20
Feb
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[APK Teardown] Google Maps 6.14.3 - Next Stop: Lane Guidance

Posted by in APK Teardown, News

Ok, here's a short and sweet edition of APK Teardown coming your way. Prepare yourself.

What's the one remaining thing a standalone GPS unit can do that Google Maps can't? (Besides work offline) Lane guidance.

lane-guidance-junction-view

Right now, Google Maps would best be described as "Turn guidance." It will tell you when to make a right turn, but that's about it. Lane guidance is a step further: Your next exit is coming up on the right, and a TomTom (pictured) will better prepare you to make the exit by directing you to the right hand lane in advance. This saves you the surprise "turn right" command which suddenly means you need to cut across 40 lanes of traffic.

14
Feb
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[APK Teardown] Google+ 3.5.3 - An "Apps" Main Menu Icon? A "Manage Apps" Settings Section? What Is Going On Here?

Posted by in APK Teardown, Features, News
Last Updated: February 26th, 2013

In the recent weeks, Google+ has had 2 pretty low-profile updates. The first one added a notification tray, and the most recent one was supposedly just a bug fix release, but they've both been adding new things, presumably for a coming update. Yes, it's teardown time.

These teardown sessions seems to get more and more mysterious and strange as time goes on, and frankly I'm really not sure what's going on with these updates. I'm just going to lay out the facts first, and I'll throw some theories at you at the end. So put on your investigation hats - this should be fun.

13
Feb
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[APK Teardown] [Update: Art Project Is A Google Site!] Google Search 2.3 - New Features For Flights, And What The Heck Is 'Art Project'?

Posted by in APK Teardown, Features

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.

Google Search is the hardest app teardown to do. You can never really be sure if what you've found is in the app or not, because everything is so predictive and context heavy. So I'll just aim for "new stuff that's not in the change log." If you find any of this in the actual app, let me know.

06
Dec
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[APK Teardown] Google Search - Reply To SMS With Voice, Post To Facebook & Twitter, An Android@Home Card, And More

Posted by in APK Teardown, Applications, Features, Jelly Bean 4.1, Jelly Bean 4.2

Ok - here's the deal. A Google Search update happened, which means it's teardown time. Normally I post about unreleased, work-in-progress stuff, but Google Now is so context dependent, that it's pretty much impossible for me to tell if something is implemented or not. The one thing I've learned from my months of using Now is that Google Now is in charge, and you're just along for the ride. So, for today's post, we're just going to shoot for "new things that didn't make it onto the 'What's New' list." If you can get them to show up, awesome. Send me a screenshot and I'll update.

03
Dec
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[APK Teardown] The Mysterious Leftovers Special: The Jandycane Logo, Google+'s Coffee Mug Notification, And Lightcycle Instructions

Posted by in APK Teardown, Jelly Bean 4.1, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Normally I rip apart APKs looking for news-worthy items and unreleased features, but I've covered everything that's currently out, so this teardown session is going to be a little different. During my usual digging for features, I've stumbled across a surprising amount of unused files, movie references, and canceled beta assets. I've always thought it was a shame that no one knows about them, so today we'll be exploring all the crazy leftover files that ship on our phones and tablets. If you've ever checked out the deleted scenes section of a DVD, this article will be right up your alley.

19
Nov
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[APK Teardown] Coming To A Play Store Near You: App Reviews Will Require A G+ Profile, Pre-Order Support, And More

Posted by in APK Teardown, Features, News

Google has been on an update roll lately, with Voice, YouTube, Google+, Calendar, and Music all getting updates in the last week. I've been dutifully doing teardowns on all of them, but there's been no hidden goodies, and thus, no articles. There was a Play Store update this weekend, however, and that does have some interesting, new stuff in it, so we're back!

Google+ App Reviews

Android is quickly becoming the Google+ OS.

App reviews in the Play Store will soon require a Google+ account, and future reviews will be posted showing your full Google+ name and picture. The string file always seems to be the most enlightening, so we'll start with that first.

01
Nov
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[APK Teardown] Google Maps Is Getting Real-Time Traffic Rerouting, And Google Voice Search Learns How To Hold A Conversation

Posted by in APK Teardown, News

After having successfully survived a thunder-snowicane and completed a black-ops mission into a post-apocalyptic New York City to pick up a Nexus 4,  APK Teardown HQ is back up and running. We've accumulated a bit of a backlog, so today's entry is a 2 for 1 deal: Google Maps 6.14 and Google Search 2.1.

Google Maps

Maps is getting real-time traffic rerouting!

Now, you might be saying "But Maps already takes traffic into account, look at this blog post!" but let's take a look at what that blog post really says:

You don’t have to do anything to be routed around traffic; just start Navigation like you normally would, either from the Navigation app or from within Google Maps.

19
Oct
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[Exclusive] Android 4.2 Alpha Teardown, Part 3: The New Work-In-Progress Gallery And More Multiple User Stuff

Posted by in APK Teardown, Exclusives, News
Last Updated: December 28th, 2012

We're back with yet another edition of our Android 4.2 teardown! We previously showed you the new Gmail, the Quick Settings prototype, and all sorts of security features. Today we're looking at some seriously fun stuff, including a sneak peek at the new Gallery design.

Pending some kind of breakthrough, we'll probably end this series at an even trilogy. There isn't much more to cover after this. And remember, this is a Teardown, not a list of confirmed 4.2 features. None of this is guaranteed to ship in 4.2 and I'm certainly not claiming it will.

The New Gallery

Update: HOLD EVERYTHING.

17
Oct
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[Exclusive] Android 4.2 Alpha Teardown, Part 2: SELinux, VPN Lockdown, And Premium SMS Confirmation

Posted by in Android OS, APK Teardown, Exclusives, Features

We've got an LG Nexus system dump and endless desire to spoil every Googley surprise we can. Today's edition of the Android 4.2 Teardown could be alternatively subtitled "The Super-Serious Security Edition," because we're talking about the sort of stuff that should make your sysadmin jump for joy.

Please keep in mind this is just as forward-facing and time-ambiguous as all my other teardowns. This is a list of new stuff in the 4.2 dump, not a list of "confirmed for 4.2" features. Anything could be cut or not fully implemented by the time 4.2 rolls around; similarly to how bits of Android are currently multi-user aware, yet multi-user functionality isn't accessible.

15
Oct
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[Exclusive] Android 4.2 Alpha Teardown, Part 1: Quick Settings - The Second Pulldown Panel [Video]

Posted by in Android OS, APK Teardown, Exclusives, Features

Welcome to the continuation of our Android 4.2 extravaganza. If you haven't guessed by now, we don't just have an unreleased version of Gmail; we have an entire LG Nexus system dump. Some LG Nexus prototypes are supposedly running 4.1.2, but the build we have is something different - something newer. It's an in-progress 4.2 build. Most apps in this build identify themselves as version "4.2-[###]" or "JellyBeanMR1" (4.1.2 is JellyBeanMR0). The source asked us to not release the dump, so we won't. Sorry.

What we can do is give you as much information as possible about it. This Android 4.2 build is really different, in that almost nothing works on a regular phone.

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