Tag: Android

The new look YouTube PiP (Picture in Picture feature is now rolling out broadly to everyone this morning.  The new design of the PiP is aimed at providing a bit more information about the video you have in the smaller view window such as the name of the video, not just a thumbnail of the video itself.

Now when you are viewing a video on YouTube and swipe down to put it into the PiP view, you will not only see the video but will see the title of the video as well as the creator of the content in a white panel next to it.

The new Favorites feature of Google Photos, one of two new features announced for the photo app & service, has started to broadly roll out this morning to users.  The new feature is a cloud-side change so as long as you have the latest version of the app on your phone, you should see the new Star icon to select a photo as a favorite when you are viewing an individual photo.

Once you select a photos as a favorite, Google Photos will also automatically create a new album for you, aptly named Favorites.  Here you can quickly see all the photos you have designated as favorites instead of having to search for them in your photos library.

HTC has pulled back the covers on their latest flagship device, the HTC U12+.  The first phone from the Taiwanese company for 2018 has all the specs you would expect from a flagship phone and has the price to go along with it.

Powering the U12+ is the 2.8GHz Snapdragon 845 SoC which is a 64-bit, octa-core architecture.  This is coupled with 6GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of onboard storage.  That storage can be expanded thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Display wise, you have a 6″ QHD LCD display which renders at 2880×1440.  It provides an eye-popping 537ppi on the 18:9 ratio display.  All this comes in a phone that is 156.6 x 73.9 x 8.7-9.7mm and weighs 188g.

The alchemy melding of Chrome OS and Android show no real signs of letting up and the latest example that is in the Chrome OS Canary Channel may be one of the most useful yet.  In the Canary Channel, when you open up the Files app to view files, you will now also see Android app related files with an appropriate flag enabled.  It means, for the first time, you can actually see the files associated with Android apps on your Chromebook all in one place.

The flag is -show-android-files-in-files-app and right now, it is only in the Canary Channel.  That means, roughly, that it is based in Chrome 69 which isn’t due out until September 11th of this year.  In other words, we’ve got a ways to go but the fact it is there is great news.  If you want to read the code commit, you can do that here.

Google’s Family Link, the app that allows parents to setup, manage and monitor their children’s accounts on Android devices has had a big expansion today.  All 28 European Union countries now have the app available to them in their local Google Play Store.

For those that aren’t familiar with it, Family Link allows parents to create an account for their children on Android devices (and Chromebooks too) that can restrict access to certain types of apps, limit their device screen time, and even put the devices asleep at a certain time.  It is all part of Google’s effort to keep kids safe online but also as part of digital wellbeing by not being in front of their screens all the time.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the 2017 LG G6 on the Verizon network.  Your Android Oreo update has been released and is on its way.  The update is about 1.9GB in size so you will certainly want to download it via WiFI.  You are looking for build VS98820a according to the release notes from Verizon.

The update of course brings all the goodness of Oreo to the G6 but also brings a few refinements to the phone too such as an improve home screen layout as well as some new lock screen wallpapers for you to enjoy.