Tag: Google

Late last week it came to light from various sources that Google is going to be removing the Google Now Launcher from the Play Store in March.  The ultimate reason behind this remains a bit of a mystery with those of us who have the Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X hoping that the Pixel launcher will become the new default. But regardless, one thing that needs to be made perfectly clear:  If you have the Now Launcher installed, it won’t disappear from your phone when Google removes it from the store.  It just simply won’t be available for download.

All-in-all, the Now Launcher is a solid launcher option that has been around since the Nexus 5 days and became a stand alone download in 2015.  It works well, gets the job done and with a swipe to the left you get all your Google Now cards.  Those Now cards are the key reason I’ve kept the launcher installed. But, to be fair, those Now cards are available in the Google app itself now so you don’t necessarily have to have the launcher installed.  This, likely, was part of the deciding factor for Google to kill off the launcher.

The question for some however who use it will be if it will still work after Google removes it from the Store.  The answer is absolutely.  Equally, it won’t be uninstalled from your phone either.  The only way that could happen would be if you completely reset your phone as you won’t be able to download it from the Play Store again.  You can get around that too by side-loading it from APKMirror.

A new update to Google Maps for Android is rolling out and with it comes a much improved places near you tab and real time commute information.  All of this information can be found by swiping up in Google Maps which will now display a three-tab page.  The first tab is Places which has been in Maps for a while now.  This gives you local places such as places to eat, have a drink, ATMs and fuel stations that are near you.  The Places tab not only serves as a great place to discover something new but also gives you places that you have been before so you can revisit them.  Functionally, you won’t find much difference in this release over what is there now.  It has just been cleaned up a bit and put into this more contemporary navigation tab model.

The new driving tab is designed to give you real time ETAs to home and work.  It also gives you nearby traffic conditions and expected delays.  Equally, if you want real time traffic information but don’t need turn-by-turn navigation, you can tap the Start Driving button and go directly into Driving Mode in Google Maps.  For this feature to work, you need to have stored your home and work address with your Google account.  You can actually set those up within Maps under Settings>Your Places.

Google has released a nice update to their photo editing app, Snapseed.  The update brings back a popular perspective tool while adding a new export feature and other improvements.  The vertical and horizontal correction tool is back, allowing you to quickly and easily adjust the contrast and saturation of a photo just by dragging your finger across the photo.  It makes editing quickly and like other filters in the app, there are several preset ones for you to use as a starting point or final edit.

Along with this, the Face filter has been improved with a choice of styles for you to use.  In addition to the Smooth and Eye filters, there are a couple of new Spotlight as well as combination filters to help enhance the faces in your photos.

Google has released the first beta of Android Nougat 7.1.2, the next maintenance release for the latest version of Android.  The build became available today for those in the Android Beta program with the final release expected to be “in a few months”.  If you have a Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Pixel, Pixel XL, or Pixel C tablet, you can download the beta through the program.  Like any beta release, it will have bugs and other issues so it is probably not best to load it up on your main phone at this point.

Of note is that the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9 are not in the list of devices that will be getting the 7.1.2 update.  The Nexus 6 just received the 7.1.1 update earlier this month while the Nexus 9 got the update when it was available for the Nexus 6P and 5x.  All indications are that these devices will not be getting the .2 update.  Google specifically left them out of the announcement around the beta.

Google Docs for Android had a nice update last week that brings more document editing power to the mobile app.  The update is still rolling out so it may be another day or two before you see it.  Once you do have it, you will find that you can now edit the headers and footers of your documents from within the app.  You can also now drag-and-drop text in a Docs file.

In addition to manipulating text, you can also manipulate images that you have inserted into your Docs file.  You can resize, rotate and move images within the file as well as adjust the text wrap around that image.

Google Contacts for the web has a new preview mode available that gives you a chance to try out the upcoming redesign of the site.  The option to view the new look is available in the menu pane when you navigate to contacts.google.com.  Just click on the preview link and you will be taken to the new look.  For those of you who use Google Contacts on your Android devices, this is going to look very familiar.

Gone is the spreadsheet-like list of contacts and it is replaced with a new Material Design with round avatars for your contacts.  This looks identical to the Android app and functionally, is the same.