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Netflix Recommend with Facebook-enabled private video sharing now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Netflix for the iPhone and iPad now allows you to privately recommend movies and television shows to a cherry-picked selection of Facebook friends who have connected their Facebook account with Netflix, but fortunately without spamming their News Feed, wrote the firm Tuesday in a post over at the official blog.

The social recommendation feature is available to Netflix users in the United States and Canada starting today.

Dubbed Netflix Recommend, it's “another great way to discover your next favorite show,” as the popular on-demand streaming service put it.

Facebook testing Graph Search on mobile with ability to resurface old content by keyword

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 29, 2014

The social networking behemoth, Facebook, in a bid to help folks resurface content that may otherwise be buried is reportedly testing a new feature that would let people using its mobile apps search through old posts from friends by keyword, Bloomberg reported Friday.

There's no word on when Facebook's 1+ billion users who predominantly access the service on smartphones and tablets can expect to use Graph Search on mobile, though the report makes it clear the feature's been in closed testing for quite some time now.

Instagram is down, it’s not just you! [update: it’s back]

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

If you've noticed that Instagram isn't working properly this afternoon, it's not just you. Several users have taken to Twitter to complain that the popular image-sharing service is down, and a few of us here at iDB have confirmed the outage.

While parts of the app are still working for some folks, it seems that the Explore tab isn't loading for most users, and many are having issues getting their personal feeds to load. We're also seeing '503 Service Unavailable' in the News tab.

Facebook Messenger update prevents scammers from racking up your phone bill

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Facebook has begun rolling out an important update to its Facebook Messenger application on Monday, after it was found the app was susceptible to a security flaw forcing users’ iPhones to place expensive calls automatically - racking up a large bill.

Developer Andrei Neculaesei was first to identify the issue last week, saying scammers use the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme called ”tel” to trigger a call without a user knowing. Usually clicking on a link containing a phone number will take a user to Safari and then prompt them to confirm the call. However, apps like Facebook Messenger, Google+, Gmail, and FaceTime, make the call without asking the user.

Facebook’s Slingshot picks up new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2018

It's been nearly two months now since Facebook rolled out its would-be Snapchat-killer, called Slingshot.

Thus far, the software looks like it could be going the way of Poke, the social networking giant's pathetic take on the popular ephemeral messaging software.

Surprisingly enough, Slingshot currently enjoys a three-star rating out of five stars in the App Store.

Besides, the app doesn't seem to be languishing as the team released its first major update three weeks ago bringing out much-needed new features, including a My People tab and brand new reactions.

Today, a second major update has landed on the App Store. Available to download for free, Slingshot 1.2 improves your experience by letting you jump straight to the list of shots by tapping a notification and more...

How to send Facebook messages without using Messenger app

Alihassan Mahdi ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

Last month, Facebook announced that it was disabling the messaging service in its official Facebook app for iOS requiring users to switch to its Facebook Messenger app in order to continue to send and receive messages from friends. This move by the company to force users to use its standalone messenger app was disliked by many.

Yet, if you wish to get rid of this restriction and continue chatting with your friends without using the Facebook Messenger app, you can follow either of the methods outlined below. In this post, we will share two methods that will allow you to send messages in Facebook without using the standalone Messenger app.

Newly updated Facebook for iOS cuts crash rate in half

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2014

Facebook late today issued a maintenance update to its primary iPhone and iPad client.

Listing only "bug fixes", Facebook 13.1 would have probably slipped by unnoticed if it weren't for a post over at the official Facebook Engineering blog which has detailed significant under-the-hood changes to fix a longstanding bug that caused unexpected crashes.

Long story short, code changes the team's implemented have helped reduce the software's crash rates on the iPhone and iPad by more than fifty percent...

Paper 1.2.1 is out with sharper design and faster performance

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

After shipping Paper 1.2 back in June with a slew of new features like mentions, hashtags, profile editing, better photo viewer and lots more, the social networking behemoth, Facebook, today started rolling out another update to Paper for iPhone.

Now available in the App Store free of charge, the new Paper 1.2.1 features several design changes and an all-round faster performance...

Facebook updates Slingshot with new My People tab, added reactions and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 8, 2018

In addition to its small Messenger update this afternoon, Facebook has pushed out a new version of Slingshot. This brings the Snapchat competitor to version 1.1, and adds a new My People tab, more ways to respond to reactions, and other improvements.

The new My People Tab helps streamline the user experience, as you can now see all of your friends in one place. And thanks to the added reactions, users can now respond to messages with either a photo, video or text. We've got the full change log below...

Facebook Messenger now lets you share and view fullscreen photos and videos

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 31, 2014

Facebook today issued a small update to the Messenger client for iOS. Now bumped to version 9.0 (yeah, their versioning scheme is a bit odd), the refreshed iPhone and iPad application finally makes it possible to share and view fullscreen photos and videos.

Previously, sharing a photo or a short video clip would render content in a smaller section within the larger conversation view, similar to Apple's iMessage...

Check out Bolt, Instagram’s Snapchat competitor

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

In case you missed it last week, Facebook-owned Instagram is hatching out a new mobile app to take on the likes of Snapchat, Taptalk and a growing list of other ephemeral messaging apps out there.

Several people have spotted a banner advertising the app in Instagram’s Android app. Billed as a “one-tap photo messaging” solution, they're calling it Bolt.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is, the app's just stealthily launched on the App Store. But, alas, Bolt is only available in New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa for the time being.

And this is how Bolt looks like...