Photo-sharing service Instagram announced Wednesday that its mobile app for iOS and Android has passed 700 million users. Instagram hit the 600 million users milestone in December 2016, meaning the Facebook-owned company has managed to attract a hundred million new users to its platform in less than five months.
Google's dedicated Photos app for iPhone and iPad was updated on App Store today with the ability to enjoy your photos and videos through the Apple TV media streamer with AirPlay. Aside from the ability to beam photos and videos wirelessly to your telly, Google Photos for iOS 2.14.0, a free download from App Store, also includes unspecified performance improvements.
More often than not, the term Augmented Reality still has that elusive, techy ring to it, particularly when brought up in conjunction with Apple’s purported eyewear project. Curiously, many of us have it down as tomorrow’s technology rather than today’s, when the truth is that AR apps have populated the App Store for years.
While some of these apps are admittedly not much more than shoddy tech demos, separating the wheat from the chaff actually produces some really cool apps conceived to boost your business, creativity or simply keep you entertained in novel ways. With the preamble out of the way, here are the best Augmented Reality apps for iPhone available today.
As first noted by Contrast founder David Barnard, Apple just slashed the affiliate commission on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac apps and In-App Purchases from the previous seven percent rate down to 2.5 percent globally.
“Beginning May 1, 2017, commissions for all apps and in-app content will be reduced from seven percent to 2.5 percent globally,” Apple told iTunes Affiliate Program members via email.
All other iTunes content types, including music, movies, electronic books and TV subscriptions, shall remain at the current seven percent commission rate in all markets.
“We will also continue to pay affiliate commissions on Apple Music memberships so there are many ways to earn commissions with the program,” reads Apple's message.
Apple's Affiliate Resources webpage has received a facelift with optimized navigation, a new Getting Started guide on becoming an affiliate partner, an updated Program Overview section providing information on the commission raters, reporting, creating links and more.
Source: David Barnard on Twitter via MacRumors
iDB's Apps of the Week column features new and unique apps and games that we think are worth checking out over the weekend.
This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup includes an app that helps you improve your singing, a fitness app with a new take on running, and a new app from Giphy. And as always, we have two new games for you to check out.
The popular messaging app WhatsApp for iPhone was update yesterday with a few new features, bringing the ability to have Siri read new messages you have received via the service. The Facebook-owned software now supports the Persian language while the Group Info, Contact Info and Calls sections have been revamped to make them easier to use. WhatsApp's two-factor authentication interface was tweaked as well.
Yesterday at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, photo-sharing service Instagram introduced an offline mode in its Android app. A Facebook spokesperson says the team is “exploring” adding that feature to the company's iPhone and iPad app, TechCrunch has learned. Offline mode could be an important feature for users with limited network connectivity or no data plan, especially given that 80 percent of Instagram’s 600 million users are outside the US.
Instagram recently added a tool that permits you to save posts for later and organize them into Pinterest-like curated collections that only you can see. Whether you want to plan your next day trip, revisit your favorite artists’ illustrations or always have some animal videos on hand, our tutorial will get you up to speed on Instagram's Saved Posts and Collections features and lay out the basics of keeping track of any posts you wish to remember.
Facebook today kicked off its annual F8 conference for developers with a bunch of announcements, including game bots and turn-by-turn games on Messenger, plus a food-ordering feature via the company's M personal assistant. According to Facebook, Messenger users have played over 1.5 billion games in just the last 90 days.
Facebook at last year's F8 brought scannable profile codes to the mobile Messenger app, making it a cinch to add a person you've just met as your Messenger contact. At F8 2017 this week, the company is introducing parametric QR codes on the Messenger platform to help facilitate content discovery in the physical world.
Facebook’s annual developers conference, F8, is underway this week and the social networking firm just announced that its mobile Messenger app is gaining a new tab to help users find their recently used bots, nearby places and businesses to message. Titled Discover, the new tab has started to roll out to a few people in the US today ahead of wider availability.
Apple has offered an Apple Music API for some time now and Facebook leveraged it to integrate the service with Music Stories, a song-sharing feature available within its mainland iOS app. Soon, Apple Music will integrate with the Messenger platform, too (currently used by more than 1.2 billion people every month). At the F8 conference today, the social networking behemoth announced that Spotify integration will be available on Messenger at launch and Apple Music real soon.