Consider it a frivolity or a useless tradition, fact is that a lot of people around the world spend time and money trying to prank each other on April 1st. Even big companies get in on the fun. Google is well known for its pranks, and is joined by the likes of Samsung, HTC, Sega and more. In this post we look at some of the best April Fools’ 2014 pranks.
Google Maps Pokémon Challenge: The internet search giant leveraged virtual reality to show its vision of users capturing Pokémon through their mobile phones. It put together a challenge by scattering as many as 150 Pokémon in various locations around the world on Google Maps and asked people to collect them. Good fun.
Gmail Shelfie: While the company likes to play April Fools’ pranks, it wasn’t kidding around on April 1st 2004. That’s when Gmail was officially launched. To commemorate its 10th anniversary Google played another prank on users by launching a feature called “Gmail Shelfie,” short for “Shareable Selfie.” It replaces Gmail’s background with your selfie.
Clippy rises from the dead: Microsoft tugged at our heartstrings by launching SmartClippy.
Emoji-fying the web: This prank has been built in Google Chrome for Android and iOS. It adds emoji support to Google Translate. Run a website through the translation service and read the internet in emotive illustrations.
Sega: Quite a lot of people are upset about Oculus’s decision to sell out to Facebook. If you have decided to boycott the Rift, why not slap two Sega Genesis together on your face?
Return of the Nokia 3310: Nokia 3310 was a very popular phone back in the day. The Finnish company have us a nostalgic kick by relaunching, as a prank of course, the 3310. The Lumia-fied 3310 runs Windows Phone and touts a 41 megapixel PureView camera. What more could you want?
SwiftKey takes on the real word: Swiftkey is a popular alternative keyboard for Android devices. Its predictive easy-flow keyboard technology lands on your physical keyboard this April Fools’.
Glove love: Both Samsung and HTC played similar pranks, showing off high-tech gloves with all sorts of futuristic features.
Wishful thinking: iFixit, a company known for its extensive tear-down reports, announced that it had been acquired by Apple for an undisclosed sum. Of course its a joke, but points to iFixit for thinking different.
That marks the end of our roundup of April Fools’ 2014 pranks. Which was your favorite?
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