Swiggy denies throttling prices on iPhones, hopes Apple Intelligence will make big impact soon

India Today

09-06-2025

Swiggy needs little introduction. Like Google, it, too, has become a vibe which is to say that every time you think of ordering food – amongst other things – chances are you're most likely thinking about Swiggy-ing it. Launched in 2014, the platform swiftly revolutionised food delivery and has since broadened its horizons in terms of both ambition and product offerings, cut to today when it provides almost everything under the sun from groceries, essential goods, to dining out services and more.advertisementOperating in over 500 cities and processing a staggering million orders daily, Swiggy is one of India's largest hyperlocal delivery platforms. So, obviously, it has made a reputation – largely it is great, with some controversial bits hanging on the fringes. We sat down with two key executives in their engineering department – Mitansh who is engineering manager for Swiggy's Consumer iOS team (leading the food business line), and Agam, engineering manager for the Instamart app team – to talk about both aspects on the sidelines of Apple's big Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC 2025.Growth and transformation'Swiggy started operations in 2014,' Mitansh says, reminiscing on a decade of growth and transformation both behind the scenes and at the forefront. 'Back then, we were only doing food delivery, but since then, we have ventured into other business lines, be it Instamart, Dineout, Handpick, and others.'advertisement
Central to why it has only grown stronger – and more efficient – over the years is the company's unwavering focus on the end-user and the relentless pursuit of making their experience as fast and easy as humanly possible. 'At Swiggy, our main aim is to ensure we are providing a seamless experience and stability to the user: our crash-free rates are at 99.9 percent, and our page load times take less than 500 milliseconds,' he says, highlighting the amount of painstaking effort that goes behind making a product as big work as frictionlessly as it does most of the time.Apple has a small, but critical role to play in this. 'We are working with the Apple Developer Centre [in Bangalore] very closely since 2018,' Mitansh explains. 'We have used this opportunity to integrate some of their latest technologies, some of which are even yet to be announced.'Working with AppleOne of the tangible outcomes of this close partnership is Live Activities. 'We have some features which we developed working closely with Apple. One of them is Live Activities. It is a widget which you see on your lock screen, and it is used to see the order status without even opening your app. Swiggy, in fact, was one of the first applications to implement this in India. Right now, we are getting over 400,000 daily sessions of Live Activities,' he says, adding 'this feature has significantly enhanced user convenience, allowing them to track their orders at a glance, a critical aspect of on-demand services.'advertisementAgam picks up the thread, elaborating on another crucial area of collaboration: accessibility. 'Another thing which we have worked on with the Apple Developer Centre is accessibility, where we have made our app more accessible for people with motor and vision disabilities. We have implemented a bunch of features around voice-over and voice control so that any user can interact with our app and place orders seamlessly.'He stresses that their efforts go beyond mere implementation. 'We don't stop with just the implementation, but we make sure that whatever we are implementing, it's creating an actual impact for our end users. We constantly track how our accessible user funnel is, and whenever we do improvements, we see a constant uptick in the order contribution as well from the accessible sessions. We try to inspire other applications as well, to make sure they are also making their apps more accessible.' This proactive approach to accessibility ensures inclusivity, meaning that more people can use the platform regularly and effortlessly.advertisementThe company is always on the look-out for new iOS frameworks and is quick to adopt them where necessary. 'We try to be the front-runners and the first to adopt the iOS frameworks which Apple comes up with every year,' Agam says, adding that Swift UI has cut down the time of development by up to 30 percent internally, saving time for further innovation in other areas.Beyond developer benefits, these adoptions translate into major advantages for their user base. Agam provides a few examples. 'We have also implemented a few features which are part of what we believe is a consumer's delight, like in-app translations. In our food menu, which is a text-heavy page, we use these APIs to translate text from English to Hindi. It works seamlessly.'He continues, 'One more feature we have implemented is OCR (Optical Character Recognition), where you can scan any image and get a text out of it to do any kind of logic around that. Based on it, we created a Swiggy and Instamart shopping list which allows you to place orders by scanning items from a piece of paper or WhatsApp text all in one click. It became an instant hit on social media.'advertisementAgam also highlights their strategic shift to using native mobile technologies. 'We've been very vocal about using more and more iOS native text framework as it has helped improve screen load times by up to 50 percent' leading to a more 'fluid, responsive, and ultimately more satisfying user experience.'Dispelling the price disparity mythThe conversation invariably drifts to address the big elephant in the room, which is the persistent rumours of price disparity between Apple and Android users. More specifically, 'Does Swiggy charge more from iPhone users?'Agam's response is unequivocal. 'No, we don't do that. We don't have any algorithm like that. Maybe some other competitors might have, but we don't do the disparities. The only difference could be based on an offer that maybe a new user gets as compared to existing users. But we don't have any price disparity based on Android and iOS,' he says, hoping this puts to rest all speculation.Expanding on the role of algorithms within Swiggy, Agam explains their pervasive influence in shaping the user experience, particularly in personalisation. 'Generally speaking, it starts with the order of restaurants which come in the pool. The list of restaurants you get when you open the app itself is a huge algorithm which has been curated over the last many years. It's based on your specific location and preferences.'advertisementAlgorithms have other widespread applications within Swiggy. 'Earlier, we had a gifting chatbot as well, where we recommended a bunch of options to users based on their needs and budget. Algorithms also come into play during seasonal and festival-based activities to curate items based on the location and nature of the festival.'Mitansh elaborates on the algorithmic intelligence on the restaurant side. 'Even on the restaurant side, when we ingest the data, we have different DS (data science) models in place, which take care of what data is going into the system. Our restaurant partners might not be technical enough to ensure that they are adding the right images or the right description. At times, they might even skip the description. So, we have these AI models in place which suggest a description based on the photo or text. We also have certain capabilities to enhance their images. All these algorithms are in place to ensure our ingestion is top-notch,' he says, emphasising Swiggy's data-driven approach to enhancing both user and partner experiences.Learn and adaptThe conversation returns to the profound impact of the Apple Developer Centre in Bangalore. Agam admits Swiggy wasn't always as technologically advanced as perhaps it is today. 'Before 2018, we were not aware of how accessibility in apps works and what benefits it can give to the customer, if it was easy or difficult to do. In 2018-2019, we attended a bunch of sessions at the Apple Development Centre where Apple helped us understand the nitty-gritty of app accessibility: features like voice control and voice-over were discussed, how we could do enhancements on top of them to make sure we are providing a good experience to end consumers.'He continues, 'Based on those learnings, we integrated and implemented the features and shared them with the Apple team. They were kind enough to share their feedback about what worked and what might be missing. When we launched the end-product, we got a very good response from the consumers,' Agam says, adding, 'Feedback and collaboration from Apple have been pivotal for us to implement all these features.'The role of the Apple Developer Centre extends beyond technical guidance. It is the repository of most of Apple's global best practices. So, apart from integrating the latest technologies and platforms, developers like Swiggy are also exposed to international labs and the best-case studies, whether it's around UI and UX (or simply being exposed to creatives and apps from other markets).As the interview nears its close, the conversation naturally turns to WWDC 2025 and Swiggy's expectations, particularly around Apple Intelligence. 'Last year when Apple Intelligence was announced, we were very enthusiastic about how we can contribute towards and create a use-case of Apple Intelligence in our Swiggy application as well. We attended many seminars,' Agam says.Swiggy is actively testing at least one Apple Intelligence feature at the time of writing. 'One of the features which we thought will work [for us] is the Playground APIs, a prompt where you can just write few things and create your custom emoji. We tried to see if we could seamlessly fit it into our account page where, when a user comes, they can create a customised image of them, and it sits as a profile icon. It is currently in beta. We are looking to make it more widely available in a few days.'However, Agam also hopes Apple Intelligence will have a bigger impact soon. 'With Apple Intelligence, not that many use cases are coming as we were hoping for, so hopefully we will be seeing more features [rolled out soon] which will create more impact in making our app more seamless to use.'