Instagram has doubled its user base to 700 million monthly actives in two years, fueled by Stories, web signup, and better onboarding on low-end Android phones. Instagram’s growth rate is actually speeding up. It took just four month to add the last 100 million users since hitting 600 million in December, while it took 6 months to go from 500 million to 600 million. Here’s a… Read More
Over a year ago, Spotify inked a deal with music annotation startup Genius to provide the backstory to the songs you’re streaming through a feature called “Behind the Lyrics,” which pops up additional commentary as you’re listening to tracks on the service. Today, the company says the feature is finally making its way over to Android, where it will initially be… Read More
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is one of the prettiest phones you can buy right now, but it launched as a somewhat incomplete product. Bixby, the phone’s new digital assistant, doesn’t yet have one if its key features—voice recognition. This shortcoming wouldn’t be so obvious if only Samsung hadn’t included a new button on the…
A new hardware/app device called Revolar aims to make it safe to walk the streets. This tiny button will notify your friends and family if you’re scared, the authorities if you’re in trouble, and will even simulate a phone call if you need to get out of a sticky situation. It works with iOs and Android and ships in May. The idea for Revolar came about when co-foudner Jacqueline… Read More
With the exploding Note 7 battery fiasco, Samsung inadvertently did something that’s increasingly difficult these days: It made smartphones interesting for a flickering moment. Super interesting in fact. Besides the intrigue of the mournful saga of Note 7, whose embarrassing recall cost the company billions, Samsung…
Earlier this week, the popular language learning service Duolingo quietly introduced paid monthly subscriptions in its Android apps. Subscribers get two benefits: they won’t see ads in the app and they will be able to download lessons for offline use. In addition, there is also a feel-good aspect to this, as Duolingo highlights that subscribers to Duolingo Plus, as the subscription… Read More
Microsoft acquired the popular mobile to do list application Wunderlist back in 2015, and now it’s preparing users for its eventual demise with the release of its new application “To-Do,” announced today. The new app was built by the team behind Wunderlist, and will bring in the favorite elements of that app in the months ahead, Microsoft says. The company also added that… Read More
If you use Gmail and your office uses Google Apps or you like to maintain multiple Facebook accounts, than operating on a phone can be a nightmare. Multiple logins means constant logging out of apps and then logging back in—a process that only gets more excruciating when you have two-factor authentication (and you…
80% of Instagram’s users 600 million users are outside the US, so it needed a way to provide a better experience for users with limited network connectivity or no data plan. Today at F8, Instagram announced it’s built support for using most of its features without Internet access. Much of this functionality is now available on Android, which is the preferred device type in the… Read More
