Apps
These are Apple’s top apps and games for 2018
Did your favorite app make the list?

Apple likes to keep track of the apps you download and games you play on their devices. They like it so much that they now have a list of the top apps and games for 2018. The list features all categories in the App Store globally and locally.
From a global perspective, self-care apps became a revelation in the App Store. Apps such as Fabulous, Headspace, and 10% Happier made self-care and wellness more accessible to anyone. For gaming apps, battle royale-style games like PUBG Mobile and Fortnite took over. Both games feature fast-paced, last-man-standing action, with Fortnite even adding bases to the mix.
However, editorial picks reflect something different. Across the iPhone and iPad, editors picked education and creativity apps like Procreate Pocket and Froggipedia as their top choices. Procreate Pocket is a creativity app for artists to draw, sketch, and paint on the go. Froggipedia, on the other hand, is an interactive education app for children to teach them about frogs and their life cycles.
For gaming, the same theme follows as the editors picked Donut County and Gorogoa. Donut County is an education game that mixes puzzles with concepts in physics, while Gorogoa introduces hand-drawn stories to the puzzle genre. The selection goes against the findings of dominance across battle royale games globally.
Within Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, photography and video streaming apps became the talk of the town. For iPhones, photography apps like kirakira+ and TouchRetouch topped the list, as users can play around with filters for their pictures and videos. Streaming apps like TikTok and Viu opened the door for people to share their videos on a global platform.
Battle royale and multiplayer games, such as PUBG Mobile and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, dominated the App Store in Singapore. Despite the success of these games, people also took notice of locally produced games. Cat Quest, an action role-playing game, became part of the top paid games for the iPhone for 2018.
To know more about the lists, you can check them out in the App Store through the Today tab.


The race for artificial intelligence is a hot trail. Amid the unbridled popularity of ChatGPT, several companies have started pushing their own language models out the gate. Google, eager to compete in the emerging industry, has now opened Bard to users.
Today, Google has started issuing invitations to Google One subscribers for a chance to try the new chatbot. Subscribers can enter a waitlist to test the technology for themselves.
In essence, Bard acts the same as ChatGPT. Users can talk to the bot conversationally, and it will respond perfectly, as if you were talking to another human being. It’s a language learning model. By talking to so many users, the model can learn the best way to reply to certain prompts.
Although Google has access to its search engine, Bard is currently meant to complement it. The company warns users that the chatbot is still prone to occasional mistakes. As an example, it gave the wrong scientific name for a plant. While this example is innocuous, there can be more nefarious errors that the developers are still trying to fix. With a wider test now open to the public, Google hopes to fix more egregious mistakes ahead of a wider launch.
For now, if you subscribe to Google’s premium subscription service, you can wait in line to try out the new technology.
SEE ALSO: Google is working on a ChatGPT competitor called Bard

TikTok is in for another fight. Recently, the American government upped its efforts to ban the video-sharing platform from the country. The company is preparing to fight back. Ahead of a potential ban, it is enlisting the help of its most precious resource: TikTok users.
Today, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew shared a video to update the entire community about his impending congressional hearing later this week. In the video, the CEO thanks the American userbase in helping the platform grow, enumerating important numbers ahead of the hearing. For example, TikTok now has 150 million users — which, Chew notes, is half of the population of the United States — and 7,000 employees in the country.
The video then goes on to share the government’s plans to ban TikTok, potentially taking the app away from the big numbers that Chew mentioned. Further, the CEO is asking all these users to share what they love about the app in the comments of the video.
@tiktok Our CEO, Shou Chew, shares a special message on behalf of the entire TikTok team to thank our community of 150 million Americans ahead of his congressional hearing later this week.
For years, the American government has hounded the app over its Chinese ownership. The company — especially parent company ByteDance — has the potential to act as a conduit for Chinese surveillance, the government argues. The company has tried to counter these claims by increasing its employees in the country.
Now, the fight is coming to a head with several government bodies and other countries banning the app outright. It’s unknown how Chew is planning to attack the incoming congressional hearing. However, it’s likely that the company will leverage user feedback to buoy the app as an essential part of the current American landscape.
SEE ALSO: UK starts banning TikTok

ShopeePay, the integrated mobile wallet of the e-commerce giant, is now available as a payment method for Apple services.
That means in the Philippines, one’s ShopeePay account may be used to pay for App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV app, and iTunes Store purchases, iCloud storage and more.
Using ShopeePay as an Apple ID payment method eliminates the need for a credit card while still having a secure and easy way for one-tap purchases from iPhones, iPads, Macs, and more.
Customers can manage their Apple ID payment information in Settings on iPhone and iPad, or on their Mac or PC.
On the Shopee app itself, ShopeePay has been a convenient payment option for users to buy products, as well as to pay bills, top-up load, and more.
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