Inq Mobile, UK-based smartphone and software development company has shut down after six years of business. It was the first company to launch Facebook phone, the INQ Cloud Touch with built-in Facebook app back in 2011. Later it launched apps from the INQ Cloud Touch and other INQ smartphones for other Android smartphones. The company was backed by Hutchison Whampoa based in Hong Kong.
Last year it released SO.HO social app for Android smartphones that offered social feeds from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc into one homescreen. It already shut down its old apps, now the company has removed even its new SO.HO app from the Play Store.
On the website, Inq, said
We’ll be closing our doors on 31st January 2014. Material will serve its final editions on the 28th January and, whilst SO.HO will continue to function after our closure, it will not be updated after this point.
It did not reveal any reason for the shutdown. We guess it’s due to huge competition in the mobile application space. Twitter regularly updates its official apps with new features and asks developers not to create any more new apps. Facebook would release Paper, a social news aggregatornext week. It also plans to release more mobile apps soon.