Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes ...
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Google refreshes its mobile search experience
Google today announced a subtle but welcome refresh of its mobile search experience. The idea here is to provide easier to read search results and a more modern look with a simpler, edge-to-edge design. From what we’ve seen so far, this is not a radically different look, but the rounded ...
Read More »Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: Camera refinements are nice, but the price drop’s the thing
The Galaxy S21 is a tank. It’s a big, heavy (8.04 ounces versus its predecessor’s 7.7), blunt instrument of a phone. It’s quintessential Samsung, really — the handset you purchase when too much isn’t quite enough. In fact, it even goes so far as adopting S-Pen functionality — perhaps the ...
Read More »6 investors on 2021’s mobile gaming trends and opportunities
‘We are definitely fearful of Apple’s ability to completely disrupt/affect the growth of a game’ Lucas Matney @lucasmtny / 1 day Many VCs historically avoided placing bets on hit-driven mobile gaming content in favor of clearer platform opportunities, but as more success stories pop up, the economics overturned conventional wisdom ...
Read More »YouTube and WhatsApp inch closer to half a billion users in India
WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company’s own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 ...
Read More »Yelp will show user feedback about businesses’ health and safety practices
Moving forward, Yelp users won’t just be asked whether a business has good food or accepts credit cards — the platform is also allowing them to share feedback on whether the staff is wearing masks and enforcing social distancing. Yelp’s head of consumer product, Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, suggested that this ...
Read More »Daily Crunch: Samsung unveils Galaxy S21 line
Samsung lowers prices with its latest Galaxy S phones, Google completes its Fitbit acquisition and Beyond Meat is coming to Taco Bell. This is your Daily Crunch for January 14, 2021. The big story: Samsung unveils Galaxy S21 line Samsung’s new line of phones includes the S21, S21+ and S21 ...
Read More »Daily Crunch: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash
WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for January 15, 2021. The big story: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash Earlier this month, WhatsApp sent users a notification ...
Read More »Bumble files to go public
The dating and networking service Bumble has filed to go public. The company, launched by a former co-founder of the IAC-owned Tinder, plans to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange, using the ticker symbol “BMBL.” Bumble’s planned IPO was first reported in December. Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd was on the ...
Read More »Samsung’s Galaxy S21 line arrives with camera bumps, price drops and S Pen compatibility
n”,”protected”:false},”excerpt”:”rendered”:” A security flaw in Ring’s Neighbors app was exposing the precise locations and home addresses of users who had posted to the app. Ring, the video doorbell and home security startup acquired by Amazon for $1 billion, launched Neighbors in 2018 as a breakaway feature in its own standalone ...
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