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Daily Crunch: Apple upgrades the keyboard on the 13-inch MacBook Pro

Apple announces a new MacBook Pro, tech stocks take a dip and Uber Eats shuts down in seven markets. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 4, 2020. 1. The 13-inch MacBook Pro gets Apple’s much-improved keyboard Following in the footsteps of the MacBook Air and 16-inch Pro, Apple’s 13-inch Pro model is finally getting the […]




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Apple and Google release sample code, UI and detailed policies for COVID-19 exposure-notification apps

Apple and Google are providing additional resources for developers working with the first version of their Exposure Notification API, the development tools the companies have created and are working on in order to provide a cross-platform way for public health agencies to notify individuals of a potential exposure to a person with a confirmed case […]




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Autotech Ventures raises more than $150 million with an eye on ground transportation startups

Autotech Ventures popped on the scene three years ago with a $120 million debut fund and a plan to invest in early-stage ground transportation startups. Now, with investments in 26 startups and a handful of exits, including Xnor.ai, DeepScale and Frontier Car Group, the venture firm is back with a new, bigger fund and the […]




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Your iPhone will soon be able to tell 911 about your medical conditions and allergies

Got something in your medical history that first responders should know about if you call 911? Things like known drug allergies, or the medications you’re on? The iPhone and Apple Watch will soon be able to share this information with first responders automatically (if you opt to let it do so). When a user with […]




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Smartwatch shipments grew during the first quarter of 2020, with Apple Watch still in first place

Despite the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global smartwatch shipments continued to grow during the first three months of the year, driven by online sales, says a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. Shipments grew 20% annually to reach 13.7 million units in the first quarter of 2020, up from 11.4 million units […]




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Apple awards $10 million to rapidly scale COVID-19 sample collection kit production

Apple has awarded $10 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, a company focused on producing sample collection kits for testing COVID-19 to hospitals in the U.S. The money comes from the fund that Apple established to support the development and growth of U.S.-based manufacturing, but is particularly notable because to date, the […]




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Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch review

With the new MacBook, Apple closes one of the more unfortunate product chapters in its history. The upgraded 13-inch mercifully marks the end of the failed five-year experiment that was the butterfly switch. I won’t go into too much detail here. If you’ve purchased a MacBook in the past several years, you almost certainly know […]




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Xiaomi, Samsung and others begin to resume smartphone production in India

Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Oppo and other smartphone companies have received approval from some state governments in India to partially resume manufacturing and assembling of devices amid the ongoing lockdown in the world’s second largest handset market that completely shut operations at these plants in late March. The companies said that they have secured permission to […]




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Marx, Gramsci and strikes: life at Tony Benn University

Thinking up the most leftwing ideas imaginable is tricky when several were in the last Labour manifesto




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David Lammy: ‘The British aren’t interested in revolution’

The Labour MP on his vision of civic service, Jeremy Corbyn — and forging unity around the maypole




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Coronavirus brings a reminder of the iron law of politics

Lofty ideas about open economies will have to be sold on directly improving voters’ lives




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Why coronavirus is making me miss Brexit

In a choice between discussing the WTO and the WHO, I’d take a rules-of-origin trade debate any day




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UK must tailor coronavirus action to restore faith

Britain has less margin for error because it is zigging to everyone else’s zag




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Home working’s fine — if you’re home alone

’I’m on my second day, drinking too much coffee and feeling I’d enjoy it more if everyone else wasn’t here too’




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The new Labour leader must play a patient game

All the opposition can do now is ask the right questions and be seen to behave responsibly




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Can Matt Hancock’s 5-point plan solve the testing crisis?

Health secretary pledges to increase tests to 100,000 a day in England by enlisting big companies and private labs




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UK parliament has been shamefully missing in this crisis

Democratic politics functions on the premise that accountability improves outcomes




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Wishing this Passover night was more like other nights

Coronavirus lockdown limits celebration of one of Judaism’s most festive occasions




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Covid-19: how I’m betraying my class in the lockdown

No family song on Facebook, no dance routine, no home-grown tomatoes… is it time to raise our game?




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Johnson’s illness has made him more powerful

The UK prime minister’s brush with death has deepened his ties with voters




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Robert Shrimsley: After the coronavirus phone tracker, a few other life-saving apps

Post-lockdown, technology could help us contain Covid-19. But why stop there?




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Culture wars are infecting the UK’s pandemic strategy

The attempt to set up gender equality and ethnic diversity as the enemies of prosperity is telling




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My new government-inspired ‘non-information strategy’ ’

Whether on pocket money or holidays, I see the wisdom in refusing to discuss important decisions




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Andy Street: can the Tory ‘red wall’ mayor help transform the UK?

The John Lewis veteran came late to politics — and wants to bring power back to the regions




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Weighed down by my coronavirus diet

Before lockdown, my desire to eat Hobnobs outweighed my desire to be thinner. Not any more




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MacBook Pro 16” first impressions: Return of the Mack

In poker, complacency is a quiet killer. It can steal your forward momentum bit by bit, using the warm glow of a winning hand or two to cover the bets you’re not making until it’s too late and you’re out of leverage.  Over the past few years, Apple’s MacBook game had begun to suffer from […]




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GitHub launches a mobile app, smarter notifications and improved code search

At its annual Universe conference today, Microsoft -owned GitHub announced a couple of new products, as well as the general availability of a number of tools that developers have been able to test for the last few months. The two announcements that developers will likely be most interested in are the launch of GitHub’s first […]




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Adobe details feature roadmap for Photoshop on the iPad, subject selection coming in 2019

Adobe has taken quite a bit of heat for its release of Photoshop on the iPad, mostly because it’s not as feature-complete as a lot of users were hoping, given that this is meant to be a full version of Photoshop on par with the desktop edition on Apple’s tablet OS for the first time. […]




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Adobe celebrates Photoshop’s 30th anniversary with new desktop and mobile features

Adobe’s Photoshop celebrates its 30th birthday today. Over that time, the app has pretty much become synonymous with photo editing and there will surely be plenty of retrospectives. But to look ahead, Adobe also today announced a number of updates to both the desktop and mobile Photoshop experiences. The marquee feature here is probably the […]




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Apple could add mouse cursor support to the iPad

According to a report from 9to5mac, Apple could be working on full cursor support for the next major version of iOS and iPadOS. The report is based on code of an early version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. If Apple ships that new feature, it means that you’ll be able to use a Bluetooth […]




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iPads become more laptop-like with the arrival of full mouse and trackpad support

Apple just dumped a bunch of hardware news online via press release. That’s just the world we live in right now. We’ll probably be seeing a whole lot of this in the coming weeks and months, as companies adjust to the new online reality. Along with a new MacBook Air and update to the Mac […]




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Daily Crunch: Apple unveils new iPad Pro and MacBook Air

Apple has new hardware coming, the U.S. government may use cell phone data to track the spread of COVID-19 and Fox acquires a streaming company. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 18, 2020. 1. Apple announces new iPad Pro The new iPad Pro looks more-or-less like the existing iPad Pro, but with better specifications, plus […]




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Review: 100,000 miles and one week with an iPad Pro

For the past eighteen months, the iPad Pro has been my only machine away from home, and until recently, I was away from home a lot, traveling domestically and internationally to event locations around the world or our offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Every moment of every day that I wasn’t at […]




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Apple brings its hardware microphone disconnect feature to iPads

Apple has brought its hardware microphone disconnect security feature to its latest iPads. The microphone disconnect security feature aims to make it far more difficult for hackers to use malware or a malicious app to eavesdrop on a device’s surroundings. The feature was first introduced to Macs by way of Apple’s T2 security chip last […]




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Apple’s iPad Pro Magic Keyboard arrives next week, ahead of schedule

The global supply chain is currently being squeezed from all angles amid a global pandemic. At least one product, however, will arrive ahead of schedule. Originally planned for a May arrival, the iPad Pro’s new trackpad-sporting Magic Keyboard is up for preorder now and set to start shipping next week. You can read all of […]




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Apple’s Magic Keyboard Review: Laptop class typing comes to iPad Pro

Over the past two years, I’ve typed nearly every word I’ve written while traveling on the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard Folio. For more on why, you can see my iPad Pro review here. For the purposes of this look at the new Magic Keyboard, though, you should probably just know two things about the old […]




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3D-printed glasses startup Fitz is making custom protective eyewear for healthcare workers

A lot of startups have answered the call for more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials to support healthcare workers in their efforts to curb the spread and impact of COVID-19. One of those is direct-to-consumer 3D-printed eyewear brand Fitz, which is employing its custom-fit glasses technology to build protective, prescription specs for front-line […]




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Apple said to sell Macs powered by in-house ARM-based chips as early as 2021

Apple’s long-rumored Mac ARM chip transition could happen as early as next year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The report says that Apple is currently working on three Mac processors based on the design of the A14 system-on-a-chip that will power the next-generation iPhone. The first of the Mac versions will greatly exceed […]




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Commercial real estate could be in trouble, even after COVID-19 is over

Commercial real estate owners, brokers and landlords have collectively made many hundreds of billions of dollars a year in recent years as the economy zipped along. Now, they’re getting clobbered by the pandemic-fueled economic crisis. Worse, their industry may be forever changed by it. To state the obvious, extracting rent from nearly anyone right now […]




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India says video conference app Zoom is ‘not safe’

India said today Zoom is ‘not a safe platform’ and advised government employees to not use it for official work as the video conference service surges in popularity in many nations including the world’s second largest internet market as billions of people remain stuck at home due to the coronavirus crisis. “Zoom is a not a […]




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Trump’s hype for state lockdown protests puts Twitter and Facebook’s new COVID-19 policies to the test

A new flurry of tweets from President Trump is pushing the limits of social platform policies designed explicitly to keep users safe from the spread of the novel coronavirus, both online and off. In a series of rapid-fire messages on Friday morning, Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE” Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan, all states led […]




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Twitter will remove dubious 5G tweets ‘that could potentially cause harm’

Ever since it first started rolling out, 5G skeptics have attempted to link the next-gen cellular technology to all manner of health issues. Most recently, it’s become an easy scapegoat for the global COVID-19 pandemic, given the rapid rise of both. Conspiracy theories have gained such a foothold that vigilantes have taken matters into their […]




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Stay-at-home order for 7 million Bay Area residents extended to end of May

A stay-at-home order for several San Francisco Bay Area counties will be extended through the end of May due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision that affects 7 million residents and thousands of businesses. The Public Health Officers of the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara as well […]




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Twitter says Elon Musk’s tweets advocating against expert COVID-19 guidance don’t violate its rules

Twitter has said that tweets posted early Tuesday morning by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that irresponsibly call for restrictions put in place to defend against the spread of COVID-19 don’t violate its guidelines around inaccurate or disputed information about the coronavirus that could cause harm. Musk tweeted a series of things on Tuesday, […]




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Twitter Q1: sales up 3% to $808M as it swings to a loss on COVID-19, mDAUS hit record 166M

Despite traffic for many online properties being at an all-time high, advertising has fallen off a cliff because of the downturn in consumer activity outside the home and the wider economic pressures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. And today, Twitter reported quarterly earnings that bore this trend out. The ad-based social networking and media company said that […]





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Tesla shares fall on Elon Musk ‘stock price too high’ tweet

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Friday that the company’s stock price was “too high” in his opinion, immediately sending shares into a free fall and in possible violation of an agreement reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year. Tesla shares fell nearly 12% in the half hour following his stock price tweets […]




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Silver Lake to invest $747M in India’s Jio Platforms

Weeks after Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms, India’s top telecom operator, private equity firm Silver Lake is following suit — and is willing to pay a premium for it. Silver Lake announced on Monday it will be investing 56.56 billion Indian rupees (about $746.8 million) in Jio Platforms for about 1.15% stake in the Indian […]




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Oxwash bags $1.7M for a cleaner spin on laundry

Oxwash, a UK-based laundry startup that’s aiming to disrupt traditional but environmentally costly washing and dry-cleaning processes by using ozone to sterilize fabrics at lower temperatures, along with electric cargo bikes for hyper local pick ups and deliveries, has bagged a £1.4 million (~$1.7M) seed. Backers in the funding round include TrueSight Ventures, Biz Stone […]




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Twitter runs a test prompting users to revise ‘harmful’ replies

In its latest effort to deal with rampant harassment on its platform, Twitter will look into giving users a second chance before they tweet. In a new feature the company is testing, users who use “harmful” language will see a prompt suggesting that they self-edit before posting a reply. When things get heated, you may […]