Now that pandemic restrictions have started lifting, people are eager to go back to the activities they used to do, such as seeing live music performances. Shazam has launched a new feature meant to make it easier to find shows nearby, so music lovers don't miss events they can easily go to. Starting today, when users Shazam a song or search for it in the app or on the website, they'll also see relevant concert information and tickets on sale for upcoming shows near their location.

If they have a specific artist in mind, though, they can simply launch the new Shazam Artist page on the platform and see the dates, times and locations of upcoming performances. Tapping on any of them will show additional tour or show information, along with the ability to add any event to their calendar. Shazam uses information from concert discovery app Bandsintown for this feature, and musicians who want the service to display their event details will have to make the information available via Bandsintown For Artists.

Shazam's new concert feature is now available on iOS and Android. "Shazam has a long history of innovation in music discovery and connecting artists and fans," Apple VP for Apple Music and Beats Oliver Schusser said. "With the reemergence of live music, we're excited to give Shazam users access to concerts and bring even more discoverability to artists." Apple, which purchased Shazam back in 2018, said last year that the app IDs over a billion songs per month. With this feature, Shazam has taken its music discovery service to another level. 

You no longer have to read Substack articles on the web. As 9to5Macnotes, Substack has released its first mobile reading app for iPhone and iPad. The software will help you follow your subscriptions, with notifications when a favorite writer publishes a new story. You'll find all media formats in a single place, too. The app will also help you discover new writers if you're eager for more.

Android users will have to be patient. You can sign up for a waiting list, but it's not clear when Substack's app will be available for Google's platform.

The iOS app should be helpful if you're an avid Substack reader who'd rather not fire up a web browser just to catch up — it's arguably overdue when rivals like Medium have offered mobile apps for years. It may be just as relevant for writers, for that matter. They won't have to worry so much that you might miss an email alert, or skip a piece when you're away from your desk.

At some point, most of us have had to uninstall apps to free up space on our phones. And while it’s become less of an issue in recent years with the introduction of devices that start with 64GB and 128GB of internal space, not everyone can afford to upgrade the storage on their phone. But with some luck, deleting apps on your Android device to free up space may become a thing of the past.

Google announced today it’s working on a new feature it estimates will reduce the space some apps take up by approximately 60 percent. Best of all, your personal data won’t be affected. The feature is called app archiving and will arrive later this year. Rather than uninstalling an app completely, it instead temporarily removes some parts of it and generates a new type of Android Package known as an archived APK. That package preserves your data until the moment you restore the app to its former form.

“Once launched, archiving will deliver great benefits to both users and developers. Instead of uninstalling an app, users would be able to ‘archive’ it - free up space temporarily and be able to re-activate the app quickly and easily,” the company said. “Developers can benefit from fewer uninstalls and substantially lower friction to pick back up with their favorite apps.”

Google has started making archived APKs available to developers ahead of the feature’s consumer release later this year. If you own a relatively recent and high-end device like the Galaxy S22, you probably won't get much use out of app archiving, but it's a feature that could be a significant boon for those with low-end devices.   

Instagram isn't just waving goodbye to its IGTV app. As TechCrunchreports, social media consultant Matt Navarra and various Twitter users (including KenSchillinger and WFBrother) have all noticed that Instagram's dedicated Boomerang and Hyperlapse apps have disappeared from the Apple and Google app stores. Boomerang was still available for Android on Google Play through a direct link as of this writing, but searches no longer produce results.

In a statement to Engadget, parent brand Meta said Instagram pulled the software to "better focus [its] efforts on the main app." Apptopia data suggests Instagram pulled Boomerang and Hyperlapse from app stores after March 1st. Boomerang (the only one of the two available on both Android and iOS) was still relatively popular, according to Apptopia, with an average of 26,000 downloads per day before it left. Layout is still available if you want to create collages.

The removal isn't exactly surprising. The launches of Hyperlapse in 2014 and Boomerang in 2015 offered stabilized timelapse and looping videos at a time when Instagram tried to keep its app relatively lean, particularly given the lesser performance of some phones at the time. In 2022, however, Instagram is content to include a flurry of features as it fends off rivals, ranging from Snapchat-like Stories through to TikTok-style Reels. Boomerang and Hyperlapse are now just camera options. Toss in faster smartphones and there's little need for standalone apps revolving around single features.

The departures also make sense in the context of IGTV's exit. At the time, Instagram said it wanted to improve the video experience for both creators and viewers. This latest move is just an extension of the earlier strategy — it wants to save you from juggling apps just to produce a clip.

Samsung is looking into reports that it has been limiting the performance of a large number of apps on some Galaxy smartphones, Android Authority has reported. It has reportedly been using something called the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) to throttle up to 10,000 apps (likely to save battery life), including many that have nothing to do with gaming like Netflix, TikTok and Microsoft Office. 

Making the optics worse is the fact that it's not throttling benchmark apps like 3DMark, GeekBench 5 and PCMark, so you'd see no problem with your device if you ran one of those. Samsung is apparently aware of the issue and is investigating it, according to Android Authority, although it hasn't officially confirmed that yet.

The throttling was spotted by Korean users who posted a list of 10,000 apps that are apparently affected. Since the problem was revealed, Samsung's Korean forums have exploded with complaints from users about the GOS issue. "I paid a lot of money to buy a sports car that can go up to 300 km/h, but for safety reasons, I put a speed limit on it so that it can run only 150 km/h," noted one user sarcastically. 

In one case, a user took the popular 3DMark benchmark app and renamed it to an app called Genshin Impact that's on the throttled list. After renaming, 3DMark ran with a score less than half of what it ran with the correct name. The GOS app was present on some smartphones like the Galaxy S21 Plus and could not be disabled, but not others like the new Galaxy S22 series, according to Android Authority. 

OnePlus recently admitted throttling apps with its latest smartphones in order to save battery life, prompting Geekbench to delist the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro from its Android Benchmark chart. After being called out, it tweaked the settings in order to match each app's performance requirements with the appropriate power required. 

It's been more than 11 years since Instagram first launched... and there's still no native iPad app. Instagram users are limited to using the web interface or the iPhone version, an app that is definitely not optimized for the iPad's larger screen. And according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, that's not going to change any time soon. 

In a series of tweets between Mosseri and prolific tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, Mosseri said that there weren't enough iPad users to justify making a dedicated app. "The year is 2022 and there's still no proper Instagram app for iPad," Brownlee tweeted Sunday afternoon. Mosseri apparently saw it and decided to open up a bit about the decision. "It's still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority," he responded. "Hoping to get to it at some point, but right now we're very heads down on other things."

Mosseri shed a little more light on the situation; in a subsequent tweet, he noted that Instagram's team is "leaner than you think" and said the company was already supporting four platforms (iOS, Android, web and Instagram Lite). He also mentioned Instagram's competitors by name, calling TikTok and YouTube "behemoths." In relation to how people use Instagram vs. those apps, Mosseri said that Instagram users share more in private messages than they do in the feed or through stories, and that the company "need[s] to adapt." 

It wasn't exactly clear what he meant by needing to adapt, but it sounds like he thinks people are sharing more publicly on TikTok and YouTube than they are on Instagram right now. Adapting could either be finding ways to make people share more publicly or to improve the messaging experience that is so popular on Instagram, but Mosseri didn't say more on that point.

Finally, Mosseri indicated that Instagram internally views full iPad support as a "finally feature," something they want to get to but isn't a huge priority. "Things like supporting dark mode, scheduled posts, an iPad app, deleting one photo from a carousel, etc," he tweeted. 

While there are clearly millions of iPad owners who would likely enjoy an Instagram app, the company has done a lot to make the web experience better over the last few years. Messaging has been fully supported for a while now, and as of last fall you can even create Instagram posts from the website as well. Stories are still exclusive to the mobile apps, but the overall web experience is not nearly as compromised as it used to be.

Regardless, people will probably not stop asking for an Instagram iPad app any time soon, but at least the app's leader has been forthcoming about the chances of that happening in the future. Never say never, iPad users, but don't hold your breath. 

Tandem Diabetes Care says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its smartphone app to program and cancel insulin doses from the t:slim X2 insulin pump. The company claims it's the first time the FDA has cleared a phone app for such a purpose.

The t:connect mobile app on iOS and Android will enable users to program and cancel bolus insulin doses from the pump, according to Tandem Diabetes Care. When connected to the pump, the app can display information about the last 24 hours of a user's glucose trends, changes in status (including alerts and alarms) and insulin therapy data.

Pumps typically require users to dial in insulin doses manually. Given that they are often able to view glucose readings on their handset, patients will be able to use their phone to determine how much insulin they need and then program their dose.

The FDA clearance could be a step toward a more convenient way for diabetes patients to administer insulin doses. Tandem Diabetes Care plans to offer the feature at no extra cost to new and in-warranty t:slim X2 insulin pump customers via a software update. The plan is to grant access to a limited number of users in the spring ahead of a broader rollout this summer.

Snapchat on Wednesday unveiled a new partnership with Ticketmaster that will make staying updated on shows and inviting friends a little bit easier. The in-app Mini — a sort of micro-app inside the Snapchat app — functions a little bit like a dating service and can curate a selection of local shows tailored to individual users' interests.

Users are first asked to take a small survey, which allows the app to compile a list of artists and events they might like. They can then swipe right or left depending on if the show sparks an interest, and see if any of their Snapchat friends also liked the event. Snap Maps will also display upcoming concerts and events that are nearby.

Snapchat’s popularity with the under-25 demographic gives it a unique advantage in the live music space. Snap Inc. had a recent boost in popularity, gaining 13 million new users in the last quarter of 2021. The platform has already gotten its feet wet in the music space, partnering with Universal Music Group last year to launch a music discovery tool. Snapchat rivals only TikTok as the Gen Z app of choice, but the latter has stood out with its ability to make both new and old songs go viral. Given that Snapchat’s strength lies in connecting people in more intimate networks, a tool that matches users to shows and allows them to invite friends makes more sense.

In October, Artiphon released an iOS app to allow owners of its quirky Orba musical instrument to create and share music videos. A suite of built-in visual effects make the software a fun and easy way to create musical “selfies” and clips you can upload to places like TikTok and Instagram. If you want to check out the app, you can now do so without first buying the $99 Orba.

Artiphon has updated the software to add optional onscreen controls. Now all you need to do is tap the eight keys displayed on-screen to make music. At the top of the interface, there’s a toggle to switch between drum, bass, chord and lead modes, adding plenty of flexibility to your beatmaking. The app automatically generates visual effects that sync to the music you’re creating, and you have a variety of effects to choose from via a selection carousel. You’re also free to use either the front- or rear-facing camera on your phone to record footage.

You can download the updated Orbacam app starting today for free from the App Store.

A bill targeting Apple and Google's app store restrictions has taken a step forward. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 20-2 to advance the Open App Markets Act, with only Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis opposing. The vote showed once again that there's bipartisan support for the bill.

Should the legislation become law as it stands, it would prevent app marketplace owners with more than 50 million users in the US from locking third-party developers into their payment systems. The App Store and Google Play Store, which require third-party apps to use their respective payment systems, pass that threshold.

They wouldn't be able to block or punish developers from offering apps at other prices on different platforms, and they'd have to let developers contact their users with "legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings." Another provision would force Apple and Google to let users install third-party app stores or sideload apps. This would have a bigger impact on Apple, since Android already allows sideloading.

Apple and Google have opposed the bill, claiming that it would put user security and privacy at risk. They said the same things about the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a more sweeping tech reform bill that the committee passed last month. Both bills will go to the Senate floor for debate and a vote.

The stakes are high for both companies. The App Store and Google Play Store each take a 15 percent cut of in-app purchases up to the first $1 million developers make in annual revenue. After that, the fees rise to 30 percent. 

Google parent company Alphabet reports Play Store revenue under "Google other revenues," which also includes hardware and non-ad income from YouTube. That business segment brought in $8.2 billion last quarter, a year-over-year increase of 22 percent. App Store revenue falls under the Apple's services segment, which raked in $19.5 billion in Q4.

Apple was last year ordered to allow developers to direct users to other payment methods as a result of its legal battle with Epic Games. An appeals court judge granted a last-minute delay before the change was supposed to take effect.