TechCrunch had some big internal news this week, as we said goodbye to co-editor Alexia Tsotsis and Conference Program Chair Susan Hobbs. In other tech news, Clinkle kicked the bucket, Spotify announced new additions to its service, Apple debuted a new MacBook, and much more. These are our best stories from this week (5/15-5/21).
1. We congratulated our co-editor Alexia Tsotsis on her acceptance to business school as a Stanford Sloan fellow and our events director Susan Hobbs on her new position at Y Combinator. They will both be missed greatly, and we are excited to see what the next steps in their careers will bring for them.
2. Clinkle, the frequently mocked payment rewards startup, imploded as seven employees simultaneously quit due to frustrations with the company’s 24-year-old CEO Lucas Duplan.
3. John Biggs, TechCrunch’s resident watch enthusiast, goes into detail about why he’s still wearing his Apple Watch.
4. Apple debuted a new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch and a $2,000 27-inch Retina iMac.
5. A new survey by the Pew Research Center says that less than 31% of American adults expressed confidence in government’s ability to safeguard their data. Natasha Lomas describes what this could mean for US citizens, the government, and tech services.
6. John Biggs wrote about the Light Phone, an anti-smartphone that is the size of a credit card, lasts 20 days on a charge, and literally does nothing but make and answer calls – and that’s the point.
7. Spotify announced that it will be introducing video, news, and podcasts to its service, and unveiled new features for runners, like songs that change based on your pace.
8. The tenth annual Bay Area Maker Faire was in full swing this week, and Sarah Buhr wrote about some of the most interesting inventions, including giant robots, a motorized rhinoceros and a banana piano.
9. Matthew Lynley wrote an in-depth piece about Tilt, the startup centered around funding projects that is well on its way to being worth $400 million.
10. We sat down with Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp to talk about the company’s global ambitions, the Apple Watch and the SF housing crisis.
11. Danny Crichton analyzed the EdTech space, suggesting we need to think more deeply about human motivation and primacy in order to build a new mix of educational tech on par with what universities offer.
12. Guest contributor Bill Briggs wrote about some key points that companies developing for the Internet of Things should consider in order to succeed.
13. The competitive landscape for app development tool providers got a little bit tighter, as Meteor Development Group raised $20M to build one JavaScript stack to rule them all.