This Week in Apps

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
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Users demand the TikTok-ification of Instagram must stop 
How do you modernize an app like Instagram, whose roots are in iconic iPhone photography, to support users’ growing engagement with short-form video? If you’re one of the many increasingly frustrated Instagram users, you simply wish it would not attempt this pivot at all. You’re sick of the app’s constant changes, its clutter, its ads, its force-fed recommendations, and you’re not a fan of its TikTok ambitions. You just want to see your friends’ posts.
This issue finally came to a head this week when celeb sisters and Instagram top creators Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian shared a petition that demanded Instagram to “stop trying to be tiktok.” The day after, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted a video addressing the concerns and said the app would temporarily roll back some of its recent changes, including the test of a full-screen TikTok-like experience and the increase in “recommended” posts.
The company has brought this user backlash on itself, of course, with its continual “tests” of new UIs and its desperate admissions about how TikTok is eating its lunch, forcing it to adapt or die. Plus, Instagram claims video is what people want even when they’re saying otherwise. It insists its own data supports that video has been growing faster as mobile networks got faster and data became cheaper.
While that may be true, Instagram has been throwing out the baby with the bathwater as it attempts to prioritize elements of TikTok in its own app. People want different experiences from their social platforms — and Instagram is trying to do it all, without acknowledging that the real threat from TikTok is not the video content itself, necessarily, but rather TikTok’s addictive algorithm that increases users’ time spent in the app. TikTok has figured out how to recommend posts that users welcome, while Instagram’s attempt to do the same has fallen flat. Combined with TikTok’s ability to attract a younger demographic in terms of both creators and viewers alike, the app has become a massive force in social media.
Instagram will need to find a way to balance the demands of a user base that wants to still celebrate social connection (including through static media), with creator demands for increased discovery and the rise of video. This is not an easy task, but perhaps step one should be to allow users to engage with Instagram as they like. Just as how users can opt to scroll the main Feed instead of viewing Stories and vice versa, Instagram’s TikTok-ishness should rather be an optional entry point, not the entirety of the Instagram experience.

Snapchat+

Image Credits: Snapchat

Image Credits: Snapchat
Snapchat’s recent move into premium subscriptions has gained a bit of traction in its first weeks on the market.
The new Snapchat+ paid subscription launched on June 29, 2022 offering users access to various premium features, while also importantly giving the company a means of diversifying its revenue streams beyond advertising. This is critical for the social app given that the ad market is currently impacted by broader macroeconomic forces that have slowed demand. In addition, Snapchat continues to feel the effects of Apple’s 2021 privacy changes that allowed users to opt-out of tracking and is facing increased competition from rival TikTok.
For $3.99 per month, the Snapchat+ subscription allows devoted app users to see who has rewatched their Stories, change their app icon, pin another user as a “#1 Best Friend,” try out pre-release features and more. Earlier this month, the company also made web access a part of the Snapchat+ subscription.
Since the subscription’s arrival, Snapchat’s mobile app has generated approximately $7.3 million in worldwide consumer spending across iOS and Android according to Sensor Tower. This represents the first 30 days of Snapchat+’s availability, June 29, 2022–July 26, 2022. The figure is also around 116 times higher than the $63,000 the app pulled in via in-app purchases in the 30 days prior from May 30, 2022–June 28, 2022, indicating the bulk of the new revenue was driven by Snapchat+.
Notably, the number is already larger than Twitter’s in-app revenue, which totals nearly $4 million since Twitter Blue’s June 2021 launch — over a year’s time. Snapchat+ could be succeeding because it has more power users than Twitter, Sensor Tower data shows, as 34% of its active installs open the app every single day compared with just 19% for Twitter.

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Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Here’s a scoop: TikTok is getting into gaming.
The company confirmed the launch of a pilot test of “mini-games” that can be played inside the social video app and discovered through creators’ videos. The gaming pilot quietly launched just weeks ago with a variety of new partners, including game developers VodooNitro GamesFRVRAim Lab and Lotum.
The launch follows reports earlier this year that the social video app maker was looking to expand into HTML5 gaming after first testing the waters with gaming giant Zynga last November. The two companies had then teamed up to launch a TikTok exclusive title, Disco Loco 3D, which was similar to Zynga’s successful game (by way of acquisition) High Heels.
TikTok’s mobile games today don’t monetize through ads or in-app purchases of any kind, but if they find traction with users, things could change as TikTok further developed its games platform. In that case, the app would not only recall the social gaming era of early Facebook (which incidentally drove Zynga’s success), it would also allow TikTok to route around the app stores’ commissions.

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Image Credits: TikTok

Image Credits: TikTok

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Image Credits: YouTube

Image Credits: YouTube
? Livestream shopping app for collectibles Whatnot raised $260 million in Series D funding at a $3.7 billion valuation, up from $1.5 billion in September 2021. The livestream shopping market has only grown to $11 billion in the U.S. versus the $600 billion industry in China.
? School communications app ClassDojo raised $125 million in Series D funding in September 2022, valuing the business at $1.25 billion. The company plans to launch a kids virtual space in August 2022.
? Paris-based Contentsquare raised $400 million in Series F funding and $200 million in debt for its web and app analytics business. The round doubled the startup’s May 2021 valuation to $5.6 billion.
? Conversational commerce startup Charles raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures to bring its service to WhatsApp in Europe. The company so far has seen the most traction in its domestic German market, but has received inbound interest from Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the U.K.
? Blockchain infrastructure company Chain acquired Measurable Data Token for $100 million. The deal sees it acquiring a cash-back mobile app, RewardMe, and the financial data protocol MeFi.
? Banking and networking platform Guava, targeting Black entrepreneurs, raised $2.4 million in a pre-seed round led by Heron Rock. The company aims to narrow the racial wealth gap by providing financial services to Black small businesses and creators.
? Text-to-speech app Peech raised $550,000 in funding led by Flyer One Ventures. The app offers natural-sounding text-to-speech in 50 languages, allowing users to listen to Word docs, web articles or PDFs for $3/week.
? South African startup Qwili raised $1.2 million in seed funding to scale its app and low-cost NFC-enabled smartphone. Qwili software can be downloaded to any phone in addition to being pre-installed on Qwili’s phones, which are used as point-of-sale devices for merchants selling data, pay-TV subscriptions, groceries or clothing to customers.
? Brooklyn-based fantasy sports app Underdog raised $35 million in Series B funding, valuing the business at $485 million. The company plans to launch licensed sports betting in Ohio and Colorado in 2023.
? Spotify’s latest SEC filing revealed it paid €291 million ($295 million) for its four recent acquisitions, Findaway, Podsights, Chartable, and Sonantic. Findaway, specifically, cost the company €117 million (around $123 million).
? U.K. investing app Shares raised $40 million led by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures, bringing its total raised to $90 million. The app has over 150,000 users.
? U.S.-based digital bank Umba, which focuses on emerging markets, acquired a majority share of Kenyan microfinance bank Daraja for an undisclosed amount.
A new type of app to download? We’re in!
If you’re running the iOS 16 public beta and looking to dig into Lock Screen widgets, there are a number of interesting apps now being tested that offer a look into how iOS developers are thinking about use cases for this prominent iPhone real estate. (If you ask nicely, the developers might add you to the TestFlight!)
A few apps we’ve found useful include:
The past month I’ve been making an iOS 16 Lock Screen widget app to quickly call contacts – much like speed dial. ?
I’m really pleased with how it’s turning out. ? pic.twitter.com/hVFJVeKgdY
— Rihab Mehboob (@elohohel) July 7, 2022

Can’t wait to use these!
Work in progress! pic.twitter.com/UntypJ1Pgu
— Parcel (@parcel_app) June 13, 2022

Happy to announce that @HomeWidget beta version now supports iOS 16 Lock Screen Widgets!
If you’re on iOS16 beta and want to test this new feature, contact us.#iOS16 #ios16lockscreen #ioslockscreen #homekit #iOSWidgets #LockScreen #WWDC22 #iOS16beta pic.twitter.com/84mFMTiW4e
— Home Widget for HomeKit (@HomeWidget) July 21, 2022

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