Tag: App Update

The latest update to the Microsoft OneDrive app for Android is rolling out and bringing much greater support for Oreo’s Notification Channels.  The new build is version 5.3 for those keeping score at home and should get to everyone who has the cloud storage app installed at some point this week.

Notification Channel support in OneDrive actually came to the app in December of last year but it was pretty limited in scope.  Microsoft, in this version, has fully fleshed it out by adding notifications for when your storage is nearly full, when people edit your files that you have shared with them, and when OneDrive creates a photo album for you to name a few.

The Google Phone app is being updated in the Google Play Store, bringing a new chat head feature and improved persistent notification shade.  The new build is version 17.0.184919600 and will come to compatible devices (Google Nexus & Pixel phones, Android One phones, etc) over the next few days.

The main new feature is a chat head feature.  Now, when you are in a call and move away from the Google Phone app, you will have a chat head, similar to Facebook Messenger, appear on your Home screen.  Tapping that head will allow you to control the call:  Return to the call, mute the call, move the call to speaker or hang up.  There is nothing you have to do to enable this feature and you can move the chat head around your Home screen to a convenient place.

A new build of Google Photos is now rolling out into the Google Play Store and while it doesn’t bring any new features, it does raise the oldest supported version of Android.  The new Photos build is version 3.14 and with it, API level 19 is the oldest supported level.  That, for those who don’t recall, is Android KitKat.

The dropping of the now five year old Android Jelly Bean in this update to Google Photos isn’t a surprise.  Google has been slowly, and mostly quietly, moving the minimum supported API level up on their apps over the past year.  It is all in an effort to keep their development activities focused more on current versions of Android where they can offer more features.

A new update to the Evernote app for Android is rolling out today in the Google Play Store.  While the version 7.17 of the productivity and note taking app is mostly a bug fix release, there is a new feature showing up for some users, Collect.

Collect, according to the release notes, allows you to save images containing text that you want to remember later.  Evernote will save it then you can search for it, and presumably the text inside the image, later in the app or online.  The release notes indicate that the feature works with whiteboards, receipts, document and anything with text.

Microsoft Launcher, the popular launcher app for Android, has a new and big update rolling out.  The new build is version 4.6 for those keeping score at home and it brings a full integration of Microsoft Cortana to the launcher.

Until now, Launcher and Cortana were two separate downloads and apps with basically no interaction between the two.  Now with the integration done, the behavior of Cortana in Microsoft Launcher is similar to the standalone app.  You can make calls, schedule meetings, change wallpaper and continue a browsing activity from your phone to your PC (assuming you are using Microsoft Edge in both places).

The sleep monitoring app, Sleep as Android, has a new update rolling out that brings a huge number of improvements and new features.  The most exciting new feature is a new Dashboard view, allowing you to look at all of your sleep related data on one page in the app.

The Dashboard is customizable, allowing you to pin different cards to it to give you information that is personalized to you.  By default, it will show you when your next alarm is, your sleep score, your last sleep recording, your sleep Deficit chart and any advise to help improve your sleep.