Google Play

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Mozilla refreshed its Firefox for Android app today and promised an “a snappy and dynamic upgrade” that will improve everything from page load times to performance of web apps. On top of the performance upgrades that Mozilla claimed make Firefox “two times faster” than the stock Android browser, the newly updated app also received a few new features.

First, you will notice the UI has been streamlined, and it now includes a “personalized start page” called the “Awesome Screen.” The new start page, as highlighted in the video above, allows you quick access to bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, and data from your device that are stored in Firefox Sync. Mozilla also gave us an update on changes to the web platform:

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In a post on the Android Developers blog, Google today outlined how it will be improving the ability for developers and app users to connect with one another through Google Play. Starting with an initial rollout today for Top Developers, devs will now have the ability to reply to user reviews from within the Google Play Android Developer Cosnole:

Developers can gather additional information, provide guidance, and — perhaps most importantly — let users know when their feature requests have been implemented…We’ll also notify the user who wrote the review via email that the developer has responded. Users can then contact the developer directly if additional followup is needed or update their review.

Google noted it will begin to offer the feature to additional developers as it gathers feedback on the feature from developers and users.

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Google just unveiled a new feature in Google Play for in-app billing: Subscriptions.

In-app billing launched in Google’s marketplace a year ago to allow developers more opportunities for earning cash with apps. Approximately 23 of the 24 top-grossing apps now take advantage of Google’s money-making service, and Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, Google Play’s product manager, even told 9to5Google in a public statement that the total revenue produced from in-app purchases surpasses revenue from traditional app purchases. The executive further noted the feature is an extreme success, especially because it gives developers multiple monetizing options through “try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and other popular business models.”

Now, developers have another business model option thanks to today’s newly-announced in-app subscription feature within in-app billing. The feature is quite self-explanatory—users can purchase subscriptions to any type of extra content from an app using any Android device. Some examples of in-app subscription could apply to bonus game levels/maps or and recurring services like journals and magazines. The ability to sell monthly or annual subscriptions in any app is effective immediately, while users can also start buying right away.

“While making it easy for developers to offer a great purchasing experience, our subscriptions are also designed for flexibility,” Elbouchikhi explained. “Developers can use them to monetize premium dynamic content such as journals and magazines, but they can also use them to sell access to bundled products, game levels, music and video content, value-added services, or any other digital content.”

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(early beta of the functionality, above)

Update: The app is now live on the App Store. A full list of new features is below.

Alongside the Facebook Messenger for iPad app and updated iPhone app with video chat that we revealed earlier this week, we have also been beta testing a new “read receipts” feature. Today, Facebook is apparently rolling out the new feature to its existing iOS Messenger app, which gives you the ability to see when someone received and read your message.

While the update is not live, TechCrunch confirmed with FaceBook’s Peter Deng that the update is coming to the current iOS Facebook Messenger client and Android’s counterpart. According to the report, the feature will appear as “Seen by username” under the message itself, but our build of the app used checkmarks—as seen in the image above.

As noted by TechCrunch, the update will include the name of the location when the message was sent, if the user has enabled location services. It also replaces the three-dot typing indicator with the name of the person typing.

The updated Facebook Messenger iOS app is available here.

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For quite a while, Android users on many carriers in a handful of countries have had access to direct carrier billing for apps. Google is rolling out the option today to all content available through Google Play including music, movies, and books to certain carriers in the United States and Japan. While direct carrier billing is available to AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (everyone but Verizon who operates its own Android store), Google’s announcement seems to indicate the expanded service will launch first on T-Mobile in the United States with Sprint coming soon. It will also roll out to Softbank, DoCoMo, and KDDI customers in Japan. You can check out a full list of countries and carriers that support direct billing here.

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Google released an update to the “TV & Movies” app for Google TV bringing with it a few new features including enhancements to animations and scrolling, the ability to remove channels from live TV shelves, and additional Dish Network content. The update will also now hide empty shelves by default.

Google also walked through a number of new features and improvements to the updated TV & Movies app on The Official Google TV Blog. Among the improvements is expanded information below content, and a new menu for getting additional details, star ratings, and favorites. The star ratings will provide suggestions based on your feedback, and Google outlined the streamlined channel layout.

When you add them to Favorite Channels you’ll instantly see what show is currently playing on each. Add all your favorite channels and you’ll have a one-stop personalized guide of just the channels you care about. You can also add favorite TV shows and movies to your queue so you can come back later and watch them on Netflix, Amazon, HBO GO and more.

A full list of what’s new in the update is below:
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[tweet https://twitter.com/benjrubenstein/status/192310507179483137]

Google announced on the Google Chrome Blog today an updated version of the “Chrome for Android Beta” app that includes support for 31 additional languages and a few new features highly requested by users. The beta is now available to users in all countries with access to Google Play.

Among the new features is the ability to view the desktop version of a website, add bookmarks to your home screen as shortcuts, select default apps for opening links, and use Chrome with the system proxy for Wi-Fi.

As always, “Chrome for Android Beta” is available free through the Google Play store for Android 4.0 devices. Google also released a change log of fixes, changes, and known issues:

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You might be familiar with Google Labs from other Google services such as Gmail. The functionality allows users to enable experimental features that have not rolled out as main features of the service. Now, Labs is enabled for Google Play Music allowing you to add new features to the desktop version of the app, some of which were only previously available to iOS users.

One feature that made its way over from the iOS version of its web player is a toggle to switch to HTML5 audio rather than using Flash. You can also now enable Gmail-like desktop notifications that will give you details for the currently playing track including song title, artist name, album title, and album cover. Lastly, a 5-star Ratings lab will replace the current thumbs up and thumbs down features for more specific ratings. You can get all the details here.

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While iPhone users might not be happy that their beloved photo-sharing app has finally made its way to Android, over a million users of Google’s platform have downloaded the app in its first 24 hours of availability. Google Play now lists 1 million to 5 million installs and the company’s Chief Executive Officer Kevin Systrom told The New York Times that the app is experiencing over 2,000 signups per minute.

There was clearly huge anticipation for the app, which has been available on iOS since October 2010, with over 430,000 people preregistered to download the app before its official launch yesterday. Instagram is currently home to over 30 million registered users on iOS, and it took the app approximately six months to hit the 5 million-user mark, according to CBS. Of course, the Android version would pass that milestone this week if it continues at its current rate.

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[slideshow]
Hulu Plus is now available on seven Android tablets with a new user interface.

The “Hulu Plus” app is available on Google Play with an improved experience for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Motorola Xoom, Motorola XYBoard 10.1, Toshiba Thrive, Acer Iconia, and LG G-Slate.

“This is just the beginning of our Android tablet rollout,” announced Hulu on its official blog.

Hulu is a flash-based service with ad-supported on-demand streaming video of television shows, movies, webisodes, and trailers from a variety of content suppliers, including NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and Nickelodeon. Hulu Plus is the $7.99 monthly subscription variant that officially launched in 2010 and allots subscribers an expanded content library. Like the free version, Hulu’s videos showcase commercials.

Video is available below.

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DoubleTwist player, the app that aims to provide the functionality of the iOS iPod in a single Android app, keeps adding features that take it even beyond the functionality of Apple’s iPods. Today, an update to the app adds several welcomed improvements and fixes, and the most notable is support for Google Music. The blog post noted Google Music offline tracks would now appear in the app’s library.

Also included in v1.7.3 are fixes for the latest Apple TV update and downloading album artwork. As always, the app includes several other improvements and bug fixes, and it can be downloaded for free from Google Play. The devs were also able to reduce the size of the app in the update, which is always nice while receiving new functionality in the process.

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Google just pushed out an update to the “Maps for Android” app that brings new high-resolution map tiles for pixel dense displays, a new look for Navigation on Android 4.0, and the ability to set a preferred mode of transit for directions.

New high-res map on the right, previous map on the left

In addition to a redesigned home screen for the Navigation feature of the app on Android 4.0 devices, the new higher resolution map tiles provide “a crisper, less cluttered map that is easier to read.” Google noted this would allow you to take full advantage of the pixel density of displays on devices like the Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, and Droid Razr.

The high-res tiles will appear when visiting new locations on the map, but you will have to clear the cache in Map settings for previously visited locations. Google explained the benefits:

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Google added its Google Play service to the black navigation bar found at the top of its search engine.

The “Play” link seems to only appear for users logged into their Google account. Moreover, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company is likely rolling out the addition, because some users claim they are unable to see the new icon in the Google bar.

It is worth noting the link still does not appear on Google’s main search page—despite being signed-in.

UPDATE: The “Play” link now appears on Google’s main search page whether or not a user is signed-in.

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Pictionary-like drawing game “Draw Something,” developed by OMGPOP, has quickly become one of the hottest mobile apps for both of the industry’s leading platforms. A few days ago, the developer told TechCrunch it reached 25 million registered users, 10 million active daily users, and close to 1 billion paid ad impressions every day. That is just over 5 weeks after launching. With even more press following reports that Zynga is in talks to acquire developer OMGPOP, the app is continuing to climb app charts in both the App Store and on Google Play.

Currently the app sits at No. 1 in both stores as the No. 1 Top Paid and Top Free iPhone app in the App Store, and the No. 1 Top Free app on Google Play. The app is also currently the No. 1 Top Free iPad app in the game category and in the Top 5 of many other charts in over 80 countries. It looks like the company might get picked up by Zynga, which is not surprising, because a gain of 3.5 million daily users over the last week saw Draw Something take over Zynga’s “Words With Friends” as the most popular Facebook Connect game, according to AppData.

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Reports circulated yesterday claiming Google is set to launch audio books, magazines and journals under its new Google Play service after the Internet giant slipped and included the respective categories within the Google Play Help Center.

With that said, the Audio Books sections are no longer listed in the Google Play Help Center. This link previously routed people to the Audio Books page, but now it is a generic Help page. [The screenshot to the right depicts what was formerly witnessed.] It seems Google was quick to fix the blunder.

Google Play apparently included an empty “Audio Books” page when it launched on Tuesday. There were also two subgenres appearing with a similar name in the Help Center called “audio books” and “audiobooks.” The discovery of these sections confused many, because Google’s eBookstore does not currently sell audio books.

More information is available below.

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Google announced it rebranded Android Market to “Google Play” today as a cloud-based digital entertainment destination.

“Starting today, Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore will become part of Google Play,” explained Director of Digital Content Jamie Rosenberg on the Official Google Blog.

Google Play lets users find, enjoy and share content, such as music, movies, books and apps, on the web and on an Android smartphone or tablet. Moreover, the cloud service stores all of the content online. Google Play allots free storage for up to 20,000 songs, and it has downloads for more than 450,000 Android apps, eBooks browsing, and rent options for thousands of movies, HD titles, and new releases.

The integrated destination replaces and extends Android Market as an attempt to create a stronger brand with enticing offerings and slicked purchasing for an all-around better experience that will “drive traffic and revenue for the entire ecosystem,” according to Kenneth Lui on the Android Developer’s Blog.

More information is available below.

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