Ron Amadeo
Ron loves everything related to technology, design, and Google. He always wants to talk about "the big picture" and what's next for Android, and he's not afraid to get knee-deep in an APK for some details. Expect a good eye for detail, lots of research, and some lamenting about how something isn't designed well enough.
24
May
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Google Glass is very much an experimental piece of hardware and it turns out the software has been built with that ethos in mind, too. With root and a few carefully-crafted ADB commands, you can enable a ton of experimental features the Google has built into the Glass software.

Over on Github, Zhuowei Zhang has posted the whole list of Glass Labs features, and how to enable them. Zhuowei isn't a Glass explorer though, so it's been up to me to be the guinea pig and actually try this stuff.

Check these out:

AUTO_SHARE_TARGETS("AUTO_SHARE_TARGETS", 26, false),
BLUETOOTH_HEADSET("BLUETOOTH_HEADSET", 10, true),
CALL_NOISE_CANCEL("CALL_NOISE_CANCEL", 25, false),
CLIPLET("CLIPLET", 4, false),
COMPANION_API("COMPANION_API", 35, false),
DEBUG_LAUNCHER("DEBUG_LAUNCHER", 11, false),
DEV_SERVERS("DEV_SERVERS", 18, false),
DING_ON_LOAD("DING_ON_LOAD", 31, false),
DISABLE_GAZE_ON_MIC("DISABLE_GAZE_ON_MIC", 32, true),
GCAM("GCAM", 0, false),
GPS_DEBUG_CARD("GPS_DEBUG_CARD", 20, false),
GPS_IN_BACKGROUND("GPS_IN_BACKGROUND", 21, false),
HO_BG_WAITING("HO_BG_WAITING", 5, false),
HO_USE_SVC("HO_USE_SVC", 3, true),
KANNADI_DEV_SERVER("KANNADI_DEV_SERVER", 14, false),
LOG_NEG_SENSORY_REC("LOG_NEG_SENSORY_REC", 8, false),
LOG_POS_SENSORY_REC("LOG_POS_SENSORY_REC", 7, true),
LONG_TAP_TO_SEARCH("LONG_TAP_TO_SEARCH", 33, true),
LONG_TAP_UI_SEARCH("LONG_TAP_UI_SEARCH", 34, true),
NATIVE_APP_VOICE("NATIVE_APP_VOICE", 28, false),
NAV_CONTAMINATE_FIX("NAV_CONTAMINATE_FIX", 42, false),
NAV_NO_COMPANION("NAV_NO_COMPANION", 23, true),
NAV_USE_LOCAL_GPS("NAV_USE_LOCAL_GPS", 22, false),
OK_GLASS_EVERYWHERE("OK_GLASS_EVERYWHERE", 24, false),
PHONE_AEC_LOG("PHONE_AEC_LOG", 41, false),
PRODUCTION_SERVERS("PRODUCTION_SERVERS", 15, true),
QUICK_QR_CODE("QUICK_QR_CODE", 36, false),
SAVE_AUDIO("SAVE_AUDIO", 6, false),
SEARCH_DEV_SERVER("SEARCH_DEV_SERVER", 12, false),
SEARCH_FEEDBACK("SEARCH_FEEDBACK", 9, false),
SEARCH_GWS_FLOW("SEARCH_GWS_FLOW", 40, false),
SEARCH_TEST_SERVER("SEARCH_TEST_SERVER", 13, false),
SHORT_TIMELINE_POLL("SHORT_TIMELINE_POLL", 38, false),
SMS_FROM_VOICE_MENU("SMS_FROM_VOICE_MENU", 29, true),
STAGING_SERVERS("STAGING_SERVERS", 16, false),
TESTING_SERVERS("TESTING_SERVERS", 17, true),
THIRD_PARTY_VOICE("THIRD_PARTY_VOICE", 27, false),
TOUCH_VOICE_MENU("TOUCH_VOICE_MENU", 39, false),
UPLOAD_SESSION_MNGR("UPLOAD_SESSION_MNGR", 19, false),
VSTAB("VSTAB", 1, false),
VSTAB_CALIBRATION("VSTAB_CALIBRATION", 2, false),
WEB_BROWSING("WEB_BROWSING", 30, false),
WINK("WINK", 37, false);

All of these are properties that go in Glass's build.prop file, in the form of "persist.lab.[NAME]=true".

24
May
Gmail-icon

At Google I/O there was a session called "Structure in Android App Design," where they talked about various navigation techniques, including the new navigation drawer.

It's a cool talk; you'll learn a lot about the pro and cons of each navigation structure, but at about 23 minutes in, while they were talking about the new nav drawer design, they dropped this slide and completely blew my mind:

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YES.

That is an entirely new Gmail design - a new design rocking the awesome new navigation drawer. Let's take a look at this versus the current Gmail interface:

2013-05-23_23-58-4262013-05-23 23.49.08

Ok, spot the differences!

22
May
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At the end of last year, a Google Search update came out that added a "Search with Camera" feature. With Google Search, you could fire up your camera, snap a picture of something, and it would do an image search - it was basically Google Goggles integration. Besides the usual Goggles stuff, it was also really useful for scanning QR codes.

But, a few days ago, when the Search 2.5 update hit, "Search With Camera" got kicked to the curb.

wm_2013-05-20 13.49.08wm_2013-05-20 13.45.55

On the left is 2.4, on the right is 2.5. In 2.5, the "Search with camera" menu option is gone, and none of the voice commands work - camera search is completely disabled.

17
May
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A few days ago Google announced this crazy new feature that allows you to attach actual money to Gmail messages. We've discovered the feature is actually up and running, you just have to be invited!

To get invited, someone just has to send you some amount of money over Gmail - a penny will do fine. So, find someone who has access to it, give them your email, receive a penny, and you're in!

2013-05-17_16-29-23

If you happen to find someone who has access, and they send you a penny, you'll get an email like this. Clicking on "claim money" will take you to the special wallet site that gives you access.

15
May
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A few days ago, we investigated the new navigation drawer design present in updates to Google Earth and Google Shopper. The hope at the time was that this new Up button design would be pushed out to other Android apps. We even heard from a few Googlers that this was happening.

Now, things are officially official, as the Android Design site has updated with Matias-approved guidelines for the navigation drawer.

navigation_drawer_overview

Things work pretty much the way we went over when we were first introduced to this. The Up button changes from a carat to a new 3 line icon when it will open the drawer.

15
May
Hangouts Logo

The new Google Messenger is real! It's not called Babel, or Google Talk, but "Hangouts." It also isn't the unified messenger we've all wanted - maybe it will be someday, but Hangouts is strictly a Google Talk replacement - there's no SMS or Google Voice integration.

What Hangouts does have going for it is that it is really pretty. It supports group messaging, pictures, video chat, and even has read receipts! Hangouts completely replaces Google Talk, so if you have a fondness for the past, say your goodbyes before you update. Let's take a look:

The Hangouts List

wm_2013-05-15-16.22wm_2013-05-15 16.23.49

This is the "front page" of Hangouts.

14
May
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A hot new Play Store update just hit the internet. We're now up to version 4.1.6. So far we've spotted a much nicer looking button and wishlist designs, more consistent menu text, and a few minor visual tweaks, like new open/uninstall buttons.

Here's the new content section buttons, which are a lot more inviting than the old designs. The open and uninstall buttons got a slight tweak, too.

wm_2013-05-14 18.52.25wm_2013-05-14 18.53.57

I really like the new button designs, but my favorite thing is that they changed "My Wishlist" to "My wishlist" after we all complained about it on Google+. The wishlist UI has switched from a list view to a card style.

13
May
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Welcome back! Google Play Services 3.1 is such a ridiculously huge update; I had to stretch it out over two articles - that's a first for APK Teardown. If you somehow missed the Google Play Games extravaganza, part one is right here.

Part two is all about the non-games discoveries, which there are a lot of.  Before we get into that though, there is one detail I left out of the games article that I really should mention:

The Play Games Codename

nsmb-mushroom-1up

Google always comes up with the coolest code names for projects, and the Play Services games client is no exception.

11
May
ic_launcher_play_games

Remember how we told you Google Games was coming, and how it's going to pack multiplayer functionality, leaderboards, achievements, and stuff like that? That's happening. There are going to be cloud game saves too.

Fresh out of Google HQ, we've managed to score a copy of the new Google Play Services v3.1.36, which is very slowly rolling out to devices right now. For comparison, the current Play Services that most people have is v3.0.27. 3.1 is a massive update - the strings file, for instance, has more than doubled from 300 to 700 entries. This is how Google is pushing out all the shared files for Google Play Games.

10
May
Untitled-1

What exactly is the deal with slide-out sidebar navigation? Is it a standard Holo thing? Is it not? 3rd-party developers aren't really sure what to do with it, and even Google-made apps are all over the place. Some apps have sidebar navigation, some don't. The ones that do have it all function a little differently and none of the implementations were actually any good - until now.

Google Earth and Google Shopper were just updated with a new sidebar design, and, well, have you seen them? Google has fixed the biggest problem I have with all the previous designs: unpredictability.

In order to understand what's so great about the new design, we have to talk about what's so crappy about the old designs.

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