Facebook’s paper app fails, axed from iOS app store

Facebook is taking off its Flipboard-style paper app, the one that it launched two years ago for its iOS users. The app will be unavailable for existing users post-July 29 because it failed to garner a significant following, even though it was well received by critics. As on Friday, the app has been removed from the app store, and can no longer be downloaded by new users.

According to research firm app Annie, Paper has not managed to enter the 1,500 most downloaded apps since December 2015. The app last received an update in March 2015 and was never released on Android.

The few iPhone users the app had managed to garner, reportedly got a notification announcing the death of the app. The Paper app was just like any other News apps, collating news and disseminating it across categories like politics, technology, and food. The design of the app was the highlighting point, as it appeared in a newspaper. It opened and closed an article like a newspaper would, and the overall design was lauded by many.

However, the app had courted trouble in February 2014 with a copyright controversy. A New York-based app by the same name made by FiftyThree accused Facebook of stealing the name. The app made by FiftyThree is a drawing and coloring app for iPhone and iPad users and has been downloaded more than a million times from the App Store.