Mobile – TechCrunch

 There’s no shortage of weather apps on the market, but you may have noticed that few of them are actually all that good. That’s where a new entry called Weather Atlas, from the developer behind the popular productivity app Launch Center Pro, comes in. This newly launched weather application aims to be a better alternative to the stock weather app, offering a more modern take on… Read More

 Google’s search app on iOS is adding a Trending Searches feature, similar to Twitter or Facebook’s Trends, with an update that rolled out later in the day on Thursday. According to the app’s added “What’s New” text on the App Store, Google will now show you searches that are “trending around you” when you tap into the search box to start a search. Read More

 Microsoft’s mobile game streaming app Mixer Create is launching out of beta testing today on iOS and Android, allowing gamers to broadcast the games they’re playing right from their phone. This feature works on Android with all games, but is more limited on iOS. On iPhone, select games that have enabled Apple’s ReplayKit functionality will work, the company notes. That… Read More

 SanDisk has a new record-breaking microSD coming to market, which will deliver so much storage you might be at a loss as to what to do with it all. The new 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card is the world’s highest capacity card of its type, and is ideally suited for use in Android smartphones that feature an expansion slot. Android’s most recent versions allow you to adopt… Read More

 Disruptor Beam has already created games based on Star Trek and Game of Thrones. Next up is The Walking Dead, with the launch of The Walking Dead: March to War. To build the game, which was first announced last year, the company partnered with Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment. That means the game is technically an adaptation of the comics, but the environments… Read More

 Garmin has three new wearable devices it’s debuting at IFA 2017, including the vivosport GPS-enabled activity tracker, the vivomove HR hybrid touchscreen smartwatch and the vivoactive 3, a smartwatch with Garmin Pay, which supports Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards to enable mobile payments on the go. The Garmin vivoactive 3 includes GPS, a heart rate monitor, and battery life of… Read More

 Launching a product and company from scratch is hard, as fresh-faced entrepreneurs and Kickstarter successes often learn to their chagrin. And it turns out even heavy hitters like Andy Rubin and his mobile startup Essential have unpleasant lessons to learn — in this case, about how even a small detail like a mailing list configuration can put your entire company at risk. Read More

 Some of us like sports but don’t want to pay for channels we’ll never watch. Fortunately there are ways to watch the NFL without cable for the 2017-2018 season. I’m a Baltimore Ravens fan, and I live in San Francisco. It will cost me $17.87 per game to watch every Ravens game from the 2017-2018 NFL season without cable, satellite, or antenna. That’s a lot less than it… Read More

 Amazon appears to be planning an expansion of Alexa’s existing messaging capabilities to support sending SMS text messages to friends using your Echo device or Alexa app. That means Echo users could then text anyone using voice commands, not only other Echo owners. According to code found in the Amazon Alexa app, there are references to a new type of phone number – referred to… Read More

 Dropbox continues to tune its products as it tries to tap a bigger audience within larger companies with some updates today to its collaboration tool Paper, including the ability to preview documents before loading them. As a blank slate, Paper is increasingly popular with designers you might talk to in Silicon Valley. It basically turns the process of designing and building a product spec into… Read More

 The next version of iOS will bring augmented reality to the masses through a software package called ARKit. As the following demos show, this will turn the iPhone into a window of a new world filled with people, objects and dreams that seemingly coexist with the real world. TechCrunch got an early look at some of the apps developers built using ARKit. They’re impressive: Ikea… Read More

 Those betting big on AI making voice the dominant user interface of the future are not betting so big as to believe their respective artificially intelligent voice assistants will be the sole vocal oracle that Internet users want or need. Read More

 Google announced an update to Google Maps today that will make it easier for its users to find parking when they drive into town. For a while now, Google Maps users in the U.S. were able to see if parking at their destination was likely going to be difficult or not, thanks to the “parking difficulty” icon on the Google Maps destination card. This feature is now expanding to 25… Read More

 There is a general misconception that Apple is strictly about consumer tools, but the fact is that the company has a big presence in the enterprise just by the sheer number of iPhones and iPads in the business world. It also has some high-profile partnerships with hefty enterprise vendors like IBM, SAP and Cisco. Today, Apple announced that it is building on those relationships with a brand… Read More

 If you like to keep on top of the latest display tech, you’re probably familiar with Ray Soneira’s exhaustive testing of the screens on the newest smartphones and other devices. His latest target is the Galaxy Note 8, and it turns out Samsung’s phablet sports the best screen they’ve ever seen on a phone. Read More

 Last week, Amazon said that its massive $13.7 billion deal to acquire Whole Foods is wrapping up on Monday — giving it access to one of the strongest food brands in the United States, as well as hundreds of grocery stores in metropolitan areas. That means it’s going to be easier and easier for people to get access to great ingredients, and there’s been a continued trickle… Read More

 The Essential Phone started arriving in the hands of media and reviewers just last week, and as of today it’s now also shipping out to its first customers. Essential announced the news via its Twitter account, and told early buyers to keep an eye out for tracking info sent out via email. Read More

 The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is nearly here, with general availability set for September 15 and pre-orders on now. The smartphone was revealed with much fanfare during an event in NYC on Thursday, and Samsung drew particular attention to its new optically stabilized dual-camera system and improved S Pen stylus as the features that set it apart from the similar Galaxy S8 and S8+. The Note… Read More

 Apps are dominating consumers’ digital media habits, but getting people to try new ones is still a tough sell. That’s the latest from comScore’s newly released 2017 U.S. Mobile Apps Report, which finds that 57 percent of consumers’ time spent using digital media is now taking place in mobile apps. Of that, 50 percent is occurring in smartphone apps versus only 7 percent… Read More

 Wattpad, the social publishing platform behind apps for sharing original stories and chat fiction, is today venturing into video with the launch of a new app called Raccoon. Unlike its predecessors, Raccoon will focus on non-fiction video-based storytelling, with the goal of connecting people who want to create and watch stories that either entertain or inspire. While Raccoon still fits… Read More