The Microsoft Garage has churned out a new iOS productivity app aimed at streamlining the email experience so users can get in, get in contact, and get on with their work lives as quickly as possible.
The new iOS-only app, Send, aims to make email threads more like short IM messages by stripping out the hassle of finding your contacts, writing subject lines, and keeping tabs on your inbox.
Microsoft has inadvertently leaked plans to release a new chat app for iPhone called Flow, which will allow users to have “rapid email conversations.” The service will be a part of Outlook, but it will focus on quick communication with “no subject lines, salutations, or signatures.”
WhatsApp is no longer just an instant messaging service. In a new update now rolling out to users on iOS, the company is introducing new voice calling capabilities that allow you to phone family and friends anywhere and at no extra cost.
The update also brings an iOS 8 share extension and other new features and improvements.
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Transferring your WhatsApp data to a new device can be a pain — particularly if you’re switching from Android to another platform, or vice-versa. But WhatsApp looks set to make it a whole lot easier by giving users the ability to backup their messages to Google Drive.
WhatsApp is a great alternative to iMessage, except in one regard: iMessage lets you send messages from your Mac. That means if you hate tapping in text messages on a touchscreen, you can use your keyboard instead.
But that’s changed. The long-awaited ability to use WhatsApp on your Mac has finally arrived. But there’s a caveat: It only works if you don’t have an iPhone.
WhatsApp has come a long way from its early days, when creators Jan Koum and Brian Acton were inspired to create a cross-platform messenger app by Apple’s addition of push notifications to iOS 3.0.
Having been snapped up by Facebook for a cer-azy $19 billion almost a year ago, the popular app has now announced a personal record-breaking 700 million monthly active users — a whole 100 million more than were using the service back in August.
WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging services on mobile, has long had plans to step up its assault against the likes of Skype and Viber with a free voice calling feature that was initially promised for the second quarter of 2014. Now the company’s CEO has confirmed that the launch is planned for early 2015 instead.
I recently watched The Lady try to convince a friend of ours to download WhatsApp. The friend is moving to the United Kingdom, and we want to stay in touch. Our friend tried to say that email would do the job, but we all know that will never work.
Our friend doesn’t want WhatsApp (maybe because it’s owned by Facebook), and she doesn’t own an iPhone, so iMessage is out. Thankfully, there are plenty of free and good alternatives. Some are more secure, some have more features, and none of them is owned by Facebook.
Let’s take a look at what’s available and how these very different messaging apps compare on a number of key features.
Snapchat is currently in talks with investors over a round of funding that could value the company at a mind-blowing $10 billion, according to sources for Bloomberg. That’s a little over half the $19 billion Facebook paid for WhatsApp, but double the $5 billion market cap currently held by BlackBerry.
When Facebook snapped up virtual-reality company Oculus VR this week, it got us wondering what other interesting startups Apple might want to buy before Mark Zuckerberg can get his hands on them.
While Oculus is most well known for its Rift gaming headset, Zuckerberg sees a far more wide-ranging application for the company’s VR tech, envisioning it as a futuristic communications platform. “One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people,” he said in his post about the acquisition.
That’s the kind of big thinking Steve Jobs brought to the table when he talked about the way the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad would change the way people interact with technology. While Apple rarely dips into its $150 billion cash hoard to buy other hardware firms, here are seven awesome companies whose technology could help Cupertino enhance and improve its existing devices — as well as build entirely new ones.
Immensely popular cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp is gearing up to take on Skype with voice-over-IP (VoIP) calling — and these are the screenshots that prove it. The feature will have a similar interface as the built-in Phone app, and it boasts features like speaker phone and muting.
WhatsApp, the popular messaging service that was recently bought by Facebook, is adding a big feature in a few months: voice calling.
During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced that voice calling would be added in the second quarter of this year. The feature will be a free addition to the already free app.
WhatsApp has 465 million monthly active users, which is 15 million more than Facebook. The service’s huge international presence (it’s the largest mobile messaging service in Korea, for example) also helps explain why Facebook paid $19 billion to own it.
Source: TechCrunch
Keeping themselves in the news, Mark Zuckerberg and the people of Facebook have just recently acquired the hit messaging app WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars. With over 450 million people already using the app each month, they hope to build upon this success. Similar to their purchasing of Instagram in 2012, will you start using WhatsApp for all of your conversations?
Take a look at WhatsApp app and see what you think.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application “WhatsApp” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
Greetings, comrades! This time on CultCast: we travel to mother Russia and dance with gogo dancers (no, really); Apple talks to Tesla, we talk iCars. Plus, for the first time, Apple brings the iTunes Festival to the United States; Facebook buys WhatsApp (but why?); Jony Ive vanishes from Apple’s website; and don’t miss an all new Faves N Raves where we pitch favorite tech and apps then vote one which one’s best!
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The story of WhatsApp — the messaging app just purchased by Facebook for an insane $19 billion — is pretty fascinating.
Seems that the app’s founders did everything right by doing everything wrong. They flouted Silicon Valley rules like getting press and adding features, and instead focused on making the app do one thing well: send messages. It all sounds very Apple-like, and it’s been well covered in fascinating features from Forbes and Wired that are currently doing the rounds.
One detail in the Forbes piece flew out at me in particular — detailing how Apple accidentally created the core element of WhatsApp by adding a new iOS feature.
If you can’t beat ’em, buy em.
That’s been Facebook’s strategy lately when it comes to third-party challengers and this afternoon the company announced its making its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up popular messaging app WhatsApp for a cool $12 billion in stock.
Facebook is also tossing in $4 billion in cash as well as $3 billion in restricted stock units bringing the total price tag to an incredible $19 billion.
BBM has been a huge success on Android and iOS, and so although they may be rival platforms, that won’t stop BlackBerry from porting over its biggest and best BBM features to keep its messaging service alive.
In 2014, the Canadian company will rollout major updates that add BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and new sharing features — and you can see them in action in the video below.
At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a new feature that allows users to share private photos and videos with their friends and loved ones. It will be baked into the existing Instagram app for Android and iOS with an update that’s rolling out today.
Viber, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, now offers low-cost calls to mobile phones and landlines worldwide as part of a new service called Viber Out. It’s available on Android, iOS, and though the Viber desktop client, and it boasts call fees substantially cheaper than Skype’s.
Popular cross-plaform service WhatsApp has been redesigned for iOS 7. The redesign leaked last month, and it’s finally here.
The app’s entire interface has been simplified, and group messaging has been improved with a new feature called Broadcasts Lists. You can create groups of people such as “classmates” to message all at once.
Here’s the full list of changes:
Given that it’s one of the biggest and most successful third-party messaging platforms available on mobile, you might be wondering why WhatsApp still hasn’t been updated for iOS 7 — more than two months after the software’s public release, and over five months after it was first made available to developers. (I certainly am.)
But the update — complete with a fancy redesign — is on its way, and you can get an early glimpse at it in the hands-on video below.
Who cares?
That’s the question I was asked time and time again when I told people that BBM was coming to Android and iOS. But it seems a lot of people care. In fact, when BBM finally made its cross-platform debut yesterday, the app was downloaded over 5 million times in just eight hours.
Twitter hopes to compete with instant messaging services like WhatsApp and Line with a new app that’s dedicated to direct messaging, AllThingsD reports. The company hopes the move will bring “the long-buried feature to the forefront” and place a new emphasis on its private messaging capabilities.
Given that it’s the most popular cross-platform messaging service on the planet, you might have thought that WhatsApp would have a new redesign ready to go when iOS 7 was made available to the public earlier this month, but as things stand, it’s still rocking its old look.
Presumably the team behind it are hard at work on the update as we speak, however, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for it. But in the meantime, check out these awesome WhatsApp for iOS 7 concept designs that give us a taster of what might be in store for our favorite messaging app.