July 10, 2026
A Second TikTok App Is Now #3 on the Free Chart
TikTok Pro Events, a standalone World Cup companion that debuted in June, climbed past Love Island and into the top three as quarterfinals resumed. Love Island fell from #1 to #13, Kalshi retook the top of the overall chart, and the top three free games are all Turkish-built puzzles.
TikTok's World Cup companion wedged into the top three
- TikTok soft-launched the standalone app on June 3 as a "cultural moments" companion debuting with the FIFA World Cup. It is separate from the main TikTok app, which sits at #24 on the same chart.
- The mechanic is a gamified fan loop: users 18 and older earn "Stars" by searching trending hashtags, visiting the FIFA World Cup hub, and sharing content, then redeem them for official FIFA merchandise, TikTok Shop coupons, or charitable donations through Feeding America. The hub runs on TikTok GamePlan, the same sports-engagement suite powering FIFA content inside the main app.
- AppBrain puts the Android version at #4 overall and #3 in Entertainment on US Google Play, with 5.4 million lifetime installs and 1.4 million in the last 30 days. The iOS climb is the surprise: a second TikTok app, built for one tournament, outcharting both the main TikTok app and every streaming app on the chart.
Love Island's grip on #1 broke as the World Cup returned
- The reality-voting companion app reached #1 on July 8, as covered here, capping a run that started when it first topped the chart back in June. The fall lines up with a between-episode lull in the voting cycle and the World Cup apps surging back as quarterfinals resumed.
- The app's rating continues to slide as reviews accumulate: roughly 1.9 stars across more than 6,000 reviews, down from 2.4 stars when the season began. The vote-crashing bugs that drove the low scores have not been fixed, but downloads had kept climbing anyway. The question now is whether the show's broadcast windows can keep pushing it back to the top between World Cup match days.
- MWM's June analysis flagged the structural risk: an event-driven app whose chart position is "volatile and seasonal, peaking during the broadcast window and falling afterward." The next episode night is the test.
Kalshi retook #1 on the overall chart as quarterfinals resumed
- The prediction-market app's return to the top coincides with the quarterfinal schedule picking back up: Morocco played France on July 9, and Belgium plays Spain today in Inglewood (Fox, noon Pacific). CBS Sports confirmed Kalshi is running live markets on every quarterfinal.
- This is the "World Cup apps seize the top when matches are on" reflex that failed to re-engage on July 9, when the WC apps climbed back into the top five but did not retake #1. It re-engaged today. On Apple's own free chart Kalshi sits at #4, behind Netflix Game Controller, ChatGPT, and TikTok Pro Events.
- The structural story underneath: per Apptopia's June analysis, Kalshi captured 38% of the combined sportsbook-and-prediction-market group's June daily-active-user growth, against 13% for Polymarket. The sportsbooks peaked on day four and faded. The question for after the July 19 final is whether Kalshi's World Cup cohort stays active into the fall sports season.
The top three free games are all Turkish puzzles, and they print money
- Meowdoku! (Oakever Games) is #1, a Sudoku-meets-Minesweeper cat puzzle that hit the top spot on June 12 and has not left. AppBrain counts 6.8 million lifetime installs with 5.5 million in the last 30 days, and it sits at #1 in nine countries.
- The real money is one rung down. Grand Games, the studio behind #2 Block Out! and #5 Magic Sort!, closed a $70 million Series B in May and is on a roughly $500 million annual run rate. Sensor Tower estimates Block Out! alone did about 5 million downloads and $9 million in revenue last month. The whole genre is "hybrid casual": free to download, ad-supported, with light in-app purchases.
- #3 Smash Fest! (Flow Games) is a cannon-physics puzzle that started life as a mini-game inside Toon Blast. AppMagic data from late June put its net revenue at roughly $50,000 a day. The founders of both Grand Games and Flow Games came out of Peak Games, the Istanbul studio that became a Turkish mobile-gaming talent factory.
Epic's opposition to Apple's stay motion is due today
- The clock: Apple filed its stay motion on July 6, Epic's opposition is due today, and Apple's reply is due July 13. Then Gonzalez Rogers decides whether to freeze the lower-court proceedings while the Supreme Court reviews the contempt finding.
- If she denies the stay, Apple must file its external-link commission proposal within 24 hours, kicking off the remand process where she would decide what fee Apple can charge on purchases routed outside the App Store. If she grants it, the lower court goes on ice through SCOTUS review, which likely does not argue until the next term starting October.
- Either way, Apple is still forgoing the 27% external-link commission it tried to impose, so the status quo for developers right now is no commission on linked-out purchases. The ruling that moves developer income is the stay decision, expected around mid-July.
Tracking
- Netflix Game Controller held #1 on Apple's free chart for another day, an accessory app for living-room TV games outcharting every streaming and AI app. The weekend-only pattern that defined its April run has broken; it is holding near peak levels through the midweek.
- Trump Accounts sits at #5, continuing the gradual one-spot-at-a-time decay since the July 4 funding launch. Meta AI slipped to #25 on the free chart, down from #19 earlier this week. Polymarket is #14 on the overall chart.
- Goddess of Victory: Nikke held #1 Korea grossing through the Marciana Marine Study banner that opened July 9; the Cinderella crystal wave runs through July 23. Meta Pocket, the vibe-coded games app, is still Brazil-only and not charting in the US. Pokemon Champions remains outside the US top-25 free games as its launch surge fully spent.
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