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For the longest time now, you've been able to leave reviews on apps and games' listings on the Play Store. Whether you want to complain about a bug or a recent update, give feedback to the developer, praise them for their work, it's a great way to voice your opinion and help others get a clear image of the app's experience. However, leaving reviews is a disruptive process, and finding or editing your existing reviews is still very difficult as there's no centralized place for them. Google is testing solutions for these problems.
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All is going according to plan for HMD Global's Android 10 rollout. The Nokia 8.1 got the new software in October, while the 9 Pureview and 7.1 followed up in December, and now the new year is starting with an OTA for the Nokia 6.1 Plus.
In the span of a few years, Insta360 has made itself a name in the 360 camera space thanks to an excellent balance between specs, image and video quality, funky additional features, and price. After a small detour with the Insta360 GO, the company is now back with its most ambitious 360 and action cam to date, the One R.
Google Maps makes it easy to search for and navigate to our frequently visited places by letting us assign custom labels for them. "Home," "work," and anything from "school" to "gym" or "Jim's house" can be applied to locations so we never have to remember exact and complicated addresses again. These labels work well enough in Maps and Assistant, but they aren't integrated in many other Google services. Now, they're being added to Photos so you can easily search for pics taken at different places.
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One of the promises of the new Assistant, as it was demo'ed by Google at I/O, is its direct integration with several apps on your phone. Instead of being an Assistant for Google's services first and foremost, the digital helper would put its smarts at every developer's disposal, letting them hook it up to several actions inside their apps. We've already gotten a small preview of this integration when we saw a few actions Assistant could perform inside Photos, Messages, WhatsApp, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Chrome. But we know there's more potential there, and Chrome is one of the first to implement broader support for Assistant, with direct browser actions accessible through voice commands.
Slowly, very slowly, Pocket Casts is starting to add back features that were removed in the big move to v7. Version 7.6, which is now in beta, implements more of these improvements, notably bringing back the swipe to see show notes, and making it easier to edit the Up Next queue. We also get a new free theme and customizable quick actions in the Now Playing screen.
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Like it or not, YouTube Music is here to replace Google Play Music. Ask any user though and they'll tell you the service isn't ready. Plenty of features are missing and music recommendations are nearly inexistent. That's about to change though as YouTube Music prepares to roll out three personalized playlists which are geared toward discovery.
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Although Taiwan wasn't indicated on the map of Assistant's expansion or in the list of countries Google promised support for before the end of the year, the Google Pixel 3 is the first Pixel to be officially available in Taiwan. Since a major appeal of its experience is Assistant, the virtual helper had to come to the country too.
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Virtual Reality may not be the hot topic it once was, a few years ago, but it has settled into a nice niche for gaming first and foremost, and media consumption to a more minor degree. If you're intrigued by VR and have been pining for one of those powerful headsets, you can spare your wallet and start small today with the Oculus Go, which is down to $150.The Go doesn't require any powerful PC to run demanding VR games, nor does it need you to slip your phone inside to use its display as make-shift lenses. It's a standalone headset with its own lenses and processor, though you still need your mobile device to easily browse and remotely install games and apps. It comes with one wireless controller for more precision in your actions, a power adapter and battery, as well as a spacer to properly mount on your face even if you wear eyeglasses.The deal is available on both the 32GB and 64GB storage variants, and lasts until December 2.
Google Photos has received plenty of changes recently. Between the new markup tool, manual face tagging, in-app conversations instead of the countless sharing threads, background blurring in all pics and not just Portrait ones, and the new account picker, we've seen a lot of functional as well as a few aesthetic improvements. The latest new feature to grace the app is a feedback tool to better personalize your Photos experience.
Some Google Maps users are being greeted by a new interface when they open the application. Gone are the now-familiar three bottom tabs with the side menu. Instead, the app has completely removed the menu and switched to five tabs, while lots of options migrated to the account picker pop-up. The benefit of this UI is faster access to your contributions as well as your saved places and lists.
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Google's Assistant newest iteration, which launched with the Pixel 4, has a few tricks up its sleeve, but accessing it has been restricted by some draconian requirements. You need to have a Pixel 4 with gesture navigation, no G Suite account on the same user profile, and everything has to be set to US English. That last limitation will soon be lifted with five new English variants joining in.
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Google is continuing to update its apps with the new account picker it announced at I/O. After spotting it (and the accompanying switch gesture in various apps) we noticed it was showing up for some users in the Play Store and is now rolling out in Google Photos too. The app is also getting a new "Skipped suggestions" section in settings for getting back automated creations you may have mistakenly dismissed.
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Earlier this year, our APK guru Cody discovered signs of Verified SMS coming to Google's Messages app. At the time, we didn't know what the feature was exactly or how it'd work. With it starting to go live now, we've discovered that it doesn't work for all numbers, just businesses, and specifically those registered with Google.
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When Android 10's beta rolled out, one issue confused and annoyed me: Opening supported links in their corresponding apps was transformed into a terrible workflow that made little sense to me. But I got used to it and didn't complain about it, until Artem started using his Pixel 4 and noticed the same problem. As he usually does, he vented about it on Twitter, inciting similar complaints from dozens of users and a comment from Googler Glen Murphy who confirmed that the issue was being looked into.
After a lot of controversy over disappearing credit, Google has finally started rectifying the situation by being more transparent about when your earned credit via Opinion Rewards expires. Putting that behind it, the company is ready to expand the paid surveys's availability to another market: Taiwan.
Despite the launch of YouTube's streaming service, many music fans remain attached to Google Play Music because of one feature: the option to upload up to 50,000 songs from your own collection and listen to them on any device. Over the past days, however, several users have complained about their inability to do just that because the desktop app needed to upload songs, Music Manager, isn't connecting to Google Play.
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- Google has announced today that Assistant's support for Arabic on phones is expanding to 15 more countries besides Egypt and Saudi Arabia. These are:
Google Assistant's language support was expanding quickly toward the end of 2018, but since the beginning of this year, the rate of additions slowed down considerably. As Google I/O nears, we're sure to see those pick up pace a little. Case in point, Assistant now supports Arabic (Egypt) and (Saudi Arabia). The former appears to be in open beta and available to all, while the latter is in closed beta and only showing for a few people.
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A recent update to Google Photos is annoying a lot of users by removing the super handy tap-and-drag for selecting multiple images. Not all users are affected and it's not clear if this is a server-side bug or a sign of things to come, but if the latter's the case, then it sure is not a wise decision, Google.
We're a couple of months away from Valentine's Day, but the Google Duo team is feeling the love already. Maybe they want us to be more vocal about our feelings during the holidays, maybe they think telling someone you care about them shouldn't be done on just one day of the year. Regardless of their thinking, they've added a way to send and receive hearts in the video calling app.