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Rumor: Facebook to announce mobile OS next week

Cody Lee ∙ January 12, 2013

The Facebook Phone is one of the longest-running urban legends in the tech world. I can remember it being reported on as far back as 2010, and I'm sure it goes back further than that. But thus far, nothing has materialized, and Mark Zuckerberg himself has even denied its existence.

Despite all of this, a new report is out today claiming that the social network indeed has a handset in the works. And according to the usual "sources familiar with the matter," it's going to use its just-announced January 15th media event to unveil it to the world...

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Facebook teases January 15 media event. Facebook Phone, much?

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 8, 2013

Time to step back from the flow of news surrounding CES 2013. The social networking giant Facebook has just teased a media event scheduled for January 15 at 10am Pacific Time. The invite graphics doesn't reveal much besides asking the media to “come and see what we’re building”. The company has been on a roll lately, having updated its Messenger app with VoIP calling (it's Canada-only initially) and releasing Poke, a new app which lets you send quick messages, photos or videos...

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Facebook mobile user stats: 192M on Android, 147M on iPhone

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

A few months ago, we passed along a report that Facebook was urging its employees to swap out their iPhones for Android devices. It knows Google's mobile OS has continued to be an afterthought to iOS, and it's looking to change that.

Well according to some newly-released data, that's probably a smart move. Enders analyst Benedict Evans has just published Facebook's mobile app user stats, and, as of November last year, Android users vastly outnumber those on iOS...

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Facebook Messenger gains VoIP calling, but it’s Canada only initially

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 3, 2013

Facebook has just updated its Messenger iOS and Android app with the voice messaging feature. Facebook Messenger version 2.1, a free download over at Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store, now lets you record short voice messages for your friends, up to a minute in length. We'll see if this is the voicemail for the 21st century, but anyone who updates to the new version gains this feature automatically and that's a big advantage. But the social networking giant isn't stopping there.

In the new Facebook Messenger, you can now place voice calls to your Facebook contacts free of charge. Of course, these are VoIP calls so a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection is needed. It looks like Facebook, which some folks though would buy WhatsApp, is adamant to turn the Messenger app into a unified messaging solution. The last piece of the puzzle needed: video chat... 

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How to copy Instagram photos to Flickr

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 6, 2017

Instagram's exploding popularity is having long-time iPhoneography buffs pay notice and watch in horror as mainstream users cannot get enough of its filters and max 1080 pixel wide resolution. And with Facebook and Android now in the picture, no wonder some early adopters go to the extremes of closing their account while others, like Apple's marketing honcho, stopped using Instagram for it "jumped the shark".

To the most ardent fans, the last straw was Instagram's confusing handling of the recent terms of service changes - even if it was much ado about nothing.

If you've been seriously contemplating importing your Instagram photos over to Flickr but were put off by the tedious manual uploads - worry not, turns out there are a few ways to get that job done without too much fuss. iDB has you covered with this quick guide to bringing in all your Instagram photos to Flickr with just a few clicks.

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New Facebook Poke app now available in the App Store

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Facebook is building up quite the app library on Apple's mobile platform. There's the official app, and then there's several subsidiaries like Camera, Pages, and Messenger. And today we're adding another one to the list.

This afternoon, Facebook has announced the release of Facebook Poke, an app that, as you might have guessed, allows you to 'Poke' your friends, by sending them a quick message, photo or video. More details after the fold...

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Static for iPhone: your social media pulse never looked this good

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XDQugm98GMQ

The App Store carries a number of free and paid apps that provide analytics for your social media accounts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other popular services. One of my favorites is StatNut, a $99-cent download, and now a new app has arrived to rule them all.

Dubbed Static, it dives deep into your data so you don't have to. What the software does remarkably well is present key stats using a beautifully crafted interface to help paint an accurate picture of your social media performance...

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You can now download App Store apps without leaving Facebook

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 18, 2012

Remember the App Center, a cross-platform application store Facebook launched ahead of its rebuilt iOS app? Hosted and curated by Facebook, the App Center is available as a link in the main menu of their iOS client, listing Facebook-enhanced apps and games that can be found on the App Store. Previously, tapping an entry yanked you out of the Facebook app and into the App Store.

That's no longer the case as it is now possible to install App Store software from a pop-up inside the Facebook app, which is an iOS 6 SDK feature available to all third-party developers who wish to implement it...

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Instagram wants to sell your photos to faceless corporations. Great, now what?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

As we told you yesterday, realizing it needs to start making money the Facebook-owned photo sharing service has added an interesting clause to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The updated rules give Instagram the right to sell access to your photos to advertisers and share your profile data with third-parties. The change enraged some to the point of closing their Instagram account.

The vast majority of users don't appeaer to oppose the decision with such drastic measures, but there's no doubt that the company is playing with fire. The move already has backfired. A major backlash ensued and the misstep is now threatening to snowball into a PR catastrophe...

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Facebook rolling out Nearby update to its mobile apps

Cody Lee ∙ December 17, 2012

Facebook has announced this morning that it will be rolling out an update to its iOS and Android apps later today that will substantially beef up the Nearby feature. The refreshed feature will allow users to discover new places around them and view Yelp-like ratings and reviews from their friends... 

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Instagram-Facebook data sharing goes into effect January 16

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 8, 2016

Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook in September, just posted an interesting update on its blog confirming plans to share data on users with Facebook, the #1 social network that claims nearly one billion users worldwide. Instagram's updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will go into effect starting January 16 to enable deeper integration between the two service, making it easier to "fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly and build better features" for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.

Under the new terms, Instagram can also share User Content and your information with businesses that are "legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of". In other words, Facebook now has access to Instagram user data. The social networking behemoth is allowed to use this information to "help provide, understand and improve" both its own and Instagram's service...

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Facebook app updated with several speed improvements

Cody Lee ∙ December 13, 2012

Back in August of this year, Facebook released a completely rebuilt app for the iPhone that was much faster than its predecessor thanks to its new coding. The social network ditched HTML5 in favor of a native approach.

Today, the app gets even faster with version 5.3. The update also includes a few new features, like the ability to choose an album from within the app while uploading photos, but the main focus here is definitely speed...

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