Opera, the makers of an ad-blocking web browser, whose most recent claim to fame is having TikTok built-in, announced today it’s rolling out an updated version of its iOS app that now includes its free VPN. Previously available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android, the iOS release now makes Opera the first browser to offer a free VPN service across all major computing platforms, the company touted in its announcement.
The news is particularly timely given that, late last year, Opera’s largest competitor Google expanded its own VPN tool to desktop users on Mac and PC, after earlier supporting iOS and Android. But in Google’s case, its VPN is available only to paid subscribers on its Google One Premium plans. Apple also offers a tool for encrypting an internet connection with its iCloud Private Relay feature, though it’s not really a VPN. But like Google, it’s also only available as part of a paid subscription (iCloud+).
Image Credits: Opera
Opera’s VPN, meanwhile, does not require a subscription. The company says users don’t have to create an account to log in or use the feature. Opera also notes it doesn’t collect any personal information or data relating to the user’s browsing habits or their originating IP address. And the service doesn’t require any additional extensions to use — users can activate it from the main menu in the app to begin encrypting their VPN traffic.
The company is able to offer free tools to end users because it generates revenue through other channels, including search and ad revenues, as well as technology licensing fees. It’s projecting $370-390 million in revenues for 2023, for instance.
For iOS users, the Opera mobile browser app aims to differentiate itself beyond the new VPN feature alone. The app includes other unique tools, like a “My Flow” for file sharing between devices, a native Crypto Wallet feature, a built-in ad blocker, and a security-focused cryptojacking protection feature, among others.
With today’s update, the iOS app is gaining a couple of other additions, too, including a new Bookmarks feature for organizing favorite content, and a Live Scores feature for tracking sports teams’ latest scores via a scoreboard on the browser’s homepage.
However, Opera cautions that while the features including the VPN are launching starting today, the full rollout will actually take place over the weeks ahead. That means you may not immediately see the new VPN feature when you launch the iOS app, but should soon.
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.
TikTok tries to avoid a ban in U.S. congressional hearing
Image Credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Thursday’s testimony by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew before the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce was largely unproductive. Representatives were often more interested in sharing their own opinions, posturing and shouting over the CEO’s answers to their questions, rather than attempting to learn any real intel about how TikTok works or what it does to protect its youngest users from harm.
Overall, it seemed the hearing was more for show than any sort of fact-finding mission — these reps already had their minds made up, for the most part, about whether or not the app should be banned.
During the hearing, however, a few legitimate questions were raised that had troubling responses. On the matter of Project Texas — TikTok’s plan to move all U.S. user data off of its own servers over to Oracle servers in the U.S. — it wasn’t clear how that would fully separate TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. As one line of questioning pointed out, TikTok employees use an internal software program known as Lark — a sort of Chinese Slack — to communicate with their ByteDance colleagues. TikTok’s CEO reports to ByteDance’s CEO, Liang Rubo. Chew also admitted that even under Project Texas there were exceptions that would allow data to leave the country for “interoperability purposes” and he would have to “get back to your team” on the specifics there. And when directly questioned about what sort of other software or IT services would still connect TikTok to ByteDance under Project Texas, Chew again said he would have to “get back to you” with his answers.
Image Credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In addition, the exec couldn’t confirm where TikTok sells its data. Chew said he didn’t “believe” they sold to data brokers, but said he would have to “get back” to Congress on who they may actually sell to.
While Chew may be correct that today’s TikTok isn’t doing more data collection than U.S. social giants, it’s being held to different standards. As a Chinese company with its hands on this data, there’s the potential for the CCP to meddle in TikTok’s operations, the politicians believe. Though that may not have happened yet, there is a threat posed by China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compels businesses to assist in intelligence-gathering operations, if asked. TikTok claims it wouldn’t comply, but how could it not, if ByteDance is its parent?
The House reps also asked a range of questions about minor safety. Ironically, it was TikTok that led the way in this area by being the first of the big social apps in the U.S. to roll out in-app parental controls and lock down teen accounts. Still, dangerous challenges have proliferated on its platform (though Meta was later revealed to have had a hand in which ones made the news!). And like other algorithmic-based platforms, there’s always a danger that its recommendations could surface harmful content at times.
However, some of the dangers of social media aren’t unique to TikTok alone. Social media usage overall is contributing to increased anxiety, depression, body dissatisfaction, disordered eating and other troubles, including suicide ideation, which is why it needs regulation or at least some basic guidelines. But today’s politicians don’t seem to be able to do the hard work of actually getting laws passed in this area, despite their bipartisan interest in doing so. They’d rather put on a show in Congress to make themselves look good to their potential voters so they can win their next election.
OpenAI launches ChatGPT plugins, and some of your favorite apps are already on board
OpenAI this week launched plugins for ChatGPT, which allow the bot to access third-party databases and other sources of knowledge, including those on the web. The company said it would start with a small set of users before rolling out access to the still now alpha stage product more broadly. OpenAI is also hosting its own plugins, including a web browser and code interpreter and is now extending plugin access to developers on its waitlist.
A number of companies consumers know and love have already built plugins for ChatGPT, including Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram and Zapier. For example, OpenTable’s plugin can search across restaurants for available bookings, while the Instacart plugin can place orders from local stores.
To get started, users pick a plugin to enable when they start a conversation on chat.openai.com. In a demo on OpenAI’s website, it shows a user asking in plain language for “one great restaurant suggestion on Saturday” and ” a simple recipe for Sunday” involving vegan food. The OpenTable plugin finds a local restaurant with a reservation, then follows detailed requests for returning the recipe info and ordering ingredients on Instacart. (If only this technology was available in Siri!) It’s easy to imagine a future where you could one day interact with these services through AI commands, not by tapping around on apps’ screens. And being able to talk naturally to the AI could make services easier to use for everyone, not just the technically inclined.
Microsoft plans a mobile games store
Microsoft is betting that incoming tech regulations will allow it a way to compete in the mobile gaming market alongside Apple and Google (and likely Epic Games, if things go its way). In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer noted that the EU’s Digital Market Act (DMA) is expected to go into effect next March, which would allow companies to load their own app stores on Apple and Android devices. And Microsoft wants to do just that.
“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” Spencer told the FT.
Microsoft had already hinted at its plans to launch an Xbox-branded mobile game store that would leverage content from Activision Blizzard — assuming that deal gains regulatory approval. The game maker’s IP could help Microsoft seed a new game store thanks to its titles like Call of Duty Mobile and those from the Candy Crush franchise. Microsoft has also acquired a number of gaming studios over the past several years, including Ninja Theory, Playground Games and Bethesda owner Zenimax Media.
If things progress as planned, the mobile apps and games market could have an entirely different shape in the years ahead. Netflix is also seemingly betting on this change, prepping its own vast library of games that come with a Netflix membership. For the time being, the games are just a perk of membership, but if one day Netflix could launch its own games store and fill it with titles, it seems it may choose to expand to paid games as well.
Google says it prevented over $2 billion in fraudulent and abusive transactions via Play Commerce last year, in an update likely designed to convince developers to not switch to third-party billing.
Google took down hundreds of loan apps from the Play Store in Kenya following the launch of a new policy, which requires digital lenders in the East African country to submit proof of a license to operate. The new policy went into effect in January.
Samsung said its devices will get up to four generations of One UI and Android OS upgrades. The company had previously promised 3 upgrades. The expanded commitment will be offered on select Galaxy S series, Z series smartphones, A Series and tablets.
Three large Android manufacturers in China — Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo — announced a partnership to make it easier to switch devices. The companies will offer a migration tool that will help consumers in China move their files and other phone data between the companies’ various smartphone models.
Google flagged several apps made by Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo as malware, alerted users who had the apps installed and suspended the company’s official app for security concerns while it investigates. Google Play Protect, the Android security mechanism, was also set to block users from installing the malicious apps.
Apple’s iOS 16.4 includes new features like voice isolation for calls, which “prioritizes your voice and blocks out ambient noise around you,” says Apple’s release notes. It also sees the return of Apple Books’ curling animation and brings duplicate detection to iCloud Shared Photo Libraries.
Code in the iOS 16.4 beta also leaked what seem to be references to new AirPods and Beats earphones.
Adobe embraces generative AI. The company this week launched its new Firefly family of generative AI models and generative AI tools aimed at marketers, with its enterprise offering, Adobe Sensei Generative AI Services. Firefly offers a model designed to generate images and text effects from descriptions. The model will soon be able to create content across Adobe apps, including Express, Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Experience Manager after being given a text prompt. For now, it’s web-only while in beta.
Image Credits: Adobe
According to a new analysis of the AI app ecosystem from analytics provider data.ai, consumers this year have now spent more than $14 million in the 10 highest-earning apps that advertise their use of ChatGPT or OpenAI technologies. In February 2023, these 10 apps combined accounted for nearly $5.9 million in global consumer spending, the firm says. And within the first 20 days of March, the apps were averaging $232,000 in daily consumer spending, up 11% from the average of $210,000 in February.
Image Credits: data.ai
Social
Snap unveiled a new business, AR Enterprise Services, which offers the company’s AR Lenses and Filters to brands. The SaaS business includes Snap tech like AR try-on, a 3D product viewer, Snap’s SDK for AR experiences, and more. Snap will work with clients to help customize their solutions, which can also be integrated directly into the business’ own apps and websites. The company says 250+ million people out of its 375 million daily active users now engage with AR on Snapchat.
New data indicates Twitter Blue had 385,000+ subscribers on iOS and Android and made $11 million on mobile in its first three months after the Elon Musk-led relaunch. In the U.S., Twitter Blue pulled in around $8 million from 246,000 U.S. subscribers.
Ahead of its congressional hearing, TikTok rolled out updates to its community guidelines. The company said it overhauled the guidelines to make them easier to understand, and added new policies on AI and climate misinformation. Plus, it added more detail about its existing policies regarding civil and election integrity, age restrictions and expanded a section covering deepfakes.
TikTok also announced it had 150 million MAUs in the U.S., up from 100 million in August 2021. The company has over 1 billion MAUs globally.
Gaming
Epic Games announced new animation tools that make it possible to create realistic facial animations using video captured from an iPhone, the Verge reported from GDC. The tools are an expansion of the company’s MetaHuman creator tools first introduced in 2021.
Epic also launched its Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) on the Epic Games Store as a public beta. The software includes many of the same tools Epic uses to create Fortnite, it said.
Plus, Epic announced it will now share 40% of Fortnite revenue with anyone who designs “islands” in the game, which includes the money the company earns from its in-game currency V-Bucks.
Roblox rolled out new AI tools, including Code Assistant, which allows game creators to use text prompts to create code, and Material Generators for creating 2D surfaces in games.
Netflix announced plans to release 40 more games this year and add Monument Valley to its lineup in 2024. Among the new titles are Ubisoft’s Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, an unnamed Super Evil Megacorp game, and others. Monument Valley’s addition is interesting as that means the game will still be a paid download for non-Nextflix members and available through subscription on Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass.
Microsoft debuted Loop, a Notion competitor that offers a hub for managing tasks and projects that also syncs across Microsoft 365 apps and workspaces on the web. The debut version is available to users with a Microsoft Account or Azure Active Directory account, but will “soon” arrive on iOS and Android.
Duolingo, a language learning app with over 500 million users, is working on a music app,TechCrunch learned. A job description seemingly confirms this plan, as it describes a candidate who is an “expert in music education who combines both theoretical knowledge of relevant learning science research and hands-on teaching experience.”
Messaging
WhatsApp announced a new Windows client that brings performance improvements and better calling features. The app will allow for video calls with up to eight people and audio calls with up to 32 people, similar to its mobile counterpart. The company also said it will increase the number of people allowed in group calls going forward.
WhatsApp also updated its Communities product with new controls for group admins that give them the ability to decide who is able to join a group. It will also now make it easier to see which groups you have in common with someone.
Image Credits: WhatsApp
Commerce
YouTube is closing down live social shopping app Simsim less than two years after its acquisition. The startup helped small businesses in India transition to video-based e-commerce.
DoorDash added new retail partners Lush Cosmetics, Victoria’s Secret and Party City and rolled out new shopping features to help consumers more easily find in-stock items, schedule deliveries and make substitutions. It also added support for cash in its white-label service for restaurants (not its main app).
Entertainment
Spotify’s still relatively new audiobooks service expanded to Canada, bringing the experience to both English and French-speaking customers. The service now has 350,000 titles available and is live in the U.S. and other English-speaking markets.
Twitch said it’s laying off 400 employees as part of parent company Amazon’s larger plan to lay off 9,000 workers across divisions, including AWS and advertising.
Government, Policy and Lawsuits
Utah’s Gov. Spencer Cox signed two bills that regulate social media apps, making it the first U.S. state to impose restrictions on the industry. The lack of federal regulation will likely see more states take the same path, which could become a massive headache for compliance, as each state’s rules may differ. Utah’s new regulations say that social media companies will have to age-verify all users, receive parents’ permission before minors can open social media accounts, restrict minors’ usage of social media from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am unless a parent changes the settings, limit personal data collection from minors and allow parents to access a minor’s accounts, including all their posts and private messages. Fines can be imposed for non-compliance. We guess Utah teens will be returning to texting pretty soon!
The subscription economy may be headed for a crackdown. The FTC this week proposed a “click to cancel” rule that would require sellers offering subscriptions to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up. Watch out, Match and every meal delivery service ever invented!
Funding and M&A
Image Credits: Flash
Newly launched Indian startup Flash offers a mobile app where consumers can create an email to be used on all shopping sites, allowing them to earn coupons and cash back instead of bogging down their inbox. The company raised $5.8 million in seed funding from a number of investors, including Global Founders Capital (GFC), White Venture Capital and Zinal Growth, and others.
OP3N, a startup described as the “Web3 version of WhatsApp meets Amazon,” and makers of blockchain chat app Superapp, raised $28 million in Series A funding, valuing the company at $100 million. The round was led by Animoca Brands and included Dragonfly Capital, SuperScrypt, Creative Artists Agency and NEA’s Connect Ventures, Republic Crypto, Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund, Galaxy Digital and Warner Music Interactive.
Snap quietly acquired Amsterdam-based 3D-scanning studio Th3rd in the second quarter of last year. The startup’s tech and team are helping with Snap’s AR efforts.
Downloads
Zigazoo
Image Credits: Zigazoo
Hoping to capitalize on the TikTok drama this week, startup Zigazoo announced the launch of a TikTok-like app for Gen Z users. The company previously offered a similar video app for Gen Alpha kids, but is now expanding to older teens. Its new Gen Z-focused app is a video thread-style platform, but unlike TikTok, it doesn’t allow users to comment. Instead, users can only respond to each other with other videos, which the company believes may reduce trolling. The startup hopes to create a more positive environment where users can share videos featuring dance, music, fashion, gaming, memes and more. You can read TechCrunch’s full review here.
Hipstamatic is back. Amid user complaints over the current state of Instagram, Hipstamatic returned to the App Store today with a relaunch of its social network for iPhone photography enthusiasts. Its refreshed app, which will today replace Hipstamatic X on the App Store, will offer a chronological feed, photo filtering tools, no ads and no TikTok-like feeds or videos. Users will earn stamps instead of likes, and will browse “stacks” of photos, instead of endless feeds.
With its revamped app, the company will try to bring some of its earlier pizazz to a generation that’s chasing retro tech, opting for things like flip phones and wired headphones at times for the “aesthetic.” The app will monetize via a $4.99 per month subscription (or $29.99/year), which unlocks its premium filters, editing features and other perks like claiming your preferred username.
The slow but steady Twitter exodus has brought a new abundance of third-party Mastodon apps like Ivory, Mammoth and Ice Cubes that connect users to the increasingly popular open source and decentralized social network. Today, we can add one more app to that list with the launch of Woolly, another solidly built iOS Mastodon client focused on offering a more customizable home screen, threaded views for reading longer conversations and a TweetDeck-inspired layout for the iPad.
The main differentiator between this app and others is its approach to home screen customization. With Woolly, users can pin things like multiple remote timelines, lists, bookmarks, search, hashtags or even other user profiles directly to the app’s main tab bar, enabling quick and easy access to your favorite content. Plus, on iPad, you can access a landscape view with columns, similar to TweetDeck. Read TechCrunch’s full review here.
Consumer demand for AI chatbot experiences has been funneling millions of dollars into mobile apps advertising their association with ChatGPT or OpenAI technologies. According to a new analysis of the AI app ecosystem from analytics provider data.ai, consumers this year have now spent over $14 million in the 10 highest-earning apps that advertise their use of ChatGPT or OpenAI technologies. And that demand is continuing to grow.
In February 2023, these 10 apps combined accounted for nearly $5.9 million in global consumer spending, the firm says. And within the first 20 days of March, the apps were averaging $232,000 in daily consumer spending, up 11% from the average of $210,000 in February.
What’s clear is that integrating “AI” features and references to things like ChatGPT or OpenAI has been helping drive demand, as the majority of the apps saw little consumer spend before their AI additions. For example, the same group of apps saw only $1.6 million in global consumer spending in December 2022, which grew 3.7x to reach February’s total. Last month also represented a 55% increase from the $3.8 million spent in January 2023, the analysis indicates.
Image Credits: data.ai
There was one exception to this trend: the app Pixelcut AI Photo Editor had been generating decent revenue before the January 2023 launch of its “magic writer” copywriter tool that uses GPT. In December 2022, the app had generated $817,000 in consumer spending. In February, its revenue had dropped slightly to $813,000, per data.ai’s estimates. Prior to January 1, 2023, Pixelcut had generated gross spending of $19.8 million globally, so it’s still doing well.
In addition to Pixelcut AI Photo Editor, data.ai’s analysis included the top-earning apps Genie – AI Chatbot; AI Chat – Chatbot AI Assistant; AI Chatbot – Open Chat Writer; Apo – AI Personal Assistant; Chat AI Bot – Writing Assistant; ChatOn – AI Chatbot Assistant; AI Chat – Ask Anything; Chat AI – Ask Anything; and GoatChat.
Of these, Genie has generated the most revenue this year, with $3.2 million in global consumer spending so far in 2023. AI Chat and Pixelcut were the No. 2 and No. 3 top apps, with $2.8 million and $2.2 million, respectively.
Image Credits: data.ai
What’s interesting about this group of apps is that, for the most part, none are trying to establish their own brand and identity to engage consumers. Instead, they’re simply keyword-stuffing their apps’ titles to match the search terms people are likely using when looking for an AI chatbot app of some sort. The consensus seems to be that words like “AI,” “Chat” or “Chatbot” and “Assistant” will help drive downloads — and by the looks of the apps’ revenue totals, they may be right.
The apps in this group also rank highly in App Store searches for the term “OpenAI” we found — an indication of how much ground OpenAI has ceded in the mobile app market by not having its own official mobile app available. Last month, Semafor reported the company was working on a mobile ChatGPT app, which would allow mobile users to access the AI from a dedicated experience instead of the existing web interface. However, the company declined to comment on the report, so it’s unclear what the project’s current status may be.
Apple, playing the role of middleman, has also struggled to deal with the influx of AI-powered apps. In January, both the App Store and Google Play became flooded with dubious ChatGPT apps that were claiming to be associated with OpenAI in order to charge hefty subscription prices for accessing ChatGPT — a service that’s been free via the web. One notable app, “ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3” (talk about keyword stuffing!) even made it to the top of the App Store before being removed by Apple.
The company has since battened down the hatches. For instance, one app developer, Hidde van der Ploeg, had created an app that lets you engage with ChatGPT from your Apple Watch but was rejected from the App Store over its use of “GPT” in the app’s original name, WatchGPT. Instead of waiting for an appeal, he rebranded the app “Petey” and it was approved.
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.
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.
Pinterest has begun alpha testing a new advertising product that allows brands to reach consumers from a more prominent position within the company’s mobile app. With the “Premiere Spotlight” ad, as the new format is currently being called, advertisers will gain access to a premium placement for 24 hours on the Pinterest app’s search page. This allows them to reach Pinterest users as they use one of the app’s key features — the ability to search for pins, inspiration, and ideas.
You can see the new ad format now in the most recent version of the Pinterest mobile app, where Kohl’s is currently advertising women’s spring apparel.
In addition to a short video that plays overlaid by text, there’s also a button that takes you to Kohl’s website. The site opens within the Pinterest app, not as a separate tab. From there, Pinterest users can browse the retailer’s product suggestions, search for other items, add items to their cart, and check out — just as they could if visiting Kohl’s website directly.
For years, Pinterest has catered to advertisers by allowing them to create Pins featuring products or ideas that they pay to promote and target to different audiences. These pins then appear within the Pinterest home feed and within relevant search results. But many Pinterest users don’t open the app to browse the feed, nor are they looking for a specific product. Instead, they head to the search page to type in a more general query. Today, 97% of searches on Pinterest are unbranded, company data indicates.
The new format would allow advertisers to capture these new customers — including those who may not have previously seen their ad if they weren’t among the targeted audience.
Though the ads are sold in 24-hour blocks, it would be possible for marketers to book the ads back-to-back to hold the top spot even longer.
As an alpha test, the ad pricing is not yet being shared as it could potentially change between now and a more public launch. Kohl’s will be followed by other pilot testers across various categories, including those interested in promoting a product launch or aiming to capitalize on seasonal moments, as Kohl’s is with its spring fashion trends. Likely, there will be some curation in terms of which brands and type of creatives will be permitted here. All ads will also feature Pinterest’s max width video format.
Pinterest confirmed the ad pilot with a statement.
“We’re constantly looking for ways for advertisers to reach the people who come to Pinterest with commercial intent,” a spokesperson said. “As we continue to build a suite of products to drive performance across the full funnel, we’re exploring a new takeover feature that showcases a brand in a new premium, exclusive placement.”
Image Credits: Pinterest app screenshot
Over the past couple of years, Pinterest has been working to adapt to the growing interest in video from both consumers and advertisers alike. While originally an image pinboarding website, the company shifted into video with the launch of Idea Pins in 2021, which offer creators a more TikTok-like experience. Last year, it enabled marketers to turn their Idea Pins into ads. This year, the company pushed further into short-form video territory through a new agreement with Condé Nast, which will produce 160 exclusive videos for the site from top brands, Vogue and Architectural Digest.
During its Q4 earnings call earlier last month, Pinterest remarked that it had grown its supply of video content by 30% quarter-over-quarter, adding that high-quality content would help to better engage users, particularly Gen Z.
“Monetization per user should also be driven by our ads initiatives,” said CEO Bill Ready, who last year joined Pinterest from Google, where he headed its commerce initiatives. “Pinterest is unique because users come to our platform with intent, and we are one of the few places where people can go from seeking inspiration to fulfilling that intent through action,” Ready added.
However, Pinterest’s shares dipped after earnings as it missed on revenue with $877 million versus the expected $886.3 million, and it forecast growth only in the low single digits in the first quarter of 2023.
Despite the revenue struggles — which are not unique to the company given the economic downturn– Pinterest has been seeing more traction with users. It noted its global monthly active users were up 4% year-over-year to 450 million and average revenue per user was up 6% in North America. Gen Z has become particularly fond of the service, and was again Pinterest’s fastest-growing demographic in Q4, also accounting for nearly half of its video content pinned during the quarter.
Video ads may be able to better appeal to those younger users than image Pins, as they’re used to being inspired to shop from video elsewhere, including through TikTok, Reels and YouTube.
Pinterest did not say when the new ad format would be available more broadly.
A new Mastodon app called Mammoth has already 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.
Now Mammoth is entering the market to offer users yet another option.
Unlike Ivory, which is an attempt to build a business to replace the losses from Tweetbot’s closure, Mammoth — for the time being, at least — is free without any in-app purchases. However, the company has said it eventually plans to offer a subscription version of Mammoth and its community, moth.social, but it hasn’t yet settled on the details.
In the meantime, its near-term goal is to encourage Mastodon adoption, the company explained in a blog post.
Image Credits: Mammoth
“…we don’t think our subscription will be a paywall or that free users will get a read-only version of the app or moth.social. Simply: we want to contribute to Mastodon having 10m active users, then 100m. It’s early days still, and we don’t want to do anything that slows down adoption,” writes Mammoth co-founder Bart Decrem. “Therefore, we likely will have a subscription, but it won’t stop you from enjoying the app if you’re not paying. We don’t have all the details or the timing figured out yet.”
At launch, the Mammoth app offers access to a broad set of baseline features, like the ability to browse and switch between Mastodon timelines; post content including text, images, GIFs, polls; use features like private messages, lists, and bookmarks; change the app icon and theme; turn on a dark mode; access multiple accounts; and even undo posts with a custom duration, similar to Twitter. There are plenty of gestures and customization options to make Mammoth feel personalized to you.
Image Credits: Mammoth
The app also has an extensive set of less common features, like thread creation tools, picture-in-picture for pinning posts to your screen, tools for viewing media in AR, tools for sentiment analysis, the ability to hide replies, translation tools while in compose, and more. As an iOS app, users can take advantage of things like Siri Shortcuts, Face ID and Touch ID, Share Extensions, and VoiceOver support. The app will soon come to macOS, too, the company notes.
What’s potentially more interesting than all of Mammoth’s bells and whistles is its approach to user onboarding.
Choosing a server has often been said to be one of the more difficult parts of getting set up on Mastodon. It adds a layer of complexity to the setup process when users expect to be able to just create a username and password like they’re used to on other social networks. But joining a server is part of what it means to participate on Mastodon and the broader group of interconnected servers known as the Fediverse, so it can’t be bypassed.
Image Credits: Mammoth
To make this process easier, Mammoth presents a simplified user interface that walks users through the account setup process, including their profile creation. It also tackles the problem of who to follow on Mastodon by presenting an interface for finding suggested users from across categories — something Twitter also did back in the day.
Image Credits: Mammoth
Mammoth launched just days ago, but its 10K installs indicate there continues to be consumer demand for Mastodon apps, despite the competitive landscape that includes Mastodon’s official client and a number of third-party apps, including the newly launched Ivory from Tapbots.
While some consumer interest in Mastodon may have waned since Musk’s Twitter takeover, interest in the wider Fediverse continues to grow.
Mammoth is bullish on the Fediverse’s potential and that of a decentralized internet in general.
The company says it will be open sourcing its code in addition to operating its own instance, and ultimately aims to make Mastodon easier for the next 10 million users, then the next 100 million. It’s an ambitious goal, given Twitter itself had just 237.8 million monetizable daily active users in the last quarter it reported as a public company, compared with Facebook’s 2 billion daily active users as of its most recent earnings. Whether or not a group of decentralized apps can ever carve out a large enough niche amid the shadow of tech giants remains to be seen. But it’s arguably a more promising development than Web3, which has squandered consumer trust by enabling scammers and pyramid schemes to proliferate.
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.
Barely two weeks after launching the new AI-enabled Bing on desktop (and a few ups and downs during that time), Microsoft today announced that the new Bing is now also available in the Bing mobile app and through Microsoft’s Edge browser for Android and iOS. With that, you can now also use voice input to interact with Bing’s chat mode. Also new is an integration with Skype, Microsoft’s messaging app, which will now allow you to bring Bing into a text conversation to add additional information.
Image Credits: Microsoft
The fact that Microsoft is bringing the new Bing to mobile isn’t exactly a surprise. The company, after all, gives users who install the mobile Bing app priority on its waitlist for gaining access to the new features. The Skype integration wasn’t necessarily on everybody’s radar, though, in part because it often feels like Microsoft has forgotten about Skype, even though the service still has 36 million daily users, according to the company.
With this new integration (which is now in preview), you can add Bing to any chat (using the “@Bing” command) and ask it the same kinds of questions you would ask in the regular chat mode. One nifty feature here is that you can choose if you want your answers to appear as bullet points, text or in the form of a “simplified response,” as Microsoft calls it. That’s actually a feature I’d like to see in the regular Bing chat, too.
If this sounds a bit familiar, it may be because you are one of the few people to remember Google’s Allo, that company’s ill-fated attempt at an AI-enhanced messaging app. In Allo, too, users could chat with the Google Assistant and bring it into conversations, though this was 2016 and large language models like GPT-3 weren’t a thing yet, so its capabilities were limited (though in return, it wouldn’t just hallucinate answers either).
As for the mobile apps, there are no real surprises here. The addition of voice search is a nice bonus for when you’re mobile. As a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed, you’ll be able to dictate your questions and Bing will also use Microsoft’s text-to-speech technology to read the answer back to you. We’ll still have to see what Bing sounds like, though. Microsoft gave up on its Cortana voice assistant in recent years (and Bing specifically notes that it is “not an assistant), but there can be little doubt that these large language models make a compelling use case for voice assistants, which have long waited for a killer feature beyond setting timers.
It’s no secret that Microsoft had to curtail Bing’s original functionality quite a bit in recent days as users pushed the system well beyond what the company had tested for. And while I’ve definitely done that, too, I’ve also found the new Bing to be quite useful in my day-to-day interactions with it. It’s still very early days for tools like this and thankfully, Microsoft has shown itself to be quite responsive to its critics — even though I’m saddened that it is now restricting users to only six turns per conversation and 60 queries total per day.
Was there a Twitter exodus or just a Twitter pause? Did it even matter? New data takes 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.
Downloads, of course, are only one window into the overall picture. But it’s a measurement that can be assessed independently, using third-party data, instead of relying on companies to report their own metrics — many of which don’t.
Interest surrounding a group of Twitter alternatives began in late October, when the Tesla and SpaceX exec Elon Musk officially closed on his $44 billion Twitter acquisition. Continual chaos on the microblogging site has been the rule ever since. Amid controversial policy decisions and overnight changes, some subset of the Twitter audience decided to exit to other sites to get their social fix — or at least experiment with different options for a time.
By November, Twitter alternatives like Mastodon as well as established social platforms like Tumblr were seeing rapid and sizeable increases in both downloads and active users, reports found.
Now that the dust has settled — well, Twitter is still chaotic, but we’re used to it now, I suppose –– it’s worth checking back in to see how some of these Twitter alternatives are doing today.
The data, curated for TechCrunch by app intelligence firm data.ai, is not a comprehensive look at the full Twitter alternative app landscape. For obvious reasons, it doesn’t take into account some of the buzzy but yet-to-publicly-launch apps that have raised funding for their Twitter-like experiences, such as Post, T2 and Spill. For the same reason, it does not include Bluesky, the decentralized alternative Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has in the works. A few smaller apps and Trump’s Truth Social are also not included.
However, the firm did take a look at some of the more formidable challengers for Twitter users’ attention, including the Fediverse-connected app from Mastodon and others.
Recently, a Wired report indicated that Mastodon’s growth spurt was over, as active users had declined by over 1 million. They suggested that many Mastodon newcomers decided the app was not a viable Twitter replacement. The platform had grown over two months to 2.5 million monthly active users, up from 380,000, the report noted, but it dropped down to 1.4 million active users in January. However, as Techdirt’s Mike Masnick pointed out, the Fediverse as a whole — that is, the group of interconnected servers where Mastodon along with other apps reside — had grown from 600,000 active users in the pre-Musk era to now around 2.6 million. Hardly a slump, he said.
Data.ai’s analysis of worldwide app installs across iOS and Android also indicates Mastodon’s app is still growing, though to a lesser degree.
Its installs are 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. Sure, it’s not enough to topple Twitter by any means, but it’s not yet in decline. (Of course, we understand that app downloads don’t equate to active users, as Mastodon’s first-party data shows. Downloads are only a signal of user interest, but many apps never make it beyond the first launch, if they are opened at all.)
Mastodon’s mobile traction is more complicated as there’s a wide and growing ecosystem of third-party clients for users to try, in addition to the web. One popular alternative to Mastodon’s official app is Ivory, the newly launched client from Tapbots, whose Twitter app Tweetbot was killed by Musk’s Twitter API changes. Ivory is only a few weeks old, so it’s not a fit for this analysis, but it could have siphoned off some of Mastodon’s downloads for a brief period during its launch.
While Mastodon continues to hang in there, other Twitter alternatives have seen their download growth stall or slow.
Reddit and two more politicized alternatives, Tribel and GETTR, have seen download growth decline since September 2022. Reddit’s downloads dropped by 20,000 since September, while left-wing Tribel and right-wing GETTR’s downloads declined by 36,900 and 42,000, respectively.
To be fair, Reddit is still a massive app, adding a whopping 4.2 million new installs in January, down from the 4.7 million it had during November’s peak. For this reason, it’s not clear that Twitter’s chaos had much impact on its growth or decline, beyond perhaps a slight uptick in installs as people decided to spend their free time elsewhere for a bit.
Tribel and GETTR, meanwhile, are not faring as well. The former saw only 1,100 total new installs in January, while the latter saw 48,000.
That 48,000 is far more than Hive, another Twitter alternative that quickly gained traction after Musk’s Twitter takeover.
The social app is more of a cross between Myspace, Twitter and Instagram, and appealed to a young audience. Hive soon found itself in the top 20 on the U.S. App Store in November after seeing a million signups, it claimed at the time. But Hive later had to shut down for an extended period to rewrite its software in the wake of serious privacy and security concerns.
Data.ai’s figures seem to support Hive’s claims of a November boost, however, as it saw 1.1 million new installs that month, up from just 300 (!!) the month before. Hive is still growing, though only slightly. It had 10,700 more installs in January than it did in September 2022 — but that’s only because it had just 300 installs that month (as it did in October).
Two other apps that many believed would benefit from Twitter’s upheaval were Tumblr and Discord.
As it turns out, Twitter’s changes didn’t seem to play a role in the latter’s growth or decline. In fact, Discord installs dropped from 8.3 million in October 2022 to 8.0 million in November, even as the other apps were booming. It then grew installs again to 8.5 million in December and to 9.7 million last month. Similar to Reddit, this movement doesn’t seem to reflect either a bump from a Twitter exodus or a drop from newcomers who later abandoned the service. Discord is fine on its own.
Tumblr’s figures are more interesting, though. The company itself reported having gained some traction from the Twitter exodus. Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg — whose company acquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019 — told The Atlantic that Tumblr’s iOS downloads were up 62% the week after Musk took over Twitter.
Looking at iOS and Android data combined, as data.ai’s figures do, there’s definitely a November bump to be seen. Tumblr gained 880,000 new downloads in November, up from 450,000 and 500,000 in September and October, respectively. That trend has normalized since, though Tumblr is still slightly higher than the prior baseline, with 510,000 December installs and 480,000 in January. The company also made waves in November, when Mullenweg announced Tumblr would soon add support for ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol powering the Fediverse.
Finally, as for Twitter…have you heard the expression “any press is good press?”
It seems Twitter has benefited from the increased attention — or the rubbernecking, perhaps.
Worldwide mobile app installs are up by 3.7 million in January compared with September 2022. Notably, Twitter installs didn’t decline in November. Instead, it gained new downloads even as some of its users seemingly left for other apps. In other words, any Twitter exodus may have been offset by new Twitter arrivals. Active user data would tell a better story here, but Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company and it’s not clear that Musk is analyzing user data as Twitter had before, which would allow for a direct comparison. But his claims of a burst of November signups could be directionally true, as the month saw higher app installs than October.
Data.ai found that Twitter 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, it again jumped back to 18.6 million installs. That means it has the same 24.8% download growth rate it had in November.
The broader set of Twitter alternatives, meanwhile, grew downloads by 35.6% in November and this dropped to 8.1% in January.
As it turns out, there’s no real winner yet in terms of Twitter alternatives.
Larger apps like Reddit, Discord and Tumblr continue to have sizable user bases and will continue to grow, but they haven’t exactly picked off a chunk of Twitter’s user base for themselves. Smaller apps have either floundered or returned to normal.
If anything, the biggest boost to the wider ecosystem hinges on new user awareness of the Fediverse and Mastodon, even if the app hasn’t transformed into a dominant force. 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.
It would appear that OpenAI’s Chat GPT allying with Bing will not going to be the only threat to Google’s search business model in the future. With its release of WhatsApp Business app (WAB), Meta are effectively building a sort of rival search engine to Google to keep us all inside the app. While this may not trouble US businesses too much – where iMessage retains the lion-share of messaging habits – in Europe and large swathes of the ‘rest of the world’ WhatsApp has supplanted many other kinds of messaging because of its efficient use of data over even the thinnest of mobile networks.
For instance, the UK has the third most WhatsApp users in Europe with 40.41 million, and it’s the most used chat app in the UK. Around 75 percent of 16 to 64-year-olds use it.
In November last year, Mark Zuckerberg launched the WhatsApp Business Directory feature. This laid out its future, with In-App Purchases and WhatsApp Business Pages. These are, to all intents and purposes, mini websites, after a fashion. That spells a problem for Google.
So what are the implications? Put simply, if businesses increasingly find they need to also have a “shop window” inside WhatsApp – and assuming they are not so sophisticated as to know how to use the API they will need a new phone number. And it’s fair to say most people prefer messaging to calling when interacting with businesses.
This would then be used to create a unique ID for the WhatsApp Business app. At this point, many small businesses often face a dilemma: they realize they require a second number (most of the time on another handset). This means they have to choose a second number via a website, a second number via an app, getting a second number via a mobile telco, or a dual SIM / Esim, which can be expensive and a hassle.
This is when all they really need is that Unique ID enabling them to use WAB on their own phone. Realising all small business wanted was to address this pain point, this is what UK startup YourBusinessNumber set out to do in 2021.
It’s developed it own unique – it claims – internal tools to make sure that UID is verified by WhatsApp Business and that the connection is made between a small business owner’s personal number and its new WAB number (the cost is a low £4.99 per month). In this way, the small business person can still run their business from their own phone, without having to give out their personal number.
YourBusinessNumber strips out data, minutes, texts and use of apps or VOIP, offering just the UID. It does this by accessing the cheapest mobile/cell numbers available in each market with the thinnest of telco offerings. It also breaks the connection to WhatsApp if the business lapses in payment or breaks WhatsApp’s terms and conditions, thereby slowing down spammers and non-payers. It’s now launched a Google Play Store App to facilitate the service.
While networks might charge £25-100 per month for traditional commercial contracts, YourBusinessNumber’s far lower fees would appear to give it a competitive advantage.
The platform allows businesses to receive OTP / SMS and Calls as well offering a Team solution so that employees can also attend to WAB messages without needing to reveal their phone number. Growing areas for YBN include Estate Agents, Recruitment and Hospitality industries.
Co-founder George Linbeker said on a statement: “We are the fastest, easiest, priced solution in the market – growing at 30% MoM. We are live in the UK and USA and have big global plans to solve this problem for others.”
Founders Lineker and Sebastian Lewis have so far raised seed funding for the startup which is now selling into 50+ countries including the US, and is planning to move into Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Germany. The startup launched in June 2021, recently raising £450,000, taking its total raise to almost a £1m. Seed investors include Edward Woodward (Ex Man UTD) and England football legend Gary Lineker (father of George).
Over a call, Lewis told me: “We spent a lot of time and money developing an internal system that checks whether the customer is verified. That’s our unique IP, and we are banking on the fact that we’re going to get the most people verified on WhatsApp business, versus somebody just going out in the street buying a phone number and trying to do it on their own.”
Given that YourBusinessNumber has little to stop its growth, it’s yet another indication that WhatsApp is posied to create a plethora of other services (when will a ChatGPT-like service turn up I wonder?) that is leaving Google with yet another potentially large headache.
As Meta gears up for its “year of efficiency,” the company announced today it’s exiting the livestream shopping business on Instagram, following a similar shutdown on Facebook. Starting on March 16, 2023, 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.
The changes highlight the difficulties the U.S. market has had in making livestream shopping successful.
The activity is already hugely popular activity in Asian markets, including China where apps like WeChat, Taobao Live and Douyin (China’s TikTok) have proven live shopping to be a popular and profitable endeavor. As the pandemic raged across the globe, many U.S. businesses looked to adopt live shopping as well, to help boost their own online retail revenues. Before too long, pundits were calling live shopping the “future of e-commerce,” citing the early traction businesses like TalkShopLive, NTWRK, Brandlive, and others in the space had gained, alongside adoption from big tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and YouTube.
But the pandemic had clouded the true picture. As consumers stayed home, online retail boomed and e-commerce sales skyrocketed. When the dust settled and things returned to normal, however, analysts found that U.S. consumers had not embraced live shopping. One report noted that social commerce as a whole, which includes livestream shopping, only made up around 5% of total e-commerce sales in the U.S. last year, per Insider Intelligence data.
Soon came the news that TikTok, which had been heralded as a potential live shopping leader, was scaling back its live commerce plans in the U.S. and Europe as many livestream tests produced zero sales. (More recently, it’s been said to be exploring another attempt at live shopping, this time in partnership with TalkShopLive.)
It seems that Western markets’ different cultures and digital habits have made it difficult to replicate China’s live commerce success, just as it’s failed to produce an equivalent “super app” that could compete with WeChat.
Meta claims that even though it’s putting an end to live shopping, it’s still invested in shopping, as 90% of users follow at least one business on the site.
But instead of pushing live commerce, it will now focus on advertising as one of the main ways people discover businesses and shop on Instagram. This includes the use of its automated tools like Shop ads and Advantage+ shopping campaigns aimed at helping improve ad performance, it says. The company will also continue to invest in checkout, where people can buy a product in just a few taps from Instagram and Facebook Stories, Feed, or Reels.
Despite its promises, Instagram recently demonstrated it intends to deprioritize shopping on its app. Last month, it made a fairly significant change to its navigation, which saw it removing the Shop tab entirely and relocating Reels off to the side. The changes were an effort to address growing user criticism over the aggressive Reels push that arose from Instagram’s competition with TikTok. Recently, Instagram head Adam Mosseri admitted the company had pushed too much video and would try to rebalance the number of photos and videos shown. It’s likely that live shopping’s demise is at least partially related to this pullback, as well.
Instagram says creators will still be able to go live on Instagram, however, and will be able to invite guests and host Q&As. Businesses will also still set up and run a shop on Instagram after live shopping’s shutdown.
