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

Twitter, Spotify, Meta and Coinbase all bash Apple’s App Store

Elon Musk wasn’t happy with Apple this week. The new Twitter exec claimed Apple threatened to remove the app from the App Store — which was not likely true. Instead of taking on the claims directly and starting a Twitter fight, Apple CEO Tim Cook invited Musk to Apple’s campus, where they took a walk and resolved their differences. Or at least that’s how Musk put it, referring to the potential Twitter ban as a “misunderstanding.”

“Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so,” said Musk regarding Twitter’s potential App Store removal.

That’s not to say Apple wouldn’t ever ban Twitter one day if it found itself so unmoderated that it was allowing unchecked hate speech or stoking violence. It once took action against Parler, and Twitter could see App Store policy enforcement if it devolved as well.

The Musk-Apple drama stirred others to tweet their App Store issues, too.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, for example, tweeted a long thread referencing Spotify’s anti-competitive complaints against the company, pointing also to Musk’s recent tweet railing against the 30% Apple tax.

Another longtime Apple critic, Coinbase, also posted a Twitter thread this week where the company claimed that users could no longer “send NFTs” in Coinbase Wallet on iOS because Apple decided to block the app’s last release until the feature was disabled. “Apple’s claim is that the gas fees required to send NFTs need to be paid through their In-App Purchase system, so that they can collect 30% of the gas fee,” the company’s official Twitter account stated. “For anyone who understands how NFTs and blockchains work, this is clearly not possible,” it said. “Apple’s proprietary In-App Purchase system does not support crypto so we couldn’t comply even if we tried.”

Gas fees are part of making transactions on a blockchain, but not a part that Coinbase profits from. Although some NFT marketplaces allow consumers to purchase NFTs using dollars instead of cryptocurrencies, that’s not the case here. Today, if a Coinbase user is trying to transfer an NFT to another person for free, they’d still have to pay a gas fee to complete the transaction — in cryptocurrency, not U.S. dollars. This fee goes to the blockchain’s validators, not Coinbase. And it fluctuates constantly based on a variety of factors, including how many transactions are taking place on that blockchain at the time.

Still, Apple’s new rules around NFTs require the use of in-app purchases for things like “minting, listing, and transferring,” they say. What’s not clear here is if an App Reviewer made a mistake in trying to apply Apple’s tax on what’s already sort of a tax or if Coinbase was intentionally trying to stoke consumer outrage. If the latter, it may have worked — the tweets made headlines, and prompted Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company is currently suing Apple and Google over monopolistic practices, to chime in.

“If they can lawfully add a 30% Apple Tax to all NFT transactions, then they can lawfully add a 30% Apple Tax to all online banking and stock trading transactions,” Sweeney said.

Apple, in response to the Coinbase situation, said it would continue to work with Coinbase, as it does with all developers, to “explore viable solutions in this evolving space.” Hmm. 

Meanwhile, speaking at The NYT’s Dealbook conference this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had some sharp comments for Apple as well, with regard to its control of the app ecosystem.

“Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control unilaterally what apps get on a device,” Zuckerberg said. “I don’t think that’s a sustainable or good place to be.” The exec also noted that Google at least allowed users to sideload apps, which is what Meta plans to do with its VR ecosystem and AR headsets.

Hive’s security was so bad, it had to shut down 

Image Credits: Vlad Georgescu (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The team at the newly popular Twitter alternative Hive is in over its head. The company this week took the fairly radical step of fully shutting down its servers for a couple of days in response to concerns raised by security researchers who discovered a number of critical vulnerabilities on Hive, several of which they say remain unfixed. The issues they found would allow attackers access to all data, including private posts and messages, shared media and even deleted direct messages, as well as the ability to edit other people’s Hive posts.

The researchers, a part of a German collective called Zerforschung, claimed they confidentially reported the security vulnerabilities to Hive’s team, noting it was initially difficult to reach a point of contact at the company. Several days later, Hive replied, claiming the issues to be fixed, a Zerforschung blog post explains. However, the researchers found this was not the case, so they took their concerns to the public, warning people against using Hive’s app.

Shortly after, Hive announced it was temporarily shutting down its servers to address these problems. It also claimed, across several tweets, that they never told the researchers the issues were “fixed” but that they were “fixing” them, eventually deciding to go offline until problems were addressed.

It’s an unusual way to patch bugs, to say the least, and one that raises questions about the development workflow at the company. Is there not a dev environment where code is fixed, then staged for a release? How bad was the code that it requires a full stop of company operations to rework it?

Hive said the app will come back online after the issues are fixed and hinted it was raising funds that would allow it to implement more protections in the future. The company claims to have 2 million users, but data.ai only sees around 1.7 million total downloads.

Kanye West won’t buy Parler

In October, Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, announced alongside Parler’s owner that he would be purchasing the conservative-leaning social network for an unknown sum. But that deal is now off. The news followed West’s antisemitic statements during an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, where the rapper praised Hitler and Nazis. In a statement, Parler’s owner Parlement Technologies confirmed the two have parted ways, saying the company “has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler.”

“This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community,” the statement read.

Apple & Google pick the Best Apps of the Year, and BeReal scores

Image Credits: Apple

It’s time for the annual app store awards. This year, relative newcomer BeReal — which hasn’t managed to ship a new feature all year — made it to the top of both stores’ “best of 2022” lists. Apple dubbed the photo-based social network its “App of the Year” while Google Play gave it the User’s Choice award. The app is a curious pick for a winner. Though BeReal has clearly gained a following, especially among younger Gen Z users, the company has yet to find a business model. That means Apple and Google make no money off the app’s promotion. Call me cynical, but it’s surprising the app platforms would tout an app that doesn’t directly benefit their bottom line in some way or one that at least makes clever use of some newer technology they’re trying to promote, like AR or GameKit. Instead, BeReal is a fairly basic app — you take photos and post them. They later disappear.

Perhaps Apple wanted to make a point by promoting an app that had no in-app purchases or one that would allow it to remind consumers (and developers!) that the App Store still produces relevant hits.

Other Apple winners included GoodNotes 5 for iPad, MacFamilyTree 10 for Mac, Vix for Apple TV and Gentler Streak for Apple Watch.

Apex Legends Mobile was iPhone game of the year and Google’s best game winner, while Moncage was the winner for iPad.

Google picked  Dream by WOMBO as this year’s Best App in the U.S., and released variations of its top list across its global markets.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple announced it would once again keep its App Store open during the holiday season, though with slower review speeds. Typically, Apple says 90% of apps are reviewed in less than 24 hours, but times may lag during December 23 through December 27. Apple, in the past, would close the App Store to submissions over the holidays, but ended that practice last year.
• Apple is making digital car keys shareable in its iOS 16.1 software. The new functionality will allow iPhone users to share car keys in their Wallet with non-iPhone users, starting with Google Pixel devices, and later expanding to other Android phones. Keys can be shared via email, text message and WhatsApp.
• Apple released iOS 16.1.2, which included various security updates, improved compatibility with wireless carriers and crash detection optimizations for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models.
• Apple introduced a new “Today at Apple” session for kids in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. The session, “Coding Lab for Kids: Code Your First App,” is for kids 10+ and aims to introduce app development concepts.

Platforms: Google

• Google rolled out its latest Android update which introduced features like an accessible reader mode, a new YouTube Search widget, shareable digital car keys, new action tiles for WearOS and other special holiday features, like new designs for photo collages in Google Photos, among other things.
• As part of the update, Google launched a new Reading Mode app that helps people with visual imparities and dyslexia read content on the screen, especially articles.
• Google detailed CameraViewfinder, a new artifact from the Jetpack library that allows developers to quickly implement camera previews with minimal effort. The component “internally uses either a TextureView or SurfaceView to display the camera feed, and applies the required transformations on them to correctly display the viewfinder,” Google says.

E-commerce & Food Delivery

• Temu, a shopping app operated by China’s Pinduoduo, moved into the No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store on November 12, after topping more than 5 million installs in the U.S.
• Food delivery app JOKR confirmed it’s closing down its operations in Santiago, Chile and Medellin, Colombia, which will see it letting go of 22 employees and 19 employees, respectively.
• Livestream shopping startup Firework, which built tech to enable live shopping, laid off 10% of staff just months after its SoftBank-led $150 million Series B.

Augmented Reality

Image Credits: Snapchat

• Snapchat partnered with Disney and rolled out an AR Lens to promote Disney’s release of “Avatar: The Way of Water” which turns the end user into a Na’vi. The film releases in theaters on December 16 in the U.S.
• Epic Games’ RealityScan app, which lets you scan real-world objects and turn them into 3D models for video games or other AR projects, launched to the public on iOS. The app had been a in limited beta release since April.

Fintech

• Venmo added support for in-app charitable donations, allowing users to give to the tens of thousands of certified charities available through the PayPal Giving Fund. The app also revamped its “send money” screen to make it easier to see who you’re sending funds to and the amount.

Social

• Pinterest is shutting down its Creator Rewards program that had allowed creators to earn money by creating content for the social network. The program will end on November 30, 2022, it said.
• TikTok began testing a research API, which provides access to public and anonymized data about the content and activity on its app. Members of TikTok’s Content and Safety Advisory Council will test an early version of the API to offer feedback on its usability.
• Meta rolled out new privacy updates for teens on Facebook and Instagram that will set all new users under the age of 16 (or 18 in some countries) to “private” accounts by default when they sign up. The company will also push teens already signed up on Facebook to choose more private settings in terms of who can see their friends’ list, posts they’re tagged in, who can comment on public posts and more.

Image Credits: Meta

• The Indian social network Koo has been gaining popularity in Brazil but has been struggling with moderation and security issues. In one case, hackers took control of a popular influencer Felipe Neto’s Koo account for a time, warning users about Koo’s lack of security.
• Twitter hired hacker George Hotz, who recently left Comma.ai, the driver assistance system startup he founded. Hotz is “interning” at Twitter, which actually means he’s taking a paid position for 12 weeks to fix issues with Twitter’s search engine which have been left unaddressed for years.
• Twitter also declared “general amnesty” for banned users, and is now working to reinstate 62,000 accounts with 10,000K+ followers. It had earlier allowed Kanye West back on the service after a suspension but had to ban him again for posting antisemitic tweets in violation of its rules. “FAFO,” Elon Musk tweeted, about his decision to ban Ye.
• Twitter said it will start showing users more algorithmic recommendations in the timeline, which it said would help users see more of the best content on the platform — something that could help newcomers get better situated and find interesting people to follow, as Twitter tries to grow.
• Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told employees they have to be in the office 80% of the time, 3-4 days per week, as of February 2023.
• Community reviews app Yelp introduced Spotlight Ads that allow businesses to reach consumers using video through the app’s homescreen.
• Discord opened up paid Server Subscriptions, a feature that began piloting last year, to allow more servers to offer premium memberships in exchange for server-specific perks. Subscriptions range in price from $2.99-$199.99 and subscribers choose their own perks. Discord takes a 10% cut.

Messaging

• WhatsApp launched a company directory on its Business Platform in Brazil, the U.K., Indonesia, Mexico and Columbia after initially testing the feature last year in São Paulo. The service helps users browse and discover local small businesses in their neighborhoods. The company also introduced the ability to find larger businesses from within the app through a Business Search feature.
• WhatsApp also launched a “Message Yourself” feature that allows users to send notes, reminders and shopping lists to themselves in the messaging app.
• Google will begin testing end-to-end encryption for RCS-based group chats on its Messages app. The feature will roll out to select users that are part of the app’s open beta program in the coming weeks.
• Substack’s Chat feature, which allows writers and creators to have discussions in a chat-like environment inside the Substack app, has expanded from iOS to Android.
• In response to a court order in India, Telegram disclosed the names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels that were accused of copyright infringement. Unrelated, the company also said it plans to build a decentralized crypto exchange and noncustodial wallets.
• LinkedIn rolled out a focused inbox and messaging safety tools in order to get a better grip on spam and scammers.

Dating

• Dating app Grindr closed its NYSE debut up 213.84% at $36.50 per share, CNBC reported. The app is trading under the ticker GRND after a SPAC merger to go public.
• Bumble launched a message-before-match feature, “Compliments,” allowing users to send a note to another person before connecting in the app. Tinder offers a similar option through its “Fast Chat” feature.

Streaming & Entertainment

Image Credits: Spotify

• Spotify Wrapped 2022 officially arrived. Though other music services, including Apple Music and YouTube Music, also put together their own year-end retrospectives, Spotify’s personalized and interactive Wrapped experience remains the one to beat. The feature saw 30 million users accessing Wrapped in 2017, which grew to 120 million last year. This year’s big addition was something called “My Listening Personality,” which translates users’ listening behavior into one of the 16 personality types.
• Wattpad Webtoon Studios, the entertainment and publishing arm of the user-gen storytelling apps, announced an expansion of its exec ranks, bringing on Jason Goldberg as Director of Film, North America and Danni Xin as a Television Development Executive. Goldberg previously was VP of Scripted Film & TV at Gunpowder & Sky and Xin worked in original series development at Topic Studios.
• Google announced that Google TV and Android TV will be requiring Android App Bundles that are archivable starting in May 2023. The change is meant to help save storage for users.
• Spotify expanded its new audiobooks service across more English-speaking markets, including he U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Users will have access to over 300,000 titles which have to first be purchased through Spotify’s website instead of in-app as the company is trying to avoid app store fees.
• After the Instafest web app blew up, allowing Spotify users to make festival posters from their listening history, the originator of a similar trend is doing the same. LineupSupply — an app that lets you make playlists from real-world concert posters — added a new Rewind function that creates a poster based on your listening history over a select period of time.
• YouTube experienced an hours-long outage, which saw the iOS app crashing when users tried to watch videos.

Gaming

Image Credits: Netflix

• Netflix launched 9 more mobile games, including Gameloft’s Farmville clone, Country Friends. Others include Reigns Three Kingdoms, a card-swiping strategy game; Skies of Chaos, an arcade-style shoot-em-up game; Flutter Butterflies, a game for butterfly collectors and Cats & Soups, a relaxing cooking game; Hello Kitty Happiness Parade; Immortality; a new Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales; and a TV-only game, Triviaverse.
• In Epic Games’ court case against Google, the Fortnite maker was said to have allegedly paid around $360 million over three years to keep Activision Blizzard from launching its own app store to compete with Google Play.
• Indian social network ShareChat, backed by Twitter, Tiger Global and Temasek, is closing its fantasy sports app Jeet11 and has laid off 5% of staff.
• Norwegian artist Aurora is hosting an in-game concert, but it’s not in Fortnite, Roblox or Minecraft. Rather, the artist’s December 8 performance will be within the popular game Sky: Children of the Light, which has more than 160 million downloads across iOS, Android and Switch.

Government & Policy

• The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog is looking into the iOS-Android mobile duopoly, with a focus on mobile browsers and cloud gaming. The government is concerned the companies are restricting competition and harming consumers.
• The U.K. government also said it’s expanding the scope of online safety legislation by criminalizing the encouragement of self-harm on online platforms following a teen’s suicide. The teen had viewed thousands of pieces of online content about self-harm and suicide on Instagram and Pinterest.

Security & Privacy

• 1Password said passkey support for secure user logins to apps, including iOS and Android apps, will launch in early 2023.
• TikTok and Bumble said they plan to use StopNCII.org’s database of hashtags of nude images and videos in order to block revenge porn on their apps. Meta has been using it since 2021.

Funding and M&A

Mark Cuban-backed streaming app Fireside, which offers podcasters and other creators a way to host interactive, live shows with audience engagement, acquired the open streaming TV platform Stremium. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will allow Fireside’s shows to become available to a range of connected TV devices, including Amazon Fire TV, Roku, smart TVs and others.

Cobee, a Madrid-based app offering employee benefits, raised €40 million in Series B funding, co-led by Octopus Ventures and Notion Capital. The app helps employees browse and activate the benefits their employer offers, including programs for meals, transportation, day care, training, gift cards, rent, life and health insurance and soon, more.

Fizz, a social media app for college students, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by NEA. The app co-founded by Stanford dropouts Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer is now led by seed investor Rakesh Mathur and is now live on 25 college campuses and is only available to college students. Students can publish text posts, polls and photos anonymously — a formula for fast growth that typically comes with serious repercussions at scale.

Daylight, an LGBTQIA+-friendly digital bank, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Anthemis Group. The fintech differentiates itself by offering debit cards with customers’ chosen names, which don’t always match their ID, and it offers 10% cash back when they support queer and allied business partners, in addition to more standard mobile banking features.

Digital photo frame maker Aura raised $26 million in a mix of debt and equity led by Lago Innovation Fund. The company’s app, which now nears 3 million users after selling 1 million photo frames, helps connect family members connect and share their photos across devices.

Feature phone platform startup KaiOS raised $3.4 million in the form of a convertible note from Finnfund, an impact investor out of Finland. The company previously raised $50 million from Cathay Innovation, Google and TCL in 2019. The company says over 170 million KaiOS devices have shipped.

New Delhi-based diabetes management app BeatO raised $33 million in Series B funding led by Lightrock India. Flipkart and others participated in the round. The startup wants to reach over 10 million people by 2025.

Ivory Coast finance app Djamo raised $14 million in funding from YC, alongside three lead investors — Enza Capital, Oikocredit and Partech Africa — for its app providing financial services to the underbanked and unbanked population.

Zoe, the maker of a COVID-reporting app, shifted back to its original mission and raised $30 million in new funding to refocus on nutrition and health.

The Truth Social SPAC was put on hold. Digital World Acquisition Corp. said investors voted to extend the deadline to merge with Truth Social — in a SPAC that would take the company public. The merger has been pushed back to September 2023, as regulators are investigating the deal.

Downloads

Lensa AI

Image Credits: Lensa AI on Instagram (opens in a new window)

An older app called Lensa AI is having a moment. The photo and video editing app first launched in 2018, but a new feature that allows users to create “magic avatars” has driven the app to the No. 1 spot on the App Store’s competitive Photo & Video chart following the feature’s late November launch. Using a selection of 10-20 photos, the app uses Stable Diffusion to generate avatars of you that look like they were created by a digital artist — perfect for sharing across social media. The free version of the app doesn’t include the magic avatars. Instead, users will need to pay either $3.99 for 50 (five variations of 10 styles) or subscribe to the unlimited plan ($39.99/year). You can read more about the feature and how it works here.

Indie App Santa

Image Credits: Indie App Santa

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for free and discounted iPhone apps, that is. Indie App Santa is back! The initiative started to help smaller app developers reach new audiences without having to pay for expensive App Store ads. The event, which began in 2020, is now entering its third year, offering both a Twitter feed of deals as well as an Advent calendar-style app of its own where iPhone users can unlock one premium app either for free or for a sizable discount every day. The deals started December 1, 2022 and will run through January 10, 2023. It’s sort of like a month-long Black Friday event, but only for indie apps. This year, there will be 40 deals, half of which include free apps. Read more about Indie App Santa here.

This Week in Apps: The year’s best apps, Twitter rival Hive’s security woes, App Store backlash grows by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

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

The Apple-Epic antitrust battle resumes

Image Credits: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg / Getty Images

This week, Apple’s antitrust battle against Fortnite maker Epic Games returned to the courtroom after both sides appealed last year’s ruling in a potentially precedent-setting case over Apple’s alleged anti-competitive behavior. Last year, a U.S. District Court judge had largely favored Apple by ruling the tech giant was not acting as a monopolist with regard to its App Store practices. Epic Games was unhappy with that decision, of course, as it had wanted the court to force Apple to support third-party payments and/or third-party app stores which would have allowed Fortnite to maximize its revenues. Meanwhile, Apple didn’t want to agree to the court’s order that said it would have to permit apps that provide links to alternative payments.

Oral arguments kicked off this week at the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit, in what will be an even higher-stakes trial for determining Apple’s future in the app market and its ability to set its own rules around payments and commissions. This time around, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of California were granted time to present their own arguments to help explain the proper legal framework for evaluating the antitrust claims against Apple. Though both were technically being neutral, they expressed concerns over how the lower court had too narrowly interpreted parts of U.S. antitrust law, the Sherman Act, among other issues. The DoJ, notably, is in the early stages of filing its own antitrust suit against Apple, so how the appeals court rules on this matter could ultimately shape its own ability to effectively prosecute Apple further down the road.

In the opening arguments, the lawyer for the DoJ, Nickolai Levin, began by stating the district court erred in saying the Apple Developer Program Licensing Agreement (DPLA) is not concerted action. He explained that Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits contracts that restrain trade, which would include the licensing contract Apple is enforcing here. While the U.S. government wasn’t prepared to call out Apple’s contract as either reasonable or unreasonable, it wanted the court to understand that it was not above Section 1 scrutiny.

One of the judges pushed back against this claim, asking if Epic had actually agreed to Apple’s Developer Program Licensing Agreement with the intention of “going forward to restrain trade?” He suggested Epic signed in order to get into a market, actually. The lawyer responded that’s true, but the terms of the contract are binding, with one party forcing terms on another — so excluding contracts from Section 1 scrutiny would allow anti-competitive terms to go unpunished.

The court also asked for information on how the government believes the pro-competitive and anti-competitive effects should be weighed against one another to make a judgment, as there was no specific formula to make such a calculation. Levin explained that this boiled down to whether or not the effect of the restraint was to suppress or restrict competition, and cited legal precedent to guide the judges’ understanding.

The U.S. government also believed the lower court misapplied the rule of reason and erred in how it analyzed monopoly power. For example, Apple was able to set prices and keep them there regardless of what its competition did. “And, as Microsoft explained, that’s something only a monopolist can do,” Levin noted.

Of course, Apple’s legal team came well-prepared too. And, as one judge discovered, Apple’s lawyer, Mark Perry, who had been a longtime partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, was now at a new firm, Weil. But that didn’t mean Apple had changed firms — it just meant it now had two. Or as Perry put it, “we are one big happy family.”

Perry’s arguments re-iterated points from the lower court’s decision, particularly noting that the iPhone was designed to be more secure than the Mac, which is why there’s no “sideloading,” and instead puts apps through human review. And it’s a requirement that’s hard-coded into the iOS, the lawyer explained. “That’s a technical requirement. Apple then reflected that in the DPLA,” he said.

The lawyer also told the court Apple does allow developers to communicate with their users, and there are “no restrictions on communications.” Expect, of course, the restrictions he mentioned in his very next breath: that “Apple does not allow links and buttons because we can’t review them. We can’t track them. We can’t protect users from malware, fraud, porn, hackers, and all those other things. It would be a breach in the wall, an opening that bad actors could exploit. And it’s not well-thought-out.”

The case will likely continue for six months or more, so don’t expect any near-term resolution. And, if neither party is satisfied, it will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, delaying the decision even longer.

Apple faces a potential class action lawsuit over data collection practices

Image Credits: TechCrunch

While the Epic-Apple antitrust battle is one of the most significant lawsuits facing Apple right now, the company was also sued this week over another matter.

Another lawsuit is taking on Apple’s data collection practices in the wake of a recent report by independent researchers who found Apple was continuing to track consumers in its mobile apps, even when they had explicitly configured their iPhone privacy settings to turn tracking off. The proposed class action lawsuit, filed by plaintiff Elliot Libman on behalf of himself and other impacted consumers, alleges that Apple’s privacy assurances are in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

As reported last week by Gizmodo, app developers and independent researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry discovered that Apple was still collecting data about its users across a number of first-party apps even when users had turned off an iPhone Analytics setting that promises to “disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether.” In their tests, the researchers examined Apple’s own apps including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, and Stocks, and found that disabling this setting as well as other privacy controls didn’t impact Apple’s data collection.

The plaintiff is looking to have the lawsuit certified as a class action and is seeking compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages in addition to other equitable monetary relief.

More on TechCrunch here. 

Google Play revamps policies around kids’ apps

Google Play rolled out a series of changes to its programs and policies around apps designed for children. The company described the update as an expansion of its previously launched “Teacher Approved” program, which includes a review process where teachers and experts vetted apps not just for safety and security elements, but for educational quality and other factors. The newly revamped policies will now impact how apps qualify for this program, which allows apps to gain entry to the Play Store’s “Kids” tab.

Before, Google Play ran two (sometimes overlapping) programs around apps aimed at kids.

App developers were required to participate in Google’s “Designed for Families” program if their app was aimed at children, and could optionally choose to participate in the program if their app targeted both kids and older users. The Designed for Families program included a number of requirements around the app’s content, its functionality, use of ads, data practices, use of warning labels, feature set, underlying technology components, and more. Any apps in this program were also eligible to be rated for the Teacher Approved program, which had stricter guidelines, but entry was not guaranteed.

Now, the additional policy requirements for the Designed for Families program are being rolled into the Play Store’s broader Families Policy. This simplifies the rules for developers building apps for kids and opens up a broader selection of apps to be eligible to be rated for the stricter Teacher Approved program, as well.

The changes aren’t just about serving developers or consumers — they also help Google to meet stricter regulations being considered, drafted, and enacted worldwide around how software is permitted to handle kids’ data — such as the EU’s GDPR and the U.K.’s Age Appropriate Design Code. Failure to meet these requirements can result in significant penalties, as Meta recently learned when it was fined roughly $400 million for how it treated children’s data on Instagram, for instance.

More on TechCrunch here. 

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple launched Emergency SOS via Satellite, the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro’s new feature that uses satellite to route calls in the event of an emergency when cellular access isn’t available. The feature is first becoming available in the U.S. and Canada, and will expand to France, Germany, Ireland, and the U.K. next month.
• Apple released iOS 16.2 beta 3, iPadOS 16.2 beta 3 tvOS 16.2, watchOS 9.2 beta 3, and macOS Ventura 13.1 beta 3.
• Apple’s iOS 16.2 beta added new watchlist sorting options for the Stocks app, which are reflected in an updated Home Screen widget. Now, users will be able to sort manually, by price change, percent change, market cap, symbol, or name.
• The newest beta also introduced new toggles for the Always On Display that let users turn off the Wallpaper and Notifications when the Always On Display is enabled.
• A new report by The Information seemingly refutes an earlier Bloomberg report which claimed Apple was targeting to 3x the revenue from its ad business. Instead, the new report claims Apple isn’t planning to introduce more ads on iPhone and is satisfied with the current revenue growth. It notes also that Apple killed a plan in 2018 to run ads in Spotlight Search on iPhone.
• Craig Federighi reportedly responded to a customer’s email complaint about how Apple’s software beta program isn’t effective in listening to user feedback, saying “I agree that the current approach isn’t giving many in the community what they’d like in terms of interaction and influence,” and “We haven’t yet figured out how to achieve that in a practical and constructive way. We’ll keep thinking.”

Platforms: Google

• Google wrapped up its Android Dev Summit on Monday, Nov. 14, with a track that included nearly 20 talks focused on developer features and guidance around Android 13, like how to migrate apps to Android 13, how to build user trust with privacy-respecting workflows, how to improve a social app’s quality with the Android camera and much more. This was the last of three tracks for this year’s Summit, following the two prior tracks: Modern Android Development and Form Factors. The keynote, recaps and full sessions playlists can be found on YouTube.
• Google released its Android Health Connect app into public beta. The new app helps to centralize access to health and fitness data from various eligible apps, starting with a launch group of 10, including MyFitnessPal, Oura and Peloton.
• Google Play added support for UPI (Unified Payments Interface) subscriptions in India. UPI is the most popular mobile payments technology for p2p and merchants in the region but had not yet been available as a payment option for subscriptions on the Play Store until now. It has been available since 2019 for app sales and in-app purchases, however.
• A new Google Play test that involved a discovery feature for finding new apps and games with ongoing events and updates was mistaken for a new ad unit by 9to5Google. The test appears to actually involve the merchandising units previously called LiveOps, now rebranded to “Promotional Content,” which Google had recently said would begin to appear more deeply integrated in the Play Store going forward.

E-commerce/Marketplaces

• YouTube launched Shorts shopping features that let select creators tag items in their videos to diversify their revenue streams. The feature is being piloted with U.S. creators, while viewers in the U.S., India, Brazil, Canada and Australia can view and interact with these tags for the time being. The shopping functionality will expand to more creators next year. The move follows last week’s launch of a TikTok Shop test in the U.S. YouTube is also testing an affiliate program in the U.S. where creators could earn commissions when viewers purchase recommended products.
• Shopify’s Shop app is testing a universal search feature with some users. The feature offers a “Search for anything” box that lets consumers search across their purchases, merchants matching the search term and products sold by Shopify merchants.
• Mobile marketplace OfferUp is laying off about 19% of its staff, noting it had grown headcount at a rate that had outpaced revenue growth over the past few years. The company had just under 500 employees on LinkedIn at the time of the announcement.
• 3D scanning app NetVirta announced a partnership with Victoria’s Secret that will allow the retailer to use its tech to help customers find the perfect-fitting bra.

Augmented Reality

• Just in time for the COP27 climate conference, Meta released a climate card game using Meta AR Filters, built by creator Okhule Fallet, which displays question prompts around key climate issues designed to get people talking.
• Snapchat added a set of new features to celebrate the upcoming FIFA World Cup, including new AR experiences that let fans virtually try on official team jerseys and show their team pride.

Image Credits: Snap

Social

• Instagram’s Marketing API has been updated to allow for ads on the Instagram Explore home page, through the existing Marketing API endpoint where a new INSTAGRAM_EXPLORE_HOME placement option has been added. Instagram recently announced its plans to increase its ad load, as Meta fights a revenue decline. This included the addition of ads on the Explore home page and in the profile feed.
• Twitter appointed an “acting” data protection officer (DPO) after a series of resignations of senior Twitter privacy and security staffers late last week which included the abrupt departures of Twitter’s CISO Lea Kissner; chief privacy officer (and DPO) Damien Kieran; and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty. Now, an existing employee, Renato Monteiro, will serve as Twitter’s “acting DPO.”
• In addition to layoffs and voluntary departures, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has also now fired around 20 employees who criticized him in the company Slack.
• When he’s not destroying Twitter’s workforce (or morale) or asking remaining workers to commit to “hardcore” hours, the company seemingly began work on a long abandoned project to encrypt Twitter DMs, code in the Android app revealed.
• TikTok is said to be approaching laid-off Twitter and Meta engineers to join its Silicon Valley office. The video app aims to roughly double its staff in Mountain View, Calif., to about 2,000, The Information reported.
• Social livestreaming app Yubo, popular with Gen Z, is expanding its audio moderation technology to the U.K., Australia and Canada. The tech works by recording and transcribing 10-second snippets of audio in livestreams of 10 or more people. The text is then scanned using AI to detect problematic content. If found, Yubo sends users alerts to warn them. Text that contains policy violations are also flagged for human review.

Messaging

• WhatsApp’s head of India Abhijit Bose and Meta’s public policy head for the country Rajiv Aggarwal have both left the company, just days after Meta’s India chief Ajit Mohan quit to join Snap. The departures are not related to Meta’s layoffs of 11,000 — the execs left of their own accord.
• WhatsApp introduced new Yellow Pages-like features to help its users find businesses from within the instant messaging app. This includes “Directory,” a feature launching in Brazil to help users discover small businesses nearby, as well as another feature, “Business Search,” for finding larger businesses by category. This latter feature launches select markets, including Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and the U.K.

You can now search for businesses on WhatsApp

Streaming & Entertainment

• Apple is launching another original podcast, “After the Whistle” from “Ted Lasso” co-creator Brendan Hunt and NBC Sports host Rebecca Lowe. The show, launching Nov. 17, will see the hosts reacting to all the World Cup action and will be featured within Apple News in the U.S. and in Apple Podcasts in 103 markets.
• Netflix added a new feature that lets subscribers remotely log out of devices they don’t recognize or don’t want to be logged into — like those where friends, family members or an ex is mooching off your account. The feature could push more freeloaders into paid accounts, the company likely hopes.
• YouTube addressed one of YouTube Shorts creators’ chief complaints: to date, the music and sounds added to videos could only be 15 seconds in length, even though Shorts themselves can be as long as 60 seconds. Thanks to revised licensing deals, YouTube now says the majority of music on Shorts will be available in durations of up to 60 seconds. In addition, creators can “remix,” or sample, up to 60 seconds of sounds from other videos, instead of only 15 seconds, as before.
• Spotify expanded its video podcasting capabilities to Anchor creators in more than 180 markets worldwide, after initial launches in select markets, including the U.S. and parts of Europe. The company is working to offer video in competition with YouTube, but won’t share metrics about video podcasts’ adoption to date.

Gaming

Image Credits: Newzoo

• For the first time since it began reporting, Newzoo is expecting games market revenues to decline year-over-year. The firm estimates the games market will generate $184.4 billion in 2022, down -4.3% year-over-year — a corrective year after two years of lockdown-fueled growth. The PC segment is expected to generate $40.5 billion in 2022, up +0.5% YoY, but mobile and console will decline. The mobile games market is forecast to generate $92.2 billion in 2022, down -6.4% YoY, while console gaming will drop -4.2% YoY to $51.8 billion.
• Mobile gaming accessory maker Backbone launched an Android version of its gaming controller which swaps in USB-C in place of Lightning connectivity.

Dating

• Match-owned dating app Hinge added a new feature that caters to those looking for non-monogamy. The app will add an option for adding a “Relationship Type” to the user’s profile, including “monogamous,” “non-monogamous” or “figuring out my relationship type.” Historically, Hinge had catered to those seeking a “serious” relationship, as opposed to casual hookups on Tinder, but it hadn’t well-served those with different ideas of what serious relationships look like.

Travel & Transportation

• Indian gig workers, like Uber drivers and those who work for apps like Ola, Zomato and Swiggy, are trying to reverse engineer how the apps’ algorithms and technologies work, reports Rest of World. They then share their findings in Telegram groups to help each other out with issues around why they sometimes don’t get orders, how much they’re being paid, how they’re being matched to orders, and more.

Security & Privacy

• A Reuters investigation discovered thousands of iOS and Android apps were using technology from Russian company Pushwoosh for their notifications, including apps by the CDC, U.S. Army, NRA, and Unilever.
• Google paid $70,000 to Hungary-based security researcher David Schütz, who had privately reported a bug that had allowed anyone to unlock Google Pixel phones without knowing the user’s passcode. However, the exploit required physical access to the device to work. Google took five months to fix the bug, Schütz said.
• DuckDuckGo announced App Tracking Protection is open for all Android users, in beta. The feature helps to block 3rd-party trackers in apps, even when you’re not using them.

Image Credits: DuckDuckGo

Funding and M&A

Dubai-based investment app baraka raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures. The app offers commission-free investments in U.S. stocks and ETFs.

Mobile chat app Geneva raised $21 million in a Series A extension led by cryptofund Multicoin Capital. The app, which focuses on having users join interest groups, is popular with Gen Z and creators who use it to talk to fans.

Note-taking app Evernote agreed to be acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons, for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close in early 2023. Evernote had raised $290 million to date.

Downloads

Vimcal

Image Credits: Vimcal

The Y Combinator-backed company Vimcal launched the iOS counterpart to its existing web and desktop calendar applications, available for Windows, Mac and Chrome. Similar to apps like Fantastical, users can type in meeting information in natural language, like “lunch with Lisa at 1 pm tomorrow.” It also offers a more customizable solution for finding timeslots for meetings, compared with existing players like Calendly.  The iOS app, in beta since this April, has also optimized the software’s keyboard shortcuts for the touchscreen interface and adds other features. You can read a full review from TechCrunch’s Ivan Mehta here.

This Week in Apps: Apple-Epic antitrust battle resumes, Apple sued over tracking, Google’s new rules for kids’ apps by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch