Today, Instagram announced a new feature called 'Focus' "that can instantly take portraits of yourself or friends that you'll want to share". 'Focus' is the portrait mode available on more and more phones these days. In case you've never heard about portrait mode, it lets you take pictures that keep your subject sharp with a blurred background.
Instagram 'Focus' feature will appear next to 'Superzoom' in the app. Tap once to take a selfie or press and hold to capture a video. Focus also works with the back-facing camera. I've tested 'Focus' on my OnePlus 5T and my first impression is that it looks weird. I took a selfie and my ears were also blurred. This thing needs some more work. The portrait mode on my OnePlus is way better - at least it doesn't treat my ears as being part of the background.
'Focus' is available in Instagram version 39.0 for Android, but on select Android devices. Instagram did not say which one. If you do not see Focus mode yet, make sure you download the latest version of the app in Google Play Store.
Source: Instagram
Never too late. Android tablets are now able to make calls in portrait mode after Skype issued an update yesterday. Since most Android devices defaults to landscape, owners of these devices have complained about the lack of support for portrait mode in Skype. The latter has listened and posted the update that does bring portrait mode when making video calls only. The default landscape mode remains throughout the rest of the app. The update also contains the usual performance improvements and fixes. New language support has been added for Portuguese, Norwegian and English (UK). Check the notification center on your device to download the update. Note that the update is also available for Android phones. Skype can be downloaded free on Google Play Store.
Have you joined the band of Chrome Beta testers yet? I've been into it for a week or two now and my Galaxy Nexus is still alive. The Chrome team is regularly publishing updates and fixes. Today's update contains the following fixes:
- 143146 - Support for chrome://flags!
Known Issues:
- 169616 - Keyboard pops up after Chrome is closed
- Issues with GMail and Google image search on Galaxy Note II
- 170653 - Scroll position is reset momentarily when double-tapping in footer/gutter on some pages
- Sometimes flickering and graphical glitches are observed while opening new tab
- Frequent freeze on devices with specific versions of Qualcomm GPU driver
- Text autosizing may break formatting on some sites
- Video continues playing after exiting fullscreen on android phones
- [HTC Droid DNA] Getting crash on tabswitcher mode
- 163439 - yahoo.com page links are not working
- 166233 - Cannot submit comments on facebook posts or pictures
- 158633: Tap disambiguation overaggressive
