Mobile

YouTube and Snapchat were asked by lawmakers to defend whether or not their respective social media apps were appropriately rated on the U.S. app stores, given the nature of the content they hosted. In a line of questioning led by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Snap was given specific examples of the types of content found

NYSE-listed e-commerce platform Jumia experienced a shift in shopping habits across its markets in Africa last year, as more shoppers bought everyday products as opposed to electronics. Shopping for essentials such as foodstuff, fashion and beauty products, saw Jumia’s total sales value of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods grow by 13 percentage points last year from 44%

Hark, all ye who pay attention to the stock market, for Elon Musk’s wheels-focused company broached the $1 trillion market cap threshold today. Yeah, it finally happened, so the Equity team quickly scrambled for the microphones. Chris put together the show, allowing Alex and Kirsten to dive into the matter. Kirsten, in case you aren’t

Berlin-based e-scooter rentals company Tier Mobility has announced what it’s billing as the “first close” of a $200 million Series D, as investors continue to plough money into urban micromobility. Today’s announcement follows a $60M debt raise this summer, and a $250M Series C last November (led by SoftBank). It’s not clear from its PR

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 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone.

Apple today introduced a new set of App Store Guidelines which include three key changes. One of the changes is the result of a previously announced settlement agreement with a class of U.S. app developers. It clarifies that developers are allowed to communicate with their customers about other payment methods available outside their app. Related

Citcon, a mobile wallet payment provider, has closed on $30 million in funding in a Series C round co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Cota Capital.  Sierra Ventures and Sonae IM also joined the financing, which brings San Jose-based Citcon’s total raised since its 2015 inception to nearly $50 million. Citcon’s mission is straightforward: to

Google is lowering commissions on all subscription-based businesses on the Google Play Store, the company announced today. Previously, the company had followed Apple’s move by reducing commissions from 30% to 15% on the first $1 million of developer earnings. Now, it will lower the fees specifically for app makers who generate revenue through recurring subscriptions.

If challenging the status quo was easy, we’d see a lot more of it. In the world of smartphones, this means daring to think outside the rectangle, a form factor that has been the default for more than a decade and a half. Slowly but surely amid stagnant smartphone sales, companies have been testing the

Spotify has already invested around $1 billion in podcasting between its acquisitions, exclusive deals, and other partnerships. Now, it wants people to do more than just listen — it wants them to watch, too. The company announced today it’s opening up access to a new tool for creators that will allow them to begin publishing

Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. After connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online store, artists will

Following moves by major tech platforms to better protect minors using their platforms, Snapchat is preparing to introduce its own set of “family engagement” tools in the coming months. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel teased the planned offering during an interview at the WSJ Tech Live conference this week, where he explained that the new product

Many companies collect data from all of their users, but they don’t know what is good or bad data until it is collected and analyzed. Now in this increasingly mobile-first world, we use our phones for everything from apps to ordering to food to connecting with our cars. Though these same companies have accelerated their

With Android 12, the world’s most-used mobile operating system continues its steady march of carving out its unique selling points and finding differentiators from Apple’s iOS. Available for Pixel 3 and beyond, the new OS beefs up some of the strengths in the operating system, while adding some new features along the way. When everyone

It makes sense that phone manufacturers are paying extra attention to how faces show up in photos, and the new Pixel 6, announced by Google today, introduces a suite of new AI-powered tools to make humans show up better than ever. The two highlights are Face Unblur — which helps reduce blur on moving faces

Not content with setting your feet a-tapping with its intuitive music sequencer aimed at amateur music makers, Artiphon today announced an app that adds video-making prowess to the Orba’s already impressive feature set. Appealing to your inner Video Jockey, the Orbacam demo video makes it look easy, adding video filters and effects to your visual

In 2019, Amazon introduced a more affordable way to stream Amazon Music in their home with the launch of a free, ad-supported music service that streamed over its Echo speakers. Today, Apple is catching up with its debut of a new, lower-cost version of its Apple Music subscription it calls the “Voice plan.” Unlike Amazon’s

Uber is testing Pool Chance, a feature that lets riders heading in the same direction share the cost of the journey, in Kenya, with plans to roll out the low-cost service to Ghana and Nigeria. TechCrunch discovered the option when booking a car in Nairobi, Kenya. An Uber spokesperson later confirmed it was part of

Canalys reported this morning that global smartphone sales are off 6% this quarter, and it’s not because of lack of demand. It’s due to the worldwide chip shortage. The pandemic has had a negative impact across supply chains, and chips have been particularly hard hit. Canalys principal analyst Ben Stanton says that manufacturers are trying to

Spotify’s in-car entertainment system known as just “Car Thing,” launched this spring on an invite-only basis, is now becoming more broadly available. The company announced today Car Thing will become available to U.S. users who want to purchase the $79.99 device. Previously, Spotify had distributed the product for just the cost of shipping during its

Google announced today it’s changing the way search works on mobile devices, initially in the U.S. Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won’t have to tap to go to the next page. Instead, the next set of results will automatically load so you can continuously

Last year, Spotify decided to embrace podcasts as part of the company’s larger communications strategy with the launch of its behind-the-scenes podcast, “Spotify: For the Record,” which has featured interviews with Spotify execs, employees, and industry experts about music, tech, and podcasting. Today, the company is expanding on its in-house podcasting strategy with the debut

As the Apple v. Epic Games lawsuit goes under appeal, Google on Monday afternoon filed an answer and counterclaim in the Epic Games’ antitrust litigation against the company. The tech giant and Android maker denies Epic’s allegations of antitrust behavior and instead says that it’s owed relief, as Epic Games breached the Google Play Developer

Fintech startup Atomic announced this morning that it has closed a $22 million Series A. Core Innovation Capital led the round, which saw participation from preceding investors. The company has raised just under $39 million to date. The company’s API-delivered product, which focuses on payroll data, helps power a number of fintech startups that we

When the Trump administration announced it would ban TikTok in the U.S., a number of alternative short-form video apps began to flourish, as users hedged their bets on a potential TikTok exit. Among these was Byte, an app co-created by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, which topped 1.3 million downloads in its first week alone. But

Disney’s newest digital service, Disney Genie, is launching on October 19 at Walt Disney World Resort. The service, first unveiled in August, is an update to the company’s earlier line reservation tools for Disney’s parks, allowing guests to plan and update their itineraries, book time slots for the most popular attractions, and optionally purchase paid

Just days after Voodoo acquired Beach Bum, another French mobile gaming company has news to share. Homa Games is raising a $50 million Series A round led by Northzone. The company partners with indie game studios and acts as a publisher. Other investors in today’s funding round include Singular, King, the founders of FuboTV and

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 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose high-profile antitrust lawsuit against Apple is now under appeal, is today calling out the iPhone maker for giving itself access to an advertising slot its competitors don’t have: the iPhone’s Settings screen. Some iOS 15 users noticed Apple is now advertising its own services at the top of their

When you’re exploring a city — whether one you’re visiting on your travels or your own — there are a number of tools that can help you find out where to go, what to see, and what to do, like Google Maps, Yelp, TripAdvisor and others. But a startup called Welcome thinks that today’s set