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Google Home is slooooowly rolling out better integration for Nest Thermostats
Software features that launched with the latest Nest Thermostat might finally be coming to older models
When Google released the new affordable Nest Thermostat in October, it also made some changes to how things are set up and controlled. Instead of using the outdated Nest app, it's all done through the Google Home app now. This is a positive move in many ways, but some of the functionality hasn't yet been migrated over for older models. Finally, it looks like Google is bringing the full new experience to more people, but it sure is a slow rollout.
Google Photos introduces new doodle-y collage designs for showing off your pics
Populating your Recent Highlights
Google Photos is full of great memories constantly resurfacing in the Instagram Stories-like Recent Highlights that show up in the carousel at the top of your photos. The company has decided to tweak the collages consisting of multiple pictures that show up there with doodled backgrounds, making them more shareable on social media without further effort on your part.
Google resumes rolling out Chrome OS 86 update following multiple reports of issues
The update should reach your device by the end of this week
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It's been a rough week for most Chromebooks following Google's ill-fated attempt to roll Chrome OS 86 out to the stable channel. Shortly after Google announced the major milestone update, I covered a slew of new features and improvement found within, including accessibility improvements, an improved login screen experience, and a refreshed gallery app. Although some people are enjoying OS 86 without problems, others are still anxiously waiting for the new update to land on their Chromebook. In a surprising move by Google, it silently pulled the build off the update server a couple of days before the update finished rolling out.
There have already been several Developer Previews of Android 11, and Google planned to release the first beta-quality build during an online 'Beta Launch Show' on June 3rd. That event was cancelled last week, due to widespread protests in the United States, but that hasn't stopped Google from rolling out the first Android 11 Beta to some Pixel owners — perhaps unintentionally.
Chrome Beta rolls out support for tab groups on desktop platforms, for real this time
Still no word on when it will arrive on Chrome for Android
Some features in Chrome seem to be cursed to never fully roll out. The bottom-bar 'Duet' mobile interface has been in development for over two years at this point, and support for tab groups on the desktop has been rolled out and pulled back more times than I can count. Thankfully, it seems like tab groups are finally going live, for real this time.
Instagram is on a mission — a mission to make its mobile app harder to use. Between forcing an algorithmic timeline and bloating the app with more and more unrelated features, it has turned from a simple photo-sharing app to Facebook's way of capturing the post-Facebook generation. Users of the service caught a glimpse of an in-development UI, after Instagram accidentally rolled it out to everyone.
It seems like the Play Store is always getting minute little tests and rollouts, but something useful is being added for once. A tipster spotted a handy storage bar in the 'My Apps' section of the Play Store app on his devices, though the rollout seems to be pretty limited for now.
After leaks and teardown revelations aplenty, WhatsApp group calls were finally formally revealed at Facebook's F8 developer conference in early May. By the end of the month, the feature had started showing up for some. Now, WhatsApp has announced that group audio and video calls are rolling out to all users.
The new YouTube clusterfuck was announced about three weeks ago, but not many changes have occurred yet. The YouTube Music app has been updated, but YouTube Red branding still hasn't been switched to YouTube Premium, and the YouTube Music web player still showed "coming soon" for almost everyone. It looks like some of that may be about to change, though.
The new Gmail web interface has been available for over a month now, but it's still in preview and it's an opt-in affair. However, the new UI will roll out to all G Suite users in July, and we'd expect the same to be true of regular Gmail users.
Google is starting to adopt bottom navigation bars across its products, with the recent YouTube update and new Chrome interface. But if there's one thing about Google that's consistent, it's the company's inconsistency. A tweaked design for the Play Store app is rolling out to users worldwide, with a new navigation bar below the existing tabs.
Google Lens, a machine learning-powered image analyzer, was first announced at I/O 2017. It currently exists in both Google Photos (to scan existing photos) and Assistant (to scan in real-time), but both methods have required a Pixel phone. Alongside some ARCore announcements, Google revealed that Lens would be rolling out to more Android devices and make an appearance on iOS.
Google Lens made its official debut at Google's October 4th event alongside the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but we first checked it out nearly a month before that. In Corbin's hands-on, he found that Lens was pretty impressive overall, with some room to improve. Now, it seems to be rolling out to 2016's Pixel and Pixel XL through Google Photos.
Google's experimental 'Chrome Home' interface first appeared nearly a year ago, but at the time, the feature only moved Chrome's address bar to the bottom of the screen. It became a full revamp of Chrome's UI in March, by changing the New Tab Page and adding a bottom navigation bar. Earlier this month, the 'Modern layout for Chrome Home' flag showed up, which made the Chrome Home interface more round.
It's been a long road, getting from there to hereIt's been a long road, getting from there to here. Google announced at the end of 2016 that it would start rolling out a tabbed interface in the Google app - one tab for your feed (previously known as Google Now), and the other for reminders/emails/etc. But then Google only enabled it for a small amount of users, and left it at that for a few months. Then a third tab was added, and even more users received the changed interface.
All the way back in September of last year, YouTube began testing a new layout with a bottom navigation bar. Over the past few months, it has continued to go live for more users on Android, with a few minor tweaks along the way. Now YouTube has officially revealed the new design.
HTC isn't too bad when it comes to updates - most of the time. The company started pushing Android 7.0 Nougat to the unlocked US HTC 10 back in December, and over the past few months, has updated more variants in more countries. Now it's time for the Verizon HTC 10 to join the fun.
Android Wear 2.0 has been put on hold for many watches due to a bug, but apparently the Polar M600 watch isn't affected. The official Twitter account for Polar has confirmed that the update is now rolling out to the M600, and will take up to a week for all devices to get it.
You might have heard about Valve Time - the tendency for video game company Valve to release games and features long after the intended date. Google is also guilty of this, with apps and features still rolling out weeks after being announced. Many Android Wear users were left wondering why their watches had not received the much-anticipated 2.0 update weeks after the rollout supposedly started, but now we know why.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was wrong. When I received nothing but another beta build a few days ago on my OnePlus 3, I was highly skeptical about OnePlus making its goal of getting Nougat out on the stable channel for its flagship devices by the end of 2016. Well, here we are in the final hours of the year and the notorious manufacturer has come through. Both the OnePlus 3 and 3T are receiving OxygenOS 4.0, i.e. Nougat, via a staged rollout starting today.