App Store Apps

Facebook unveils group payments via Messenger for desktop

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2017

Facebook announced this morning that sending or receiving money between groups of people is now supported on the Messenger service. The social networking company debuted peer-to-peer payments on Messenger in March 2015. The new group payments feature, currently limited to users in the United States, is available starting today on Messenger for Android and via the company's desktop app at messenger.com. Group mobile payments will be coming to Messenger for iPhone and iPad at a later stage.

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Minecraft: Pocket Edition gains Chinese Mythology mashup pack & other goodies

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2017

Microsoft announced today that Minecraft: Pocket Edition is gaining a Chinese Mythology mash-up pack along with a few other goodies and improvements, such as a free Redstone Mansion map available via a new Worlds section in the in-game store.

The new features are available at no charge to existing players and require Minecraft: Pocket Edition version 1.0.6, which is rolling today on App Store.

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Instagram Direct now combines ephemeral and permanent messages in one thread

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2017

Photo-sharing service Instagram today announced an update for its direct messaging feature, called Direct, which now combines auto-dissapearing photos and videos along with your text conversations in a single thread. Previously, disappearing photos and videos were separated under their own Stories bar at the top of the Direct section. A redesigned Direct feature is rolling out today via Instagram's version 10.16 update.

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Minecraft’s upcoming update will let creators sell their skins, mini-games, textures & worlds

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 10, 2017

Minecraft developers announced on their blog today that a community Marketplace feature is coming soon to the mobile Minecraft: Pocket Edition game via an upcoming Discovery update. Marketplace will let Minecraft players and creators sell their custom skins, mini-games, textures, worlds and more.

At launch, Marketplace will offer content created by well-known community members, including Noxcrew, BlockWorks, Qwertyuiop The Pie, Blockception, Sphax, Eneija Silverleaf, Imagiverse, Polymaps and Razzleberry Fox.

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Facebook Messenger not loading on your Apple Watch? Try this…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated April 15, 2019

Facebook Messenger users who try to set the app up on a new Apple Watch might find themselves plagued with problems loading the app. Similar problems affect Apple Watch users that aren't new, but rather have un-paired and reconfigured the device after troubleshooting problems with it.

There appears to be a significant bug in the Facebook Messenger app, and while the direct cause of the issue is unknown, there's a quick fix for getting your Facebook Messenger conversations to load properly on your Apple Watch, and we’ll show you how it's done it in this tutorial.

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iOS users can now broadcast 360-degree videos on Periscope

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Twitter in December 2016 launched 360-degree video streaming on Periscope, its live video broadcasting service.

The feature was initially limited to select partners ahead of a wider launch. Following extensive testing with a small number of people, iOS users can now broadcast 360-degree videos from Periscope's iPhone app.

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Facebook launches revamped message compose interface on Messenger

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2017

As part of today's rollout of Facebook's AI-powered personal assistant to all users in the United States, the social networking company mentioned that you should now start seeing a redesigned message compose interface within the mobile Messenger app. We first caught wind of this new iOS 10 Messages-style chat experience two months ago.

At the time, Facebook was still testing the redesign with a small percentage of users. The new way to compose messages is currently rolling out to Messenger users across the globe so check back in a few days if it's currently unavailable to you.

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Apple’s Clips app does not work on 32-bit devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2017

Has Clips, Apple's new video editing app, piqued your interest? If so, good luck downloading it on your iPhone 5/5c or iPad 4. That's because the free of charge video creation app lacks support for 32-bit iOS devices despite requiring the recently-released iOS 10.3, which in itself runs on 32-bit iOS devices.

As first noted by AppleInsider, this could be interpreted as another sign that Apple will stop supporting 32-bit devices when iOS 11 releases later this year.

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Audio-only calls rolling on Google Duo

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 5, 2017

Google announced during its Spring event in São Paulo, Brazil that audio-only calls would be coming soon to Duo, its one-to-one video calling app for iOS and Android. Today, the company pushed a small update to Duo for iPhone that enables this feature (which first rolled out to users in Brazil) for everyone. Available free of charge on App Store, Google Duo version 9.1 brings out VoIP audio calling along with unspecified bug fixes and product improvements.

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Starbucks rolls out iMessage app for gifting digital cards with Apple Pay support

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2023

As previously announced, Starbucks today updated its iPhone app with the ability to send gifts through Apple’s iMessage system and pay for them with Apple Pay directly in the Messages app. Named Starbucks Gifts, the software requires you to set up Apple Pay on your device before you can purchase gift cards in $5, $10 or $25 denominations. Today's update also brings notifications, a store location filter for the Nitro cold brew and other perks.

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