If you have an Instagram account, you may want to take some extra precautions and do what you can to lock it down. That, of course, is always good advice, but at the moment it might be particularly important. Reports of hackers taking over Instagram accounts are starting to circulate, but this story is a fair bit more strange than you would initially expect.
Aside from hardware sales, apps are a major source of revenue for Apple. Though official Apple apps make up a tiny, tiny fraction of all of the available apps on iOS, the company still gets a percentage of every app sale through the platform. This extends to in-app purchases (like the ones you find in free-to-play games) and apps that primarily generate revenue through subscriptions, such as Netflix.
It's been less than a week since Samsung announced that Fortnite for Android would be exclusive to its Galaxy devices, but that limited exclusivity is already over. As promised by Epic Games, Fortnite's wider rollout to Android devices begins today, although still in beta form. The bad news is that means an invite is still required to actually play the game, but the good news is that fans can actually pre-install the beta.
Discord, the gaming-focused VoIP and messaging app, is preparing to launch its own digital marketplace for games, directly entering the territory dominated by Steam. Discord is starting small, however, rather than aiming to offer every PC game available like Valve's immense storefront. The app has announced a store beta that will be limited to 50,000 Canadian users, which will be randomly selected from the Discord Nitro subscription service.
By now, anyone who has even the slightest interest in Fortnite knows that it's finally coming to Android. The latest news has been about how Epic Games is taking the unique stance of keeping it off the Google Play Store and instead requiring users to download the game's APK directly off their website. But what's really interesting is that now even Google is acknowledging that it doesn't have the game by making an announcement — inside the Play Store itself.
To download the official Fortnite beta app this week, you won't need a Samsung device. But you will need to be prepared to cry forever. This is because all those devices found playing without a Samsung device identifier will be banned by Epic Games - forever. That's not something your device comes back from, ever.
YouTube has released a list of smartphones its recommends for the best streaming experience. These "Signature Devices," the term used by the company, are said to offer best-in-class YouTube experiences across multiple aspects, including reliability and performance, and when viewing 360-degree content in addition to regular videos. The new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 comes in at the top of the list, and there's one surprising absence.
The competition between Steam and Discord is heating up. Back in July, Steam rolled out a new chat client that appeared to take heavy inspiration from Discord, and today, Discord is biting back by going after Steam's core business of selling games. Yes, Discord has launched a game store of its own, and though it's starting small, it has the potential to become a big part of the app as a whole.
This week some Snapchat source code - not ALL the code, but some - leaked and appeared on Github. That means more than a couple people had access to said source code - or fragment of source code - for a little while. Certainly long enough to download and keep for one's very own. Mercifully it does not appear that the source code leaked was too particularly important for the privacy of end users.
Snap accidentally revealed some of its Snapchat for iOS source code, the company has confirmed. The exposure resulted from an app update issued this past May; though Snap moved quickly to fix it, someone had already grabbed a copy and shared it on GitHub. Snap says it discovered its code on the website, forcing it to issue a copyright act removal request.
Users can download a leaked version of the Android Fortnite app already, but there's a bit of a catch. The app that's out in the wild right now doesn't work on any device that's currently available for sale. Down in the deep recesses of the app's soul you'll find code which suggests only two devices are currently able to play it: the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 - that new tablet we saw first detailed last week.
Social media titan Facebook is known for "borrowing" from — or flat-out acquiring — it's largest rivals, including Snapchat and Twitter, and now it appears to be entering the territory of Tinder and OKCupid. Following its first announcement back in May, Facebook's dating service feature has entered an internal testing phase among employees, and a sneak peek has been revealed this weekend.