Mobile

In a long-awaited move, Spotify announced this morning its iOS 13 app would now offer Siri support and its streaming music service would also become available on Apple TV. That means you can now request your favorite music or podcasts using Siri voice commands, by preferencing the command with “Hey Siri, play…,” followed by the

Several months back, we invited HTC cofounder and CEO Cher Wang to appear on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt. Sometimes, however, life happens. Two weeks ago, the company announced that Wang would be stepping down from the role, which would immediately be filled by longtime telecom vet, Yves Maitres. Thankfully, the former Orange exec also agreed

Multiplayer games are more fun when you get to play with the same crew regularly. Playing with the same people means better cooperation, deeper strategies and, if all goes well, more wins. But what if none of your friends play the game you want to play? Rune, a company out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2019

Google today announced Action Blocks, a new accessibility tool that allows you to create shortcuts for common multi-step tasks with the help of the Google Assistant. In that respect, Action Blocks isn’t all that different from Shortcuts on iOS, for example, but Google is specifically looking at this as an accessibility feature for people with

Ahead of a Disrupt appearance, Yves Maitre talks mobile, VR and blockchain Brian Heater @bheater / 7 hours On September 17, HTC announced that cofounder Cher Wang would be stepping down as CEO. In her place, Yves Maitre stepped into the role of Chief Executive, after more than a decade at French telecom giant, Orange.

In what will hopefully turn out to be just a mistake, the Amazon Prime Video app has disappeared from the Apple App Store, making it unavailable for new downloads or updates to users both on iOS and Apple TV. Twitter users began to tweet to Amazon for help about the problem on Friday morning, to

YouTube Music is preparing to better challenge Spotify and others with the launch of three new personalized playlists, Discover Mix, New Release Mix, and Your Mix, said YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan, in an on-stage interview this morning at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019. Discover Mix, YouTube Music’s version of Spotify’s Discover Weekly, had already

Facebook plans to challenge Europe’s top court, which today ruled that EU countries can order Facebook to globally remove content that violates local laws. Facebook currently complies with proper legal requests to remove content that breaks a nation’s laws, but can leave it up for global viewers if the post doesn’t violate its Community Standards.

What if Instagram could automatically tell your Close Friends you’re 🏠 (home), 🤓 (working), 🚗 (on the move), or 🛋️ (chilling and might want to hang out)? That’s the idea behind Instagram’s new companion app Threads, a Close Friends-only messaging experience that opens to the camera with shortcuts for instantly sending specific people photos and

Robinhood may be best known its free stock trading, but today it’s rolling out a new version of the newsfeed, adding content from Reuters, Barron’s and market coverage from The Wall Street Journal, with no paywall or additional charge. In addition, Robinhood is introducing video into the newsfeed, with ad-free videos from CNN Business, Cheddar and

Samsung this morning confirmed with Reuters that it has shuttered handset production in China. The move comes as the company continues to struggle in the world’s number one smartphone market. As we noted in a deeper dive into China’s smartphone sales back in August, the Korean hardware giant has struggled to maintain a marketshare in

The biggest players in online stock trading all just copied Robinhood by removing their fees for stock and ETF trading. Charles Schwab announced yesterday it would drop its $4.95 fee, leading to plummeting share prices for it as well as competitors. By the end of yesterday Ameritrade announced it too would axe its $6.95 fees,

Pandora is doubling down on personalization and revamping its app in order to better compete with rivals like Spotify and Apple Music. Today, the company is introducing a new mobile experience which includes a dedicated “For You” tab where a continually updated feed of content is presented to users, including both music and podcast recommendations

“It’s almost like the Explore Tab that we have on Instagram” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in leaked audio of him describing TikTok during an all-hands meeting. But it’s not. TikTok represents a new form of social entertainment that’s vastly different from the lifelogging of Instagram where you can just take a selfie, show something

Books on tape were the lifeblood of self-help. But eLearning startups like Khan Academy and Coursera demanded our eyes, not just our ears. Then came podcasts that make knowledge accessible yet rarely focus on you retaining and applying what they teach. Today, a new startup called Knowable is launching to provide gaze-free audio education at

Chinese mobile phone and device maker Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.  Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company has also started to support venture funding of African startups. Transsion issued 80 million A

Spotify this morning announced a new feature that will allow users to add their podcasts to playlists. With the addition, users can create their own custom playlists of their favorite podcasts, or even those that combine music and audio — similar to Spotify’s own newly-launched “Your Daily Drive.” With “Your Daily Drive,” Spotify put its

On-demand video streaming giant Netflix, which is increasingly expanding its footprint in developing markets, now has a new competitor in Indonesia: Gojek. The Indonesian ride-hailing giant on Thursday launched a video streaming service called GoPlay that features exclusive access to “hundreds of movies and TV shows” as well as snackable short clips. The service, which

Verizon this week announced that it’s finally begun to flip the switch on its 5G network in parts of New York City, along with Panama City and Boise. That brings the wireless carrier’s (disclosure: also TechCrunch’s parent) totally number up to 13 cities with a taste of the next ten network. Here in NYC, 5G

App Annie, a go-to source for mobile app market data and analytics, is expanding its platform with the acquisition of mobile analytics provider Libring. The deal will allow App Annie to present its mobile app market data side by side with advertising analytics data, in order to paint a more complete picture of an app’s

This is, surely, the moment some loyal fans have waited for. And understandably so. The Galaxy Fold is, by all measures, an exciting phone. It’s the sort of bold brashness that has helped Samsung set itself apart from the competition. Many of us laughed at the Galaxy Note, too, and yet here we are, with

Earlier this month, HTC cofounder Cher Wang stepped down from her role as CEO. In her place, former Orange EVP Yves Maitre has taken up the reins for the Taipei-based smartphone maker. One of Maitre’s first acts as the head of HTC will be to join us at Disrupt in October. The interview — and

If their post has lots of Likes, you feel jealous. If your post doesn’t get enough Likes, you feel embarrassed. And when you just chase Likes, you distort your life seeking moments that score them, or censor it fearing you won’t look popular without them. That’s why Facebook is officially starting to hide Like counts

For the past few years, OnePlus has happily pushed into a six-month product refresh cycle. It’s a model that’s worked well for the plucky smartphone maker, and another way it’s managed to buck some of the prevailing industry trends as competitors struggle to maintain sales amid a global slowdown. As tends to be the case,

Samsung’s new rebooted Galaxy arrives this week with one job: it just needs to not break. I’d already spent thousands of words breaking down the ins and outs of the product the first time around. This round, on the other hand, was more about making sure everything worked. Back in April, I was among the

If you’re a cricket fan, you will be visiting Facebook way more often in the coming months and years. The social juggernaut announced on Thursday it has partnered with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the global governing body of cricket, to secure exclusive digital rights until 2023 for global ICC events in the Indian sub-continent.

Apple has just released iOS 13.1. This updated brings everything new in iOS 13 in case you haven’t updated yet, as well as many bug fixes. I would recommend updating to iOS 13.1 to get a more stable phone. But that’s not all. iPadOS and tvOS are finally making the jump to version 13 with

Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo’s latest mobile game, is now available on iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The game, like Nintendo’s other iOS releases, is free-to-play with in-app purchases (in-game currency called ‘rubies’) that you use for upgrades and unlocks. Players immediately unlock one rider and get a tutorial to start, which introduces you

ALTBalaji, a leading video streaming service in India, has partnered with Microsoft and fintech firm Eko as it moves to expand its subscriber base in the country that is already larger than any of its local rival. ALTBalaji, which has over 27 million paying subscribers, said it will use Microsoft’s BlendNet technology to help its

Facebook confirms it won’t fact-check politicians’ speech or block their content if it’s newsworthy even if it violates the site’s hatespeech rules or other policies. This cementing of its policy comes from Facebook’s head of global policy and communication Nick Clegg who gave a speech today about Facebook’s plans to prevent interference in the 2020