Yahoo mobile apps taken down, no one notices
Yahoo! Meme, Yahoo! Mim, Yahoo! AppSpot, Yahoo! Deals, Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search have all been removed from Apple's App Store. And if you're like most people, you never even looked at these apps in the first place. That's exactly the point. It's part of Yahoo's strategy to rebuild its mobile presence from the ground up.
That list only refers to apps that were available for the iPhone and iPad. The former search leader also took down a handful of apps for Android. It's a quick glance at Yahoo's previous "kitchen sink" strategy when it came to mobile apps, and it clearly did not work. In the rare chance you happened to download any of these apps already, it's unclear if they will continue to work. The complete list of discontinued apps, which totals 10, is as follows:
• Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
• Yahoo! Answers (Android)
• Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
• Yahoo! Movies (Android)
• Yahoo! News (Android)
• Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)
This trimming process comes as Yahoo is trying to rebrand its mobile image. Before the smartphone age really took off, Yahoo had really started to cement mobile as its new forte. But just like everything else in Yahoo's history, it failed to keep up with the changing environment and now it barely has a voice in the Android and iPhone world. The company says to expect new mobile products in 2012, "especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!'s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr."
[via Yahoo Search Blog]