Category: App Update

The latest update to Google Street View brings a handful of enhancements to the VR-meets-map app, including a much improved handling of Photo Sphere images.  The update is version 2.12 for those keeping score at home and it is rolling out to the Google Play Store now.  In the update, you can now create a connection between photo spheres within the app and you can tap and hold to select multiple published photo spheres.  Photo spheres are automatically grouped together in the app as well so you can find them a bit easier when you are looking at a location in the app.

For a while now, Netflix has been throttling users data consumption on AT&T and T-Mobile to help users not kill their entire data allotment on a streaming movie.  Now Netflix has brought that capability to everyone thanks to the latest update of the Android app from the streaming service.  The updated build, version 4.5.0 for those keeping score at home, is rolling out now in the Google Play Store.  If you have the app installed, you should see the OTA update over the course of the next day or so.

Google Sheets, the spreadsheet app in the Google Apps for Work suite, has been updated with a long missing and much wanted feature:  Image support.  With this update, users will be able to view images and drawings with the Sheets app and not have to revert to the desktop version of the app to view them.  It is a nice addition for sure and closes the feature parity gap between the desktop and mobile versions of the app.  The update is rolling out now to the Google Play Store and given that this update also impacts the iOS version, the update is rolling out in the iTunes App Store too.

Microsoft’s latest improvement to their launcher app for Android, Arrow Launcher, brings more improvements and functionality to the app.  For those who have tried it,  Arrow Launcher gives a mult-page look to your phone that brings things like contacts, widgets, most used apps and reminders within easy reach and is designed for Android phones.  The latest update, version 1.3.0.22862 for those keeping score at home, brings a handful of new features to the app.  The biggest of those new features is integration with Wunderlist.  With this update, all of your lists are displayed and you can set reminders for the app within Arrow as well.

Uber is sending out notifications to customers who use Google Wallet in their app that as of May 9th, it will no longer be available.  Instead, the app has been updated with the ability to for customers to add Android Pay for easy payment of your rides around town.  While we often think of Android Pay as a touch-to-pay solution, it can also be embedded into apps for payments.  OpenTable has the ability to use Android Pay and has for several months.  Uber is following suit as Google Wallet is set to go away as a payment option this summer.

Microsoft has rolled out an update to the Outlook for Android app that brings much improved calendar and task integration from other services.  If you are an Outlook for Android user, after you get this update, you will be able to add tasks and calendar events from Wunderlist, Facebook and Evernote to the app. The idea, of course, is that Outlook becomes your single place you go to manage any tasks or calendar events.  To this point you could only have events from your Exchange account, Hotmail or Gmail calendar show up in the calendar section of the app.  Tasks where strictly limited to whatever you did locally or Exchange.