Google has today announced that it will officially revoke access to the Bump and Flock apps on its Play Store as well as the Apple App Store on January 31, 2014. Consequently, this means that on the first day of February, neither app will be available to download from either of the popular app directories and those who have already installed the applications will find that they will no longer work.

Bump was first developed back in 2010 with the simple objective of allowing its users to instantly share photographs, videos, music, apps and documents by simply bumping their phone with another persons. This process was completed via Bluetooth and was somewhat of a revolutionary feature at the time of its development because it really exploited the full potential of a still emerging technology, and is a service that is used by many today.

Two years after Bump was successfully created and proving to be extremely popular on the Play Store and, more so, the iOS App Store, the same team started to develop another mind-blowing application for our mobile devices.

This app is entitled Flock and automatically scans through photographs which have been taken on a user’s smartphone, it recognizes friends or family in these photos and removes strangers from them. Flock then creates a shared photo album for the friends and family members who appeared in the snaps, which can be accessed from the Android or iOS app or via the web. Of course, you, the user, have complete control over which pictures are included in the shared albums.

Here’s what David Lieb, CEO and Co-founder of Bump, had to say with regards to the applications upcoming closure:

We are now deeply focused on our new projects within Google, and we’ve decided to discontinue Bump and Flock…In many ways, Bump was a revolutionary product that inspired many subsequent advances and helped push the world forward. We hope our new creations at Google will do the same.

With both Bump and Flock shutting down at the end of this month, you now have 29 days left to open up the apps and follow the on-screen instructions which guide you through the painless process of exporting your content. After which, you will receive an email with a link to help you download all of your pictures, videos, contacts, apps and documents, all neatly arranged in a compact ZIP file.

• SourceBump