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Google is quietly rolling out an update to YouTube for Android with version 5.2.27 on top of the current version 5.1.10. If you're eager to install it right now, we have some download links towards the end of the post.
Last week, we published the first look at Play Store 4.4, which most notably replaced the menu-accessible navigation buttons with a new slide-out UI. An APK teardown of this update also yielded the news of Google Play Newsstand and a special message to the AP teardown team that we humbly enjoyed quite a bit. Today, this update is live.
Earlier this week, we posted the first look at the upcoming Android Play Store app v4.4. As it turns out, besides sporting a new look and a secret message to the teardown team, the updated Play Store is strongly hinting at another new arrival - one we've been waiting for since March. And now we have the updated name for it - Google Play Newsstand.
Well, folks, it finally happened - after numerous APK teardowns, Google has finally dropped a message to the Android Police teardown team inside one of the APKs - the Android Play Store v4.4 nonetheless.
There have been a lot of unfounded rumors and speculation about KitKat and the Nexus 5 (and even the good old Nexus 4) floating around the web in the last few days, so why don't we take a break from those and switch things up for a change? Here is the work-in-progress UI from the next major update to the Play Store app for Android, version 4.4 (just to be clear: the Play Store's version is 4.4 - I'm not talking about Android 4.4).
On Tuesday night, surprisingly ahead of the usual update-all-the-things-Wednesday, Google released a major revision of the Play Books app for Android, updating it from v2 (2.9.21) to v3 (3.0.15). The changelog, which was shockingly present from the get-go (thank you!), confused me a bit but after digging around, I finally figured out what it means. Oh, and I found another fix that wasn't mentioned.
A crystal clear 7-minute video of the Nexus 5 (I think we can accept that's going to be the name at this point) was just leaked on the web. It's an older build than the one leaked by TuttoAndroid yesterday, but look - it's the Nexus 5 hardware in the clearest shots we've seen yet! smartphones.sfr.fr appears all over it, so the full credit for this leak goes out to them.
Several days ago, I started a series of rumor posts on my personal Google+ account discussing some Android rumors I felt were interesting enough to share, but didn't feel confident enough yet to do so here on the site. The posts were heavily prefixed with disclaimers that none of them may turn out to be true but that I had a certain level of confidence to talk about them in public unofficially.
Themer Beta, a launcher replacement initiative by the team at MyColorScreen.com, has received a lot of attention in the last few weeks. And I mean a lot, as it currently has a waitlist of 280,000+ people strong. That's right, two hundred and eighty thousand.
Several days ago, I started a series of rumor posts on my personal Google+ account discussing some Android rumors I felt were interesting enough to share, but didn't feel confident enough yet to do so here on the site. The posts were heavily prefixed with disclaimers that none of them may turn out to be true but that I had a certain level of confidence to talk about them in public unofficially.
Earlier today, Google started a staged rollout of a new point release of Google Maps. We've been poring over all the UI differences between the new version 7.3 and the previous version 7.2 from last month for the last couple of hours and managed to catch a few interesting changes. Since the official changelog isn't out yet, these will have to do for now.
Several days ago, I started a series of rumor posts on my personal Google+ account discussing some Android rumors I felt were interesting enough to share, but didn't feel confident enough yet to do so here on the site. The posts were heavily prefixed with disclaimers that none of them may turn out to be true but that I had a certain level of confidence to talk about them in public unofficially.
Several days ago, I started a series of rumor posts on my personal Google+ account discussing some Android rumors I felt were interesting enough to share, but didn't feel confident enough yet to do so here on the site. The posts were heavily prefixed with disclaimers that none of them may turn out to be true but that I had a certain level of confidence to talk about them in public unofficially.
Yesterday, I picked up my new baby - a brand spanking new Galaxy Note 3 that replaced my aging Note 2. (Update: I'd like to clarify this since a lot of people have misconstrued the "aging" comment for something it's not. My Note 2 has a screen crack and shows significant wear and tear. You may not consider the Note 2 or INSERT_DEVICE_HERE aging, but that's not what this line was about - it was about a very specific phone I was upgrading from and nothing else.) It's a great device on many fronts, as David pointed out in our extensive review, but it appears putting out solidly built products was not on Samsung's roadmap yet again.
Without any warning, Google started rolling out Android 4.3.1 (JLS36I) late Thursday night. The first device to receive it is the 2013 LTE Nexus 7 (also known as deb and razorg).
Hangouts was one of many Google apps that received pretty significant updates last week. Version 1.2 finally brought availability statuses for people on your contact list, better organization of contacts, and several other improvements. Under-the-hood, however, I spotted a few more additions that don't seem to be live just yet, which is exactly what we have APK teardowns around here for.
Now that the insane week of Google app updates has passed (gotta love those Rollout Wednesdays, right?), I've had some time to dig into the APKs and have found a number of interesting things in some of them.
Google Play Movies & TV received an update to version 2.7.15 today (or yesterday, but I haven't seen anyone with an APK until today), and while the changelog is still missing, we have noticed a number of new things.
Yesterday, TuneIn Radio Pro, one of my favorite radio apps, was updated to version 9.0 and brought a bunch of sports-related improvements. However, a pretty significant bug made its way into the app as well - pausing and rewinding live streams, which are two of the most important features of Pro, no longer worked.
Google started rolling out a nifty update to Gmail with the Card UI earlier today, but since the update is staged, it may take a while to get to a device near you. Not to worry - we've gotten a hold of the APK (thanks, Kevin!) and verified it's indeed legitimate. You can find it below on several mirrors. As always, just download and install - simple as that.