Mobile

Spotify is testing a new, more interactive ad format designed for podcasts: the in-app offer. Instead of prompting listeners to remember a coupon code or visit a specific website address, the in-app offer allows users to redeem an offer at a time that’s convenient for them. This is done by way of a visual reminder

Apple is holding a keynote today on the first day of its developer conference, and the company is expected to talk about a ton of software updates. WWDC is a virtual event this year, but you can expect the same amount of news, in a different format. At 10 AM PT (1 PM in New

Email is one of those things that no one likes but that we’re all forced to use. Superhuman, founded by Rahul Vohra, aims to help everyone get to inbox zero. Launched in 2017, Superhuman charges $30 per month and is still in invite-only mode with more than 275,000 people on the waitlist. That’s by design,

Meet Vivid, a new challenger bank launching in Germany that promises low fees and an integrated cashback program. The two co-founders Alexander Emeshev and Artem Yamanov previously worked as executives for Russian bank Tinkoff Bank. Vivid doesn’t try to reinvent the wheels and is building its product on top of well-established players. It relies on

The company has raised $15.2 billion in the past nine weeks Manish Singh 8 hours It’s raised $5.7 billion from Facebook. It’s taken $1.5 billion from KKR, another $1.5 billion from Vista Equity Partners, $1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, $1.35 billion from Silver Lake, $1.2 billion from Mubadala, $870 million from General Atlantic,

Flipboard is giving news publishers and other curators on the platform a new way to highlight content through a format called Storyboards. Until now, Flipboard has largely focused on its Smart Magazines, which are ongoing collections that mix human and algorithmic curation, allowing readers to dive deeply into and keep up-to-date on a given topic. Storyboards,

The UK has given up building a centralized coronavirus contacts tracing app and will instead switch to a decentralized app architecture, the BBC has reported. This suggests its any future app will be capable of plugging into the joint ‘exposure notification’ API which has been developed in recent weeks by Apple and Google. The UK’s

As an increasing number of daily and essential services move to digital platforms — a trend that’s had a massive fillip in the last few months — having efficient but effective ways to verify that people are who they say they are online is becoming ever more important. Now, a startup called Payfone, which has

Apple is under formal investigation by antitrust regulators in European Union — following a number of complaints related to how it operates the iOS App Store and also its payment offering, Apple Pay. The Commission said today that it has concerns that conditions and restrictions applied by the tech giant may be distorting competition in

Square acquired Verse, a Spanish peer-to-peer payment app that works across Europe. Terms of the deals are undisclosed. According to Crunchbase, Verse had raised $37.6 million from Spark Capital, eVentures and Greycroft Partners and others. Square has attracted a ton of user with Cash App, its peer-to-peer payment app that lets you easily send and

Apple’s App Store faces antitrust scrutiny, a private space company plans to install a satellite for lunar communication and Boston Dynamics expands availability of its iconic Spot robot. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 16, 2020. 1. Apple Pay and iOS App Store under formal antitrust probe in Europe The European Commission confirmed that it’s

Fintech startup Revolut has expanded its open banking feature to Ireland. The feature first launched in the U.K. back in February. Once again, the startup is partnering with TrueLayer to let you add third-party bank accounts to your Revolut account. The feature launch also marks the launch of TrueLayer in Ireland. For now, Revolut users

In a conference call on Monday lasting under six minutes, T-Mobile vice president James Kirby told hundreds of Sprint employees that their services were no longer needed. He declined to answer his employees’ questions, citing the “personal” nature of employee feedback, and ended the call. TechCrunch obtained leaked audio of that call, which was said

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank with more than 4 million customers, has confirmed it has closed £60 million in top up funding. Backing the round are existing investors Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Accel, Stripe, Goodwater, Orange, Thrive, Passion Capital, along with new investors Reference Capital, and Vanderbilt University. One of fintech’s worst kept secrets, the

Sinch said on Monday it has agreed to buy Indian firm ACL Mobile for £56 million (roughly $70 million) in what is the fourth acquisition deal the Swedish mobile voice and messaging firm has entered into at the height of a global pandemic. The Swedish firm said acquiring ACL Mobile will enable it to leverage

WhatsApp is adding support for in-app payments, Apple is upgrading the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro desktop and we argue about the future of startup hubs. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 15, 2020. 1. WhatsApp finally launches payments, starting in Brazil After months of talks and trials, WhatsApp has finally pulled the trigger on

Snap is going full speed ahead with its original content strategy. The company announced that it has expanded previous partnerships with ESPN, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, the NBA and the NFL for new Shows and Snap Originals. The new slate of Snap Originals includes unscripted series, docuseries as well as scripted dramas and comedies. Here are some

Snap is unveiling some important changes for Snapchat at its Snap Partner Summit. The navigation has been rethought with a new action bar at the bottom that lets you access Snap Map and Snap Originals in just a tap. Snap Map is also getting some brand new features to compete head-to-head with Google Maps. A

Light’s push into smartphones was an inevitability. Sure, the startup turned heads with its pricey L16 camera, but these days mobile photography is almost exclusively the domain of the handset. Early last year, the answer arrived in the form of the trypophobia-inducing Nokia 9 PureView. In a category where manufacturers raced to add more cameras, the

Snap announces a bunch of new features, Moderna prepares for the final-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine and Sony shows off the PlayStation 5. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 12, 2020. 1. Snapchat debuts Minis, bite-sized third-party apps that live inside chat Snap Minis are lightweight third-party programs that users can quickly pull up

Snap is announcing at its Snap Partner Summit that the first games that will take advantage of Bitmoji will roll out soon. The feature has already been announced last year, and it looks like developers can finally take advantage of that SDK. You’ll be able to play a game with you as the hero —

The Huawei P40 Pro+ has already been on the market in China for a few days now. And in spite of various legal woes, the handset is set for international available on June 25. Given…everything the company is dealing with, it should come as no surprise that availablity outside of its home country will be

After a series of developer previews, Google today released the first beta of Android 11 and with that, it is also making these pre-release versions available for over-the-air updates. This time around, the list of supported devices only includes the Pixel 2, 3, 3a and 4. If you’re brave enough to try this early version

Two men embodying the zenith of human villainy have admitted to making approximately a billion robocalls in the first few months of 2019 alone, and now face an FCC fine of $225 million and a lawsuit from multiple attorneys general that could amount to as much or more — not that they’ll actually end up

Spanish startup Bnext is revamping its cashback program so that you can buy from partner stores directly from the Bnext app and get some money back. The company has partnered with Button and the feature is available as an open beta. Traditional cashback portals are a bit clunky. When you find an offer that gives

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes

Meet PhotoRoom, a French startup that has been working on a utility photography mobile app. The concept is extremely simple, which is probably the reason why it has attracted a ton of downloads over the past few months. After selecting a photo, PhotoRoom removes the background from that photo and lets you select another background.

Apps like Signal are proving invaluable in these days of unrest, and anything we can do to simplify and secure the way we share sensitive information is welcome. To that end Signal has added the ability to blur faces in photos sent via the app, making it easy to protect someone’s identity without leaving any

Meet Watchful, a Tel Aviv-based startup coming out of stealth that wants to help you learn more about what your competitors are doing when it comes to mobile app development. The company tries to identify features that are being tested before getting rolled out to everyone, giving you an advantage if you’re competing with those

French startup Majelan is pivoting a year after launching a podcast player and service. The company, created by former Radio France CEO Mathieu Gallet and Arthur Perticoz, is ditching the podcast aggregation side of its business and focusing on premium audio content going forward. Like many podcast startups, Majelan has faced some criticisms shortly after