Every year, YouTube partners with Coachella to stream the desert concert series online. The arrangement is now in its ninth consecutive edition with Coachella 2019, and Google this year is pushing YouTube Music and broadcasting a performance in Times Square.
We’ve seen the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8 on almost all US carriers get the Android Pie update, with US unlocked users seemingly overlooked, until now.
Last year’s visual refresh of Assistant on phones integrated many UI elements first introduced with Smart Displays. Notable features included a visual snapshot, and redesigned responses that include images and sometimes on-screen controls. Google today is making Assistant responses on Android even more visually rich.
If you have a daily commute, Google Maps’ recent addition of incident reporting features has probably come in handy more than once. Now, it seems Google is aiming to further improve this feature by adding the ability to report slowdowns causing traffic jams.
Earlier this week, we spotted Hangouts Chat in the G Suite panel ahead of Cloud Next 2019. Before the conference next week, Google’s latest enterprise messaging app is redesigning its side panel to help users keep better track of ongoing chats.
Inbox is dead, long live Inbox! Well, despite the love for Inbox by Gmail, it finally ceases to function for the vast majority and will now simply be a relic of email organization likely broken down and scavenged for parts by the real Gmail team.
The latest version of the Google Phone app this week suggested that Call Screen was coming to Nokia and Motorola devices. The latter OEM confirmed this today, with the Assistant feature now rolling out to the Moto G7 and Motorola One.
Spotify is testing further integration with Google Maps as well as a Sleep Timer, and song sharing.
Google Home users last month got a brief preview of the John Legend voice announced at I/O 2018. Starting today, it is officially available as Assistant’s first-ever celebrity cameo across Google devices. However, it is only available for a limited time.
With the new Gmail for web last April, Google introduced a “quick-access side panel” with widgets for Calendar, Keep, and Tasks. It has since been added to other G Suite apps like Drive and Docs on the web. The next service to make an appearance in the side panel could be Hangouts Chat.
Earlier this year, Google Slides and other Drive applications were revamped with the Material Theme on the editor and web homepage. Slides is now gaining the ability to insert and play audio files during presentations.
Google’s Spring Cleaning for 2019 is killing off some beloved apps and services, and Inbox by Gmail is one of the biggest casualties. This past weekend, one possible replacement for that app confirmed its Android release date. Spark Mail arrives on Android the day Inbox dies.
The Conversation View in Gmail groups together emails with the same topic so that users can easily view past messages in an experience reminiscent to texts and chats. However, Google is now introducing a key change so that Gmail will be stricter about what messages get threaded.
Last month, our APK Insight spotted that Google was working on a new “precall” interface in Duo for Android. This change is now live for some and replaces the video/audio switcher on the homepage by giving users a traditional contact screen before placing a call. Drawing and adding text captions to video messages is also live, while favoriting contacts is available for other users.
Gboard for Android and iOS maintain relative feature parity on key functionality, but on occasion one app surpasses the other. Gboard 2.0 for iOS today adds a slew of customization options for the keyboard ranging from backgrounds, keys, and even the glide swipe trail.
At I/O 2018, Google Photos added suggested actions to automatically brighten, share, rotate, or archive an image. The Android app this week is adding a new “Crop & adjust” feature specifically for pictures of receipts and other documents.
In February, the Google Material Theme revamp began rolling out to Gmail for iOS. It brought the stark white design, new account switcher, and density preferences. However, it still lacked the ability to customize swipe actions, with that feature finally rolling out today.
Dark mode has been making itself available in a ton of Android apps and even the system itself in recent months, and now Twitter’s dark mode is getting an upgrade. Starting today, “Lights Out” is available for Twitter which is truly black and will be coming to Android… eventually.
Last year, the rebranded Google Pay added a slew of new features, including passes and transit cards. The payment app now supports Mobile myki in Australia with a number of smart features, while the app recently added a Material Theme account switcher.
Ahead of the Super Bowl in January, Google announced that YouTube TV was available in 98% of U.S. households. Two months later, users in every television market across the country can subscribe to YouTube’s cord-cutting service.
Drive File Stream is G Suite’s enterprise-focussed app for accessing Drive files on demand via Mac or PC. Google is now updating it with features from the Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office, which is being killed in June.
With the official launch of Google Podcasts last June, the company promised AI features like translation and automatic transcription. Earlier this year, we enabled the latter feature on Android so that users could read a podcast. While not entirely user-facing, this functionality is already working in the background for search.
Even though the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro were announced just yesterday with Android Pie in tow, there are two older Huawei-made handsets picking up the update in the form of the Huawei P10 and Honor 8X.
Two-factor authentication is increasingly recommended to stay safe on the internet and defend accounts from phishing attacks. Google is updating its 2-Step Verification workflow so that browsers are now responsible for walking users through using USB and Bluetooth security keys.