One of Android Wear’s biggest advantages is a large collection of watchfaces from third-party developers. While ustwo is most known for making beautiful games like Monument Valley and Land’s End, it also makes some of the nicest watchfaces for Android Wear. With the new Face Maker app, ustwo lets users easily customize watchfaces right from their wrist.
After first planning to launch the app during Google I/O 2015 and changing its mind at the last minute, Google has finally launched Voice Access in beta, a new accessibility app that allows users to control their phone using their voice. With Voice Access, you can use a wide variety of voice commands like “open Chrome” to bring up the browser or “go home” to go to the home screen…
If there is one thing we learned from CEO Satya Nadella’s corporate restructuring of Microsoft over the last couple of years, it’s that he wants its services to be everywhere. And that doesn’t just mean apps like those in Office 365‘s suite keeping your productivity up even on non-Windows systems, but something that aims at a much deeper integration.
With today’s update rolling out for iOS and Android, the Outlook app is adding what the company calls “Calendar Apps”. While you could already see your calendar from within the dedicated tab inside the app, the new addition — which likely comes from the Sunrise acquisition — will allow services like Evernote, Facebook and Wunderlist to integrate as well…
We got our first hands-on with a beta version of Reddit’s official Android app back in January, and the app has now been formally launched in the Google Play store. Confusingly, it’s currently labelled as version 0.3.1 despite the company listing it as the launch week.
The app is the best way to enjoy Reddit on mobile.
- Browse all of Reddit, wherever you are
- Search and discover communities by topic or interest
- Submit your own comments, images, links, and stories for others to view and discuss
- Customize Reddit with themes (including night theme)
- View in either compact view or card view
- Stay up to date with your orangereds with Inbox: messages, comment replies, post replies, and mentions …
It was perhaps unimaginable just a few years ago, but live streaming has become particularly popular thanks to apps like Meerkat and, most notoriously, Twitter-acquired Periscope. Not to be left out, Facebook joined the race last summer — albeit initially only for public figures via the dedicated Mentions app — and then pushed beyond earlier this year with the open introduction of “Facebook Live” in the US, a feature within the mobile app that allows anyone to live stream to their friends.
The experiment seems to be working well, and with the app update — which begins its rollout today — Facebook is adding a variety of features to enhance the Facebook Live experience; according to the company, adding a dedicated tab for finding live as well as archived video will “give you more ways to discover, share, and interact with live video, and more ways to personalize your live broadcasts”…
Chrome 47 removed the rarely used notification center from desktops last year, but many Mac users have long wondered why the browser doesn’t use the native OS X center for notifications. Now, it appears Google is actively working on adding that feature and a preview is available in the Canary channel. Additionally, Chrome Dev for Android has removed merge tabs and has a redesigned bookmarks widget…
At a time when so many Facebook posts comprise a photo and a brief comment, there’s one group of people who get rather left out of the picture: those who are blind and partially sighted. That’s a problem Facebook is determined to fix.
From today, the company’s iOS app uses artificial intelligence to figure out the content of photos, and Apple’s VoiceOver feature to read aloud a description of them – and it says the same functionality will be coming to the Android app.
“24.0.6 Feedback applied. More feedback will be provided soon,” Samsung says to open up the changelog for a substantial update rolling out for its alternate Good Lock UI today. Besides a less-than-perfect translation, the changelog also features a huge list of much-requested bug fixes and additions. Among other changes, this update adds a swipe gesture to delete in the recent apps view, fixes an issue that caused the SD card to stop working, removal of the permanent location prompt, and more…
Google Drive is experiencing down time for some users this morning, Google has confirmed on its app status page that tracks service disruptions and outages for the company’s various web services.
The BBC reports that Google has removed an Android app used by the Taliban to post propaganda.
Alemarah, an app for Android phones created by Islamist fundamentalist group the Taliban, has been removed from Google’s Play Store […]
The hardline group blamed “technical issues” for its disappearance shortly after it launched on 1 April. However the BBC understands it was taken down because it violated a Google app policy which prohibits hate speech.
However, TNW reports that a messaging app allegedly created by ISIS remains available on Google Play.
Google says that it never comments on issues relating to specific apps.
Photo: AP Photo/Rahmat Gul
Nova Launcher is easily one of the best launchers available for Android right now. That’s mostly thanks to the fact that you can change virtually any part of the Android user interface. Whether you want to download custom icon packs, change their size, change the home screen, folder or app drawer layout, it can do virtually anything. And the latest beta version adds a couple of new, welcome additions.
Chromebox for meetings were announced two years ago and introduced the constantly updating Chrome OS model to corporate video conferencing. Previous hardware included a Chromebox and a camera, but required companies to supply their own monitor. Today, Google is announcing a more complete package that features an all-in-one Acer Chromebase that runs the enterprise software.
9to5Google’s Cam Bunton had a less than stellar Samsung support experience with the otherwise great Galaxy S7 Edge in case you haven’t read. In order to improve its customer experience, however, the company is launching a major update to the Samsung+ support app that adds a remote assistance feature.
As part of announcements at Microsoft’s Build 2016 conference today, Skype announced a new ‘Bots’ platform that it’s launching today in preview mode for developers and users in the Android app (as well as the iPhone, iPad and Windows apps).
Google has been slowly moving many of its stock apps to be available on the Play Store, and today marks the day that the Calculator app gets the honor. The Play Store listing, which of course offers the app for free, also brings an update to version 6.0 which includes a new Android Wear app…
The Waze maps app— the one Google acquired a few years back to improve its own mapping services—today announced a new features that will warn drivers when they are driving over the speed limit.
Now when you’re using the Waze app to navigate, you’ll automatically see a visual warning (pictured above) if you go over the speed limit, and you can also manually set audio warnings for reaching the limit or hitting 5, 10 or 15% over.
Snapchat is changing how you communicate with friends in a major way through what it’s calling Chat 2.0. The social network says it focused two years ago on making chatting more like face-to-face conversation with features like letting you know when your friends were present and “listening” to what you were typing, and the latest Snapchat update refocuses on the 1-to-1 chat aspect of the app with new features around voice and video calling plus stickers and more. How you watch Stories is also getting a change in the new update.
Big changes are coming to the community-based music streaming service SoundCloud as the company today introduces a new subscription service for the first time.
The new feature, dubbed SoundCloud Go, will allow users to listen to SoundCloud music both offline and ad-free for $10/month:
WhatsApp is preparing a new set of features for its Android users, many of which have been on my wish-list for many years, and have perhaps been the biggest causes of my disdain for the popular messaging app. The new beta, WhatsApp version 2.12.560, rolled out today and features (among other things) quick reply, solid wallpapers and new multiple-selection tools and options.
Google Photos for Android recently received a slight redesign in the form of a bottom bar that signified a change in the Material Design guidelines. A smaller app update today changes the behavior of how edited photos are saved.
Last year, Google added a Pinterest-like photo saving and tagging feature to Image search. It was first available on the mobile web for Android and iOS, but starting today Google is rolling out the feature to desktop search.
Update: It’s confirmed. Google is now sending the below email to users who have a card.
A new app teardown from Android Police today reveals that the Google Wallet card — which was first announced in November 2013 after many rumors of the troubled project being scrapped — is now finally getting the boot effective June 30th. The card assumably never really took off, and it seems that I’m one of the rare few that still has one of these little now-souvenirs…
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Mobile first is a frequent buzz phrase for newly minted startups and for the most part it is easy for them to achieve. However, for legacy companies with products designed for the web, it is often harder to cram functionality and information on a smaller screen. With that in mind, the Google for Work Admin app for Android has been updated with mobile device management features previously restricted to the full web app.
Early last month, Samsung updated their built-in browser with private browsing, a picture-in-picture video player, and third-party ad blockers on devices running Marshmallow. While Android 6.0 is rolling out to newer devices, those still on the Galaxy S4, S5, and other older devices will get these new features via an update starting today.
