Tag Archives: app

iOS 17.2 is now available with Apple’s new Journal app

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Apple has officially launched the Journal app with the release of iOS 17.2. announced on monday. First announced at WWDC in June, the new app is designed to encourage users to reflect on everyday moments and record special events.

This app allows you to capture these moments using text, photos, videos, audio recordings, locations, and more. Journal also leverages AI to provide users with personalized suggestions for journal entries. For example, an app may encourage you to write about new places you’ve visited or songs you’ve heard. Apple says you can control the type of content that appears in an app’s Suggestions.

Apple also announced that third-party journaling apps can now suggest moments to write about to users, thanks to a new Journaling Suggestion API. Apple said in a press release that developers can add personalized journaling suggestions to their apps using the new Journaling Suggestions API.

Apple Journal app select

Image credits: apple

You can bring different types of content into the app and write about it, including news articles and podcasts. In Journal, you can browse past entries, bookmark, and filter by images, locations, and more.

If you’re new to journaling and still trying to establish a journaling habit, you can turn on scheduled notifications to receive reminders about recording your daily moments.

According to Apple, all Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud. For extra protection, you can lock the Journal app using your device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID. Additionally, Apple says that journaling suggestions are created on-device, and users can choose which suggested moments they want to share with the Journal app to be added to their journal entries.

Image credits: apple

“We’re excited to bring the benefits of journaling to even more people,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing. press release. “Journal makes it easy to preserve rich, powerful memories and practice gratitude by intelligently curating your personal information directly from your iPhone. We’re enabling other journaling apps to offer similar personalized suggestions while maintaining your privacy.”

iPhone users have long used certain apps for journaling and even notes apps to record their daily experiences and memories. Now the company has launched a dedicated space for users to do so.

Apple’s entry into the journaling space could upset app makers. App makers often accuse Apple of “Sherlocking” popular app categories, a reference to the tech giant’s habit of taking ideas from its broader app developer and partner community. It is worth noting that Apple is currently under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice investigation Alleged anti-competitive conduct in the App Store and other commercial practices.

To learn more about Journal, check out TechCrunch’s review of the app.

Source: techcrunch.com

Apple and Google snubbed ChatGPT for “App of the Year,” selecting AllTrails and Imprint instead.

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Apple and Google announce 2023 app and game winners

Apple and Google announce 2023 app and game winners

Both Apple and Google announced the best apps and games of the year today, with hiking and biking companion AllTrails winning Apple’s iPhone App of the Year for 2023. Imprint: Learn visually Selected as one of the best apps on Google Play. Meanwhile, Apple and Google have agreed on a game of the year chosen by both companies. Honkai: Star Rail As their winner.

These year-end “best of” lists not only drive interest in new apps and games, but also assess the status of the app marketplace, what the platform itself wanted to celebrate, and what attracted consumers. It also functions as a means to ‘Attention this year. But surprisingly, this year Apple bucked the trend of highlighting apps that are new to the store or that leverage recently released technology in innovative ways. Instead, this year’s iPhone app finalists include winner AllTrails, plus apps that have long been praised as well-built and well-designed mobile companions, including language learning app Duolingo and travel app Flighty.

Still, this is a different type of selection than previous years, with 2022 social hit BeReal and last year’s well-received children’s app Toca Life World among the App Store winners. It’s also notable that neither Apple nor Google named an AI app as their app of the year, despite the phenomenal success of mobile apps like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Fastest growing consumer application in history Earlier this year, the service reached 100 million users shortly after its launch. This record was later broken by Instagram Threads, which reached his 100 million user mark in just five days, and still maintained his user base of just under 100 million active users as of October. While any of these picks would be a mobile app success story, both app store platforms looked to others as this year’s top winners. Moreover, apart from ChatGPT, many other AI apps are generating millions of dollars in revenue as well, so the decision to avoid the AI ​​category appears to be a deliberate choice on Apple’s part.

Other App Store winners include:

  • iPad App of the Year preta makeup
  • Mac App of the Year photometer
  • Apple TV App of the Year Mubi
  • Apple Watch App of the Year smart gym
  • iPhone Game of the Year Honkai: Star Rail
  • iPad Game of the Year lost in play
  • Mac Game of the Year P’s lie
  • Apple Arcade Game of the Year hello kitty island adventure

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement about the 2023 winners: “We are proud of the developers who continue to create amazing apps and games that redefine the world around us. It’s exciting to see. This year’s winners represent the limitless potential of developers who bring their visions to life, creating apps and games with amazing ingenuity, exceptional quality, and purpose-driven missions.”

Google took a different approach to “best of” apps this year, emphasizing “multi-device” apps that mirror its efforts in the Play Store. The company named Spotify the best multi-device app. An interesting choice considering that it was just revealed that Spotify had a sweet deal with Google that allowed it to avoid Play Store fees through its antitrust lawsuit with Epic Games.

Google also allows users to vote for their favorite apps; Chat GPT We won the race here as the app of the year as chosen by our users.

However, the press release does not name these names, instead pointing only to: App Store grouping. In addition to it, overall winner, Google took a different approach to “best of” apps this year, emphasizing “multi-device” apps that mirror its efforts in the Play Store, which is designed to make it easier to find apps beyond smartphones.


Source: techcrunch.com

AviaGames, maker of casino app, faces allegations of using bots to compete against players

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AviaGames, the Silicon Valley-based developer of popular casino apps such as Bingo Tour and Solitaire Clash, is facing a class action lawsuit alleging users were tricked into playing against bots instead of similarly skilled human players. was woken up.

“Avia users collectively wagered hundreds of millions of dollars to compete in what Avia claims is a game of ‘skill’ against other human users,” according to a lawsuit filed Friday in the Northern District of California. .

“But as it turns out, the entire premise of Avia’s platform is wrong. Rather than competing with real humans, Avia’s computers are not competing with real humans, but rather with computer “bots” that can influence and control the outcome of games. Input and/or control the game. ” the lawsuit alleged.

The stakes are high because Avia’s products are among the most popular apps on Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play Store, according to the complaint.

At the time of Friday’s filing, Avia’s Solitaire Crash, Bingo Crush, and Bingo Tour were the second, fourth, and seventh-ranked apps in the casino category, according to the complaint.

“Avia’s games are games of chance and constitute an unauthorized gambling operation,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, was filed by Andrew Pandolfi of Texas, who estimates he has lost thousands of dollars on Avia games. And Mandy Shawcroft of Idaho says she has lost hundreds of people.

This includes all other affected players who participate in the game using the Pocket7Games app, which can be used to access multiple casino games.

AviaGames is a privately held company based in Mountain View, California, which recently raised cash from investors in 2021 in a deal that valued the company at $620 million.

According to Sensor Tower, it has 3.5 million monthly active users.

Judge Beth Rabson Freeman said there appeared to be evidence to suggest Pocket7 was using bots.
Pocket7Games

AviaGames did not respond to calls regarding the class action lawsuit.

The player’s lawsuit follows a patent and copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Avia rival Skillz Games against AviaGames in 2021, which is still pending in court after the alleged use of bots came to light. be.

Skillz says that because AviaGames is actually a bot, it can quickly match players for its games and take market share away from Skillz, which allows customers to wait up to 15 minutes for an opposing human player. claims.

Skillz’s lawsuit against AviaGames took a turn in late May when, during discovery, AviaGames turned over nearly 20,000 documents covering internal communications in Chinese, according to court filings. Skillz translated them and allegedly found evidence that AviaGames was using bots.

AviaGames founder and CEO Vickie Chen said in an affidavit that Pocket7 does not use bots in its games.
linkedin

Skillz is seeking communications between AviaGames and its lawyers regarding the bot, and according to court filings, Judge Freeman last week set standards for viewing some of the communications that Skillz was required to turn over to AviaGames by Friday. The court ruled that the requirements were met.

Andrew Labott Bluestone, a New York City medical malpractice attorney who is not involved in the AviaGames case, said the law gives plaintiffs the right to give judges access to lawyer-client communications. He said it was rare.

“judge [who reviews the privileged information first] You must find out why a crime or fraud may have been committed. ”

If a defendant is asking how to protect themselves from charges of crime or fraud, it’s about protecting attorney-client communications. However, a judge can unseal it if the judge determines that the conversation involves fraud or facilitation of a crime that has not yet taken place.

“You need to understand that the defendant was seeking advice on how to avoid getting caught.”

If a Pocket7 player is playing a bot, they may not have a real chance of winning.
Pocket7Games

Asked last month about allegations that the company’s app uses bots, an AviaGames spokesperson responded in writing.

“The allegations against AviaGames are baseless and we are committed to supporting our diverse, growing, and very satisfied community of gamers and addressing these false claims at the appropriate time and place in the legal process. We are confident that we will prevail in this case.”

“While we are unable to comment on the details of ongoing litigation at this time, the charges brought are baseless and AviaGames looks forward to refuting these unjust and baseless accusations in court.”

AviaGames raised funding in August 2021 at a valuation of $620 million.
Pocket7Games

“AviaGames stands behind its IP, unique game technology, game design, and management team integrity. Avia provides an accessible, reliable, and high-quality mobile gaming experience for all players. We are the only skill-based game publisher that offers a seamless, all-in-one platform for

Some players have long suspected that the game is rigged. There is a Pocket7Games/AviaGames = Scam Facebook group.

“Because Pocket7Games is blocking people who are speaking honestly about their fraudulent practices, we felt it necessary to create a group to hold them accountable for their actions and warn others.” said group organizer Caitlin Cohen on Facebook.

“It’s completely cheating. After you are cheated the first time and win, you are placed in a win or lose slot after you get your score. They pick who wins in the group matches and the one-on-one games. ” Gretchen Woods said on Quora in March. “Sometimes you see common players that you’re matching up with. That’s a sign that they’re manipulating the outcome.”

Source: nypost.com

Rooms: Interactive 3D Space Designer and Cozy Game Available on the App Store

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Interactive 3D space builder

Interactive 3D space builder

Known as a cozy game, an interior decoration app, an introduction to learning to code, or something in between. Now available on the App Store.

The startup, which previously raised $10 million in seed funding led by a16z, offers a way to design 3D spaces, or “rooms,” filled with furniture, decorations, pets, and tiny avatars. You can turn those rooms into mini-games if you want. Rooms is all about creating and exploring designs that help people relax. But as the company describes it, this “digital version of Lego” also has an educational aspect.

The project, which first launched on the web earlier this year, was co-founded by Jason Toff, co-founder of Google’s AR/VR division, which includes the now-shuttered VR and AR app-building service Poly and the 3D modeling tool Blocks for VR. Inspired by the work of his co-founder Bruno Oliveira. While co-founder Nick Kluge’s background includes time at Smule, Uber, and Google’s YouTube.

The idea of ​​Rooms is to provide free play, where people use their designs as a form of self-expression. But in addition to interacting with objects in a visual format, you can also click to view the code and further customize items using Lua, the coding language also used in Roblox. This helped introduce coding concepts to young users.

I want to decorate a room that has a calming effect just by placing things there and editing them. What I learned is this whole movement… cozy game,” Toph explains.

In the iOS app released today, Rooms offers a TikTok-style vertical scrolling feed where you can check out different rooms created by the community. There are multiple feeds to choose from, including the “For You” feed (which will be algorithmic in the future, but is currently more curated), the Editor’s Picks feed, and the Recent feed.

As you decorate your space, you can enter an edit mode where you can customize everything from item size, shape, color, shine, opacity, pattern, behavior, and more.

Since the beta version of Rooms was launched on the web, the company has signed up over 40,000 users and created over 50,000 rooms since then. He also has thousands of daily active users.

“Surprisingly…there was some interesting backlash,” Toph says. “I don’t know if it was the audience’s fault, age, or something else, but there were more people than I expected who felt against the existence of AI…However, in reality, the room design is more It should be easier and I think it would be foolish not to use AI to help create the room,” he added.

For now, the company is focused on launching its mobile app and expanding its user base. Toff says the app is actually in beta and they will continue to iterate the experience over time based on user feedback. “We want to learn from and with our users. We brought it out a little earlier than it was perfect,” he admits.


Source: techcrunch.com

YC-Powered Voice API Platform Empowers Productivity App Bots with Super-Powerful Pivot

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Calendar apps are essential to productivity, but it’s difficult to differentiate them enough from their core use cases to sustain growth. Powered by Y Combinator super powerfulan AI-powered meeting note-taking tool that does not require bot recording, has overcome this obstacle and is currently Vapian API provider, makes it easy for anyone to create natural, voice-based, AI-powered assistants.

Superpowered was founded in 2020 by Jordan Deersley and Nikhil Gupta. But Dearsley said after three years of work, the team wanted to work on a more challenging product. Superpowered is profitable, the startup said, and the company has no intention of shutting down its first product and is in the process of hiring someone to run it. Y Combinator announced in June that more than 10,000 people use the product each week, but the company did not provide updated numbers.

Image credits: Vapi

To date, Superpowered/Vapi has raised $2.1 in seed money from investors including Kleiner Perkins and Abstract Ventures.

Pivot to Vapi

The company offers Vapi as an API that allows developers to create bots using only a prompt and putting it behind a phone number. Additionally, SDK integration is also provided, allowing developers to embed bots on their websites and mobile apps.

Dearsley told TechCrunch via email that the idea to build Vapi stemmed from a personal problem. He moved to San Francisco and began to miss his friends and family in different time zones. He built his AI bot that connects to the other party’s phone number to have a conversation with someone to organize their thoughts.

“I liked it, but I was constantly annoyed by how unnatural it was. It didn’t feel like talking to a person. The audio cut out, it took a long time to respond, and when I was talking it would interrupt me. ” he said.

“So I kept working on it and went for walks with it. Eventually, we fell in love with this conversation problem. It’s really hard to make something feel human. Voice assistants. today It’s clunky and turn-based, so I wanted to create something with a human touch. ”

Technically, Vapi is currently integrating a number of third-party APIs to build a robust voice conversation platform. For example, we use solutions from Twilio for phone calls, Deepgram for transcription, Daily for audio streaming, and OpenAI for responses. PlayHT For text reading.

ScaleConvo, a 2024 YC Winter Batch startup, is already using Vapi to launch conversational bots for sales teams and property management companies. However, Vapi did not reveal other customers.The company publishes his API Current Vapi Phone and Vapi Web products.

Vapi challenges

According to Magnus Revan, former Gartner analyst and chief product officer at multimodal conversation startup Openstream.ai, one of the startup’s biggest challenges is reducing latency.

“OpenAI models take between 2 and 10 seconds to generate a response. On the phone, the gold standard is 700 milliseconds between when the user finishes speaking and when the ‘bot’ begins speaking. And with capable models (high parameter count open source models like LLaMA2 70B) it is very difficult to achieve sub-second latencies,” he says.

Currently, Vapi’s latency is between 1.2 and 2 seconds depending on various factors. Dearsley expects that Vapi’s own efforts and improvements to his OpenAI will bring latency down to below a second for him in the next month.

Mohamed Musbah, an angel investor at Vapi, also said that the startup’s solution will be improved by overall advances in APIs.

“As OpenAI and other companies improve their models, Vapi’s platform will become more powerful, with a better knowledge base, code execution capabilities, and a larger context window. “As demand grows, Vapi’s focus on solving the biggest friction areas in voice communications will be a strength for the company,” he said.

However, this puts the responsibility on improving other solutions, not Vapi itself. Dearsley said the reliance on other APIs will make Vapi less defensive if large companies start moving into the space. But the team said it has an advantage in that it has built the infrastructure to handle thousands of calls simultaneously. Dearsley emphasized that with the general availability of Vapi’s web and phone APIs, the team will also look to build proprietary models for his audio-to-audio solutions.

Source: techcrunch.com