Earlier this year Google unveiled its new YouTube Gaming service to rival Amazon-owned video game streaming site Twitch after several months of speculation. Today, Google has released the version of the YouTube Gaming app for Android, albeit in an early “Creator Preview” form. The changelog of the app reveals that the app is capable of many of the features previously announced.
It’s been possible on the web for quite a while, but a recent update to the Google Keep app now lets you quickly export your notes to a Google Doc. To do so, make sure you have the latest version of the app, and then select the notes you’d like to export. Then tap the drop down menu at the top right of the screen and tap “Copy to Google Doc”. It’s pretty nifty.
You can grab the app from the Play Store for free of course, and if you’d like to try out the feature right now, open this page on your Android device. All you have to do is tap below to download the APK (via APKMirror), and then tap the notification on your phone once the app is done downloading. You’ll be walked through a couple steps, and then you’ll be on the latest version.
Not quite in time for the influx of visitors that surely happened earlier this summer, Disney has now released an official Disneyland app for Android. As you might expect, the app is intended to basically be your companion during your visit, allowing you to do everything from buy your tickets in advance to browse detailed maps of the park…
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Viber has updated its Android app to add a range of improvements based on user requests, says the company. Version 5.5 allows you to start a video call directly from your recent calls list, rich links now display content previews when links are posted into text chats – and Viber says more efficient data compression has allowed it to improve the quality of both audio and video calls while reducing data usage.
Users can also now share contacts within both one-to-one and group chats, and invite an entire group to follow a public chat.
Viber is a free download from Google Play.
Chrome v44 hit the beta channel last month and today the update is rolling out to the stable app via the Play Store. While Google isn’t very specific in what has changed, there are usually several hidden features in Chrome version bumps.
We saw leaked screenshots of both the upcoming Hangouts Android app and its Android Wear counterpart, and now the app has leaked again (via Phandroid). Everything looks basically the same, and there’s not much new to see in this leak. And while Phandroid seems to claim that their version of the app is somehow special, the currently-available build of Hangouts now lets users send messages from Android Wear…
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The rollout of Android Auto, Google’s smartphone-based infotainment system for the road, is in full swing as several automakers and developers are announcing specific cars and apps to support the feature. Audibooks.com is the latest to release an Android Auto-compatible app with the most recent update to their Audio Books app for Android.
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Xbox Music changed its name to Groove at the beginning of this month, and today, the rebranding has made its way to the music app on Android’s Play Store. It’s free to download, and is available right now.
Along with the new look and name, the app has had a couple of new features added. More devices can now download tracks for offline listening thanks to newly added compatibility. Music stored in your OneDrive folders will automatically show as music in the new Groove app. What’s more, you won’t need a paid subscription to make use of the app, although you will need one to access the entire streaming catalogue ad-free.
As per the Play Store listing:
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StubHub is rolling out an updated version of its Android app today that adds integration with Uber for requesting rides to events.
With the udpated app, users can now request a vehicle directly from within the app when purchasing event tickets or setup a reminder to do so for an upcoming event. Once you’ve booked a ride with Uber, StubHub automatically provides the location of the event venue to the driver:
After completing a ticket purchase on StubHub, fans will now be able to set a reminder to arrange transportation through Uber when the event is imminent. Users who purchase tickets within two hours of the event will be able to order an Uber directly from the order confirmation page.
The Uber integration is available for users in the updated Android StubHub app on Google Play alongside a few other fixes and improvements. The Uber feature, however, is available only for users in the UK, US, and Canada.
Update: As expected, the app has just gone live in the Google Play Store for the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and UK. You can download it here, and Livetext should also be rolling to to U.K., Canada, Germany and France as we speak.
After testing the waters by releasing the app to the iOS App Store in certain regions a few weeks back, Yahoo has come out publicly to unveil Yahoo Livetext, a new (unabashedly Snapchat-like) messaging app from the company with some unique twists to it…
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Google announced today that it’s now allowing Android users to send messages via third-party services like WhatsApp and Viber using its “OK Google” voice control feature:
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Fallout Shelter, a mobile game companion to the much-anticipated Fallout 4, was brought to iOS last month with no word on when it would be arriving on Android. Today, the company behind the game, Bethesda, has come out on Twitter to announce that it should be hitting Android devices in less than a month — on August 13th.
The game was met with mixed reviews despite the hype, so Android users anticipating the game became much less excited with iOS players commented on its repetitive gameplay and stability issues. That said, Fallout 4 is definitely one of the most eagerly-awaited games of the year, and until it hits in November, players will have to take Shelter for what it is.
Attention overseers: learn what's new in #FalloutShelter arriving on Android on 8.13 pic.twitter.com/pTEKrNAH6d
— Fallout (@Fallout) July 24, 2015
Dmail is a Chrome extension which allows you to un-send, or revoke any emails you send through your Gmail account. The service was launched by the same brainiacs that brought us the Delicious social bookmarking tool.
Self-destructing email isn’t exactly a new thing. Google itself rolled out a feature that lets you un-send a message once you’ve sent it. The only issue with Google’s built-in service however, is that you only have 30 seconds to change your mind about sending an email to someone. Dmail lets you revoke emails whenever you like. I took it for a quick spin to see what it’s like, and I have to say, it’s an incredibly convenient way to make all your outgoing communication more secure. It also happens to be ridiculously easy to use.
Yahoo’s News Digest app that delivers the best from Yahoo News to readers twice a day is now available for Android tablets. The app was previously only available for Android smartphones and iOS devices.
The popular app offers summaries of top stories from Yahoo News with two daily updates, once in the morning and again at night. Content is a mix of human curated stories from Yahoo’s editors and picks via its algorithms from various sources around the web:
Each story is created from multiple sources to present the essential bits and pieces of information, known as “atoms”. Atoms are key quotes, images, videos, maps, infographs, and Wikipedia excerpts among others. These atomic units provide a unique context to the news. Our stories are both algorithmically and hand curated to ensure high quality, and come with a textual summary.
The updated Yahoo News Digest app for Android with support for tabtlets is available on Google Play now.
Pebble has announced today an update to the firmware of the company’s smartwatch, bringing several features that the community has oft-requested. Most notably, the new firmware brings settings for adjusting font size, backlight, and vibration. Pebble also released an updated version of the Pebble Time’s Android app counterpart, bumping it to version 3.2.0, which brings a new search bar, preserved notification preferences, and other minor changes…
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The Physical Web is an open source web specification from Google released last year with the aim to make interacting with smart devices in the real world as easy as clicking a link, just as we do on the web. Now with the company having released its Eddystone beacon technology and APIs for making this communication between devices in the same proximity easier, it’s integrating Physical Web directly into Chrome for iOS.
As more and more Internet usage shifts towards mobile, particularly to smartphones, app developers are recognizing the phone number as an ideal identifier for new users. Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger are just three examples of hugely popular apps which support signing up using your phone number in lieu of an email address, and which can also use the contact list to build up a network of connections within their apps. Now Amazon is jumping into the fold.
In the newest version of Amazon Shopping for Android, the company’s main mobile experience through which customers can purchase items and track orders, the onboarding flow for new customers has been updated to support signing up using just a name, phone number, and password. New customers who’d prefer to use an email address can click “Use your email instead.” The update hasn’t fully propagated in the Play Store just yet, but can be downloaded right now through APKMirror (click here). For that to work you need to visit Settings > Security on your device and toggle on “Unknown sources.”
This shift to phone number-based identification for apps makes total sense. Phone numbers are a native feature on smartphones – I like to call them an “atomic unit.” SMS and phone calls work right out of the box, whereas with email you have to launch an email app and then sign up and/or authenticate with a third-party provider, just to begin receiving messages. At the very least, by allowing onboarding with phone numbers, app developers make the onboarding process much faster, tremendously reducing the friction and bounce rate (users who download an app but leave before signing up). That’s what Amazon has done here.
Microsoft has released an updated version of Skype for Android today that delivers both a visual refresh to several parts of the app as well as performance improvements throughout.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA]
Update: Google has now officially announced the update, bringing three new tabs on top of vertical video support.
We all have friends who’ve done it: fail to recognize that shooting video is different from taking a photo, and end up shooting vertical video. YouTube has for some time tried to lessen their embarrassment with a pseudo horizontal view, but the latest update to the Android app takes things a stage further by acting like they didn’t do anything dumb in the first place …
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Google today has started rolling out an update to its Maps application on Android that brings about several new features and changes. Most notably, version 9.12 of the app adds a new interface called “Your timeline.” On this screen, which is accessible via the slide-out navigation drawer, you can see all of the places to which you’ve been, in a comprehensive timeline-like interface.
Au revoir, Google+ Photos. In a post to Google+, ironically enough, Google has (unsurprisingly) announced that starting on August 1st, it will be sunsetting its Google+ Photos app in favor of the recently launched Google Photos. First the Android version of the app will stop working, followed by the iOS and web apps shortly thereafter. The company says the move to axe Google+ Photos is being made in an “effort to ensure everyone has the best photos experience we can deliver.”
Late last week, Microsoft made its Cortana digital assistant available as a beta for Android, and we’ve been putting it through its paces ever since to see how it stacks up against Google Now. To compare, we put together a list of all the things we think a good assistant should be able to do, then tested them both using the same commands.
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Microsoft recently released its Cortana digital assistant as a beta app, and we’ve been able to get our hands on the preview. Apart from its Material-like design, the app looks, performs, and acts just like the Cortana on Windows Phone. You can ask it to set reminders, give you directions and weather information, or do simple arithmetic. It has its limitations and doesn’t feel quite as intuitive or in-depth as Google Now or Siri, but it has its uses.
We told you in May about a new app from Microsoft called “Hyperlapse Mobile” (not to be confused with Instagram’s Hyperlapse), but it was at the time only available to an exclusive set of beta testers. Now, the app is publicly available to any and all that might want to give it a try, and — aside from its horrendous icon — I’m decently impressed.
Not much has changed since it was first introduced, and it’s still a little on the buggy side according to reviews, but overall users — myself included, briefly — are satisfied with the app’s resulting video footage. You can import existing video into the app, choose between multiple speeds, create selfie hyperlapses, and more.
You can get Microsoft Hyperlapse Mobile right now on the Play Store for free.