Google has quietly launched a Chrome beta for iOS through TestFlight, the beta distribution service Apple acquired last year and integrated into its own developer services. Google has yet to make an official announcement for the beta release, but users can already sign-up and download the beta when visiting Google’s Chrome beta download page on iOS.
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Google has kept Hangouts for iOS just slightly ahead of its Android counterpart when it comes to its version number, and today that tradition continues. Hangouts on Apple’s platform just got a not-so-big update to 6.0 (which you would think would be a major upgrade), but there only seems to be general performance improvements in this one…
Here’s the full — and very disappointing — change log:
What’s New in Version 6.0.0
• Other general notification improvements.
• Accessibility bug fixes.
• Fix for iPhone 6s sound quality.
You can head over to the App Store to grab the new version, but if you’re like me, updates to the Android app would be much more welcome. Actually, I wouldn’t be upset if we just got bug fix & performance improvements for the Android version for the next few releases. I will say, though, that the app has become much more usable in recent months.
The Pebble Time Round was announced in September, and now — just a bit over a month later — it’s about to finally be available at stores across the United States. Pebble says that the watch will be available at Best Buy and Target stores in the US on November 8th, and will also be available online at Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, Target.com, and Pebble.com on the same day…
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It’s been about a month now since Android Marshmallow started rolling out to a variety of Android devices (mostly just the Nexus line), and according to this month’s distribution numbers, only 0.3% of Android phones are running the latest version. That’s just plain depressing.
And what’s worse is that the other numbers across the board haven’t really improved all the much since last month, either. Last month, 23.5% of Android users were running last year’s OS, Lollipop, and now 25.6% have managed to go to a build of either 5.0 or 5.1. An amazing 37.8% of Android users are still on KitKat…
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The much-anticipated Fallout 4 from Bethesda is just around the corner (it’s scheduled to hit stores on November 10), and of course a companion app chock full of mini games and cross-platform interaction with the full game is now available. Even though the majority of the app’s functionality doesn’t even work without the full game (which, obviously, isn’t out yet), this app is already pulling almost unanimous positive reviews on the Play Store.
With Fallout Pip-Boy, your Android or iPhone (yes, it’s also available on Apple’s platform),can interact with Fallout 4 on your Xbox One, PlayStation 4 or PC. Even when you aren’t near your game system, Pip-Boy keeps track of your character’s status on the go. Among other things, the app lets you see your stats, inventory, map, and radio. There’s also a bunch of mini games (your holotape games) that are at your disposal, that you can play right from within the app.
The app is free on the Google Play Store, and you can grab it on the iOS App Store as well. Oh, and if you’re in the fewer than 1% of mobile phone users that rocks Windows Mobile, there’s surprisingly an app available for you too (although it doesn’t seem to be available yet)
There are a couple more Fallout 4-related apps available on the Play Store, as well, including the C.H.A.T. app that you we told you about earlier this week and the Fallout Shelter mobile game.
Google today has rolled out an update its Maps application on iOS, bringing with it a pair of new features. The update bumps the app to version 4.12.0 and includes support for adding missing businesses to the app’s database and spoken traffic alerts.
The latter of the two is the far more interesting addition of this update. Spoken traffic alerts mean that Google Maps will now alert you about upcoming traffic congestion and traffic incidents as you use the Navigation feature of the app. It does so via voice so you aren’t distracted while you drive. Traffic descriptions provide the same information, but in both text and verbal forms before you start to move.
Google Maps version 4.12.0 is available via the App Store now for free. The full changelog can be seen below:
What’s New in Version 4.12.0
- Easily add new and missing businesses from the sidebar
- Spoken traffic alerts in Navigation tell you about congestion and incidents on your route and traffic descriptions give you summary of traffic before you drive
- Bug fixes
YouTube has today announced that its Gaming platform is getting a couple of really big updates, just as the service reaches more than 144 billion minutes of gaming videos watched per month. As of today, uers of the newly-updated Android app will be able to stream the games they’re playing on their phones, and certain creators can monetize their viewership with sponsorships…
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Google looks to be rolling out a redesigned version of Google Maps on the web that introduces a tweaked user interface that in many ways mirrors its mobile app experience on both Android and iOS. As pictured above, Maps gets a redesigned menu/sidebar/search UI that is clearly inspired by Material Design and the user interface of its mobile apps.
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Google has released an updated version of its mapping application for iOS that includes several new features, including an Apple Watch app. Along with the new watch app comes the ability to compare ETAs for different modes of transportation, such as biking and walking.
Alongside the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio, Google also today introduced a new version of its Chromecast app. It’s not a drastic departure from the previous version, but it does bring some notable new features including a new “What’s On” section that suggests content from the apps you have installed, support for image feeds from Facebook, Flickr, and other sources, voice search for content, and more…
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Google today announced that it’s bringing its Google Keep note taking app to iPhone and iPad for the first time after originally releasing only for web and Android users a couple years back.
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Huawei Watch is beautiful. I know that’s a rather odd way to start out this review, but this is hands-down one of the best looking smartwatches on the market. I suppose that opinion is somewhat subjective depending on your taste, but every little detail about Huawei Watch’s look and feel is proof that there’s light at the end of the tunnel for beautiful smartwatch design…
The battle of mobile platforms never ends, and the discussion can definitely get annoying at a certain point. But with each and every innovation that Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, and others bring to the table every year, there’s always something new to consider. Today, we saw the introduction of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0, and — of course — the first thing that came to mind was this question: “What does this mean for the iPhone?” In this case, it’s a pretty hilarious comparison. When it comes to battery life and charging speed, Android is — no question about it — in the lead…
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Google has this morning pushed an update to AdSense for iOS, bringing many features that other apps in the Mountain View company’s catalog received months ago. While it may not be the most popular app outside of publishing and creative circles, the AdSense app has today been updated with support for Native iPhone 6 and 6 Plus resolution, Material Design, and more.
Rounding out the update is support for Hindi and Malay, a new icon for the Home Screen, more metrics, and a today center widget. The last of these, in case you aren’t aware, is a new widget for the Today section of Notification Center. On it, you’ll find four metrics for quick access: Today so far, Page views, Clicks, and Page RPM. It also tells you when the widget was last updated.
While Google’s apps for iOS have always been known for being well-polished (and sometimes just generally better than their Android counterparts), they usually come at a much slower pace. AdSense 3.0 for Android with many of the same new features was released on Android four weeks ago, and you can read more about that update here.
Here’s the full change log:
What’s New in Version 3.0
This time we’re bringing you:
– Support for Hindi and Malay;
– Native iPhone 6 and 6+ resolution;
– A today center widget;
– Our lovely new AdSense logo;
– More metrics!
– A little something we like to call Material Design.
Head over to the App Store to grab the latest version for free.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Today, the Pokémon Company has announced that it is partnering with Nintendo and Alphabet-owned Niantic to produce a new upcoming mobile game called Pokémon Go. This title will be available on both iOS and Android devices for free. The main focus of the game is collecting, training and battling Pokémon characters against other users based on their GPS location.
However, this new adventure will be supplemented by an optional wearable. Imagine a Pokémon smart watch of sorts.
This new wearable is called Pokémon Go Plus. It connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and flashes its built-in LED light to notify you of nearby players as well as virtual Pokémon you can catch. For example, say you’re on your morning commute on the subway. Pokémon Go Plus will ping your wrist to let you know that a virtual Charizard is closely located. After capturing, you’ll be able to train and battle with that new character.
The wearable isn’t required to play the game but it is an unique add-on that bring another level to the experience. Be sure to check out the video above for a visual representation of how game play works. Pokémon Go will be released on iOS and Android in 2016 as a free download with in-app purchases. Pricing has yet to be released for the Pokémon Go Plus Wearable. The entire press conference and announcement has been uploaded to YouTube for viewing, as well.
Source: The Pokémon Company
Google has just released Bazel as a public beta, and the company claims it can help engineers build software quickly, and correctly. It can be used to build client and server software for Android and iOS and is available for Linux and OS X. Despite it being labelled as a public beta, Google’s engineers have been using it for a very long time. As betas go, it’s a very thoroughly tried and tested one.
Google Apps has offered Mobile Application Management (MAM) on Android for quite some time, but today the Mountain View company is introducing the same functionality on iOS. As was the case with the Android version, MAM lets Google Apps administrators suggest the apps that it would prefer their employees install on Apps-managed iOS devices…
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A new update to Google Drive for iOS brings a couple notable, highly-requested features to the app. Included in the update, users will now be able to select multiple files at once in order to perform an action like saving for offline, adding a star to important files, or rearranging and organizing. The new feature is something that has long been requested by users and makes managing and sharing multiple files at once much easier than in the past.
In addition, the update includes the ability to share, rename or view file details much quicker with new quick share buttons when tapping on a file.
And lastly, Google says the updated app will include the usual performance improvements.
The updated Google Drive app for iOS is available on the App Store now.
The latest data from Kantar Worldpanel shows that Samsung and Apple continue to dominate the U.S. smartphone market, taking a massive 64% of the total market share between them, and accounting for nine of the ten best-selling models.
If share alone was not enough to demonstrate market dominance, our data also shows that these two vendors sold nine of the top ten best-selling smartphones in the three months ending July 2015 – with LG making a cameo appearance in the ranking.
Android increased its U.S. market share by 1.7% in the 12 months ending in July this year, though dropped 7% in Japan and 4.1% in Europe …
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Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service previously only allowed users of Amazon’s own Fire-branded Android devices to download content for offline viewing, but today the company announced it’s expanding that privilege to all iOS and Android users.
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Android Wear finally has iOS support after Google pushed its iPhone-compatible software to the App Store. This means that Android has beaten Apple Watch to the cross-platform game. Or, at least it would, if iOS didn’t restrict it to a state of almost uselessness. The only device officially supported is the LG Watch Urbane although — as we previously revealed — the older generation Android Wear watches do work. I got it set up with my Moto 360, and have been mostly disappointed by my experience so far.
One of the backend improvements in Apple’s upcoming iPhone and iPad operating system update iOS 9 is a strengthening of app security when accessing data from webservers. The new App Transport Security (ATS) feature ensures that only connections encrypted using HTTPS are permitted. There’s just one problem with that: not all advertisers use HTTPS, so ATS will stop some ads appearing in apps.
Google has responded by providing developers with five lines of code that allow them to disable ATS …
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Instagram today announced that it’s rolling out two new orientations for photos and videos including portrait and landscape formats to add to the old square photo format that was previously the only option for users uploading content.
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Sorry, Android users: Popular online food ordering service Eat24 has determined that you are less healthy on a nutritional basis than owners of Apple’s iPhone. That’s based on data it collected from its mobile app over a three month period, tracking information regarding how ordering habits differed across the rival platforms.
