Meerkat works around Twitter social graph, Vine gets 720P update, and Instapaper adds 'speed reading
A trio of popular media apps received updates Friday, with live broadcasting app Meerkat gaining upgrades to compete with Twitter's Periscope, while Vine moves to 720p video and Instapaper adds Instant Sync and Twitter "textshots."
In response to the release of Twitter's own competing app, Periscope, popular live broadcasting title Meerkat has received a major point release, v1.1. To get around Twitter denying access to the social graph, Meerkat now has its own recommendation system when searching for users, based on what friends like, retweet, and follow. People can also follow users from within a stream, or share a Meerkat profile to Twitter.
Other improvements include a toggle for whether stream comments are echoed on Twitter, and the ability to retweet scheduled streams from within the app. In-app notifications should now be triggered whenever multiple followed users start streaming.
Meerkat 1.1 is a free 22.1 MB download for any device with iOS 8 or later.
The Twitter-owned video snapshot network is now accepting uploads up to 720p in quality. Accordingly, after the necessary app update, those videos will be displayed in 720p as well. Previously all content was restricted to 480p.
Improved viewing should be rolling out to iPhone users "in the coming days," according to Twitter, with an Android upgrade following "soon" thereafter.
The Vine update is still in the process of rolling out, but will be available as a free update from the App Store.
The new Instant Sync option can be toggled in Settings, and will silently push new articles to the offline reading app in the background. Another speed improvement affects the Instapaper save extension, which has been better optimized.
Twitter "textshots," known as Tweet Shots, let users capture images of text selections for Twitter that will still save room for commentary.
Among further additions are a speed reading mode, and the option to delete articles by long-pressing the Archive button.
Instapaper 6.2 is a 27.2 MB download and runs on all iOS 8 devices.
In response to the release of Twitter's own competing app, Periscope, popular live broadcasting title Meerkat has received a major point release, v1.1. To get around Twitter denying access to the social graph, Meerkat now has its own recommendation system when searching for users, based on what friends like, retweet, and follow. People can also follow users from within a stream, or share a Meerkat profile to Twitter.
Other improvements include a toggle for whether stream comments are echoed on Twitter, and the ability to retweet scheduled streams from within the app. In-app notifications should now be triggered whenever multiple followed users start streaming.
Meerkat 1.1 is a free 22.1 MB download for any device with iOS 8 or later.
Vine shifts to 720p video
The Twitter-owned video snapshot network is now accepting uploads up to 720p in quality. Accordingly, after the necessary app update, those videos will be displayed in 720p as well. Previously all content was restricted to 480p.
Improved viewing should be rolling out to iPhone users "in the coming days," according to Twitter, with an Android upgrade following "soon" thereafter.
The Vine update is still in the process of rolling out, but will be available as a free update from the App Store.
Instapaper gets Instant Sync, Twitter textshots
The new Instant Sync option can be toggled in Settings, and will silently push new articles to the offline reading app in the background. Another speed improvement affects the Instapaper save extension, which has been better optimized.
Twitter "textshots," known as Tweet Shots, let users capture images of text selections for Twitter that will still save room for commentary.
Among further additions are a speed reading mode, and the option to delete articles by long-pressing the Archive button.
Instapaper 6.2 is a 27.2 MB download and runs on all iOS 8 devices.
Comments
I have Instapaper on both my iPhone 5 and iPad Air 2, but it won't update with the latest articles, which is a shame. I do wish they'd offer a larger font size, too.
Hey Benjamin,
I work at Instapaper, can you email support AT help.instapaper.com and we'll get this resolved for you? I apologize for any inconvenience!
Best,
Brian
Regarding Meerkat... I tried out Twitter's Periscope once and immediately deleted Meerkat. Periscope is much better.
For some reason -- I don't know why -- but I find the idea of 720p Vine hilarious.
How about a 4K Vine? ????
How about a 4K Vine? ????
YES!!!!!!!!!!
Then Vine would finally TRULY be all that it could be on my 5K iMac!*
* -- If I had a 5K iMac, that is.