13 Janaury 2021, Kathmandu
Founded in June 2005, TechCrunch is an American Online news portal with unparalleled stories about startup companies, Silicon Valley, venture capital, high techs, gadgets, apps, and much more. TechCrunch is also known for hosting an annual technology event, Disrupt conferences, in several cities across the United States, Europe, and China. This app is available in English, Chinese, and Japanese languages. It has an average rating of 3.8 with 4,215 total reviews in Google Play Store and 3.0 in the App Store.
Overview
For you to be able to browse the news, this app doesn’t require you to be logged in. It has a simple design which is easy on the eyes. The news is shown in a list. There are categories for you to pick out from which are: Startup, Mobility, Space, Robotics and AI, Security, Enterprise, Education, Policy, Science, Finance, Gaming, Hardware, Entertainment and Media, Work and Events. This free app brings you all the news from the TechCrunch website. You can go to the full article with a simple click. Now let’s dive into its functions.
Features
Along with the major features that online news portals must have, TechCrunch has some interesting features of its own. When it comes to new portals, the style, and color scheme matter as it is an app the users will be opening day in and day out. The green color and simple style of TechCrunch seem to do just the trick.
- Easy to navigate design.
- Frequent news update.
- The latest news covered on every ground can be found in the app. Users have every information they need on whichever category they want, at the flick of their hand.
Login:
The user can log in if he/she wishes to sync their app with their website. For registration, you need to provide your full name, your email address, and your date of birth or you can continue with Yahoo!. You can then proceed to login via your email address.
Manage Your Topic:
User can customize their news portals according to what they want to see. There are categories to pick out from which are: Startup, Mobility, Space, Robotics and AI, Security, Enterprise, Education, Policy, Science, Finance, Gaming, Hardware, Entertainment and Media, Work and Events.
Bookmarks:
The user can bookmark the news and articles that pique their interest.
History:
Users can view the history of all the articles they have opened up to see.
Notification Center:
Important information and news are shown on notification so that users don’t miss out on something of their interest.
Search Settings:
For users’ convenience, there are safe search options as Strict – no adult content, Moderate – no image or video, and off – do not filter results. User can pick out their search preference accordingly. The search history can also be viewed. The default option is Strict – no adult content.
Video AutoPlay:
The video AutoPlay options go as: Never, Wi-fi only, and always. The default option is Wi-fi only.
Provide Feedback:
You can provide feedback to the app you use this feature. Provided that you send them your email address for contact along with a description of what your feedback, issues, and/or complaints are.
Share:
There is an option for users to share an article with others via social media, email, message, and so on. You can also share and rate the app itself.
Privacy Dashboard:
There is a privacy dashboard feature that redirects you to the TechCrunch website.
You can also view the privacy policy and terms of service for this app.
Complaints
The users love this app and are battling with some issues that do not let them enjoy it.
- The app seems to freeze and crash at times, reasons are unknown.
- The users want options to be able to download an article of choice and/or options to be able to read news and articles offline.
- The android version of this app seems to lack compared to the IOS version of this app.
- Users want this app to incorporate a dark theme.
- The full headlines cannot be seen at times which some users find extremely misleading.
- Sometimes the app fails to load the articles completely. Leaving either no image, no video, or at times a blank page.
- Comment features are lacking.
Verdict
For an online news portal app which focuses on tech startup companies, users are not happy that they are riddled with bugs on their own app. But all in all, TechCrunch is a very handy app to have as you could get all sorts of personalized news you want.