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Last week, Google announced several improvements to Maps among which is the availability of Live AR walking navigation for users beyond Local Guides. Another promised change was a new and improved timeline. In addition to your daily history, it groups all the places you've visited by category, city, country, and lets you quickly create lists of recommendations based on locations you've already been to.
A few days ago, we told you about one big improvement with Google's reminders, which now finally use unbundled notifications and let you act on each one separately. Part of that article also showed off a new interface for reminders, which looks more in line with Google's recent Material Design approach. However, there are a few other aspects in that interface that we didn't delve into, chief among them is the fact that Google's reminders now require Assistant and won't work without it.
The switch from Holo to Material Design in Google's own software took years, even if the company had fewer apps to worry about updating back then. In contrast, the move to the new Google Material Theme look is swifter, with many of Google's apps already updated with the design and a few more still waiting their turn. Among the latter are Google's standalone apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, even if their parent Drive app has already had it for a few months. But now, Docs appears to be the first app among its brethren to get a taste of the new UI.
G Suite users have to contend with a new disappointment every few weeks. No sooner had they learned of one pointless limitation on their account than they discover a new one. The latest blow is that Assistant says it doesn't support reminders for G Suite accounts now... even though it did just a few days ago.
When Apple announced iOS 13, one of the things that caught my attention was its live lyric implementation in the music app. That was a logical step after the company's purchase of Shazam and I liked how it was integrated in the app instead of requiring a separate layer like Musixmatch. Now, that same functionality is making its way to Apple Music on Android, along with a dark theme.
The latest Google Maps update to version 10.22.1 brings a new navigation interface. Although at first glance it only seems like a visual update, there's also a functional improvement: you can now tap to see upcoming steps and turns in your drive.
It's been nearly three months since ASUS announced its latest flagship, the Zenfone 6, with its quirky flip-up camera that springs up and becomes a front-facing cam. In the months since, the device has shipped to many countries around the world, received several updates, and gotten some positive community support, but it hasn't yet launched in the US. Things are looking out though, as the Zenfone 6 is now finally available for pre-order on B&H.After not one, not two, but three false dates, the Zenfone 6 is now truly up for pre-order. Only B&H seems to have the device — I can't find it on Amazon, ASUS's own store, or Best Buy — and although you can order the phone now, the shipping date isn't specified so you may have to wait a little to get it. You can choose between black and silver colors and 64GB or 128GB variants. The former costs $499.99 and the latter $549.99. All models are unlocked and come with a free 3-month Mint Mobile prepaid SIM card.Other specs include a 6.4" FHD+ display, Snapdragon 855, 6GB of RAM, a 5,000mAH battery, the 48MP and 13MP ultra-wide lenses that flip up, and Android 9 Pie. If you need to know more about the Zenfone 6 and see if it's worth buying, you can read our own review.
We all know the feeling. Our favorite team has a game scheduled today, but we have some other obligation at the same time and there's no way we can get out of it. So we load our favorite sports app or we open Google and keep refreshing the search page for the match score. Google started remedying this by allowing us to pin live scores to our homescreen and then adding support for multiple pinned matches. Now, it's going one step further by letting us choose teams whose matches we want pinned automatically.
Participating in the latest betas is always a fun, but not risk-free endeavor. You get to try out things before anyone else and observe how a software evolves before it's released to the public. Android Q's gestures, for example, have seen several iterations across beta versions and now the most recent gestures are making their way to the Nokia 8.1 with the latest Beta 5.
In the world of activity trackers, nothing comes close to the Mi Band's value. Cheaper than any Garmin or Fitbit tracker, even the most basic vivofit4 and Inspire, but still packing enough functionality, it also benefits from Xiaomi's name recognition and is considered a serious choice, not a cheap knock-off no-name tracker.The most recent Mi Band 4 pushes the value-for-money envelop even further thanks to a colored AMOLED screen, swim tracking, and music controls, which get added on top of the previous generation's all-day activity, sleep, and heart rate tracking. Overall, the package is very attractive, but cracks are inevitably hiding below the surface, especially if you like spending your time in a pool.
Google Assistant has always been able to read SMS texts sent to you over the native Messages app or Hangouts. But billions of users around the world rely on other messaging services for their daily communication, and those apps, as far as we know, were off-limits for Assistant's reading ability (some let you send but not read). That's no longer the case now.
I don't live in the US, but even I know not to take the word "unlimited" in carriers' mobile plans literally. Verizon, specifically, has been one of the biggest aggressors to the word's definition, stretching its meaning over the years. Now, it's supposedly introducing four new unlimited plans, though nothing substantial is changing compared to the current ones and you're still going to be very limited to 720p streaming, even if you have the biggest plan with 75GB of 4G LTE data.
Google's ongoing European saga just saw a new development. After the record $5 billion antitrust fine issued by the European Commission last year, the company had to implement new screens to ask users if they wanted additional browsers and search engines on their devices, and now it's taking that one step further by making the search engine choice a default. However, as would any for-profit company do, it's using this as an opportunity to charge search providers that want to be featured.
Google's two-factor authentication hardware key, the Titan Security, has been available in the US for almost a year. After disappearing from the Store for a few months and a Bluetooth flaw that required Google to send free replacements, it's now making its way to four other countries.
Google's Phone dialer received an update to v37 in its beta channel yesterday, and although many of us didn't notice any major changes in the app, some lucky recipients of a server-side test are seeing a new interface in the recent call tab, including a new way to group calls and the ability to swipe to delete entries from the log.
Google Maps lists have become an essential feature for me. I have lists for places all over the world that I want to check out one day, dedicated lists to each country I've traveled to or am planning to visit soon, as well as some miscellaneous lists for places around me for which I need to have a saved location. The Maps team has been steadily improving these lists, but some neat changes have trickled in recently — likely via server-side as we just spotted them but we can now see them in older versions of the app too.
OnePlus is in the midst of preparing its Android Q release, but that's not stopping progress on its existing apps and services. Recently, we saw the Gallery pick up a new carousel interface for Collections, and today, another update to the app lets you hide your photos from the main view, though you shouldn't rely on it to avoid prying eyes.
I hadn't noticed how static the Google Photos library was until Apple's iOS 13 announcement, when our favorite Android competitor showed off its improved Photos app with smarter navigation and live previews of videos, Live Photos, and more. After seeing that, each time I scrolled through Google Photos on my phone, I wished it could be as lively, and now it finally is... though there's room for improvement.
During its I/O press conference, Google announced several improvements to Digital Wellbeing including a tight integration with Family Link, enabling parents to set screen and app usage limitations for their children's devices. The feature was said to be coming in Android Q, but we hadn't yet seen it in any beta release. With today's update to Digital Wellbeing, the integration appears to be going live.
It's been a bit over a year since YouTube Premium and Music Premium first launched. Since then, the music streaming service and ad-free YouTube subscription have expanded to more and more countries, from South America to Asia and Europe. This May, 7 European nations were added and now 13 more are joining them.