Oct

exclusive-upcoming-gmail-for-android-4-2-will-finally-have-pinch-to-zoom-swipeaway-deletearchive-video

[Exclusive] Download: The Unreleased Gmail 4.2 APK With Pinch-To-Zoom And More

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Development, Exclusives, News

Last Updated: October 15th, 2012

Ok, guys. Start your engines - here's the download and instructions you need to get the leaked Gmail 4.2 up and running on your device. Keep in mind that this is an unreleased version so some things may be buggy or broken, though I haven't run into any problems.

If you somehow don't know what I'm talking about, we have the next, unreleased version of Gmail, and we're finally allowed to share it with you. Gmail 4.2 finally has pinch-to-zoom, a nifty new swipe-to-archive/delete feature, and a bunch of other things. Just for fun I'll embed the video again:

Download

Note: This APK should work on Android 4.0+.

Oct

Exclusive: Upcoming Gmail For Android 4.2 Will Finally Have Pinch-To-Zoom, Swipeaway Delete/Archive [Video]

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Applications, Exclusives, News

Last Updated: October 14th, 2012

Today, we are thrilled to share some exciting news about the next version of Gmail for Android. We may or may not be in possession of an unreleased version of Gmail, which may or may not have come from an LG Nexus system dump. One thing I am sure of is we definitely have video of it, which is just one short paragraph away.

Update: You can download the new Gmail here: [Exclusive] Download: The Unreleased Gmail 4.2 APK With Pinch-To-Zoom And More.

Let's get right to the good stuff. FINALLY, Gmail is going to have pinch zoom. It's easily the most wanted Gmail feature, with over 1600 stars on the Android bug tracker.

Oct

Hallelujah: Google Finally Fixes High Resolution Contact Sync, Updates Web Contact Sync With Brand New UI

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Google, News

Folks, I can't believe it myself, but this day has finally come - Google seems to have finally sorted out all its backend and frontend issues with Google contact sync. Jelly Bean's 720x720 hi-res contact support was surely a nice addition, but ended up almost completely useless in our earlier tests: Jelly Bean Bumps Contact Photos To Hi-Res 720x720 But Google Sync Continues To Clobber It With Low-Res Mush.

As of today, all the problems I ran into before are resolved. Removing and re-adding an account on my Nexus 7 now syncs the contact photos in full resolution, whereas before they would either disappear altogether or end up washed out.

Oct

Gmail Can Now Search Text Inside Of Your Attachments

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Google is always finding ways to improve and enhance its services. Sometimes the updates are fairly major, while others a minor bump is enough to make a notable difference. The latter's the case with a new feature now available in GMail on the desktop, mobile site, and mobile app: the search function can now return results that include text inside of attachments.

Before today, you could only locate specific attachments by searching for the the filename or file type. Now, however, the search tool can also read text inside of DOC, PDF, PPT, and other Drive-associated files.

The one downside that we found is that it doesn't show you which attachment the data was located.

Aug

[New App] 'Gmail Canned Responses' Brings The Desktop Functionality Of The Same Name To Your Mobile Device

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Anyone who sends out Gmail messages containing the same body text over and over again knows how taxing that can be. Fortunately, there's a great feature in Labs called Canned Responses to help combat this issue by offering the ability to have pre-built responses directly within the compose window.

Let's say, for example, you're out of town and won't be able to respond to most email in a timely manner, but don't want to set an away notice so everyone gets the same response. In that case, you could have several different canned responses ready to go for different purposes. If a client or partner emails, then you could have an appropriate, professional message ready to go.

Aug

Gmail App Updated To v4.1.2, Brings Better Support For 7" Tablets And Performance Improvements

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Google just pushed an update v4.1.2 to the Gmail app (up from 4.1.1 and 4.0.5) that brings a few enhancements to Android 4.0+ devices, including improved support for 7" tablets. The full changelog for this update reads as follows:

Android 4.0 (ICS) and up:
- Improved 7" support
- Bug fixes and performance improvements

At first blush there don't appear to be any visual alterations, so we'll just assume that most of these enhancements take place under the hood.

Looks like Google left part of the old changelog in place with this update, as Android 2.2+ received the labels API several months ago.

Jul

Getting To Know Android 4.1, Part 2: The Glorious New Notifications

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Jelly Bean 4.1, News

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

Hello and welcome to round 2 of Getting To Know Android 4.1. If you missed the inaugural episode (about the lock screen, software buttons, and icons) you can catch a rerun right here. And if you did see it, I suggest you go look at it again, because I updated it with a crazy menu button bug. Seriously, go look. I'll wait.

Today we're getting into something a little more meaty: The revamped notifications system! And we aren't doing some wimpy overview, we're sticking everything I can find under the GTKA microscope. First up, the fresh, new design:

Design

Just look at that, everything is different.

Jul

Jelly Bean Bumps Contact Photos To Hi-Res 720x720 But Google Sync Continues To Clobber It With Low-Res Mush

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Jelly Bean 4.1, News

One of the most starred Android issues of all time, currently #20 of 21363 from the top with 1191 stars, is the absolutely awful quality of synced contact photos (issue #3870, opened in 2009). ICS attempted to resolve the issue by bumping the quality to 256x256 pixels, but Google sync would without mercy squash it right back down to blurry pixel dirt (96x96).

To recap, there are actually a couple of issues:

Contact photos set in Gmail.com are downsized to 96x96. That continues to be the case, and this isn't really even an Android problem - it's up to the Gmail team to fix it.

Apr

Gmail App Updated In The Play Store, Brings ICS Features To Honeycomb Tablets

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

An update to the Gmail app just hit the Play Store that brings a number of smaller-ish features, most of which are for Honeycomb tablets. The app now offers some of the benefits of ICS on its older brother:

Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) users get the Android Gmail 4.0 (ICS) experience with:

Swipe to move between newer and older conversations

Tap your account to access Recent labels

Set custom notifications for individual labels

Sync last 30 days of messages so you can read and search messages faster both online and offline

It also brings some minor changes for users on Froyo or Gingerbread:

Android 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread) users get:

New Labels API for 3rd-party app developers

Performance improvements

The update is live in the Play Store right now, so go ahead and pull it down to enjoy the new features!

Mar

[Review] CloudMagic Offers Lightning Fast Searches Of Gmail, Docs, Twitter, And More

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews

Search has always been a big part of Android, and for many things, Google's built-in solution works fine. If you're looking for a better way to search through your data in the cloud, look no further than CloudMagic. The app does take a bit of setup, but once you're in, CloudMagic assists you in digging through your data in a very compelling way.

Setting Up CloudMagic

CloudMagic does not just exist on your phone. This is a service that you are granting access to your data, and it requires you to create an account to manage all those connections. After you get logged into CloudMagic itself, you have to add your services.