MacStories founder and editor-in-chief Federico Viticci has discovered an awesome little new feature in iOS 11's Safari which automatically converts Google's cryptic accelerated mobile pages (AMP) links back to the canonical URLs.
As part of a broader set of capabilities recently teased for the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging platform, the app has now gained a trio of new features in the latest update. WhatsApp version 2.17.40 for iOS brings a chat pinning feature, multi-format file sharing and other improvements.
With the pinning feature, you can make it so your favorite chats remain at the top of the list, so you can quickly find them. To use this feature, just swipe right on a chat in the conversation list, then tap a Pin or Unpin option.
The app has also expanded the file sharing feature, which now allows you to share any type of file with one or more recipients. To send files of any type, open a chat, tap the plus icon at the bottom then choose the Document option.
In the popup menu, select your favorite storage provider like iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive and so forth (any app that includes an iOS Document Provider extension should be available from the menu).
And lastly, when you receive multiple photos the app now lets you tap and hold on the group of photos to quickly forward or delete all of them in one fell swoop.
Download WhatsApp for iPhone, iPad and iPod for free from App Store.
Photo-sharing service Instagram on Friday kicked off a small test for a new private-sharing feature. Called Favorites, it should roll out to all users over the next few months.
Instagram's product lead Robby Stein told The Verge that they've been working on the new private-sharing feature for more than a year.
Privately shared content is denoted by a green Favorites badge on the post.
By hand-picking followers for the new Favorites section, users can easily create a more limited group of the closest friends with whom they can privately share posts and Story updates.
Anyone not in the Favorites list won't be able to see your privately shared posts.
You'll be able to browse all the non-ephemeral posts you’ve shared to your Favorites over time by tapping a new Favorites tab on your Instagram profile.
According to The Verge:
No one gets notified when you add or remove them to the list. They’ll know they’re your favorite only when they see a green Favorites badge at the top of your posts. They can’t request to be added to your list through the app.
And if you remove them from your Favorites, they lose access to all of your private posts. If they visit the Favorites tab in your profile, it will appear to be empty.
There is currently no way to share Instagram posts with select friends only.
You can set your Instagram account to private at any time to personally approve follow requests from a handful of your closest friends, but that approach has many flaws of its own.
According to Stein, people with private accounts often approve hundreds of follow requests due to social pressures and are using Instagram less as a result. “People are trying to hack Instagram to create smaller audiences, and we’re trying to recognize that,” said Stein.
It remains to be seen if Instagram Favorites will come to all users. Given they've been working on this feature for more than a year, I'll be surprised should they decide to pull it.
Will you use the Favorites feature when it rolls out, and why?
Do chime in with your thoughts in the comments section!
During today's keynote address at Google's annual I/O conference for developers, the company announced a trio of smart features powered by machine learning intelligence.
For starters, the app now automatically curates albums for the user.
Even better, Google Photos provides suggestions when sharing photos with others. As a bonus, there's now an Apple Photos-like feature for ordering printed photo books from within the app.
But first, check out the new features for yourself in Google's video embedded below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN_7r0mFf5Y
Sharing suggestionsPhotos now uses Google's machine learning technology to remind you when it's time to share some photos. The app automatically select the right photos and even suggest who you should send them to based on who was in the photos.
All that's left for you to do is review the choices the app's made on your behalf before hitting that Send button. People you're sharing with will see all your photos and get a reminder to add theirs too. Your sharing activities are collated in the app's new Sharing tab.
This feature will be rolling out on Android, iOS and web in the coming weeks.
Automatically curated albumsGoogle Photos can now automatically share relevant photos with specific people. Say you took a bunch of photos of your kids: Photos may offer to automatically share them with your wife.
Called Shared Libraries, it lets you give a person access to your full photo library.
Don't worry, you can easily choose to limit sharing by having the app include just the photos of certain people or the images taken from a certain date forward. When the other person shares their library with you, you can automatically save their photos to your own library.
Shared Libraries will be rolling out on iOS, Android and web in the coming weeks.
Photo BooksLike with Apple Photos or services like Shutterfly, you can now order a printed coffee table book comprised of your best photographs without ever leaving the app. Simply select the images you'd like to fill your album with and Google's machine learning algorithm will pick the best shots, removing duplicates and poor quality images.
When placing your order, choose between a high-quality twenty-page softcover book for ten bucks a piece or a hardcover variant for twice as much. Your photo book will be delivered to that special person in your life in the mail.
This feature is rolling out today in the US on web, and on Android and iOS next week.
“We’ll bring photo books to more countries soon,” said the search giant.
Another feature that's coming soon to Photos: personalized suggestions for photo books (i.e. your trip to the Grand Canyon, time with family during the holidays, your puppy and so forth). Machine learning powers features in other Google apps, including smart replies in Gmail for iOS and the newly launched Assistant for iPhone app.
Grab Google Photos for free from App Store.
Google recently introduced a location-sharing feature in the mobile Google Maps app that's somewhat similar in functionality to Apple's Find My Friends app. On your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Google Maps allows you to share your location with others for up to 72 hours, choose who can see where you are, hide other people's locations from a map and more.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll learn how to share your real-time location on Google Maps with friends and family in case you'd like to let them know where you are and when you’ll get there.
Find out how to use Activity Sharing on your iPhone and Apple Watch to share your daily Activity rings with your family, friends, trainer, or coach. You can use this to compete with them for motivation, or let them track your daily activity progress.
As of late-August 2016, WhatsApp has been sharing account data with Facebook in what the firm framed as an effort to improve targeted advertising on the social network. Although users can easily opt out of the WhatsApp → Facebook data sharing with just a few taps, most novice users are unaware that their WhatsApp usage data is being shared with Facebook.
In the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner Office head Elizabeth Denham said her office had launched a probe into WhatsApp's updated Terms of Service a few weeks ago.
The new terms previously drew ire from European privacy watchdogs who expressed “serious concerns” over the policy change. As a result of the UK government probe, WhatsApp has now suspended account data collection and sharing with Facebook.
Video wars are heating up with news that Vimeo is readying a consumer-facing subscription video service (not to be confused with its Plus, Pro and Business tiers for content creators). The firm prepared for the move months ago by buying VHX, a platform for over-the-top subscription video.
Vimeo, owned by IAC, broke news of its upcoming service on Wednesday as part of its earnings report.
The annual “Google for India” event kicked off in New Delhi this morning, where the search company announced a new mobile app called YouTube Go.
Inspired by India for the next billion users, it's designed to help people in areas with poor connectivity watch and share YouTube videos without burning up mobile data.
YouTube Go provides controls not found in the regular app to let users see the file size of videos before they download them to the device for offline viewing. And to save data, the app presents clips as slideshows.
Just as we're processing today's news regarding an upcoming video-sharing app from Apple, a new report claims Google is set to enhance YouTube's social experience in the fall by unveiling a new Backstage section in the mobile app and on the web.
According to VentureBeat, Backstage will let YouTube users share not just videos, but also photos, polls, links, text posts and more with their subscribers.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that Apple has been developing a brand new Snapchat-style video editing and sharing application that could launch in 2017 as a standalone download, as well as testing deeper social ties across iOS as part of a newly directed focus to integrate more social networking features within its mobile products. These moves are said to be a response to the success of social services like Facebook and Snapchat, according to people familiar with Apple’s strategy.
Snapchat has Stories and now Instagram announced a similar feature of its own, called—wait for it—Stories. Basically a slideshow format designed for sharing multiple photos and videos, Stories appear on user profiles and, similar to ephemeral messaging services, automatically disappear 24 hours after being posted on the service.
This cool new feature will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks on the mobile Instagram app for iOS and Android.