Streaming media platform Plex, already an expansive service for personal media, free streaming TV, and new content discovery, is venturing into a new area with today’s launch of a new feature, Discover Together. The friends-focused feature is laying the groundwork to develop Plex as not just a streaming hub, but a streaming community. Initially, this includes the ability to add friends and see what they’re watching, bookmarking and how they’re rating shows and movies.

Over time, Plex plans to leverage community engagement to help power its recommendations and, potentially, allow for streamers to engage in discussions around favorite content. This could help the service better compete with online TV communities like TV Time, which combines a TV show tracker with active discussions around shows, movies, and individual episodes.

At launch, however, the Discover Together feature will remain fairly private. Plex users can fill out their profile on the app with information about their Plex Pass status, location, and more, then add friends individually using their Plex email or username. There is no address book upload or contact matching feature built-in at this time. Users can also choose which parts of their in-app activity they want to make visible to friends. Items including their Watchlist, Watch History and Ratings can each be set to either Private or Friends Only depending on what parts of your Plex usage you want to share.

Even if you set all items to be visible to friends, you can still hide select activities on an individual basis from the Discover section’s Activity feed. Here, you’ll tap on the three-dot menu next to items you’ve watched, watchlisted, or rated to hide them, if you choose. (So, for instance, if you don’t want your friends to know you’ve been binging your way through cheesy reality TV shows, you can remove those from being seen in their feeds, while keeping track of your episode viewing privately.)

Image Credits: Plex

After adding friends on the service, you’ll be able to scroll through the Activity feed to see what shows and movies they’ve been watching, saving and rating. Plex is considering a feature that would display your friends’ ratings on a show or movie’s title page, as well, alongside the Rotton Tomatoes ratings. But for the time being, the app will simply highlight if a friend has engaged with a title in an area below the “Add to Watchlist” button. You can click on that banner to see a curated stream of your friends’ activities with the show or movie in question.

Image Credits: Plex

From the Activity feed, you can communicate privately with friends through an in-app messaging feature available from a chat icon below their posts. This isn’t meant to be a fully-featured messaging client, but rather a way to send a quick text about the movie or show, which they can reply to. You can also share a title and a message directly with a friend or even a group of friends by clicking the Share icon on the title’s page in the app.

Image Credits: Plex

While in the past, Plex has launched its new features to all users in a more public format, it’s rolling out the beta test of Discover Together by announcing it in its forums and allowing users to opt-in. This way, Plex can ramp up the number of users for the feature more slowly, as each new user will need to invite their friends to the service to get started.

The feature is being beta tested on the web, iOS, and Android. It follows a major update to the streaming media platform this April which delivered a number of new additions including a universal watchlist, cross-service search and new discovery features — including the new Discover section where the Discover Together feature is now housed.

Plex believes the long-term potential for its community features will allow it to turn its app into a more social experience and a second-screen companion for TV viewing.

“One of the early goals…is to start sharing and getting recommendations from friends,” explains Plex co-founder and Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski. “That’s how so many recommendations are made and shared in the real world and there’s just no concrete platform for doing that today. Our belief is that it should be integrated into the experience,” he continued.”It should just feel part of the fabric of the ecosystem.”

Snapchat today is rolling out its first set of parental controls, after announcing last October it was developing tools that would allow parents to gain better visibility into how their teens used the social networking app. The update follows the launches of similar parental control features across other apps favored by teens, including Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

To use the new feature, known as Family Center, parents or guardians will need to install the Snapchat app on their own device in order to link their account to their teens through an opt-in invite process.

Once configured, parents will be able to see which accounts the teen is having conversations with on the app over the past seven days, without being able to view the content of those messages. They’ll also be able to view the teen’s friend list and report potential abuse to Snap’s Trust & Safety team for review. These are essentially the same features TechCrunch reported earlier this year were in development.

Parents can access the new controls either from the app’s Profile Settings or by searching for “family center” or related terms from the app’s Search feature.

Snap notes the feature is only available to parents and teens aged 13 through 18 as the app is not meant to be used by younger users. The launch comes on the heels of increased pressure on social networks to better protect their minor users from harm both in the U.S. and abroad. This has led big tech companies to introduce parental controls and other safety features to comply with E.U. laws and expected U.S. regulations.

Other social networks have introduced more expansive parental controls compared with what’s available at launch from Snapchat’s Family Center. For example, TikTok allows parents to set screen time controls, enable a more “restricted mode” for younger users, turn off search, set accounts to private, restrict messaging as well as who can view the teen’s likes and who can comment on their posts, among other things. Instagram also includes support for time limits set by parents alongside its parental controls.

Snap, however, points out that it doesn’t require as many parental controls because of how its app was designed in the first place.

Image Credits: Snap

By default, teens have to be mutual friends to begin communicating — so there’s a reduced risk of them receiving unwanted messages from potential predators. Friend lists are private and teens aren’t allowed to have public profiles. In addition, teenage users only show up as “Suggested Friends” or in search results when they have mutual friends in common with the user on the app, which also limits their exposure.

That said, parents’ concern over Snapchat isn’t limited to fears of unwanted contact between teens and potentially dangerous adults.

At its core, Snapchat’s disappearing messages feature makes it easier for teens to engage in bullying, abuse and other inappropriate behavior, like sexting. As a result, Snap has been the subject of multiple lawsuits from grieving parents whose teens committed suicide. They claim that Snap’s platform helped facilitate online bullying, which has since led the company to revamp its policies and limit access to its developer tools. It also cut off friend-finding apps which had encouraged users to share their personal information with strangers — a common avenue for child predators to reach younger, vulnerable Snapchat users.

Sexting has also been an issue of multiple lawsuits. Most recently, a teenage girl initiated a class-action lawsuit against Snapchat which alleges its designers have done nothing to protect against the sexual exploitation of girls using its service.

Image Credits: Snap

With Snapchat’s new Family Center, the company is giving parents some insight into teens’ use of the app — but not enough to fully prevent abuse or exploitation, as it favors maintaining the teen’s privacy.

For parents, the ability to view a teen’s friends’ list doesn’t necessarily help them understand if those contacts are safe. And parents don’t always know the names of all their teens’ classmates and acquaintances, only those of their closer friends. Snap also doesn’t allow parents to block their teens from sending photos to friends privately, nor has it implemented a feature similar to Apple’s iMessage technology which automatically intervenes to warn parents when sexually explicit images are being sent in chats. (Though it does now tap into CSAI Matching technology to remove known abuse material.)

The Family Center also offers no controls over if and how their teen can engage with the app’s Spotlight feature, a TikTok clone of short videos. Nor can parents control whether or not their teen’s live location can be shared on the in-app Snap Map. And parents can’t control who their teens can add as friends.

The company’s Discover section is ignored by the parental controls, as well.

In a Congressional hearing last year, Snap had been asked to defend why some content in its Discover section was clearly aimed at adults — like invites to sexualized video games, articles about going to bars or those about porn, and other items that seemed out of sync with the app’s age rating of 13+. The new Family Center offers no control over this part of the app, which includes a sizable amount of clickbait content.

We’ve found this section consistently features intentionally shocking photos and medical images  — similar to the low-value clickbait articles and ads you’ll see smattered across the web.

At the time of writing, a quick scroll through Discover uncovered various articles designed to frighten or alarm — at least three articles featured photos of giant spiders. Another was about a parent who murdered her children. One story focused on Japan’s suicide forest and another was about people who died at theme parks. There was also a story of a teacher caught “cheating with” (its words) a 12-year-old student — a truly disgusting way to title a story about child sexual abuse. And there were multiple photos of rare medical conditions that should probably be left to a doctor’s viewing, not shown to younger teens.

Snap says a future update will introduce “content controls” for parents and the ability for teens to notify their parents when they report an account or a piece of content to Snap’s safety team.

“While we closely moderate and curate both our content and entertainment platforms, and don’t allow unvetted content to reach a large audience on Snapchat, we know each family has different views on what content is appropriate for their teens and want to give them the option to make those personal decisions,” a Snap spokesperson said of the upcoming parental control features.

The company added it would continue to add other controls after gaining more feedback from parents and teens.

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.

Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

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.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Top Stories

Mobile users are spending 4-5 hours per day in apps

Image Credits: data.ai

Looks like we’re all still addicted to our apps! A new report this week from data.ai (previously App Annie), found that consumers in more than a dozen worldwide markets are now spending four to five hours per day in apps. While the daily time spent in apps varies by country, there are now 13 markets where users are spending more than four hours per day using apps. These include Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Russia, Turkey, the U.S. and the U.K.

And, in three of those markets — Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil — mobile users are spending more than five hours per day in apps.

While the growth in app usage has slowed a bit from the second quarter in 2020, it’s worth noting that two years ago was the height of COVID lockdowns, which drove app usage to spike across all categories as users worked, shopped, banked, gamed and studied, and attended meetings, school and events from home. If anything, that means the slowdown in growth seen in a couple of the markets is only representative of a normalizing of trends, not a larger decline.

And some markets saw significant growth in app usage over the past two years. In the second quarter of 2020, Singapore users were spending 4.1 hours in apps. Now that’s grown to 5.7 hours. In Australia, users went from 3.6 hours to 4.9 hours from Q2 2020 to Q2 2022. Both represent a 40% rise in time spent.

French iOS developers sue Apple over App Store fees

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Apple is facing another antitrust lawsuit over its App Store fees, this time filed by a group of French iOS app developers who are suing the tech giant in its home state of California. The plaintiffs are accusing Apple of anti-competitive practices in allowing only one App Store for iOS devices, which gives it a monopoly in iOS app distribution and the ability to force developers to pay high commissions on in-app purchases.

The complaint argues that these commissions, on top of Apple’s $99 annual developer program fees, cut into developers’ earnings and stifle innovation — and yet developers aren’t permitted to offer alternative payment methods per Apple’s App Store rules, nor can they distribute their apps to iOS users outside of the App Store, despite Apple allowing this on Mac computers.

The case is now one of several antitrust legal battles Apple is facing, including the high-profile lawsuit with Fortnite maker Epic Games, which is under appeal, and another by alternative app store Cydia.

Developers involved in the class action include Société du Figaro, the developer of the Figaro news app; L’Équipe 24/24, the developer of L’Équipe sports news and streaming app; and le GESTE, a French association comprised of France-based publishers of online content and services, including iOS app developers.

Of note, the case is being led by U.S.-based Hagens Berman law firm, which last year won a $100 million settlement against Apple over App Store policies and recently filed a $1 billion case against Apple over antitrust issues with Apple Pay. The lawyer involved also previously secured a $560 million settlement against Apple regarding e-book price-fixing and a $90 million settlement on behalf of Android developers. In France, Paris-based antitrust lawyer Fayrouze Masmi-Dazi is helping manage the claims.

New data on in-app subscriptions shows the first month is key

Subscription management service RevenueCat took a deep dive into more than 10,000 subscription apps across iOS and Android to see how subscription renewal rates stacked up. It found that monthly subscriptions had a median first renewal rate of 56%, which would increase over time. In other words, customers who didn’t get value from the app would churn in the first month — an indication of how important it is to convince users of that value in their first days using the service. In subsequent months, renewals were higher — 75% or 81% for the second and third months, for instance.

The company analyzed its own customer base data for the analysis, but notes it’s not showing all renewals on RevenueCat, as that would bias the data toward larger customers, like VSCO. Instead, it looked at the median of each individual app’s renewal rates.

In addition, RevenueCat developer advocate David Barnard pointed out that a lower renewal rate may not necessarily be a bad thing, depending on the business. For instance, if the developer was acquiring users organically at a low cost, a lower rate could be better than a higher renewal rate with expensive customer acquisition costs.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple is expanding its App Store ads. The company previously offered two ad slots, on the main Search tab and in the Search results. The new ad slots will be available on the App Store’s Today tab and at the bottom of individual app pages in the “You Might Also Like” section.
• Bloomberg reported that iPadOS 16 will be delayed about a month as Apple works on its multitasking features. The report says this would put the release in October, alongside macOS Ventura.
• A new report indicates iOS has lost 4% of ad spend market share since the launch of ATT, which makes targeting advertising more difficult for iOS developers. Its share dropped from 34% in April, down 4% YoY according to Adjust.
• Digiday reports Apple may be building its own demand-side platform, based on a job posting looking for a senior manager for a DSP in its ads platform business. Apple’s DSP may be focused on serving ads on its own properties, like the App Store, but the company declined to confirm details.

Platforms: Google

• Google revealed the finalists for the Indie Games Festival, which highlights some of the best games on Google Play. This year, the company is hosting the Festival in South Korea, Japan and Europe for local developers on September 3. At the European finals, Google will also reveal the 2022 class joining the Indie Games Accelerator, a program that provides indie game devs with training and mentorship.
• Google offered a guide to Android developers as to how to support predictive back gestures, as it’s making an early version of the UI available for testing with Android 13, Beta 4.

E-commerce

• Facebook’s live shopping feature is shutting down on October 1 to shift the company’s focus to Reels. After this date, users will no longer be able to host new or scheduled live shopping events, but they’ll still be able to use Facebook Live for other live events — but won’t be able to create product playlists or tag products in those streams.

Fintech

• Coinbase partnered with BlackRock, which oversees $10 trillion in assets, to provide its institutional clients with access to cryptocurrency.
• Starbucks Rewards, the coffee company’s loyalty program that doles out perks for customers’ purchases, will expand to include NFT rewards as part of a broader web3 push. The company said it’s being advised by Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay architect Adam Brotman on the effort, where NFT rewards will translate into exclusive content and “one-of-a-kind” experiences.
• The SEC is probing trading app Robinhood’s compliance with short selling rules. The SEC has been investigating since October 2021 and requested additional info from the company in Q2 2022. Robinhood also announced headcount reductions of 23% after posting a $295 million quarterly loss. In addition, New York’s State Dept. of Financial Services fined Robinhood’s crypto unit $30 million for violating anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.
• An exploit in the Slope mobile wallet was possibly to blame for a major network attack that saw thousands of wallets drained of millions of dollars.
• iOS 16 beta 4 added support for Apple Pay in non-Safari browser apps including Chrome, Firefox and Edge, likely in response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

Social

Image Credits: Instagram

• Instagram expanded support for NFTs to more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas after first launching a test of the new feature in May. Users will be able to connect their digital wallet, and share NFTs to the Feed, Stories or in messages. They can also automatically tag creators and collectors for attribution. The feature relies on Coinbase Wallet and Dapper integrations and the Flow blockchain.
• Instagram head Adam Mosseri is temporarily moving to London to work from Meta’s King Cross offices as the company rethinks how to shape its plan to take on TikTok with Reels.
• TikTok is on track to overtake Facebook in influencer marketing spend in 2022, and will overtake YouTube by 2024, per an analyst report. However, Instagram this year will still capture 3x the influencer marketing dollars as TikTok, or $2.23 billion versus TikTok’s $774.8 million.
• The Washington Post reported video entertainment app Triller failed to make promised payments to a number of Black creators. Triller denied the claims.
• Discord announced it will finally bring its Android app into parity with its iOS counterpart. The new Android app has been rebuilt with React Native, which will allow it to expedite new feature releases and bug fixes.
• Pinterest missed on earnings and delivered zero user growth in its most recent quarter — it’s stuck at 433 million MAUs. The company cited a combination of factors for its issues, including the lingering impacts of the pandemic, reduced traffic from search engines, the rise of TikTok and — like many companies reliant on digital advertising, the broader economic environment. Still, the stock popped on the news (up 20% after hours) as revenue was close to expectations ($664.9 million) and the company was praised by new investor Elliott Investment Management.
• Pinterest also began testing a new app, Shuffles, for collage-making and leaderboards. But the app, which includes image cut-out features and animation, requires an invite for the time being.
• A top anonymous social app, NGL, which hit the top of the App Store earlier this summer, was forced to adjust its app to stop tricking users into thinking they had received messages from friends, when really a bot was delivering them. Both it and rival Sendit also changed their subscriptions to include more features than just “hints” about who was sending the messages.

Dating

• Match Group said Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg is leaving after less than a year and it’s reorganizing the app’s management team after disappointing earnings. It also said it’s not moving forward with plans for Tinder Coins, its virtual currency, nor its plans for a dating metaverse. The company wanted to characterize this stoppage as merely a pause, but did not offer any sense as to if or when it would revisit these ideas. Instead, the company spoke of plans to introduce shorter-term subscriptions on Tinder while it tries to figure out why it couldn’t convince new people to try dating apps.
• TikTok-style dating app Desti launched to match up users by fav date destinations, initially in its debut market of Austin.

Messaging

• Kakao blamed Google’s new payment policies for a decline in the number of emoji subscription purchases on the messaging app KakaoTalk. The figure dropped by a third over the year, the South Korean app maker said in its quarterly earnings call Thursday.
• Google is merging its Meet and Duo apps. Duo is being rebranded as Meet (the mobile app will be updated with the new branding). This will include features from both of the apps. Meet will be called Google Meet (original) and will be eventually phased out in favor of the new Meet. Not confusing at all!
• Brazilian prosecutors asked WhatsApp to delay the launch of the Communities feature in Brazil until January in order to avoid spreading misinformation about the October election.

Streaming & Entertainment

Image Credits: Spotify

• Spotify updated its app to address a long-standing user complaint with music playback — but it’s asking customers to pay for the fix. The company announced it will introduce a separate Play Button and a Shuffle Button at the top of albums and playlists to make it easier to play the music the way you like. This replaces the combined button available before. However, the new button is only being offered to Spotify Premium subscribers, despite arguably being a UI/UX issue that should be available to all.

• Clubhouse began beta testing a new feature, private communities called Houses, which allow a group of friends to hang out, catch up, hop from room to room and more. The Houses can be kept private and closed or users can each nominate a few friends to join.
• Spotify’s biggest playlist is getting its own video podcast. The company said Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins, the podcast host of “Mogul” and “No Skips,” will host the new “RapCaviar Podcast.” The new video podcast will explore the rap genre and include panels of guests.
• SoundCloud announced it was laying off 20% of its global workforce due to the challenging economic environment. Staff in the U.S. and U.K. will be informed if they’re impacted.
• TikTok has been filing “TikTok Music” trademarks in global markets, suggesting the company is considering a launch of some sort of music streaming service similar to its existing service in select markets known as Resso.

Gaming

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

• A new report indicates most mobile gaming genres saw revenue declines in the U.S. during the first part of the year. According to Sensor Tower, Arcade and Tabletop games were the only categories with revenue growth. Arcade was the fastest growing genre, with player spending up 14.8% year-over-year to approximately $176 million. Top games included Clawee, Gold & Goblins and Idle Mafia. Tabletop grew 1% YoY to $388.8 million. However, in terms of revenue, Puzzle was the largest with $2.3 billion, down 8.8% YoY. It was followed by Casino ($2.2 billion) and Strategy ($2 billion). Gaming downloads also declined 2.5% YoY to 2.4 billion.
• Apple Arcade added a handful of new games to the service, including the popular Jetpack Joyride, as well as Amazing Bomberman, My Talking Tom+ and Love You to Bits+. The company also recently pulled 15 games from the subscription service.
• Blizzard and NetEase scrapped plans for a World of Warcraft mobile game after a disagreement over financial terms for the title, Bloomberg reported. NetEase disbanded a team of more than 100 developers tasked with creating content for the game — only some of whom were given internal transfers.
• Amazon’s cloud gaming service, Luna, which allows users to play on mobile, tablet, PC or Mac, now supports Samsung Gaming Hub on Samsung’s smart TVs and monitors.

Transportation & Travel

• Uber partnered with the Berlin-based travel service Omio in order to test train and bus bookings in its U.K. app. Omio’s inventory includes more than 1,000 transport providers.

Utilities & Productivity

• Google Maps and Search apps now allow merchants to label their businesses as “Asian-owned,” following similar additions that allowed labeling businesses as Black-owned, Latino-owned, veteran-owned, women-owned or LGBTQ+-owned.
• Microsoft launched a new Outlook Lite app for low-powered Android phones aimed at users in emerging markets.

Government & Policy

• The European Commission is investigating Google Play’s policies over possible antitrust issues, according to Politico. Specifically, the investigation is looking into billing terms and developer fees, the report said.

Security & Privacy

• Security researchers found an error in more than 3,200 mobile apps, which would allow them to take full or partial control of Twitter accounts. The names of impacted apps have not yet been disclosed.
• A ruling by European Union’s top court may have major implications for online platforms and apps that use background tracking and profiling to target users with behavioral ads or for personalizing content. It set a precedent that even this inferred data derived from things a company learned about a user could be considered personal data.

Funding and M&A

Dating app Desti raised $1 million in early-stage funding in July at a $5 million valuation. The company also makes a related app for friends, Besti.

Uber to sell stake its 7.8% stake in the food delivery app Zomato for $350 million+ after taking a $707 million loss on the deal in H2 2022.

Locket, a popular app that lets you post photos to your friends’ homescreens, raised $12.5 million in seed funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Sugar Capital, Costanoa Ventures, along with Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.

Downloads

Banish

A new app for iPhone users can help you browse the web without being constantly bothered by pop-up panels that beg you to use the company’s app instead. The app, called Banish, is a Safari extension that helps remove the “open in app” banners from various websites and other popups that block content across a number of sites, like Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Medium, Yelp and some Google sites, to name a few.

While there are a number of similar Safari extensions for blocking cookie banners and ads, the scourge of the “Open in App” banners is often not addressed by existing solutions.

To use Banish, you’ll first install the app to your iPhone, then configure it in the Settings. This involves a few key steps for Banish to function properly. There are two places where Banish needs to be enabled, under Safari Extensions — you need to toggle on the switch next to Banish under “Allow These Content Blockers” and “Allow These Extensions.” Then you need to set the “Allow” permission to “All Websites” below. You can read more about Banish here on TechCrunch or download it from the App Store for $1.99.

A popular anonymous social app that was misleading its users with fake messages has been forced to change. The top-ranked app NGL, which became the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store in June, quietly rolled out an update yesterday that sees it now informing users when they receive messages that aren’t from their friends — as users had been previously led to believe. Before, NGL sent these fake messages as a means of creating engagement, then charged for “hints” about the message’s sender.

The app has also now lowered its subscription pricing, which promises to reveal details about who is behind the anonymous messages.

NGL is one of a handful of anonymous social apps that had recently shifted their attention to Instagram after Snapchat cracked down on apps of this nature using its developer tools, as part of Snap’s broader efforts to reduce harm to minors.

To use NGL, users would tap a button in the app to copy a unique URL they could share with friends and followers across the web.

Image Credits: NGL App Store listing

While Snap could prevent direct integrations with its own developer tools, NGL users could still copy and paste the special link into their Snapchat Stories or wherever they chose — like Twitter or any other app. However, a “Share” button in the app made it easy to post directly to Instagram Stories. Then, when others saw the link on their friend’s Story or post, they could click it to anonymously ask that person a question. These questions would appear as messages in NGL’s in-app “Inbox” for users to read and respond to.

However, NGL had a trick up its sleeves. If users didn’t get any engagement on their shared link, the app itself would generate messages automatically. Users had no real way of knowing that these messages were actually fake questions the app was sending them. But many suspected that was the case as the questions sounded like things their friends wouldn’t ask. (We confirmed the messages were fake by generating an NGL link but not sharing it. We then received messages).

NGL’s app reviews have been filled with complaints that its questions seemed to be coming from bots. What’s worse, the app developer was charging users for “hints” to learn more about who was asking the question. This means users were paying, in some cases, for hints about bots!  This could be considered fraud. (We’d advise impacted users to request refunds from Apple.)

The NGL app got its ideas from rival Sendit, a similar social app that also offers a variety of Snapchat games. In fact, Sendit’s maker is now suing NGL for stealing its ideas — the NGL developer previously worked on Sendit before realizing the potential in simply cloning the idea and raking in the money himself. As it turns out, there is some business to be had here. By July, NGL had topped 15 million downloads and had pulled in  $2.4 million in revenue by selling its subscriptions.

TechCrunch had called out NGL for its misleading tactics and, apparently, someone was listening. (Actually, we do understand there was a discussion between the developer and Apple about this). NGL has not commented.

Yesterday, NGL issued an update that now sees it labeling its fake messages with a tag that reads “sent with from the NGL team.” This is meant to indicate the message is not from a friend but from the app itself. (Arguably, the wording could be clearer. Some users — particularly among its target market of young adults —  could interpret this tag to mean the message is simply being delivered by the app.)

These messages also don’t show a subscription prompt. In addition, the subscription cost was lowered a bit, from $9.99/week to $6.99/week and now includes other features beyond “hints.” For instance, it touts users will get “early access” to exclusive games besides the anonymous Q&A. One of the paid games is already included — an anonymous confessions game.

The app’s rival Sendit’s Q&A feature had worked in much of the same way and it, too, just updated its subscription. Now, instead of just charging for hints, Sendit “Diamond members” can reveal the name and Bitmoji of the sender (in some cases), access exclusive games, unlock a custom icon and remove ads from the experience, the app claims. However, its pricing still remains $9.99 per week.

Though the viral buzz around these apps has since died down a bit, they still remain highly ranked. NGL is the No. 9 app on the U.S. App Store’s Lifestyle charts and Sendit is No. 12 among Social Networking apps.

A new app for iPhone users can help you browse the web without being constantly bothered by pop-up panels that beg you to use the company’s app instead. The app, called Banish, is an Safari extension that helps remove the “open in app” banners from various websites and other popups that block content across a number of sites, like Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Medium, Yelp, and some Google sites, to name a few.

While there are a number of similar Safari extensions for blocking cookie banners and ads, the scourge of the “Open in App” banners is often not addressed by existing solutions. It’s unfortunate that using the mobile web today requires so many interventions, but that’s the state of the things. It’s also possibly a contributing factor as to why people are now spending four to five hours per day in their apps.

Developer Alex Zamoshchin says he was frustrated by the problem, too, as he felt people shouldn’t have to use a company’s app if they don’t want to. Taking inspiration from a similar cookie blocking extension, Hush, he created Banish.

The app was recently featured on Product Hunt and highlighted by the popular Apple blog Daring Fireball.

To use Banish, you’ll first install the app to your iPhone then configure it in the Settings. This involves a few key steps for Banish to function properly. There are two places where Banish needs to be enabled, under Safari Extensions — you need to toggle on the switch next to Banish under “Allow These Content Blockers” and “Allow These Extensions.” Then you need to set the “Allow” permission to “All Websites” below.

Image Credits: Banish

Once enabled, Banish can help you avoid pop-ups in many cases. But the app can’t eliminate all the “open in app” distractions.

For instance, we found clicking Reddit links would sometimes open in Safari and other times open the native app when we tested it. The developer explained the Reddit app doesn’t use consistently use deep links (links that open directly in apps) for all its pages. So while some pages would correctly deep link, others — like Reddit’s Topic pages — would not. We also had to set links to open in Safari by default. The solution was to long-press on the Reddit.com link you want to view, then tap on the option from the menu that appears to open the link in Safari. This will change the default action for Reddit links going forward, Zamoshchin says.

Another issue Banish can’t solve is with those “Open” links that are baked into Safari, like the ones that appear at the top of the page when you visit Instagram.com, for example. That’s a different type of banner than the ones this app was built to address. (If you don’t want to see these, you can uninstall the app from your iPhone.)

There were a few other quirks, as well. LinkedIn, for example, still showed a login box in Safari rather than immediately taking you to the person’s LinkedIn profile, if you were logged out when you visited the site. But that’s just how LinkedIn works. And while Twitter browsing is much easier, its website still includes Login/Signup buttons at the top of the screen and the same sort of baked in “Open” app button that Instagram.com offers at the top of the page. But, again, these are issues that are beyond Banish’s scope.

Still, in other ways, the app proved incredibly useful. For instance, when on Quora, clicking a link to another Quora page would normally pop up a blocker that requires you to log in to continue navigating the website. With Banish, this pop-up was gone and you could use the site normally.

The app is available for download on the App Store for a $1.99 one-time fee. It’s currently the No. 2 app on the Top Paid apps chart in the Utilities section of the App Store.

Starbucks will unveil its web3 initiative, which includes coffee-themed NFTs, at next month’s Investor Day event. The company earlier this year announced its plans to enter the web3 space, noting its NFTs wouldn’t just serve as digital collectibles, but would provide their owners with access to exclusive content and other perks.

At the time, Starbucks was light on details as to what its debut set of NFTs would look like, what specific features they’d provide, or even what blockchain it was building on. It said the plan was likely to be multi-chain or chain-agnostic, hinting at plans that weren’t yet finalized.

Overall, the coffee retailer kept its web3 news fairly high level, explaining simply that it believed digital collectibles could create an accretive business adjust to its stores and that more would be revealed later in 2022.

While some companies jumped on the NFT bandwagon without much thought as to how their investments would fit in with their larger business goals, Starbucks seems to be attempting a different approach. It sees the collectibles as an extension of customer loyalty. In fact, the company even brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special advisor on the project.

Mobile Order & Pay has been one of Starbucks’ biggest successes, in terms of tech innovations. The company was one of the first to introduce the concept of a digital wallet, even before Apple Pay became ubiquitous.. And as broader mobile payment adoption has grown, Starbucks mobile ordering has, too. In the past quarter — Starbucks’ fiscal Q3 — mobile orders, delivery and drive-through combined drove 72% of Starbucks’ U.S. revenue. In addition, the mobile ordering sales mix grew to a record high of 47%, up 13% year-over-year, following Covid-driven changes in consumer behavior, the company said.

Starbucks founder and interim CEO Howard Schultz, who returned to the company in April, teased its forthcoming web3 initiative during this week’s earnings call with investors.

“We have been working on a very exciting new digital initiative that builds on our existing industry-leading digital platform in innovative new ways all centered around coffee and most importantly, loyalty, that we will reveal at Investor Day,” Schultz said.

The company had previously announced its plans to host its 2022 Investor Day in Seattle on September 13, 2022.

Schultz continued, “we believe this new digital web3-enabled initiative will allow us to build on the current Starbucks Rewards engagement model with its powerful spend to earn stars approach while also introducing new methods of emotionally engaging customers, expanding our digital third place community, and offering a broader set of rewards, including one-of-a-kind experiences that you can’t get anywhere else, integrating our digital Starbucks Rewards ecosystem with Starbucks-branded digital collectibles as both a reward and a community building element.

“This will create an entirely new set of digital network effects that will attract new customers and be accretive to existing customers in our core retail stores,” he added.

Though the details aren’t yet fleshed out, the approach here sounds potentially interesting. The company hadn’t before clarified that the NFTs would be tied directly to Starbucks Rewards.

Currently, customers earn Stars with purchases in the app or at Starbucks stores which can then translate into tangible rewards — like free drinks. It appears that the new NFTs will now be incorporated into part of this loyalty program, somehow. If customers were to “earn” the collectibles through everyday purchases, perhaps, that could onboard more people to the web3 ecosystem. This is one of the challenges the space faces today, where purchases of digital art and collectibles often come at high costs and with sizable fees. What’s more, the digital program could give customers a reason to care about NFTs, if the rewards and “one-of-a-kind” experiences end up being something actually worth earning. (Of course, that remains to be seen.)

There is some indication that consumers are interested in easier ways to enter the web3 space, however. For example, the crypto rewards app Sweatcoin has become a breakout hit thanks to how it rewards users with “Sweatcoins” for every 1,000 steps they walk. The app this past quarter was No. 4 by global downloads and No. 6 by monthly active users on data.ai’s list of “Top Breakout Apps” — meaning, those that saw the largest absolute growth in downloads in the quarter. There’s also now a good handful of games offering play-to-earn models, which aim to tie a fun activity like gaming to cryptocurrencies or NFTs. These have seen more mixed success as some gamers are opposed the idea.

During the call, Schultz also stressed the value of catering to the younger consumer. Though his comments were more of a reflection of Gen Z’s demand for Starbucks’ cold drinks and iced shaken espresso — which drove sales in the quarter — a web3-based loyalty program could serve as another way to attract younger consumers to the brand.

“We don’t want to be in a business where our customer base is aging and we have a less relevant situation with younger people,” Schultz said, before touting that the company has “never been, in our history, more relevant than we are today to Gen Z.”

“To me, that cohort is so powerful, and the attachment rate that we have with them and the loyalty is just building,” he added.

Starbucks posted strong earnings in the quarter, beating Wall Street’s expectations despite the economic challenges. The company reported revenue of $8.15 billion versus $8.11 expected, and earnings per share of 84 cents adjusted versus 75 cents expected.

Twitter is developing an updated version of its audio chat rooms product known as Spaces, TechCrunch learned and Twitter confirmed. The company said it’s currently working a new experiment for the Twitter Spaces tab in its app, but declined to discuss the specifics of that change. However, screenshots of one of the earlier versions of this test include what appear to be thematic audio stations as well as a personalized audio digest.

The test shows a revamped look-and-feel for Spaces that organizes the audio rooms into topics, like Music or Sports, for instance. These are represented with colorful cards and imagery from the programs. (Oddly, the images appear to represent traditional podcasts in some cases.) There’s also a feature dubbed “Your daily digest” which includes a selection of programs that can be played with a click of a button. The tab also shows you who’s listening, much as it does now.

The company said an official announcement would be further down the road after concepts are finalized, but didn’t offer a time frame.

Image Credits: Twitter screenshot via Watchful

Twitter also stressed these images — which hail from competitive intelligence firm Watchful — are inaccurate and outdated. We’re told they represent only “an initial version” of the new experience it has in the works. (The company asked us to withhold publication for that reason, but we declined. TechCrunch often covers new products in their early stages — and it’s interesting to see what sort of direction Twitter may be taking with Spaces in the future, even if the final product looks remarkably different when it goes to launch. We think our readers agree.)

Image Credits: Twitter screenshot via Watchful

From our best guesses, the updated version of Spaces appears to be building upon Spaces’ support for Topics, launched last year. This allowed creators to tag their audio programs with up to three topics from a general list. This spring, Twitter also made it easier for users to see more about the Spaces when they tapped into the Space tab by placing a Space bar at the top of the screen that displayed who’s hosting, the Topics, and other information. Now, it could be experimenting with using Topics to better group different Spaces together.

In any event, it’s clear that the company is thinking about how to better introduce Spaces of interest to listeners — and one way to do this could be through a better organizational system and user interface improvements.

Today, the Spaces tab makes discovery difficult as it offers a couple of suggestions at the top, followed by Spaces from people you follow, then other live Spaces that are happening now, and below that, a selection of trending Spaces. The programs themselves often now have long, unwieldy titles as creators stuff searchable keywords, hashtags and Twitter usernames into the show’s name. At any time, the selection of popular and active Spaces is overrun with those focused on investing and crypto, as web3 adopters are highly engaged on Twitter. This also complicates discovery as you have to scroll quite a bit to find the shows outside this genre.

Plus, the layout today only makes sense for people who are regular Spaces users. When more casual users have time to kill, they may want to locate Spaces based on what’s being discussed, rather than their connections to the hosts on the social network or what’s “hot” right now. Having a digest could also make the product more compelling for those who want to keep up with Spaces but don’t have time to continually tune in.

We’ll update if Twitter chooses to share more about the product changes.

Although the mobile app boom driven by pandemic lockdowns has long since passed, consumers’ mobile usage is still growing. According to new data released today by app intelligence firm data.ai (previously App Annie), consumers in over a dozen worldwide markets are now spending four to five hours per day in apps.

While the daily time spent in apps varies by country, there are now 13 markets where users are spending more than 4 hours per day using apps. These include Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Russia, Turkey, the U.S. and the U.K. And, in three of those markets — Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil — mobile users are spending more than 5 hours per day in apps.

Image Credits: data.ai

While the growth in app usage has slowed a bit from the second quarter in 2020, it’s worth noting that two years ago was the height of Covid lockdowns which drove app usage to spike across all categories as users worked, shopped, banked, gamed, as well as studied and attended meetings, school and events from home.

Still, the data suggests the pandemic may have led to longer-lasting impacts on app usage. It seems mobile consumers who adopted new apps and behaviors during the pandemic may have kept at it, despite the so-called “return to normal” in 2022.

Illustrating this point, some markets saw significant gains in app usage over the past two years. In the second quarter of 2020, Singapore users were spending 4.1 hours in apps. Now that’s grown to 5.7 hours, the report says. In Australia, users went from 3.6 hours to 4.9 hours from Q2 2020 to Q2 2022.  Both represent a 40% rise in time spent.

Other markets saw slower growth including Indonesia (+10%), India (+5%), Japan (+5%), Canada (+20%), Russia (+10%), the U.S. (+5%), U.K. (+5%), China (+5%), and Germany (+10%). A few markets saw no growth or a bit of a slowdown, such as Mexico (0%), Turkey and Argentina (both at -5%) — but again, comparisons to peak Covid timeframes indicate that trends are simply normalizing to pre-Covid levels.

The firm’s report also included the top ranked apps and games for the second quarter, which saw Instagram in the top spot worldwide by downloads and TikTok at No. 1 by consumer spend, in terms of non-gaming apps. Facebook was still No. 1 by monthly active users, ahead of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, Amazon, Twitter, Spotify and Netflix.

Image Credits: data.ai

Notable movers in the quarter included Indian e-commerce app Meesho, which jumped to No. 8 by downloads; the multiplayer party knockout game Stumble Guys, which rose 23 places; and hyper casual game Fill The Fridge, which moved up 84 places. Meanwhile, Pokemon Go saw a boost in usage thanks to the new season that launched on June 1 ahead of the Pokemon Go Fest  in early June.

Dating giant Match Group announced a series of changes to Tinder’s management team alongside the announcement of disappointing second quarter earnings on Tuesday. Notably, Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg will be departing the company after less than a year in the top job. Match Group is also killing Tinder’s plans to adopt new technology, like cryptocurrencies and metaverse-based dating.

In a shareholder letter, Match Group CEO Bernard Kim expressed frustration with Tinder’s current performance, noting the popular dating app has not been able to realize its typical monetization success over the past few quarters and is failing to meet the company’s original expectations for revenue growth for the latter half of 2022.

Kim chalked up Tinder’s troubles to “disappointing execution on several optimizations and new product initiatives,” but added that Tinder’s product execution and velocity could still be improved.

Alongside the departure of Nyborg, Tinder will have a re-organized management team that also includes:

• COO Faye Iosotaluno, formerly Match Group’s Chief Strategy Officer, as Tinder’s COO
• CPO Mark van Ryswyk, as Tinder’s Chief Product Officer. Ryswyk is an experienced gaming executive who joined the company in June.
• CMO Melissa Hobley, formerly OKCupid’s CMO, as Tinder’s Chief Marketing Officer
• CTO Tom Jacques, as Tinder’s Chief Technology Officer. An 11-year Match Group veteran, who has been Tinder’s CTO for the last 5 years.
• Advisor Amaranth Thombre. The current CEO of Match Group Americas and 15-year Match Group veteran will advise the Tinder management team on product roadmap and growth.

Kim said he will oversee the team while Tinder searches for a permanent CEO.

Reading between the lines, there was also a hint that the younger generation of users may have lost its appetite for dating apps like Tinder — a culture shift which can’t just be chalked up to lingering pandemic impacts. The letter notes that people have moved past Covid lockdowns and re-entered “a more normal way of life,” but their willingness to try online dating apps for the first time hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Instead, Match Group reports that its highest engagement is now coming from existing users.

As part of its revamp, Tinder’s “dating metaverse” ambitions have been dramatically scaled back. The company had been planning to leverage its Hyperconnect acquisition to create a new form of online dating in a virtual environment, but those ideas are on pause as Match Group now has to address broader issues.

“…Given uncertainty about the ultimate contours of the metaverse and what will or won’t work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, I’ve instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time,” wrote Kim. “We’ll continue to evaluate this space carefully, and we will consider moving forward at the appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed.”

Also on the chopping block was crypto.

“After seeing mixed results from testing Tinder Coins, we’ve decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative so that it can more effectively contribute to Tinder’s revenue,” said Kim. “We also intend to do more thinking about virtual goods to ensure that they can be a real driver for Tinder’s next leg of growth and help us unlock the untapped power users on the platform,” he added.

The company says it’s still planning developing features to make Tinder more appealing to women, including a subscription-based package that will provide “curated recommendations” as well as features designed to get friends involved in introductions. Across other products, it will also look to new features, like live streaming video, to drive adoption.

Overall, Match posted Q2 2022 revenue of $795 million, up 12% year-over-year, but below average Wall St. estimates of $804.22 million. It also posted a loss of $31.86 million, or 11 cents per share, versus 46 cents in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting earnings of 57 cents per share. Match said its operating loss was $10 million, impacted by a $217 million write down of intangibles related to lower financial outlooks for its Azar and Hakuna apps from Hyperconnect.

Estimates for the quarter ahead weren’t good either, with Match Group forecasting flat Q3 growth to $790 million to $800 million in revenue, below estimates of $883 million. Tinder revenue growth is expected to be I the “mid single digits.”

Shares dropped over 20% in after-hours trading on the news.

Instagram may be worried about TikTok’s threat to its business, but in the near-term, it’s still far ahead when it comes to the influencer marketing dollars spent on its platform in the U.S. According to a new analyst report, Instagram is on track to capture nearly 3x the amount of influencer marketing spend compared to TikTok in 2022 — or $2.23 billion spent on Instagram compared with the $774.8 million spent on TikTok.

However, while Instagram is faring well against TikTok on this front, Meta’s other app, Facebook, is not as lucky.

The new data, which hails from analysts at Insider Intelligence (previously eMarketer), indicates that TikTok is now on track to overtake Facebook in terms of influencer marketing spend this year and will overtake the No. 2 platform, YouTube, by 2024.

Currently, YouTube is seeing $948.0 million in influencer marketing dollars spent on its platform in the U.S., ahead of Facebook’s $739.0 million. In addition, TikTok has already overtaken YouTube based on marketer usage for influencer-based marketing, the report notes.

Image Credits: Insider Intelligence

Instagram has been steadily adjusting its algorithm and feed to highlight creator content, recommended posts and advertising, despite complaints from users who want to see more of their friends’ photos and videos. But as Instagram tweaks how content is ranked in its main feed, some creators have worried their reach could be negatively impacted by the constant changes.

Last week, Instagram agreed to roll back some recent updates which saw the app morphing itself into TikTok with a full-screen home feed and increased number of recommended posts, after two of the Kardashians posted a complaint to their Instagram profiles. Of course, mega influencer celebs like the Kardashians could lose out if Instagram shifts its algorithm to feature a greater number of smaller creators.

The report also points out that could be the eventual plan for Instagram, adding that the mix of influencers benefiting from this form of monetization has been shifting over time.

Specifically, Instagram’s feed adjustments would allows smaller “micro” and “nano” influencers, as they’re called, to take a large slice of the pie, it says. Nano-influencers are defined as individuals with 1,000 to 4,999 followers, while micro-influencers are individuals with 5,000 to 19,999 followers. These influencers are already benefitting on TikTok, which has been part of the app’s draw for creators.

The report notes, too, that marketing spend on smaller influencer partnerships has been growing quickly. This year, “nano” influencer spending will rise 220.5%, the analysts predict, while spending on “mega” influencers will grow only 8.0%. (Mega influencers have at least 1 million followers, as the firm defines it.)

Marketers may also prefer working with smaller creators for a variety of reasons, including the fact that their rates are cheaper but their posts may have higher engagement rates.

They may be less likely to have their view counts elevated artificially through the use of fake views or bots, as well.

For what it’s worth, TikTok is often accused of having inflated view counts and is known to have lower limits for what qualifies as a view for marketers’ purposes. It’s said to count a view as soon as the video plays and counts rewatches as views. (Plus, some believe there are questions as to how much TikTok itself could be complicit in inflating views, given its owner ByteDance directly involved itself with making fake accounts in a prior app that was a sort of TikTok precursor.)

“TikTok is surging in popularity for influencer marketing, but it’s still nowhere near Instagram in terms of spending or marketer adoption,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said. “That’s in part due to the higher prices Instagram creators charge for content, but also because of its wide array of content formats, most of which are now shoppable. Still, Instagram is trying to be more like TikTok so that it can attract smaller creators, which TikTok is known for. That’s key for Instagram to retain its lead in the influencer marketing space, especially as many creators on TikTok now boast follower counts that rival or surpass those on Instagram and YouTube.”

In total, the report estimates that 74.5% of U.S. marketers will use influencer marketing in 2022 and influencer marketing spend will rise by 27.8% to $4.99 billion this year.

If Pinterest is a bellwether of consumer spending, things are not looking up just yet. Still, investors in the social network rallied as Q2 revenue came in roughly in line with expectations and user declines were not as horrible as they thought. That’s not to say Pinterest’s earnings were good. Pinterest missed on earnings and delivered zero user growth in its most recent quarter, citing a combination of factors including the lingering impacts from the pandemic, reduced traffic from search engines, the rise of TikTok, and — like many companies reliant on digital advertising — the broader macroeconomic uncertainty which has pulled down other tech stocks including Meta, Twitter and Snap.

Meta last week delivered its first quarterly revenue decline, while Snap missed and declined to forecast its future performance. Twitter, amid a contested acquisition by Elon Musk, has also been fending off an advertiser exit due to the uncertainty over the Musk sale.

Pinterest, meanwhile, posted its own fairly disappointing Q2 results with revenue up 9% year-over-year, reaching $665.9 million, which was below Wall Street estimates of $667 million. Or, as The Wall St. Journal put it, it was the lowest revenue growth in two years. The company also posted a new loss of $43.1 million and earnings of 11 cents adjusted per share, versus the 18 cents expected. More worryingly, it informed investors its third quarter revenue growth would be in the “mid-single digits,” when analysts were predicting 12.7% revenue growth.

Users numbers stayed flat at 433 million monthly actives — the same number it reported in the prior quarter, and down 5% year-over-year. However, this was one of the few bright spots amid otherwise troubling news as analysts had been forecasting a bigger drop to 431 million users.

The stock popped on the news that the loss wasn’t as bad as expected, and because revenue was close to expectations. In after hours trading, the stock was up over 20%, as Pinterest additionally benefited from praise by investor Elliott Management, which recently took a more than 9% stake in the company. (Pinterest confirmed the investment on the earnings call.)

In its letter to shareholders, Pinterest admitted there was “work to be done to grow” users, particularly in its mature markets in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

This was also the first quarterly earnings under new Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, who joined the social image sharing service after leading payments and commerce at Google previously, and before that, serving as COO at PayPal.

Ready spoke to his plans for Pinterest’s future with a sense of both optimism and urgency, calling it a “very unique platform” but one the must be made more attractive to advertisers and content creators alike. His letter suggested, too, the threat from short-form video, like TikTok, which was listed among the competition factors as a headwind.

“It is…clear that the market is evolving rapidly and we must do the same,” wrote Ready.

The company is in a time of transition, not only because of TikTok, but because TikTok represents a broader market shift to video as a lead-in to e-commerce transactions, while Pinterest’s roots were in being an image bookmarking site. Traditional social networks are also giving way to “recommendation media” where creator-filled feeds are driven by algorithms, not posts from friends.

Pinterest has been attempting to navigate this change by courting creators and offering new video creation tools. The company said it expects its operating expenses to grow in the low double digits quarter-over-quarter in Q3 due to a new global brand marketing campaign it intends to launch in mid-September and run through late October. The company said it will continue investments in native content and creator efforts, as well.

More to come…

Spotify is updating its app to address a long-standing user complaint with music playback — but it’s asking customers to pay for the fix. The company announced today it will introduce, at last, a separate Play Button and a Shuffle Button at the top of albums playlists to make it easier to play the music the way you like. This will replace the combined button available before, which had been inconsistent across platforms and frustrating to use. However, streamers may be disappointed to find out that what should be an app update in favor of better usability is oddly being sold to them as a reason to upgrade to Spotify’s paid tier — the company says the new button is only being offered to Spotify Premium subscribers.

This seems a bizarre choice given that customer complaints had correctly identified an issue with the overall design of the Spotify app’s interface and its user experience. As one review posted last year to Spotify’s Community forums had noted, the button offered was even different across Spotify’s apps. On mobile, playlists had the combined Shuffle/Play button, but on the desktop, the button was just a regular Play Button. This was confusing for users who switched between platforms, the post pointed out. The user suggested Spotify simply offer two separate buttons so people could choose how they wanted to stream music, instead of having to tap into Now Playing screen to enable or disable Shuffle mode.

The post received 647 upvotes and pages of comments from others who agreed. It was not the only complaint of this nature on the forum site. Others posted similar requests for separate Play and Shuffle buttons or even different solutions to the same problem. For example, one person asked Spotify to allow users to configure which button appeared in the app to make it a user’s choice.

Spotify has been working on this problem for awhile. It first introduced the Shuffle/Play icon in 2020 to reduce streaming to just a click, it said, and last year made Play Button the default button on all albums for Spotify Premium users (at Adele’s request, as you may recall). With this upgrade, the Play Button will remain the default, and Shuffle will be a separate option across the mobile Spotify experience.

While arguably a minor change to the app — it’s literally just a button — it’s clearly a feature that was in need of a fix in users’ minds not a premium offering. Other major music streaming apps, like Apple Music and Amazon Music, already include separate Play and Shuffle buttons, for instance.

It’s uncommon for app makers to charge for something like a different button, especially when the reason for the change is because users were unhappy with the app’s functionality and design. One somewhat related example could be Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, which allows users to customize the bottom bar of the app with buttons of their choosing. But in that case, the option is more about personal preference and quick access to favorite features — not usability. Even without paying, Twitter’s features are still easy to get to in the main navigation on the left side of the app.

Spotify tells us the idea to charge for the button has to do with how it perceives the benefits associated with a Premium Subscription. At its core, Premium users are paying for the option to listen to any song they want, on-demand. The button is somewhat of an extension of that, as it’s allowing users to choose to listen on-demand in any way they want.