Boosting playback speed is a common occurrence with most YouTube content these days, especially with podcasts, and Google is making it easier to 2x videos with a new gesture.

Google rolled out the ability for Messages to auto-group SMS texts and RCS chats last year, but the categories have now disappeared for some users.

Google introduced Gmailify in 2016 so that you could use Gmail features like spam filtering and inbox organization with a third-party account, but that integration is currently down. 

After launching in late April for US users, YouTube Music is starting to roll out international support for podcasts.

YouTube Music is addressing a big issue with the permanent miniplayer by adding a “Dismiss queue” button. 

Google is continuing its move to more explicitly label “RCS” in Messages with a very prominent badge noting which conversations are eligible.

Google is giving Bard its “biggest expansion to date” by coming to Europe and Brazil, as well as supporting additional languages. The AI chatbot is also getting new productivity and personalization features.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Google Search app on Android now offers a “Finance Watchlist” stocks widget.

Google is rolling out a new Calendar tool in the Gmail web client that makes it easier and faster to schedule meetings.

After completing the Tasks migration and introducing tablet optimizations, Google Calendar for Android is next adding Material You widgets. 

As it has done for the smart TV experience and Music, YouTube is now asking for feedback about YouTube Premium with a poll on top issues and complaints.

As part of the Search Generative Experience, Google made it so that hovering over a result gives you convenient shortcuts. On mobile, you can swipe right on Google Search results to quickly share and save.

Pixel Call Assist is one of Google’s differentiating phone features and the company is actively beta testing new Call Screen capabilities.

Google is making a change to what it calls the “First Open Experience” that will launch Docs in edit mode, with Sheets and Slides also getting a “more creation-focused experience.”

While we wait for Magic Editor, Google Photos is adding new effects to make videos “pop” with one of 12 different styles that just requires a tap.  

Meet is the video calling service that Google wants you to use. However, Duo’s functionality still lives on, and group video calling in Google Meet was broken for a whole week. 

YouTube Music just rolled out a new miniplayer and is testing a Now Playing redesign that now looks to be home to a comments section.

For most people, a lot of the apps they use on their Android phones are made directly by Google. Here’s an informal look at how Android users rate the top Google apps, with the highest-rated apps being somewhat surprising.

At the start of last month, Google Workspace announced that it would start public testing of Duet AI image generation in Slides, and it’s now more widely available.

After it first started appearing last month, YouTube Music is now widely rolling out a permanent miniplayer design.

Google has updated the Play Store such that blue is now the accent color throughout the app at the expense of some existing Dynamic Color theming.

Besides the web player taking after the main video site, YouTube Music now automatically adds songs to the last used playlist.