Mastodon apps on iPhone and Android devices that were previously left abandoned are now seeing updates to get them up and running again for the thousands of new users who have signed up to the platform. New apps are also now in development.

I've spoken before of how Mastodon's official app on iOS and Android refuses to work for me, but I've recently found two third-party apps that have allowed me to sign in, create new posts, and follow new users without issue.

Developers have informed me that they're starting to look into plans for their own Mastodon apps, as the current ones are restricted in what you can do on the platform. Meanwhile, there are many available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store that simply don't work.

With this in mind, here are two apps available on iOS 16 and Android 13 that are worth trying out. These apps try to simplify how Mastodon works, and could be a great Twitter alternative if Elon Musk's constant changes are already alienating you from the blue bird site.

Mammoth

Developer Shihab Mehboob previously gave me his thoughts about WWDC way back in 2021 and now he's back, developing a brand new Mastodon app called Mammoth, releasing it just this week.

Mehboob has made a free test version available to users, and already I'm using it daily. For one thing, it actually works for me when signing in, which is a marked improvement from the official Mastodon app, and every part of Mammoth reminds me of the familiar layout of Twitter's app.

You can also switch between your timeline and the server's timeline, while checking on whether anyone has liked or 'boosted' (retweeted, in Mastodon terms) one of your posts.

As this is an app in development, you can't properly post or send messages yet, but with the speed with which Mehboob develops his apps, it wouldn't be a surprise to see these features working by the weekend.

Tusky

Available on the Google Play Store, Tusky is another app that allowed me to sign in normally, and as this is an app that's been around on Android for much longer than Mammoth, you can post and send messages to other users without issue.

With a bunch of users flocking from Twitter to Mastodon the Tusky app has seen a lot of improvements lately, with bug fixes and the newly-added ability to look at user details, such as their likes or the date their account was created. You can also quickly crop an image for when you're creating a post, or a 'toot' as it's called in Mastodon.

There's a toolbar at the top where you can switch between your activity, your server and your community, and you can press the 'Compose' icon to create a toot. Much like Mammoth, this gives a nice amount of familiarity for anyone who has been a regular user of the official Twitter app.

Overall, it's a great app to use on Android for now, and it could give the developers of the official Mastodon app a desperately needed wake-up call to solve the glaring issues it has.

Meta has announced a bunch of features for WhatsApp, including the rollout of the new 'Communities' feature for iOS and Android, which allows you to join multiple groups within an umbrella that's related to the topic at hand, such as schools, neighborhoods, and more.

In a blog post, WhatsApp is also expanding the number of users you can add to a single group up to 1024, alongside being able to make video calls with up to 32 people if needed.

Groups on Facebook have only grown in use in the last few years, especially during the pandemic in 2020, and there have been enhancements to it lately to try to make it a justified rival to Slack and Discord.

However, Communities could be the standout feature on WhatsApp for those who aren't keen on using Discord or Facebook Messenger to keep in touch with family and friends.

The whole tomato for your community

Communities look to be the natural evolution of Groups in WhatsApp - topics change all the time when you're in groups, from games to movies and what candy you've been eating in the last couple of hours. With the ability to be a part of multiple groups within one community, you'll be able to chat with relevant people about more specific topics.

This could help if you're a parent and you need to keep up with updates for your children's school for example. Groups could exist in a 'School' community for bus delays, term times, activities, and more, without being part of one big group where you could miss some important information.

However, there are also some new features that'll both benefit the groups you've been in for years, and any new Communities you join. File sharing of up to 2GB could be a big help if you need to quickly share a large PDF, for example, while admins of groups can now delete messages from other users.

These improvements are a good step for WhatsApp, and while Communities is slowly appearing on devices around the world, it would be great to see this appear on its Windows, macOS, and web apps as well to help make the feature easier to access when needed.

On October 31, Instagram went down. Millions of users had been trying to scroll through their feed on the app, but rather than being brought with photos or reels, people discovered that their accounts had been suspended or locked out.

As of the afternoon of Tuesday, November 1, Instagram seems to have resolved the issue, though the exact number of users affected is unclear. Parent company Meta had issued the following statement: 

“We are aware that some Instagram users in different parts of the world are having issues accessing their Instagram accounts. We’re working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize for the inconvenience.”

While we fired up this live blog to bring you all the latest developments at the time, you can catch up with us following the downtime and when Meta resolved it.

If you've been getting this message, you're not alone, but Instagram looks to be aware of the issue.

Rejoice - looks like Instagram is looking into the issue now. Best thing is to grab a drink, and hopefully once you're back, all of this will have blown over.

After the news earlier today that Twitter CEO Elon Musk is wanting to charge for the blue tick, and now Instagram is down, could we see a hat trick soon of another social platform having issues?

Snapchat ceases to snap?

Facebook ceases to face?

MySpace ceases to space? Again?

This is an example from @QueenVIP8 of how her Instagram account was suddenly locked out for no reason.

Again, if you only open up Instagram to look at dog pictures once a day and you're wondering why you've been locked out, don't panic - it's a bug, and Instagram is aware.

This was how the issue was discovered - countless users were realizing that their follower count was shrinking very quickly, and eventually others would share on Twitter how their account would be suspended for no reason.

While there's no word from the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri yet, we're waiting to hear back from the company as to when the issue will be resolved.

This was posted from the Communications team at Instagram in the UK, where he states that it is 'related to a tech issue happening' within the app, and it's being looked into.

We're still waiting for an update, but you get the feeling that it's battlestations at Meta currently, trying to find a fix for this.

An interesting catch from Matt Navarra on Twitter - Instagram pushed out an update earlier today for 'bug fixes'. Could this be related to what some users are currently experiencing?

Our Managing Editor for Lifestyle, Josie Watson mentioned an interesting point of this limbo where no one knows what's going on and if the issue is currently being fixed.

Mainly due to the fact that customer service from Meta, Twitter and others in social media is almost non-existent, so where do influencers and businesses go to try and find a fix for this compared to the casual user?

Currently, there isn't one, it's a wait and see approach, and that could be anxiety-inducing to many who want to communicate with their fans, but are locked out of their accounts.

I did think that this was a good analogy - if it rains, you find shelter, and it's the same with social media platforms.

If one goes down, you go to another to see if anyone else got caught in the storm.

We heard back from Meta if there was an update to the issue, and we were directed to the above tweet from earlier today.

So, no update to the update as yet, but we'll let you know if we hear anything else.

As we're waiting to hear about a fix for the issue, we were reminded of how dark mode arrived for Instagram and other apps from 2018 onwards, and how it helped our eyes as we would scroll through our feed in bed.

To help explain this, here's a video from back in 2019, where we went into the benefits of dark mode.

To note, our own profile on Instagram isn't locked down or suspended due to today's issues, so it does look as though this bug is randomly choosing accounts to do this.

The unusually long Instagram issue continues to play out on Twitter in the strangest ways. First, the Instagram PR team has directed folks to check its @instagramcomms Twitter handle, but the account has not updated at all since its initial cryptic "We're aware ... We're looking into it..." post four hours ago. Since then there has been no news, and while our TechRadar account and many of our individual editors have not reported any issues, clearly the problem persists. 

This is apparent just by following the #instagramdown hashtag on Twitter, which has become a sort of staging ground for Instagram posts that could not be posted on Insta. Many Instagram users have moved on from reporting the outage or complaining about the problem and are now posting photos or groups of photos they say were meant for Instagram. 

Rather than grabbing content from an unverified user, you can check out a post from pro footballer Lucy Bronze making fun of the Instagram run on Twitter today. It's interesting and unfortunate that as Instagram directs users to Twitter for news, Twitter's new CEO is threatening the aspect of the service that makes it a verifiable source. 

Meta has responded to our inquiries about Instagram, though the company has not given us anything new. A Meta spokesperson says: 

“We are aware that some Instagram users in different parts of the world are having issues accessing their Instagram accounts. We’re working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize for the inconvenience.”

Judging from what we've seen in the multi-lingual response to #instagramdown on Twitter, it seemed apparent that this was a global issue, and not just affecting one region. 

There are still many questions unanswered by Meta. We asked if the specific issue has been identified, but Meta did not give us an answer. We also wondered if Meta will guarantee that accounts will be fully restored, but we got no response to that query either. 

It seems that the news of Instagram down will remain anecdotal, so we will follow the users for more information. 

If you need a last minute Halloween costume idea (VERY last minute indeed), Twitter user and artist Rebecca Zammit has you covered with inspiration taken directly from today's Instagram outage. 

We still have no new information from Meta about the Instagram ... whatever this is. It's not exactly an outage, as our accounts are still active, and it would seem a majority of users are unaffected. Still, it is clear that a vocal number of accounts have been suspended for no apparent reason, and whether this is a mechanical glitch or a result of human involvement is unknown. 

For now let's label this the Instagram Mass Suspension Event. We will keep following Instagram users as well as the Meta and Instagram Public Relations teams to see if there is any fix on the way, and if suspended accounts can expect to see reactivation on Instagram any time soon. 

Instagram is back! At least, that's according to Instagram Comms, the hottest new Twitter account, thanks the Instagram Mass Suspension Event. The account first notified the world that Instagram was aware of the issue. Now it has just as unceremoniously told us that it is over. 

In case the tweet gets edited or removed, Meta's Instagram Comms team has said "We’ve resolved this bug now – it was causing people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in number of followers. Sorry!" 

A quick survey of the hashtag #instagramdown still shows users who seem to have just stumbled upon the error, even after Meta has said it was resolved. Whether that means the bug has truly been fixed is unclear. We will keep following the users to determine whether the situation has truly improved. 

Late last night, Instagram sent the above tweet, confirming that it was a bug which was suspending random accounts and changing the amount of followers for others.

While it's back to normal, do let us know if you're coming across some issues from this still.

We're not even a week in from Elon Musk becoming the owner (or 'Chief Twit' as he calls the position) of Twitter, and already his plans for overhauling the verification process sounds like a terrible idea.

According to The Verge, Musk is planning to raise the monthly price of Twitter Blue, which gives you the ability to edit tweets, as well as get custom icons and exclusive features, from $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$5.99 to $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$20.99. By subscribing, Twitter Blue users will also now be verified, which gives them a blue tick next to their username - something that was once limited to verified users, such as notable public figures, politicians and members of the media.

Users who are already verified will have a 90-day window to sign up for this new plan, or they will lose their blue tick.

This could already be a fatal decision for the platform, especially when this could allow trolls with few followers to pay to get verified, making the blue tick system irrelevant.

Paying for the blue tick is just wrong

Getting verified on Twitter can be a slow, frustrating affair, in which you have to send the company multiple web links as proof that you're a real person and deserving of the blue tick.

Some people have been denied multiple times, and it took two tries for me to get the blue tick. I still don't know why I was denied the first time, but it's fair to say that the process should be looked at.

However, charging $20 a month for this is not the way to go. It's the equivalent of opening the floodgates and diminishes the point of verification - which was to help users know if an account is authentic, or of public interest. At four times the price of what a Twitter Blue subscription currently is, it's going to be a hard sell.

Combined with the fact that Musk has allegedly told Blue's developers that they will be fired if this feature isn't live by November 7, we could be about to see Twitter's dark days begin, and possibly the end of how you can freely use your account on the platform.

iOS 16.1 hasn't been available for long, but already developers are taking advantage of its tentpole feature, Live Activities, by creating shortcut widgets on the redesigned Lock Screen on your iPhone - and I'm sold.

For anyone unclear, Live Activities is a widget placed at the bottom of an iOS 16.1 Lock Screen on an iPhone, which can show live data, such as the status of a takeaway, or live scores for a football game. However, developers are already finding out other ways to take advantage of this.

An app called Lock Launcher, is free to download on the App Store but there's a one-off fee of $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$5.99 to unlock more features. The app previously allowed you to create widgets for the Home Screen that could let you access WiFi settings and apps from a favorite list. With the appearance of Live Activities in iOS 16.1 however, you can now do the same directly on the Lock Screen.

A launchpad of possibilities

From launching WiFi and 5G settings to Photos and websites, it's already freeing up the widgets at the top of the Lock Screen for me. There have been countless times when I've had to go to WiFi settings to force-connect it to the home network, but it's always required 4 taps to get there. Now, it's just one. But Lock Launcher goes even further for this widget.

You can also change the icons for the apps and settings to help match whichever Lock Screen you've made, so if you wanted to change WhatsApp to a facemask, you can.

And there's yet another benefit if you own an iPhone 14 Pro or 14 Pro Max. You can also summon this widget within the Dynamic Island wherever you are, so you can quickly access apps, settings, and more.

I'm already finding this useful on my iPhone 13 Pro, and it's not even a week since iOS 16.1 debuted. Yet again, it's also making me think about how this can help on an iPad Pro display, and how many apps and settings I can add there, but I imagine I'll be waiting for the debut of Lock Screen widgets in iPadOS 17.

In the meantime though, Lock Launcher has been a big timesaver for me, and if you've been trying to find ways of cutting down the taps to reach your Bluetooth settings, this app will achieve that in droves.

iOS 16.1 is now available for iPhone 8 and newer handsets, and it comes with an interesting carbon-saving feature that helps bolster Apple's eco-friendly credentials - and the company has now explained how it works.

In a support document, Apple states that when this feature is enabled, your iPhone gains an overview of the carbon emissions being used in your area, and iOS 16.1 will charge your device during times when cleaner energy production is being used.

It's an interesting feature, and it makes us wonder how this could expand to Apple's other devices.

A reduced carbon footprint for your MacBook Pro?

iPhones are one of the most repeatedly charged devices that many of us rely on every day, but most of us don't think about where the electricity we use to charge our iPhones comes from.

At the moment, this feature is only available to people in the US, though we hope it gets a global rollout soon. If you're in the US and you don't see Clean Energy Charging in your battery settings, you need to have Location Services enabled, alongside System Customization and Significant Locations. These can all be found within in Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services.

It's too early to tell if the Clean Energy Charging feature will make a big difference in carbon emissions, but if it does, could we see it come to other Apple products, such as Macs and MacBooks?  With rumors that new M2 MacBook Pros could be arriving soon, it could be perfect timing for this feature to pop up in a future macOS Ventura update.

Apple recently published a press release, calling on its supply chain to fully decarbonize by 2030 and use fully-renewable sources, so it's clear that the company is getting serious about minimising the environmental impact of its products.

We're expecting the company to go harder in its renewable-energy efforts in the near future, further showing the industry how it can thrive in a clean-energy world while we enjoy sending memes to friends over iMessage.

Steve Jobs may have invented the three-click rule. This rule refers to how Apple's late CEO and co-founder pushed the original iPod team to make sure that a user was always three clicks away from playing a song.

I thought about this as I was creating a new Lock Screen for when I'm traveling in the car, and how the platform's news support for Lock Screen widgets have reduced the number of taps on my iPhone to launch an app or an action without going to the home screen.

I use both Apple Maps and Google Maps for different purposes - whether that's using Apple's app to look for certain landmarks when my wife and I are away for a weekend, or using Google Maps to get from one destination to another.

Yet it's the combination of Google Maps and iOS 16's Lock Screen widgets that have been the most useful to me when driving somewhere, and I'm hoping for more by the time iOS 17 arrives.

Widgets are cutting down on the taps

When we're about to leave for a car journey, I switch the Lock Screen on my iPhone to the one above, and the Google Maps widget on the right will let me pick the destination I've previously visited, and the weather widget on the left will give me an idea as to the weather for the next few hours while I'm on the road.

This also launched the second part of setting up my iPhone for driving. As Spotify is built-in to Google Maps, it can also play a song if I need it to, but since we like to listen to a bunch of podcasts on the road, I use Apple's Shortcuts function to automate a playlist of podcasts.

As soon as I enable 'Do Not Disturb in Driving', the automation starts playing my podcast playlist in Overcast, resuming where we last left off. It's incredibly easy to set my iPhone up for driving now, and before iOS 16, I spent most of my time setting up podcasts before hitting the road.

These Lock Screen widgets aren't just for show - they can help cut down the taps to or below the benchmark Steve Jobs set over twenty years ago with the iPod. Combine that with Shortcut automation and it's already becoming a time-saver for me and surely many others.

When it comes to iOS 17, I'd love to have more widgets placed on the Lock Screen - one above and three below the time isn't enough, I want at least six to place.

For now, however, widgets and automations are a perfect combination for me when driving, both before and during, and it's why I regard iOS 16 as a great update for the iPhone.

While widgets were introduced in iOS 14 and iPadOS 15, apps such as YouTube have been slow to keep up with implementing these, but a recent update has finally resolved that.

Google released an update that enables two widgets - one that allows you to open the search bar on YouTube, and another which lets you go directly to your subscribed channels and more.

The bigger widget is something that I've been wanting to see from YouTube since widgets arrived on iOS back in 2020, especially as it's an app that I use daily on my iPhone and moreso on iPad.

Thanks to this update, the ability to get to my lunchtime content has already become quicker and easier to reach.

Cutting down on the presses

I'm subscribed to a bunch of YouTube channels, whether that's a channel about a certain series or a compilation channel to watch as I eat my lunch. Yet I've always had to go find the YouTube app on my home screen, go to my Subscriptions, then view the video.

I've always seen widgets as shortcuts - as a way of more easily reaching parts of an app in two taps or less, and always believed that YouTube was a perfect fit for this. Yet Google has always been slower than others to keep up with new features of iOS - after all, it does have its own mobile operating system to update and maintain.

However, when the company does release updates based on new features, it usually nails the brief, such as the lock screen widgets it brought out in September.

The same applies here - having placed the bigger widget on both my iPhone and iPad's home screen makes the lunch tradition much easier now - the only thing I'd like to see now is a lock screen widget to do the same, but as that saying (almost) goes, good widgets come to those who wait.

If you own a recent iPad, iPadOS 16.1 is something you're going to want to know about – it's the next version of Apple's iPad software, and it's coming to most iPads later in the year.

This new version of iPadOS was launched at Apple's annual WWDC 2022 conference, which is where the company shows off its new operating systems – iOS 16 was the biggest upgrade showcased with a new lock screen and more.

iPadOS 16.1 is the fourth generation of the tablet OS since Apple spun it off from its iOS smartphone operating system – although iPadOS 16.1 does share many features in common with iOS 16.

Recently Apple announced that iPadOS 16.1 would instead launch later in 2022 instead, with more time needed to improve upon Stage Manager, its new take on multitasking on the tablet. There's a rumored release date of October 24, but we'll be sure to update you as to whether this rings true.

Upgrades include improved collaboration tools, including a new joint markup app, and new features to make the iPad experience closer to that of working on a computer. The public beta is still available, but be aware - it's an early version so it may be prone to bugs.

Below we've covered all the features Apple announced on-stage, as well as details on when iPadOS 16.1 will roll out, and who can get it.

iPadOS 16.1: Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest big update for iPads
• When does it come out? Allegedly October 2022, but the public beta is available
• How much does it cost? It's free

iPadOS 16.1 release date

The iPadOS 16.1 developer beta and public betas are already available, but the full rollout will be later this year. In a rare move, Apple delayed iPadOS 16.1 until October in order to give it more polish - with the new Stage Manager feature in particular needing attention.

iPadOS 16 compatibility

So which iPads will get iPadOS 16? Here's the official list that Apple has provided.

If you need to check what iPad you have, go into the Settings app, select the About option then find Model Name.

• iPad (fifth generation) and newer
• iPad Mini (fifth generation) and newer
• iPad Air (third generation) and newer
• Every iPad Pro model

It should come as no surprise that Apple's current iPad portfolio makes up some of the best tablets in the business but thanks to entries like the 2021 iPad 10.2, even some of the best cheap tablets benefit from the latest and greatest features iPadOS 16.1 has to offer.

iPadOS 16.1 features

Here's what you need to know about the iPadOS 16.1 update:

iPadOS 16.1 borrowed features

Lots of iPadOS 16.1 features are ones that are primarily iOS 16 features and expanded upon.

Another comes from Apple Maps - you'll be able to create a route in the app on your iPad and then send it to your iPhone – so you'll be able to plan a journey more easily on a big screen before viewing it on the smaller one.

You'll also be able to schedule emails to be sent at a certain time, retract emails you've just sent, and set reminders for emails you don't want to deal with straight away.

Apple's new Weather app is also coming to iPad and macOS Ventura, expanding on its iOS 14 debut. It showcases an expanded layout, letting you look at more information on the tablet's display, such as predicted rain, detailed maps for temperature and more.

Another new app coming to iPad is Reference Mode, which is designed to keep your iPad's screen colors in sync with those of monitors and other displays, which would be useful for color graders – though Apple didn't go into much detail.

iPadOS 16.1 collaboration features

Improved collaboration features are a big focus for the next iPad update.

Now, when you share a document (from certain apps) with your friends or co-workers, you'll shared the actual document, rather than a copy of it – this makes it easier for collaborators to make edits together.

You can also use FaceTime to work on these documents with other people, by sharing links and files across the video calling platform. Among other things this should make it super0convenient to use Freeform, another feature which we'll get to later.

iPadOS 16.1 desktop focus

A new multitasking method is coming to iPadOS in the form of Stage Manager, which gives you desktop-like functionality – you can have overlapping windows, you can move all your background apps to the side to see them in one list, and you can resize windows.

This feature will be available to iPads released from 2018 onwards, barring the iPad mini.

Apple has also pledged to upgrade more first-party apps to make them 'Desktop-class', although this seems to involve hundreds of tiny little tweaks, such as different ways to list files or view folders with different icons.

Thanks to Stage Manager, you can finally hook up your iPad to an external monitor. This will allow you to use Ulysses on your iPad for example, while viewing the Photos app on a connected monitor, but this feature has been delayed to a later release.

iPadOS 16.1 Freeform

An upcoming app called FreeForm was announced, which is coming to iPadOS 16.1, and macOS Ventura later in the year. It's basically a joint digital message board, or a shared version of the Notes app, so multiple users can sketch and jot down ideas.

In its presentation, Apple showed lots of people drawing loads of different mind maps with sticky notes, colored lines and annotations – the Apple Pencil was shown as a useful tool for contributing to this kind of document.

If you've used Google Jamboard, this feels like Apple's equivalent, although since it works on a stylus-toting tablet it should be a little more convenient to use.

Gaming improvements in iPadOS 16.1

After detailing Mac's gaming prowess at WWDC 2022, Apple revealed that the iPad will get many of those features too. 

This includes a feature called Metal 3, which automatically upscales gaming footage (basically boosting the framerate and resolution), and it should make iPadOS games feel a little bit more like console alternatives. Now we just need Fortnite back!

However, this also means that other games previously exclusive to the PC and Steam Deck are coming over to Apple's platforms, with No Mans Sky coming to iPadOS and macOS Ventura soon.

Game Center is getting an activity list, so you can see what your friends are doing – it's similar to the features that exist in many other game networks like Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, so you can see, for example, if someone gets an achievement in a game, or has spent 20 hours playing a certain title.

Finally, it's now easier to instantly share links with your friends so they can join you in a multiplayer game.

After a delay and a rename to iPadOS 16.1, it's been alleged that the software update for iPads could arrive on October 24, six weeks after iOS 16 and watchOS 9 debuted.

It's an update that's regarded as one of the most important to come to Apple's tablet, and it's not just because of the weather app arriving. Stage Manager is the latest method to help you manage multiple apps at once, while also enabling external display support.

However, the feature has not only been updated to work on other iPads, but external display support has been delayed to a later release.

Yet there's plenty to enjoy from iPadOS 16.1 – so with this in mind, here's what should be arriving on your iPad by the time October ends.

What's included in iPadOS 16.1

With Stage Manager heralding a huge change for multitasking on the iPad, we don't see a situation where October 24 arrives with iPadOS 16.1 and the feature is nowhere to be seen. It's a far too important an addition to be left out, so we're expecting it to arrive at the end of the month, albeit with some bugs.

However, while you can use what's also available in iOS 16 – such as the improved Mail and Messages features – there's a bunch of exclusive improvements that you can only take advantage of once iPadOS 16.1 arrives, such as the Weather app.

First debuting in iOS 14, the app is moving over to iPadOS and macOS Ventura, where it showcases an expanded layout, letting you look at more information, such as predicted rain, detailed maps for temperature and more.

There's also an effort by Apple to make each of its iPad apps 'desktop class', which means adding menus that you can easily access for features and shortcuts that are otherwise inaccessible on iOS.

With October 24 fast approaching, there's going to be a feature in iPadOS 16.1 that you'll find useful at least, but it depends on how Stage Manager will debut.

At its 'Search On' conference (September 28), Google announced a bunch of improvements to its services, such as Multisearch which can combine queries into one search, and its Translate feature, which can remove the blurred box of the previous language, as if the poster was always English or another language to begin with for example.

The company has also been announcing a bunch of improvements to its search services at the conference, with better ways to shop for the right product. Alongside this, there's been improvements to Maps and better recommendations for places and businesses.

Google has been slow to adapt it products to the features that Microsoft and Apple have been bringing out lately, with iOS 16 and Windows 11's first major update showcasing LiveText and better accessibility features.

However, Search On was the company's stake in the sand to show just what its apps are capable of, and what it could be to its millions of users in the coming months.

Multisearch and Translate are the big highlights

Multisearch allows you to search with an image and a block of text at once, so you can better find the result you need. This is currently rolling out in English globally, alongisde it coming to over 70 languages in the coming months.

With Google Translate, the company is introducing an update that will not only show the translated text, but will erase the previous text, and repaint the background using AI. This results in translated text that looks as though it's always been there without looking out of place, seeming more natural.

Google confirmed to us that this improvement to Translate will arrive later this year, both to iOS and Android devices.

There's been a bunch of improvements that have appealed to users, whether that's Live Captions or gestures for the Apple Watch, but with Multisearch and Translate rolling out to users soon, Google could have an ace up its sleeve.

Apple's Dynamic Island feature on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max has been available for a short while, and already a developer has made it into an app for Android devices.

The Dynamic Island is a seismic change to the iPhone, with this new feature replacing the notch with a cut-out that houses interactive notifications, but Android users needn't feel they're missing out.

With dynamicSpot, you will see a Dynamic Island-like feature appear near to the punch-hole or notch on your Android smartphone, and you can use this to interact with notifications or control your music.

Installing the app is a simple affair, and you can customize how tall and wide this take on the Dynamic Island can be, so it can fit the punch-hole or the notch on your device perfectly.

There is a bug where duplicate notifications may appear, but there's a setting in dynamicSpot that can force-stop these regardless.

For an app that's only been available in beta form for a short time, it's an impressive feat that's already giving the impression that we could see this in Android 14 or another version from Samsung or OnePlus in due course.

However, it could also tempt you to switch to an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max for the full Dynamic Island experience, as you'll have access to iPhone apps that will have adapted to fully take advantage of the new feature.

The battery percentage feature in iOS 16 has become a popular topic since the update was made available to everyone on an iPhone 8 and above, but a preview version of iOS 16.1 is refining it further.

Instead of a constant value that's in front of the battery icon, the battery itself also runs down as it did before, so if your iPhone reaches 20% for example, the icon will show as it did before and in red, while the percentage will remain.

It's a small change but it will benefit those who wanted the best of both worlds - a battery icon where the percentage shows, while the battery itself runs down alongside the value.

You can see for yourself if you sign your iPhone up to Apple's Beta Software Program and install iOS 16.1, I prefer how it looks for now, especially as other iPhones are going to gain this feature once the update is out for everyone.

If it ain't broke...

The percentage value disappeared when the notch arrived with the iPhone X back in 2017 as there was too little space for both. But the feature first arrived in iOS 3 back in 2009, where anyone with an iPhone 3GS and above could flick a switch, and a numeric value would appear next to the battery icon.

However, Apple decided to bring this back in a new form with iOS 16, where the value would be on top of the battery icon. I was glad to see this return on my iPhone 13 Pro, as I've had to bring down Control Center from the top-right of the display to see it. Now, I can just glance at the value on the top right instead.

But you can't please everyone, which is why Apple is refining the icon to show the battery run down as it did before. Looking at this on my iPhone X running iOS 16.1, it looks cluttered to me now - you've got an ever-changing battery icon and a numeric value in the same place.

Yet we are in the beta period still, so this could still change before iOS 16.1 arrives, but it would be good to have more customization so any user could have the battery icon display how it does now, or how it may be in the future. Regardless, it's still nice to have a percentage value after so many years, but we'll have to wait and see until iOS 16.1 is available to anyone with an iPhone 8 and above.

With iOS 16 available to users with an iPhone 8 or iPhone SE 2 and newer, there are plenty of smaller features that users are already discovering.

One particular such feature for me is found in the Photos app. There are moments when we're taking so many images at once with our iPhone cameras that we forget to delete the duplicates, and they eventually build up.

Since iOS launched in 2007 with the original iPhone, it's been a hassle to weed these duplicates out, until now. There are also some new safeguards involving FaceID for certain albums as well.

With pre-orders for the Apple iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro live, these features could be very useful when customers start to use the improved cameras that these both have.

I'm seeing double

As long as you're on iOS 16, go to the Photos app, then scroll down until you see the Duplicates album.

Inside here, you can merge or delete whichever photos or videos that iOS has found, which will free up storage on your iPhone and iCloud account the more you look into this section.

So far I've managed to easily merge and delete around 50 images, mostly from when I got married, so I've already saved myself a headache compared to if I was still on iOS 15 or below.

Alongside this, however, the Hidden and Recently Deleted albums now require FaceID to be displayed, which could be useful for many. With so many images we send and receive to one another on messaging apps, alongside some that could be perceived the wrong way by others, having this extra security measure will be a haven for some users.

Regardless, it's great to finally see some features in Apple's Photos app that have long been requested by many iPhone owners - myself included, especially with the iPhone 14 line about to launch with improved cameras this year.