Apps

Parler, a platform that emerged out of the social media backlash of the Trump era, has been acquired by a new company that plans to temporarily shut it down. Digital media conglomerate Starboard, which recently changed its name from Olympic Media, announced on Friday that it has acquired Parler and

Twitter has introduced a new feature that will let Blue subscribers post 10,000-character-long posts — as if the social network is trying to compete with a rival newsletter platform. Twitter has also added support for bold and italic text formatting. In February, the social network introduced 4,0

Google’s Chrome web browser is getting a speed boost. According to a news announcement out today, Google has made several under-the-hood performance improvements to its popular browser, leading to a significant new performance milestone across Mac and Android. Collectively, a series of adjust

Spotify is embracing the iOS Lock Screen. The company announced today it’s introducing a new iPhone Lock Screen widget to all users running iOS 16 or later that allows you to tap on Spotify’s icon to launch the app directly before unlocking your phone. Support for Lock Screen widgets ro

Snap has signed a deal with multiple music labels to expand its Sounds library, the social app’s product that lets people use song clips in Snaps and Stories. The company said participating labels include U.S.-based UnitedMasters, Netherlands-based BUMA/STEMRA and SUISA Digital Licensing AG.

Google is introducing new Maps features to make it easier for users to navigate national parks using the app. The tech giant says the new updates are designed to help users find the information they need when visiting a national park, such as discovering things to do and finding your way around the

Google’s Android development cycle runs on a rather predictable cadence these days. Today, after two developer previews, the company launched the first of four planned public beta releases of Android 14. As with previous versions, the first beta is also the first release that anyone can insta

Opera, the makers of an ad-blocking web browser, whose most recent claim to fame is having TikTok built-in, announced today it’s rolling out an updated version of its iOS app that now includes its free VPN. Previously available on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android, the iOS release now makes Ope

Truecaller has been a known name in the app market globally — thanks to its eponymous caller-identification service. Its active user base these days numbers 338 million, but it could be bigger: A lack of a caller ID feature on iOS has arguably held back its growth among iPhone users. Now, in an e

Strava, the activity tracking and social community platform used by more than 100 million people globally, has announced a new in-app integration with Spotify. The integration allows users to easily access music, podcasts and audiobooks from the Strava app while tracking activities. Starting today,

Elon Musk said that Twitter will finally move to remove the legacy blue checkmarks on April 20 or 4/20 because he can’t let go of that joke. This is the “final date,” he said in a tweet. If the move goes through, Twitter will have verification marks only for paid users and busines

TikTok quietly launched “animated video stickers” for direct messages in February, the company confirmed to technewss. Video stickers essentially work like GIFs and are an expansion of TikTok Stickers, which rolled out last December and allow users to create and upload their own custom

Instagram announced today that it’s extending access to parts of its creator marketplace via APIs to make it easier for brands to discover and work with creators on the third-party creator marketing platform they already use. The company is also expanding creator marketplace access to brand a

Unlike Facebook, TikTok grew in popularity by connecting users with their interests, not their real-life friends and family. In fact, many people today deny the app’s request to upload their contacts because TikTok is a place where they don’t want to interact with people they know. That