Month: June 2019

Apple shared some of the new features that you’ll get with the release of iOS 13 this fall at WWDC.

“iOS 13 is a huge release packed with lot of capabilities,” VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said. But Federighi immediately started with performance improvements.

For instance, Face ID is 30 percent smaller. Downloads and updates on the App Store will be a lot smaller. Updates will be 60 percent smaller on average because your iPhone won’t download the full app every time you get an update. And apps should launch twice as fast.

Dark mode and low level improvements

Many apps have already adopted dark mode. But Apple is adding system-wide dark mode for iOS 13. With a simple button in Control Center, you’ll be able to switch from a light interface to a dark interface. Native apps, such as Music, Messages and Calendar have all been updated to support dark mode.

Notifications and widgets look darker. When you open an app, Apple is using a solid black background, which should look good on an OLED keyboard as it won’t emit any light.

The native keyboard now supports typing by swiping from one letter to another. The share sheet has been redesigned with intelligent suggestions based on your most important contacts. In the Music app, you can now see scrolling lyrics.

Apple apps get updated

When it comes to first-party apps, Safari has options to change text sizing and settings per website. Mail gets rich text editing. Notes gets a gallery view and folders.

Reminders has been completely redesigned. There’s a new quick type bar to add a task. You can indent tasks below a bigger tasks. You can also tag people — they receive a notification in iMessage.

Apple’s Meg Frost also showed the new version of Apple Maps. In addition to improved data in some parts of the U.S., there’s a Google Street View feature called Look Around. Moving from one location to another in Look Around is incredibly smooth.

There are more updates to Apple Maps, such as the ability to share ETA with friends, collections of favorite places, the ability to share lists with friends, etc.

Apple will map the U.S. by the end of 2019, other countries will be upgraded later.

Privacy, privacy, privacy

Apple is updating location tracking in apps. You can share your location with an app just once. Third-party developers won’t be able to share details about your Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth signal, which should put an end to many privacy scandals.

Apple is also going to compete with “Sign in with Facebook” or “Sign in with Facebook” by introducing “Sign in with Apple”. This way, you can create an account without sharing personal information. You can even share a randomly generated email address that relays email to your real email address.

HomeKit is also becoming more private. With HomeKit Secure Video, you can store up to 10 days of security camera footage in your iCloud account. Apple doesn’t have the keys and footage doesn’t count against your storage. Logitech, Netatmo and others will support that feature.

In order to make HomeKit devices more secure, Apple is bringing HomeKit to routers so that connected devices don’t always have to talk to the internet directly.

iMessage gets more personal

iMessage still feels like an improved version of SMS. Apple is going to make it more like WhatsApp. With iOS 13, you’ll be able to add a profile picture and share it with your contacts. You control who gets to see your profile pictures.

Apple is using this opportunity to improve Memojis with more customization options. And the company is going one step further by copying Bitmoji and creating stickers with your Memoji.

Photos

On the photo front, Apple is adding a new portrait lighting effect. And portrait lighting will become more customizable. iOS is getting more pro features with buttons to control saturation, highlights, shadows, etc. All of this will be available for videos as well. And Instagram users will love that you’ll be able to rotate videos.

When it comes to your photo library, iOS automatically hides duplicates photos to keep the best shot. There’s also a new tab to explore your photo library. Navigating your library feels more fluid with autoplaying video vignettes. There’s a new tab bar so that you can see highlights from the past years, months and days.

Siri gets smarter

Apple is adding more voice features across the board. For instance, when you receive a message and you’re wearing AirPods, you can hear the message you just received and reply.

If you want to watch a video or listen to music together, you can share audio with someone else who has an iPhone and a pair of AirPods. I don’t think it means that you’ll be able to stream music to two pair of AirPods — you still need two iOS devices.

On the HomePod front, you can tap your phone on your HomePod to send audio to your HomePod. The smart speaker is also getting support for live radio stations — I can’t believe it wasn’t already available. You’ll finally be able to set up multiple users for the HomePod to control your own calendar, messages, music and get personalized results.

CarPlay is also receiving an update with better Siri features. You can now control third-party apps, such as Pandora or Waze, with Siri. And the Siri animation doesn’t fill up the entire screen anymore.

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Apple has a new way to stop third-party sites and services from getting your information when you sign up to an app.

All too often, developers give users the chance to sign in with one-click — using data fed in from Facebook, Google or Twitter.

“Now this can be convenient, but it also can come at the cost of your privacy, your personal information sometimes get shared behind the scenes and these logins can be used to track you,” said Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi at its annual developer conference.

Apple thinks it can do one better by allowing developers to add a “Sign in with Apple” button instead.

What’s the difference? Apple says it can authenticate a user using Face ID on your iPhone without turning over any of your personal data to a third-party company.

Federighi said users can create a new account on an app using its own one-click button “without revealing any new personal information.”

He noted that when apps ask for names and email addresses — typically auto-populated from a one-click login from a social networking site — you can still provide them if they wish. But when you don’t want to provide your real email address to protect your privacy, Apple will auto-generate a random “relay” email address that hides your real email address.

“That’s good news because we get each a unique random address, and this means you can disable any one of them and anytime when you’re tired of hearing from that app,” said Federighi.

“It’s really great,” he said. Yes, it really is.

Today at Apple’s annual developer’s conference Apple added a cycle tracker for women the Apple Watch and iOS. This is being billed as a marquee new feature in its updates to the Apple Watch’s health app.

“In watchOS 6 the cycle tracking app gives you a simple discreet way to visualize your cycle right on your wrist,” said Dr. Sumbul Desai speaking on stage at WWDC ’19.

The new app gives women the ability to log key information about their menstrual cycle and fertility. The new feature is an example of how women’s health is becoming more foregrounded in the discussions around health technologies. This is the first time Apple included the functionality on any of its devices.

It’s also going to have an impact on current cycle tracking startups like Clue, Glow, Maya and Natural Cycles, which have had cycle-tracking and fertility apps on the market for the past few years. Clue and Glow have raised some $53 million in financing for their services.

The new watchOS 6 also added health information around noise tracking through a noise app and fitness tracking trends that compare fitness trends over 90 days versus the previous 360 days. “If you’re trending downward, you’ll get notifications for how to get back on track,” said Desai.

Apple’s iOS 13 is getting a dark mode, the company announced today at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose. Confirming an earlier leak, the new dark mode will be system-wide and can be turned on or off from iOS’s Settings or through a new Control Center toggle. Once enabled, Dark Mode will change the color of the Home screen dock, the background colors of iOS screens, and Apple’s built-in apps like Apple Music, Notes, Messages, Photos, Calendar, Music, and more.

Other system features have also been prepped for dark mode like the dock and share sheet, so it’s a seamless experience.

Dark themes for apps have become fairly popular, thanks to the rise of OLED smartphones in recent years. Because a dark mode lights up fewer pixels, it can help conserve battery life on phone’s OLED screens. Dark themes may have other benefits as well, in terms of lessening device addiction and improving sleep, some claim.

Apple is not the first to launch a system-wide dark mode, however. At Google’s developer conference in May, the company introduced Dark Theme for Android Q which will work across its mobile OS and in first-party Android apps, with developers able to code for it in their own applications.

Several third-party apps today support darker themes of their own, including Twitter, YouTube, Google, Medium, Reddit, Wikipedia, Instapaper, Pocket, IMDb, iBooks, Kindle, Google Maps, Waze, Opera Mini and many more.

Below, is the leaked image of Dark Mode for comparison:

Apple showcased its latest version of watchOS at WWDC on Monday and the company’s announcements were largely related to increasing its autonomy and utilizing the extra screen real estate on the increasingly larger screens on the Series 4 Apple Watch.

The company updated its watch faces again this year, adding some classic looks and minimalist ones. WatchOS 6 has also added some complications including a noise level measurement and wind and rain levels. There’s a weird new thing called “taptic chimes” which alerts you when the hour changes, just like a clocktower.

The big news of this release is probably that more standalone iPhone apps are getting watchOS corollaries. Apple detailed that the new watchOS release will include an Audiobooks app, a Voice Memos app and a Calculator app so you can quickly calculate a tip or do some quick adding.

Perhaps most notably, the Apple App Store is coming to watchOS so you’ll be able to browse apps, check out reviews, and download the apps easily.

As the Apple Watch gets more standalone watchOS stock apps, Apple is also making it easier for developers to build independent apps for the device that no longer require an iPhone’s companion app.

When it comes to the health capabilities, the new features are a bit more muted. You’ll now get coaching via notifications if your metrics in the Health app begin to trend in one direction of the other. Additionally, the company has added a cycle-tracking app to help women keep track of their periods.

Updating

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Apple Watch apps are breaking out from their earlier constraints. This morning at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, the company announced that the Apple Watch will now get its own on-device App Store. That means you won’t have to hunt for Watch apps using your iPhone or toggle them on or off in the Watch app for iOS — you can browse and search for new Watch apps right from your wrist.

The new App Store on the Watch will include the description, screenshots and ratings — just like you’d see on the iOS App Store. You can then tap to install the app to your Watch right from the screen.

Related to the addition of the new App Store for Apple Watch, Apple says that watchOS apps will can now run independently from their iOS counterparts. This will allow developers to build out dedicated Watch apps — even if there’s no need for an iOS version. The hope, perhaps, we these changes is to kickstart the Apple Watch ecosystem which hadn’t taken off the way the iOS App Store did. Instead, today’s consumers tend to use their Watch for its built-in functions like getting alerts, responding to calls and messages, controlling music and more.

And with the new streaming API, also introduced today, these standalone Apple Watch apps can include a live audio feed — for example, to tune into a sporting event, as demoed on stage.

This could also encourage more consumers to consider buying an Apple Watch. Today, you have to own an iPhone to the Apple Watch. But now, you could still take advantage of a variety of Watch features and apps without needing to be fully invested in the Apple ecosystem.

Apple talked about the next major release for tvOS, the operating system for the Apple TV. The home screen has been slightly redesigned with autoplaying full screen previews. I hope you’ll be able to disable autoplaying videos as many people already hate those video previews on Netflix.

tvOS will support multiple users so that your “Up Next” queue is personalized to your tastes. It works pretty much like profiles on Netflix and other streaming services. You swipe from the right to open a new Control Center panel.

Apple already announced Apple Arcade, its subscription service for video games. Apple Arcade will also work on the Apple TV. It means that you’ll be able to play 100+ premium games for a flat monthly fee.

Gaming on the Apple TV has always been a bit wonky because there’s no controller in the box. But the next version of tvOS will support two new popular controllers — PlayStation 4 controller and Xbox One controllers.

Finally, there will be a new screensaver with undersea footage. But I’m more excited about controller support to be honest.

LevelTen Energy, a marketplace that consolidates renewable energy projects and potential buyers to lower prices for aggregated buyers and expand the market for sellers, has raised $20.5 million in a new round of funding.

Investors in the round included the venture arms of utility and energy companies like Constellation Technology Ventures (the investment arm of Exelon Corp.), Equinor Energy Ventures and Total Ventures. The financing was led by Prelude Ventures, with participation from other financial investment firms including Element 8 Fund, Founders’ Co-op, Techstars Ventures and Wireframe Ventures.

Founded in 2016 and accelerated by TechStars as a clearinghouse for clean energy projects for corporate and utility energy buyers the company expanded its services in 2018 with the launch of the LevelTen marketplace — providing details on every clean energy, utility-scale project in North America.

That launch was followed by the release of a price matching and request for proposal automation tool to give companies the ability to post their own projects and find available projects more efficiently.

Overall, companies have procured more than $1 billion of renewable energy through LevelTen. The company has also aggregated a procurement deal for Bloomberg, Cox Enterprises, Gap, Salesforce, and Workday.

The company said it would use the money to expand its footprint internationally.

“Historically, excessive market opacity, cost, and risk prevented all but a select group of Fortune 500 buyers from signing utility-scale power purchase agreements. This exclusionary problem is one we’re committed to addressing,” said Bryce Smith, CEO and founder of LevelTen Energy.

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. Twitter bags deep learning talent behind London startup, Fabula AI

Fabula AI has been developing technology to identify online disinformation by looking at patterns in how fake stuff versus genuine news spreads online — making it an obvious fit for the rumor-riled social network.

Twitter says the acquisition of Fabula AI will help it build out its internal machine learning capabilities, writing that the startup’s “world-class team of machine learning researchers” will become part of an internal research group led by Sandeep Pandey.

2. Review: Ring’s new outdoor lighting products are brilliant

Twenty minutes after opening the box and throwing the instructions aside, Matt Burns says he had five new lights installed around his house and configured to his home’s network.

3. Live from WWDC 2019

The keynote starts at 10am Pacific today.

4. Amazon sellers to hit UK high streets in year-long pop-up pilot

The Amazon pop-up pilot program — which is couched as an exploration of “a new model to help up-and-coming online brands grow their high street presence” — will see more than 100 small online businesses selling on the UK high street for the first time.

5. A look at the many ways China suppresses online discourse about the Tiananmen Square protests

The effects of the crackdown appears to have spread beyond China, with the suspension of many Chinese-language Twitter accounts critical of China, even if they originated outside the country. (For what it’s worth, Twitter said this was part of a “routine action.”)

6. ‘Weirdo’ fintech VC Anthemis marches to its own drummer

Apparently, visiting the Anthemis office is like stepping into a Wes Anderson film. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The latest episode of Equity features a discussion of whether the tech press is too positive in its coverage of startups, while the Original Content team reviews the (excellent) animated Netflix series “Tuca & Bertie.”

Netflix announced this morning that it’s producing an animated series based on the popular card game Magic: the Gathering.

Anthony and Joe Russo, the brothers who directed “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” have signed on as executive producers, while Henry Gilroy (a writer on “Star Wars Rebels”) and Jose Molina (“The Tick”) will serve as lead writers.

While many Magic players care less about the plot and more about using the various spells and creatures to defeat their friends, the 26-year-old game has features an elaborate fantasy world and ongoing storylines about wizards known as Planeswalkers — in fact, a Magic novel recently hit The New York Times bestseller list.

Netflix has not announced an episode count or releaes date. Series production will be overseen by the studio Octopie.

“Our goal is to not only tell a compelling story leveraging Magic: The Gathering’s incredible body of work, but to also push the medium and perception of storytelling through animation,” said Octopie CEO Isaac Krauss in a statement. “This series will cross the genres of suspenseful thriller, horror, and drama with deeply developed characters the likes of which are not often seen in animation.”

20th Century Fox previously attempted to turn Magic into a feature film, with “Game of Thrones” writer Bryan Cogman working on the script.