Month: June 2019

Cherry Ventures, the Berlin-based investor that backs European companies predominantly at seed-stage, has raised a third fund.

The new “Cherry Ventures III” has closed at €175 million and will continue to be focused on seed, although the firm has historically invested at pre-seed and Series A, too. It will remain fairly industry agnostic, backing promising founders and startups both in B2C and B2B.

Existing investments span numerous sectors and include marketplaces (Auto1), mobility (Flixbus), travel (TourRadar), farming and the food chain (Infarm) and logistics (Freighthub), to name just a few. “We are a generalistic [sic] fund and invest across different industry verticals and business models,” explains Cherry Ventures co-founder Filip Dames.

To that end, Cherry says it will begin writing cheques out the new fund this month, ranging in size between €300,000 and €5 million, although it wants to remain “quite flexible” on that front. The firm is also steadfastly backing Europe, where it continues to see “exciting” opportunities.

Below follows an email Q&A with Cherry co-founders founders Filip Dames and Christian Meermann where we discuss the new fund’s remit, why Cherry remains bullish on Europe, what “founder-centric” venture capital looks like, and of course Brexit!

TC: Cherry invests at pre-seed and seed stage (and occasionally Series A) across Europe. Can you be more specific regarding the size of cheque you write and the types of companies, technologies, business models or sectors you are focussing on?

CM: Sure, first of all, seed is our core stage and what we love to invest in. Most of our deals in the last fund were at seed, including pre-seed deals where we backed successful serial entrepreneurs even before the start of their next venture. Cheque sizes vary between €300,000 and €5 million, we are quite flexible there.

FD: In terms of investment focus, we are a generalistic fund and invest across different industry verticals and business models. Six years ago we started with a strong B2C focus with our portfolio companies like Auto1, Flixbus, and TourRadar, but quickly broadened this focus towards B2B with companies like Infarm and Freighthub.

TC: I note that over half of your portfolio companies are based outside of Germany. Was that deliberate and can you share a bit more on how you view the strengths and weaknesses of Germany’s tech hubs vs other tech ecosystems across Europe?

CM: At Cherry we believe that good companies can come from anywhere and this is why we look broader than only Germany and invest across all European ecosystems. Germany has had a very strong last decade in venture with funding peaking at 4.4bn € last year, and it is well positioned to bring this to the next level in the coming years. Berlin, as Germany’s major tech hub has built up a very strong and international talent base. More and more serial entrepreneurs and operators are helping the ecosystem thrive and setting the right foundations for the future.

TC: Is Brexit good or bad for European tech or arguably just bad for the U.K.? Perhaps you can provide your perspective on Brexit as an early-stage VC firm based in Europe but outside of the United Kingdom.

FD: Brexit was one of the most stupid decisions in the last decade and goes against the core of what we believe in: a strong Europe positioned to build the global market leaders of tomorrow. Brexit will harm Europe’s reputation and financial and economic stability. But London and the UK will remain a thriving ecosystem for European technology. So far we have not seen a strong push from UK-based entrepreneurs or companies moving to other European tech hubs because of Brexit. Berlin should have a strong position going forward in attracting any talent leaving the UK as it offers a very attractive environment with a strong international talent pool, low infrastructural costs of running a company, and still fairly moderate salary levels compared to other European capitals.

TC: You say that Cherry wants to “build the most founder-centric early-stage fund in Europe”. Given that in the current climate of arguably an abundance of funding almost every VC is claiming to be “founder-centric,” can you provide some tangible examples of how Cherry is more so or better in this regard?

CM: Everyone on the investment team has been an entrepreneur or operator, so the idea of “Founders First” really runs through our DNA here at Cherry. We see ourselves as a true sparring partner for our portfolio companies, providing advice to build solid foundations and navigate their route to scale. We have also built up internal resources that help founders engage with all other portfolio companies and our team to exchange learnings and know-how, share strong candidates in hiring, etc. Additionally, we support them in recruiting and firm building with our HR team that has already hired CFOs, COOs, and Heads of Sales for various portfolio companies that highly appreciate this support.

TC: You also write that Cherry remains long on Europe as one of the most exciting places in the world to build and invest in companies. Given the myriad issues facing Europe, macro economically and politically, where is that excitement coming from?

FD: There are definitely various macro-economic challenges Europe is facing, but I can think of at least the same amount and magnitude for the US and China. So comparatively, it’s not that bad. ;-)

However, our excitement for European venture does not come only from macro-economic factors, more from the maturity of the European tech ecosystem that is bringing up more and more successful and promising founders with the ambition to build global market leaders. The recent influx of international capital in growth rounds underlines this very clearly.

TC: Is European regulation a strength or a weakness for European tech?

CM: Overall regulation is rather a weakness for European tech and many processes on the way to building a successful company are still way too bureaucratic and slow. However, I would not let this count as an excuse why our European tech scene is still lagging behind. Moreover, European governments should debate more about how to incentivise investments into tech and introduce schemes to mobilise capital from pension funds and corporates to be channeled into venture. This is one of the key funding sources in the US and clearly way behind here in Europe.

TC: Lastly, you’ve invested in quite a number of genuinely interesting companies that are making big bets on how the world is changing or how different things could be. One of those that I covered super early is Infarm, which is literally putting mini farms into grocery stores and appears to be doing well. Which are the founders or startups you’ve invested in to date that have surprised you the most so far?

FD: The surprising thing about great founders is that they often explore totally new territories that nobody ever thought about at seed stage. Infarm wants to change how food is produced in a hugely growing urban population, AMBOSS and Medwing are working on improving medical care by providing knowledge and decision support to doctors around the world. The impact of companies like this can be huge. What makes us so excited about this job is to see founders grow in terms of their vision with every milestone they reach on their journey.

Robotic process automation — which lets organizations shift repetitive back office tasks to machines to complete — has been a hot area of growth in the world of enterprise IT, and now one of the companies that’s making waves in the area has acquired a smaller startup to continue extending its capabilities.

Blue Prism, which helped coin the term RPA when it was founded back in 2001, has announced that it is buying Thoughtonomy, which has built a cloud-based AI engine that delivers RPA-based solutions on an SaaS framework. Blue Prism is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange — where its market cap is around £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) and in a statement to the market alongside its half-year earnings, it said it would be paying up to £80 million ($100 million) for the firm.

The deal is coming in a combination of cash and stock: £12.5 million payable on completion of the deal, £23 million in shares payable on completion of the deal, up to £20 million payable a year after the deal closes; up to £4.5 million in cash after 18 months, and a final £20 million on the second anniversary of the deal closing, in shares. Thoughtonomy had never raised outside funding, although that was not for lack of interest:

“We’ve had approaches on a daily basis since the intelligent automation market has exploded,” said Terry Walby, CEO and founder of Thoughtonomy, in an interview, “but getting the best outcome for the company and our customers is not just about taking money and headlines [touting] our valuation.”

The acquisition comes about six months after Blue Prism announced that it would be raising around $130 million (£100 million) to continue growing at a time when RPA is getting a lot of attention in the market. Linda Dotts, the company’s SVP of global partner strategy and programs, today confirmed that it did raise that money, and that part of the proceeds of that are being used to make the Thoughtonomy acquisition. She also confirmed that it would be looking at other opportunities, a sign that we are likely going to see at least a little more consolidation in this space.

On the same day that it had announced that fundraise, Blue Prism also unveiled a new AI initiative, working with partners to execute on that. And indeed that is what it is getting with Thoughtonomy. The companies were already working together before this — Thoughtonomy’s other key partners are companies like Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud, used to deliver its services — and according to Walby, the idea is that his startup will be helping Blue Prism get its services to the next level of where RPA is going.

“We provide architectural support and add intelligence,” he said in an interview. “Our platform addresses activities that require understanding or interpretation, and so it expands the use cases for RPA beyond structured processes.”

That’s notable given the position of Blue Prism within the RPA landscape. The company is one of the more legacy providers — one of the consequences of being an early mover — and while that gives it a clear advantage of showing it has staying power, in the world of software that can be a more challenging sell when younger companies are building tech from scratch on newer frameworks. (UiPath, which has made major inroads into RPA both in terms of its customer and partner growth, as well as in terms of its funding, is one example.)

And in a market that is still seeing growth (read: companies often operate at a loss to invest in that growth), its ups and downs are there for everyone to see and scrutinise. In its half-year earnings that it posted today, its negative EBITDA margin widened, while group revenues only inched up slightly to £41.6 million and monthly recurring revenues were flat. The longer term picture is a little more interesting, though, with total customer numbers up 91 percent over the same period a year ago.

Microsoft today announced that is first data center regions in the Middle East are now online. The data centers are located in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and will offer local access to the usual suite of services, including Azure’s cloud computing services and Office 365. Support for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft’s Power Platform will arrive later this year.

“In our experience, local datacenter infrastructure supports and stimulates economic
development for both customers and partners alike, enabling companies, governments and regulated industries to realize the benefits of the cloud for innovation and new projects, as well as bolstering the technology ecosystem that supports these projects,” Microsoft’s corporate VP Azure Global writes in today’s announcement. “We anticipate the cloud services delivered from UAE to have a positive impact on job creation, entrepreneurship and economic growth across the region.”

The company first announced these new regions last March. Back in 2017, Microsoft’s cloud rival, Amazon’s AWS, said it would offer a region in Bahrain in early 2019. This region is not online yet, but is still listed as ‘coming soon‘ on the service’s infrastructure map. Google currently has no data center presence in the Middle East and hasn’t announced any plans to change this.

Chances are you always look at photos before you order food in your favorite food delivery app, or before you book a hotel room. French startup Meero wants to make the web and mobile apps look beautiful by helping businesses get good photos. And the company just raised a $230 million funding round.

Eurazeo, Prime Ventures and Avenir Growth are leading today’s funding round. Existing investors include Global Founders Capital, Aglaé Ventures, Alven, White Star Capital and Idinvest. The company says it represents the largest Series C round in France.

At its core, Meero is a comprehensive marketplace of photographers all around the world. This way, companies can find a freelancer and get photos back in less than 24 hours. Essentially, getting professional shots becomes an on-demand process.

The company currently focuses on a few key industries, including real estate, food, experiences, retail and e-commerce. Maybe your favorite Instagram-native brand relies on Meero for their product shots.

But Meero knows that plenty of photographers don’t need leads. That’s why the startup is also providing many services to make their lives easier.

And it start with getting the basics right. Meero takes care of the paperwork. You don’t have to send a contract, you don’t have to collect money from your clients. Of course, Meero takes a cut on transactions.

The company has also been working on automatic photo editing algorithms. If a photographer wants to accept more photo shoots, they need to spend less time editing photos. So Meero is working on AI-powered technology to automatically improve raw shots.

There are currently 80 people on the tech team, and the company plans to grow the tech team to 300 people to go further on this topic.

In the future, Meero plans to launch masterclasses and documentaries for their photographers. There will be more meetups so that photographers can talk together. And the company also plans to unveil a magazine and a foundation to support photography.

But the bigger news is that Meero plans to open up the marketplace to individual customers. And yes, it means that your next wedding could be powered by Meero — that’s a lucrative industry.

Meero has managed to attract 31,000 clients in 100 countries. There are currently 58,000 photographers on the platform. 600 people work directly for Meero across five different offices.

In an announcement today from its support account, Twitter said it is removing the option to tag locations in tweets. The feature will still be available for photos through Twitter’s updated camera. The company said this is because “most people don’t tag their precise location in Tweets.”

Most people don’t tag their precise location in Tweets, so we’re removing this ability to simplify your Tweeting experience. You’ll still be able to tag your precise location in Tweets through our updated camera. It’s helpful when sharing on-the-ground moments.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) June 18, 2019

Twitter users can opt out of location sharing in its “privacy and safety” menu. If you don’t want to share your location details, you should continue keeping the feature turned off since it is still available in Twitter’s camera.

While location tagging may not have been a particularly popular feature (and also posed a potential privacy nuisance for people who didn’t opt out of location sharing), it nonetheless had its uses. For example, researchers used it to study large-scale demonstrations, including Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and the 2013 Vinegar protests in Brazil.

After the location sharing feature for tweets is removed, users who want to share where they are can do so through services like Foursquare or Yelp or location hashtags.

San Francisco is getting closer to banning the sale of e-cigarettes in the city in a bid to prevent minors from accessing them—but the new legislation may also hurt adult smokers who are trying to quit. The city’s Board of Supervisors today voted unanimously to approve two proposals: legislation that would ban the sale or delivery of e-cigarettes in San Francisco and a separate proposal that would prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, on property owned or managed by the city.

The bill to ban the sale of e-cigarettes at stores in the city, as well as the delivery of e-cigarettes purchased online for delivery to San Francisco addresses, still requires final approval. If it passes (a likely outcome since the board voted 11-0 to pass the ordinance), it will go into effect seven months after it is signed by the mayor. Juul, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has already started lobbying to stop the ban.

The second proposed ordinance to ban the sale of e-cigarettes on city property will require two readings and needs to pass a second vote next week before it can be put into effect. It seems designed to take aim at Juul, since the company’s headquarters are in city-owned buildings at Pier 70. (Juul recently bought an office tower on Mission Street, but says it plans to keep its headquarters at Pier 70.)

Many of the most serious concerns over vaping center on underage use. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s research shows the number of middle and high school students who use tobacco products grew from 3.6 million in 2017 to 4.9 million in 2018. The increase was driven in part by e-cigarette use, which rose from 2.1 million in 2017 to 3.6 million in 2018 among middle and high school students.

The use of e-cigarettes by minors is indisputably harmful, especially because nicotine, which is derived from tobacco plants, can harm brain development. Juul, which controls three-fourths of the U.S. e-cigarette market according to Nielsen, has also been accused of contributing to the increase in tobacco product use among teens by lowering the barrier to entry for nicotine addiction. It is currently trying to win favor with regulators by taking steps to prevent underage users from accessing their products.

But a ban on the sale of e-cigarettes may also hurt adult smokers who use vaping to transition off cigarettes. While many vape juices contain nicotine, some are also available without the highly addictive chemical. Juul has drawn fire for only offering pods that contain nicotine, but vapers also use refillable devices to gradually transition to juices with lower levels of nicotine, with some ultimately weaning themselves off dependency.

While the negative impact of both nicotine and cigarettes have been well documented, vaping is a relatively new technology, so there is still little information available about how it affects health. A study by researchers at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center found that urine from people who use e-cigarettes contained higher traces of lead, cadmium, pyrene and acrylonitrile than people who don’t smoke or vape.

On the other hand, some researchers support the use of vaping as a technique to help adult smokers quit or reduce their dependency on cigarettes. For example, the U.K. government recently launched a campaign to convince smokers to switch to vaping instead. From a health perspective, the ideal solution would be to not smoke or vape, but Public Health England, a government agency, claims vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking and said data from its smoking cessation program showed that 65% to 68% of smokers who used e-cigarettes with nicotine replacement therapies, like patches and gum, successfully quit.

Other places in the United States that are working on or have already passed legislation targeting vaping include Aspen City, which recently passed a ban on flavored e-cigarette products (vape juice comes in many flavors, including ones meant to mimic candy, and that has been blamed for making vaping more appealing to kids). In Maine, a bill is being sponsored that would essentially ban vaping by prohibiting the same of nicotine liquid containers. Many states also have laws in place that prohibit vaping wherever cigarettes are also banned.

Earlier this week, music lyrics repository Genius accused Google of lifting lyrics and posting them on its search platform. Genius told the Wall Street Journal that this caused its site traffic to drop. Google, which initially denied wrongdoing but later said it was investigating the issue, addressed the controversy in a blog post today. The company said it will start including attribution to its third-party partners that provide lyrics in its information boxes.

When Google was first approached by the Wall Street Journal, it told the newspaper that the lyrics it displays are licensed by partners and not created by Google. But some of the lyrics (which are displayed in information boxes or cards called “Knowledge Panels” at the top of search results for songs) included Genius’ Morse code-based watermarking system. Genius said that over the past two years it repeatedly contacted Google about the issue. In one letter, sent in April, Genius told Google it was not only breaking the site’s terms of service, but also violating antitrust law—a serious allegation at a time when Google and other big tech companies are facing antitrust investigations by government regulators.

After the WSJ article was first published, Google released a statement that said it was investigating the problem and would stop working with lyric providers who are “not upholding good practices.”

In today’s blog post, Satyajeet Salgar, a group product manager at Google Search, wrote that the company pays “music publishers for the right to display lyrics, since they manage the rights to these lyrics on behalf of songwriters.” Because many music publishers license lyrics text from third-party lyric content providers, Google works with those companies.

“We do not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics. The lyrics you see in information boxes on Search come directly from lyrics content providers, and they are updated automatically as we receive new lyrics and corrections on a regular basis,” Salgar added.

These partners include LyricFind, which Google has had an agreement with since 2016. LyricFind’s chief executive told the WSJ that it does not source lyrics from Genius.

While Salgar’s post did not name any companies, he addressed the controversy by writing “news reports this week suggested that one of our lyrics content providers is in a dispute with a lyrics site about where their written lyrics come from. We’ve asked our partner to investigate the issue to ensure that they’re following industry best practices in their approach.”

In the future, Google will start including attribution to the company that provided the lyrics in its search results. “We will continue to take an approach that respects and compensates rights-holders, and ensures that music publishers and songwriters are paid for their work,” Salgar wrote.

Genius, which launched as Rap Genius in 2009, has been at loggerheads with Google before. In 2013, a SEO trick Rap Genius used to place itself higher in search results ran afoul of Google’s web spam team. Google retaliated by burying Rap Genius links under pages of other search results. The conflict was resolved after less than two weeks, but during that time Rap Genius’ traffic plummeted dramatically.

After a year of teasing out Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic (the company behind Pokémon GO) and WB Games have at long last announced an official release date: June 21st.

The news came this evening at a press event held just outside of Universal Studios’ Wizarding World (where else?), where Niantic also confirmed plans to hold events similar to its Pokémon GO Fests for this new Potter title.

The game first rolled out in a limited “beta” phase in early May, available only in Australia and New Zealand. I asked if the “June 21st” date was for a worldwide rollout, and was told June 21st marks the beginning of a country-by-country rollout with the US and UK currently set to get the game first.

 

Everyone’s worred about Mark Zuckerberg controlling the next currency, but I’m more concerned about a crypto Cambridge Analytica.

Today Facebook announced Libra, its forthcoming stablecoin designed to let you shop and send money overseas with almost zero transaction fees. Immediately, critics started harping about the dangers of centralizing control of tomorrow’s money in the hands of a company with a poor track record of privacy and security.

Facebook anticipated this, though, and created a subsidiary called Calibra to run its crypto dealings and keep all transaction data separate from your social data. Facebook shares control of Libra with 27 other Libra Association founding members and as many as 100 total when the token launches in the first half of 2020. Each member gets just one vote on the Libra council, so Facebook can’t hijack the token’s governance even though it invented it.

With privacy fears and centralized control issues at least somewhat addressed, there’s always the issue of security. Facebook naturally has a huge target on its back for hackers. Not just because Libra could hold so much value to steal, but because plenty of trolls would get off on screwing up Facebook’s currency. That’s why Facebook open sourced the Libra blockchain and is offering a prototype in a pre-launch testnet. This developer beta plus a bug bounty program run in partnership with HackerOne is meant to surface all the flaws and vulnerabilities before Libra goes live with real money connected.

Yet that leaves one giant vector for abuse of Libra: the developer platform.

“Essential to the spirit of Libra . . . the Libra Blockchain will be open to everyone: any consumer, developer, or business can use the Libra network, build products on top of it, and add value through their services. Open access ensures low barriers to entry and innovation and encourages healthy competition that benefits consumers” Facebook explained in its white paper and Libra launch documents. It’s even building a whole coding language called Move for making Libra apps.

Apparently Facebook has already forgotten how allowing anyone to build on the Facebook app platform and its low barriers to ‘innovation’ are exactly what opened the door for Cambridge Analytica to hijack 87 million people’s personal data and use it for political ad targeting.

But in this case, it won’t be users’ interests and birthdays that get grabbed. It could be hundreds or thousands of dollars-worth of Libra currency that’s stolen. A shady developer could build a wallet that just cleans out a user’s account or funnels their coins to the wrong recipient, mines their purchase history for marketing data, or uses them to launder money. Digital risks become a lot less abstract when real-world assets are at stake.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook raced to lock down its app platform, restrict APIs, more heavily vet new developers, and audit ones that look shady. So you’d imagine the Libra Association would be planning to thoroughly scrutinize any developer trying to build a Libra wallet, exchange, or other related app, right? “There are no plans for the Libra association to take a role in actively vetting [developers]” Calibra’s head of product Kevin Weil surprisingly told me.  “The minute that you start limiting it is the minute you start walking back to the system you have today with a closed ecosystem and a smaller number of competitors, and you start to see fees rise.”

That translates to ‘the minute we start responsibly verifying Libra app developers, things start to get expensive, complicated, or agitating to cryptocurrency purists. That might hurt growth and adoption.’ You know what will hurt growth of Libra a lot worse? A sob story about some migrant family or a small business getting all their Libra stolen. And that blame is going to land squarely on Facebook, not some amorphous Libra Association.

Inevitably, some unsavvy users won’t understand the difference between Facebook’s own wallet app Calibra and any other app built for the currency. ‘Libra is Facebook’s cryptocurrency. They wouldn’t let me get robbed’ some will surely say. And on Calibra they’d be right. It’s a custodial wallet that will refund you if your Libra are stolen and it offers 24/7 customer support via chat to help you regain access to your account.

Yet the Libra Blockchain itself is irreversible. Outside of custodial wallets like Calibra, there’s no getting your stolen or mis-sent money back. There’s likely no customer support. And there are plenty of crooked crypto developers happy to prey on the inexperienced. $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen last year alone, according to CypherTrace via CNBC. “As with anything, there’s fraud and there are scams in the existing financial ecosystem today . . .  that’s going to be true of Libra too. There’s nothing special or magical that prevents that” says Weil, who concluded “I think those pros massively outweigh the cons.”

Until now, the blockchain world was mostly inhabited by technologosts, except for when skyrocketing values convinced average citizens to invest in Bitcoin just before prices crashed. Now Facebook wants to bring its family of apps’ 2.7 billion users into the world of cryptocurrency. That’s deeply worrisome.

Regulators are already bristling, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown tweeted that “We cannot allow Facebook to run a risky new cryptocurrency out of a Swiss bank account without oversight.” And French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Europe 1 radio that Libra can’t be allowed to “become a sovereign currency”.

Most harshly, Rep. Maxine Waters issued a statement saying “Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action.”

Yet Facebook has just one vote in controlling the currency, and the Libra Association preempted these criticisms, writing “We welcome public inquiry and accountability. We are committed to a dialogue with regulators and policymakers. We share policymakers’ interest in the ongoing stability of national currencies.”

That’s why as lawmakers confer about how to regulate Libra, I hope they remember what triggered the last round of Facebook execs having to appear before congress and parliament. A totally open, unvetted Libra developer platform in the name of “innovation” over safety is a ticking time bomb. Governments should insist the Libra Association thoroughly audit developers and maintain the power to ban bad actors. In this strange new crypto world, the public can’t be expected to perfectly protect itself from Cambridge Analytica 2.$

Get up to speed on Facebook’s Libra with this handy guide:

Good news for Apple Watch owners who don’t want to clutter up their Watch with unused apps. With the release of the new watchOS 6 operating system later this year, Apple will allow Apple Watch device owners to remove many more of the built-in, first-party apps from their smartwatch — including previously unremovable apps like Alarm, Timer, Stopwatch, Remote, Camera Remote, Radio, and others, as well as health apps like ECG, Breathe, Noise, and Cycle Tracking.

Currently, Apple Watch owners can easily remove the third-party apps they install from the App Store. They can either press and hold on the app to make it wiggle, then tap the “X” that appears to delete it, or they can go into the Apple Watch app settings and toggle off the switch that says “Show on Apple Watch.”

Additionally, users can opt to remove many of the built-in apps from their iPhone, which also then removes its Apple Watch counterpart.

But the dedicated Watch apps (like Timer or Radio, e.g.) couldn’t be removed from the Watch because they had no iOS counterpart to uninstall.

That will change with the launch of watchOS 6 due out later this fall.

This week, Apple gave these previously unremovable apps their own App Store listings. (See chart below).

App release dates — image courtesy of Sensor Tower

This means these apps are also now deletable, as the user can opt to reinstall them from the App Store if they change their mind later on. To delete these apps, the Watch owner can press and hold then hit the “X” to remove them, as they could with third-party apps before.

Not all of the built-in iOS and watchOS can be removed, however. Some, like Heart Rate and Messages, will remain.

The move to make more of the default Watch apps deletable will likely go over well with Apple Watch owners, as it did when Apple made some of its built-in iOS apps removable several years ago with the release of iOS 10. (Remember how great it was to delete Stocks?)

After all, not everyone wants to use the full set of default apps that come with Apple Watch.

Some people don’t get into the whole self-care vibe, like what’s offered by the Apple Watch Breathe app, for example. Meanwhile, only women will have use for the newly launched Apple Watch Cycle Tracking app.

This change to the apps follows news from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) earlier month, where the company announced how watchOS 6 will bring an on-device App Store to the Apple Watch for the first time. This will allow the Watch apps to act more independently from their iOS counterparts. They no longer have to be bundled with the iPhone/iPad app. In fact, developers don’t even have to create an iOS version, if there’s no need.