Tag: Android

After several leaks and some speculation, Google pulled back the covers on their latest app, Google Podcasts.  The app has an index of some 2 million podcasts for you to listen to on your Android device – and it works great on a Chromebook too.

The app is fully supported by Google Assistant, allowing you to begin listening to a podcast on your phone then finish it up at home on your Google Home.  Further, thanks to Google’s AI, recommendations are given to you based on your listening habits.

After being announced last month, literally in the middle of the night, Google has now pulled back the covers on the rebooted YouTube Music subscription service as well as the YouTube Red rebranded YouTube Premium.  The two services combined are $11.99 per month and bring you a wealth of music and video content on your Android phone, tablets, PCs, and Chromebooks.

The updated services bring ad-free music and videos to your devices with both original content and official music channels for artists that you can subscribe to and follow.

The features and abilities of Google Assistant, both on Android and on Google Home, continue to impress and one of the latest is incredibly handy.  You can now tell Assistant where you parked your car, then ask where you parked and get directions to your car.

Isn’t living in the future cool?

How it works is pretty straightforward.  When you park your car, just open up Assistant by saying, “Hey Google, remember where I parked my car.”  You will get a confirmation and there is a special “P” pin that is put into Google Maps.

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.

One of the most frequently updated apps from Microsoft is their Android launcher, Microsoft Launcher.  A new build, version 4.10 for those keeping score at home, has been released to the Play Store today and it brings some new features and fixes.

The biggest news is the support of a new family safety feature that is part of the Family Account support.  If you remember, last week Microsoft Edge, the Redmond company’s browser, gained support for Family Accounts as a way to regulate sites your children can or cannot visit.  This addition to Launcher allows you to keep track of your child’s whereabouts and their app activities from the family card on the feed within the launcher.

Just a few days after announcing that the Sony Xperia Home launcher is going into maintenance mode, the company has now posted in their Google+ Beta Community site that there is a new Xperia Home launcher in the works.

The news came from Sony’s Erika Prymus who is a member of the launcher’s development team.  In a comment replying to the original post announcing the discontinuation, Erika points out that a new launcher is in the works and that is why the old version has been discontinued.

Sony Comment on Xperia Launcher

So the question becomes, why discontinue in the first place?