From a good Material Design interface to implementation of new Android features, Pocket Casts is one of the best apps on the Play Store. The podcast player received an update today that added improved voice controls, Marshmallow support, and date-based filters.
WhatsApp’s founder Jan Koum has announced today that the widely-used messaging service is now free to customers. The Facebook-owned company is dropping its subscription service immediately. While it’s only 99 cents per year to use WhatsApp‘s multi-platform messenger app, Koum states that the annual subscription was still a barrier to some users…
Google has been sprucing up their web apps this week as the first new updates of 2016 start to trickle in. Inbox by Gmail on the web adds a super convenient photo and attachment picker, while Google Plus now allows users to pin posts to their profiles.
Google Drive’s web interface has been updated with a few tweaks to make it easier and quicker to organize files. A more prevalent ‘Move’ icon helps users place files into folders from anywhere.
Google, Luke Wroblewski has shared some information on a new version of the Google Plus app which should be rolling out to the Play Store over the next couple of days. The G+ update will take the social networking app up to version 7.0.0 and includes a number of requested new features, as well as a boatload of bug fixes.
In the latest version of Google’s Android app, users should notice that the bottom tab bar is automatically hidden whenever they’re scrolling up or down any page (except the notifications screen). It may seem like a minor design change, but it does free up more screen real estate for actual content, and makes the app look a lot less cluttered.
Another new useful feature (which I can’t quite believe wasn’t already there) is the autocomplete suggestions which show up as you type in the search bar. As well as that, the home stream will now remember your position if you happen to go to a different screen within the app, so you don’t have to scroll down to find where you were when you return to it.
Lastly, along with the 69 bug fixes and 14 accessibility issues that were addressed, the new Google Plus app places a prompt on your profile to add a Collection or Community if you don’t have one. As we all know by now, Google Plus is now all about the Collections and Communities.
The updated app is available on the Play Store from today. If you have it installed, the update should show up on your device over the next day or two, if it hasn’t already.
Pushbullet can finally send picture messages (MMS) from your computer. The long awaited feature was just introduced in the first big update of the year along with increased SMS readability.
Update 1/13: In another update (version 5.8.47.19), the normalized app icons were removed and are now back to their original size. The feature was likely just a bug. This update also fixes the gap between the favorites tray and onscreen buttons in landscape and the non-grayed out buttons when the launcher is opened.
The Google Now Launcher received quite a few updates in version 5.8.45.19 of the Google app. The launcher, which resides within the Google app, now has landscape orientation and normalizes the size of app icons.
Update: Google has officially announced the feature and clarified that Driving Mode will only suggest your home, work, and other recently searched for destinations.
An update to Google Maps for Android adds a new intelligent ‘Driving Mode’ that predicts where you’re heading in order to provide driving updates. Additionally, the update adds more prominent controls for audio feedback and granular privacy settings to the Timeline feature.
Skype today announced that it’s bringing free group video calling— a feature it’s long had available on the desktop—to mobile devices including Android users.
Yes, it really has been a decade since Skype changed the way people connect with their loved ones. 6 years ago, we innovated again with one-to-one video calling on mobile phones. Today, we are excited to announce the next evolution – group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 Mobile.
The feature will officially launch in the coming weeks, but you can pre-register through Skype’s website here starting today.
And keep an eye out for updates to the Skype for Android app. In the latest update to the app, Skype also introduced to the ability to “Send video messages to groups directly from group chats.”
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t20MzFcwWVM]
Google Fit’s last update in November added a new digital watchface and a challenge mode that trains users on how to do a number of exercises on their Android Wear device. Another Wear heavy update (version 1.56) this week, adds an activity screen that allows users to track their exercise’s progress from their watch.
Virtual reality is cool, but augmented reality is more practical in day-to-day usage. Microsoft’s HoloLens and Magic Leap are currently the most well-known examples of AR. There are productivity use cases for it, but there are also many fun gaming applications. One developer made an app that turns an Android Wear watch when viewed through a camera into a game.
After Rap Genius rebranded to just plain ‘Genius’, their mission expanded beyond one genre of music to annotating every piece of text in the world. However, they still maintain a vast and up-to-date collection of music lyrics. An update to their Android app recently added the ability to know what song is playing on your phone and display the accompanying lyrics.
With the latest version of Google Play services rolled out, the Android Developers blog is detailing what new features this update brings. Version 8.4 introduces an easier way for users to share their favorite apps, a more accurate way to determine location, and new APIs for fitness data.
In the past, we’ve seen developers get Game Boy Advance games working on Android Wear watches. It’s not entirely practical for a number of reasons, but it’s still kind of fun and cool. There is now a Space Defender-esque game for Wear that was released as an Android Experiments app.
Kamcord, the popular platform for gameplay recording in mobile apps, is today launching support for live streaming directly from Android.
Facebook today announced it’s rolling out a new feature for its Messenger chat app that will let users book a car through Uber. The feature, it said, expands on other “integrations” it’s added recently outside of the app’s core chat functionality, like the ability to send money or use the app for customer support.
Instant Articles are Facebook’s attempts to speed up webpages on mobile in order to keep users reading and sharing within the social network. The serviced fully launched to all iOS users in October and has been in public testing since then on Android. Today, Instant Articles are rolling out to all Android users, as the rest of industry continues work on an open sourced alternative .
Google today has announced an update to its Google Play Books app on Android and iOS that brings with it a new feature called “Night Light.” The update is available now and bumps the app to version 3.7.45 on Android.
In September, to coincide with the beginning of the school year, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides added the ability to use a template to start a document. Previously restricted to the web, an update rolling out starting today adds the same ability to Android and iOS apps.
Now on Tap has been criticized for its lack of usefulness since its launch in October. Today, it’s receiving its first major update that adds new languages and now recognizes more types of information. The screenshot feature previous seen in the beta channel is also now rolling out again.
Inbox, Google’s smart assistant-heavy email client, is getting updated with new features for sharing travel plans and an easier way to attach photos to emails.
Google’s Maps app for iPhone and iPad got a small but useful update on the App Store today. The latest version of the Google Maps iOS app now includes a couple of handy features.
First up, and undoubtedly the most useful for drivers is the up-to-date gas prices in the US and Canada. The feature was included in the Android version of Google’s app a couple of months ago and lets users check nearby gas stations to see which has the most affordable prices. You can find prices simply be searching for ‘gas’ or ‘gas stations’ in the search field and Google Maps will automatically bring up the nearest options and list pricing for those locations.
Business hours have been included in the app for some time, but today’s update also lets you check when is best to avoid/visit particular businesses. Like its online search and maps tools, the updated iPhone app brings the ability check popular visiting hours for local stores and outlets. Now you can see what you always knew about any business or retail location: It starts getting busy after lunch.
Google Maps version 4.13.0 is available to download from the App Store for free and requires users to be running iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
An updated version of Play Music for Android redesigns the music controls in the notification drawer. When expanded, the notification now features thumps up/down buttons. This is almost certainly an effort by Google to get a more accurate picture of user’s music taste.
In addition to improving cut/copy/paste, the redesigned text selection pop-up in Android 6.0 Marshmallow allows developers to take advantage of the new contextual selection feature. The Wikipedia app has been updated so that when text is selected there is now an option to ‘Search Wikipedia’.