Microsoft Makes a Selfie App For the iPhone

New submitter Nanmillerp sends word about Microsoft Garage's newest app which aims to take the best selfies possible. The Verge reports: "Microsoft's newest app for iOS isn't a piece of productivity software. No, it's a selfie app. Unambiguously called Microsoft Selfie, the product is designed to improve photo qualities like color balance, skin tone, and lighting for the most shareable shot possible. It's a more subtle version of Lumia Selfie, Microsoft's previous self-portrait app designed for Windows phones. On a deeper level, Microsoft Selfie appears to be just one of the many ways the company is using machine learning in everyday situations, similar to the software Microsoft released back April that would guess your age based on a photo. Microsoft Selfie's app description says it takes 'age, gender, skin tone, lighting, and many other variables into account' to help alter your self-portraits with 'intelligent enhancements.'"

Re:

[The-Ixian]

I, too, bury my head in the sand to hide from things I don't like. Sweet, sweet, echo chamber.

Microsoft mugshot

[jetkust]

You may as well be taking a picture at the DMV or getting a mugshot.

Re:

[wjcofkc]

Honestly "Mugshot" sounds like a pretty good name for a selfie app.

Re:

[ShaunC]

No kidding. "Microsoft Government Facial Recognition Program" probably got stack-ranked to the bottom of name candidates for being too accurate.

Re:

[antdude]

Or anywhere. Hi NSA!

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[The-Ixian]

Internet Explorer has nothing to do with this....

Happy new year?

[BarbaraHudson]

Just what the world needs - MOAR SELFSLEEZE Hopefully this will be the last of the stupid ideas we'll hear about this year. Maybe their first innovation of next year will also be something else they think the world needs - better cat pictures! In 3D! And MICROSOFT EDGE browser integration. That reports everything back to the mother ship because CLOUD!

Re:

[The-Ixian]

I think this was released just in time for the drunken selfie new year bonanza.

Innovation!

[Lisandro]

Man, talk about a killer app.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[The-Ixian]

no one uses our cloud

Azure is the #2 cloud platform after AWS. Just sayin'.

Re:

[The-Ixian]

I heard it stated by Microsoft's CMO Chris Capossela in the last Windows Weekly podcast.

As for Linux. Microsoft Azure officially supports several different Linux distributions. [microsoft.com]

Re:

[smelch]

What are you talking about? You can image a VM with a bunch of different versions of linux, and once it is up and running you can do anything you want to it like any other machine. As far as rebooting at any time, that's true... sort of. It reboots when they update the host environment or when the host environment has a problem and the VM is migrated to a new host. EC2 is the same way though, so I'm not sure what your point is. The point of the cloud is that they manage those things for you and you just all

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

In what universe did Microsoft lose money? They've earned money hand over fist. Did you mean just on tablets? If so, it is the cost of getting into the market.

Apple's profits 5 times as high as Microsoft? No, not even close Microsoft floats around 22 Billion in profit annually vs 39 Billion for Apple. So not even 2:1. Apple has done a tremendous job and that is no knock on Microsoft. But you are again factually challenged.

Folks do use Microsoft's cloud. Another factual challenge.

You can laugh at Microsoft

Re:

[KGIII]

Microsoft owned a good portion of Apple at one point. They sold their shares quite a number of years back. However, they had something like $1.5 million in shares at one point. It has been a while and my memory is fuzzy but I believe they ended up converting those shares to common shares (they were non-voting stock at first) and has since divested all of them and made a goodly sum of money doing so. If they'd held those shares then they'd be worth billions of dollars now. I want to say that they had somethi

Re:

[painandgreed]

The point remains. Microsoft had every opportunity to bury apple and Linux. A company which once shit on Apple, is now making apps for Apple devices. Can you not see the irony there? They once looked at Apple as a toy company not worth their time.

They've almost always made apps for Apple. They did the basic for some of the early Apples IIRC. They proudly had a Mac toaster in their museum showing a copy of the first MS Word software and a statement of "The thing that started it all." Office for Mac has been one of their best sellers after Office for the PC.

Microsoft Inlook

[Tablizer]

"Microsoft Selfish" - Finally an MS product accurately named

Send the asteroid, please

[pla]

We need this because... People needed more encouragement to take the single most despised style of picture in all of human history?

And in other news, Microsoft has released a new app called "Fingernails On A Chalkboard" - Just swipe across the screen to play along with your favorite songs! And for the real connoisseurs, it comes with "styrofoam in a box" and "autotune" modes.

I got a divide by zero error...

[dhaen]

It must have tried to calculate my age

Comes complete with ...

[PPH]

... a slider to control the size of your duck lips.

Hopefully it uses GPS and Image Recognition

[DesertNomad]

Clippy sez "Hey there, that is a 50' cliff you're backing over, and due to your signal strength, I won't be able to upload this great selfie in time"

selfie....app?

[truck_soccer]

You mean....the phone's camera?

I fail to see the appeal

[UnknowingFool]

So how is this better than the Camera app already on iOS? Or Instagram. It says it "takes into account" yada, yada, yada and makes enhancements. The strategy of this app to me seems like MS copying what Apple does but badly. For a long time, Apple has controlled what users can do and removes a lot of choice and customization in the OS and apps. Apple's philosophy has always been to simplify things for the average consumer. Some would disagree with this approach and want more options and control. The main

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Instagram and the Camera app on iOS do not upload your selfies to the Cloud to feed MS' facial recognition database (shared with the federal government). Well, Instagram might, but there's so much non-selfie noise in the data that it can be easy to screw up attaching names to faces. This is unambiguously for selfies, to enhance your experience in submitting your mugshot to the authorities.

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[UnknowingFool]

This makes it even worse.

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[unixisc]

So how is this better than the Camera app already on iOS? Or Instagram. It says it "takes into account" yada, yada, yada and makes enhancements. The strategy of this app to me seems like MS copying what Apple does but badly. For a long time, Apple has controlled what users can do and removes a lot of choice and customization in the OS and apps. Apple's philosophy has always been to simplify things for the average consumer. Some would disagree with this approach and want more options and control. The main difference was that the people who wanted more control used MS products as an alternative. If MS is mimicking Apple, they are only alienating their fans.

That was my thought as well. What are the apps one would download? Obvious answer would be the ones not already on the phone/tablet. In some cases, if there is a much better app, one might download that, but preferably if the original app was removable.

In my case, the camera app on iOS is perfect. Right now, I use my iPhone ONLY for personal use i.e. talking to my relatives, and also, using Whatsapp. So we exchange pictures via Whatsapp, and it's perfect. I have the locations enabled, and so have th

Help me out here

[fustakrakich]

What is a selfie app?

Microsoft apps apps that lets you app apps!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an app that lets you app apps on App apps! Not like your LUDDITE software that only lets you take LUDDITE photos!

Apps!