Some users are reporting that links in Google+ for Android are opening as Chrome Custom Tabs. The feature introduced and released last year opens links twice as fast when compared to being pushed out to a browser. The update appears to be triggered server-side and was apart of last week’s update.
Facebook is testing a minor Material Design-inspired refresh for its messaging app, Messenger. The addition of the floating action button (FAB) is the biggest and most notable change, but there are some other minor design tweaks and a new feature that allows multiple user sign-ins.
A new app called Document Viewer for Android Wear was recently released by appfour, and you’re probably either excited or rolling your eyes. I’m definitely in the latter category. But then again, most times developers have tried to take apps that typically require a decently sized screen and shrink them to the size of teeny tiny Android Wear, the results haven’t been great. I’m looking at you, emulators that are definitely cool–proofs–of–concept-but-completely-impractical.
This one may not be as ridiculous as running a PSP game, but I’d say—and I mean absolutely no offense to appfour—it’s very unlikely to become an app you use daily…
For me, coffee at Starbucks is secondary to the great music you discover courtesy of your twenty-something barista’s Spotify DJ skills. The good news is you can now easily save those Spotify playlists for listening later through an update to the Starbucks Android app today.
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Today, Facebook announced that it is bringing Tor support to its Android app, a couple years after the company decided to make Facebook available directly over the Tor network in October of 2014. Facebook says that “a sizeable community of people” are using the site over Tor, so bringing the feature to mobile via Android seems like the next logical step…
From a good Material Design interface to implementation of new Android features, Pocket Casts is one of the best apps on the Play Store. The podcast player received an update today that added improved voice controls, Marshmallow support, and date-based filters.
WhatsApp’s founder Jan Koum has announced today that the widely-used messaging service is now free to customers. The Facebook-owned company is dropping its subscription service immediately. While it’s only 99 cents per year to use WhatsApp‘s multi-platform messenger app, Koum states that the annual subscription was still a barrier to some users…
Google Drive’s web interface has been updated with a few tweaks to make it easier and quicker to organize files. A more prevalent ‘Move’ icon helps users place files into folders from anywhere.
Google, Luke Wroblewski has shared some information on a new version of the Google Plus app which should be rolling out to the Play Store over the next couple of days. The G+ update will take the social networking app up to version 7.0.0 and includes a number of requested new features, as well as a boatload of bug fixes.
In the latest version of Google’s Android app, users should notice that the bottom tab bar is automatically hidden whenever they’re scrolling up or down any page (except the notifications screen). It may seem like a minor design change, but it does free up more screen real estate for actual content, and makes the app look a lot less cluttered.
Another new useful feature (which I can’t quite believe wasn’t already there) is the autocomplete suggestions which show up as you type in the search bar. As well as that, the home stream will now remember your position if you happen to go to a different screen within the app, so you don’t have to scroll down to find where you were when you return to it.
Lastly, along with the 69 bug fixes and 14 accessibility issues that were addressed, the new Google Plus app places a prompt on your profile to add a Collection or Community if you don’t have one. As we all know by now, Google Plus is now all about the Collections and Communities.
The updated app is available on the Play Store from today. If you have it installed, the update should show up on your device over the next day or two, if it hasn’t already.
Pushbullet can finally send picture messages (MMS) from your computer. The long awaited feature was just introduced in the first big update of the year along with increased SMS readability.
Update 1/13: In another update (version 5.8.47.19), the normalized app icons were removed and are now back to their original size. The feature was likely just a bug. This update also fixes the gap between the favorites tray and onscreen buttons in landscape and the non-grayed out buttons when the launcher is opened.
The Google Now Launcher received quite a few updates in version 5.8.45.19 of the Google app. The launcher, which resides within the Google app, now has landscape orientation and normalizes the size of app icons.
Update: Google has officially announced the feature and clarified that Driving Mode will only suggest your home, work, and other recently searched for destinations.
An update to Google Maps for Android adds a new intelligent ‘Driving Mode’ that predicts where you’re heading in order to provide driving updates. Additionally, the update adds more prominent controls for audio feedback and granular privacy settings to the Timeline feature.
Facebook’s equivalent of Twitter’s verified users are verified public figures that include actors, musicians, and journalists. The most notable perk of being one is the ability to livestream video to your fans from a special Facebook Mentions app. Available to iOS users since July 2014, the app is now available for Android devices on the Play Store.
Skype today announced that it’s bringing free group video calling— a feature it’s long had available on the desktop—to mobile devices including Android users.
Yes, it really has been a decade since Skype changed the way people connect with their loved ones. 6 years ago, we innovated again with one-to-one video calling on mobile phones. Today, we are excited to announce the next evolution – group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 Mobile.
The feature will officially launch in the coming weeks, but you can pre-register through Skype’s website here starting today.
And keep an eye out for updates to the Skype for Android app. In the latest update to the app, Skype also introduced to the ability to “Send video messages to groups directly from group chats.”
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Launched last November for iOS, The Room Three is now available on Android in the Play Store. The hit mystery game has users solving and unlocking puzzles in order to progress through a vast game world…
Google Fit’s last update in November added a new digital watchface and a challenge mode that trains users on how to do a number of exercises on their Android Wear device. Another Wear heavy update (version 1.56) this week, adds an activity screen that allows users to track their exercise’s progress from their watch.
While Sony’s CES press conference was light on major news, it did announce a 4K video store for their line up of smart televisions. At last year’s CES, Sony chose Android TV as the OS for its smart TVs. As such, the ULTRA video store will be an Android app.
LastPass has updated its Android app and browser extensions to version 4.0 to add an emergency access feature and shared passwords, as well as a significantly revamped user-interface.
Emergency Access (shown below) is designed to ensure that you aren’t permanently locked out of your account if you ever forget your master password.
Emergency Access lets users designate trusted family, friends or colleagues to have access to their password vault in the case of an emergency. For added security, a user can require a waiting period between when an Emergency Access contact can request access to the vault and when access is granted. During the waiting period, users can decline an Emergency Access request to their vault.
The new Sharing Center is designed to provide a safe method of allowing multiple people access to the same account, such as when two or more family members want access to utility accounts …
Virtual reality is cool, but augmented reality is more practical in day-to-day usage. Microsoft’s HoloLens and Magic Leap are currently the most well-known examples of AR. There are productivity use cases for it, but there are also many fun gaming applications. One developer made an app that turns an Android Wear watch when viewed through a camera into a game.
Hangouts is widely criticized in the Android community for being slow and buggy. According to a rumor last week, SMS support is being stripped out of Hangouts in order to make the app a better chatting service. Perhaps on a related note, The Wall Street Journal is today reporting that Google has grander ambitions for the chat field and plans to infuse their artificial intelligence technology into it.
After Rap Genius rebranded to just plain ‘Genius’, their mission expanded beyond one genre of music to annotating every piece of text in the world. However, they still maintain a vast and up-to-date collection of music lyrics. An update to their Android app recently added the ability to know what song is playing on your phone and display the accompanying lyrics.
We said when we tested the beta of Cortana for Android that it wasn’t that useful when you had to open the app and touch the microphone to voice a query. Microsoft later fixed that in time for the public launch, but an update this week took us right back to square one as the company removed the ‘Hey Cortana’ feature in the U.S. market.
Engadget reports that the feature apparently conflicted with ‘Ok Google’ in a way that could render the phone unable for many tasks – including making phone calls.
The ESPN app on Android is notorious for sluggish performance and feeling like a web wrapper. Good news: an update today vastly improves performance and gives it a Material Design refresh. Version 4.7.1 also brings support for Marshmallow’s permission model for users on 6.0 devices.
