14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook may be out of its crazy period when it built apps just for fun, but there seems to have been some leftover tools left lying around that weren’t thrown out. Poke and Camera were pulled out of the App Store since no one was using them.
If you’re wondering what these apps are, don’t worry – you’re not the only one. The social network hasn’t exactly put its shoulder into promoting them too much and they weren’t big hits on their own either.
Therefore, barely anyone was using them, pushing Facebook to shut them down since maintaining support was most likely not worth the bother.
As a reminder, Poke was a photo messenger app similar to Snapchat. The app lets users “poke” friends with a message, photo, or video and it’s possible to set a timer to the action. Basically, if you want to only have your buddies see the message for half an hour, you can do that.
Obviously, given by the name, the app is inspired by the childish Facebook feature that bothered everyone at one point or another.
Camera, on the other hand, is exactly what you’d expect – an app that helps iPhone users take pictures. The added bonus is that it brought on some photo filters, similar to Instagram. The tool enabled users to upload a batch of photos at once or to view their friends’ photos in a single timeline.
This one wasn’t much more popular than Poke so Facebook put them both in the trash can and is unlikely to revive them ever again. After all, Facebook now owns Instagram and Whatsapp, making them both obsolete.
Both apps were launched in 2012 and they didn’t really get too much attention from the company. Camera received a few updates, but they were few and far between and there was even a bug in the app at one point that went ignored for months. Its features did transfer over to the main Facebook app, however, so at least there’s that.
Poke was one of those apps made by Facebook that seemed to be the result of a team bonding meeting over the weekend. They simply pushed it into the store and then completely forgot about it, up until now when they figured it wasn’t worth the hassle.
It’s not exactly a surprise, but Facebook hasn’t provided any reason for pulling the apps.