Today RealNetworks, Inc. announced RealPlayer Cloud is now available for international users. The app allows users to easily move, watch, and share videos with any user on any device, including Android, iOS, Windows 8 Modern UI, Kindle Fire, Roku and Chromecast.
Popular file sharing app BitTorrent announced an update to its Android client today bringing an overhaul to its user interface.
In addition to the new look and feel, BitTorrent for Android also includes the ability to manage specific downloads within a torrent. In its announcement, BitTorrent says its user base has crossed the 50 million mark.
BitTorrent 2.0 for Android is available for free from the Google Play Store.
It seems the Google Play Store has reached peak “flappy.” According to TechCrunch, multiple developers report that Google has started blanket-rejections of apps using the word in the name, and perhaps it’s for the best. The store has been inundated with Flappy Bird clones since the app first topped the charts.
A quick search of the Play Store’s app section reveals just how pervasive the clones have become. The resulting 240+ apps include meme-based gems such as “Flappy Doge” and “Flappy Gangnam,” as well as at least five named “Flappy Turd” or similar.
Google added a Valentine’s Day Easter egg (wait, what?) to the Play Music service today. The new “fireplace visualizer” is available through the “labs” settings, where all experimental features start out. Turning it on will allow you to use your Chromcast to put a crackling fireplace on your TV while your music plays. Why? Because there’s nothing better to symbolize your love than a fake flame. Wait…
Once you’ve enabled the feature in the “labs” settings page, casting music from any of your mobile devices or the web will automatically display the fireplace on your TV instead of the usual album artwork.
After a couple of teases that a new Angry Birds title was incoming, Rovio today announced that a new game called “Angry Birds Stella” is coming soon. The game features a female lead character unlike the majority of Rovio’s other games, but there aren’t many details about how else it might differ from other Angry Birds titles.
Angry Birds Stella will open a door to a part of the Angry Birds universe you’ve never seen before! There will be plenty of fun and adventure, but the bunch of passionate pals will also have to deal with some serious issues in order to protect their friendship and the environment they live in. Luckily, Stella and her friends are good at finding creative solutions!
No word on an official release date, but Rovio says the game will ship sometime in the fall.
Google today updated the Play Music app for Android with a handful of new features. The biggest change is the ability to cache radio stations for offline listening, following the update in December that added the ability to save songs to your SD card. This means that you can now create a radio station and be able to listen to it whenever you want, even if you don’t have an active internet connection. It’s unclear how much of a radio station Google will cache, but we’d imagine it’s quite a few songs, so you can listen for a while before hearing a repeat song (via Android Police).
Also new with this update is the ability to manage your authorized Google Play Music devices from directly within the app. There’s a cap of 10 devices, and as many power users now, it doesn’t take long to reach that limit, especially if you share an account with family members.
There are a few other minor tweaks throughout the app with this update, such as a new “Play Next” button on songs, artists, and albums. There’s no official changelog just yet, as this appears to be a staged rollout. Be sure to keep an eye on the Play Store for the update to hit your device.
The Wall Street Journal points to a recent survey in which over 1,100 IT administrators and business users were asked about their use of Google Apps in the workplace. According to the report, over two-thirds of respondents said that they prefer Google’s services to the point that they would be willing to spend their own hard-earned money on Google Apps for use in the office.
The survey also indicates a strong correlation between businesses that allow workers to bring their own devices for use at work and support for Google’s software. Of those surveyed, 83% said they brought their own mobile devices to work. It seems that Google’s move to create software for everyday usage has created an path to the workplace through employees who want to make their work tasts as easy to manage as their personal tasks.
Google today rolled out a minor update to its Search app on Android. The update doesn’t add a lot, but does make the voice recognition functionality even better. With the update, you can now assign titles to people in your contacts. For example, you can say “Ok Google, call Mom” and it will either call the number that you have assigned to your mom, or prompt you to choose who you want to be labeled as your mom and remember that option for future use. The funcationaily also works for texting. Simply say “Ok Google, send a text to my wife” and the Search app will pull up the wife contact. Officially, the app supports the following relationships: father / dad, mother / mom, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, grandmother / grandma, grandfather / grandpa, wife, husband, girlfriend, and boyfriend.
Want to save time keeping in touch with your loved ones? Or just not drop your phone or your shopping bags whilst you try to find a number to make a call? You can skip scrolling through your contacts and just say to your Android phone “Ok Google, call Mom” or “Ok Google, send a text to my wife.” Starting now, the Google search app on your Android phone will be able to pull up the right contact for you—and if you don’t have Mom saved as “mom,” it’ll help you set that up quickly.
The update appears to be a staged rollout, so it may take a little while to appear on your device. Keep an eye on the Play Store.
After reaching the top of App Store charts, the hit iOS and Android game Flappy Bird will be removed from the Play Store. According to tweets from the developer Dong Nguyen, the game will be removed from both the iOS and Android app stores in just 22 hours. Nguyen says he “cannot take this anymore” and that the game ruins his “simple life,” which means he now hates it. He says the decision has nothing to do with “legal issues.” Nguyen also says he has no interest in selling the game to anyone.
I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014
I can call 'Flappy Bird' is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014
After rolling out the update to Android devices last week, Google today updated its Google Wallet app for iOS with the ability to scan physical loyalty cards. Rather than having to type out your account information to join a new program within the app, scanning a physical loyalty card from a supported retailer will auto-populate your info and automate the process.
The updated app also now includes new notifications for nearby retailers related to loyalty programs you’ve joined. If you’ve joined the Walgreens program, for example, you’ll get notifications reminding you “to shop and earn rewards” when close to a brick and mortar retail location.
The updated Google Wallet iOS app is available on the App Store now.
Google is going rolling out a new version of the Google Wallet app for Android this week that will bring a couple of new features including the ability to join loyalty programs by scanning physical cards:
Now adding your loyalty cards is even easier. Just scan the card with the camera in your device, and you’re done! Your loyalty program info will auto-populate, so you can add more and type less.
Google is also including new notifications tied to the loyalty programs that it says will remind you “to shop and earn rewards” when in the proximity of a store for one of the programs you’ve joined.
The update doesn’t appear to have hit Google Play just yet, but should land sometime this week for devices running Android 4.0+.
After letting us know last month that it was getting ready to release a toolkit to let developers easily bring their Chrome web apps to iOS and Android, today Google released a developer preview of the tool. In its blog post, Google explains the tool is based on open-source framework Apache Cordova, which allows devs to build native apps for iOS and Android using CSS, HTML, and Javascript. It’s also making a lot of its own core Chrome APIs available to developers through the preview. It essentially means devs will be able to bring their Chrome web apps to the App Store and Google Play, but it will also let them build new cross platform apps in CSS, HTML, and Javascript. Google explained how it works:
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Twitter for Android has received a pretty sizable update this evening that includes improvements to photo sharing, as well as realtime news stories at the top of your timeline. New to photo sharing is the ability to easily @ mention people when tweeting a photo. While editing a photo, the app will now remind you to @ mention the people or places that are in your photo.
Also new are realtime stories at the top of your timeline after you pull-to-refresh. This stories aren’t specific to each user, but rather based on the most popular links and headlines shared on Twitter. The app will only show these stories if no new tweets are loaded.
Twitter also touts better login verification and improvements to photo editing. The full change log is below:
This release includes enhancements to Tweet replies and the photo viewer.
- Easily mention other users when you Tweet a photo.
- Improvements to the photo cropping and image rotation
- Better login verification.
- When you’ve read all the latest Tweets, pull to refresh and see recommendations for new content on Twitter.
The update is available now on Google Play.
Adobe has just announced a significant update to its Photoshop Express app on Android. In a blog post, the software company announced a brand new version of the app, rebuilt completely from the ground up with KitKat in mind. Most notably, Adobe has focused on design with this update and making the app easier to use by bring the most popular features front and center. This includes things like, Looks (filters), cropping, red eye reduction, and auto-correct.
Also updated is the Corrections menu. This menu offers slider controls for fine-tunning exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, temperature, tint, and more. The app has received many improvements under the hood as well. It’s powered by Adobe’s latest image rendering engine, which is a first for the Android app. This engine will greatly improve performance with large file sizes.
Google been working on a remote desktop management app for Android devices called “Chromoting” since last year, but today an entry in the Chromium issue tracker has revealed that an iOS version is also under developement. The issue, which was opened on Wednesday, indicates that the iOS version is still very much in the design stage, while its counterpart on Android is much further along in its development.
According to the post, the iOS version is is expected to be released much later than the Android client. The features of the app have mostly been kept under wraps, but it looks like a fairly straightforward piece of software that allows you to access and manipulate remote machines using Chrome as a condiut for the connection. The biggest advantage Chromoting would have over similiar solutions would be the low, low price of $0.00.
DoubleTwist, the developers behind the doubleTwist Music Player app for Android, today introduced a new app that lets Android users steal “record” music from iTunes. The doubleTwist Music Player app is popular among Apple device users for its ability to AirPlay music from Android devices to Apple TV and AirPlay supported audio accessories. The new app called iTunes Radio Recorder will allow users to save songs from iTunes that are streaming through iTunes Radio or locked to the app through DRM. Here’s how it works:
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Today, Google has released a new application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch to allow Google Play users to stream purchased movies and TV shows. You cannot rent or purchase content via this application: you must download it from Google Play on Android or the web and then the purchased titles will be available to stream via this app. The application is only supported in the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. WiFi is currently required for streaming. The app also allows streaming to the ChromeCast.
Google just announced a nice new feature for Gmail users that will make it easier to keep track of contacts across devices. The same way Gmail allows users to add emails to a “starred” list for easy access, you can now do the same for Google Contacts from with in Gmail on the desktop or mobile devices. Android users also get the added benefit of having starred contacts sync with the Favorites section for contacts on their Android device.
Google just added a nice new feature to Google Drive that will make it easier for users to track and review changes made to files and folders. The new Activity Stream sits next to your files and folders and shows all changes that are being made by contributors on your shared files. You’ll also be able to filter the stream by selecting a specific file or multiple files as highlighted in the gif above. Here’s how to access it:
When you open Drive, click the ⓘ button in the top right corner and the activity stream will appear, showing you who has taken action on files and folders in My Drive. You’ll see a rundown of what your team has been doing, such as editing and commenting on notes, adding a new spreadsheet, renaming a presentation, and more.
The new activity stream isn’t available to everyone yet, but Google says it will roll out to all over the next week.
If developers are finding it difficult to make money from apps today, things are only going to get tougher, according to a forecast by Gartner (via TechCrunch). Looking at the period through to 2018, Gartner predicts that fewer than one in 10,000 apps will be considered financially successful by their developers.
“The vast number of mobile apps may imply that mobile is a new revenue stream that will bring riches to many,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “However, our analysis shows that most mobile applications are not generating profits.”
While this may not necessarily be a bad thing for major brands, who Gartner note may use apps to build brand recognition and product awareness, small developers have a much harder time getting their apps noticed, as consumers increasingly turn to recommendations and advertising to make their selections.
Gartner predicts that by 2017, 94.5 percent of apps will be free or freemium, suggesting that advertising and in-app purchases will become an increasingly important source of income. The company also expects browser-based apps to grow in popularity as the HTML5 standard matures.
Of the most notable things Motorola has accomplished over the past year is arguably its contextually aware services, found on devices like the Moto X. Today, the company’s Assist app on the Play Store has been updated with a few new features. For those unaware, Assist can determine your actions, such as driving and sleeping, and perform a pre-specificed command.
Up until today, the app could only read you the text messages you got while driving. With this newest update, however, you can now reply to texts while driving by speaking to the phone. So once the text is read to you, you will have the ability to read a response to the app. In addition to that, Assist can also now launch your music player of choice when it notices you are driving.
The update is available on the Play Store, although Motorola Assist is only compatible with the most recent Droid line of devices, as well as the Moto X.
Google last updated its Play Services app back in October when KitKat and the Nexus 5 launched with a plethora of improvements. Today via the official Android Developers Blog, the company has announced another rather significant update to the app, brining it to version 4.1.
First off, the update will allow for developers to start implementing turn-based multiplayer capabilities into games entirely with Play Services. This will allow for improved asynchronous games with friends and opponents. The update also adds a developer preview of a new Google Drive API that lets users read and write Google Drive files from any device, with or without a data connection, and have their changes synced across other devices and platforms.
Following recent API abuse that lead to phone numbers and usernames being exposed, Snapchat, the social photo sharing app, has updated its Android app with the option to opt out of linking your phone number with your username. The feature was intended to increase social discoverability among mutual contacts, but was recently abused leading to the following update and apology:
Find Friends Improvements
This morning we released a Snapchat update for Android and iOS that improves Find Friends functionality and allows Snapchatters to opt-out of linking their phone number with their username. This option is available in Settings > Mobile #.
This update also requires new Snapchatters to verify their phone number before using the Find Friends service.
Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.
Love,
Team Snapchat
The update is available now on for Android users on the Google Play Store.
The YouTube app for iOS has been updated with a new design for iOS 7, including the new keyboard and status bar, and a blurred sidebar design like that found in other apps.
The update also includes improved search results that include videos, playlists, and channels all on one screen. Finally, the new version introduces new settings for closed captioning and subtitles.
You can grab the free YouTube app on the iOS App Store.
