Covers everything Applish and Googlish
Google is planning to launch its Pixel 5 smartphone, a new Chromecast, and a new smart speaker at a special event scheduled for September 30th. The company has started inviting members of the media to the said event, promising the launch of new hardware. The invite says, “We invite you to learn all about our new Chromecast, our latest smart speaker, and our new Pixel phones.” Read More
Starting next week, Google Groups’ Material Design, which was in beta for months, will revamp to become the default version for all users. Google announced in a blog post about the new interface which will have several “highly requested features” on top of a new mobile design, updated collaborative inboxes, and replaces tags and categories in groups with labels. Read More
Google’s latest venture at a Music Streaming App, YouTube Music, has just crossed 500 million downloads. YouTube Music was not very well received when it came out, with most users favoring Google’s old Music App – Google Play Music. But Google is discontinuing Play Music soon, and YouTube Music is the intended replacement app. Replacing such a widely loved application was obviously a very tough task, and reaching 500 million downloads on Google Play Store is a big achievement for YouTube Music, even after the service is being aggressively promoted by Google. Read More
Following the latest update, Google Maps will now be available on the Apple Store after leaving the platform in 2017. Google had announced that it was coming back to watchOS last month and looks like the company has kept its promise.
Google Maps provides step-by-step navigation, as well as estimated time of arrival – just like on Android – on the Apple Watch. The App’s primary screen shows the “Current Trip”. The list of “Travel Times” is shown below that includes your Home, Work, and other saved shortcuts or destinations. Read More
Lo-Fi Player, a new Google Magenta Project, lets users mix lo-fi, hip-hop music tracks allowing them to create a custom music room in their browser. It requires no prerequisite musical ability.
Magenta is designed for the creation of music and art. Lo-Fi Player is a typical example of what it can do using Google’s machine learning systems. Magenta is powered by Google’s open source TensorFlow system, part of an ongoing research project “explorting the role of machine learning as a tool in the creative process.” Read More
Google has been a constant source of information and relief amidst the coronavirus pandemic. It has been providing useful data to its users through most of its services and Apps, among which Google Maps has had its fair share. Now, Maps is all set to introduce another layer which shows at what locations the outbreak has hit the hardest.
Jane Wong on Twitter discovered the new map layer that Google has been working on. This new layer, titled “COVID-19” shows alongside options like transit, traffic, Street View, etc. Read More
On opening the Google News App, users are seeing a notice that they’re using a confidential “dogfood” build of the App.
A never-seen-before update of Google News was rolled out to Android users via the Google Play Store. It seemed like Google accidentally released a “dogfood” build, complete with confidentiality notices and a tweaked icon featuring a paw print. Read More
Following the announcement of Google Meet coming to Chromecast, Google has now revealed that its video calling App, Duo, will be coming to Android TV in the form of a default App. It will allow users to start video calls from their TV screens. A beta version for the same will be released “in the coming weeks”.
“If your TV doesn’t have a camera built-in, you can simply plug in a USB camera,” Google said in its blog post — if your TV supports the feature. One can make both one-on-one and group video calls with the App. Read More
Following the placement of the ‘Saved’ tab in the bottom bar of Maps, Google has now redesigned the said tab with some new features, making it more useful than before.
Previously, the screen had top tabs for Lists, Labeled, Reservations, Following, and Maps. The ‘Saved’ tab let you bookmark your favorite locations and sort them by “favorites”, “want to visit”, or any other customized list. Read More
Mostly all of Google’s first-party Apps support dark mode and, fortunately, version 2.27 of Google Home has recently added the dark theme as well.
The Google Home dark theme is pretty straightforward as, starting at the splash screen, the stark white background simply turns into the same shade of dark gray used by every other Google App. If you use your phone throughout the day and long into the night, the dark mode makes a lot of difference. Read More