APK Insight

The latest update to the Stadia app for Android points to Google’s game streaming service gaining motion controls, a revamped touch gamepad, and more.

Google rolled out a Material You redesign for the Play Store in October, but it really only applied to the homescreen. The Play Store will soon get new Material You buttons throughout the app.

As Google starts rolling out iMessage reaction translations, Messages is readying a navigation drawer that surprisingly bucks the company’s recent design trend. Meanwhile, we have more details on how Google Photos media uploads will work.

The recently launched YouTube Music app for Wear OS is set to gain a home screen Tile to help you jump back into your favorite playlist.

The latest update to Stadia for Android, version 3.44, is rolling out now via the Play Store and includes early work on a revamped search feature, livestream spectating, and more.

With the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, Now Playing gained a manual lookup capability that appears as a search button on the homescreen. The next Pixel update to Now Playing will introduce the ability to favorite songs and a bottom bar redesign.

With the Pixel 6, Google announced a big upgrade for At a Glance that it’s been teasing since the Material You reel shared at I/O in May. At a Glance is now set to get even more features that justify the new design that spans the entire width of the Pixel Launcher.

In July of last year, we spotted development of an “Assistant Chat Head” that never ended up launching. Google is now working on a more useful “Search bubble” chat head that provides quick access to text and voice lookup.

The latest update to the Stadia app for Android offers our first hints at Dolby surround sound coming soon to the streaming service.

Stadia 3.38 has begun rolling out to Android devices via the Play Store, and in it, we’ve found “playability tips” to help improve your connection, along with a hint at deeper support for the Stadia Controller in the Android TV app.

Each year, Pixel phones gain a set of live wallpapers that try to stay in-theme with what the device is trying to accomplish. The only new live wallpapers for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are a set of “Bloom” floral backgrounds that should look familiar.

Last month, we detailed Google’s work on a feature that lets you skip Assistant’s hotword for select commands. On phones, Assistant “Quick phrases” work differently and in a somewhat more limited manner.

The latest addition to Google’s rapidly growing catalog of Android homescreen widgets is a handy search widget for Google Maps.

New Pixel phones released in the fall usually launch with exclusive software features that later become available on older Google phones. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will be the first to feature Material You weather widgets powered by the Google app. 

The latest version of Stadia for Android includes continued work toward adding voice chat, “Instant Trials” for Stadia store games, and more.

After redesigning the Weather app, Google’s next step is introducing Android 12 homescreen widgets. We enabled the first one last week, and the second Google widget coming is straight from the Pixel 6’s Material You advertising. 

The latest update to the Google TV app, in many areas still known as Play Movies & TV, gives us our best look yet at the upcoming phone-based remote for Android TV devices.

Update: As of version 4.28, we’re now able to preview the Quick Settings tile for the Google TV app’s upcoming remote.

Google is working on a redesign of Android Auto that borrows elements from Material You and makes your notifications more easily accessible.

The ability to “Test device speed” was one of the last remaining features of the old Google Wifi app that had yet to be migrated to Google Home with June’s Wi-Fi redesign. An update today introduces that check, and reveals work on ISP access to your Google/Nest Wifi router.

For the past few years, Google has been working on a “Better Together” initiative to make the experience of owning an Android phone and Chromebook more seamless. Integrations today include a prominent Phone Hub, Instant Tethering, and Smart (Un)Lock. As we reported in February, the latest feature in this family is codenamed “Eche,” and we now know a lot more about the Android side of things. Google Pixel phones look to be the first devices that can “Push” and mirror apps to Chromebooks.