The latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy can be found in this week's This Week in Apps.
In the first half of the year, global app spending was $65 billion, up slightly from the $64.4 billion in the first half of the year. According to the latest year-end reports, the app economy is growing and has produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the Apple and Google Play stores. Consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps and global spending was $133 billion.
The latest from the world of apps can be found in this week's edition of This Week in Apps.
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Top Stories
It has only been a week since Musk bought the social networking site. It feels like a long time.
The head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety, as well as CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and General Counsel Sean Edgett, were among the executives who were laid off immediately. He is being sued over the lack of 60 days legal notice. Some 3,700 jobs are expected to be cut at the micro-blogging site.
The roles being cut span areas large and small, from the mission-critical moderation, trust & safety, ethicalAI and curation teams, just ahead of a major election, as well as those working on more experimental features, like Communities. The developer conference and the developer platform lead are no longer available.
Elon Musk just axed key Twitter teams like human rights, accessibility, AI ethics and curation
Employees are already warning that such significant cuts combined with cost-cutting in areas like cloud hosting will lead to difficulties in maintaining Twitter’s infrastructure, The Verge reports.
Advertisers are starting to put their campaigns on hold until they know how the job cuts will affect their brands. Sarah Personette left the company as a result of the takeover. Musk blames activist groups for the situation and not himself.
Musk plans to make the blue check a paid feature in order to make the product more attractive. He's been thinking about doing a remake of vine.
Changes are coming at a rapid pace. When their access to internal resources was cut, employees were often let go via email. Not being able to log in was a sign that their job may have been lost.
Reports said that Musk didn't communicate with staff before they were laid off. His message was clear, as he said that it was not going to be the same place as before. Will users continue to use it?
Twitter sued in class action lawsuit over mass layoffs without proper legal notice
Mastodon benefits from the Twitter exodus
Some people decided that they wouldn't be sticking around for the things that are happening on social media.
One platform that has benefited from the takeover is Mastodon. The nonprofit company announced a new milestone this week, after seeing a record number of downloads for the mobile app. 230,000 people have joined Mastodon in the last week alone, according to a post on the social networking site. The network now has 655,000 active users thanks to the new sign-ups and people returning to old accounts.
This is the highest number of users Mastodon has seen to date and follows on the heels of news that the network had gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, October 28th. Third-party data from Sensor Tower shows that the Mastodon mobile app saw 91,000 new installs from Friday to Sunday, a 658% increase from the 12,000 installs it saw the previous day.
Due to the sudden influx of new users, the largest service mastodon.social experienced lags and downtime. Some users came to Mastodon without knowing how a social network works and have found the process confusing or overly technical. They may have already given up and moved on to another platform, even though this week was the best chance to convince them of decentralization's perks.
Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
There will soon be another social app for the users of the micro-blogging site. Bluesky is a social protocol and app that is intended to be a different kind of product than the one that preceded it. The open source community was upset with the Silicon Valley executive for going his own way with Bluesky instead of using established protocols.
Is it possible that anyone would ever trust him again, since he sold Twitter to Musk in the first place.
Substack takes aim at Twitter, too
Substack is a newsletter platform that is hoping to take advantage of the turmoil on social media. The company threw its hat into the ring as a more direct competitor with the launch of a new feature, Substack chat, after openly targeting the user base of the social network. Substack writers can communicate directly with their most loyal readers in the Substack mobile app.
Many back-and-forth threaded discussions between writers and readers already take place, as well as other online communities where writers have been building out networks of their own.
The company said that the new chat feature will eliminate the need for its writers to use different software tools.
There is overlap with how writers have used the social networking site in the past.
Not every newsletter will have the chat feature enabled at this time, as it will be opt in. The user interface is similar to a chat app.
Some of the discussions that would have taken place on the micro-messaging service on a regular basis could be relocated to a more private space.
Substack targets Twitter with launch of discussions feature, Substack Chat
WhatsApp launches Communities
The new feature, called Communities, is designed to help organizations, clubs, schools and other private groups stay organized.
End-to-end encryption can be offered by the communities themselves.
Ahead of today's launch, some of the features developed for Communities had already made their way to the platform. Larger group sizes, 32-person video calls, and polls will also be supported on the platform.
Group admins will be able to move their group to a community at launch. Over the next few months, the feature will be available on both mobile phones and tablets.
WhatsApp officially launches its new discussion group feature, Communities
Weekly News
Google announced a revamp of the Google Play Store that will impact Android apps’ discoverability, how developers can market their apps to consumers and various trust and safety concerns. Of note, Google is advising developers that the Play Store will begin to prioritize apps that deliver on both technical and in-app quality by promoting them in more places across the Play Store where they can be discovered by consumers. It’s also rolling out new tools to reacquire churned users and help developers better handle coordinated attacks on their app ratings and reviews.
Google Search added new shopping features ahead of the holiday season. The company will now flag promotions and discounts, and add features like coupon clipping, deal comparisons, price insights and more. The features should become available on mobile, including the Google app.
Etsy launched an image search feature on iOS. The new addition allows you to use images to search the app’s marketplace of 5.3 million sellers.
The image is called Meta.
Instagram launched a collaboration with Art d’Egypte to release 11 AR filters on the app highlighting the “Forever is Now II” exhibition at the Pyramids of Giza. The exhibition displays artwork and installations by artists including French artist JR, Egyptian sculptor Ahmed Karaly, Italian artist Emilio Ferro and French-Tunisian graffiti artist el Seed, as well as an immersive experience of art set against the backdrop of the Pyramids of Giza. The filters feature a guide, an animated cat inspired by the ancient Egyptian deity Bastet, who accompanies users as they explore each art piece and its creation through immersive videos, images and illustrations powered by AR technology.
Snapchat and Amazon partnered on AR Lenses for eyewear. Amazon Fashion launched shopping Lenses for eyewear brands including Maui Jim, Persol, Oakley, Ray-Ban, Costa Del Mar and others that Snapchat users can virtually try on using AR technology, then purchase if they like what they see.
The image is from Amazon.
Fintech
Robinhood reported a decline in revenue in Q3 with a 1% YoY drop to $361 million instead of the estimated $357.8 million. Net loss was down 87% to $175 million and MAUs were down 1.8 million on a quarterly basis to 12.2 million as of September 2022.
Digital banking app Chime began cutting costs, including a 12% staff reduction, or around 160 people.
Investing app Public announced it’s expanding globally in 2023. Global investors will be able to convert their local currency into the U.S. dollar and invest across thousands of assets, the company said.
Police and other sources said Block’s Cash App has become a popular tool for adult and child sex traffickers due to lax monitoring, Forbes reported.
PayPal and Venmo added Tap to Pay on iPhone, plus support for Apple Pay for its branded debit and credit cards, Apple Pay as a payment option in checkout flows and support for the Wallet app. In Q3, PayPal reported revenue up 12% YoY to $6.8 billion, roughly in line with the $6.81 billion expected, and payments volume up 14% YoY to $337 billion under the $343.2 billion expected. The stock dropped over 8% due to a trimmed forecast for annual revenue.
Social
The image is called Meta.
Instagram is adding the ability for creators to make and sell NFTs directly in its app using traditional in-app purchases. Polygon is the first partner that Meta has chosen for this feature. The company will not take a cut of revenues while the feature is testing with a group of creators in the U.S.
Instagram also added support for the Solana blockchain and Phantom wallet, expanded access to subscriptions to all U.S. creators and introduced gifts on Instagram Reels.
Facebook expanded “professional mode” to allow all creators worldwide to earn money from its various monetization programs, including Reels Play bonuses and subscriptions.
Facebook also increased access to Stars, added Stars Party community challenges to Reels, and started testing automatic onboarding for creators.
Meta announced it will stop using human editors to curate articles for its Facebook News offering in all markets and will instead rely on algorithms. (That sounds familiar.)
Reddit is experimenting with a new feature that will show you how many people are hanging out in a Live Chat in real time, as well as a new “Happening Now” page where you can see which Live Chats and Reddit Talks are active.
Truth Social now has more unique visitors than other right-wing apps, including Gab, Parler and Gettr, largely in part to Trump’s posts, The NYT reported.
Photos
Google is adding a limited version of the Imagen text-to-image generator to its AI Test Kitchen app, which will allow users to try out new interactions called “City Dreamer” and “Wobble” for designing cities around a theme or making little monsters, respectively. The app is not yet available to the public.
Cross-platform app Darkroom got a major update that includes highlight and shadow recovery to allow users to make the most of the ProRAW files captured by the latest-generation iPhones. It also added Preset Sharing and new sliders for Exposure, Whites, Highlights, Shadows and Blacks.
Messaging
Telegram removed a feature that let iOS users create pay-to-view posts, which creators were selling access to through third-party payments or donation bots, citing Apple’s App Store Rules. Apple’s policies don’t allow for third-party payment processors and require developers to pay up to a 30% commission on in-app purchases.
Dating
Match Group beat on earnings with Q3 revenue up 1% YoY to $810 million, above the $793 million estimated. Paying users were up 2% YoY to 16.5 million, and the stock climbed 15+% on the news. The company said in 2023 it would invest in Hinge, The League and two new apps targeting specific demographics.
Streaming & Entertainment
The image was created by Amazon.
Amazon rolled out a new benefit for its Prime members with the addition of a full music catalog with 100 million songs, instead of the previously more limited selection of just 2 million songs. It will also make most of the top podcasts on its service available without ads, and added a “Podcast Previews” feature to its Music app that allows customers to listen to short clips as a way to discover new podcasts they may like. Users can still upgrade to on-demand music as before with Amazon Music Unlimited.
Disney+ expanded into e-commerce. The streaming service introduced a new subscriber perk that offers early access to select merchandise associated with brands like Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation Studios and Pixar. Subscribers will see the merch listed on the detail pages of select movies, shorts and TV shows on the service. They can then hold up their phone to scan a QR code to buy the items or they can visit the website directly and authenticate with their Disney+ credentials.
YouTube rolled out Primetime Channels in the U.S. The video platform partnered with 35 streamers, including Paramount+, Showtime, Epix, Starz, AMC+ and others, which can be found in the Movies & Shows hub.
Clubhouse added support for background music and sound reactions to its audio streaming platform.
Newly added references to a “TikTok Music” service have appeared in the code of the Resso streaming app, owned by TikTok’s parent ByteDance. The code appears to suggest that user activity may sync between the Resso app and TikTok Music, and specifically refers to a “music.tiktok.com” URL. The company has also set up social accounts for TikTok Music, signaling a possible Resso rebrand and expansion.
Gaming
Google expanded its Google Play Games beta for PC to the U.S., and seven other countries, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, the Phillippines, Malaysia and Singapore. The service offers 85 Android games that can be played on Windows PCs. Over the last couple of months Google added popular titles like “1945 Air Force,” “Blade Idle,” “Cookie Run: Kingdom” and “Evony: The King’s Return” among others.
Travel & Transportation
Uber beat in Q3 with revenue up 72% YoY to $8.34 billion, above estimates of $8.1 billion. Gross bookings were up 26% YoY to $29.1 billion, which included $13.7 billion from Uber Eats.
Uber also began annoying its users with unsolicited push notification ads this week. Beginning last weekend, people began complaining about the notification-based ads, which included those for non-Uber businesses, like Peloton. Users said the notifications were being sent out when they weren’t even engaging with the Uber app itself. Uber claimed it was a limited test and noted people could turn off the notifications in the app if they didn’t like the ads.
Utilities
Google announced new parental controls for its Google Assistant platform. The new features will roll out over the next several weeks to Google Home, as well as the Family Link and Google Assistant apps on iOS and Android, and will allow parents to limit or even entirely disable certain Assistant functionality, like calls, configure kid-friendly settings, adjust downtime and more. The settings will also let parents configure default services, limit what sort of answers they can get from the Assistant, and introduce new kid-friendly new voices.
Google will shut down its Street View app for iOS and Android in 2023. The app had allowed users to contribute their own 360-degree imagery to Street View.
Government & Policy
The U.S Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against homework helper app Chegg for its security lapses that saw the personal information and password of around 40 million users stolen in 2018. The FTC’s order requires Chegg to strengthen security safeguards, offer consumers an easy way to delete their data and limit information collection on the front end. Chegg said it would comply.
Google indefinitely paused enforcement of its Google Play Store’s billing policy in India following an order by the country’s antitrust body that ordered the company to stop restricting developers from using third-party payment processing services for in-app purchases and buying apps. The Competition Commission of India also fined Google $113 million for abusing the dominant position of its Play Store in the country.
TikTok will update its privacy policy on December 2 to allow staff outside of Europe, including staff in China, permission to access data belonging to EU users. The change was announced months ahead of a drafted decision into a year-long investigation into the platform’s data exports to china under the GDPR.
Security & Privacy
Malwarebytes reported four apps listed by the developer Mobile apps Group contained known malware that’s used to steal users’ information. The apps were listed on the Play Store as of the time of the reporting on Tuesday.
Funding and M&A
Alter was acquired for over 100 million dollars. The company helped create brands. Is Memoji ambitions a thing of the past? Facemoji was a platform that allowed game and app developers to putavatar systems into their applications.
The Seattle-based game developer Spry Fox was acquired by the streaming service. The company has previously acquired Next Games, Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment. The game developer is known for its popular titles.
The Givingli raised $10 million in Series A funding. The app can be used to send e-cards and e- gifts than can be shared on email, text and social media.
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