Tim Cook weighs in on standardized messaging features: 'Buy your mom an iPhone'

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch logo]( [The Daily Crunch logo]( By [Christine Hall]( and [Haje Jan Kamps]( Thursday, September 08, 2022 Helloooo! Since our last Daily Crunch, our adrenaline-fueled TechCrunch team has added more than 70 stories to the site. We’re picking out some of the best below, but we’ll almost certainly miss a story you wish you’d read. [Give our homepage a quick scroll]( to see what strikes your fancy! — [Christine]( and [Haje]( [ image] Image Credits: Apple The TechCrunch Top 3 - [Tim Cook and green bubbles](: Christine is an Android user and her iPhone-using friends talk about “green bubbles,” but until now she did not know this was a problem. Christine’s text bubbles come in all different colors and even tells her who is “speaking” when in a group. However, she’s now learned that her iPhone-using friends secretly hate her green bubbles. Tim Cook is on their side,[Ivan]( writes. - [Ambient Mesh](: That’s the name of Google and Solo.io’s new Istio service mesh. We’ll yield to [Frederic]( to explain what all of that means. - [Electric vroom](: Jeep has three, three new electric vehicles, ah ah ah!, poised to enter the market beginning in 2023, [Jaclyn]( reports. [Your Handy Checklist for SOC 2 Compliance from Vanta]( Sponsored by [Vanta]( [Ready to simplify the time-consuming, tedious process of proving compliance — starting with industry fave SOC 2? Here’s a free checklist from Vanta, the leading automated security and compliance platform. Attend a demo, and lunch is on Vanta!]( [Get it here]( Startups and VC It’s day 2 of Y Combinator-vaganza, which means we have buckets and buckets of news for you. Assuming news comes in buckets, but that’s a conversation for another day. [Tage]( reports that [YC’s latest batch cuts African startup presence by more than half](, and [Anna](, [Alex]( and [Tage]( are curious where [Y Combinator is startup-hunting in 2022](. And [Kyle]( explored [7 AI startups that stood out]( among the YC hopefuls, and a load of TechCrunch writers selected[our 11 favorite companies from Day 1]( and [Day 2]( and the [moonshots](. Whew. In addition to YC, Apple ran an event yesterday, and boy did we cover a bunch of that, too. Luckily, Christine has you covered on that front in the Big Tech section below. Here’s a few more for ya: - We’ve got our eye on you: [Ingrid]( writes about [FocalPoint grabbing $17 million]( and its mission to fix all that is wrong with GPS. - Getting farmers to see green: [Natasha L]( does a deep-dive into the world of agriculture technology, focusing on [Klim, which raised $6.6 million]( to help farmers adopt regenerative practices. - Data grows like a weed: More data means more storage, and Catalog is partnering with Seagate on an interesting approach to [data storage using DNA technology](, [Kate]( writes. - Education aspiration: [Tage]( has a look at Nexford, an online university, which banked $8 million “[to plug affordability and relevance gaps in education](.” - Cloudy storage days ahead: [Lucidity raised $5.3 million]( to continue developing tools to keep all of your cloud block storage “neat and tidy,” [Catherine]( writes. [5 metrics Series A investors look for at dev-tools startups]( The median Series A for developer-tooling companies fell to $47.5 million in Q3 2022, “the lowest it has been since the beginning of 2021,” writes Rak Garg, a principal at Bain Capital. After meeting with hundreds of companies since the start of the downturn, Garg has written a fundraising guide for seed-stage founders who are hoping to reach the next level. “I’ve noticed a common characteristic among founders who have raised successful Series A rounds: They’re great at telling their companies’ stories,” says Garg. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead.[You can sign up here](.) [Read More]( [5 metrics Series A investors look for at dev-tools startups image] Image Credits: I Like That One / Getty Images Big Tech Inc. So much Apple, so little time. The Apple iPhone 14 event dominated our news cycle for the second day, [especially this one]( by[Greg](, who we think nicely summed up everything from the event. If you want to read every drooling detail, head over to the [Apple fall event hub](. Speaking of things to drool over, [Christine]( wrote a brief piece about [Bloomingdale’s getting into the metaverse]( with its new virtual store that looks like it will give you purse envy. - Deadline dilemma: Online learning company [Byju has missed its financial audit deadlines]( for so many months that even lawmakers are now wondering what’s up, [Manish]( reports. - An EV for everyone: We’ve run our fair share of electric vehicles with some pricey price tags associated with them, so it was only fitting that we highlight what General Motors is doing with its [$30,000 all-electric Chevrolet Equinox SUV](. [Kirsten]( has more. - No cap: [Annie]( writes about Uber and its quest to have a Kenyan court nullify the country’s new law that [caps rail-hailing service fees at 18%](. - Point of order: [Vista Equity Partners has a deal to buy Avalara](, announced in August. Well, now one of Avalara’s biggest shareholders, a family office called Altair US, says it [plans to vote against the sale](. [Paul]( has more on what’s happening there. [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Senior Digital Marketing Manager (Remote) at Xivic, Inc. (Anywhere)]( - [Senior Digital Project Manager (Remote) at Xivic, Inc. (Anywhere)]( - [Blockchain Engineer at Tenex (New York, NY, USA)]( - [Full Stack Software Engineer (Remote Friendly) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA, USA)]( - [Technical Business Analyst at Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA, United States)]( [See more jobs on CrunchBoard]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2022 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103