latest
As some of us are painfully aware, Inbox is set to die next Tuesday, April 2nd. Google has been pushing Inbox users back to Gmail since the original announcement last September. Initially, that transition was eased with promises that Gmail would eventually inherit Inbox's bundling, the email client's most useful feature. Six months later, a mere week before Inbox's euthanasia, Gmail still doesn't have bundles.
There's Shazam, there's SoundHound, there's Google's "what's this song?" and if you have a Sony device, there's TrackID. It's Sony's music recognition service that a lot of users defaulted to because it was preloaded on their devices and because it did a decent job of telling you the title of the song and its artist, while also providing a way to listen to songs, watch their videos, check artist biographies, and save your discovered tunes to Spotify.
Back in 2015, Google launched a service called Google Contributor, which allowed users to pay a small amount of money per month to see fewer AdSense ads on their favorite websites. The service never expanded outside the United States, and last month, Google announced it would shut down "mid-January 2017."
Oh Brazil, you magnificent country of beautiful landscapes, sexy women, excellent football players, and silly judges and judicial system. For the third time since 2015, a Brazilian state judge has ordered a complete shut down on WhatsApp by forcing operators to block the service nationwide for 72 hours, and thus killing the main means of communication of 91% of the country's mobile users.
Chrome to Phone used to be a nice way to receive links, directions, and notes from your Chrome browser on your Android device. The app's functionality was however rendered redundant after Chrome gained open tab sync across devices and Google added a way to send notes and directions (and reminders and alarms) from Chrome to your phone.
Gameloft is one of the most prolific and high-profile developers of mobile games, having taken an early lead with the rise of the iTunes App Store and continuing to release games at a rapid pace. But all is not well for the well-known developer: this morning reports have surfaced that the company has completely shut down its New York City studio and related offices.
Remember Grooveshark? It's OK if you don't - after all, the controversial music sharing app hasn't been available on the Play Store for more than two years after it made its amazingly brief debut. But users can still get the app as an APK download on Grooveshark's site, and last month they were thrilled to find that it supported Google's Chromecast streaming gadget. Until today, when Google unceremoniously blocked it from accessing Chromecast features... reportedly at the request of the RIAA.
Alas, poor Rando, we knew it well. Actually, not that well - that was kind of the point. This photo sharing app from the developer of Whale Trail eschewed the usual reputation and tagging systems of most photo sharing services in favor of a one-at-a-time approach. But after a Russian programmer created a script to game the system and upload thousands of identical photos, thus funneling all of Rando's unique content to himself, the developers shut down the app and the service. You can read more about it in this extensive TechCrunch interview.
Schemer, Google's niche quasi-social network for sharing all the things you want to do in life, is being shut down. Since launching over 2 years ago, it has struggled to find a user base, new features were few and far between, and the app itself was only updated a handful of times. For those unaware of how Schemer works, the idea is pretty simple. You use it to list things you want to do, and mingle with other people who either want to do the same thing or have already done it.
If you eagerly updated your Android device to the shiny new version of Google Maps yesterday, only to despair at the absence of Google's Latitude location tracking/sharing service, there's a good reason for that. Latitude is going the way of Google Reader, and the service will disappear completely on August 9th. Google has made the change official on the "About Latitude" page of the Maps for mobile support hub, explaining that Latitude for iPhone, the Latitude API, and the various web services will be retired as well. You've got just under a month to say your goodbyes.
Fans of the task management service Astrid were understandably concerned when Yahoo acquired the company back in May. Now their worst fears have been realized. Astrid is shutting down on August 5th of this year. That gives you less than a month to get your data out.
[Updated x4: Official Word] OnLive May Be Closing Today—Or It Might Be Fine—As Conflicting Rumors Surface
Update 4: OnLive has finally issued the following statement: We can now confirm that the assets of OnLive, Inc. have been acquired into a newly-formed
Update 4: OnLive has finally issued the following statement:
In an e-mail to its customers today, the team at TekTrak (an app we reviewed back in August) officially announced that the service has shut down and that users will no longer be able to utilize its features. In the heartfelt message the team explains that, as with many startup ventures, it has come time for the service to shutter its windows and call it quits.
Have you heard of BloomWorlds? Chances are you probably haven't, because even though I've been seeing intermittent updates about it on and off for the past year and a half, they never actually came out with a product, which was supposed to be a family-friendly, curated Android market. As of today, the project is shut down, and the post mortem report filled with reasons for its failure is sitting in our inboxes. And now your screens.