Apps

Apple’s Freeform aims to be a collaborative whiteboard for everyone • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, collaboration, design, Figma, iPadNo Comments

Apple announced its so-called Figma Whiteboard competitor called Freeform at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. The company hasn’t rolled out the idea board app to everyone yet but if you are using public or developer beta, you will get to play with the app with the iOS 16.2 update, and on Mac with macOS 13.1 update. While Figma is for people who might already have some design experience, Apple’s Freefrom app caters to all kinds of users who just want to dump their ideas with multiple media formats on a board. On the face of it, Freeform is just a large board with a grid that lets you put different things like text, images, videos, notes, objects, documents, and more. Apple wants to provide users with an infinite board and basic tools that hardly requires onboarding. Most folks would have used some of these editing tools like Apple’s own apps like Photos and Notes. For the initial test, we used iPhone and iPad running beta versions of the software. Features When you start Freeform on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you’ll get a blank board. You can start sketching using different brushes that will let you adjust the color and opacity or just select the text box option and start writing. All the options for input are on the top including sketching, text, notes, shapes, and files. If you want to hide this grid, you can tap the Zoom controller in the bottom right and Hide Grid; for Mac, you can access this option through View > Hide Grid. You will get more than 700 shapes available in the shapes library in different categories including birds, symbols, animals, food, arts, and science. Apple said it will keep adding more shapes based on community feedback. Image Credits: Apple You can change the color fillings and outline of the object by tapping on it. There are also additional options like cut, copy, duplicate, send to front/back, lock, and constraint proportion available through the three-dot menu. In addition to that, users can insert any file type including a photo or a video through, a document, or a link (which shows up as a card). You can scan a document to include it on the board, too. You can move around the object by holding and dragging it with one finger. When you’re moving an object around, Freeform will show you alignment guides in reference to other objects that will help you format your document better. To resize these objects you can swipe across the canvas holding the resizing lines around it. For uniformity, if you want to make two objects of the same size, start resizing one object and tap on the other object to match the sizes. To rotate it, hold the object with one finger and use the other finger to move it around the central axis. You can break apart some objects as well— for instance, the sides of a cube. So all in all there are a lot of options for you to play around with objects. Image Credits: ZebethMedia Sharing Notably, all your projects will be synced across the devices — but don’t forget to turn on iCloud sync for Freeform. You can share this board through a link with your friends. If they don’t use Apple devices, that link is not going to work for them. In that case, your only option is to export the board as PDF and share it. Currently, there is no option to export the board as an image. Your best bet at that is taking a screenshot (like the one posted above). Collaboration Freeform is not just a whiteboard for yourself, but it allows you to collaborate with your friends or teammate too — as long as they are in the Apple ecosystem. You can share the link to your board with others through email, Slack, or any other messaging app. If you share your board in an iMessage thread, you can have live collaboration powered by SharePlay. That means you can see participants adding, removing, and moving objects around the board. If you’re not working on the board, you will see activity updates on top of the messages thread whenever someone makes changes. Apple said that it won’t show notifications for every small update as it could be very annoying and intrusive. Apple has tried to make this version simple to include every user. While they may not use designing tools in their everyday workflow, this tool could be handy for things like coaching charts, event planning, pet journaling, and redesigning home with rough sketches and notes. Freeform won’t make professions shift from tools like Figma, but it will let beginners try their hand at collaborations and designing. Freeform will be available for everyone when the stable releases of iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS 13.1 are released in a few weeks.

Instagram is updating its web interface to take advantage of large screens • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in adam mosseri, Apps, Instagram, web design, websitesNo Comments

If you have used Instagram on your desktop system, you know that it looks like a badly made copy of its mobile website. The company is now introducing a refreshed design that takes advantage of large screens. Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri made this announcement through a post on Tuesday along with a feature that enables professional accounts to schedule their posts. “We know a lot of people use the web to multitask and we wanted to make sure Instagram was an as great experience as possible online,” he said. He added this new design is cleaner, faster, and easier to use. 🎉 New Features 🎉 Some “finally features” that I think you’re going to be excited about… – Schedule Posts (coming soon)– IG Web Updates pic.twitter.com/5tyMxWh1n8 — Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) November 8, 2022 The new design moves the menus and icons like home, search, messages, and notifications to a side pane. What’s more, the explore/search page shows a full grid spanning across the monitor. The new sidebar expands and collapses based on the screen you are on. In the older design for web, when you opened a profile, options like Posts, Guides, Reels, and Tagged were hosted on top of the grid. So if you wanted to switch to another tab, you had to scroll to the top from wherever you were. The new design solves this problem by moving these options to the side. This redesign — rolling out slowly to users — will make it easier to use Instagram on large monitors while switching between different tabs. Sadly, if you were waiting for an Instagram app for iPad, that’s not coming anytime soon. Earlier this year, Mosseri noted that the iPad app is “not big enough” to make it a priority for development. Earlier this month, Instagram said it will soon allow some creators to mint and sell NFTs directly in the app.

Gmail will no longer allow users to revert back to its old design • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Apps, Enterprise, gmail, GoogleNo Comments

Google announced today that it’s making the new Gmail interface the standard experience for users. The company first released the new interface earlier this year, but allowed users to revert back to the original view. Starting this month, users will no longer have the option to go back to the old interface. “The integrated view with Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet on the left side of the window will also become standard for users who have turned on Chat,” the company said in a blog post. “Through quick settings, you can customize this new interface to include the apps most important to you, whether it’s Gmail by itself or a combination of Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet.” Image Credits: Google Google notes that the ability to customize the new interface makes it easier to stay on top of what’s important and reduces the need to switch between various applications, windows or tabs. It’s worth noting that with this new change, users will no longer have the option to configure Chat on the right side of Gmail. The company’s decision to make its new user interface the standard experience isn’t surprising, but it will likely be a frustrating change for users who preferred the old design.

Wing brings drone delivery options to DoorDash customers in Logan, Australia • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in App, Apps, DoorDash, drone delivery, Robotics & AI, Transportation, wingNo Comments

DoorDash is teaming up with Alphabet’s Wing to offer customers an easier way to arrange for goods to be delivered via drone. Beginning this week, a small number of DoorDash users in Logan, Australia will be able to order certain convenience and grocery items through the DoorDash app and have them delivered by a Wing drone, typically in 15 minutes or less, Wing says. The experience looks much like it does with a typical DoorDash delivery. A dedicated “DoorDash Air” carousel in the app highlights items eligible for Wing drone delivery, and the GPS location of orders is tracked in real time. Perhaps the only major difference is, unlike a standard DoorDash delivery, users who order via drone will be asked to specify a delivery spot in the app where their package can be safely lowered from the drone once it arrives. As Wing notes on its corporate blog, the DoorDash partnership is a step toward opening Wing’s platform so that its delivery service can be accessed via third party apps. “We see this new functionality as a logical step on this journey to make drone delivery a plug-and-play option for more businesses and consumers — no matter what app they use,” the company writes. Image Credits: DoorDash For DoorDash, the collab signals the company’s ongoing commitment to autonomous delivery tech. Last year, DoorDash introduced DoorDash Labs , a division focused on building automation and robotics solutions for last-mile deliveries. Separately, DoorDash has piloted delivery robots from vendors including Starship Technologies. Wing’s tie-in with DoorDash comes at an especially precarious time for the drone delivery industry. Technical, logistical and financial hurdles have impeded major players’ progress toward ubiquitous drone delivery — assuming that’s even an achievable vision. A report from Bloomberg earlier this year revealed that Amazon, for example, which has been developing delivery drones for years, has yet to overcome key safety concerns and technological limitations. Wing has wisely kept its scope smaller, focusing on a select few markets including several cities across Australia, Finland and Virginia and Texas in the U.S. The company has had to contend with its own share of issues, including neighbors irked by the drones’ loud propellers and weather-related flight disruptions. But Wing has achieved some success to date, reaching 200,000 lifetime deliveries in March 2022 and inking partnerships with supermarket chains like Australia’s Coles and Walgreens. According to analyst firm Research and Markets, the global drone package delivery market could be worth $5.56 billion by 2030. Among others, carriers like FedEx and UPS and retailers such as Walmart are testing autonomous drone cargo flights for short-haul deliveries.

Instagram rolls out an in-app scheduling tool to all professional accounts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Apps, Instagram, meta, SocialNo Comments

Instagram is rolling out an in-app scheduling tool to all professional accounts in its app, the company has announced. The new tool allows businesses and creators to schedule their posts in advance without having to use third-party apps or Creator Studio. Social media managers and creators have long relied on third-party tools to schedule posts on Instagram, so the new scheduling tool will likely be a game changer. The official launch comes a few weeks after the social network began testing the scheduling tool with select users. With the new tool, businesses and creators will be able to schedule posts, reels and carousels directly in the app up to 75 days in advance. Once you have created a post, you can access the scheduling tool by tapping “Advanced settings.” Then, you will see a new “Schedule this post” toggle. After you have selected the new option, you will be able to select the time and date that you want the post to go live. You then need to navigate back to the Instagram post flow and tap “schedule.” Creators and businesses will be able to see scheduled posts in the “Scheduled Content” section that is accessible via the hamburger menu. The section also lets you reschedule content if needed. The launch of the new tool isn’t exactly a surprise, given that app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi noted that Instagram was working on a scheduling feature back in July. Instagram hasn’t said when or if regular accounts will get access to the in-app scheduling tool, but ZebethMedia has reached out to learn more. It’s worth noting that anyone can switch to a professional account by navigating to their account settings. In addition to rolling out the new scheduling tool, Instagram also launched “Achievements” in reels. Creators will be able to unlock achievements in relation to specific actions when creating a reel, such as collaborating with another creator, engaging with their community by making reels more interactive, making more than one reel in a week or using trending audio and effects. Creators will be notified when they have unlocked an achievement after publishing their reel. They will also be able to keep track of the achievements they have and haven’t earned. Instagram is testing Achievements globally starting this week.

A list of features Elon Musk has promised to bring to Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Features, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk has completed his takeover of Twitter, and he has lofty plans for this platform. In the short time, he has been at the helm of the platform he has promised things like a new verification system, revamped subscription program, and better creator monetization. Musk has a knack for announcing these features on a whim through Twitter. But it’s hard to know in what form and when they would make their way to the public release. So here is a handy list of things Musk has announced that’s coming to Twitter: After taking over Twitter, the first product change Musk announced was revamping the verification system. Days later, he posted more details that included new features for Twitter Blue paid plan. Musk said the new system will cost $8 per month and have fewer ads, priority in replies (something which verified handles get through the “Verified” notification channel), mentions and search, and the ability to post longer videos. At this moment, paid users can post 10-minute long videos and other users have a time limit of two minutes and 20 seconds on videos. The company has already been experimenting with things like moving the verified notification tab to appear as the default screen in the notification screen. While the new Twitter Blue plan will cost $8 in the U.S., Musk has said that he will adjust the pricing for different regions according to purchasing power parity. In a reply to a user, he also said that revamped subscription will roll out to India by the end of the month. This means Twitter will soon expand Twitter Blue beyond existing markets — the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Musk has already got the Twitter Blue team working on a better video experience, too. He said that with the new paid plan, users will be able to upload 42 minutes of video at 1080p resolution. The Tesla CEO said that the platform is working on removing the 42-minute limit as well. The new Twitter CEO said that the company is working on attaching long text to the tweet. This announcement is strange as the platform debuted Notes, its program for long-form content, in June. Under this test, a set of writers from the U.S., Canada, Ghana, and the UK got access to tools to write long posts. A Twitter employee, who was part of a mass layoff at the company, pointed out that Musk fired the team who built and shipped the Notes feature. The Twitter CEO said that the platform’s search reminds him of “Infoseek in ’98” and wants to fix the experience. But we don’t know what improvements to expect. Search within Twitter reminds me of Infoseek in ‘98! That will also get a lot better pronto. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2022 In his short tenure as the head of the social network, Musk has promised to implement better payouts for creators. In a reply to YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), he claimed that Twitter can become an S-tier (Super tier) network. In another tweet, the SpaceX CEO said that he can beat YouTube’s 55% ad-revenue share rate with creators. But that revenue might not be significant if major ad spenders don’t splash big bucks on the platform. Trust and Saftey Apart from announcing a ton of product changes, Twitter’s new head is also making some critical policy decisions. However, it’s unclear when these rules will come into effect and how they will play with various international laws. Just after taking charge of Twitter, Musk said that the company will form a content moderation council that will have people sharing diverse sets of views. At this moment, there is no clarity about who will participate in this council, how many members it might have, and what kind of powers it might wield. Notably, Twitter already has a Trust & Safety Council consisting of more than 100 organizations, but members are not sure if there is a future for them. After a ton of accounts changed their account name and details like profile photo and bio to mimic Musk, the billionaire said that Twitter Blue users won’t be allowed to impersonate anyone unless they specify that it is a parody account. He noted that accounts violating will be permanently suspended. He added that any change in name would result in accounts losing the verification mark temporarily. Currently, there are no written rules about this, so we don’t know how it will work in practice and what guidelines parody accounts might have to follow. Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2022 Musk has also promised to make changes to Birdwatch, Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking program. But he has only said that it will be renamed to “Community Notes” — and Jack Dorsey didn’t like it. All these changes have very aggressive deadlines so it won’t be surprising if we don’t see these changes being rolled out in the promised timeframe. We will keep this piece updated to track these promises.

Signal is the latest app to roll out a Stories feature • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Apps, signal, Social, storiesNo Comments

End-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal is rolling out a new Stories feature to all users on Android and iOS, the company announced on Monday. The official launch comes a few weeks after the company first began beta testing the feature with select users. Signal plans to release its Stories feature on desktop soon. As with other platforms’ Stories features, Signal Stories allow users to create and share images, videos and texts that automatically disappear after 24 hours. Signal notes that like everything else in its app, Stories are end-to-end encrypted. Signal users have the option to choose who can see their Stories by navigating to their settings. From there, you can choose to share your Stories with everyone in your phone’s contact list who uses Signal, anyone you’ve had a one-on-one conversation with in Signal or anyone whose message request you’ve accepted. You also have the option to manually hide your Story from specific people. If you would rather choose to share your Stories with a smaller subset of people, you can create a custom Story. In addition, you have the option to share Stories to existing group chats. Like with read receipts for chats, you can decide if you want to send view receipts for Stories you look at and whether you see who’s seen your Stories. You can turn view receipts on or off in the Settings menu. You may be wondering why a messaging app like Signal is adding Stories, but the company says Stories “happen to be one of the most common feature requests” among users, which is why it decided to add them to its platform. Image Credits: Signal “Stories have emerged to serve these specific functions and others in the broader communications landscape, and many of us have integrated them as one of the ways that we connect with one another,” the company said in a blog post. “That’s why they have a natural place in any messaging app, including Signal. People use them, people want them, so we’re providing a way to do stories privately. And without having to wade through a sea of ads.” Signal is aware that not everyone will see Stories as a welcome addition to the app, which is why it’s offering an opt-out setting for the feature. If you’re not interested in seeing or posting Stories, you can opt out by going into your settings and selecting the “Turn of stories” option. The company says although the addition of Stories may seem like a “big shift” for the app, they’re just another way for users to privately communicate with people. Signal notes that its Stories feature isn’t designed to help people build a following or amplify content for engagement, and that it instead sees Stories as a way to facilitate intimate conversations. Signal is a little late to game when it comes to Stories, which first rose to popularity through Snapchat. Over the years, the ephemeral feature has been adopted by nearly every popular platform, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Travel app Hopper raises $96M from Capital One to double down on social commerce • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in App, Apps, capital one, funding, startup, Startups, Transportation, travel, travel bookingNo Comments

Evidently, the downturn hasn’t soured investors on the travel industry. Travel booking startup Hopper today announced that it closed a $96 million follow-on investment from Capital One, bringing the company’s total raised to close to $730 million. The fresh cash will be put toward several efforts, CEO and co-founder Frederic Lalonde said in a press release, including supporting Hopper’s new social commerce initiatives. As a part of the funding, Hopper says it’s extending its partnership with Capital One to create new travel products aimed at Capital One customers. Hopper’s tech already powers Capital One Travel and Premier Collection, Capital One’s marketplace of hotels and resorts exclusive to Capital One Venture X cardholders. It’s a safe bet that similar experiences along that vein are forthcoming. “With Hopper, we have found a partner who can not only match that pace, but help us continue to challenge the status quo and take a differentiated approach to building a world-class travel brand,” Capital One managing VP Matt Knise said in statement. “Through this strategic partnership, we’re well-positioned to adapt to a rapidly changing travel environment and create industry-leading solutions for our customers along their travel journey.” Founded by Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk in 2007, Hopper spent six years in stealth building what it claimed at the time was the “world’s largest structured database of travel information.” The company’s web-crawling tech ingested blogs, photo-sharing sites and other sources of information about locales and tagged them to a geolocation in a massive place database. But after Hopper’s public debut in 2014, the company’s leadership decided to pivot to mobile and devote engineering resources to flight prediction, building a tool that continuously monitors airline prices and sends price change alerts via push notification. Since the, Hopper has evolved into one of the largest travel apps in North America, with over 80 million downloads and sales of flights, hotels, homes and rental cars on the platform set to exceed $4.5 billion this year. Hopper differentiates itself from rival travel services (e.g. Travelocity) with features such as airfare price freezes and flight disruption guarantees, the former of which the company says represents about 40% of its total app revenue. Last year, Hopper ventured into the business-to-business market with the launch of Hopper Cloud, a partnership program that allows travel providers including Kayak, Marriott and Trip.com to resell Hopper’s fintech and travel agency products through a white-label portal. Hopper claims that Cloud has seen a rapid uptake, now comprising more than 40% of Hopper’s business; Lalonde claims that Hopper Cloud is on track to make more in 2022 than all of Hopper did in last year. On the consumer side, this spring, Hopper shifted its focus to in-app promotions, discounts and sales events. Social commerce is the company’s next big push, anchored by features like referrals, share-to-earn, team buying and daily gift, which reward users for with discounts on travel purchases for launching the app and engaging in sharing with friends. Hopper was last valued at $5 billion, ZebethMedia reported in early February. The company — which has an estimated 11.2% of the third-party air travel market in the U.S. — plans to eventually go public.

YouTube begins rolling out Shorts on TV globally starting today • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Apps, Media & Entertainment, short-form video, shorts, TikTok, Video, YouTube TVNo Comments

YouTube is expanding the reach of its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, with today’s announcement that it will begin rolling out Shorts on TV to its global users. The company’s updated smart TV app will now allow users to view the popular vertical videos in an optimized experience that’s designed to feel more consistent with what users see on mobile, YouTube explains. This was a challenge given that YouTube Shorts, like TikTok, were largely meant to be watched on smaller smartphone screens. The new Shorts-watching feature will require a smart TV from 2019 or later, a newer gaming console or a streaming device, YouTube says. The videos themselves can be found on new Shorts shelf on the homepage of the YouTube app or on a creator’s channel page. In a blog post, the company detailed the different design experiments it researched in coming up with the final concept for Shorts on TV. It found Shorts videos didn’t look great in the YouTube app’s conventional video player, which had too much black space on either side of the vertical video. It also considered a “jukebox” style format which would line up three Shorts side-by-side to take full advantage of the TV’s screen without leaving any additional space on the sides. But this experience was not only cluttered, it also deviated from how Shorts are meant to be viewed — one-by-one. The design YouTube landed on is a customized option that attempts to better fill in the sides of the video with a color-sampled blurred background and an outline around the video that resembles a smartphone’s screen. It then further iterated on this format to add more functionality off to the side of the video, including information about the creator, the sound used in the video, and thumbs-up and down buttons. This information can be displayed by clicking the right button on your remote. In this initial rollout, viewers can subscribe to a creator’s channel in addition to liking or disliking the video after viewing. The company plans to introduce more community features over time, it says. When watching Shorts, you can also use the remote to start or stop the video from playing by clicking directly on the short or by using the Play and Pause buttons on the remote control itself. The Short will continue to play until you advance to the next Short using your remote. You can use the up and down buttons on the remote to move to the next video or return to a prior Short, YouTube says. The company noted it was unusual for consumers to prefer to use the remote control to move through the Shorts videos, as typically watching videos on TV is more of a lean-back experience. But in this case, it found that viewers wanted to manually control which Short played or which they skipped, as they would on mobile. While today YouTube Shorts are watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month, there hasn’t been a way to watch them on the big screen until now as the YouTube app hasn’t allowed users to cast Shorts to their TV and the main TV app didn’t support Shorts viewing. The expansion of Shorts to TV will help YouTube to better challenge TikTok, which had also rolled out its own TV app to various platforms last year, including Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Android TV OS and select LG and Samsung Smart TVs in North America. TikTok had also offered a TV app for Google TV and Android TV in the U.K., France and Germany, and on Samsung TVs in the U.K. But unlike TikTok’s TV app, YouTube’s TV app has the advantage of being pre-installed on many smart TV platforms. And its rollout is global. However, users won’t necessarily gain immediate access to the feature today as these sorts of rollouts take time. The company says all users should gain the ability to view Shorts in the “coming weeks.”

Boosted by Twitter drama, Mastodon reaches 1 million active monthly users • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Apps, mastodon, Social, social media, social networkNo Comments

Mastodon, the decentralized social network that’s increasingly being positioned as an alternative to Twitter, has eclipsed 1 million active monthly users. That’s according to CEO and lead developer Eugen Rochko, who revealed the milestone in a post on Monday morning. Germany-based Mastodon has experienced rapid growth since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, with nearly half a million users joining the network since October 27. While a fraction of the size of Twitter’s 238 million daily active users, Mastodon’s user base remains on a steep upward trajectory, growing from 60-80 new user registrations per hour prior to October 27 to thousands of registrations per hour today. Twitter’s controversial new ownership — and recent product changes — have supercharged Mastodon’s expansion. Some users say that they were inspired to switch to Mastodon over to concerns about how Twitter’s functionality may change under Musk’s control, while others joined as a form of protest against Twitter’s new paid verification scheme and Musk’s heavy-handed approach to moderating certain forms of satire. Mastodon offers an experience in many ways comparable to Twitter’s, with features like hashtags, replies, bookmarking and retweet-like “boosting.” But unlike Twitter, the network is ad-free and distributed across thousands of servers organized around interests and geographic regions, run largely by volunteers who join their individual systems together in a federation. Once they sign up and pick a server via the web or a mobile client, Mastodon users can swap posts and links with others on their own server as well as users on other servers across the network. Each server can choose to limit or filter out undesirable types of content, such as harassment and gratuitous violence, while users on any server can block and report others to administrators. Founded in 2016, Mastodon — supported through crowdfunding and a small grant from the European Commission — isn’t governed by a central entity. No one server owner can impose their will or shut the network down; server owners can easily cut ties with any one server that embraces policies they view as too extremist. As my colleague Sarah Perez notes, the decentralized design has the added benefit of reducing the cost of overhead and making it impossible for a single entity — like Elon Musk — to acquire. Twenty-five-year-old Rochko is the project’s only full-time employee, programming at his home in Germany on a modest €2,400 ($2,394.96) monthly salary. He’s been working 12- to 14-hour days to keep up with the influx in demand, he noted in a recent post, purchasing more powerful hardware to upgrade Mastodon’s database server.