Category: Android

After months of waiting and a few days of activity around the Google Wallet app, Google has formally launched Android Pay.  The new service, which was announced this summer at Google I/O, brings terminal payment, credit card management and gift card management to Android phones and tablets with NFC capabilities to dozens of retailers in the United States.

Today, we’re beginning to roll out Android Pay — the simple and secure way to pay with your Android phone at over one million locations across the US. Android Pay also stores your gift cards, loyalty cards and special offers right on your phone.

Android Pay is aimed directly at Apple’s Apple Pay solution and allows users to safely and securely pay for purchases from their phones without ever having to pull out a credit or debit card from their wallet.

With personal assistants like OK Google, Cortana and Siri becoming omnipresent on our devices, inevitably the question arises as to what commands you can use with these services.  In the case of Google, they have made it quite simple.  If you are using the Google Now Launcher on your device or simply use the Google search function, you are one voice command away from getting a good list of all the things you can do with OK Google.

Google Now Launcher – Free – Download Now

Google has dropped an update to the Google Play Newsstand app into the Google Play Store today that brings a new ability to keep track of news and scores from your favorite teams right from within the app.  The update is version 3.4.4 for those keeping score at home (get it?  Score?  Sports? Work with me people) and is available for Android phones and tablets.  If you aren’t familiar with Google Play Newsstand, it is the app that serves quite a few purposes for users. It is news collector from a wide range of sources from major news sources but also is a place where you can search specific topics and of course subscribe to magazines through the Play Store.  The idea is that it is a one-stop shop for all your needs and periodicals and this update will help it achieve that goal.

Google Play Newsstand – Free – Download Now

A day after T-Mobile announced they were releasing security updates for the Nexus devices on their network, Google has now published the Factory Images for the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 (2013) Wi-Fi and Nexus 9 on the Android developer site.  The images are available for anyone to download and install assuming they have root access to their device and are familiar with the procedure.  Those who had rather not go through the process can simply wait and the update will be coming to the devices in the coming days via OTA.   The build number, for those keeping score at home, is LMY48M and is an update to Android Lollipop as you would expect.

With the 2015 National Football League (NFL) season kicking off in a few days, the NFL has updated their NFL Mobile app for Android with several improvements for the 2015 season.  In addition to getting you ready for all the stats, news and information about the league or your favorite team, the NFL Mobile app also has improved video playing and improved navigation.  The update is version 12.0.66 for those keeping score at home and it is available now in the Google Play Store.

NFL Mobile for Android – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Google moving the Google Hangouts traffic to a new domain, as part of an effort to increase security and performance.  Now the company has indicated that Google Calendar traffic will be doing the same.  Over the course of the next few weeks, Google Calendar traffic will start traversing calendar.google.com in what the company indicates is primarily a security improvement.  Today when you want to see your calendar online you go to http://www.google.com/calendar.  When this rollout happens, you can still go there but will be redirected to http://calendar.google.com.