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YouTube Kids is now available in eight more countries
All the latest additions are in the Middle East and North Africa
YouTube Kids has proven to be a popular way for parents to give their children access to a limited collection of YouTube content, even if that collection occasionally includes videos depicting suicide and cannibalism (oops!). The service has slowly been expanding its global reach, and now Google has added 11 more nations to the availability list.
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.
Just a few hours ago, Google announced that YouTube Premium and YouTube Music had made their way to India. Oddly enough, it neglected to mention the 13 other countries both services just debuted in. Of these 13, 12 are in Central and South America, with the odd duck out being South Africa.
We often take a few features of our smartphones for granted. Those of you who live in the US usually get access to all the cool new things first, followed by a few countries like the UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Australia. Living in Lebanon and writing about tech, this feature inequality struggle is part of my everyday life, but there's one privilege I have now that I've started taking for granted too — the basic of all basics: purchasing apps on the Play Store. There are still countries out there where paid apps aren't available, but two of them are moving up.
Not all countries are created equal when it comes to the Google Play Store, but now developers in three new countries can start feeling like first class citizens again. If you develop apps or games for Android and you live in Guatemala, Moldova, or Paraguay, today brings some happy news for you. Previously, you were able to register on the Play Console and distribute free apps, but now you can also register for a merchant account and sell paid apps and in-app purchases to get some revenue for your work.
Free international roaming is one of the many nice perks T-Mobile offers to entice customers. When the Uncarrier launched the feature over a year ago, it supported over 100 countries. That list has now grown to over 120. The latest addition includes Paraguay, in South America, and Croatia, in Europe.
One issue preventing a bunch of people from viewing Google Maps as the navigation godsend that many others see it as is its limited availability in certain parts of the globe. Well, Google is working to change that. The company has rolled out support for navigation in the countries of El Salvador, Libya, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Tunisia.