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Google tries to make travelling less stressful during COVID-19 with new information on flights and hotels
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We're well into the summer tourist season now, but COVID-19 has thrown travellers for a loop. Since many vacations start with a simple online search, Google has been helping relay key info like coronavirus travel advisories and restrictions. Now the company is announcing a few new travel-focused features to make hitting the road easier during the pandemic.
Gmail will be adding travel and purchases labels to the sidebar (APK Teardown)
It's not quite Inbox bundles, but maybe getting a little closer
Gmail is one of the longest lived projects to come out of Google after the success of Search. During its life, the development team has been working on countless projects to make sense of the deluge of incoming email and help users manage it. We've seen everything from smart spam filtering, intelligent interpretations of importance and priority, grouping and categorizing based on sources, and with Inbox, even things like smart bundling. The latest update appears to be surfacing a couple of those automatically detected email types so you don't have to remember any hidden tricks to use.
Taking a trip can be a stressful time; remembering tickets, hotels, rentals, and plans can easily become a bit overwhelming. TripIt attempts to ease that burden by allowing you to link your email to its planning services and spitting out a professional-looking and easy-to-read itinerary. So far, you've had to manually enter any meetings or miscellaneous entries into your TripIt app when you wanted to add something besides travel. Now, TripIt is helping to streamline that process with seamless support for adding meetings and invitations to your itinerary.
If you're a frequent traveler, you know what a hassle it can be to stay on top of reservations and flights, confusing airport layouts, last-minute changes, and all of the unpleasantries of flying. TripIt helps streamline those with its free service and offers some additional Pro perks. The app has now updated that Pro hub to make it easier to access all paid features.
The latest update to Inbox only served to rub some salt in the wound as it was prepared for its impending demise, but maybe clues from the latest Gmail update will provide some solace. There aren't any changes jumping out after installing, but some hints inside the app to point to early implementations for some of the features people love from Inbox.
Travel is not a new area of interest for Google, with lots of customized cards in Search aimed at getting you the best deals on flights and hotels, as well as the dedicated Google Trips app to bring all of your bookings together and offer additional recommendations and guides. Further enhancements to Google Search are going to make it even more convenient for planning trips.
Long ago, before Google Now turned into the Feed, Google used to provide you with an easily accessible summary of custom tailored, account-scraped stuff, useful for keeping track of various deadlines or ongoing details. In that transition to Feed, though, the information was relegated to a new "Upcoming" tab in the Google app, and the personal overview started to stagnate a bit. Well, Google's bringing it all back better than ever via the Assistant.
It wasn't that long ago that Google Pay (and its previous names) was solely focused on making purchases in a store or paying on the spot to get onto subways...and sometimes sending money to friends. Google recently added support for one-time transit tickets on the Las Vegas Monorail and prepaid commuter cards with the TriMet in Portland, Oregon, but things are about to get a lot more interesting thanks to the latest update. We can expect to see support added for airport boarding passes and event tickets. There are several other big additions coming, too, so let's get straight into it.
Back in the summer, we reported on key changes to Google Flights on mobile. The interface was tweaked with more powerful tools to help you save money when looking to book a holiday within a range of dates. At the time Google promised the desktop version would see a similar update later in the year, and that has now become available in the form of a beta version.
In its quest to make our lives easier, Google has recently taken on the travel industry by giving us search tools for flights and hotels, as well as an app to help us plan and organize trips we've already booked. Google Search already shows when a slight adjustment to travel dates can save us money, but now it's adding more robust tools for people whose travel dates are more flexible.
It's easy enough to use your phone as a boarding pass, but did you know it can also double as your passport? Well, with Mobile Passport it can. And, it has just been updated on the Google Play Store to work in one more major US airport. Now users flying through LAX can also make use of the convenience.
Hopper is a mobile app whose primary goal in life is to save you money on airplane tickets. Enter when and where you're flying, then wait for the app to come up with the most affordable way of making your trip. The journey may involve leaving in the middle of the night and waiting longer than you'd like, but hey, you're saving money on your flight. With the latest update, this piece of software will help you book it too.
Look, you're going to have to deal with the TSA, baggage fees, and all sorts of other junk to hop a flight, so why not make paying for the ticket a little less painful at least? Hopper might be able to help. It came to iOS a few months ago, and now it's on Android. Just tell it when you're flying and to where, then Hopper figures out when you should buy.
A relatively small Google Maps update to v9.8 began rolling out last week, adding batch photo uploads and a way to restrict bookings from showing up in location screens. It turns out there was another secret feature waiting to be shown off. In the latest version, a search for one of four key phrases will pop up results related to your personal bookings. Just try asking for my events, my flights, my hotels, or my reservations to see a short list of personalized results.
Google Now is constantly gaining new abilities that are generally awesome, if a little bit creepy. One such feature, brought to our attention today, is the ability to keep track of flight prices.
The Google Search app just got updated, so that means it's teardown time! I still rip into every interesting Google update, but I only write an article when I find something interesting. Things have been slim lately, I know, but today there's good news! I found stuff.
Happy holiday traveling season, everyone! Ten bucks says that, if you have plans to visit friends and family out of state this year, you don't really have ten bucks to waste on silly internet bets. For those about to make a vacation expedition, Expedia would like you to know that it has renovated its Android app with a nice new UI and flight searches and tracking to help you find the best deals.
Mobiata's FlightTrack App Goes Free, And It's Prettier Than A Pan Am Stewardess
Look, no one likes flying. No one. With the possible exception of that guy who's racked up a billion airline miles and takes a round trip from JFK to Dubai
Look, no one likes flying. No one. With the possible exception of that guy who's racked up a billion airline miles and takes a round trip from JFK to Dubai just to get free cocktails. But since you've got to fly now and then, it's nice to have an aesthetically enjoyable way of keeping tabs on your flights and connections. Mobiata has a new, free version of the FlightTrack app, which is more than you can say for the dry sandwiches on your last non-stop Delta flight. And more than that, it's actually pretty awesome - this is easily the most visually appealing app of its kind on the Google Play Store.
[New App] SeatGuru Arrives On Android So You Can Fly In Style With Better Airline Seating
If you're a frequent traveler, you have no doubt heard about SeatGuru. This is a wonderful service that helps you figure out which seat will be the best
If you're a frequent traveler, you have no doubt heard about SeatGuru. This is a wonderful service that helps you figure out which seat will be the best on your next flight. At long last SeatGuru has released an Android app so you can get this invaluable information on the go.
American Airlines began rolling out Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets to premium cabins today, giving premium passengers innumerable ways to pass time on long flights. The initial rollout sounds quite impressive, covering select transcontinental and other domestic flights, and offering 70 movies on top of the Tab's numerous other entertainment options.