Google Photos is rolling out a small but useful change to its application, irrespective of its big UI overhaul that was announced last week. This slight improvement lets you quickly mute videos with an on-screen toggle without fiddling with your phone's main media volume level.
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Instagram announced a new feature today that allows users to stop seeing posts from accounts they follow without actually unfollowing them. It's called "mute," and Instagram is billing it as "a new way to personalize your feed."
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We're still combing through all the small and major changes in Android P DP2, and one of the things we noticed is that the Alarm Quick Setting icon that was added in DP1 disappeared, but that doesn't mean you can't see your upcoming alarms anymore. In its lieu, Android now displays the next alarm on top of the expanded Quick Settings and brightness slider. But that's not the only thing you'll see there.
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When it landed a couple months back, Android P delivered significant changes to the volume button dialog, relocating it to be closer to the keys themselves while setting media volume as the new default. Unfortunately, that latter change meant it's a bit harder to actually change ringer modes without tapping the screen.
In the latest developer preview for Android P, Google has added a new configurable hardware key combo that lets you press volume up and power simultaneously to set the ringer mode to silent or vibrate, giving us a complex and counter-intuitive solution to a problem that didn't need to exist.
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Autoplaying videos are among the most annoying web trends of recent years, bombarding you with unsolicited content when you least expect it. Chrome 63 (currently on the dev and canary channels) on desktop recently gave users the ability to mute certain websites permanently, and there's a special toggle in the works so you can ensure they stay quiet. In the upcoming Chrome 64, both on mobile and desktop, Google is introducing even stricter conditions that should stop unwanted audio from ever playing automatically.
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Google's developers are back to work now that the holidays (and CES) are over, and the first major app update is here. Maps v9.19 is out and it brings a host of pretty awesome new features. There is a new settings screen for your timeline that gives a bit more control over its operation and what is shown. A new audio toggle has been added to the navigation modes so it's a little easier to quickly shut off those over zealous turn-by-turn notifications. And there's a new driving mode that uses Google's knowledge of your habits and search history to predict where you're going during a drive and volunteer useful information as you drive—if you can get it enabled, that is.
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Update: Things have gone from "Looks like a weird software bug" to "Damn, this could well be a serious hardware issue". As some users had been suggesting, the problem does indeed link to use of 2G. However, it turns out that the issue can be replicated by the use of 2G even on another, proximate phone. As you can see in the video demonstration by kongzs7 below, the volume rocker keys' sensors are set off even when the phone is only at the bootloader.
This absolves Android 4.0 from blame, and suggests either an issue with the internal hardware, or possibly the firmware of the device, both significantly more problematic to sort out.
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