YouTube Go is going away for good in August. The YouTube Team has announced that it's retiring the lightweight alternative to its main app, mainly because it has become unnecessary over the years. YouTube developed the Go application for users where connectivity is spotty, mobile data prices are prohibitive and low-end phones that couldn't run the main app as well as more expensive devices could were common. The team explained that since Go was first launched in 2016, YouTube has rolled out a number of performance improvements to the main app.

Some of those upgrades allow the main app to run more efficiently on entry-level devices and for people with slow networks. The team says it's also working on new controls that would help people lower their mobile data usage if they have limited access to it, though it didn't say when the new feature will be available. It's now advising Go users to download the main application, which unlike the lightweight version allows people to comment, post, create content and use the dark theme.

YouTube Go was initially available in India and Indonesia before making its way out of beta and into wide release back in 2017. In 2018, YouTube rolled it out to over 130 countries, so more users can download the 10MB app. Now it's time to bid it farewell. As 9to5Google notes, this raises questions about the need for Android Go in the future. The OS allows cheap phones to run faster, but there may come a time when the main Android platform can run as efficiently on low-end devices. 

Starting today, you'll start seeing a new section within Play Store listings that show information on how apps collect, store and share data. Google first announced the feature in May 2021 and gave us a glimpse of what it would look like in July. In the data safety section, you won't only see what kind of data the app will collect, but also if the app needs that data to function and if data collection is optional. It will also show why a specific piece of information is collected and whether the developer is sharing your data with third parties.

The developer can also add information on what security measures they practice, such as if they encrypt data in transit and whether you can ask them to delete your information. In addition, the section will show whether an app has validated their security practices against a global standard. And, for parents and guardians of young kids, it can also show whether an app is suitable for children. 

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Google says it's rolling out the feature gradually, and the section will start showing up for you in the coming weeks if you don't see it immediately. Take note that the tech giant is giving developers until July 20th to have a data section in place, so some apps might still not have one even if you're already seeing the feature on other listings. 

If Apple Music and the App Store aren't quite working as normal for you right now, you're not alone. Apple's status page notes that both services are dealing with issues that are impacting all users.

It states that Apple Music users may be experiencing some intermittent issues, which seemingly include song lyrics not being accessible. As for the App Store, Apple simply says users "may be experiencing a problem." The company hasn't provided more details, though Down Detector users started reporting App Store problems at around 9 AM ET.

The Apple Music and App Store problems follow an issue with Apple Pay on Sunday. For just over 40 minutes, Interac card holders were unable to make purchases with Apple Pay. Nor could they add, suspend or remove a card.

Apple may have begun more rigorously enforcing its policy against unused and dysfunctional apps. Back in 2016, the company vowed it would go out of its way to remove applications that had stopped working, not kept up with its latest guidelines or become outdated. After not drawing much attention over the last few years, that policy came back into the public consciousness this week. In a series of tweets spotted by The Verge, a handful of indie developers shared an email notice from Apple prompting them to update their games.

“This app has not been updated in a significant amount of time and is scheduled to be removed from sale in 30 days,” the company states in the email. “You can keep this app available for new users to discover and download from the App Store by submitting an update for review within 30 days.”

Apple notes developers can continue to earn revenue from microtransactions even if it removes their app or game from the store. Moreover, their programs will continue to work for those who have them downloaded to their devices. Some people who shared screenshots of the notice on Twitter expressed concern that the policy disproportionately affects smaller developers.

“This is an unfair barrier to indie devs,” Protopop Games developer Robert Kabwe said. “I’m sitting here on a Friday night, working myself to the bone after my day job, trying my best to scrape a living from my indie games, trying to keep up with Apple, Google, Unity, Xcode, macOS changes that happen so fast my head spins while performing worse on older devices.”

On a support page dedicated to its App Store Improvements initiative, the company states the policy is designed “to make it easier for customers to find great apps that fit their needs.” It also notes it wants to ensure all the software you found on the platform is “functional and up-to-date.”

Obviously, there isn’t an easy answer to the situation. From the perspective of an iOS user, it’s not great when you buy a new Apple device and find apps that aren’t optimized to take advantage of the hardware. I encountered that situation when I bought my 2020 iPad Air and downloaded Klei’s tactical espionage RPG Invisible, Inc. Playing the game for the first time, I was disappointed when I found out the studio had not updated the game to support the iPad Air’s 2,360 by 1,640 resolution. In fact, Klei hasn’t updated the iOS version of Invisible, Inc. since 2016. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the game, but I wish I could play it without black bars letterboxing the interface.

Back in 2021, The Washington Postreported that around two percent of the 1,000 highest-grossing apps in the Apple App Store were some form of scam. Turns out the Mac App Store also isn't immune to shady developers. As The Verge reports, a developer named Kosta Eleftheriou has shed light on questionable apps listed on the Mac App Store, which use pop-ups that make it difficult to exit unless you pay their subscription fees. Eleftheriou had also previously identified a number of scam apps for iOS that made it through Apple's review process.

The developer started looking into the situation after a Twitter user named Edoardo Vacchi posted about an app called My Metronome that disables the Quit option until you pay for a subscription. (Apple made it easier to report scam apps on iOS 15, but Vacchi said there was no way to report My Metronome on Mac.) Eleftheriou confirmed Vacchi's claim and pointed The Verge to other applications exhibiting the same behavior. Mac and iOS developer Jeff Johnson did some digging of his own and found that the developer behind My Metronome, Music Paradise LLC, is registered at the same address in Russia as another developer named Groove Vibes. 

The Verge downloaded apps by both Music Paradise and Groove Vibes and found that while some of them had appropriate ways to quit, others disabled the quit option and Mac's force quit keys. It's still possible to exit the applications without paying, but the links to close their pop-ups look like they were deliberately designed to be hard to find. 

Apple prides itself in having a rigorous review process for the App Store — Tim Cook even said during an Epic trial last year that the store would be a "toxic mess" without it. Shady and fraudulent apps are still slipping through despite the measures taken by the tech giant, though, and it may even be earning from them. According to that 2021 report from The Post, the scam apps it found may have defrauded users out of an estimated $48 million, including Apple's commission. The My Metronome app is no longer available for us when we checked, but it's unclear if it was Apple itself that removed it. We asked the tech giant for a comment and will update this post if we hear back. 

A few months after AMC Theatres started accepting crypto payments, you can use its app to buy movie tickets using Dogecoin, Shiba Inu tokens and other virtual currencies. CEO Adam Aron said the app is using Bitpay to process cryptocurrency payments, which are only accepted in the US for now. You can also buy tickets with Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and an old-fashioned thing called a credit card.

It seems customers have embraced AMC's adoption of cryptocurrency. Very soon after AMC enabled crypto payments on the web, they accounted for 14 percent of online transactions. So, if you happen to have some Dogecoin that's been languishing in your wallet since someone gave it to you as a joke in 2014, you can grab your phone and put your coins to use by booking a ticket for a movie over this long weekend.

Viewers have long complained about the early HBO Max app’s tendency to crash, and its lack of discoverability features. There have been a number of overhauls and fixes since then. Now we know why. Turns out that HBO Max launched its apps before they were ready in order to keep up with its competitors. The app was “never intended to go global” or to suit the needs of a direct-to-consumer market, according to an interview that Sarah Lyons, HBO Max’s head of product experience, gave Protocol. The network wanted to build an audience first, and then fix the app’s flaws as the service scaled up.

While Lyons admits that the early days of HBO Max were rocky, she thinks the company made the right decision. We’ve been changing out the engine of the plane while we’re flying the plane,” she said. “I do think it was the right decision to try to balance both,” said Lyons.

HBO Max first released its app in May 2020, to join an already saturated streaming ecosystem that included Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV+ and others. At the time, both HBO Go (the network’s on-demand app for cable subscribers) and HBO Now (the standalone app for cord-cutters) were still available, a fact that confused many subscribers. The network has since retired both apps.

Viewers have flocked to Reddit since the app’s initial launch with complaints that spanned platforms and devices. “We’ve been trying to watch the Harry Potter movies and literally every 15 min or so we get an ERROR message and have to force close the app. Another time it froze completely. It’s absolute garbage. I don’t have this problem with any other app or streaming service,” wrote one user in a thread on the r/HBOMax subreddit from January 2021 entitled “Why does this app suck so hard?”

For many viewers long-accustomed to advanced recommendation algorithms on Netflix and other streaming platforms, it was hard to get used to HBO Max’s lack of discoverability features. Lyons admitted that HBO Max wasn’t built with discovery in mind, and the app tried to address this by putting every new show on the app’s home page. “You didn't have to go find anything, because whatever [show] you were looking for was going to be at the top of the home page,” said Lyons.

While Engadget’s early review of HBO Max detailed its flaws, we pointed out that it was still a “smart bet” for the company. Since then, the service has made many improvements, including a new Apple TV app and updates to its apps for Roku, Playstation, Android TV and others. But following a recent $43 billion merger with Discovery, the biggest change is yet to come. The plan is to merge both Discovery Plus and HBO Max into one unified platform.

HBO Max ended 2021 with 43.8 million subscribers, when combined with the network’s cable subscribers of HBO who also have access to the streaming service. It’ll soon absorb at least another 22 million subscribers from Discovery Plus. While there could be more bumps down the road, viewers can at least be assured that HBO Max has more experience under its belt now.

Google has finally countered Apple's "Move to iOS" app by releasing "Switch to Android" for iOS on the App Store, confirming earlier rumors. As the name indicates, it's designed to help iPhone and iPad users import contacts, photos, calendars and video to an Android device. It also shows users how to turn off iMessage in favor of Android messaging and transfer photos/videos by connecting to iCloud. 

Google dropped the new app without a lot of fanfare, as TechCrunch notes. On its Switch to Android website, the app is still not mentioned and can only be found on the App Store with a direct link — search results still turn up nothing.

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The app is a big improvement over the current system, which requires you to back up photos, video, calendar and contacts using the Google Drive iOS app. It was first spotted last summer by 9to5Google in code tucked into Google's Data Transfer Tool, and seen in a more recent release with the ability to import iCloud video and photos into Google Photos. 

Apple's equivalent app arrived way back in September 2015, so Google certainly took its time responding. "Move to iOS" works in much the same way, helping users import photos, video, messages, contacts and more over to an iOS device. One Android device maker, Samsung, has its own device migration app as well called Smart Switch, helping you switch from an iPhone or other Android device to a Galaxy smartphone. However, it's only available on Google Play or its own Galaxy store and doesn't run on iOS. 

GoPro has unveiled Player + ReelSteady, a replacement for the GoPro Player app with added technology from GoPro's acquisition of ReelSteady. The new app introduces ReelSteady tools that let you stabilize most GoPro footage, including HyperSmooth shots. It works in real time, with "the ability to view the full-quality stabilized shot as soon as your video loads," GoPro wrote in a press release. 

ReelSteady Go has been a popular app with the FPV drone crowd, which used it to smooth out flight videos and add cinematic effects. GoPro purchased the company in March 2020, promising to integrate the tech "across the GoPro App ecosystem to enhance the cinematic output of your content." GoPro initially sold ReelSteady Go separately, but it's now been discontinued and replaced by the Player + ReelSteady app. 

Rather than using scene analysis like other apps to stabilize shots, ReelSteady uses gyro data directly from GoPro cameras. Previously, ReelSteady did not work with HyperSmooth footage (the setting needed to be disabled) but the Player + ReelSteady app now supports it. On the Player + ReelSteady product page, GoPro shows that you can achieve even smoother stabilization by combining the two (above).

Along with the stabilization features, the app lets you remove wide-angle lens curvature using ReelSteady, GoPro said. It also comes with a batch export feature to queue "hundreds of files" for export, the ability to reframe 360 MAX content, a player for regular and 360 content, the ability to do frame grabs and a trim function for editing.

It's now available for Mac and PC, with a $100 in-app purchase required to unlock the ReelSteady and Lens Correction features. However, existing ReelSteady Go customers "can use their existing activation key to redeem a free upgrade to the new GoPro Player + ReelSteady," the company wrote. 

HBO Max is following through on promises to overhaul its underwhelming smart TV apps. Both Variety and The Verge say WarnerMedia is rolling out an updated Apple TV app that tackles some of the most glaring problems that remained. For one, it's finally built on a modern platform that should be more reliable than the relatively ancient HBO Go/Now framework. You'll also see a new home page with a "hero" banner you can scroll, the option to skip credits, more control over My Stuff watchlists and easier sign-ins.

The new version should reach your Apple TV device either this week or the next. You can already find the framework in many of HBO Max's other apps, including for Android, PlayStation, Roku players and TV sets from LG, Samsung and Vizio. Similar revamps are coming for Amazon Fire TV devices and the web.

The flawed Apple TV client was the result of WarnerMedia's desire to hurry the HBO Max launch. Rather than build its smart TV apps from scratch, the media company repurposed its HBO Go and HBO Now apps to cut development time. The company knew it would have to "replatform" the app to modernize it and accommodate both international expansion as well as more content, according to WarnerMedia executive VP Sarah Lyons.

That rushed approach might not have helped HBO Max's initial growth. JustWatch estimated that the service had 7 percent of the world's streaming market share in February versus 17.6 percent for Disney+. While we wouldn't count on a surge in demand linked to the new apps, they might help HBO keep subscribers who would otherwise be frustrated enough to leave.