Google has been tweaking its popular apps over the past few months to align them with the refreshed Material guidelines. After showing signs of a refresh not too long ago, Google’s dialer and messaging apps are now picking up the new outlined icons with their latest beta releases. These rather subtle changes merely replace the existing filled iconography and do not introduce any new functionality whatsoever.
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I can't imagine having to navigate today's world while visually impaired. From streets to people to items, and even trivial things like preparing a sandwich or knowing the proper toilet sign in a restaurant, it would all be infinitely more difficult without sight, and I have a lot of admiration for those who have to handle these situations every day. Smartphones can make some of this easier, especially with AI at the helm. If Google Lens can identify a dog's breed from a photo, there's nothing stopping it from using the same tech to help visually-impaired people, and that's where Lookout comes in.
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The camera remains one of the top selling points for Pixel phones, so it's only natural that updates to Google's Camera app are going to be worthy of a close eye. The latest version bump brings some changes that will save you from ruining a video when new notifications would pop up and tweaks the UI in a subtle way. Diving deeper with a teardown, we get to see that 24 fps recording is on the horizon along with some of the codenames for upcoming devices, most likely the Pixel 4a lineup.
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Telegram is a messaging app jam-packed with features, but it isn't resting on its laurels. A new version of the app includes reworked options for creating polls, allowing people to create multiple-answer polls and quizzes.
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Shortly after the disappearance of EA's Tetris titles on the Play Store, the new mobile Tetris license holder N3twork has published a classic alternative. In contrast to its Tetris Royale that adds a 100-player mode and daily challenges to the classic game, the brand-new Tetris is as barebones as it gets.
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Almost a decade ago (!) in 2011, EA released Tetris for mobile devices, following it with Tetris Blitz in 2013. Being the only way to play "official" Tetris on your phone, the two apps have been extremely popular for fans of the classic brick-stacker game. Unfortunately, EA is ending its run with Tetris and will be abandoning the games in April.
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Google Opinion Rewards had a rocky ending to 2019, with many users' credits expiring without warning or explanation. That was soon rectified by placing an expiration date beneath your balance, though the explanation for the whole debacle was too little, too late. Moving past the controversy, Google's forging ahead in the new decade by making Opinion Rewards available in Chile, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates.
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Google has been on a roll recently with its digital wellbeing initiatives, releasing Family Link for parental controls, various apps to view and manage your usage, and a Focus Mode for pausing apps you find distracting. Now it's continuing the trend by releasing 3 new apps, the most notable of which asks that you literally put your phone in an envelope so you can't use it.
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Digital Wellbeing is excellent for keeping track of your smartphone usage. As well as recording how much time you spend in each app, the number of notifications you receive, and how many times you unlock your phone, the software's Wind Down feature helps ensure you get some me-time by limiting distractions and turning the display grayscale so you can focus on more important things. In the latest beta version of the app, Google is adding some flexibility by allowing you to pause Wind Down briefly.
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YouTube Music received quite a few improvements during 2019, but it may not have been obvious since many of updates have been fairly subtle or only relevant to small audiences. Let's be honest, most of it is easy to ignore when some big features are still missing. Regardless, the service and app maturing, and that will be important when Google Play Music eventually fades into the aether and YouTube Music is all that remains. With the latest update, preparations are being made to improve the Library tab so it's easier to use and doesn't get in the way of playing music the way you want.
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