For the past several months, Gboard has been working on a “smarter” search feature that analyzes what you type to surface relevant expressive content. Gboard AI suggestions is rolling out starting today to suggest GIFs, stickers, and emoji.
With the end of the year nearly in sight, Google likes to do annual recaps for Search and YouTube. On the Play Store front, the Google Play Best of 2018 Awards will allow users to vote on the best app and game in two weeks.
Checking the weather is a key function of every device from phones to Google Home to Smart Displays. On Android, Google Search has a rather excellent built-in weather experience that is well-designed and visually delightful. Unfortunately, Google Weather on Android and Google Search over the past few months has lost the ability to check air quality.
Last month, the Google Material Theme came to Google Keep Notes on Android as part of a sizable redesign. The web application followed shortly, with Google continuing to update the mobile client today with more Material Theme tweaks.
The Google Material Theme is continually sweeping through the company’s Android apps, with some notable redesigns on the web with Google Keep and soon Contacts. Google Analytics is now the latest service to get some tweaks on desktop.
Earlier this week, Google announced that Chrome would remove ads from sites with persistently abusive experiences. The browser will soon protect against sites that try to trick users into unintended charges and paid subscriptions.
With Android Go, Google launched optimized ‘Go’ variants for Assistant, Maps, YouTube, and more. One of the more popular applications in the line is Files Go, with Google today dropping that moniker as part a Material Theme redesign.
Over the summer, Google starting testing out Waze-like reports within Maps for incidents such as a crashes. Now, it seems the company is building on that feature with new Google Maps reporting features that a few users are seeing.
Wireless charging has been a welcome feature on Google’s Pixel 3 devices, but it didn’t come without some gripes. One of those was an incorrect indicator on the lockscreen which showed slower wireless chargers as “Charging Rapidly.” With the latest update, Google has fixed that Pixel 3 wireless charging behavior.
Voting in the 2018 Midterm elections for the House and Senate are well underway, while on the state and local level there are a slew of gubernatorial races and various ballots. Google encourages voting around the world and its products from Search to YouTube are in full force today to help with that civic duty and provide results later tonight.
Compared to previous generations, the pre-order gift that came with the Pixel 3 was only $50 in Google Store credit and a six month trial of YouTube Music Premium for new subscribers. However, Google is now attempting to remedy the somewhat lackluster incentive with a few dollars of free Play Store credit.
Earlier this year, Google Chrome gained an ad blocker governed by standards from the Coalition for Better Ads. It builds on other work to combat abusive experiences on the web. Chrome is now working on additional protections that will remove ads entirely from sites that are persistently home to abusive user experiences.
The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL introduced a bevy of new features built upon functionality first announced on the Pixel 2. Many — like the Camera app — are coming to last year’s devices, including the very useful history for Now Playing.
Google Podcasts officially launched in June with an Android app and integration with Assistant and Google Home. The app in recent weeks added Chromecast support, and now the ability to share shows and episodes directly.
Launched on the Pixel Launcher with the Pixel 2, Google earlier this year brought “At a Glance” to more Android devices via a widget. As we noted in past APK Insights, Google is now finally deprecating and replacing the old “Feed” widget with At a Glance.
Earlier this month, a Google Assistant redesign first announced at I/O 2018 began rolling out on Android. Taking cues from Smart Displays, the Assistant became more visual, touch-friendly, and provided quick access to the Updates feed. Over the past 24 hours, a Google Assistant bug has caused this design to disappear for some users.
Google Contacts has been building out a new design for the past couple of years, and today the company announced that the old version of the interface would be deprecated in favor of the new one. At the same time, though, it looks like a Material Theme redesign is hitting Contacts, catching it up to Gmail and other Google apps.
Google has been previewing a new design for Google Contacts on the web since 2015, but always retained the previous online version until feature parity. With that milestone now achieved, Google will deprecate the old Google Contacts in February of 2019.
Back in August, Starbucks for Android added the ability to reload your points-earning Starbucks Card with Google Pay. Starbucks 5.0 is now rolling out a bottom bar that cleans up and simplifies the app.
As the holiday season approaches, there is an uptick in annual travel, with Google in recent weeks launching new vacation features in Search. Google Hotel Search is now getting redesigned with the Google Material Theme.
While Apple just discounted its printing service for various picture good, Google Photos is doubling down on them. After expanding to more countries, Photo Books can now feature multiple images per page for more complex print jobs.
Gboard debuted its “Mini” stickers not too long ago with two different packs of stickers available. Today, Google has revealed a new pack of stickers for the Minis collection, this time with an emoji style design.
Google has slowly been adding a dark mode to several of its applications, including YouTube and Google News. For quite some time, Google Maps has supported a “Night” mode, which turns the navigation interface dark. However, that feature is not able to be manually toggled. Today though, we’ll show you how to force that setting to stay on all the time. Here’s how to force Google Maps dark mode on Android.