Meta uses fitness data to tap into Apple’s ecosystem: Bringing the metaverse’s fitness stats into Apple Health via Oculus headsets helps Apple users close their activity rings and gives Meta synergy with a larger user ecosystem.

This fifth annual benchmark stacks up 23 US financial institutions against one another, evaluating their mobile app capabilities based on consumer demand for 42 emerging features.

Over the past five years, neobanks have advanced on two fronts: user growth and richness of mobile functionality. But they’re still chasing profitability, launching new financial services offerings and reserving some of their most innovative features for paying customers. This second annual study stacks up the top four UK neobanks against one another, scoring their mobile app capabilities based on consumer demand for 48 emerging features.

Amid the pandemic-driven interest in financial wellness, a credit score feature ensures users stay in their banking app, rather than seek out third-party providers. Thirty-five percent of UK consumers checked their credit score between May and late July 2020, during the first nationwide lockdown, with 4 million doing so for the first time ever, per TransUnion research.

In January it acquired France-based medical device firm Impeto Medical, and in February it bought personalized fitness and nutrition app 8fit. Why could it succeed? Withings offers medical-grade wearables already in use in clinical environments vs consumer-friendly ones like Fitbits and Apple Watches. That gives it a leg-up when it comes to proving its clinical efficacy.

The number of mobile apps for health condition management is rising. This report examines how smartphone apps can help users control diseases and what gaps need to be filled before more consumers, providers, and payers get on board.

Today, they manifest as checking accounts and debit cards within a financial wellness app, for example, or payments in a chat app or in ecommerce checkout flows (such as BNPL). Embedded finance for gamers extends this experience to the metaverse. Mana, a neobank teased earlier this year, is a typical BaaS play (a checking account and debit card), with a niche focus on gamers.

As coronavirus cases continue to rise in parts of the country, consumers are remaining wary of returning to gyms or visiting their physicians in person, with many turning to apps.

However, some had nonlinear trajectories, including fitness and dating apps. For instance, fitness apps experienced a huge surge in downloads (30%) in 2020, according to App Annie—but usage didn’t follow a clear upward trend. “We saw huge interest right off the bat [for fitness apps],” said Sydow. “Then we actually saw usage taper quite a bit.

Many mobile app categories saw a boost last year as more consumers spent time with their devices during quarantines. According to our estimates for smartphone app user growth, grocery apps, food delivery apps, and health/fitness apps were the three fastest-growing categories in 2020.

The pandemic accelerated mobile trends by years, and these changes should stick even as the pandemic wanes. Many people were forced to use apps for food delivery, finance, fitness, and shopping, and they’ve become accustomed to these new behaviors. Even app categories that were hurt during the pandemic, such as travel or dating apps, have been resilient. People have acclimated to new forms of mobile shopping and activities, and they’ll be more willing to try mobile interfaces for other activities going forward.

App usage is strong, but advertisers need to rethink their strategies, thanks to ad tracking and measurement changes.

Apple’s careful curation of the App Store experience has been integral to establishing trust. It also allowed users to more easily opt out of location tracking by apps in iOS 13. Now, Apple’s new privacy “nutrition labels” and App Tracking Transparency requirements released in iOS 14.5 set a new standard that all app developers must comply with.