Category: Android

It looks like Google is once again set to rebrand an Android named product or service to something more Google generic.  In the latest beta of Google Play Services, version 12.5, references to Android Wear have been changed to Wear OS, complete with a new “W” icon and everything.

New Wear OS References in the Google Play Services Beta

The change was first spotted in name only in the version of Play Services that came in the Android P Developer Preview.  But a new beta rolled out to those in the beta channel for the app and you get the above changes when using the Nearby feature of Android.

A new top navigation slider is making its way out to the Google Play Store app this weekend.  The change is a cloud-side change so there isn’t anything new to download.  It will just be pushed to your app so long as you are running the latest version.

The change is a minor one but it is something that Google has been A/B testing for a while now and would appear to be the direction they want to go with it.  At the top of the Google Play Store app you have the tabs for Home, Games, Movies & TV, Music, Books and Newsstand.  But under each one of those, you know have a content specific slider for filtering.

A new cloud-side update to Microsoft Translator for Android is rolling out that brings support for six new languages.  So long as you have the latest version of the app installed, version 3.2.254, then you will have the new languages available to you.  These new text-to-speech languages include:

• Bulgarian
• Croatian
• Malay
• Slovenian
• Tamil
• Vietnamese

These additions bring the total number of text-to-speech languages supported to 36 in Microsoft Translator.

Microsoft is one of the most consistent at updating their apps for Android with the company’s launcher, Microsoft Launcher being no exception.  The latest beta of the launcher is rolling out to testers and it shows that the Redmond company isn’t just updating their launcher, but listening to what users want in it.

The new beta build is version 4.7 for those keeping score and it brings an expansive change log with it.  First, you can now get a new daily background on your phone.  While you can do this today, it only can come from Bing daily wallpapers.  Now, based on user requests, you can set up your own custom set of wallpapers to be rotated daily on your device.  Oh, and those wallpapers can be set to be scroll-able.

As to be expected, the dominant Android news this week has been the release of the first developer preview for Android P.  While the code is still considered alpha and not near completion, you can already pick out areas of important changes in the upcoming release.

One minor change that has surfaced is a slightly revamped Pixel Launcher.  The Pixel Launcher was introduced with the original Pixel phones and Android Nougat.  It was tweaked slightly on the Pixel 2 lineup and Oreo and appears again to be set for a minor tweak with Android P and, presumably, the Pixel 3 lineup.  But you can try it out today on any phone.

File this one under the “Finally” category.  Gmail for Android is finally getting inbox type sorting.  The ability to filter your inbox based on a number of criteria has been available on the web and in the iOS version of the app but had never made it into the Android build.  That is changing with an update to the Gmail rolling out over the course of the next week or so to bring the feature to users.

What is inbox type support?  When available, you will be able to sort your inbox on a number of criteria including unread messages, important messages, stared messages and priority inbox.  When you enable one of these, that message type is bubbled up to the top of your Gmail view on your phone so you can deal with them first.  The most common use is unread messages so you would see all of them first, then your read messages below it.