Add Facebook to the list of companies offering a gaming service for iPhone. There’s a lengthy list of titles available on day one, including strategy, role playing, trivia and other types of games.
But don’t look for these in the App Store — Apple’s stringent rules on gaming services caused Facebook Gaming to be introduced as a web app instead.
The ability to send or receive a WhatsApp photo or video message that automatically disappears after one viewing is rolling out to iOS beta users of the messaging app, just as it did in late June to Android beta users.
Apple’s own preinstalled apps are the ones most commonly used on iPhones, says a Facebook-commissioned study. Weather, Photos and Camera are reportedly the three most popular non-phone call apps used on iOS. The Phone app is, no shock here, the most popular.
The study says something similar holds true for Android. On that platform, Google apps (Google Play, Google Search, YouTube and Gmail) rank as most widely used.
Facebook debuted its Clubhouse-style Live Audio Rooms and new podcast platform Monday, giving users two new ways to engage with the social network — and hopefully keep them hooked for longer.
Public figures and select Facebook Groups in the United States can create Live Rooms on iOS. They can then invite friends, followers, public figures and, well, anyone else who wants to tune in and contribute to an audio session. There can be up to 50 speakers, with no limits on listeners.
Facebook is gearing up to launch its own podcast platform later this month. Facebook’s podcasts feature will launch June 22, an attempt by the social media giant to muscle in on the incredibly popular and fast-growing podcast market.
Facebook confirmed the news in an email to podcast page owners, seen by The Verge. Users will be able to listen to podcasts directly on Facebook, as well as via a new podcasts tab that has yet to launch. Facebook is also working on a feature that will let listeners create clips from their top shows.
Facebook and Instagram have added the ability to hide likes and view counts — a feature that’s been in the works for a while. You can block counts on your own posts and well as on those from others.
We’ll show you how to enable the setting inside Facebook and Instagram for iPhone and iPad.
Facebook isn’t backing down in its battle against Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature. And it’s seemingly got a couple of heavy hitter researchers in its corner.
In a Facebook-funded paper published Wednesday, Feng Zhu, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and D. Daniel Sokol, a professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, take issue with Apple’s new privacy features — referring to them as “an anticompetitive strategy disguised as a privacy-protecting measure.”
Disagreements between Apple and Facebook have made headlines recently, but bad blood between the two companies dates back decades. In 2011, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs even called the social-networking service “Fecebooks.”
A group of media, tech, and ad companies in Germany have made an official antitrust complaint about Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature.
The group, which represents Facebook among other companies, is concerned about the effect the new privacy feature will have on the ad business. It also claims that the feature could wind up hurting users by making apps more expensive.
Tim Cook reportedly shocked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when, during a July 2019 meeting, he told the social media magnate that he should delete all user data Facebook had gathered outside of its core apps.
According to The New York Times, the meeting between the two had been called to try and restore peace between the Silicon Valley tech giants. Zuck had asked cook how he should respond to the then-current Cambridge Analytica scandal, during which many users had had data gathered about them without express permission.
Apple and Facebook may be on a collision course with one another, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s confident the social media giant “will be able to manage through” upcoming privacy changes made by Apple.
Users who don’t get on board with WhatsApp’s terms and conditions will be unable to send or receive messages after May 15. While calls and notifications will continue to work for a short while, this will supposedly only be for a period of a “few weeks.”
WhatsApp first announced the changing privacy policies in January. The changed policy notes that, “As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies.”
Facebook is reportedly building a smartwatch that’ll offer instant messaging on the go. And help users stay fit.
Of course, the Facebook watch will have to go head-to-head with Apple Watch, the 500-pound gorilla of the wearables market.
Google and Facebook are rivals of Apple, but they also rely on it a whole lot — as a new report by app analytics platform Sensor Tower makes clear. It highlights how Google and Facebook were two of the top three publishers on the iOS App Store in January, with Google holding the top spot.
It’s the perfect illustration of the “coopetition” relationship that exists between the tech giants.
Snapchat parent company Snap has added its voice to the tech companies complaining that iOS 14’s privacy measures could hurt its business.
Releasing its Q4 2020 earnings Thursday, the company’s CFO Derek Andersen said that the Apple changes might disrupt Snap’s ad-centric business model.
Facebook is going to take a shot at persuading users to skip the “do not track” button that Apple will soon require iPhone application to display. The pop-up is designed to protect user privacy, but the Facebook app will offer its own pop-up screen explaining the benefits of targeted advertising before users are given the option to opt out of being tracked.
The war of words between Facebook and Apple heated up further on Wednesday, with the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating, “we increasingly see Apple as one of our biggest competitors.” And the rivalry between the might be headed to court, with the social-networking giant accusing Apple of using the App Store to disadvantage rivals.
Don’t expect too much from Apple’s first virtual reality headset. A new report warns that Cupertino’s first stab at a wearable VR system, which could come in 2022, will be expensive with a limited set of capabilities.
The device is believed to be designed primarily as a “niche precursor” to more ambitious AR/VR glasses that Apple plans to launch later.
Facebook sent out a message to businesses recently pointing out how Apple’s new privacy features could hurt them by clamping down on targeted advertising.
It also claims that personalized ads that utilize user data to target individuals can coexist with user privacy online.
A record 1.4 billion voice and video calls were made using WhatsApp on New Year’s Eve 2020, Facebook reveals in a new blog post.
Facebook says that is an increase of more than 50% compared to the same day last year.
Facebook argues that it is standing up for small businesses by challenging Apple on its pro-privacy measures. However, it appears that not all Facebook employees are buying the company line.
According to internal message board comments and audio obtained by BuzzFeed News, some Facebook employees think their employer is being a tad disingenuous with its public statements about working on behalf of mom-and-pop businesses.
Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation called Facebook’s anti-Apple attack ads “a laughable [attempt] … to distract [users] from its poor track record of anticompetitive behavior and privacy issues” in an article published Friday.
Facebook lashed out at Apple last week with two full-page newspaper ads. The campaign targeted Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature, which fills users in on which apps are tracking them. Facebook claims the change will hurt small businesses by making it tougher for them to use targeted ads.
Facebook has launched its second, blistering full-page ad against Apple, one day after it took it to task in The New York Times and elsewhere for allegedly hurting small businesses.
The new ad, which will appear in today’s papers, is titled “Apple vs. the free internet.” Here’s what it says:
Facebook ran full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, taking aim at Apple privacy features coming soon to iOS 14.
Facebook’s ads claim that the new privacy measures, intended to fill users in on how they are tracked online, will hurt small businesses. That’s because the new iOS feature will affect Facebook’s advertising model, which lets businesses target users with ads based on their personal data.
Facebook isn’t happy about what it sees as Apple overstepping its bounds. As reported by Reuters, Facebook says that it hopes new draft EU rules could put Apple in its place when it comes to the power exhibited by the Cupertino tech giant.
“We hope the [Digital Markets Act] will…set boundaries for Apple,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “Apple controls an entire ecosystem from device to App Store and apps, and uses this power to harm developers and consumers, as well as large platforms like Facebook.”
