Netflix’s mobile games, redesigned emojis, apps against abuse and other news from the mobile industry
Perhaps the biggest news of the month was Netflix’s announcement that the company is going to make a serious investment in gamе development. It also clear from the job listing that was published in July. Besides, you can’t ignore the scandal at Blizzard with the remaining number of vacant workplaces. It looks like Netflix is trying to show who’s the new sheriff in town.
Google asserts its rights, redesigns emoji and optimizes its work on the Search history
36 US states filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Google Play, in which users pay for apps and make in-app payments using Google’s own payment service that gets a percentage of income. Google claimed the lawsuit «baseless» as Android allows using other app stores and downloading apps that are unpublished in Google Play.
While facing the lawsuit, Google redesigns 992 of its emojis to make them more universal and recognizable even on the smallest screens. These updates will be rolled out alongside Android 12 this fall.
From other big Google innovations we can name the ability to quickly delete your last 15 minutes of saved Search history. For now, it is available in the Google app for iOS, and is coming to the Android Google app only later this year. Now to clear the cache, you don’t need to make unnecessary manipulations with the browser. You can use this time to check out new emojis.
Instagram gets safer, Pinterest prohibits weight loss ads
Instagram tests a new feature «Limits» that will allow users to lock their accounts in a time of crisis. In the privacy settings, users can quickly limit comments and messages from the new followers or accounts, created to harass them.
More interesting: Instagram created an option to allow U.S. businesses to identify themselves as Black-owned companies. You can add a special «Black Live Matters!» badge to your page or product.
One of the major updates of July is the new Pinterest ad policy. The reason for this is the sad statistics of the rise in eating disorders in young people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The company will be the first platform to prohibit all weight loss ads.
Twitter, TikTok, Google and Facebook pledged to fight abuse online and improve the safety of women on their platforms. The companies will offer new granular settings: it will be possible to independently set restrictions on who can view, share or comment on posts.Also, women will be able to interact more quickly with protection and support services.
Social media representatives announced testing of new programs that track restricted content. The last is the special priority of the developers. Besides keeping women safe, Facebook continues to fight extremism and test new features that alert users to violent words and phrases.
Mobile games are new on the Netflix shopping list
The streaming giant plans to expand into the mobile gaming industry. Games will be included at no added cost with a Netflix subscription. The exact date of the release was not announced, but it was hinted that it would take several years. The service became interested in the world of games more than ever, and it is not about one-off experiments — it is a transition period for the streaming giant now. Due to new formats and social networks, streaming is facing difficulties in attracting and retaining subscribers.
TikTok vs Youtube
In the Q1 of 2021, TikTok deleted 11,149,514 accounts (7,263,952 of them belonged to children under 13) violating community guidelines. Seems a lot? Yet still, this is less than 1% of the total number of accounts.
At the same time, TikTok is introducing new options that shape the image of modern social media: now the maximum video length will increase from 60 seconds to 3 minutes. Instagram is no longer a rival. YouTube, it’s your turn!
The major feature of Apple’s new fall products (including iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15 and macOS Monterey) will be the pre-installed SharePlay program. The new FaceTime’s function will allow you to share movies, TV-shows, music, podcasts and much more with your friends and family during video calls.
Also developers announced that Tetris Beat, which combines the classic block-dropping puzzler with a rhythm game featuring music from the artists such as Alison Wonderland, will be released on Apple Arcade. Little fish are sweet.
AR shopping in Snapchat and Spotify Premium on Apple Watch
Snapchat aims to be the leader in shopping. Snap has bought Vertebrae, a company that lets brands create 3D versions of their goods. Shops and users will be able to upload visuals and other information about an item into Vertebrae and have an appealing 3D version made to offer for users.
Snapchat has already shown interest in this area with the AR displays in its Spectacles smart glasses. If users really start to AR shopping with their phones, it will make Snapchat highly demanded while also making its ads more effective.
More and more Spotify Premium users report that they have access to a new feature: music can be downloaded to Apple Watch and listened to offline. At first, this function was local, but now it’s available to a global audience.
News of app stores
Google Play is introducing stricter security measures for developer accounts to fight spam and malware. Before, to create an account only email and phone number were required. Now, you need to provide: an account type (personal or belonging to an organization), a contact name, physical address and 2-Step Verification.
Also, Google Play has brought back the top chart by category.
P.S.
Some news from Checkaso. We have published three posts. We have covered how UX mistakes affect App Store and Google Play promotion. We have analyzed the main trends in the promotion of delivery apps and made a checklist of how to prepare your app for promotional activities.
In July, we rolled out the new tool Keywords Intersection, using which you can deeper analyze your competitors and work more effectively with the semantics, revealing the percentage of intersections in indexed keywords.
We conducted a detailed webinar on this tool so you know how to outrank your competitors in search results. Try out our new tool — sign up for a free 7-day trial with no card required.
