In March, Microsoft announced the first SharePoint NewsdFeed mobile apps for Windows Phone 8 and iOS platforms with some fanfare. Now Microsoft has offered the same app for Windows 8, but with no advance notice or announcements from the company.
The SharePoint NewsFeed app, as shown on the Microsoft Store, allows the enterprise/business users of SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online to keep up with news posts from the SharePoint News sites they currently follow. They can also create their own posts and upload pictures. It also has some Facebook and Twitter-like social features, such as #hashtag support or putting in @mention for a particular person on your newsfeed. Keep in mind that this app is just for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online only and will not work with older versions of the software.
The SharePoint NewsFeed app for Windows 8 follows the recent quiet launch of the similar Yammer app for the OS. Microsoft recently announced that Office 365 business users could now set up Yammer as their default social network instead of SharePoint NewsFeed. Microsoft has already said it plans to make Yammer "the underlying social layer for all our products". That"s sounds like the SharePoint NewsFeed might be slowly phased out at some point.
Source: Windows Store | Image via Microsoft