Technolgy Rules: Daily Crunch: Smartphone sales decline again

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Daily Crunch: Smartphone sales decline again

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Smartphone sales declined again in Q2, surprising no one

After years of growth, the smartphone market’s recent slide has continued in the second quarter of 2019, according to Gartner.

It’s not a huge decline — 1.7% year over year — but this could turn into an ongoing problem for manufacturers. And the biggest hit is coming at the high end of the market, as higher prices combine with longer refresh cycles and fewer compelling features.

2. Yelp will let users personalize their homepage and search results

If you’re a vegetarian, or if you’re a parent who’s usually looking for kid-friendly restaurants, you no longer have to reenter that information every time you do a search. Instead, you can enter it once and Yelp will prioritize those results moving forward.

3. Ron Johnson’s e-commerce startup Enjoy raises $150M, expands in U.K.

Through partnerships with other companies, including AT&T, Sonos, Google and now EE, Enjoy creates an online mobile store where customers can shop for devices and receive same-day delivery. They can also opt to have an Enjoy expert deliver the item and help them get set up, free of charge.

Fairphone 3 running Android 9 out of the box

4. Can Fairphone 3 scale ethical consumer electronics?

Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise that’s on a mission to rethink the waste and exploitation that underpins the business of consumer electronics, announced its third smartphone today.

5. Facebook is working with HackerOne on a bug bounty program for its Libra cryptocurrency

Facebook is moving ahead with its cryptocurrency project, even as government regulators have called for the company to suspend it while they assess its legality.

6. The BBC is developing a voice assistant, code named ‘Beeb’

Why is a publicly funded broadcaster ploughing money into developing a voice assistant? A BBC spokesperson said the intent is to “experiment with new programmes, features and experiences without someone else’s permission to build it in a certain way.”

7. How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

In-depth tips from VMG Ignite, a consultancy that’s worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising. (Extra Crunch membership required.)