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Tom Maxwell

Chrome Beta 45 for Android brings Custom Tabs, updated bookmarks interface, more

Tom Maxwell Aug 3 2015 - 10:04 pm PT

Chrome Beta version 45 for Android is rolling out today (Play Store link) and includes some nice interface tweaks as well as one addition that was previously announced at Google’s I/O developer conference back in May. Chrome Beta is a build of the Chrome browser which includes features and changes that are almost, but not quite, ready for use by the masses. Showing up in the Beta build of the browser is a good indicator that a feature or adjustment will soon reach those masses, so it’s always interesting to see what’s been added.

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HTC One users reporting of ‘Fantastic Four’ ad being delivered via push notification

Tom Maxwell Aug 3 2015 - 3:20 pm PT

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Screen Shot 2015-08-03 at 6.18.12 PM

Well this is overly aggressive but not terribly surprising: Owners of HTC One smartphones have taken to Reddit to report that they’re seeing an ad for Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four film on their phone in the form of a push notification. Here’s the first image of it that was shared:

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Find opportunities to learn computer science with Google’s new online portal

Tom Maxwell Aug 3 2015 - 2:29 pm PT

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Many job openings in the field of computer science go unfilled — not for lack of quality applicants, but due to a lack of any applicants at all. This is a big problem for technology companies, Google included, because it means they have to compete for the few candidates there are with large compensation packages and cushy benefits like on-site masseuses and shuttles to take employees to and from work (both benefits that Google offers). Google in particular has been working hard both to get more people into computer science and also increase the diversity of those going into the field, and today it rolled out an online destination where anyone can go to find computer science learning opportunities.

The new portal, which can be found on the Google for Education website (click here), aims to increase exposure to all kinds of opportunities for one to gain computer science skills — be it through online games, grants, summer camps, etc — by collecting them in one place and allowing anyone to then sort them by age and region for the highest relevance to ones needs. Google notes in its blog post about the portal that encouragement and exposure can have a direct impact on a child’s interest in pursuing computer science education, and that goes especially for girls. This development is aimed particularly at students, but anyone interested in the field can take advantage of it.

“CS is much more than computer programming and coding— it’s a gateway to creativity and innovation not just in technology but in fields as diverse as music, sports, the arts, and health,” said Google in its blog post about the portal.

OnePlus: This year’s 2nd phone won’t be OnePlus 3, lack of NFC and Quick Charge for the best

Tom Maxwell Aug 3 2015 - 10:22 am PT

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lol

Today in a Reddit AMA (“ask me anything”) held by four employees of OnePlus, the Chinese smartphone upstart fielded questions on everything from when VoLTE (voice-over-LTE) will be enabled in the OnePlus 2 to what exactly happened in its fallout with Android-focused blog Android Police. But the most interesting questions the four employees answered were in regards to why the new phone doesn’t include hardware features standard in other recently launched smartphones like NFC for touch-based payments or wireless charging.
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New images leak of slim-bezel Sony Xperia C5 Ultra, Xperia M5 with fast F 2.2 aperture

Tom Maxwell Jul 31 2015 - 1:07 pm PT

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Following a tweet yesterday from Sony Xperia teasing a “new way to capture split-second photos” coming on August 3rd, we have some new images of a purported Android-powered Xperia C5 Ultra and M5 to look at, courtesy of Mail.ru. The original post by Mail.ru was located in the /reviews/ subsection of their site and timestamped for August 3rd, and was taken down shortly after we began reviewing it. It’s possible the posting was under embargo until Sony Xperia’s official announcement.

Since we did manage to see the post before it was pulled, though, we get to look at a couple purported up close images of the devices, including the Xperia C5 Ultra and the Xperia M5. Keep reading for our best attempt at a plain English translation — thanks to the rough Google translate version — of what the article says about the phones…

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YotaPhone 2 won’t be coming to North America, company refunding backers

Tom Maxwell Jul 31 2015 - 9:59 am PT

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Well, this is sad: despite a successful Indiegogo campaign which saw the company pass its funding goal in mere hours, Yota Devices just announced that the “two fronts” YotaPhone 2 with its secondary always-on ePaper display won’t be coming to North American shores. The Verge first reported on this news.
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The invite waitlist for OnePlus 2 purchases has surpassed one million people

Tom Maxwell Jul 30 2015 - 4:13 pm PT

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OnePlus earlier this week finally took the wraps off the much anticipated OnePlus 2, the successor to the company’s first Android smartphone, the OnePlus One. And while the young Chinese company says it significantly increased manufacturing capacity for the 2 over the One, it still seems to believe that demand will initially outstrip supply. As such, once the OnePlus 2 launches on August 11th you’re likely to do some more waiting before you get it.
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Google Play minimum price now Rs. 10 in India, Play Movies goes live in Indonesia and Malaysia (Update: Singapore too)

Tom Maxwell Jul 30 2015 - 10:54 am PT

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Update: Google posted to Google+ shortly after we published this to announce that Play Movies is actually now available in three new countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Our report below doesn’t mention Singapore as a new supported country.

Google Play and Play Movies are both getting some international love today. Play is Google’s store for apps and games, while Play Movies contains movie and television content.

First up, developers in India can now price their Play Store apps lower than ever before: Rs. 10, which comes out to approximately 10 cents in US dollars. This is major because while India is a rapidly developing country with many starting to rise to the middle class, its per capita GDP is still much smaller than that of the United States. Also, and this is just my opinion, 10 cents is much more of a impulse buy area. This new minimum pricing only applies to India. Google recently began selling Play Store gift cards in the country as well – India is very reliant on cash over plastic (credit, debit cards), so by making gift cards available that can be purchased with cash, the company has ostensibly increased its potential customer base in that country.

Also new today, or at least very recently, is the launching of Play Movies in Indonesia and Malaysia. Several people have reached out to Android Police as of late with tips and screenshots of its availability in the two countries, so it’s pretty assured to be real. Play Movies is, as mentioned, Google’s movie and television entertainment store for Android devices. The company also rents out video content through YouTube, although the availability of both of these varies widely by region and country.

Testing Android apps is now easier with new ‘open beta’ option

Tom Maxwell Jul 30 2015 - 9:52 am PT

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Up until today, testing out an Android app that’s in beta has required going through a non-intuitive process that includes joining a group on Google+ (or Google Groups) and then clicking a special Play Store link which typically doesn’t even work until a few minutes after you join the associated group (which can lead people to thinking that something isn’t working). It’s weird and inelegant, so Google has just announced two new (easier) ways through which developers can grant users access to their betas.

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Opinion: The flawed reality of Google Contributor — paying for fewer ads, not a cause

Tom Maxwell Jul 29 2015 - 1:54 pm PT

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Yesterday I wrote about the general availability of Google Contributor, a service through which consumers can choose to be billed an amount between $2-10 on a recurring monthly basis in exchange for seeing less display advertisements around the web.

Contributor is an interesting service that I likened to the Patreon and Kickstarter crowdfunding platforms, but that could make the web browsing experience a little less frustrating. Here’s how I concluded that post:
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Get ready to see search ads in Google’s Play Store: they’re rolling out now

Tom Maxwell Jul 29 2015 - 11:23 am PT

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Google at its I/O developer conference back in May took some time to discuss improvements it was making to its Play Store for Android devices. Of those, one area in particular the company touched on was improving the discoverability of apps through better categorization and the ability for developers to A/B test their listings to find which combination of titles and screenshots would lead to the most downloads.

Another way the company has been working to help developers drive awareness of their apps has been through testing Play Store search advertisements, placing a developers’ app at the top of search results against specific keywords. The ability to purchase these placements is starting to roll out today.
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Yahoo’s Livetext is a one-to-one live video texting app soon available on Android (Update: Live now in US)

Tom Maxwell Jul 29 2015 - 9:59 am PT

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Update: As expected, the app has just gone live in the Google Play Store for the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and UK. You can download it here, and Livetext should also be rolling to to U.K., Canada, Germany and France as we speak.

After testing the waters by releasing the app to the iOS App Store in certain regions a few weeks back, Yahoo has come out publicly to unveil Yahoo Livetext, a new (unabashedly Snapchat-like) messaging app from the company with some unique twists to it…
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Aclima’s air quality sensors are being attached to Google Street View cars in San Francisco

Tom Maxwell Jul 28 2015 - 10:55 pm PT

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Aclima, a startup which builds an end-to-end hardware and software solution for detecting and analyzing the health and state of varying environmental surroundings (i.e. indoors where carbon dioxide can build in meeting rooms, outdoors where vehicles can release significant carbon monoxide), has announced a new partnership with Google which will see its sensors make their way onto Google Street View cars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Street View cars are the vehicles through which Google collects street-level imagery for its Maps street view product.

The ultimate goal for Aclima with partnerships including this one is to make data on air quality as easily accessible as the weather so that communities can better understand how air pollutants in their area are affecting human health and climate change, and start a dialog on improving local air quality.

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Google Contributor live to US web users, contribute monthly to see fewer ads across the web

Tom Maxwell Jul 28 2015 - 12:54 pm PT

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The confluence of several different events – the great shift to mobile computing where there’s little screen real-estate, a spurning of display ads, to name just two – is causing content creators and consumers alike to rethink how today’s media gets funded. Sites like Patreon and Kickstarter remove the middle-man from the funding process for projects which require lots of upfront investment and see slow development times by allowing anyone to contribute any amount of money they want to a project’s development.

Google last year threw its own hat into the crowdfunding space with the soft launch of Contributor, a way through which consumers can pay a monthly recurring donation to fund the sites they visit while seeing less ads. Now anyone in the United States can actually use it starting today.
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Google axes editing of Docs on mobile web, presenting install banners for multiple file types

Tom Maxwell Jul 27 2015 - 3:33 pm PT

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Google Drive for the mobile web has always restricted editing to just Docs files — attempting to edit Sheets or Slides files required downloading the Google Drive app for iOS or Android. That changes today. No, you won’t be able to edit Sheets or Slides files now, but rather Google is also killing off the editing capabilities in Docs for mobile web.

The change makes total sense, if for consistency at the very least. But Google says it’s because the Drive native mobile app is “easier to use and offers more robust functionality.” Native apps typically have more access to the hardware and system-level software capabilities of the devices they’re installed on than web apps, and since they are downloaded directly onto the device, much of the boilerplate user interface doesn’t have to be loaded from the Internet each time the user goes to use them.

From now on, when a Drive user opens a Docs, Sheets, or Slides document from the mobile web, they’ll be presented with one of Google’s new app install banners that make it easy to launch or download the native app, and then be taken directly to the file they were initially viewing in the browser. Tapping the pencil icon in the top right will also trigger the banner to appear.

The user interface across the mobile web viewers for the three aforementioned editing tools have also been cleaned up to create a more consistent experience, which is nice.

Chrome Beta 45 introduces improved media playback controls, timed install banners to Android version

Tom Maxwell Jul 27 2015 - 11:26 am PT

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Google Chrome 21 ratio

As the Google Chrome web browser and web-based Chrome OS operating system continue on their ever quickening path towards divergence and feature parity with the native Android smartphone operating system, all of which are overseen by Google CEO Larry Page’s number two, Sundar Pichai, Chrome for Android is getting some new functionality that brings it closer to what developers can get out of native apps.

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Google+ unraveling continues as Google Account replaces sign-ins for several services

Tom Maxwell Jul 27 2015 - 9:46 am PT

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Google+ 21 ratio

The great unraveling of Google+ as a fiber connecting all of Google’s products continues. Who’s disbanding this time? Well, basically all of the Google ecosystem.

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In fireside chat, YouTube CEO says TV is complementary, subscription revenue will be important

Tom Maxwell Jul 23 2015 - 9:04 pm PT

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Following the VidCon keynote address by Susan Wojcicki earlier this evening, the YouTube CEO took a couple of minutes to sit with BroadbandTV CEO Shahrzad Rafati in a fireside chat and answer questions submitted by the community to social networks including Twitter and Instagram. Of note were comments on the yet-to-be released video subscription service, the way in which YouTube measures success, and Wojcicki’s opinion on YouTube stars experimenting with other platforms like Vine and linear TV.

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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at VidCon: mobile, VR, and creator tools

Tom Maxwell Jul 23 2015 - 7:41 pm PT

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Screen Shot 2015-07-23 at 10.22.45 PM

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki just stepped off the ballroom stage here at the 6th annual VidCon, the four day convention evolving around all things web video — although it takes some real effort to see past the hoards of teenage fandom. What she had to say was, well, a lot of what we already know about YouTube past, present, and future. The highlights? A “mobile, mobile, mobile” strategy starting with a new mobile app designed from the ground-up based on community feedback, even more tools for creators to make their lives easier and bring them closer to their audiences, and virtual reality.

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Google Play Store carrier billing added in Denmark, Saudi Arabia, & 2 more countries

Tom Maxwell Jul 23 2015 - 12:55 pm PT

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Google Play Store

Carrier billing, also known as direct billing, is a way through which customers of Google Play can pay for premium downloads without ever manually inputting a credit, debit or gift card – by having new charges billed directly to the carrier service plan they pay monthly. Now it’s available for Play Store customers on a few more select carriers in several countries – only on select carriers, though. The change was initially spotted by Android Police.

Here are the carriers and countries where Play Store carrier billing is now available:

3 in Denmark
Sun in Philippines
Mobily in Saudi Arabia
Avea in Turkey
du in UAE

Typing on mobile devices can be a frustrating, mistake-prone experience that takes longer than typing on a full-sized desktop keyboard, so it’s no surprise to see app developers quickly bringing to fruition changes that reduce the amount of finger-pecking necessary to take action – making password input a fallback to fingerprint scanning being one example. The full list of carriers and countries that have support for Play Store carrier billing is available on Google’s support site.

Chrome 44 for iOS brings beacon-powered Physical Web closer to reality, new gestures

Tom Maxwell Jul 22 2015 - 11:51 am PT

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The Physical Web is an open source web specification from Google released last year with the aim to make interacting with smart devices in the real world as easy as clicking a link, just as we do on the web. Now with the company having released its Eddystone beacon technology and APIs for making this communication between devices in the same proximity easier, it’s integrating Physical Web directly into Chrome for iOS.

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Amazon Shopping v5.7 for Android brings ability to sign up with a phone number

Tom Maxwell Jul 22 2015 - 10:35 am PT

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As more and more Internet usage shifts towards mobile, particularly to smartphones, app developers are recognizing the phone number as an ideal identifier for new users. Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger are just three examples of hugely popular apps which support signing up using your phone number in lieu of an email address, and which can also use the contact list to build up a network of connections within their apps. Now Amazon is jumping into the fold.

In the newest version of Amazon Shopping for Android, the company’s main mobile experience through which customers can purchase items and track orders, the onboarding flow for new customers has been updated to support signing up using just a name, phone number, and password. New customers who’d prefer to use an email address can click “Use your email instead.” The update hasn’t fully propagated in the Play Store just yet, but can be downloaded right now through APKMirror (click here). For that to work you need to visit Settings > Security on your device and toggle on “Unknown sources.”

This shift to phone number-based identification for apps makes total sense. Phone numbers are a native feature on smartphones – I like to call them an “atomic unit.” SMS and phone calls work right out of the box, whereas with email you have to launch an email app and then sign up and/or authenticate with a third-party provider, just to begin receiving messages. At the very least, by allowing onboarding with phone numbers, app developers make the onboarding process much faster, tremendously reducing the friction and bounce rate (users who download an app but leave before signing up). That’s what Amazon has done here.

Google promoting Flights product in city Knowledge Graph search cards

Tom Maxwell Jul 21 2015 - 2:17 pm PT

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Google’s Knowledge Graph attempts to surface relevant, actionable information to the search page so you don’t have to do as much clicking. As one example, Google presents population and other census data front and center when you search for a city. It looks like this card in particular, the one for cities and towns, has been updated with a new actionable snippet for flights…

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Google’s new Microsoft Office plugin allows users to open and save Drive files

Tom Maxwell Jul 21 2015 - 10:56 am PT

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Google has a new plugin out for Microsoft Office (Windows only, for now) which makes it possible to access files stored in Drive from Office and save edits back to the cloud storage service, as well as create new files in Office and save them directly to Drive. The plugin works with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (2007, 2010, and 2013 versions), and Office 365.

Here’s what saving a new document looks like in Word once the plugin is installed:

This plugin isn’t anything monumental, but Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity applications still has an undeniably significant hold on the corporate market. By making Drive more interoperable with the suite, Google can ease people into trying its cloud-based applications for getting work done, initially by pushing the benefit of Drive for sharing files with teams, and easily accessing files across devices. It’s a strategy Google’s competitors have claimed to use to gain a foothold in the corporate world – get enough average employees in a company using your product for some of their needs, and eventually IT will budge and consider switching over for everything. Google has a website up dedicated to the new plugin.