Category: App Update

A new update to the Wear OS by Google app is rolling out in the Play Store today, bringing a handful of improvements to the app and subsequently your Wear OS watch.  The update is version 2.14.0.205078731 for those keeping score at home and it should be available to all Wear users at this point.

The headliner in the update is improvement Google Pay performance.  If you have an NFC watch, you’ve been able to use it to pay for things using Google Pay.  The problem that most users have run into is that it takes too long to open, in some cases up to 15 seconds.  That largely defeats the point as it is faster to get a credit card from your wallet or simply tap your phone to pay.  This update should fix that.

A new update to the Google Play Books app is rolling out this morning, bringing a new feature to trim silent moments in audio books to speed up the listening process.  The update is version 4.3 for those keeping score at home and is just now making its way into the Play Store.

The new Trim Silence feature is found in the Playback settings menu that you can access while listening to an audio book.  For those that may not use Google Play Books often for audio books, this is accessed by pressing the speed playback icon while listening to an audio book.

While it doesn’t get updated as often as the Office 365 suite of apps, Microsoft SwiftKey does see an update every couple of months on average and they tend to be sizable updates.  The update that the Redmond company released today for their Android keyboard app is no exception.  It brings a significant number of improvements with a heavy emphasis on improvements around Arabic.

The update is version is 7.0.9.28 for those keeping score at home.  It is in the Play Store now and if you have the keyboard installed, you likely have the update waiting or it has been installed if you have Automatic Updates enabled.

Another new build of Chrome 68 has arrived in the form of an update to the Chrome for Android Beta app.  The new build is 68.0.3440.70 for those keeping score at home.  This new update marks the fifth Chrome 68-based build for the Beta app in this current cycle.

For readers who may not know, anyone can download and install the Chrome for Android Beta app from the Play Store.  No registration is required and you can have both the stable version and the beta version on your phone at the same time.  Just keep in mind that the key word in all of this is “beta” so you could run into bugs or other odd behavior with the app as it goes through testing.

Google has quietly rolled out an update to the Google Phone app for Android, the dialer app for the Nexus and Pixel lineup and a few other phones out there that can run it.  The update brings the ability to send recognized spam calls straight to your voicemail and won’t even notify you of the call.  That way you don’t even face the distraction of a notification.

The feature only works on on calls that are recognized as spam calls from Google so it may be a bit hit-and-miss at times.  But when it does hit, it will be a great way be distraction free from these types of calls.

Microsoft is one of the best developers when it comes to frequent and meaningful updates to their swath of Android apps in the Play Store.  The Redmond, Washington company has released several updates to some of their apps as part of the normal monthly Office 365 updates.  All of these updates are now in the Play Store so you should be able to check for the update now or, if you have auto updates enabled, you likely have already been updated.

Outlook for Android has a great new feature that frankly I wish Gmail had:  Do Not Disturb.  It’s no mystery on what it does.  It prevents email notifications from showing up on your phone.  It works just like the DND feature in Android itself, meaning you can set it up for a specific amount of time or until you manually turn it back off.  Also, in Outlook, you can now delete contacts directly in the app.