Heena Sharma Blog

  Homegrown instant messaging app Hike Messenger , later known as Hike Sticker Chat, has been officially shut down. The company's chief executive officer Kavin Bharti Mittal announced the shutdown of its operations recently. "Today we are announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan'21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn't be here without you. All your data will be available to download in the app," Mittal tweeted. Kavin Mittal is the son of India's second largest telco Bharti Airtel's founder and chairman Sunil Mittal. The app has been removed from Playstore and Apple's App store. Users can download their data inside the application. However, the announcement does not mean an end to other apps in development by the company. Read More

  Tech giant Google on Thursday said it has reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India that were flagged by users and government agencies and those found to be violating its user safety policies were immediately removed from its Play Store. Google has asked the developers of the remaining identified apps to demonstrate that they comply with applicable local laws and regulations, failing which those apps will also be removed. "Providing a safe and secure experience across Google's products is our top priority. Our global product policies are designed and implemented with this goal in mind, and we're always working to improve our practices to enhance user safety," Google said in a blogpost. Google did not disclose the names of the apps removed. "We have reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India, based on flags submitted by users and government agencies. The apps that were found to violate our user safety policies were immediately removed from ...

  Consumers around the globe spent an estimated $407.6 million across Apple's App Store and Google Play on Christmas, a year-over-year growth of nearly 35 per cent per cent from approximately $303 million in 2019, according to a new report by data analytics firm Sensor Tower. Between the two platforms, Apple's App Store captured the bulk of the spending at $278.6 million, while Google Play saw $129 million in revenue, said the report. This is in line with the massive growth in worldwide spending on mobile apps and games in 2020 which passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November. The majority of the holiday spending was on mobile games, which climbed 27 per cent from $232.4 million on Christmas 2019 to $295.6 million this year, said the report. Tencent's Honor of Kings was the category leader with approximately $10.7 million in consumer spending, up 205.7 per cent year-over-year from $3.5 million on the same day in 2019. Read More

Tech giant Google recently added a new section on its online store which gives all the information one needs about all the different subscriptions that the tech giant offers at one place. Mashable quoted a reported by XDA Developers stating that the navigation bar on the Google Store now features a Subscription landing page where users get all the deets and updates about its different offerings including YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Stadia Pro, Google One, and Google Fi. The section features a short description of each service, which is followed by a "Learn more" link. If a user clicks on the link, they will be redirected to a signup page for that particular service. The new section on the Google online store is broken down as follows - Shows & Music: YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Gaming: Stadia Pro, Google Play Pass, Storage & Security: Google One, Nest Aware, Phone Plan: Google Fi. Read More

  Google has stirred up a storm over several past weeks. First, it was the spat with Paytm . Google removed Paytm from Play Store for a few hours on September 18 because the latter was promoting its fantasy sports offering Paytm First Games. Google does not host, or allow other apps to promote, fantasy sports on the app store. Then on September 28, it came out with a policy change. Google said, starting next year, it will charge 30 per cent commission on in-app purchases for all kinds of app businesses. Google already charges in-app purchase commission on certain a category of apps; the latest directive basically makes it apply across the board. Google said only three per cent of app developers will be affected. The move created furor in the internet business community. App developers and founders took to social media to protest against Google's ostensible abuse of its dominant position. Google’s Android operating system is installed in 98 per cent of Indian smartphones, an...

  Digital wallet Paytm vanished from the Google Playstore on Friday, reportedly pulled down for being an "unregulated gambling apps", said CNBC-TV18 quoting Google. Paytm is India’s leading digital payments app, claiming over 50 million monthly active users. Twitter users were first to spot the app was missing from the Store "We don’t allow online casinos/support any unregulated gambling apps that facilitate sports betting. It includes if app leads consumers to an external website that allows them to participate in paid tournaments to win real money/cash prizes,” said a Google statement quoted by CNBC-TV18. Read More

The 59 Chinese apps banned by the government have been taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India, blocking their access to mobile phone users in the country. The government had on Monday banned 59 Chinese applications saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity, and security of the country. A day later popular short video app TikTok was taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The other 58 Chinese apps have now been removed. Google said that it has temporarily blocked access to the banned apps on its India Play Store. "While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said. Read More

Apple's App Store has removed Chinese video app Zynn, a clone of the hugely popular video app TikTok , following accusations of plagiarism. The app was taken down from Googles Play Store last week. A spokesperson for Zynn told The Verge that its issues with plagiarism were minor, and that the company was "in communication with both Google and Apple to ensure compliance with their guidelines and regulations." Zynn arrived on iOS and Android in early May and quickly reached the top of the download charts. By the end of May, the app had become the most downloaded free iOS app and a top 10 download in the Google Play Store. Read More

TikTok has surpassed two billion downloads worldwide on the App Store and Google Play. The latest milestone comes just five months after TikTok surpassed 1.5 billion downloads. In Q1 2020, it generated the most downloads for any app ever in a quarter, accumulating more than 315 million installs across the App Store and Google Play. TikTok's latest surge comes amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen consumers drawn to their mobile devices more than ever as they look for new ways to shop, work, and connect with others. In India, the short video making app leads the chart with more than 600 million downloads or about 30.3 per cent of all unique installs. China is the second leading country for installs, accumulating 196.6 million to date, or 9.7 per cent of all downloads, for its version of the app, known as Douyin, reported mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Read More

The Reserve Bank of India’s MANI ( Mobile Aided Note Identifier ) app is for visually-impaired persons to identify bank notes. And it is off to a poor start. The complaints on the Google Play Store are stacking up with no signs of improvement so far. First, it suffers from some basic flaws. The problem starts with the name. Visually-impaired persons are already struggling to adapt to Android’s perilous talkback feature in smartphones, which announces everything on the screen and helps them perform basic functions. A lot of the actions require people to give voice commands through Google Assistant. And the voice assistant just does not recognise an app spelled MANI (instead of money), yet. So, one has to have the MANI app widget on the home screen to find it with touch. The app recognises new currency notes accurately when placed in front of the phone’s camera and speaks the denomination out loud, but it struggles with the old notes. It also does not identify coins, nor can it...

It is open season on all short video services as well as social media apps, which, according to the government and the judiciary, are supplying inappropriate content. While those who support freedom of internet on Wednesday criticised banning of TikTok from Google and Apple stores as an infringement of right to choose, sources in the government said the steps were taken only after repeated warnings on weeding out foul content fell on deaf ears. The road ahead is going to be a tough one for TikTok and other similar apps as now the government is directly working with both Apple and Google to ensure they do not get any further downloads. “ The government at the moment may not be able to stop the already existing users from posting on the app but it has ensured that they do not get any further downloads. The decision to ban TikTok was taken only after repeated requests to take down objectionable content did not get the desired results. Videos of young children and other similar...