Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest mobile OS news, mobile applications, and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spending in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. The average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV daily but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure up 27% year-over-year. This week was a busy one. Facebook held its developer conference F8, which delivered app-related news across its platform. Now, WWDC is just days away.
We also broke a few big app stories this week, including one about TikTok’s privacy policy and its newly added permission to collect biometric data on U.S. users, including “faceprints and voiceprints.” Twitter added a subscription service, and Tinder tested group video chat. Our downloads section has a treat for readers: a time-sensitive and exclusive invite code to get into one of the hottest new apps for sneakerheads: Sole Retriever.
WWDC’s big keynote is kicking off on June 7 at 1 p.m. ET next week. The Livestream page is here. While we may see new MacBook Pros, software developers will care about the forthcoming details of Apple’s latest OS releases and other new technologies. As to what they may include? Bloomberg reported that iOS 15 would introduce a way for users to set different notification preferences and automatic replies based on their current status (driving, working, sleeping, etc.) and an updated Lock Screen where this menu of choices would be accessible.
iMessage may be upgraded to be more social to better compete with Messenger and WhatsApp.
Meanwhile, iPadOS could be getting the App Library and an upgraded Home Screen with support for widgets. (And you can fill the screen with just devices.) Or who knows! Until it’s official, it’s all a maybe! But one potentially interesting rumor would be a new privacy feature showing users which apps collected data about them. This builds on Apple’s investments in App Tracking Transparency and could make it more difficult for shady SDKs to stay in business. There will likely be some updates to Apple’s apps, SAppletchOS, and more. It’s going to be a whole week — stay tuned!
