Category: App Update

Google Hangouts has been updated for Android that brings a much desired feature for those who use Hangouts a lot:  Direct Share.  For those who aren’t familiar with what I’m referring to, Direct Share allows you to share content from another app directly to someone on Hangouts.  To this point, if you wanted to share something, it was difficult and involved a fair bit of cutting and pasting in some cases.  That isn’t a big deal for those who don’t use the app much but for power users, it was a time consuming step.  That, for the most part, is gone now.

Google Map is receiving another update for Android users with this update more or less aimed at those who do a lot of walking or bicycling.  The updated build, version 9.26 for those keeping score at home, brings the ability for you to search for other places to stop along your walking or biking path.  Say, for example, you need to stop at the pharmacy while you are biking home, you can search for a CVS or Walgreens along the way and build in that stop on your commute home.  If this sounds familiar, it should.  Google Maps had this feature for those who drive but it was not available for those who were walking or riding.  Give the number of people who walk or ride bikes to and from work, especially in urban areas, this was a real miss up to this point.

The Microsoft Android team has been busy.  Earlier this morning I told you about a major update to the Next Lock Screen app for Android.  Now the Office team has rolled out an update to the Android versions of Excel, PowerPoint and Word.  All three of the updates are now in the Google Play Store and you should be seeing them hit your devices at any point.  The big news in these updates is the addition of the Tell Me feature in the apps.  If you aren’t familiar with Tell Me, you probably have it and don’t know it.  If you run Office 2016 on your PC or Mac, at the top of any of the apps there is a search box titled “Tell me what you want to do”.  Type in what you are wanting to do in any of the apps and it will give you instructions on how to do it.  It is far faster than trying to dumpster dive into the menus of the apps.  That same feature is now available in the Android versions of the apps so you can quickly figure out how to do something without having to search around.

Microsoft’s Next Lock Screen, their Lock screen app for Android phones, has had another significant update today, bringing a host of fixes and improvements to the app.  The updated build is version 3.2 for those keeping score at home and the first thing you will notice is a streamlined and improved UI with a new color scheme.  Microsoft is driving to emphasize that this app is very much location aware and their new logo and look are meant to reflect that fact.

If you aren’t familiar with Next Lock Screen, it is a lock screen app that provides you notifications, calendar updates and now an app usage aware quick launchpad all from your lock screen.  It is actually a very informative and elegant lock screen app that gives you a good amount of information without having to actually unlock your device.  So why use a lock screen app like this instead of the Android built-in lock screen?  Mainly so you can get more customized information.

Fitbit has made an update to their Android app that brings the ability to track your steps using your Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P without having a tracker device from the company.  The move is an interesting one as, to this point, you had to have a Fitbit device to track your steps on Android with the tracker connecting to your phone via Bluetooth.  Thanks to the Android Sensor Hub coprocessor that is in the 5X and 6P, that is no longer required.  If you have another phone, however, this new feature won’t work for you.

The Project Fi app for subscribers of Google’s MVNO service has been updated and it is an update that fixes a serious bug in the app.  The build you are looking for is version 1.2.1.30 for those keeping score at home and it is just now rolling out to the Google Play Store.  While you won’t find any new features in the release, you will get a bug fix that stops the use of mobile data when you are on Wi-Fi or have completely turned off mobile data.  The bug is a big deal given that mobile data savings is one of the key pillar points of the service.