Roger Fingas
Facebook on Monday confirmed the closure of its two-year-old Creative Labs division, along with the removal of three related apps from Apple and Google's app stores.
"Since their launches, we've incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps," a spokeswoman informed CNET. Creative Labs was originally established to foster the development of new app concepts.
None of the three dead apps gained any popularity with the public, however. Slingshot tried to compete with Snapchat, while Riff was built to produce viral videos in which users added on to each other's work. Rooms, lastly, provided themed anonymous chatrooms.
For the time being, both Slingshot and Rooms will continue to work as long as a person already has them installed. Rooms, though, will shut down completely on Dec. 23.
The company has promised to continue experimenting with new apps, and support existing ones like Instagram's Hyperlapse and Layouts.
Earlier Monday, Dropbox announced the end of two apps of its own, Mailbox and Carousel.
AppleInsider Staff
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
1 Comment
Meh, no loss to the cyberverse. However it did get me wondering about one thing:
If I shop the iOS AppStore and end up with a piece of crapware on my iDevice that I later decide to remove, it ends up on AppStore in my "Purchased" page where I can reload it if I want.
Now these purchased apps are not really stored in the AppStore under my name, but rather are assigned to me via a link. If the App, as in the article above, is "removed" from the AppStore as reported above, does that mean they also disappear from my "purchased" list since there may be no App there to link to or reload?