Heena Sharma Blog

  For months, complaints from tech companies against Apple’s and Google’s power have grown louder. Spotify, the music streaming app, criticised Apple for the rules it imposed in the App Store . A founder of the software company Basecamp attacked Apple’s “highway robbery rates” on apps. And last month, Epic Games, maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued Apple and Google, claiming they violated antitrust rules. Now these app makers are uniting in an unusual show of opposition against Apple and Google and the power they have over their app stores. On Thursday, the smaller companies said they had formed the Coalition for App Fairness, a nonprofit group that plans to push for changes in the app stores and “protect the app economy”. The 13 initial members include Spotify, Basecamp, Epic and Match Group, which has apps like Tinder and Hinge. “They’ve collectively decided, ‘We’re not alone in this, and maybe what we should do is advocate on behalf of everybody,’” said Sarah Maxwell, a...

Although Tinder is a platform facilitating casual dating, some of the app's nearly 50 million users around the world are employing it for multilevel marketing, political campaigning, and promoting local gigs, a new study says. The study, published in the journal The Information Society, found that Tinder's off-label use -- a term borrowed from pharmacology describing when people use a product for something other than what the package says -- appropriates its infrastructure, and sociocultural meanings. "When people encounter a new technology, whether it's a hammer or a computer, they use it in ways that fit their needs and lifestyle," said study co-author Stefanie Duguay from Concordia University. "However, once you buy a hammer, it doesn't undergo regular updates or develop new features -- apps do. They come with their own marketing, vision for use and sets of features, which they regularly update and often change in response to user activity,...

The Indian edition of dating app Tinder is trialing a new feature which gives women an additional level of scrutiny and security before they allow men to start messaging conversations, with a view to rolling the function out globally. The "My Move" feature allows women to choose in their settings that only they can start a conversation with a male match after both have approved each other with Tinder's swiping function. Also Read >> Business Standard Normally, the app gives both parties to a successful match - where both have swiped yes on the other's photograph - the right to text each other immediately. Tinder has been testing the function in India for several months and plans to spread it worldwide if the full rollout proves successful. Rival dating-app Bumble already only allows the female party to a heterosexual match to start conversations. Read Complete Article Article Source >> BS