Social

Facebook for iPhone gains new Share sheet design

About ten days ago, at its biggest event called FbStart San Francisco, the social networking giant unveiled an update on its Share sheet available in iOS and through third-party apps for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

The all-new design is way more functional than before. Like before, Facebook's Share sheet lets you share images, article links, status updates and other content in apps that support iOS's multi-purpose Share sheet.

Unlike before, however, you now have a clearer preview of the content you're sharing on Facebook and can control who can see your post. There are also new ways to tag friends or add feelings to a post, much like in Facebook's mobile app.

Facebook launches Music Stories with Spotify and Apple Music integration

Facebook is announcing today a brand new feature called Music Stories, basically a new post format for Facebook that should make it easier to discover and share music from Spotify and Apple Music.

Now every time you share songs or albums shared from Spotify or Apple Music using Facebook's iPhone application, these links will automatically get turned into the new post format which lets others listen to 30-second previews while on Facebook.

Facebook easing restrictions on real name policy, changes how profile violations are reported

Facebook is changing its controversial real name policy, according to BuzzFeed News Friday, to let users provide more context when the service requires name confirmation.

In addition, Facebook will now require more information from anyone reporting a profile in an effort to discourage users from misusing the reporting tool as a weapon or harassment tactic. Both changes are expected to start rolling out in December.

Facebook replacing Other inbox with a new feature called Message Requests

Don't you hate it when messages you receive from Facebook users you're not friends with end up in the Other section of your inbox, where they're far too easily overlooked and simply forgotten?

If so, you'll be pleased to learn that the company is getting rid of the Other inbox and replacing it with a brand new feature called Message Requests, David Marcus, who runs Messenger, announced Tuesday.

Twitter raises follow limit from 2,000 to 5,000 people for all users

Maybe you were totally oblivious to the fact that Twitter imposes a ceiling to how many people you can follow on the service, but that's how they roll.

Be that as it may, you might be delighted to learn that the micro-blogging startup is raising its previous follow limit of 2,000 accounts per user to a total of 5,000 accounts.

Once you’ve followed 5,000 users on Twitter, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow based on your specific follower-to-following ratio.

This change goes into effect today, said the company.

Did latest Facebook update fix battery drainage?

After publicly acknowledging that it was aware of reports which slammed its mobile application over excessive battery drain, Facebook yesterday issued an update to its App Store app which has apparently fixed the long-standing issue.

Facebook engineering manager Ari Grant took to Facebook to detail the issue and what they've done to prevent the mobile app from eating up your iPhone's battery.

Facebook acknowledges battery drainage problem with iOS app, says fix is underway

It is no secret that Facebook's mobile app has always been a battery hog, even with Background App Refresh turned off. Instead of fixing the issue, Facebook appears to employ tricks to keep the app active in the background, further accentuating the battery drainage problem.

According to TechCrunch, Mark Zuckerberg & Co. are aware of the problem and its programmers are working around the clock to put out a fix “soon”.

Going beyond Likes, Facebook is testing empathetic Reaction emojis ahead of public launch

Facebook, the social networking behemoth, is testing half a dozen reactions that go beyond Likes—among them Love and Angry—while at the same time prototyping a new feature that would make it easy to send “Happy Birthday!” videos to friends on mobile, according to The Next Web. The publication writes that Facebook's iPhone and iPad application is prompting some users to send a video as a birthday greeting directly from within the app.

Twitter launches Moments for discovering trending stories and highlighting the best of Twitter

Twitter's excellent iPhone, iPod touch and iPad mobile application was refreshed this morning with a long-expected feature that strives to make content discovery a lot easier with a brand new tab.

Called Moments, it was designed to highlight stories that are trending on the micro-blogging service right now and important ones you may have missed. This edition of Twitter also supports super-sized emoji in Direct Messages.

Twitter is a free download from the App Store.

You soon won’t need a Google+ account to enjoy the best of Google

You can kiss your little-used Google+ account goodbye once and for all as the Internet giant today confirmed the disentangling of its failed social network from YouTube, Gmail and other services.

And in the future, there'll even be an option to remove your public Google+ profile from your underlying Google Account, a tell-tale sign that the management has admitted defeat in the battle for supremacy in the social arena.

Bradley Horowitz, Google's Vice President of Sharing, said “it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use.”

Facebook releases Moments for iPhone, a brand new private photo-sharing app

Billed as a private way to share photos with friends and an easy way to get all the photos of yourself trapped on your friends' phones, Moments for iPhone by Facebook is now available for download in the App Store.

Following a few futile attempts to unseat Snapchat in the ephemeral messaging space, Facebook gave up and went to the drawing board to conceive a different take on private sharing where images won't disappear after being viewed.

Their new iPhone app lets you organize and sync multiple photos in private albums that can be shared directly on Facebook or Instagram, and sent via Messenger. Using facial recognition, Moments groups your photos based on who's in them and when they were taken. Your friends can then contribute to the synced moment with their own photos.