This Week in Apps: AltStore, acquisitions and Google Play Pass

The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one that often seems to change overnight. In this new Extra Crunch series, we’ll help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps — including everything from the OS’s to the apps that run upon them, as well as the money...

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This Week in Apps: AltStore, acquisitions and Google Play Pass

The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one that often seems to change overnight. In this new Extra Crunch series, we’ll help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps — including everything from the OS’s to the apps that run upon them, as well as the money...

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Everything you can learn about mobility at Disrupt SF

Cars might still reign supreme, but things they are a changin’. And companies are lining up to provide new ways — and some recycled ones — for people to get from Point A to Point B. The past several years have seen an explosion in startups, automakers and tech companies launching and testing products from scooters and electric bike share to ride-hailing, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and even flying taxis. Or heck, even space travel. Even as more mobility startups pop up, the shine of these new new things is starting to fade and companies...

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Startups Weekly: Alpha Medical wants to rebuild women’s healthcare

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. I’ve been on a bit of startup profile kick as of late. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Landline, a bus network backed by Upfront Ventures. Before that, I profiled an e-commerce startup called Part & Parcel. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t...

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Cracking the code on podcast advertising for customer acquisition

Krystina Rubino & Lindsay Piper Shaw Contributor Krystina Rubino is a marketing executive who leads the offline growth marketing practice at Right Side Up. Lindsay Piper Shaw is an advertising strategist and growth marketer currently consulting on podcast and offline advertising at Right Side Up. Of the various channels available to growth marketers, podcast is among the most misunderstood. Brands like Dollar Shave Club, Squarespace, and ZipRecruiter have deployed podcast advertising for user acquisition for years, but it’s still a channel...

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Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon

Most of the people I spoke with at Facebook’s Oculus Connect see the proliferation of virtual reality as a foregone conclusion, one that’s just a matter of timing at this point. For Facebook, the conference’s “The Time is Now” catchphrase showcased that they feel their hardware is ready for everyone. But despite the success, they feel like they’ve tapped into when it comes to hardware iterations, the company’s bread and butter social networking prowess feels like it’s barely improved in-headset in the past several years of VR experimentations. “On...

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Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon

Most of the people I spoke with at Facebook’s Oculus Connect see the proliferation of virtual reality as a foregone conclusion, one that’s just a matter of timing at this point. For Facebook, the conference’s “The Time is Now” catchphrase showcased that they feel their hardware is ready for everyone. But despite the success, they feel like they’ve tapped into when it comes to hardware iterations, the company’s bread and butter social networking prowess feels like it’s barely improved in-headset in the past several years of VR experimentations. “On...

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Daily Crunch: Facebook hides Like counts

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. 1. Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy It looks like Facebook wants to end the terrible game of chasing Likes, and then the equally terrible feeling of failing. The experiment starts today in Australia. A post’s author can still see the count, but everyone else will only be able to see who Liked a post, not how many Likes total it received. 2. DoorDash...

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Why Maxar CTO Walter Scott thinks now is the time to address the orbital traffic boom

The number of objects in orbit around Earth has been growing, and growing fast. Before 1957, of course, there were a total of zero human-made objects in the orbital region of outer space just beyond Earth’s atmosphere. There were 4,987 satellites orbiting the globe at the start of this year, according to the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is up nearly three percent from the year before. 2017 was a record year for orbital object launches, but with ambitious new satellite constellations planned by SpaceX and others, that’s a record that’s...

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Get your pitchdeck analyzed by top investors and experts at Disrupt SF next week

…And see other pitchdecks get the teardown treatment from top early-stage investors Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures), Anu Duggal (Female Founders Fund), and Russ Heddleston (CEO of DocSend). All you have to do is send your deck over to ec_editors@techcrunch.com if you’re attending Disrupt, and you can get feedback directly from them in a workshop setting. If we use your deck, we’ll also provide you a free ticket to any TechCrunch event of your choosing next year.  This is part of a new project to make Disrupt even more focused on founders....

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HTC’s new CEO Yves Maitre is coming to Disrupt San Francisco

{rss:content:encoded} HTC’s new CEO Yves Maitre is coming to Disrupt San Francisco https://ift.tt/2nhPqJS https://ift.tt/2nSJ9F3 September 27, 2019 at 05:00PM 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 his new role — comes at a tenuous time for HTC. The company has been harder hit than most by several...

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One day left to get featured at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin’s Startup Battlefield

Founders. The clock is ticking. Applications for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019 are closing in just about 24 hours. On December 11-12, TechCrunch will feature the top early-stage startups from around the world in the most renowned on-stage pitch competition in the world – Startup Battlefield. Companies are battling for $50,000 in equity-free prize money, the infamous Disrupt Cup and the attention of press and investors from around the world. You’ll join the leave of highly successful Startup Battlefield Alumni, including N26,...

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TC’s Greg Epstein and Kate Clark talk mental health startups and the ‘Cult of the Founder’

Some weeks, tech ethics is in the news. And some weeks, it IS the news. This week was one of the latter, There were so many ethically fraught news stories about technology companies over these past few days, I had trouble keeping track of them all. So I’m delighted that my latest interviewee for this series on ethics and technology is TechCrunch’s own Kate Clark, a reporter covering startups and venture capital. Kate is one of the tech reporters on whom I rely most heavily for insight into what the hell is going on in Silicon Valley, and not just...

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GoodRx is coming for subscription prescription services with the launch of GoodRx Care

Several months after discreetly acquiring the online prescription service HeyDoctor, GoodRx is launching a new service based on the acquisition, GoodRx Care, and offering a direct challenge to online prescription services like Hims, Hers, Nurx, Ro and others. Already a billion-dollar giant in the world of prescription fulfillment through its cost-comparison and discount medication fulfillment business, more than 10 million consumers use the company’s services already. With GoodRx Care, customers can use the online medical service to get a consultation,...

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