Tom Maxwell

Google Drive for Android, the cloud storage service by Google, received an update yesterday that brings a helpful new improvement for those who rely on the service to access files across devices and share them with others.

Version 2.2.23, which hasn’t propagated completely in Google Play but can be pulled from APKMirror (click here), includes the ability to send and/or download multiple files at once. All you need to do to select multiple files is hold down on one file, and then a blue checkmark will appear indicating the file has been selected. After that just tap the checkmark for every file you want to include and the menu at the bottom of the screen will allow you to choose what you want to do with the selected files.

This should be useful for those who may have a lot of photos, music, and other files stored in Drive that they want to download to a new device, upload to a network like Tumblr, or whatever else. For reference, here’s what the previous version of Drive looked like when you selected multiple files:

No option to download or send the files is present when multiple photos are selected (the overflow menu doesn’t include them either). To do so you had to visit the info page of each file individually and send or download from there. A nice little update that avid Drive users will surely appreciate.

Google makes targeting the right customers using Analytics data easier

Tom Maxwell Jun 25 2015 - 11:12 am PT

Google has a new update out to its Remarketing Lists for Search Ads product that will make it easier for marketers to use Analytics to target the right potential customers and in the process get a higher return on their advertising dollar investment. And while these terms might sound like complete gibberish to you, from a high-level it’s actually not too complicated.

Google’s Contact Migration tool enables easy contact importing for Apps admins

Tom Maxwell Jun 25 2015 - 10:10 am PT

Google is making it easier for businesses to switch to its Apps for Business productivity suite from Microsoft’s Exchange and Office 365 services. The company today added a new migration tool to the Apps admin console that makes bringing over employees’ contacts as easy as filling out a form, according to its blog post.

Samsung ad misses the mark at selling the frustration of charging cables

Tom Maxwell Jun 25 2015 - 8:51 am PT

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Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge models include two technologies that are supposed to make charging your device less of a hassle – Fast Charging and both the Qi and PMA wireless charging standards. That’s great! But Samsung’s new ad out yesterday that attempts to subtly throws shade at Apple (the phone alarm in one scene is clearly an iOS tone) and other device makers without built-in wireless charging might be a little too much.

Steam 2.0.7 introduces a complete Material Design makeover

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 4:11 pm PT

Better late than never – PC gamers will be happy to know that Android version 2.0.7 of the popular Steam social network and game distribution store brings with it a complete redesign of the app to follow Google’s Material Design guidelines.

As always, you won’t be doing any gaming from this app as Steam doesn’t sell mobile games and won’t stream desktop games to mobile devices, but you can do just about everything else; purchase games, message friends, access the Steam Guard authenticator, and more. We’ll keep you posted if we notice any other major changes.

For reference, here’s a taste of what the app looked like prior to this update:

If you’ve had any doubts about how far Android has come since 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, let these two (horrifying) screenshots serve as a reminder.

The update hasn’t propagated across Google Play yet, but if you head over to APK Mirror you can download it now (click here).

Medium’s Android app is now live in the Google Play Store

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 1:36 pm PT

Beleaguered media darling Medium, a platform for anyone to write and share stories amongst its large community, has finally released its Android app to Google Play. The app works on devices running 4.4 KitKat and above, and features all the Material Design goodness you’ve come to expect since Lollipop – so it wasn’t just a port of the company’s iOS app.

You no longer need a Facebook account to use Messenger

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 11:02 am PT

Facebook Messenger is a quite well-designed messaging app available on both Android and iOS, and now you don’t even need to a Facebook account to use it.

Google changes heart on splash screens, adding them to its own apps

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 9:45 am PT

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Well this is an interesting change for Google. The company is one-by-one rolling out updates to its in-house Android apps that include splash screens. These screens (screenshots via a user on Reddit) are displayed during the 2-3 seconds between tapping an apps’ icon and the app actually loading.

IFTTT launches Android Battery channel to easily monitor and control your phone’s battery life [Update: more]

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 9:38 am PT

Screen Shot 2015-06-24 at 10.28.08 AM

[Update: The company now has a blog post up about the new channel. It adds that they’ve also made some new actions for the general Android Device Channel including one to mute your phone when you plug it in and one to get directions to work every weekday morning (weird), to name just two. The company’s Do series of apps (collection here) have received some small updates including unlimited action buttons and floating buttons that follow you everywhere on your phone, like Facebook’s floating chat heads.]

IFTTT stands for “If this, then that” and is a popular service for automating your digital life and stitching together all the disparate, disconnected apps and services you may use on a daily basis. Now the company has released a bunch of new native Android actions that will automate the management and preservation of your device’s battery life.

Google Play Music now lets you choose what you sync to your Wear watch

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 8:29 am PT

Spotted by a Redditor in /r/AndroidWear, we’ve learned that a recent update that we reported on to Google Play Music brought with it a nice new feature for owners of Android Wear smartwatches…

Microsoft Office for Android now available in Google Play Store

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 7:43 am PT

Office-for-Android-phone-is-here

Spreadsheet warriors, your time has come – Microsoft’s Word, Powerpoint, and Excel productivity applications are now available for Android phones. Back in May, Microsoft launched a beta of the suite that anyone could try, and says that through these preview users the company managed to test the apps on over 1,900 different Android phone models in 83 countries.

These apps aren’t for creating documents, however, but rather for accessing and making quick edits to ones you’ve made from your tablet or desktop PC. Here are a few of the highlights from Microsoft’s announcement post:

On the go reviews and edits
Present spreadsheets from mobile
Quick access to my documents from OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box
Available in many worldwide app stores

Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are each available as separate, free apps (extra features for Office 360 users, of course) in the Google Play Store as well as through the apps stores of Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, CMCC, and through the Samsung Galaxy Store worldwide.

Google Apps customers can now create large numbers of accounts faster

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 2:44 pm PT

Google has a neat new feature out for Apps customers – both education and work – that will make it easier to set up a lot of user accounts, especially when initially signing up for the Google-flavored corporate productivity suite.
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Dropbox 3.0 introduces Material Design to the cloud storage app

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 2:18 pm PT

Dropbox fans, you’re in luck – version 3.0.0 is completely redesigned to follow Google’s Material Design guidelines.

Motorola pushing another Moto X Pure Edition (2nd gen) soak test

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 12:34 pm PT

Motorola’s David Schuster has posted to Google+ to update owners of the 2nd-generation Moto X Pure Edition that the company pushed a new soak test for the device this past weekend. The company rolled out Android 5.1.1 via a soak test a couple weeks ago, and more recently began a wider rollout of 5.1.1 that many owners were able to install, so it’s unclear what this update is for and how many devices it will impact. Schuster says they experienced a problem with that test that they had to address, but didn’t provide more specifics.

We reported on the previous rollout a few weeks ago with some owners sharing this screenshot from their devices:

Here’s David Schuster’s full statement:

Quick update with respect to Moto X Pure Edition (2nd Gen) in the US. As many of you know we had started a soak test a couple weeks ago and discovered an issue which we need to address.

Over the past weekend we restarted the soak test. I will keep you posted on its progress.

Swarm for Android updated, mayorships and bragging rights in tow

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 11:40 am PT

Avid Foursquare junkies (myself included), rejoice – mayorships are back, just now in the Swarm app. You can become the mayor of a place by checking into it more than anyone else in the last 30 days, and only one check-in per day counts towards your rank.

Chrome ‘OK Google’ hotwording extension sparks new privacy concerns, confusion (Update: Chromium team backpeddals)

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 11:08 am PT

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Update: What’s that? Oh, just the smell of change. After initially standing firm on its implementation of the hotwording module and proprietary Google extension being automatically downloaded in new installations of the Chromium open source browser, a wave of criticism has led to the team pulling it out of Chromium 45 and onwards. The module that manages whether the hotword listening extension is enabled will be “disabled by default” and the proprietary technology that actually listens for “Ok Google” will not download. A member of the team says simply:

In light of this issue, we have decided to remove the hotwording component entirely from Chromium. As it is not open source, it does not belong in the open source browser.

The original story continues below.

It all started with a blinking LED light. Ofer Zelig wrote on his blog today about an odd case where the LED light on his computer, that turns on whenever the microphone or camera is activated, seemed to blink every few seconds or so while he was working on his PC. He investigated in the Windows Task Manager to look for any process that might be to blame – no dice. He shut down some suspicious processes that might have been causing it and says he didn’t have any malware installed, but still to no avail. Turns out, the culprit was none other than Google’s Chrome browser…

Google is taking applications for creators to test the Jump virtual reality rig

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 8:02 am PT

Project Jump is Google’s committal to making virtual reality go mainstream by making it cheaper and easier for anyone to produce VR video, and as reported by TechCrunch it’s going to let a lucky few take a Jump rig for a spin this summer. The company has a form up where interested creators can explain why they deserve to be one of the lucky few – it’s two pages long with some basic biographical questions and an essay section.

Google’s cache page now offers new ways to view old webpages

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 8:02 am PT

As reported by users on Twitter, Google has updated its cached link toolbar with new ways to view website snapshots. Cached webpages can now be viewed in their full glory with all styling intact, in a text-only version that strips all styling, or viewed by their source, meaning you can view the code behind the cached webpage.

Here’s what visiting the text-only cached version of Google.com looks like:

The company every so often will take a snapshot of a website and save it to its cache, so the page can still be viewable in the event that the website its hosted on becomes inaccessible. You can access the cached version of a webpage, like the one above, by searching for it on Google, clicking on the green down arrow directly to the right of a result URL, and clicking “Cached.” Click here to see the cached page for Google.com.

Sony makes Android M developer preview available on select Xperia devices

Tom Maxwell Jun 22 2015 - 7:03 am PT

Google only ever makes its Android developer preview versions available on its own Nexus devices – these devices are designed partly with developer modification and testing in mind, after all. But Sony has gone ahead and done the necessary legwork to make the preview version of Android M work on those of its devices in its Open Device program, and even has a handy guide on how to install it.

Ensuring a device can run the M Developer preview without too many issues, device manufacturers have to include in the software support (drivers) for all the hardware – the chipset, connectivity radios, etc. Over on Sony’s Open Device page is a list of devices in the program along with two downloads to get M running, the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) – Android M itself – as well as software to get the hardware working properly on M. Only a couple of its smartphones and tablets are currently supported right now.

Soak test for Verizon Moto X (2nd gen) beginning now, may be 5.1 Lollipop

Tom Maxwell Jun 19 2015 - 2:54 pm PT

Redditors in the /r/MotoX subreddit who own the 2nd-generation Moto X on Verizon are reporting that they’re starting to receive invites to participate in a software update soak test. There’s no word on what this update may be to – hopefully it’s a bump from 5.0.2 to 5.1.1, but those who are invited to soak tests first receive a survey they must complete and submit before they actually receive the update, and the survey doesn’t indicate the purpose of the update.

Soak tests are when a device manufacturer or carrier rolls out a software update to a select group of device owners who agree to test the potentially buggy software and report bugs as they notice them. To have been eligible to even be invited to this soak test, owners of the Moto X would’ve had to previously signed up for the Motorola Feedback Network program. There are instructions on how to do so are on Motorola’s forums (click here), but it’s unlikely that signing up now will result in receiving an invite for this particular soak test.

Instapaper 4.2 brings speed reading and tweetshots to Android version

Tom Maxwell Jun 19 2015 - 12:30 pm PT

Instapaper, the popular service for saving articles that you find across the web to read later, has been updated to version 4.2 on Android and introduces two new features bringing it up to parity with its desktop and iOS counterparts.

The first feature is called Speed Reading and what it does is display your articles one word at a time, transitioning word by word at whatever word-per-minute speed you set. Here’s the before and after of enabling Speed Reading side-by-side, along with what it looks like to set your reading speed:

Instapaper in its blog post announcing the Speed Reading feature back when it launched on iOS said that it utilizes a common speed reading technique called rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The goal, they say, with using this method is to eliminate subvocalization, or the voice in the back of your head that repeats words as you read them, and reduce time lost scanning between words. I haven’t found that Speed Reading works well for me, but if you’re an Instapaper user it’s worth playing with the speed to try and find if you can still comprehend articles well enough with it guiding you – the developer says it can increase reading speed by up to 3x.

The second feature added in v4.2 is the ability to create tweetshots, or snippets of text that are turned into images that can be shared on Twitter. If you’ve used a network like Twitter or Instagram in the past year you’ve probably seen these – people bypassing character limits by writing out what they want to say in a text editor, or highlighting a full paragraph they like from an article, and sharing a screenshot of that. The tweetshots tool productizes this, displaying a button in the contextual text highlighting action bar. It looks like this:

Lastly, of course, is the standard “many bug fixes” note. All-in-all, though, these are two solid features that Instapaper fans like myself will be glad to now have on Android. The update is available in Google Play now, so hit it up for the download.

Purported ‘Galaxy S6 Edge Plus’ leaks, doesn’t help clarify Samsung’s plans for the Note line

Tom Maxwell Jun 19 2015 - 11:14 am PT

: Galaxy S6 Edge

: “Galaxy S6 Edge Plus”

We’ve been following the rumor of Samsung launching a larger Galaxy S6 Edge on-and-off for some time now with heavy doses of skepticism, and today we got another peak at what’s purporting to be what is being called the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus — and it looks exactly like a stock image of regular the Galaxy S6 Edge sans a speaker hole.

Google making it easier to have revenge porn de-listed from search

Tom Maxwell Jun 19 2015 - 10:52 am PT

Google in an announcement today on its blog on public policy issues said that it will soon have a web form for victims of revenge porn to complete in order to have links to the offending images removed from global search results.

Amazon announces Fire OS 5 developer preview, discounted Fire HD 7 tablet for developers

Tom Maxwell Jun 19 2015 - 9:02 am PT

Amazon’s Fire brand of tablets and smartphones has mostly been panned as a flop. The company’s intense focus on being cheap and transferring every last penny of saved value onto the customer seemingly doesn’t translate into a culture good at building attractive devices, it seems. Nonetheless, Amazon has an updated version of the Fire OS that powers these things out and available for developers to test their apps on.