The year 2023 was the year of artificial intelligence (AI), especially ChatGPT. Although it launched in late 2022, the OpenAI-developed tool began dominating debates in January last year. Whether they had used it or not, users around the world started talking about AI, its benefits and risks. By mid-year, ChatGPT made the leap to smartphones as an app, playing various roles in everyday tasks, such as summarizing a text or learning how to say a word in another language. Android users voted it application of the year, even though it was not the most downloaded in Spain or the rest of the world.
Other applications that use AI are also gaining popularity, such as Character AI: AI-Powered Chat, which Google voted the best artificial intelligence app of the year, allowing you to interact with a variety of character chatbots interact created by the users themselves. .
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Among the most downloaded applications, both in the Android Play Store and the Apple App Store, are some that help increase productivity, others for streaming and various social networks, such as Threads.
Threads only appeared in Europe a few weeks ago, but users in the rest of the world started using it last summer. In the United States, it was the fourth most downloaded app on the iPhone; the first among all social networks, before TikTok. In Spain it is not in the top 10 of the year, but it has been the most downloaded by Apple users since its release.
WhatsApp Messenger, TikTok, Instagram and Google led the year in our country. However, the most downloaded application on the iPhone in both Spain and the United States, the United Kingdom and France was that of Temu, an e-commerce company of Chinese origin that offers products at low prices. Among Spanish Android users, it is currently only surpassed by Threads since its release.
Temu is not the only application of this type to dominate the list: Shein was the sixth most downloaded on iPhone in Spain and Miravia also stood out among Android users.
A commonly downloaded utility app for iOS and Android is CapCut, a video editor commonly used to create content on TikTok.
According to Apple, the best iPhone application this year was AllTrails, a tool for discovering and tracking nearly half a million hiking, biking or running routes from around the world. For its part, Google has given the award for the best application of 2023 to Imprint: Learn Visually, an app with interactive lessons on various topics that, as its name suggests in English, aims to make the user learn visually. Other applications recognized by the Google Play Store include Bumble, the dating app where only women can take the first step in interacting with other users, two applications that try to improve the mental health of users, Aware: Mindfulness & Wellbeing and Voidpet Garden: Mental Health and the children's game Paw Patrol.
This year, Apple also honored applications that it considered to have had a cultural impact, such as Proloquo, an app that tries to offer different forms of communication for people who are unable to speak, through drawings, etc. Good To Go aims to reduce the amount of food that goes to waste when it is not sold in stores.
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