This Week in Apps is a short, no-fluff, round-up of interesting things that happened in the mobile industry. With the coronavirus continuing to cause uncertainty, there's a lot going on right now. Here are our top highlights.
4.2 Million. That's how many downloads Area F2, which Ubisoft called a "carbon copy" of Rainbow Six, got before Ubisoft sued Apple and Google to remove it from their stores for IP rights violation. Report
The Quest, Facebook's virtual reality headset, turned a year old yesterday. We took to app downloads to estimate how many headsets are out there, and estimate more than 1,000,000 units are out there. At least one of those is in our office. Report
Enlight Videoleap, a video editing app that packs a bunch of features into a slick package, has seen downloads grow by a multiple of 4 since lockdowns started. Adobe's competitor, which isn't quite as powerful, also grew but is getting much less love.
EBT Fresh, an app to manage food stamps, has seen downloads grow by a factor of 5 since April. With unemployment numbers getting close to 40,000,000, this is not a real surprise.
Did you get a work chair for your apartment recently? Maybe a standing desk? Odds are you got it at Wayfair. Downloads of online furniture store Wayfair tripled since February. IKEA, which is what I associate with furniture, also saw downloads go up by about double. But in comparison are much lower.
#225 - How many people went non-traditional this election, X and ChatGPT saw their biggest month of revenue, some streaming platforms are stuggling to grow, and more.
#224 - Is Non-Native app development on the rise in 2024? Disney+ and Hulu stop taking new subscriptions on the App Store, Arc Browser goes into maintenance mode, Bluesky takes a new investment round, and the challenge of companion AI apps.