MacRumors

Desktop email client Polymail recently launched a new iOS version of its app, focusing on simple and intuitive ways to get users through massive email lists with the same connected and social-minded aspects of the desktop app. Polymail allows users to manage their Gmail, iCloud, and Outlook, through the iOS app, which now syncs automatically with the Mac app as well.

One of the standout features of Polymail is its social networking angle, which has each user create a "Contact Profile" detailing their employer, location, and a brief customizable bio section. These cards show every interaction you have had with any particular person, letting you browse among email correspondence and attachments shared between one another, and even detailing when they read an email, and how many times, similar in style to Apple's Read Receipts.

“Email usage is moving more and more towards mobile but these productivity features have typically only been available on desktop,” says Brandon Foo, co-founder of Polymail. “We want to give users the best set of tools for mobile across any email provider.”

In addition to contact profiles and email tracking, the app also provides features like read later, send later, and follow-up reminders, which the company points out as being mostly browser add-ons in the past, placing Polymail as the first major mobile and desktop app to embrace them. The service even allows users to un-send emails "within several seconds" after they're sent, making it easy to fix grammar and spelling errors that are recognized in the time window.

Following its debut on the Mac App Store, a few users compared Polymail to Dropbox's now-defunct Mailbox client, which has generated some positive word-of-mouth leading up to its release on iOS. Still, its email tracking abilities and robust permissions list have raised a few flags for some users. Although not speaking on the topic of security and privacy specifically, Polymail reiterated that its ultimate goal is in making "enterprise workflow as effortless as possible," aiming to lessen the gap between email clients "and the rest of the business applications companies use."

Those interested can try out Polymail for themselves by downloading the free app on the App Store today. [Direct Link] The company mentioned that a higher-tier "Polymail Pro" subscription model is gearing up to launch sometime soon, but gave no details on its price point or premium features.

Update: This article originally stated IMAP accounts are supported, as indicated on Polymail's website. IMAP support is, however, not yet available.

Yesterday on Facebook, the company's dedicated messaging app, Facebook Messenger, posted news regarding its recent milestone of surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. As The Next Web pointed out, that's a growth of 200 million users since January, and roughly suggests that 1 out of every 7 members of the population are logging onto Facebook Messenger each month to text with friends and family.

In the message thanking users, the Facebook Messenger team mentioned that the company will be celebrating by debuting the launch of new animated balloons into the chat app. Anyone can try it out by sending someone a traditional balloon emoji within Facebook Messenger to activate the new animation.

On behalf of the entire Messenger team, we'd like to thank the more than 1 billion people who are now using Messenger every month. People use Messenger to connect with the people and businesses they care most about. They make plans, share dreams, send payments, tell jokes, play games, let their loved ones know they're thinking of them and much, much more. We know that every message is important to you - no matter what you want to say - and we're grateful that you choose to communicate using Messenger.

To put its growing popularity into perspective, Facebook also released some stats related to its messaging service. According to the company, 22 million GIFs are sent every day (approximately 254 per second), and popular holidays saw a noticable uptick in user messaging, with 300 million flowers sent on Mother's Day and 360 valentine-related chats sent on February 14. Among a growing, robust list of sticker packs, the app's most popular remains related to the Angry Birds franchise.

A few of Facebook Messenger's well-received features -- like sticker packs, money payments, and easily-shareable GIFs -- will be making their debut in the new iOS 10 Messages app this fall. With the new SDK debuting in the software update, developers will be allowed to create app extensions that allow users to interact with third-party apps directly within Messages. Apple itself has also announced a few new features coming to its chat app, like new bubble effects, handwritten messages, and fullscreen animated backgrounds, similar to Facebook's balloon easter egg commemorating 1 billion users.

Plex and Sonos today announced a new partnership that will see Sonos' speakers supporting Plex music playback through the Sonos Controller app. Starting this afternoon, Sonos users can access their full Plex music libraries and discover new music via Plex using the Sonos app.

For Plex customers who have a Plex Pass for premium Plex features, music collections are automatically organized by metadata and sonic fingerprinting.

With our brand new Sonos service, you can now browse and play your entire Plex music collection on any Sonos device, right from the Sonos app. This means you'll benefit from our awesome library and discovery features, and your personal music will look better than ever on Sonos. Even if your collection is a total mess, with sonic fingerprinting for our Plex Pass users and metadata for everyone else, you'll end up with a beautifully organized library.

Plex for Sonos is in beta and thus can be accessed through the Sonos Labs section of the Sonos desktop app or the "Add Music Services" option on a mobile device after signing up for the Sonos Public Beta Program.

Sonos' wireless speakers are available from the Sonos website and start at $199. The Sonos Controller app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. Plex is a free service available from the Plex website, but premium features require a Plex Pass, priced at $4.99 per month.

Microsoft-owned keyboard app maker SwiftKey today launched a brand-new iOS app, this time focused on predictive emoji suggestions. Called Swiftmoji, the app runs a crowdsourced usage data algorithm to begin suggesting its users specific emoji characters when they send text messages, with the app set to eventually learn each user's preferences and recommend frequently-used emoji above those hardly ever sent in a message.

The app works by piggybacking on the written text created in Apple's -- or any other third-party's -- keyboard, showcasing a wall of emojis meant to be related to the message waiting to be sent. All users need to do is type something, tap the globe icon to switch over to Swiftmoji, and pick from the app's proposed emoji characters. SwiftKey hopes this method is a bit more streamlined in comparison to the emoji hunt that happens in Apple's first-party keyboard but, as TechCrunch noted, its predictive capabilities have room for improvement.

Testing the app out ahead of launch, the predictions seemed a tad tenuous and/or hit and miss at times. For example, typing ‘viva la France’ did indeed yield the French flag emoji as the first prediction. However the second prediction was the Italian flag. Which it’s hard to imagine being useful.

The app also lets users send an "emoji storm," which shoots out emojis from its suggestion box in a random order at the tail-end of a message, if users think sending just one or two characters isn't enough. In addition, there's a tab for frequently used emoji, and a basic, scrollable section akin to what iOS users have been used to over the past few years. Interestingly, the Android version of the app is more robust, offering quick-access emoji suggestions above a full third-party keyboard.

Due to its ability to condense vast topics down to cartoonish characters, a SwiftKey spokeswoman is also ensuring users that the company has "worked to reduce the chances of anyone using Swiftmoji to be caused offence from the emoji predictions suggested." All the same, she confirmed that SwiftKey wouldn't outright censor its users, letting everyone have "the option to use whichever emoji they like and in whatever way they like,” with truly questionable outcomes from the app advised to be reported to the company.

Anyone interested can check out Swiftmoji for free on the App Store today. [Direct Link]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to finally approve a three-year extension on local-sourcing rules within the country, granted to Apple due to its single-brand retail company status selling "cutting-edge technology." Those familiar with the matter, speaking with Bloomberg, claimed that the Indian government as a whole is gearing up to make it easier for all companies like Apple to meet a similar criteria.

Before the so-called "shift" in Modi's government, India's rules on foreign direct investments required 30 percent of goods sold by a foreign company to be manufactured and produced within the country. Like most companies, the law prevented Apple's retail growth within India -- leading to a handful of third-party endorsed pop-up shops -- because of the fact that most of its goods are created in China.

Apple filed for a new retail application when the new shifts in India's laws began to pick up steam, but some confusion still remained over what would be considered "cutting-edge" and "state of the art" technology, which could eventually grant a company another 5-year extension on top of the blanketed 3-year ruling being made common. It's this "push to clarify" the country's laws and procedures that Modi is spearheading, eventually expected to allow Apple to open its first retail stores in India.

Modi’s push to clarify those procedures will pave the way for Apple to open a retail store, according to the people [familiar with the matter]. The new rules may also impact China’s Xiaomi Corp. and Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp., which have also asked for exemptions.

Apple has been attempting to gain a foothold in India for a while now, most recently with CEO Tim Cook visiting the country, and Modi himself, to discuss manufacturing and retail opportunities. Its Authorized Mobility Resellers program has allowed Apple to skirt the country's restrictive retail presence rules, but still lacks the ability to bring in big sales numbers from India.

Niantic has decided to postpone the launch of Pokémon Go in Japan today, due to an unexpected email leak that revealed details about the company's rumored sponsor partnership with food chain McDonald's. A source close to the company confirmed the delay to TechCrunch, referring to a specific email chain between Pokémon Go's creators and McDonald's as the reason behind the move.

The two companies -- in addition to The Pokémon Company and Nintendo itself, presumably -- believed that the all-but-confirmed launch of Pokémon Go in the country would create a hype that "would overload the game" for a lot of its players, not just within Japan. The creators of Pokémon Go now hope that a restructured, less publicly expected launch will prepare the game's servers for an influx of players in the country that will undoubtedly be quite high.

When Pokémon Go does launch in Japan, it will be the first territory to introduce sponsored retail partnerships, which aim to lure players to restaurants like McDonald's in order to generate revenue for both Niantic and the corporate food chain. According to these sources close to the launch, all 3,000 McDonald's locations in Japan will be turned into gyms where players can battle opposing teams to take over the location, or train their Pokémon with teammates if they've already conquered the gym. It's unclear if any locations will be PokéStops instead of gyms.

The debut of Pokémon Go in Japan is now said to be "imminent," with a report from Nikkei suggesting the new launch date could be as soon as tomorrow, July 21. Over the weekend, the game launched in Canada and 26 countries across Europe, and it's already been available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan will mark its first launch in Asia, with an expected rollout to other countries in the region in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Pokémon Go's success, Nintendo's market value has more than doubled since the game launched earlier in July. The company is now worth $42.5 billion, and it even broke the single-day trading record in Tokyo last Friday when $4.5 billion worth of stock was traded. Nintendo's new valuation now puts it ahead of Sony, which has a market cap sitting around $40 billion.

WhatsApp was forced offline in Brazil yesterday after Facebook failed to provide a court with chat logs related to a criminal investigation – only for the block to be lifted hours later.

The blocking order by Brazilian judge Daniela Barbosa came after Facebook argued that it could not provide the court with the requested data since all messages relayed through the service are end-to-end encrypted.

Barbosa apparently took issue with the nature of the response, accusing Facebook of treating the country like a "banana republic" and criticizing WhatsApp for replying to the court via email and in English, "as if this was the official language of this country." She then ordered the company to pay $50,000 per day until it complied with the court order to release the information.

However, in a matter of hours, the judge's order was struck down by the country's Supreme Court, which ruled that the lower court's order to ban WhatsApp was unreasonable and disproportionate. As TechCrunch notes, the ruling suggests Brazil's highest court favors an open internet, even if that means embracing encryption.

This is the fourth time a judge has ordered that WhatsApp be taken offline in the country, only for access to be reinstated soon after. The last order occurred in May and blocked the messaging service in Brazil for 72 hours, affecting over 100 million people.

"In recent months, people from all across Brazil have rejected judicial blocks of services like WhatsApp," said a WhatsApp spokesperson. "Indiscriminate steps like these threaten people's ability to communicate, to run their businesses, and to live their lives. As we've said in the past, we cannot share information we don't have access to."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

French music streaming service Deezer officially opened its doors to the U.S. market on Tuesday, meaning for the first time, anyone in the States can sign up for a $10-a-month subscription.

Previously the service was only available to U.S. customers if they owned a Sonos system and paid $20 a month for Deezer Elite, or if they signed up to promotion deals through Bose and Cricket Wireless.

A Deezer Premium+ subscription offers similar features to Apple Music and Spotify, such as unlimited streaming of its 40 million-track library, machine-generated and human-curated playlists, offline listening, and access to music lyrics. Over 40,000 podcasts and radio stations (including personalized station service Flow) are also included.

Deezer offers an ad-supported free tier in other countries, but users in the U.S. only have access to the paid tier. A 30-day free trial is available however.

iOS users can avoid the App Store surcharge for signing up to the service through the Deezer app ($12.99 per month) by visiting the website instead, where the Deezer Premium+ 30-day trial is also available. Users then pay $9.99 a month and can cancel anytime. The Deezer Elite high-definition service remains exclusive to Sonos speaker owners.

Deezer currently has over 6 million users worldwide, about half that of Apple Music and around a fifth of Spotify's total paying customers. The service will also have to compete with the likes of Tidal and Google Play, as well as online radio station Pandora, which currently has over 80 million free monthly listeners.