Apple launches new iPhone 14, a rugged Apple Watch, and more

Wednesday, September 07, 2022

It’s Wednesday, which today is known as Apple iPhone 14 (here’s all our stories from the Apple event) and Y Combinator Demo Day…day. As you can see, our team was at one or the other, and some decided to split themselves in half and do both, to bring you the latest and greatest. Enjoy every.last.morsel. — Christine and Haje

Image Credits: Apple

The TechCrunch Top 3

Hot in here: One of the new Apple Watch features that readers found most appealing is the new temperature sensors, two of them, in fact, Haje writes. If you run hot in your sleep, imbibed too much the night before or want to know the best time to conceive, the watch will let you know what’s up. You can see more on Apple’s iPhone 14 event in the Big Tech section.
Long-awaited editing rights: For those of you who make spelling errors or remember something just after you’ve already hit “tweet,” Twitter will let you edit that tweet up to five times within a 30-minute period once its editing feature drops, Ivan reports. Sorry, six edits is one too many.
Fintech frenzy: Natasha M and Anita dive into the fintech pool at Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch to find out which trends are making waves. Demo Day started today and goes through tomorrow — our team is standing by.

Building Tech For A Better Future

Startups and VC

In startup land, it’s been a lot of Y Combinator goodness. Dominic-Madori and Natasha M wrote about the YC’s diversity data, and Anita and Natasha M observed that the accelerator is doubling down on crypto founders despite market volatility.

It’s been a wildly busy day on the site today, and the following only scrapes the surface. We’ve done our best to pick some of the most interesting reads, but don’t forget to give our homepage a skim today — it’s a veritable cornucopia of techy goodness.

I just gotta vent for a moment: Smart vent startup Flair raises a $7.6 million Series A to decarbonize buildings, Tim reports.
Would you like paper or paper?: Online grocery company Misfits Market is to acquire Imperfect Foods, reports Christine.
Rushing to your side: Super interesting story from Ingrid today, about Carbyne and its $56 million fundraise aiming to make emergency services turn up when you need them, faster.
NFTs for NBA, LOL, WTF: In a TLA (three-letter-acronym) feast, Sorare teams up with NBA for a new NFT fantasy basketball game, reports Romain.
Moar money for underrepresented founders: Natasha M reports that Kapor Capital is under new leadership and just closed its largest fund to date.

Dear Sophie: Can I start a company or a side hustle on a TN visa?

Dear Sophie:

I’m a Canadian citizen working under a TN visa as a software engineer in the U.S. I want to start my own company or at least earn money through a side hustle.

Is this possible on my TN, or is the only way I can do that via a green card? If so, is it possible to get permanent residence since the TN is for non-immigrant intent?

— Clever Canadian

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

We’re going to rename this section “Big Apple” just for today because half of the stories came from our team’s hustle to cover the Apple iPhone 14 event. Brian, Kyle, Haje, Amanda, Ivan, Romain and Sarah are bringing you the good stuff about SIM cards, AirPods and so, so many details about the Apple Watch. It’s too much to list here, but you can read all of the stories from our dedicated Apple iPhone 14 event hub.

Up in smoke: E-cigarette company Juul agreed to settle with 33 states that it allegedly marketed the product to minors and will pay $438.5 million, Connie reports.
Third life: “Morbius,” the Marvel Universe film, is getting a third chance to prove itself over on Netflix. Amanda and Lauren share some thoughts.
A rose by any other name: Instacart is in a buying mood again and announced its intention to acquire Rosie to offer new e-commerce tools for local and independent retailers, Aisha reports. This comes a week after Instacart said it would acquire pricing and promotions startup Eversight.
Checking out: Hotel giant IHG found itself on the wrong end of ransomware. Carly has more.
No charger, no ship: That’s what Brazil is telling Apple after banning sales of iPhones that don’t come with a charging brick, Ivan writes. The country says Apple’s reasoning for leaving out the chargers to create a smaller carbon footprint was essentially an invalid reason. Apple is appealing. Haje has some thoughts on this as well.