Image Credits: Apple Image Credits: AppleAnother messaging-related update is that on iOS 18, you can see who hit tapback on what emoji.
Image Credit: Screenshot by TechCrunchThere is a new Apps menu in Settings, which replaces all listed apps on the main page.
Image Credit: Screenshot by TechCrunchYou can now define the recommended charging limit in the settings.
iOS 18 now shows this if you are using slow charger like 5w.
iOS 18 will allow users to experience music through haptics such as taps, textures, and refined vibrations that match the track’s audio.
Still, Yahoo has more AI plans in the works, including for its Yahoo News property on the web.
However, while the Yahoo News app is taking learnings from Artifact when it comes to offering AI features, the AI summaries feature found on its Yahoo News is not related to its acquisition of the well-liked AI news app that had been created by Instagram’s founders, but had shut down after failing to reach a wider audience.
That would explain why most visitors to the Yahoo News website would not have likely encountered these AI summaries as of yet.
The code doesn’t reveal much about the underlying technology Yahoo is using for the AI summaries, only how they would appear to site visitors — in a lightbox, a type of web component used for displaying content.
Combined with the Artifact-inspired revamp of Yahoo News and the AI features that arrived on Yahoo Mail, it’s clear that Yahoo is betting on AI to give its older web products and services a push.
iOS apps that build their own social networks on the back of users’ address books may soon become a thing of the past.
In iOS 18, Apple is cracking down on the social apps that ask users’ permission to access their contacts — something social apps often do to connect users with their friends or make suggestions for who to follow.
To give users more control over the contacts an app can and cannot access, the permissions screen has two stages.
Before that, apps like Poparazzi and Clubhouse had demanded full address book access — a growth hack that helped them quickly expand their networks.
iOS 18 will let users decide which contacts an app can access.
360 One WAM, India’s largest wealth manager focused on ultra-high-net-worth individuals, has agreed to acquire popular Indian mutual fund investment app ET Money for about $44 million.
360 One disclosed (PDF) the deal in a stock exchange filing Wednesday evening.
ET Money boasts over 900,000 transacting clients and tracks assets under management of approximately $8.3 billion.
The platform has been a popular choice for retail investors, with monthly mutual fund net flows of around $89.9 million.
ET Money is the second startup from local media powerhouse Times Internet’s portfolio to be sold in recent weeks.
Co-founders Elle Smyth and Sarah Hamer came up with the idea while working together at supply chain unicorn startup, Stord.
“We met each other and bonded over our love for the supply chain industry,” Smyth told TechCrunch.
Warehouse workers have to reference “phone book-sized” manuals of how to ship items to retailers, like Target and Walmart.
If shipping/warehouse workers don’t pack these items correctly, retailers will charge the brands fees, known as a chargeback.
RetailReady replaces those manuals with a digital version that gives workers a directed workflow on how to pack an order correctly.
But a lot of those features were already available to some extent on Apple devices through third-party apps.
So, just like the past few years, we will examine the ideas that Apple “Sherlocked” in this year’s updates.
But what do we mean that Apple “sherlocked” something?
Feature: Voice transcriptionSherlocked apps: Otter, AudioPen, Voicenotes.comApart from call transcription, Apple will also offer voice transcription in apps like Notes with the upcoming updates.
That said, some of these Sherlocked apps might survive by offering customized or enterprise solutions, but some small-scale indie apps will eventually lose users to Apple.
The biggest updates coming to Apple’s iMessage and its Messages app in iOS 18 aren’t its AI emoji, Genmoji, or even the ability to send texts via satellite.
Because of Apple’s longtime refusal to add support for RCS, texting with Android users meant no typing indicators or read receipts, broken group chats, and blurry photos and videos.
Instead, the text box indicates in a light gray font that your texts with someone support both “Text message + RCS,” while the texts themselves are still green.
However, issues that make the Messages app a broken experience for Apple’s customers will be addressed, it seems, as Apple says it will support the standard later this year.
That’s likely why there was no mention of encrypted messaging in Apple’s announcement of RCS.
Win-back subscriptionsApple will let developers reach out to customers who have subscribed to the app to win them back with new offers.
Developers can configure which customers they want to reach out to, and based on that, Apple surfaces win-back offers in the App Store.
“Eligible customers can discover win-back offers across the App Store, including on your product page and in editorial selections on the Today, Games and Apps tabs, as well as within your app,” according to Apple.
Image Credits: AppleImproved search suggestionsApple said that it is adding Focus State to the App Store later this year for improved search.
It gave examples of content creator apps offering subscriptions, apps with large catalogs of content (maybe apps that offer sachet subscriptions to different content), and digital content that spans across different apps managed by one developer.
Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.
The June Pixel drop will allow users to access the model as a developer option.
Apart from that, the feature drop includes Display Port connectivity support for Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a, reverse phone number lookup for unknown numbers, fall and crash detection for Pixel Watch 2, and doorbell notifications on the Pixel tablet.
The update brings manual lens picking in the camera to the Pixel 6 Pro, 7 Pro, and Pixel Fold.
Pixel WatchThe newest Pixel drop brings car crash detection to the Pixel Watch 2.
Traffic is down, newsrooms are undergoing layoffs, and publishers fear that AI technologies will only make matters worse.
Entering the fray, news reader startup Particle is teaming up with publishers to seek out a new business model for the AI era, where AI summaries of news don’t have to mean lost revenues.
Now, the company is bringing its first publishing partners into the mix to help it guide its next steps.
As a start, Particle now subscribes to Reuters newswire to help it deliver information about current events in the news.
What Particle isn’t yet ready to reveal is its business model.
