Tencent Weibo To Be Integrated Into iOS 7, Along With Flickr And Vimeo
June 11, 2013
A couple of years ago, Apple took to the WWDC 2011 stage to announce iOS 5, which included Twitter integration. Last year, Apple spent part of its WWDC 2012 keynote to announce iOS 6, which brought Facebook integration. Today at WWDC 2013, Apple has announced iOS 7, which happens to feature integration with not one, not even two, but three additional social media sharing services.
The three services in question are Flickr, Vimeo, and Tencent Weibo.
Three weeks ago, it was rumored that Apple could "deeply" integrate Flickr and Vimeo into iOS through the new major redesign of the popular mobile operating system. Today, Apple has confirmed that the popular photo-sharing service that is not Instagram and the popular video-sharing service that is not YouTube are indeed going to be integrated into iOS 7.
Actually, Apple did not mention Flickr and Vimeo integration on iOS 7 during today's WWDC keynote address. But as we reported earlier, the two popular services are now baked into the iOS Settings app, right below Twitter and Facebook.
For its part, the Chinese microblogging service Tencent Weibo was highlighted by Apple in its slide showing additional miscellaneous features on iOS 7. Also, Apple mentioned Tencent Weibo support in its press release announcing iOS 7.
In addition to Tencent Weibo, other new iOS 7 features catering to Chinese users include a Chinese-English bilingual dictionary and improved Chinese input with handwriting recognition for multiple Chinese characters.
Tencent Weibo is not the first Chinese microblogging service to be deeply integrated into iOS. That distinction belongs to Sina Weibo, which was integrated into iOS with the release of iOS 6.
Like Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo will be available to users in China or to users who opt for the Chinese language setting on their iOS devices.