During their virtual event at MWC21 last week, Samsung focused a lot of the conversation around One UI Watch. As announced in Google I/O earlier this year, they have been working closely with Google to unify the Android watch experience and improve on the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem of products (see also: their partnership with Microsoft). There's a 4-minute recap available if you don't have the half hour to spare or you could check out the individual segments that were broken up in the Samsung Newsroom post. Either way, it's worth a look.

Filed under "follow the money," Tapcart has managed to raise $50M of investor funding. Now, admittedly, startups and investing are not my area of expertise. But a company that is referred to as a "Shopify for mobile apps" raising that much money — and processing $1.2B in merchant sales over the past 12 months — definitely grabs my attention. It also speaks volumes about the value of mobile and, specifically, mobile commerce.

I've mentioned before that I, along with many others, have hypothesized that the travel industry will see a boom in the post-COVID world. And, with their recent app redesign for both iOS & Android, clearly Tripadvisor agrees. I am actually a frequent user of Tripadvisor and stumbled across the redesign through casual use, which I do believe is an improvement. I was happy to be able to include the article above (instead of me having to write one myself because time).

Speaking of post-COVID, support for vaccine cards is being added to Android devices. Using the Google Pay API, this is a feature that I'm not surprised at all to hear about and suspect that there will be many other uses in the years to come. And, assuming that it works the same as many other wallet cards, being able to show it while the screen is locked should mitigate any privacy concerns.

And if Apple betas are your thing, you might be happy to hear that the public betas for iOS15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8 are now available. And, if you've never participated before, I would not recommend installing them on your primary device or, at the very least, make sure you back up everything before you do.

Articles

• MWC 2021: Samsung Presents New Watch Experience With a Sneak Peek of One UI Watch via Samsung Newsroom
• Tapcart, a ‘Shopify for mobile apps,’ raises a $50 million Series B via TechCrunch
• Tripadvisor's refreshed app, ads aim to instill wanderlust via Marketing Dive
• Google adds support for virtual COVID-19 vaccine cards on Android devices via Engadget
• The iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and watchOS 8 public betas are here via Engadget

Events

• [July 21 @ 11am CDT] Alexa Live via Amazon
• [Aug 31 – Sep 2] UXPA Internation 2021, Baltimore, MD via UXPA

Resources

• [Video] Galaxy MWC Virtual Event Official Replay via Samsung
• [Video] Tooltips in the User Interface via NNg
• [Webinar] Mobile Predictions in 2021: Mastering Consumer Behaviors via mGage
• [Webinar] Mobile Payments as an Enabler of Access for Brands and Consumers via Docomo