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Spotify has been working on proper lyrics support for ages. It likely takes this long to implement the seemingly simple feature in part due to licensing issues surrounding songtexts, which already led to a lawsuit against Google. Spotify seems to have finally found a suitable solution, as TechCrunch reports that the company is planning to roll out lyrics synced with music to 26 markets today. The US, Canada, and the UK aren't among these, though.
Google Opinion Rewards expands to Hong Kong and Malaysia
The move follows expansion to Chile, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates earlier this year
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Google Opinion Rewards had a rocky ending to 2019, with many users' credits expiring without warning or explanation. That was soon rectified by placing an expiration date beneath your balance, though the explanation for the whole debacle was too little, too late. Moving past the controversy, Google's forging ahead in the new decade by making Opinion Rewards available in Chile, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates.
YouTube Music and Premium are continuing their expansion across the world. After adding eight Middle Eastern countries in September, the service is now spreading to seven more markets in Asia. Most notable among these additions is Indonesia, the fourth most populated country in the world, and a potentially huge market for Google.
We spend a lot of time here on Android Police talking about features that are exclusive/limited to some countries, and two of those are the ability for a developer to register to sell apps on the Play Store, and for users to buy gift cards and Google Play balance. The former is expanding to three countries, while the latter is launching in a new one.
Google has another major event lined up for today, where the announcement of the Pixel 2, Google Home Mini, Pixelbook, and other devices will likely take place. It looks like more countries could get the chance to buy Google hardware (maybe including the upcoming products), because the Google Store is expanding to more nations.
The first carrier to support Google's Jibe RCS technology was Sprint, back in November of last year. Since then, several carriers in Canada, Asia, and Europe have made the switch. Now it looks like Celcom will support Jibe RCS, becoming the first carrier in Malaysia to do so.
Of the different mobile payment solutions, Samsung Pay may as well be one of the most successful so far at expanding to different countries and implementing new features. After launching in South Korea then quickly following up in the USA (and later Puerto Rico) in 2015, it has come to China, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, and Spain.
Slowly but surely, the creatures are coming. They advance, nation by nation, relentless, refusing to stop until the entire planet is their domain. Hundreds of millions have felt their impact. Politicians and titans of industry are not immune. And even mainstream news outlets are scrambling to find "22 Tips For Catching Pokémon - #12 Will Make You Scream!" Today developer Niantic continues its bid for global mobile gaming domination by expanding Pokémon GO to 15 new markets in Asia, including hundreds of millions of new potential players on iOS and Android.
Carrier billing is an alternative way to buy content from Google Play. Rather than adding a credit card and making a payment right away, you can opt to have the purchase show up on your phone bill. The catch? Your carrier has to support the feature.
Google Play Newsstand's paid content has been forging its way around the world, trying to catch up with the various Play entities that preceded it. Today marks its arrival in three new countries in East Asia: Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Before getting Google Play content onto our Android devices, Google has to dot its i's, cross its t's, and shake hands with the right people all over the globe. If a country doesn't have access to certain things in the Play Store yet, chances are Google is still jumping through hoops. After all, the company would love for as many people to use its services as possible.
In context with some of Google's other exploits, creating a kayak-mounted 360-degree camera rig for taking Street View photos seems positively pedestrian. After all, it's not a self-driving car or an Internet-granting weather balloon or a DARPA-approved scary-ass robot. But it's still pretty cool, as evidenced by the post on the official Asia Pacific blog.
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- Singapore is the third and last country confirmed for this rollout.
Streaming movies from Google Play is rather nice. I sort of scoffed at the feature at first, wondering why I'd want to spend that much money to rent a movie when I could wait and buy a physical copy later. But hey, $3 to $5 really isn't that much compared to watching a film in theaters, and it lets you see a movie much sooner than waiting for the DVD version to drop in price.