Browsing Tag: Mobile Smart Phones

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 PureView had the most, with a five-hexagonal array. It was new, innovative and for most, it was overkill. At the very least, however, it gave Nokia/HMD some bragging rights and managed to set the handset apart in one of the most hotly contested corners of the smartphone hardware race.

But Light is getting out of the smartphone game. Ultimately, the competition may have just been too stiff for a small startup, especially with many manufacturers working on their own native hardware and software solutions.

Light confirmed the move this week in an email to Android Authority, writing simply that it was “no longer operating in the smartphone industry.” It’s a surprising bit of news, given that mobile partnerships seemed like the most logical way forward for the company, which drummed up a $121 million in a SoftBank-led round back in 2018. That Series D brought the Palo Alto-based company’s total funding up to more than $181 million.

More recently, it also signed deals with Sony and Xiaomi. No word on what such a move means for those partnerships going forward. Nor is it clear what life after smartphones looks like for Light. We’ve reached out to the company for more insight into its plans.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Imaging startup Light is exiting the smartphone business

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 in the Chat section. This allows them to complete tasks without switching apps, like ordering movie tickets, comparing class schedules, studying a flashcard deck or going through a guided meditation.

The news came at a virtual version of the Snap Partner Summit, in which the company also announced a number of AR updates, including Lens voice search, a bring-your-own machine learning model update to Lens Studio and a geography-specific AR system that will turn public Snaps into spatial data.

2. Moderna set to start final-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine by July

Pharmaceutical company Moderna told Bloomberg that it’s on pace to begin by July the final-stage clinical trial of its vaccine for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The company has previously said that it could potentially begin offering experimental doses available to healthcare workers in limited capacities as early as this fall.

3. And finally … here’s Sony’s PlayStation 5

Sony finally revealed the PS5 tower in all its glory. It doesn’t look entirely un-router-like — but if so, it’s a sleek-looking router.

4. Chris Cox returns to the fold as Facebook’s chief product officer

After a very high-profile departure last year, Facebook’s former chief product officer Chris Cox will return to his long-held position. He said the unique national and global climate of 2020 influenced his decision, particularly the coronavirus pandemic, its subsequent economic devastation and the nation’s current focus on “a reckoning of racial injustice.”

5. Why are unicorns pushing back IPOs when the Nasdaq is near record highs?

Instacart just announced that it has raised fresh capital at a valuation north of $13 billion. DoorDash, meanwhile, is reportedly looking to add more cash at a pre-money valuation that exceeds $15 billion. Both announcements make it plain that late-stage unicorns are still able to attract huge sums despite a putatively uncertain IPO market. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Microsoft’s Brad Smith says company will not sell facial recognition tech to police

Microsoft is joining IBM and Amazon in taking a position against the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement — at least, until more regulation is in place.

7. UK competition watchdog launches investigation into Facebook’s $400M acquisition of Giphy

The UK Competition and Markets Authority — the country’s antitrust watchdog — announced that it has launched an investigation into Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy. Specifically, it’s looking to see how and if the deal will lessen competition in the two companies’ respective markets.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Daily Crunch: Snapchat is getting mini apps

Snap is announcing at its Snap Partner Summit that the first games that will take advantage of Bitmoji will roll out soon. The feature was 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 — or at least the Bitmoji representation of you.

While this feature is reminiscent of Xbox Avatars or Nintendo’s Mii on the Wii, 3DS and Wii U, Bitmoji for Games is a cross-platform solution, from mobile games to console games and PC games. The issue with console-specific avatars is that you can’t support Xbox Avatars on PlayStation consoles for instance — that could be the reason why console manufacturers have been slowly phasing out those avatars. Bitmoji for Games could potentially solve that issue.

Having said that, the initial list of partners only includes mobile games on iOS and Android. Games include Super Brawl Universe from Nickelodeon and Playsoft, Uno from Mattel, Scrabble GO from Scopely and a soon-to-be-announced game from French startup Voodoo.

Let’s hope that Snap will be able to expand its list of partners beyond board games and casual mobile games. For instance, I would totally see Bitmoji for Games in Just Dance.

Here’s a concept video presenting the feature. As you can see, you just have to connect with your Snapchat account to import your Bitmoji to third-party games:

In other news, Snap is adding more games to Snapchat. There are already more than a dozen games that you can play with your friends when you’re chatting with them. Some of them are built in-house while others are developed by third-party game makers.

According to the company, 100 million Snapchat users have played a game since the feature launched last year. On average, users who choose to play Bitmoji Party, a Mario Party-inspired game that lets you compete with your friends in mini-games, spend 20 minutes in the game in a given day.

There’s a direct correlation between engagement and monetization as Snap doesn’t rely on micro-transactions and in-app purchases with Snap Games. The company monetizes this feature with video ads.

“We took a look at the state of mobile gaming a few years back and observed that so many successful games on mobile didn’t have your friends that deeply integrated into the experience,” Director of Product Will Wu told TechCrunch. “There’s a lot of games you just play solo on the bus or on the airplane or something like that. For us, we were really looking to recreate that experience that we may have had growing up, sitting side by side with our friends playing a game on a couch together. You’re actually looking at the same screen.”

The most interesting new game that the company will release in the coming months is Bitmoji Paint. This game is a sort of casual Minecraft-inspired creativity game. Users play together on the same planet and can paint tiles on the ground. It lets you create pixel art and look at other creations.

Other new games include Bumped Out (Zynga), Friend Quizzes (Game Closure), Ready Set Golf! (PikPok) and Sling Racers (Madbox). They will be released over the coming months.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Snap lets you play as your Bitmoji in third-party games

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 new banner called “Happening Now” is also being rolled out to all users in the U.S. with a curated selection of stories at the top of the Discover tab.

Snap has been testing the new design for a while and it is now official. While Snapchat has always been a bit obscure to figure out for newcomers, navigation has been greatly simplified with the redesign.

For instance, Snapchat now has a good old navigation bar with five tabs at the bottom. The company calls it the action bar, as it’s supposed to change contextually based on what you’re doing. But at heart, it’s simply a way to access some of Snap’s most popular products in just a tap.

Old-school users will still feel at home with conversations on the left of the camera and stories on the right of the camera. But there are now two additional tabs.

All the way at the bottom left, Snap Map now has its own button — you no longer have to pull down from the camera screen to access the map.

At the bottom right, you’ll find two buttons that replace the previous Discover button. The old Discover tab is now called Stories. It features stories from friends, subscriptions and story recommendations.

If you swipe right one more time, you’ll find a new tab called Discover. It replaces the previously hidden tab called Shows. It features Snap Originals, the company’s original video content, stories that are currently trending on the platform and a new “Happening Now” section (more on that below).

Many apps copied Snapchat’s design over the years. Swiping your screen left and right to switch from one tab to another is a fluid and seamless experience. Square’s Cash App is a great example of how it feels.

But it creates some issues around discoverability. Many users probably didn’t know they could access Snap Map by swiping down on the screen, for instance.

Tapping on buttons feels like clicking on links on a website. It’s less elegant but it’s efficient, as you can see the buttons right here on the screen. Snapchat already switched to a hybrid model with buttons to access conversations and the Discover tab for those who don’t know they can swipe left and right. With the new buttons, it should be even easier to figure out what you can do in the app.

Find local businesses in Snap Map

Snap Map is the company’s take on a mapping product. It lets you view the location of your friends in real time — or at least those who have chosen to share their location with you. It also lets you tap on popular places to see what’s happening right now based on Our Story (public stories).

There are now 200 million people using Snap Map every month. And the company is about to overhaul it with a lot more information. The company is in the process of adding millions of listings for businesses around the world.

Starting today, you can tap on your favorite places and view some information, such as the address, hours of operation and reviews from TripAdvisor and Foursquare. In the U.S., users can also tap on a button to order food using Postmates, DoorDash and Uber Eats.

This represents a new revenue opportunity for Snap as well. Local businesses will be able to buy ads on Snap Map to highlight their bar, restaurant and business.

A new “Happening Now” banner based on a curation of news stories

Snap is launching a news aggregator of some sort in the Discover tab. At the top of the screen, there’s a new Happening Now section.

Happening Now is based on updates across stories covering politics, entertainment, sports and more. Many news organizations already have their own stories in the Discover tab. With Happening Now, Snap compiles content from partners, such as The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, NBC News, ESPN, NowThis, E! News and BuzzFeed News.

When you tap on the banner, you can see news content from various sources organized by categories — local, world, sports, politics, etc. The company is rolling out this feature to all users based in the U.S. starting today. It’ll be rolled out to other countries in the next year.

Finally, you can share public stories based on topics. When you share a story, you can choose to share it publicly by tapping on Our Story. It is matched with a location or an event.

Starting today, you can also match it with a topic using topic stickers, such as “Life Hacks” or “Oddly Satisfying.” Users can browse stories based on topics, creating a laid-back experience based on your interests.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Snapchat redesigns its app with new action bar

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 of the highlights:

• Coach Kev (Laugh Out Loud), an unscripted show about Kevin Hart giving you advice, inspiration and more.
• Fake Up, a show with optical illusion make-up artists transforming their own faces.
• Move It, an immersive dance show featuring some of the biggest dance influencers.

When it comes to docuseries, here’s an early look at what’s coming up:

There are also three scripted series coming up:

• Frogtown, a series directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Thirteen) about an all-girl skating crew.
• Action Royale, a show about an underground esports gambling ring.
• Total Badass Wrestling, a story of mentorship between a young wrestler and a well-known wrestler looking for his second act.

A few existing Snap Originals are also being renewed for another season, such as Dead of Night, Face Forward, Nikita Unfiltered and Vs The World.

Some of those shows have been quite popular, with Dead of Night attracting 15 million viewers, Nikita Unfiltered attracting 22 million viewers and Will From Home (featuring Will Smith) attracting 35 million viewers.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Snap announces new slate of Snap Originals

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 (and I wouldn’t do so on your daily driver until a few more people have tested it), you can now enroll here. Like always, Google is also making OS images available for download and an updated emulator is available, too.

Google says the beta focuses on three key themes: people, controls and privacy.

Like in previous updates, Google once again worked on improving notifications — in this case, conversation notifications, which now appear in a dedicated section at the top of the pull-down shade. From there, you will be able to take actions right from inside the notification or ask the OS to remind you of this conversation at a later time. Also new is built-in support in the notification system for what are essentially chat bubbles, which messaging apps can now use to notify you even as you are working (or playing) in another app.

Another new feature is consolidated keyboard suggestions. With these, Autofill apps and Input Method Editors (think password managers and third-party keyboards), can now securely offer context-specific entries in the suggestion strip. Until now, enabling autofill for a password manager, for example, often involved delving into multiple settings and the whole experience often felt like a bit of a hack.

For those users who rely on voice to control their phones, Android now uses a new on-device system that aims to understand what is on the screen and then automatically generates labels and access points for voice commands.

As for controls, Google is now letting you long-press the power button to bring up controls for your smart home devices (though companies that want to appear in this new menu need to make use of Google’s new API for this). In one of the next beta releases, Google will also enable media controls that will make it easier to switch the output device for their audio and video content.

In terms of privacy, Google is adding one-time permissions so that an app only gets access to your microphone, camera or location once, as well as auto-resets for permissions when you haven’t used an app for a while.

A few months ago, Google said that developers would need to get a user’s approval to access background location. That caused a bit of a stir among developers and now Google will keep its current policies in place until 2021 to give developers more time to update their apps.

In addition to these user-facing features, Google is also launching a series of updates aimed at Android developers. You can read more about them here.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | You can now install the first beta of Android 11

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 availability on June 25. Given everything the company is dealing with, it should come as no surprise that availability outside of its home country will be fairly limited to select markets, including the U.K. and Europe.

It won’t be available through the standard channels in the U.S., naturally. And what’s more, it won’t have any Google services, in light of the hardware maker’s ongoing fight with the United States government. Instead — like other Huawei flagships — it will rely on the company’s own forked version of Android, devoid of mainstay applications like Gmail, Google Maps and the Play Store.

For most other intents and purposes, however, Huawei is down, but not out. In spite of tremendous pressure, the company continues to produce some of the most bleeding-edge mobile hardware on the market. Here, that primarily comes down to a fantastic camera module. Like nearly every other part of the smartphone ecosystem, it’s increasingly difficult to stand out from the pack with regard to imaging, but by most accounts, Huawei has managed to do it with the P40 Pro+.

For starters, there’s a 10x (!) optical zoom (with up to 100x digital and all of the image issues that brings), which very much pushes the boundaries of what a handset can do. There are five cameras, in total, including that eight-megapixel 10x lens. The others include a 50-megapixel standard, 40-megapixel ultra wide, eight-megapixel with 3x optical and a time-of-flight sensor for increasingly important depth-sensing.

The handset will run ~$1,658 when it launches later this month. It’s the latest sign that Huawei will continue pushing forward, even as it deals with increasing international pressure. Until the company manages to fully replace Google’s offerings in house, however, the current set up will likely be too much of a compromise for many potential buyers.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Huawei’s new handset goes international June 25, with all of the camera and none of the Google

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 paying that.

John Spiller and Jakob Mears, Texans of ill repute, are accused of (and have confessed to) forming a pair of companies to make millions of robocalls a day with the aim of selling health insurance from their shady clients.

The operation not only ignored the national Do Not Call registry, but targeted it specifically, as it was “more profitable to target these consumers.” Numbers were spoofed, making further mischief as angry people called back to find bewildered strangers on the other end of the line.

These calls amounted to billions over two years, and were eventually exposed by the FCC, the offices of several attorneys general and industry anti-fraud associations.

Now the pair have been slapped with a $225 million proposed fine, the largest in the FCC’s history. The lawsuit involves multiple states and varying statutory damages per offense, and even a conservative estimate of the amounts could exceed that number.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen before, the fines seem to have little correlation with the amounts actually paid. The FCC and FTC do not have the authority to enforce the collection of these fines, leaving that to the Department of Justice. And even should the DoJ attempt to collect the money, they can’t get more than the defendants have.

For instance, last year the FTC fined one robocaller $5 million, but he ended up paying $18,332 and the market price of his Mercedes. Unsurprisingly, these individuals performing white-collar crimes are no strangers to methods to avoid punishment for them. Disposing of cash assets before the feds come knocking on your door is just part of the game.

In this case the situation is potentially even more dire: the DoJ isn’t even involved. As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel put it in a statement accompanying the agency’s announcement:

There’s something missing in this all-hands effort. That’s the Department of Justice. They aren’t a part of taking on this fraud. Why not? What signals does their refusal to be involved send?

Here’s the signal I see. Over the last several years the FCC has levied hundreds of millions in fines against robocallers just like the folks we have here today. But so far collections on these eye-popping fines have netted next to nothing. In fact, it was last year that The Wall Street Journal did the math and found that we had collected no more than $6,790 on hundreds of millions in fines. Why? Well, one reason is that the FCC looks to the Department of Justice to collect on the agency’s fines against robocallers. We need them to help. So when they don’t get involved—as here—that’s not a good sign.

While the FCC’s fine and the lawsuit will certainly put these robocallers out of business and place further barriers to their conducting more scam operations, they’re not really going to be liable for nine figures, because they’re not billionaires.

It’s good that the fines are large enough to bankrupt operations like these, but as Rosenworcel put it back in 2018 when another enormous fine was levied against a robocaller, “it’s like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.” While the FCC and states were going after a pair of ne’er-do-wells, a dozen more have likely popped up to fill the space.

Industry-wide measures to curb robocalls have been underway for years now, but only recently have been mandated by the FCC after repeated warnings and delays. Expect the new anti-fraud frameworks to take effect over the next year.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Robocallers face 5M fine from FCC and lawsuits from multiple states

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 you 2% of your money back, you click on the offer, get redirected to the partner site and hope that your purchase will be registered. A bit later, you get some money back on the cashback website, which you need to cash out to your bank account.

If you’re using Bnext as your bank account, you’ll be able to access rewards directly from your banking app. In addition to that, you don’t get redirected to another site as you purchase goods directly from the Bnext app.

There are multiple levels. If you’re making your first purchase through the feature, you get 1% in savings on average. If you’ve made more than three purchases over the past 30 days, you get 3% in savings on average. In order to reach level 3, you need a premium Bnext subscription. With that level, you get 5% in savings on average.

Partners include AliExpress, Booking.com, eDreams, Europcar, Nike, Just Eat and more. Eventually, the startup wants to let you earn rewards from in-store purchases as well. Bnext is creating a new revenue stream with this feature as the startup will keep a share of the revenue from each transaction.

Bnext provides current accounts and payment cards. You can receive notifications for each transaction with your card, and temporarily lock and unlock your card. You don’t pay any foreign transaction fee as long as you spend less than €2,000 per month with a standard account.

The company has also put together a marketplace of fintech products. You can earn interest by lending money to small companies on October, get a loan, an insurance product and more.

Earlier this year, the startup expanded to Mexico. The company plans to roll out rewards in Mexico soon. Bnext has managed to attract a bit less than 400,000 users.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Challenger bank Bnext revamps rewards for purchases in partner stores

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 per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.

This week, we’re taking a look at how the civil unrest and George Floyd protests played out across the app stores. The events led some apps — including private messaging apps, police scanners and alerting apps, and other social communication apps — to surge, and even break records. Google decided to delay the launch of Android 11 beta 1 in light of the recent events.

We’re also keeping up with COVID-19 apps and how the pandemic is changing app usage and consumer behavior. Plus, the FTC fined an app developer over privacy violations in a warning shot for the app industry; Zoom faced criticism for its encryption plans; Apple launched an open-source resource for password managers; and more.

How the George Floyd protests impacted the app stores

Protests drive downloads of police scanners 

Downloads of police scanner apps, tools for private communication and mobile safety apps hit record numbers last weekend in the U.S., amid the nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, as well as the systemic problems of racial prejudice that plague the American justice system. According to data from app store intelligence firm Apptopia, top U.S. police scanner apps were downloaded a combined 213,000 times last weekend, including Friday — a 125% increase from the weekend prior and a record number for this group of apps.

The group of top apps included those with similar, if somewhat generic, titles, such as Scanner Radio – Fire and Police Scanner, Police Scanner, 5-0 Radio Police Scanner, Police Scanner Radio & Fire and Police Scanner +.

Citizen, Signal and others spike during protests

In addition to tracking police movements with scanners, protestors organized and communicated on secure messaging app Signal. Meanwhile, community safety app Citizen, which sends out police alerts, also saw a jump in usage. According to Apptopia, Citizen and Signal both set daily download records, Vox noted earlier this week.

Citizen

Citizen’s app lets users see “incidents,” based on radio communications with 911 dispatchers, police, fire departments and other emergency responders. The app uses high-powered scanners to tune into public radio channels, then digitizes and transcribes the audio, and turns those into incidents placed on the map. But the app is popular because it’s more than a police scanner; it includes a social networking layer where users can react and comment. 

Based on more recent data provided to TechCrunch by Sensor Tower, Citizen was installed around 620,000 times by first-time users in the U.S. during the past week, an increase of about 916% compared to the week prior. First-time installs reached a record 150,000 on June 2, nearly 12x the app’s average of 13,000 daily first-time installs during May. On average, the app was downloaded close to 86,000 times per day, or 6.6x larger than May’s daily average. The app grew to be as high as No. 4 on Tuesday, June 2 on the U.S. App Store, and is now No. 32 Overall on the top free charts.

Signal

Image Credits: Signal

The firm also estimated that Signal had been installed by approximately 135,000 first-time users in the U.S. during the past week across the app stores. This figure represented growth of 165% from the preceding seven days, or about 2.6x that total of approximately 51,000 new installs. Signal averaged about 19,000 installs per day over the past seven days.

For comparison’s sake, Signal was downloaded around 269,000 times in all of May and its average daily number of installs was 9,000. That makes the average for the past week about 2x higher.

Signal is currently ranked at No. 137 among the top free iPhone apps on the U.S. App Store. Earlier, it was ranked at No. 107 on Tuesday, June 2.

This week, Signal also added built-in face blurring for photos, to help better secure the sharing of sensitive information across its network.

Nextdoor and Neighbors by Ring

The civil unrest also impacted neighborhood networking app installs, as communities looked to share information about the protests with one another. Social networking app for neighbors Nextdoor was installed by 185,000 first-time users in the U.S. over the past week, an increase of 26% from 147,000 installs in the week prior. The app also jumped up nearly 50 places in the U.S. App Store rankings, moving from No. 2,014 to No. 156 in the top free iPhone apps chart.

Amazon-owned Neighbors by Ring, where neighbors share alerts, including security camera footage, was installed by 36,000 first-time users in the past week, an increase of 89% from its approximately 19,000 installs the week prior.

Twitter has a record-breaking week as users looked for news of protests and COVID-19

Civil unrest due to the nationwide George Floyd protests drove Twitter to see a record number of new installs this week, according to data from two app store intelligence firms, Apptopia and Sensor Tower. While the firms’ exact findings differed in terms of the total number of new downloads or when records were broken, the firms agreed that Twitter’s app had its largest-ever week, globally.

The app saw at least 677,000 installs at its highest point, Apptopia said. Sensor Tower said it topped 1 million. Twitter also broke a record for daily active users on Twitter in the U.S., when some 40 million people in the U.S. logged into the app on June 3, Apptopia noted. For comparison’s sake, Twitter reported its app had 31 million “monetizable” daily active users (mDAUs) in the U.S. in Q4 2019, which grew to 33 million in Q1 2020.

The spike in installs was attributed to the protests, which were being watched by a global audience, and COVID-19, which continued to spread in worldwide markets.

Apps turn their icons black in support of George Floyd protests 

A small handful of apps did the equivalent of the Instagram black square by turning their icons black this week as a gesture of support toward the protests and civil rights. Participating apps included Reddit, Joss & Main and Shop Avani, for instance. Moves like this can be criticized as being merely performative, but one of the companies involved — Reddit — later followed up with real action. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanion on Friday announced he was resigning as a member of the Reddit board, and is now urging them to fill his seat with a black candidate. He also said he would use his future gains from Reddit stock to serve the black community, starting with a $1 million pledge to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp.

COVID-19 app updates and news

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | This Week in Apps: Protests impact app stores, FTC fines app developer, kids’ app trends