Tag: App Update

Over the course of the past couple of years it has been clear that Microsoft’s mobile strategy is developing apps for Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.  This isn’t a bad strategy overall and it is clear from presentations this week at Build, Microsoft’s developer conference, that they are continuing that strategy.

One of the more exciting announcements on the first day of the conference is Windows 10’s new Timeline feature making it to both Android and iOS.  For Android users, access to Timeline will come via Microsoft Launcher while iOS users will have access to via Microsoft Edge.

Late last week a change happened with Google Now Launcher, Google’s first proper attempt at a launcher for Android.  It basically became incompatible with virtually every Android phone out there.  The change was unannounced and it is preventing anyone from going to the Play Store and downloading the launcher.

Up until last week, you could use Google Now Launcher as your launcher on any Android phone running Android Jelly Bean 4.1 or higher.  Now, when you go to the launcher’s page in the Play Store, you get a warning that the app isn’t compatible with your device.

Microsoft has released a new update to Outlook for Android that brings a much improved search experience in the email, calendar and contacts app.  Version 2.2.147 landed in the Google Play Store on Friday and by now should be out to most reader’s accounts and available to for update.

The biggest change in the app is the improved navigation bar.  It is much more simple in this release, providing one-tap access to mail, calendars and to the improved search feature.  The navigation bar remains at the bottom of the display has it has for some time now but looks cleaner.

Microsoft has begun rolling out an update to the Android and iOS Microsoft OneDrive app that brings a much improved sharing experience.  The update now makes it clear which file or folder you are sharing and the extent of that sharing.  It is a much cleaner and easier to understand experience.

The update to the mobile apps falls in line with the updates that Microsoft has been doing to OneDrive online as well as the Windows and Mac clients.  File sharing from the cloud storage service is a fundamental element of the service which is used widely, especially with OneDrive for Business users.

Google Backup & Sync, the desktop app that allows you to sync your Google Drive to your PC or Mac, has a nice update rolling out that brings a lot of fixes, particularly for MacOS users.  The updated version of Backup & Sync is build 3.41.9267.0638 for those keeping score at home and it is the same build for both MacOS and Windows.  The update was released last week so chances are you have been updated to this new build already.

The big news in this update is the fixing of a bug on HEIF and HEIC image files. High Efficiency Image Format, or HEIF, is pretty new and is something iOS 11.x devices use for the most part for image file formats.  When they first started hitting Google Photos and Google Drive, you could view them as you could with any other supported image format.  However a bug introduced at the beginning of the year made HEIF images not visible in Google Photos.  You could view them in Google Drive, but not Photos.  This update to Google Backup & Sync appears to have fixed the issues.

A new update to the Google Pay app is rolling out in the Google Play Store today.  While the update itself, version 1.57 for those keeping score at home, doesn’t bring a lot of excitement on the surface, there are some potentially exciting things in the code that could bring big improvements to the app.

A teardown of the app by the team over at Android Police points to code within the Google Pay app where airline boarding passes could be supported.  This would allow for the Pay app to be the center of your travel, not just a tap-to-pay app.  Given that the app already supports some transit tickets with more coming, supporting airline boarding passes isn’t a big stretch.