Tag: Google

Last month, Google announced that a new, Material Design laden sign in screen was coming to everyone.  The original plan was that it would roll out June 14th but due to “unforeseen delays”, it is now rolling out over a month later.

Functionally, you aren’t going to find anything different in this new sign in screen other than the brighter, more contemporary Material Design look to it.  It does exactly what you would expect it to do which is to allow you to sign into your Google account.  But the update brings the site in line with many other Google apps and services as the Mountain View company has been working diligently on updating their wares to Material Design.

The Google Payments Center is likely one of the few Google sites that you rarely visit.  It is a central location where you can see all of your payment information such as your recent purchases, your credit cards and shipping addresses, and your subscriptions that you have through Google.  It is a site that, to be fair, you rarely need to use as most of the information in it can be found in the Play Store app or in Google Pay.

That doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t think it is important and over the weekend gave it a heavy Material Design makeover.  The update was a cloud-side push as these things tend to go so there is nothing you need to do on your end.  Just go to https://pay.google.com and you will be dropped into the new & improved Google Payment Center site.

Over the course of yesterday, many Google Home and Chromecast users reported issues with the devices.  In the case of Home, commands were not being accepted while with Chromecast devices, casting would not work.  The issue was reasonably widespread.

Late yesterday, Google’s Made By Google Twitter account posted that a fix would be rolling out over the follow six hour (i.e. overnight) to fix the issue.

We have a fix for Google Home and Chromecast. It will automatically roll out within the next 6 hours. To get back up and running now, reboot your device → https://t.co/CM4ov63F46. Thanks for sticking with us!

— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) June 27, 2018

At this point, this fix should have rolled out to everyone.

A new update for G Suite paying customers is rolling out that brings a handful of improvements to the Google Vault feature.  With the update, you will be able to set a custom retention length of time for Hangouts Meet recording as well as be able to set a policy for user’s Drive trash folders.

For those who are not G Suite users or who are unfamiliar with it, Google Vault is your domain’s retention policy manager when you use the service from Google, allowing you to set how long things like emails and files are retained along with Hangouts Meet recordings and search results.

Google has made a small but important change to Google Maps, no longer allowing you to book a ride sharing service like Lyft or Uber directly from within the app.  The change appears to be recent and is reflected in the support pages for the feature.  Now, instead of being able to book from within Google Maps, you have a link to go to the ride share apps from the providers.

The feature got a lot of hype when it was launched early last year and a way to prevent users from having to move around from app-to-app to book a car to pick them up.  You could also see ride share options to a destination you picked in Maps, such as a restaurant, from your location.

The latest update to Gmail for Android is making its way out to the Play Store and it brings a new Tip setting for users.  The new build is version 8.6 for those keeping score at home and when you get the update, you will have a new Inbox Tip inside settings for your Gmail account.

The setting is enabled by default and when you tap it, you see the Unsubscribe tips.  With this turned on, you will get occasional tips to unsubscribe to bulk email that you rarely read.