Category: Android

Microsoft has rolled out an update for their search app Bing for Android today.  The update is versions 6.7.25183495 for those keeping score at home and on the surface, you won’t find much different from the previous version.  There have been a few UX design improvements but overall, not much to see here.  The big news is deeper however in the improved support for accessibility.  Bing supported accessibility features in Android previously but they were limited.  With this update, accessibility support can be found throughout the app, not just searching.

If you are one who has various accessibility features enabled on your phone, this update to Bing will support many of the settings including TalkBack and Magnification gesture.

Update 3: Google addressed the server-side issue late yesterday and it is no not looping from beta to stable back to beta.

Update 2:  Thanks to reader Aberr who is reporting that the looping is also happening on his Nexus 5X.

Update:  It appears that the beta build is the last beta build so devices are looping from beta to stable to beta.  Sigh….

For those of you who participate in the Android Beta program and have a Nexus 6P, the GA build of Android Nougat 7.1.2 is now rolling out to devices.  The update is just a touch over 25MB in size, indicating that the last beta and this final build were pretty much identical.  You are looking for build N2G47H and so far, only the Nexus 6P seems to be updating to this new build.  Those of you who texted on the Nexus 5X or Pixel C are still having to wait for the official build to hit your devices.

If you are looking to get out of the beta, this is the time to do it.  Once you have N2G47H installed on your Nexus 6P, you can then opt out of the Beta program and you won’t get a reset of your phone.  If you move from the beta build out of the program, you will get a reset of your phone.  And this little tidbit is important because there is already another beta build out.

Google has announced that they have teamed up with several large banks globally to allow for adding your bank or credit card to Android Pay directly from your bank’s app.  Today, if you want to add your card to Android Pay, you have to add it to the app, then go through an approval process of some type (typically a SMS to your mobile) to actually add the card to Pay.  With this new way, while you are in your banking app, you can just tap a button to add the card to Android Pay.  It cuts down on the number of taps you have to make and certainly simplifies the process.

Today there are just a handful of banks that are supported:  Bank of America, Bank of New Zealand, Discover, mBank and USAA.  Google indicates in the announcement on this new collaboration with banks that more will be added in the future.

Google Photos version 2.13 is rolling out right now in the Google Play Store and with it comes a new video stabilization feature.  The new feature allows you to post-process videos you have shot and uploaded to the service to give your videos a more stable look.  This, my friends, is Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at its best.  Using ML and AI, Photos is analyzing your video and essentially correcting the video at the pixel level.  It is astonish that it can sort it out and even more astonishing that you have this in the app.  A free app.

The new feature is located on the edit menu when you select a video from your Google Photos library.  Once you have the video open, you will see a new stabilize button.  Tap it and Photos will start processing the video and smoothing it out.

Google Text-to-speech is not an app you probably do a lot of tweaking on but it is an important foundational app for Android.  The app essentially serves as an engine for other apps so they can read text on the screen aloud to you.  For example, if you are in Google Play Books and want the app to read aloud a book, this is the app that makes the magic happen.  Or Google Translate to translate text.  So when an update comes out for it, it is important to get it.  The latest update to Google Text-to-speech is rolling out now and it is version 3.11.12 for those keeping score at home.  It comes with several new tweaks for users as well as new languages.

First, let’s cover the languages.  In this update, support for Bangla (India, Czech, Khmer, Napali, Sinhala and Ukrainian have been added to the engine.  Along with this, Google has added intonation control over several more voices that are in the engine and have made general improvements on many of the voices in the app.  Google did not specifically call out which languages were impacted by these latter two.

After being announced and released in the Brazilian market last month, Google Duo now has the ability to make audio-only calls for all users worldwide starting today.  The update is mostly a server side change but you will need to make sure you have the latest version of Duo installed on your phone.  For reference, that is build 9.1.151636499.  Once the update is on your Google account, you will have a toggle panel at the top of the display in the app where you can switch between video and audio calls.  To place an audio only call, just tap the New call button and select who you want to call.  As with video calls, the person you want to call must have Google Duo installed.

The addition of voice calls to Duo is a bit odd and, frankly, speaks to the ongoing confusion that Google has around their message apps and their roles.  Duo was originally setup to be the video call app for consumers with Google Allo being the message app with Google Assistant built in.  With the addition of voice calls to Duo, it is out of it original role a bit although you could argue it is still a real time communication event. Regardless of the logic, Google needs to clean up their messaging around their messaging & communication apps.