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Yo and the app hype machine
Yo is a notifications app where all it does is send the word "Yo" to your friends. That's it. Just "Yo." Of course, silly single-purpose apps like these are a dime a dozen -- remember those fart apps of old? -- but the thing that sets Yo apart is that it's actually attracted a whole lot of attention. More than a million dollars' worth, in fact. Yep, this seemingly frivolous app has recently raised around $1.5 million in funding, giving it a valuation close to $10 million. It's also apparently been downloaded more than 2 million times since its tongue-in-cheek April Fools' Day debut. Crazy? Well, yes, perhaps. But it's not entirely unusual. In case you need a refresher (and probably a laugh or two), here's a look at some of the more overhyped apps in the past few years. Have any other ideas? Leave a comment and let us know of any apps we've missed.
Facebook Home update brings Instagram, Tumblr and more to all Android lock screens
It's been available to Facebook's Android beta testers for a few weeks now, but as of today all Android users can get their hands on the latest update to the company's OS-overhauling app, Home. As you may recall, the big addition with this update is a number of new options that can now be integrated into your lock screen -- namely, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, and Pinterest. Once those are added and authenticated, you can start browsing posts from the respective services without actually opening the dedicated app. And... that's about it. You can get a quick look at how the new features work in the video after the break.
Facebook Home adds Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest to lock screen (video)
Starting today, Facebook Home is finally including non-Facebook content on the lock screen, though only a few users will be able to take advantage of the option at first. Facebook for Android Beta testers can now access content from Flickr, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram as well as standard Facebook fare by following a few easy steps. All you have to do is select which apps you want to sync up in Home's settings menu and punch in your account information. After all is said and done, you'll be able to browse and like posts right from Home with the option to view the content on the original site with a conveniently provided link. There's no word yet on when a wider audience will be able to access the feature, but we'll keep you posted as we learn more. To see the new Home in action, check out the video after the break.
Facebook brings lock screen music controls to Home, animated stickers to all Android users
Facebook's Android offerings just got a little livelier through a pair of updates. If you're using Facebook Home, you now have music controls on the lock screen during playback. Everyone using the regular Facebook app, meanwhile, should see animated stickers in messages. Neither upgrade is dramatic, but they're both enough to justify a quick visit to Google Play.
Facebook for Android update to offer Cover Feed for your lockscreen, even if you don't have Home
Facebook Home almost seems like a distant memory at this point, but the company is cooking up new ways to bring some of Home's features to Android users who don't necessary want the full launcher experience on their phone, in addition to offering Home support on more devices. Today the main social networking app is getting an update in the Play Store to include Cover Feed, which was one of the most visible parts of the Home launcher. If you're so inclined, you can now use the feature as your lock screen without worrying about getting the full package on your device -- provided your particular gadget at least is capable of supporting Home. If you're not seeing it on your device yet, check in a little while -- Facebook tells us that it should start rolling out over the next few hours. However, if you're still curious to play around with the Home experience, Facebook also announced official support for new devices today, such as the Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S 4.
Refresh Roundup: week of July 8th, 2013
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Facebook for Android update brings favorite apps tray to Home users
Now that Facebook Home is a practical reality, Facebook has to support both a full launcher and its traditional app at the same time -- and an update to Facebook for Android reflects that newly expanded focus. The big addition comes to Home, which gets its promised (and frankly needed) favorites tray for heavily used apps. Those relying on the traditional Android experience will mostly notice improved sharing: they can send multiple photos in one message, and it's easier for them to filter the visibility of shared content. No matter how committed you are to Facebook's vision of our mobile future, there's just one upgrade to grab at the source link.
Facebook Home official on the HTC One, unofficial on Galaxy S 4 (but you can use it anyway)
When it first announced Home, Facebook said that it would support the HTC One and Galaxy S 4 as soon as they arrived. But unless you were into sideloading, any attempt to actually run it on either of those two handsets was greeted with a "not supported" message -- at least until now. Though the app version hasn't changed and there's no mention of support for new handsets, the HTC One now appears to be officially supported, and after bypassing a warning (see the image above), you can now download and run it unofficially on the GS4 as well. That requires the main Facebook app to be up-to-date, however, and we noticed that Home (which has a tiny download size) leans on its much bigger brother for most of the heavy lifting -- updating Facebook actually changes features in the Home app. Android Central noted that it also worked in that way for other previously unsupported devices it tried, namely the Sony Xperia ZL and HTC One X. However, we still couldn't even download the app on the Nexus 4 or LG Optimus G, although it worked just fine via a sideload -- producing the same warning and allowing us to "use home anyway." That jibes with what Facebook told us yesterday -- namely, that it would change permissions so that sideloaders would get all the updates and not be saddled forever with version 1.0. Myriam Joire contributed to this report.
Facebook Home's immediate future: buddy lists, an app dock, folders and more
Facebook Home and the First phone to ship with it on board were revealed just over a month ago, and in the time since, the Home team has been hard at work improving the platform. Today at Facebook HQ we got to check in with Cory Ondrejka, Director of Mobile Engineering and Adam Mosseri, Director of Product to see how Home has been doing since its debut, and to hear what's in store for Home moving forward. Thus far, Home's been installed on almost a million phones, which has given Facebook some clear insight about the ways it needs to be improved. Most complaints thus far have centered on Home's failings as an app launcher -- when you install Home on any phone, it rearranges your apps because there's no folder support and no app dock. Well, Mosseri and Ondrejka feel your pain and assured us that those two features will be rolling out in the coming months, and they plan to continue to iterate to make Home a robust launcher. Facebook also has plans to roll out a new buddy list feature that'll show up as an overlay on top of Cover Feed with a simple swipe. This lets users start conversations directly from Cover Feed instead of having to open up the messenger app to start chatting. That's not all Facebook has in store, however, so join us after the break for more.
Facebook Home hits 1 million downloads (update: almost)
While Facebook Home may not be for everyone, it gained some serious traction since its introduction. Today at Facebook HQ, Cory Ondrejka, Director of Mobile Engineering let loose that, in the month since Facebook Home was first released, it's been downloaded over almost 1 million times. And, the addition of the launcher to those phones is turning out as Facebook had hoped, as the company has seen it drive 25 percent greater engagement (time spent using Home and numbers of comments and likes) with the social network once Home is installed. Naturally, most of those million are early adopters, but Director of Product Adam Mosseri stated that they are seeing the user base shift to "more normal users" with each passing week.
The Daily Roundup for 04.19.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Distro Issue 87: The HTC First goes super social with Facebook Home
Talk of a Facebook phone had been making the rounds for some time when the social network pulled the wraps off of a Home-draped Android handset. While it's not solely dedicated to those shades of blue, the HTC First does put friends in focus and we judge its merits in a fresh issue of our slate magazine. Two of Sony's latest offerings -- the Xperia ZL and the NEX-3N -- also hit the review gauntlet in this installment. Eyes-On hits the trail with Pentax shooters, Weekly Stat tallies PS shipments and Visualized seeks Clarity. Those trusty download links lie below for quick access to new issue of your very own. Distro Issue 87 PDF Distro in the iTunes App Store Distro in the Google Play Store Distro in the Windows Store Distro APK (for sideloading) Like Distro on Facebook Follow Distro on Twitter
Facebook reportedly hires former Apple iOS 6 Maps lead Richard Williamson
Among the people affected by Apple's iOS 6 Maps debacle was claimed project head Richard Williamson, who was reportedly shown the door at the end of 2012. While the details were never directly corroborated outside of Williamson's exit in December, he may have found a new home at Facebook: Bloomberg's sources say that the director joined the social network's mobile software division within the past two weeks. We don't know what (if anything) Williamson might be producing when Facebook has so far declined comment, although there's no question that he has an appropriate pedigree when he managed interface development for key iOS apps and helped get Safari off the ground. Suffice it to say that the internet giant has plenty of projects that might benefit from his overall experience.
Facebook Home expands beyond the US, now up for download in Canada and the UK
Facebook promised that other countries would be getting Home for Android sometime after the US rollout, but it didn't have much more to offer in the way of specifics at its launch event earlier this month. It turns out the wait wasn't too long for some countries, though, as the Home app is now available for download in at least Canada and the UK. Of course, you'll still need one of the phones already approved for use to actually run it -- namely, the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, HTC One X+, One X or One. As for the one phone that Home actually ships pre-installed on, the HTC First, it remains a US-exclusive on AT&T; EE and Orange have confirmed that they'll be carrying it across the pond, but there's still no word on Canadian availability.
Facebook 6.0 for iOS available, Loren Brichter 'helping' at Facebook
Facebook Home isn't available for iPhone, but given its mixed reviews since launch that may be a blessing in disguise. However one of Home's features, chat heads, is now available for iOS' Facebook app with Version 6.0. Chat heads is a riff on notifications. Instead of seeing a notification stating you've got a message, a circular picture of your friend's head appears. iOS chat heads only show up when you're using the Facebook app, unlike in Facebook Home when they show up no matter what you're doing. The update will also bring Stickers into the main Facebook app, along with an updated interface for iPad users to make it more along the lines of the recent desktop update. Facebook recently picked up designer and developer Loren Brichter as part of its Facebook Home team. Brichter is best known for introducing Tweetie, an early Twitter client which introduced pull-to-refresh, and the clever, insanely addictive word game Letterpress.
Facebook considered building an operating system for Facebook Home, but wanted greater reach
"The [story behind the history of Home] was about making an experience that flows through friends and people. We saw three ways that we could do this. One, we could go and build an operating system. Second, we could dig into Android deeply in order to see how we could we fundamentally change / fork Android to make it different. Or, we could build an app to make it different." Those were the words just spoken by Cory Ondrejka -- the director of mobile engineering at Facebook -- here at D: Dive Into Mobile in NYC. This, in fact, confirms that Facebook not only gave thought to actually crafting its own operating system in order to usher Facebook Home into the world, but moved forward with prototypes. Host Kara Swisher asked the duo how far along things actually got, to which Ondrejka replied: "The OS path was the least fleshed-out of the paths. Mark [Zuckerberg] talked on launch day that he wanted to build something for everyone. It's hard to get to the type of scale that's necessary for us [when building an OS]. We wanted Home in front of hundreds of millions of people -- even a successful OS would only give that experience to a few of them." The two continued to talk about Facebook's internal shift into mobile. At this point, the company has broken down most every wall between desktop and mobile, and Home is the first major product to ship under this new scenario. "You can see the engines throttling up," Schroepfer said, speaking of how fast updates will soon be coming to iOS, Android and beyond. In fact, he confirmed that the first major update to Home was coming "during the second week of May," while international users will start to get Home access on select Android phones today. And, while Facebookers have been testing Home on tablets, it wants to truly nail the experience on phones first before pushing it elsewhere.
Facebook updating iPhone and iPad app to add chat head support... today
First, the bad news. Facebook Home isn't coming to iOS anytime soon due to the underlying technologies that restrict the way apps interact with the iPhone's operating system. Now, the good news: Facebook is pushing an update to its iOS app right now that'll add support for chat heads. Mike Schroepfer, CTO and vice president of engineering at Facebook, just announced the news here at D: Dive Into Mobile, and if all goes well, you should see the update hit your own device later in the day. According to Schroepfer: "The goal from the beginning was to get this experience into everyone's hands. As part of that, we're shortly going to announce an update to our iOS app that'll add chat heads. Multiple messages, multiple threads, same design, etc. You have to be within the app -- that's a limitation of iOS. You can't draw across other apps when you aren't in the app."
Switched On: Extreme takeover, Home edition
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Facebook's management doesn't see any dichotomy in the phrase, "Go big or go home," at least as far as it might pertain to Facebook Home. After being dogged for years with questions about whether the Land o' Likes would create its own smartphone despite consistent denials, the company explained that its own phone wouldn't give it the reach it would need for its more than 1 billion members. With the exceptions of the iPhone and the Galaxy S series, a successful handset today might sell 20 million units. That's a number that many services would dream of reaching, but it's just one-fiftieth of Facebook's user base. And yet, Facebook Home will start out factory-installed on only one device: the HTC First, a mid-range Android device available exclusively from AT&T. Home is also available as a download from Google Play for a handful of other popular Android handsets, including the Galaxy S III.
The Daily Roundup for 04.12.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Visualized: Facebook Home's assortment of abodes
As you may have heard, Facebook Home has finally made its way to a select number of devices from HTC and Samsung. While the initial rollout was a little shaky, we were able to grab the social network's latest mobile triumph on every device that officially supports it. What you see above is the full spread of devices that are listed as candidates for the downloadable APK's launch (the HTC First excepted, which we have unfortunately already shipped away): from left to right, you'll see the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, HTC One X+, One X and the One. For folks who already have access to it, the One isn't officially supported yet, but it's been announced and it should be coming soon. We've already gone into painstaking detail of Facebook Home in our review of the HTC First, so we won't dwell too much on the downloadable version. In short, as we expected, the interface seems quite a bit more quiet than our experience on the First simply because it doesn't offer the same system-level integration; in other words, the devices shown in the above image are only able to display notifications related to Facebook services. You can still access your usual suite of alerts through the status bar at the top of the screen, but just make sure to go into Home settings to enable this functionality. Aside from the difference in notifications, the downloadable APK differs from the First's pre-loaded version in that no Google search bar sits upon the top of Home's app menu. Other than that, you'll be hard-pressed to find any major variances in Cover Feed, chat heads or the app launcher. If you're curious to see exactly what it looks like on a Samsung Galaxy S III, check out our gallery of screenshots below. Note: To ensure that everything works the way it should on your phone, make sure the official Facebook and Messenger apps are installed and completely up-to-date. %Gallery-185472%
