Apps

A group of Uber drivers in New Zealand won a landmark case Tuesday against the ride-hail company which will force Uber to treat them as employees, rather than independent contractors. New Zealand’s employment court decision only applies to four drivers who were part of a class action lawsuit

First, WhatsApp went down this morning. Now, Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime appeared to experience an outage in the U.S. this afternoon. Several Twitter users noted they were having trouble sending messages and connecting on the services and Apple’s System Status dashboard marked iMessag

Amazon announced that it will now allow customers to make payments through Venmo on its platform. The company said this option will be available to select customers starting today and will roll out to all U.S.-based users on the Amazon site and mobile app by Black Friday next month. To pay through

Apple rolled out software updates — iOS 16.1, iPad OS 16.1 and macOS Ventura — to all users on Monday. It also introduced new App Store rules that limit features unlocked through NFTs and mandates apps to use Apple’s payment method to purchase “boosts” for posts on social medi

WhatsApp was inaccessible for about two hours in several countries worldwide Tuesday, leaving Meta engineers scrambling to identify and resolve the issue in the early morning hours. WhatsApp started to return to operation at around 2:10 a.m. Pacific Time, providing relief to billions of users and b

Music startup HYPH announced an upcoming mobile app, which aims to be a music creation and remixing tool for everyone to use. With the creator economy estimated to be worth $100 billion, HYPH could be useful for the over 50 million people worldwide who identify as content creators. HYPH allows use

Sometimes it's nice when a product launch falls when I'm on the road. I qualify that statement because, well, it's one more thing to shoehorn into an invariably overloaded work trip. But there are some products that are just better tested on the road: laptops, earbuds, travel chargers a

As part of its larger commitment to combat “cyberflashing,” the dating app Bumble is open sourcing its AI tool that detects unsolicited lewd images. First debuted in 2019, Private Detector (let’s take a moment to let that name sink in) blurs out nudes that are sent through the Bum

YouTube announced a makeover to its interface today, including a new look, a pinch-to-zoom feature, precise seeking, new buttons, ambient mode and a dark mode that's “even darker.” The updates will gradually roll out to all users beginning today. YouTube's new pinch-to-zoom feature lets

Maro has developed a platform that helps families and schools navigate tough conversations about mental health. The company, which exhibited as part of the Battlefield 200 at technewss Disrupt, launched its first product, Maro Parents, in 2020. Now, the company is gearing up to launch Maro for Sch

After facing criticism over failing to protect users from abusive accounts, Instagram has been steadily introducing new safety tools over the last few years. Today, the company is launching new tools to enhance its filters for DMs, block other accounts from someone you’ve blocked and nudge pe

Next Monday, October 24, Apple Fitness+ is coming to iPhones with iOS 16.1, so users in 21 countries can use the service without needing to buy an Apple Watch. Apple also announced today an Artist Spotlight series featuring Taylor Swift songs from her new album “Midnights,” a new yoga workout p

Italy-based company Musixmatch is well known for providing community-powered lyrics to major music streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music and Tidal. Now it’s launching a new platform for podcasts that combines AI-generated transcription and community-v

Google has left no stones unturned in pushing Apple to adopt the Rich Communication Services (RCS) that the search giant argues will improve cross-platform communication. With little to no luck so far, Google is marching ahead with things that are within its power: supercharging its RCS client Mess