Tag: mobile
Top 10 US astrology apps drew in $40M in 2019, up 65% from 2018
In uncertain times, people go looking for answers in unusual places. And in 2019, many U.S. consumers found their answers in the stars — or, more specifically, in a group of increasingly popular astrology apps offering horoscopes, fortunes, palm-reading and mobile access to psychics, among other things. According to new…
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mParticle raises $45M to help marketers unify customer data
mParticle, which helps companies like Spotify, Paypal and Starbucks umanage their customer data, is announcing that it has raised $45 million in Series D funding. Co-founder and CEO Michael Katz told me that the company has benefited from broader shifts — like new privacy regulation and the shift away from…
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This Week in Apps: Coronavirus impacts app stores, Facebook sues mobile SDK maker, Apple kicks out a cloud gaming app
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads in 2019 and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019,…
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FCC proposes $200M in fines for wireless carriers that sold your location for years
The FCC has officially and finally determined that the major wireless carriers in the U.S. broke the law by secretly selling subscribers’ location data for years with almost no constraints or disclosure. But its Commissioners decry the $200 million penalty proposed to be paid by these enormously rich corporations, calling…
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Facebook Messenger ditches Discover, demotes chat bots
Chat bots were central to Facebook Messenger’s strategy three years ago. Now they’re being hidden from view in the app along with games and businesses. Facebook Messenger is removing the Discover tab this week as it focuses on speed and simplicity instead of broad utility like China’s WeChat. The changes…
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Facebook brings its 3D photos feature to users with single-camera phones
Facebook first showed off its 3D photos back in 2018, and shared the technical details behind it a month later. But unless you had one of a handful of phones with dual cameras back then (when they weren’t so common), you couldn’t make your own. Today an update brings 3D…
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