Pocket updates Android and iOS apps with wider language support, and more

The popular read-it-later app, Pocket, on Tuesday has pushed out a update for Android and iOS devices.

The updated Pocket app on Android features a more refined layout and typography style, which according to the company will ensure that headers, images and paragraphs all flow together seamlessly. The Pocket blog points out the update also add support for six new languages: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, Korean, Polish, and Portuguese. Just last month, the app became multilingual with the addition of French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

The updated Android version of the Pocket app (v5.4) gets a new fullscreen mode that supports the immersive mode on devices running Android 4.4 KitKat, and it also hides the status bar on Android 4.1 and above. Additionally the app will now automatically adjust the layout and format in order to make it more readable.

While the update adds more on Android, the updated app on iOS (version 5.2.1) only adds support for five new languages: Chinese, Dutch, Korean, Polish, and Portuguese. Other than the mobile app updates, Pocket's browser extension for Chrome now also supports all of the new languages supported by the Android app.

According to Chinese tech blog 36Kr, Pocket app has 11 million registered users, of which, 40 percent of them use the app in English.

The Pocket app was previously known as 'Read It Later', which was first started in August 2007 by Nathan Weiner. The application was originally intended only for desktop computers.

The application allows the users to save an article or webpage to read later. The article can then be sent to the user's Pocket list (synced to all of their devices) for offline reading. Pocket removes clutter from articles and allows the user to adjust text settings for easier reading.

Twitter Acquires Android Lockscreen App Cover, Moves Deeper Into Mobile Services

A very interesting acquisition announcement from Twitter today: it’s buying Cover, an Android lockscreen app that lets you customize what apps you see and when. For now, Cover will remain live in the Play store.

“If that changes down the road, we’ll provide another update here,” the founders Todd Jackson, Gordon Luk and Edward Ho note in a blog post announcing the deal.

You can read Josh’s review of how Cover works here.

Cover is being somewhat cryptic in discussing what it will be working on at Twitter. “Twitter, like Cover, believes in the incredible potential of Android,” they write. “They share our vision that smartphones can be a lot smarter — more useful and more contextual — and together we’re going to make that happen. We’ll be building upon a lot of what makes Cover great, and we’re thrilled to create something even better at Twitter.”

At the same time, when you consider the work that Facebook has done in developing its Home service around the Android lockscreen, it’s clear that on some level, if an app is not owning the SIM that controls the entire phone, or the operating system, this is one very obvious way to remain front of mind for a user and incorporate a series of services that become front and center features for a user.

Apps are an overcrowded game. So owning the lockscreen gives you, effectively, a place to be first in the queue. It also gives Twitter some interesting potential routes for how it might longer-term try to deliver its stream of followers’ new and messages outside of its own app. Widgets featuring Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other streams are already quite common; Cover could work on ways to formalize and improve that experience.

It’s an area that others are eyeing up, too: Yahoo earlier this year acquired Aviate, which helps users customize their Android homescreens, for reportedly $80 million.

One question that lingers for me is how, when, and if companies like Twitter (and Facebook) will ever be able to think about these problems in the same way on iOS.

More generally, mobile has become a huge business for Twitter. Apart from the fact that Twitter was created as a mobile-first service, Twitter generates more in advertising from mobile than it does from desktop. Cover, meanwhile, says it has picked up “hundreds of thousands” of users since launching in October 2013.

Google Removes Top App: 'Virus Shield' Scams Thousands, Exposes Flaw In Android Ecosystem

Until Sunday night, the top new paid app on the Google Play store was a complete scam. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) quickly removed “Virus Shield” from the Google Play store, but not before thousands of people downloaded the fake antimalware app, exposing a major flaw in the open strategy Google has taken with its mobile app marketplace.

"Virus Shield" claimed that it protected Android smartphone users from viruses, malware and spyware, and that it even improved the speed of phones. It touted its minimal impact on battery life and its additional functionality as an ad blocker. At only $3.99, "Virus Shield" sounded like a pretty good deal to the tens of thousands of people who downloaded it in less than two weeks.

Those 10,000 people even seemed to enjoy "Virus Shield," as the app maintained a 4.7-star rating from about 1,700 users. Another 2,607 users recommended it on the Google Play store, helping “Virus Shield” get ranked as the No. 1 new paid app and third overall top paid app.  

Vine brings direct messaging and profile customisation to Android and iOS apps

Twitter has added messaging feature to its short-video service Vine.  This new feature has been named Vine Messaging and will enable users to send text messages along with videos to their contacts.

To make it more attractive, Twitter has done away with the need to have an account to send Vine messages. Even if the person you want to send the video is not on Vine, you can still send them messages through through email or SMS.

To create a Vine message, go to new “Messages” option, shoot the video and send it to your contacts. As of now group messaging is not available, though can send a message to multiple contacts, with each contact being a separate one-on-one conversation rather than a group chat. Vine has also added one more feature that lets users to customise the colour of their profile. This profile colour can be seen by other Vine users.

With the launch of messaging service, Twitter aims to add more personal touch to Vine. In a way, the company is also aiming to keep users more engaged when using Vine.  According to the Vine official blog, there are some more features that will soon be added to Vine. It is being speculated that one of those could be the ability to import videos taken from smartphones. But right now this is mere speculation.

Download the latest iOS version and Android version of Vine and start messaging.

FireChat Network-Free Chat Could Be Big. And Now It’s on Android.

FireChat is one of the most interesting new communications products to arrive in the past year. Mostly because it’s not another take on standard messaging. By which I mean it’s not another WhatsApp clone. 

FireChat is a hyperlocal chat tool that allows smartphones to connect to each other directly, without the need for WiFi hotspots or cellular networks. As long as two devices (or a bunch of devices in a small space) can connect to one another, using Bluetooth or their WiFi radios, they’ll be able to chat. (Typically, every communication your smartphone gets from another smartphone comes through an intermediary device or service. Not so with FireChat.)

The app functions as a local chatroom. You choose a username — no password required — and you can talk to anyone who is nearby. 

The app came out for iPhones in late March, and today there’s an Android version available. You should try it. It’s really new. 

FireChat on Android.

But does it matter? Outside of limited cases, like text chatting in a subway where there’s no network coverage, is FireChat important?

I think it is, for two reasons, although both have major caveats.

The unjammable network?The first is the capability of FireChat to operate when networks are not available or are actively being blocked. Twitter banned by your country’s government? Cellular network towers knocked down by a hurricane? Get on FireChat and you can still communicate.

Now, at the moment, devices running FireChat can communicate only with other devices they can connect to directly using their Bluetooth or WiFi radios, and that range is severely limited. FireChat can talk to devices in an area that’s pretty much room-sized, no bigger. However, the company that makes FireChat also makes mesh networking technology, in which devices communicating with one another can also pass along data for other devices, bucket-brigade style. Chat messages can hop from one device through other devices before reaching their destination. This could, theoretically, make a system like FireChat work in much larger spaces than the tiny local circles it’s now limited to. 

The truly local networkThe second reason is the strong social dynamics of highly localized chat circles. Imagine you walk into a classroom, or a lecture, or a sporting event. With this service you can easily and quietly communicate with just the people in the room. 

The iPhone version.

The issue with the way FireChat does this right now is its user identity system: There isn’t one. Anyone can log into a FireChat location-based room, pick her own nickname, and go to town. This might be good for political rooms, and possibly for trash-talking fans of the opposing team in a sporting event, but it has limits. If you don’t know who’s who and who might be listening, the free-for-all chat can also limit free expression.

A future version of the app that has groups, or circles that you can join, could limit who could be in a room. That would be good. Imagine if you could sit down in a big lecture hall and immediately see which of your friends or coworkers were also there, and start chatting with just them.

Get in on the ground floorAnother issue that FireChat is still working on fixing: People on the iPhone and the Android apps can’t talk to each other. They use different technologies. Again, the company is working on fixing this.

(FireChat also has a global chatroom, which uses standard data networks. It’s a mosh pit, and you can ignore it.)

While firing up FireChat right now is a little lonely, since it’s a growing network and not a lot of people are likely to be on it where you’re sitting, this app is both technically and socially innovative, and that makes it worth trying. 

Android smartphone that ‘every Indian wants’ coming soon: Google India head Rajan Anandan

Google India head Rajan Anandan said on Thursday India will get an Android-based smartphone “that every Indian wants” at a price tag of only Rs 3,000 in the next 12-15 months.

While many smartphones are available in the market at that price, most do not have ‘functional’ features or the software does not support all apps available in the market.

Since launching Android in late 2007, Google has been aiming to develop devices with the functions of smartphones that are priced in a range the mass market can afford.

Around March last year, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt had said the day was not far off when a basic smartphone with a web browser and web-client apps would be available in the market at a price of around $50 (approximately Rs 3,000 at today’s exchange rate).

He had also admitted that Google was always encouraging phonemakers to produce cheaper sets with web-browsing features so that mobile-based internet penetration gets a further fillip.

“Software can be utilised to make smartphones cheaper without compromising on its functionality,” said Anandan at Express Group’s Idea Exchange programme.

According to technology analysts, when Google released its latest version of Android, KitKat, one of the most significant changes was an overhaul specifically intended to ensure that the newest features and functions work on lower-end handsets.

In Android 4.4 KitKat, Google made the profile of the operating system fit into smartphones so that they work on devices that run on as little as 512MB of RAM.

Anandan added that India has a huge potential for internet penetration through the smartphone. “Compared to the US, where there are around 250 million mobile-based net users, and China, which has 200 million users, India will have over 300 million users by next year. That is a huge market,” he said.

He added that highly affordable devices, affordable data plans and robust bandwidth will support the internet boom in India. “Google is focusing on how to get half-a-billion Indians on the internet,” Anandan said.

“The overarching strategy is to help digitise India. It took 10 years to go from 10 million to 100 million users, three years to go from 100 to 200 million and we will be 300 million in 2015. Until we get to 500 or 600 million, the impact of what the internet can do in India will not reach its potential.”

He added that the three pillars for Google to achieve this target are — getting more people online, specially women; getting more content online and getting businesses online.

Microsoft announces Outlook Web App for Android, details some features

Microsoft has officially confirmed that it will bring its Microsoft Outlook Web App for Android users later this year, but has not provided an exact date for its release.

The firm detailed the Outlook Web App's features in its Office blog post as a part of the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) which is being currently held in Austin, Texas. Notably, the Outlook Web App for iOS was available since July 2013.

The Outlook Web App would let the users experience all the features of the Microsoft Office 365 including three new features that have been highlighted the most by the firm: 'Clutter', 'Enhanced Document Collaboration', and 'Groups'.

Clutter, in simple terms, is a tool for clearing the unwanted emails that the users face every day in their office mails. "People need a simple - but accurate - way to manage the high volume of email messages they receive. There should be a way to separate out unimportant items from important ones without having to set up and manage large numbers of inbox rules... which can get complicated very quickly," states Microsoft's Steve Chew in the blog post.

The feature is meant to learns which mails users are responding to, and which they are ignoring. This is done by the help of Office Graph technology by Microsoft that was introduced earlier in March. After Clutter reads the users behaviour towards the emails, clutter starts to show only those mails which are often or are most responded and clicked by the users. This however, eliminates the user's need to set-up rules for each folder.

Users can also change the settings and mark other mails as 'important', which will be showed every time as a top priority in the mailbox.

The second feature introduced in the upcoming Outlook Web App for Android is 'Enhanced Document Collaboration'.

As a part of this feature, Microsoft's Outlook Web App now "includes full integration with OneDrive for Business, allowing you to easily share files stored in the cloud as attachments in your email." User can share a file by two via the Web App and the OneDrive for Business.

Microsoft also describes the Office Online feature, which comes integrated directly into the email, and will let users "view and edit documents side-by-side with the original email conversation." Group collaboration has been also revamped by Microsoft as the users can now perform "real time co-authoring" using Microsoft Office Online. All the recipients who have the permission can change the single document at the same time without making multiple copies.

Image viewing has been also bumped up. "Images are also shown in this same side-by-side view, allowing you to read the contents of the email as you browse the pictures you've received."

Lastly the firm talks about 'Groups', Microsoft's concept that first reached Yammer, a social networking website sold to Microsoft, and details some of the features of it in Office 365.

Users can create or join different groups of people and share their content with the ones in the group only. Clicking on a group, would open the group's conversation feed. The same feature is available in Yammer.

"This means however you prefer to work - whether you live only in email, only in Yammer, or both - you can participate in the group. We're creating a collaboration tool that will allow everyone in your organization to work more closely together, in their preferred manner."

Content like images, articles, and videos can be shared in the groups. One can even read the preview of the shared article and decide whether to read it further or not. Users additionally get different calendars and can overlay their own calendars over it.

The Outlook Web App's Group feature will include two groups - public and private. The groups are public by default and can be made private.

"We're really excited to deliver these enhanced email and collaboration experiences in Outlook Web App and across mobile devices. We're bringing an entirely new way to think about email as a continued enabler to how people get work done whether in the office or on the go."

Microsoft last week unveiled its suite of Office apps for iPad and made some important changes to its apps for iPhone and Android mobile devices. With the latest update of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone and Android, editing Office files is now free for 'home use'. Earlier, users could only view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on their mobile devices, but editing them required a paid Microsoft Office 365 subscription.