Mobile

Most Americans dread doing their taxes. Surveys show as much. But as many as 40% rely on money from tax refunds to satisfy some financial obligation. Ben Borodach, a former Deloitte fintech strategist and the CEO of tax service provider April, believes this points to the need for taxpayers to change their behavior from thinking

If data is at the heart of any modern business, it needs to be easier to access and manipulate it without expertise. While there are many data analysis tools available including the sophisticated data science variety, and more line of business-focused BI tools, it hasn’t been easy for a person with little experience to work

Anonymous social apps targeting teens haven’t gone away in the wake of Snapchat’s new policy, which earlier this year banned these types of social experiences from integrating with its developer platform. Instead, the apps have simply found a new way to reach young people: via Instagram. In recent weeks, new apps like Sendit for Instagram

Ever spend much too long trying — and failing — to rediscover articles you’ve partially read? This reporter’s been there, and it seems I’m not the only one. According to 2021 Carnegie Mellon study on browser tab usage, many participants admitted to feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tabs they kept open but were compelled

LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends to be lumped into that conversation, though the Taiwanese manufacture has – in spite of everything – continued to press on, even

Consumers are ditching their current period tracking apps in favor of what they perceive to be safer options in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that allows individual U.S. states to criminalize abortion. The app switching trend is impacting all manner of period tracking apps, including leading app Flo, which owns

Spotify is introducing a new feature that will allow users to better discover nearby events and concerts. The streaming service today announced it’s replacing its in-app Concert Hub with a new Live Events Feed that will allow you to find favorite artists’ events in your area in a way that’s personalized to your own interests.

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 continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the

As video-led podcasts become highly favored by listeners, Podcastle, which was primarily an audio recording and editing studio, is introducing a new feature that enables podcasters to conduct high-resolution video interviews or solo recordings. Now, Podcastle will allow users to invite and video record up to ten guests through the Chrome browser or the Podcastle mobile

The co-founder and CEO of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, had a Steve Jobs moment when he stood in front of an auditorium in New York City and announced the launch of Saga, an Android web3-focused smartphone. “This is something that I fundamentally believe the industry needs to do,” Yakovenko said. “We didn’t see a single crypto

OSOM and Nothing have quickly become two of the most fascinating companies operating the smartphone space in recent years. Nothing is the latest project from OnePlus cofounder, Carl Pei, while OSOM is largely composed of former Essential employees looking to launch their own own thing in the wake the company’s messy dissolution. That Pei purchased

As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for individual web users’ privacy — and after Apple’s move last year to lock down third party tracking of app users on iOS, also on a

As part of a broader update to its Chrome web browser, Google announced today a handful new features coming to the latest build of Chrome on iOS. Among the key additions, the Chrome app is gaining access to Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing feature which proactively warns you about dangerous web pages. Other updates include user

Mobile well-being apps topped 1.2 billion downloads last year, while leading meditation app Calm alone pulled in $118.2 million in revenue, data from Sensor Tower indicates. That may leave some to believe the digital well-being market is essentially solved, but a new startup, Lumi Interactive, believes the opposite is true. The Melbourne-based, women-led company has

Instagram is experimenting with another new feature that would allow usersto  post disappearing content. The feature, called Notes, allows users to post quick notes, like announcements, to their “Close Friends” circle or to followers who also follow them. Unlike Twitter’s new Notes feature, which allows writers to post long-form content, Instagram’s version is more like sticky

Social commerce — the process of buying and selling products or services directly through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — is becoming the most natural way for consumers to make purchases since people use social media and messaging apps almost every day. SleekFlow, an omnichannel social commerce platform that helps businesses build

Spotify is developing a new feature called Community that would allow mobile users to see what sort of music their friends are streaming in real-time as well as what playlists they’ve recently updated in a dedicated place in the app. The company today offers a similar “Friend Activity” feature on the desktop, but had limited

Samsung announced today that it’s launching “Samsung Wallet” to enable users to store select digital keys, boarding passes, identification cards and more all in one location. The company says Samsung Wallet combines Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass into one secure platform. The mobile wallet was first teased at the manufacturer’s Unpacked event earlier this year.

It’s pretty annoying to go through CAPTCHA verification where you have to identify weird squiggly letters or click on images of the boat till there are none left — just to prove that you’re not a robot. Apple might be getting rid of this problem with a new feature in the upcoming iOS 16 and

BeReal, LiveIn, Locket… what do these new consumer social apps have in common besides a highly-ranked position on the App Store’s Top Charts? They engage their users through a combination of push notifications and homescreen widgets, instead of forcing people to spend a long time browsing their app, scrolling feeds, or watching creator content. The

LogRocket, a provider of software frontend monitoring and analytics services, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series C round co-led by Delta-V Capital and Battery Ventures. CEO Matt Arbesfeld tells TechCrunch that the proceeds will be put toward R&D and expanding the size of the team from 130 people to roughly 180

App notifications, well-intentioned or no, have become a part of daily life. A 2018 study out of Duke University estimated that — aside from email and work app alerts — the average person receives between 65 and 80 mobile app notifications per day. Unsurprisingly, the result is frustration. One recent survey found that half of

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s long-anticipated direct-to-consumer regional sports streaming app will have a soft launch this Thursday, June 23, 2022. While this isn’t a full rollout, Bally Sports+ will initially be available in five markets to stream Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Miami Marlins, Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays games. The app will be priced

Twitter’s board wants the $44 billion Elon Musk takeover completed, which is why it’s asking its shareholders to approve the deal, according to a new regulatory filing. The board states in the document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday that it “unanimously recommends that you vote (for) the adoption of the

OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company Nothing will not be bringing its first phone — the phone (1) — to the US. The firm said that at the moment “a limited number of our private community investors in the US” will get the device through a closed beta program. The development comes a day after

Today, IKEA is launching a new AI-driven interactive design experience called IKEA Kreativ for IKEA.com and the IKEA app. With the new feature, U.S. customers can design and visualize their own living spaces with digitalized furniture on their smartphones instead of traveling to the brick-and-mortar store where they are likely to be distracted by the

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 continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the

Telecommunications provider AT&T quietly dropped HBO Max as a bundled perk for new AT&T customers on its top unlimited wireless plan, AT&T Unlimited Premium. The company launched the new plan this week, which replaced Unlimited Elite. AT&T confirmed the new plan doesn’t include the streaming service but didn’t provide a detailed explanation regarding its decision.

ComfortDelGro, a Singaporean taxi operator, announced Thursday its partnership with Alipay+, enabling tourists from Malaysia and South Korea to use their mobile wallet apps Touch ‘n Go eWallet and Kakao Pay to pay the cab fare in Singapore.  “With Singapore reopening its borders, we are looking forward to having tourists come visit us,” said CEO of ComfortDelGro Taxi

The UK’s competition watchdog has published its final report on a comprehensive, year-long mobile ecosystem market study — cementing its view that there are substantial concerns about the market power of Apple and Google which require regulatory intervention. Back in December, its preliminary report on the market study also identified concerns and discussed potential remedies