Update: Facebook has pulled data from Wonder. More here.
Russian search engine company Yandex has launched a new social search app for the iPhone and iPod Touch for people in the U.S. It’s called Wonder, and taps into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, iTunes, and Last.fm to provide answers to questions based on data from your friends, as well as location and music info and options (such as previewing and purchasing songs).
The app uses natural language voice search first and foremost, but includes a keyboard input option. Right now, it only works in English and understands a few types of questions pertaining to places, music and news. It utilizes speech recognition and text-to-speech technology from Nuance Communications. Here are some examples Yandex provides for the types of questions it works for:
– If you are looking for a proven sushi place in New York, you can just ask: what sushi restaurants do my friends go to in New York?
– When you are looking for coffee shops in a new area, you can ask: coffee shops nearby.
– If you need to catch up with your friends on a Friday night, just ask: where do my friends party?
– You know your friend John has a good taste for music, ask: what music does John listen to?
– Feel like listening to electronic music, ask: I wonder what electronic music are my friends listening to?
– Want to catch up on news, ask: news shared by my friends.
Wonder’s launch comes at an interesting time, amidst a slow roll-out of Facebook’s own attempt at social search. Of course this is a mobile app, and Facebook’s launch does not include mobile (though that will come in time). It’s unclear whether or not Yandex intends to release Wonder on Android.
As previously reported, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo previewed what an upcoming Twitter video-sharing experience would look like when he tweeted, using Vine, which the company acquired last year.
Today, we’re introducing Vine: a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create.
I understand Twitter’s long-standing philosophy of brevity, but I’m not sure it works as well in video form. Is there really a great deal of demand to share six-second video clips? I’m sure you can point to any number of potential use cases, but I just can’t see this being a huge thing among Twitter users. Of course, there’s always the strong possibility that I’m completely wrong. Plenty of similar sentiments were expressed by many when Twitter itself came out.
Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger. They’re little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life. They’re quirky, and we think that’s part of what makes them so special…We also believe constraint inspires creativity, whether it’s through a 140-character Tweet or a six-second video.
Twitter makes no mention of an Android app, or an app for any other mobile platform, but it stands to reason these will come in time.
It should be noted that you don’t need a Twitter account to use Vine. Perhaps Vine will find its own user base, completely independent of Twitter.
AMC recently launched the “Dead Yourself” app for iPhone and Facebook, which uses your iPhone camera or webcam to take your photo, and gives you options to give yourself a zombie makeover.
The network blogged about it today, with step-by-step instructions (although it’s pretty self-explanatory).
The show returns on February 10. AMC released this poster for the midseason premiere last week. They also announced that The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (the upcoming video game) will be released on March 26 in North America.
Back in June, Google introduced Google Maps Coordinate, a tool designed to improve the communication between businesses and their employees while they’re on the go.
The tool has been available on Android, but now there’s an iPhone version in the App Store, with a shorter name – Google Coordinate. According to iDownloadBlog (via TheNextWeb), it’s been released in New Zealand, but you can get it here in the U.S. too.
As Google explained in its initial announcement, employees download the app, and share their location in real-time, while recording data. “Mobile teams often need to collect information while out in the field. Google Maps Coordinate allows the admin to customize the fields that the mobile team needs to capture and collect – from measurements to client contact details – directly in the app,” said senior product manager Daniel Chu.
The dispatcher back at the office can create teams, manage jobs and view past jobs and locations.
The app requires a license for functionality, so not everyone will be able to just download it and start using it.
Apple announced on Monday that the App Store has surpassed 40 billion downloads. That’s unique downloads excluding re-downloads and updates. Nearly half of that came in last year alone. The company also says it has over 500 million active users, and surpassed over 2 billion downloads during the month of December.
There are over 775,000 apps available in the store, for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. Apple says it has paid the developers of those apps over $7 billion.
“It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community,” said Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue. “Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.”
The company shared some words from some of the app developers. For example, Keith Shepherd, co-founder of Imangi Studios, said, “The success of our game Temple Run in 2012 was nothing short of astonishing. We were simply looking to create a game that was fun and easy to play, but once it hit the App Store, the game took off. This past year, we saw more than 75 million downloads of Temple Run on iOS.”
Things have been pretty good for Autodesk as well. VP of Consumer Products with the company, Samir Hanna, said, “Our success on iOS has been incredible. We set off with the modest goal of bringing SketchBook to iPhone users as a way of introducing them to Autodesk. Fast forward three years, we now offer 20 apps to iOS users that have achieved more than 50 million downloads, and we continue to roll out new creativity and design tools that appeal to both professionals and consumers.”
Filmmaker JJ Abrams, who co-founded Bad Robot, said, “The App Store provided us with opportunities beyond our wildest dreams. Our app Action Movie FX was designed to bring Hollywood special effects to anyone’s self-made video, whether that be on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, and we’re just thrilled that millions of fans around the world were as excited as we were about the possibilities that this app brings.”
The App Store has users in 155 countries. As tablet popularity continues to grow (there were reportedly more tablet activations on Christmas than smartphone activations), there is going to be a need for more tablet-specific apps. Apple says it has over 300,000 native iPad apps available in the app store.
Google announced today that MileWise users can search with its ITA Software QPX pricing and shopping technology on their iPhones, in addition to on miilewise.com.
“This means MileWise users have improved speed and range of search options whether they’re using their desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile device,” says Google’s Asif Khan.
iPhone users will be able to combine two one-way tickets, quickly re-try recent searches, and utilize a full set of search filtes.
Users will also be able to track over 500 programs (including airlines, hotels, credit cards, etc.), check out places using individual points and rewards, take advantage of expiration alerts and price alerts, and get activity notifications when status level or balance changes.
“To become the best one-stop travel search engine, we needed an amazing mobile offering,” said Milewise co-founder Sanjay Kothari. “With ITA’s help, we believe we were able to deliver that. And, our Android mobile and tablet versions will be released in the first quarter 2013.”
Google says all of this functionality will be coming to Android next year.
Google has released an update for its Blogger app on iOS, adding native support for iPhone 5 and the first three generations of iPad.
“It also contains the addition of Google Analytics for application usage statistics, updated save post options to ‘Save as draft’, ‘Publish’ or ‘Cancel’, and some minor bug fixes including an issue with Japanese keyboards,” says Blogger in an announcement on Google+ (h/t: TechnologyTell).
Here’s what it looks like:
Last month, Google launched a major redesign of its Blogger app for both Android and iOS. This included landscape support for post composition, the ability to share to Google+, and the ability to view a scheduled post time. It also launched in over 30 additional languages.
YouTube launched a new app called YouTube Capture today for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It uploads video in the background when you stop recording, so it’s “ready to share sooner”.
“YouTube Capture was designed for speed and convenience, so you can film and upload a video in as few as 3 clicks,” a YouTube spokesperson tells WebProNews. “You can post quickly and simultaneously to YouTube, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, or share videos privately so only family and friends you choose can see it. Enhance new or existing videos with automatic color correction and stabilization, trimming the video length, and adding music soundtracks.”
You can close the app, and uploading will continue in the background for ten minutes, and will resume where it left off when you open it later. It can be used to manage, edit, upload and share any videos on the device regardless of whether it was filled with Capture. It’s linked to the videos from the Camera Roll.
All of the videos are stored on YouTube like normal.
“This is awesome because you can undo edits that you made to your Capture videos at any time,” the spokesperson says.
There is a landscape lock reminder, which the company says is to help users remember to turn their phone horizontal so the videos look better. You can actually set Capture to automatically start recording when you turn the record screen to landscape.
The app is coming to Android in the future.
I can see this evolving into something like we discussed here, where Google is literally seeing through your eyes in Instant Upload-like fashion. Of course, that is assuming that this comes to Google Glass (and any potential contact lenses we might see down the road).
Delicious announced that it has a new iPhone app available in the App Store.
A little over a month ago, the site got a new design (again). It’s still in demo mode, but it is the basis for the new app, so perhaps they can get some users used to it on the app before changing it up for all site users.
“The visual style and user experience of the app mirrors that of the new Delicious site design currently being previewed at demo.delicious.com,” the company says. “Not only can users search and add links from their own collections with the app, but they can also search through links being saved by the community and their networks in real-time.”
“We want Delicious to be fast. Really fast!” Delicious said of the site redesign. “To that end, we rewrote the codebase and streamlined the user interface. Content now renders instantly and can be consumed in a single pageview – making it even easier to navigate the site.”
The app is free, of course, and the company says Android and tablets are “on the roadmap”. In a previous post, Delicious said they wanted Delicious to be consumed across a “multitude of devices”.
Square announced the launch of Square Gift Cards, which can be redeemed with the company’s Square Wallet offering or Apple’s Passbook.
Square Wallet is the company’s app that lets users pay for things. Passbook, if you’re unfamiliar, is a feature added to the most recent version of iOS, which lets users access boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, etc. from one place on their iPhone or iPod Touch.
“I just sent my parents a gift to their favorite bookstore, Left Bank Books in St. Louis,” Dorsey said in the announcement. “It’s incredibly fun to give my friends unique and meaningful gifts, treat them to their favorite neighborhood places, all from my couch.”
Square has a quarter of a million local businesses in the U.S. accepting gift cards.
YouTube has launched an update for its iOS app, which is designed for the iPad, and has some updates for the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch.
“Just in time for the holidays, now you can download or update the YouTube app with a look designed for the iPad and iPhone 5, enhanced AirPlay support, videos that start faster and play more smoothly, and improved accessibility with VoiceOver,” Google software engineer Horia Ciurdar says. “Enjoy Tastemade on iPad in full screen glory, or hours of flipping through Ryan Higa videos on your iPhone 5 or iPod touch.”
Google launched its YouTube app for iPhone and iPod Touch in September. YouTube is now available on 400 million devices. People are watching over 25% of YouTube on mobile devices – over a billion views a day, Google says.
Earlier this year, Khan Academy released an iPad app. On Tuesday, the nonprofit shared a sneak peek at its new free iPhone app, which it says will come out this week.
Here’s a look:
No word on the potential release of an Android app, but it seems fairly likely that one will be released eventually, given the number of people using Android devices and Khan Academy’s aspirations to reach anyone who wants to learn.
StumbleUpon has updated its iOS app again. This time it incorporates the new Lists feature, which was unveiled as part of its recent desktop redesign.
“We’ve all been there. You’re Stumbling on your iPhone while you’re on the bus to school, but right when you Stumble upon the MOST,” says associate product marketing manager Katherine Kramer. “AMAZING. PAGE. EVER, it’s time to stash your phone away and head to class. If only you could have saved that page by adding it to the awesome List you just created on StumbleUpon.com, right? Well, today is a day to be thankful for.”
“You’ve probably Liked TONS of pages on StumbleUpon, and Lists give you the chance to organize all those pages into personalized collections that are meaningful to you,” she says. “Whether you’re into Fitness or Architecture, sharing your Lists with your friends helps you express yourself and show what you’re interested in and knowledgeable about. And with Thanksgiving and the holidays right around the corner, creating Lists like Nuffin’ But Stuffin’ or Make It a DIY Holiday is a great way to start planning for all the festivities! If you’ve never created a List before, we’ve helped you get started by automatically gifting you a “Save for Later” List, where you can keep all those amazing Stumbles to go back to later.”
Here’s a tutorial video StumbleUpon recently put out about using lists:
The company says that users have already created over 200,000 lists.
StumbleUpon users with Android are still waiting on the company to release an updated Android app.
Bastion is one of those indie titles that, like Braid and Limbo, gained popularity on the merits of its interesting art style, intriguing story, and solid, simple gameplay. In addition to these qualities, Bastion’s aurally-pleasing narration also set it apart and made it unique.
Today, Supergiant Games, the developers of Bastion, announced that the game is now available for the iPhone. Bastion had previously been available for the iPad, and the newest update makes the game compatible with all of Apple’s newest mobile devices. The game now works on iPads from generation 2 on, the new iPad Mini, the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5, and the newest iPod device. In addition, the game has been optimized to take advantage of the iPhone 5’s retina display.
The game studio explained on its blog the reasoning behind putting what was originally a PC and console title onto smaller devices:
Then, a couple of months ago on September 12, Apple unveiled the iPhone 5. Now, we’d previously stated in our FAQ for the iPad version that we chose to focus exclusively on iPad both for technical reasons and because we “felt the game experience would not translate well to the iPhone’s smaller screen.” Well, the iPhone 5 added quite a bit of screen real estate, so we decided to take another look. And sure enough, we found that Bastion looked great and ran beautifully on the new device. Of course we still needed to update all the menu screens and re-tune the controls to fit the smaller form factor, not to mention implement iCloud support, so all that took a little while. But it’s finally ready!
Bastion costs $5 on any of the available Apple platforms. That isn’t as inexpensive as the game potentially was as a part of the Humble Indie Bundle V, but is still a good price for a game that has won nearly universal acclaim.
Quora announced today that it has launched a new version of its iPhone app, which is now available in the App Store.
“The new app is better and faster with a new UI that takes advantage of the iPhone 5, more accessible and faster search, and easier sharing,” a spokesperson for Quora tells WebProNews.
“The user interface is simpler and more beautiful than ever, and best of all, it gets out of the way of the content that you want to read,” Richard Henry writes on the Quora blog. “The search bar scrolls cleanly off the screen when you don’t need it, and there’s more space for reading questions, answers, and content.”
Search is three times faster and more accessible, according to the company. There is a new search input at the top, which lets you find things on Quora.
Also new to the app are: improved sharing through Facebook, email, Quora Inbox, Text Message, etc., continuous scrolling in the feed, the ability to answer and follow questions anonymously, and some bug fixes. The app icon has also been updated.
The company says it is growing its mobile team, and that this app (along with the recently released Android app) only represents the beginning of its vision for mobile.
Tumblr has launched a new iPhone/iPad app for creating and sharing photosets. It’s called, fittingly, Photoset.
“Photosets have been one of our favorite additions to Tumblr,” the company says in a blog post. “You’ve surprised us a thousand times over with your creativity. It’s hard to imagine Tumblr without photos, and we love the power a set of photos has to tell a story.”
“The new Photoset app is an elegant way to create photosets, even if you’re not using Tumblr,” the company adds. “Just tap and drag to lay out your photoset. Once you’ve got it just right, post to your blog or upload to photoset.com — where it can be shared with anyone, anywhere.”
Here are a few screen caps:
No word on when an Android version might launch. The app is currently available in Apple’s App Store.
Bing announced today that it is launching a new iPhone app called Edibly in the U.S., though technically, you have to be in Seattle to use it (at least for now).
It’s a shopping app upon which Microsoft has collaborated with The Pike Place Market Preservation And Development Authority. It’s piloting the offering in Seattle, but perhaps it will be expanded throughout the country and with other markets.
“Created by the Bing team, Edibly lets you see what’s new at the market via the ‘What’s New Page’, search and browse through products, create a shopping list to prepare for your outing and navigate through the market using the digital map,” says Christian Marc Schmidt, Senior UX Designer on Bing’s Information, Platform and Experiences Team.
The app will let you preview what is available at the store and view and compare products. You can see where vendors and products you want are on a map, in addition to just looking at what’s new.
This could be an interesting app if expanded to include other stores and obviously other locations. I guess that will depend on how the pilot goes, and if Microsoft is able to get other partners on board.
As many iPhone users are just now finding out, iOS 6 has replaced Google Maps with Apple’s own maps product. Many of these users are unhappy, and don’t have a lot of great things to say about Apple’s Maps.
In fact, Apple Maps is taking quite the beating in the press and the Blogosphere (though it doesn’t look like it’s done much to keep people from getting the iPhone 5, which officially came out today in some countries). People want their Google Maps back. It looks like they’ll likely get it at some point, but there is some question.
TechCrunch is reporting that the Google Maps team is “doubling down on staff, lining up the team and and resources to have a standalone iOS app in the App Store ‘before Christmas.’”
Search Engine Land provides a statement from Apple, saying, “Customers around the world are upgrading to iOS 6 with over 200 new features including Apple Maps, our first map service. We are excited to offer this service with innovative new features like Flyover, turn-by-turn navigation, and Siri integration. We launched this new map service knowing it is a major initiative and that we are just getting started with it. Maps is a cloud-based solution and the more people use it, the better it will get. We’re also working with developers to integrate some of the amazing transit apps in the app store into iOS 6 Maps. We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better.”
There has been some talk that Google already submitted an app to Apple, but that it has not been approved. 9to5Mac writes:
Separately, we’ve heard Google has been building separate versions of a iOS GoogleMaps.app for quite a while that goes back years. Additionally, we’ve learned an updated iOS 6 version of the Google Maps.app has been submitted to Apple. It is awaiting approval, however, and that could take some time. It took a year for Apple to approve Google Voice, for instance, and Apple could technically likewise claim Google Maps “duplicates a native service” even though there are quite a few mapping apps already in the App Store (like Google Earth). Last month, it looked as if Apple were putting an update to Google Voice that featured Siri-like functionality through purgatory.
Update: Jim Dalrymple says “nope”. While this is clearly from Apple, it is a matter of semantics. Google has the app ready and Apple has seen it.
Earlier, we told you about the new Facebook For Android update, and the Facebook Messenger for Android update (both of which come with some improvements to the messaging experience). Facebook has also pushed out an update to its iOS app. Facebook for iOS 5.0.1 includes iOS 6 and iPhone 5 support, the company notes (as if there were any question).
Here’s what’s new, as highlighted by Facebook:
Scrolling through news feed is faster than ever
New banner lets you tap to quickly see more stories – no need to refresh
Photos open fast and close with one downward swipe
StumbleUpon has just launched a new app for iOS, which brings some features to the StumbleUpon experience still absent from the desktop and Android versions. But that’s not to say they won’t be coming.
“We made the app a lot more fun,” StumbleUpon’s new VP, Product, Cody Simms, tells WebProNews.
The app brings some new user identity-related features to the table, as well as a faster way of stumbling and some new recommendation elements.
The Homepage
Let’s start with the homepage. It now consists of “Content For You,” “Trending” content, “Interest” and “Activity” (as well as “StumbleDNA,” but more on that later).
Content For You is essentially the basic StumbleUpon experience that you’re used to – content based on your interests. Trending is new, and allows you to stumble through content that is trending throughout the StumbleUpon universe. This should put the most popular content literally front and center on StumbleUpon (it’s the center section on the homepage). The Activity feature is content that people you know or who are “like minded” to you have liked. Specifically, it includes two things: content people you follow have liked and content from “Experts”. Experts are determined by how much content they have shared in a particular subject area that has resonated with the larger StumbleUpon community.
The Interest feature lets you select from a list of your preferred topics (as well as the usual photos, videos, news, and “following”). It’s essentially the previous homepage experience rolled up into the smallest box on the screen in the bottom corner.
Disappointingly absent is the Explore Box StumbleUpon introduced last year, which added a nice search-like feature to the service, enabling you to easily stumble through content related to nearly any topic you happen to find yourself interested in, in the moment. In my opinion, this is one of the best features StumbleUpon has ever added, and I would not be happy to see it go away from the greater StumbleUpon experience. Luckily, it seems that will not be the case.
Simms tells us, “The Explore Box will be available in a future release. It’s still an important feature for our community.”
Last year, StumbleUpon also introduced channels. For example, you can follow the WebProNews channel, and stumble specifically through our stuff, and perhaps get more from us in your content mix. Channels are not highlighted in the new app, but may be more in a future update.
“You can see the Channels you follow on your profile, but this version of the app does not include the ability to see and opt into new Channels,” Simms explains. “In the future you will be able to manage Channels through the mobile app. Content from Channels you already subscribe to will be included in your Stumble stream on the app.”
Stumbling
Perhaps the biggest improvement to the app in terms of user experience, is the new “Slide” feature. It’s a preview feature, which lets you slide/swipe through quick previews of the pages StumbleUpon is serving you without having to actually wait for the pages to load, enabling you to browse through content much more quickly. You do this while the page loads in the background. Once the page is fully loaded, the preview disappears (or you can simply tap on the page itself to go to it and close the preview).
This does not replace the swipe-to-Stumble feature that was already a part of the mobile StumbleUpon experience. It simply adds another layer over top of it.
It’s one of those things you just have to use yourself to appreciate. It really does save a lot of time in the content discovery process, and I doubt we’ll see many complaints from users who will no longer have to sit and wait just to see what a page is even about.
Simms tells us that since he’s been using the app, he finds himself wanting to use similar functionality in other unrelated apps, such as email. “That’s when I knew we were onto something,” he says.
What That Means For Content Providers
Unfortunately, this feature may come with a negative side effect for content providers, who could face a decrease in StumbleUpon referrals as Stumble-happy users quickly browse through previews, sidestepping the actual pages. This seemingly makes the title and visuals of your content more important than ever for StumbleUpon success. You’ll need to give users some reason to stop and actually let your page load as they’re quickly breezing through previews. Granted, these things have pretty much always been major factors in the success of a piece of content on StumbleUpon, but perhaps they are even more so now.
As far as what image StumbleUpon displays in the preview, Sims says, “We use an algorithm to determine the best image/thumbnail to display. If there isn’t a quality image we generate a screenshot of the page. Content providers have no control of this.”
You better make them all good.
StumbleUpon has shown time and time again that it can be a major driver of traffic to websites. While there is still plenty of potential for that, I have to wonder how much this feature will affect it, especially if it makes its way throughout the rest of StumbleUpon’s offerings.
“The page needs to fully load for it to count as a page view (and the page starts to load the instant the Slide appears),” Simms says. “We believe that Slide helps ensure users have intent to view the page they clicked on and could potentially result in higher engagement.”
This is definitely a valid point, as some have questioned the quality of StumbleUpon referrals in the past, given the semi-randomness of content (I say “semi” because content is targeted based on users’ interests, sometimes more specifically than others, depending on what exactly the user is stumbling through).
You can still thumb up/down content based on the preview, without having to wait for the actual page to load. It’s worth noting that occasionally, you may have to wait for the preview itself to load.
Identity
One of the new focuses for StumbleUpon is user identity, and the cornerstone of this is a new feature called StumbleDNA. Every user has their own StumbleDNA based on the content they like. The thinking is that this can help users find other users to gravitate towards, based on the StumbleDNA they carry. Find someone whose StumbleDNA is similar to yours? Why not be friends?
StumbleUpon has always been social to some extent, but for many users (myself included), these features have likely taken a backseat to personal discovery. This seems to be a way for StumbleUpon to thrust the social elements a bit more into the forefront and encourage interaction among users.
StumbleDNA is represented by a colored bar. Your personal StumbleDNA can be seen across the top of the page on the homepage and throughout the StumbleUpon experience (you can see it in the first image above). It’s basically a spectrum-like graphic. Colors represent categories of interest.
“We took our 500+ interests and rolled them into 12 master interest categories,” says Simms. “The design team then picked colors for the 12 categories that were bright and bold and some of the colors were loosely linked to the interest category (ex. green and ecommerce). The placement of the interests/colors is consistent in order across every individuals’ StumbleDNA so people can compare themselves against others.”
“It’s important to note that this is just the beginning of our work on identity and StumbleDNA,” he adds. “This feature and other features that help bring identity into the StumbleUpon experience will evolve across future mobile and desktop releases.”
“In the future, we plan to include a dedicated page outlining interest colors and how they relate to StumbleDNA,” he notes. “For now, you can go to filter interests (in the top right hand nav bar) and see colors that correspond to each Interest.”
Location-Based Stumbling On The Horizon?
The app now utilizes location information (if you let it). When you first open the new app, it asks to user your location data. Don’t expect that to translate into more local content, however. At least not just yet.
“Location is important but is not currently something we factor into recommendations other than international geography,” Simms tells us. It’s more about device specific recommendations, he says, adding, “Geo location is a great use case for us in the future.”
This could certainly present some new opportunities for local businesses. Users might also like to see StumbleUpon launch an actual feature that lets you tap into location – perhaps a “Stumble Nearby” feature, similar to Google+’s “Nearby” feature (but likely more interesting).
While, all of these new features are iOS only (both iPad and iPhone), StumbleUpon will incorporate, at least some of them into the desktop and Android versions eventually. Simms wouldn’t share any timeframe details on that, but this does appear to be the direction the greater StumbleUpon is headed in. They just wanted to start with iOS and capitalize on all of the current enthusiasm of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6.
Groupon just announced the release of version 2.0 of its Consumer app.
“This revamp will feature a sleeker, brighter and more simplified user experience, allowing seamless discovery of Groupon’s local merchants, Groupon Goods and Groupon Getaways travel destinations,” a Groupon spokesperson tells WebProNews.
In the new app, there is larger photography for each deal and new carousel scrolling to replace the previous tabbed navigation. Users will be able to find Now! deals under the new Nearby experience.
There is also a new widget for ICS devices, improvement in startup time, and some other performance improvements and bug fixes. For Android, some push notifications issues have been fixed.
The app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.
