Apps

Vimcal wants be the most nifty calendar app on the block • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Apps, calendar, calendar app, Vimcal, Y CombinatorNo Comments

Y Combinator-backed company Vimcal thinks creating an event takes too many steps in the current crop of calendar apps. So the company has made a calendar app that lets you create and edit events in just a few steps. Today, the startup is releasing its iOS app along with integration for Outlook accounts. The company already has web and desktop clients for Windows and Macs (both Intel and M1), and a Chrome extension for folks who like to look at their calendars and schedule their events on a big screen. But until now, Vimcal only supported Google (Google Workspace) accounts. The team has made it easier to use the calendar by assigning a keyboard shortcut to almost every action: from creating an event to jumping quickly between meetings to see what’s coming up in the week. It roughly takes three to five steps to create an event. The calendar also has a command center, which lets you type sentences like “Lunch meeting with Lisa at 1 pm tomorrow” to quickly create an event. Image Credits: Vimcal Vimcal also makes it easier to provide timeslots for meetings. It offers a more customizable solution to scheduling software like Calendly: you can simply drag available slots across the calendar, copy them, and paste it into an email. You can also define fixed timeslots for every week with a feature called Personal Links, which is more like Calendly. Slots — the fastest way to send availabilities — is now just as easy on the go. Swiftly navigate to any date. Hold and swipe down to multi-select times. pic.twitter.com/6rnJtnLoA5 — Vimcal (@vimcal) April 4, 2022 One of the handiest features of Vimcal is time travel, which easily lets you compare time zones so you can find a suitable slot for all. And it lets you add multiple time zones for comparison. 📱 New in Vimcal: Time Travel for iOS! ✈️ One of our most popular features is now available on mobile! Schedule with anyone, anywhere in the world. No mental math required. pic.twitter.com/EupAeufcZ0 — Vimcal (@vimcal) October 20, 2022 All of these features are available in the new iOS app, which has been in beta since April. But instead of keyboard shortcuts, they are optimized for touch interface. The company made this app with the help of its acquisition of Weve Calendar earlier this summer. The new app also lets you send a quick email from the notification screen to send an email to others if you’re running a few minutes late for a meeting. Image Credits: Vimcal Vimcal for iOS is a free app, but if you want to use the product on the desktop you will have to pay $15 per month or $150 per year. For teams with more than five members, the product costs $120 per year. The company is already working on making Vimcal adaptable to enterprise usage with customizable features. Both mobile and desktop versions allow you to look at your teammates’ calendars, making it easier to pick a time for a meeting across time zones. The company’s founder and CEO John Li first launched the product in January 2020 — right before the pandemic and the rise of remote work. Initially, the company onboarded users with a 30-minute call to give an overview of the product — similar to email client Superhuman — and answer any questions they might have. Li said that for the first year and a half the team onboarded 10,000 users through calls — some of them doubled as investor calls. The company still has an option for new customers to schedule a call with the team while trying out the product or purchasing the subscription. Vimcal has raised $1.9 million to date from investors like Y Combinator, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Teachable founder Ankur Nagpal, and Hustle Fund. “For the next half year, we are concentrating on building features for teams. Until now, we were focused on making the external scheduling and self-scheduling experience smooth. Now, we want to focus on internal scheduling for teams and enterprises. We are also building apps for iPad and Apple Watch, and later Android,” Li said on a call with ZebethMedia. The startup, which has a team of nine people, also launched a product called Vimcal Maestro for executive assistants earlier this month. There is plenty of competition in the calendar space. There are legacy players like Google and Outlook with new players like Calendly, Aerotime, Amie, and Magical competing for a slot on your calendar. Li claims that speed and ease of use is Vimcal’s USP. “We always tell our users that whatever you can do in another calendar app, you can do in Vimcal in half the number of steps or less. We have designed our product to be intuitive and fast,” Li said. “When we were making our app, we listed out every keystroke and mouse movement you needed to make to do the top 10 things like creating an event in a calendar. And then we looked at that list and reduced the number of steps.”

The Amazonification of Uber • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Apps, ride hail, Transportation, UberNo Comments

It’s been six months since Uber hosted Go, Get, a global smorgasbord of product reveals and features that covered everything from booking party buses and voice ordering for Uber Eats to linking travel plans to Gmail and skipping the food lines at sports stadiums. The product reveals aren’t just about creating new revenue streams or attracting users — although these are certainly goals. Uber has a bigger end game: create a closed business loop with each product feeding customers back into other Uber channels. And that loop is growing. On Monday, heartened by a strong momentum in user engagement and girded for the upcoming holiday season, Uber released another slew of product updates and new features. This time the products were released under the marketing banner of Go, get, give. Now, Uber customers can do things like book with OpenTable and Viator through Uber’s app, search across merchants for the right bottle of booze to be delivered and even schedule Uber gift cards to send on Christmas day. Amazonification Uber was founded on a strategy of scaling at all costs. As Uber struggled to crack the elusive profitability nut through ride-hailing, it added its food delivery pillar Uber Eats. Now, Uber appears to have taken a page out of the Amazon book of customer stickiness to attract new users and get existing customers to spend more money on the platform. Just as Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, drives secondary revenue to Amazon every time a customer says, ‘Alexa, buy more shampoo and conditioner,” so, too, does Uber increase its ride revenue when a customer books an event via Uber’s partnership with Viator and then books an Uber to get them there. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi touched on this during the company’s third-quarter earnings call held November 1. “We are actively cross-selling food delivery consumers into grocery, grocery consumers into alcohol, and actually back now to mobility,” said Khosrowshahi. “All of the cross-sell that we have across the platform continues to increase, drive new customers and drive retention, as well.” There’s evidence to suggest that, at least in the short term, there are fruits to these labors. In the third quarter, Uber’s gross bookings reached $29 billion, a 26% increase from the year prior. The company’s monthly active platform consumers (MAPC) grew 14% year-over-year from 109 million quarterly users to 124 million. If gross bookings grew at a rate faster than MAPC, we can infer that each customer is spending more on the platform than they would have. “As far as the consumers go – high frequency, low frequency consumers – it’s absolutely true that if we can move our consumer use from lower frequency to higher frequency, we will see very significant growth,” said Khosrowshahi during Uber’s Q3 earnings call. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Uber will extend beyond the mobility space and into other revenue channels. The company recently launched a new advertising division that oversees in-app ads during rides. To grow that business out, we might one day see Uber hiring creatives and using its vast amounts of data on riders to provide external marketing services for brands. Who knows? While short-term reports show that Uber’s depth of products might have customer stickiness, the company should be wary of biting off more than it can chew. Uber made revenue gains in the third quarter, yet it still lost $1.2 billion, almost half of which can be attributed to operating losses. Tech giants and hotshot upstarts alike are in the midst of cutting costs — measures that include slashing jobs — as growth becomes more difficult amid the current economy. Even Amazon is not immune. There are rumblings that Amazon is planning to lay off 10,000 people this week and there is speculation that the company’s devices group, which includes Echo, Fire tablets and Kindles, could be on the list to get cuts. At an operating loss of $5 billion a year, it’s not hard to see why.

The Epic Games-Apple antitrust battle resumes today in appeals court • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in antitrust, Apple, Apps, Epic Games, law, lawsuitNo Comments

Apple’s antitrust battle against Fortnite maker Epic Games is returning to the courtroom after both sides appealed last year’s ruling in a precedent-setting case over Apple’s alleged anti-competitive behavior. Last year, a U.S. District Court judge had largely favored Apple when ruling the tech giant was not acting as a monopolist with regard to its App Store practices. Epic Games was unhappy with that decision, of course, as it had wanted the court to force Apple to support third-party payments which would have allowed Fortnite to maximize its revenues. Meanwhile, Apple didn’t want to agree to the court’s order that said it would hae to permit apps that provide links to alternative payments. Oral arguments will kick off this afternoon at the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit, in what will be an even higher-stakes trial for determining Apple’s future in the app market and its ability to set its own rules around payments and commissions. While the original case was already one of the more high-profile examples of Apple’s market power being challenged through the justice system, the appeals case will bring additional scrutiny as now, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of California have been granted time to present their own arguments to help explain the proper legal framework for evaluating the antitrust claims against Apple. Although the Justice Department’s arguments won’t technically support either side, it’s in the early stages of filing an antitrust suit against Apple — and the appeals court’s decision on the Epic Games case could ultimately shape its own ability to effectively prosecute Apple further down the road. The DoJ’s filing explained it had concerns over how the lower court had too narrowly interpreted parts of U.S. antitrust law — the Sherman Act — as well as other issues related to the lower court’s misunderstanding of the market and Apple’s monopoly power with regard to pricing, among other things. The appeals court docket is also filled with numerous amicus briefs disputing the original ruling. These include filings by noted Apple critics like Tile, Match, Basecamp, and the lobbying group the Coalition for App Fairness, as well as from other tech companies and game store operators, like Roblox and Microsoft, various consumer advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation Consumer Federation of America, and others. In addition, 35 U.S. state attorneys-general have filed in support of Epic Games. Epic Games had originally sued Apple in 2020 after Apple banned the company’s Fortnite app for its implementation of a new payment mechanism that allowed it to bypass Apple’s in-app purchase framework. This laid the groundwork for the antitrust case — a fight that had been brewing for years. Despite the judge’s declaration that Apple was not acting as a monopolist, the Cupertino-based tech giant appealed the ruling because it lost ground in a key area regarding what sort of rules it can make for its App Store. In the original decision, a federal judge ruled that Apple could no longer prohibit developers from pointing to other means of payment outside of Apple’s own payment system. Apple was later granted a stay on the injunction that would have forced it to comply by December 9, 2021 by updating its App Store policies, due to the case being under appeal. Epic Games had also appealed the original ruling, having wanted a decision that would have allowed the company an alternative means of serving its iOS user base, like a third-party app store, sideloading or third-party payment systems. In the months since, Apple has been crusading against the dangers of sideloading, with top execs like CEO Tim Cook and head of software engineering Craig Federighi highlighting the security compromises that sideloading entails. (This is not only due to the pressure from Epic Games, however, but also because the EU’s Digital Markets Act could mandate the method.) Epic’s lawyer Tom Goldstein will kick off today’s proceedings with his oral arguments in the appeals case presented before judges Sidney R. Thomas, Milan D. Smith Jr. and Michael J. McShane, beginning at 2 PM PT/5 PM ET. The hearing will be live-streamed on YouTube.

Apple faces new lawsuit over its data collection practices in first-party apps, like the App Store • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in AppsNo Comments

A new lawsuit is taking on Apple’s data collection practices in the wake of a recent report by independent researchers who found Apple was continuing to track consumers in its mobile apps, even when they had explicitly configured their iPhone privacy settings to turn tracking off. In a proposed class action lawsuit, plaintiff Elliot Libman is suing on behalf of himself and other impacted consumers, alleging that Apple’s privacy assurances are in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. As reported last week by Gizmodo, app developers and independent researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry discovered that Apple was still collecting data about its users across a number of first-party apps even when users had turned off an iPhone Analytics setting that promises to “disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether.” In their tests, the researchers examined Apple’s own apps including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books and Stocks and found that disabling this setting as well as other privacy controls didn’t impact Apple’s data collection. The App Store, for example, was continuing to track information like what app users tapped on, what they searched, what ads they saw, how long they looked at a given app’s page, and how the app was discovered, among other things. The app also then sent details that included ID numbers, type of phone, screen resolution, keyboard languages and more — information that could be used in device fingerprinting. According to Apple’s device settings, if a user turns off either iPhone or iPad Analytics, a message informs the user that Apple will “disable [the sharing of] Device Analytics altogether.” In addition, users are left to believe that Apple would stop collecting their data if they turn off other settings, like “Allow Apps to Request to Track” or “Share [Device] Analtyics.” Despite configuring these privacy controls, the lawsuit states that Apple “continues to record consumers’ app usage, app browsing communications, and personal information in its proprietary Apple apps,” specifically the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books and Stocks. The complaint goes on to detail the researchers’ findings, specifying what data was being collected. Stocks, for instance, was tracking users’ watchlists, the names of stocks they viewed and searched for, and news articles they saw in the app and more. And most of the apps shared consistent ID numbers, the suit states, which would allow Apple to track users across its apps. In light of these new findings, the lawsuit alleges that Apple’s assurances and promises regarding privacy are “utterly false.” It also pointed out that this level of data collection was out of line with standard industry practices as both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browser could not collect the same sort of data if their own analytics settings were turned off. “The data Apple surreptitiously collects is precisely the type of private, personal information consumers wish and expect to protect when they take the steps Apple sets out for users to control the private information Apple collects,” the complaint states. “…There is no justification for Apple’s secret, misleading, and unauthorized recording and collection of consumers’ private communications and app activity.” The plaintiff is looking to have the lawsuit certified as a class action and is seeking compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages in addition to other equitable monetary relief. Apple has not responded to a request for comment. If accurate, this sort of data collection would raise questions about Apple’s implementation of Apple Tracking Transparency (ATT) which Apple said would give users more control over how their app data was used in personalized advertising. As critics have noted, ATT hurt the advertising businesses of major tech companies, like Meta and Snapchat, while Apple’s own advertising market share increased. A September 2022 report by InMobi’s Appsumer found that Apple’s advertising business had benefitted from the launch of ATT, allowing the Cupertino tech giant to join the Facebook (now Meta)-Google advertising duopoly by growing its adoption by 4 percentage points to reach 94.8% year-over-year, while Facebook’s adoption dropped 3% to 82.8%. Meta, of course, has long argued that Apple’s ATT would cut into its ad revenues, forecasting it would have a $10 billion impact in 2022. In addition, Apple recently rolled out new ad slots on the App Store to capitalize on its improved stance in the ad industry. Soon, many developers became distressed to find that those ad slots were being sold to gambling app makers and others they felt unsuitable to be marketed alongside their own. Apple has also been facing increased scrutiny over its practices, following the launch of ATT and the growth of its App Store business, which has given Apple significant power in the app market overall. The company is currently battling Epic Games in a lawsuit over App Store fees and Apple’s alleged antitrust behavior, which has now headed to an appeals court. Plus, the U.S. Department of Justice is said to be in the early stages of drafting an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. This latest lawsuit, though currently smaller in scope than others, has the potential for larger implications if the researchers’ findings turn out to be correct and are held up in court. Case 5:22-cv-07069 by ZebethMedia on Scribd

Google’s Health Connect app is now available in beta • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Apps, Biotech & Health, Google, health connectNo Comments

Google announced today that its Health Connect app is now available in beta on the Play Store. Health Connect is designed to centralize access to health and fitness data from various eligible apps. Today, more than 10 health and fitness apps are launching integrations with Health Connect, including MyFitnessPal, Oura and Peloton. The app syncs health and fitness data from eligible platforms and allows other apps to gain access to this data with their consent, while providing centralized privacy controls for users. Developers have previously had to establish multiple API connections to share data between different apps, which limited developers’ data sharing capabilities and made it hard for users to unlock this data for use in different apps. With Health Connect, developers no longer have to build a whole new integration. Google says building an integration with a new app is as simple as reading in new data from Health Connect. “For example, Android users will now be able to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps like Oura, MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers and Lifesum,” Google said in a blog post. “Now, through a single integration with Health Connect, Peloton Members will have the option to share their workout stats across the ecosystem of apps they use to support their overall wellness.” Image Credits: Google Google says Health Connect provides a standardized data schema that supports 40+ data types across six categories. The schema covers a wide range of use cases, from exercises to sleep tracking to vital signs. The app not only simplifies app connectivity, but also give users more privacy controls by allowing them to monitor which apps have access to data. In the past, users have had to navigate to multiple apps to manage data permissions and developers had to build out permissions management UIs themselves. Health Connect allows users to manage permissions in a single place. As for developers, Health Connect provides the permissions management hub and granular permissions UIs out of the box. Google collaborated with Samsung to build Health Connect with the goal of simplifying the connectivity between health and fitness apps. The company first unveiled the initiative earlier this year at its I/O developer conference. Health Connect is available to download as a public beta via the Google Play Store starting today. Google hasn’t detailed its plans regarding a full public release. At launch, the app has integrations with Fitbit, Samsung Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, Peloton, Oura, WeightWatchers, Flo, Lifesum, Signos, Tonal, Outdooractive and Proov Insight.

DoorDash rolls out new safety features for delivery people on its platform • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Apps, DoorDashNo Comments

DoorDash is rolling out new in-app safety features to help ensure delivery people on its platform are safe before, during and after every order. Now, if DoorDash detects that a delivery is taking longer than expected, the app will automatically check to see if the delivery person is okay. The new check-in feature is initially launching in New York City and Washington before rolling out across the country. Delivery people will gain access to a new “SafeChat” feature that aims to prevent safety incidents. If the app detects inappropriate or offensive language in a chat, the person who sent the message will receive a warning and the delivery person will be given the option to unassign themselves from the delivery without a penalty. SafeChat is now active in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Image Credits: DoorDash In response to feedback from delivery people, DoorDash will start sending a notification to customers asking them to turn their porch or house lights on as the their delivery person is approaching. The company says delivery people have said that better lighting would make it easier for them to find the right address and make them feel safer when delivering at night. DoorDash is also making it easier for delivery people to report a safety incident during or after a delivery. If a customer makes them feel unsafe, they can immediately report it via in-app chat or call for investigation. They can also block deliveries to that customer in the future. Image Credits: DoorDash In addition, DoorDash is partnering with Samdesk, a global crisis detection platform, to roll out real-time safety alerts. In the event of an emergency, the company will alert delivery people and merchants about the incident and suspend operations near the area. The app will also check-in on delivery people near any impacted area to make sure they are okay. The features announced today are an extension of SafeDash, DoorDash’s in-app security toolkit that launched last year. DoorDash partnered with ADT to launch two features within the toolkit. The “safety reassurance call” feature lets users connect with an ADT agent through the Dasher app in instances where they may feel unsafe. The “emergency assistance button” allows users to seek help if needed.

222 wants to match perfect strangers for bespoke, real-life experiences • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in App, Apps, Social, startup, StartupsNo Comments

As anyone who’s moved to a city sight unseen can tell you — this reporter included — making platonic connections isn’t easy. Adult friendships are fickle beasts in metros of millions, where casual friends are cheap currency. Statistics back up my anecdotal evidence. According to a 2021 survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life, an increasing number of people can’t identify a single person as a “close friend.” In 1990, only 3% of Americans said that they had no close friends, while in 2021, that percentage rose to 12%. Many a startup has attempted to “solve socializing” with apps, algorithms and social nudges, or a combination of those three things. Bumble, for instance, has experimented with a communities feature that lets users connect with one another based on topics and interests. Patook took a Tinder-like approach to matching potential friends, using AI both to connect users and block flirtatious messages. But not everyone’s found these experiences to be especially fulfilling. “[I’m alarmed] by the tech industry’s lack of focus on building social products that are truly social rather than purely built to capture attention and exploit our desire for external validation,” Keyan Kazemian told ZebethMedia in an interview. He’s one of the three co-founders of 222, a social events app that aims to — unlike many that’ve come before it — facilitate meaningful and authentic connections. “Our society’s brightest minds — our fellow scientists, engineers and product managers — are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars not to solve the existential problems of loneliness, climate change, space travel, cancer and aging but to instead find new ways to keep an already mentally ill society consuming endless content, always fighting for more of their attention,” Kazemian continued. “We’re building a product to swing the pendulum in the other direction.” Kazemian co-launched 222 in late 2021 with Danial Hashemi and Arman Roshannai. They initially came together over a university-funded project around predicting social compatibility among a group of strangers. Toward the end of the pandemic, Kazemian, Hashemi and Roshannai — all Gen Zers (at 23, Kazemian is the oldest) — curated intimate dinners in Kazemian’s backyard over wine and pasta for friends of friends who’d never met each other, using machine learning and a psychological questionnaire to craft the guest lists. “Folks loved the backyard dinners so much they convinced us to try to replicate it with real venues,” Kazemian said. “In early 2022, we moved to Los Angeles and started partnering with brick and mortar locations, creating a marketplace between hyperlocal venues and members looking to discover their city and meet new people through unique social experiences.” That marketplace became 222. Today, anyone between the ages of 18 and 27 can sign up for an account — the founding team is focused on the Gen Z crowd presently. There’s no app — just a basic Typeform workflow — and the sign-up process is designed to be simple. Once you provide your name, email address and date of birth, 222 has you answer roughly 30 Myers-Briggs-type questions covering topics from movie, music and cereal preferences to political views and religious affiliation. 222’s onboarding survey. Some are uncomfortably personal — you’ll be asked about your income level, sexual orientation and college major — but Kazemian says it’s in the interest of narrowing down potential matches. “All of our data is encrypted and used only to better each 222 member’s social experience,” he added when asked about 222’s privacy practices. 222’s small print also indicates that data from the app is being analyzed as a part of a university social science project — a continuation of the one Kazemian, Hashemi and Roshannai led a year ago. Opting out requires contacting the company. Image Credits: 222 After answering additional questions about your personality (e.g. “Is social activism is incredibly important for you?”, “Are you willing to have uncomfortable and difficult conversations with your friends?”) and go-to social activities (e.g. drinking, watching sports, going out to nightclubs), 222 has you list dietary restrictions and your ZIP code. You’re then asked to choose which factors you find most important in meeting new people (e.g., social scene, political leanings), and it’s finally off to the races. Or it should be. When I tried to sign up, the website threw an internal server error. I eventually received a text confirming my enrollment, but it included a link to a webpage that endlessly loaded. Kazemian chalked it up to teething issues and promised a fix. When the Typeform is working properly, Kazemian says, an algorithm behind the scenes factors in the answers to those 30-some questions to determine which of 16 categories your personality falls into. Once that’s decided, you’ll be notified if you’re selected for a 222 event — for example, dinner at a local venue partner of 222’s — which are currently held weekly and cost $2.22 to attend. Those who aren’t recruited for the dinner can choose to join for post-event mingling. So is the algorithm any good? Kazemian asserts that it is, and that, furthermore, 222 is one of the few social apps directly training and matching based on real-life experiences. “Most dating apps don’t do any sort of matching at all and rather focus solely on an Elo-type score, like in chess. Users on those products are only exposed to those that have a similar ‘yes-swipe-to-no-swipe ratio to themselves,” Kazemian said. “[By contrast,] based on our member’s onboarding questionnaire, 222 develops a psychological profile for each new sign up … Our algorithm will then not only pair each member with the best possible group of strangers for a given experience, it will also curate an itinerary for the evening with the best possible consumer experience — which speakeasy, café, concert or restaurant will this group of individuals have the best time at.” That’s quite a claim to make considering Tinder and even Facebook has dabbled with helping strangers connect at events. But algorithmic robustness aside, users might be wary of attending events

Klarna brings its price comparison tool to Europe • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Amazon, Apps, Commerce, Google, Klarna, PriceRunnerNo Comments

Klarna is expanding into the competitive world of price comparisons, with the launch of a new tool that compares prices across thousands of retailers. The company quietly rolled out the price comparison service in the U.S. a few weeks back, and is now extending this into additional markets in Europe including The U.K. and the Nordics. The European “buy now, pay later” fintech has had a turbulent year, laying off 10% of its workforce in May followed by a second round of layoffs in September. Sandwiched in between, news emerged that Klarna had raised $800 million in funding, albeit at a valuation 85% lower than the previous year, a trend that has echoed elsewhere across the fintech sphere and beyond. With today’s announcement, Klarna is building on an acquisition that closed just six months ago, when it snapped up comparison shopping service PriceRunner in a $124 million deal. At the time, it said that it would use the acquisition to power new features in the core Klarna app, including produce search and price comparisons — and that is what it has been rolling out over the past few weeks. It’s a notable expansion for Klarna, which has hitherto been better known for a service that allows consumers to buy goods through third-party retailers in instalments. Moving forward, the Klarna app will not only serve as a payment network, but a “single shopping destination” for finding the cheapest deals and paying. Digging into the specifics, the new price comparison smarts allow customers to filter their searches by criteria such as size, color, ratings, availability, shipping options, and more. On top of that, Klarna shows shoppers historical pricing data, which shows how the cost has fluctuated over time and whether they should buy now, or wait a little longer to see if the price goes down. A ‘credible alternative’ The company said that the tool is designed to serve as a “credible alternative” to other shopping services from the likes of Google and Amazon. Indeed, PriceRunner is in fact in the process of suing Google for more than $2 billion in Europe, alleging that the internet giant continues to breach a 2017 antitrust enforcement order against Google Shopping. The long and short of that case involves Google allegedly giving prominence to its own comparison shopping service in Google Search results. And this is why Klarna is pushing the message here that its own price comparison product is “unbiased” in the results that it serves up. “You could spend the whole day comparing offers at conventional search engines or marketplaces, but you’ll always have doubts — have I really found the best product at the best price?,” Klarna cofounder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in a press release. “Klarna’s new search and compare tool does the hard work for consumers and compares thousands of websites in real time to ensure they have all the information they need to make informed and confident purchase decisions.”

India lifts download ban on VLC • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Apps, india, Media & Entertainment, Videolan, VLCNo Comments

India has lifted the download ban on VLC media player, more than a month after the popular software’s developer filed a legal notice seeking explanation from the nation’s IT and Telecom ministries. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has removed its ban on the website of VLC media player, New Delhi-based advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, which provided legal support to VideoLAN, said on Monday. VideoLAN confirmed the order. Indian telecom operators began blocking VideoLAN’s official website, where it lists links to downloading VLC, in February of this year, VideoLAN president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf told ZebethMedia in an earlier interview. India is one of the largest markets for VLC. The vast majority of people rely on VLC’s official website to download the popular application. “Most major ISPs [internet service providers] are banning the site, with diverse techniques,” Kempf said of the blocking in India. In light of the blocking, the site immediately observed a drop of 80% in traffic from the South Asian market, he told ZebethMedia. Last month, VideoLAN and Internet Freedom Foundation used legal means to get answers and redressal surrounding the ban. India’s IT ministry never made public the order of the ban, yet all telecom operators in the country complied with it. In its legal notice last month, VideoLAN sought a copy of the blocking order. Indian telecom operators never disclosed why they were blocking the VideoLan website, but some speculated that it could be because of a misinterpretation of a security warning from earlier this year. Security firm Symantec reported in April this year that the hacker group Cicada, which has ties with the Chinese government, was exploiting VLC Media Player as well as several other popular applications to gain remote access to the victim’s computers. Kempf said he was never contacted by any government agency. VLC, downloaded over 3.5 billion times worldwide, is a local media player that doesn’t require internet access or connection to any particular service online for the vast majority of its features. A block on its website didn’t considerably impact the existing install base of VLC. But by blocking the website, India was pushing its citizens to “shady websites that are running hacked version of VLC. So they are endangering their own citizens with this ban,” Kempf added.

Twitter’s crazy week drives social apps’ growth, Google expands user choice billing • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 12, 2022Posted in app stores, Apple, Apps, Elon Musk, Google, This Week In Apps, TwitterNo Comments

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly ZebethMedia 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. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters It’s a Twitter dumpster fire and I can’t look away Image Credits: Cloudytronics (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Where to even begin? This week Twitter became one of the most chaotic, most disastrous social networks in history — and arguably, also the most interesting, in a sort of rubbernecking kind of way. There was something new taking place either on the platform directly or within the company itself at nearly every minute. In just a handful of days since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen the following: The launch of Twitter Blue (11/9) followed by a pause (11/10), followed by its disappearance from the app entirely (11/11). Widespread impersonation of high-profile accounts, including Musk’s own, by Verified users — including, almost immediately, the $8/month Twitter Blue Verified users after the new subscription went live. The launch of Official badges (11/8) for high-profile accounts, followed by their disappearance (11/9) followed by their return (11/11). Elon Musk’s reveal of his plan to have Twitter enter the payments business. Further departures of key execs, including its most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner (11/10), chief privacy officer Damien Kieran (11/10), chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty (11/10) Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth (11/10) — the latter who has been one of the last remaining sane voices at the company amid the upheaval. Musk held a call with advertisers (11/9) that did not offer any solid assurances that all would be well. After this call, the call’s host and head of ad sales Robin Wheeler, quit. Later, she tweeted “I’m still here” after being persuaded by Musk to stay (11/10). After the departure of key executives across trust, safety, data governance and security, the FTC issued a rare warning to Twitter (11/10). The agency said had been “tracking the developments at Twitter with deep concern,” and that “no CEO or company is above the law.” Twitter was put under an FTC consent order in 2011 after being found to have misused user data. The order requires, among other things, that new product rollouts receive full security reviews and it dictates what Twitter can and cannot do with data. The number of rapid changes, eliminations of departments, departures of key personnel and fast launches and shutdowns of new products are now raising questions as to whether or not Twitter has managed to remain compliant with the FTC’s decree. The lead regulator in the European Union then came after Twitter, setting a meeting for next week to discuss concerns including the data protection officer’s departure and whether Twitter’s main establishment for GDPR purposes is still located in Ireland. Musk addressed employees at an all-hands (11/10) and warned them Twitter may have a net negative cash flow of billions in 2023 and suggested bankruptcy was not out of the question. One can argue that Musk was right to take a new approach at Twitter, which was losing money and failing to grow its user base. Coming in with fresh ideas and swapping out the executive team isn’t that unusual in a takeover, nor are widespread layoffs when a company is in financial trouble. New product experimentation is also to be expected. And revamping Twitter Blue, which has so far failed to attract subscribers, makes sense too. But it’s not the what that’s the issue here, really — it’s the how. Musk clearly had not thought through the impact of his changes and he laid off people who could have offered deeper insight. His move to immediately make deep cuts across Twitter (after weird ideas about code reviews, apparently), meant he missed the opportunity to actually listen to current staff who could explain what Twitter has tried, what’s failed and why they’re doing the things they are. Even if Musk disagreed with Twitter’s current direction, those understandings could be used to better inform his future decisions. Instead, he’s approached Twitter as a toy to be played with, saying even “Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.” And it already has. Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022 Living up to its promise, the first project Twitter landed on saw it reinventing the wheel. Musk, having only perceived the value of a blue Verified badge as a status symbol, believed a wide swath of Twitter users would pay for the privilege of owning one. What he didn’t understand (unlike most of Twitter’s user base), is that Verification is actually a service the platform provides its community, not just an ego-pleasing checkmark. In fact, many of those with the original badge don’t see it as a status symbol, and wouldn’t pay for the “honor” of having one. Instead, the original blue badge was a way to quickly see that someone is who they claim to be or that they’re a trusted source of news and information. Musk, on the other hand, thinks “citizen journalists” and everyday folks