The weekly TechCrunch feature This Week in Apps reviews the most recent developments in mobile OS news, mobile applications, and the app ecosystem as a whole.
According to the most recent year-end statistics, the app market will continue to expand, with a record amount of downloads and consumer expenditure across the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021. According to App Annie, global spending on iOS and Google Play will reach $135 billion in 2021, and when its annual report, which includes third-party app stores in China, is released the following year, the amount will probably be higher. According to the study, consumers installed about 140 billion new apps this year, 10 billion more than in 2020.
Apps are a significant business in addition to being a method to kill time. Enterprises with a mobile emphasis were valued at $544 billion as a group in 2019, which is 6.5 times more than non-mobile companies. Investors invested $73 billion in mobile enterprises in 2020, a 27 percent increase from the previous year.
With the most recent information from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more, This Week in Apps provides a means to keep up with this rapidly changing business in one location.
According to the most recent year-end statistics, the app market will continue to expand, with a record amount of downloads and consumer expenditure across the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021. According to App Annie, global spending on iOS and Google Play will reach $135 billion in 2021, and when its annual report, which includes third-party app stores in China, is released the following year, the amount will probably be higher. According to the study, consumers installed about 140 billion new apps this year, 10 billion more than in 2020.
Apps are a significant business in addition to being a method to kill time. Enterprises with a mobile emphasis were valued at $544 billion as a group in 2019, which is 6.5 times more than non-mobile companies. Investors invested $73 billion in mobile enterprises in 2020, a 27 percent increase from the previous year.
With the most recent information from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more, This Week in Apps provides a means to keep up with this rapidly changing business in one location.
Elon says he’s killing the Twitter deal
The bird app buyout could be off, if Elon Musk has his way.
The termination of the merger deal was announced by Musk's legal team to Twitter on Friday. According to their letter, Twitter allegedly made false and deceptive statements regarding the state of its business. This obviously alludes to the controversy Musk had been creating regarding the service's projected bot usage rate, which Twitter claims to be less than 5%. Musk had already pressed Twitter for further details on this statistic, and Twitter gave Musk's team access to the API so they could determine it for themselves.
However, the letter claims that this API access was restricted and constrained, making it impossible for the team to adequately examine Twitter's data with reference to bots. (Which makes Musk's assertions that the number of bots is bigger than Twitter claimed it to be difficult to verify!) Additionally, according to Musk's attorneys, Twitter didn't follow a standardised procedure for determining its mDAUs or the percentage of bots, and it included known phoney and bot accounts in its mDAUs. Even if the arguments were convincing—which is impossible to say at this point—they prevent Musk from simply walking away.
As Musk has already signed the contract, the dispute will now proceed to court, where Twitter claims it intends to enforce the agreement at the agreed-upon price and terms. Additionally, Musk will be required to pay a billion dollars as a termination fee even if both sides agree to end the agreement.
It's unlikely that "bots" are the real cause of Musk's attempt to terminate. Because he is aware that he overpaid. What had previously appeared to be a reasonable deal (at $54.20 per share) rapidly turned out to be an overvalued deal in a macroeconomic context when tech stocks were sinking. Twitter's stock hasn't reclaimed the agreed-upon price since the announcement of the agreement; in fact, it recently dropped as much as 28 percent below Musk's offer price. Musk might be hoping to have a chance to negotiate a better price by pushing the transaction into the legal system. But it's not a given that will happen.
Google blocked KakaoTalk for not following its rules
FTC asked to investigate TikTok
This week, Google made clear that it intends to uphold its new Play Store policies on in-app purchases, regardless of the fact that the developer is a $1.5 billion tech powerhouse with the top app in its region. According to local media reports, the Korean business that created the well-known South Korean mobile messenger KakaoTalk was banned from updating its app due to its violation of Google Play's restrictions. This would be the first instance in which Google would put into effect its new Play Store guidelines about how apps can direct customers to their own websites for alternative payment methods.
The "anti-Google law" in South Korea, which governs in-app purchases, allows Google's app developers to include third-party payment methods alongside their own, but only under certain conditions. However, it does not allow app developers to provide links that let users completely avoid Google's paying system. KakaoTalk is continue to carry out that action.
Failure to abide with Google's standards could result in the complete removal of an app from the Play Store. Google hasn't gone that far yet; it has only prevented the business from releasing updates. However, this is still a severe punishment that is intended to compel the app to act.
Businesses don't like how Google complied with the country's new rule because Google isn't allowing them to avoid fees as they had intended, simply providing a reduction on commissions paid for those using third-party payments. Google announced on April 1 that all apps must either use its own payment system and pay the customary 15–30% in commissions, or they can use a third-party system in exchange for a 4–% savings on those costs.
Google and Kakao met with the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) on Thursday to discuss the situation. After then, Kakao gave in and decided to comply with Google's guidelines by removing the web link to the third-party payment system. Analysts theorised that Kakao's earlier refusal to take down the link was simply an effort to draw authorities' attention to the situation, showing how Google had complied with the letter but not the spirit of the legislation. Since most apps were already in accordance with the rule and the KCC was looking into how it was being applied, Google had not yet taken any disciplinary measures.
Approximately 53 million+ individuals use the Kakao Talk messaging app each month, making it one of the most popular social apps in the nation.
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have requested that the FTC look into allegations that TikTok misled Congress over ByteDance workers' access to U.S. users' data. Senators Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, who serve as the committee's head and ranking member, have asked FTC Chair Lina Khan to conduct additional research to determine whether TikTok may have lied to Congress about how it manages user data.
This demand comes in response to a BuzzFeed News investigation that showed ByteDance personnel in China were regularly accessing American data as late as early 2022, despite prior assurances from TikTok to the opposite. In response to the BuzzFeed story last weekend, TikTok wrote to Republican Senators to reassure them that it is working on a project named "Project Texas" to enhance data security for users in the United States.
The letter demanded that your organisation "immediately initiate a Section 5 investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok" and "coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice" in light of the "new report."
Recently, TikTok has come under further pressure. On June 24, six senators wrote to the Treasury Department requesting information on the discussions between TikTok and CFIUS, which would have led to Trump's EO banning the TikTok app in the United States. On June 28, Brendan Carr, an FCC Commissioner, sent a letter to Apple and Google asking them to remove TikTok from their app stores due to "its record of sneaky data abuses."
