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Google Home v1.30 is rolling out today with a minor feature rebranding and some internal changes that show continued development on Google for Households, possibly with support for multiple homes. There are also more features for the smart home remote control, and Smart Displays will use the Google Home app to set up Duo calling. As always, download links are at the bottom.
Google Duo v37 may be adding "pause" to video chats and rewards for referring friends [APK Teardown]
A new version of Google Duo is began rolling out earlier today. It doesn't look like any new features have gone live with this update, nor does it appear to restore the screen sharing feature that was briefly enabled a couple months ago. However, there are some new things to look forward to in the future, including what is likely a pause button for video chats and a reward system for inviting friends to use Duo.
The Gboard team is hard at work building new features into its app, and the latest update demonstrates just how much effort has gone into it. A few additions are already visible, including spell check, a mini mode for the morse code keyboard, and an adaptive icon. Although, the spell check feature still seems to be disabled. Turning to a teardown, we can see development on Minis, which are basically a variant on Allo's Selfie Stickers. Gboard is always working toward a floating keyboard, more Make a GIF effects, and more. There are also a boatload of enhancements for many different languages.
When Google launched the Pixel 2, there was quite a bit of talk about a little lens maker named Moment. Get it, 'little lens' maker... I'll show myself out. The company made a name for itself with the iPhone crowd, but over the last couple of years the product line has expanded to include some of our favorite Android phones, like the Galaxy S8 and S9, Note 8, and both Pixel generations (and sizes). Now Moment is stepping into the Play Store with its own camera app.
The Google Phone app is getting an update this afternoon for all of the phones out there that use it. We haven't noticed any new changes on the surface, but clues from a teardown show that Google is preparing a call screening feature so you can more easily differentiate between legitimate and unwanted callers. There are also preparations for a new feature to simplify recording voicemail greetings right on your phone.
Google Play Games doesn't get much attention these days, but that doesn't mean there haven't been some changes. We're wrapping together everything that's different in the last few versions, plus touching on some new things that are coming in the future.
Android P Developer Preview 4 is out, or Beta 3 as Google refers to it. With it comes the usual slurry of small app updates, some of which have little or no change while others come bearing some interesting fruit. The latest Google Camera update doesn't seem to include any live changes, but it does have hints of many new features to come, including the much-anticipated RAW support, a way to fix faces that were distorted by the wide-angle lens of your camera, an automatic framerate setting, and even a "shiny new feature" that might enable surround sound audio recordings.
The Google devs are at it again with another late-night rollout of the Google app. Like most others, this update doesn't appear to bring any specific live changes, but it does include clues for a lot of the upcoming changes. There's plenty here to talk about, so let's just jump into it.
YouTube's app for Android TV hasn't seen a lot of updates since it switched over to the web wrapper as an interface. However, each new version usually brings something of some importance. The latest release comes with a couple of notable enhancements, including performance improvements, automatic resume after switching apps, and voice commands via Google Assistant. For some people running Android Oreo, there may also be new "personalized channels" appearing in the homescreen.
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Google is rolling out its first significant update since launching Podcasts this week. For the most part, this appears to be primarily a bug fix and polishing release. There are little tweaks here and there related to Podcasts, including a corrected icon. There's also the start of a search feature for settings so people won't have to wander through several screens to configure the app as they want it.
Google Lens was one of the hot topics out of Google I/O, this year. During the show, Google told us (and demonstrated) that a number of OEMs would have live processing built right into their camera apps, which we've since seen going live for some phones produced by Sony, OnePlus, Motorola, and ASUS. Meanwhile, Google's own Nexus and Pixel phones were left a bit behind the curve, at least until today. The latest update to the Google Camera app finally brings Lens mode to Pixel, Nexus, and other Google-supported phones.
An update to the Duo app is making its way out, but this appears to be a small-ish service update, at least for now. There's no specific sign that this version will re-launch the screen sharing feature after it rolled out in a malfunctioning state with v34, but it's possible that the implementation has been fixed and the feature will be turned on later. Instead, this update marks the end of Jelly Bean support. A teardown also shows that official tablet support is almost here.
Google Photos version 3.23 just started making the rounds, but there doesn't appear to be anything immediately changing with the update. However, the traditional clues about upcoming features are certainly there to be seen. We can look forward to applying some of those smooth bokeh effects of portrait mode, and this time, we'll control the intensity of the blur. There will also be a new option to downgrade your already backed-up photos to high quality so you can get back some of that cloud storage. I've also included a couple of other teardown sections for earlier versions that were slated to appear in the next Update Notes post, but this is the better place for them.
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- It looks like support for the OnePlus 6 may have also made its way into this release. Although the app listing on the Play Store is still set as incompatible for the device, sideloading this release will enable ARCore support in related apps, as spotted by Piunika Web. We have tested on our own OnePlus 6 and can confirm that this version of ARCore works.
The team behind AR at Google is working hard to bring support to an ever-growing number of phones. While the initial launch was limited to Pixel and S8 phones, it quickly grew beyond that number. Still, most of the early phones were flagships or at least on the higher end of mid-range. With the latest update, we're now seeing ARCore expanding to some budget handsets.
After the last update to the Google app brought very little to discuss, version 8.8 is now in circulation and it is continuing the trend of smaller but more frequent updates. In this round, the teardown brings up the curious "dreamliner" name that was also spotted in AOSP after Android P Developer Preview 3. We can also see that there's a new command in the works for Routines that will allow users to control their security systems.
An update to Gmail has been making the rounds and it looks like a big part of it is dedicated to bringing over successful features from the Inbox app. Unsubscribe suggestions have been added to make it easier to keep your mail a bit cleaner, and there are signs that the high-priority notification filter and a limited test of email bundling are also set to make an appearance in the future.
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- Google officially announced that the score matches are rolling out to everyone along with the For You tab and the new Material look we covered earlier.
Updates to Google Maps have been a bit quieter over the last few months as fewer features come to each update than we're accustomed to. A recent announcement revealed this time has been spent on some cool new predictive features that will help users find restaurants, events, and other places that match their taste and style. The first stage of those new features, scoring for places that match your tastes, is going live now. There are also signs of many of the other previously announced features, Waze-style incident reporting, and more.
A new version of the Android Messages app slowly began to circulate over the weekend. As usual, there doesn't seem to be anything visibly different in this update, but it does contain bits and pieces suggesting there's plenty of work going on in preparation for new features. Some of the Sticker and GIF-related enhancements from Allo appear to be making the transition to Messages, and we may also be getting some helpful search filters that bring attachments into view. There's also some new text that suggests Google is looking to take a more active role in combatting text spammers.
The Gboard team has unleashed a fresh beta of version 7.3. There's nothing immediately popping up as a brand new change or feature, but there is a lot to look at in the teardown. There are some big practical features coming, like OCR and improved handling for Battery Saver mode; but there are also some fun features like a text tool and new special effects for your custom GIFs.
A few weeks ago, it became clear that Google+ is headed toward a pretty major overhaul to the post editor that would bring support for new formatting and styling options for text. The latest update brings clues that this isn't where the new features will stop. It looks like Google+ may also add separate titles to posts and also integrate with Google Drive for attachments and that will include previews.