This Week in Apps recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
According to the latest year-end reports, the app industry has continued to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the Apple and Google Play stores. App Annie says global spending on third-party app stores in China grew 19% in 2021, reaching $170 billion. Downloads of apps grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year-over-year to reach $295 billion.
Consumers are spending more time in apps than ever before, even topping the time they spend watching TV in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, but they spend 4.1 hours on their mobile device in the year 2021. They are not the world's heaviest mobile users. Users in Brazil, Indonesia, and South Korea spent five hours per day on mobile apps.
It's not just a way to pass time. They can become big businesses. In the year of 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020 when only eight apps topped $1 billion.
This Week in Apps gives a place to keep up with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try.
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The Privacy Sandbox for Android was revealed this week, and it was a take on Apple's App Tracking transparency system. The system isn't going to be live soon. While it runs tests, the current system will remain active for at least two more years.
It's not a coincidence that the majority of its revenue comes from advertising, and that it's going in a different direction than Apple did. Other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, and this is what it says about Apple. It was claimed that the system would work with the industry and developer community to balance the need for user privacy with the needs of businesses. Not to mention the company's own.
Advertisers will still be able to show personalized ads to groups of users with similar interests, but the Advertising ID tracking feature will be phased out. This is based on the work of Google, which offers users more control and transparency over the ads they see. Attribution reporting will be offered to advertisers and developers. There is a technical run-through here. The system has support from a number of companies.
It makes sense for the company to engage in dialogue, rather than change the policy to disrupt the existing system, because there are so many free and ad-supported apps on the platform. The bottom line benefits from the fact thatAndroid serves as a gateway to serve ads. Apple's approach can lead advertisers to use other, less visible means of tracking users, which is bad for users, too. It says that a study by ex-Apple engineers supports this opinion. The study showed how trackers built features to circumvent Apple's ATT rules, making ATT something that only gives the illusion of privacy in the long run.
Critics slammed the plans as toothless, and others noted that the company can't really do anything to prevent its competitors from running. The fact that the announcement was more of a plan to create a plan than it was a definitive step forward is something. There isn't much detail as to how all this works because they aren't done yet. User privacy is not impacted by the operating system.
The image is from Sensor Tower.
According to a new report, the Super Bowl ad spots paid off for a number of tech companies, not just in terms of exposure, but also app installs. The group's installs jumped 309% week-over-week after the ad was aired, but the viral ad from Coinbase jumped 309% after it was bounced around on a black screen.
Three of the top five apps had ads that delivered strong download growth. eToro installs by 132% week-over-week on February 13, and by 82% on February 14. FTX saw a 130% boost in downloads week-over-week on February 13, followed by 81% growth the next day. On February 13th, the U.S. installs grew by a collective 279% compared to the previous week. This continued into the following day, when the week-over-week growth reached 252%.
The sportsbook apps did well, but they may have seen downloads pop anyway.
The new name will reflect the company's vision to drive comprehensive digital performance with products and partnerships, as well as unlink the old brand name from the embarrassing news last fall. App Annie and its former CEO had to pay more than $10 million to settle fraud charges related to its deceptive practices. The firm had used non-anonymized data to alter its estimates, and even directed engineers in China to manually update its estimates at times, beforeAutomating those adjustments to better match up with the actual revenue and download figures it had from. Oops!
The new company name implies that the days of those days are behind it, as it references how it will fuel its digital insights using the power of artificial intelligence. Data.ai announced a new agreement with Similarweb that will allow the firm to offer a unified mobile and web market data set.
The image is from Microsoft.
The image is called Rainbow.
The Series A was led by Seven Seven Six and was funded by the etht wallet app Rainbow. The app offers a pleasant and colorful interface that helps it take on the top wallet app MetaMask with its broader consumer appeal.
Beem, an app that lets you livestream yourself in augmented reality, raised a $4 million seed round. It is now targeting consumers and is working on a prototype for augmented reality glasses.
FitOn raised $40 million in Series C funding and plans to acquire Peerfit for an undisclosed sum. The LA-based company FitOn hit 10 million users in 2021, and offers workouts from a range of partners.
The company employs artists, trained by a team of clinical psychologists, therapists and neuroscientists to produce music to help users achieve a desired mental state.
Appboxo raised $7 million in Series A funding, led by RTP Global, for its platform that lets developers turn their apps into super apps, either by building their own mini-apps or by accessing them from its marketplace. The company has clients such as GCash and VodaPay.
The Right Stuff, a dating app, received seed funding from Peter Thiel, according to a report. The app is expected to be launched in D.C. this summer.
She Matters, an app for black women dealing with depression, raised $300K in angel funding while participating in the Techstars program, and is working to raise a seed round of $2 million.
Shortwave is an image.
Frederic Lardinois took a look at a new startup called Shortwave, which aims to pick up where Google Inbox left off. The email app can be found on the desktop, i OS and Android. It's designed to function as a smarter Gmail client that offers tools for turning messages into to-dos, grouping and categorizing conversions, and replying to emails with GIFs. The app is free and will target business users. Users who want access to more than 90 days of email history will have to pay.
The image is from Obscura.
The latest version of the Obscura camera app has a number of new camera features, a refreshed design, improved performance and other changes. The exposure and focus controls are now controlled by gestures and feedback, instead of looking at them. The app's capture modes have been updated to reflect the improved camera system of the iPhone. The first time the app has supported video capture, these include Photo, Pro Photo, Depth, Live Photo and an all-new Video mode. Alternative aspect ratios, more white balance controls, manual exposure controls and other features were added to the app. The new app is double the price of the previous version, but also ships with a Watch companion, support for connecting controllers, and will soon offer Widgets and support for iPad.
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