Reddit Introduces Short-Form Video Feed on iOS

Reddit is the latest social platform to incorporate a short-form video feed on its iOS app. In its latest update, the Reddit app has incorporated a button to the right of the search bar which streams videos in a fashion similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels. Subreddits tags are shown at the top, and users have the power to upvote, downvote, comment, share and gift a range of medals and animated awards.

The user interface itself isn’t exactly new as Reddit has been experimenting with this format for a while, but the new button and algorithm allow users to easily discover new subreddits and videos without having to scroll through the discussion forum. Reddit acquired TikTok’s competitor, Dubsmash, back in December and has confirmed plans to incorporate its technology to develop new features down the line. In an interview with TechCrunch, a spokesman at Reddit revealed their thought process behind the new update: “Reddit’s mission is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world, and subsequently, Reddit’s video team’s mission is to bring community through video, Over the course of the last year, our goal was to build a unified video player, and re-envision the player interface to match what users (new and old) expect when it comes to an in-app video player especially commenting, viewing, engaging and discovering new content and communities through video.” In other tech-related news, Razer has released its second-generation Hammerhead True Wireless earbuds.

Tiktok Is Testing A Snapchat-style Stories Feature

On a long enough timeline, every social media app trends to adding stories, and now it’s apparently TikTok’s turn: the popular video app is experimenting with a new stories feature. The feature was highlighted by Matt Navarra on Twitter, and a TikTok spokesperson confirmed the test in an email to The Verge. The new feature, simply called “TikTok Stories,” appears to work similarly to other stories functions on apps like Instagram or Snapchat. Stories live in a newly added slide-over sidebar, where you’ll be able to see stories posted by accounts that you follow on TikTok for 24 hours before they’re automatically deleted.

Other users will be able to react and comment on your story, too. And just like on Instagram and other platforms, you’ll also be able to tap on a user’s profile picture to load a story. TikTok describes the feature in the app as “a new way to interact with your fans.” Users can create a new story by tapping a “create” button that’s been added to the sidebar, and they can add the usual captions, music, and text. True to TikTok’s video-first nature, it seems stories have to be videos, not still images. “We’re always thinking about new ways to bring value to our community and enrich the TikTok experience,” a TikTok spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Verge. “Currently we’re experimenting with ways to give creators additional formats to bring their creative ideas to life for the TikTok community.” The company didn’t provide any details on how extensively it’s testing TikTok Stories, nor when (or even if) it’ll see a wider release. However, a quick search on Twitter reveals a number of TikTok users who have already gotten access to the feature. The fact that TikTok would experiment with stories isn’t surprising. Stories have been one of the only true constants in social media, with platforms from Instagram to Facebook to Linkedin to Pinterest to Netflix to YouTube to the Xbox app replicating Snapchat’s original feature from 2013. When they work, stories are a great way to get users to interact with each other on an app, offer a new place for ads, and generally keep the feedback loop of a social media app in motion. Stories aren’t always successful, however: just ask Twitter, which was forced to shutter its own stories clone the creatively named Fleets earlier this week, just eight months after it launched them, due to a general apathy toward the feature.

Windows 11 Will Be Able To Sideload Android Application

According to an engineer at Microsoft, Windows 11 users will have the ability to sideload Android apps onto the operating system, which looks like an answer to one of the biggest questions we had when Microsoft announced it was bringing Android apps to Windows 11 via the Amazon Appstore (via Android Police). This means that once Windows 11 launches, you won’t just have to stick to the apps that Amazon makes available, but it does raise some new questions about how running Android apps on Windows will work.

For example, it’s unclear what the process for running or installing a sideloaded app will be. Chrome OS technically has the ability to run sideloaded apps, too, but the process isn’t exactly easy, as it involves enabling Linux and doing some command line work. We asked Microsoft for details about what running Android apps from outside the Amazon Appstore would be like, and it provided us with the following statement: Customers will be able to discover Android apps on the Microsoft Store and acquire them through the Amazon Appstore. We’ll have more to share at a later date.

It’s possible that the desire for sideloading apps onto Windows wouldn’t be as strong had Microsoft included Google’s Play Store instead of Amazon’s Appstore. While having any app store will obviously grant Windows users access to many programs that they couldn’t previously run on their computers, Amazon’s has some notable omissions from its catalog. If a Windows user wanted to run the Android version of Snapchat or Apple Music, they wouldn’t be able to get them from Amazon. While sideloading apps helps solve this problem, it does raise concerns of its own. The first is the question of where users will obtain those apps: while there aren’t likely to be piracy concerns with free apps like Snapchat, the ability to load an APK could allow people to get paid apps for free from less-than-legal repositories.

There’s also the question of safety and whether Windows will have the ability to scan sideloaded apps for potentially malicious behavior, a feature that Google builds into Android already. While it’s clear that there’s still a lot that Microsoft hasn’t covered about what running Android apps on Windows 11’s will actually be like (though the technical details it’s revealed are fascinating), it’s still good to have confirmation from someone at Microsoft that the selection of Android apps won’t just be limited to what’s on Amazon’s Appstore. Hopefully Microsoft will start sharing more details on exactly how Android apps will work soon so it can get feedback from both Windows users and Android developers before the feature becomes available for everyone, likely later this year.