Category: App Update

Firefox for Android has a new update rolling out that brings several fixes as well as the ability to set it as your default Assistant app.  The new update is version 59 for those keeping score at home and has been released to the Play Store.  If you have the app installed already, you should see the OTA update for it over the course of the next few days.

The big change in this update is the ability to set Firefox for Android as your default Assistant app.  This is done via the Default apps settings on your phone.  For the Pixel devices, thats Settings>Apps & notifications>Default apps>Assist & voice input.  There you can select Firefox to be your default assistant app.  When you do this and you long press your Home button, you will see a search option via Firefox instead of Google Assistant.

Version 3.0 of Android Messages, Google’s SMS app, has started rolling out in the Google Play Store today.  While it doesn’t sport a lot of changes, mostly bug fixes and performance improvements, it does drop support for Android KitKat.

KitKat was released back in October 2013 so dropping support for the now 4 year and a bit year old version is not entirely shocking and it fits with Google upping the minimum supported API level in other apps.  Frankly, at this point nobody should be using KitKat purely from a security perspective.

A new update to the Microsoft Outlook app is rolling out for Android (and iOS) users that brings a long requested feature to the app.  The new build is version 2.2.118 for those keeping score at home and when you update to it, you will finally have calendar attachment support.

The feature brings the mobile version of Microsoft Outlook more in line with the desktop versions in that you will be able to attach items to a calendar invite and be able to read attached content inline on invites sent to you.

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.

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.

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.