Android Messages just hit version 3.0. While hitting a new major version number might be an occasion for big things in some apps, this one appears to be a simple incremental step up from version 2.9. While there aren't any immediately obvious changes on the surface of this update, there are some things happening under the hood. It looks like support for KitKat has been dropped with this update, leaving behind about 12% of previously supported Android devices. There are also clues about changes to notifications about pictures and videos, enhanced chat features, and making purchases.
Read MoreAndroid Messages v3.0 drops KitKat support, prepares notification improvements, more on purchases and enhanced chat features [APK Teardown]
Instagram Stories now supports importing media more than 24 hours old
Instagram has always allowed you to add previously-taken pictures and videos to your Story, but the app imposed one limitation - the media had to be less than 24 hours old. I honestly never noticed that, but it seems silly. Instagram now seems to think so too, and has removed that limit from the mobile apps.
Read MoreGoogle Maps now offers a tab for photos of amenities in hotels and other lodgings
Over the last few months, the team working on Google Maps has been making it easier for users to browse photos of different landmarks and businesses. Each location includes a space set aside for pictures, but a few types of businesses also sport dedicated albums. Some of the examples include pictures of the food and atmosphere inside restaurants. A new album just joined the list: photos representing the amenities available at hotels and other similar lodgings.
Read MoreFrancisco Franco's Focus Is A Beautiful, Responsive, Tag-Friendly, And Simple Media Gallery
Francisco Franco, of franco.Kernel fame and several other root applications, has just released a new media gallery browser for Android: Focus. Designed by our very own Liam Spradlin (#halleliam), Focus brings a big, erm, focus on design, usability, and efficiency. It's decked with Material Design elements and animations, but it still keeps a unique look and approach to image, gif, and video viewing.
Focus' differentiating feature is that you can see all of your images, literally ALL of your images, from the app's main screen. No need to delve into submenus, open folders, go back, and try again until you can find that one cat photo you took three months ago. Photos are organized by collections, which seem to follow the folder hierarchy on your phone and SD card, and thumbnails are scrollable horizontally to display every media item a folder contains.
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Maps v9.10 Adds New Photo Gallery Viewer, Car Rental Bookings, And More [APK Download]
A new update to Google's Maps application is out, but the wait for offline navigation must go on. This is a relatively minor version bump, so we're not going to see the big features mentioned at I/O, but that doesn't mean there aren't still some pretty good things in this release. We now get to enjoy a new photo gallery view, car rental bookings will be shown, and there are a few pleasant improvements in Settings.
What's New
New Photo Gallery View
Left: old photo view, Center: new photo gallery, Right: new single photo view
A few weeks ago, Google made some subtle changes to the interface for uploading photos for locations you had visited.
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Android "L" Feature Spotlight: New Camera API Enables Burst Mode, Thorough Control Over Photos, And Much More
The Android team has been hard at work replacing old code that hasn't scaled well with newer and more powerful hardware. We've long known that the camera API was destined to see a massive update, but we were missing details like a release date or exactly what was coming. Thanks to the L release, we can finally see what has been in the works for all these many months.
One of the most important aspects of the new Camera 2 API is a dramatic increase in performance over the previous interface. The Camera 2 system is now capable of delivering full resolution images at the same speed the hardware can capture them thanks to a fully synchronized pipeline model.
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Handy Photo Version 2.0 Brings Redesigned UI, New Features, A Reset Button, On-Screen Instructions, And More
Handy Photo is a mobile photo editor that can seemingly work magic with such features as un-cropping, the ability to remove objects from a photo, and the option to apply any number of its impressive filters. We put version 1.0 of the app through its paces last year and saw a lot of promise. Now Handy Photo is making the jump to the big 2.0, and it's bringing with it a new UI.
This is a photo editor, so most of the other changes get pretty specific. We're talking about the ability to selectively adjust tones, partially apply filters, and move or scale textures.
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Evernote Update Introduces Inline Attachment Support For Files And Pictures, Lets Business Subscribers View A List Of All Notes
Evernote has been around the block for years now, and it's one of the first recommendations you're likely to hear when searching for a solid note-taking app. The latest update doesn't revamp things, but it adds the ability for users to take images and files they would have previously attached to a note and inject them directly into its body instead. The functionality is accessible right from the action bar, and you're free to add multiple images one after the other.
Evernote Business users also get the ability to view a list of all business notes. This should make it easier to scroll through all of the content you and your team have shared with one another.
Read MoreThe Best Of AP
Tired Of Your Device's Stock Camera? It May Be Time For 'A Better Camera' [Sponsored Post]
One of the biggest issues with many Android devices is the subpar camera – only recently have manufacturers really started to step up their game and put better hardware in top-end devices. What many users may not realize, however, is that simply trying different software can drastically change the entire camera experience. Sure, the device is still limited by the hardware, but changing the software can definitely help get the most out of any shooter.
Of course, there are dozens of camera apps on the Play Store, so finding the right one can be a daunting task. No one wants (or needs) 15 different camera apps, after all.
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Google Is Working On A New Camera API, But It Wasn't Ready In Time For KitKat
One of the advantages to Android's open source nature is that we can poke around in the source code, looking for interesting stuff. This is how we've become aware of some things Google has planned for the stock camera experience. Code from the Android Open Source Project shows that a new camera API has been in development, but it was pulled last month because it wasn't ready for release with KitKat.
According to the AOSP code, Google has been working on building in support for burst shot, improved face detection, and shooting RAW images. Burst shot certainly seems like a no-brainer – almost every other device has that feature.
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