Pocket Casts Mobile Apps Go Open Source

Yael Rubinstein, writing on the Pocket Casts blog:

We’ve been eager to take this step since we joined Automattic last year — after all, the company’s creed includes the phrase “I know that open source is the most powerful idea of our generation.” We believe that podcasting can not and should not be controlled by Apple and Spotify, and instead support a diverse ecosystem of third-party clients.

It was just a matter of time when this would happen, as anyone who knows Automattic knows their love for open source. The only surprising thing to me is that Pocket Casts is only making their mobile apps open source, the Desktop and Web versions are not included in this anouncement and the company says it has no plans to do so either.

This announcement has generally been received positively by users and developers of other podcasts apps.

The iOS repository as well as the Android repository are up on GitHub with a Mozilla Public License 2.0.

October 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Uber is testing EV cabs in Delhi NCR

Jagmeet Singh, writing for TechCrunch:

Uber has started offering electric vehicles to customers in certain parts of the Delhi-NCR region and says it will be expanding its efforts over the coming months. The electric cabs are currently only available for pre-scheduled trips.

The company did not share how many EV cabs were operational on its platform in India, but insisted that it is working with multiple fleet partners, OEMs and charging infra providers “to gradually build the EV business in a sustainable manner.”

With fuel prices soaring in the country, Uber’s contractual drivers have already been raising their displeasure at making less than what the company had promised them. I just hope that the company doesn’t shaft them like they did with the ICE vehicles.

October 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Freepik Acquires Iconfinder

The Freepik Company, known for its projects like Freepik, Wepik, Flaticon and Slidesgo, has announced the acquisition of Iconfinder.

Speaking about the acquisition, Martin LeBlanc — Founder & CEO of Iconfinder, writes:

For now, Iconfinder will stay Iconfinder, and Flaticon will stay Flaticon. My role will transition into the Head of icons, and we’ll start setting up a direction, merging the Iconfinder and Flaticon teams, and making gradual changes. Our goal is to learn from each other what we are best at and apply the practices and approaches to build the world’s best icon site, helping people around the world make beautiful designs faster.

Freepik has been a tremendous resource for designers of any kind, and similarly, Iconfinder’s vast collection of icons has been a personal favorite of mine for many years. I hope to see them collectively improve both the projects down the line.

October 4, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20 billion

Adobe press release:

Today, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. The combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity.

Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers. The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders and the industry.

Dylan Field, writing on the Figma blog, says:

Today, we’re announcing that Figma has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe. This has been in the works over the past few months and I’m so excited to finally share this news with the world.

Ten years ago, Evan and I set out on a journey to make design accessible to all. Looking back, I’m proud to say we’ve made progress through introducing Figma to designers of all ages, geographies and levels of experience.

He goes on to say,

There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack.

And clarifies that,

Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously and I will continue to serve as CEO, reporting to David Wadhwani.

Figma has gone on to become an immensely popular design tool in the last few years, and designers are noticeably disappointed about this news.

There’s no doubt that this is a big win for Adobe, and I’m very curious how much Figma changes going forward. My bet is that it gets worse.

September 15, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Tinder's Parent Match Sues Apple in India

Aditya Kalra, reporting for Reuters:

Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing it of “monopolistic conduct” that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases, a legal filing seen by Reuters shows.

Apple is fending off a raft of antitrust challenges around the globe and Match’s July filing adds to two other cases in India though Match is the first foreign company to mount such a challenge against the iPhone maker in the country.

Match notes in its filing that Indians prefer using a “state-backed online transfer system,” seemingly referring to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system promoted by the Indian Govt. that has swept the country in recent times.

The govt. has repeatedly shown how much it loves UPI, and if that’s any indication, Apple just might be in some trouble here.

August 27, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WordPress.org HomePage & Download Page Get a Redesign

The WordPress.org homepage and the WordPress.org/download page have just gotten a much-needed makeover.

Nicholas Garofalo, writing on WordPress.org News:

The new homepage brings more attention to the benefits and experience of using WordPress, while also highlighting the community and resources to get started.

The new download page greets visitors with a new layout that makes getting started with WordPress even easier by presenting both the download and hosting options right at the top.

This redesign follows the redesign of the WordPress News blog earlier this year.

August 18, 2022 ✚ Permalink

India Seizes $46m from Crypto Exchange Vauld

Manish Singh, writing on Techcrunch:

Flipvolt Technologies, the India registered entity of Singapore-headquartered Vauld, was used to deposit 3.7 billion Indian rupees by 23 entities including non-banking financial companies and fintech firms into the wallets controlled by Yellow Tune Technologies, the Enforcement Directorate said Friday of its ongoing investigation.

The agency said the Indian entity of Vauld maintains “very lax KYC norms, no EDD mechanism, no check on the source of funds of the depositors, no mechanism of raising STRs, etc,” factors that led the accused firms in “avoiding regular banking channels” and “easily take out all the fraud money in the form of crypto assets.”

The Indian government has generally been against cryptocurrency, and cases like these are ensuring that doesn’t change for a long time.

August 12, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WP Engine Acquires Delicious Brains Plugins

WP Engine, a popular managed WordPress hosting services company, has today announced the acquisition of 5 WordPress plugins from Delicious Brains.

The plugins have a total installed base of approximately 4 million users and are widely adopted by WP Engine’s customers. The acquired software includes Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, WP Offload SES, and Better Search Replace.

Over the last few years, WP Engine has been snapping up a number of products, aiming to level up their offering from developers. This includes Flywheel and Local, as well as StudioPress and the Genesis framework. Interestingly, it was exactly a year ago on June 2nd, 2021 that Elliot Condon — the original developer of Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) announced that Delicious Brains had acquired the plugin from them.

I’m currently using a number of these WordPress plugins on many of my websites, so I’m curious to see where WP Engine takes them.

Also read: The announcement by Delicious Brains.

June 2, 2022 ✚ Permalink