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WhatsApp's latest UI shift puts money transfers front-and-center
The feature's in beta testing in select markets
Mobile payment apps are super popular these days, but no one really wants to install a separate service to manage their money. WhatsApp has slowly been expanding its own built-in payments feature over the last year or so, and with the release of its latest beta version for Android, it's even easier for users to access.
Android 12's last developer preview before the beta landed yesterday, and it comes with some rather significant design and usability tweaks. People relying on the operating system's accessibility options are also in for some changes. Google has removed the old two-finger swipe accessibility menu shortcut in favor of a plain ol' floating button.
If you've made any kind of specific Google search, you've probably seen results that aren't a perfect match. Such results often include an indicator that they're not exactly what you're looking for: "Missing: whatever." Now, these results include the option to search again and only show results that include that missing term.
You've been able to install a launcher shortcut for Google Assistant from the Play Store for a while now, but we've started receiving reports that the icon has been showing up unexpectedly in the launchers of people who haven't done that.
Back in May, Google Assistant added support for shortcuts, allowing you to say one thing and have Assistant perform another command. For example, I set "night" as a shortcut for starting ambient noise on my Google Home. But you can just as easily have fun with it, when combined with Assistant's 'repeat after me' command.
When David wrote his first impressions of the Note8, he mentioned one feature of the Apps Edge that lets you create a shortcut to immediately launch two apps in split-screen. And that got me jealous. See, I don't use multi-window on my phone all that often, but on my tablet, it's a different story. I'm often editing Android Police's posts, which requires Chrome and a Google Docs file to be open at the same time so I can take notes. But I have to manually open these and set them up each time. A shortcut would be a welcome simplification of that process.
While Google Assistant is rolling out to more devices, Microsoft is continuing to improve its own virtual helper. Microsoft's Cortana assistant made the jump to Android in 2015, and has continued to improve since with regular updates. The latest update, version 2.5, allows users to add Cortana to the lockscreen.
Since Google introduced material design in 2014, the questions of whether and how to use the design language on other platforms like iOS has lingered. But Google hasn't been a stranger to material on iOS. Inbox users for instance should feel right at home moving between iOS and Android, as many of the interface's core components are shared.
We know everybody is looking forward to the big Hangouts 4.0 update; and despite a pretty active day for updates, there's no sign that the big green chat app is going to get a big new version today. While we're waiting, a smallish update to the Google Play Newsstand app reminds us that there's plenty of stuff to read in the news. The changes in this release are mostly centered around improving performance and accessibility, and fixing bugs. However, there is one potentially handy new feature making an appearance: home screen shortcuts.
The updates came rolling in quickly this morning. Among them was a fresh bump to Google's Inbox app – the email app for people without time for email. This release was a little light on truly new features as far as the main interface is concerned, but it finally brought a feature to light we've been expecting for a few months: home screen shortcuts to jump straight into writing a new email or scheduling reminders.
It looks like Google is performing some surgery on the Google bar, the familiar toolbar that appears across the top of many of Google's web properties (including Chrome's new tab page). Until recently, the bar held a G+ sharing shortcut, a profile switcher, an "app drawer" to switch between Google products, and a link shortcut to your Google+ profile.
Most of our readers consider themselves power users, and rightly so. Perhaps you don't have a spare 1.8 seconds to laboriously tap the Home button, then the app launcher, then that app you use every third Tuesday. Well, obsessive customizers, your new best friend on the Google Play Store is FlipLauncher, a free app that embeds up to five completely adjustable launcher ribbons over any and every part of Android.
If you are anything like me and you own the keyboard dock for the Asus Transformer, then you probably keep it attached the majority of the time. The dock gives you quick access to the home, search, and menu shortcut keys, but what about the recent apps button? Unfortunately, a hardware button was not included. Although it is not much work to just tap the on-screen button since it is just a few inches away, it can still be annoying.