This Week in Apps: iOS 16 takes off, TikTok clones BeActual, social cos go to Congress

Welcome again to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch sequence that recaps the newest in cell OS information, cell functions and the general app economic system.

Global app spending reached $65 billion within the first half of 2022, up solely barely from the $64.4 billion throughout the identical interval in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has decreased. But general, the app economic system is continuous to develop, having produced a file variety of downloads and shopper spending throughout each the iOS and Google Play shops mixed in 2021, in response to the newest year-end reviews. Global spending throughout iOS and Google Play final 12 months was $133 billion, and shoppers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

This Week in Apps presents a technique to sustain with this fast-moving business in a single place with the newest from the world of apps, together with information, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and rather more.

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It’s time to BeActual…on TikTok

We count on to see this kind of copy-and-pasting from Meta — and even Snap and YouTube lately — as the most important tech corporations attempt to determine the best way to compete with TikTok’s short-form video. But usually, it’s TikTok that’s being copied from, not the one doing the copying. That modified this week, nevertheless, when the corporate introduced it was launching a reasonably shameless BeActual clone in its app, which it calls “TikTok Now.”

Similar to the new Gen Z app BeActual, TikTok Now will immediate its U.S. customers to take a back and front digital camera picture or 10-second video at a random time each day, which is then shared with pals in a brand new part labeled “Now” within the app’s important navigation — fairly a outstanding place for an unoriginal function.

The addition initially looks like an odd one for TikTok, given its main focus is on video leisure, not friendship-focused social networking, which is what BeActual’s all about. But we have now seen some indicators in current months that TikTok’s ambitions are aimed toward taking over each areas. The firm has been pushing extra options designed to attach its customers with their real-life pals on its app, for instance by asking for entry to customers’ deal with books, and even swapping out its Discover tab for a Friends tab. Plus, as you browse your For You feed, you’ll additionally see suggestions of individuals to observe. Some customers report that individuals they know have been discovering their TikTok accounts due to what seems to be primarily based on deal with book-based telephone quantity matching, as properly. (And they’re not all glad about it.)

Meanwhile, TikTok hasn’t been solely clear about what it’s as much as right here, however this BeActual clone makes it much more apparent: it desires customers’ good friend graphs. It desires to be a social community, too.

This cause is easy. Younger, Gen Z customers are adopting new on-line behaviors on the subject of social networking. They’re transferring away from older social networks, like Facebook, and have even begun to search out Instagram more and more crowded and annoying with its Reels focus. Gen Z as a substitute is utilizing video networking on apps like Yubo, and checking in on shut pals by apps like BeActual. If TikTok doesn’t transfer into these areas, too, then this in-demand demographic will proceed to participate in these new networking experiences in different apps, probably impacting the time they should spend on TikTok — which hurts its personal enterprise. It would additionally forestall TikTok from creating options that cater to real-world pals sooner or later, which may make its app extra complete than the video timewaster it’s at this time.

iOS 16 adoption is quicker than iOS 15

Image Credits: Mixpanel

According to knowledge from Mixpanel (through iMore), there’s higher shopper demand for iOS 16 in contrast with the discharge of iOS 15 final 12 months. After the primary 24 hours, iOS 16 had been downloaded by 6.71% of customers, versus 6.48% of customers who downloaded iOS 15. However, each updates had trailed iOS 14, which reached 9.22% of customers its first day. However, iOS 14 was a serious shopper replace, because it launched Home Screen widgets for the primary time. While iOS 16 brings one other widget format — Lock Screen widgets — different options, like Live Activities, are nonetheless to return.

As of Friday, Mixpanel notes iOS 16 has 16.76% adoption, however 72.98% of customers are nonetheless on iOS 15 at the moment; 10.26% of customers are on an excellent older OS.

Social media cos get grilled by the Senate

Image Credits: Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images / Getty Images

The social app makers have been hauled into Congress for one more listening to this week. After having to reply for his or her lack of minor protections of their apps final 12 months, this time across the corporations have been testifying earlier than the Senate Homeland Security Committee about what dangers they might pose to nationwide safety. For Meta, the listening to was a much-needed reprieve as most of the senators had their eyes on TikTok as a substitute — particularly after reviews that TikTok U.S. person knowledge was accessed by staff in China.

The corporations have been requested to reveal the variety of full-time staff they’ve on their belief and security groups, however all besides Twitter refused to reply. Twitter, nevertheless, stated it it has 2,200 folks engaged on belief and security throughout its platform, although it wasn’t clear if some did different work. Meta was requested how most of the 40,000 folks it reportedly had on belief and security have been centered on non-U.S. customers and non-English language subject, and the corporate didn’t reply.

TikTok, in the meantime, was pressed laborious on its relationship with the Chinese authorities. COO Vanessa Pappas denied the reporting from BuzzFeed about worker entry to person knowledge and dodged different questions — together with one about what number of of its staff have been members of the Chinese Communist Party. She additionally stated TikTok was not gathering U.S. customers’ biometric knowledge, regardless that the corporate had quietly up to date its privateness coverage final 12 months to permit it to take action.

Adobe’s massive guess on Figma

Adobe’s beautiful $20 billion acquisition of digital design firm Figma this week was a giant guess that takes out certainly one of its greatest rivals, even when it meant paying twice as a lot as Figma’s most up-to-date personal valuation. What does this imply for the corporate going ahead, and what different design startups might be subsequent? TechCrunch+ has the solutions.

This Week in Apps readers can take 15% off an annual go to TechCrunch+ with the code “TWIA.” 

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• iOS 16 debuted. The newest model of Apple’s new cell working system arrived proper on time, permitting customers to benefit from upgrades like Lock Screen widgets, Focus filters, the flexibility to edit and unsend iMessage textual content, background cutout for photographs, safety and privateness enhancements, updates to Apple’s first-party apps and extra.

• Apple additionally up to date its different OSes, together with the discharge of watchOS 9, which brings new watch faces, an improved Workout app, sleep phases, an AFib History function, redesigned Compass app and new Medications app.
• Apple’s tvOS 16, in the meantime, introduced extra under-the-hood enhancements, like help for Nintendo Switch controllers, HDR10+ and the flexibility for TV apps to leverage knowledge from different Apple gadgets (e.g. Apple Fitness+ will present your exercise metrics on-screen).
• iPadOS 15.7, macOS Monterey 12.6 and macOS Big Sur 11.7, have been launched as properly.
• WeatherKit subscriptions launched alongside iOS 16. The service is supposed to interchange the climate service from Apple-acquired Dark Sky, which is shutting down. WeatherKit delivers as much as 500,000 API calls per thirty days for climate and forecast knowledge to registered Apple Developer Program members earlier than pricing kicks in.
• Apple told developers this week they’d quickly be capable of purchase new Search Ad spots on the App Store. The firm invited builders to a session to be taught extra in regards to the advert slots, which ought to be stay by the vacation season.

Platforms: Google

• Google started rolling out Play Store critiques tailor-made to your gadget — a function it first introduced in August 2021.
• Google stated it will make the newly accredited emojis out there to Android customers by the tip of the 12 months, after the Unicode Consortium printed the Unicode 15.0 customary on Tuesday with 31 new emojis. The additions embody a pushing hand, a shaking face (or I’m SHOOK), a moose, a goose, the long-awaited pink coronary heart and a Wi-Fi/wi-fi signal.

Commerce

• Supermarket chain Wegmans stated it’s going to shut down its in-store scan-and-go app on Sunday, September 18, 2022, stating that it skilled too many losses from the SCAN program to proceed making the cell app out there.
• Walmart launched new digital try-on expertise, which makes use of clients’ personal photographs to mannequin the clothes throughout a variety of manufacturers. The new function, “Be Your Own Model,” expands on the present possibility to select from certainly one of greater than 100 present fashions of various heights, sizes and pores and skin tones. Initially, customers will be capable of take their photographs with the Walmart iOS app to just about attempt on garments from Walmart.com.

Image Credits: Walmart

Fintech

• Coinbase up to date its app to permit U.S. customers to see a scorecard that evaluates members of Congress on crypto coverage points and pushes them to register to vote and find political occasions.
• It was additionally merge week for Ethereum! Here’s what comes subsequent.

Social

Image Credits: Meta

• Facebook launched Community Chats, a brand new function that connects Facebook Groups in Messenger through textual content, audio and video chats. The function additionally presents classes and admin-only chats, as properly.
• Internal Meta analysis, reported by The WSJ, indicated that Instagram customers are spending 17.6 million hours per day on Reels, far wanting the 197.8 million hours per day spent on TikTok. In addition, one-third of Reels have been discovered to be recycled from different platforms.
• Twitter shareholders voted to approve Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion buyout of the platform, whilst Musk tries to cancel the deal. The vote was held on the identical day that former Twitter safety lead Peiter Zatko testified earlier than Congress about his whistleblower report documenting the safety and privateness lapses on the firm.
• Instagram started internally testing a tipping function, “Gifts,” that provides creators a brand new technique to earn a living by Reels.
• French social app Yubo stated it’s going to start to confirm all customers’ ages utilizing facial recognition expertise. The startup is utilizing Yoti’s age estimation expertise, which makes use of the telephone digital camera to take a photograph and a brief video of the person’s face, verifying ages with 98.9% accuracy. The firm has 60 million customers and had initially began verifying ages of those that stated they have been youthful, like 13 or 14 years previous.

Image Credits: Yubo

• Discord launched a brand new Forum Channels function to assist server homeowners higher manage conversations. The function includes sub-channels that can be utilized to department off conversations about explicit matters or to keep away from having to create one other channel for centered conversations.
• Snapchat for Web started to roll out to all customers worldwide, after preliminary assessments as a Snapchat+ function. The internet model permits customers to ship messages and snaps, chat through video and voice, and entry the cell app’s messaging options, like chat reactions. It additionally contains greater than 10 Lenses for video calls.

Photos

Image Credits: Google

• Google Photos redesigned its Memories function with vertical swiping, extra video and different inventive instruments. The service will robotically choose and trim the perfect snippets out of your longer movies utilizing machine studying as a part of its enhancements to Memories and can add a brand new collage-making device, the flexibility to share Memories with pals and extra.
• Apple up to date its iOS 16 internet web page to notice that the iCloud Shared Photo Library function will not be coming till “later this year,” as a substitute of launching with iOS 16 on Monday, September 12.

Messaging

• WhatsApp is making films, Variety reported. The messaging app owned by Meta is introducing its first authentic movie this month, a undertaking that includes NBA All-Star MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo’s life story. WhatsApp plans to launch the movie on September 21 throughout its social media channels, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. The story is definitely branded content material as it’s going to talk how WhatsApp brings folks collectively.
• Communications startup Sendbird introduced it will now enable clients so as to add livestreaming mixed with chat of their apps with a few traces of code, through a brand new product referred to as Sendbird Live.

Streaming & Entertainment

• Twitter started rolling out podcasts in its redesigned Spaces tab to all its Twitter Blue subscribers, after initially testing it with a subset of Twitter customers. The function provides customized hubs referred to as “Stations” that group collectively content material by matter, like information, music, sports activities and extra.
• TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts launched a brand new function that extra carefully integrates the function with YouTube Music. Now, customers can save songs they uncover in Shorts to hearken to later in YouTube Music, through a customized playlist, “Sounds on Shorts.”
• Spotify and Wattpad struck a deal to launch a sequence of unique podcasts in Indonesia and the Philippines to convey standard internet novels to life, together with “My Ice Girl,” which has 22 million reads on Wattpad; “The Four Bad Boys and Me,” which has 321 million reads; and “For Hire: A Damn Good Kisser,” which has 42.1 million reads.
• Spotify’s Live streaming platform will not be going properly. The firm this week needed to cancel a efficiency by Ghost, claiming the demand for the occasion had brought about technical difficulties. (One Twitter user noted that won’t have really been the case, however reasonably the entry password had leaked inflicting different customers to pop up rooms with individuals who hadn’t been invited, they stated.)
• YouTube’s video platform, Shorts, could quickly provide creators to earn funds and place adverts of their movies, The NYT discovered. It expects to announce the modifications on Tuesday.
• YouTube additionally this week launched a brand new function that might enable creators to make new Shorts instantly from their video’s feedback. The function very a lot duplicates comparable performance on TikTok, the place creators can flip feedback into new movies permitting them to proceed the dialog or reply to customers’ feedback with a rebuttal or additional rationalization of their very own.

Image Credits: YouTube

• Amazon introduced its stay radio app Amp, a kind of Spotify Live or Clubhouse competitor, would achieve a brand new creator fund that can assist reward creators who construct participating reveals and entice a loyal viewers. The firm stated it allotted “millions of dollars” for this fund, however declined to offer a precise determine. It stated payouts to creators would range.

Dating

• Grindr appointed George Arison as CEO, beginning on October 19, forward of its deliberate SPAC merger. Arison had beforehand helped the auto market Shift go public through a SPAC in 2020.

Gaming

Image Credits: Netflix

• Snowman, the maker of standard cell video games like Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey, and Skate City, launched its newest new recreation completely with Netflix. The studio’s new vertical scrolling platformer, Lucky Luna, involves iOS and Android gadgets by Netflix Games.
• Tencent pulled in $2.6 billion in its online game phase in the course of the first half of 2022, accounting for practically 10% of the U.S.’s $27 billion gaming app market. ByteDance was in second place at $1.3 billion.
• Chinese regulators accredited paid video games from Tencent and NetEase for the primary time since July 2021, when it started a crackdown on the tech sector. Among the 73 new publishing licenses that have been accredited, 69 have been for cell video games. Other builders additionally acquired licenses, together with Zhong Qing Bao, Leiting, XD Inc. and CMGE Technology Group.

Health & Fitness

• Following the overturn of Roe v Wade, the period-tracking app Flo launched a brand new “anonymous mode” function on iOS which supplies customers the choice to make use of the app with out their identify, electronic mail deal with or technical identifiers related to their well being knowledge. The function will come to Android subsequent month.

Utilities

Image Credits: Opal

• Opal, a “digital well-being assistant,” rolled out a rebuilt model of its app designed to assist people higher monitor and handle their display screen time utilization. While most display screen time apps are centered on serving to mother and father handle their youngsters’s display screen time, Opal is aimed toward anybody who desires to create higher digital habits. The older model relied on a VPN to handle entry to sure apps, however the brand new Opal now makes use of Apple’s Screen Time API to offer reviews on display screen time utilization and quickly block customers from their distracting apps.

Government & Policy

• An EU courtroom backed the European Commission’s resolution to high-quality Google over Android antitrust breaches, however lessened the high-quality from €4.34 billion to €4.1 billion.
• South Korea’s privateness regulator fined Google round $50 million and Meta $22 million for failing to acquire person consent when gathering behavioral knowledge for displaying tailor-made adverts.
• California handed a brand new regulation on Thursday, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, that can make it the primary state to introduce laws aimed toward defending the well-being, knowledge and privateness of youngsters utilizing on-line platforms. The regulation requires on-line platforms to “consider the best interest of child users” and to default to privateness and security settings that “protect children’s mental and physical health and wellbeing,” a press launch famous. It additionally prohibits corporations from utilizing a baby’s private info, profiling youngsters by default, encouraging them to reveal private info or gathering, retaining or promoting their geolocation knowledge, amongst different issues.

Security & Privacy

• Apple launched a spherical of safety updates to patch zero-day flaws in iOS and macOS.
• TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker took a dive into iOS 16’s new safety and privateness options, together with Lockdown Mode, Rapid Security Response, Safety Check, Passkeys and modifications to repeat and paste permissions.
• Uber is dealing with a cybersecurity incident involving a hacker who breached its inside community after utilizing social engineering strategies to compromise an worker’s Slack account. Uber says there’s no proof delicate information, like journey histories, was accessed.

• A messaging app for fogeys and academics, Seesaw, was compromised by hackers utilizing a credential stuffing approach to ship out an specific picture. The app has 10 million customers.
• A brand new warning about pretend App Store pages goes round. The pages are designed to look very very like an App Store web page however have slight variations that savvy customers would possibly discover like a inexperienced obtain button, as an illustration. If clicked, the web page could take customers to obtain malware.

???? In a large deal, Adobe introduced plans to amass UI design and prototyping device Figma for round $20 billion, half in money and half in inventory. Figma CEO Dylan Field will proceed to guide the corporate following the deal shut. The deal additionally contains 6 million further restricted inventory items granted to Figma’s CEO and staff that can vest over 4 years following the closing. Figma has round 4 million customers and had grown to turn out to be a competitor to Adobe’s inventive instruments.

???? Nigerian monetary administration app for retailers, Kippa, raised $8.4 million in seed funding from quite a few buyers, together with Goodwater Capital, TEN13 VC, Rocketship VC, Saison Capital, Crestone VC, VentureSouq, Horizon Partners and Vibe Capital. The bookkeeping app helps small and medium companies in sub-Saharan Africa and counts greater than 500,000 retailers on its platform.

???? Denmark-based podcast subscription service Podimo raised €58.6 million (~$58.4 million) led by 83North, Highland and Saban, bringing its whole increase to this point to €162 million. The app presents customized suggestions, full-length movies, a skip intro function and extra to customers in Denmark, Germany, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland and Latin America.

???? A cell financial institution for migrants, Majority, closed on $37.5 million in Series B funding, $30 million of which is in fairness financing led by Valar Ventures and others. This is the third enterprise spherical for the startup in simply over a 12 months.

???? General Atlantic is shopping for out SoftBank’s total 15% stake within the Norwegian edtech recreation platform, Kahoot. SoftBank, which had invested $215 million into the corporate, is exiting at a loss as 15% of Kahoot’s present market cap (10.415 billion Norwegian Krone) is round $152 million (1,562,250,000 NOK).

iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets

Image Credits: Google

This week, everybody was rolling out their iOS 16-optimized apps. TechCrunch took a have a look at quite a few these new releases, together with these from main tech corporations and indie builders.

The massive winner of the Lock Screen widget race was Top Widgets, the generically named widget from a Chinese tech firm that gives a wide range of widget types, together with informational dashboards and even animations for the Lock Screen, interesting to a youthful, Gen Z crowd. Following the discharge of iOS 16, Top Widgets gained 1.3 million downloads in simply two days’ time.

Get began with widgets

• TechCrunch shared a round-up of over 25 apps which have added Lock Screen widgets throughout classes like personalization, journey, work, cooking, climate and extra. If you’re seeking to attempt a wide range of widgets to determine which you want greatest, this can be a good place to begin.

A number of extra favs

TechCrunch additionally highlighted a couple of widget makers individually, as they launched, from smaller corporations exterior of Big Tech. These included:

Image Credits: ScreenEquipment

• Apollo’s iOS 16-optimized app brings Reddit to your Lock Screen with widgets for Trending posts, fast entry to a favourite subreddit and updates on issues like upvotes, feedback, karma and extra. It additionally included enjoyable little options, like a widget that reveals how far you’ve scrolled Reddit by ft, miles or km, and little animal characters that play throughout the highest of the notch space that can turn out to be the Dynamic Island.
• Two apps, QuickFlow and LockFlow, enable customers to show their Apple Shortcuts into Lock Screen widgets.
• Flighty’s journey app added a handful of recent widgets, together with a Trip Countdown widget to make use of forward of your travels, in addition to a Live Flight Status widget and an In-Flight Progress Bar.
• ScreenEquipment’s app, in the meantime, is an effective instance of how personalization utilities are embracing the Lock Screen, because it added over 100 Lock Screen widget variations and over 200 pre-made Lock Screen themes that customers can coordinate with its present themes, wallpapers, icons, Home Screen widgets and extra.

Big corporations launch their widgets, too

Image Credits: Snap

• Snapchat rolled out two Lock Screen Widgets with its iOS 16 replace. One is a small sq. widget that opens on to the Snapchat digital camera. The second is an oblong widget that opens to a dialog with a good friend or group.
• Facebook launched a set of iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets, providing two to select from: “Birthdays at a Glance” and “Top Updates.”
• Google launched its set of iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets, however didn’t have them prepared for launch day, sadly. The coming widgets embody these for Search, Maps, Gmail, Chrome, Drive and News. We nonetheless want Google Calendar!