The Daily Crunch 11/03/16

Google's Home isn't quite a home run, Adobe's going even further into the clouds and HTC thinks VR will prime an arcade renaissance. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for November 3, 2016. And in the future, you might never have to unlock your iPhone for any reason.

1. Google Home isn't a flat-out Echo killer

Google Home has arrived for reviewers, and opinion seems surprisingly mixed. Our own Frederic Lardinois noted that while both Echo and Home make mistakes, he'd still pick the Home over the Echo in a pinch (but people looking for more partner tie-ins today might prefer the Echo).

Others around the tech blogosphere seemed to clearly prefer either Echo or Home, but there was no clear consensus. Given Google's lead in machine learning I think a lot of people were expecting Home and Assistant to easily come out on top, but it's probably good news for the field in general that the competition is so tight.

2. Relay Ventures closes a third fund

$150 million for Relay in its third fund; the Canadian/Menlo Park-based investor has a total of $670 million under management, making it the largest by volume in the Great White North. It has some decent portfolio pics, too, the standout might be Ecobee (smart thermostat maker) in terms of exit potential, since it's well-loved by Apple and a potential target if that company ever wants to go head-to-head with Google's Nest.

3. Adobe's looking to shake up its photo editing software

Adobe announced a new photo editing application it has under development, Project Nimbus. Nimbus is a cloud-native version of Lightroom with a simplified interface, and it sounds like it hopes to be the cloud-based version of Apple's Photos for an enthusiast photographer crowd. We don't know for sure, because it's not available yet – but Adobe will then have three different photo editing programs, so things could get a bit confusing.

4. HTC is doing VR arcades in a big way

Arcades could once again be the place to experience the future of gaming: HTC plans to go big with its Viveport Arcade offering, including thousands of locations in Asia and eventually a big push in the U.S. Anything to make VR mainstream – though arcades probably won't help it break out of its current niche rep.

5. Mic wants you to never leave your iOS lockscreen

Apple's new lock screen in iOS 10 does a lot – so much so that news provider Mic is looking to publish content directly to it via notifications, so that users never even have to enter the app. It's going to deliver videos direct to notifications, which are subtitled and which you can watch without ever unlocking your device.

6. Huawei Mate 9 is coming to the U.S. – eventually

Huawei's Mate 9 is a flagship that some suggest might've been intended as a Google Nexus device before Google decided to go all-in on its Pixel strategy. It's Daydream-ready, which means it'll work with Daydream VR headsets, so that's cool. Smartphones, eh?

7. Schiller seems a tad out of touch with Pro photogs

Apple marketing SVP Phil Schiller had an interview with The Independent to address some of the negative reaction to the MacBook Pro, wherein he noted that the new MacBook Pro is the fastest-selling of any of Apple's Pro notebooks ever. He also said he's surprised by people's complaints about the lack of an SD card slot, given how many cameras have wireless transfer options these days. Those transfer options are slow and bad, but he's probably not aware of that. Anyways, some of us rejoice in dongles.