Samsung has confirmed via the Korean website Chosun Ilbo that it has shipped over 6 million units of the Galaxy S4 since its international release on April 26. According to the firm, this is the fastest ever sell rate for a Galaxy S smartphone, or any other Samsung smartphone for that matter. Specifically, the Galaxy S4 hit 4 million shipments between April 26 (release date) and April 30, and had… → Read More
Fresh off its $2 million in Series A funding, in-app mobile payments platform ZooZ is announcing a new product today: in-ad payments. Yes, that’s right, “ad” not “app.” The big idea here is to streamline the checkout process for consumers by addressing some of the challenges with e-commerce on mobile’s small screen, and now connecting that process to mobile… → Read More
As online advertising transitions from desktop to mobile, it stands that startups operating in the wider mobile ad ecosystem are well-placed to benefit. To that end, click-to-call startup Freespee is announcing a neat tie-in today with Nasdaq OMX, Stockholm-listed Tradedoubler that will see the performance marketing network offer advertisers clickable phone numbers and, crucially, call tracking… → Read More
Flowboard is trying create the best tools for “interactive storytelling” on a tablet. And the best way to illustrate those tools is through a demo, so founder and CEO Brent Brookler stopped by the TechCrunch office today to show us the app.
First, Brookler showed us the beginning of creating a presentation. He chose a template, imported media, and was able to directly manipulate that media… → Read More
Cydia, a platform commonly thought of as the alternative app store for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, has just today arrived on Android of all places. Though Android is by its nature more open and customizable than Apple’s locked-down iOS, it now has a growing collection of apps designed for power users who root their devices – a process that’s similar in spirit to the iOS jailbreak. Cydia for… → Read More
BlackBerry’s wryly jovial CEO Thorsten Heins spent quite a bit of time talking up the new mid-range Q5 at this morning’s BlackBerry Live keynote address, but the folks in Waterloo may be working on a follow-up smartphone that’s staggeringly different than the one we saw today.
According to a report from KnowYourMobile, the struggling Canadian company is working an all-touch BlackBerry… → Read More
Nokia has added another device to its burgeoning Lumia portfolio of smartphones today, with the introduction of the Lumia 925: a sleek, PureView-branded handset that will be its first flagship on T-Mobile U.S. At today’s London launch, Nokia executive VP of smart devices, Jo Harlow, sat down with TechCrunch to field a few questions. → Read More
Loop co-founder and CEO Rajit Marwah argued that “surveys and reviews are everywhere” — but they’re often ignored or delayed. With his new startup, on the other hand, Marwah said he’s giving businesses a way to create and conduct those surveys instantly.
When a business downloads the Loop iOS app, they can use one of the app’s survey templates (the templates are based on business type, such as… → Read More
Meet the Lumia 925, the latest smartphone flagship in Nokia’s increasingly populous Windows Phone portfolio. The 925 is clearly Nokia’s answer to criticisms of its high end devices being too heavy. The 925 drops a full 46g compared to the earlier Lumia 920, weighing in at 139g vs the 920’s hefty 185g. The phone feels pleasingly light in the hand, helped by its slender profile. → Read More
With a new iPhone app called Limelight, Oliver Cameron (best-known as the co-founder of private social network Everyme) aims to answer the question, “What am I going to watch tonight?”
The app’s basic functionality is pretty straightforward. You can create lists of movies that you’ve watched (rating them between 0 and 5 stars) and that you want to watch. You can also browse lists of highly… → Read More
PayPal today announced Cash for Registers to encourage merchants to switch to PayPal-powered point-of-sale solutions. The program is part of the payment giant’s bid to be the kingpin among local merchants looking for lower-cost ways of accepting credit card payments. The announcement comes on the same day that Square launched Stand to complement its Square register product on iPad tablets and… → Read More
Parents of preschoolers can finally let go of “iPad guilt” – the term that refers to that terrible feeling you get when you use the iPad as babysitter. Today, a company called Kidaptive is launching one of the most comprehensive feedback systems for parents to date, allowing them to get a hand of their child’s learning and development by simply handing over the iPad and letting their child play. → Read More
Today at BlackBerry Live, CEO Thorsten Heins announced BBM will soon be available on Android and iOS. The messaging app will launch globally this summer. This is a huge move for BlackBerry as it brings BB10′s strongest feature to literally hundreds of millions of potential users.
“It is a state of confidence,” Heins explained. “The BB10 platform is so strong and the response has been so good… → Read More
BlackBerry has just announced the BlackBerry Q5 smartphone, the latest BB10 handset to come out of the Waterloo-based firm. Like the Q10, the Q5 has a QWERTY keyboard and comes in a host of colors, including red, black, white and pink.
“I know it’s going to be a big hit,” said Thorsten Heins, as he made the announcement. → Read More
Fresh on the heels of announcing new streamlined pricing plans, Aereo is announcing plans to launch its service in Atlanta as part of its move to expand outside of New York and across the country.
The service will launch in Atlanta on June 17 for users who pre-register for the service. Then, on June 24, Aereo will open up the service to everyone in the Atlanta area. → Read More
Realmac Software is showing off its latest app today, ahead of a launch to come later in the month. The app is called Analog, and is an iPhone version of its desktop quick and easy photo manipulation software. I’ve been beta testing the software, and the experience it provides is in keeping with Realmac’s other recent mobile releases, like the super simple to-do app Clear it created in… → Read More
Nokia is going big on the camera features in its new 925 and 928 Lumia devices, continuing on in its PureView legacy first introduced back when it was still making Symbian devices. Within that it is adding a few key apps to the device — Oggl from Hipstamatic, the slick video sharing app Vyclone and Cinemagraph — but there is still no sign of popular picture-taking and picture-sharing app… → Read More
Fresh from last week’s Verizon Lumia device launch, Nokia has taken the wraps off a new smartphone in its Windows Phone-based Lumia range at an event in London today. The Lumia 925 is its first flagship for T-Mobile in the U.S. This means that following the Lumia 928 launch on Verizon, and factoring in Nokia’s initial launch of the Lumia 920 on AT&T last year, Nokia now has a… → Read More
Gartner has just released its Q1 figures for mobile handset sales, and the key takeaway is that Android continues to steal the show, led by handset maker Samsung. Google’s mobile platform now accounts for nearly 75% of all handset sales, a jump of almost 20 percentage points on a year ago, and equating to 156 million devices sold in the three-month period. Smartphones sales grew by 63 million… → Read More
With the proliferation of smartphones, we’re now able to use these mobile, mini computers to do just about everything we would do on our desktop while on the go. Yet, in spite of this evolution, mobile payments seems to be lagging behind. We use our phones to capture pictures and video, and share them instantaneously, but the average smartphone carrier is less comfortable with the idea of paying… → Read More
Google’s big annual developer conference kicks off on Wednesday, and while Android lead Sundar Pichai has downplayed big new announcements at Google I/O this year, we’ve also seen reports that suggest the Nexus line of Google-branded hardware won’t go completely untouched. → Read More
In the interest of protecting children, a new iOS application called AppCertain has debuted a monitoring application aimed at parents. The app, whose goal is to alert parents about the nature of the applications their kids are downloading, involves the use of a “configuration profile” – special software Apple originally intended for enterprise use, not consumer-facing apps sold… → Read More
Gone are the simple days of running a small business; gone is the time when a disgruntled customer’s voice had a lifespan of a few days.
We live in the future now, where reviews live forever. Where a few lil’ red stars can make or break your business.
OwnerListens is trying to give customers a more direct alternative to Yelp — and they’ve just raised over a million bucks to do it. → Read More
Q: Why does a to do list application need $3.5 million in funding? A: Because it’s becoming more than a simple to do app. Today, Any.DO one of the more popular to do list applications for web and mobile, announced a seed round of funding led by existing investor Genesis Partners, with participation from both current and new investors Innovation Endeavors (Eric Schmidt’s fund), Joe… → Read More
Silverpop, the marketing tech company that announced $25 million in new funding last month, is announcing a new feature to help customers adapt to all the different ways that people are opening their emails.
The feature, called Email Insights, accomplishes three main tasks, the company says. First, it allows them to preview how an email will look in up to 30 different apps across multiple… → Read More
HTC’s Facebook Home-laden First smartphone may only have debuted on AT&T last month, but it appears that the device may be a dud as far as consumers are concerned. According to a report from BGR’s Zach Epstein, sales of the HTC First smartphone have been so disappointing that AT&T will soon be dropping the device from its lineup completely and shipping all unsold inventory back to HTC. → Read More
E-commerce leviathan Amazon today is taking a step into social gaming: Amazon Coins, its new virtual currency, is now live in the U.S. To kick it off, Amazon announced that it would put $5 worth of the currency — equivalent to 500 Coins — into all Kindle Fire users’ accounts to use on apps and in-app purchases on its platform. The company says that this is equivalent to “tens of millions of… → Read More
Flipboard has just updated its iOS app to add a few more features for its 50 million+ readers. Back in March, Flipboard announced a new feature that would include user-created magazines, which seems to have excited Flippers.
In fact, the company announced that users have already created 500,000 curated magazines. Like our’s. → Read More
Finnish MeeGo startup Jolla has been trailing the launch of its first handset ever since it started work on its Sailfish UI back in 2012. Since then, Jolla has shown off its MeeGo-based Sailfish software and released an SDK but kept its hardware plans tightly under wraps. That’s set to change very soon though, judging by a press invite sent out today. → Read More
Google’s Sundar Pichai spoke to Wired in an interview published today ahead of Google I/O this week, describing what it’s like to be taking the helm of both Android and Chrome going into the annual conference. Pichai took over for Andy Rubin, who stepped out of his role heading up Android back in March.
These days, he says not much has changed around his thinking about Chrome and Android, but… → Read More
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