TECH THAT...
A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
MESSENGER SLIMS DOWN
FACEBOOK has begun rolling out the updated – and in my view much improved – version of its Messenger app to iOS devices this week.
You may recall Facebook signalled its intention to dramatically simplify the app at last year’s F8 developer conference.
Now it has delivered. So, what’s new.
Messenger has returned to a pure messaging app, in-line with Facebook’s stated intention of prioritising private messaging over news feed-style sharing.
The ‘discover’ tab has been removed from the bottom of the app – that had access to the chatbots and games Facebook once believed were the future.
Now you have only your chats with friends, and another tab that shows you your contacts’ stories and allows you to update yours.
And it is an absolute breath of fresh air to see an app lose useless features and regain some focus on what it does best.
Added bonuses include a dramatic reduction in the size, and an increase in the speed of the app.
APPLE PAYS UP FOR SLOW DOWNS
YOU may recall Apple getting into a bit of hot water over an addition to its iOS operating system that deliberately slowed down older phones (like the iPhone 6, pictured, and 7), to help them work better as their batteries deteriorated over time.
The OS would slow the phone down if the battery was getting critically low to help you use it for longer – Apple thought, not entirely unreasonably, people would rather have a phone that was a bit slower, but lasted longer, than one that was faster but ran out of battery more quickly.
The problem was, they didn’t make it entirely obvious what they were doing, which led to the inevitable suggestions that they were slowing phones down deliberately in the OS to encourage people to upgrade…
Whatever the rights and wrongs of that argument, Apple has agreed to pay out $500m in compensation, despite denying any wrongdoing.
The deal has yet to be agreed by the court, but it might see claimants get at least $25 each, depending on how many complainants there are.