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Google Maps dark theme is finally rolling out, more than a year after it was first teased
And it's beautiful
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Google has been teasing a dark theme for Maps for over a year now, and it even briefly rolled out to a few people, but it was never properly formalized or acknowledged officially. That changed last month when Google finally announced that dark mode is coming, and now, it's starting to roll out more widely.
Facebook announces it's publicly testing dark mode after months of publicly testing dark mode
A step closer to a dark theme for everyone
Facebook long introduced dark themes for Instagram, WhatsApp, the Messenger, even Facebook Lite and its website, but so far, its main mobile app hasn't received an official gray-and-black coat of paint. After a year of appearing and disappearing a/b tests, it seems like the company is now almost ready to fully launch the theme. In cooperation with renowned app sleuth Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook has announced that it's now publicly testing dark mode.
Google has updated many of its apps with dark themes, with Gmail being the most recent entrant. It looks like the Play Store is, at long last, receiving a dark theme of its own. Like Gmail and other Google apps, the Play Store's dark theme is a dark grey, and it looks pretty nice.
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- Here's a look at what's changing with the Galaxy Fold's hinge reinforcement to help make it a little more resistant to damage:
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, chances are that you're familiar with the whole Galaxy Fold delay scenario. The phone was originally slated to be launched in late April, but severe issues with review units' displays caused the whole thing to be pushed back. Samsung has just announced that the Galaxy Fold will hit select markets in September.
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- Samsung has published a blog post on the feature, which is officially called Bixby Key Customization. It confirms that the key remapping will be coming to all Samsung phones updated to Pie via a software update — fantastic news for all of you with older Samsung flagships.
Anyone who's familiar with Samsung phones will know of the company's long-standing fight against third-party developers and their Bixby button-remapping apps. These remapping apps first surfaced shortly after the Galaxy S8 launched, with Samsung quickly taking action to disable them. This back-and-forth continued over the coming months, but it looks like Samsung has finally obliged its Bixby haters by offering a remapping option out of the box with the brand-new Galaxy S10.
A ton of Google apps have gotten reskinned with the company's updated Material look, and Contacts was among the first to receive the redesign. Given the apps' very generous use of the color white, many have been begging for a dark theme. Android Messages (or, rather, simply 'Messages' now) and Google News have already gotten dark modes, and Contacts is the latest Google app to be updated with one.
Now that almost every major smartphone has a display with a ratio around 18:9, regular old 16:9 videos aren't looking too hot with their black bars. To combat this, YouTube added a helpful zoom-to-fill feature to its Android app, but that functionality only works on select, more mainstream devices. The Essential Phone is finally getting support for it, months after both its and the feature's release.
The Google Phone redesign from earlier this month was met with some conflicting opinions. While many liked the more modern UI, others couldn't stand all of the white that was added. Some hoped that Phone might soon get a dark mode, and it looks like those prayers have been answered. Google has just confirmed that Phone will indeed be getting a dark mode.
Back in November of last year, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel announced that a new Android app was being built from the ground up. It's been almost a year since then, but we're finally seeing some movement. In fact, the new Snapchat Alpha can actually be enabled right now, so long as your device has root access.
By now, everyone who's been paying attention to news about Fortnite on Android knows that it'll only be available via Epic's site after the Samsung exclusivity period ends, and not on the Play Store. However, the millions of kids who just want to play the latest and greatest game probably aren't aware of that. Thankfully, the Play Store is finally doing something about it.
All four major US carriers pushed the Android 8.0 Oreo to their Galaxy S7 and S7 edge variants back in June. AT&T, surprisingly, took the lead, with Verizon shortly behind. Sprint came in next, and T-Mobile took last place. One and a half months after the update first started rolling out in the US, Samsung is finally pushing Oreo to the US unlocked S7 and S7 edge models (SM-G93xU).
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- As seen by About Chromebooks, the feature has been fixed and updated. The "Done" button now works, and the new wallpaper picker is live on Chrome Dev v68.0.3440.25. There's now a full-screen preview for each wallpaper, and the "Daily Refresh" option will use the Backdrop server to automatically go through new images. It also looks like Google is going to making this default soon. Hopefully it arrives sooner than later.
Chrome's new tab page has been plain white for as long as I can remember, with users seeking more customization opting for various other solutions. However, it seems like Google has finally seen the light, having added a "Customize background" button in the latest version of Chrome Canary on desktop. Too bad it isn't functional yet.
Almost a full year ago, Google decided to split Hangouts into two entities: Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. The former became available pretty quickly, but the latter took its sweet time to arrive. Hangouts Chat is a messaging service for teams, much like Slack or Microsoft Teams, and it's free for current G Suite users.
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- If you have a Moto X Pure and you haven't received the update yet, your time has come. According to multiple reports on XDA, Reddit, and the Motorola support forums, Android 7.0 is now being pushed to everyone. Just in time for phones to start getting 8.0 Oreo!
Ah, Motorola. You were once one of the most enthusiast-friendly OEMs, yet you've now sunken down to a level deeper than possibly any other major phone manufacturer in this regard. Just a few years ago, your Moto X-series of phones were the absolute best phones on the market with updates: the Moto X (2013) beat the Nexus 4 out to 4.4 KitKat, and the Moto X (2014) did the same to the Nexus 5 with 5.0 Lollipop. These updates were rolled out mere days after Google officially launched them. However, it took over a year to update 2015's Moto X Pure Edition, the company's flagship at the time, to the now-dated Android 7.0 Nougat. Oh, how the great have fallen.
The opinion that Samsung's Bixby voice assistant is useless is one that is pretty universal. We've seen an epic war between Samsung and developers who wanted to remap the button (seriously, here are more links), but even after Samsung "disabled" the button in the last battle, Bixby would still activate the screen when pressed. Now though, disabling it will render it virtually nonexistent (which we've all been waiting for).
Since its release nearly a year ago, Google has continued to add more functionality to the Google Home smart speaker. Some of the new features include voice calling in the US and Canada, user-definable shortcuts, and automatic audio ducking on casted content when responding to questions. But all this time, the ability to set reminders has been missing, despite it being promised at Google I/O 2017.
Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant is best known for being on its Echo line of speakers, but it's available on both iOS and Android. There's a dedicated Alexa app on both of those operating systems, but only iOS has Alexa built into the main Amazon app. However, that's changing very soon.
It's finally happening. Today marks the official, long-overdue launch of the Essential Phone PH-1 with Essential and Sprint making announcements that you can pre-order Andy Rubin's new device today.
Here at Android Police, us writers are encouraged not to use the word "finally" in titles, as it can manufacture unnecessary excitement for something that not a lot of people may care about. However, for something as miraculous as this, there really is no better word to use. Google has at long last begun testing speed controls in the YouTube Android app, something that people have been wanting for years. It's about time.
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- Version 5.3 of Nova Launcher is now in the stable release so you no longer need to be part of the beta. However, you still need the Nova Google Companion app to be able to see the Google Now/Feed integration on the homescreen.
Nova Launcher is the go-to launcher for so many not just for the sheer amount of customization it offers, but also the speed and frequency at which the team instills new features. However, one feature that people have constantly clamored for has always been left out: Google Now integration. It just couldn't be added due to constraints that Google had put in place. But today, Nova Launcher is finally receiving this long-awaited functionality.