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&Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker& opened Friday to mediocre reviews, though itnot clear whether those reviews will put any real damper on audience enthusiasm.
In the meantime, all three of your hosts of the Original Content podcast have seen the movie. And we all agree that &The Rise of Skywalker,& while flawed, is a largely entertaining and satisfying experience.
Things get a little more complicated in our spoiler discussion, where we weigh in on the filmbig reveals. The trilogyprevious installment, &The Last Jedi,& polarized fans with its bold storytelling choices (bold for Star Wars, at least). But we&re squarely in the pro-&Last Jedi& camp, so we were disappointed to see &The Rise of Skywalker& back away from some of those choices.
Our discussion also unearths a key piece of Star Wars history — the fact that while developing his now-formidable writing talents, our co-host Darrell Etherington wrote an extended piece of fanfiction with the tantalizing title &Reign of the Empress.& If you&d like to help us pressure Darrell into reading the story on a future episode of the podcast, please email or tweetat us!
Itan Adam Driver-centric episode this week. In addition to discussing DriverStar Wars arc, we also review &Marriage Story,& the Netflix film where he and Scarlett Johansson play a divorcing couple. At least one of us thinks &Marriage Story& might be the best movie of the year, while others were a little more reserved in their praise.
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcastsor find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
And if you want to skip ahead, herehow the episode breaks down: 0:00 Intro 1:15 &The Mandalorian& listener response 8:50 &Marriage Story& review (mild spoilers) 27:42 &Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker& review 45:52 &The Rise of Skywalker& spoiler discussion
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Read more: Original Content podcast: ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ makes some questionable choices
Write comment (90 Comments)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 industryis as hot as ever,with 194 billion downloads last yearand more than $100 billion in consumer spending. Peoplespend 90% of their mobile timein apps andmore time using their mobile devicesthan watching TV. Apps aren&t just a way to waste idle hours — they&re big business, one that often seems to change overnight. In this Extra Crunch series, we help you to keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.
Headlines
The top apps of the year… and the decade
App Annie this week released its list of the yeartop apps. And this time around, it also included the top apps of the past 10 years in its analysis. Outside of games, Facebook dominated the decade, the firm reported. It ran the four most-downloaded apps of the decade, including Facebook (#1), Messenger (#2), WhatsApp (#3), and Instagram (#4). Other communication and social media apps were also among the most popular over the past 10 years, claiming seven out of the 10 top spots, including Snapchat (#5), Skype (#6) and Twitter (#10). Social video platforms TikTok and YouTube also placed on the list at #7 and #9, respectively. And yes, itpretty notable that TikTok — an app that only launched outside of China in 2017 — is one of the most-downloaded apps of the past decade. Meanwhile, even though dating app Tinder was the most profitable app this year, Netflix was the No. 1 app by all-time consumer spend over the past decade.
2019 app downloads and consumer spending
Related to its round-up of the top apps, App Annie also offered some preliminary data on downloads and consumer spending in 2019. Its current figures don&t include calculations from third-party app stores in China, (like those referenced above), which App Annie tends to provide in its annual State of Mobile report. Instead, App Annie reports we&re on track to see 120 billion apps from AppleApp Store and Google Play by the end of 2019, a 5% increase from 2018. Consumer spending was also up 15% year-over-year to reach $90 billion, it says. Expect a full analysis to come in Q1 2020.
Facebook still sat at the top of the charts for 2019. The companyMessenger app was the most downloaded non-game app of 2019, followed by Facebookmain app, then WhatsApp. Tinder switched places with Netflix for the No. 1 spot on this chart — last year, it was the other way around. (For more details, TechCrunchfull review is here.)
2019 in Mobile Gaming
According to a year-end report by GamesIndustry.biz, mobile gaming grew 9.7% year-over-year in 2019 to reach a market value of $68.2 billion. The gaming market as a whole was worth $148.8 billion, the report said. Smartphone games were the biggest piece of this figure, at $54.7 billion, compared with $13.4 billion for tablet games. That means smartphone games are still bigger than PC, browser PC games, boxed and downloaded PC games, and console games.
Big moves in cloud gaming
To beef up its new cloud gaming service Stadia, Google this week bought game development firm Typhoon Studios, who were set to release their cross-platform title and first game, Journey to the Savage Planet. Google had said it wants to build out a few different first-party studios to release content on Stadia, which is where this acquisition fits in. Meanwhile, Facebook this week acquired the cloud gaming startup, PlayGiga, which had been working with telcos to create streaming game technology for 5G.
Stadia has a big mobile component, as its controller can play games on compatible mobile devices like Pixel phones. Gaming has been a big part of Facebookmobile efforts, as not only a platform where games can be played, but also a place to watch live game streams, similar to Twitch. But the big gaming trend of the past year (which will continue into 2020) is cross-platform gaming — thanks to games like Fortnite, Roblox and PUBG Mobile, as well as devices like Nintendo Switch, gamers expect to continue playing no matter what screen they happen to be using at the time.
Apple Developer app expands support for China
Apple launched a dedicated mobile app for its developer community in November, with the arrival of the Apple Developer app, which was an upgraded and rebranded version of Appleexisting WWDC app. The app lets developers access resources like technical and design articles, as well as read news, watch developer videos, and enroll in the Apple Developer program. Now that the program is open to China through the app, Apple announced this week.
From the app, developers in China can start and complete their Apple Developer membership and pay with a local payment method on their iPhone or iPad. They can also renew their membership, to keep their account active. Apple has been heavily investing in growing its international developer community by launching developer academies and accelerators in key regions, among other initiatives. Over the past year, Apple grew its developer community in China by 17%, the company earlier said.
So much for nostalgia, Rewound gets yanked from the App Store
We hope you downloaded this fun app when we told you to in last weekcolumn! Because now itgone.
Rewound, briefly, was a clever music player app that turns your iPhone into a 2000era iPod, complete with click wheel nav. The developer was able to sneak the app into the App Store by not including the actual iPod UI, which infringes on Appleown product design. Instead, the UI pieces were hosted off-site — on Twitter accounts, for example. Users could find them and download them after they installed the app. Technically, that means the App Store app itself wasn&t infringing, but Apple still kicked it out. The developer also charged a fee to access the Apple Music features, which may have been another reason for its removal.
Itno surprise Apple took this step, but the developer seems confused as to how the app could be approved then pulled later on, even though it hadn&t changed. Thatactually par for the course for Applesubjective, editorial decisions over its App Store, however. Now Rewound, which has 170K+ users after only a few days, will focus on a web app and Android version.
Facebook is building its own OS so it can ditch Android
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Read more: This Week in Apps: The year and decade in review, gaming acquisitions and a Facebook OS
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TikTok may be the fastest-growing social network in the history of the internet, but it is also quickly becoming the fastest-growing security threat and thorn in the side of U.S. China hawks.
The latest, according to a notice published by the U.S. Navy this past week and reported on by Reuters and the South China Morning Post, is that TikTok will no longer be allowed to be installed on service members& devices, or they may face expulsion from the military serviceintranet.
Itjust the latest example of the challenges facing the extremely popular app. Recently, Congress led by Missouri senator Josh Hawley demanded a national security review of TikTok and its Sequoia-backed parent company ByteDance, along with other tech companies that may share data with foreign governments like China. Concerns over the leaking of confidential communications recently led the U.S. government to demand the unwinding of the acquisition of gay social network app Grindr from its Chinese owner Beijing Kunlun.
The intensity of criticism on both sides of the Pacific has made it increasingly challenging to manage tech companies across the divide. As I recently discussed here on TechCrunch, Shutterstock has actively made it harder and harder to find photos deemed controversial by the Chinese government on its stock photography platform, a play to avoid losing a critical source of revenue.
We saw similar challenges with Google and its Project Dragonfly China-focused search engine as well as with the NBA.
Whatinteresting here though is that companies on both sides are struggling with policy on both sides. Chinese companies like ByteDance are increasingly being targeted and stricken out of the U.S. market, while American companies have long struggled to get a foothold in the Middle Kingdom. That might be a more equal playing field than it has been in the past, but it is certainly a less free market than it could be.
While the trade fight between China and the U.S. continues, the damage will continue to fall on companies that fail to draw within the lines set by policymakers in both countries. Whether any tech company can bridge that divide in the future unfortunately remains to be seen.
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Tesla is making progress on its plan to build its European gigafactory in Berlin, Bloomberg reports. The Elon Musk-run automaker is working with state officials in Brandenburg on the contract to secure around 740 acres of land just outside Berlin in Gruenheide, and the government has agreed to the contract as currently written and is now awaiting Teslafinal sign-off.
On top of the contract, Tesla has also filed the requisite documents with local environmental monitoring authorities that outline the impact of the factory build, a required step in order to secure approval to break ground.
Musk revealed that he had selected an area just outside of Berlin as the site of the companyEuropean Gigafactory during an awards acceptance ceremony in November. The location is near the new Berlin airport, which has been under construction for many years and will replace Berlinaging and cramped Tegel airport once completed.
The Berlin Gigafactory will be building vehicles, starting with the forthcoming Tesla Model Y compact SUV, but it will also build batteries and powertrains, Musk said on Twitter at the time. Eventually, the new facility could employ as many as 10,000 people and produce up to 500,000 new vehicles per year, Bild reported previously.
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Write comment (96 Comments)The government has approved a US private equity firm's takeover of UK defence and aerospace company Cobham.
Advent International made a £4bn offer to buy Cobham in July, but it was delayed when the government intervened over national security concerns.
The government announced its approval of the deal late on Friday night -
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Read more: UK approves £4bn US takeover of defence company Cobham
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