Today Instagram launched an app called Reels, a direct alternative to the mega-popular music-based video social network TikTok. While TikTok has the youth market on lock, Instagram hopes to steal a bit of the pie with an as-easy-as-possible entry point for those users who already have an Instagram account. This system is currently only listed as the app "Cenas", and will eventually appear as "Insta Reels."
What would you do if Niantic closed their doors tomorrow, and there was no more Pokemon GO? That's a question I had to ask a friend recently when they voiced concerns that Pokemon GO used to be fun, but more recently felt more like an obligation. This is the overarching issue with video games in general, but doubly so when the entirety of said game is played on servers at some remote location: After it's done, what's left?
Today Apple Arcade reached its first major milestone with a total of 100 playable game titles. The list includes several oddities and/or otherwise decent-looking games. Some are the sort you might never have seen if you'd not acquired an Apple Arcade subscription in the first place - imagine that!
The smartphone market has also become a market for imaging sensors with cameras becoming one of if not the primary deciding factor in purchasing a new phone. The competition among Android phones is a close and strange one, with many of them using the same sensors. Apple's iPhones, in contrast, have always been in a league of their own and the latest iPhone 11 Pro Max is even more so with its first triple-lens system. DxOmark takes the phone through its testing protocols and, while impressive, still fails to wrest the crown from Huawei.
Apple has released iOS 13.2.2, promising a fix for the apparent memory management issue that had caused some iPhone and iPad users big problems with multitasking. A not-insignificant number of iOS 13 users had been reporting that background apps were being closed in a far more aggressive way than previously, which was adding up to a headache in how they were trying to use their phones.
Google acquired Fitbit on November 1, 2019, making it the second major smartwatch-related buy made by the company just this year.* In December of 2016, Fitbit acquired (most of) Pebble. We've taken a brief trip, here, down the unlikely path that'd lead Google to use what they've acquired to bring Pebble devices back to life. That'd mean new efforts in updating Pebble OS, its various apps, and in creating a whole new piece of hardware.
About a week ago, Ubisoft revealed Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos, a new game that's headed for iOS and Android. Today, the company is opening up pre-registration for the game, which it says will be out at some point before the end of the year. Though we don't have a release date yet, the fact that pre-registration is now open suggests that the game is launching soon.
A terrifying new vision from M. Night Shyamalan called 'Servant' is coming to Apple TV+ in November of 2019. Servant is a streaming, episodic series. This production looks every bit like a big-budget movie, the likes of which M. Night Shyamalan's created before, but it's going to come with 10 episodes. Or it'll have 10 episodes to start - we'll see.
Today WhatsApp, a Facebook company, updated their so-called Privacy Settings. This is the latest in a line of updates with the word "privacy" in the title released by Facebook and Facebook companies that, collectively, likely aim at doing some good for the overall image of the social networking giant. The latest update is for WhatsApp Groups and it has to do with your Contacts.
The success of Pokemon GO opened up a new mobile gaming market that many want to cash in on. But as the reception of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite proved, not even developer Niantic Labs itself is always able to replicate that success. Many have tried to use that same collection and location-based formula and almost all have failed. Microsoft-owned Mojang is now also trying to get its and your feet wet with Minecraft Earth and it is now making its unique spin available in nine more locations around the world.
If Google Maps is for locating places, Waze is for navigating the roads and highways to get there. Not everyone, however, drives or even use ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft. While trains and buses are unlikely to stray off the beaten path, they are at the mercy of delays and incidents that could catch riders unawares. That's where the Pigeon app comes in to alert riders of any problem and maybe even prevent them from losing their cool, too. All with a little help from other riders.
Microsoft announced a great many things at its IGNITE conference but some might be disappointed by a distinct lack of the dual-screen Surface devices or even Windows 10X. Of course, that doesn't mean it is yet again ignoring the mobile market and has, in fact, one particularly curious announcement prepared. It has just started the public beta testing of a new mobile app for Office that, on the surface, seems to simply combine three Office apps into one. That, however, belies the paradigm shift that Microsoft is trying to push to mobile.