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I was amazed by the performance of the Xiaomi 17T — and only a few drawbacks spoil this otherwise great-value Android phone

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:56
The Xiaomi 17T has prestigious Leica lenses and an impressive spec — but can it deliver at this price point?
Categories: Technology

I tried replacing 30 minutes of scrolling with ChatGPT-generated real-world challenges — and it changed my evenings

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:52
I asked ChatGPT to replace 30 minutes of evening scrolling with offline challenges, and the results were surprisingly reflective, engaging, and much harder to ignore than another trip through social media.
Categories: Technology

Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military, appeals court rules

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:51

A divided panel of appeals court judges has ruled that a Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service.

(Image credit: Ahn Young-joon)

Categories: News

Claude is down for many — here's what we know about the outage

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:36
The AI assistant Claude has gone down for many users today —here's all the latest news on the outage.
Categories: Technology

The cyber risk framework protecting your organization wasn't built for this adversary

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:35
The adversary has changed. The frameworks most organizations rely on haven't caught up.
Categories: Technology

EU strikes migration deal for more deportations and detention centers abroad

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:17

The European Union has moved forward with an overhaul of its migration policy, aiming to ramp up deportations and build detention centers abroad. Critics compared the regulation to the immigration strategy of the Trump administration.

(Image credit: Jean-Francois Badias)

Categories: News

Newly drafted EU cloud rules could stop US hyperscaler access to critical tenders

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:01
Upcoming rule changes could put European cloud companies at an advantage against established EU hyperscalers.
Categories: Technology

Why is Michigan loosening its rules for parents wanting to exempt kids from vaccines?

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:00

A decade ago, Michigan had high rates of parents not vaccinating their children, so it required them to attend an in-person education class to get an exemption. It worked — until things got ugly.

(Image credit: Kate Wells)

Categories: News

Tuesday is a big primary day. Here are key races to watch

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:00

Six states — California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico — hold elections on Tuesday. Here are key races to follow.

(Image credit: Mario Tama)

Categories: News

For veterans, a place where peace can take root

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:00

Iraq war veteran John Follmer leads vet volunteers who are rehabbing a neglected Japanese garden on the West LA Veterans Affairs Campus.

(Image credit: Stella Kalinina for NPR)

Categories: News

Stripping U.S. citizenship en masse is harder than Trump vowed

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 04:00

President Trump's vow to revoke citizenship worries immigrant advocates, legal scholars and naturalized Americans — but so far it's proving harder to do than the rhetoric suggests.

Categories: News

Jobber CRM review

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:58

Jobber is not trying to be everything to everyone.

It's a CRM and field service management (FSM) platform built specifically for the people who keep the world running — plumbers, HVAC techs, landscapers, cleaners, and electricians. It makes no apologies for that narrow focus. After putting the platform through its paces in a live environment, I can say it largely delivers on its promise to its audience. Whether it delivers enough value at the price you'll actually pay, however, is a much more complicated question.

Jobber CRM: Plans and pricing

Jobber's pricing structure is split into individual plans and team plans, and this is where things get complicated fast. In June 2026, the entry point is the Core plan ($49 per month billed annually). For a solopreneur just starting out, it's a revelation. You get basic scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and the mobile app. It's enough to get you off paper and onto a screen.

But here's the kicker: Jobber is fantastic for solo operators, but as soon as you hire your first helper, the "Jobber Tax" kicks in. You are forced off that $49 solo plan and onto the Connect Team plan ($199 per month annually) just to give that new hire a login. That's nearly a 300% jump in overhead before your new employee has even picked up a wrench.

From there, the ladder continues:

Grow Team ($399 per month): Includes up to 10 users and adds job costing, two-way SMS, and automated quote follow-ups.

Plus ($699 per month): For up to 15 users; this is the "all-in" tier that finally includes the AI Receptionist and the Marketing Suite.

The "hidden" costs are what usually cause bill shock. Every user beyond your plan's included seats costs an additional $29 per month. A twenty-person team on the Plus plan, for instance, could easily be paying over $740 per month before you even look at payment processing fees.

Then there is the AI Receptionist ($99/mo add-on). It's a lifesaver for catching leads while you're under a sink, and in 2026, it's remarkably good at understanding accents and technical jargon. But don't expect it to do your outbound cold calling or complex project management — it's strictly an intake valve. For $99 a month, it's cheaper than a human, but it won't replace a real office manager when a job goes sideways, and you need to shuffle five crews at once.

Jobber CRM: Features

(Image credit: Jobber)

Jobber is built around the idea of letting field service businesses manage the entire lifecycle of a job from one screen. At this price point, it gets closer than most. Scheduling and dispatching use a drag-and-drop calendar that is remarkably fast. If a tech calls out sick, you can drag their entire day's worth of appointments onto another tech's column, and Jobber automatically asks if you want to notify the affected customers.

The mobile app is what your crews will actually live in. It lets them access job details, capture "before and after" photos, complete safety forms, and log their time. For 2026, Jobber has leaned heavily into "Tap to Pay." Techs can collect credit card payments directly on their phones without needing those finicky Bluetooth card readers that always seem to die in the middle of a job.

Client records are where the "CRM" part of the name earns its keep. You get a full service history, communication logs, and property-specific notes (like "gate code is 1234" or "dog is friendly"). The Client Hub is perhaps the best feature for reducing office overhead. It's a self-service portal where customers can view their quotes, approve work, and pay invoices. It effectively ends the "I never got the email" excuse.

However, Jobber's limits become clear when you look at the data. Quoting and invoicing are muscular — quotes support photos and "optional" add-ons that are great for upselling — but the reporting and analytics are surprisingly shallow. You can track revenue and basic job history, but if you want a detailed performance analysis across different service types or crews to see who is actually your most profitable tech, you'll find the tools frustratingly basic. You get the "what," but rarely the "why."

Jobber CRM: Getting set up

Jobber has put real effort into onboarding, clearly understanding that their users don't have time for a three-month implementation. A setup wizard walks you through the core configuration, and the platform is intuitive enough for non-technical business owners.

Importing existing client data via CSV is a standard affair, but the Jobber support team offers "white-glove" migration assistance on the Plus plan, which is a massive help if you're moving from a mess of spreadsheets. Most small teams are operational within 48 hours. This is the primary reason people choose Jobber over ServiceTitan — you can learn Jobber while you work, whereas ServiceTitan often requires pausing your business for a week of intensive training.

Jobber CRM: Ease of use

(Image credit: Jobber)

The Jobber dashboard is modern and clean, surfacing the most important information — today's schedule, outstanding quotes, and unpaid invoices — at a glance.

That said, the platform has some rough edges that only show up once you're in the field. The mobile app is mostly solid, but if you're working in a basement or a rural area with one bar of service, the syncing spinner can become your worst enemy. I've seen more than one technician get frustrated because a job photo they took in the field didn't actually hit the office dashboard until they got back to Wi-Fi.

There's also the lead-capture form. You can embed it on your business website, and it works, but it's remarkably inflexible in its layout. If you've spent money on a beautiful, custom-designed website, the Jobber form will stick out like a sore thumb because you can't easily style it to match your brand.

Jobber CRM: Support

Jobber provides chat and email support across all plans, with phone support available on Connect and above.

The Plus plan adds "Premium Support," which effectively moves you to the front of the line. Response times are generally praised in user reviews, and the help center is a goldmine of video walkthroughs. For a business owner who is usually fixing a leak or pruning a tree while trying to run an office, having a support team that actually picks up the phone is a major selling point.

Jobber CRM: Security and privacy

Jobber uses standard encryption for data during transit and at rest, and the platform is compliant with GDPR and CCPA. Role-based permissions allow you to control what your techs can see; for instance, you can let them see their schedule and customer notes without giving them access to the company's total bank balance or other crews' schedules.

While Jobber Payments is PCI compliant, the company is still relatively quiet on formal SOC 2 Type II certifications or public penetration testing results. For a local 10-person HVAC shop, what's here is more than enough. But for a larger enterprise looking to manage hundreds of technicians and high-value government contracts, the lack of published high-level security audits might be a sticking point.

Jobber CRM: The competition

Jobber's most direct rival is Housecall Pro. They sit at a similar price point and offer a nearly identical feature set. The choice between them usually comes down to "vibe" — Jobber feels a bit more modern and clean, while Housecall Pro often feels more feature-dense but cluttered.

Then there is the elephant in the room: ServiceTitan. It is the gold standard for large operations (50+ trucks), offering advanced dispatching, inventory management, and deep ROI tracking for marketing. ServiceTitan is significantly more powerful, but it's also dramatically more expensive and carries a learning curve that can break a small business.

FieldCamp and Tradify are newer, leaner options that compete on price, but they lack the massive integration library and established community that Jobber offers. For businesses already in the QuickBooks ecosystem, Jobber's integration is so tight that it's almost always the natural choice.

Jobber CRM: Final verdict

Jobber earns its reputation as the go-to platform for home service businesses that are ready to ditch the whiteboard. The combination of fast onboarding, a genuinely useful Client Hub, and a mobile app that your least tech-savvy tech can figure out in a lunch break makes it the easiest recommendation in its category for solo operators and small crews. The 2026 additions — particularly the improved AI Receptionist and Tap to Pay — show a company that understands what its users actually need in the field, not in a boardroom.

The pricing requires a clear warning: the jump from solo to team plans is sharp, and adding users or features quickly drives up the monthly cost well beyond the base price. It’s easy to be surprised by your bill if you don’t calculate future growth up front. Reporting is also weaker than that of some competitors. For a plumber, landscaper, or HVAC tech with a crew of fewer than 15, Jobber is the standard—but go in fully aware that costs scale quickly as your team grows.

Categories: Reviews

Jobber CRM review

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:58
The digital spine for the trades
Categories: Technology

The hidden enterprise security risk of consumer-grade tools

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:56
Why “free” consumer apps quietly expand enterprise attack surfaces and governance blind spots.
Categories: Technology

Morning news brief

NPR News Headlines - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:42

DOJ says it will pause its 'anti-weaponization' fund after judge's ruling, Trump says he urged Israel, Hezbollah to hold fire amid rising tensions over Lebanon, Californians vote in state's primaries.

Categories: News

I'm a travel photographer, and I'm already dreaming of my next trip with Peak Design's clever new 2-in-1 backpack and camera bag

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:11
Peak Design's four new camera bags got funded on Kickstarter to the tune of $2.4 million — but there's one I'm especially excited about
Categories: Technology

The AI availability gap is real, and it has nothing to do with the model

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:10
AI fails when infrastructure falters, exposing the real availability gap beneath models.
Categories: Technology

'Expect all-day battery life' — Nvidia is confident RTX Spark laptops will go the distance

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:04
I asked Nvidia what kind of battery life RTX Spark laptops will have, and the answer was reassuring, if a bit vague.
Categories: Technology

Audiophile-Oriented Noble Audio Debuts More Affordable Osprey Earbuds

CNET News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:00
In an effort to reach a wider audience, the UK brand, which makes some great-sounding wireless earbuds, introduces the sub-$200 Osprey.
Categories: Technology

How to watch The Vardys online for free: stream reality TV series from anywhere

TechRadar News - Tue, 06/02/2026 - 03:00
How will the celebrity couple cope as they go to live La Dolce Vardy? Find out with our guide to watch The Vardys online from anywhere, including FREE streams.
Categories: Technology

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