Apps and Updates

Facebook has been busy testing new versions of its Material-inspired Messenger in recent weeks. Three weeks ago, the Material Design refresh started showing up for a handful of users with an account-switching feature and new FAB (floating action button), while others last week reported a fresh new blue lick of paint.
More recently than that, it seems some Messenger users are seeing the inclusion of a new feature. Or rather, the return of an old, discontinued feature.
Following in the footsteps of competitors, Adidas and Under Armor, ASICS will buy fitness app-maker, Runkeeper. The move was announced on Medium by Runkeeper’s founder, Jason Jacobs, and indicates that all fitness apparel companies clearly see the need to embed tracking technology, and/or tie-in apps with their brands.
Last month, some users reported seeing links in Google+ opening as Chrome Custom Tabs. Version 7.2 of the Google+ for Android app rolls out Custom Tabs to everyone and adds several new features in addition to bug fixes.
In the past, all sharing notifications involving Google Drive files were handled through email. However in November, Google added the ability for the Drive apps to send notifications. An update rolling out today finally adds settings to control these notifications from the mobile apps.
Google Keep was announced as a minimalist note taking and reminders app in 2013. An update to the service today finally adds a unified settings panel on the web and in the Android app.
WhatsApp has been testing the new emoji introduced as part of Unicode 9.0 since early December. The beta test is now over and they are rolling out (as spotted by Android Police) a score of new emoji to users today.
While the last update to Google Maps for Android brought a smart ‘Driving Mode‘, version 9.20 adds a slew of new minor features, including the ability to manually add places to your timeline, photos in user reviews, and more turn-by-turn navigation settings.
The Play Store currently recommends apps based on various signals from the people you follow on Google+. Starting with version 6.2, the store will also begin using a user’s Gmail itinerary to make app suggestions. Here’s how it will work:
Since late last year, there have been reports of Nexus devices running Android Marshmallow not getting Gmail notifications until the app was manually opened. Google has been investigating the issue for a while now and has finally come up with a fix that will be rolled out to users over the next week.
Monument Valley is undoubtedly one of the best, and most attractive, puzzle games to ever hit the Play Store. Its gorgeous Escher-esque art and smooth, minimalist animation ensures that it’ll almost certainly gain ‘legendary’ status among the mobile gaming community. Now, with the help of a crowd-support project on LEGO Ideas, it could become immortalized in the form of an official LEGO set.
The concept was created by LEGO Ideas user Isometry, and, if you were worried that it’ll just be a static set of aesthetically pleasing geometric structures, your fears are miss-placed. The aim is to make them interactive.
My Lego Ideas project is inspired by the Monument Valley game, and aims to capture the journey through a creative 3-D experience. This set includes four minimalist landscape themes that are modular and interactive; featuring rotating walkways, platforms, pillars, staircases, bridges and water wheels; along with three main characters, Ida, Totem and Crow. It is an original Lego design concept with visually attractive elements that are appealing and intriguing to a wide audience.
The project has 1,590 supporters so far (at time of writing) and has some way to go before LEGO will build it and place it in stores. But, of all the mobile gaming tributes, I can hardly think of one more fitting than a build-able interactive Monument Valley set.
The set concept includes The Garden from chapter II, Labyrinth from chapter VI, Water Palace from chapter IV, Halcyon Court from Appendix IV and three characters; Ida, Totem and the Crow. There are also three illusion stickers to add dimension through illusion of shadows, buttons, doorways and windows.
Unlike most crowd-support sites, LEGO Ideas doesn’t ask members for money. Instead, you offer your official support and fill in a very quick poll on how popular you think it would be if it hit store shelves. Once it gains 10,000 supporters, LEGO will review it and might even launch the sets.
For safety reasons, Android Auto’s third-party apps are limited to those that playback media from your phone. At that, they share a pretty consistent user interface. Yesterday, an update to the Audible app added an Android Auto component and other playback features.
Google and the rest of the tech industry take security very seriously. As part of this year’s Safer Internet Day, Google is offering users 2GB of Drive storage if they perform a security check on their account. In another security minded update, Gmail will now flag emails sent to and received from non-encrypted sources.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Late last year, Square Enix announced that a re-releases of Final Fantasy IX would be coming to Android, iOS and PC. At the time, there was no specific word as to when North American gamers would actually get their hands on it. However, this morning we noticed a listing for the Android version of the game go live on Google Play.
The Android version of popular password manager 1Password has received a big update to version 6. In addition to a full Material redesign, the app now has support for Marshmallow’s fingerprint unlocking. The app made by AgileBits is free to download and premium features are accessible via a one-time in-app purchase.
Play Newsstand has a surprisingly large user base due to the fact that it is pre-installed on most Android devices. Earlier this month, the app was updated with some visual tweaks to the main feed and article layout. Today, users in eight Middle Eastern countries will be able to buy paid content from the app.
Instagram today has officially announced support for mutliple accounts. After a slow roll out to multiple users, users are now able to add up to 5 different Instagram accounts and quickly switch between them all. Multiple account support has been added as of Instagram’s 7.15 version for Android.
Facebook loves to A/B test new features and interfaces with a small and random subset of users before a full rollout. A few weeks ago the company began testing a Material Design refresh for Messenger. Some users are now seeing a new variant that sports a blue action and top bar.
Improved Hangouts is one of the most common requests from Android users. According to a rumor late last year, Google is working on making it a better chat client by removing SMS capabilities. It now appears that as a part of that Hangouts will use a peer-to-peer connection when possible.
Both of Google’s excellent photo apps received an update this week. Version 1.13 of Google Photos adds a new feature to easily look at other photos taken on the same day when in search, while Snapseed now has several new automatic features, like face detection.
Voxer is a relatively popular messaging app for Android and iOS, and has long been considered one of the best solutions available for those looking for a great PPT (push-to-talk) experience on mobile. It received a ton of funding a few years ago, and while it never really took off in the mainstream, it’s still being updated even today with new fixes and features for its dedicated group of users. It has somewhere between 10 and 50 million Play Store installs.
George Kola, a software engineer that was most recently Chief Technology Officer of the company for more than a year, has now joined Google according to his LinkedIn profile. While it’s of course possible that Kola could have joined Google on his engineering merit alone and could be working in just about any department within the Mountain View company, it’s still worth asking: Could Google possibly have its eyes on bringing some walkie talkie features to Hangouts?..
Android is an operating system better known for its openness, which means users can enjoy a great deal of customizability and overall choice. It goes far beyond picking up a shiny wallpaper: you can choose your own default apps, tweak the notification center with widgets, add those widgets to your homescreen, and switching to a whole different launcher is an app install away.
That’s why Android users are accustomed to using products and services that go beyond the stock options offered out of the box, and know that the Play Store is quite the well to draw from. Twitter clients are no exception, so keep reading for our roundup of what we think are the best alternatives to Twitter’s default offering…
Update: VentureBeat received information from a source, shedding a little more light on the situation.
A source close to the situation indicates that Google considers this a “unique case” because two apps are required to invoke the ad blocking. Furthermore, the source adds that Google has no problem with browsers which can block ads within themselves via built-in functionality (like Adblock Browser) or via plugins.
Earlier in the week, Samsung’s new browser API meant developers, if they wanted to, could build ad-blocking apps to work alongside the browser. It’s similar to the ad-blocking feature Apple introduced in iOS 9 with Safari, which lead to a number of ad and tracker-blocking apps become popular within the first few weeks of iOS 9’s arrival.
With this feature added, more developers could develop standalone ad-blockers for Android which work with Samsung‘s mobile browser. It turns out however, that Google has pulled some apps, and rejected updates for others. It seems the company isn’t keen on having standalone apps — designed to work alongside browsers to block ads — on the Play Store…
Google’s previous attempt to bring books into the modern age involved digitizing and making them searchable. A new experiment between their Creative Lab and Visual Editions, a London-based publisher, have resulted in Editions at Play. In essence, they are interactive ebooks that are worthy of not immediately being written off as a gimmick.
The beautiful and widely praised Alto’s Adventure is coming to the Play Store with a free-to-pay model on February 11th. The game was first released on iOS nearly a year ago and will also be available in the Amazon App Store.