Apps
The latest news on all your favorite apps.
Latest
Instagram is reportedly developing a dedicated shopping app
Instagram has been rolling out various shopping-related features over the past few years, making it crystal that it sees a future in e-commerce. Now, it's reportedly going all in -- according to The Verge, the Facebook-owned company is building a standalone shopping application that may be called "IG Shopping." It will apparently give people a way to browse and purchase goods from the businesses they follow from within the app itself. The app has no release date yet, and it's possibly still very early in its development. While that means there's a chance that we won't even see it, the publication's sources said Instagram is "well-positioned to make a major expansion into e-commerce."
AccuWeather will give you places to go based on the weather
Place recommendations don't tend to take the weather into account. You don't really want to visit the park when it's pouring outside, do you? AccuWeather certainly doesn't think so -- it's partnering with Foursquare on a "hyper-local" recommendation system in MinuteCast that takes the conditions into account when pointing you to new destinations. It'll suggest the beach or the pool on a hot day, or point you to a nearby coffee shop if you want shelter from the rain.
Instagram displays more info to prove popular accounts are legit
Instagram is no stranger to fake accounts, and it's taking extra steps to ensure that you're not following fraudsters. It's rolling out an "About This Account" feature in the next few weeks that will show you details for users with large follower counts, including when they signed up, where their activity is located, the ads they're running and their social connections. You can figure out whether that politician's account is just a Russian ploy, or whether your celebrity crush really followed you.
Korg's Electribe Wave app turns an iPad into an EDM beat machine
Korg is keeping up its habit of turning elaborate instruments into more accessible iPad apps, and this time it's focusing on the dance music scene. Its newly released Electribe Wave app brings the company's long-serving Electribe music-making stations to the iPad, making it relatively easy to produce electronic beats in genres ranging from house to future bass to trap. You'll see the familiar 16-step pad from physical models, for example, but you don't need much musical knowledge to take advantage of it. A Groove feature in the sequencer creates a more natural sound for percussion without expert-level tweaking, and a customizable chord pad lets you play with only one finger.
Google Go can now read any website out loud
Google Go, the tech giant's search app optimized for emerging markets, can now read this article out loud. In fact, the company has updated its browser with the ability to read web pages in 28 different languages using a natural sounding voice that works even on a 2G connection. The tech giant has announced the new feature at its annual event in India, which is one of the markets Android Go was created for. According to Google, the app's new ability uses AI to determine the most important parts of a web page -- it will only read those sections and leave out everything else. For instance, if it's reading a cooking blog, users don't have to listen to it drone on and on about a writer's life story before reaching the recipe itself.
PayPal's redesigned app is all about paying your friends
We wouldn't blame you for thinking PayPal's app has lost focus -- it seems more interested in investments and ordering food than on... well, paying people. It's a good thing the company is cleaning things up with a redesigned mobile app, then. The new version is a return to the basics of sending and receiving money, with the optional features shunted to a "more" menu. The home screen now focuses on notification cards (such as alerts when you've received funds) and includes a list of recently paid people and businesses in order to speed up your most common payments. Think of it like Instagram's Stories carousel, only here you're paying friends for your share of last night's pizza.
Cambridge researcher claims no 'misuse' of data after Facebook ban
Yesterday, Facebook announced that it had banned the Cambridge University app myPersonality, which was collected user data for academic and research purposes. Facebook claimed it banned the app for two reasons: the creator refused to an audit and the researchers shared personal information with few protections in place. Now, Dr. David Stillwell at Cambridge University has provided a scathing statement about Facebook's actions to Engadget.
Facebook audit leads to the suspension of 400 apps
In May a report by New Scientist revealed that a Cambridge University-developed app called "myPersonality" had collected personal information from millions of Facebook users, and failed to protect it from misuse. At the time, Facebook said it had already suspended the app for passing data to others, and today said it was banned "for failing to agree to our request to audit and because it's clear that they shared information with researchers as well as companies with only limited protections in place." The researchers behind the project have posted an FAQ here, mentioning that their research has been used in dozens of peer-reviews papers and saying much of it focused on exposing privacy risks. The data is no longer shared, and in a statement, the university's Psychometric Centre said it had never collected info from user's friends.
Lyft enables sloth with seat-specific stadium drop-offs
It's Lyft's turn to help you get to an event on time, and with a minimum of legwork at that. The ridesharing firm has forged a deal with SeatGeek to help you book rides to (and from) live events in both companies' apps. You can not only book a Lyft ride through SeatGeek's app, but send your seat location to Lyft's app to make sure the driver drops you off near your gate, not just the default location. You won't have to traipse from one side of the stadium to another just to make it to your seat before game time -- lazy, perhaps, but convenient if you're already running late.
Facebook pulls iOS VPN app following Apple's privacy objections
Apple's increasingly tougher stance on app privacy has led Facebook to pull one of its iOS apps. The Wall Street Journal has learned that Facebook is removing its VPN-based Onavo Protect program from the App Store after Apple warned the social network that it violated stricter policies (enacted in June) that limit how and why software collects data. Onavo Protect's collection and analysis of user activity beyond the app reportedly violated the new data collection limits, a source said. It also broke a clause in the developer agreement forbidding apps from using that data for either unrelated purposes or advertising.
DaVinci Resolve 15 is a free, Hollywood-grade video editor
With the latest release of DaVinci Resolve 15, Blackmagic Design has radically made over its editing suite to create one of the best video-editing systems at any price -- even against mainstream options like Premiere Pro CC and Apple's Final Cut Pro X. It now comes with Fusion, a powerful visual effects (VFX) app used in Hollywood films, along with an excellent color corrector and audio editor. Despite doing more than most editors will ever need, the full studio release costs just $300, and you can get a stripped-down version with most features for a grand total of zero dollars. I use Adobe's Premiere Pro CC as part of its Creative Cloud suite, which costs more than $50 a month, so Resolve 15 is certainly a cheaper option. After trying it out for a week, would I be willing to switch? That would be tough, because I also do photo editing, and Creative Cloud includes Photoshop and Lightroom. If you're looking strictly for video and audio editing, color correction and effects, however, Resolve is well worth a look. It is surprisingly easy to learn and use and has more speed and power than you'll probably ever need.
Google redesigns Fit to get you moving
Sitting kills. Specifically, a sedentary lifestyle can kill you. Google and the American Heart Association want to save your life, or at least, encourage you to be more active. The tech giant is giving the Google Fit app its most serious overhaul since it launched in 2014, and the changes will apply to both the phone (iOS and Android) and Wear OS versions. The redesign focuses on movement and cardiovascular health, aiming to show people that it doesn't take a whole lot to meet scientifically determined weekly goals.
Dark Sky update includes saved locations and a unified timeline
The Dark Sky weather app got a major update today, which includes new visuals and additional features. First up is the timeline. Rather than having different aspects of the forecast spread out across multiple tabs, everything is now included in a single, unified timeline. Just scroll down to see current conditions, the next hour rain forecast, the next 24 hours and the following week's forecasts. Additionally, weather conditions for the day like temperature, precipitation, wind and UV index are visualized more descriptively with circles denoting each hour's condition fanning out left to right in order to show changing intensity.
Snapchat's much-needed Android overhaul is hiding in plain sight
Snap promised a sorely needed redesign for Snapchat's sluggish Android app back in November, and it's now clear what that tune-up will entail. Jane Manchun Wong has discovered (with additional detail from Kieron Quinn) that Snapchat's Android app hides a rough alpha version of the revamp with an experience more on par with the iOS version. The new interface is slightly tidier, but the most noticeable change is performance -- gone is the choppiness that you usually have to endure on Android. As a rule, the new app should be smooth as silk on reasonably powerful devices.
Gmail's 'Confidential Mode' arrives on mobile devices
Google's big Gmail redesign was revealed this past April (with G Suite customers getting the first look). It became default for everyone starting in July. One of the key features, Confidential Mode, is now available for mobile devices, though not everyone is as confident in its ability to keep your data private.
Google Goggles is officially dead
Google signed Goggles' death warrant the moment it launched Lens, and now it looks like the tech giant is ready to bid farewell to its old image recognition app. As Android Police has noticed, the only thing you'll see when you fire up the Goggles app is a note that says it's going away. If you have a phone that's compatible with the standalone Google Lens app, the note will come with a button that leads straight to Lens' download page. But if your phone isn't, then the memo mentions that Lens' features are available in Google Photos, and the download button is replaced with one that opens the Photos application.
Tweetbot falls victim to Twitter's incoming developer changes
We've known for a long time that Twitter's third-party apps would bear the brunt of the platform's API revamp, and even though those changes aren't due to come into effect until tomorrow, they're already causing trouble. Today's update to Tweetbot for iOS has hastened many of the issues developer Tapbots previously feared. Automatic timeline refreshing is now disabled, so no more real-time updates. Its Apple Watch app is gone, and push notifications for mentions and DMs will be delayed by one or two minutes, while push notifications for likes, follows and quotes has disappeared completely.
Researchers' app extends battery life when you're multitasking
Battery life on a phone is bad enough most of the time, but it can be particularly rough if you're fond of split-screen multitasking. Researchers might have a way to wring a little more power out of your device, however. They've developed an app, MultiDroid, that promises to extend battery life on Android phones with OLED screens. The software dynamically lowers the brightness in non-critical parts of the screen depending on how you switch between apps and how long you've left a section idle. Fire up a YouTube video on one half of your screen, for example, and the browser you've left idle in the other half will grow darker.
HQ Trivia comes to your living room on Apple TV
Game shows got their start on TV, so it would only make sense that a modern variant like HQ Trivia would be playable on a TV, right? Right. Accordingly, Intermedia Labs has released an Apple TV version of HQ Trivia that brings the live, win-real-money experience to a bigger screen. It'll seem very familiar if you've played the mobile, but the game is unsurprisingly well-suited to TV -- Scott and other hosts don't have to be squished into the confines of a phone display.
Twitter Lite is now available in 21 more countries
Many of us want to engage with the rest of the global society, whether we live in major cities with blazing fast mobile connections or areas where data is prohibitively expensive or slow. To help bridge the gap for those in the latter regions, Twitter released its Lite app, which also takes up far less space on devices than the full Twitter app (the install size is just 3MB).