G2 crowd, a business software marketplace, raises another $55M at just under a $500M valuation

G2 Crowd, a platform that lets businesses search for, compare reviews and pricing for, and then buy software and other IT services — it likes to refer to itself as the “Amazon of business software” — has raised $55 million in growth funding to continue expanding its business. This round was led by IVP, with participation from enterprise VC Emergence Capital and Accel (which led its previous round, which also included LinkedIn as an investor), and brings the company “close to half a billion dollar valuation,” according to a source close to the company.

This is a big leap: in May 2017, when it last raised money, G2 Crowd was valued at $130 million post-money, according to PitchBook.

The rise of that valuation underscores just how fragmented and competitive the market is for business software today, and how a company that provides a useful way to navigate through that has a very good shot at building a lucrative business. More generally, a vertical search engine filling a gap in the market and that actually works remains a killer app, despite the dominance of Google in so many areas of search, and of Amazon in so many areas of online commerce.

G2 Crowd has seen a big leap in its growth in the last 16 months. Software reviews is a core part of what it offers to people who come to the site looking for software — the company likes to compare itself to Amazon, but I’ve previously described it as the Glassdoor of software reviews — and today it has 500,000 verified-user reviews free to browse on its site. That’s up from 225,000 in May 2017. It has traffic of 2 million “business professionals” monthly, who go to G2 Crowd to browse 58,500 products across 1,200 categories. G2 Crowd also happens to have a very strong SEO game at the moment, with a top slot when you input searches like “LinkedIn competitor.”

While SEO and software comparisons are what might bring in users, what makes money for G2 is that many of them stay to shop for software, and that is what the company will continue building out with this funding.

“We started as a way to help companies make better buying decisions. Now, the focus is on helping them reach their potential through digital transformation, more quickly than ever.” said Godard Abel, CEO and co-founder of G2 Crowd.

It plans to use it to ramp up hiring, expand internationally in Europe and Asia, and make some acquisitions. “We have our eyes on a few companies that are complementary to our vision and mission,” CMO Ryan Bonnici tells me.

“When it comes to marketplaces, in today’s business climate it’s winner takes all. What Amazon is for consumers, G2 Crowd is becoming for businesses: the place to discover and buy the best business solutions,” said IVP General Partner Jules Maltz, in a statement. “G2 Crowd is disrupting the $3.7 trillion enterprise technology market for buying and selling business solutions, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy. Small businesses to large enterprises like Nike and Facebook trust G2 Crowd to discover and buy the best solutions for their business.” Maltz is also joining the board with this round.

There are, of course, others that offer similar services to G2, with companies like IDC, Forrester and Gartner being strong contenders for enterprises, and others like Owler also hanging in the wings. Investors say G2 Crowd is king at the moment, though.

“G2 Crowd has the highest traffic and engagement, largest selection of products and services, and highest quality data of any B2B marketplace,” Jason Green at Emergence, said in a statement. “G2 Crowd is already growing at an incredible rate, and this latest funding round will only help them build the next Amazon for business even faster.”


Source: Tech Crunch

Instagram tests tapping instead of scrolling through posts, first in Explore

The effortless way you fast forward through Stories could be coming to more of Instagram . A screenshot from user Suprateek Bose shows Instagram “Introducing a new way to move through posts — Tap through posts, just like you tap through stories.”

Now Instagram confirms to TechCrunch that it’s testing tap to advance within Explore, and a spokesperson provided this statement: “We’re always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and bring you closer to the people and things you love.” As for whether this could come to the main feed, an Instagram spokesperson tells me that not something it’s actively thinking about right now.

Instagram already uses an auto-advance feature in its Videos You Might Like section of Explore, jumping down to the next video when the last one finishes. It previously offered themed video collections around Halloween and top creators too. But for photos where it’s not clear when you’re done viewing, a quick tap is the closest thing to Instagram propelling you through posts automatically.

Tap to advance, pioneered by Snapchat, eliminates the need for big thumbstrokes on your touch screen that can get tiring after awhile. It also means users always see media full-screen rather than having to fiddle with scrolling the perfect amount to see an entire post. Together, these create a more relaxing browsing experience that can devour hours of a user’s time. Instagram doesn’t show ads in Explore, but tap-to-advance could save your thumb stamina for more feed and Stories viewing where it does earn money. While Snapchat remains the teen favorite, Instagram could cater to seniors with arthritis with this new method of navigation (no, seriously, swiping can be tough on the joints for some people).

The fact that tap-to-advance is now testing but Instagram still hasn’t actually rolled out the Your Activity screentime digital well-being dashboard it says was launching two months ago begs the question of whether it really wants us to be more purposeful with our social media usage.


Source: Tech Crunch

Microsoft adds 60,000 patents to the Open Invention Network

Microsoft announced today that it’s joined open-source patent group, the Open Invention Network in an effort to help shield Linux and other open-source software from patent-related suits. As part of the deal, the software giant is opening a library of 60,000 patents to OIN members. Access to the massive portfolio is unlimited and royalty free.

It is, as ZDNET notes, a shift away from the aggressively litigious corporation of year’s past. Among other suits, the company had previously gone after a number of different companies in the Android ecosystem. Microsoft acknowledges as much in its announcement, adding that the news should be taken as a sign that its turning over a new leaf.

“We know Microsoft’s decision to join OIN may be viewed as surprising to some,” EVP Erich Andersen writes in a blog post, “it is no secret that there has been friction in the past between Microsoft and the open source community over the issue of patents. For others who have followed our evolution, we hope this announcement will be viewed as the next logical step for a company that is listening to customers and developers and is firmly committed to Linux and other open source programs.”

The news also finds the company looking to blur the lines between Windows and Linus development, encouraging devs to create programs for both operating systems, along with .NET and Java.

Last week, Microsoft followed the lead of companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon by joining anti-patent trolling group, the LOT Network.


Source: Tech Crunch

Four reasons why you should attend TC Sessions AR/VR 2018

On October 18 — just one week away — some of the most brilliant and innovative minds in reality creation will gather at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles to attend TC Sessions AR/VR 2018. Whether you’re an early start-up founder, an investor, a developer or a student, if you’re focused on AR/VR, you don’t want to miss this day-long intensive that goes deep into the current and future state of augmented and virtual realities.

Need a bit more convincing? Here are four reasons why you should buy a ticket and attend TC Sessions AR/VR 2018.

1. Deep-dive discussions

We have an outstanding roster of speakers ready to take the stage and go deep on both the opportunities and the challenges facing the AR/VR industry now and in the future. Here are just some of the people and topics we have on tap.

Niko Bonatsos, managing director at General Catalyst, Jacob Mullins, a partner at Shasta Ventures and Catherine Ulrich, managing director at FirstMark Capital will offer a reality check on the state of AR/VR funding — and discuss where the opportunities lie.

Survios co-founders Nathan Burba and James Illiff will talk VR gaming. The big question is whether VR gaming will continue to be a big opportunity and whether the studio can keep the momentum rolling.

Stephanie Zhan, a partner at Sequoia Capital, discusses how to build an inclusive — if virtual — future. As we spend more time in online virtual worlds, can the game developers who build them address the social issues we encounter?

2. Presentations: The challenging future of AR/VR

From expensive hardware to breaking out beyond gaming, AR/VR technology faces hurdles to widespread adoption. Heavy-hitters at Oculus, Facebook, and Snap (to name a few) weigh in on this important subject. Here’s a taste.

Finding users isn’t the only hurdle when it comes to augmented reality. Creating developer platforms ranks right up there on the AR challenge-o-meter. Eitan Pilipski, a VP at Snap, will talk about leveraging the company’s extensive AR selfie-filter expertise to attract more developers.

Yelena Rachitzky is an executive producer of experiences at Oculus, a company that’s invested hundreds of millions of dollars into VR content. She’ll discuss how the company plans to help Facebook kickstart its VR future. Will Facebook’s customers buy in?

Speaking of Facebook’s future, Ficus Kirkpatrick leads the company’s camera team, and he’ll talk about the company’s entry into AR — by augmenting customers’ smartphone cameras. But where will Facebook’s AR journey lead?

3. Networking

You won’t find a better opportunity to connect with the leaders, innovators, investors and makers within the AR/VR community. Whether you’re looking for collaborators, an investment opportunity, your next job or your next round of funding, you’ll find the people who can make it happen at TC Sessions AR/VR 2018 — all in one day, all in one place.

4. Build community

Community building goes beyond simple networking. It’s like-minded people sharing their ideas, philosophies and dreams. It’s about learning from each other and then returning to the work with renewed inspiration. Come and enrich the community.

TC Sessions AR/VR 2018 takes place on October 18 at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles. Tickets cost $149, but you can save 35 percent simply by tweeting your attendance. Go buy a ticket and join your people for one incredible, inspiring day. We can’t wait to see you next week!

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Source: Tech Crunch

AT&T will launch another streaming service in 2019, with HBO and other WarnerMedia content

AT&T will launch a new direct-to-consumer streaming service next year, the company announced today. Yes, another one. AT&T currently already operates cord cutter-friendly streaming services DirecTV Now and the low-cost WatchTV, but its new service will be focused on WarnerMedia properties, including HBO.

The move follows AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, which completed this past June. That means AT&T also now operates Time Warner’s streaming services HBO GO, for pay TV viewers, and HBO NOW, for cord cutters.

The upcoming, subscription-based service will include all of WarnerMedia’s properties, like HBO plus WarnerMedia’s other TV and movie franchises, as well as third-party licensed content.

And unlike DirecTV Now and Watch TV, the focus is not on streaming live TV, but on-demand content.

In that way, it’s being positioned more as a Netflix competitor, or even a rival to Disney’s upcoming streaming service, also due in 2019.

WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey discussed the service on stage at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit on Wednesday, but didn’t confirm its pricing or even what titles, specifically, would be included.

However, as CNBC noted, the company owns many major media brands like “Harry Potter,” “Batman,” and shows from cable TV networks like CNN, TNT, and TBS.

The service will cost more than HBO NOW, Variety also reports, and will be competitive in terms of content spend with Netflix. Currently, Warner Media spends $2.5 million to Netflix’s $8 billion on content, its report said.

In a statement, Stankey confirmed the new service would arrive in the fourth quarter of 2019.

“This is another benefit of the AT&T/Time Warner merger, and we are committed to launching a compelling and competitive product that will serve as a complement to our existing businesses and help us to expand our reach by offering a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation loved by consumers around the world,” Stankey said.

“We expect to create such a compelling product that it will help distributors increase consumer penetration of their current packages and help us successfully reach more customers,” he added.


Source: Tech Crunch

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman announce the name of their stealthy mobile video startup

On stage at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman unveiled the name of their highly-anticipated mobile video company known until now as NewTV.

The name is Quibi, short for “quick bites,” per a note on its new website: “Something cool is coming from Hollywood and Silicon Valley — quick bites of captivating entertainment, created for mobile by the best talent, designed to fit perfectly into any moment of your day.”

The short-form video service, launching next year, will operate on a two-tiered subscription model similar to Hulu, per Deadline. Quibi is cooking up original content with Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua and Spiderman director Sami Raimi, as well as Get Out producer Jason Blum and Van Toffler, the CEO of digital media production company Gunpowder & Sky.

The Hollywood Reporter says the del Toro project “is a modern zombie story,” the Fuqua project is “a modern version of Dog Day Afternoon” and the Blum project, titled Wolves and Villagers, could be compared to Fatal Attraction.

Katzenberg, the former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and founder of WndrCo, a consumer tech investment and holding company, has raised $1 billion for Quibi from Disney, 21st Century Fox, Entertainment One, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Alibaba Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Madrone Capital and several others. He hired Meg Whitman as Quibi’s CEO in January.

Quibi, given Katzenberg and Whitman’s entertainment and business acumen, is expected to compete with the biggest players in the space, including Instagram, Netflix and Snap, which today announced Snap Originals. The new effort will have the ephemeral messaging service rolling out 12 new scripted shows on its app from Keeping Up With The Kardashians creator Bunim/Murray, Friday Night Lights writer Carter Harris and more.

Quibi is hiring aggressively, recently bringing on former Viacom executive Doug Herzog, former Instagram product manager Blake Barnes and former Hulu chief technology officer Rob Post, also per THR.

Quibi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Source: Tech Crunch

Shasta Ventures is doubling down on security startups with 3 new hires

Early-stage venture capital firm Shasta Ventures has brought on three new faces to beef up its enterprise software and security portfolio amid a big push to “go deeper” into cybersecurity, per Shasta’s managing director Doug Pepper.

Balaji Yelamanchili (above left), the former general manager and executive vice president of Symantec’s enterprise security business unit, joins as a venture partner on the firm’s enterprise software team. He was previously a senior vice president at Oracle and Dell EMC. Pepper says Yelamanchili will be sourcing investments and may take board seats in “certain cases.”

The firm has also tapped Salesforce’s former chief information security officer Izak Mutlu (above center) as an executive-in-residence, a role in which he’ll advise Shasta portfolio companies. Mutlu spent 11 years at the cloud computing company managing IT security and compliance.

InterWest board partner Drew Harman, the final new hire, has joined as a board partner and will work closely with the chief executive officers of Shasta’s startups. Harman has worked in enterprise software for 25 years across a number of roles. He is currently on the boards of the cloud-based monetization platform Aria, enterprise content marketing startup NewsCred, customer retention software provider Totango and others.

There’s no area today that’s more important than cybersecurity,” Pepper told TechCrunch. “The business of venture has gotten increasingly competitive and it demands more focus than ever before. We aren’t looking for generalists, we are looking for domain experts.”

Shasta’s security investments include email authentication service Valimail, which raised a $25 million Series B in May. Airspace Systems, a startup that built “kinetic capture” technologies that can identify offending unmanned aircrafts and take them down, raised a $20 million round with participation from Shasta in March. And four-year-old Stealth Security, a startup that defends companies from automated bot attacks, secured an $8 million investment from Shasta in February.

The Menlo Park-based firm filed to raise $300 million for its fifth flagship VC fund in 2016. A year later, it announced a specialty vehicle geared toward augmented and virtual reality app development. With more than $1 billion under management, the firm also backs consumer, IoT, robotics and space-tech companies across the U.S.

In the last year, Shasta has promoted Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Nitin Chopra and Jacob Mullins from associate to partner, as well as added two new associates, Natalie Sandman and Rachel Star.


Source: Tech Crunch

The Salto-1P now does amazing targeted jumps

When we last met with Salto the jumping robot it was bopping around like a crazed grasshopper. Now researchers have added targeting systems to the little creature, allowing it to maintain a constant hop while controlling exactly when and where Salto lands.

Called “deadbeat foot placement hopping control” the Salto can now watch a surface for a target and essentially fly over to where it needs to land using built-in propellers.

Researchers Duncan Haldane, Justin Yim and Ronald Fearing created the Salto as part of the Army Research Office and they will be exhibiting the little guy at the 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

The team upgraded Salto’s controller to make it far more precise on landing, a feat that was almost impossible using the previous controller system, SLIP. “The robot behaves more or less like a spring-loaded inverted pendulum, a simplified dynamic model that shows up often enough in both biology and robotics that it has its own acronym: SLIP,” wrote Evan Ackerman at IEEE. “Way back in the 1980s, Marc Raibert developed a controller for SLIP-like robots, and people are still using it today, including Salto-1P up until just recently.”


Source: Tech Crunch

Google’s latest hardware innovation: Price

With its latest consumer hardware products, Google’s prices are undercutting Apple, Samsung, and Amazon. The search giant just unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, tablet, and smart home device and all available at prices well below their direct competitors. Where Apple and Samsung are pushing prices of its latest products even higher, Google is seemingly happy to keep prices low and this is creating a distinct advantage for the company’s products.

Google, like Amazon and nearly Apple, is a services company that happens to sell hardware. It needs to acquire users through multiple verticals including hardware. Somewhere, deep in the Googleplex, a team of number crunchers decided it made more sense to make its hardware prices dramatically lower than competitors. If Google is taking a loss on the hardware, it is likely making it back through services.

Amazon does this with Kindle devices. Microsoft and Sony do it with game consoles. This is a proven strategy to increase market share where the revenue generated on the backend recovers the revenue lost on selling hardware with slim or negative margins.

Look at the Pixel 3. The base 64GB model is available for $799 while the base 64GB iPhone XS is $999. Want a bigger screen? The 64GB Pixel 3 XL is $899, and the 64GB iPhone XS Max is $1099. Regarding the specs, both phones offer OLED displays and amazing cameras. There are likely pros and cons regarding the speed of the SoC, amount of RAM and wireless capabilities. Will consumers care since the screen and camera are so similar? Probably not.

Google also announced the Home Hub today. Like the Echo Show, it’s designed to be the central part of a smart home. It puts Google Assistant on a fixed screen where users can ask it questions and control a smart home. It’s $149. That’s $80 less than the Echo Show thou the Google version lacks video conferencing and a dedicated smart home hub — the Google Home Hub requires extra hardware for some smart home objects. Still, even with fewer features, the Home Hub is compelling because of its drastically lower price. For just a few dollars more than an Echo Show, a buyer could get a Home Hub and two Home Mini’s.

The Google Pixel Slate is Google’s answer to the iPad Pro. From everything we’ve seen, it appears to lack a lot of the processing power found in Apple’s top tablet. It doesn’t seem as refined or capable of specific tasks. But for view media, creating content and playing games, it feels just fine. It even has a Pixelbook Pen and a great keyboard that shows Google is positioning this against the iPad Pro. And the 12.3-inch Pixel Slate is available for $599 where the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is $799.

The upfront price is just part of the equation. When considering the resale value of these devices, a different conclusion can be reached. Apple products consistently resale for more money than Google products. On Gazelle.com, a company that buys used smartphones, a used iPhone X is worth $425 where a used Pixel 2 is $195. A used iPhone 8, a phone that sold for a price closer to the Pixel 2, is worth $240.

In the end, Google likely doesn’t expect to make money off the hardware it sells. It needs users to buy into its services. The best way to do that is to make the ecosystem competitive though perhaps not investing the capital to make it the best. It needs to be just good enough, and that’s how I would describe these devices. Good enough to be competitive on a spec-to-spec basis while available for much less.

more Google Event 2018 coverage


Source: Tech Crunch

Google’s Pixel 3 vs Apple’s iPhone XS: How do they stack up?

So you need a new phone do ya? Well, as is the case each year, there are some hot new pieces of metal and glass out there from Apple and Google, and to make sense of how they stack up against each other we’ve got some fine comparison details here for you.

This was an iterative year for both the iPhone and Pixel lines. The most notable upgrade for the iPhone XS was the introduction of the iPhone XS Max, which balloons the screen size, but otherwise the main differences come in the computational photography tweaks to the camera, in which Apple has lagged behind Google. Google’s new phone had a rather leaky introduction, but pulled off an interesting release with some camera features we’ll be tempted to check out more in-depth once review units come in.

This isn’t the fairest of fights, as we’ve had some flesh and blood time to examine the iPhone XS warts and all while the Pixel 3 is a shiny new enigma that we’re kind of taking Google at their word for until we can stress test the little bugger.

Here’s a bare-bones view of the specs you really should be caring about: display, rear camera and price.

Pixel 3

  • Starts at $799 (64 GB)
  • 5.5 inch 443 ppi OLED screen
  • 12.2MP “dual-pixel” rear camera

Pixel 3 XL

  • Starts at $899 (64 GB)
  • 6.3 inch 523 ppi OLED screen
  • 12.2MP “dual-pixel” rear camera

iPhone XS

  • Starts at $999 (64 GB)
  • 5.8 inch 458 ppi OLED screen
  • Dual 12MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras

iPhone XS Max

  • Starts at $1,099 (64 GB)
  • 6.5 inch 458 ppi OLED screen
  • Dual 12MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras

First off, if you’re strapped for cash, or more accurately just want to be more responsible with the cash you do have, the price tags of these devices communicate some loud differences. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL go for $200 less than the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, respectively. Paying $1,000 for a phone is wild, but it’s the world we live in and, honestly, given the amount of quality time we spend with our phones, it’s some of the more functional coinage you’ll be spending.

In terms of displays, the Pixel 3 is un-notched, while the Pixel 3 XL, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max all have the little bulbous feature. If you hate the notch, you’re probably going to have to adapt and embrace it for at least a generation or two, but the Pixel 3 gives you a chance to kick that can down the road. These are big devices with big displays, though in terms of sheer size, the iPhone still holds a much more substantial screen-to-body ratio. While the smaller and larger phones are very comparable in sheer size, the OLED on the iPhone squeezes out the extra fractions of an inch that brings the display right up to the edge.

Based on design, it depends on your preference or whatever, but I definitely think the iPhone XS has the upper hand here. It’s a premium phone with premium heft because of its more premium price.

It’s again worth reiterating that the Pixel 3 XL and iPhone XS Max are both giant phones, but the Pixel 3 XL is a hair smaller by manner of width and nearly an ounce lighter. Here’s a dimensions breakdown of the different devices.

  • Pixel 3
    5.7″ height x 2.7″ width x 0.3″ depth (148 grams)
  • Pixel 3 XL
    6.2″ height x 3.0″ width x 0.3″ depth (184 grams)
  • iPhone XS
    5.65″ height x 2.79″ width x 0.3″ depth (177 grams)
  • iPhone XS Max
    6.2″ height x 3.05″ width x 0.3″ depth (208 grams)

The spec that’s least helpful up above is the camera hardware because Apple and Google are increasingly shifting focus to camera software tweaks as their distinguishing marks. It is fascinating that Google is maintaining the single rear camera solution given the real potential dual lenses open up, including wild features like the iPhone XS depth-of-field adjustments. But the lack of dual lenses on the back of the phone didn’t stop Google from highlighting some of the new camera features they’re opening up, including what they’re calling Night Sight, which promises extremely good low-light performance strengthened by machine learning. I’m skeptical, but given how stellar the Pixel 2’s camera has proven, I’m sure they have something unique there.

More here on the Pixel 3 camera announcements:

And here’s our iPhone XS review for some camera details there:

There are a bunch of other specs that you can find on the Pixel 3 and iPhone XS product pages, but when shopping for a phone in 2018, tech specs of flagship phones are telling you less and less about where the major differences actually lie. We’ll have more thoughts on the Pixel 3 and Google’s performance claims when it comes out later next week, but if you’re hankering to smash that pre-order button, ponder your options and check that bank account.

more Google Event 2018 coverage


Source: Tech Crunch