Huawei can buy from US suppliers again — but things will never be the same

U.S. President Donald Trump has handed Huawei a lifeline after he said that U.S. companies are permitted to sell goods to the embattled Chinese tech firm following more than a month of uncertainty.

It’s been a pretty dismal past month for Huawei since the American government added it and 70 of its affiliates to an “entity list” which forbids U.S. companies from doing business with it. The ramifications of the move were huge across Huawei’s networking and consumer devices businesses. A range of chip companies reportedly forced to sever ties while Google, which provides Android for Huawei devices, also froze its relationship. Speaking this month.

All told, Huawei founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei said recently that the ban would cost the Chinese tech firm — the world’s third-larger seller of smartphones — some $30 billion in lost revenue of the next two years.

Now, however, the Trump administration has provided a reprieve, at least based on the President’s comments following a meeting with Chinese premier Xi Jinping at the G20 summit this weekend.

“US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it,” the U.S. President said.

Those comments perhaps contradict some in the US administration who saw the Huawei blacklisting as a way to strangle the company and its global ambitions, which are deemed by some analysts to be a threat to America.

President Trump has appeared to soften his tone on Chinese communications giant Huawei, suggesting that he would allow the company to once again purchase US technology https://t.co/4YNJCyKLTg pic.twitter.com/jr45f40ghP

— CNN International (@cnni) June 29, 2019

Despite the good news, any mutual trust has been broken and things are unlikely to be the same again.

America’s almost casual move to blacklist Huawei — the latest in a series of strategies in its ongoing trade battle with China — exemplifies just how dependent the company has become on the U.S. to simply function.

Huawei has taken steps to hedge its reliance on America, including the development of its own operating system to replace Android and its own backup chips, and you can expect that these projects will go into overdrive to ensure that Huawei doesn’t find itself in a similar position again in the future.

Of course, decoupling its supply chain from US partners is no easy task both in terms of software and components. It remains to be seen if Huawei could maintain its current business level — which included 59 million smartphones in the last quarter and total revenue of $107.4 billion in 2018 — with non-US components and software but this episode is a reminder that it must have a solid contingency policy in case it becomes a political chess piece again in the future.

Beyond aiding Huawei, Trump’s move will boost Google and other Huawei partners who invested significant time and resources into developing a relationship with Huawei to boost their own businesses through its business.

Indeed, speaking to press Trump, Trump admitted that US companies sell “a tremendous amount” of products to Huawei. Some “were not exactly happy that they couldn’t sell” to Huawei and it looks like that may have helped tipped this decision. But, then again, never say never — you’d imagine that the Huawei-Trump saga is far from over despite this latest twist.

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Google finance head joins Postmates board ahead of anticipated IPO

Google’s vice president of finance, has joined Postmates’ board of directors, the latest sign that the on-demand food delivery startup is prepping to take the company public.

Postmates announced Friday that Kristin Reinke, vice president of Finance at Google, will join the San Francisco startup as an independent director.

Reinke has been with Google since 2005. Prior to Google, Reinke was at Oracle for eight years. Reinke also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Economic Advisory Council.

Her skill set will come in handy as Postmates creeps towards an IPO.

Earlier this year, the company lined up a $100 million pre-IPO financing that valued the business at $1.85 billion. Postmates is backed by Tiger Global, BlackRock, Spark Capital, Uncork Capital, Founders Fund, Slow Ventures and others. Spark Capital’s Nabeel Hyatt tweeted the news earlier Friday.

Happy to welcome Kristin to the board of @Postmates. Great times ahead. https://t.co/nEqu3A2YkE

— Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel) June 28, 2019

“Postmates has established itself as the market leader with a focus on innovation and route efficiency in the fast‐growing on‐demand delivery sector. Given their strong execution, accelerating growth, and financial discipline, they are well positioned for continued market growth across the U.S.,” said Reinke. “I’m thrilled to join the board.”

The startup has been beefing up its executive quiver, most recently hiring Apple veteran and author Ken Kocienda as a principal software engineer at Postmates X, the team building the food delivery company’s semi-autonomous sidewalk rover, Serve.

Kocienda, author of “Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s  Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs,” spent 15 years at Apple focused on human interface design, collaborating with engineers to develop the first iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

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Mozilla previews a redesigned and faster Firefox for Android

Mozilla today announced the first preview of a redesigned version of Firefox for Android that promises to be up to two times faster. The new version also introduces an easier to use and rather minimalist user interface, as well as support for collections, Mozilla’s new take on bookmarks. The new browser also features Firefox’s tracking protection, which is on by default. Over time, this preview will become the default Firefox for Android.

A few years ago, with Quantum, the Firefox team make a number of under-the-hood improvements to the browser’s core backend technologies. Now, it is doing something similar with GeckoView, Mozilla’s browser engine for Android. Implementing the technology the team developed for this in the browser now “paves the way for a complete makeover of the mobile Firefox experience,” the organization writes in today’s announcement.

“While all other major Android browsers today are based on Blink and therefore reflective of Google’s decisions about mobile, Firefox’s GeckoView engine ensures us and our users independence,” says the Firefox team. “Building Firefox for Android on GeckoView also results in greater flexibility in terms of the types of privacy and security features we can offer our mobile users.”

An early version of Firefox with GeckoView is now available for testing on Android under the Firefox Preview moniker. Mozilla notes that the user experience will sill change quite a bit before it is final.

When you first launch it, Preview opens up a new default experience that lets you sign in to a Firefox account, decide on whether you want a light or dark theme (or have the system switch automatically depending on the time of day), turn on privacy features and more.

One feature I really appreciate is that, by default, the preview puts the URL bar at the bottom of the screen, so that it’s within easy reach of your thumb. If you swipe up on the URL bar, you get both a share and bookmark icon, too. That takes some getting used to but quickly becomes second nature.

I haven’t run any formal benchmarks, but the preview definitely feels significantly snappier and smoother than any previews Firefox version on Android, up to the point where I wouldn’t hesitate to make it my default browser on mobile, especially given its built-in privacy features. I haven’t run into any hard crashes so far either, but this is obviously a beta version, so your mileage may vary.

For the rest of the year, the team will focus on optimizing the preview for all Android devices, but for now, it’s already worth a look if you’re looking to play with a new mobile browser on your Android device and not afraid of the occasional bug.

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Apple is reportedly moving Mac Pro assembly to China

Back in 2013, Apple announced that it would it would be assembling its high-end desktop in the U.S. After manufacturing had mostly moved out the country, the company made a point of touting its use of its Texas plant to help produce the Mac Pro.

When the long-awaited followup was announced earlier this month at WWDC, many wondered whether the company would return to Austin. Apple didn’t comment on its plans at the time, but a new report from The Wall Street Journal claims that the desktop will be produced by Quanta Computer Inc. in a plant outside of Shanghai.

Apple hasn’t denied the report, which comes courtesy of “people familiar with its plans.” Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the company highlights the other parts of the production process,

“Like all of our products, the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in California and includes components from several countries including the United States,” the statement reads. “We’re proud to support manufacturing facilities in 30 US states and last year we spent $60 billion with over 9,000 suppliers across the US. Our investment and innovation supports 2 million American jobs. Final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process.”

The report comes at a particularly sensitive time for U.S./China relations, as a trade war has been stoked, in particular, by Trump. Apple has long been aware of the potential impact of tariffs on components and international sales. Last year, CEO Tim Cook noted that he had met with the President, telling him that tariffs were “the wrong move.”

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Shuttl is winning over office workers in India with safer bus commute option

Miles away from the fancy parts of Gurgaon, where a cohort of Uber and Ola cars race all day to dot the surrounding, hundreds of people are working on a different solution to contribute to India’s push for improved mobility.

When Uber entered India six years ago, and its local rival Ola began to expand in the nation, many thought the two cab services will be able to meet the needs of most Indians. To be sure, the heavily discounted cab rides in the early days meant that the two companies were able to quickly scale their businesses to dozens of cities and were clocking about three million rides a day.

But in the years since, it has become clear that Ola and Uber alone can’t serve the masses — a significant portion of which lacks the means to book a cab ride — or magically circumvent through India’s alarmingly congested roads. This has resulted in the emergence of a growing number of electric bike makers such as Yulu — which partnered with Uber last month, Vogo — which is backed by Ola,  Bounce, and Ather Energy that are both showing promising growth and attracting big bucks from investors.

For four years, another startup has been quietly working on expanding its platform. But unlike the bike startups and cab aggressors, it is betting on buses. Shuttl operates over 1,300 buses in more than 300 routes in five cities of India. The platform serves more than 65,000 customers each day.

Shuttl, too, hasn’t had much difficulty in attracting capital. It has raised about $48.5 million to date. TechCrunch recently learned that the startup was in talks with investors to raise an additional $50 million. Amit Singh, cofounder and CEO of Shuttl, declined to comment on the upcoming funding round. But he sat with us to explain his business and the challenges it comes with.

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Daily Crunch: Jony Ive is leaving Apple

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. Jony Ive is leaving Apple to launch a new firm

The man who won over decades of Apple fans with iconic product design and his pronunciation of “aluminum” is out at the company.

The executive will begin transitioning away from Apple at the end of 2019, launching a new project titled LoveFrom next year. In a press release, Apple noted that it will remain a client of his new design firm.

2. Amazon launches Counter in-store pick-up in the US, starting with 100 Rite Aid locations

The longer-term plan for Amazon is to expand the pick-up option to 1,500 stores (including non-Rite Aid partners) by the end of 2019 — a very quick ramp-up in the next six months.

3. Google Maps can now predict how crowded your bus or train will be

This is a new prediction technique Google has been perfecting for over half a year. Starting in October, the company began to ask Google Maps users who traveled between 6am to 10am for details about their journey.

4. Apple’s Sidecar just really gets me, you know?

Darrell has been trying out Sidecar, the feature that lets you use an iPad as an external display for your Mac — and he says it’s just about everything you could ask for.

5. Niantic is throwing a Harry Potter: Wizards Unite fan festival this summer

Niantic has been doing in-person “anomaly” events around the world for their first title, Ingress, for years, and the company has also held dozens of real-world events for Pokémon GO.

6. My six months with $30/month email service Superhuman

A $30-per-month email service capturing the adoration of investors and founders in Silicon Valley is perhaps an unsurprising story in a subscription-obsessed landscape, yet we’re only now hearing how stealth-y startup Superhuman has captured major funding.

7. The rise of the new crypto ‘mafias’

Drawing on the idea of the “PayPal mafia,” this article examines the formation and flow of talent within the crypto landscape today. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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Apple’s Sidecar just really *gets* me, you know?

With the rollout of Apple’s public beta software previews of macOS and the new iPadOS, I’ve finally been able to experience first-hand Sidecar, the feature that lets you use an iPad as an external display for your Mac. This is something I’ve been looking to make work since the day the iPad was released, and it’s finally here – and just about everything you could ask for.

These are beta software products, and I’ve definitely encountered a few bugs including my main Mac display blanking out and requiring a restart (that’s totally fine – betas by definition aren’t fully baked). But Sidecar is already a game-changer, and one that I will probably have a hard time living without in future – especially on the road.

Falling nicely into the ‘it just works’ Apple ethos, setting up Sidecar is incredibly simple. As long as your Mac is running macOS 10.15 Catalina, and your iPad is nearby, with Bluetooth and Wifi enabled, and running the iPadOS 13 beta, you just click on the AirPlay icon in your Mac’s Menu bar and it should show up as a display option.

Once you select your iPad, Sidecar just quickly displays an extended desktop from your Mac on the iOS device. It’s treated as a true external display in macOS System Preferences, so you can arrange it with other displays, mirror your Mac and more. The one thing you can’t do that you can do with traditional displays is change the resolution – Apple keeps things default here at 1366 x 1024, but it’s your iPad’s extremely useful native resolution (2732 x 2048, plus Retina pixel doubling for the first-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro I’m using for testing), and it means there’s nothing weird going on with pixelated graphics or funky text.

Apple also turns on, by default, both a virtual Touchbar and a new feature called ‘Sidebar’ (yes, it’s a Sidebar for your Sidecar) that provides a number of useful commands including the ability to call up the dock, summon a virtual keyboard, quickly access the command key and more. This is particularly useful if you’re using the iPad on its own without the attached Mac, which can really come in handy when you’re deep in a drawing application and just looking to do quick things like undo, and Apple has a dedicated button in Sidebar for that, too.

The Touchbar is identical to Apple’s hardware Touchbar, which it includes on MacBook Pros, dating back to its introduction in 2016. The Touchbar has always been kind of a ‘meh’ feature, and some critics vocally prefer the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro model that does away with it altogether in favor of an actual hardware Escape key. And on the iPad using Sidecar, you also don’t get what might be its best feature – TouchID. But, if you’re using Sidecar specifically for photo or video editing, it’s amazing to be able to have it called up and sitting there ready to do, as an app-specific dedicated quick action toolbar.

Best of all, Apple made it possible to easily turn off both these features, and to do so quickly right from your Mac’s menu bar. That way, you get the full benefit of your big beautiful iPad display. Sidecar will remember this preference too for next time you connect.

Also new to macOS Catalina is a hover-over menu for the default window controls (those three ‘stoplight’ circular buttons that appear at the top left of any Mac app). Apple now provides options to either go fullscreen, tile your app left or right to take up 50% of your display, or, if you’re using Sidecar, to quickly move the app to Sidecar display or back.

[gallery ids="1850048,1850047"]

This quick shuffle action works great, and also respects your existing windows settings, so you can move an app window that you’ve resized manually to take up a quarter of your Mac’s display, and then when you send it back from the Sidecar iPad, it’ll return to where you had it originally in the same size and position. It’s definitely a nice step up in terms of native support for managing windows across multiple displays.

I’ve been using Sidecar wirelessly, though it also works wired and Apple has said there shouldn’t really be any performance disparity regardless of which way you go. So far, the wireless mode has exceeded all expectations, and any third-party competitors in terms of reliability and quality. It also works with the iPad Pro keyboard case, which makes for a fantastic input alternative if you happen to be closer to that one instead of the keyboard you’re using with your Mac.

Sidecar also really shines for digital artists, because it supports input via Apple Pencil immediately in apps that have already built in support for stylus input on Macs, including Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo. I’ve previously used a Wacom Cintiq 13HD with my Mac for this kind of thing, and I found Apple’s Sidecar to be an amazing alternative, not least of which because it’s wireless and even the 12.9 iPad Pro is such more portable than the Wacom device. Input seems to have very little response lag (like, it’s not even really perceivable), there’s no calibration required to make sure the Pencil lines up with the cursor on the screen, and as I mentioned above, combined with the Sidebar and dedicated ‘Undo’ button, it’s an artistic productivity machine.

The Pencil is the only means of touch input available with Sidecar, and that’s potentially going to be weird for users of other third-party display extender apps, most of which support full touch input for the extended Mac display they provide. Apple has intentionally left out finger-based touch input, because Mac just wasn’t designed for it, and in use that actually tracks with what my brain expects, so it probably won’t be too disorienting for most users.

When Apple introduced the 5K iMac, it left out one thing that had long been a mainstay of that all-in-on desktop – Target Display Mode. It was a sad day for people who like to maximize the life of their older devices. But they’ve more than made up for it with the introduction of Sidecar, which genuinely doubles the utility value of any modern iPad, provided you’re someone for whom additional screen real estate, with or without pressure-sensitive pen input, is something valuable. As someone who often works on the road and out of the office, Sidecar seems like something I personally designed in the room with Apple’s engineering team.

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