Google announced last week that it intends to deprecate SMS functionality in Hangouts, and now an update is rolling out which prepares users of the messaging platform to switch SMS apps. Hangouts 18 doesn’t seem to have any functional changes, but it does add the necessary components to help educate users on the forthcoming transition…
Google Translate received a minor update today to version 5.8, bringing easy-to-access definitions for translated words, a quick account switcher like that found in most of Google’s other first-party Android apps, some new strings referencing China, and (assumably) the usual bug fixes…
Right on cue (actually a bit ahead of cue, technically), the long-awaited Super Mario Run is now available for Android. This comes, as tends to be pretty usual in Android app releases, just over 3 months since the app first arrived on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
A minor update to the Google Home app is rolling out now, bringing a much-requested feature (that, frankly, should have been there from the beginning). You can now view your currently-running alarms and timers in the Google Home app, as well as set a volume level specifically for them. A teardown of the app reveals some other much-requested features are in the works as well…
From 9to5Toys
Two years after releasing Alto’s Adventure, Built by Snowman has revealed the first trailer for the sequel of the award winning title, Alto’s Odyssey. Slated for launch this summer on iOS and, presumably Android, the next rendition continues with visually appealing gameplay. The teaser trailer is quick, but we do get a glimpse of the scenery, which appears to be a desert. There aren’t many more details at this time, but we expect for Snowman to roll out more info over the coming months.
In conjunction with today’s announcement, the original Alto’s Adventure has gone on sale for $1.99 (Reg. $5). You’ll find that and all the rest of today’s best iOS deals in our daily app roundup.
WhatsApp is introducing a new feature in its app called Status that uses a similar format to Snapchat Stories, TechCrunch reports. Like messaging through WhatsApp, however, Status will bring encryption to the popular format.
Along with a slew of other new features announced yesterday, Facebook says that videos in News Feed will soon play audio by default. The company also announced improvements to vertical videos, a new picture-in-picture mode for watching videos while scrolling, and a Facebook video app for TV.
I tried really hard, but I couldn’t not share this. If you’ve seen the recent TrumpDraws Twitter account (or you’ve been on the internet at all in the last few days), then you probably knew exactly what this app did before you clicked on the link to read this post. Yes, Donald Draws: Executive Doodle lets you create your own Donald Trump executive order memes using your own quick finger painting skills or photos from your phone…
Late last year, a new Star Wars game known as Force Arena went into pre-registration followed by a soft launch. And now the free-to-play PvP title is available worldwide for Android on Google Play.
In this week’s top stories: Lenovo shows off a near borderless ‘Zuk Edge’ smartphone, Google investigates Pixel’s Double-tap to wake issue, the company confirms two upcoming flagship Android Wear devices, and we give you our picks for the top 5 Android apps to download this month.
If you have nostalgia for RollerCoaster Tycoon, today might just be your day. Atari, the publisher of RollerCoaster Tycoon games since the release of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for PC, has today released the original RollerCoaster Tycoon for both Android and iOS…
Following a major update that added a phone optimized experience, Android Auto’s next major feature is hotword detection for distraction-free driving. Some users began spotting the feature earlier in the month, but “Ok Google” and thousands of voice commands should now be live for all.
Google today began pushing out the latest release of its new Duo video calling app, version 5.0. While Google has become notorious as of late for giving its apps huge version bumps and few actual changes, this one — which officially only has “bug fixes” — brings just a little bit more than you might expect…
In this week’s top stories: OnePlus 3T announcement and specs, Andromeda rumors, our Acer Chromebook R13 review, and much more.
Nest has introduced a pretty substantial update to its Android and iOS apps, bringing Nest Aware customers the ability to easily create, save, and share video clips straight from the Nest app. The Android app also adds support for Android TV, so you can quickly check out your Nest Cam feeds straight from your couch…
Earlier this week, Twitter added a bevy of anti-abuse features including improved muting and easier ways to report tweets. With the latest beta version of the Android app, Twitter is about to give each profile a QR code for an easier way to follow…
Facebook has been attempting to beat Snapchat at its own game for a while, but it’s never been all that successful. Back in 2014 the company launched Slingshot, but removed it from app stores just over a year later. Now Facebook is giving it another shot with Flash, a Snapchat competitor designed specifically for emerging markets (via Recode).
Android Auto launched in 2014, but until now you either had to buy a new car with hardware supporting the platform, or buy an aftermarket in-dash unit. Now, Google has announced that Android Auto will work directly from your phone — so all you need to get is the latest version of the app and (if you don’t have one already) a phone or tablet mount…
We told you in our quick teardown of Google Allo 2.0 just a couple days ago that we found evidence that Google is preparing to add chat themes to its Allo messenger. Now we have actually managed to enable these themes on a rooted device and we’ve screenshotted them for you to check out before the app actually gets them…
Allo was pretty bare bones when it first launched, but just as Google promised, the app is going to evolve over time to — hopefully — become a messaging client to compete with the likes of Facebook Messenger and even Google’s own apps like Hangouts. Today, the Mountain View company has pushed the first big update for Allo, version 2.0, which brings lots of oft-requested features…
As expected, Google has today begun rolling out an update to its Google Cast app, appropriately renamed simply “Home”. The update includes a minor visual refresh and reorganization, and quietly adds the backbone for enabling Chromecast Ultra, the actual Google Home hardware, and support for controlling all of these Cast devices via Google Assistant…
Sony is set to jump into the iOS/Android mobile gaming space with the announcement five smartphone games slated to hit both platforms by mid 2018. The news comes on the heels of the success of Pokemon Go and Nintendo’s recent appearance at the 2016 Apple keynote with Mario Run. As console platforms drop to the third largest gaming market worldwide, it is clear the big Japanese companies are starting to take smartphone gaming seriously.
After briefly showing it to the world prior to the Google I/O 2016 keynote, Active Theory has today released its Paper Planes tech “Android Experiment” to the world. It’s a fun little app that lets you put stamps on paper planes and send them around the world for others to catch, gathering more stamps along the way…
OnePlus over the weekend announced the rollout of a new version of OxygenOS for the OnePlus 3, version 3.2.6. While this new version doesn’t bring any groundbreaking new features, it does pack a plethora of minor updates that will improve the OnePlus 3 experience in general…
