose goal is to fix the problems with today’s social networks by focusing on connecting friends in the real world, not connecting the whole world. Details are still quiet for the time being, but the company is collecting sign-ups on a waitlist now.
TikTok added new ad targeting and boosting features for its ad tool Promote, allowing advertisers to target audiences by location, in addition to age, gender and interests. SMBs can now advertise to their local community with this change, and can promote their creator partner videos, among other changes.
Instagram expanded access to Gifts, a monetization feature that lets fans tip Reels creators using Meta’s virtual currency Stars, to more U.S. creators. The feature had been in testing since last year and offers a revenue share with Meta on the virtual tips.
Image Credits: Instagram
After announcing new API pricing starting with a $100 basic tier, Twitter blocked access to its developer community website. Developers used to access the site for announcements and to ask questions. Twitter did not explain if the block was intentional or a bug (like one related to its API issues earlier this week).
Some Mastodon users have gone back to Twitter, it seems. Wired reported the decentralized social app and Twitter alternative has seen its MAUs drop from 2.5 million to now 1.4 million as of the end of January. But Techdirt took issue with the characterization of this as a “slump,” as Wired had called it, noting that Mastodon had grown significantly since Musk took over Twitter, even with the drop. Plus, the Fediverse as a whole, not just Mastodon, is up to around 2.6 million MAUs users, much higher than the 600,000 it has in the pre-Musk era. “I’m not sure how going from 600k to 2.6 million in just a couple of months can be deemed ‘a slump.’ It sure looks like pretty damn good retention overall,” scoffed Techdirt’s Mike Masnick.
Facebook creators gained new moderation tools, including the ability to search comments by keywords, emojis, commenter names and, dates, and take bulk actions, such as liking or hiding.
WhatsApp added the ability to post a Status to a private audience along with 30-second Voice Status messages, Status reactions and more across iOS, Android and the web.
Telegram added a new profile photo maker that turns stickers or animated emoji into your pfp, plus tools to translate entire chats, support for sorting emoji by categories, detailed pie charts for viewing network usage and other features in its latest update.
Dating
Image Credits: OkCupid
ChatGPT for finding love? OkCupid began testing match questions that were generated by ChatGPT. The questions help daters find compatibility with others across a range of innocuous questions, like “are you a morning person or a night person?” (Yes, the bot came up with that one!)
Tinder added an incognito mode that lets you browse that only shows your profile to those you’ve liked. It also added a “block profile” feature for hiding yourself from people you know when you encounter them in the app among other privacy changes.
Entertainment
Image Credits: Netflix
Netflix’s password crackdown isn’t going well as a number of angry customers are now planning to boycott the changes by canceling their service.
Users are particularly upset over the rules that impact extended families from sharing accounts — like parents who pay for their college students’ accounts or grown children who pay for their elderly parents’ access — plus, families where a member regularly travels for work (or is deployed overseas). The changes also impact people with multiple homes. Subscribers say they are already paying for extra screens and that should be enough.
Netflix claims that all anyone has to do is reauthenticate once per month with the app at the household’s main location, but consumers see that requirement as a burden — and an impossibility in some cases. If they don’t, though, the “traveling” account could lose access. Netflix will force people to pay extra for the freeloaders or they can choose to migrate to a new account with a profile transfer feature. It remains to be seen if Netflix will keep these same rules in the U.S., as the rollout has been external to its home market for now.
Spotify now lets you block playlists from impacting your “taste profile.” This would allow people to block certain playlists, like those used for studying, sleeping, working out or those favored by the kids, from influencing their recommendations.
Image Credits: Spotify
Etc.
Sensor Tower reported on the state of fitness apps, noting that Health and Fitness apps in Europe reached 232 million installs last year, up 16% from 2019. The firm said it now takes nearly $4 million in gross revenue in a given month to become the No. 1 ranked Health and Fitness app on the app stores, up 23% from the $3.5 million required in 2021.
Robinhood said it’s going to buy up to 55 million shares, or 7%+ of its outstanding shares, that had been bought by Sam Bankman-Fried in 2022. The company reported $380 million in revenue in Q4, up 5% YoY and a net loss down 61% to $166 million. 2022 revenue was down 25% YoY to $1.36 billion.
Brave’s iOS and Android apps added support for Solana’s DApp in its built-in web3 wallet.
DoorDash integrated with gas savings app GasBuddy to allow its drivers to find the cheapest nearby gas.
PayPal is getting a new CEO as Dan Schulman prepares to leave at year’s end. The company also reported Q4 revenue up 7% YoY to $7.33 billion and TPV up 5% to $357.4 billion.
Uber integrated its driver app with Apple CarPlay. Better late than never.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission issued a new report regarding its investigation of Apple and Google’s app stores. The report accuses both companies of “abuse of a superior bargaining position,” and makes several recommendations, including those around commissions and in-app payments and says the companies should not take advantage of features not made available to developers. It doesn’t explicitly say the platforms need to host third-party app stores, however.
The Indian government offered further details about its ban on more than 90 lending apps, including its concerns over Chinese influence. China investors were on the cap tables of some of the banned apps, it said, and apps were storing user data outside the country. Money laundering and other loan practices were also a concern. Later in the week, it lifted the ban on PayU’s LazyPay, Kissht, KreditBee, Indiabulls’ Home Loans, mPokket, Buddy Loan and Faircent after reviewing their cap tables for Chinese investors.
U.S. policymakers are concerned about TikTok’s plan to allow oversight of its algorithm as an alternative to a ban, noting that it would be technically challenging and there could still be backdoors that allowed China’s government to manipulate content on the platform.
Utah is pushing through new bills that would require social media companies to verify users’ ages and give parents access to their kids’ accounts.
In a presentation to the EU, Meta showed data that indicated that pop-up content warnings reduced the sharing of flagged posts by 25% on Facebook and 38% on Instagram. TikTok, for comparison, reports a reduction of 29%.
Funding and M&A
Lunar, a Danish neobank last valued at $2.2 billion, raised $38 million from undisclosed investors to continue to build its banking and financial services platform. The company last year raised a Series D extension that brought its total funding then to €280 million.
Meta got the go-ahead to acquire VR software maker Within, despite FTC concerns. The company’s flagship app is the VR fitness app Supernatural.
Fintech app Fierce, which offers free stock trading, checking and later crypto, launched on iOS after receiving $10 million in seed funding from investors including Pendrell, AP Capital, Wheelhouse Digital Studios, Space Whale Capital and other angels.
Downloads
Poe
Image Credits: Quora
Q&A platform Quora opened up public access to its new AI chatbot app, Poe, which lets users ask questions and get answers from a range of AI chatbots, including those from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and other companies like Anthropic. Beyond allowing users to experiment with new AI technologies, Poe’s content will ultimately help to evolve Quora itself. If and when Poe’s content meets a high enough quality standard, it will be distributed on Quora’s site itself, where it has the ability to reach Quora’s 400 million monthly visitors, the company said.
At launch, there are three general knowledge chatbots: Sage, Claude and Dragonfly. Both Sage and Dragonfly are powered by OpenAI while Claude is powered by Anthropic technology. All have their own limitations at present. For instance, Sage and Claude don’t have knowledge of events after 2021, and Dragonfly may refuse to answer some questions. All three have also been known to make incorrect statements — which is another reason why Quora itself isn’t immediately integrating Poe into its service. Developers will also be able to add their own bots to Poe in the future.
Fortnite maker Epic Games launched a new clip-sharing app called Postparty on iOS and Android that gives gamers a way to easily share their clips on social media. The app allows for sharing from Xbox, Switch, PlayStation and PC for Fortnite users and just Xbox and PlayStation for Epic’s Rocket League. Fortnite users will see the app promoted after an in-game kill, prompting them to download the app so they can share clips. The app was created by Houseparty developer Life on Air, acquired by Epic in 2019. (Houseparty shut down in 2021.) After sharing their first clip from the app, Fortnite users will get special in-game skin, spray and wrap.
Spillt
Image Credits: Spillt
A former Instagram engineer launched a new recipe app called Spillt, covered by The Information, which helps users find, organize and cook recipes — the latter by helpfully keeping the phone’s screen on during the recipe’s prep. That’s a feature the popular Pestle app also has, along with its voice-powered guided cooking, however. But Spillt’s value proposition is that it offers a way for users to see which recipes their friends are saving in a News Feed of sorts. It remains to be seen if it can actually gain traction amid a sea of recipe apps, but it’s at least differentiated from the set of “TikTok for cooking” apps that are on the market today.
Amid other A.I.-focused announcements, Google today shared that its newer “multisearch” feature would now be available to global users on mobile devices, anywhere that Google Lens is already available. The search feature, which allows users to search using both text and images at the same time, was first introduced last April as a way to modernize Google search to take better advantage of the smartphone’s capabilities. A variation on this, “multisearch near me,” which targets searches to local businesses, will also become globally available over the next few months, as will multisearch for the web and a new Lens feature for Android users.
As Google previously explained, multisearch is powered by A.I. technology called Multitask Unified Model, or MUM, which can understand information across a variety of formats, including text, photos, and videos, and then draw insights and connections between topics, concepts, and ideas. Google put MUM to work within its Google Lens visual search features, where it would allow users to add text to a visual search query.
“We redefined what we mean to search by introducing Lens. We’ve since brought Lens directly to the search bar and we continue to bring new capabilities like shopping and step-by-step homework help,” Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s SVP in charge Search, Assistant, Geo, Ads, Commerce and Payments products, said at a press event in Paris.
For example, a user could pull up a photo of a shirt they liked in Google Search, then ask Lens where they could find the same pattern, but on a different type of apparel, like a skirt or socks. Or they could point their phone at a broken piece on their bike and type into Google Search a query like “how to fix.” This combination of words and images could help Google to process and understand search queries that it couldn’t have previously handled, or that would have been more difficult to input using text alone.
The technique is most helpful with shopping searches, where you could find clothing you liked, but in different colors or styles. Or you could take a photo of a piece of furniture, like a dining set, to find items that matched, like a coffee table. In multisearch, users could also narrow and refine their results by brand, color, and visual attributes, Google said.
The feature was made available to U.S. users last October, then expanded to India in December. As of today, Google says multisearch is available to all users globally on mobile, in all languages and countries where Lens is available.
The “multisearch near me” variation will also soon expand, Google said today.
Google announced last May it could be able to direct multisearch queries to local businesses (aka “multisearch near me”), which would return search results of the items users were looking for that matched inventory at local retailers or other businesses. For instance, in the case of the bike with the broken part, you could add the text “near me” to a search query with a photo to find a local bike shop or hardware shop that had the replacement part you needed.
This feature will become available to all languages and countries where Lens is available over the next few months, Google said. It will also expand beyond mobile devices with support for multisearch on the web in the coming months.
In terms of new search products, the search giant teased an upcoming Google Lens feature, noting that Android users would soon be able to search what they see in photos and videos across apps and websites on their phone, while still remaining in the app or on the website. Google is calling this “search your screen,” and said it will also be available wherever Lens is offered.
Google shared a new milestone for Google Lens, too, noting that people now use the technology more than 10 billion times per month.
It was a rough quarter for the cloud infrastructure market as companies looked for ways to cut back on spending in an uncertain economy. When you combine that with the strong dollar and a weak Chinese market, the market slowed to 21% growth, a precipitous drop from the 36% growth we had seen the year prior.
While we aren’t seeing the gaudy growth of years past, Synergy Research still found the market exceeded $61 billion for the quarter with the 12 month trailing revenues of over $212 billion, a hefty sum by any measure, even with the slowdown.
Also of note was that while each of The Big Three saw growth slow in Q4 2022 from the previous quarter, Microsoft still managed to gain market share ground on Amazon. Microsoft increased its share from 23%, up from 21% the prior quarter, while Amazon fell from 34% to 33% and Google remained steady at 11%. The Big Three cloud providers accounted for 66% of worldwide cloud revenue.
That comes out to approximately $20 billion for Amazon, $14 billion for Microsoft and $7 billion for Google. Per usual, this is looking at IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services. It doesn’t include SaaS, which is measured separately.
Image Credits: Synergy Research
Amazon cloud revenue grew a modest 20% over the prior year, and the company acknowledged in the earnings call that growth dropped even further to the mid-teens in the first month of the year. Meanwhile Microsoft reported cloud growth of 22%, down from 24% the prior quarter and Google Cloud revenue grew 32%, down from the 38% growth the previous quarter.
Amazon was first to market and has had a long head start, but it seems as the market slows after years of steady growth, it’s giving its chief competitor, Microsoft, a bit of an opening to gain on them. It could be partly due at least to the fact that Amazon’s market maturity is finally catching up to it, and Microsoft is able to gain some advantage in spite of spending slowing overall.
John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy says there were three key reasons for this quarter’s drop-off, which he believes are short-term issues, and he remains optimistic for the future. “There are three main factors. The strengthened US dollar diminishes the apparent growth rate of many non-US markets; the large Chinese market remains constrained by pandemic issues and local policies; and the worsened economy has caused some enterprises to more closely review spending on cloud services. These factors should be primarily short term in nature and Synergy forecasts that growth rates will remain strong over the next few years,” he said in a statement.
It will be interesting to watch the market in 2023 and see how the macro economic environment affects revenue, and if the slower growth we’ve been seeing continues to work in favor of Amazon’s competitors by enabling them to gain more ground.
The Biden administration is calling out Apple and Google’s app stores for stifling competition. A new report, issued on Wednesday by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), said it had investigated the competitive conditions in the mobile app ecosystem and found that it’s “not a level playing field, which is harmful to developers and consumers.” The report also made several policy suggestions that could improve the ecosystem and open up competition.
The investigation had been initiated as part of a 2021 Executive Order on competition and involved consultations with various industry stakeholders in the private industry, civil society, and academia, NTIA said. It also included a review of over 150 comments filed in response to a request for public comment last April.
The report summarizes what industry watchers already know: that the innovations made possible by mobile phones and downloadable apps have begun to be overshadowed by the barriers to entry to the market facing developers, the excessive and restrictive rules, the overcomplicated app review process, and the sizable commissions that developers are forced to pay for access to consumers’ devices.
“Our review suggests that the mobile app store model has provided a range of benefits to both app developers and users, but has also created conditions of competition that are suboptimal,” the report states. “The policies that Apple and Google have in place in their own mobile app stores have created unnecessary barriers and costs for app developers, ranging from fees for access to functional restrictions that favor some apps over others. These obstacles impose costs on firms and organizations offering new technology: apps lack features, development and roll-out costs are higher, customer relations are damaged, and many apps fail to reach a large number of users.”
Both Apple and Google took issue with the report’s findings. (The AP printed their comments here.) Largely, Apple’s position was the same as always — that its rules are focused on providing consumer safety and security. Google, meanwhile, points out it offers more competition and choice. (Android, for instance, already allows sideloading.)
In addition to summarizing the state of the market, the new report makes a variety of recommendations as to how various areas can be improved to boost competition. The report suggests, for example, there should be a more transparent app review process; limits on pre-installed apps and self-preferencing; bans on rules that restrict other means of installing apps, like sideloading; support for third-party payments; support for links to developers’ websites from apps; and more.
It also said tech giants should be restricted from using confidential business data acquired from third-party developers to help launch their own competing apps — a practice so common at Apple, it’s even been dubbed “sherlocking” after a famous example.
The recommendations, however, are just that — ideas, not policy. The report only helps to solidify and clarify the Biden administration’s position on app store competition. As the report points out, “Congress should enact laws” and “relevant agencies should consider measures” to limit anticompetitive conduct. It also suggests there are areas that warrant further study, like “choice screens” (which some argue only offer the perception of choice), and whether or not laws should ban preinstallation of apps or other agreements between Apple and Google and device manufacturers and carriers.
In other words, any real action is still in the hands of regulators and lawmakers, as it was in the months before the report’s release.
President Biden, of course, already made his position on big tech abuses known, in an op-ed published in The Wall St. Journal earlier this month. With regard to competition, he stated there was still more than needed to be done.
“When tech platforms get big enough, many find ways to promote their own products while excluding or disadvantaging competitors—or charge competitors a fortune to sell on their platform,” he wrote. “My vision for our economy is one in which everyone—small and midsized businesses, mom-and-pop shops, entrepreneurs—can compete on a level playing field with the biggest companies.”
In its fourth-quarter earnings, Spotify announced today its User Choice Billing program has now expanded to more than 140 markets worldwide, allowing the streaming music service to reduce the commissions it pays to Google over Play Store purchases associated with its Android app. The User Choice Billing pilot program gives Android users the option to pay an app developer directly. It had been introduced last spring, with Spotify planned as an initial tester. But neither company had shared an update on the program’s progress until this past November when they announced Spotify would then begin to roll out its tests in select markets.
At the time, Spotify said the program would become available in only a few markets to start and would roll later out to others in the “coming weeks.” It did not share which markets would see the third-party billing option or when it expected the choice to reach its global Android app user base.
Today, the company confirmed it’s made solid progress on the program’s deployment. As part of its earnings announcement, where the company also beat on user growth targets with 205 million paid subscribers, it shared that its November deployment of User Choice Billing had then become available to users in “10+ markets.” Over the past several months, Spotify said it’s expanded the option to now more than 140 markets around the world.
However, Spotify has not yet published a detailed list of countries where the program is offered but told TechCrunch it anticipates implementing the option in “every market” where it offers Spotify Premium today and where Google Play Billing is available. Currently, Spotify Premium subscribers can be found across 184 global markets, according to the company’s website.
Image Credits: Spotify
It’s not surprising that Google picked Spotify as a debut tester of its new billing offering, given the streaming music service has long been a fierce app store critic, sharing its complaints over the required commissions with the U.S. Department of Justice and EU regulators. If an outspoken voice like Spotify could be placated by a reduced commission on in-app purchases, Google hopes it could mitigate concerns over its alleged abuses of market power now being investigated.
In March, Google introduced the third-party billing option to Android app developers, as looming threats of antitrust litigation and increased regulation grew nearer. Already, the tech giant had been forced to support alternative billing systems in South Korea, with the passing of a new law, and being sued by top app makers, including Fortnite’s Epic Games, over antitrust issues. However, the User Choice Billing option didn’t offer much in the way of savings for app developers, as Google only reduced the required commissions on app purchases and in-app payments by 4%.
This past November, Google said it was opening up the User Choice Billing pilot further to new markets, including the U.S., Brazil and South Africa, and invited other developers to participate. Dating app Bumble then joined Spotify as one of the early adopters.
Developers who participate in the program have to follow certain UX guidelines Google sets, which detail how to implement the feature in their apps. These guidelines currently require developers to display an information screen and a separate billing choice screen. The information screen only has to be shown to each user the first time they initiate a purchase, but the billing choice screen must be shown before every purchase.
While the general terms offer a 4% reduction on the commissions paid to Google when third-party billing is used, Spotify wouldn’t comment on its confidential deal with Google, only noting it meets the company’s “standards of fairness.” It’s unclear if the streamer has been offered more favorable terms as an early tester.
Spotify’s agreement with Google could potentially provide a boost in subscription revenues at a time when the streamer is facing an increased push from investors to increase its margins and make the service profitable. As Spotify chased investments in areas like adtech, podcasts, audiobooks and more over prior years, its losses widened last year, leading its market cap to decline by over 60%. In a note published to Spotify’s website this month, as the companyannounced layoffs impacting 600 people, CEO Daniel Ek admitted the situation was the result of being “too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth.”
The company’s solid progress on user growth in the fourth quarter saw its shares pop after announcing results earlier this morning. In addition to its 205 million paid subscribers, up 14% year-over-year, it also announced total users were up 20% year-over-year to 489 million. Revenue came in at €3.17 billion, just ahead of estimates of €3.16 billion, but Spotify’s loss per share was €1.40 ($1.52), larger than the expected loss of €1.27.
