A new startup called Grace is launching to make it easier for parents to monitor and manage their kids’ screen time and app usage on iOS devices. Although Apple offers built-in parental controls, many parents would prefer an app-based solution as opposed to having to dig around in the settings for Apple’s tools. In addition, Grace offers more customization over kids’ screen time schedules. With Apple’s controls, parents can only configure start and stop times for “Downtime,” for instance, as opposed to being able to set other times when app usage should be limited, like school hours, family dinner time, homework time and more.

Grace is also notable for being one of the first to arrive that’s built with Apple’s Screen Time API, introduced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference last year. The new API allows developers to create an interface that works with Apple’s built-in tools in order to expand their functionality.

To use Grace, parents install the app on both their own devices and their kids’ iPhones or iPads. They can then configure a variety of screen time controls remotely in an intuitive interface, including things like daily screen time limits, app time limits, limits on in-app purchases and can block time-wasting apps, among other things. Helpfully, they can also create screen time schedules that better reflect a family’s own rules about how and when kids should be using their devices.

Image Credits: Grace

For example, if you want to block TikTok and Snapchat at bedtime as well as during school hours, there’s no way to do this today using only Apple’s own tools. Instead, Apple’s Screen Time controls let parents set time-based app limits, or “Downtime” — a time when kids can only use parent-approved apps and communicate with those you’ve permitted, like mom or dad, via phone calls and texts. In practice, this translates to parents configuring Downtime to begin at bedtime and extend through the night to limit kids from staying up late on their devices, or they may choose to enable it only during the school day. Either way, this solution is not fully meeting the family’s needs.

Grace, meanwhile, lets parents create all different types of schedules for their children, not just one Downtime schedule. That means parents can limit screen time for different types of apps at various times. At school, kids could be allowed to access educational apps and the web browser but not entertainment apps, social media or games, perhaps. During family dinner, all distractions could be set to off. Parents may also want to configure other screen time schedules related to their own family rules, like bedtime routines, screen-free weekends, vacations or anything else they choose.

Image Credits: Grace

Another benefit to Grace is that it offers enhanced website blocking with built-in filters than automatically block over 50,000 adult, gambling, weapon, alcohol and drug-related websites, and this list is updated regularly. Apple’s own Screen Time tools only focus on blocking adult sites.

Grace also adds quick action buttons that let parents pause restrictions (“Pause”) or block all apps (“Lock phone”), without having to disable the Screen Time settings entirely. Any parent who uses Apple’s Screen Time will understand the benefit here. Often, families are in a position where the usual rules are paused — like when the child is staying up late at a sleepover party, when it’s a school holiday, when they’re home sick or when they’ve earned extra screen time through some sort of allowance system, among other things. But at other times, parents may want to ground a child by limiting access to their device — but don’t actually want to have to take the phone away, since it’s also a way for them to communicate in the event of an emergency. Locking them out of all apps, however, would work to serve as the punishment.

Image Credits: Grace

Grace’s app was created by co-founders, Liana Khanova (Product and Design) and Salavat Khanov (Software Development), who both bring relevant experience to their new project. Khanova previously worked on her startup focused on reducing children’s phone addiction by having them engage with interactive kids’ books that used AR. Khanov had worked on ad blocker and privacy tool 1Blocker. They note that their new app is bootstrapped and fully independent.

The team hopes that Apple will update the API to allow them to be even more competitive with the built-in screen time tools. They said the API today lacks the ability to show users how much time they have left and how much time they’ve used. They’d also love to see an improved app picker available — like the one Apple offers that has a search field. And they would like the API to include the ability to set communication limits, as well, as Apple’s own tools can.

“Despite all of these limitations, I still think this solution is better for parental controls compared to MDM-based apps,” said Khanova as to why Grace is a better option over existing apps that used MDM solutions, an early workaround for lack of API access used by third-party screen time tools. “[MDM apps’] servers might get hacked and sensitive data leaked — like your child’s phone number, visited sites, search requests, installed apps, etc. The attacker could also remotely erase the device,” she said. Plus, “these companies may collect a ton of data and sell it to advertisers,” Khanova warned.

Image Credits: Grace

Screen time management tools for iOS have had a complicated history.

Shortly after the release of iOS 12 in 2018, Apple rolled out its own built-in screen time tracking tools and controls. But the tech giant then began a widespread crackdown on third-party apps that had implemented their own screen time systems, saying these apps had done so in a way that risked user privacy. The earlier apps had come up with creative solutions to solve users’ needs for parental controls — like using VPNs or mobile device management (MDM) technologies — the latter of which had been designed for enterprise use, not consumer-facing apps. MDM-based tools could access a device’s location, control app usage and set various permissions — all of which make sense in terms of locking down employee devices. But Apple argued the same tools were a risk to children’s privacy. While it was correct, it also acted unfairly to immediately block these businesses from continuing to operate the moment it had its own first-party solution available, instead of allowing them to transition to a safer solution, like an API.

Not to mention, Apple had greenlit those same screen time apps and their subsequent updates for years, allowing developers to build businesses that were then destroyed by Apple’s policy changes. Apple CEO Tim Cook was even questioned about this decision during an antitrust Congressional hearing held in July 2020, where the exec again defended the decision as related to consumer privacy.

Apple’s solution was the eventual release of a Screen Time API in 2021 that would allow developers to build on top of Apple’s existing features in a safe, MDM-free way. Arguably, it was the sort of technology that should have been introduced alongside the policy enforcement, instead of years later.

Now that it’s available, however, apps like Grace can come into existence without as much threat of removal.

In addition, at the recent Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, the company introduced a few new Screen Time API features, including the ability to display app and device usage data in a more privacy-preserving way, which Grace says it will use to draw charts and show activity similar to Apple’s own Screen Time system. It’s also now possible to manage screen time and restrictions not only within a parent-child relationship but for yourself — another feature Grace aims to adopt later this fall.

Grace will also later rollout Lock Screen widgets to see how much screen time kids have used, new app shortcuts for quick actions and support for the Mac.

Grace is currently a free download, with advanced features available through a $19.99/year subscription.

Shipping and cargo services is one of the more fragmented and analogue verticals in the world of industry, with hundreds of thousands of businesses involved in a myriad of aspects of a process that is fundamentally physical (not digital) by its nature. Today, a company called PayCargo, which built a platform to bring one key aspect of it — how companies in the business of shipping products and specifically consumer goods pay each other — into the modern and digital age, is announcing $130 million in funding to expand its platform.

The funding, a Series C, is coming from a single investor, Blackstone Growth, and PayCargo — based out of Coral Gables, FL — said that it will be used to expand into more geographies, to build out more products around financial and business data, and potentially also for M&A, since the area of providing services to the shipping industry is as fragmented as the shipping industry itself.

PayCargo is not disclosing its valuation, but notably, the company is an example of one of the kinds of startups that is not finding it challenging to raise money at the moment: it is profitable, and it has been since it was founded in 2009; it is working in an enterprise vertical that still has a long way to go before it’s saturated with competing services filling the same need PayCargo is;  and that enterprise vertical itself represents a massive opportunity with the continued growth and globalization of e-commerce overall.

“Last year we moved over $10 billion in payments, and we are now on pace for $20 billion in 2022,” said Eduardo Del Riego, PayCargo CEO, in an interview.

The company today integrates with around 50 of the larger freight management systems, transportation management systems, ERP and terminal operating systems used by shipping and cargo companies — and again, that there are 50 “larger” platforms in that wider operational software category shows just how fragmented all of this is — and the 40,000+ customers using PayCargo (the list includes Kuehne + Nagel, DHL, DB Schenker, BDP, Seko Logistics, UPS, YUSEN Logistics and vendors like Hapag-Lloyd, MSC, Ocean Network Express, Alliance Ground, Swissport and Air France) can currently source and pay more than 5,000 global logistics providers, with that number continuing to grow.

For some perspective on that number, when we covered a more modest $35 million Series A investment into the company from Insight partners in 2020, it had integrations with 4,000 providers and worked with 12,000 customers. In between then and now it also raised a $125 million Series B in which it noted that potentially there are up to 40,000 providers to tap for integrations in the years ahead. Indeed, Del Riego noted to me that PayCargo’s current size still just represents a tiny fraction — less than 2% — of the overall market.

The core of the PayCargo platform is a set of cloud-based tools for those ordering shipping services by land, sea or air to send payments, and for vendors to receive them, a set of APIs to integrate the tools into a company’s existing FMS and other IT, as well as financing services for those who do not want to pay for the shipments up front.

E-commerce saw a huge windfall of activity during Covid-19 — when consumers who didn’t have a lot of places to go and spend money bought significantly more goods online.

The growth of the freight market may have slowed down since that peak — not just because we as a whole are moving back into the physical world; but arguably other factors around the globe like wars and embargoes are changing how things are moving around — but Del Riego pointed out to me that this hasn’t represented a decline to the company in terms of its own revenues, since its cut is made as a flat fee on each transaction, not the size of the transactions themselves.

As with others building IT services for the freight and shipping industries — they include Zencargo, FreightHub, Sennder, Flexport, and Cargo.com — the opportunity is about building more cloud-based services that work smoothly and securely and with other pieces of the operations puzzle; but in many cases, it’s still just about providing tools to replace paper and fax machines.

And so while that means that a good percentage of PayCargo’s customers have not really internalized or indeed yet doubled down on “digital transformation”, there is an opportunity for the company to become a partner and provider of more data-driven services for its users to fill that gap, too: the company, by the nature of powering transactions between different companies in the ecosystem, becomes a holder of a huge amount of data on how the industry is working: how different products are being shipped, timings and pricing, most active geographies and more. Companies will want to have that information to help shape their own strategies and know how others are performing in the market, but in many cases the kinds of customers PayCargo works with lack the tools to extract, analyse and glean insights from that information themselves.

That too is another reason why Blackstone was interested, and why PayCargo has the opportunity for a bigger fintech play here.

“I think today the opportunity is to provide the data in a digestible and synthesized manner, to take that and productize it for those customers,” said Vini Letteri, senior MD and head of financial services for Blackstone Growth. “Yes in the future, that can also be a handoff of data. But as supply chains get disrupted, there will be more demand for that data, so products to access that will be valuable.”

Though the iPad was a huge hit from the beginning based on its user-friendly interface and single-application focus, it had begun feeling a bit stale for those who hunger for more depth. Long one of the world’s lightest and most powerful medium format computers, the lag between what kind of work it was capable of and what kind of work it actually welcomed had been growing. 

Over the past couple of years Apple’s major iPad updates have been focused on dragging the device out of a long gestational period and into a universe that offered more linguistic similarity with the Mac. The preview we got of iPadOS 16 this past week is no exception. A handful of features like Stage Manager, Desktop Class Apps and enhancements to Continuity are all aimed at continuing iPadOS 15’s work in this regard. 

I had a chance to talk briefly with Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi last week about the new iPadOS features aimed at enhancing multitasking and multi app work. We chatted about the timing, execution and reactions to these announcements. 

Stage Manager is the centerpiece of this year’s enhancements to multitasking on iPad. The feature presents sets of up to 4 apps per group in a system-managed tile formation. The groups are arrayed to the left, allowing you to quickly tap between these workspaces. It’s essentially a much more visible and persistent version of Spaces – the Mac feature that allows for multiple desktops to hover off to the sides of your screen on macOS. If you didn’t even know Spaces existed, you’d be forgiven, because it’s fairly obscure and does not have many, if any, visual cues to anyone who has never visited the Mission Control screen.

“iPad has a unique proposition, a unique set of expectations around interaction and we wanted to build from that place, not just drag things over from, you know, decades past or another system that was built on a different set of foundational principles. And so Stage Manager is, I think, an important step on that evolutionary arc,” says Federighi.

The idea of allowing a single window to take focus on the screen has deep roots at Apple, says Federighi. First was the single application mode in the early days of Mac OS X beta. And years later an internal prototype of an experience that felt like Stage Manager. 

“On the Mac, there are so many different ways to work. Some people use spaces, some people are in and out of Mission Control. Some people are command tab people, some people like to create a mess, some people clean up their messes and some people use minimization. I mean, there’s no wrong answer here, there are a lot of valid ways to work on the Mac.”

This approach to workspace management does appear to be very obviously iPad-centric. But Federighi says that two independent teams at Apple, one working from the iPad side and one working from the macOS side to try to make multiple workspaces more obvious and friendly, arrived at a similar concept and met in the middle. This means, he says, that both perspectives are represented in this approach.

“There were many of us who use the Mac every day who really wanted this kind of focused experience that gave us that balance. So we were on the Mac side, picking this idea up and saying we think that’s in reach, we want to make this happen. And separately on the iPad side we were thinking about [it]. And believe it or not two independent teams who are brainstorming and designing converge on almost the identical idea.”

He acknowledges that there will likely be a group of people that have 40 years of Mac history behind their expectations. That there will be people who will expect the feature to act a certain way and that it’s wildly different. And, by nature, this won’t be a tool immediately used by many Mac loyalists.

“It takes people some time to adapt their muscle memory and their expectations, and then optimize their flow for a new set of tools. I mean, this is for iPad users. And on the Mac, it’s for the subset of users who find they want to work that way.”

“If 20% of the users on the Mac end up saying that this is another great tool in the quiver for them,” Federighi says, ”that’s fantastic.”

Image Credits: Apple

Why now, and why M1?

One constant with every Apple product introduction is the desire for it to have appeared earlier. The word finally has become something of an in-joke semi-troll amongst Apple observers. The truth behind most launches is that these things are often far more complex to pull off than they seem. Especially at the level of quality and usability that will satisfy billions of users. Apple has not always hit the mark on the first try, and the edge cases and therefore the rough ends of the software have increased as they’ve grown to serve more and more uses. But the overall consistency of its software teams is still considered a benchmark for anyone building platform-level software. 

But the timing question is still one worth asking, so I asked. Federighi says that there were a bunch of things Apple had to do in order to line up the necessary rails to get Stage Manager and the other recent enhancements to multitasking for iPad out to users. So, even though it was obvious people were ready for more capability – especially on iPad Pro – some groundwork needed doing. 

Split View, Slide Over and now Stage Manager all required that developers support full app resizing in Apple’s own frameworks. Apple needed to build infrastructure support to mediate multiple apps running at the same time on the screen as well. And there were hardware needs too. 

“Building to to M1 was critical as well,” says Federighi. “From the start, the iPad has always maintained this extremely high standard for responsiveness and interactivity. That directness of interaction in that every app can respond to every touch instantaneously, as if you are touching the real thing underneath the screen. And I think it’s hard sometimes for people to appreciate the technical constraints involved in achieving that. 

“And as you add multiple apps into play, and large amounts of screen real estate, you have to make sure that any one of those apps can respond instantaneously to touch in a way that you don’t have that expectation with a desktop app. Indirect manipulation gives you some slack there, so it’s a different set of constraints.” 

Stage Manager takes advantage of the more powerful GPU, faster I/O in virtual memory, faster storage and more RAM that the M1 chips brought to the table. That all had to come together to keep the experience fluid and this year, they did, says Federighi. 

This builds to some chatter that people have had around why Stage Manager requires Apple’s M1 processor in order to function. I asked for some clarity here given that there were a variety of theories around which components required the new hardware and which were a matter of choice. 

Federighi says that the extremely high bar Apple has for interactive responsiveness was at the core of the issue. On iPad, he notes, there is this tremendously high bar for interactive responsiveness and the experience where every app you can touch needs to be able to respond essentially instantaneously. This meant that, historically, whatever apps were immediately accessible to the user needed to be entirely resident in RAM. Something that has not been true of apps on macOS, which made heavy use of virtual memory.

In order to reach that level of responsiveness, several factors needed to collide. First, a combination of a lot of RAM and “extremely fast IO virtual memory” were needed to host multiple apps in the active bucket.

“It’s only the M1 iPads that combined the high DRAM capacity with very high capacity, high performance NAND that allows our virtual memory swap to be super fast,” Federighi says. “Now that we’re letting you have up to four apps on a panel plus another four – up to eight apps to be instantaneously responsive and have plenty of memory, we just don’t have that ability on the other systems.”

It was not purely the availability of memory that led Apple to limit Stage Manager to M1 iPads though.  

“We also view stage manager as a total experience that involves external display conductivity. And the IO on the M1 supports connectivity that our previous iPads don’t, it can drive 4k, 5k, 6k displays, it can drive them at scaled resolutions. We can’t do that on other iPads.”

Graphics performance, too, was a limiter. 

“We really designed Stage Manager to take full advantage [of the M1]. If you look at the way the apps tilt and shadow and how they animate in and out. To do that at super high frame rates, across very large displays and multiple displays, requires the peak of graphics performance that no one else can deliver. 

“When you put all this together, we can’t deliver the full stage manager experience on any lesser system,” Federighi says. “I mean, we would love to make it available everywhere we can. But this is what it requires. This is the experience we’re going to carry into the future. We didn’t want to constrain our design to something lesser, we’re setting the benchmark for the future.”

Why this way?

Stage Manager is an interesting avatar for the Apple Way (my phrase, , etc) of design. The main tenets, highlighted especially on iPad, focus on providing the user a way to navigate through presence rather than memory. The nature of the information appliance approach is that the iPad should embody the task at hand and minimize distractions. When that rule is broken, the supporting pillars of the philosophy – direct interaction, show not tell and clear navigation breadcrumbs – step in to keep the user from getting lost. 

Though ostensibly a window manager, the approach here is absolutely not a free for all. Apple is making some very specific choices for the user in order to keep things feeling directly actionable. The windows snap to predefined sizes, you cannot ever hide one app by placing another one directly over it. 

“As a user, you appreciate that you’re not constantly accumulating clutter, you’re not cleaning things up, you’re not managing where things are, you just do what you want to do. And it’s there. And it’s, it’s all managed for you,” says Federighi on their approach to Stage Manager’s design. “It’s clean and focused. Traditional windowing environments are the opposite. They are mess making by default, everything you open contributes to clutter. Everything involves you having to kind of manage where things are and how things might cover each other up and so forth. And then you’re responsible for sort of cleaning up after yourself the whole time.”

“But even the way that those things are arranged, we make sure that windows are always accessible and not covering each other up. So you don’t have to manage it. And then when you move on to the next app, though, you’re back to a clean, single window experience. And we’re keeping everything still accessible to you. So you have your recent apps, it’s not out of sight out of mind, they’re there for rapid multitasking. But they’re not in the way and cluttering everything up. 

“This was a design that we feel really preserved the essence of what we love about iPad, while giving you that flexibility and fluidity of the multitasking experience that some people who were wanting to stretch iPad further were really looking for.”

In my early impressions, this approach is really well handled. Though there will be that superset of users who wants infinitely adjustable windows, the ability to allow one window to obscure another and the freedom to be as messy as possible – that’s simply not the iPad base and it shouldn’t be catered to here, in my opinion. 

I think that if Stage Manager continues to get tweaked and polished it could easily replace the relatively obscure Spaces, Mission Control and other multi-app views on iPad. Improvements in how you get one app to snap to full screen and then back would be great, for instance. It needs to be a single tap or pinch gesture, I feel – currently it’s two taps away behind an obscure icon. But snapping to ‘full screen’ to allow the iPad to be the app and then back to facilitate inter-app communication should be part of the main flow, not a side branch.

Still, the feature has an elastic enough framework to take on beefier tasks and more apps held in memory and an immediacy that feels briskly functional and powerful. As someone who has been primarily driving on iPad for years now and has gotten used to swimming against the single-app approach when it came to multi-app workflows, it’s been a really nice surprise.

Building from beta

Federighi says that Apple will continue to work on Stage Manager throughout the summer. Even though the beta versions of Apple’s software get a lot more scrutiny these days, he says, their primary job is still about getting developers to adopt their new SDK and ready their apps. 

After that, they want the foundation of the experience in place so that they can ensure that the feedback they’re getting is actually useful. But they’re still working on the feature and Federighi says that they have a few things “in flight” that they know are refinements or tweaks that they can drop in on subsequent beta releases. 

“We already had a number of them planned as it relates to stage manager both on Mac and iPad,” says Federighi. “And some of the feedback we’ve received are things where we’re like ‘yeah I mean that that’s coming in seed two or seed three!’ We already have those things identified, either that or bugs or just incomplete elements or tweaks to behavior. 

“There hasn’t been anything we’ve seen, that has us thinking like, whoa, that is that is unexpected news. Many of them are either the reaction we expect from people who haven’t sort of adapted to the system or in areas where we have refinements in flight. So yeah, we’re certainly going to continue to do that.”

The UK’s competition watchdog has published its final report on a comprehensive, year-long mobile ecosystem market study — cementing its view that there are substantial concerns about the market power of Apple and Google which require regulatory intervention.

Back in December, its preliminary report on the market study also identified concerns and discussed potential remedies for tackling lock-in and opening up the pair’s “largely self-contained ecosystems”, such as by making it easier for consumers to switch and reducing barriers for app developers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s 356-page final report goes into greater depth and detail on all fronts, analyzing a smorgasbord of competition concerns attached to how Apple and Google operate their respective, dominant mobile ecosystems, iOS and Android — and digging into topics as varied as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature; a Google developer revenue-sharing agreement codenamed ‘Project Hug’; and the merits of developing web apps that features a chat with the maker of popular puzzle game, Wordle, to pull out a few highlights — but with the regulator pointing to the pair’s sustained profitability, and profits it assess as “high in absolute terms”, as an indelible, top-line signal that market distortion is afoot.

In a press release accompanying the report, the CMA sums up its conclusions by asserting that Apple and Google “hold all the cards” in the mobile ecosystems market — and that interventions are needed “to give innovators and competitors a fair chance to compete”.

While there’s likely to be a fair degree of déjà vu for industry watchers — given the CMA’s preliminary report last year also flagged some of the same problems and discussed potential remedies — this time the UK regulator is taking action. Albeit, the processes this will entail are not quick so it could be years before it’s in a position to actually intervene and order changes to how the tech giants operate in relation to concerns its report has identified. But, well, the train is now starting to leave the station at least.

Specifically, the CMA is now proposing to open an in-depth probe with two points of focus: One on Apple and Google’s market power in mobile browsers; and another on Apple’s restrictions on cloud gaming through its App Store. (NB: The regulator has a duty to consult before it opens what’s called a market investigation reference, or MIR, relying on its existing competition powers.)

On mobile browsing, the CMA is concerned about Apple’s ban on non WebKit-based browsers on iOS — which it suspects severely limits rival browsers from being able to differentiate vs Apple’s Safari, as well as suggesting the restriction limits Apple’s incentive to further develop its own browser.

The CMA is further worried about how Apple’s ban on non WebKit-based browsers on iOS limits the capabilities of web apps on its platform — hampering their ability to compete with native apps (which Apple of course monetizes via its App Store fees).

Mobile browser defaults also appear to be in scope of the proposed MIR, with the CMA noting that mobile devices typically have either Google’s Chrome or Apple’s Safari pre-installed and set as default at purchase — “giving them a key advantage over other rival browsers”.

On cloud gaming, the CMA says it wants to look into Apple blocking these services on its App Store and how that might be harming consumers, such as if its action is hampering the sector from growing. It further notes that gaming apps are a key source of revenue for the iPhone maker, suggesting the tech could also pose a threat to Apple’s strong position in app distribution.

Its consultation on the proposed MIR will run until July 22.

In parallel, the regulator is also announcing that it’s taking enforcement action against Google in relation to its app store payment practices — where it says it suspects the adtech giant of anti-competitive practices.

This competition law investigation will focus on Google’s rules governing apps’ access to listing on its Play Store — looking at conditions it sets for how users can make in-app payments for certain digital products. (NB: The CMA has an open investigation into Apple’s App Store, announced in March last year — so this looks like a mirror action to address Google’s practices but one that’s likely to lag the more advanced investigation into Apple’s mobile app store terms.)

According to its report, the CMA has decided to step up a gear now because mobile developers have been complaining to it in the months since its preliminary report also flagged a grab-bag of competition concerns.

But the regulator is also acting now using its existing powers because it’s essentially being forced to as a result of the UK government’s decision to decelerate a planned ex ante reboot of digital competition rules (which the CMA had previously envisaged as the best vehicle to address antitrust concerns linked to Big Tech market power, including in mobile) — hence its report acknowledging (with quasi regret) “we now understand this [legislation to empower the Digital Markets Unit] will not be in the current parliamentary session (ie within the next year)”, adding: “Based on these developments, we now consider it to be the right time to consult on making a market investigation reference [MIR] into mobile browsers and cloud gaming.”

So the bottom line is that the UK’s competition regulator is having to make do with its current (ex post) competition powers to address substantial and sustained antitrust concerns attached to fast-moving digital giants — because the UK government has failed to prioritize the necessary ex ante reforms.

The CMA’s report acknowledges that European Union regulation could, therefore, end up having a first mover impact on strategic digital market power — since the bloc has already agreed its own ex ante competition reform (the Digital Markets Act; DMA), which is likely to come into force early next year.  So, er, so much for Brexit taking back regulatory control then!

“[T]he DMA will be one starting point for Apple and Google when deciding how to address these international competition concerns, many of which are similar to ours,” the CMA writes in a chapter of the report discussing international developments. “As a result, Apple and Google may make changes to the mobile ecosystem that will address some of the current restrictions on effective competition on a global basis, which could resolve the competition concerns that have been raised in a number of jurisdictions, including the UK.”

One slight potential upside of the UK’s legislative delay on digital competition reform is that the CMA has at least used this interim period to undertake detailed scrutiny of the mobile market — the consequences of which are likely to be long and deep, as the regulator suggests its conclusions will feed future interventions by the DMU, aka the dedicated unit established inside the regulator last year to oversee a “pro-competition” regime in digital markets that’s intended to target the most powerful platforms (but sill lacks the necessary legislation).

“We expect the findings of this market study to be an input into any DMU assessment of whether Apple and Google should be designated with SMS in particular activities,” the CMA writes, making a reference to Strategic Market Status; aka the status in the planned reform that would mean they are in-scope of the future ex ante code of conduct (and also able to be subject to so-called ‘pro-competition interventions’ which are set to be tailored per entity, not one-sized fits all). “The study will also inform the appropriate range and design of potential interventions that the DMU could put in place, were it to find either Apple or Google to have SMS.”

“Our expectation based on the findings in this study and the evidence to date, is that Apple and Google would meet the criteria (as currently outlined in the government’s consultation response) to be found to have SMS in respect of the following activities within their ecosystems; mobile operating systems (and for Apple, together with the mobile device on which it is installed, to the extent these are inextricably linked), native app distribution, and mobile browsers and browser engines. As a result, we expect that the interventions which we have considered in this study would generally be in scope of the new regime,” it adds.

The UK regulator will surely be hoping that time spent waiting for the government to empower the DMU can — eventually — turn into future enforcement gains, i.e. once the DMU is on a proper legal footing, and as a result of it undertaking all this comprehensive market analysis in the meanwhile. (The CMA has previously done a deep dive into the digital advertising market — where it also concluded there are major structural problems with Google but, similarly, opted to wait for the government to legislate.)

But there’s no doubt the government’s decision to kick the reform down the road means tech giants like Apple and Google have bought themselves a lot more time to keep extracting UK rents.

Commenting on the mobile market study in a statement, the CMA’s CEO, Andrea Coscelli, said:

“When it comes to how people use mobile phones, Apple and Google hold all the cards. As good as many of their services and products are, their strong grip on mobile ecosystems allows them to shut out competitors, holding back the British tech sector and limiting choice.

“We all rely on browsers to use the internet on our phones, and the engines that make them work have a huge bearing on what we can see and do. Right now, choice in this space is severely limited and that has real impacts – preventing innovation and reducing competition from web apps. We need to give innovative tech firms, many of which are ambitious start-ups, a fair chance to compete.

“We have always been clear that we will maximise the use of our current tools while we await legislation for the new digital regime. Today’s announcements — alongside the eight cases currently open against major players in the tech industry, ranging from tackling fake reviews to addressing problems in online advertising — are proof of that in action.”

Apple and Google were contacted for a response to the CMA’s findings.

Both tech giants sought to play down the idea that their stewardship of their respective mobile ecosystems has any negative impacts for consumers or other businesses.

Here’s Apple’s statement: 

“We believe in thriving and competitive markets where innovation can flourish. Through the Apple ecosystem we have created a safe and trusted experience users love and a great business opportunity for developers. In the UK alone, the iOS app economy supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and makes it possible for developers big and small to reach customers around the world.

“We respectfully disagree with a number of conclusions reached in the report, which discount our investments in innovation, privacy and user performance — all of which contribute to why users love iPhone and iPad and create a level playing field for small developers to compete on a trusted platform. We will continue to engage constructively with the Competition and Markets Authority to explain how our approach promotes competition and choice, while ensuring consumers’ privacy and security are always protected.”

A Google spokesperson also sent us this statement:

“Android phones offer people and businesses more choice than any other mobile platform. Google Play has been the launchpad for millions of apps, helping developers create global businesses that support a quarter of a million jobs in the UK alone. We regularly review how we can best support developers and have reacted quickly to CMA feedback in the past. We will review the report and continue to engage with the CMA.”

For a hint of what (more) may be to come, finally — if/when the DMU finally gets empowered and a new UK competition regime is up and running — Chapter 8 of the CMA’s report discusses a broad range of potential remedies for addressing competition concerns attached to the Apple-Google mobile duopoly, from making switching ecosystems easier for consumers; to lowering barriers for new OSes; to making interventions to aid native app distribution, or at the level of app store commission, or to support competition between app developers.

The report also touches on a number of potential separation remedies — namely data separation; operational separation; and structural separation — but the CMA sounds wary of going that far, without entirely ruling it out. “Given the significant costs, business disruptions, and risks of unintended consequences associated with these forms of intervention, we consider there are alternatives available with the potential to deliver many of the benefits with significantly lower cost and risks,” it writes on that. 

“In particular, we envisage that at this stage the interventions proposed above to level the playing field between Apple’s and Google’s own apps and third parties, would have the potential to deliver many of the benefits with comparably lower costs,” it goes on, before adding: “However, should Apple and Google act against consumers interests by making it unreasonably difficult for competing apps to successfully enter and expand, then separation could be reconsidered as an alternative which directly addresses their incentives to favour their own businesses.”

Returning to the immediately proposed interventions, if the MIR goes ahead as the CMA is proposing, it will have 18 months from the date the reference is made to conclude the investigation of Apple and Google’s market power in mobile browsers and Apple’s approach to cloud gaming — with the possibility of an extension of a further 6 months in exceptional circumstances. So it could be spending two full years digging into this.

The aim of a market investigation is to consider whether there are features of a market that have an adverse effect on competition (aka AEC).

If the CMA finds there is an AEC, it has a range of (existing) powers to impose its own remedies, such as being able to enforce behavioral requirements or even order the sale of parts of a business, as well as being able to make recommendations to other bodies (such as sectoral regulators or the government) for other appropriate interventions to support improving competition.

But, again, such interventions aren’t likely to deliver overnight results as they can also take time to implement, plus there’s the high possibility that enforcement orders would be appealed. So, again, any UK fix for the Apple-Google duopoly won’t be quick. 

A pair of reports published today potentially reveal Apple’s 2023 laptop and iPad lineup. If true, big changes are coming. Literally big: Apple is rumored to be building a 14.1-inch iPad Pro and a 15-inch MacBook Air.

Both reports come from sources with great track records. Ross Young today revealed the 14.1-inch iPad news, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman published a detailed report outline the 15-inch MacBook Air details, along with a potential release schedule for Macs powered by the unannounced M2 Pro and M2 Max chipset.

According to Young, the upcoming giant iPad will sport a MiniLED display powered by Apple’s ProMotion display technology. This claim is inline with a previous report that stated the 14.1-inch iPad Pro would be powered by the M2 chipset, and it would come with 512GB of storage and 16GB of base memory. Likewise, the M2 chip is also coming to the smaller versions of the iPad Pro.

The MacBook Air is rumored to grow in size, too. According to Gurman, Apple is planning on releasing the largest version of the MacBook Air to date as soon as Spring 2023. The company apparently previously shelved an earlier 15-inch version of the MacBook Air to focus on the 13.6-inch announced earlier this week at Apple’s 2022 developer’s conference. Gurman’s report also states Apple is building a new 12-inch laptop, and is targeting a 2023 or early 2024 release. If released, this would be Apple’s smallest laptop since the discontinuing the 12-inch MacBook in 2019.

Predictably, new high-end MacBook Pros are expected to hit the market in late 2022. These notebooks are expected to be powered by upgraded versions of the M2 chipset, likely called the M2 Pro and M2 Max. Since this product line was released revamped, little changes are expected outside of the new processor.

Earlier this week, Apple held its annual developer’s conference, where the company unveiled a host of new products including the M2 chip, a redesigned MacBook Air, and new versions of its desktop and mobile operating systems.

Google today announced a set of new and updated security features for Chrome, almost all of which rely on machine learning (ML) models, as well as a couple of nifty new ML-based features that aim to make browsing the web a bit easier, including a new feature that will suppress notification permission prompts when its algorithm thinks you’re unlikely to accept them.

Starting with the next version of Chrome, Google will introduce a new ML model that will silence many of these notification permission prompts. And the sooner the better. At this point, they have mostly become a nuisance. Even if there are some sites — and those are mostly news sites — that may offer some value in their notifications, I can’t remember the last time I accepted one on purpose. Also, while legitimate sites love to push web notifications to remind readers of their existence, attackers can also use them to send phishing attacks or prompt users to download malware if they get users to give them permission.

“On the one hand, page notifications help deliver updates from sites you care about; on the other hand, notification permission prompts can become a nuisance,” Google admits in its blog post today. The company’s new ML model will now look for prompts that users are likely to ignore and block them automatically. And as a bonus, all of that is happening on your local machine, so none of your browsing data makes it onto Google’s servers.

On the security side, Google today announced that earlier this year, it quietly rolled out an update to the ML model that powers its Safe Browsing service. This new model identifies 2.5x more malicious sites and phishing attacks than the previous model.

Left: What you will see if a phishing attempt is detected – Right: Chrome shows permission requests quietly when the user is unlikely to grant them

As for other new ML-driven features, Chrome is also getting a new language identification model that is better at figuring out what language a given page is in and whether it needs to be translated based on your personal preferences.

Meanwhile, in the near future, Chrome will adjust its toolbar based on your current needs. It’ll learn that you usually share a lot of links in the morning, for example, and highlight the share prompt then, while later in the day, while you are using transit, it’ll show the voice prompt icon because it has learned that you often use this feature then (by the way, did you know that you can long-tap the shortcut in Chrome mobile to manually change it?)

“Our goal is to build a browser that’s genuinely and continuously helpful, and we’re excited about the possibilities that ML provides,” Google explains.

Image Credits: Google

New functionality arriving in iOS 16 will enable apps to trigger real-world actions hands-free. That means users could do things like start playing music just by walking into a room or turning on an e-bike for a workout just by getting on it. Apple told developers today in a session hosted during the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) that these hands-free actions could also be triggered even if the iOS user isn’t actively using the app at the time.

The update, which leverages Apple’s Nearby Interaction framework, could lead to some interesting use cases where the iPhone becomes a way to interact with objects in the real world, if developers and accessory makers choose to adopt the technology.

During the session, Apple explained how apps today can connect to and exchange data with Bluetooth LE accessories even while running in the background. In iOS 16, however, apps will be able to start a Nearby Interaction session with a Bluetooth LE accessory that also supports Ultra Wideband in the background.

Related to this, Apple updated the specification for accessory manufacturers to support these new background sessions.

This paves the way for a future where the line between apps and the physical world blurs, but it remains to be seen if the third-party app and device makers choose to put the functionality to use.

The new feature is part of a broader update to Apple’s Nearby Interaction framework, which was the focus of the developer session.

Introduced at WWDC 2020 with iOS 14, this framework allows third-party app developers to tap into the U1 or Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip on iPhone 11 and later devices, Apple Watch and other third-party accessories. It’s what today powers the Precision Finding capabilities offered by Apple’s AirTag that allows iPhone users to open the “Find My” app to be guided to their AirTag’s precise location using on-screen directional arrows alongside other guidance that lets you know how far away you are from the AirTag or if the AirTag might be located on a different floor.

With iOS 16, third-party developers will be able to build apps that do much of the same thing, thanks to a new capability that will allow them to integrate ARKit — Apple’s augmented reality developer toolkit — with the Nearby Interaction framework.

This will allow developers to tap into the device’s trajectory as computed from ARKit, so their devices can also smartly guide a user to a misplaced item or another object a user may want to interact with, depending on the app’s functionality. By leveraging ARKit, developers will gain more consistent distance and directional information than if they were using Nearby Interaction alone.

The functionality doesn’t have to be only used for AirTag-like accessories manufactured by third parties, however. Apple demoed another use case where a museum could use Ultra Wideband accessories to guide visitors through its exhibits, for example.

In addition, this feature can be used to overlay directional arrows or other AR objects on top of the camera’s view of the real world as it helps to guide users to the Ultra Wideband object or accessory. Continuing the demo, Apple briefly showed how red AR bubbles could appear on the app’s screen on top of the camera view to point the way to go.

Longer term, this functionality lays the groundwork for Apple’s rumored mixed reality smart glasses, where presumably, AR-powered apps would be core to the experience.

The updated functionality is rolling out to beta testers of the iOS 16 software update which will reach the general public later this year.

Hell hath frozen over, apparently. Today, Apple addressed a longtime user complaint about the iPad with news that the device will finally get its own default weather app — some 12 years after the tablet’s debut, if you can believe it. Oddly, Apple had overlooked the addition of this key app, despite acquiring weather app maker Dark Sky in 2020 and revamping the iOS Weather app with the launch of iOS 15. The company even went so far as to roll out a Weather widget for the iPadOS home screen, but instead of launching a native app, it linked users to The Weather Channel’s website.

This was a less-than-ideal experience, as the site (weather.com), is cluttered with ads and is not the sort of clean and easy-to-navigate experience Apple users have come to expect. Apple never explained its thinking here, but the fact that it had launched a Weather widget for iPad without an accompanying app made this whole thing feel increasingly bizarre. Did the IBM-owned The Weather Channel have an undisclosed traffic deal with Apple? Did Apple really think users would rather visit a website than a native app? Was this an antitrust thing? What was going on?!

While there were plenty of quality third-party apps users could rely on for accessing weather information on the iPad, it seemed strange that a flagship Apple device like this wouldn’t have such a basic utility at this point.

But today at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, the company announced that, at last, the iPad would finally get its own Weather app.

“We’re also bringing Weather to the iPad, taking full advantage of the stunning display with beautiful animations like these gently moving clouds, heavy snowfall and driving rain,” noted Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, as he briefly showed off the new native app’s features. The app isn’t all that remarkable, largely just an iPad-optimized version of the native iPhone app. But it will be a welcome addition.

Image Credits: Apple

The update coincides with iOS 16’s new feature that allows users to customize their device’s lock screen with a live weather wallpaper that shows the current conditions as they change throughout the day. Similarly, the iPad app will include these same sorts of animations — clouds, rain, lightning, snow, etc. The native app will also offer tappable weather modules that will allow users to drill into areas like the forecast, temperature, precipitation, UV index, air quality and more. When tapped, a window will pop up and overlay the app’s home screen to show the detailed information, Federighi explained.

In addition, Apple followed the news of the weather app with the long-expected launch of WeatherKit. This developer toolkit makes good on Apple’s plans to allow third-party developers to build apps on top of Apple’s own weather data — an area Apple had signaled its interest in with the Dark Sky acquisition. This was an under-the-radar announcement that has larger ramifications for the app industry, as it sees Apple introducing its own weather-related, revenue-generating service.

As the company transitions developers off the Dark Sky weather service to WeatherKit, it says it will provide up to 500,000 API calls per month as part of its Apple Developer Program membership during the beta period and beyond. After that point, it will begin to charge at the following rates:

• 1 million calls/month: US$49.99
• 2 million calls/month: US$99.99
• 5 million calls/month: US$249.99
• 10 million calls/month: US$499.99
• 20 million calls/month: US$999.99

For comparison, Dark Sky’s API had offered 1,000 API calls for free, then charged $0.0001 for each subsequent call.

Apple says WeatherKit requires iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13, tvOS 16 or watchOS 9 and notes REST APIs can be used for websites and other platforms. The Swift APIs for WeatherKit will require the beta versions of the Apple OS’s and Xcode 14.

The native iPad weather app rolls out with the released of iPadOS 16.

Along with a number of other updates coming in iOS 16, including a revamped lock screen, Apple is rolling out a series of updates to its built-in Mail app. Most notably, it will now allow users to schedule emails to be sent ahead of time, and users will be given a moment to cancel the delivery of an email message before it reaches the recipient in the case they spot that a last-minute change is required or they realize they forgot the attachment.

These features and others rolling out with iOS 16’s Mail app will help to make Apple’s native email app more competitive with rivals like Gmail which have offered these key features for some time.

In addition, Apple will allow users to set reminders and follow-ups for their inbox messages. Instead of simply starring messages to make a list of emails that contain to-do items, Mail app users will be able to use a feature called “Remind Later” to have messages resurfaced at a later time of their choosing. Another feature, Follow Up, will automatically remind users to follow up on emails where they haven’t received a response. These two features are also similar to those offered by a number of other email apps.

Image Credits: Apple

Under the hood, Apple says Mail’s search has been given a big overhaul that will see it delivering more relevant, accurate, and complete results. Users will also be able to see recent emails, contacts, documents, and links as they begin to type into the search field.  Here, they’ll see recent searches and other relevant information in a more visual format with colorful links with previews, document thumbnails, and more. The feature recalls the Siri-powered Spotlight search features elsewhere on iOS devices.

The update to Mail was one of a number of improvements coming iOS 16, alongside updates to other first-party apps like Messages, Health, the Camera, Photos, Wallet, Maps and more.

Apple is updating its set of features aimed at families with the release of iOS 16, due out later this year. The company says it will now make it easier for parents to set up Apple devices with age-appropriate parental controls and features, and it’s updating Screen Time with a handful of improvements, like the ability to respond to requests for additional time from messages, among other things.

The company today already offers parental controls that allow parents to configure what kids can and cannot do on their devices, what content they can view and when they can use their device’s apps and features. With Family Sharing, users can also share their purchases and subscriptions with up to five other family members.

Now, Apple is adding a new feature, Quickstart, that it says will make it easier to set age-appropriate restrictions for apps, movies, books and music along with quick setup option for configuring other important parental controls. The feature, which resembles a setup option available to iPhone users, will let you bring the child’s device near the parent’s device to have the child’s set up with all the parental controls you have already selected and adjusted.

In addition, Apple is making it easier for parents to respond to Screen Time requests from children. Previously, you’d have to navigate to the Settings to approve additional time. With the update, parents can respond directly from Messages, Apple says.

Another new feature is a Family Checklist that will include helpful tips like how to update the child’s settings when they get older, how to turn on location sharing and information about how to share your iCloud Plus subscription with everyone.

Apple is giving the iPhone’s lock screen a big makeover in iOS 16. At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, the company introduced its plans for a more personalized lock screen that users can customize with a built-in editor, widgets, a wallpaper gallery, and colorful themes. It’s also introducing a new feature called Live Activities that will allow developers to build out interactive, live-updating lock screen widgets.

Previously, widgets were available in the “Today View” to the left of the lock screen. With a swipe to the right, iPhone users could keep track of news, weather, calendar appointments, stocks, and more in a customizable view. Now, widgets will be available directly on the lock screen itself.

In the new lock screen, users will be able to update this key iOS real estate via a new editor that, when tapped, takes you into a mode where you can swipe to try out different themes and styles. These styles can automatically change the color, filter, background, and font  — all of which are designed to coordinate with each other. Using this feature, users can try out different typefaces and pick from different colors.

Image Credits: Apple

In addition, users can make their lock screen more helpful by choosing new widgets from an available widget gallery. These features allow users to view information at a glance — like upcoming calendar events, weather, news and more. One option, called Photo Shuffle lets your choose from a set of photos to shuffle throughout the day. Apple offers suggested photos intelligently curated from users’ personal libraries, as well. Another option lets you preview the weather conditions, with a live wallpaper that shows things like lighting or a downpour

Users can configure a number of different lock screens, too, which they can save and then later switch between.

Developers, meanwhile, can build for the lock screen via Widget Kit, which allows them to build customizable, glanceable information for this part of the iOS 16 experience.

With the changes, Apple is also introducing something it’s calling Live Activities, which help you stay on top of things that are happening in real-time, right from the lockscreen. (Developers will be able to access this via the Live Activities API, which is used to create these glanceable experiences.)

Apple suggested how these Live Activities could be used — for example, for staying on top of sports game scores, tracking an Uber ride or workout, and more. One would allow users playing music to access playing controls that could expand to a full-screen view. These would co-exist alongside the other lock screen elements, Apple explained.

In addition, Apple’s new Focus Mode will be updated to be customizable via the lock screen. That is, users can customize a lock screen for a given Focus Mode. That means while at work, you could have widgets focused on things like Stocks or your work Calendar, for instance, while in your personal time you may update the screen with different widgets and family photos, perhaps.

The feature will release with the updated iOS 16 operating system, typically arriving in the fall.

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 industry continues to grow, with 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. App Annie says global spending across iOS and Google Play is up to $135 billion in 2021, and that figure will likely be higher when its annual report, including third-party app stores in China, is released next year. Consumers also downloaded 10 billion more apps this year than in 2020, reaching nearly 140 billion in new installs, it found.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that was up 27% year-over-year.

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

WWDC 2022 Preview

It’s that time again. Google I/O has come and gone, which means it’s now WWDC season. Apple’s big developer conference is back this year as a hybrid event with invites sent to some developers (and press), and a keynote that airs Monday, June 6 at 10 a.m. PT. Amid the possibility of new Macs (or maybe even the rumored AR headset?), app developers are most interested in the coming updates to Apple’s development platforms and what’s ahead for its mobile operating systems, including the big new release of iOS 16.

Thanks to leaks largely from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, iOS 16 — code-named “Sydney” — could be a fairly big upgrade. Rumored changes include an updated lockscreen that features the Today View widgets, perhaps — more real estate for app developers to capture users’ attention — as well as the chance that an iPhone 14/iOS 16 combo will include an always-on display. Other updates could see first-party apps like Messages and Health getting updates, the former with enhancements to its audio features, the leaks claim.

Elsewhere, we’re expecting multitasking improvements for iPadOS, plus updates to macOS, watchOS and tvOS, including other first-party app updates (Settings, Mail, Safari, Podcasts and Notes, potentially), new watch faces and more.

If Apple wanted to surprise us, it could announce the rumored homeOS or its smartglasses, but for the time being, we’re not betting on those releases.

Daily downloads to reach top of the App Store have increased 37% since 2019

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

New analysis indicates it’s gotten harder to get an app to the top of the App Store, in terms of downloads, over the past several years. According to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the number of downloads needed for an app to break into the No. 1 position on Apple’s iPhone App Store in the U.S. has climbed by 37% since 2019. Specifically, it estimates an app now requires approximately 156,000 downloads on a given day to hit the top spot on the U.S. App Store, up from 114,000 daily downloads back in 2019.

Meanwhile, Android apps only need 56,000 daily downloads, down from 83,000 in 2019.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Of course, developers know that downloads alone don’t move an app to the top of the charts. It’s only one of several factors that Apple’s ranking algorithm takes into account for managing its Top Charts. Still, it’s an interesting metric to track as it does matter — and Sensor Tower has done the work to analyze the median needed per marketplace, by categories, and even among select markets. You can read our write-up here.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple updated its Apple Developer App in advance of WWDC. The app will allow developers to browse the WWDC tab to watch the complete schedule of each day’s session videos, as well as access Digital Lounge activities and the Coding and Design Challenges. The app also now supports SharePlay so developers can watch videos together with colleagues or friends.
• Apple also launched a new webpage, Beyond WWDC, devoted to listing a number of other events and gatherings related to WWDC, many of which are sponsored by or led by developer organizations.
• Ahead of next week’s reveal of iOS 16, Apple released the latest iOS 15.6 beta 2, as well as the second developer betas for iPadOS 15.6, tvOS 15.6 and watchOS 8.7. Notably, the update fixed the bug that saw the Apple Music app pushing other apps out of the iPhone’s dock.
• Mixpanel noted that Apple’s iOS 15 is now installed on 85% of active iPhones as we head toward the reveal of iOS 16.
• Apple featured a selection of its WWDC22 Swift Student Challenge Winners, which this year total 350 students from 40 countries and regions. Among the apps that Apple highlighted were Ivy, an app for gardeners; an app that teaches CPR; and an app that lets people try out different pronouns using sample texts.

Platforms: Google

• Google said Android users will soon be able to apply their Play Points to in-app purchases for apps published on Google Play. The points will be available right in the checkout flow.
• Google announced the General Availability (GA) of App Actions using shortcuts.xml, part of the Android shortcuts framework. By using the Shortcuts API, developers can add a layer of voice interaction to their apps, by using the Android tooling, platform and features they already know, Google said.
• Google’s latest Android update included new Gboard stickers, 1,600 Emoji Kitchen combos, new Play Points features and accessibility app improvements. Most notably, the company is bringing custom text stickers to all Android devices, after first launching them on Pixel phones in March.
• A number of South Korean app developers and content providers upped their paid subscription and service fees on Google’s Play marketplace due to the 15-30% commissions now required following Google’s policy changes that force apps to use its first-party billings and payments system. While South Korean law permits app developers to use a third-party payment option, this only reduces Google’s commission by 4% — and that’s not enough, developers believe.
• Google is said to be shutting down Android Auto for phone screens, according to messages users are seeing in the app.

E-commerce

• Amazon added an invite-only ordering option to its website and app designed to limit bots’ ability to score high-demand, low-supply products. The system launches in the U.S. with the PS 5 and Xbox Series X console preorders.
• Kohl’s is the latest retailer to sign on for Apple’s Business Chat, which allows customers to talk to live chat customer service agents through Apple’s Messages app.

Fintech

• SEC filings indicated banking app Varo, the first U.S. neobank to receive a bank charter, had $263 million equity, an $84 million burn rate and 98% of its income came from interchange and fees, according to an analysis by Fintech Business Weekly. The report suggested Varo could be out of money by year-end if it doesn’t cut costs and raise more capital.
• Visa and East Africa’s biggest telecom, Safaricom, the operator of the M-Pesa mobile money product, launched a virtual card that will allow M-Pesa users to make digital payments globally.
• Square said it would roll out support for Apple’s new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature inside its Square Point of Sale app later this year, and it launched an Early Access Program for select merchants.
• Coinbase said it will extend its hiring freeze for “as long as this macro environment requires” and said it would also rescind a number of accepted offers.

Social

Image Credits: Instagram

• Instagram launched AMBER Alerts on its app to tap into its wide user base to help find missing children. The alert will appear if you’re in the designated search area and will include information about the missing child, including an image, description, location of the abduction and other details.
• Twitter is said to be restructuring to focus on user growth and personalization, which is impacting staffing for other features like Spaces, newsletters and Communities, Bloomberg said.
• After 14 years, Meta announced COO Sheryl Sandberg is leaving the company. The resignation follows reports that the exec used Meta’s resources for personal interests, like wedding planning, and used Facebook resources to pressure Daily Mail to kill a story about then-boyfriend Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
• Meta announced a series of updates and new features for its Reels products across both Facebook and Instagram, including a Sound Sync feature on Facebook Reels and support for longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds, instead of 60 seconds. It also rolled out more creative tools, including bringing Instagram’s Story stickers to Reels.

Image Credits: Meta

• Snapchat launched a new “Shared Stories” feature that makes it easier for users to collaborate and share memories. It also partnered with restaurant review website The Infatuation to help users to find local eats on its Snap Map.
• The Uvalde shooter used the Gen Z social app Yubo to meet people who he would then follow on Instagram and with whom he discussed buying a gun in private chats, The Washington Post reported. Yubo additionally announced new age estimating features to separate minors from adults on its app.
• Twitter said it’s shutting down TweetDeck for Mac, the social media dashboard app aimed at power users who want to view multiple columns within a single screen. The app will sunset on July 1 after which users will be directed to the web version, which is being updated.
• TikTok is testing a new feature, “clear mode,” that allows for a distraction-free scrolling experience on the app. The feature is in limited testing with select users and removes all clutter on-screen, like captions and buttons.
• Tumblr rolled out a way to gift ad-free browsing to friends at a rate of $4.99/mo or $39.99/year. It also introduced a way to turn off the ability for users to limit reblogs on their posts.
• Discord said it will give voice channels their own text-based chat rooms where users can share links and other texts without having to channel hop. The feature will roll out across platforms by June 29.
• Social events app IRL is laying off 25% of its team, or around 25 people, citing market dynamics. The cut comes around a year after the startup landed a $170 million SoftBank-led Series C and reached unicorn status.

Messaging & Calling

• Google announced plans to combine its Google Duo and Google Meet calling apps into a single app that uses Duo’s tech as the foundation but leverages the Google Meet branding. The Duo app will gain all of Meet’s features, including scheduled meetings, but users will also be able to use the new app for ad hoc calls. Google had previously sunset Duo’s chat-based sister app Allo ahead of this move.
• The Jonas Brothers-backed startup Scriber forgoes a standalone app to connect fans with exclusive celeb content over SMS updates to their preferred messaging app. The Jonas Brothers charge $4.99/mo for their fan subscription but plan to donate half the earnings to charity.

Streaming & Entertainment

Image Credits: YouTube

• YouTube announced its mobile app can now sync to your TV without using casting, for a “second screen’ experience.” The app will instead ask users if they want to sync to their TV, which will then allow the users to interact with the video, by liking, commenting and supporting the creator, as well as shop the products being featured.
• Google launched the Google TV for iOS app after moving the Movies and TV section from the Play Store to the Google TV app. The new app replaces the Play Movies & TV app for iOS and lets TV viewers use their phone as a remote control.
• A top streaming service in China, iQiyi, majority owned by Baidu, reported its first quarterly profit of $26.7 million in Q1 2022, after spending cuts.
• Apple is now injecting first-party ads for its own radio shows within the premium Apple Music service, to the anger of some users.
• Spotify faced a streaming outage on Monday and Tuesday when podcasts on Spotify-owned Megaphone were unavailable for more than eight hours from Monday night through early Tuesday morning due to an expired SSL certificate.
• Singapore-based TIYA, a Clubhouse-like social audio networking platform, launched a Spotify integration that lets its users listen to music and podcasts with friends. The app is a subsidiary of Chinese app maker LIZHI.
• TikTok is launching a live subscription comedy series in partnership with social media collaboration company Pearpop and creator Jericho Mencke. Episodes of the show, “Finding Jericho,” will air twice a week in June on TikTok LIVE, with eight 30-minute episodes in total. It will cost $4.99 to watch the series.

Gaming

• Google announced the return of the Indie Game Accelerator program for 2022. It said selected game studios from 78 eligible countries will be invited to take part in the 10-week acceleration program starting in September 2022 as the Accelerator Class of 2022. The program includes a series of online classes, talks and game development workshops. Develoeprs also get the chance to meet and connect with others from around the world.
• Epic Games is hosting its first major in-person competitive Fortnite event since the Fortnite World Cup in 2019. The upcoming FNCS Invitational 2022 will take place November 12-13 at the Raleigh Convention Center and will feature a $1 million prize pool.
• Popular iOS mobile games from Ustwo, the developer behind Monument Valley, will come to the PC with a launch on Steam on July 12.

Travel & Transportation

• The world’s second most frequently downloaded ride-hailing app after Uber, inDriver, was profiled by Rest of World this week. The Siberia-based app, which lets drivers haggle over prices, hit unicorn status last year with a valuation of $1.23 billion. It now serves 42 countries worldwide.

News & Reading

• Amazon removed in-app purchases from its Kindle and Amazon Music apps for Android, as well as direct audiobook purchases from its Audible app for Android, following Google Play’s policy change that forces developers to use its own first-party billing and payments service.
• Substack’s latest updates included the ability to embed TikToks into posts, a new reactions section at the bottom of posts, a new profile section that shows your recent likes and several updates to its mobile app. For the latter, readers can now change the font, text size and background color to enhance their reading experience, as well as for better collapsing and threading of comments.

Utilities

• Apple Maps began testing its more-detailed maps in more countries including France, Monaco and New Zealand. Users in these areas spotted updated maps with better renders of 3D objects, like the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral and Mont Saint-Michel in France.

Security & Privacy

• Canada’s privacy regulator found that coffee shop chain Tim Hortons had illegally collected customer location data through its mobile app without adequate user consent. An investigation found the app was tracking customers’ locations even when it was not in use.

Funding and M&A

Indian short video app ShareChat’s parent company Mohalla Tech raised nearly $300 million from Google, Times Group and Temasek Holdings at an approximately $5 billion valuation, according to Reuters sources. Google had previously backed rival short-form video app Josh.

Indonesian delivery app Astro, which offers 15-minute grocery delivery, raised $60 million in a Series B led by Accel, Citius and Tiger Global, bringing its total raise to date to $90 million. The app offers delivery within a range of 2-3 km through a network of dark stores and operates around 50 locations across Greater Jakarta.

LA-based metaverse startup TRIPP raised $11.2 million in a Series A extension led by gaming-focused investment firm BITKRAFT, and acquired world-building platform Eden. TRIPP’s vision for the metaverse includes AR smartglasses, VR headsets as well as smartphone apps, as it expects AR, VR and mobile to ultimately converge.

Latin American local on-demand delivery and transportation super app Yummy raised $47 million in new funding led by Anthos Capital. The app offers delivery of items, ridesharing and grocery delivery in less than 20 minutes, and the purchase of experiences like concerts and sporting events.

Sanlo, a San Francisco-based fintech startup that offers small to medium-sized game and app companies access to tools to manage their finances and capital to fuel their growth, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Konvoy.

Super, an Indonesian social commerce app that focuses on small towns and rural areas, raised $70 million in Series C funding led by NEA, bringing its total funding to $106 million. The startup plans to use its funding to expand into Kalimantan, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluka and Papua over the next few years.

Railway, a startup offering a dashboard for building, deploying and monitoring apps and services, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Redpoint Ventures.

Poparazzi, the anti-Instagram social app that hit the top of the App Store last year, announced its Benchmark-led Series A round, reported last year but not confirmed by the company until now. The company said it raised $15 million in funding, a bit under the $20 million being reported.

Pinterest acquired the AI-powered shopping service for fashion known as The Yes, founded by e-commerce veteran and former Stitch Fix COO Julie Bornstein and technical co-founder, Amit Aggarwal. Deal terms were not disclosed. The service will be used to help Pinterest personalize the shopping experience on its platform.