ClintonFitch.com

I am a big racing fan. Each Fall, usually in October and November my sports watching goes to nearly zero. Baseball and racing are done until March the next year. One series I love to watch is IndyCar. The US-based open wheel series has struggled for many years but competition is better now than it has been for decades. New aero packages after the death of Dan Wheldon in 2012 (which, ironically, he was testing for the league during the 2011 season) have tightened up the racing and with F1 winner Juan Montoya returning last year (and winning the Indy 500), the 2016 is shaping up to be one of the best.

Along the way, IndyCar has done a great job of continually improving their app for Android.  The app, designed for both Android phones and tablets, brings all of the season information as well as news and highlights from your favorite driver and team.  While the 2015 version of the app was solid, the recently released 2016 version has built upon that platform.  There is a huge amount of information on the series, teams and drivers to be found in the app which will keep you completely up-to-date with all the happenings of the series.  If you like the IndyCar series, this app is really a must have for you.  It is on par with having MLB at Bat for baseball fans.  It’s essential and dare I say a required download.

The Google Maps app for Android has seen a minor update that brings a couple of small but important features to the app.  The update is version 9.21 for those keeping score at home and it is rolling out to the Google Play Store now.  You should see the OTA update hit your device over the course of the next couple of days.

The first change is a new notification for edits that you have made in Google Maps.  As you know, users of the app can edit all kinds of information about a business or location within the app.  You can change things like location (the pin drop location), the address, open hours, etc. to make sure that you and others users have the most up-to-date information.  These types of edits are verified by Google themselves and can take a day or two before they actually go live.  Now you can be informed of any edits you make going live within the app itself.

Google Drive for Android has been updated with a feature that many of us who spend more time on their mobiles versus their desktop have wanted:  Trash management.  With the latest version of the app, version 2.3.583.20.30 for those keeping score at home and like playing Google Version Bingo, you now have the ability to view items in your Trash, permanently delete those items or restore them to your Google Drive files.  It is a simple feature but a huge step forward if you accidentally delete a file.  Until this point that mean going to a PC, Mac or Chromebook and going to the Google Drive site.  No more!

The latest update to Gmail for Android is finally bringing Rich Text Formatting to the email app.  The update has been released to the Google Play Store but it may be a few days before you see the OTA update on your devices.  Once you do, the ability to bold, italic, color, highlight and underline text will be available for you when you are creating an email.  Rumors of these features coming to Gmail have actually been floating around for a few months now.  Several sites have done APK teardowns that have shown the handlers in the code for the ability to do this type of formatting but until this point it hasn’t been available.