Category: App Update

A new update to the ClintonFitch.com app is rolling out to the Play Store that brings a raft of changes and improvements.  The new build, version 10 for those keeping score at home, brings an improved layout to the app that is more in compliance with Material Design principles (although not 100% there yet), improved sharing and overall a lot of stability fixes.

This update also brings the app up to the API level 26 (Android Oreo) so for those who have updated to the latest build of Android, things should work smoothly.

SwiftKey, the powerful keyboard app that introduced Artificial Intelligence learning in a keyboard app, has a new update rolling out in the Play Store.  The update brings the normal set of behind-the-scenes updates and performance improvements but it also brings new languages.

In all, 7 new languages have been added to SwiftKey, bringing the total number of supported languages up to 205.  Here are those new languages.

• Bislama
• Limburgish
• Lower Sorbian
• Makhuwa
• Nuosu
• Silesian
• Venetian

In addition to the new languages, transliteration support for Sinhala & Dhivehi has also been added in this update.

Chrome build 61 was widely released yesterday for the desktop browser as well as for Android.  The new build for Android is 61.0.3163.81 for those keeping score at home and brings a lot of fixes, improvements and a few new features.

On the new feature front, there are two noted in the release notes from Google.  First, the translated pages in Chrome has a more compact and intuitive toolbar.  This will give a bit more reading room on those translated pages.  Second, the image picker in Build 61 is improved.  This will make it easier to pick images that you want to post via the browser.

The latest update to Google Photos is rolling out and bringing a new local video caching feature so you don’t have to stream videos in your library.  The update, version 3.4 for those keeping score at home, will cache a video after you have played it and, when you replay it, will use that local cached version of the video so you are not eating up your data plan to stream it from your online account.

The feature is purely aimed at saving mobile data, something that Google is continually working on across their apps as they try to expand them into parts of the world here mobile data is expensive.

Microsoft’s personal assistant, Microsoft Cortana, has a new update rolling out in the beta channel this morning.  The new beta build is version 2.9.3 and while it doesn’t bring new features, it does bring a lot of performance improvements and stability to the app.

The update outlines three key areas of focus in the release notes:

• Improved app performance
• Stabilized the app
• Fixed several crash bugs

While that isn’t overly exciting, the fact is that Microsoft has been working pretty hard on getting Cortana solid for Android.  Having tested out this new beta build this morning, I can say it is much faster than the current stable channel build and seems to be far more reliable.

The Android apps team over at Microsoft has been busy and has rolled out another update to the popular Microsoft To-Do app.  This is the second update to this app this month and more-or-less is a package of refinements on the new features that were introduced earlier this month.

The updated build is version 1.12.32 for those keeping score at home.  If you have the app already installed on your Android phone or tablet, the update should come to you over the course of the next few days via an OTA update.  For those who haven’t installed it, you can download it free from the Play Store.

This update focuses on refinements.  In the last update, the ability to search notes came to the app but with this update, To-Do will now show you the titled of a To-Do title of a particular note.  In other words, it makes finding all of your notes in Microsoft To-Do a bit more reliable.