As of sometime yesterday, apps in the Play Store can now be listed in search results as “Coming soon”, and clicking on them takes you to a standard listing page that offers the opportunity to “Pre-register”. The first app to take advantage of this functionality is the upcoming Terminator Genisys: Revolution game from Glu…
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AppChat is a really interesting new app. First released just a week ago in a humble thread on XDA-Developers, the app—which creates little chatrooms for all of your currently-installed apps—has seen the creation of almost 80,000 of these rooms and more than 70,000 messages sent within them. The response has been pretty big, and the app has gone through 6 releases over the last week to make the experience as great as possible.
But what exactly is AppChat?
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According to Sprint’s support website, the carrier’s Samsung Galaxy S4 should today start receiving its update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. As you likely are already aware, the update brings the famed Material Design aesthetic, changes to the OS notifications system, and other improvements.
Lollipop is still just now being pushed to various flagships across the major carriers, and this is just one more added to the list. If you’re a Verizon customer with the Samsung Galaxy S4, you should have received your update sometime in late April.
Google is set to announce the next major version of its Android mobile operating system at Google I/O at the end of this month, codenamed Android “M”. We’ll be on the ground in San Francisco during the I/O keynote to keep you in the loop on all the latest developments.
Following our report last month that the Android Lollipop 5.0.2 update was causing Nexus 7 and Nexus 5 devices to become bricked, it now appears as if the Nexus 9—which just received the update earlier this week—is suffering the same problem. While not all Nexus 9 devices that go through with the 5.0.2 update are being killed, threads on Google’s Product Forum suggest that this is definitely not an uncommon issue by any means…
Google has announced today that it is beginning its rollout of Android 5.1 to the Nexus 9 at some point today. It has been a long time coming for the Nexus 9, with the flagship Google tablet just earlier this week receiving its update to 5.0.2—which first hit the Nexus 7 in December of 2014. Now, finally, it looks like Android 5.1 (more specifically Android 5.1.1) will be coming to the Nexus 9 very, very soon.
AT&T has today pushed an update to the LG G3 (specifically model D850) over-the-air, and with it comes VoLTE support. That sounds great; who wouldn’t want some AT&T HD Voice goodness? Wait until you hear what else this update brings.
On top of VoLTE support, you’re going to get a couple of other goodies. AT&T Mail and Uber are also making their way to your home screen with this update and—if you want VoLTE—you’re just going to have to deal with that.
Here’s the full change log, as per AT&T’s support website:
What’s changing?
This software update includes:
- VoLTE
- AT&T Mail
- Uber
You can expect the update to be rolling out OTA right now, and you’re going to want to make sure you’re connected to WiFi if you plan on updating.
The infamous Amazon Fire Phone is getting a substantial update today, bringing the device from Android Jelly Bean (yes, Jelly Bean) up to the almost not-ancient Android 4.4 Kit Kat. With this version of Android, the phone is getting a plethora of new features that—almost—help bring it into 2015.
YouTube Creator Studio, Google’s mobile app made for YouTube users to manage their channel, has today been updated with Material Design—including a new hamburger button and slide out drawer—among other minor changes.
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Google has announced today, in the midst of teacher appreciation week in the US, that it is bringing some new “Classroom treats” to its mobile app. Most notable among the changes is the ability to grade assignments from the app (as you can see above), and the ability to “add private feedback to give students guidance, encouragement, constructive criticism or personalized feedback.”
Other features are also being added, including the ability to create and edit assignments while on a mobile device, as well as the ability to create an assignment simply with the snap of a photo. Google says that teachers can learn more about how to use these features at its new Support page, which outlines how to create and modify an assignment within the app:
You can create an assignment in your class stream, attach materials to it, assign it to one or more classes, and grade and return it to students. After you create an assignment, all students in the class receive a notification by email (if they haven’t turned off notifications) and can see the assignment in the class stream.
These features should be rolling out “this week,” according to Google.
Update: Motorola has announced that Android 5.1 is officially now rolling out to the second generation Moto X.
It looks as if Motorola is preparing to rollout a wave of Android 5.1 updates. The company has just shared Android 5.1 Lollipop release notes on its website for a handful of its devices. Motorola has posted the changelogs for Android 5.1 on the 2nd gen AT&T Moto X, 2nd gen T-Mobile Moto X, and the U.S. model of the 1st gen Moto X.
Update: The 5.0.2 factory images are for the Nexus 9 are now available.
The Nexus 9 is now receiving an OTA update, not to the most recent Android 5.1.1 build, but to the older Android 5.0.2. While most Nexus devices received 5.0.2 months ago and have been more recently receiving Android 5.1.1, the poor flagship Nexus 9 tablet from Google was still stuck on 5.0.1 until today.
The update to 5.1.1 is expected to coming any day now, and one Googler recently said that the team is doing everything they can to push it as soon as possible. While we can’t be certain, it seems that this relatively small 23.3 MB OTA update might just be preparation for the bigger 5.1(.1) release.
We’ll keep our eyes on the factory image download page (5.0.2 isn’t available there quite yet for the Nexus 9), but until then, feel free to click the link below the download the OTA update file.
According to a report this morning from The Information, Google is planning to introduce an interesting new feature for Play Store listings at this year’s Google I/O developers’ conference. A common practice within apps themselves, new “A/B testing” would allow developers to test multiple versions of their app listings to see which ones bring the most conversions…
Google has updated its Android distribution data this evening to reflect numbers collected during a 7-day period ending on May 4th, 2015. Android Lollipop, which has been struggling to gain adoption since its official release, grew to 9.7 percent this time around, up from just over 5 percent at this time last month. More specifically, Android 5.0 is running on 9 percent of devices, while Android 5.1 is on just .7 percent of devices.
Popular feed reader app Feedly has been updated today to version 27 with a handful of new features. First off, the update adds Google Now integration. The app will now push the most interesting stories to Google Now every morning at 7:00AM, allowing you to quickly digest the most important news of the day.
Google today has started rolling out an update to the Play Store app that bumps it to version 5.5. The update doesn’t add much, but it keeps with Google’s trend of enhancing the design of its in-house apps. With Play Store 5.5, Google has added a new circular animation that appears when you tap on a TV show title.
Microsoft has updated its Remote Desktop app for Android with a number of new features including a brand new UI that includes a “new connection center and in-session improvements.”
Also included in the update is multi-session support, allowing you to run multiple application or desktop sessions simultaneously. In addition, you’ll find a few other improvements including overall stability enhancements and a lot of bug fixes for issues that many users were experiencing.
The updated Microsoft Remote Desktop app, version 8.1.11, is available on Google Play now.
What’s New
What’s new in 8.1.11This release introduces a completely brand new client. We’ve put a lot of work into delivering a new improved experience that provides:– A new user interface – New connection center and in-session improvements– Multi-session support – Run more than one application or desktop session at a time– Overall stability – Lots of bug fixesThanks to everyone for the on-going feedback and support!
Google+ Collections, a feature that has been widely rumored and speculated to be rolling out today, has started appearing on the Google+ web interface for some. Google has yet to officially announce the feature, but a new “Share” button has supposedly started appearing for some users that suggests that they “Use collections to group [their] posts.”
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Dozens upon dozens of Android phones from the various OEMs have been updated to Lollipop over the last several months, but it looks like at least a couple of devices (one of which is barely a year old) won’t be getting any Material Design goodness. HTC has confirmed that both the HTC One Mini 2 and its predecessor the One Mini, won’t—at least officially—be getting the update to the latest version of Google’s mobile OS.
Android 5.1.1 was first released for the Nexus Player more than a week ago, and just yesterday the update finally reached the the Nexus 7 (2012 & 2013 WiFi models) and the Nexus 10. But one device, the flagship Nexus 9 tablet, still hasn’t even received plain-old Android 5.1—which first started rolling out in early March. Now, a Google employee has come out on Google+ to say that 5.1.1 for the “N9 OTAs aren’t far out.”
After releasing the file for the Nexus Player earlier this month, Google this evening has posted the Android 5.1.1 factory images for several new devices this evening. Android 5.1.1 Lollipop factory images are now available for the WiFi-only 2012 and 2013 Nexus 7 models, and the Nexus 10.
HTC has today pushed an update to its Camera app, packing a plethora of great new features for owners of HTC’s current flagship and past flagships alike. Most notably is the addition of Raw Camera mode, which lets users take photos and save them in their original, unchanged —hence the name “raw”—state…
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Google Malaysia has today announced on Google+ that Chromecast, the Mountain View company’s famed $30 HDMI streaming stick, is now making its way to the Southeast Asian country.
Chromecast comes to Malaysia!
From today, Chromecast will be available for MYR170…
From today you will be able to pick up a Chromecast from select Maxis stores, and it will be available from Maxis stores nationally from May 5th. (http://goo.gl/GdtkPF)
The device is already available today in “select” Maxis stores, and will be coming to all stores nationally as of May 5th. You can also find the device to purchase from the Maxis website starting today.
With Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google added support for multiple users sharing a single device. In its own infinite wisdom, however, Samsung decided not to include this feature on its Android 5.0 devices. According to a report from SamMobile, Samsung plans to add Guest Mode to its device with Android 5.1.
Google has updated its default Messenger app (not to be confused with the Facebook-made app by the same name) with a feature Android users have been awaiting for a very long time. Now, with version 1.3 of its Messenger app, Google has now introduced an official means of quick replying to text messages…
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