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9 Apps You Should Never Install On Windows 11

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By Levin Roy

We all know that pre-built PCs come with a bunch of bloatware that needs to be uninstalled, but what about the apps you install yourself? Are there any commonly installed applications that you could do without? Plenty of them, actually. Many applications rely on huge marketing budgets to appeal to users, promising a bunch of features that are misrepresented or not needed at all. These apps then proceed to slow down your PC by running a bunch of processes in the background, often to collect user data. Even if you trust the companies in question, allowing them to collect your data presents a security risk, as their servers can be compromised.

Then there is the expense. Most such software comes with a monthly subscription model, costing you quite a bit over time for no real reason. Usually, they are loaded with advertisements for other apps and services on top of a premium subscription, forcing you to deal with annoying pop-ups even after paying through your nose. So let’s look at some apps you should never install on Windows 11.

McAfee

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McAfee is one of the most well-known antivirus software suites out there, with a long history that has cemented it as a household name. It is also infamous for the dramatic life of its enigmatic founder, John McAfee, but that controversy doesn’t have much to do with the software itself. No, the antivirus is dragged down by its own poor performance and shady practices.

Let’s start with the main reason anyone gets a third-party antivirus: security. While McAfee was a decent antivirus program in the days of Windows XP, it doesn’t quite hold up anymore. But why then does it come bundled with so many pre-built computers? Because the company pays the manufacturers to include its software, not because it is a great application that secures your system. McAfee is often installed by new PC builders as well, enticed by limited-time offers, only to be constantly beset by pop-ups selling you additional plans and services. And since all of these are sold as subscriptions, you end up racking up a significant monthly bill for software that doesn’t add anything of value. Do yourself a service and avoid installing McAfee antivirus on your computer.

Norton

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Norton is another well-known antivirus behemoth that often comes installed on PCs and markets aggressively on media platforms. And just like McAfee, it is not worth the price. Heck, it is not even worth the free trial. The reason is poor performance. Norton antivirus has a reputation for slowing down your PC as it runs in the background, impacting your PC’s performance. Even that might be acceptable if it boasted perfect PC protection that could safeguard your data, but it does not necessarily work any better than Windows Defender.

This is the sad reality of most of these antivirus applications these days. Many verge on bloatware sold by an insane marketing push. Microsoft’s Defender has come a long way from the days of Windows XP, and handles most features of a proprietary antivirus by default, including virus definitions, real-time protection, and an aggressive blocklist to prevent exploits. This leaves less for a third-party antivirus to do, so they resort to shady marketing to continue making money. Norton is one of the more visible examples of this, but you should consider avoiding installing any third-party antivirus on a modern Windows computer.

ExpressVPN

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VPNs are the next big category of heavily marketed software that users install on new systems. ExpressVPN is one of its biggest and best-known names, backed by a huge marketing campaign and a long history of success. Except that the ExpressVPN of today is very different from the software that it started as, and might actually be spying on you instead of safeguarding your privacy.

The early iteration of ExpressVPN did its job pretty well. You could use it to bypass regional website restrictions and access web content that was blocked or priced differently at your real location. But as the VPN business boomed, ExpressVPN was acquired by Kape Technologies, a massive conglomerate. And the app started pivoting more toward marketing rather than performance, buying up review websites to help sell itself.

There is also a problem with the basic premise of how VPNs are sold. VPNs are good for getting past regional controls, but the marketing pushes them as a privacy and security product. In reality, browsers already encrypt your data, and some VPNs concentrate your data on their own servers. This leaves your personal information vulnerable to hacks, even if you trust the company itself not to profit off it. Case in point is ExpressVPN’s owner, Kape, which made a fortune collecting user data and making adware. A better option might be to use a VPN-enabled home router.

Honey

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The problem with online shopping is that there are so many sites selling the same things. You often buy a product at one site, only to discover later it was available at a much lower price on a different platform. Shopping extensions like Honey offer to solve this problem by checking around for the best deals whenever you add an item to your cart, saving you the effort of manually checking. The problem is that an extension like that gets access to far more data than you should be comfortable sharing, and isn’t completely honest in its recommendations, either.

Privacy is always a major concern with a shopping extension, since it monitors your purchases, and the data it collects can be sold to advertisers. This is particularly alarming here because you are also entering your payment details while shopping, and don’t want any application monitoring that. And this is before we get into whether they are scamming you entirely.

Honey, for example, shows you alternative buying links before you are about to check out, ostensibly giving you a better deal. But it was exposed for pushing its own affiliate links instead, earning it kickbacks without saving you a penny. So steer clear of shopping extensions like Honey and instead do your own research when buying a product. It takes time and effort, but that’s the only way to confirm you are not being taken for a ride.

CCleaner

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Windows XP was a very successful operating system, but it had its issues. This gave rise to a class of PC cleaning and optimizing applications that would remove these unneeded files and speed up the PC’s performance. CCleaner was one of the first apps in this category, and quickly established itself as the market leader, with great effectiveness in cleaning up system files and registry entries. It was safe to use, making it a must-have for every PC.

But in 2017, it was acquired by Avast, the antivirus company. This is also around the time when Windows 10 started phasing out Windows XP (actually Vista, but that was a disaster). One of the major improvements in Windows 10 was the optimization. No longer did Windows need third-party applications to clean up temporary files or mess with the registry; The default system services could do it just fine. At the same time, Avast started turning CCleaner into a software bundle to sell its antivirus and other utilities alongside it. The result is a bloated, unnecessary mess.

CCleaner cleans nothing and slows down your computer, all the while trying to sell you other apps you don’t need. It has been hacked in the past as well, resulting in leaks of user data. Avoid installing this app on any PC running Windows 11.

WiFi Speed Boosters

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The concept of a software being able to boost your WiFi speed is tempting, even though it is completely bogus. Your wireless internet speeds are dependent on factors that cannot be controlled through software. Things like the network conditions, the router technology, and even the version of WiFi supported by your network card decide the quality of the internet you get. And of course, your Internet Service Provider (ISP), including what plan you are on.

But if you go online, you will come across apps that claim to be able to boost your WiFi speeds. They claim to be able to achieve this by optimizing your networks and selecting the right channel. The problem is that these are functions that modern routers perform by default, making such software redundant. All these WiFi boosters do is throttle services to conserve bandwidth, often blocking useful applications like downloads you left running in the background. The worst ones are just sitting there collecting data on your PC, while trying to sell you additional premium services and ads to make a quick buck.

There are better ways to increase your internet speed. If your PC has an antenna, make sure it is installed, and try to place your router in a position where it can reach your whole house evenly. Depending on the situation, it might be worth investing in a WiFi range extender or plugging your PC directly into the router through an Ethernet cable instead.

Crypto mining software

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There was a time when cryptocurrency mining was all the rage. The idea that you could put your gaming PC to work and earn yourself some money while you slept was very enticing, even if the logistics didn’t quite work out for hobby miners.

But times have changed. Bitcoin mining has reached the point where you need a massive server farm to turn any profit, and cryptocurrencies like Ethereum have switched to a different model entirely, ditching the computationally intensive mining process. This means that there is no viable way of making money on the side by installing cryptocurrency software on your PC. The legitimate mining applications changed to reflect this reality, recommending specialized mining computers for enthusiasts.

And yet, there are still cryptocurrency mining applications online that claim to be able to mine from your home PC and make you money. Some will say they mine using the cloud (but will pay you for some reason) while others still pretend that mining in the background is possible. In truth, these tend to be malware just looking to infect your system and steal data. Even Android is rife with such crypto mining scams. Some variants will actually mine cryptocurrency on your system, using up all your resources to make the hacker some crypto bucks. So, whatever you do, never install any crypto-mining applications on your computer.

Razer Synapse

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Razer is a market leader in gaming peripherals, most famously for its gaming mice and keyboards. Since gaming devices usually come with RGB lighting, Razer also offers a proprietary software for managing these lighting profiles, along with adjusting keybinds for special buttons, called the Razer Synapse. Just as dedicated drivers made by a device’s vendor tend to be better than generic drivers, you would expect a dedicated app to work best with Razer devices, right? Wrong. It doesn’t work well at all.

The major issue with Razer Synapse is performance. An application like this is meant to be lightweight, running unobtrusively in the background with minimal system impact. The Synapse, on the other hand, causes a very noticeable FPS drop while playing some games. Even in games without performance issues, the basic functions of the software work inconsistently. Keybinds don’t trigger correctly, fan profiles revert to default when you minimize the app, or it fails to recognize your devices. Not to mention the software takes up too much disk space for a simple task.

To be fair to Razer Synapse, this is often the case with company-specific software like this, even from other manufacturers like MSI or Logitech. You may be better off sticking to universal software like SignalRGB, which can manage most of these devices from a common platform.

NVIDIA

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NVIDIA is the GPU company, and it’s likely your PC uses an NVIDIA graphics card. Chances are also good that the company pushed you to download the NVIDIA app during driver installation. It is optional, but most users pick yes because the idea of a dedicated app for managing your GPU settings and tweaking them for every game sounds good. Except it cannot quite do that.

When you open the NVIDIA app, it greets you with a list of all installed games on your system, and then proceeds to show you graphical settings that you find in-game. Trying to change the universal settings just changes the very options you can see in the standard NVIDIA control panel on the taskbar, giving you nothing new. Worse, the NVIDIA app can negatively impact your PC performance, usually due to unoptimized overlay or malfunctioning game filters.

Another reason you might have installed this app is to record gameplay, as the previous GeForce Experience was dedicated to this function, and worked without a major drop in performance. But the new NVIDIA app struggles with this function as well, with the instant replay switching off randomly, or being unable even to take screenshots. For now, it’s better to stick with GeForce Experience or switch to something like OBS rather than installing the NVIDIA app.

Feature image credit: Alex Photo Stock/Shutterstock

By Levin Roy

Sourced from BGR

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iOS 26.2 adds new features in six iPhone apps, here’s what’s coming

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iOS 26.2 is launching soon, and it’s packed with a bunch of new features. Many of those features are additions to Apple’s built-in iPhone apps. Here’s everything new across six Apple apps in iOS 26.2.

Reminders

Reminders used to be a simple list app, but after years of progress Apple has made it into a full-featured task manager. And iOS 26.2 adds a new feature I’ve been wanting for years.

You can now mark a reminder as ‘Urgent’ when it has a set due time. Marking it ‘urgent’ means an alarm will go off on your iPhone when that reminder comes due.

Just like your morning wakeup alarm, the new Reminders alarm can be snoozed for 9 minutes. So if you can’t get to a task right then, you can silence the alarm temporarily without forgetting about the task entirely.

The new alarm feature also uses Live Activities as a further visual prompt so you don’t forget about a task.

Apple Podcasts

Apple Podcasts is just one of many popular podcast apps available on iPhone, alongside YouTube, Spotify, Overcast, and more.

But in iOS 26.2, three new features make Apple’s Podcasts app more compelling than ever:

  1. Automatic chapters
  2. Podcast mentions
  3. ’From this episode’

My early favourite of the group is automatic chapters. Apple is using its excellent podcast transcripts feature, feeding that transcript into its Apple Intelligence models, and creating chapters for all podcasts automatically.

Tech-focused podcasts often have creator-generated chapters. But most mainstream podcasts don’t offer chapters. Now in iOS 26.2, they will—at least in Apple Podcasts.

The other additions aim to make it easier for users listening to a show to access links to other podcast episodes that are mentioned by hosts, or recommendations of TV shows, music, books, and other links.

Freeform

Freeform gains a powerful new feature in iOS 26.2: support for tables.

If you’re not familiar with Freeform, it’s Apple’s open canvas whiteboard/playground app where you can create ‘boards’ filled with a mixture of text, images, charts, files, links, and more. It’s especially great for collaboration.

Now Freeform has expanded its available toolset with tables. If you’ve used tables in other Apple apps like Notes, it’s a similar experience in Freeform.

Apple Games

Apple Games is a brand new app that was added in iOS 26. And after gathering initial user feedback, Apple has three enhancements coming in iOS 26.2:

  1. Library Filters: Now you can filter your game library in several new ways, including by titles that offer challenges, or ones your friends are playing.
  2. Controller Support: If you’re doing any serious gaming, there’s a decent chance you might use a Bluetooth controller, so iOS 26.2 makes the Games app easier to navigate via controller.
  3. Real-time challenge updates: Challenge scores now stay current while you’re playing thanks to live, real-time updates.

Whether you’re new to the Games app or a regular user, these changes should hopefully make it a more refined experience overall.

Apple Music

Apple Music gets one welcome change in iOS 26.2: support for offline lyrics.

Lyrics debuted years ago and quickly became one of my favourite features in the Music app. But they’ve always required a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.

Now lyrics will be available even when you’re on a flight, underground train, or roaming the wilderness with no connection.

It’s unclear exactly what triggers the Music app downloading a song’s lyrics offline. Hopefully though, all music added to your Library will support the feature.

Taylor Swift shares riddles about 'The Tortured Poets Department' with Apple Music lyrics

Apple News

Apple News has some great updates in iOS 26.2 centred around making the app’s expanding feature set easier to access.

iOS 26.2 brings several design changes that surface previously buried features so they are much more prominent.

For example, there are brand new quick links at the top of the Today screen for accessing sections like Puzzles, Sports, Politics, and Food.

Additionally, the navigation tab bar has been updated in two ways.

Following is a new tab containing content that used to be hidden behind the Search tab. And Search adds new quick link recommendations.

Which new iOS 26.2 features are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments.

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I Moaned About VERO on Twitter, So the Billionaire Founder Rang Me up to Ask What They Can Do Better

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The other morning I posted an unnecessarily snarky tweet about VERO and a breach of my copyright. That afternoon, I found myself on an hour-long Zoom call with founder CEO Ayman Hariri after he got in touch to discuss what VERO can do to improve.

I’ve written about social media freebooting extensively in the past (1, 2). So-called feature accounts spring up, spreading community vibes, garnering an audience of tens if not hundreds of thousands, only to pivot to selling dropship t-shirts and novelty mugs. Others build followers and then start charging money for featured posts while touting for sponsored posts. The vast majority of these feature accounts post people’s artwork without permission, despite this being against any platform’s terms and conditions — and, let’s not forget, unlawful. It’s a quick way to make easy money from other people’s creativity.

On the left, my Explore page where four of the first 11 posts are feature accounts. On the right, a feature account that takes payments for sharing posts.

At the same time, Instagram and other platform benefits massively, actively encouraging this large-scale copyright infringement by featuring these accounts on the Explore page, and dropping them into people’s “you might also like this” feeds. Instagram must know that these practices are wrong but, given that feature posts account for hundreds of millions of post views each day — and therefore generate vast advertising revenue — it appears to be a policy decision, supported by the legal immunity afforded to them under the DMCA.

Appropriation Should Not Be Normal

For me, Instagram has normalized a culture of appropriation, both casual and blatant, to the point that artists blindly accept these breaches of copyright as they extend their reach, bagging them more followers in the ongoing popularity contest that is social media. I’m one of the few photographers that doesn’t appreciate this new normal, as it frustrates me to see my work enriching others while leaving me with nothing.

At an individual level, it’s small fry — a fraction of a penny in ad revenue that should go to me, not to Instagram. However, at a global level, it’s damaging to artists as, cumulatively, the value inherent in our art is extracted and diverted to Mark Zuckerberg’s immense coffers instead. We’ve accepted this because we’ve been conditioned to compete for attention rather than work as a collective.

VERO: A Different Approach

VERO has been a breath of fresh air, offering a platform that fixes many of the issues that Instagram users have been complaining about for almost a decade. High-resolution images, a chronological feed, more control over sharing, the ability to share different types of content, no ads, only content from people you want to see, and a desktop app. VERO has seen a surge in interest in recent months as Instagram has continued to ostracize photographers and influencers have been gushing about VERO’s superiority.

Like many photographers, I opened an account more than five years ago and lost interest before then rediscovering it in recent months. I don’t put a lot of effort into sharing on social media, but I like the VERO experience, and it feels like a genuine competitor to Instagram. Unlike many other Instagram alternatives that have come and gone, it’s not just for photographers, though photography is at the forefront.

A few days ago, I logged on and discovered an unexpected number of notifications: a “hub” account (as VERO refers to them) had reposted one of my photographs, crediting me and congratulating me on my work. The relentless cynic inside of me sighed and assumed that freebooting had taken next to no time to arrive on VERO, triggering my annoyance. Like every good millennial, I immediately turned to Twitter to voice my disgust and tagged VERO’s account. In my defense, countless people moan at social media companies every day and are met by resounding silence. I have next to no clout, so I figured I was just venting my frustration into the void, maybe prompting a few sympathetic replies to soothe my bad mood.

My unnecessarily snarky tweet triggered a back-and-forth with a couple of photographers with a few trolls jumping on board to inform me that I’m wrong before being soundly schooled by the ridiculously knowledgeable law student and photographer Martin McNeil. What I didn’t expect was a response from Ayman Hariri, the co-founder and CEO of VERO, offering to contact the hub account on my behalf and ask for the post to be removed. A constructive discussion ensued and, to my even greater surprise, Hariri then asked if we could continue on Zoom.

A Zoom Call With the Boss

Four of us — myself, Ayman Hariri, Martin McNeil, and VERO’s Head of Community Tom Hodgson — chatted for an hour, and it would have continued had I not cut it short due to other commitments. I’m aware that I’m in the minority when it comes to having my work posted without my permission and, from what we discussed, it’s apparent that VERO is keen to find a way to give creatives control over their content without impacting people’s desire to share work and have their work shared. Feature accounts are popular for a reason, offering ground-up, community-driven curation of encountered content rather than top-down, algorithm-fed discovery feeds controlled by the platform. As Hariri pointed out, VERO is ad-free — and has stated its commitment to remaining ad-free — so these feature accounts are not generating ad revenue for the platform, as is the case with Instagram.

I put forward my own thoughts on how artists can feel that they have more control, such as the option to mark an image as being available for reposting, or a system of reposting that is built into the app, effectively co-publishing the post, not too dissimilar to Tumblr. No doubt, VERO has pondered these options, and Hariri made it clear that he was wary of adding complexity to a social app that depends on simplicity. We seemed to differ in opinion here, but I’ve not just plowed literally tens of millions of dollars into my own Instagram alternative and, not having the same depth of knowledge, there are likely a host of implications that I’ve not thought through. Maybe my ideas are rubbish. We shall see.

 

My feed on the rather beautiful VERO desktop app, currently in beta.

A chunk of the discussion was centered around the technological solutions that would give artists more control, with McNeil citing the success of YouTube’s ContentID system — notably, something that it was forced to implement in order to avoid chaos, not a feature that it established out of a noble desire to protect creators (in 2007, Google faced a Federal court claim brought by Viacom who sought $1 billion in damages for secondary infringement, a case that ran for seven years and resulted in an out-of-court settlement. The lawsuit prompted Google to begin work that same year on what would become the ContentID system).

Solutions are out there — Google’s own reverse image search is evidence enough — and McNeil has been part of a collective of musicians, authors, illustrators, and photographers who have been consulted by Meta and others on the topic in ongoing talks. I’ve discussed previously the potential of technology such as that provided by French company IMATAG. None of these will resolve freebooting or intellectual property theft completely, but that’s not a reason to ignore it.

If You Care About Social Media, You Should Care About VERO

There are no quick fixes and our conversation was never going to find any, but the discussion felt productive, and it was refreshing to be able to engage, not just with the heads of a social media company, but with people who appear to be genuinely interested in taking our views on board and working to create a platform that is the best possible version of what it can be. Hariri came across as authentic and deeply invested, not just financially, but in establishing VERO as a social media app that respects its users and their content.

In Zuckerberg, we have a billionaire that is busy destroying his share price thanks to an obsession with technology that even his employees believe is pointless, while his chief underling tells photographers: “Thanks for your help now jog along.” In Hariri, we have a billionaire that loves photography and who has invested a vast sum of money gambling on an idea — an alternative to Instagram — that according to precedent, is destined to fail. I, for one, hope that it doesn’t.

I don’t know whether VERO can find a solution to freebooting, but in our conversation, its intentions seem clear. We need a new normal when it comes to social media, and VERO appears determined to provide it.

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Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He’s addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means. andyday.com

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How to block pop-up ads on an Android phone

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(Pocket-lint) – No one likes to be interrupted by an annoying advert, but on our phones, it has become an all too common experience.

Most people know that they can block ads on their desktop or laptop computer, but our phones tend to be plagued with the things. Long gone are the days when you could install Ad Block Plus from the Play Store, Google doesn’t allow system-wide ad blockers anymore.

So, how do you go about blocking ads? Thankfully, it’s very easy, and we’ve got everything covered in this guide.

But first, a few things to mention. It’s important to remember that ads help keep sites going (including this one) and they’re important for content creators, too. So even though they can be irritating, in some cases, it’s worth allowing ads to help support the content that you love.

Also, we’ll be focusing on browser-based ad blocking, so keep in mind that these solutions won’t block ads in other apps, like games, for instance.

With that said, let’s get into the guide.

How to block pop-ups and intrusive ads in Chrome

Chrome is the default browser on the majority of Android phones, and as such, it’s the one the vast majority of people stick to.

You don’t need to swap to another browser to block ads, though. Thankfully, Chrome has some handy tools built-in to help with this.

The only caveat is that Chrome doesn’t block all ads, just pop-ups and ads that it deems intrusive or misleading. Here’s how you activate the features:

  1. Open Chrome on your Android phone
  2. Tap the three dots in the top right corner
  3. Tap on Settings
  4. Scroll down to Site settings and select it
  5. Tap Pop-ups and redirects
  6. Make sure the slider is toggled to the left
  7. Go back to the previous page
  8. Tap Ads and do the same thing

Now, Chrome will prevent the majority of pop-up ads from loading, and block ads entirely on sites that have misleading and intrusive ads. In some ways, it’s the best of both worlds as it allows you to support the content that you care about without suffering through egregious pop-ups.

But what if you want to take things a step further and block everything? Read on.

How to block ads with different browsers

If you’re willing to ditch Chrome, there are plenty of browsers that offer more robust ad-blocking options. Just keep in mind that you won’t be able to sync your history and bookmarks with Chrome on desktop, if you use that.

Our favourite option is Firefox, it allows for add-ons to be installed, and they work like Chrome extensions on desktop. uBlock Origin is a powerful, free and open-source ad blocker that can easily be added to the Firefox Android browser, and it’ll block just about everything.

Another great and full-featured option is the Opera browser, which has a solid ad blocker built-in and even a free VPN. There’s even a straight-up Adblock Browser, if all you care about is blocking ads.

How to block ads with an app

So, that’s browsers sorted, but what if you want to block ads in other apps? As we mentioned up top, Google has long since removed ad-blocking apps from its Play Store, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t block ads elsewhere.

You’ll have to side-load these apps, which can be a little daunting if you’ve never done it before, but it doesn’t mean the apps are untrustworthy – just that Google’s not so keen on you using them. Which is understandable, given its business model.

Best iPhone apps 2022: The ultimate guide By Maggie Tillman ·

These are the absolute best iPhone apps available right now, from productivity apps to apps for traveling, reading, listening to music, and more.

Apps like AdGuard and AdLock come from notable cyber-security brands and so should be perfectly safe to use. The downside is that they’re subscription based, so you’ll have to pay a monthly fee once your trial ends.

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22 apps designers can’t live without

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By Gabe Boyd

And why.

There’s no doubt that technology has transformed the design world. While much of the design process used to involve hands-on work with X-Acto blades, Cow Gum, and French curves, it’s now evolved into a largely digital-driven industry. Apps of all kinds have digitized the functional elements of a creative studio: Dropbox in place of a filing cabinet, Slack in place of a quick call.

While it may seem that the litany of apps could potentially overwhelm a project or even stifle creativity, a handful of them have risen to the top of the design world’s list—for productivity, inspiration, and communication. We asked designers, illustrators, and creatives from around the world to share their go-to apps. Here are 22 they told us they can’t live without.

The responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Things and RightFont

The first is Things, a task management and productivity app. I find it super useful to manage my days, weeks, and months as far as organizing projects both professionally and personally. It’s native to iOS and macOS and keeps my mind clear and my desk clean.

The second is RightFont, which is a professional font manager for macOS. It’s intuitive and easy to use and has the ability to auto-activate with Adobe software such as Illustrator or InDesign. The dynamic font preview tool is also useful for comparing various typefaces with one another. It makes managing and installing fonts a smooth and enjoyable process.

—Dan Elliott, designer and art director

Dropbox

My most useful work app would be Dropbox. I keep all my work files and photos saved there, and it keeps multiple older versions of every file saved so I can go back if I overwrote something by mistake.

—Lucia Calfapietra, illustrator

Insight Timer and Todoist

Insight Timer is my go-to meditation app for goal setting, affirmation, and staying optimistic. I don’t consider myself a spiritual person but I believe in the power of the mind and visualizing success—just like athletes do. I’m happy to report that great things keep happening to my career as a designer and an artist.

I don’t know how to work or live without Todoist! [With] all my work and personal to-dos in one place and also connected to my calendar, my mind is at rest and I can focus on designing. I have “Work This Week” for priority jobs and “Work Bucket” for jobs that need doing but have no deadline (e.g., PR, website update, find art residency).

—Mamimu (June Mineyama-Smithson), designer/artist

Spotify

It sounds funny but my go-to app is really just Spotify currently. I can work from anywhere at this point, and I can work both digitally or even with raw essentials—paper and pencil are easily accessible anywhere. The only thing I can’t work without is my music library!

—Steven Harrington, artist and designer

Tumblr

One of my favourite apps for inspiration is, in fact, Tumblr. I’ve remained loyal since 2010, and while the app has seen its ups and downs, from a design inspiration standpoint the sheer quantity of content, images, posters, archival documents, colours, textures, and text helps to keep my creative juices flowing.

—Andy Johnson, writer, editor, and designer

Lightroom Mobile, Retouch, and InShot

My photo editing is done through Lightroom. I also use Do You Travel pre-sets to give my pics a little added punch. I use Retouch for quick photo edits like removing stray lines or random objects from pics, and I use InShot for any simple video editing like splicing clips and speeding up footage.

—Joanna Muñoz, lettering artist and illustrator

Behance

My go-to app would be Behance! It’s a great source of inspiration because not only can you see a range of amazing work from various artists covering multiple disciplines, but you are able to watch in-depth livestreams which show a creative’s design process and methodologies. You really get a sense of the individual behind the work. Streams on Behance like Adobe Live are a perfect example of this! As well as being a freelance designer, I also have the privilege of being a host on Adobe Live. This gives me the opportunity to speak with creatives from different backgrounds and upbringings. This can certainly provide inspiration and influence within my own practice.

—Kieron Lewis, freelance graphic designer

VSCO + Photos

VSCO and my photos app go hand in hand. As a designer and illustrator, I often get inspired by the colours, scenes, and composition of the world around me. I capture photos often and edit them in VSCO, which allows me to really bring photos to life with their filters and editing options, like bumping up the saturation and adding some grain.

—Sophia Yeshi, illustrator and designer, Yeshi Designs

Adobe Illustrator 

I use Adobe Illustrator as a daily tool for poster and logo creation. It’s a very versatile tool that helps me achieve very complex designs and have fun in the process. It helps me as a designer/human in the way I can play around with shapes and generate striking pieces and patterns that can be used in lots of formats.

—Nubia Navarro (Nubikini), art director and lettering artist

Notion

I use Notion to order and control the flow of existing tasks or tasks without a start date or deadline.

—Jonathan Yoc, creative director, Brutal & Co.

TikTok

Amongst my notes and camera apps, TikTok (and its “For You Page”) is a constant scroll of new, unexpected, and richly authentic perspectives, sandwiched between current world events, tear-inducing stories, and, of course, the occasional meme. Yes, it can turn into procrastination (we’ve all been there), but I truly believe many of the next top creatives are utilizing the platform and pushing it to be something far beyond the initial intention. Personally, I’m not there for “design inspo,” but instead open the app with a creative project top of mind and leave with a fresh outlook that I believe feeds back into the work and keeps it culturally relevant.

—Alby Furfaro, head of design at 303 MullenLowe

Procreate

My current go-to app is Procreate for the iPad Pro. Seeing as I mix traditional and digital mediums, pen and ink has always been my preferred medium. I’m from the old-school era of designers who used light boxes, tracing paper, and scanners to create illustrations. Since switching to Procreate about four years ago, it has helped a great deal in bridging the gap in the process I was used to for executing my artwork. I find that I produce at a much faster rate now as I directly sketch/ink in the app, replacing the process of sketching, inking, and touching up on a light box or tracing paper; scanning; then transferring to either Photoshop or Illustrator, which I had been accustomed to for so many years.

—Sindiso Nyoni, graphic artist/illustrator

Notes

I admit I’m not the most app-centric type, but I will say that I love my Notes app. I have notes for basically every avenue of my life ,from meeting notes to TV shows I want to start to Wordle guesses I’m sitting on. It’s chaotic, but it’s all there.

—Katrina Ricks Peterson, art director, Actual Source

Are.na

There are only a few primary apps I use (other than the ubiquitous design software) worth noting. The main one would be Are.na. I use this as a research tool for projects—mostly as private channels, but a few that are public. It allows you to gather not only images but documents, text, links, sounds, etc. There’s also a bit of community involved that you can tailor and isn’t based on an algorithm.

—Daniel Kent, creative director, Ikhoor Studio

Apple Calendar and Pinterest

Apple Calendar is synchronized with my Google account, my phone, and my computer, so I have my schedule very organized. I think this is a very important point in my day as a freelance designer in order to focus on work, complete my tasks, and have a life-work balance.

I use Pinterest for quick inspiration every day. What I like best about Pinterest is the strong visual associations, but I’ll say my fave for this are some websites like Savee (they should make an app!), The Brand Identity, or Fonts in Use.

—Pia Alive, independent creative director

Instagram

Instagram is a great source because it has been used by designers to showcase their portfolio/works. I follow a lot of creative individuals, and they all have different design approaches, so the pieces shown on my feed have a range and have mixed styles, from mild to wild ideas! Looking at the best works isn’t just to gather inspiration for my next work, but it has become a motivation that I can also do more great things that other creative individuals would be able to take inspiration from.

—AJ Trinidad, art director and creative design specialist

InDesign

My go-to app would have to be InDesign. As much as I would love to work exclusively on an iPad (I love the idea and simplicity of it), it’s InDesign that keeps me attached to my MacBook. Besides being the only full-featured app to lay out books and magazines on, it’s the perfect blank canvas to throw ideas onto and organize however you like, with very few restrictions. But then again, it’s one of the first applications I was trained on, so you learn to basically do everything on it. . . . I’m sure the same could be said with Excel?

—Giuseppe Santamaria, photographer and designer

Feature Image Credit: aqabiz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

By Gabe Boyd

Sourced from Fast Company

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4 cool hidden apps you didn’t know were on your iPhone

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By Tamara Palmer

Your iPhone has secret apps. Do you know how to find them?

There’s no reason to let your iPhone keep secrets from you, especially when those secrets could be so helpful in your everyday life. For instance, you may not be aware that any iPhone with a relatively modern version of iOS installed has hidden apps that you might actually want to use. Here’s how to surface the ones that aren’t so easy to find.

Code Scanner

You can scan a QR code by opening your Camera, but there’s also a Code Scanner app in iOS 14 and later that doesn’t come up when you search your iPhone apps. From Settings, tap Control Centre, scroll down to find Code Scanner and then hit the plus sign to move it into the Included Controls section. When you’re ready to use Code Scanner, just swipe down from the top right of your iPhone to open the Control Centre, then tap on the Code Scanner icon, which will bring up a camera view with the prompt, “Find a code to scan.”

Code Scanner iPhone

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Magnifier

Likewise, Camera isn’t the only app that will allow you to get a zoomed-in view of your immediate environment. The hidden Magnifier app will not only bring you closer, but it’ll also allow you to adjust the brightness. Use the same process as with the Code Scanner to put Magnifier in your Control Centre. Tap Settings, Control Centre and the plus sign next to Magnifier, then swipe down from the top right of your iPhone to open the Control Centre. The slider adjusts zoom level (or you can pinch to zoom), and you can swipe up on it for more controls, including a shutter button, settings, flashlight, and adjustments for brightness, contrast, colour filters, etc.

Magnifier iPhone

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Field Test Mode

It may be Murphy’s Law that your iPhone has the weakest connectivity in the part of your house where you want to use it the most, but Field Test Mode can help you figure out the strength of your signal in numbers, not bars. In order to use Field Test Mode, you should first turn off Wi-Fi in your Control Centre or Settings. Then, open the Phone app and enter the following sequence of symbols and numbers:

*3001#12345#*

Then press the Call button, which will bring up the Field Test dashboard, where you can see which cellular bands you’re connected to, signal strength, and so much more.

iPhone field test dialer

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Feedback Assistant

If you’re good at identifying bugs, you should use Feedback Assistant (on iOS 12.4 and later) to report any that you find on Apple TV, Apple Watch, or HomePod. Automatic might catch a lot, but there’s no substitute for a good personal bug report. Open the Safari app and type applefeedback:// as the URL. This will open the Feedback Assistant which will prompt you to sign in using your Apple ID. If you’re using an iOS beta release, this app is likely visible in your App Library and may have been added to your home screen, but it’s secretly there even if you’re not running a beta version of iOS.

Feedback Assistant iPhone

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By Tamara Palmer

Sourced from Macworld

 

 

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These are the ‘most invasive’ iPhone apps — what to do

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Which apps share the most personal data?

Ever wonder how much of your personal data your favorite iPhone apps use or give away? Thanks to a new study, you can quickly find out — and it may not be a surprise that Instagram and Facebook are among the “worst.”

Among the other “most invasive” apps (we’ll get back to that designation in a bit) are LinkedIn, GrubHub, Uber, Uber Eats, a Swedish shopping app called Klarna and a British train-ticket app called Trainline.

Among the “least” invasive were Microsoft Teams, Netflix, Signal, Telegram, Zoom and app-of-the-moment Clubhouse. None of them collected any data for marketing or advertising purposes for use by themselves or by third parties.

Swiss cloud-storage service pCloud generated these lists by checking out the App Privacy disclosures in the App Store, which Apple began to require in December 2020.

Specifically, pCloud counted how many times an app used personal data for in-house advertising or marketing, or for third-party advertising.

Apple lists the types of data disclosed by apps into 14 categories: Browsing History, Contact Info, Contacts, Diagnostics, Financial Info, Health and Fitness, Identifiers, Location, Purchases, Search History, Sensitive Info, Usage Data, User Content and Other Data.

The worst offenders

The Instagram app, said pCloud, shares 11 out of these 14 categories, or 79%, with third parties for purposes of selling ads. It uses 12 out of 14, or 86%, for its own advertising and marketing.

Instagram’s corporate stablemate Facebook matches that 86% score with its own app regarding in-house advertising and marketing, and comes in at No. 2 in the third-party sharing rankings with a 57% (8 out of 14) score.

(Image credit: pCloud)

The specific categories pCloud listed didn’t quite match up with what we can see in the U.S. version of the App Store — perhaps European privacy rules are creating different results on the other side of the Atlantic.

LinkedIn and Uber Eats shared third place among the apps that shared the most personal data with third parties, scoring 50% each. Just behind them were Trainline, YouTube and YouTube Music with 43% (6 out of 14) apiece.

(Image credit: pCloud)

Among apps that used the most personal data for their own marketing, third place went to Klarna and Grubhub, with 64% (9 out of 14) each; behind those were Uber and Uber Eats, with 57% each.

Even pCloud’s own iPhone app was not blameless. The service didn’t analyze it, but we looked it up in the App Store. The Pcloud app uses four categories of personal data — purchases, contact info, identifiers and usage data — for its own purposes.

That results in an invasiveness scores of 29% for in-house marketing and advertising, enough to place among Lyft, ESPN, Grindr and others. (The pCloud app shared no data with third parties.)

The pCloud blog post also contained a third ranking called “How much data each app is tracking overall.” Instagram and Facebook topped that as well, followed by Uber Eats, Trainline and eBay.

(Image credit: pCloud)

However, pCloud didn’t explain how it got the numbers for that chart, and we couldn’t figure out how. (Instagram scores 67%, less than the average of its other two scores.) We’ve asked pCloud about this, as well as how it determined which apps to analyze, and will update this story when we receive a reply.

How bad is this, and what can I do about it?

Now back to the designation of “invasive.” It’s hard to put clear definitions on privacy issues, because what seems invasive to one person might be completely fine to another person.

For example, I don’t really mind if third parties see what else I may have purchased on Instagram, but it does bother me that Instagram shared my financial information, contact info, contacts and search and browsing histories. You may feel differently.

You also have to bear in mind that these rankings are based entirely on what app developers have chosen to share with Apple. Apps that don’t fully disclose such information may be kicked out of the App Store, but that doesn’t mean they’re all being honest.

We already know that thousands of iPhone apps leak personal information from their back-end cloud servers. It’s a safe bet that many iPhone apps have privacy-leaking errors in their code that they’re not aware of.

Unfortunately, we’ll likely never know how many do because unlike Android, Apple doesn’t let you take apart and check any app’s code for errors or suspicious behavior.

The silver lining is that you can control much of what apps collect and share about you. When you first open an app, it will ask you for several permissions, which you can grant, deny, or grant only while the app is in use. (The third option is probably best.)

You can also go into your iPhone’s Settings app to fine-tune what an app collects about you, but the process isn’t as clear as it is when you first open an app.

Feature Image Credit: easy camera/Shutterstock

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Sourced from tom’s guide

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This is the list of apps that Android users should avoid downloading

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Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe.

  • According to Avast, various user reviews on the Google Play Store They mentioned that the platforms caught their attention through ads on YouTube and promised a different game than the app finally offered.

Do you want to install a game because you saw its advertising and it caught your attention? Better think twice. According to a group of experts from the antivirus company Avast , some applications from the Android store that disguise themselves as harmless games show you intrusive advertising that compromises the security of your data.

The researchers found 21 applications that can compromise your data, through intrusive advertising, known as ‘adware’, some of them are still active in the Play Store although they have already been reported.

According to Avast , various user reviews on the Google Play Store mentioned that the platforms caught their attention through ads on YouTube and promised a different game than the app finally offered. According to SensorTower, these platforms have been downloaded eight million times.

Among the applications that have these characteristics are:

  1. Assassin Legend – 2020 NEW
  2. Cream Trip – NEW
  3. Crush Car
  4. Desert Against
  5. Find 5 Differences – 2020 NEW
  6. Find Hidden
  7. Find the Differences – Puzzle Game
  8. Flying Skateboard
  9. Helicopter Attack – NEW
  10. Helicopter Shoot
  11. Iron it
  12. Jump jump
  13. Money destroyer
  14. Plant monster
  15. Props Rescue
  16. Rolling Scroll
  17. Rotate Shape
  18. Rugby Pass
  19. Shoot Them
  20. Shooting Run
  21. Sway Man.

Feature Image Credit: The Average Tech Guy vía Unsplash 

This article was translated from the Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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Give These Apps Some Notes and They’ll Write Emails for You

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By Tom Simonite

Entrepreneurs are building tools that create emails or marketing copy using GPT-3, text-generation technology released earlier this year.

Michael Shuffett didn’t waste any keystrokes when responding to a message about the automated email writer he’s building. He tapped out “Yes 45m” and clicked a button marked “Generate email.” His app, Compose.ai, drafted a courteous three-sentence reply with a link to schedule a 45-minute call. Shuffett checked it over and clicked Send.

Compose is one of several automated writing tools built on striking new text-generation technology known as GPT-3, revealed in June by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research institute. GPT-3 went viral this summer after people marveled at how it could fluently crank out memes, code, self-help blog posts, and Hemingway-style Harry Potter fanfic. WIRED and others showed that GPT-3 can also spout nonsense and hate, because its algorithms learned to generate text by digesting wide swaths of the internet.

Now, some entrepreneurs are harnessing GPT-3 to perform real work, like drafting emails or marketing copy. “Billions of people write email,” says Shuffett, a cocreator of Compose. “It’s a space that has not had much innovation for years.” Google’s Gmail will suggest ways to complete sentences and supply short, peppy replies to some emails—”Thanks so much!” But it doesn’t draft fuller messages.

Snazzy.ai, which launched to early testers last week, generates verbiage for web pages and Google ads, based on basic information about a campaign or brand. When supplied with keywords about WIRED and a phrase from its founding manifesto, Snazzy suggested marketing gloss with bits of robotic inspiration. One proffered Google ad included the coinage “geekspace,” a word that is rare online and has appeared on WIRED.com only twice, most recently eight years ago.

Image may contain Text Business Card Paper and Word
Courtesy of Snazzy AI

Chris Frantz, a Snazzy cofounder and marketer by trade, says the service reduces the drudgery of creating an initial splurge of ideas to be honed into a fresh campaign. “The goal is to offload the somewhat monotonous job of writing the copy, and move to the editing part,” he says.

VWO, which helps companies measure the performance of marketing content, has tested GPT-3 against human-written material for clients including travel site Booking.com. Of six tests with statistically significant results, AI-generated copy gained more clicks or interactions twice, and human-authored copy performed better once. The remaining three matchups were tied. More tests are ongoing, but VWO founder Paras Chopra believes marketers will gravitate to auto-generated material because it speeds experimentation. “The more you can test, the higher the likelihood you end up impacting your business metrics,” he says.

For email, Compose and others trying to inject GPT-3 have converged on a similar design: Write terse bullet points, click a button, and the AI will transform your laconic input into flowing paragraphs.

In a demo, Matt Shumer, a cofounder of OthersideAI, typed six short lines in response to a mock email asking what features coders should build next. When he clicked a button marked “Generate,” 21 words of snippets like “ofc,” “voice integration is easiest,” and “free every monday at 1pm” became 43 flowing words in reply.

An email composed by OthersideAI.

Courtesy of Otherside AI

Behind the scenes, apps built on GPT-3 send snippets of text dubbed “prompts” to OpenAI’s cloud servers. GPT-3 sends back new text it calculates will follow seamlessly from the input, based on statistical patterns it saw in online text.

That unusual way of interacting with a computer makes GPT-3 fun to play with but tricky to work with. Its broad experience of the web and lack of grounding in physical reality means it often veers into non sequiturs and nonsense.

Shumer says OthersideAI has been focusing on making GPT-3’s output “reliable and safe.” An early version of the app was too creative. It correctly interpreted prompts like “1pm meeting” but added fabrications like nonexistent doctor’s appointments. Shumer says that’s been fixed, and he’s now testing ways to make his service mimic a person’s writing style. He hasn’t yet decided if that should stretch to including curse words.

WIRED’s own experiments with the GPT-3-powered service Magic Email showed both the promise and perils of automated writing.

Drafting formulaic emails such as scheduling calls generally went well. Given three blunt bullet points—thanks; can call u Weds around 6pm yr time; yr new project snds interesting—Magic Email drafted the six-line email below, conveying the same information more warmly.

Image may contain Text
Courtesy of Magic Email

That could be useful for conversations where telegraphic, ungrammatical messages would come off as impolite. Magic Email provides buttons to give suggestions a thumbs up or down, and to ask the algorithms to try again.

The writing algorithms were less reliable on more complex messages. When drafting an email including a link about Covid-19 research, the app incorrectly wrote that it was related to skin cancer, perhaps because another part of the prompt mentioned dermatology.

Fixing such glitches was easy but raised the question of whether correcting auto drafts is more efficient than writing the email from scratch. Samanyou Garg, the UK developer behind Magic Email, says his service is improving and can be useful if as much as 30 percent of generated text needs tweaking. “I’ve had good feedback from people who say they’re saving a lot of time,” he says.

Magic Email refused to write at all when prompted with bullet points about online hate speech that included the phrase “Misogynist content big problem on Facebook.” A message appeared warning, “Your provided input seems to contain unsafe content so we have blocked your request.”

The safety filter may have been overcautious on that occasion, but it’s there with good reason. GPT-3 has learned the patterns of unsavory text online. Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies reported last month that it can fluently mimic anti-Semitic and terrorist content. More than four years since Microsoft’s chatbot Tay went rogue and tweeted favorably about Hitler, researchers still don’t know how to prevent algorithms from repeating or amplifying bias or bad judgment in text or other data.

OpenAI says that it vets customers before giving them access to GPT-3 and reviews every application of the service before it goes live. It has implemented a toxicity filter and suggests customers apply constraints such as always having a human review auto-generated text and implementing filters of their own.

The economics of AI-generated text are still unknown. With no competition from rival text-generation services, GPT-3 is relatively expensive—reflecting how OpenAI has pushed the boundaries of machine learning with help from immense computing power. Frantz of Snazzy gave up on offering a free tier when OpenAI revealed its pricing last month. Yet it shouldn’t be difficult for other AI players such as Google and Amazon to create similar text generators, and the technology could get cheaper and more accessible quickly.

Feature Image Credit: Illustration: Elena Lacey; Getty Images

By Tom Simonite

Sourced from WIRED

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Love in the time of coronavirus: dating apps buck the downward ad spend trend

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By Imogen Watson

People around the world are craving human connection in lockdown, leading dating apps to experience a boost that proves romance isn’t dead (well, virtually at least). As usage heats up, these matchmaking services are not only taking advantage of abandoned ad space, but some are even braced for a revenue boost of their own as brands look to capitalise on digital dates.

Before the turn of the century, the thought of linking up with a stranger on a mobile app would have been unimaginable. Fast-forward to the present day, and platforms like Tinder, Bumble, Happn, Grindr and Hinge sit unashamedly on the phone screens of millions of singletons.

When the pandemic hit, many questioned how dating apps could survive with an estimated 2.6 billion people locked inside, date venues closed for the foreseeable future and casual hookups out of the question.

Yet while entwined hearts during the Spanish Influenza might have seen love blossom through the exchanging of letters, love in the time of coronavirus is ablaze through video calls and instant messaging, as people flock to dating apps to find that special someone.

With more and more people exploring this Black Mirror-esque world of ‘virtual dating,’ a new era of dating has dawned.

Where household brands are slashing ad spend, these modern matchmakers are making the most of their moment in the sun and being smart about their brand investment. Some are even reaping the rewards of an in-app ad surge of their own as advertisers look to reach switched-on audiences.

Using tech to power connections

Prior to the pandemic, online dating was already big business. Now as Covid-19 looms large and social distancing looks to continue throughout 2020 many are retuning their business models in response.

In 2019 the number of smartphone dating app users in the US was 25.1 million and Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge and Match.com posted revenues of $2.05bn, gleaned from subscriptions and advertising deals.

Tinder alone pulled in $1.2 billion in revenue over 2019; a 43% increase from 2018.

To continue this upwards trajectory, Tinder last week (6 May) announced plans to add a video dating feature in the second quarter of this year as a direct response to the threat posed by coronavirus in slowing its user growth.

Tinder is actually a bit late to the video dating party — its rival apps have been far less tardy when it comes to capitalising on the trend for face-to-face calls, thus rendering them more lockdown ready. Bumble, for instance, introduced a video and voice call feature last year, while Hinge launched its own ‘Date From Home’ feature at the start of lockdown in March.

“I imagine that we’re going to see far more dates than ever come out of this,” Hinge’s chief marketing officer, Nathan Roth tells The Drum, explaining how through ‘Date From Home’ users can easily share when they’re ready for a digital date, to ease that often awkward and vulnerable transition from messaging to meeting digitally for the first time.

“This specifically came out as a response to listening to our customers and their needs during the quarantine, and figuring out a way how we could serve them best,” he adds.

“During social isolation, everyone has had to adapt their dating strategies to use virtual solutions, such as video dating,” explains Naomi Walkland, associate director for EMEA marketing at Bumble, a dating app, that boasts nearly 90 million users worldwide. It is singular in that women make the first move.

Walkland explains how physical distancing has shown us that in times of uncertainty, people seek meaningful connections and “that connections made online are just as meaningful as those made in real-life. People will always look for new ways to socially connect.”

She explains that overall: “data indicates a trend of increased use by our new and existing users, especially in regards to the chat, video call, and voice call features.”

“We have seen users spending more time speaking to each other on the app, with call durations averaging at 21 minutes as well as a 12% increase in messaging. This shows that people are taking the time to really get to know each other, even whilst apart,” she continues.

After introducing the ‘Date from Home’ feature, in March, Hinge experienced a 30% increase in messages among users in March (compared to January and February) with 70% of its members would be open for a virtual date.

Globally on OkCupid, there has been a 30% overall increase in messages sent each day since March 11. Matches have increased by 10%, conversations increased by over 20% – as singles turn to online dating for company.

Bucking the ad spend trend

Unprecedented numbers of users are turning to dating apps during lockdown, and as such, dating apps have admitted their ad spend has been largely unaffected.

“The coronavirus hasn’t actually changed our ad spend that dramatically,” says Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer at OkCupid. “This is driven by the fact that OkCupid has seen a surge in activity since early March across the globe, and this continues, so we want to continue to be top of mind for the millions of singles who are connecting right now — albeit virtually.”

While broadcasters are scrambling to fill ad slots abandoned by the collapse of travel and leisure brands, dating apps have found they are able to buy on platforms that would have been out of their reach just months ago.

With brands retracting ad spend across the board, Global’s commercial agency director Katie Bowden tellsThe Drum that it is determined to retain its partners, alongside attracting new business.

“Initially, there was shock and uncertainty,“ she says of the pandemic rendering many campaigns obsolete, but she shares news of a new partnership with Bumble, who spotted an opportunity on Capital FM to talk about virtual dating.

OkCupid has also taken advantage of discount rates online. “Digitally, we’ve seen lower costs and greater efficiencies, driven by other categories pulling out and time spent on devices exploding,” Hobley continues. “Like many folks, we love out-of-home, but we have had to pivot some of the plans we had to support our ‘As Yourself’ campaign.

Hobley admits like while OkCupid doesn’t advertise on TV, it is looking at all the options that might help the platform reach the single, younger dater at this time.

And while OkCupid see podcasts as a perfect channel to tell its story, “not surprisingly, the costs with the bigger players here have not shifted that much.”

As for in-app ads, Happn’s chief exec Didier Rappaport says “advertising on our app hasn’t changed at all. Dating is a digital industry, therefore the impact on our industry has been small compared to other industries, as users keep using our services.”

Rappaport goes on to explain that because Happn’s marketing is already very digitally-oriented, the app has taken advantage of reduced costs.

“With other brands, from other industries, reducing their ad spend, this has enabled us to have a greater digital reach for our campaigns, with the same amount of budget,“ he says.

Hinge has also admitted that its ad spend has been unaffected by the outbreak.

Keeping advertisers interested

Usage is up during lockdown, and OkCupid’s chief marketing officer reveals that this surge has sparked an increase in brands looking to advertise on the app.

“One thing that is super exciting is the interest that OkCupid has seen from brands wanting to reach our daters and advertise with us,” Hobley shares. “Dating apps have exploded over the last 2 months and I think brands are interested in how they can reach these singles who are connecting and dating at twice the rate they were before corona.“

Given that many daters love watching a TV show together, she says there “have been a few entertainment partners who are tapping into this with exciting results.”

Happn has experienced the complete opposite. “Regarding advertising revenues, we have noticed a real decrease, which is easily explained,” its chief exec Rappaport admits. “Many brands have stopped or postponed their marketing expenses but advertising is a very small part of our revenue.”

Dating post-pandemic

While lockdown has provoked a new dawn of virtual dating, Bumble’s Walkland says it’s “too soon to state the expected impact” on matchmaker’s businesses.

On this new age of dating, she says her team suspects that users will continue to use its video/voice calling features as a way to get to know their matches before making the move to meet in person.

OkCupid, meanwhile, predicts there will be a boom in dating, post-lockdown.

“We’ll likely see a lot of people spending more time on OkCupid when things start to return to normal and more of a dependence on digital or virtual communication before actually going out on a date,” claims Hobley.

With the pandemic forcing people to truly embrace digital when it comes to dating, it’s fair to say that dating post-lockdown will look radically different than it did before. As for advertisers, they’ll have to figure out where they fit into this new virtual world to make connections with their audiences.

By Imogen Watson

Sourced from The Drum

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