app

407 'app' stories June 2011 - June 2014

See All Stories

LiveLens social live-streaming platform releases Google Glass app

Stephen Hall Jun 16 2014 - 3:04 pm PT

LiveLens, a quick-and-easy video live streaming platform, has launched a Google Glass app (via TheNextWeb) alongside its already-available iOS and Android apps, allowing users to stream video straight from their heads via Google’s head-mounted computer. The service sets itself apart by focusing social features, and offers the ability for users to monetize their videos — which is part of where the company hopes to make money.

Google Glass notably doesn’t sport the best battery life right now, making live streaming of any kind mostly impractical. But since Glass itself is made to be an interface that lets you quickly accomplish a task and get back to the real world, quicker and shorter live streams might be the very niche use case for this app. People with huge social media followings are the target user for this app, and those are the same people who likely would have fans willing to tune in (or even pay) to watch a few minutes of exclusive first-person streaming video.

Notably, the live streaming company simply dubbed Livestream also has its own video streaming application for Google Glass, which lets you do many of the same things as this entry from LiveLens.

Domino’s Pizza launches voice ordering in mobile apps powered by Nuance

Jordan Kahn Jun 16 2014 - 9:34 am PT

Dominos announced today that its launching a new voice ordering feature in its iPhone and Android apps that is powered by Nuance’s Nina Mobile voice speech recognition, speech synthesis and natural language understanding technology. The company says the feature will provide “a human-like, conversational customer service experience that allows users to speak an order and quickly add items to their cart.” Imagine opening the app and placing your order by saying, for example, “I’d like a large pizza with extra cheese, pepperoni and onions” or “I’ll take a 14-piece order of Hot Wings”.

“There will be a day where typing on keyboards or with thumbs on mobile devices will come to a close; we want to be the ones who continue to advance the technology experience – hand-in-hand with our customers,” said Patrick Doyle, Domino’s Pizza president and CEO. “Our mobile app users who are a part of this launch are truly helping set the foundation for the innovations of today, that will soon enough become the standards of tomorrow.”

The platform, in partnership with Nuance, will redefine technology convenience – and puts Domino’s at the forefront of an intuitive ordering method that is a true first within both traditional and e-commerce retail.

With the updated app rolling out today, you’ll also be able to browse menus, coupons and navigate through the app using your voice. The feature rolls out in beta today and is available in the updated Domino’s Pizza app for iOS and Android now.

AllCast updated with new tablet interface, auto-pause functionality, more

Chance Miller Jun 16 2014 - 7:54 am PT

The streaming media app AllCast received a hefty update this morning with some much needed features. Koush, the developer and creator of the app, updated AllCast to version 1.1.1.6 on the Play Store. New with the update is a new tablet interface. The tablet design has a split view that allows you to browse your media selection on one side of the interface and control playback on the other side.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook Messenger for Android updated with 15-second video messaging, bigger likes

Stephen Hall Jun 13 2014 - 8:27 am PT

Facebook Messenger for Android has been given an update, bringing the ability to send 15-second video clips through the app, as well as send even bigger thumbs-up graphics for when you just really, really like something that your friend said.

Notably, this update brings the app in line with much of what Snapchat offers. But also, doesn’t this new video feature kind of duplicate the true Snapchat competitor that Facebook is launching soon?

You can grab Facebook Messenger version 6.0 on the Play Store for free.

What’s New

Instant Video Sending: Shoot and play 15-second video messages from the camera right in the app.

Big Likes: Press and hold to send an even bigger thumbs up when you really, really like something.

Entirely new 1Password for Android app now available with redesigned interface, totally free until August 1

Chance Miller Jun 10 2014 - 11:25 am PT

After teasing the redesign earlier this year, 1Password has finally launched a much-needed update to its Android app. Prior to this update, 1Password on Android was hideous, to say the least. The new version released today brings an entirely refreshed interface to the app that puts it on the same level as its iOS counterparts.

Expand
Expanding
Close

BlackBerry announces upcoming BBM for Android update with easier signup and friending

Mike Beasley May 29 2014 - 6:29 pm PT

BlackBerry has announced an upcoming release of its BBM client for Android devices that includes an easier signup flow and an improved process for adding new contacts.

The new simplified registration process will request only a name, password, and email address, as opposed to the current app which requires much more information. The update will also improve the process for adding new contacts. Currently users who get an invite need send their own PIN back to the other party so they can be mutual contacts. In the new version that step will be automated. Tapping the invitation link in the email will complete the entire process.

The update also adds new emoticons to the app’s existing selection. BlackBerry Messenger 2.2 will be available on the Google Play Store later tonight.

Android Device Manager updated with new guest-mode feature

Chance Miller May 29 2014 - 1:13 pm PT

Over the past few months, Google has greatly beefed up its Android Device Manager service, partly due to legislation in many states, and partly due to increased competition from Apple’s new Activation Lock service. Today, Google has updated its Device Manager app to version 1.2.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Kamioke app for Google Glass lets you sing along to your favorite songs

Stephen Hall May 28 2014 - 8:40 am PT

A new app for Google Glass has been released today, which essentially hopes to turn the head-mounted computer into a Karaoke machine. The real value that this app has — especially considering that Glass is still beta, and $1,5000 — can’t really be quantified at the moment, but there’s no doubt that the idea is intriguing.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google Play Store updated with interface tweaks, PayPal billing support

Chance Miller May 15 2014 - 3:41 pm PT

Earlier this afternoon Google announced that it was making several improvements to the billing capabilities of the Play Store, and now the company has updated the entire Play Store app to go along with it. Pushing the version number to 4.8.19, the update adds a few interface tweaks to the app, in addition to the billing capabilities previously announced.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Popular iOS game Monument Valley arrives on Google Play for $3.99

Jonathan Kizer May 14 2014 - 9:37 am PT

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1jHHF_Wjo?list=UUadEYJR8MgdLjzmFDuMuzeQ]

Monument Valley, a popular and critically-acclaimed game that was released recently on iOS, is now available for Android devices. The game, available today for $3.99, features beautiful graphics and an interesting storyline.

In Monument Valley you will manipulate impossible architecture and guide a silent princess through a stunningly beautiful world.

Monument Valley is a surreal exploration through fantastical architecture and impossible geometry. Guide the silent princess Ida through mysterious monuments, uncovering hidden paths, unfolding optical illusions and outsmarting the enigmatic Crow People.

While somewhat expensive for an Android game, Monument Valley is well worth the cost. It’s one of the best games I”ve played on a mobile device in the past year. My only complaint is that it’s relatively short — hopefully now that the game is available on both major platforms, the developers can start adding additional levels.

Plex for Android gains support for automatic photo uploads

Mike Beasley May 13 2014 - 11:54 am PT

Mobile media player Plex for Android has been updated today with support for automatic photo uploads from the camera roll. The feature requires a subscription to the Plex Pass service. The updated app allows users to automatically upload all photos from the camera roll to the Plex library for access on other devices…

Expand
Expanding
Close

OneDrive for Android updated with improved sharing and organization features

Mark Hearn May 6 2014 - 2:08 pm PT

If you’re using your Android device to moonlight on Drive with Microsoft’s OneDrive, your infidelity just got a little easier. Today, the folks in Redmond released version 2.5 of its cloud storage app for Android. Users can now share files and folders via invite, link or by sending files to another app. If that’s not enough, you can select multiple files to download at the same time, while moving and sorting individual folders as needed. Head on over to Google Play to take this update for a spin and don’t worry, your secret is safe with us.

Spotify for Android updated with new interface, ‘Your Music’ feature

Chance Miller Apr 29 2014 - 2:24 pm PT

Earlier this month, Spotify updated its iOS app with a totally new, darker-themed interface. This, of course, left Android users in the dark and stuck with an older design. Today, however, Spotify has announced that its Android app has been updated with the redesigned interface.

The new interface features a darker theme with refreshed typography and rounded pictures and album art. The design is nearly identical to that found on iOS and the Spotify desktop app.

Expand
Expanding
Close

More screenshots of alleged Android Dialer app redesign leaked

Chance Miller Apr 24 2014 - 1:49 pm PT

Last week, Google itself tweeted out an image that showed a slightly redesigned dialer app on Android. Not much appeared to be different in the app, though the action bar at the top was a new shade of blue, as opposed to gray. Now, more screenshots of a redesigned dialer app have leaked via an XDA thread.

These images show a few more changes, especially to the contacts portion of the dialer app. Instead of a list like the current dialer app, these images show a picture-heavy design with cards for each contact. If you have an image of the person, you’ll see it on the card, but if not, you’ll see a random color. Overall it looks very similar to the Gmail app and fits in well with the leaked Android app icons and calendar app.

The images come from a friend of the XDA user, who could very well be a Google employee judging by the contact names. Google has said before that it is refocusing on design, and with Google I/O 2014 right around the corner, it seems very plausible that we will see some redesigned apps be unveiled at the event.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Flickr 3.0 redesigned on Android, sets its sights on Instagram

Jonathan Kizer Apr 17 2014 - 8:04 am PT

[youtube http://youtu.be/aP759GdbSLA]

Flickr — Yahoo’s photo-sharing service — has been completely redesigned Android to focus on the social aspect of the service, making for a direct competitor to Instagram. The new design is similar on both iOS and Android, though the specific look and feel has been tailored to each platform; the Android app keeps a darker feel. Both apps are fast to load photos and browse the feed.

The update is out right now in Google Play. Flickr isn’t the most popular photo-sharing service around on mobile , but version 3.0 makes it one of the nicest for both iOS and Android — plus that free terabyte of storage helps sweeten the deal.

YouTube for Android updated with UI tweaks, ability to Cast live streams to Chromecast

Chance Miller Apr 16 2014 - 4:05 pm PT

Google’s Update Wednesday continues today with an update to YouTube for Android. The update bumps the app to version 5.6.31 from 5.5.27 and includes a couple of significant changes. The biggest new feature is the ability to cast live videos from the YouTube app to your Chromecast. The process works just as it does on the desktop and the quality is fantastic. Of course, this would have been very useful during the live streams from the Coachella music festival last weekend, but there’s still the second weekend with which to use it. This will also be incredibly useful for watching live streams from Google I/O on the big screen.

The Watch Later interface has also been updated to fit in with the rest of the app’s interface, as opposed to the image-heavy interface in the previous version. You can now see at least four videos without scrolling, while you were previously limited to two on the same screen.

The update is rolling out now, albeit very slowly. If you’d like to bypass Google’s staged rollout, head over to Android Police where they have the APK available for download. If not, keep an eye on the Play Store for it to hit your device.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google adds 50 megapixel Photo Spheres, hints at Advanced Photo Mode in new Camera app

Jonathan Kizer Apr 16 2014 - 3:18 pm PT

Hints of new features have been found in the just-released Google Camera app. The APK — which was put under the microscope by Liam Spradlin of Android Police — contains references to an Advanced Camera Mode, Time Lapse Mode, and Wide Angle Mode. Additionally, Google has confirmed that the Camera app now captures Photo Spheres in 50 MP, making for a major upgrade in image quality.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google Play still tops App Store in downloads, slowly narrowing revenue gap

Jonathan Kizer Apr 16 2014 - 9:36 am PT

The Play Store continues to hold a growing advantage over Apple’s App Store in terms of sheer downloads, according to the most recent App Annie report (via TechCrunch). More importantly, Google’s mobile app store is slowly narrowing the revenue gap that exists between the two platforms. While Google passed Apple’s App Store in terms of downloads last year, a major gap remained in the revenue that both platforms generated for developers. While Android still lags behind iOS in this department, it seems that the two are slowly reaching parity. Last year’s indexed revenue for the Play Store was ranked at about 40; as the above chart shows, it’s climbed to be just above 50.

Google Play led the iOS App Store in downloads by approximately 45% in Q1 2014, up from 35% in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the iOS App Store maintained its comfortable advantage in revenue, leading Google Play by 85%. However, Google Play continued to narrow this revenue gap. The gains for Google Play come as Android devices extended their lead in worldwide device installed base.

Google Play saw revenue growth in the United States, which helped it to close the gap. Additionally, Android saw strong download growth around the world. iOS continued its growth in the US, as well as in China — traditionally a stronghold for Android device, albeit devices without access to the Play Store. Apple’s platform also saw strong growth in Vietnam and South Africa, among other smaller countries.

The takeaway? Both ecosystems are strong, and getting stronger.

Samsung confirms 20 Galaxy devices now compatible w/ new Gear wearables

Jordan Kahn Apr 16 2014 - 6:10 am PT

While some of us have been able to get Samsung’s new Gear fitness tracking wearables working with non-Samsung Galaxy devices, Samsung is still only officially supporting 20 Galaxy devices after first launching the wearables with only compatibility for its flagship devices. Samsung today provided details on the exact lineup of compatible devices, which as of yesterday includes 12 Galaxy smartphones and 8 tablets.

As of yesterday, the devices you see in the images above are all compatible with the Samsung Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit. Those are the devices that are officially supported through the ‘Gear Manager’ or ‘Gear Fit Manager’ apps, but we managed to get the Gear Fit working with the new HTC One M8.

Dropbox launches new “Carousel” photo & video gallery app

Jordan Kahn Apr 9 2014 - 11:23 am PT

http://vimeo.com/91475918#at=0

Dropbox is introducing its latest product today, a photo and video management app called Carousel that integrates many of the features from the photo storage service Snapjoy acquired by Dropbox back in 2012.

The company unveiled the app at an event today in San Francisco as a gallery to store and share all of your photos and videos. The app is built for quick and easy sharing of one or multiple photos to phone contacts or email addresses (even if the recipient doesn’t have a Dropbox account), allowing you to get around the upload limitations usually associated with sharing photos. With everything backed up in full resolution directly to Dropbox, it essentially becomes a standalone app to manage just photos and videos that you want to store in Dropbox.

With Dropbox, we built a home for your photos and videos but never gave you a great way to experience them. We’d like you to meet Carousel, the newest member of the Dropbox family. It’s a gallery that houses your entire life’s memories. Even more, Carousel lets you share and relive these memories in private conversations with friends and family.

Carousel is now available as a free download on the App Store for iOS and the Play Store for Android.

[tweet https://twitter.com/carouselapp/status/453949761830154240]

The company also made some other product announcements today including news regarding versions of its Mailbox app for Android and Mac OS X.

Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop Android app arrives in beta

Jordan Kahn Apr 2 2014 - 11:01 am PT

Google has long had its cross-platform Chrome Remote Desktop extension that allows users to remotely access desktops on the network through the Chrome browser. We also already knew that it’s been working on solutions to bring the feature to Android and even iOS devices, but today we get what appears to be our first look Chrome Remote Desktop running on an Android device.

Droid-Life posted the screenshots below showing that it says is an invite only beta of the app that was released in the last few days. The app is apparently being developed for both smartphones and tablets, allowing users to remotely access desktop computers with the Chrome Remote Desktop client installed from the Chrome web store.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Report: Google working on standalone Android camera app w/ refreshed UI, third-party filters & more

Jordan Kahn Apr 1 2014 - 9:39 am PT

According to a report from Engadget, Google is apparently in the process of testing an updated version of the Android camera app that includes a revamped UI and few new features. The report claims that the new camera app would include “a background-blurring effect for portrait shots,” as well as high-resolution Photo Sphere and panorama modes, and a lens blur mode that offers a shallower depth of field. There are also apparently fixes in the works for existing issues with the app:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google Now may soon be able to remind you to pay your bills

Chance Miller Mar 29 2014 - 12:16 pm PT

Since its release, Google Now has added a plethora of features, such as improved traffic capabilities, voice commands, and much more. According to a new report from Android Police, the service will be receiving yet another new capability in the near-future that will help you remember to pay your bills.

According a person familiar with the matter, Google Now will soon add an interface that will remind you of upcoming bills, including how much they will be for. The feature, which will be integrated into the classic Google Now card interface, will also include a link to easily pay the bill online.

The screenshot below is a mockup of the interface based on the available information. The latest update to the Search app also includes hints at this feature, some of which were used to help make the mockup. As you can see, the card shows the amount due, the minimum payment, and any other information.

Android Police says the source for this feature is very reliable and that their “confidence level” with this report is a 9/10. It’s unclear when this feature will launch, but given that there is already code appearing the Search app, we shouldn’t have to wait too long.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Twitter announces photo tagging, multiple photo uploads per tweet rolling out to Android users

Mike Beasley Mar 26 2014 - 2:17 pm PT

Twitter has announced a few new features for its Android app today. Users with the latest update to the Twitter for Android app will soon see the ability to select up to four photos at a time to upload when composing a tweet. These photos will be displayed as a collage on the tweet’s detail screen.

Along with the multi-photo support, users are also now able to tag other people in their photos. A new “who’s in these photos?” button allows you to add the username of other people in the picture. Photo tags won’t take up any characters in the body of the tweet, so the full character count will be available for composing a message.

Expand
Expanding
Close