Google confirmed its Google Assistant feature for booking restaurant reservations via the phone, powered by Duplex’s A.I. technology, has begun to roll out to more Android and iOS devices across the U.S. in English. The expansion sets the stage for potential mainstream adoption – especially as it goes cross-platform for the first time.
During its original demo at last May’s Google I/O developer conference, Duplex’s system mimicked human speech so well that it immediately raised ethical questions about how much an A.I. bot should sound like a person, and how that should be disclosed to the person on the other end of the line. People also wondered if the demo was fake.
What wasn’t clear at the time how long it would take Duplex to become a real-world product. As it turned out, that happened quickly.
Only months after its unveiling, Duplex was moved to public testing in major markets like New York and San Francisco. Less than a year later, it went live to Pixel 3 owners in 43 U.S. states. (Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Indiana, Texas and Nebraska were not included in the launch due to local laws.)
As the technology went from concept to launch, Google added in a message at the start of the call that says the call is from Google, and explains why the call is being placed. It also allows businesses to opt out from receiving these automated calls.
However, if the technology is adopted by mainstream consumers, it’s unclear that opting out will be a viable option for those business owners who can’t afford to turn away interested customers.
Google tells TechCrunch its Duplex-powered Google Assistant feature for restaurant booking began its expansion to both iOS and Android 5.0+ devices last week.
The news site 9to5Google spotted the change Google’s help documentation and wrote about the rollout.
However, we understand the rollout hasn’t reached all devices at this time. When asked, Google couldn’t give us a timeline as to when it expects that rollout to complete.
Though Duplex is capable of making other types of bookings, it’s currently focused on restaurant reservations. For those restaurants that already use an online booking service that partners with Google, the Assistant will work directly with Reserve with Google to confirm the reservation.
Consumers who want to use Assistant for bookings only need the Google Assistant app. The Assistant confirms details like booking time and size of party, then tries to book the appointment through one of the booking providers. This actually covers a lot of inquiries, as Reserve with Google has relationships with dozens of providers. It may place an automated call using Duplex, if needed.
Duplex can also be used to check business information, if it hasn’t been updated on Google – like hours of operation. This data will then be used to update the business listing, says Google.
Google says it’s working to bring Duplex to the other remaining U.S. states in the future.
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.
This is the end for Google+, Google’s failed social network that once tried to take on Facebook and Twitter. As scheduled, the company has now started deleting user accounts and their data.
If you’re feeling nostalgic, we’ve got a recap of some of our coverage over the years.
A story in Forbes suggests that Andreessen Horowitz — whose agency-like model has been widely replicated by other big venture firms — is re-shaping venture capital a second time. It’s doing this by turning itself into a registered investment advisor.
Apple has lowered the price on a number of key hardware lines in China, including AirPods, Macs, iPads and, most notably, the iPhone. The move is believed to be the direct result of a 3 percent tax cut that took effect in the country yesterday.
The Department of Justice sent the Academy a letter stating that Oscar eligibility changes designed to exclude Netflix and other streaming services “may raise antitrust concerns.”
Through a new feature, users can control who has permission to add them to groups. The company says this will “help to limit abuse” and keep people’s phone numbers private.
Snapchat is now testing Status, an option to share to the Snap Map a Bitmoji depicting what you’re up to at a certain place. You could show your avatar playing video games, watching TV, asking friends to hit you up and more.
The “Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill” had its first reading on Monday and one of the key takeaways is that it will allow the government to force “corrections” to be added to online content that is deemed to be “false.”
Google today announced a few new workflow integrations for its Drive file storage service that’ll bring support for some features from DocuSign and process automation platforms K2 and Nintex to the service.
None of these new integrations are all that unusual but if you use a combination of Drive and the newly supported tools, they will undoubtedly make your daily work a little bit easier.
For DocuSign, the new integration lets your prepare, sign and store your documents right in Google Drive, as well as trigger actions like billing, account activation and payments after an agreement has been signed.
The K2 integration is a bit different and focuses on that company’s machine learning tools. It’ll allow users to train models on a workflow (using Google machine learning tools) and then, for example, determine whether a loan should be automatically approved or denied, with all of the information about those requests and the approval process stored in a Google Sheet. The integration also supports more pedestrian use cases, though, including the ability to make lots of documents in Drive more easily discoverable.
“K2 is committed to simplifying the way in which our customers connect and manage their information whether it resides on-premise or in the cloud,” said Eyal Inbar, Vice President of Global Technology Alliances at K2. “By integrating with Google Drive, we are able to put the next-generation of content management services in the hands of our customers so they can build and implement powerful workflows into their applications.”
Nintex’s solution seems to be a bit more specialized, with a focus on contract management lifecycles for HR, legal and sales use cases. There’s nothing exciting about managing contracts, but that’s probably a good thing and ideally, adding more automation will help to keep it that way.
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.
This is the end for Google+, Google’s failed social network that once tried to take on Facebook and Twitter. As scheduled, the company has now started deleting user accounts and their data.
If you’re feeling nostalgic, we’ve got a recap of some of our coverage over the years.
A story in Forbes suggests that Andreessen Horowitz — whose agency-like model has been widely replicated by other big venture firms — is re-shaping venture capital a second time. It’s doing this by turning itself into a registered investment advisor.
Apple has lowered the price on a number of key hardware lines in China, including AirPods, Macs, iPads and, most notably, the iPhone. The move is believed to be the direct result of a 3 percent tax cut that took effect in the country yesterday.
The Department of Justice sent the Academy a letter stating that Oscar eligibility changes designed to exclude Netflix and other streaming services “may raise antitrust concerns.”
Through a new feature, users can control who has permission to add them to groups. The company says this will “help to limit abuse” and keep people’s phone numbers private.
Snapchat is now testing Status, an option to share to the Snap Map a Bitmoji depicting what you’re up to at a certain place. You could show your avatar playing video games, watching TV, asking friends to hit you up and more.
The “Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill” had its first reading on Monday and one of the key takeaways is that it will allow the government to force “corrections” to be added to online content that is deemed to be “false.”
“We give them the power. That’s the bad part. We buy their products. We sign up for these websites. Delete Facebook, right?”
That’s WhatsApp founder Brian Acton’s most recent quote about his former employer Facebook. Acton has seemingly been fueled by his experience running WhatsApp from within Facebook, which has been scrutinized for profiting from collecting data on users.
Which explains why now, two years after leaving Facebook, Acton has found a new groove as founder and executive chairman of the Signal Technology Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to doing the foundational work around making private communication accessible, secure and ubiquitous. Acton invested $50 million of his own money to start Signal Foundation in February of 2018.
At TechCrunch Disrupt SF in October, we’ll hear more from Acton about Signal Foundation and his predictions for the future of communication and privacy. And, of course, we’ll try to learn more about what Facebook was up to with WhatsApp, why he left, and how it felt leaving $850 million on the table.
Though he was rejected for positions at Facebook and Twitter in 2009, Acton is actually a Silicon Valley veteran, working in the industry (mostly as a software builder) for more than 25 years at places like Apple, Yahoo, and Adobe before founding WhatsApp.
The chat app he built with co-founder Jan Koum grew to 1.5 billion users and, eventually, saw a $19 billion buyout from Mark Zuckerberg in 2014. But when Facebook wanted to lay the basis for targeted ads and commercial messaging within the encrypted chat app he’d spent years building, he walked away.
The Signal Foundation is all about ensuring people have access to private communication that doesn’t cost their own personal data.
“We believe there is an opportunity to act in the public interest and make a meaningful contribution to society by building sustainable technology that respects users and does not rely on the commoditization of personal data,” Acton wrote when it was first announced. In many ways, the Signal Foundation is a symbol and a continuation of Acton’s most expensive moral stand.
We’re thrilled to hear from Acton about what’s next at Signal Foundation. We’ll also try to learn more about his exit at Facebook and his feelings about the products he spent so much time building there.
After all, unsavvy regulators, legions of competitors, and user backlash have all failed to compel Facebook to treat people better. But the real power lies with the talent that tech giants fight over. When people like Acton speak up or walk out, employers are forced to listen.
“No filter” is Acton’s style, so get ready for some fireworks when we sit down with him on stage at Disrupt SF.
Your Apple ID is the account you use to access Apple services like the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, iMessage, and more. Although this ID looks like a simple username and password, its integration with the Apple ecosystem goes much deeper.
While you might hear both the iCloud and Apple ID terms used, technically they’re the same. What happens when you forget your Apple ID password? Thankfully, there is no need to panic. We’ll show you some ways to reset the password associated with your Apple ID.
Note: The instructions below are based on an iPad running iOS 12.1.4 and macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra.
If You Have Two-Factor Authentication Enabled
These days, it seems every website you visit tries to encourage you to use two-factor authentication. With 2FA, you can access your account only through devices you trust, like your iPhone.
When you sign into a new device for the first time, it requires two pieces of information: your password and the six-digit verification code shown on your trusted device.
By entering the code, you trust the new device. You won’t need a verification code again unless you sign out, reset the device, or if you’ve recently changed your password. And on iOS 11.3 or later, you might not need to enter the code. Your trusted phone number will automatically verify in the background.
If you have 2FA enabled for your Apple ID, you can reset your iCloud password from any trusted device.
1. Reset Your iCloud Password on an iPhone or iPad
Before proceeding, ensure that your device has iOS 10 or later. Then open the Settings app. Tap [Your Name] > Password & Security, then Change password.
Next, type in the passcode you use to unlock your device. On the Change Password screen that appears, enter a new password in both fields and tap Change.
Now you can enter this new Apple ID password on all other devices.
2. Reset Your Apple ID Password on a Mac
Go to Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
Here, click Account Details.
On the resulting window, open the Security tab.
Now click the Change Password button. You’ll need to enter the password for your Mac’s admin account. From the resulting box, enter a new password and re-enter it in the Verify field.
Once you’re satisfied, click Change. You’ve successfully reset your iCloud password and can use it on your other devices.
3. Reset Your Apple ID Password on the Apple ID Website
Enter the phone number that you use with your Apple ID. Click Continue again. Now a message with instructions will appear on all your trusted devices. Click or tap Allow in the Reset Password message.
Enter your iOS passcode or macOS admin password and click Continue. Then type in your new password and then re-enter it in Verify field. Click Change or tap Next. You’ve just reset your Apple ID password.
4. Reset Your iCloud Password via the Find My iPhone app
This method works by using the Find My iPhone app on a device not associated with your Apple ID account. You’ll need to borrow a friend or family member’s iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and follow these steps.
Open the Find My iPhone app. When a sign-in screen appears, erase the owner’s Apple ID details. If necessary, click or tap Sign Out.
On the login screen, select Forgot Apple ID or Password, then follow the onscreen steps. Once you’ve changed your password, don’t forget to sign out from the owner’s device.
You can now re-enter your iCloud password on your other devices. Speaking of Find My iPhone, make sure you know how to locate your iPhone if it gets lost.
If You Use Two-Step Verification
Before two-factor authentication, Apple offered two-step verification. With this, Apple sends a short numeric code using the Find My iPhone system in iOS and via a text message to other devices. Macs can’t receive these codes.
This old system also relies on a provided recovery code to keep your from getting locked out. If your account gets locked for some reason and you lose the recovery code, you might never regain access.
Two-step verification is available for people:
Who doesn’t want to or can’t update to iOS 9 or OS X El Capitan for some reason.
Using older Apple devices that no longer receive updates (meaning they’re stuck on iOS 8 or OS X Yosemite).
2FA is available as long as you have at least one device with iOS 9 or later, or OS X El Capitan or later. When you upgrade to iOS 11 or later, or macOS High Sierra or later, your device security settings will automatically update to two-factor authentication.
5. Reset Your iCloud Password With Two-Step Verification Enabled
To reset an Apple ID protected with two-step verification, you need to have a recovery key and a trusted device or phone number. Then follow these steps:
Select the option to reset your password and hit Continue again.
Type in your recovery code and choose Continue once more. This is a 14 character-long code generated when you set up two-step verification.
Next, select a trusted device to receive a confirmation code.
Enter the confirmation code.
Select a new password, then click Reset Password.
As per the Apple support document on resetting a two-step password, you at least need two of these three items to sign in successfully. One is your Apple ID password, the second is a trusted device, and the third is your recovery key.
If you’ve lost any two of these items, you can’t sign in or regain access to your account. You’re unfortunately out of options, and thus have to create a new Apple ID.
6. How to Reset a Password-Only iCloud Account
Forgot your iCloud password and don’t use two-step or two-factor authentication on your Apple ID account? You can still reset your password using Apple’s iForgot website. Because you don’t have any of these additional security measures, you can reset your password via email or with security questions, if you still have those set up.
After you’ve reset your Apple ID password, you should seriously consider adding additional security to your Apple account. There’s no reason to use only password protection when two-factor authentication provides vastly superior security.
If you lose a device or a password, instead of having to convince someone at Apple that you’re the legitimate owner, you can quickly recover your account by ensuring it has extra recovery information. To make your life much easier if you ever forget your iCloud password again, sign into your Apple ID and take these simple steps:
Include two or more “reachable at” addresses. Apple uses them in assisted account recovery.
Add one more backup trusted phone number. For example, you can add the phone number for your partner or parents as a backup.
If you use two-step verification, print the recovery code and keep it in a secured place.
Don’t Forget: Use a Password Manager
Apple gives you a lot of methods to reset your Apple ID or iCloud password. Which to use depends on how your account is set up. Once you change your password, we highly recommend you use a password manager for storing passwords. That way, you don’t have to remember passwords for every online account. You just need to remember one master password.
Along with 2FA, this is one of the best practices for locking down your online accounts. If you’re having trouble deciding which password manager you should use, find out which password manager fits your needs.
MakeUseOf launched in 2007, and since then we’ve grown into a team of 40+ writers and built a readership of 13 million unique monthly visitors by helping everyday people make the most of their software, apps, and devices.
We’re still dedicated to our mission, but we also have a lot more we want to share. We’re nerds and geeks! And there’s plenty more to us than we can show you on this site alone.
That’s why we’re launching a new site called WhatNerd (whatnerd.com) where we explore every facet of what it means to embrace our nerdy sides.
There you’ll find commentary, lists, explainers, and guides about the nerd lifestyle, nerd entertainment, and everything in between—as well as awesome monthly giveaways of awesome nerdy prizes!
All WhatNerd Weekly subscribers (that’s our newsletter) are eligible to win. Potential prizes include streaming devices, e-readers, gift cards, and much more. WhatNerd Weekly subscribers are the first to know about every month’s giveaway.
This month we’re giving away a $100 Hulu gift card:
We’re excited about this new opportunity and we aim to keep adding more positivity to the web and beyond.
Consider yourself a nerd or geek? You’re in good company, and we’d love for you to join us at WhatNerd. Let us know if you have any comments or questions. Thanks!
Typography is one of the most beautiful and frustrating parts of graphic design. Typefaces can make a huge impact when used correctly. And the opposite is, unfortunately, also true. With that in mind, here are the best Photoshop typefaces available as standard.
Choosing the Right Font Family
When looking for the right font family to use—and there are many options available—how do you decide which one is right for you? Photoshop CC comes with various built-in typefaces useful for any occasion, and we have tried to find the best ones for you.
Before we begin, if you’re new to typography we recommend that you check out our explanation of the most important typography terms. This will help you understand what we’re talking about through the rest of the article.
1. Times New Roman
We start with Times New Roman. Are you looking for a typeface that is easy to read, or not-too-flashy? Then Times New Roman is one of your best bets. It’s one of the most widely available typefaces, and Photoshop did us all a solid by including it with the program.
Originally created in the 1920s, Times New Roman is commonly used for the body text in newspapers, magazines, and books. It’s favored for its readability and its universal access across digital programs.
2. Baskerville
Another “classic” typeface that comes with Photoshop is Baskerville: a sleek, slightly “lighter” alternative to Times New Roman, with the same easy-to-read abilities and conservative use of space. It won’t take up much room on the page when you apply it.
Although not as popular as Times New Roman, Baskerville is equally well-suited for body text and can function as text for your header. It looks good on a larger scale.
3. American Typewriter
Are you looking for a slab serif font that functions well as the body text in a paragraph? Do you want something that is more modern and casual than Times New Roman? American Typewriter is a good answer to this, and can give your documents a “retro” look.
4. Edwardian Script ITC
Now that we’ve gone through the basics, what if you want a font that looks like a cursive script?
Photoshop has a couple of these, but one of the best is the Edwardian Script ITC: an elegant, well-balanced typeface that looks great on wedding invitations, thank you cards, and party invites.
However, we wouldn’t recommend using this one for body text because it’s not as legible as the others in this list.
5. Montserrat
Of course, not all fonts are going to have a “classic” look to them, nor do you want them to.
Maybe you’re looking for a web-friendly font that looks good on mobile, or something that sticks closer to current design trends. One of the most useful typefaces that falls into this category is Montserrat, with bold, broad lettering that makes it perfect for titles and headings. I’ve used this one on my own website for many years.
A word of warning—this typeface is not great for body text. Its large size means that it’s a space killer.
6. Century Gothic
Century Gothic is a sans serif typeface with a clean, lighter-looking line weight compared to something like Montserrat. You can use it for titles and headings, and if you’re careful it’s also good for short paragraphs. But be warned, if those paragraphs are too long Century Gothic will make them difficult to read.
7. Helvetica
It’s hard to pick which fonts are the best because there’s just so many of them. Some of this is predicated on personal taste, as well. If you’re looking for a simple, modern typeface that works with almost all designs, however—ranging from professional reports to travel brochures—then it’s best to go with Helvetica.
Helvetica is a widely used font praised for its versatility and legibility. It works well for header, titles, and body text, and because the letters are so beautifully spaced it’s difficult to mess up your design once you’ve applied them.
8. Phosphate
It’s best to save the “phun” for last, right? We know, terrible pun, but sometimes you want a perky typeface for an advertisement. One of the best options included with Photoshop is Phosphate—a bold, wide typeface perfect for attention-grabbing headlines on posters. Because of its size we wouldn’t recommend using it for body text, but it’s great for titles.
9. Bauhaus 93
Looking for a decorative font that’s a bit bubblier, friendlier, and quirkier than Phosphate? Bauhaus 93 will do the trick. Like it’s heavier neighbor, this font is big and bold, and best used for headlines on posters and brochures.
10. Braggadocio
Last but not least, one of Photoshop’s best san serif designs is Braggadocio—a bold, hyper-stylized typeface that immediately demands attention. It’s good for titles with a retro design, but use it sparingly. Too much and it will make your text hard to read.
What’s the Best Photoshop Typeface for You?
Now that you’ve been given an introduction to the typefaces that come with Photoshop, you should try them out to see which fits in with your own personal tastes.
As previously mentioned, design can be subjective, and there might be some fonts that didn’t make this list that you think are better suited for your documents. We recommend you go through them all and see what works best for you.
If you explore Photoshop’s full typography package and you’re still not satisfied with the choices available, you can always use a typeface site to search and download free font families. We’ve got a list of sites that will help you find free fonts based on appearance.
No matter what time of day or the type of task, your Mac’s screen is probably demanding your attention. After all, books are transitioning to ebooks, sports are becoming esports, and even reality is moving toward virtual reality.
The majority of activities, both at work and at home, require a screen of some kind. And the first casualty of excessive screen time is your eyes. Thankfully, when using your Mac, you can protect your eyes with these apps.
1. f.lux
Filtering out the blue light generated by your computer screen is one of the best ways to mitigate eye strain. On the visible light spectrum, blue light has the highest amount of energy, and is therefore the most exhausting kind of light to look at over a long period of time. Fortunately, there are software solutions for stopping the blue light in your display from getting to your eyes.
The gold standard for display filtering is f.lux. It’s a free app that you can control from your menu bar.
You can set the app to automatically activate at a certain time or transition to a warmer, yellower light slowly over the course of the day. Alternatively, put in your ZIP code and have it automatically sync up its filter with the position of the sun to mimic natural daylight.
You can also customize your preferred color temperature from 2700K (yellow-red) to 6400K (normal blue). It’s possible to set a time schedule for that, or just leave it a certain way all day.
Sometimes you might need the blue light back to watch a movie or edit photos. In those cases, you can use the menu bar icon to disable f.lux for a certain amount of time or while using a certain app.
Aware is a simple app that sits in your menu bar and tells you how long you’ve been actively using your computer. What’s great is that it’s not intrusive. It doesn’t lock you out after a certain amount of time. It won’t sound an alarm if you’ve used your computer for more than twenty minutes. And it doesn’t make you feel bad for staring at your screen for too long.
All it does is keep track of how long your screen has been active. What you do with that information is up to you, but the implication is that it will inspire you to get up and walk around for at least a few minutes until the clock resets itself.
There are basically no settings to tweak or customizations to worry about. Just install it and go.
If you need more than just a friendly reminder that you’ve been at your computer for too long, Time Out is here to help. It will force you to take a set of regular breaks at different intervals, completely locking you out of your computer in the process.
Once you launch it, the setup window will pop up. It asks you what kind of breaks you want to take, and how many of them. Normal breaks last minutes, while Micro breaks last seconds. Once you have it all set up, you can set it so that a menu bar icon will tell you how much time you have until your next break.
When it’s break time, Time Out’s logo will superimpose itself on your screen, with another countdown clock letting you know how much time is left on your break.
Time Out has a lot of customization features. These let you disable it when you have a certain app open that you don’t want interrupted, and can block power operations like restart or shutdown during designated break times.
Download:Time Out (Free, in-app purchases available)
4. macOS’s Dark Mode
Apple has introduced two built-in macOS features to help with eye strain. The first is Dark Mode, a system-wide theme that was released with Mojave. It allows you to set up all your system apps to have a darker profile that’s easier on the eyes.
Night Shift is the second native macOS feature to help save your eyes. Though originally released for iOS, it was introduced for macOS in 10.12.4 Sierra. It’s a blue light filter like f.lux that works with your clock to gradually reduce the blue light that emits from your display.
To enable it, go to System Preferences > Displays > Night Shift. While f.lux gives you the exact color temperature that you can set, Night Shift has a more user-friendly scale of Less Warm to More Warm. Overall, Night Shift has fewer options than f.lux, but they both do a good job of filtering out blue light.
6. Rest
Similar to Time Out, Rest is another app you can set up that forces you to take breaks. In addition to locking you out of your machine until your break is complete, Rest will also provide some handy tips to reduce eye fatigue while you’re on your break.
Sometimes the best way to pry yourself away from that screen is to help you get your work done faster. Focusbar is an app that will constantly remind you to stay on task so you can power through it and get offline.
When you launch Focusbar you’ll need to type in what you’re trying to focus on. Afterwards, from time to time, a window will appear at the top of your screen reminding you of what you’re supposed to be working on.
It will also appear whenever you change windows or apps, just in case you get distracted. You can set how often you want it to alert you in the menu bar, with an Annoyance level from Mild to Wild. You can also set it to launch at login.
A lot of the time, we can’t control how much we have to work on the computer. But with these apps, you’ll have increased discipline to protect your vision. Your eyes will thank you for it.
Raising venture capital isn’t easy; for some, it’s impossible.
Clearbanc offers startups a fundraising alternative — despite itself being well-capitalized by VCs — and is today launching a new campaign to back 2,000 businesses with $1 billion in non-dilutive capital by the end of 2019.
“Everyone is watching this flurry of tech IPOs this year, but no one is talking about how little of these companies the founders actually own,” Clearbanc co-founder and president Michele Romanow told TechCrunch. “Our vision is if Clearbanc is successful, there’s a world where founders can own a much greater percentage when they IPO.”
Here’s how Clearbanc’s new campaign ‘The 20-Min Term Sheet’ works: Clearbanc invests $1,000 to $10 million in ecommerce businesses with positive ad spend and positive unit economics after Clearbanc’s algorithm has reviewed the startup’s marketing and revenue data. Clearbanc sends the cash within 48 hours, doesn’t take a board seat or require a personal guarantee and continually invests in the company as it scales, so long as those two key metrics — ad spend and unit economics — remain positive.
Here’s the catch: Until the company has paid back 106 percent of Clearbanc’s investment, Clearbanc takes a percentage of the company’s revenue every month, depending on the size of the investment. If you have a higher margin business, like say a digital fitness app, and you’re willing to divert 20 percent of your monthly revenue, Clearbanc will invest a larger sum right off the bat.
The entire process takes 20 minutes, hence the name, a whole lot faster than the time it takes a typical VC to close a deal. But a VC may spend months researching a category and debating the potential of an investment. Clearbanc is cutting that process out entirely, relying on just two metrics and an algorithm.
Romanow, who made a name for herself as an angel investor on the Canadian version of Shark Tank, the Dragons’ Den, tells TechCrunch she and co-founder and chief executive officer Andrew D’Souza recognize the risk associated with this kind of rapid investing but having backed 500 companies with $150 million last year, they feel like they’ve accumulated enough data points to prove their strategy.
Romanow and D’Souza insist some 40 percent of VC dollars end up going to Facebook and Google for digital ad campaigns. Though TechCrunch couldn’t independently verify this claim, its widely known that those platforms soak up a lot of capital from startups, especially ecommerce businesses, like direct-to-consumer retailers for example, which rely almost entirely on digital marketing to attract customers.
Using Clearbanc, a company could, in theory, raise a $5 million round from VCs to scale its business and another $5 million from Clearbanc for ad spend. This strategy saves said business valuable equity.
“We are essentially a non-dilutive co-investor,” Romanow said. “VC takes time, it’s a lot of no’s, you’re really giving up equity that you can never get back. A lot of founders in the early days don’t calculate what their equity could be worth. Like the first $250,000 in Uber is worth $1 billion now.”
Clearbanc, founded in 2015, has itself turned to venture capitalists to fund its rapid scale. Its own funding model doesn’t work on a company in the financial category, given that the metrics of success are entirely different.
In November 2018, Clearbanc secured a $70 million round in seed and Series A funding from Emergence Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital, CoVenture, Founders Fund, 8VC and others. Just one month later, Clearbanc announced a $50 million fund backed by Seamless co-founder Jason Finger’s new firm, Upper90, to begin providing startups with ad money.
“We’ve just figured out how to scale up really quickly,” Romanow said.
The $1 billion it’s currently touting isn’t readily available. Romanow explains they’ve raised “enough to deploy $1 billion this year” but was careful to clarify they haven’t raised the full amount and don’t need to. Clearbanc is constantly raking in new cash from its revenue share agreements and is able to recycle and redeploy capital quickly. That, coupled with the several hundred million raised from limited partners including Upper90, other founders, family offices and university endowments that have not been made public, puts them in a position to invest 10 figures this year.
Clearbanc is amongst a new class of capital-as-a-service businesses catering to startups that have either been rejected by VCs or turned their back on the equity-driven funding model. BlueVine, for example, offers startups $5,000 to $5 million credit lines. Lighter Capital invests $50,000 to $5 million in non-dilutive capital to SaaS businesses. And Corl, another alternative funder, similarly backs businesses using the revenue share model.
“Venture capital makes sense if you are building a new crazy piece of AI, or creating a new product line and going into a new country,” Romanow said. “When you are doing something that’s repeatable and scalable like ad spend, it doesn’t make sense to give up equity.”
Verizon (which owns the company that owns TechCrunch) announced today that it’s activated its 5G Ultra Wideband Network in parts of Minneapolis and Chicago. The news is the first step for the carrier’s plan to bring the technology to north of 30 U.S. cities at some point this year.
It’s all still baby steps, of course. While the roll out has started a week ahead of schedule, it’s only available in “parts” of the two midwestern cities, according to the company. Those in the right spots, however, can expect top speeds of up to 1Gbps, per Verizon’s press materials.
Here are the areas that will get coverage,
In Chicago, 5G coverage is concentrated in areas of the West Loop and the South Loop, around landmarks like Union Station, Willis Tower, The Art Institute of Chicago, Millennium Park and The Chicago Theatre. Customers also have 5G Ultra Wideband service in the Verizon store on The Magnificent Mile and throughout The Gold Coast, Old Town and River North.
In Minneapolis, service is concentrated in the Downtown area, including Downtown West and Downtown East, as well as inside and around U.S. Bank Stadium, the site of this weekend’s NCAA men’s basketball Final Four. Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband service is also available around landmarks like the Minneapolis Convention Center, the Minneapolis Central Library, the Mill City Museum, Target Center and First Avenue venues, The Commons, areas of Elliot Park and in the Verizon store in The Mall of America.
The other big rub here is the extremely limited availability of 5G handsets at present. The phones were seemingly all over the place at Mobile World Congress back in February, but actually getting your hands on one is another question entirely. Currently the Moto Z3 is the only phone that can access those speeds on Verizon, when paired with the 5G Moto Mod.
T-Mobile and Viacom this morning announced a deal that will bring Viacom’s TV channels – like MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount and others – to T-Mobile’s new mobile video service planned for later this year. The agreement will allow T-Mobile to offer live, linear feeds of the Viacom channels as well as on-demand viewing.
To date, the carrier’s mobile video plans have been murky. Last year, T-Mobile acquired the Denver-based startup Layer3 TV in order to launch a new over-the-top video service in 2018. It missed that window, saying that it needed more time to work on features and make “quality improvements.”
The company later said that it didn’t want to offer another Amazon Channels-like “skinny bundle” consisting of individual subscriptions to various channels, but wanted to offer something more differentiated where customers could create their own media subscriptions in “smaller pieces” like “five, six, seven or eight dollars at a time.”
Today, T-Mobile says it still plans to move forward with both its home and mobile TV offerings, made possible by the acquisition of Layer3 TV. The in-home TV service is designed to leverage 5G technology to replace cable. Meanwhile, Viacom will be a “cornerstone launch partner” for T-Mobile’s mobile TV efforts, on track for a launch this year.
“Viacom represents the best of the best, most-popular brands on cable, so they are an amazing partner for us,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, in a statement. “TV programming has never been better, but consumers are fed up with rising costs, hidden fees, lousy customer service, non-stop BS. And Macgyvering together a bunch of subscriptions, apps and dongles isn’t much better. That’s why T-Mobile is on a mission to give consumers a better way to watch what they want, when they want,” he said.
Not much is known about T-Mobile’s mobile TV plans at this point, like a more specific launch time frame or price points. It’s also unclear if T-Mobile will go the route of bundling in its TV service with its mobile plans. That’s been a popular strategy for AT&T, which today operates two over-the-top services – a low-end WatchTV designed bundling its more premium DirecTV Now. (It also plans to launch another featuring Warner Bros. content.)
Viacom has deals with other carriers besides T-Mobile, having recently renewed its contract with AT&T for DirecTV Now carriage. It also participates in various other streaming services, including its own service (by way of acquisition) Pluto TV, and has invested in Philo.
“Today’s landmark announcement marks a major step forward in our strategy to accelerate the presence of our brands on mobile and other next-generation platforms,” said Bob Bakish, Viacom President and CEO, in a release. “We’re so excited to partner with T-Mobile to provide millions of subscribers with access to our networks and more choice in a new service that will be unlike any other in the market.”
When everyone always tells you ‘yes’, you can become a monster. Leaders especially need honest feedback to grow. “If you look at rich people like Donald Trump and you neglect them, you get more Donald Trumps” says Torch co-founder and CEO Cameron Yarbrough about our gruff president. His app wants to make executive coaching (a polite word for therapy) part of even the busiest executive’s schedule. Torch conducts a 360 interview with a client and their employees to assess weaknesses, lays out improvement goals, and provides one-on-one video chat sessions with trained counselors.
“Essentially we’re trying to help that person develop the capacity to be a more loving human being in the workplace” Yarbrough explains. That’s crucial in the age of ‘hustle porn’ where everyone tries to pretend they’re working all the time and constantly ‘crushing it’. That can leave leaders facing challenges feeling alone and unworthy. Torch wants to provide a private place to reach out for a helping hand or shoulder to cry on.
Now Torch is ready to lead the way to better management for more companies, as it’s just raised $10 million Series A round led by Norwest Ventures along with Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, and West Ventures. It already has 100 clients including Reddit and Atrium, but the new cash will fuel its go-to market strategy. Rather than trying to democratize access to coaching, Torch is doubling-down on teaching founders, C-suites, and other senior executives how to care…or not care too much.
“I came out of a tough family myself and I had to do a ton of therapy and a ton of meditation to emerge and be an effective leader myself” Yarbrough recalls. “Philosophically, I care about personal growth. It’s just true all the way down to birth for me. What I’m selling is authentic to who I am.”
Torch’s co-founders met when they were in grad school for counseling psychology degrees, practicing group therapy sessions together. Yarbrough went on to practice clinically and start Well Clinic in the Bay Area while Keegan Walden got his PhD. Yarbrough worked with married couples to resolve troubles, and “the next thing i know I was working with high profile startup founders, who like anybody have their fair share of conflicts.”
Torch co-founders (from left): Cameron Yarbrough and Keegan Walden
Coaching romantic partners to be upfront about expectations and kind during arguments translated seamlessly to keep co-founders from buckling under stress. Yarbrough outlines how “I was noticing that they were consistently having problems with 5 different things:
1. Communication – Surfacing problems early with kindness
2. Healthy workplace boundaries – Making sure people don’t step on each other’s toes
3. How to manage conflict in a healthy way – Staying calm and avoiding finger-pointing
4. How to be positively influential – Being motivational without being annoying or pushy
5. How to manage one’s ego, whether that’s insecurity or narcissism – Seeing the team’s win as the first priority
To address those, companies hire Torch to coach one or more of their executives. Torch conducts extensive 360 interviews with the exec, as well as their reports, employees, and peers. It seeks to score them on empathy, visionary thinking, communication, conflict, management and collaboration, Torch then structures goals and improvement timelines that it tracks with follow-up interviews the team and quantifiable metrics that can all be tracked by HR through a software dashboard.
To make progress on these fronts, execs do video chat sessions through Torch’s app with coaches trained in these skills. “These are all working people with by nature very tight schedules. They don’t have time to come in for a live session so we come to them in the form of video” Yarbough tells me. Rates vary from $500 per month to $1500 per month for a senior coach in the US, Europe, APAC, or EMEA with Torch scoring a significant margin. “We’re B2B only. We’re not focused on being the most affordable solution. We’re focused on being the most effective. And we find that there’s less price sensitivity for senior leaders where the cost of their underperformance is incredibly high to the organization.” Torch’s top source of churn is clients’ going out of business, not ceasing to want its services.
Here are two examples of how big-wigs get better with Torch. “Let’s say we have a client who really just wants to be liked all the time, so much so that they have a hard time getting things done. The feedback from the 360 would come back like ‘I find that Cameron is continually telling me what I want to hear but I don’t know what the expectations are of me and I need him to be more direct.'” Yarbrough explains. “The problem is those leaders will eventually fire those people who are failing, but they’ll say they had no idea they weren’t performing because he never told them.” Torch’s coaches can teach them to practice tough-love when necessary and be more transparent. Meanwhile, a boss who storms around the office and “is super direct and unkind” could be instructed on how to “develop more empathic attunement.”
Yarbrough specifically designed Torch’s software to not be too prescriptive and leave room for the relationship between the coach and client to unfold. And for privacy, coaches don’t record notes and HR only sees the performance goals and progress, not the content of the video chats. It wants execs to feel comfortable getting real without the worry their personal or trade secrets could leak. “And if someone is bringing in something about trauma or that’s super sensitive about their personal life, their coach will refer them out to psychotherapists” Yarbrough assures me.
Torch’s direct competition comes from boutique executive coaching firms around the world, while on the tech side BetterUp is trying to make coaching scale to every type of employee. But its biggest foe is the stubborn status quo of stiff upper lipping it.
The startup world has been plagued by too many tragic suicides, deep depression, and paralyzing burnout. It’s easy for founders to judge their own worth not by self-confidence or even the absolute value of their accomplishments, but by their status relative to yesterday. That means one blown deal, employee quitting, or product delay can make an executive feel awful. But if they turn to their peers or investors, it could hurt their partnership and fundraising prospects. To keep putting in the work, they need an emotional outlet.
“We ultimately have to create this great software that super-powers human beings. People are not robots yet. They will be someday, but not yet” Yarbrough concludes with a laugh. IQ alone doesn’t make people succeed. Torch can help them develop the EQ, or emotional intelligence quotient, they need to become a boss that’s looked up to.
Remember Fleksy? The customizable Android keyboard app has a new trick up its sleeve: It’s adding a store where users can find and add lightweight third party apps to enhance their typing experience.
Right now it’s launched a taster, preloading a selection of ‘mini apps’ into the keyboard — some from very familiar brand names, some a little less so — so users can start to see how it works.
The first in-keyboard apps are Yelp (local services search); Skyscanner (flight search); Giphy (animated Gif search); GifNote (music Gifs; launching for U.S. users only for rights reasons); Vlipsy (reaction video clips); and Emogi (stickers) — with “many more” branded apps slated as coming in the next few months.
They’re not saying exactly what other brands are coming but there are plenty of familiar logos to be spotted in their press materials — from Spotify to Uber to JustEat to Tripadvisor to PayPal and more…
The full keyboard store itself — which will let users find and add and/or delete apps — will be launching at the end of this month.
The latest version of the Fleksy app can be downloaded for free via the Play Store.
Mini apps made for messaging
The core idea for these mini apps (aka Fleksyapps) is to offer lightweight additions designed to serve the messaging use case.
Say, for example, you’re chatting about where to eat and a friend suggests sushi. The Yelp Fleksyapp might pop up a contextual suggestion for a nearby Japanese restaurant that can be shared directly into the conversation — thereby saving time by doing away with the need for someone to cut out of the chat, switch apps, find some relevant info and cut and paste it back into the chat.
Fleksyapps are intended to be helpful shortcuts that keep the conversation flowing. They also of course put brands back into the conversation.
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring the power of the world’s popular songs with GIFs, videos and photos to the new Fleksyapps platform,” says Gifnote co-founder, John vanSuchtelen, in a supporting statement.
Fleksy’s mini apps appear above the Qwerty keyboard — in much the same space as a next-word prediction. The user can scroll through the app stack (each a tiny branded circle until tapped on to expand) and choose one to interact with. It’s similar to the micro apps lodged in Apple’s iMessage but on Android where iMessage isn’t… The team also plans for Fleksy to support a much wider range of branded apps — hence the Fleksyapps store.
In-keyboard apps is not a new concept for the dev team behind Fleksy; an earlier keyboard app of theirs (called ThingThing) offered micro apps they built themselves as a tool to extend its utility.
But now they’re hoping to garner backing and buy in from third party brands excited about the exposure and reach they could gain by being where users spend the most device time: The keyboard.
“Think of it a bit like the iMessage equivalent but on Android across any app. Or the WeChat mini program but inside the keyboard, available everywhere — not only in one app,” CEO Olivier Plante tells TechCrunch. “That’s a problem of messaging apps these days. All of them are verticals but the keyboard is horizontal. So that’s the benefit for those brands. And the user will have the ability to move them around, add some, to remove some, to explore, to discover.”
“The brands that want to join our platform they have the option of being preloaded by default. The analogy is that by default on the home screen of a phone you are by default in our keyboard. And moving forward you’ll be able to have a membership — you’re becoming a ‘brand member’ of the Fleksyapps platform, and you can have your brand inside the keyboard,” he adds.
The first clutch of Fleksyapps were developed jointly, with the team working with the brands in question. But Plante says they’re planning to launch a tool in future so brands will be able to put together their own apps — in as little as just a few hours.
“We’re opening this array of functionalities and there’s a lot of verticals possible,” he continues. “In the future months we will embed new capabilities for the platform — new type of apps. You can think about professional apps, or cloud apps. Accessing your files from different types of clouds. You have the weather vertical. You have ecommerce vertical. You have so many verticals.
“What you have on the app store today will be reflected into the Fleksyappstore. But really with the focus of messaging and being useful in messaging. So it’s not the full app that we want to bring in — it’s really the core functionality of this app.”
The Yelp Fleksyapp, for example, only includes the ability to see nearby places and search for and share places. So it’s intentionally stripped down. “The core benefit for the brand is it gives them the ability to extend their reach,” says Plante. “We don’t want to compete with the app, per se, we just want to bring these types of app providers inside the messenger on Android across any app.”
On the user side, the main advantage he touts is “it’s really, really fast — fleshing that out to: “It’s very lightweight, it’s very, very fast and we want to become the fastest access to content across any app.”
Users of Fleksyapps don’t need to have the full app installed because the keyboard plugs directly into the API of each branded service. So they get core functionality in bite-sized form without a requirement to download the full app. (Of course they can if they wish.)
So Plante also notes the approach has benefits vis-a-vis data consumption — which could be an advantage in emerging markets where smartphone users’ choices may be hard-ruled by the costs of data and/or connectivity limits.
“For those types of users it gives them an ability to access content but in a very light way — where the app itself, loading the app, loading all the content inside the app can be megabits. In Fleksy you’re talking about kilobits,” he says.
Privacy-sensitive next app suggestions
While baking a bunch of third party apps into a keyboard might sound like a privacy nightmare, the dev team behind Fleksy have been careful to make sure users remain in control.
To wit: Also on board is an AI keyboard assistant (called Fleksynext) — aka “a neural deep learning engine” — which Plante says can detect the context, intention and sentiment of conversations in order to offer “very useful” app suggestions as the chat flows.
The idea is the AI supports the substance of the chat by offering useful functionality from whatever pick and mix of apps are available. Plante refers to these AI-powered ‘next app’ suggestions as “pops”.
And — crucially, from a privacy point of view — the Fleksynext suggestion engine operates locally, on device.
That means no conversation data is sent out of the keyboard. Indeed, Plante says nothing the user types in the keyboard itself is shared with brands (including suggestions that pop up but get ignored). So there’s no risk — as with some other keyboard apps — of users being continually strip-mined for personal data to profile them as they type.
That said, if the user chooses to interact with a Fleksyapp (or its suggestive pop) they are then interacting with a third party’s API. So the usual tracking caveats apply.
“We interact with the web so there’s tracking everywhere,” admits Plante. “But, per se, there’s not specific sensitive data that is shared suddenly with someone. It is not related with the service itself — with the Fleksy app.”
The key point is that the keyboard user gets to choose which apps they want to use and which they don’t. So they can choose which third parties they want to share their plans and intentions with and which they don’t.
“We’re not interesting in making this an advertising platform where the advertiser decides everything,” emphasizes Plante. “We want this to be really close to the user. So the user decides. My intentions. My sentiment. What I type decides. And that is really our goal. The user is able to power it. He can tap on the suggestion or ignore it. And then if he taps on it it’s a very good quality conversion because the user really wants to access restaurants nearby or explore flights for escaping his daily routine… or transfer money. That could be another use-case for instance.”
They won’t be selling brands a guaranteed number of conversions, either.
That’s clearly very important because — to win over users — Fleksynext suggestions will need to feel telepathically useful, rather than irritating, misfired nag. Though the risk of that seems low given how Fleksy users can customize the keyboard apps to only see stuff that’s useful to them.
“In a sense we’re starting reshape a bit how advertising is seen by putting the user in the center,” suggests Plante. “And giving them a useful means of accessing content. This is the original vision and we’ve been very loyal to that — and we think it can reshape the landscape.”
“When you look into five years from now, the smartphone we have will be really, really powerful — so why process things in the cloud? When you can process things on the phone. That’s what we are betting on: Processing everything on the phone,” he adds.
When the full store launches users will be able to add and delete (any) apps — included preloads. So they will be in the driving seat. (We asked Plante to a confirm the user will be able to delete all apps, including any pre-loadeds and he said yes. So if you take him at his word Fleksy will not be cutting any deals with OEMs or carriers to indelibly preload certain Fleksyapps. Or, to put it another way, crapware baked into the keyboard is most definitely not plan.)
Depending on what other Fleksyapps launch in future a Fleksy keyboard user could choose to add, for example, a search service like DuckDuckGo or France’s Qwant to power a pro-privacy alternative to using Google search in the keyboard. Or they could choose Google.
Again the point is the choice is theirs.
Scaling a keyboard into a platform
The idea of keyboard-as-platform offers at least the possibility of reintroducing the choice and variety of smartphone app stores back before the cynical tricks of attention-harvesting tech giants used their network effects and platform power to throttle the app economy.
The Android keyboard space was also a fertile experiment ground in years past. But it’s now dominated by Google’s Gboard and Microsoft-acquired Swiftkey. Which makes Fleksy the plucky upstart gunning to scale an independent alternative that’s not owned by big tech and is open to any third party that wants to join its mini apps party.
“It will be Bing search for Swiftkey, it will be Google search for Gboard, it will be Google Music, it will be YouTube. But on our side we can have YouTube, we can also have… other services that exist for video. The same way with pictures and the same way for file-sharing and drive. So you have Google Drive but you have Dropbox, you have OneDrive, there’s a lot of services in the cloud. And we want to be the platform that has them all, basically,” says Plante.
The original founding team of the Fleksy keyboard was acqui-hired by Pinterest back in 2016, leaving the keyboard app itself to languish with minimal updates. Then two years ago Barcelona-based keyboard app maker, ThingThing, stepped in to take over development.
Plante confirms it’s since fully acquired the Fleksy keyboard technology itself — providing a solid foundation for the keyboard-as-platform business it’s now hoping to scale with the launch of Fleksyapps.
Talking of scale, he tells us the startup is in the process of raising a multi-million Series A — aiming to close this summer. (ThingThing last took in $800,000 via equity crowdfunding last fall.)
The team’s investor pitch is the keyboard offers perhaps the only viable conduit left on mobile to reset the playing field for brands by offering a route to cut through tech giant walled gardens and get where users are spending most of their time and attention: i.e. typing and sharing stuff with their friends in private one-to-one and group chats.
That means the keyboard-as-platform has the potential to get brands of all stripes back in front of users — by embedding innovative, entertaining and helpful bite-sized utility where it can prove its worth and amass social currency on the dominant messaging platforms people use.
The next step for the rebooted Fleksy team is of course building scale by acquiring users for a keyboard which, as of half a year ago, only had around 1M active users from pure downloads.
Its strategy on this front is to target Android device makers to preload Fleksy as the default keyboard.
ThingThing’s business model is a revenue share on any suggestions the keyboard converts, which it argues represent valuable leads for brands — given the level of contextual intention. It is also intending to charge brands that want to be preloaded on the Fleksy keyboard by default.
Again, though, a revenue share model requires substantial scale to work. Not least because brands will need to see evidence of scale to buy into the Fleksyapps’ vision.
Plante isn’t disclosing active users of the Fleksy keyboard right now. But says he’s confident they’re on track to hit 30M-35M active users this year — on account of around ten deals he says are in the pipeline with device makers to preload Fleksy’s keyboard. (Palm was an early example, as we reported last year.)
The carrot for OEMs to join the Fleksyapps party is they’re cutting them in on the revenue share from user interactions with branded keyboard apps — playing to device makers’ needs to find ways to boost famously tight hardware margins.
“The fact that the keyboard can monetize and provide value to the phone brands — this is really massive for them,” argues Plante. “The phone brands can expect revenue flowing in their bank account because we give the brands distribution and the handset manufacturer will make money and we will make money.”
It’s a smart approach, and one that’s essentially only possible because Google’s own Gboard keyboard doesn’t come preloaded on the majority of Android devices. (Exceptions include its own Pixel brand devices.) So — unusually for a core phone app on Android — there’s a bit of an open door where the keyboard sits, instead of the usual preloaded Google wares. And that’s an opportunity.
Markets wise, ThingThing is targeting OEMs in all global regions with its Fleksy pitch — barring China (which Plante readily admits it too complex for a small startup to sensibly try jumping at).
That antirust decision means mobile makers finally have the chance to unbundle Google apps from devices they sell in the region.
Which translates into growing opportunities for OEMs to rethink their Android strategies. Even as Google remains under pressure not to get in the way by force feeding any more of its wares.
Really, a key component of this shift is that device makers are being told to think, to look around and see what else is out there. For the first time there looks to be a viable chance to profit off of Android without having to preload everything Google wants.
“For us it’s a super good sign,” says Plante of the Commission decision. “Every monopolistic situation is a problem. And the market needs to be fragmented. Because if not we’re just going to lose innovation. And right now Europe — and I see good progress for the US as well — are trying to dismantle the imposed power of those big guys. For the simple evolution of human being and technology and the future of us.”
“I think good things can happen,” he adds. “We’re in talks with handset manufacturers who are coming into Europe and they want to be the most respectful of the market. And with us they have this reassurance that you have a good partner that ensures there’s a revenue stream, there’s a business model behind it, there’s really a strong use-case for users.
“We can finally be where we always wanted to be: A choice, an alternative. But having Google imposing its way since start — and making sure that all the direct competition of Google is just a side, I think governments have now seen the problem. And we’re a winner of course because we’re a keyboard.”
But what about iOS? Plante says the team has plans to bring what they’re building with Fleksy to Apple’s mobile platform too, in time. But for now they’re fully focusing efforts on Android — to push for scale and execute on their vision of staking their claim to be the independent keyboard platform.
Apple has supported third party keyboards on iOS for years. Unfortunately, though, the experience isn’t great — with a flaky toggle to switch away from the default Apple keyboard, combined with heavy system warnings about the risks of using third party keyboards.
Meanwhile the default iOS keyboard ‘just works’ — and users have loads of extra features baked by default into Apple’s native messaging app, iMessage.
Clearly alternative keyboards have found it all but impossible to build any kind of scale in that iOS pincer.
“iOS is coming later because we need to focus on these distribution deals and we need to focus on the brands coming into the platform. And that’s why iOS right now we’re really focusing for later. What we can say is it will come later,” says Plante, adding: “Apple limits a lot keyboards. You can see it with other keyboard companies. It’s the same. The update cycle for iOS keyboard is really, really, really slow.”
Plus, of course, Fleksy being preloaded as a default keyboard on — the team hopes — millions of Android devices is a much more scalable proposition vs just being another downloadable app languishing invisibly on the side lines of another tech giant’s platform.
