apps News of 09/27/20

This Week In Apps: Redesigning The IOS 14 Home Screen, App Makers Form ‘Fairness’ Coalition, Latest On TikTok Ban

This Week in Apps: Redesigning the iOS 14 home screen, app makers form ‘fairness’ coalition, latest on TikTok ban image Welcome back to This Week in  Apps, the TechCrunch 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 ...

Apple Is (Temporarily) Waiving Its App Store Fee For Facebook’S Online Events

Last month, Facebook introduced support for paid online events — and because many of the businesses offering those events have struggled during the coronavirus pandemic, the company also said it would not collect fees for the next year. At the ...

Indonesian Cloud Kitchen Startup Yummy Gets $12 Million Series B Led By SoftBank Ventures Asia

Yummy Corporation , which claims to be the largest cloud kitchen management company in Indonesia, has raised $12 million in Series B funding, led by SoftBank Ventures Asia. Co-founder and chief executive officer Mario Suntanu told TechCrunch that the ...

App Makers Band Together To Fight For App Store Changes With New ‘Coalition For App Fairness’

A number of top app makers have banded together to fight against Apple’s control of its App Store and, to a lesser extent, Google’s control of the Play Store — a topic of increased regulatory scrutiny in recent months. Today, 13 ...

India’S ShareChat Raises $40 Million, Says Its Short-Video Platform Moj Now Reaches 80 Million Users

ShareChat, an Indian social network that focuses entirely on serving users in non-English languages, said on Thursday it has raised $40 million from a clutch of investors after the Indian startup added tens of millions of new users in recent ...

UK Launches COVID-19 Exposure Notification App For England And Wales

The last two regions of the UK now have an official coronavirus contacts tracing app, after the UK government pushed the button to launch the NHS COVID-19 app across England and Wales today. Northern Ireland and Scotland launched their own official ...

Facebook Gives More Details About Its Efforts Against Hate Speech Before Myanmar’S General Election

About three weeks ago, Facebook announced will increase its efforts against hate speech and misinformation in Myanmar before the country’s general election on November 8, 2020. Today, it gave some more details about what the company is ...

TikTok Files For Injunction Against Pending Trump App Ban

TikTok’s fight with the Trump administration doesn’t yet appear to be over, regardless of what the deal that was signed between its parent company ByteDance and Oracle says. Earlier today, the company filed a motion to stop the Commerce ...

Top 20 IOS Homescreen Customization Apps Reach 5.7m Installs After IOS 14 Release

Top 20 iOS homescreen customization apps reach 5.7M installs after iOS 14 release image The iOS 14 homescreen customization trend is driving a new set of apps to the top of the App Store charts, and delivering record downloads for sources of inspiration, like Pinterest. According to new data from app store market intelligence firm ...

Spain’S Top Court Rejects Glovo’S Classification Of Couriers As Self-Employed

Glovo, a Spain-based delivery platform startup, is facing legal disruption in its home market after the country’s Supreme Court ruled against its classification of delivery couriers as ‘autonomous’ (i.e. self employed) — ...

Instagram’S TikTok Clone Reels Updates To Allow Longer Videos, Easier Edits

Instagram’s TikTok clone Reels updates to allow longer videos, easier edits image Instagram is today rolling out a few changes to its TikTok competitor , Reels, after early reviews of the feature criticized its design and reports indicated it was failing to gain traction. The company says it’s responding to user feedback ...

Endel Raises $5m To Create Personalized ‘Sound Environments’ That Improve Productivity And Sleep

Endel raises $5M to create personalized ‘sound environments’ that improve productivity and sleep image The pitch for Berlin-based Endel is pretty straightforward, according to its co-founder and CEO Oleg Stavitsky. “The way I usually describe Endel is: This is a technology that is built to help you focus, relax and sleep,” Stavitsky ...

‘AI-Powered’ Fitness App Freeletics Scores $25m Series B

Freeletics , the “AI-powered” fitness coaching app, has closed $25 million in Series B funding. Leading the round is U.S.-based JAZZ Venture Partners and Causeway Media Partners, with support from KKCG. The fresh injection of capital ...

Singapore-Based Syfe, A Robo-Advisor With A Human Touch, Raises $18.6 Million Led By Valar Ventures

Singapore-based Syfe, a robo-advisor with a human touch, raises $18.6 million led by Valar Ventures image Dhruv Arora, the founder and CEO of Singapore-based investment platform Syfe Syfe , a Singapore-based startup that wants to make investing more accessible in Asia, announced today that it has closed a SGD $25.2 million (USD $18.6 million) ...

Caura, An App To Take The Hassle Out Of Car Ownership, Launches From Echo Co-Founder Sai Lakshmi

Caura, an app to take the hassle out of car ownership, launches from Echo co-founder Sai Lakshmi image Caura , a new U.K. startup that aims to take the hassle out of car ownership, is breaking cover today. Founded by Sai Lakshmi, who previously co-founded Echo, the medication management service acquired by LloydsPharmacy owner McKesson , Caura is an ...

Pinterest Breaks Daily Download Record Due To User Interest In IOS 14 Design Ideas

Pinterest breaks daily download record due to user interest in iOS 14 design ideas image The excitement around the ability to customize your iPhone homescreen following the release of iOS 14 has been paying off for Pinterest. According to new third-party estimates, Pinterest’s app has seen record global daily downloads and a ...

Amazon Adds Support For Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil And Telugu In Local Indian Languages Push Ahead Of Diwali

More than seven years after Amazon began its e-commerce operations in India, and two years after its shopping service added support for Hindi, the most popular language in the country, the American giant is embracing more local languages to court ...

Event Discovery Network IRL Raises $16m Series B After Refocusing On Virtual Events

Event discovery network IRL raises $16M Series B after refocusing on virtual events image The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way a number of companies have had to do business. For the event discovery startup, IRL , it meant pivoting into the virtual events space. This April, the startup quickly reacted to government lockdowns and ...

TikTok, WeChat And The Growing Digital Divide Between The U.S. And China

TikTok, WeChat and the growing digital divide between the U.S. and China image Over the past decade, the dynamic between Chinese and United States tech companies has undergone dramatic shifts. Once seen as a promising market for American companies, that narrative flipped as China’s tech innovation and investment power became ...

Daily Crunch: This TikTok Deal Is Pretty Confusing

Daily Crunch: This TikTok deal is pretty confusing image Companies send out conflicting messages about the TikTok deal, Microsoft acquires a gaming giant and the WeChat ban is temporarily blocked. This is your Daily Crunch for September 21, 2020. The big story: This TikTok deal is pretty confusing ...