iOS 16 takes off, TikTok clones BeReal, social cos go to Congress • TechCrunch

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

International 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. However general, the app financial system is continuous to develop, having produced a document variety of downloads and shopper spending throughout each the iOS and Google Play shops mixed in 2021, in keeping with the newest year-end studies. International spending throughout iOS and Google Play final yr was $133 billion, and shoppers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

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It’s time to BeReal…on TikTok

We anticipate to see this type of copy-and-pasting from Meta — and even Snap and YouTube today — as the foremost tech corporations strive to determine the best way to compete with TikTok’s short-form video. However usually, it’s TikTok that’s being copied from, not the one doing the copying. That modified this week, nonetheless, when the corporate introduced it was launching a reasonably shameless BeReal clone in its app, which it calls “TikTok Now.”

Just like the new Gen Z app BeReal, 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 every single day, which is then shared with associates in a brand new part labeled “Now” within the app’s predominant navigation — fairly a outstanding place for an unoriginal characteristic.

The addition initially looks as if an odd one for TikTok, given its major focus is on video leisure, not friendship-focused social networking, which is what BeReal’s all about. However we’ve got seen some indicators in current months that TikTok’s ambitions are aimed toward taking over each areas. The corporate has been pushing extra options designed to attach its customers with their real-life associates on its app, for instance by asking for entry to customers’ deal with books, and even swapping out its Uncover tab for a Buddies tab. Plus, as you browse your For You feed, you’ll additionally see suggestions of individuals to comply with. Some customers report that folks they know have been discovering their TikTok accounts because of what seems to be primarily based on deal with book-based cellphone quantity matching, as effectively. (And so they’re not all comfortable about it.)

In the meantime, TikTok hasn’t been totally clear about what it’s as much as right here, however this BeReal clone makes it much more apparent: it needs customers’ good friend graphs. It needs to be a social community, too.

This purpose is straightforward. Youthful, Gen Z customers are adopting new on-line behaviors with regards to social networking. They’re transferring away from older social networks, like Fb, and have even begun to seek 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 associates by way of apps like BeReal. 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 must spend on TikTok — which hurts its personal enterprise. It could additionally forestall TikTok from growing options that cater to real-world associates sooner or later, which might make its app extra complete than the video timewaster it’s at the moment.

iOS 16 adoption is quicker than iOS 15

Based on information from Mixpanel (through iMore), there’s higher shopper demand for iOS 16 in contrast with the discharge of iOS 15 final yr. After the primary 24 hours, iOS 16 had been downloaded by 6.71% of customers, versus 6.48% of customers who downloaded iOS 15. Nevertheless, each updates had trailed iOS 14, which reached 9.22% of customers its first day. Nevertheless, iOS 14 was a significant shopper replace, because it launched Residence Display screen widgets for the primary time. Whereas iOS 16 brings one other widget format — Lock Display screen widgets — different options, like Stay Actions, are nonetheless to come back.

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 a good older OS.

Social media cos get grilled by the Senate

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 yr, this time across the corporations have been testifying earlier than the Senate Homeland Safety Committee about what dangers they might pose to nationwide safety. For Meta, the listening to was a much-needed reprieve as lots of the senators had their eyes on TikTok as a substitute — particularly after studies that TikTok U.S. person information was accessed by staff in China.

The businesses 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, nonetheless, 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 lots of the 40,000 folks it reportedly had on belief and security have been centered on non-U.S. customers and non-English language challenge, and the corporate didn’t reply.

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

Adobe’s huge wager on Figma

Adobe’s gorgeous $20 billion acquisition of digital design firm Figma this week was an enormous wager that takes out one among its largest rivals, even when it meant paying twice as a lot as Figma’s most up-to-date non-public 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

• iOS 16 debuted. The newest model of Apple’s new cell working system arrived proper on time, permitting customers to make the most of upgrades like Lock Display screen widgets, Focus filters, the flexibility to edit and unsend iMessage textual content, background cutout for pictures, 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 Exercise app, sleep levels, an AFib Historical past characteristic, redesigned Compass app and new Drugs app.
• Apple’s tvOS 16, in the meantime, introduced extra under-the-hood enhancements, like help for Nintendo Change controllers, HDR10+ and the flexibility for TV apps to leverage information from different Apple units (e.g. Apple Health+ will present your exercise metrics on-screen).
• iPadOS 15.7, macOS Monterey 12.6 and macOS Massive Sur 11.7, have been launched as effectively.
• WeatherKit subscriptions launched alongside iOS 16. The service is supposed to interchange the climate service from Apple-acquired Darkish Sky, which is shutting down. WeatherKit delivers as much as 500,000 API calls per thirty days for climate and forecast information to registered Apple Developer Program members earlier than pricing kicks in.
• Apple advised builders this week they might quickly be capable to purchase new Search Advert spots on the App Retailer. The corporate invited builders to a session to be taught extra concerning the advert slots, which needs to be reside by the vacation season.

Platforms: Google

• Google started rolling out Play Retailer opinions tailor-made to your system — a characteristic it first introduced in August 2021.
• Google stated it could make the newly authorised emojis out there to Android customers by the top of the yr, 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

• Grocery store chain Wegmans stated it would 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 know-how, which makes use of clients’ personal pictures to mannequin the clothes throughout a spread of manufacturers. The brand new characteristic, “Be Your Personal Mannequin,” expands on the prevailing choice to select from one among greater than 100 present fashions of various heights, sizes and pores and skin tones. Initially, customers will be capable to take their pictures with the Walmart iOS app to just about strive on garments from Walmart.com.

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! Right here’s what comes subsequent.

Social

• Fb launched Neighborhood Chats, a brand new characteristic that connects Fb Teams in Messenger through textual content, audio and video chats. The characteristic additionally presents classes and admin-only chats, as effectively.
• Inside Meta analysis, reported by The WSJ, indicated that Instagram customers are spending 17.6 million hours per day on Reels, far in need of the 197.8 million hours per day spent on TikTok. As well as, 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 characteristic, “Items,” that provides creators a brand new technique to earn cash by way of Reels.
• French social app Yubo stated it would start to confirm all customers’ ages utilizing facial recognition know-how. The startup is utilizing Yoti’s age estimation know-how, which makes use of the cellphone digital camera to take a photograph and a brief video of the person’s face, verifying ages with 98.9% accuracy. The corporate has 60 million customers and had initially began verifying ages of those that stated they have been youthful, like 13 or 14 years previous.

• Discord launched a brand new Discussion board Channels characteristic to assist server house owners higher set up conversations. The characteristic entails sub-channels that can be utilized to department off conversations about explicit subjects or to keep away from having to create one other channel for centered conversations.
• Snapchat for Net started to roll out to all customers worldwide, after preliminary assessments as a Snapchat+ characteristic. The net 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.

Images

• Google Images redesigned its Reminiscences characteristic with vertical swiping, extra video and different inventive instruments. The service will routinely choose and trim the very best snippets out of your longer movies utilizing machine studying as a part of its enhancements to Reminiscences and can add a brand new collage-making instrument, the flexibility to share Reminiscences with associates and extra.
• Apple up to date its iOS 16 internet web page to notice that the iCloud Shared Picture Library characteristic will not be coming till “later this yr,” as a substitute of launching with iOS 16 on Monday, September 12.

Messaging

• WhatsApp is making motion pictures, Selection reported. The messaging app owned by Meta is introducing its first authentic movie this month, a challenge 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 would talk how WhatsApp brings folks collectively.
• Communications startup Sendbird introduced it could now permit clients to add livestreaming mixed with chat of their apps with a few strains of code, through a brand new product referred to as Sendbird Stay.

Streaming & Leisure

• Twitter started rolling out podcasts in its redesigned Areas tab to all its Twitter Blue subscribers, after initially testing it with a subset of Twitter customers. The characteristic provides personalised hubs referred to as “Stations” that group collectively content material by subject, like information, music, sports activities and extra.
• TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts launched a brand new characteristic that extra intently integrates the characteristic with YouTube Music. Now, customers can save songs they uncover in Shorts to take heed to later in YouTube Music, through a customized playlist, “Sounds on Shorts.”
• Spotify and Wattpad struck a deal to launch a collection of unique podcasts in Indonesia and the Philippines to carry standard internet novels to life, together with “My Ice Lady,” which has 22 million reads on Wattpad; “The 4 Unhealthy Boys and Me,” which has 321 million reads; and “For Rent: A Rattling Good Kisser,” which has 42.1 million reads.
• Spotify’s Stay streaming platform will not be going effectively. The corporate this week needed to cancel a efficiency by Ghost, claiming the demand for the occasion had brought on technical difficulties. (One Twitter person famous that will not have truly been the case, however slightly 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, might quickly provide creators to earn funds and place advertisements of their movies, The NYT realized. It expects to announce the adjustments on Tuesday.
• YouTube additionally this week launched a brand new characteristic that may permit creators to make new Shorts instantly from their video’s feedback. The characteristic very a lot duplicates related 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 clarification of their very own.

• Amazon introduced its reside radio app Amp, a type of Spotify Stay or Clubhouse competitor, would achieve a brand new creator fund that may assist reward creators who construct partaking exhibits and appeal to a loyal viewers. The corporate stated it allotted “hundreds of thousands of {dollars}” for this fund, however declined to offer a precise determine. It stated payouts to creators would differ.

Relationship

• 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

• Snowman, the maker of standard cell video games like Alto’s Journey, Alto’s Odyssey, and Skate Metropolis, launched its newest new sport completely with Netflix. The studio’s new vertical scrolling platformer, Fortunate Luna, involves iOS and Android units by way of Netflix Video games.
• Tencent pulled in $2.6 billion in its online game phase throughout 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 language regulators authorised 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 many 73 new publishing licenses that have been authorised, 69 have been for cell video games. Different builders additionally acquired licenses, together with Zhong Qing Bao, Leiting, XD Inc. and CMGE Know-how Group.

Well being & Health

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

Utilities

• Opal, a “digital well-being assistant,” rolled out a rebuilt model of its app designed to assist people higher monitor and handle their display time utilization. Whereas most display time apps are centered on serving to dad and mom handle their kids’s display time, Opal is aimed toward anybody who needs 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 Display screen Time API to offer studies on display time utilization and quickly block customers from their distracting apps.

Authorities & Coverage

• An EU court docket backed the European Fee’s choice to tremendous Google over Android antitrust breaches, however lessened the tremendous 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 amassing behavioral information for exhibiting tailor-made advertisements.
• California handed a brand new legislation on Thursday, the California Age-Applicable Design Code Act, that may make it the primary state to introduce laws aimed toward defending the well-being, information and privateness of kids utilizing on-line platforms. The legislation requires on-line platforms to “think about the very best curiosity of kid customers” and to default to privateness and security settings that “defend kids’s psychological and bodily well being and wellbeing,” a press launch famous. It additionally prohibits corporations from utilizing a toddler’s private data, profiling kids by default, encouraging them to reveal private data or amassing, retaining or promoting their geolocation information, amongst different issues.

Safety & Privateness

• 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, Fast Safety Response, Security Test, Passkeys and adjustments 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 folks and academics, Seesaw, was compromised by hackers utilizing a credential stuffing method to ship out an express picture. The app has 10 million customers.
• A brand new warning about faux App Retailer pages goes round. The pages are designed to look very very like an App Retailer 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 might take customers to obtain malware.

🤝 In a large deal, Adobe introduced plans to amass UI design and prototyping instrument Figma for round $20 billion, half in money and half in inventory. Figma CEO Dylan Subject will proceed to guide the corporate following the deal shut. The deal additionally contains 6 million extra restricted inventory models granted to Figma’s CEO and staff that may vest over 4 years following the closing. Figma has round 4 million customers and had grown to turn into a competitor to Adobe’s inventive instruments.

💰 Nigerian monetary administration app for retailers, Kippa, raised $8.4 million in seed funding from plenty of traders, together with Goodwater Capital, TEN13 VC, Rocketship VC, Saison Capital, Crestone VC, VentureSouq, Horizon Companions 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 so far to €162 million. The app presents personalised suggestions, full-length movies, a skip intro characteristic 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 Sequence B funding, $30 million of which is in fairness financing led by Valar Ventures and others. That is the third enterprise spherical for the startup in simply over a yr.

📉 Basic Atlantic is shopping for out SoftBank’s whole 15% stake within the Norwegian edtech sport 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 Display screen widgets

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

The massive winner of the Lock Display screen widget race was Prime Widgets, the generically named widget from a Chinese language tech firm that provides a wide range of widget types, together with informational dashboards and even animations for the Lock Display screen, interesting to a youthful, Gen Z crowd. Following the discharge of iOS 16, Prime 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 Display screen widgets throughout classes like personalization, journey, work, cooking, climate and extra. When you’re trying to strive a wide range of widgets to determine which you want finest, it is a good place to begin.

A couple of extra favs

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

• Apollo’s iOS 16-optimized app brings Reddit to your Lock Display 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 exhibits 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 may turn into the Dynamic Island.
• Two apps, ShortFlow and LockFlow, permit customers to flip their Apple Shortcuts into Lock Display screen widgets.
• Flighty’s journey app added a handful of recent widgets, together with a Journey Countdown widget to make use of forward of your travels, in addition to a Stay Flight Standing widget and an In-Flight Progress Bar.
• ScreenKit’s app, in the meantime, is an efficient instance of how personalization utilities are embracing the Lock Display screen, because it added over 100 Lock Display screen widget variations and over 200 pre-made Lock Display screen themes that customers can coordinate with its present themes, wallpapers, icons, Residence Display screen widgets and extra.

Massive corporations launch their widgets, too

• Snapchat rolled out two Lock Display 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.
• Fb launched a set of iOS 16 Lock Display screen widgets, providing two to select from: “Birthdays at a Look” and “Prime Updates.”
• Google launched its set of iOS 16 Lock Display screen widgets, however didn’t have them prepared for launch day, sadly. The approaching widgets embody these for Search, Maps, Gmail, Chrome, Drive and Information. We nonetheless want Google Calendar!