Blog Archives
Instagram, Vine, Temple Run 2 and More Are Finally Coming To Windows Phone
One of the biggest problems facing Windows Phone and Windows 8 are the lack of popular apps. Sure Windows Phone has over 175,000 apps available but many of the most popular ones found on Android and iOS have been missing. Official apps for Instagram, Vine, and Flipboard were some of the most notable missing apps and while there were third party apps that gave some of the features to replace those apps, they didn’t always offer the full experience and were at risk of being shut down by the official apps. Well, the wait for these apps is almost over. Today in Abu Dhabi Nokia announced that in the “coming weeks” Instagram, Vine, Flipboard and Temple Run 2 will all be coming to Windows Phone.
We don’t have exact release dates for any of these apps but this is big news for Windows Phone users. Nokia already makes one the best phone cameras out there with the 41-megapixel Lumia 1020, and having two of the most popular photo and video apps in Vine and Instagram will only make it better by making it much easier for people to share what they shot.
In addition to the above four, Nokia also announced that other popular apps like FIFA 14 and Papyurus will also be coming to Windows Phone over the next few weeks. And while these apps don’t solve all the app problems with Windows Phone, they sure do help a lot.
More info: Nokia
Image from Digital Trends
Instagram Is About To Bring Ads To Your Feed
Ever since Facebook bought them for $1 billion we all knew that this day was inevitable– and now it’s here. Instagram has announced that over the next few months they will be bringing ads to your feed. The ads, which will be both photos and videos, will be placed in your feed and should look just like the photos and videos your friends post. And like with the ads you see on Facebook you will be able to hide or report the ones you don’t like. Instagram will be rolling out the ads over the next “couple of months” but if you’re in the US you may start seeing an occasional ad sooner than that. A reader of The Verge, wheelsee, saw an ad in his feed today and took a video of it and posted it to his Instagram account. If you want a peak at what the new ads in Instagram will look like head on over here.
Now for those worried that the pictures you take will be used without your permission as ads, Instagram wants to reassure you that “as always, you own your own photos and videos” and that “the introduction of advertising won’t change this.”
More info: Instagram
Is Instagram About To Add Video?
As you probably have noticed by now, last week Facebook finally added official support for hashtags (meaning they actually do something now if you click on them), but they’re not done with announcements for June. This Thursday, June 20th, Facebook is holding another mystery event and according to TechCrunch this event will not be about hashtags or Facebook Home, but about adding video to Instagram. According to Matthew Keys (a former deputy social media editor at Reuters), the videos you’ll be able to share on Instagram will be similar to what you can do on Vine. They’ll be super short videos between 5-10 seconds in length which is slightly bigger than Vine’s 6 second max. While not yet as popular as Instagram, Vine (owned by Facebook’s rival Twitter) has gotten pretty big over the past few months and adding video to Instagram would finally give Facebook an answer to it.
It’s unknown if you’ll be to edit the videos with filters in the same way you can use them to edit pictures, but if this is true we’re sure we’ll find out all that and more soon enough.
More info: TechCrunch, Matthew Keys
Facebook Is Having An Android Event This Week- Could A Facebook Phone Be Coming?
Late last week Facebook sent out invitations for an event at their headquarters teasing a “new home on Android.” As expected the internet is now filled with rumors about a new Facebook phone. While we still have a few days until the April 4th event, here are some of the latest and most interesting rumors about the Facebook phone and what else they might announce.
