An Apple Music bug is perplexing some iPhone owners. According to various reports, the Apple Music iOS app is installing itself directly to the iPhone’s dock when downloaded, instead of to the phone’s home screen. It’s also kicking out other apps users had set up in their dock and taking their spot, which is not something apps would normally do. Some iPhone owners also found the bug was causing Apple Music to establish itself as the default music service for Siri requests, even if another service had previously been configured for this, like Spotify.

It’s unclear how widespread the bug is at this time, as we’ve tested it internally with mixed results.

However, we’ve seen the dock issue taking place across different versions of iOS 15, old and new, so it does not appear to be related to a recent iOS update. It’s also been seen impacting different iPhone models.

We have not been able to reproduce the change to Siri, but have heard from others who said they were impacted by this aspect.

An iOS developer Kevin Archer first spotted Apple Music’s odd behavior, and posted a video to Twitter that showed the app overtaking the dock position on his iPhone where the Spotify app had been. But our subsequent tests indicate the bug is not specifically targeting Spotify or other third-party music apps.

We found the Apple Music app replaced all sorts of apps that were in users’ docks, including first-party apps like the built-in Camera app, as well as other third-party apps, like Twitter. Another developer, replying in the Twitter thread, noted Apple Music bumped out Apple’s Safari app from their iPhone dock, as well.

While some would argue there’s room to be suspicious of a self-preferencing change like this — after all, Apple once ranked its own apps at the top of App Store search results and the App Store charts — in this case, the case for it being a bug is strong, given that it’s not impacting all users in the same way.

And although Apple surely wants more subscribers to its Apple Music service, it’s hard to imagine Apple is willing to override consumers’ established preferences and how they’ve personalized the arrangement of apps on their iPhone in order to get there. That’s a poor consumer experience. Plus, if Apple were trying to be sneaky about shifting users to Apple Music it wouldn’t likely try something as obvious as putting its app directly on the dock in place of other apps. 

That said, it didn’t take long for Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to make the case for Apple rigging its own platform. Epic, of course, is engaged in a heated antitrust lawsuit with the tech giant, which is now under appeal.

In a tweet, Sweeney said he verified the behavior on iOS 15.4.1, noting Apple Music replaced his Spotify app and linked to a tweet from 2019 featuring a similar consumer complaint.

Still, this sort of bug could attract more attention if it’s not swiftly addressed, as it bumps up against antitrust legislation that could soon dictate to Big Tech companies that they cannot give preference to their own products and services on their platforms. Apple, in other words, will need to confirm that the issue is, indeed, just a bug and one it’s working to fix.

Apple has been asked for comment.

We already suspected that the controversy surrounding the Joe Rogan podcast on Spotify was doing little to actually prompt users to leave the streaming service, based on app store data. Now, Spotify’s first-quarter earnings have confirmed it. Despite losing 1.5 million users in Russia, Spotify’s premium subscribers grew 15% year-over-year in the first quarter to reach 182 million, largely in line with analyst estimates. Ad-supported users, meanwhile, grew 21% to reach 252 million.

Earlier this year, several prominent musicians including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and others pulled their music from the streamer to protest its relationship with the controversial podcaster Joe Rogan, who was accused of using his platform to spread Covid-19 misinformation. But app store data at the time indicated rival streaming apps were not getting a boost from this latest PR headache, as Spotify’s app had continued to see millions of weekly downloads — a significantly larger figure than its nearest rivals — even amid the #deletespotify campaign on social media.

Spotify’s earnings indicate the news headlines around Rogan that dominated in the first quarter didn’t drag its business down.

The streamer beat on nearly every metric, with total monthly active users up 19% year-over-year to a record 422 million in the quarter ending March 31, above estimates of 417.1 million. Revenue rose 24% to reach 2.66 billion euros ($2.82 billion), above estimates of 2.61 billion euros. Meanwhile, average revenue per user (ARPU) was €4.38, above the expected €4.26, but down from last quarter’s €4.40. Earnings per share were €0.21, compared to the loss per share of €0.25 in the year-ago period.

Spotify cited Latin America and Europe as contributing to the user growth during the first quarter and helping to offset the loss resulting from its exit from Russia.

The stock, however, fell on weaker projections of 187 million premium subscribers in Q2, versus estimates of 189.4 million, and a lower gross margin of 25.2% versus the expected 27%. The company also said it’s expecting a loss of another 600,000 subscribers related to the closure of its service in Russia.

In its shareholder letter, Spotify touted its plans to launch “User Choice Billing” in partnership with Google, which later this year will allow Android users to pay through Spotify’s own payment system for the first time, instead of using Google Play Billing. It also noted the launch of call-to-action cards — an interactive ad format that prompts podcast listeners to take some sort of action — like clicking a button to “shop now,” for instance — while streaming. And it referenced its Q1 acquisitions of podcast advertising service Podsights and analytics platform Chartable in the quarter, which Spotify said was its largest-ever Q1 for ad-supported revenue (11% of total revenue).

Spotify’s podcast footprint also grew in the first quarter, from 3.6 million total podcasts in Q4 to now 4.0 million on its platform. The growth in monthly active users who engaged with podcast content also outstripped total monthly active user growth, it said, and podcast consumption rates grew in the double-digits year-over-year.

The company didn’t bother to reference the Rogan drama in its letter, saying only that it’s pleased with its performance and encouraged by the traction it’s seeing.

Google today launched the first beta of Android 13 and, as usual, this means that if you’re an early adopter who isn’t afraid of a few broken features here and there, you can now install it as an over-the-air update as well. As of now, you’ll need a recent Pixel phone to do so, with the Pixel 4 being the oldest device it will install on.

For the most part, there isn’t a lot that’s new in the beta, but that’s to be expected as Google already launched most of the new developer-centric features during the preview phase. Those features included things like themed app icons, per-app language support, Bluetooth LE audio and, for the musicians out there, MIDI 2.0 support over USB. Maybe the most important update in Android 13, though, is that push notifications will now be opt-in.

Image Credits: Google

In this first beta, Google is adding more granular permissions for media file access to this lineup. Apps can now request access to specific file types, so developers can now ask for permission to specific media types like images, video and audio files. There is also some better error reporting, especially in the contetx of key generation, and a new audio API that helps “media apps anticipate how their audio is going to be routed.”

As Google VP of Engineering Dave Burke notes in today’s announcement, now is the time for developers to test their apps for compatibility with Android 13. As of now, Google expects to launch one more beta before hitting platform stability in June. By then, all of the app-related system features and APIs should be stable.

Chances are we will hear quite a bit more about Android 13 at Google I/O, which is now only a few weeks away.

Image Credits: Google

In light of Netflix’s concerning subscriber losses, the company announced today during its first-quarter earnings call that it will expand its test that charges members a higher price if they’re engaged in account sharing with people outside their household. The company first began testing the feature in March in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, but now says it plans to implement the solution in global markets, including the U.S., in around a year’s time.

The streamer clarified it will need to continue to iterate on the feature for roughly a year or so, to make sure it gets the balance right in terms of how much extra to charge subscribers who have shared their Netflix account with other users outside their own household.

“Frankly, we’ve been working on this for about almost two years…. a little over a year ago, we started doing some light test launches that…informed our thinking and helped us build the mechanisms that we’re deploying now,” explained Netflix Chief Product Officer Greg Peters, on the earnings call. “We just did the first big country tests, but it will take a while to work this out and to get that balance right.”

Currently, Netflix’s Standard and Premium subscribers in its handful of test markets are being offered the option to add “sub-accounts” to their service for people they don’t live with. Each sub-account will have its own profile and personalized recommendations — but they also have their own Netflix login and password. This sets them up to become an established member with their own account in the future. If they choose to make that move, their viewing history, watch list (“My List”), and personalized recommendations will transfer over to their own account with their own billing information. (And since the member sharing their account now has to pay more, they may choose to push the freeloader off their account when the new charges kick in.)

Netflix had earlier said this solution doesn’t rely on location-based data, like GPS. Instead, it’s leveraging the same information it uses to provide its service today to its end users, including an IP address, device IDs and other information about devices signed into the Netflix account across the household. Through this method, Netflix can identify when there’s persistent sharing taking place outside a household.

It noted that the sub-accounts do not count as subscribers while their still engaged in account-sharing with another household.

Today, Netflix estimates there are around 100 million households globally sharing their user accounts, and over 30 million of those are in the U.S. and Canada alone.

Netflix says that by asking members who are sharing their accounts to pay more, it hopes to strike the right balance between still permitting sharing to take place while also helping to bring in revenue from everyone who’s viewing and getting value from its service. The actual dollar and cents that “value” will translate to, of course, is yet to be determined — and may vary between markets.

In its test markets, the additional cost for non-household members is 2,380 CLP in Chile, $2.99 USD in Costa Rica and 7.9 PEN in Peru. This is less expensive than a full Netflix account plan, but it’s also more than it previously cost to share someone’s Netflix account for free.

This isn’t the only way Netflix is planning to monetize its subscriber base. The company also said it will introduce an ad-supported plan. 

Spotify recently announced that it would transition live audio content from its “Greenroom” app to its flagship streaming app while rebranding Greenroom as Spotify Live. However, the company didn’t note at the time that its dedicated fund to fuel content creation on Greenroom, the Spotify Greenroom Creator Fund, would also be shutting down.

In an email sent to creators who had applied to the fund, Spotify informs applicants the creator fund “will not be moving forward.” The email further explains that Spotify plans to “shift toward other initiatives for live creators” instead, and referenced the recent rebrand to Spotify Live. It also hinted that the company would introduce other new monetization options for live content creators in the future.

Spotify confirmed the fund’s shutdown to TechCrunch with the following statement:

“The Creator Fund program is evolving along with our live audio strategy, and will shift toward other initiatives for live creators. We look forward to sharing more in the future.”

Spotify had originally announced the Spotify Greenroom Creator Fund last June, which it had said would help audio creators in the U.S. generate revenue for their work. The company, at the time, had declined to share any details on this front — like the size of the fund, how much creators would receive, the time frame for distributions, selection criteria, or other factors. Instead, it had only reached the point then of offering a sign-up form for those who may be interested in hearing more about this opportunity in the future.

The company’s goal, clearly, had been to develop Greenroom into more of a Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces rival in terms of live, original audio content, and it aimed to kickstart that investment with the fund. It was not an unusual move. Creator funds today are a popular way of encouraging creators to try out a new platform or key features — Clubhouse had similarly offered to pay creators through an accelerator program earlier in 2021, for example.

But Spotify’s Greenroom app did not demonstrate significant traction, having entered the market as the hype around live audio — a pandemic-era pastime — was beginning to wind down. The Greenroom iOS app had only gained 275,000 downloads globally, post-acquisition, Sensor Tower data had indicated. Including the time it was known as Locker Room before Spotify acquired the company, the app had seen a total of 295,000 iOS installs. The Android version had a larger install base, but it’s unclear how many were active users.

Spotify has more recently rethought its live audio efforts after Greenroom’s failure to thrive. While the Greenroom app, now called Spotify Live, remains open to independent creators, the company is no longer pursuing plans to fund independent creators’ work directly. Instead, it’s streaming live audio content in its main app by highlighting top creators through live events and shows. This effort began on April 12, 2022, with a live edition of “Off the Record with DJ Akademiks” which, like the other live shows, was promoted on the creator’s artist page in the app and in a live audio hub.

Spotify’s main app today only features live content from select original programming. While the fund’s closure signals a lack of interest in helping newer live creators get off the ground, it may not necessarily indicate Spotify is ending its pursuit of new live content — just how it’s sourced.

Last week, TechCrunch first spotted the long-rumored “Switch to Android” app for iOS users had been quietly published on the App Store. The app helps users to migrate important content — like contacts, calendars, photos, and videos — from an iPhone to a new Android device. But while the app was technically live, it wasn’t yet “officially” available to App Store users via search or discovery mechanisms. Now, that’s changing, Google says.

On Monday evening around 6 PM PT, the Switch to Android app began to roll out to the public, Google tells us. The company says it expects this process to reach 10% of users by the end of the day on Tuesday, April 19, and 100% of users over the next couple of weeks.

As reported, the app supports all the same data types as Google Drive does. Before, Google’s suggested process for moving to Android from iPhone involved having users back up their contacts, calendar, photos, and videos via the Google Drive iOS app before changing devices. The new Switch to Android app does the same thing, but offers a “faster, more streamlined” experience, Google says.

Image Credits: Google

Google additionally offers a way to physically connect devices in order to move more content, including music, audio, wallpapers, alarms, call logs, device settings, and free apps. But the new app’s App Store description explains it can be used instead of “fussy cables” to make the transfers.

In addition to moving data, the new Switch to Android app offers other instructions about the transfer process — like how to deregister iMessage in order to continue getting texts on the new Android device.

Google says it plans to add support for more data types to the app over the next several months.

Transferring data from an iPhone via the new app will initially support Google Pixel devices as the destination device, but will add support for other OEMs at a later date.

The launch follows other efforts by Google to make it easier for users to transfer their content to its own platform and services through backend developments. This includes the recent update to the Google Photos app that offered a way for mobile device owners to copy over photos from rival cloud storage services, including iCloud, Facebook, and others.

As an earlier report had suggested, Spotify today announced it will integrate the live audio capabilities from its companion app, Spotify Greenroom, within the main Spotify streaming app. Greenroom will also rebrand as “Spotify Live,” as part of these changes. At launch, Spotify’s main app will only feature live content from select original programming, while the standalone Spotify Live app will continue to allow independent creators to go live.

While both apps will now feature live content, there will be some differences, the company told TechCrunch.

Spotify Live will continue to work as Greenroom did, by allowing creators to interact with their audience in real-time and serve as a creation mechanism for hosts. But live listening in the main Spotify app will not support the interactive features, like audience questions. Instead, it offers the ability for creators to reach a broader audience of Spotify’s 406 million global listeners.

For the time being, only Spotify’s own original programming will live stream in the main app, the company noted.

Spotify acquired the app that would become Greenroom in March 2021 with its $62 million purchase of the startup Betty Labs. Originally known as Locker Room, the app had focused on live audio’s intersection with sports content. Spotify quickly rebranded and rethemed the app, then introduced it as Greenroom in June 2021. By the fall, the company was rolling out live weekly shows to Greenroom that capitalized on Spotify’s existing playlists and popular programming, in the hopes of driving consumer adoption of its live audio service. It also inked exclusive live audio deals, such as the one with Complex Networks.

But Greenroom failed to gain traction in a market that was already moving on from the live audio trend.

According to data from app intelligent firm Sensor Tower, Greenroom gained 275,000 downloads globally, post-acquisition, on Apple’s App Store. Including the time it was known as Locker Room, it had seen a total of 295,000 iOS installs, the firm noted. In other words, roughly 93% of the app’s lifetime installs on iOS were driven by Spotify. On Android, the app is still in Early Access, but the Play Store notes it’s topped 500,000 installs. Combined with iOS, that means the app has at least 775,000 installs. But considering Spotify has hundreds of millions of listeners, it indicates very few users, percentage-wise, tried out Greenroom. (Spotify declined to share its own figures for Greenroom adoption.)

Spotify’s entry into the live audio market had initially seemed a natural fit for the company which had been heavily investing in podcasts and related technology in recent years, including podcast creator platform Anchor. Meanwhile, the pandemic had driven increased usage of new audio streaming apps, like Clubhouse and others, where creators could hop on at any time to live stream shows to audiences or engage in audio-based social networking. There was an obvious use case for Spotify where podcast creators had established fan bases who would likely want to audio chat with hosts in real-time.

But as pandemic lockdown measures and mask mandates tapered off and real-world live events returned, consumer adoption of standalone audio apps like Clubhouse declined in key markets, including the U.S.

Spotify’s app may have also struggled due to its branding. “Greenroom,” implies a place you’d hang out before a show or event, but the app was meant to actually feature the live shows themselves — not just a backchannel to them. The name change to Spotify Live makes much more sense.

As Spotify tells us, the new name “will allow for better discoverability.” Presumably, that includes the App Store where an app’s title matters when it comes to search result rankings.

Spotify says it will kick off the new live audio content in the main app by highlighting top creators through live events and shows. This will begin today with a live edition of “Off the Record with DJ Akademiks” which, like the other live shows, can be found on the creator’s artist page in the app. If you want to just listen live, you can stream the show from the Spotify app. But if you want to also comment and interact with other listeners in real-time, you can switch to Spotify Live.

Other upcoming live shows include the following:

• Swedish House Mafia Paradise Again Album Release Party With Spotify Live From the Desert (April 15): Fans in select markets will be able to listen to the live DJ set on Swedish House Mafia’s artist page as Spotify celebrates their reunion and release of their new album, Paradise Again.
• After Hours With Alex Cooper (April 13, 10 PM EST): The host of Spotify Exclusive podcast “Call Her Daddy,” Alex Cooper will now going live with an evening talk show, which will also be available each week to stream on-demand.
• King of the Court With Hasan Minhaj (May): Hasan Minhaj (aka Batman’s latest Riddler) will host a show starting in May, during the NBA conference finals where he break down all the action, bringing his knowledge of the game to other fans with help from special guests. Spotify said more details will come as the NBA playoffs get underway.
• DJ Akademiks’s Livestream With Guest Waka Flocka Flame (April 12, 12 PM EST): DJ Akademiks’ podcast, “Off the Record with DJ Akademiks”  will go live with a show featuring special guest Waka Flocka Flame. More live shows will be announced in the future.
• Tana’s Toxic Tips With Tana Mongeau (April 13, 9 PM EST): Online influencer Tana Mongeau’s live show will give the creator the chance to speak directly to fans. The show will be recorded for later on-demand listening.

Image Credits: Spotify

Spotify says its lineup of existing live shows will also now air in the Spotify app, including:

• Lorem Life with Dev Lemons and Max Motley
• Taylor Talk with Ellie Schnitt
• Money Moves with Lauren Simmons
• A Gay in the Life with spouses Garrett Clayton and Blake Knight
• The Movie Buff with Jon Gabrus

In total, Spotify has more than 50 distinct shows slated to go live on Spotify following the launch, some that are one-time events and others that are recurring or limited series. The company will also continue to develop new shows in the future.

Spotify will also introduce a new “hub” within its app that will feature the upcoming livestreams for easy access.

Image Credits: Spotify

The integration of live content in Spotify’s flagship streaming app is arguably a better idea for capitalizing on creators’ existing fan bases than siloing live shows in a separate app experience. It also mirrors the live audio products that have found some success, like Twitter Spaces, which lives within the main Twitter app but always shows to be recorded for later release as podcasts.

While Spotify notes that the live shows will focus on its original programming, it’s not controlling whether those are later turned into shows for on-demand listening. That will ultimately come down to the content type and creators’ wishes, the company told us. And Spotify hasn’t yet determined if it will ever bring the interactive features of Spotify Live to the main app, however.

The new live shows are rolling out starting today to Spotify users worldwide.

Spotify’s $90 in-car entertainment system “Car Thing,” which went on sale to the general public in February, is gaining a number of new features. The company announced today it would add one of users’ most-requested features — the ability to add songs and podcasts to a queue — alongside other updates involving voice commands, playlists, responding to phone calls, and controlling other media.

The music streaming system is meant to offer consumers an option to more easily listen to Spotify while in the car if they don’t already have a built-in media and entertainment system, or a vehicle that supports Android Auto or Apple’s CarPlay. Or it could be used with those other systems if people just happened to prefer Car Thing’s interface.

As Car Thing already connects to the vehicle via USB, Bluetooth, and Aux in order to stream Spotify from the driver’s phone, it makes sense to allow the device to work with other phone functions, too.

Spotify says device owners will now be able to see incoming calls and dismiss or answer them through the Car Thing interface. They’ll also be able to play and control other media in the car using the device, then switch back to Spotify using either presets, voice commands or by tapping the screen.

Image Credits: Spotify

Another update will bring the requested “add to queue” functionality.

There are a number of ways to use this feature, Spotify noted. Car Thing users can either tap “add to queue” icon next to a track in their tracklist; use the device’s dial to highlight the track then press and hold to add it to the queue; or use voice commands (e.g. “Hey Spotify, queue [song name]”). Users can also view the queue at any time by saying “Hey Spotify, open my queue,” or by pressing and holding the dial while in the “Now Playing” view.

The company additionally updated Car Thing’s set of voice commands to allow device owners to request personalized playlists by mood, genre, or activity. Spotify already offers a number of regularly updated personalized playlists in its app, but now users can say things like “Hey Spotify, play cozy Sunday RnB,” and the app will generate a playlist based on the user’s request.

Spotify had been working to enter the device market for some time before this year’s public launch of Car Thing.

It first began hardware experiments in 2019, before ultimately settling on the current design that became the new Car Thing. During this period, the device’s hardware and industrial design evolved from a smaller item plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter to a more consumer-friendly product with a big knob, colorful touchscreen, voice control features, and more. Car Thing, so far, has been fairly well-received. Spotify said over 2 million consumers signed up on the waitlist to purchase within a matter of months after Spotify announced the product. It has not yet said how many have sold, however.

At launch, Spotify said the device would soon gain some small software updates, including a “Night Mode” and this “Add to Queue” voice command, among other things, so not all of today’s additions are a surprise.

The new features will begin rolling out to Car Thing owners today.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager is the company’s platform for helping IT teams manage and secure large fleets of devices, something that’s become increasingly complicated since the start of the pandemic. As part of its larger “Future of Hybrid Work” event, the company also today launched some updates to Endpoint Manager that go beyond some of the traditional feature sets for similar services, with the promise to expand on these in the future.

The first new feature Microsoft is adding to the platform under the name of “Microsoft Advanced Management” is remote help. If you’ve ever used Teamviewer to help a family member fix a computer issue, you can basically think of it as that, but with all of the enterprise bells and whistles it takes to make sure a service like this is secure, the devices on both ends are configured correctly and everybody is who they say they are. And that’s why this is part of the overall Endpoint Manager story, because that’s what provides the access and idenity controls through a tight integration with Azure Active Directory and helps verify the users and devices. You wouldn’t just want your employees to be able to give control over their machines to any random social hacker, after all.

“For a long time, we’ve focused heavily on the traditional endpoint management space and we’ve had great success there building an endpoint management business,” said Steve Dispensa, Microsoft’s VP of Enterprise Mobility. “We’re widely acknowledged to be a leader in this space. We have the largest managed device population in the world. And that’s been good but the environment has evolved. We’ve seen massive structural changes with the pandemic and now with hybrid work. […] I’m excited about what we can do here to bring some adjacent management strategies and solutions to market.”

Dispensa described these new services as a “new suite of solutions,” with remote help for Windows as the first new product. “It’s a pretty straightforward value proposition in a world where folks are working from home, where hybrid is here to stay,” he said. “We want to help organizations respond fast to employee needs to provide a safe and secure way for orgs to provide that remote help and ultimately deliver a better user experience.”

For the most part, these are going to be premium add-ons to Microsoft’s endpoint management solution, not free updates to the existing service.

Instagram today is rolling out over a half dozen new messaging features, following promises late last year that its DM (direct message) inbox would get a significant upgrade in 2022. The changes include the ability to share music previews in DMs, the ability to send a message silently, the ability to see who’s online to chat with, the ability to reply to messages while you browse your feed, and more.

The company says the work is part of its larger efforts to improve how users connect and share with friends. It also comes on the heels of Instagram’s launch of chronological feed options, Following and Favorites, which allow users to see posts ranked without the use of algorithms. The Favorites feed allows users to hand-select a list of their closest friends or favorite creators to keep closer track of, while the Following option simply sorts posts in chronological order.

Now Instagram is turning its attention to the inbox. Today’s changes include the following:

• Music Sharing: Instagram will integrate with Apple Music, Amazon Music, and soon, Spotify, to allow users to share 30-second song previews in chats.
• Reply while browsing: The app will allow you to reply to new messages while browsing their Feed, without having to go to the inbox and lose your place.
• Quick sending: You can now tap and hold the share button to quickly reshare posts to your closest four friends.
• Status: At the top of your inbox, you can now see who’s free to chat with, similar to Messenger.
• Silent messages: You can opt to send messages to friends without bothering them — like when you know they’re busy or asleep. To do so, you’ll add “@silent” to your message.
• Lo-fi chat theme: A new theme designed to make conversations feel more personal, which features a cityscape scene and a cat.
• Polls: You can now use the Poll sticker to create a poll directly in the group chat.

Image Credits: Instagram

We should note that some of these new features require users to upgrade to Instagram’s upgraded messaging experience first introduced in fall 2020, allowing for cross-app communication between Instagram and Messenger. As part of this upgrade, Instagram’s inbox received several more features, including the ability to change the chat color, react with emojis, co-watch videos, and more. The company confirmed to us that only music sharing, the new chat theme, and the quick send features will work if users haven’t yet opted in to the upgraded messaging experience.

The DM update follows Instagram’s decision to close down its companion messaging app called Threads in December 2021. The company said at the time it planned to bring Threads’ unique features to the main Instagram app in the future. Instagram also explained that consolidating its efforts around messaging in one app made more sense, in terms of time and resources.

Instagram included messaging as a key area of focus for 2022, alongside other priorities, like video, controls, and creator monetization efforts. In the same update where Instagram head Adam Mosseri proclaimed in December that Instagram was “no longer a photo-sharing app,” he also spoke about the company’s plans for private communications. Messaging is “the primary way people connect online at this point,” he said”We think Instagram can be the best place for people to connect with their friends about their interests, and Instagram is to embrace the fact that messaging is that primary form of communication,” Mosseri explained.

The Instagram inbox isn’t the only Meta-owned messaging product being upgraded this week. Just yesterday, Messenger introduced Slack-like “@everyone” functionality that will notify all participants in a chat about a new message, and other shortcuts like a “/silent” feature, similar to Instagram’s “@silent,” and more. WhatsApp, meanwhile, upgraded its voice message functionality with several new features yesterday, as well.

Instagram says its new DM features will be available in select countries at launch, but will expand globally in time.

The Chrome OS team is launching version 100 of its lightweight operating system today and with that, it’s bringing quite a few interesting changes to the platform. The most obvious one is a new launcher, which is moving from the bottom to the side of the screen and getting a few more new features. The built-in camera app now also lets you save your creations as a GIF and the Chrome OS dictation feature now makes it easier to edit your text. Also new is support for more than 100 additional devices for the newly launched Chrome OS Flex. For developers, Google is launching a redesigned ChromeOS.dev site.

The launcher is likely the first thing users will notice. Mind you, the taskbar itself isn’t moving, we’re just talking about Chrome OS’s equivalent of the Windows Start menu. Google says the idea here is to leave more space for other windows you have open. Users can now organize their apps by name or color (if that’s your thing) or manually arrange them in any order that makes sense to you (or you can be like me and just opt for chaos).

Image Credits: Google

Inside the launcher, Google has updated the search feature, which previously showed a brief preview of the search result. After this update, you’ll get to see quite a bit more information, even before you head into the browser. Shortcuts are also now integrated into this search experience, so you can easily take a screenshot, for example.

Image Credits: Google

As for voice editing, the experience here is what you would expect. You can now say “delete” to delete the last letter, for example, or “move to next character” to move the cursor. Pretty straightforward, to the point where one has to wonder why these features weren’t there before, but definitely a very useful addition for users who rely on dictation.

The GIF creation in the Chromebook Camera explains itself. There is now a new toggle to turn it on and once you’ve done that, you can create a five-second GIF.

Image Credits: Google

This may feel like déjà vu because Google itself mistakenly leaked this announcement a few days ago, but the company today officially announced the launch of Steam OS on Chrome OS.

Before you run off to install it, there are a few caveats: This is still an alpha release and only available on the more experimental and unstable Chrome OS Dev channel. The number of supported devices is also still limited since it’ll need at least 8GB of memory, an 11th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor and Intel Iris Xe Graphics. That’s a relatively high-end configuration for what are generally meant to be highly affordable devices and somewhat ironically means that you can now play games on Chrome OS devices that are mostly meant for business users.

The list of supported games is also still limited but includes the likes of Portal 2, Skyrim, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Half-Life 2, Stardew Valley, Factorio, Stellaris, Civilization V, Fallout 4, Dico Elysium and Untitled Goose Game. You can find a complete list here.

Sometimes you’ll have to set your graphics to medium or lower to make these games work, but I didn’t think we’d see the day when people were playing The Witcher on Chrome OS. But given that Steam has greatly improved Linux support in recent years and Chrome OS has landed on more powerful devices, it was probably only a matter of time anyway. I don’t think people will buy Chrome OS devices just to game — and the list of supported games is too small for that — but it’s nice to know you will soon be able to kick back with an hour (or 10) of Factorio after work on a business trip or during a boring class.