As 2023 draws to a close, we have a unique opportunity to look back and remember those who were left behind. In the 365 days of 2023, it was time to discover new applications and games, but also We said goodbye to services, apps and more related to our Android phones.
As a tribute, we will respectfully remember the dead of this 2023, as we have done in previous years. Whether they were the best or not, we chose to remember them fondly in this last goodbye before the year changes.
Google Stadiums
Date of death: January 18, 2023.
Rumors about Google’s game streaming service shutting down had been going on for a long time and were finally confirmed last year, although The final closure only took place at the beginning of the year.
The closure of Stadia was one of the big successes of last year although Google offered refunds to those who paid for games. As for the controller, Google gave us a break until next year to make it a Bluetooth controller and not a paperweight.
The Street View app
Date of death: March 21, 2023.
Another farewell this year that echoes last year is the shutdown of the Street View app. Application not necessary to view Street View on Google Maps since version 2.0, it had therefore remained a place to view and publish this type of content.
Although Google announced its closure last year, the app survived a few months into 2023 and was permanently removed on March 21. Since then, you need to use Google Maps to upload spherical photos and the Street View Studio website for everything else.
MariSilicon chips
Date of death: May 12, 2023.
The dream of OPPO’s MariSilicon processors ended two years after its inception, after the company announced in May the closure of Zeku, the microprocessor design department.
Zeku is survived by MariSilicon photography and video processing of its high-end phones and present in the OPPO Find X5, OPPO Reno8 Pro and Oppo Find X6.
Archived Hangout Photos
Date of death: July 19, 2023.
Google gave us a big scare this year by announcing that it was going to delete some of our photos without notice. Fortunately, the declutter à la Marie Kondo was limited to photo albums of defunct products, like Hangouts.
Photos of missing products like Hangouts or Google+ ended up in the storage room called Google album archives. This file went to trash on July 19, 2023 unless you downloaded a backup first.
Date of death: July 24, 2023.
Is Twitter dead? Depending on who you ask, the answer will be a resounding no or yes, but the truth is that since Elon Musk completed the purchase late last year, the social network has been turned upside down and competition appeared even under the stones.
Twitter started its new stage in a turbulent way with all sorts of changes made and reversed, culminating with Twitter name becomes X from which some of us have not yet recovered. Twitter is dead. Long live X.
Huawei Music
Date of death: August 31, 2023.
Huawei has spent the last few years creating all kinds of apps and services to fill the void left by Google’s absence on its devices, but not everything ended up thriving. By the end of the year, Huawei went elsewhere with musicat least in Huawei Music.
Huawei Music is the music application preinstalled on home phones with which you can play files that you have saved locally on your phone, but since 2020 I wanted to compete with Spotify, offering you music streaming for around 9.99 dollars per month. After the streaming service shut down, Huawei Music became an old-fashioned player again.
Google glasses
Date of death: September 15, 2023.
Google Glass is like the end-of-level monster that seems to be dead, but always comes back. We tested the originals over a decade ago and they’ve been trying ever since reinvents itself several times as business glasseslike those we met in 2019.
It is precisely these Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 which no longer received software updates since September 15, which means they can stop working with Google Meet at any time. The glasses stopped being sold a few months ago.
Facebook Messenger Lite
Date of death: September 18, 2023.
There was a time when the fashion was to create lite versions of applications, but now that entry-level mobile phones are no longer as “potato” as in the past, What you need to do is close the Lite apps and force everyone to use the main application.
Messenger Lite stopped working in September, so those using it had to install Messenger normally or use another messaging app. By the way, the normal Messenger also buried a function this year: SMS.
Notifications in the context menu
Date of death: October 4, 2023.
One change in Android 14 that caught us a bit off guard is that they are no longer displayed notifications from an app when you touch and hold on its icon, in the context menu.
This is the behavior in the official Google launcher on the Pixelalthough each manufacturer is free to continue implementing it and, in fact, you will always have it if you use a launcher like Nova Launcher.
MIUI
Date of death: October 26, 2023.
One of the explosive news of the year came from Xiaomi, which announced that MIUI would give way to HyperOSits new mobile operating system and everything else.
Xiaomi scored a Huawei with HyperOS, which ended the year reaching a handful of phones and From now on it will be Xiaomi’s system for new versions and those that are updated.
Unlimited WhatsApp backup
Date of death: From December 1, 2023.
This year we had a strong already seen and bad memory of the Google Photos unlimited backup incident a few years ago, when WhatsApp announced something similar: its backup would start to be deducted from Google’s shared storageif we save it in Google Drive.
Until now, WhatsApp backup to Google Drive was not deducted from the total whether it occupies 20MB or 20GB, but soon this will no longer be the case. In fact, WhatsApp has already started notifying users of the change since December 1 and it is expected to be applied to all users in the first months of 2024.
Google Play Movies
Date of death: January 17, 2024.
Last year Google Play Music disappeared and this year we said goodbye to Google Play Movies. The application has long been replaced by the Google TV application on mobile, but survived on Android TV.
After Google integrated purchased movies and series into a new tab on Android TV (or YouTube, as the case may be), the fate of Google Play Movies was sealed forever. You will see the New Year, but will close completely before the end of January.
In Xataka Android | The most important news coming to WhatsApp in 2023 and those we expect for 2024
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