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Facebook launches Lifestage, a teens-only social app built around video profiles
If you're a high-schooler aged under 22 and eager to connect with your classmates within an environment that harkens back to the Facebook from 2004, when it was exclusively a college student network, then today's Facebook where everyone creeps on others may not be the safest place to engage in such interactions.
That's why Michael Sayman, Facebook’s 19-year-old product manager, created Lifestage, a teens-only iPhone app that encourages high-schoolers to create video profiles and share them with their school network.
Twitter gains features to limit notifications and filter out lower-quality content
Twitter continues adding features to let users control and personalize their experience on the service with yesterday's announcement of a new quality filter and notification settings.
Now available in Twitter 6.6 for iOS, the new content quality switch allows you to optionally weed out lower-quality tweets from your feed, notifications and other parts of your Twitter experience.
“It does not filter content from people you follow or accounts you’ve recently interacted with – and depending on your preferences, you can turn it on or off in your notifications settings,” cautioned the service.
At long last, Instagram is adding much-needed Drafts to save unfinished posts for later
You cannot find it mentioned in release notes accompanying the most recent Instagram update which brought out a new Snapchat-like Stories feature, but either that or an earlier update has quietly added a much-needed Drafts feature to the popular mobile photography app.
Called by some fans the best feature that has happened to Instagram in quite a while, Drafts lets you save the photo you're currently editing as a draft.
This is quite useful, if not essential, in case you just spent your time making detailed edits to a photo, but ultimately decided not to post it until later.
Twitter for iOS adds iPad keyboard shortcuts
Yesterday, Twitter's mobile application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch added a few useful keyboard shortcuts for iPad owners, said Twitter app developer Amro Mousa. If you have an iPad connected to a third-party Bluetooth keyboard or Apple's Smart Keyboard, Twitter for iOS now lets you use various keyboard shortcuts to quickly access some of the most frequently used options without needing to tap on-screen controls.
Instagram is rolling out Stories—Snapchat-like auto-dissapearing slideshows
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.
Apple launches new iBooks account on Instagram, releases new Harry Potter book
Following launch of the widely popular and incredibly active Apple Support account on Twitter earlier this year, Apple has now created a brand new account on Instagram. Dedicated solely to iBooks, it shares book quotes, spotlights authors and reviews, promotes new arrivals and more. At the same time, the iPhone maker has now released the script for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on the iBooks Store (also available from Amazon and other retailers).
You’ll soon be able to filter individual comments on Instagram, even disable commenting
Instagram is working on some significant enhancements for the commenting feature found its mobile app, potentially giving users the ability to filter their own comment streams on the service or even disable commenting on all posts, according to The Washington Post. Instagram has been testing these features with some businesses, but soon everyone will be able to screen individual comments in their feed and decide for themselves if they might be better served by disabling commenting on their account altogether.
How to hide the Favorites and Active Now sections in Facebook Messenger app
I have a big gripe with the Facebook Messenger app ever since Facebook decided to launch a major UI change without letting me know in the change log first. And now, I'm stuck with an annoyance right smack in the middle of my conversation list when I open the app.
Fortunately, there is a way to hide these annoying 'Favorites' and 'Active Now' sections, even if temporarily, and we'll show you how in this tutorial.
Facebook Messenger hits a major milestone—one billion monthly users
Facebook yesterday announced that its Messenger service has hit a major milestone: the software is now being used by more than one billion people every month to message their friends and family. Messenger saw a major surge in popularity after it was decoupled from the main Facebook mobile client, and especially since becoming a software platform in its own right with chat bots, apps, money payments, expanded emojis and other features.
Facebook Messenger is a free download from the App Store.
Now everyone can apply for Twitter’s Verified badge, not just celebrities and VIPs
The unthinkable has happened: Twitter has decided to open its account verification system to the masses. That's right, everyone can now apply to have their account verified for bragging rights in the form of that blue checkmark next to their Twitter account name, which used to be the privilege of the rich and famous. But there's a catch: Twitter says that it will approve accounts that are “of public interest” so you'll need to tell them why they should verify your account.
Facebook SDK for Swift beta now available to iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS developers
This past weekend, the social networking giant Facebook announced that a beta version of its brand new software development kit (SDK) for Apple's Swift programming language is available for download. The new SDK integrates Facebook buttons into iOS, watchOS, macOS and tvOS apps written in Swift, and integrates such features like Facebook Login, Analytics for Apps, Graph API and Share to Facebook sheets. The Facebook SDK source code is available via GitHub on an open-source basis.