A week-long iOS App Store bug wiped out over 20M ratings

An accidental sweep of the App Store removed over 20 million ratings from the most popular apps — including from well-known brands like Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, Hulu, Nike, and others — as well as from smaller developers. The issue began on October 23, 2019 and wasn’t resolved until yesterday, October 29. Apple hasn’t yet explained how such a sizable and impactful change to app ratings occurred.

This massive ratings drop was spotted by the mobile app insights platform, Appfigures.

The firm found that more than 300 apps from over 200 developers were affected by the sweep, which wiped out a total of 22 million app reviews from the App Store. On average, apps saw a 50% decrease in ratings in the affected countries, which included the U.S.

The U.S. was hit the hardest, however, as some 10 million ratings disappeared. But the sweep was global in nature, hitting all 155 countries Apple supports. China, the U.K., South Korea, Russia, and Australia, also felt a noticeable impact.

A few apps were hit harder than others. Hulu, for example, lost a whopping 95% of ratings in the U.S., while Dropbox and Chase lost 85%. Several companies affected by the bug declined to comment, but told us that the rating removals weren’t done at their request — they were just as surprised as everyone else.

Other big apps that saw their ratings disappear in the U.S. included Chase, Walgreen, Venmo, Amazon Prime Video, Southwest, Hotels.com, Disneyland, Ibotta, ESPN, Amex, Xoom, Fandango, Skyscanner, Google Classroom, Nike SNKRS, My Disney Experience, Old Nav, and others.

Of the over 300 apps that got hit, about half (154) saw a drop of more than 100 ratings, Appfigures said.

WOW @Starbucks iOS app lost about 1.3mln of ratings overnight! @hulu lost about 900k, as well as dozens of other apps.
I hope this is just @AppStore bug. pic.twitter.com/cUIrb8yeeN

— ilia kukharev (@ilyakuh) October 28, 2019

With little information about what happened, developers speculated that Apple was possibly trying to clean up fake app ratings. This theory doesn’t seem that likely, though, because Appfigures found that both positive and negative ratings were removed. Had the sweep been focused on fake ratings, then only the positive (fake) ratings would have been removed.

Another theory is that Apple was trying to speed up its ratings system and something just went wrong.

Unfortunately for some of the impacted developers, the bug had a profound effect on their app’s “Overall” rating. Their app may have dropped by several stars as a result of this problem. And that, in turn, could have hurt their ability to get downloads from App Store search results or Search Ads during the week.

Some of the impacted companies (and Appfigures) confirmed to TechCrunch the missing ratings were restored as of yesterday.

Oh man, this happened to one of my clients. When from 4.6 with ~400 ratings to 2.6 with 5 ratings. Had a support request in, but glad to see it resolved.

— Ben DiFrancesco (@BenDiFrancesco) October 29, 2019

Oddly, this isn’t the first time app ratings disappeared nearly overnight.

A similar incident took place last year, when an App Store bug led to thousands of iOS apps losing half their ratings over a weekend. In both cases, Apple quietly resolved the bug, but never offered any statements about what happened.

We reached out to Apple on Tuesday but the company has not yet commented.

However, we hear that Apple spoke directly to some developers to explain the rating removals were done in error and it was working to fix the situation, which now appears resolved.

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Apple TV+ will be free with an Apple Music student subscription

Ahead of Friday’s launch of Apple’s new streaming service, Apple TV+, the company announced an Apple Music/Apple TV+ bundle deal specifically aimed at making the service more affordable for younger subscribers. According to an Instagram Story published by Hailee Steinfeld, star of Apple TV+’s first potential hit series, “Dickinson,” Apple Music student subscribers will be able to stream Apple TV+ for free.

The announcement was spotted earlier by 9to5Mac.

After a series of Instagram-hosted Q&A’s meant to stoke excitement for the show among her fans, Steinfeld announced the bundle deal by saying that: “for those of you who are students with an Apple Music student subscription, you can now get Apple TV+ for free.”

She noted this means student subscribers will not only be able to watch her new show on Friday, November 1st, they also can check out her new single “Afterlife” with the same subscription.

The Apple Music student subscription is currently $4.99 per month, which provides full access to Apple Music’s catalog of 50 million songs, live local radio stations, curated playlists and other original content.

An Apple Music-Apple TV+ bundle had been rumored to be in the works, prompting rival Spotify to team up with Hulu to pre-emptively strike with a bundle deal of their own.

But when Apple formally announced its TV streaming service, it instead surprised everyone by offering the service for free with the purchase of a new Apple device.

Of course, students are less likely to upgrade their phones and tablets as often as working adults, given the costs. That means they would have missed out on the “new device” deal, and instead would have had to pay the $4.99 per month subscription for the TV service. 

Meanwhile, Apple TV+’s debut shows have received mixed reviews from critics ahead of launch — with the star-powered “The Morning Show,” featuring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Whitherspoon and Steve Carell, even being called “dull” and “underwhelming.” “Dickinson,” however, has been a bright spot, with some even saying the show is set to be Apple TV+’s breakout series. It would make sense for Apple to capitalize on that attention — as well as on Steinfeld’s 12.4 million Instagram followers — to get more people watching.

Apple didn’t share any additional information about the Music/TV+ bundle beyond what Steinfeld announced. There was no related press release or even a tweet posted to the Apple TV Twitter account. In other words, Apple was narrowly targeting Steinfeld’s built-in fan base with the news.

It appears this is not a limited-time deal with an expiration date attached, just an ongoing benefit of a student Music subscription.

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Wearable spending forecasted to increase 27% in 2020

New numbers from Gartner mark another major increase for global wearable spending in 2020. The analyst firm forecasts a 27% jump in end-user spending over this year, from $40.5 billion to $51.5 billion. Once again, the pack is lead by smartwatches, which continue to burn the hottest among in the space.

Interestingly, the increase on smartwatch spending from $17 billion to $22.8 billion will be lead by decreasing prices (a 4.5% decrease in average selling prices in 2021). Those are, in turn, the result of a combination of increased competition from Samsung and some external pressure from Fitbit, which has found a sweet spot at around $200 a unit. Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have also gone a ways toward decreasing the price on the low end of the market. 

Apple, in turn, has responded by keeping the two-year-old Series 3 on the market at the $200 price point. It’s a sign of a maturing category that no longer commands as much of a premium pricing in past generations. Google, meanwhile, recently bought a fair chunk of IP from Fossil and has reportedly been eyeing a Fitbit acquisition after years of struggling to crack the category.

Headphones have continued steady growth, as well, thanks to an explosion in fully wireless earbuds, lead by Apple and Samsung, with the recent lower cost addition of Amazon. Google, too, has been eying a reentry into the category next year with the return of its much panned Pixel Buds. Even Microsoft plans to enter the category with its unique Surface Buds.

Gartner predicts continued spending growth in wearables for 2021, with spending hitting $62.9 billion.

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US search market needs a ‘choice screen’ remedy now, says DuckDuckGo

US regulators shouldn’t be sitting on their hands while the 50+ state, federal and congressional antitrust investigations of Google to grind along, search rival DuckDuckGo argues.

It’s put out a piece of research today that suggests choice screens which let smartphone users choose from a number of search engines to be their device default — aka “preference menus” as DuckDuckGo founder Gabe Weinberg prefers to call them — offer an easy and quick win for regulators to reboot competition in the search space by rebalancing markets right now.

“If designed properly we think [preference menus] are a quick and effective key piece in the puzzle for a good remedy,” Weinberg tells TechCrunch. “And that’s because it finally enables people to change the search defaults across the entire device which has been difficult in the past… It’s at a point, during device set-up, where you can promote the users to take a moment to think about whether they want to try out an alternative search engine.”

Google is already offering such a choice to Android users in Europe, following an EU antitrust decision against Android last year.

DuckDuckGo is concerned US regulators aren’t thinking pro-actively enough about remedies for competition in the US search market — and is hoping to encourage more of a lean-in approach to support boosting diversity so that rivals aren’t left waiting years for the courts to issue judgements before any relief is possible.

In a survey of Internet users which it commissioned, polling more than 3,400 adults in the US, UK, Germany and Australia, people were asked to respond to a 4-choice screen design, based on an initial Google Android remedy proposal, as well as an 8-choice variant.

“We found that in each surveyed country, people select the Google alternatives at a rate that could increase their collective mobile market share by 300%-800%, with overall mobile search market share immediately changing by over 10%,” it writes [emphasis its].

Survey takers were also asked about factors that motivate them to switch search engines — with the number one reason given being a better quality of search results, and the next reason being if a search engine doesn’t track their searches or data.

Of course DuckDuckGo stands to gain from any pro-privacy switching, having built an alternative search business by offering non-tracked searches supported by contextual ads. Its model directly contrasts with Google’s, which relies on pervasive tracking of Internet users to determine which ads to serve.

But there’s plenty of evidence consumers hate being tracked. Not least the rise in use of tracker blockers.

“Using the original design puzzle [i.e. that Google devised] we saw a lot of people selecting alternative search engines and we think it would go up from there,” says Weinberg. “But even initially a 10% market share change is really significant.”

He points to regulatory efforts in Europe and also Russia which have resulted in antitrust decisions and enforcements against Google — and where choice screens are already in use promoting alternative search engine choices to Android users.

He also notes that regulators in Australia and the UK are pursuing choice screens — as actual or potential remedies for rebalancing the search market.

Russia has the lead here, with its regulator — the FAS — slapping Google with an order against bundling its services with Android all the way back in 2015, a few months after local search giant Yandex filed a complaint. A choice screen was implemented in 2017 and Russia’s homegrown Internet giant has increased its search market share on Android devices as a result. Google continues to do well in Russia. But the result is greater diversity in the local search market, as a direct result of implementing a choice screen mechanism.

“We think that all regulatory agencies that are now considering search market competition should really implement this remedy immediately,” says Weinberg. “They should do other things… as well but I don’t see any reason why one should wait on not implementing this because it would take a while to roll out and it’s a good start.”

Of course US regulators have yet to issue any antitrust findings against Google — despite there now being tens of investigations into “potential monopolistic behavior”. And Weinberg concedes that US regulators haven’t yet reached the stage of discussing remedies.

“It feels at a very investigatory stage,” he agrees. “But we would like to accelerate that… As well as bigger remedial changes — similar to privacy and how we’re pushing Do Not Track legislation — as something you can do right now as kind of low hanging fruit. I view this preference menu in the same way.”

“It’s a very high leverage thing that you can do immediately to move market share and increase search competition and so one should do it faster and then take the things that need to be slower slower,” he adds, referring to more radical possible competition interventions — such as breaking a business up.

There is certainly growing concern among policymakers around the world that the current modus operandi of enforcing competition law has failed to keep pace with increasingly powerful technology-driven businesses and platforms — hence ‘winner takes all’ skews which exist in certain markets and marketplaces, reducing choice for consumers and shrinking opportunities for startups to compete.

This concern was raised as a question for Europe’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, during her hearing in front of the EU parliament earlier this month. She pointed to the Commission’s use of interim measures in an ongoing case against chipmaker Broadcom as an example of how the EU is trying to speed up its regulatory response, noting it’s the first time such an application has been made for two decades.

In a press conference shortly afterwards, to confirm the application of EU interim measures against Broadcom, Vestager added: “Interim measures are one way to tackle the challenge of enforcing our competition rules in a fast and effective manner. This is why they are important. And especially that in fast moving markets. Whenever necessary I’m therefore committed to making the best possible use of this important tool.”

Weinberg is critical of Google’s latest proposals around search engine choice in Europe — after it released details of its idea to ‘evolve’ the search choice screen — by applying an auction model, starting early next year. Other rivals, such as French pro-privacy engine Qwant, have also blasted the proposal.

Clearly, how choice screens are implemented is key to their market impact.

“The way the current design is my read is smaller search engines, including us and including European search engines will not be on the screen long term the way it’s set up,” says Weinberg. “There will need to be additional changes to get the effects that we were seeing in our studies we made.

“There’s many reasons why us and others would not be those highest bidders,” he says of the proposed auction. “But needless to say the bigger companies can weigh outweigh the smaller ones and so there are alternative ways to set this up.”

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Apple’s AirPods Pro set a pricey new standard for earbuds

“These $250 earbuds are nice.” That’s the first thing I wrote to a co-worker after unboxing and trying on the new AirPods. After wearing them around the New York City streets, the subway and into a couple of cafes, that pithy review stands.

Here are a few more words: They’re super comfortable. I’ve used a lot of different Bluetooth earbuds. It’s a weird perk of my job. The AirPods Pro (baffling pluralization aside) are probably the most comfortable, with the possible exception of the Powerbeats Pro, another Apple-manufactured joint venture. That one, however, relies on a lot more plastic to get the job done, with a full over-the-ear hook system.

Apple announces AirPods Pro with noise cancellation

The new AirPods, on the other hand, just hang comfortably. This is a big win for those who’ve experienced ear discomfort from all sort of different designs. [Sheepishly raises hand.] Granted, every ear is like a beautiful, unique snowflake, and not everyone will have the same experience. That said, the company’s clearly done a lot to correct for the complaints about the original AirPods, using both a more ergonomic design and finally giving in to the sway of silicone tips.

Why Apple waited this long on the latter bit is beyond me, but the company has finally done so on its own terms. Each Pro box ships with a total of six tips (a right and left in small, medium and large), with the medium on by default. These, however, are not your standard, run of the mill silicone tips. A firm yank will pull them off to reveal a hard outer edge that snaps into the bud [picture above].

The company says this is part of ensuring a better fit. Another benefit is that the attachment is much more secure. This is a definite plus, speaking as someone who has accidentally littered the streets of New York with earbud tips. These are far less likely to fall off while getting them out of your pocket. If you do lose one, Apple will be selling replacements for probably a buck or so.

Along with an enlarged body, you’ve no doubt noticed that the stems are notably shorter. That’s because the company has been able to consolidate more of the electronics into the top. The stem remains as a way of handling the earbuds. It also now houses a haptic button that replaces the standard AirPod tap interaction. Instead, you give the stem a squeeze, triggering a subtle clicking sound in the process.

By default, a single squeeze pauses and plays a track, whereas a squeeze and hold cycles between noise cancellation and transparent modes. All of this can be adjusted in iOS, once you’ve downloaded version 13.2. Setup on iOS is as easy as ever, requiring you to simply open the case near an iPhone or iPad. Android and desktop pairing, meanwhile, involves the more standard Bluetooth setup.

From there, click into Settings > Bluetooth > and then tap the “i” next to AirPods Pro. From here you switch between noise control modes, assign different functions to the button on the individual AirPods and fire up the Ear Tip Fit Test. Hit “play” and it will start a quick snippet of a song used to test the fit. If you have the right tip on, it will display “good seal.” If something is wrong, it recommends trying a different tip or adjusting the bud in ear.

Not only is every ear different, but some folks have a deal of differentiation between right and left. The mediums worked well for me, right out of the box. That’s me, Mr. Average Ears. Results may very.

Amazon Echo Buds review

The Pros sound great. They’re among the best-sounding earbuds I’ve tried, up there with the similarly priced Sony WF-1000XM3. As such, they’re in pretty rare air. Unlike the Echo Buds, you can’t adjust the levels in settings, but Apple’s buds are tuned well out of the box for a wide range of genres. So far, I’ve listened to Ryuichi Sakamoto, Danny Brown, The Hold Steady, Electric Youth and Sunn 0))), for a pretty diverse sampling. It all comes across rich and full — much as one would expect/hope from a $250 pair of earbuds.

The noise canceling, too, is up there with Sony’s. Apple’s works adaptively, similar to what it offers on its over-ear Beats headphones. That means the microphones are constantly listening to your surroundings and adjusting accordingly. It’s not quite a full immersion, like you would get from over-ear headphones, but with a tight seal, it does a pretty terrific job drowning out your surroundings when needed.

For those times you need to be more alert, there’s transparency mode, which uses the on-board mics to beam in ambience. Once again, it’s a good mix, letting in sound without completely overwhelming the music. That was one of my issues with the Echo Buds, which tended to overamplify things like an air conditioning unit. Though again, unlike the Echo Buds, you can turn transparency on an off, versus adjusting levels.

Bit of a side note here, but like their predecessors, these new models will probably go a ways toward shifting societal norms in terms of keeping your headphones in while engaging with others. These are the sorts of things that make me want to go all Andy Rooney on kids today, etc., etc.

Noise canceling and transparency have similar impacts on battery, knocking about half an hour off of the Pods’ built-in five hours. With the charging case factored in, total listening time should be about 24 hours in standard mode, per Apple’s estimates. I’m excited to push that to the limit as I board a plane to Asia early next week. Ditto for the comfort level — but after several hours today, all is still well.

The case is a little larger than the original AirPods, but is still carried comfortably in a pocket, unlike, say, the Beats or Sony models. The orientation has shifted, as well. It’s not wider than it is long, owing to the shortening of the AirPods’ stems. The new design means they’re slightly more difficult to maneuver into the case, but you’ll get the hang of that after a couple of tries.

Like the AirPods 2, the case can be charged both through the Lightning port or wirelessly. Tapping the case while charging will light up the LED, which will display as either yellow or green to let you know how far along your are.

So, yeah, thumbs up after half a day. No surprise there, of course. The $250 price tag will almost certainly make these cost-prohibitive for many, but after a few hours, it’s going to be hard to go back.

Look for a longer write up soon.

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Apple releases iOS 13.2 with Deep Fusion

Apple has released iOS 13.2 and iPadOS 13.2 for the iPhone and iPad. This update features the usual bug fixes and security improvements. But Apple is also adding a handful of new features to its operating system.

First, iOS 13.2 brings a ton of new emojis. The company now officially supports Unicode 12.0. You can now create all possible combinations of handholding couple emojis regardless of gender or skin tone. There are new accessibility-focused emojis, such as a service dog, people using wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, a person with a white cane and more. There are also new animals, a yawning face and new food options.

If you have an iPhone 11 or iPhone 11 Pro, iOS 13.2 enables Deep Fusion, an image processing feature that should make your photos look better thanks to machine learning-enabled processing.

It’s also worth mentioning that you can now change the resolution and framerate of your videos in the Camera app directly.

With iOS 13.2, you can opt out of sharing Siri recordings with Apple employees and delete your Siri and dictation history. Go to Settings > Privacy > Analytics and Improvements to opt out at any time.

Apple rolls out new Siri audio clip grading opt-in and request history deletion feature in beta

Finally, iOS 13.2 enables HomeKit‌ Secure Video for HomeKit-enabled camera and adds support for the newly announced AirPods Pro.

Before updating to iOS 13.2, back up your device. Make sure your iCloud backup is up to date by opening the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tapping on your account information at the top and then on your device name. Additionally, you can also plug your iOS device into your computer to do a manual backup in iTunes.

Don’t forget to encrypt your backup in iTunes. It is much safer if somebody hacks your computer. And encrypted backups include saved passwords and health data. This way, you don’t have to reconnect to all your online accounts.

Once this is done, you should go to the Settings app as soon as possible to get in the queue. Navigate to ‘Settings,’ then ‘General’ and then ‘Software Update.’ Then you should see ‘Update Requested…’ It will then automatically start downloading once the download is available.

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Apple announces AirPods Pro with noise cancellation

Apple just announced a new device today, the AirPods Pro. The company issued a press release to announce the new device. As the name suggests, the AirPods Pro are wireless earbuds with additional features compared to the AirPods.

In particular, the AirPods Pro features active noise cancellation — this feature is particularly popular in headphones designed for airplanes, such as the Bose 700 and Sony WH-1000XM3.

Apple has integrated two microphones in each earbud to listen to background noise and actively cancel sound around you. One of the microphones is inward-facing and listens to the sound inside your ears. The company has also integrated adaptive EQ to tune the low- and mid-fequencies in real time depending on the shape of your ears.

You can switch between active noice cancellation and something called Transparency mode in order to block background noise or let background noise go through your earbuds. You can control that from your device or squeeze the bottom of the earbuds between your fingertips.

The design of the AirPods Pro is slightly different from the AirPods. They look like in-ear earbuds with flexible silicone ear tips. You’ll be able to swap those ear tips as there are three different sizes in the box. The AirPods Pro are also sweat and water resistant.

Behind the scene, the AirPods Pro work with an Apple-designed chip called the H1. This chip handles everything from real-time noise cancelation, audio processing, and the ability to respond to “Hey Siri” requests.

Apple says that you can expect the same battery life that you’d get with regular AirPods — four and half hours of listening time with active noise cancellation and up to 24 hours of listening time with the charging case.

The charging case also looks slightly different — it is now rectangular-shaped. It features a Lightning port and wireless charging.

The AirPods Pro will be available for $249 starting on October 30. You can order them on Apple’s website starting today. Regular AirPods remain available for the same price of $159 to $199, depending on whether you get the wireless charging case.

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