Meta

Update: Three weeks later, Meta has announced the feature alongside a new partnership with an airline. Original coverage from April 18 below…

Today I learned two things. First, apparently Meta Quest headsets don’t work on planes? I guess Apple knew to prioritize that feature for Vision Pro. And second, support is reportedly on the way. Add this to the list of ways competition from Vision Pro is making Meta Quest 3 a better product.

WhatsApp on Thursday announced that it is officially releasing an update that introduces a refreshed design for both iOS and Android apps. Users will notice a new color palette and other changes that make the experience of using WhatsApp on both platforms more seamless.

A court is being asked to decide whether or not Meta has a legal obligation to allow the use of Unfollow Everything – a browser tool which effectively empties your Facebook feed.

The idea behind the tool is that instead of being sucked into an effectively endless feed of posts from every friend, group, and page you have ever followed, you get to proactively choose the posts you read …

Meta continues to pick low hanging fruit features from Apple Vision Pro for its Quest headsets. The company is also expanding support for playing back videos shot on iPhone in Quest OS.

Pretty much every tech company has been investing in generative AI for the past two years, and Apple is rumored to finally bring new AI-based tools to iPhone users soon with iOS 18. However, the costs of operating such tools are quite high, and Meta has just confirmed that it will take years for the company to make money from AI.

Meta has been experimenting with a lot of new features for Threads, its microblogging platform. Now Instagram boss Adam Mosseri revealed on Wednesday that the platform has started testing an option that will let users automatically hide old posts from Threads after a certain period of time.

Meta this week announced some big news when it comes to its mixed reality ecosystem. The company confirmed that it is opening up the operating system for Meta Quest devices, known as Horizon OS, to third-party hardware manufacturers. This will allow devices other than those designed by Meta to run the same system, apps, and games.

It’s been a while since Meta launched its own smart glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban, and I’ve already written about them here on 9to5Mac. Now those who own Ray-Ban Meta can enjoy deeper integration with Apple Music thanks to Meta’s latest update.

Threads, Meta’s microblogging platform, has come a long way since its launch almost a year ago. However, Threads still lacks some important features – such as an option to show real-time search results. After Meta said it had no plans to make this a reality, the company is finally letting some Threads users see recent search results.

Meta’s Facebook Messenger received an important update this week with a great addition for its users. From now on, users can upload HD photos, as well as other larger files. Read on as we detail what’s new in Facebook Messenger.

Instagram is rolling out a new safety feature, designed to protect teens from being exposed to unwanted nude photos in Instagram direct messages. The system will blur nude photos in Instagram DMs when the recipient is believed to be a teenager.

The safety measure is designed to protect against three problems, including the growing problem of ‘sextortion’ on the platform …

Meta confirmed last month that it plans to launch the official Threads API for developers in June. With the API, developers will be able to create apps and other tools that integrate with the social networking platform. Now the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has shared more details about what to expect from the Threads API.

You don’t need to own an Apple Vision Pro to appreciate it. Just having competition from the high end is pushing Meta to improve its mainstream mixed reality headset.

Meta Quest 3 hit the market last year for $499. That’s $3000 shy of Vision Pro, but with the same goal of colorized passthrough for mixed reality. The only problem was that Meta’s version of passthrough was hardly comparable to Apple’s. My own evaluation is that Meta Quest 3 passthrough is usable but not convincing.

That appears to be changing now. In a Quest software update called v64, Meta says that it has improved passthrough quality for the Meta Quest 3 headset. Here’s a summary from the release notes:

Meta had confirmed earlier this year that it would let users choose to see less politics-related content on Instagram and Threads. Now the company has confirmed that this option is finally being rolled out to users on both platforms. Read on as we detail how the feature works and where to find the new toggle.

We’ve known for a while that Threads is joining the fediverse, and parent company Meta has now provided a preview of how things will work.

The concept of the fediverse is to network together individual social media platforms, such that you can post once on one of them, and then share your post on other services …

Shortly after Vision Pro was released last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to Threads to offer his “review” of the product. At the time, Zuckerberg concluded that not only is the Meta Quest 3 a better value than Vision Pro, it’s also the better product.

In a new series of posts on Threads this, Zuckerberg offered some additional critique of Apple Vision Pro.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued that for age-restricted apps, age verification should be Apple’s job. He’s now been joined in this view by the new head of trust and safety at Match, the company behind leading dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish.

Yoel Roth – who formerly had the same role in Twitter – said that Apple and Google are in a better position to accurately assess the age of their smartphone users …

Yesterday’s global meta outage seemingly took out the company’s entire network, with users unable to access Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, and Quest headsets.

The outage lasted between one and two hours for most users, and while everything now appears back to normal, questions are naturally being asked about what went wrong …

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Update: Services were restored after an outage of 1-2 hours for most people. The most likely explanation appears to be a mistake within Meta, similar to that in 2021.

Did you just get randomly signed out of Facebook? It’s not just you. The platform is facing an outage that has logged out users. The outage will cause your password to be rejected, but your password isn’t wrong.