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Instant Articles Now Rolling Out On Facebook Messenger

Facebook enables Instant Articles on Messenger

Facebook Messenger for iOS will also roll out support for Instant Articles in the weeks to come.

Starting Thursday, July 14th, Facebook started rolling out Instant Articles for Facebook Messenger, it’s stand-alone messaging app. The initial roll-out will start with Android devices, but the feature will be added to the iOS version of Messenger in the coming weeks.

Browsing In The Fast Lane

Google developed Accelerated Mobile Pages HTML, or AMP HTML, in order to combat the increasing number of websites which load slowly due to how many elements are present in their design.

The open AMP HTML framework enables a far more lightweight design, lessening the burden of older machines, slower connections, and generally all devices using mobile data. Many and diverse publishers, companies, and industries adopted the AMP HTML framework.

Facebook’s Instant Articles

Facebook wants to be able to accommodate its users without them having to resort to additional extensions or browsers. As part of the effort, in 2015, the company set up the groundwork for Instant Articles.

The service enables the option for publishers to have Facebook host their website. Thus, Instant Articles guarantees almost no loading times for Facebook users. Accessing Instant Articles present in a Facebook News feed does not cause the browser to separately load the website.

The company also recently broadened access to the service, giving all publishers the opportunity to use it. Websites hosted with Instant Articles prove to be a popular choice among Facebook users. The company reports an over 20 percent increase in the popularity of the fast loading sites. They are on average also shared 30 percent more often.

The Speedy Messenger

Facebook Messenger will be getting updated with the Instant Article feature. Android users will be able to quickly and easily access the hosted sites.

Links to Instant Articles on Facebook Messenger are easily distinguishable thanks to a small lightning bolt sticker visible on the upper right corner of the article thumbnail. Clicking on Instant Articles will not cause the browser app to open and instead will make the website load in the Facebook Messenger app.

Facebook Messenger currently has over 900 million active users on both Android and iOS, ensuring quite the number of pageviews for any publisher interested in Facebook’s speedy service.

Image Courtesy of Facebook.

Facebook’s Mobile Device Lab Tests Apps 24/7 On 2,000 Phones

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Facebook Tasks Mobile Device Lab To Test Out All Its Apps

The Mobile Device Lab tests several versions of all of Facebook’s apps.

How many phones does it take to test out the Facebook app? Almost 2,000. The number is no joke and not even a rough estimate. In Facebook’s Mobile Device Lab, dozens of server racks are lined on each side humming to the point where it feels more like an airport hanger rather than a cool, dark room.

Some of the server racks hold smartphones, of varying models and varying ages. Each rack can snuggly fit 32 devices, and each of them is on Facebook 24/7. Facebook’s Mobile Device Lab manages the phones in order to test the apps’ performance before each update.

Within The Racks Of The Mobile Device Lab

The devices run different versions of the Facebook app, Facebook Lite, Messenger, Instagram, and so on, but all of the devices have automated gesture programs running on them, which makes the phone behave as it was actually used by a human being. Likes, comments, stickers, tagging, searching, surveys, the gesture programs do them all, while monitoring chip, memory, and battery usage.

Small cameras hang above the screen of each phone recording every second of uptime so that engineers and researchers can see exactly what crashes when so that they can fix it.

So why does a Facebook’s Mobile Device Lab need almost 2,000 different devices? Well, because they are different. The smartphone market is a very big place. While most of us know the bigger names that pop up every year, there are actually hundreds of different smartphone manufacturers.

Almost each brand has a different chip covering the CPU, GPU, and modem, potentially different RAM and internal storage manufacturers, as well as different battery manufacturers and limitations. And each brand releases on average one or two phones per year.

The Mobile Device Lab needs to account for all the tech specs of a device. The apps need to look good and behave, no matter what device they run on. Phones with different or unique screen sizes, for example, also require their own version of Facebook.

Then there is the issue of operating systems, as almost each version of Android has its own settings and most phones also come with their own modified version of Android.

App developers are well aware of the fact that an app can work perfectly on several models of phones but crash on others, even if they’re running the exact same OS.

iOS devices run the same version, which is great for app developers, but technical specifications such as CPU, GPU, memory, and screen size are still an important factor.

So the next time the Facebook app glitches out, we can think of the Mobile Device Lab and know that they sometimes have their hands full but that they will eventually get to it.

Photograph Courtesy of Flickr.

Final Fantasy VII Now Available For Android

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Aerith, as seen in the Final Fantasy VII animation.

Final Fantasy VII is one of the games who has stood the tests of time. With its initial release in 1997, the seventh installment in the always popular Final Fantasy series is nearing a decade of popularity.

The decade marker has been hit by several games in the past but those games have received balance patches over the years. The gameplay style of other cult classic decade-old games additionally had more replayability offering either several multiple choices or mechanics such as New Game Plus.

Final Fantasy VII inspired sequels and prequels, novels, comic books, and a movie to name a few. In 2015 it was announced that the game was finally receiving an overly demanded remake, but there is talk that it may end up a different game altogether.

Android users are now able to buy, download, and play Final Fantasy VII on their smart devices. Considering there is almost no chance for even the Remake version ever to make it to Xbox Consoles, Android is the last platform on which the game finally arrived.

VALVe re-brought the game to attention in 2013, when it became available for purchase on the Steam Store. The iOS Store received its version of Final Fantasy VII in August 2015. Sony also made the game replayable to the PlayStation 4 in December 2015, almost nine years after its original release on the first PlayStation in January 1997.

Final Fantasy VII for Android is priced at $16 and requires 2GB of storage space to play but a bit over 4GB to initially install, making the classic a steep investment not compatible with older devices.

Much like the iOS version, the Android release of Final Fantasy allows players to skip random fights, and to max out all their values entirely minimizing the duration of the otherwise lengthy combat scenes. Realistically, the game is only affected by a strategic system alone as some fights can still be lost with poor choices even when having capped out stats.

The original code of the game also comes with its caveats for smart devices. Android users are advised to safe as often as they remember and to also backup their saves. A glitch which will probably never be fixable unless the engine for Final Fantasy VII is made open source affects how data is stored in the game.

The glitch causes sudden crashes with no data saved on forced exit leading players to lose all their unsaved data or sometimes all their game data, hence the backups. Even so, Final Fantasy is a cult classic for a reason and is worth the time of any lover of the genre.

Is The Final Fantasy VII Remake Coming Out On The 10th Anniversary In January 2017?

Image and Videos Courtesy of YouTube.

Paper Declared Obsolete By Facebook

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Facebook will be discontinuing the Paper app for iOS.

Facebook is Taking Paper to the Farm.

On February 3rd, 2014 Facebook launched its newest app, simply called Paper, on the iOS App Store. The app was meant to be a virtual magazine or newspaper for the iPhone. It was a stand-alone feature, not anchored in any direct way to the Facebook interface.

Facebook Creative Labs and Paper

Paper was a well-received app by the iOS user community. It had been designed, created, and updated by the Facebook Creative Labs team. The app was, in fact, the first finished product of Creative Labs and its positive reviews and acclaim encouraged the team to continue. Facebook Creative Labs carried on to specialize in many different experiences and to develop several other apps.

Facebook wanted to create an app that was also a magazine. The app could present a large amount of discoverable content on an iPhone screen without overwhelming its readers. Tilting, as a motion gesture, was heavily integrated into the app, adding to the ease of use and unique experience of the app. Finally, Facebook allowed for curator and third-party collaboration.

Many iOS users considered Paper’s better and more streamlined display and functionality to be an improvement from the actual Facebook app. Creative Labs was even asked several times to try and upgrade the social media interface to resemble Paper’s accessibility and dynamics.

In less than three months from Paper’s release, Facebook listened to the voice of the masses and allowed iOS users to access several Facebook features through Paper. In addition, the company re-published the app’s animation engine as open-source.

Dying Hype

The last update for the app was released on March 11th, 2015. The Creative Labs team still offered full support for the app but would not continue to develop the app. Several of Paper’s features were becoming part of the main Facebook app.

Facebook’s Creative Labs was disbanded at the end of 2015 and Paper user support was drastically reduced. While new content was still being updated onto the app, direct third party collaboration began to diminish.

On June 29th, Facebook finally announced that Paper will be discontinued. The app is no longer available for download on the iOS App Store. All updates and support will be discontinued on July 29th. As continuous upgrades were done to the Facebook interface and its apps and Instant Articles currently covers most of Paper’s core features, the app was regarded as obsolete.

Image and Video Courtesy of YouTube.

Keep From Google Is Getting More Organizational Features

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The new Google Keep categorization features were by far the most requested by users.

Google Keep had gone through several amazing improvements ever since 2013 when it was originally launched. The latest improvement to the note-taking app will let users organize their notes by tags, making the view similar to organizing files inside of a folder.

In 2013, soon after its March debut, Google Keep was named one of Google’s Top 50 Apps. It has since then improved considerably and currently boasts a great number of useful integration and organizational features.

Color-coding notes and lists made it easier to discern the different post-its visually. Users, however, could also search easier by organizing and searching by color. Nevertheless, that option to search has proved not to be enough for the almost 50 million Google Keep users.

Keep can now efficiently organize a user’s notes, ordering and classifying similar keywords into an open folder-like view.

Google’s new change to Keep was quite expeditious considering that, a day prior, Evernote announced that it would be increasing its paid monthly subscription service and limiting access to its free accounts.

With Evernote expecting a very soon massive loss in its popularity, it would appear that Google Keep will be the main player in the note taking business for a while.

In addition, Google Keep currently allows users to insert images into their notes. Note reminders either based on location or time are one of the other most used features. The integration of the reminders into other Google apps like Clock, Calendar, or Now is seamless, quick, and flawless.

Finally, Google’s note-taking app allows users to take voice memos. The options are currently available only in the United States and for English speaking users. Nevertheless, the app does automatically transcribe the voice memos and saves them both as audio and text. Finally, Google Keep acts similarly to Google Docs, allowing multiple users to write collaboratively in the same note.

Google Keep is available for no cost on both Android and iOS. Additionally, the app is available on desktop browsers with the exact same functionality. It was one of the first apps that Google took into account for their initial Chrome OS app pack.

Evernote also accumulated most of its popularity through its iOS app. Initially, its Firefox and Chrome extensions saw more popularity than the Android version of the app. Currently, all three mediums are popular for Evernote as well.

Image Courtesy of Flickr.

Quoted Message Responses Arrive to WhatsApp

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The WhatApp service introduces quoted message replies soon after Twitter revises its own quoted message reply system.

WhatsApp’s popularity has consistently been on the rise ever since its initial widespread awareness.

Whatsapp has finally implemented quoted message responses, a feature which, for the past several years, has been on the wishlist of probably all mobile messaging users at one point or another.

Most mobile messaging users have several groups in which they are active, or they have those few extra-chatty friends who type with inhuman speed because they just have a lot to say. Most messaging users have found themselves in the situation where they had to reply to a question, or make a comment about some part of a conversation that has since moved on.

The short and easy way out was for the users just to write their reply and hope the other parties understood. More often than naught, hilarity, confusion, or both would ensue. The long way out implied taking the time to write an answer containing the question or manually selecting the text, copying it, and pasting it into the reply.

Older, non-instant messaging services on applications, such as forums, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc. always had the possibility of quoting or responding to individual questions or pieces of text and personally I always wondered why no modern app considers adding a quote or reply button next to other people’s chat boxes.

WhatsApp answers that time old question by doing something about it. With the quoted message feature, WhatsApp users get the advantage of quality communication while replying with an easily implemented feature.

In order to use the quoted message feature, the WhatsApp user needs to long press on a previous message and then select the new reply button set alongside the options for starring, deleting, or copying. Responding to a message in WhatsApp will automatically display the message as a quote as part of the user’s message.

The quoted message responses feature is currently available for the beta version of WhatsApp. On Android devices, this is v.2.16.118. Many users, however, seem to have access to the feature already after just reinstalling the app.

With the quoted message responses feature reaching such a popular messaging app as WhatsApp, it is perhaps possible to see more quality of life improvements to rival instant messaging apps in the near future.

Image Courtesy of Pexels.

Pokémon Go Hits the US

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Pokémon Go Hits the US

Last week, the producers of Pokémon Go announced the US launch of the augmented reality game in beta version or, better said, in field testing. It officially started yesterday; Australian, Japanese, and New Zealand players were the first ones able to enroll in the program.

Niantic opened up the Pokémon Go testing signups yesterday with invitations for beta testers. The company offered some information about the mechanics of the game: there will be “more than a hundred” Pokémon gizmos that players will have to discover and catch.

When a Pokémon is nearby, the players’ phone will buzz. Pokémon Go wristbands will be available for purchasing. The wristbands will light up and buzz when the little creature is around.

The tiny gizmos are caught with the phone’s touch screen. When the Pokémon is nearby, with the help of the touch screen users will overtake them in a Poke Ball.

These Poke Balls, or other items the user might need, are found at the “PokeStops.” Although a specific list of the exact locations was not provided, these PokeStops will be placed in the real world public spaces like “art installations, historical markers, and monuments.”

In battle terms, players will struggle to gain control of a Gym by using the creatures they’ve caught. By swiping to the left or the right on the screen and by attacking the defenders, Pokémon Go players will fight to diminish the Gym’s Prestige.

When the Gym’s Prestige has reached zero, the defending team has lost control and the victors will be assigned to defend the Gym. To increase the Prestige and the level, Pokémon Go players can train their Pokémon with other supporting ones.

Once the level of Prestige goes higher, the defending players can dispense more Pokémon to guard it. Teams of friends can also be created to battle together and conquer powerful Gyms faster.

The augmented reality Pokémon Go game is set to launch fully this year for Android and iOS. It will be free, but in-game purchasing will be available to buy PokeCoins. PokeCoins is the game’s currency that’s used to access items and power-ups.

Rumors say the game will launch in full by the end of this summer.

Image source: YouTube

The Biggest iPhone Battery Myth Busted

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For years, any smartphone user has heard at least once in their lives the phrase that suggests you should close unused apps in the background to save battery life. Older iPhone guides have been telling us the same, along with every other presentation on how to save your phone’s battery and keep it going to for longer. However, the App vice president of software engineering and head of iOS – Craig Federighi – recently admitted that at least, in what concerns iPhone 6 and the newest iOS versions, things couldn’t be more false.

Federighi openly stated in an email response that closing the apps on your iPhone in order to save your battery is now nothing more than a myth. The reason behind that is the fact that the most recent versions of the iOS have taken the liberty of adding an option in the system settings that allows you to stop apps from functioning in the background. Federighi explained that the ‘multitasking’ apps do not literally work, even when they’re tabbed out of.

According to him, the method that the iOS handles multitasking does not rely on background processes. Instead, the operating system freezes the apps that you used after a short time, keeping them in the state they were last time they were accessed. If you go back, the phone will update the app in question once you access it, so it matches the real time data it’s supposed to display. Surely, you will have noticed this with apps such as Skype or Facebook, where normally you will have to wait for a few seconds after you’ve launched the app of choice in order for it to display what you wish for it to.

There are, however, some types of apps that will continue running in the background, and you may want to reconsider keeping them on if you’re looking to prolong your battery life. Such apps are music players, location services, recording audio. One of the most notorious ones that tax you on battery life because it constantly checks for incoming VOIP calls is Skype. That one, you may want to put to sleep if you want to preserve battery juice.

Lastly, after bursting the bubble of the apps running in the background, Apple offered some other tips on how you can save battery life instead of always manually going into the app manager to swipe up everything you find open. Their recommendations include keeping your phone up to date with the latest updates, reducing the display brightness, using WiFi over data, enabling low battery power when needed, not exposing your phone to either very hot or very cold temperatures and taking the phone out of its case before charging, if the situation calls for it.

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Facebook App Is Going To Consume Less Battery

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Facebook App Is Going To Consume Less Battery

After years of desperate calls from the community, Facebook app is going to consume less battery. At long last, we will be able to check our battery life and not see that Facebook took out 20% of it single handedly. The change is not being made for “the right reason”, since many people have complained about how much battery it drains, but it seems that we reached the final drop.

If you are an iPhone user, you are perhaps one of the people who have been experiencing great issues with the battery lately, only because of Facebook. iOS users are actually pretty lucky people because Facebook declared that it is working on a patch to fix the issue. Android users were left out. The truth is that they made no official report at the moment, but Facebook is one of the most notorious battery drainer apps on Android devices as well.

Initially, Facebook did not give any response to a request for comment issued by PCMag. However, they casually informed TechCrunch that the issues raised by the community have been heard and that they are working on a patch that is going to put an end to it once and for all. There has been no estimated date for this patch, but the simple news that it is being worked on can be relieving.

Some of the people who have been using the app on an Apple device have confirmed that Facebook alone accounts for approximately 15 to 20% of lost battery. And this is not indicated only by actively using the app, but by its “passive” state as well. Facebook manages to eat at your battery even when you are not using your phone, so it is understandable if people are not pleased with this development.

Others have also claimed that Facebook are completely disappointing their users by allowing such a negative feature to impact their experience. Dealing with the app should not be some kind of consequence of a specific patch that will follow in the last 2 to 3 months. It is something serious that should be dealt with as soon as possible.

The Facebook app is going to consume less battery and we need it solved now. So the faster that patch gets worked up, the better. We expect to see this change within the next month and once it is done, we can actually start downloading more apps that can satisfy our needs and not kill our battery in one day.

Photo Credits gawkerassets.com

Apple Will Help You If You Want to Move from Android to iOS

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Earlier this week we saw how the new iPhone 6 is finally available for sale in China, after the Chinese government gave its approval and today we’re going to take a look at the latest Apple news. It appears that Apple is doing their best to help people make the transition from Android to iOS.

Do You Want to Move from Android to iOS?

That’s the question that you should be asking yourself if you are an Android user. If the answer is yes, then you should know that Apple supports your decision so much, that it is willing to help you make the move.

Apple has just released a guide on their official website, in which it offers advice on how to make the switch from Android to iOS.

Don’t expect such a move to be easy to do! Because it’s not and Apple knows this very well. That’s why it set up the section Move content from your Android phone to iPhone. It invites Android users to make the switch from Android to iOS:

Ready to make the switch to iPhone? Here are some tips for moving your photos, music, documents, and more from your Android phone to iPhone.

The guide will teach you how to move content, contacts and calendars from Android to iOS. Unfortunately, you cannot move your apps, you simply must download them in Apple’s App Store. The useful guide also tells you how to install apps, use iCloud and iTunes. It’s a fool-proof guide that is going to help a lot of people make the transition from Android to iOS.

What do you think about the fact that Apple will help you move from Android to iOS? Are you going to make the switch? Is it worth the hassle? Drop us a line in the comment section below and let us know!