Tag: App Update

Google News & Weather has been updated with a new feature that basically allows you to infinitely scroll news headlines.  The new feature, named More Headlines, brings you 200 headlines to stories that you can scroll through and read.  The articles offered up are based on the settings you have in the app but also an algorithm to keep articles clustered together and to present you more relevant information.  It is a nice update to an app that has taking a little bit of a backseat to the recently revamped Google News app.

The new More Headlines feature is enabled by default once you have the latest version of the app.  That is version 3.1.4 for those keeping score at home.  You will get your normal weather card and headlines from categories that you have selected in the settings of the app.  Once you’ve gone past those sections, you will see the new More Headlines section.  Then just keep scrolling!

Evernote has begun rolling out a healthy update to their Android app that brings several improvements on editing of notes.  The update, version 7.9.9 for phones for those keeping score, adds the ability for strikethrough, subscript and superscript text in notes.  These text styles were available on the Mac or PC version of the Evernote app, and were visible in the mobile versions, but you couldn’t actually add them in the Android app.  Now you can just like you can on your laptop.

Improvements have also been made to the camera function of the app.  Now it can automatically detect and capture business cards, documents, whiteboards, Post-it® Notes and receipts.  Just enable the camera function in the app, point it at what you need to capture and it will do the rest for you.

Pocket Casts, one of the most popular podcasts apps for Android, has had a series of small updates over the past couple of weeks.  The latest update, version 6.2.3rd for those keeping score at home, brings a wide range of bug fixes to the app.  The developer, Shifty Jelly, has fixed an issue with the widget for the app on the OnePlus 2, fixed the lock screen skip buttons on Android 4.4 phones and addressed an issue with the podcast artwork flashing.  If you use Pocket Casts and have been impacted by one or more of these issues, this is the update you need to get from the Play Store.

Another issue that was addressed was double Chromecasting notifications.  They have attempted to address this issue but in the release notes, Shifty Jelly indicates that it is still possible you will get the default Android notification.  If you do, you can disable that in the settings on your phone or tablet.

SwiftKey, one of the more popular keyboard apps for Android, has received a sizable update that brings improved Flow typing predictions to your phone.  The Microsoft owned SwiftKey will now give you three predictions as you type or use Flow, the swiping across the keyboard to spell words.  As you type, the center word is highlighted and will be automatically inserted as you begin typing the next word.  If, however, that word is not correct, you can tap the left or right word next to it for it to be inserted.  Previously it would only insert whatever word it though you were typing which caused users to have to backspace to type in the correct word.

Along with new predictive typing model, this update also fixes a big where the brackets in right-t0-left languages are no longer flipped incorrectly and has added four keypress sound profiles to the

SwiftKey for Android

app.  If you want to have sound with keypresses, you can now choose from Modern, Android, Traditional or Blip.  Previously only Traditional was available.

While Google’s GBoard has been getting the lion share of attention these past few months, rightfully so, SwiftKey has been doing a lot of what GBoard does for a long time.  It also has some 250 million users globally which shows its stamina.  If you haven’t tried it out, it is free and available in the Play Store.

Microsoft has begun rolling out a nice update to their Bing search app for Android.  The update brings improvements around the travel results for places to go and the best time to go to those places.  This is very similar to Google search which has a bar graph that shows you when a location is busiest.  Along with the improved time suggestions, the app also gives you tips and guides and one-tap directions to the location from your current location.

While those of you who use Google search may give a shrug of the shoulders at this being added to Bing but for those who depend on the Microsoft

Bing Local Travel Results

search solution, this is certainly good news.  Bing has continued to make solid strides in the search space over the past two years and while it is certainly behind Google in overall usage, those who are deeply tied in to the Microsoft ecosystem continue to leverage it for their search needs.

In addition to the new location information, this update also gives warning about malicious websites and has a homepage gallery filer.  This feature allows you to filter and find your favorite Bing homepage images.  If you haven’t checked out the daily images from the site, you are missing a treat.  Some of them are spectacular.

If you have the app installed then you can expect the update to hit your phone over the course of the next few days.

App Shortcuts, the ability to tap-and-hold to get to specific parts of an app in Android Nougat 7.1, continues to grow and Google is catching up too.  The latest update to Google Play Newsstand now supports the shortcuts, allowing you to quickly get to your curated news, digest of news, Magazines and items you have marked for reading later.  Newsstand undergone a lot of changes in the past six months, most of which have been pretty good.  The big knock I had on the app was that in the redesign, getting to your magazine subscriptions became confusing and not-so-easy to figure out at first.  It’s still that way but with the shortcut now available, it makes it easier to get to them.

As readers probably know, in order for app shortcuts to work, you must be running Android Nougat 7.1 or higher.  That means it is almost completely for Pixel and Nexus devices as very few other devices from other manufactures have 7.1 as of yet.