Carbon for Twitter updated with a slew of fixes for fonts, Vine, and more

Another update to the popular Twitter app Carbon arrived this weekend bringing a slew of fixes, performance tweaks, and much more. The developer has been busy as of late, and this is the second major update to Carbon for Twitter this month alone, and many will be happy to see the changelog. All those font and Vine issues are fixed, and that’s only the beginning.

Whether you’ve dealt with the Falcon Pro mess, or just love checking out new Twitter apps, Carbon is certainly one worth taking a look at. Especially now that the developer has been pushing updates out so quickly. Originally the app was delayed for months and months, but now it’s here, he’s been keeping it up to date.

Carbon was updated earlier this month with some tweaks, but this weekends update was one of the biggest yet. The changelog is extremely long, so we’ll just let you check out everything that has been fixed or is new from the list below.

- Fixed Vine previews on Tweet Screen, it loads the still frame
- Timeline Font size bug on Context Menu
- Direct Messages Font size bug, sizes now apply to DMs as well
- Autocomplete blank avatars are now removed
- Fixed Image & URL link bug on Tweets where it didn’t detect the URL
- Long names in Japanese/Arabic bug on Tweet Screen that hid Reply button
- People Filters blank avatars removed
- Removed Tablet warning, it shows only once on the first run
- Optimizations

After their latest update a lot of users were complaining about the custom font options not being the same app-wide. That’s been fixed here in context menus, direct messages, and much more. Some links weren’t click-able lately, and that’s also been addressed. Which was my only main concern as of late.

Then of course the developers of Carbon mention optimizations, new filters, and they also fixed some issues with avatar images appearing blank. So while the user interface didn’t get anything new (nor does it need to) the app has just been seriously improved and perfected.

We’re still big fans of Robird for Twitter, but the new Carbon is looking better and better with each and every update. 

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Facebook to put own spin on Android with 'new home,' report says

A Facebook media event invitation the company released last week might be saying more than originally thought.

Last week, Facebook sent out an invite for an event it's hosting on Thursday. On the invitation, the company says, "Come See Our New Home on Android." Other than making clear that it the event will be Android related, the company provided no additional details.

However, the invitation's message might be coded to include the name of a new product the company has been working on, called Facebook Home, Google news site 9to5Google reported, citing people who claim to have knowledge of its plans. Facebook, the site's sources say, has been working on a version of the Android mobile operating system that will run on HTC devices and will put upfront Facebook's many features and apps, including messaging, photos, and contacts. The project is called Facebook Home, according to 9to5Google, thus the mention of the company's "New Home on Android."

The sources that 9to5Google is in touch with did not say exactly what will be shown at the event, but they expect Facebook to detail how its operating system, which is built on top of Android, actually works. So far, no carriers have signed on to carry the devices, 9to5 Google reported, but both Facebook and HTC are in talks to change that. Facebook and HTC will also launch an ad campaign to promote Home, the news site said.

Android Police reports that it's seen screenshots and a system dump, which it says shows "a mid-range HTC phone codenamed 'Myst'...[that] sounds a lot like the previously-leaked HTC Opera from last November, too, which was also billed as the alleged 'Facebook phone.'"

Among the most interesting findings, Android Police writes, are some permissions spotted in the code:

 These allow Facebook to read the settings for the stock Android launcher, the HTC launcher, and the Touchwiz Launcher. Having permissions for Touchwiz on an HTC phone is a dead giveaway that Facebook plans on releasing Facebook Home not just on this phone, but as a standalone app in the Play Store.

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Facebook Messenger free calls now available outside of US and UK, too

 

Facebook made quite some buzz when it quietly launched free calling through the Facebook Messenger app for iOS and Android. While initially available in the US and Canada, Facebook recently rolled out voice calling in the UK, too, with promise to launch in more countries. If you’re living elsewhere, you would be pleased to learn that Facebook Messenger calling is being rolled out to other countries, as well.
This came as a pleasant surprise while I was chatting with a friend last night. I saw the “free call” button and I know just what it meant. The option can be accessed by pressing the “i” button to get more information about your Facebook contact. The app will tell you if that contact can be reached via voice call, or if the person is not reachable via VoIP. This is indicated by either a greyed-out button or one with a slashed-out phone icon. “Your friend can’t receive calls right now,” it will say. This means your contact is not using the Facebook Messenger app on iOS or Android, or the contact is currently not connected.
Facebook Messenger places calls either through WiFi or your data plan, so it also warns you that it might consume your data plan and you might incur costs if you go over your allocation or if you’re on a pay-as-you-go service. Also, you can only call friends who are also using the Facebook Messenger app and not the full Facebook app itself. There’s no need to update the Facebook Messenger app, as the feature is activated on the server — unless you have a very old version.
Interestingly enough, Facebook has partnered with several providers around the world — especially in emerging markets — to offer free connectivity via Facebook Messenger. I wonder how this would pan out, especially given that the free Facebook messages and calls might eat into these carriers’ regular SMS and voice revenue. I also wonder if this works for international calls, as well, which would be the ideal scenario, given that VoIP players like Skype, Google Talk, Viber and a host of other messaging services, don’t limit calling to within specific locales. Does this signal the end of telephony as we know it? Is this the Facebook “phone” that everyone had been predicting for the past few years?
If you haven’t tried out Facebook Messenger yet, it’s available via Google Play and the iTunes App Store. Facebook has not quite made an announcement yet, but do expect calling functionality to roll out in your locale soon, if it’s not already active.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 earns almost 90,000 social media mentions in one hour

You may find this a bit hard to believe, but we’re not the only ones talking about the Galaxy S4around here. As the latest Android-powered flagship smartphone from Samsung, it has received a ton of media coverage so far and got a good chunk of the online world participating in “Galaxy S4″ conversations. These netted a total of almost 90,000 social media mentions in the span of only one hour. It would be interesting to see just how much online buzz was generated by the Galaxy S4′s official announcement. Luckily, Salesforce.com’s Marketing Cloud was on it.

After looking at the statistics surrounding the online conversations that were relevant to the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4, here’s what Salesforce.com’s Marketing Cloud found.

During the 1-hour duration of the recently concluded Samsung launch event, there were a total of 84,781 mentions of the Galaxy S4 online. And the reception was mostly positive.

As automated sentiment analysis showed, 67% of the online buzz around the Galaxy S4 was positive, which left only 33% of all relevant online posts to be classified as negative.

The feature that got people talking the most? The Samsung Galaxy S4′s built-in rear camera. From 8-megapixels on the Galaxy S3, the camera jumped to 13-megapixels on the Galaxy S4 and now offers many unique features that were originally introduced on Samsung’s Galaxy-branded cameras.

There was also buzz around the Galaxy S4′s newest software features, namely S Translator, Group Play, Smart Scroll, and Knox.

Another interesting statistic covers which countries talked about the Galaxy S4 online the most during its launch. Unsurprisingly, the most online mentions came from the U.S., followed by Indonesia, Thailand, Spain, and the U.K.

Truly, a lot of things have been said about the Samsung Galaxy S4 already. And it hasn’t even been a full day since its first official unveiling.

For our part, we have written a total of over 20,000 words about it since it was officially announced, and that’s not including all of the words that appear in this particular article.

It’s hard to tell when exactly the world will stop buzzing about the Galaxy S4, but for now, it’s probably safe to say that it will be talked about for weeks and months to come.

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