Instagram’s founders are reportedly resigning from Facebook

Eight years after launching Instagram and six years after selling it to Facebook, Instagram co-founders CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger are leaving the company, according to The New York Times. The founders apparently did not give a reason for their departure when they informed the company today that they’re resigning and that they’ll depart in the next few weeks. But after growing the app to 1 billion users, conquering its archrival Snapchat, turning it into a massive advertising business, they may feel they’ve done their duty and are ready to tackle different challenges.

The departure follows fellow Facebook acquisition WhatsApp’s founders leaving under much more grim circumstances. Brian Acton cited Facebook privacy concerns amongst reasons for his departure, tweeting “Delete Facebook” amidst one of its recent scandals. Over the coming days, we’ll investigate whether any similar concerns contributed to the exit of the Instagram founders. Instagram spokespeople did not respond to several requests for comment.

CEO Kevin Systrom still gives final approval of all ads on Instagram

The pair, former Stanford classmates, originally built a social location app Burbn but discovered its photo filters were by far the most popular part of the app. By combining tools to make grainy photos from early smartphone look good with a social feed for sharing them, Instagram became perhaps the world’s most succesful mobile app. Deemed such a threat, Facebook spent $715 million to acquire the startup and its less-than 50 million monthly users.

Supercharged by Facebook’s engineering team, Krieger could finally rest a little after spending years fighting server fires in attempts to manage Instagram’s meteoric growth. Sales, internationalization, anti-spam, and other resources from Facebook let Instagram fuel its growth and sprout an advertising business.

The moment of truth for Instagram came in late 2016 with the launch of Stories, a clone of Snapchat’s trendy ephemeral sharing feature. At the time, Systrom admitted “they deserve all the credit”. But by jamming Stories atop the already-thriving Instagram feed, sorting them to show your best friends first unlike Snapchat, and focusing on performance in developing countries Snap neglected, the copycat soon surpassed the original. Instagram Stories now has 400 million daily users compared to 188 million on Snapchat’s whole app.

During those six years, Instagram also had its share of troubles. Cyberbully became rampant, leading the company to eventually invest heavily in artificial intelligence and human moderators to keep the app clean. Russian military operatives spread misinformation and propaganda on Instagram that reached 20 million Americans, implicating the company in an election interference scandal that will continue through the upcoming mid-term elections.

Facebook had largely allowed Instagram to run independently. Systrom and Zuckerberg worked closely, yet Instagram wasn’t forced to drown its users in cross-promotion for other Facebook products or make worrying privacy decisions.

But in May, Instagram’s beloved VP of Product Kevin Weil moved to Facebook’s new blockchain team and was replaced by former VP of Facebook News Feed Adam Mosseri — a member of Zuckerberg’s inner circle. Chris Daniels, head of Internet.org, was meanwhile moved to oversee WhatsApp. Together, the moves seemed to endanger the independence of the conglomerate’s top acquisitions by appointing Facebook loyalists at the top. Without Systrom and Krieger, Instagram could see its autonomy dwindle. That might in turn endanger its ability to recruity retain talent.

Facebook united

Perhaps the strongest legacy of Systrom and Krieger will be how Instagram changed global culture. It made non-artists feel creative, and let people give friends a window into their world, engendering empathy and friendship.

At the same time, a desperate lust for Likes led many people to manicure their online image while hiding their sorrows and vulnerabilities. Instagram became the premier venue for success theater, where people engender health-harming envy in others by showing off just their most glamorous moments. And when Instagram launched Stories to try to get users to share more than just their life highlights, it ended up normalizing the behavior of interrupting every special moment with their smartphone camera.

Systrom took a stand on the digital well-being issue, saying “We’re building tools that will help the IG community know more about the time they spend on Instagram – any time should be positive and intentional . . . Understanding how time online impacts people is important, and it’s the responsibility of all companies to be honest about this. We want to be part of the solution. I take that responsibility seriously.”

Perhaps Systrom and Krieger’s next project will seek to offset some of the distortions to society caused by their creation.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2O6vC89 Instagram’s founders are reportedly resigning from Facebook Josh Constine https://ift.tt/2xMzm4t
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MetroPCS is now Metro by T-Mobile

{rss:content:encoded} MetroPCS is now Metro by T-Mobile https://ift.tt/2QWbp3G https://ift.tt/2Dqj1sz September 25, 2018 at 12:00AM

It’s been five years since T-Mobile picked up MetroPCS, and now the prepaid service is finally getting a fresh coat of paint. The “PCS” bit is getting the old heave ho, while the brand’s owners are letting you know who’s boss with the new Metro by T-Mobile brand name.

The new name involves some new plans, along with a couple of perks from key partners. There are two new (pricier) tiers, in addition to the standard ones. The new unlimited plans run $50 and $60 a month, and both include storage via Google One.

That makes the newly rebranded service the first to offer up access to Google’s new storage plan. The cloud deal also offers access to Google Experts, who can help you troubleshoot issues with any Google service.

The $60 a month plan, meanwhile, tosses in Amazon Prime for Google measure. That’s not exactly a solid reason to upgrade in an of itself, given that an Amazon Prime plan currently runs $119 a year, but the more premium plan offers 15GB of LTE data for its mobile hotspot versus 5GB.

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You can play Alto’s Adventure on your Mac now

{rss:content:encoded} You can play Alto’s Adventure on your Mac now https://ift.tt/2O7BIVN https://ift.tt/2pxNrz2 September 24, 2018 at 11:31PM

Everyone’s favorite endless, serene snowboarding game just made the leap from mobile to the Mac App Store. Available now for $9.99, Alto’s Adventure for Mac is a desktop port of the side-scrolling snowscape game that’s won hearts and accolades since it first hit iOS in 2015.

Earlier this year, the team behind Alto’s Adventure introduced a second game, Alto’s Odyssey, which trades the first game’s snowy terrain for sand and sun while maintaining its charm. If you’ve already spent some time with Alto’s Odyssey, the Mac version of the classic is a good reason to circle back.

The game’s serene setting and blissed out music make Alto’s Adventure eminently replayable, even if you’ve already sunk tens of hours into lengthening your scarf in an infinite procedurally generated snowy world dotted with charming villages, dramatic slopes and many, many things to trip over.

‘Alto’s Adventure’ sequel ‘Alto’s Odyssey’ launches on iOS on February 22

If you’ve yet to dive into Alto’s Adventure, and we really recommend that you do, the Mac version is probably a good starting place. For everyone else, progress in the game syncs across devices through iCloud, so it’s a good excuse to push a little further into one of the most thoughtful, pleasant mobile game experiences to date.

And while you’re hanging out in the Mac App Store, don’t forget to update to Mojave — Apple’s latest desktop operating system is available now.

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BloomThat pauses on-demand flower services

Following an acquisition by FTD Companies earlier this year for a reportedly small amount of cash, on-demand flower service BloomThat is pausing its services as it works “to figure out how to best integrate BloomThat as part of the FTD portfolio of brands,” the founders wrote to its customers a few days ago.

“Before we go, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of our loyal bloomers,” the founders wrote. “Over the last five years, you’ve brightened many lives with a simple, thoughtful gesture. Thank you for entrusting us with your most important moments – we’re honored to have been a part of a truly special movement.

In February 2016, BloomThat launched its flower delivery service nationwide. But instead of offering delivery within a couple of hours, BloomThat guaranteed next-day delivery, which effectively moved the startup into the territory of 1-800-FLOWERS and FTD.

BloomThat will continue to fulfill orders through Sept. 28, 2018. Those who are interested in continuing to buy flowers after the end of this month are being directed to FTD or ProFlowers.com.

Prior to the acquisition, BloomThat had raised $7.5 million from investors like Rothenberg Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Sherpa Capital and others, with the most recent round in April 2015.

I’ve reached out to BloomThat and will update this story if I hear back.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J BloomThat pauses on-demand flower services https://ift.tt/2pzJZUN

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Mode raises $3M Series A to put sensor data in the cloud

True Ventures has led the $3 million round for Mode, a real-time database that gives companies instant access to sensor data. GigaOm founder and True Ventures partner Om Malik has joined the startup’s board of directors as part of the deal.

Sensor data is collected from vehicles, cell phones, appliances, medical equipment and other machines. Businesses deploying these sensors, however, often don’t have back-end databases or tools to understand what that data means for the real world.

San Mateo-based Mode wants to help them make sense of it by moving the hoards of sensor data to the cloud, where they can better understand their devices and derive actionable insights. For now, Mode is targeting the solar, medical and manufacturing industries.

“We focus on data collection because we want to address common infrastructure challenges and let customers spend their time utilizing data for their businesses,” said Gaku Ueda, Mode co-founder and Twitter’s former director of engineering.

Ueda and co-founder Ethan Kan, who was previously the director of engineering at gaming startup 50Cubes, have a long history of friendship. True Ventures’ Malik says that’s part of what attracted him to the company.

“Companies are not a straight line,” Malik told TechCrunch. “You go through ups and downs. If you have a good co-founder, you have someone to get you through it.”

The round brings Mode’s total funding to $5 million. The company, which is also backed by Kleiner Perkins, Compound.vc and Fujitsu, will use the Series A financing to connect additional sensors to the cloud and expand its team.

https://ift.tt/2OLoI5l Mode raises $3M Series A to put sensor data in the cloud https://ift.tt/2OcdXvM

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Snapchat lets you take a photo of an object to buy it on Amazon

See, snap, sale. In a rare partnership for Amazon, the commerce giant will help Snapchat challenge Instagram and Pinterest for social shopping supremacy. Today Snapchat announced it’s slowly rolling out a new visual product search feature, confirming TechCrunch’s July scoop about this project codenamed “Eagle”.

Users can use Snapchat’s camera to scan a physical object or barcode which brings up a card showing that item and similar ones along with their title, price, thumbnail image, average review score and Prime availability. When the tap on one, they’ll be sent to Amazon’s app or site to buy it. Snapchat determines if you’re scanning a song, QR Snapcode, or object, and then Amazon’s machine vision tech recognizes logos, artwork, package covers, or other unique identifying marks to find the product. It’s rolling out to small percentage of US users first before Snap considers other countries.

Snap refused to disclose any financial terms of the partnership. It could be earning a referral fee for each thing you buy from Amazon, or it could just be doing the legwork for free in exchange for added utility. A Snapchat spokesperson tells me it’s the latter is the motivation (without ruling out the former), as Snapchat wants its camera to become the new cursor — your point of interface betwen the real and digital worlds.

Social commerce is heating up as Instagram launches Shopping tags in Stories and a dedicated Shopping channel in Explore, while Pinterest opens up Shop The Look pins and hits 250 million monthly users. The feature should mesh well with Snap’s young and culture-obsessed audience. In the US, its users are 20 percent more likely to have made a mobile purchase than non-users, and 60 percent more likely to make impulse purchases according to studies by Murphy Research and GfK.

In the video demo above, you can see Snapchat identifying Under Armour’s HOVR shoe (amongst all its other models), and the barcode for Covergirl’s clean matte liquid makeup. That matches our scoop based on code dug out of Snapchat’s Android app by TechCrunch tipster Ishan Agarwal. Snapchat’s shares popped three percent the day we published that scoop, and again this morning before falling back to half that gain.

The feature could prove useful for when you don’t know the name of the product you’re looking at, as with shoes. That could turn visual search into a new form of word-of-mouth marketing where every time an owner shows off a product, they’re effectively erecting a billboard for it. Eventually, visual search could help users shop across language barriers.

Amazon is clearly warming up to social partnerships, recognizing its inadequacy in that department. Along with being named Snapchat’s official search partner, it’s also going to be bringing Alexa voice control to Facebook’s Portal video chat screen that’s reportedly debuting this week according to Cheddar’s Alex Heath.

Snapchat could use the help. It’s now losing users and money, down from 191 million to 188 million daily active users last quarter while burning $353 million. Partnering instead of trying to build all its technology in-house could help reduce that financial loss, while added utility could aid with user growth. And if Snap can convince advertiers, they might pay to educate people on how to scan their products with Snapchat.

Snap keeps saying it wants to be a “Camera Company” but it’s really an augmented reality software layer through which to see the world. The question will be whether it can change our behavior so that when we see something special, we interact with it through the camera, not just capture it.

Snapchat code reveals team-up with Amazon for ‘Camera Search’

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2xNCxcp Snapchat lets you take a photo of an object to buy it on Amazon Josh Constine https://ift.tt/2MSZ2lH
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Snapchat lets you take a photo of an object to buy it on Amazon

{rss:content:encoded} Snapchat lets you take a photo of an object to buy it on Amazon https://ift.tt/2MSZ2lH https://ift.tt/2xNCxcp September 24, 2018 at 08:50PM

See, snap, sale. In a rare partnership for Amazon, the commerce giant will help Snapchat challenge Instagram and Pinterest for social shopping supremacy. Today Snapchat announced it’s slowly rolling out a new visual product search feature, confirming TechCrunch’s July scoop about this project codenamed “Eagle”.

Users can use Snapchat’s camera to scan a physical object or barcode which brings up a card showing that item and similar ones along with their title, price, thumbnail image, average review score and Prime availability. When the tap on one, they’ll be sent to Amazon’s app or site to buy it. Snapchat determines if you’re scanning a song, QR Snapcode, or object, and then Amazon’s machine vision tech recognizes logos, artwork, package covers, or other unique identifying marks to find the product. It’s rolling out to small percentage of US users first before Snap considers other countries.

Snap refused to disclose any financial terms of the partnership. It could be earning a referral fee for each thing you buy from Amazon, or it could just be doing the legwork for free in exchange for added utility. A Snapchat spokesperson tells me it’s the latter is the motivation (without ruling out the former), as Snapchat wants its camera to become the new cursor — your point of interface betwen the real and digital worlds.

Social commerce is heating up as Instagram launches Shopping tags in Stories and a dedicated Shopping channel in Explore, while Pinterest opens up Shop The Look pins and hits 250 million monthly users. The feature should mesh well with Snap’s young and culture-obsessed audience. In the US, its users are 20 percent more likely to have made a mobile purchase than non-users, and 60 percent more likely to make impulse purchases according to studies by Murphy Research and GfK.

In the video demo above, you can see Snapchat identifying Under Armour’s HOVR shoe (amongst all its other models), and the barcode for Covergirl’s clean matte liquid makeup. That matches our scoop based on code dug out of Snapchat’s Android app by TechCrunch tipster Ishan Agarwal.

The feature could prove useful for when you don’t know the name of the product you’re looking at, as with shoes. That could turn visual search into a new form of word-of-mouth marketing where every time an owner shows off a product, they’re effectively erecting a billboard for it. Eventually, visual search could help users shop across language barriers.

Amazon is clearly warming up to social partnerships, recognizing its inadequacy in that department. Along with being named Snapchat’s official search partner, it’s also going to be bringing Alexa voice control to Facebook’s Portal video chat screen that’s reportedly debuting this week according to Cheddar’s Alex Heath.

Snapchat could use the help. It’s now losing users and money, down from 191 million to 188 million daily active users last quarter while burning $353 million. Partnering instead of trying to build all its technology in-house could help reduce that financial loss, while added utility could aid with user growth. And if Snap can convince advertiers, they might pay to educate people on how to scan their products with Snapchat.

Snap keeps saying it wants to be a “Camera Company” but it’s really an augmented reality software layer through which to see the world. The question will be whether it can change our behavior so that when we see something special, we interact with it through the camera, not just capture it.

Snapchat code reveals team-up with Amazon for ‘Camera Search’

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Facebook expands its video Ad Breaks to 21 new countries

Facebook Ad Breaks, the social network’s pre-roll and mid-roll video ads, are launching in 21 new countries.

Facebook announced that Ad Breaks were generally available last month in five countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Now it’s adding territories in Europe, Latin and South America and Asia to the list.

Maria Smith, Facebook’s director of product for the news feed and media monetization, noted that Facebook first started testing these ad units more than a year ago.

“We started very conservatively,” she said. “It’s a very new initiative for us … We needed to get the user experience right.”

In particular, she said the company found that that these ads work best with longer videos, which is why there’s now a minimum length of three minutes.

Facebook has rolled out other improvements too, like the ability to automatically detect the best moments to insert the ad (though video publishers can still place the Ad Breaks manually, if they choose).

“As you watch a video, there are points in this video where the pause or Ad Break feels natural to the viewer,” Smith said. “For example, between scenes, or where it doesn’t interrupt speech, where the story line feels good to take a break — those are all signals” used to select Ad Break locations.

Beyond the minimum length for individual videos, Facebook also requires that Pages participating in the Ad Breaks program have at least 10,000 followers and need to have received at least 30,000 one-minute views on videos that are at least one minute long. They also need to meet Facebook’s general monetization standards.

The Ad Breaks sign-up page will now automatically tell creators whether they’re eligible to participate. Smith described these standards as a way to ensure “a really positive experience” for video creators, advertisers and regular users. (After concerns that ads were being played before inappropriate or controversial content, YouTube set a higher bar for eligibility earlier this year, though that’s led to widespread complaints from creators.)

Here are the new countries where Ad Breaks are generally available: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Thailand. As part of this expansion, Facebook is adding support for five new languages, namely French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.

“We’re making sure we’re very thoughtful, rolling this out in phases,” Smith said. “As we get ready to honor our commitment to our partners to enable them to monetize, we’re very excited.”

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2O5yIct Facebook expands its video Ad Breaks to 21 new countries Anthony Ha https://ift.tt/2pzn5Ng
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Bumble serves countersuit to Match Group, says it’s pursuing an IPO

Bumble is officially serving the papers in the suit against Tinder parent, Match Group. Bumble had said in March it was filing a suit of $400 million against Match Group for fraudulently obtaining trade secrets, following Match’s suit filed only weeks before, which had claimed patent infringement and misuse of intellectual property.

Match’s original lawsuit said that Bumble had copied “Tinder’s world-changing, card-swipe-based, mutual opt-in premise,” and accused Tinder-turned-Bumble employees Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick of copying elements of the design.

Bumble was also founded by CEO Whitney Wolfe, who was also a co-founder at Tinder and had previously sued Tinder for sexual harassment.

Following Match’s suit, Bumble responded then filed a separate action that raised new allegations against Match Group. It said that when Bumble and Match Group were in acquisition talks, Match filed its suit to make Bumble look less attractive to other suitors. Bumble also said that Match Group fraudulently requested for Bumble to provide “confidential and trade secret information” which Match Group said they “needed to provide a higher offer for Bumble,” the suit alleged.

Bumble’s suit also said that no subsequent offer came, and Match Group instead requested and obtained this information solely for “the financial benefit of its dating app businesses.”

And it said that Match Group “published false or disparaging information about Bumble, including statements in the press falsely claiming that Bumble infringed Match’s intellectual property, as well as false statements in the Lawsuit.”

Bumble and Match Group had tried to come to some sort of settlement over the months since the lawsuits were filed, in hopes of finding another solution outside of having to take their claims to court. But with court papers now being served, it appears that’s not going to be the case.

Match Group has had Bumble on its radar as one of its top competitors and a threat to its dating app business led by Tinder. It has tried to acquire Bumble twice, and has been turned down. Last year, for example, Match was in discussions with Bumble over a deal that then valued it at over $1 billion.

In the months since, Bumble has grown significantly as its business continues to expand outside the U.S. The company is now available in English-language countries like Canada, Australia, and the U.K., and is investing in expansions into Germany and Mexico. Latin America andSouth America are also on the roadmap for 2019, and Asia is in the works, as well.

In addition, Bumble has now upped its revenue run rate to $200 million per year. That doesn’t mean Bumble is making $200 million in 2018, only that it has exceeded its original expectations of $150 million in revenue for the year.

The revenues come entirely from Bumble’s in-app subscription business – the app doesn’t run ads.

The app also recently passed 40 million users, Wolfe recently noted on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 alongside news of Bumble’s new “snooze” feature that allows users to take a time-out from the app. She also spoke of Bumble’s plans to invest in its non-dating businesses, grow its real-world footprint through an expansion of its “Hive” locations, and introduce advertising.

In terms of how this suit will impact Bumble, Wolfe said, “we’re focused on our growth. We’re focused on ending misogyny, and we’re actively pursuing an IPO.”

 

 

 

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Bumble serves countersuit to Match Group, says it’s pursuing an IPO Sarah Perez https://ift.tt/2IctZAy
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Salesforce partners with Apple to roll deeper into mobile enterprise markets

{rss:content:encoded} Salesforce partners with Apple to roll deeper into mobile enterprise markets https://ift.tt/2IbUE0a https://ift.tt/2pz6SaS September 24, 2018 at 03:02PM

Apple and Salesforce are both highly successful, iconic brands, who like to put on a big show when they make product announcements. Today, the two companies announced they were forming a strategic partnership with an emphasis on mobile strategy ahead of Salesforce’s enormous customer conference, Dreamforce, which starts tomorrow in San Francisco.

For Apple, which is has been establishing partnerships with key enterprise brands for the last several years, today’s news is a another big step toward solidifying its enterprise strategy by involving the largest enterprise SaaS vendor in the world.

“We’re forming a strategic partnership with Salesforce to change the way people work and to empower developers of all abilities to build world-class mobile apps,” Susan Prescott, vice president of markets, apps and services at Apple told TechCrunch.

Tim Cook at Apple event on September 12, 2018 Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Bret Taylor, president and chief product at Salesforce, who came over in the Quip deal a couple of years ago, says working together, the two companies can streamline mobile development for customers. “Every single one of our customers is on mobile. They all want world-class mobile experiences, and this enables us when we’re talking to a customer about their mobile strategy, that we can be in that conversation together,” he explained.

For starters, the partnership is going to involve three main components: The two companies are going to work together to bring in some key iOS features such Siri Shortcuts and integration with Apple’s Business Chat into the Salesforce mobile app. Much like the partnership between Apple and IBM, Apple and Salesforce will also work together to build industry-specific iOS apps on the Salesforce platform.

The companies are also working together on a new mobile SDK built specifically for Swift, Apple’s popular programming language. The plan is to provide a way to build Swift apps for iOS and deploy them natively on Salesforce’s Lightning platform.

The final component involves deeper integration with Trailhead, Salesforce’s education platform. That will involve a new Trailhead Mobile app on IOS as well as adding Swift education courses to the Trailhead catalogue to help drive adoption of the mobile SDK.

While Apple has largely been perceived as a consumer-focused organization, as we saw a shift to  companies encouraging employees to bring their own devices to work over the last six or seven years, Apple has benefited. As that has happened, it has been able to take advantage to sell more products and services and has partnered with a number of other well-known enterprise brands including IBM, Cisco, SAP and GE along with systems integrators Accenture and Deloitte.

The move gives Salesforce a formidable partner to continue their incredible growth trajectory. Just last year the company passed the $10 billion run rate putting it in rarified company with some of the most successful software companies in the world. In their most recent earnings call at the end of August, they reported $3.28 billion for the quarter, placing them on a run rate of over $13 billion. Connecting with Apple could help keep that momentum growing.

The two companies will show off the partnership at Dreamforce this week. It’s a deal that has the potential to work out well for both companies, giving Salesforce a more integrated iOS experience and helping Apple increase its reach into the enterprise.

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Qonto raises $23 million to improve business banking

French startup Qonto has raised a $23 million funding round for its fintech product. The company is trying to make business banking cheaper, faster and more efficient.

Existing investors Valar Ventures and Alven are once again leading the round. The European Investment Bank Group is also participating.

If you are running a small company or work as a freelancer, Qonto wants to replace your professional bank account. When you sign up, you get a French IBAN, one or multiple debit cards and the ability to send and receive money.

And then, it works pretty much like any challenger bank. You can create virtual cards, order more cards for your team, get real time notifications and freeze cards. This is a breath of fresh air compared to traditional business banks and their time-consuming processes.

You can then sync your transactions with accounting and invoicing services, and grant access to your accountant. Premium plans let you select multiple administrators and create a validation workflow to approve expensive transfers for instance.

With today’s funding round, the company plans to double the size of the team and create its own payment infrastructure. Qonto currently relies heavily on Treezor for the back end. The startup also plans to expand to Germany, Italy and Spain in 2019.

Qonto now has 90 employees and 25,000 clients. The company has managed $2 billion in total transaction volume so far. The fact that the same VC funds keep investing more money into Qonto is a great vote of confidence.

https://ift.tt/2xLJWsN Qonto raises $23 million to improve business banking https://ift.tt/2py64D1

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Happy 10th anniversary, Android

{rss:content:encoded} Happy 10th anniversary, Android https://ift.tt/2I7l6YP https://ift.tt/2xtuzWv September 23, 2018 at 09:30PM

It’s been 10 years since Google took the wraps off the G1, the first Android phone. Since that time the OS has grown from buggy, nerdy iPhone alternative to arguably the most popular (or at least populous) computing platform in the world. But it sure as heck didn’t get there without hitting a few bumps along the road.

Join us for a brief retrospective on the last decade of Android devices: the good, the bad, and the Nexus Q.

HTC G1 (2008)

This is the one that started it all, and I have a soft spot in my heart for the old thing. Also known as the HTC Dream — this was back when we had an HTC, you see — the G1 was about as inauspicious a debut as you can imagine. Its full keyboard, trackball, slightly janky slide-up screen (crooked even in official photos), and considerable girth marked it from the outset as a phone only a real geek could love. Compared to the iPhone, it was like a poorly dressed whale.

But in time its half-baked software matured and its idiosyncrasies became apparent for the smart touches they were. To this day I occasionally long for a trackball or full keyboard, and while the G1 wasn’t pretty, it was tough as hell.

Moto Droid (2009)

Of course, most people didn’t give Android a second look until Moto came out with the Droid, a slicker, thinner device from the maker of the famed RAZR. In retrospect, the Droid wasn’t that much better or different than the G1, but it was thinner, had a better screen, and had the benefit of an enormous marketing push from Motorola and Verizon. (Disclosure: Verizon owns Oath, which owns TechCrunch, but this doesn’t affect our coverage in any way.)

For many, the Droid and its immediate descendants were the first Android phones they had — something new and interesting that blew the likes of Palm out of the water, but also happened to be a lot cheaper than an iPhone.

HTC/Google Nexus One (2010)

This was the fruit of the continued collaboration between Google and HTC, and the first phone Google branded and sold itself. The Nexus One was meant to be the slick, high-quality device that would finally compete toe-to-toe with the iPhone. It ditched the keyboard, got a cool new OLED screen, and had a lovely smooth design. Unfortunately it ran into two problems.

First, the Android ecosystem was beginning to get crowded. People had lots of choices and could pick up phones for cheap that would do the basics. Why lay the cash out for a fancy new one? And second, Apple would shortly release the iPhone 4, which — and I was an Android fanboy at the time — objectively blew the Nexus One and everything else out of the water. Apple had brought a gun to a knife fight.

HTC Evo 4G (2010)

Another HTC? Well, this was prime time for the now-defunct company. They were taking risks no one else would, and the Evo 4G was no exception. It was, for the time, huge: the iPhone had a 3.5-inch screen, and most Android devices weren’t much bigger, if they weren’t smaller.

HTC is gone

The Evo 4G somehow survived our criticism (our alarm now seems extremely quaint, given the size of the average phone now) and was a reasonably popular phone, but ultimately is notable not for breaking sales records but breaking the seal on the idea that a phone could be big and still make sense. (Honorable mention goes to the Droid X.)

Samsung Galaxy S (2010)

Samsung’s big debut made a hell of a splash, with custom versions of the phone appearing in the stores of practically every carrier, each with their own name and design: the AT&T Captivate, T-Mobile Vibrant, Verizon Fascinate, and Sprint Epic 4G. As if the Android lineup wasn’t confusing enough already at the time!

Though the S was a solid phone, it wasn’t without its flaws, and the iPhone 4 made for very tough competition. But strong sales reinforced Samsung’s commitment to the platform, and the Galaxy series is still going strong today.

Motorola Xoom (2011)

This was an era in which Android devices were responding to Apple, and not vice versa as we find today. So it’s no surprise that hot on the heels of the original iPad we found Google pushing a tablet-focused version of Android with its partner Motorola, which volunteered to be the guinea pig with its short-lived Xoom tablet.

Although there are still Android tablets on sale today, the Xoom represented a dead end in development — an attempt to carve a piece out of a market Apple had essentially invented and soon dominated. Android tablets from Motorola, HTC, Samsung and others were rarely anything more than adequate, though they sold well enough for a while. This illustrated the impossibility of “leading from behind” and prompted device makers to specialize rather than participate in a commodity hardware melee.

Amazon Kindle Fire (2011)

And who better to illustrate than Amazon? Its contribution to the Android world was the Fire series of tablets, which differentiated themselves from the rest by being extremely cheap and directly focused on consuming digital media. Just $200 at launch and far less later, the Fire devices catered to the regular Amazon customer whose kids were pestering them about getting a tablet on which to play Fruit Ninja or Angry Birds, but who didn’t want to shell out for an iPad.

Turns out this was a wise strategy, and of course one Amazon was uniquely positioned to do with its huge presence in online retail and the ability to subsidize the price out of the reach of competition. Fire tablets were never particularly good, but they were good enough, and for the price you paid, that was kind of a miracle.

Xperia Play (2011)

Sony has always had a hard time with Android. Its Xperia line of phones for years were considered competent — I owned a few myself — and arguably industry-leading in the camera department. But no one bought them. And the one they bought the least of, or at least proportional to the hype it got, has to be the Xperia Play. This thing was supposed to be a mobile gaming platform, and the idea of a slide-out keyboard is great — but the whole thing basically cratered.

What Sony had illustrated was that you couldn’t just piggyback on the popularity and diversity of Android and launch whatever the hell you wanted. Phones didn’t sell themselves, and although the idea of playing Playstation games on your phone might have sounded cool to a few nerds, it was never going to be enough to make it a million-seller. And increasingly that’s what phones needed to be.

Samsung Galaxy Note (2012)

As a sort of natural climax to the swelling phone trend, Samsung went all out with the first true “phablet,” and despite groans of protest the phone not only sold well but became a staple of the Galaxy series. In fact, it wouldn’t be long before Apple would follow on and produce a Plus-sized phone of its own.

The Note also represented a step towards using a phone for serious productivity, not just everyday smartphone stuff. It wasn’t entirely successful — Android just wasn’t ready to be highly productive — but in retrospect it was forward thinking of Samsung to make a go at it and begin to establish productivity as a core competence of the Galaxy series.

Google Nexus Q (2012)

This abortive effort by Google to spread Android out into a platform was part of a number of ill-considered choices at the time. No one really knew, apparently at Google or anywhere elsewhere in the world, what this thing was supposed to do. I still don’t. As we wrote at the time:

Here’s the problem with the Nexus Q:  it’s a stunningly beautiful piece of hardware that’s being let down by the software that’s supposed to control it.

It was made, or rather nearly made in the USA, though, so it had that going for it.

HTC First — “The Facebook Phone” (2013)

The First got dealt a bad hand. The phone itself was a lovely piece of hardware with an understated design and bold colors that stuck out. But its default launcher, the doomed Facebook Home, was hopelessly bad.

How bad? Announced in April, discontinued in May. I remember visiting an AT&T store during that brief period and even then the staff had been instructed in how to disable Facebook’s launcher and reveal the perfectly good phone beneath. The good news was that there were so few of these phones sold new that the entire stock started selling for peanuts on Ebay and the like. I bought two and used them for my early experiments in ROMs. No regrets.

HTC One/M8 (2014)

This was the beginning of the end for HTC, but their last few years saw them update their design language to something that actually rivaled Apple. The One and its successors were good phones, though HTC oversold the “Ultrapixel” camera, which turned out to not be that good, let alone iPhone-beating.

As Samsung increasingly dominated, Sony plugged away, and LG and Chinese companies increasingly entered the fray, HTC was under assault and even a solid phone series like the One couldn’t compete. 2014 was a transition period with old manufacturers dying out and the dominant ones taking over, eventually leading to the market we have today.

Google/LG Nexus 5X and Huawei 6P (2015)

This was the line that brought Google into the hardware race in earnest. After the bungled Nexus Q launch, Google needed to come out swinging, and they did that by marrying their more pedestrian hardware with some software that truly zinged. Android 5 was a dream to use, Marshmallow had features that we loved … and the phones became objects that we adored.

We called the 6P “the crown jewel of Android devices”. This was when Google took its phones to the next level and never looked back.

Google Pixel (2016)

If the Nexus was, in earnest, the starting gun for Google’s entry into the hardware race, the Pixel line could be its victory lap. It’s an honest-to-god competitor to the Apple phone.

Gone are the days when Google is playing catch-up on features to Apple, instead, Google’s a contender in its own right. The phone’s camera is amazing. The software works relatively seamlessly (bring back guest mode!), and phone’s size and power are everything anyone could ask for. The sticker price, like Apple’s newest iPhones, is still a bit of a shock, but this phone is the teleological endpoint in the Android quest to rival its famous, fruitful, contender.

Let’s see what the next ten years bring.

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