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Uncover the Greatest WWDC Highlights You Might Have Missed

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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.

“Collaborative Innovation: Picsart and Getty Images Unite to Create a Tailored AI Algorithm”

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Picsart, a photo-editing startup backed by SoftBank, announced on Thursday that it’s partnering with Getty Images to develop a custom model to bring AI imagery to its 150 million users. The company says the model will bring responsible AI imagery to creators, marketers and small businesses that use its platform. Image Credits: Picsart x Getty Images AI ImagePicsart’s AI lab, PAIR, is building the model. The company is also integrating Getty Images video content into Picsart’s platform and making it available to Plus members. Picsart isn’t the first startup that Getty Images has partnered with for responsible AI imagery, as it also partnered with AI image generator, Bria, and Runway, a startup building generative AI for content creators.

LinkedIn Utilizes AI to Streamline the Job Search Process

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“We’ve been building with AI since 2007,” its head of product, Tomer Cohen, said in an interview with TechCrunch this week. Below is a run-down of some of the new features:Job searches and job applications: We’re getting a new way to search for jobs using conversational prompts. You can be sure that LinkedIn is pushing its search algorithms to tap into the interest, but it’s also boosting its content with AI in another way. The third big area LinkedIn is leaning heavily on AI is search. Alongside all this, LinkedIn is expanding availability of Recruiter 2024, adding more tools for marketers, and introducing enhanced, premium company pages for small businesses.

AccountsIQ Raises $65M to Enhance Bookkeeping Tools with Artificial Intelligence

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The economy remains on shaky ground in Europe, but there is some silver lining for enterprise startups: those building tools to help businesses run their finances in more steady and predictable ways are seeing a boost to their business. “We are now poised to take the AccountsIQ product and service to the next level,” said Tony Connolly, founder and CEO of AccountsIQ, in a statement. Thus, the prosaic accounting startup continues to get attention. (AccountsIQ and its primary investor for this round, Axiom Equity, are not disclosing its valuation.) In contrast, Cran says that AccountsIQ positions itself as the platform that businesses will move to as they scale up.

iOS 18 takes strong action against apps that demand complete access to address books

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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.

“WWDC 2024: Apple’s Rob, Or Borrowed? A Look at the Apps that Got Sherlocked”

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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.

“Unveiling the Strategical Decision Behind Apple’s Compact Generative AI Method”

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It’s something Apple is striving to answer with its own take on the category, Apple Intelligence, which was officially unveiled this week at WWDC 2024. Apple Intelligence is a more bespoke approach to generative AI, built specifically with the company’s different operating systems at their foundation. It’s a very Apple approach in the sense that it prioritizes a frictionless user experience above all. The operating systems also feature a feedback mechanism into which users can report issues with the generative AI system. This should function the same with all external models Apple partners with, including Google Gemini.

Quietly Unveiled: TikTok Shop Now Boasts Image Search, Taking On Google’s Dominance

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You could open up the TikTok app and snap a picture of it to find similar items available for purchase on TikTok Shop. The ability to use image search for shopping is something that Google has offered for years with Google Lens, its visual search tool. TikTok recently revealed that TikTok Shop now has more than 15 million sellers worldwide, including over 500,000 in the U.S. It spent more than $400 million on platform safety and created a team of more than 7,500 people to help keep TikTok Shop safe. TikTok has been betting big on e-commerce, as it sees TikTok Shop as its next big potential revenue source.

Apple’s Messages App Finally Adds RCS and Scheduling Text Features

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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.

Voodoo Acquires BeReal in €500M Deal for Mobile Apps and Games

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Voodoo, a French mobile apps and games publisher, has acquired BeReal for €500 million. As part of the acquisition, BeReal co-founder and CEO Alexis Barreyat will leave the company after a transition period. Aymeric Roffé, the CEO of Wizz, one of Voodoo’s social media apps, will take over as CEO of BeReal. On BeReal, users receive a push notification each day prompting them to post they’re up within a two-minute window. “Voodoo has a proven track record of driving significant growth in mobile apps,” said BeReal founder Alexis Barreyat, in the press release.