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The Pixel 3 and 3 XL have started shipping, and if you splurged for Google's new wireless charging accessory, the Pixel Stand, then you'll notice that the corresponding app has now hit the Play Store.
Of all the apps we keep an eye on here at Android Police, YouTube annoys us the most because of its endless stream of server-side tests. We've always wished the app had a beta channel on the Play Store and that those tests would be accomplished through it. Well, at least the first part of that equation is now coming true.
Reminder and to-do apps can be a little daunting to manage. Most of them overflow with so many options that you may find it easier not to use them. But that's not what Three.do, a new reminder app aims to, uhm, do. The app's concept is different. When you want to set up a reminder, it's usually about doing something for someone (or yourself) at a certain time, i.e. the who, what, and when. And that's what the app uses: three screens with different colored tiles for each of these variables. The interface looks like Windows Phone and Material Design had a baby.
October 30 can't come soon enough. If the previous weeks are anything to go by, OnePlus will milk the hype machine for its upcoming 6T until the very last drop, trickling down one small announcement every day. It's too much, and personally, I'm starting to feel dirty every time we cave in and cover these antics. But OnePlus fans would burry us in tips if we didn't, so here we are. The latest OnePlus 6T news, however, is nothing short of a majestic clickbait — in all meanings of the term.
Harmony's history with Google Home and Assistant goes way back. When support for the service first rolled out, it was an Actions on Google integration (or Assistant app). That meant you had to "ask Harmony to do something" every time, which only worked with your own voice (no support for other home members unless they added the account in their own Assistant) and was very inconvenient. Sure, you could create shortcuts/routines to avoid having to say "ask Harmony" for every command, but even those were voice-dependent and you had to manually set up an equivalent shortcut for every action.
Messaging apps are getting smarter and smarter, but there are several areas where WhatsApp's way of doing things perplexes me a little. For example, the app recently added the option to watch entire videos picture-in-picture inside a conversation, but when you send a link to an image (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc), it doesn't even try to load a preview before sending it. That might be changing though, as we're starting to see hints of WhatsApp offering to download linked GIFs before you send them.
After decking your house with everything from smart lights and speakers to robot vacuums and connected ovens, the remaining things you may be looking at and wondering if they can integrate your home 2.0 setup are your shades. Replacing existing shades with new connected ones isn't easy or cheap, but if you've already taken that step or looking into it, you should know that they will soon be natively supported as a device type in Google Assistant. Better yet, Lutron's connected shades are the first ones to roll out this integration now.
Recently, Google announced many new features coming to its travel planning services, including flight and hotel insights. Those changes are only a small part of the overhauled hotel listing layout that's rolling out to Google Maps right now. While the design appears to be cosmetic at first, with plenty of the new Material accents everywhere, you can quickly spot many useful new additions as well as some very worrying feature removals.
Google's official Wallpapers app doesn't get new version releases frequently, but that doesn't stop the content inside it from being updated on the server side. That's the case today, as dozens of new wallpapers have landed in multiple categories.
You're either a dog person or you're not. Or maybe your boyfriend slowly hounded you with pictures and videos of puppies until you became a dog person and started drooling everytime you saw a pup. That may or may not be a tail based on personal experience. Regardless of how you fell in love with those fuzzy creatures, your personal life starts revolving around them and you'd want a pawtner who gets that. Dig is a dating app just for you then, and now it's available fur Android.
For most people, 360-degree cameras are a novelty item that they're willing to spend a maximum of $100 on, just to see what the fuss is about. That nets them a low-resolution, low-quality sensor, with limited features. For those who get bitten by the 360-degree bug though, a cheap camera won't do. The higher the resolution and specs, the better. And that's where the new Insta360 ONE X lands. It's capable of taking 5.7K videos and comes with built-in stabilization, for an awesome shoot-now-edit-later approach.
Our connected life is certainly getting more complex with time. With the convenience of smart/Wi-Fi enabled devices comes the trouble of keeping everything up-to-date. Some companies choose to stick with manual updates, forcing you to manually approve every minor version change. Others opt for automatic updates, removing the guesswork and friction out of the process. Sonos used to be part of the first category, but now the company has added an option for seamless updates.
Stories and original content are the two pillars of any social network nowadays. After YouTube Originals, IGTV, Facebook Watch, and others, Snap Inc. is jumping into the same waters and hoping to get enough exclusive content to grip users' attention further.
The Pixel 2 and 2 XL brought a new Ambient Display feature that automatically recognizes nearby playing music and displays the song's title and artist without you having to launch Shazam or any other music ID app. The third-generation Pixels will up the ante with a log of all the identified songs.
Any podcast app worth its salt allows you to change the playback speed. People speak at different paces; some podcasters are agonizingly slow and articulate, others talk very fast and are impossible to understand if you don't speak their language (and even dialect) natively. That's why it's important to be able to set the playback speed to a convenient rate for you. Google Home appears to be getting this feature soon - possibly even now.
Before the Pixel 2 and 2 XL, Google had a habit of promising its Nexus and Pixel devices Android version updates for two years, but security fixes for three. That changed with the second-generation Pixels, which were guaranteed both types of updates for three years. The Pixel 3 family will benefit from the same courtesy.
It's becoming a bit of a tradition: Every year, when Google's new smartphones are announced, we have to confirm once again that the first-generation Pixel and XL will keep benefiting from their lifetime original quality photo backups for life. This year, Google made a little snafu, seemingly backtracking on that promise, but it's all been fixed now.
Google confirms the Home Hub prematurely, posts $25 off promo when buying it with a Chromecast Ultra
Google's upcoming Pixel event today has been spoiled nearly from A to Z, but there's a bit of a difference between leaks coming from outside sources and small missteps inside the company that officially confirm unannounced devices. That's the case with this new promo on the Play Store, mentioning the yet-unofficial Google Home Hub.
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If you live in a house with no central climate control, or if you're making an expansion to your house and it's impossible to get a ducted system in place, a ductless setup may be your only hope. Nest, Ecobee, and the dozen other smart thermostats we often talk about aren't compatible with ductless systems, so you have to start thinking creatively if you want connected climate control. The solution comes in the form of small units that can send the same infrared signals as an air conditioner's (AC) remote, but that are themselves WiFi-enabled for remote access.Earlier this summer, I reviewed the Cielo Breez, one of the potential candidates that can smarten up your AC, heat pump, or floor standing unit. I praised it a lot, but was slightly letdown by the outdated design and a few gaps in its smart home compatibility. A few readers recommended I check out Sensibo's alternative solution, so I managed to get my hand on a Sensibo Sky. I have been using it for about a month in my home and have almost nothing but praise for it.
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For dark theme enthusiasts, vindication time is finally here. Not only is Google working on dark themes for many of its apps, several other developers and services have joined the darker side and started implementing these AMOLED-friendly designs in their apps. The latest is Todoist, my personal favorite to-do manager. But that's not the only new thing from the service; it's also rolling out an all-new standalone Wear OS app that lets you manage your tasks without having to install the app on your phone too.