• WhatsApp Letting Users Delete Sent Messages
    WhatsApp is testing a feature that would let users cancel messages after sending them. “The long-awaited feature will mean that users can delete a message from the receivers phone if it is yet to be read,” The Telegraph reports. “The delete function is currently being tested on the beta version of WhatsApp's next update, along with the ability to edit send messages that haven't been read.”
  • Disney Moving 'Club Penguin' Brand To Mobile
    Say “Goodbye,” to Club Penguin’s Web-based platform. Yes, the social network for kids that Disney has run since 2005 is shutting down. “In its place, the company will launch a new product for mobile, Club Penguin Island, which has been in development over the past several years,” TechCrunch reports. “Club Penguin Island will launch in March, while the Club Penguin game on the desktop and mobile devices will shut down on March 29, 2017.”
  • Dating App Hinge Testing Personal Assistant
    Dating app Hinge is testing a personal assistant named Audrey. “Audrey will allow you to ‘say goodbye to matching, messaging, and scheduling,’ so you can spend less time on the app and more time going on dates,” TechCrunch reports, citing some company copy. Hinge is reportedly considering charging $99 for the service, but that price have apparently not been written in stone. 
  • Starbucks Bows Virtual Assistant
    Starbucks is rolling out its own Siri-like virtual assistant app, with which users can “skip baristas and place orders by chatting or speaking directly to your phone,” The Next Web reports. “The feature essentially works as an extension of the Mobile and Pay functionality Starbucks launched back in 2015, which allowed customers to avoid annoying queues by ordering in advance online,” NTW notes.
  • Apple Distribution International Moving Feb. 5
    Apple Distribution International will move its international iTunes business from Luxembourg to Cork, Ireland, on February 5. “After managing Apple's overseas operations since 2004, the Luxembourg branch will cease to be on Feb. 4,” Apple Insider reports. “The transfer comes amid rising tensions between Apple, Ireland and the European Union.” the publication notes.
  • Kik Buys Mobile Video App Maker 'Rounds'
    Messaging startup Kik just bought Israel-based mobile video app maker Rounds for an undisclosed sum of money. As TechCrunch writes: “You would imagine that [the acquisition price] is more than what Kik paid for GIF Relay … given that Rounds had raised over $20 million from investors and claimed 40 million registered users.”
  • LG Suffers Big Q4 Loss
    For the fourth quarter, LG saw a $223.98 million net loss, the Korean hardware giant reported this week. As TechCrunch writes, the loss marks “its first company-wide loss for six years -- on account of another poor performance from its mobile division, as revenue fell by nearly one-quarter over the past year.” Indeed, “The company primarily blamed its mobile business, along with its auto components unit, for dragging its figures down.”
  • Apple To Limit App Developer Queries
    As part of the next update to iOS 10, Apple is expected to limit the number of times developers can query customers about their apps. “Currently, there are no hard limits on the prompts, which have reached epidemic levels of annoyance and frequency in recent months, as developers become increasingly dependent on ratings and reviews to get noticed within the ever more crowded App Store,” Recode reports.
  • App-Integration Startup 'Button' Raises $20M
    Button just raised $20 million, the app-integration startup announced on Wednesday. But, what does Button do, exactly? “The B2B startup powers deep-linking, or the connections between the apps you use, through its Button Marketplace,” Business Insider writes. “For example, if you're using Foursquare and find a restaurant you like, Button powers the option to pulls up the Uber app with the address already selected.”
  • T-Mobile Gives Former AT&T Free Year Of Hulu
    In December, T-Mobile ran a promotion which offered customers switching from AT&T a free year of AT&T’s new live TV service, DirecTV Now. It failed. To make it up to customers, T-Mobile is giving them a freee yar of Hulu.Turns out, T-Mobile customers stream video twice as much as the carrier customers.
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