Photos: A Privacy-Conscious Social Media From Cupertino

It would be tempting to think that Apple just doesn’t ‘get’ social media.

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

Two previous attempts by the company to build a social networking component around its famed music services – with iTunes Ping and then Apple Music Connect – failed to take off and were ultimately shuttered. In 2016, Apple was rumored to be working on a video-based social network app, but this was apparently re-engineered into the video creation app Clips, which was intended to fuel creativity on existing social networks.

It all might initially look like a case of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ when it comes to Apple’s hopes in the social media space. However, in an age where privacy scandals have increasingly wrecked social media, Apple might have inadvertently created the perfect remedy: a more privacy-conscious version of Instagram. It’s on all up-to-date iPhones and iPads, and it’s the Shared Albums feature of the well established Photos app. Could we be looking at the Instagram of the future?

MORE AND MORE EVIDENCE THAT THE FACEBOOK SHIP IS SINKING

It’s probably not excessive to say that in recent years, Facebook has apparently sleepwalked from one scandal to another. As well as facing allegations that it provided a platform for Russian tampering with the democratic process during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Facebook has been left reeling by revelations that the U.K.-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica sourced personal data from millions of Facebook profiles without securing consent.