This Week in Apps: SharePlay arrives, Android Dev Summit wraps, Snap and TikTok go to Congress

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. […]

Google announces Android 12L, a feature drop for large-screen devices

Google today announced a preview of Android 12L, which may sound like a new version of Android, but Google calls it “a special feature drop that makes Android 12 even better on large screens.” The idea here is to provide users on tablets, foldables and Chrome OS laptops — anything with a screen above 600 […]

A new Senate bill would totally upend Apple and Google’s app store dominance

With two giants calling the shots and collecting whatever tolls they see fit, mobile software makers have long complained that app stores take an unfair cut of the cash that should be flowing directly to developers. Hearing those concerns, a group of senators introduced a new bill this week that, if passed, would greatly diminish […]