This Week in Apps: Apple Arcade updates, TikTok distances itself from China, Kardashians send shady app to No. 1

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using?

This week, we’re discussing the impact of the CFIUS investigation into TikTok, the further fallout of Apple’s vaping app ban, updates to Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass subscription-based app stores, Apple’s breaking changes that rolled out without warning (thanks, Apple!) and a shady app that reached the top of the App Store thanks to a big Kardashians-led endorsement, among other things.

Headlines

TikTok separates further from its Chinese parent

One of the world’s most downloaded and used apps, TikTok, is under a national security review in the U.S. because of its Chinese roots. TikTok parent company, ByteDance, is a China-based operation — something that has raised concerns because of its significant access to U.S. users’ personal data and potential censorship issues.

The company was already working to separate itself further from China before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began its investigation. For example, it separated the TikTok product, business development, marketing and legal teams from those of its Chinese app, Douyin, and hired consultants to audit how it’s storing U.S. users’ personal data. Following the investigation, it hired more U.S. engineers and set up a U.S.-based team to oversee data management, Reuters reported.

The question now is whether not these moves — along with a promise to not store U.S. user data in China — will be enough. The app collects data including profile information such as name, age, email and phone number, provided by users, as well as photos, videos, and location. Many of TikTok users are younger teens and college students.

Even if you’re “too old” to care about TikTok, CFIUS investigation’s conclusions here will have a larger impact on the global app industry, as they’ll set precedents as to how foreign powers can compete in U.S. app stores.

Oops: Apple releases breaking changes with no warning 

Apple this week introduced new server-to-server notifications for subscriptions that allowed developers to receive real-time updates in a subscription’s status, so they could provide customized experiences for subscribers. Only one problem with the release: Apple broke most server notifications implementations as a result. Developers weren’t given any warning about the APIs that were “scheduled for deprecation,” either, which is not typically how web APIs are managed. To add icing to the cake, not only were the changes released without warning, they were also rolled out on a Friday — there goes the weekend. Thanks, Apple.

They mentioned it in their new docs. Apparently "scheduled for deprecation" meant today.

This is not how you manage web APIs. When Google deprecates an API they give months of warning, automated emails, and repeated communications.

Apple just changes shit. pic.twitter.com/QG4PyLxNVK

— Jacob Eiting (@jeiting) November 22, 2019

The vaping app ban backlash continues

Has Apple crossed the line between protecting its users from dangerous apps to just turning into an overbearing parent policing adults’ ability to make their own choices? Over the past couple of weeks, several have said the latter. Now concerning are arising about what this means for the overall industry and whether or not decisions like this should even be in Apple’s hands in the first place.

As you may recall, Apple earlier made a controversial decision to remove all 181 vaping-related apps from its App Store in wake of news from the CDC about the 47 vaping deaths and thousands of lung injuries. Some early studies point to Vitamin E acetate, an addictive used in THC oil, as the cause. But Apple isn’t worrying about the details of what’s dangerous and what’s not — it just wiped out anything vaping-related, including things like Bluetooth-connected apps that let users control aspects of their vaping devices, like the lights, heat, and updates to the firmware. There’s no backup plan here for those app makers, since web apps don’t offer the same level of functionality. Plus, the ban is also impacting devices used to distribute medication as well as apps designed to help people cut down and eventually quit smoking and vaping by tracking their nicotine usage.

For app entrepreneurs, Apple’s decision in one fell swoop also just destroyed half the vaping app market as their apps will now only run on Android.

The question now is whether or not any of this should be Apple’s decision? While you may personally applaud a vaping app ban — or simply not care because it doesn’t affect you — Apple has made other controversial choices that have a more serious impact. Like when it kicked out the app that aided Hong Kong protestors, for example.

Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass expand their collections

Apple’s subscription-based gaming store and Google’s rival subscription app store, Google Play Pass, have both added new apps since their debuts. Now, the two companies are making users aware of their ongoing efforts to beef up their respective collections. Apple this week shared a video that highlighted over a dozen new Apple Arcade releases that hit this month — the first time it’s released a compilation video featuring multiple titles since its launch.

Meanwhile, Google Play Pass added 37 more apps to bring its total to 274.

More games and apps, more fun! Check out the new additions to Google Play Pass since launch: https://t.co/eBkh89REen #PlayPass

Cytus II by @CytusRayark
Sally’s Law by @NanaliStudios
Traffix by Infinity Games

To name a few, plus many more. pic.twitter.com/T0IkNLpUz3

— Google Play (@GooglePlay) November 25, 2019

What we don’t know yet, is how well the two services are working — or whether they will benefit developers in the long run. And because neither has a Top Charts section, it’s not even clear what apps are most popular or how many downloads they’re seeing.

Apple Arcade adds a “Top Games” chart… well, sorta… OK, not really

Apple took a step to address the above problem with a new section in Apple Arcade called “Top Arcade Games This Week.” We had argued earlier that the lack of visibility into the popularity of titles on Arcade was a disservice to users who wanted quickly and easily find the most popular titles.

But this new section, while fun, doesn’t solve the problem. Top Games, based on what? Downloads? Editorial curation? Both? Is there going to be an API for it?

It’s common knowledge that the App Store’s Top Charts are based on a combination of downloads and velocity. And that data is accessible to third parties like App Annie, Sensor Tower, Apptopia and others who use it to come up with download estimates.

But a “Top Games This Week” section is not the same thing as a real Top Charts section. And by limiting it to only a week’s time, it provides no real insight into whether or not the Arcade is able to produce a lasting hit the way the App Store can, or what those hit titles may be.

Apple has distanced itself from promoting the Top Charts as a means of app discovery for years now. With its big App Store makeover, it shifted its focus more to editorial, curation, and recommendations, rather than downloads. But for a smaller store like Arcade, Top Charts could have value as they would feature some of the best titles from an already exclusive collection — that’s something people would want to see.

Why was a shady photo editor the top app of October?

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Apple and Google Maps accommodate Russia’s annexation of Crimea

Global politics are difficult to navigate ordinarily, but in times of conflict companies that aim to provide an unbiased service, such as a map or search function, may have to come down on one side or another. Apple just came down at least partly on the side of Russia in its controversial annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and Google has accommodated Russian interests as well.

The large peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea was brought under Russian control in 2014 during political unrest there concerning Crimea’s status within Ukraine. World leaders decried the move, saying that Russia had deliberately helped instigate the crisis there in order to take advantage of it, and violated Ukraine’s sovereignty with its military presence.

While the controversy surrounding these events are ongoing (indeed, the events themselves are too, in a way), companies like Apple and Google don’t have the luxury of waiting for history’s judgment to do things like update their maps.

Both, for instance, until recently labeled locations in Crimea as being part of Ukraine. But Russia has made official complaints to the companies and warned them that it is considered a criminal act to refer to Crimea as other than a Russian territory. Now both companies have made concessions to Russian demands.

Apple in its Maps and Weather app now shows locations in Crimea as being part of Russia, when being viewed from that country. Russian authorities today said that “Apple fulfilled its obligations and brought the applications on its devices in compliance with the requirements of the Russian legislation.”

If you’re viewing from the U.S., both Apple and Google appear to take something of a neutral stance, if any stance can be said to be neutral. The Crimean peninsula appears as neither Russian nor Ukrainian on both Apple and Google Maps, with some rather strange gymnastics to accomplish it.

For example, in Google Maps there is a prominent border on the north side dividing Crimea from Kherson Oblast (a Ukrainian province), much heavier than lines between other provinces. Clicking Kherson Oblast on the border brings up a description and outline, while clicking Crimea seems to do nothing at all. On cities and random locations located in Crimea, there is no country at all in the space where it is normally displayed:

On both Apple and Google Maps, there is no border at all between Crimea and Russia where it would normally appear, across Taman Bay. Yet on one side of the bay locations are prominently labeled as Russian, while on the other they are devoid of a country affiliation.

I’ve asked Google and Apple for comment on when and how they decided to implement their current maps and will update this post if I hear back. It’s very likely that both will justify these decisions with the fact that they must adhere to local laws. But what happens when two sets of local laws diverge in the same location?

My point here is not to take sides for or against any of these representations, but to show that companies like Apple and Google are in a tight spot when it comes to these situations, and their information is far from complete or authoritative. In this case we see that they have different results for different places, concessions for some governments in spite of international concern, and the reduction of some services to a non-functional state (comparatively) in order to avoid controversy.

Just something to keep in mind whenever you look up information on services provided by global companies — they’re not objective sources, though of course arguably nothing is.

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Gift Guide: Essential security and privacy gifts to help protect your friends and family

There’s no such thing as perfect privacy or security, but there’s a lot you can do to lock down your online life. And the holiday season is a great time to encourage others to do the same. Some people are more likely to take security into their own hands if they’re given a nudge along the way.

Here we have a selection of gift ideas — from helpful security solutions to unique and interesting gadgets that will keep your information safe, but without breaking the bank.

A hardware security key for two-factor

Your online accounts have everything about you and you’d want to keep them safe. Two-factor authentication is great, but for the more security minded there’s an even stronger solution. A security key is a physical hardware key that’s even stronger than having a two-factor code going to your phone. These keys plug into your USB port on your computer (or the charger port on your phone) to prove to online services, like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, that you are who you say you are. Google’s own data shows security keys offer near-unbeatable protection against even the most powerful and resourced nation-state hackers. Yubikeys are our favorite and come in all shapes and sizes. They’re also cheap. Google also has a range of its own branded Titan security keys, one of which also offers Bluetooth connectivity.

Price: from $20.
Available from: Yubico Store | Google Store

Webcam cover

Surveillance-focused malware, like remote access trojans, can infect computers and remotely switch on your webcam without your permission. Most computer webcams these days have an indicator light that shows you when the camera is active. But what if your camera is blocked, preventing any accidental exposure in the first place? Enter the simple but humble webcam blocker. It slides open when you need to access your camera, and slides to cover the lens when you don’t. Support local businesses and non-profits — you can search for unique and interesting webcam covers on Etsy

Price: from $5 – $10.
Available from: Etsy | Electronic Frontier Foundation

A microphone blocker

Now you have you webcam cover, what about your microphone? Just as hackers can tap into your webcam, they can also pick up on your audio. Microphone blockers contain a semiconductor that tricks your computer or device into thinking that it’s a working microphone, when in fact it’s not able to pick up any audio. Anyone hacking into your device won’t hear a thing. Some modern Macs already come with a new Apple T2 security chip which prevents hackers from snooping on your microphone when your laptop’s lid is shut. But a microphone blocker will work all the time, even when the lid is open.

Price: $6.99 – $16.99.
Available from: Nope Blocker | Mic Lock

A USB data blocker

You might have heard about “juice-jacking,” where hackers plant malicious implants in USB outlets, which steal a person’s device data when an unsuspecting victim plugs in. It’s a threat that’s almost unheard of, but proof-of-concepts have shown how easy it is to implant malicious components in legitimate-looking cables. A USB data blocker essentially acts as a data barrier, preventing any information going in or out of your device, while letting power through to charge your battery. They’re cheap but effective.

Price: from $6.99 and $11.49.
Available from: Amazon | SyncStop

A privacy screen for your computer or phone

How often have you seen someone’s private messages or document as you look over their shoulder, or see them in the next aisle over? Privacy screens can protect you from “visual hacking.” These screens make it near-impossible for anyone other than the device user to snoop at what you’re working on. And, you can get them for all kinds of devices and displays — including phones. But make sure you get the right size!

Price: from about $17.
Available from: Amazon

A password manager subscription

Password managers are a real lifesaver. One strong, unique password lets you into your entire bank of passwords. They’re great for storing your passwords, but also for encouraging you to use better, stronger, unique passwords. And because many are cross-platform, you can bring your passwords with you. Plenty of password managers exist — from LastPass, Lockbox, and Dashlane, to open-source versions like KeePass. Many are free, but a premium subscription often comes with benefits and better features. And if you’re a journalist, 1Password has a free subscription for you.

Price: Many free, premium offerings start at $35.88 – $44.28 annually
Available from: 1Password | LastPass | Dashlane | KeePass

Anti-surveillance clothing

Whether you’re lawfully protesting or just want to stay in “incognito mode,” there are — believe it or not — fashion lines that can help prevent facial recognition and other surveillance systems from identifying you. This clothing uses a kind of camouflage that confuses surveillance technology by giving them more interesting things to detect, like license plates and other detectable patterns.

Price: $35.99.
Available from: Adversarial Fashion

Pi-hole

Think of a Pi-hole as a “hardware ad-blocker.” A Pi-hole is a essentially a Raspberry Pi mini-computer that runs ad-blocking technology as a box that sits on your network. It means that everyone on your home network benefits from ad blocking. Ads may generate revenue for websites but online ads are notorious for tracking users across the web. Until ads can behave properly, a Pi-hole is a great way to capture and sinkhole bad ad traffic. The hardware may be cheap, but the ad-blocking software is free. Donations to the cause are welcome.

Price: From $35.
Available from: Pi-hole | Raspberry Pi

And finally, some light reading…

There are two must-read books this year. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s “Permanent Record” autobiography covers his time as he left the shadowy U.S. intelligence agency to Hong Kong, where he spilled thousands of highly classified government documents to reporters about the scope and scale of its massive global surveillance partnerships and programs. And, Andy Greenberg’s book on “Sandworm”, a beautifully written deep-dive into a group of Russian hackers blamed for the most disruptive cyberattack in history, NotPetya, This incredibly detailed investigative book leaves no stone unturned, unravelling the work of a highly secretive group that caused billions of dollars of damage.

Price: From $14.99.
Available from: Amazon (Permanent Record) | Amazon (Sandworm)

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Xiaomi’s Q3 earnings report shows slowing growth

Xiaomi, the world’s fourth largest smartphone vendor, on Wednesday reported a 3.3% revenue growth (QoQ) in the quarter that ended in September. While the results fell largely in line with analysts’ expectations, a drastic drop in the company’s growth underscores some of the struggles that handset makers are facing as they shift to services to make up for dwindling smartphone purchases globally.

The Chinese electronics firm posted Q3 revenue of 53.7 billion yuan, or $7.65 billion, an increase compared to 51.95 billion yuan ($7.39 billion) revenue it reported in Q2 and up 5.5% from the same period last year.

This is largely in line with analysts’ estimated revenue of 53.74 billion yuan, per Refinitiv figures, but growth is slowing. As a point of comparison, in Q2, Xiaomi reported QoQ growth of 18.7% and YoY of 14.8%.

Xiaomi said its adjusted profit in the aforementioned quarter was 3.5 billion yuan ($500 million), up from about 2.5 billion yuan a year ago. Gross profit during the period was 8.2 billion yuan ($1.17 billion), up 25.2% year-over-year.

The company said its smartphone business revenue during Q3 stood at 32.3 billion yuan ($4.6 billion), down 7.8% year-over-year. The company, which shipped 32.1 million smartphone units during the period, blamed “downturn” in China’s smartphone market for the decline.

Marketing research firm Canalys reported this month that China’s smartphone market shrank by 3% during Q3. Despite the slowdown, Xiaomi said its gross profit margin of smartphones segment had reached 9% — up from 8.1% and 3.3% in the previous quarters.

Other than Huawei, which leads the handsets market in China, every other smartphone vendor has suffered a drop in their shipment volumes in the country, according to research firm Counterpoint.

But for Xiaomi, this should technically not be a problem. Long before the company listed publicly last year, it has been boasting about its business model: how it makes little money from hardware and more and more from delivering ads and selling internet services.

That internet services business is not growing fast enough, however, to be an engine for the overall company. It grew by 12.3% year-on-year to 5.3 billion yuan ($750 million) and 15% since last quarter. Either way, it accounts for only a fraction of smartphone business’ contribution to the bottomline.

Xiaomi said two years ago that it will only ever make 5% profit from its hardware, something its executives told TechCrunch has been engraved in the company’s “constitution.” But the slow shift to making money off of internet services, while making less money from selling hardware, is one of the chief reasons why the company had an underwhelming IPO.

Meanwhile, the user base of Xiaomi’s Android-based MIUI software is growing. It had 292 million monthly active users as of September this year, up from 278.7 in June.

In more promising signs, Xiaomi said its smart TV and Mi Box platforms had more than 3.2 million paid subscribers and revenue from its fintech business, a territory it entered only in recent quarters, had already reached 1 billion yuan ($140 million).

But it’s hardware that continues to make up the biggest proportion of its revenues. The company, which is increasingly moving its gadgets and services beyond Chinese shores, said revenue from its international business grew 17.2 year-over-year to 26.1 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) in the third quarter — accounting for 48.7% of total revenue.

In a statement, Xiaomi founder and chairman Lei Jun said the company is hopeful that it will be able to further grow its revenues when 5G devices start to get traction. The company has plans to launch at least 10 5G-enabled smartphone models next year, he said. No word from him on what the company intends to do about its services ecosystem.

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Trouva, an online marketplace for independent boutiques, raises $22M

Amazon helped pioneer and now dominates the online marketplace business model, where a variety of merchants post items for sale on its platform for billions of consumers to discover and buy them. Today, a London startup that’s taken that idea but is applying it to a far more curated set of retailers and goods has raised some money to fuel its international growth.

Trouva, which provides an online marketplace for brick-and-mortar independent boutiques selling “beautiful” and hard-to-find pieces — think Farfetch but less fancy and less high-end design — has raised £17 million ($21.8 million) in funding, money that it will be using to expand outside of the UK on the back of a strong launch in its Berlin last year, as well as to continue building out more technology on its platform, specifically around inventory and logistics management.

The funding is being led by Octopus Ventures, C4 Ventures (the venture firm launched by Apple vet Pascal Cagni) and Downing Ventures. BGF and LocalGlobe were also in the round, which brings the total raised to about $36 million. Mandeep Singh, who co-founded the company with Alex Loizou and Glen Walker, said in an interview that the startup is not disclosing valuation. 

Amazon may dominate our consciousness (and for some of us, our wallets, with its sticky Prime perks) when it comes to browsing for a variety of goods online, buying them, and getting them delivered to us in an efficient way.

But the Amazon way leaves a lot out of the proposition: for retailers it doesn’t give them a lot of leeway in how they present items, and they have to compete with many thousands of other offers (including Amazon itself) to get their products seen.

More generally for both sellers and buyers, the ethos of the platform is that of an “everything” store with little in the way of focus or curation: you can watch movies or listen to music, or you can buy an HDMI cable, or you can buy food, or you can buy a book, or you can buy a vase… and so on. That in a way makes it more of a functional rather than pleasurable experience.

This opens the door to a multitude of different competitors, and there is where Trouva has stepped in. Where Amazon gives us the promise of everything, the smaller startup has effectively incorporated scarcity into its DNA.

“We are very picky,” Singh said. “We have to turn down the majority of applications from stores that want to sell on our site. We are looking for the very best curators. Having every single vase in the world is less important than having the best one, curated by an expert.”

While we are continuing to see a surge of purchasing via the web and apps — a trend that will get played out during holiday shopping in the weeks ahead — analysts estimate that some 85% of retail is still happening offline.

Within that group there is an interesting core of brick-and-mortar independent shops: At a time when large chains and the likes of Amazon are shifting the sands for how people sell things — and certainly how people shop — there remains a large group of independent retailers — “curators,” as Singh describes them. These shops target consumers with disposable income, people who are looking for more unique things to buy with their money.

The challenge of the ‘High Street’

Independent stores are often under threat in cities like London. First, they pop up in areas where rents are not as high, with like-minded people congregating to live in the same neighborhoods for the same reason. There, they sell a small selection of not-cheap clothes, interesting home goods, a variety of tchotchkes, or quirky gifts and develop a local following.

But their emergence can also often signal wider tides of gentrification. Ultimately, that shift is what moves those stores out as the rents subsequently go up, and bigger chains and fancy boutiques move in. (SoHo in NYC is another classic victim of this trend.)

Be that as it may, Singh notes that there are still more than 20,000 independent shops in the UK. “And we are working with 500 of the very best,” he added.

The company’s biggest competition, to my mind, are other players that are also looking to target the same kinds of shoppers online, for example, another UK site, Not On The High Street, or Etsy, which focuses less on retailers and more on makers. Similarly, there is the prospect of stores building their own sites, although that comes with its own set of headaches that independent shopkeepers may be less inclined to deal with.

“Yes, it’s very easy for an independent brick-and-mortar boutique to set up an online shop. That’s the easy part,” Singh said. “But what you find with independents is that building a website doesn’t help drive customers. There is a range of backend technology that we take care of, including inventory management software and handling the logistics of shipping. All of those can be difficult for a [physical] boutique to do on its own. It’s easy to sell online but you still need someone who has the economies of scales to pick up and deliver.”

On the other hand, he notes that “Amazon definitely doesn’t worry us.”

“We position ourselves as the complete opposite. Giants like that are too focused on categories that work well,” he added. Notably, he believes that the biggest threats are the same ones that threaten the independent stores that use Trouva to sell online: “Offline chains, those who sell homewares and clothes. The big guys.”

Trouva has no plans to move into selling its own goods, or to work with other online retailers, although it might consider down the line how it could leverage warehouse space to help its retailers with their inventory management (since many of these shops are very small indeed). “One hundred percent of our supply comes from our brick and mortar store partners,” he said.

Nor does it currently have anything like a Prime-style loyalty program. It does work with retailers and shipping partners to provide an end-to-end shipping service from store to buyer, with options for next-day delivery if it’s necessary.

“The relationship is mutually symbiotic with the boutiques, who benefit from a broader customer base, better priced and efficient delivery and stock tracking and management software from Trouva, and in turn higher revenues and improved profitability,” said Jo Oliver, a venture partner at investor Octopus. “As more boutiques are added the customer proposition becomes more and more attractive, particularly as Trouva’s footprint expands internationally.”

Singh notes that there is “exclusivity” for the shops that eventually come on to Trouva, although that’s almost by default since they are the kinds of small operations that are unlikely to be in the business of trying to expand their online presence.

Amazon has been working hard to improve how it interfaces with and curates items on its site to provide products, and a marketplace selling service, to the same consumer and retailer demographics that Trouva (and others) target. That’s unlikely to disappear over time, especially since Amazon plays the long game, where it will gradually tinker with an idea while at the same time quietly shift our shopping habits to match what it is producing.

“Online sellers like Amazon and eBay have tried to make a better experience, but it’s very hard for a business to change its DNA,” Singh said.

Updated with investor comment.

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Facebook Viewpoints pays users for well-being surveys & tasks

Facebook is launching a new market research, task, and product testing program that lets users earn money. Starting today, people in the US who are over 18 can download Viewpoints and participate in a well-being survey so Facebook can learn to “limit the negative impacts of social media and enhance the benefits.” Other opportunities include completing online chores on behalf of Facebook, or trying out new apps or devices ahead of launch so Facebook can refine them.

The well-being survey will take about 15 minutes score users 1000 points, which translates into a $5 reward that’s paid over PayPal. People interested in signing up can join Viewpoints here. The company claims it will only use the data collected internally and won’t sell it. Facebook Viewpoints is available on iOS and Android, and the company plans to open the app to more countries next year.

The question is whether users will be comfortable giving up even more data Facebook. Many are already creeped out by Facebook, but the monetary incentive might override their morals.

Meanwhile, Facebook will have to work to prevent the app from beinh abused. Most importantly, it needs to figure out how to make sure underage minors aren’t slipping into the app. They might be more vulnerable to coercion by cash, and less aware of the consequences of sharing their data.

I tried using Viewpoints but wasn’t invited to the well-being study or any other opportunities, so I couldn’t earn any money or try it out further as som studies are open only to people in certain locations or demographics. For now you have to log in with a Facebook account but it showed greyed out options for Google, phone, and email login that Facebook says are coming soon. Payments can take up to 10 days to process and your points expire after 5 years. Facebook won’t post or publicly share any info you provide through the app.

The launch of Viewpoints comes after Facebook shut down its paid market surveillance program Research and its free VPN that collected users’ data Onavo in the wake of a TechCrunch investigation that found the company was paying teenagers for their data while breaking Apple’s rules about distributing employee-only apps outside of a company.

The social network relaunched its market research efforts under the name Study From Facebook in June with a commitment to not allowing kids access. But in the meantime, leaked court documents have shown that Facebook purposefully used market research collected from Onavo to find potential rivals to cut off from its data. Facebook is now under anti-trust investigations surrounding concerns that disadvantaging its competitors hurt consumer choice in social apps.

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them

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Android’s Ambient Mode will soon come to ‘select devices’

You’ve probably heard murmurs about Google’s forthcoming Ambient Mode for Android. The company first announced this feature, which essentially turns an Android device into a smart display while it’s charging, in September. Now, in a Twitter post, Google confirmed that it will launch soon, starting with a number of select devices that run Android 8.0 or later.

At the time, Google said Ambient Mode was coming to the Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD and Smart Tab tablets, as well as the Nokia 7.2 and 6.2 phones. According to the Verge, it’ll also come to Sony, Nokia, Transsion and Xiaomi phones, though Google’s own Pixels aren’t on the company’s list yet.

While your charges, Ambient Mode comes to life. Hear how it delivers a proactive Google Assistant experience to your #Android phone. pic.twitter.com/67rrgTTxqO

— Android (@Android) November 25, 2019

“The ultimate goal for proactive Assistant is to help you get things done faster, anticipate your needs and accomplish your tasks as quickly and as easily as possible,” said Google Assistant product manager Arvind Chandrababu in the announcement. “It’s fundamentally about moving from an app-based way of doing things to an intent-based way of doing things. Right now, users can do most things with their smartphones, but it requires quite a bit of mental bandwidth to figure out, hey, I need to accomplish this task, so let me backtrack and figure out all the steps that I need to do in order to get there.”

Those are pretty lofty goals. In practice, what this means, for now, is that you will be able to set an alarm with just a few taps from the ambient screen, see your upcoming appointments, turn off your connected lights and see a slideshow of your images in the background. I don’t think that any of those tasks really consumed a lot of mental bandwidth in the first place, but Google says it has more proactive experiences planned for the future.

 

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Sim Shagaya’s uLesson African edtech startup raises $3.1M

Nigerian founder Sim Shagaya is back with a new startup —  uLesson — that has raised a $3.1 million seed round led by TLcom Capital.

The venture is integrating mobile platforms, SD cards, culture-specific curriculum and a network of tutors to bridge educational gaps for secondary school students in Nigeria and broader Africa.

Founded in 2019 by Shagaya — who also founded Nigerian e-commerce startup Konga and ad venture E-Motion — uLesson is headquartered in Lagos with a production studio in Jos.

The startup has been in development phase and plans to go to market in February 2020 in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia — Shagaya told TechCrunch on a call.

“We’re targeting Anglophone West Africa…for a market of effectively 300 million people,” he said.

On product demand, Shagaya notes the priority placed on education across West African households vs. structural deficiencies — such as student teacher ratios as high as 1:70 in countries such as Nigeria.

“We have this massive gap…We’re adding more babies in this country nominally than all of Western Europe…Even if the [Nigerian] government was super efficient, it couldn’t catch up with the educational needs of the young people that are coming up,” Shagaya said.

To address this, uLesson will offer an app-based home education kit for students with an up-front yearly subscription price of around $70 and the option to pay as you go. The startup’s product pack will contain a dongle, SD card, and a set of headphones to connect to Android devices.

Curriculum on the uLesson program will include practice tests and tailored content around math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The venture has already created 3000 animated videos for core subjects, according to Shagaya.

To leverage high android mobile penetration in Africa — and minimize data-streaming costs — uLesson content and performance assessment will come via a combination of streaming and SD cards.

Parents and students can connect online temporarily to update the app and sync curriculum and results, while operating off-line for the bulk of lessons.

Shagaya likened the use of SD cards to the old Netflix model of sending and returning DVD’s by mail, prior to faster and more affordable internet service in the U.S.

The uLesson program will also package a human component. The startup plans to deploy a network of counselors in major distribution areas to instruct on how to use app and follow lesson plans.

uLesson is to be a supplement to secondary school education and a more affordable and effective alternative to private tutors, explained Shagaya.

After taking uLesson to market in Africa’s most populous nation — Nigeria — and other countries in the region, Shagaya and team plan to adapt the product for a future East Africa launch.

In both Nigeria and Kenya uLesson will face competition from existing ventures. Edtech in Africa doesn’t have as many companies (or as much VC funding) as leading startup sectors fintech and e-commerce, but there are a number of players.

Source: Briter Bridges

Nigeria has online edu startups, such as Tuteria. Feature phone based student learning company Eneza Education has scaled in Kenya and expanded to Ghana.

uLesson could count having Shagaya as CEO as one of its advantages in the edtech space. The venture marks the founder’s return to the startup scene after a hiatus. Shagaya earned a Harvard MBA and worked for Google before repatriating to Nigeria to found several digital companies.

His best known venture, Konga, went head to head with online retailer Jumia in pioneering e-commerce for Nigeria and Africa. Konga was sold in a distressed acquisition in 2018.

Shagaya successfully exited his digital advertising venture E-Motion this year, after it was purchased by Loatsad Promedia.

The Nigerian tech entrepreneur confirmed he’s redirected some of that windfall into uLesson’s $3.1 million seed-round.  As part of TLcom’s lead on the investment, partners Omobola Johnson and Ido Sum will join uLesson’s board, Sum confirmed to TechCrunch.

For his part, Sim Shagaya underscores the for-profit status of his new startup, while noting it carries greater meaning for him than past commercial endeavors.

“If you drill down to it all, all our problems in Africa are tied this problem of education…If we do this right, our impact will be huge. For me this is probably the most important work I’ll do,” he said.

Diving deep into Africa’s blossoming tech scene

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New smartphone figures highlight continued struggles to grow market

In some corners, the smartphone market is showing its first signs of life in some time.

Recent figures from Canalys indicate a small but notable uptick in the European market as shipments grew 3%, year-over-year in Q3.

The analyst firm put global growth at 1% globally in another recent report. Generally, such numbers wouldn’t warrant much celebration, but the way the market has been going, most manufacturers will take what they can get.

New numbers out this morning from Gartner paint a less rosy picture, with sales numbers declining 0.4%. It’s not a huge discrepancy between shipping and sales figures, but it’s the difference between being in the red and being in the black for the quarter.

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Apple releases holiday ad

Apple has released its annual holiday ad, just in time for Thanksgiving. Named “The Surprise,” the ad focuses on two young girls who spend a lot of time playing with an iPad.

The ad focuses on a family that travels across the country to visit the mother’s father. Like many families, the parents hand them an iPad when their daughters start to fight…

When they arrive at the grandfather’s house, we realize that the grandfather’s wife recently passed away. Both the grandfather and the mother are still mourning.

While their parents tell the kids to watch something on the iPad, they end up using the iPad to build a touching slideshow using old family photos.

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European smartphone shipments grew in Q3, driven by Samsung

Europe bucked global smartphone stagnation in the third quarter, marking an 8% year over year growth in device shipments. That number, provided by Canalys, puts the region at the top of smartphone growth figures, beating out Asia/Pacific’s six percent.

Once again, Samsung was the biggest winner here. The Korean manufacturer saw a healthy 26%, year over year growth. As noted back in Q2, Samsung’s growth comes as the company floods the market with a variety of different devices. Its mid-tier A Series accounted for all four of its top spots during that time period.

Huawei held steady in second place, as the company refocuses on Europe amid US/China trade tensions. Huawei accounted for 22.2 % of units shipped, versus Samsung’s 35.7%. Fellow Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi saw an extremely healthy boost for the quarter, jumping 73 percent for the year, to nab fourth place behind Apple.

While the numbers are positive in the face of larger negative trends, politics are still having a marked impact on figures.

“On the negative side, Brexit has already had an impact,” analyst Ben Stanton said in a release. “In the UK, shipments of premium devices from Samsung and Apple accelerated before each Brexit deadline this year, in March and recently October, followed by a large dip, as distributors were forced to stockpile product and hedge against impending tariff risk. This shot-term artificial boost distorts the market and the accompanying risk, costs and uncertainty, is a drain on the industry.”

Like much of the rest of the world, the European market is looking forward to a 5G rollout to help further juice shipments moving forward.

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European smartphone shipments grew in Q3, driven by Samsung

Europe bucked global smartphone stagnation in the third quarter, marking an 8% year over year growth in device shipments. That number, provided by Canalys, puts the region at the top of smartphone growth figures, beating out Asia/Pacific’s six percent.

Once again, Samsung was the biggest winner here. The Korean manufacturer saw a healthy 26%, year over year growth. As noted back in Q2, Samsung’s growth comes as the company floods the market with a variety of different devices. Its mid-tier A Series accounted for all four of its top spots during that time period.

Huawei held steady in second place, as the company refocuses on Europe amid US/China trade tensions. Huawei accounted for 22.2 % of units shipped, versus Samsung’s 35.7%. Fellow Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi saw an extremely healthy boost for the quarter, jumping 73 percent for the year, to nab fourth place behind Apple.

While the numbers are positive in the face of larger negative trends, politics are still having a marked impact on figures.

“On the negative side, Brexit has already had an impact,” analyst Ben Stanton said in a release. “In the UK, shipments of premium devices from Samsung and Apple accelerated before each Brexit deadline this year, in March and recently October, followed by a large dip, as distributors were forced to stockpile product and hedge against impending tariff risk. This shot-term artificial boost distorts the market and the accompanying risk, costs and uncertainty, is a drain on the industry.”

Like much of the rest of the world, the European market is looking forward to a 5G rollout to help further juice shipments moving forward.

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Nike is latest retailer to offer 3% cash back to Apple Card users

Nike is the latest company to offer 3% cash back to Apple Card users, when they make an Apple Pay purchase using the card across Nike’s retail platforms, including its stores, Nike.com, SNKRS, Nike Training Club, Nike Running Club and on the Nike app. The addition is one of what’s still a small number of Apple Pay partners who are offering the top-tier cash back rate of 3% to cardholders — a group that also includes Uber/Uber Eats, Walgreens/Duane Reade, and T-Mobile stores.

When first introduced, Apple had only said purchases from Apple itself would be rewarded with 3% back. Apple Pay transactions would be rewarded with 2% back and use of the physical card offered 1% back.

But when the card launched in August to customers in the U.S., Apple surprised everyone by expanding the 3% back to Uber and Ubers Eats, too, with promises of more to come.

Since then, Apple has been steadily expanding the number of retailers and apps that offer cash back to Apple Card users, giving Apple a larger foothold in online and mobile payments, as well as point-of-sale transactions. In October, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay transaction volume was bigger thabn PayPal and was growing 4 times as fast.

Apple’s advances in this area have clearly shaken up the market, as Apple Pay rival PayPal last week announced its largest acquisition to date with a deal to buy browser maker Honey for $4 billion in mostly cash. PayPal plans to use Honey to get ahead of the checkout page by reaching customers as they’re shopping online looking for deals and discovering new products. By capturing the customer at this earlier stage, PayPal can acquire the sale before the customer chooses to simply tap a button to pay with Apple Pay instead.

Nike is an obvious choice as the next Apple Card partner, given the two companies’ close relationship over the years on products which ran from retail partnerships to co-branded products, like the Apple Watch Nike+ edition and Nike sports bands, for example. Nike also last year rolled out Nike+ app membership benefits that included free months of Apple Music, among other perks.

As an Apple Card partner, Nike customers who transact through Apple Pay with their card receive 3% Daily Cash. This is applied to the customer’s Apple Cash Card, then can be used immediately for other Apple Pay purchases, sent to family and friends, or can be put towards the Apple Card balance.

Apple says more Apple Card partners will be added in the months ahead.

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This Week in Apps: Honey’s $4B exit, a new plan for iOS 14, Apple’s new developer resource

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support, and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using?

This week, we’re looking at several major stories, including the whopping $4 billion PayPal just spent on browser extension and mobile app maker, Honey, as well as the release of the Apple Developer app, a new plan for iOS 14, Google Stadia’s launch, AR gaming’s next big hit (or flop?), e-commerce app trends, Microsoft’s exit from voice assistant mobile apps, and so much more.

Plus, did you hear the one about the developer who got kicked out from his developer account by Apple, leaving his apps abandoned?

Headlines

Apple to overhaul iOS development strategy after buggy iOS 13 launch

Apple’s iOS 13 release was one of its worst, in terms of bugs and glitches. Now Apple is making an internal change to how it approaches software development in an effort to address the problem. According to Bloomberg, Apple’s Software chief Craig Federighi and other execs announced its plans at an internal meeting. The new process will involve having unfinished and buggy features disabled by default in daily builds. Testers will then have to optionally enable the features in order to try them. While this change focuses on making internal builds of the OS more usable (or “livable”), Apple hopes that over time it will improve the overall quality of its software as it will give testers the ability to really understand what’s supposed to now be working, but isn’t. The testing changes will also apply to iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS, the report said.

Apple launches the Apple Developer App

Apple rebranded and expanded its existing WWDC app to become a new Apple Developer app that can stay with its 23 million registered developers year-round. Instead of only including information about the developer event itself, the app will expand to include other relevant resources — like technical and design articles, developer news and updates, videos and more. It also will offer a way for developers to enroll in the Apple Developer program and maintain their membership. Apple says it found many developers were more inclined to open an app than an email, and by centralizing this information in one place, it could more efficiently and seamlessly deliver new information and other resources to its community.

PayPal buys Honey for $4 billion

PayPal has made its biggest-ever acquisition for browser extension and mobile app maker, Honey. TechCrunch exclusively broke the news of the nearly all-cash deal, noting that Honey currently has 17 million monthly actives. But PayPal was interested in more than the user base — it wanted the tech. The company plans to insert itself ahead of the checkout screen by getting involved with the online shopping and research process, where customers visit sites and look for deals. Honey’s offer-finding features from its mobile app will also become part of PayPal and Venmo’s apps in the future.

Cloud gaming expands with Google Stadia launch

Cloud-based gaming could benefit from the growing investment in 5G. Google Stadia, which launched this week, is a big bet on 5G in that regard. Though the early reviews were middling, Google believes the next generation of gaming will involve continuous, cross-device play, including on mobile devices. This trend was already apparent with the successes of cross-platform games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, and PUBG, for example. Meanwhile, console makers like Microsoft are working to build out their own cloud infrastructure to compete. (Microsoft’s xCloud launches in May 2020.) Google could have a head start, even if Stadia today feels more like a beta than a finished product. But one question that still arises is whether Google is serious about gaming, or only sees Stadia as a content engine for YouTube?

Microsoft kills Cortana mobile apps

Microsoft this week belatedly realized it can’t compete with the built-in advantages that Siri and Google Assistant offer users, like dedicated buttons, hands-free voice commands, workflow building and more. The company decided to shut down its Cortana mobile applications on iOS and Android in a number of markets, including Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, Spain, Canada, and India. Any bets on when the U.S. makes that list?

SF Symbols expands

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Another US court says police cannot force suspects to turn over their passwords

The highest court in Pennsylvania has ruled that the state’s law enforcement cannot force suspects to turn over their password that would unlock their devices.

The state’s Supreme Court said compelling a password from a suspect is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, a constitutional protection that protects suspects from self-incrimination.

It’s not an surprising ruling given other state and federal courts have almost always come to the same conclusion. The Fifth Amendment grants anyone in the U.S. the right to remain silent, which includes the right to not turn over information that could incriminate them in a crime. These days, those protections extend to the passcodes that only a device owner knows.

But the ruling is not expected to affect the ability by police to force suspects to use their biometrics — like their face or fingerprints — to unlock their phone or computer.

Because your passcode is in stored your head and your biometrics are not, prosecutors have long argued that police can compel a suspect into unlocking a device with their biometrics, which they say are not constitutionally protected. The court also did not address biometrics. In a footnote of the ruling, the court said it “need not address” the issue, blaming the U.S. Supreme Court for creating “the dichotomy between physical and mental communication.”

Peter Goldberger, president of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, who presented the arguments before the court, said it was “fundamental” that suspects have the right to “to avoid self-incrimination.”

Despite the spate of rulings in recent years, law enforcement have still tried to find their way around compelling passwords from suspects. The now-infamous Apple-FBI case saw the federal agency try to force the tech giant to rewrite its iPhone software in an effort to beat the password on the handset of the terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people in his San Bernardino workplace in 2015. Apple said the FBI’s use of the 200-year-old All Writs Act would be “unduly burdensome” by putting potentially every other iPhone at risk if the rewritten software leaked or was stolen.

The FBI eventually dropped the case without Apple’s help after the agency paid hackers to break into the phone.

Brett Max Kaufman, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Center for Democracy said the Pennsylvania case ruling sends a message to other courts to follow in its footsteps.

“The court rightly rejects the government’s effort to create a giant, digital-age loophole undermining our time-tested Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,” he said. “The government has never been permitted to force a person to assist in their own prosecution, and the courts should not start permitting it to do so now simply because encrypted passwords have replaced the combination lock.”

“We applaud the court’s decision and look forward to more courts to follow in the many pending cases to be decided next,” he added.

3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone

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Netgear’s Meural Canvas II is a better version of the best home gadget for photographers

Netgear has released the first updated Canvas digital art from from Meural since acquiring the company last September, and the next-generation connected frame comes with some decent quality-of-life improvements as well as a new, additional size. It’s not a dramatic change from the original Meural Canvas, but it means that a product that was already great is now even better.

The Meural Canvas II from Netgear comes in two sizes, including a smaller 16×24-inch frame that provides a 21.5-inch diagonal picture (starting at $399.95), and a 19×29-inch frame with a 27-inch diagonal display (starting at $599.95). Both screens are 1080P full HD resolution, and both feature ambient light sensors (which are relocated to a better location under the mat that surrounds the screen for improved light detection) that will automatically adjust the brightness of your image to make it appear more natural and less like a screen.

The Canvas II features built-in Wi-Fi, which is also upgraded with this generation (Netgear, which makes routers and other Wi-Fi products, seems to have brought its expertise to bear here) and they offer new Ethernet connectivity, as well as full-size SD ports. They also can hang either vertically or horizontally, and a new accessory mount for this generation (sold separately) allows for even easier switching between the two orientations via simple rotation.

For the virtual art collector

Meural is controlled primarily from the Meural companion app, though you can also access a web interface to accomplish much of the same thing from a desktop browser. The app features curated collections of artwork, which is available both via a paid monthly subscription and via direct, one-time purchases. One of the changes that the Meural service has undergone is that the subscription membership now gets you some, but not all, of the art available — some premium content is still an additional charge. It’s definitely not as good from the user’s perspective as when everything was free once you’d paid the subscription fee, but paying monthly still nets you 20GB of cloud storage for uploading your own art, discounts on the stuff that is available for purchase and access to a much larger library than you get without any membership.

Subscriptions go for either $8.95 per month, or $69.95 per year, and they’re probably plenty to satisfy most casual art lovers who just want some recognizable or interesting works to adorn their walls, and want to be able to change that on a fairly regular basis. And when you use the art provided through Meural’s various collections, you can take a look at credits and descriptions right on the display — available quickly via a motion control swipe up gesture made possibly by the sensors built into the frame.

A note on those motion controls — they allow you to navigate between artwork, and even change playlists and access a menu of other options related to the frame. Basically, you wave your hand near the bottom of the Meural to make this work, and it’s great when it does work, but it definitely takes some learning to figure out how and where to swipe to make it reliably respond. It’s convenient that it’s an option, but controlling the display with the iOS or Android app is a lot more pleasant, generally speaking.

The built-in library that Meural provides is definitely a selling point, and Meural is regularly adding new art collections, both for paid purchases and to build out the library of those works available included in the subscription. It just added a bunch through a new partnership with Marvel, in fact, including movie posters from a long list of their cinematic universe releases.

For the amateur/enthusiast/pro photographer

The primary reason I think the Meural Canvas II is a fantastic product has very little to do with its subscription-based art collection, however. Instead, it’s all about the flexibility and convenience that the Canvas provides when it comes to displaying your own photos. It’s incredibly easy to upload your photos from your mobile device or your desktop, and you can organize them in playlists, add descriptions and titles, and crop them manually or have the frame crop them automatically to display in its 16×9 aspect ratio.

As a display for your own photos, the Meural Canvas II is hard to beat: It’s a lot more flexible and cost effective than getting high-quality prints made, as you can rotate them out as often as you feel like, and the display’s color rendering and matte finish, while obviously not as good as a professional photo print, is nonetheless very pleasing to the eye. When you take as many photos as we collectively do now, but seldom have anywhere to show them off, the Canvas provides the perfect opportunity to ensure they have a great place to shine at home.

The included SD card reader means it’s easy to load up images and put them on the Canvas locally, but I also found that uploading from whatever Wi-Fi-connected device I had access to around the house was easy and fast (again, seems like Netgear’s core expertise came into play here). The ability to quickly change the orientation, which is fast and simple even without the rotation mount accessory, is another big plus for your own photos, as it means you can show off both portraits and landscapes.

Oh, and the ability to load your own artwork isn’t limited to just your photography, of course — any image in a standard format, including animated GIFs, can work on the Meural, which means it’s really only limited by the scope of what’s available on the internet.

Bottom line

Between the frame options, which you can swap out for different color options eventually when they’re sold separately, and the ability to upload your own content to the Canvas, it’s easily the most customizable piece of home decor you can find right now. For some, opting to move up to something like Samsung’s The Frame TV might be a better option, but that’s much larger, much more expensive, much heavier for mounting and not as flexible when it comes to playlists and your own curation of art to display.

The Meural Canvas II provides largely the same visual experience as the generation it replaces, but the other improvements make this a much better product overall, with faster, more reliable Wi-Fi connectivity, improved motion controls, more flexible on-device storage and new mounting options. If you like some variety in your wall art, or you’ve just been trying to figure out how to do something interesting with all those pictures you take, the Meural Canvas II is a great option.

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