Google unveiled a big revamp for all its advertising products last month that simplified branding and introduced new features. Numerous services will be consolidated and better integrated with one another. Today, at Google Marketing Live, the company is better detailing these changes that leverage machine learning.
As I discovered a week ago while trying to find a third-party camera app for Android with manual controls, almost everything in the Play Store is pretty bad. But Moment, the company known for its smartphone camera lenses, is here to fix that with the ‘Pro Camera’ app.
One of the most common user complaints about Spotify for Android has been the inability to edit the song order in playlists. Late last month, the music streaming company announced that this feature would soon get added to the mobile app, and not even a month later, it has.
Earlier this year, both YouTube and YouTube Music began hinting at an “Incognito mode” — similar to Google Chrome’s — that disables your watch and search history. The former began A/B testing the feature in May and it’s now widely rolling out this evening.
Google regularly adjusts the look of its YouTube app for Android, and in recent months we’ve seen quite a few tweaks. Now, we’re seeing a slight adjustment to thumbnails on the various video feeds within the app.
Last year, Google Search had to address “fake news” appearing in “Featured Snippets” on the web and being offered as answers via Assistant and Google Home. The company today is announcing a handful of features to combat the same issues on YouTube.
When version 36 of Google Duo began to roll out, we confirmed in an APK Insight post that the app would soon get multi-device and tablet support. Both of those new features are live, and now some have found that Duo works on some Chromebooks as well.
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Even if your car doesn’t include an Android Auto-enabled infotainment system, the mobile app can still be used to provide a similar in-car experience. But until now, if you needed to switch away from the Android Auto app, it would be completely closed and wouldn’t run in the background.
With Chrome 69, Chrome Duplex is taking shape with a design that balances easy access to controls on large devices and the traditional top address bar. Now, the latest change for Chrome’s split toolbar look is to its name, thus avoiding the obvious confusion with another up-and-coming Google product.
Just last week, some users encountered a bug on the Play Store that prevented them from seeing a developer’s full list of applications. Another similar bug has now emerged that results in duplicate Android app listings when searching.
With the Android Excellence program last year, Google replaced the Editors’ Choice section of the Play Store. Focused on editorial curation and lists, this quarterly collection highlights the best Android apps, games, and experiences, with the latest July 2018 edition now available.
Google Keep doesn’t get updated all that often, but the company has done a good job of adding in features that users want. This week, Keep for Android has been updated with new tools for drawing.
Instagram has today officially started rolling out its “You’re All Caught Up” feature after previously testing it out with a limited number of users back in May.
Google has been testing smart replies in a lot of different ways recently, and now after some teardowns revealed the functionality coming to Gboard, the company is testing it out with some popular messaging apps…
Earlier this month, Chrome Duplex’s bottom toolbar gained several shortcuts to make the design more useful. The latest iteration in Chrome Canary now addresses a major issue, with this possible redesign to the Android browser finally taking shape.
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A resource that Google provides Android developers with are sample applications that showcase how to implement various OS features. One of these is the Universal Android Music Player, which Google just rewrote using Kotlin as part of a v2 update.
For the past several days, an odd Play Store bug has prevented users from seeing a developer’s full list of available apps. On Android, scrolling through “All apps” will instead duplicate listings and be endlessly scrollable.
Unlike with YouTube, Instagram users have been playing copyrighted music in the background of their Stories without the fear of any negative consequences. But this was done by just playing a song out of the phone while capturing a photo or video. Starting today, Instagram is adding an official feature for adding music to Stories.
One area Google is heavily applying machine learning advancements to is work and productivity. Just yesterday, Google announced that Calendar’s new Digital Wellbeing features would infer your office hours. Now, Docs is gaining natural language search, while Quick Access is rolling out to more users.
The developer behind Pokémon GO, Niantic Labs, is looking to open its platform to third-party developers. Specifically, it’s looking to open up its underlying AR platform to let developers create a similar experience within its own apps.
Announced last week, Android Messages for web is now fully rolled out to all users that want to send text messages from a desktop. In addition to quick access to emoji and stickers, Messages for web supports sending kaomoji through convenient shortcuts that should be very familiar to Hangouts users.
Spotify’s Android app sometimes feels a bit neglected next to its iOS counterpart. Now, Spotify is working on bringing a much-requested feature to the app: the ability to re-arrange songs in a playlist.
Launched last year, version 2.0 of YouTube for Android TV was initially met with a significant amount of controversy due to the lack of features. The design has since been refined and an update today adds personalized channels for Android Oreo’s homescreen and Google Assistant voice commands.
At I/O 2018, Google announced that moving forward its products would reduce technology’s distractions in day-to-day life. Digital Wellbeing features are now coming to Google Calendar to help users better manage work and personal time.