LinkedIn has confirmed it's getting rid of the iPhone app, LinkedIn Intro, which was launched just a few months ago.
LinkedIn's Intro app integrated LinkedIn contact details into the iOS Mail app. The company launched the iPhone app in October 2013 and now says that it will discontinue the service in an effort to "focus on the most relevant offerings for our members."
Current users of the app will be able to use the service until March 7 this year after which the company will discontinue it.
"While Intro is going away, we will continue to work on bringing the power of LinkedIn to wherever our members work. Email, where the average professional spends more than a quarter of their time, is one of those places, so we'll continue to look for ways to bring this kind of functionality to our members through existing partnerships. Users of Intro will be able to uninstall it between now and March 7 and switch back to their previous mail accounts. Members can continue to use Rapportive, which brings the power of LinkedIn to Gmail," per the LinkedIn blog.
It seems from the LinkedIn statement that even though the company is shutting down the Intro app, it may still create another e-mail app in the future.
Many market observers believed that the Intro app was controversial due to security issues. LinkedIn had to scan every e-mail that a user received via the iPhone's Mail app and it never gained popularity among iPhone users.
Without the LinkedIn Intro app, the iPhone's Mail application contacts an e-mail server, such as Gmail, directly without contacting LinkedIn's servers, which then requests the mail from the e-mail server.
LinkedIn did not just bid farewell to Intro. The announcement also revealed that LinkedIn will also bid adieu to Slidecast, the company's audio-enabled slideshow feature. Slidecast users will be able to download their Slidecasts till April 30 and can also continue to share the non-audio features of their presentations on SlideShare.net.
The company also said that it will stop support for the LinkedIn iPad app for operating system older than iOS 6.0 from February 18 this year. The company is encouraging members to download the latest app version from the App Store, which is available for free. The size of the file is 39.2MB.
