Mobile News - Week of June 28, 2021

Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Bytedance and Amazon generated ad sales of $296 billion in 2020 – making up 46% of the market.

By contrast, in 2010, the top five companies – Google, Viacom/CBS, News Corp/Fox News, Comcast and Disney – accounted for 17% of the market with $70bn in revenues combined.

Consumer spending in mobile apps hit a record $64.9 billion during the first half of 2021. This figure represents a 24.8% increase in spending seen across both the App Store and Google Play, compared with the year-ago period.

Now, Shopify says it will drop its commissions on app developer revenue to 0%, down from 20%, for developers who make less than $1 million annually on its platform. This benchmark will also reset annually, giving developers — and, particularly those on the cusp of $1 million — more earning potential. And when Shopify’s revenue share kicks in, it will now only be 15% of “marginal” revenue. That means developers will pay 15% only on revenue they make that’s over the $1 million mark.

TikTok videos can now be three minutes long. The app is rolling out three-minute-long videos to everyone after initially testing them with select creators.

RCS Chat is finally gaining momentum: both T-Mobile and AT&T have announced they will use Messages by Google as the default on all Android phones.

A Seoul court’s decision last week that effectively confirmed Netflix‘s obligation to pay network usage fees to mobile carriers suggests that the global video streaming giant might have to change its business strategy in South Korea.

Netflix accounted for 4.8 percent of the country’s total network traffic in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The app was launched in Australia back in 2019 for both hobbyist and commercial drone pilots, with help from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). The U.S. version was created with input from the FAA for operation in Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) airspaces.

Using the app, drone operators can request approval to operate in spaces like those around areas, expediting a process that would traditionally take days or weeks to go through.

The Test Drive program has been around in one form or another since 2014. With the most recent iteration — which is still available to those who can’t use the eSIM feature — T-Mobile will send you a free Wi-Fi hotspot you can connect to with your current phone to try out the network. This new eSIM version offers the same kind of trial (30 days or 30GB, whichever you reach first) with less hassle.