Category: Android

SwiftKey, the Microsoft keyboard alternative for Android, has a new minor update rolling out that brings the ability to instantly share your location when using the keyboard.  The update, version 7.0.1.21 for those keeping score at home, is rolling out now in the Play Store.

Once you have this new version installed on your phone, you will have the ability to share your location while using the keyboard.  Sharing your location will share the current address of your location with whomever you are texting messaging while using the keyboard.

A third Chrome 66 update to the Chrome for Android beta app has arrived in the Google Play Store.  The new build of the app is 66.0.3359.67 and it arrives just shy of a week after the 2nd beta last week and is the third update in as many weeks to the beta app.

As a reminder, with the Chrome Beta app is a seperate app in the Play Store which you can download without having to join a formal beta program.  You can use it along side your stable version of Chrome on your phone with no problem.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the LG V30 tied to AT&T.  The Android Oreo update for the phone has been released and is starting to roll out.  The update is build OPR1.170623.026 for those keeping score at home and, typical of most Oreo updates, it comes it at a hefty 1.7GB in size.  This is one you will certainly need to download via WiFi.

The update, to some’s disappointment, does not bring Oreo 8.1 but it does bring the March Android Security Update patch.

Google has released the first Android P based developer preview of Wear OS today, giving developers a chance to take a sneak peak and giving consumers a preview of what to expect in the next major release for the platform.  The developer preview is aimed squarely at developers and only works on the Huawei Watch 2 Bluetooth or Huawei Watch 2 Classic Bluetooth.  Installing the preview is a manual flashing process and Google has made it clear, this is not ready for consumers to test out.

As for as new features are concerned, there are some exciting ones to look forward to in this build.  A dark theme will now be available and will be set as the default.  This should improve glanceability of notifications and other information on watches.

Readers who subscribe to YouTube TV may want to check for a new feature that is rolling out.  A cloud-side change is happening for the app and when it lands on your account, you will have the ability to customize your live channel guide.

The new feature is found under Settings>Live Guide and allows you to move channel orders around to one that works best for you.  This way you can have your favorite channels at the top of the list instead of having to go find it.

Google Maps, one of Google’s apps with over 1 billion users, has been updated to bring nearly four dozen new languages.  The update is a cloud-side change so as long as you are running latest version of the app on your phone, you are good to go.

As for the 39 new languages, here is the full list:  Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Georgian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Indonesian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, and Zulu.