Daily Crunch: Apple’s new Magic Keyboard, reviewed

The new Magic Keyboard is good, Uber launches new delivery services and Facebook releases its Gaming app ahead of schedule.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 20, 2020, a totally regular date with no cultural significance whatsoever. Also, just a reminder: We’re holding our first Extra Crunch Live session, with Aileen Lee and Ted Wang, at 1:30pm Eastern!

1. Apple’s Magic Keyboard review: Laptop-class typing comes to iPad Pro

TechCrunch’s Editor in Chief Matthew Panzarino says that, for the past two years, he’s typed nearly every word while traveling on the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard Folio. Even so, he acknowledged that, aside from its reliability and durability, the Keyboard Folio kind of stinks.

In contrast, the new Magic Keyboard is a first-class typing experience, full stop.

2. Uber adds retail and personal package delivery services as COVID-19 reshapes its business

Uber Direct is a delivery platform for retail items, while Connect is a peer-to-peer package delivery service for sending goods to family and friends. This marks the most aggressive foray yet for Uber into courier services after it already introduced grocery items to its Uber Eats platform.

3. Facebook’s new Gaming app launches on Android, with iOS version coming soon

The social media giant pushed the app out two months prior to its scheduled unveiling — amid a global pandemic that’s left people all over the world isolated at home, rapidly burning through entertainment options.

4. Hundreds of academics back privacy friendly coronavirus contact tracing apps

A letter, signed by nearly 300 academics and published Monday, praised recent announcements from Apple and Google to build an opt-in and decentralized way of allowing individuals to know if they have come into contact with someone confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus.

5. Top investors predict what’s ahead for Boston’s VC scene in Q1

While Boston’s startup market announced a number of huge rounds that bolstered its total venture dollars raised in the first quarter, there were signs of weakness: Deal volume was still a little under the pace set in 2018. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Marc Andreessen’s call to arms: build something meaningful

In a new essay published over the weekend, Andreessen writes that to “reboot the American dream” we need to “demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors. We need to demand more of our culture, of our society. And we need to demand more from one another. We’re all necessary, and we can all contribute, to building.”

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The latest full-length episode of Equity discusses Robinhood’s plans to raise new capital, while the Monday news roundup looks at the U.K.’s financial aid for startups. And on Original Content, we reviewed “Tigertail” and the full season of “Devs” (both are good, but everyone should be watching “Devs”).

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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