Epic Games wins a victory against Apple, Fitbit announces a new smartwatch and Microsoft Word adds a transcription feature. This is your Daily Crunch for August 25, 2020.
\nThe big story: Judge says Apple can\u2019t block Unreal Engine
\nU.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers weighed in on the legal battle between Epic Games and Apple\u00a0with a mixed verdict. She denied Epic\u2019s motion to restore the popular game Fortnite to Apple\u2019s App Store, but also ordered Apple not to block Epic\u2019s developer accounts or to restrict developers on Apple platforms from accessing Epic\u2019s Unreal Engine tools.<\/p>\n
\u201cApple has chosen to act severely, and by doing so, has impacted non-parties, and a third-party developer ecosystem,\u201d Rogers said.
\nA full hearing on the dispute is scheduled for September 28.
\nThe tech giants
\nFitbit launches a $330 Apple Watch competitor \u2014 The Sense is designed to be a premium alternative to the Versa line, described by the company as its most advanced health smartwatch.
\nFacebook is bringing a Shop section to its app, while Instagram expands Live Shopping \u2014 Facebook Shop doesn\u2019t sound too different from the similarly named Instagram Shop, where users can browse products from their favorite brands and businesses.
\nMicrosoft brings transcriptions to Word \u2014 This new feature lets you transcribe conversations, both live and pre-recorded, and then edit those transcripts right inside of Word.
\nStartups, funding and venture capital
\nYC\u2019s most anticipated startup raised $16M from a16z before Demo Day \u2014 Trove sells a suite of internal compensation tools to other startups.
\nSelf-charging, thousand-year battery startup NDB aces key tests and lands first beta customers \u2014 NDB has created a new, proprietary nano diamond treatment that allows for more efficient extraction of electric charge from the diamond used in the creation of the battery.
\nInstacart workers are demanding disaster relief amid CA wildfires \u2014 Gig Workers Collective, a gig worker-activist group led by Instacart shoppers, is asking Instacart to provide disaster relief to workers impacted by natural disasters.
\nAdvice and analysis from Extra Crunch
\nHow to establish a startup and draw up your first contract \u2014\u00a0We invited James Alonso from Magnolia Law and Adam Zagaris from Moonshot Legal to join us at TechCrunch Early Stage to give us a 360 overview of the legal side of running a startup.
\nUnity, JFrog, Asana, Snowflake and Sumo Logic file for IPOs in rapid-fire fashion \u2014 Alex Wilhelm does a big roundup of new IPO filings.
\nAs DevOps takes off, site reliability engineers are flying high \u2014 The emergence of site reliability engineers is not a new trend, but one closely coupled with the theme of DevOps over the last decade.
\n(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)
\nEverything else
\nNetflix\u2019s \u2018Emily\u2019s Wonder Lab\u2019 is smart, interactive science TV for kids \u2014 TV science host (and former TechCrunch contributor) Emily Calandrelli told us that \u201cWonder Lab\u201d is the realization of a concept that she\u2019s been pitching for years.
\nPorsche experiments with subscription pricing, expands to Los Angeles \u2014 Porsche now has three tiers under its newly rebranded Porsche Drive vehicle subscription program.
\nMeet the Disrupt 2020 \u2018TC10\u2019 \u2014 The TC10 is a group of entrepreneurs, investors, etc. who have been a staple of our Disrupt conference over the past decade. And they\u2019re all coming back!
\nThe Daily Crunch is TechCrunch\u2019s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you\u2019d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.<\/p>\n