Version 60 of Google Chrome is rolling out now to macOS with the long awaited Touch Bar support. This release also adds support for a number of developer-focused features, including the Payment Request API and an updated Credential Management API.
Apple’s MacBook Pro gained a new feature with its last refresh, the Touch Bar. Since the announcement in October, third-party applications have slowly been gaining support for the capability and now one of the more popular apps, Google Chrome, is adding support for Touch Bar…
Earlier today, Google quietly released the first canary build of Chrome 58. One thing quickly noted by MacBook Pro users was the added support for Touch Bar support, something that hasn’t been present in any version of Chrome released since the MacBook Pro was updated last fall.
In May, Google circulated a draft proposal to effectively kill Adobe Flash by blocking the plugin and prioritizing HTML5 by the end of the year. The company is going ahead with that plan to “de-emphasize” Flash with a staged disabling of the plug-in through multiple versions of Chrome.
Version 52 of Google Chrome is now rolling out to all users via Google’s stable channel with the usual bug fixes and security patches. For Mac, the update notably adds Material Design to the browser’s top bar and other UI elements. Other changes include removing the ability to use the backspace key as a return shortcut.
In addition to releasing the first developer preview of Android N earlier today, Google this evening has rolled out updates to a pair of its iOS apps. Both Google Drive and Chrome for iOS have been updated with a few new features.
I’ve never been a fan of the stock Mail app in OS X, so I generally find myself relying on Gmail inside of Chrome for all of my email needs. In fact, I don’t have any email accounts configured inside of the stock Mail app at all. With this in mind, I always get frustrated when I inadvertently click a mailto link inside of a browser window. Doing so forces the Mail app, which is set as the default mail client in OS X, to open without purpose.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could configure Gmail to play the role of the default mail client inside your browser of choice? In this video tutorial, I’ll show you how easy it is to configure Chrome, Safari, and even Firefox to use Gmail as the default mail client.
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Third-party keyboards have been supported on iOS since version 8 shipped last year, but even today they’re still often plagued by poor performance and other issues related to Apple’s implementation. Today, Google has released a Chrome for iOS update that disables support for third-party keyboards entirely because of such issues.
The Physical Web is an open source web specification from Google released last year with the aim to make interacting with smart devices in the real world as easy as clicking a link, just as we do on the web. Now with the company having released its Eddystone beacon technology and APIs for making this communication between devices in the same proximity easier, it’s integrating Physical Web directly into Chrome for iOS.
The latest version of Chrome for iOS, version 44 available now in the App Store, brings Physical Web content to the “Today” view. The Today view, for those who don’t know, is a section within the iOS Notification Center panel, accessed by dragging down from the top of the screen, which contains quick glance information that you may want to access often, such as weather information, calendar events, etc. But developers can also make their own widgets for this section which could include this same sort of quick glance information pulled from their own apps, as well as action buttons to perform quick tasks – like checking into a location on Swarm, for example.
What this means for Physical Web is better visibility and increased potential for adoption. While beacons have yet to heavily saturate the world, they face a chicken and egg problem: without a way for end-users to actually receive information from devices they pass by in the physical world, developers and manufacturers don’t have the same kind of incentive to design, manufacturer, and sell, and invest in beacons, and vice-versa. Physical Web, though, takes advantage of Eddystone-URL, a language that Google’s Eddystone beacon technology can send information to end-user devices in. Now that the company has a full end-to-end beacon solution – the beacon software that device manufacturers can use in their beacon hardware, as well as deeper integration into end-user devices – it will be possible for web developers to get more native-like proximity functionality out of their apps.
In addition to support for Physical Web, today’s Chrome for iOS update also adds new swipe gestures for making navigation throughout the app easier. The app is available now in the App Store.
Apple will expand its support capabilities for Beats by Dre hardware products, like headphones and speakers, next week by launching web-based chat support, according to sources. Customers in need of support for their Beats devices will be able to instant message with a support representative via Apple’s support website beginning on Monday, February 23rd. In January, Apple began moving Beats phone-based support wholly in-house after still using the headphone maker’s outsourced support for most of last year. Apple began servicing Beats products in its retail stores late last year.
…Use Safari! (lol,)
Google Chrome 39 had started to crash for me as soon as I updated to 10.10.2 Beta. I tried all of the normal things (trashing Google prefs, using Canary, etc etc). Nothing worked except downgrading back to Mac OS 10.10.1 stable.
[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/538403705201377281]
It turns out that the new 10.10.2 has depreciated some Trackpad APIs that cause an immediate crash.
@llsethj If I understand correctly, some trackpad APIs were deprecated — drivers aren’t relevant. http://t.co/f93RBntG4J
— Scott Buscemi (@scottbuscemi) November 30, 2014
The answer comes via Reddit today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMVte93tgTM
Obviously use at your own risk: an Automator app has also been built to speed up the below process.
Workaround that was found on the Apple dev forums – this is not my code – use at your own risk – I’ve used it and it works fine.
1) Open up text edit and paste this code – save it as “patch.m”
#import <AppKit/AppKit.h> __attribute((constructor)) void Patch_10_10_2_entry() { NSLog(@"10.10.2 patch loaded"); } @interface NSTouch () - (id)_initWithPreviousTouch:(NSTouch *)touch newPhase:(NSTouchPhase)phase position:(CGPoint)position isResting:(BOOL)isResting force:(double)force; @end @implementation NSTouch (Patch_10_10_2) - (id)_initWithPreviousTouch:(NSTouch *)touch newPhase:(NSTouchPhase)phase position:(CGPoint)position isResting:(BOOL)isResting { return [self _initWithPreviousTouch:touch newPhase:phase position:position isResting:isResting force:0]; } @end2) Run this command in Terminal
clang -dynamiclib -framework AppKit ~/Desktop/patch.m -o ~/Desktop/patch.dylib3) Run this command in Terminal to open Chrome.
env DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=~/Desktop/patch.dylib "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"Notes: This will leave Terminal open in the background, do not close it or Chrome will quit out. This doesn’t modify anything permanently just fixes it temporarily. To reopen chrome a second time all you have to do is repeat step 3.
Google recently released a 64-bit version beta version of Chrome for Windows 7 and 8 users and for an encore the company has turned its efforts towards Apple’s OS X. The search giant has silently added 64-bit support to its Chrome Canary and Dev channels for Mac users. If you’re running the latest version of Canary on your Mac, the software should read as 64-bit capable in its About tab.
Google has released an updated version of the Google Chrome application for iOS today, bringing at least one interesting new feature to the app: mobile websites that have Cast support will now work with all of your Cast-capable devices. It’s unclear how the feature works at the moment, but according to the release notes, developers are going to need to add support to their webpages before they can take advantage of the feature.
Also, as will likely be praised by iOS users everywhere, the version 36.0.1985.49 update goes the way of Google Hangouts and finally gets rid of the infamous “lip” located at the bottom of the app icon:
After spending about a month and a half in the beta channel, Chrome is rolling out Google Now notifications to all users. To activate the feature, Google says to sign in with the same Google account used on iOS.
Alas, we’re one step closer to an App Store not filled with iOS 6 keyboards. Google released Translate 2.1 today, bringing support for the iOS 7 keyboard released last September to the iPhone and iPad.
The update also expands support for its new handwriting input method to a number of additional languages including Arabic, Esperanto, Gujarati, Hebrew, Javanese, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Persian, Punjabi, Telugu, and Zulu.
Google first introduced its handwriting input method last September. Google Translate 2.1 is available now on the App Store.
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There have been indications for a long time that Google Now was eventually coming to the Chrome browser. Via the Google Operating System Blog, the service has finally surfaced in the most recent release of Chrome Canary (Google’s name for the app’s ‘alpha’ channel builds).
As expected, Google Now in Chrome closely mirrors Google Now on Android. The contextually-relevant cards (which show information such as weather, news or upcoming flights) appear in Chrome’s Notification Center on the desktop. The notification area can be accessed in the menubar, represented by a bell icon.
Google’s Chrome Blog has announced that Chrome for iOS will be getting autofill functionality shortly, enabling automated completion of web forms. If you already use Chrome on a desktop machine, the iOS app will sync data between the two.
For iPhone and iPad users, Chrome for iOS will soon include Autofill to help you quickly fill out forms on-the-go just as you can on desktop and Android. When you sign into Chrome on your iPhone and iPad, you can quickly complete online forms using your synced Autofill info from other devices you’ve signed into.
Google says that it is “starting to roll out” the feature from today, but the version of the app on iTunes hasn’t been updated at the time of writing.
Safari introduced iCloud Keychain, offering synchronised logins and credit card data, with Mavericks and iOS 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61SzHpGGFRs
If you’ve been carrying out any dodgy searches in Incognito Mode in the iOS 7 version of Google Chrome, you may want to wander casually into settings to delete the search history (looking toward the sky and whistling helps): it appears that Incognito Mode currently isn’t. All searches performed in the private browsing mode are available in search history once you return to normal browsing.
The above video is rather swift, and has no commentary, but what it shows is erasing history to start with a clean slate, entering Incognito Mode, visiting a website, returning to normal browsing and then viewing search history at Google – where the supposed private web session shows up.
Note that you do need to visit Google to see the history: it doesn’t show up when simply using the combined URL/search bar.
Google updated the app last month. The company has not yet made any statement on the bug.
Thanks, Robin
We knew that Apple’s attempt to expand Safari’s reach into the Windows population was at an end when the company stopped updating the Windows version a year ago, but the browser has now been erased from history as Apple’s bookmark sync tool drops support for it. iCloud Control Panel 3.0 for Windows, released yesterday, supports only Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.
iCloud keeps mail, contacts, and calendars up to date between your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and Windows PC, and lets you share calendars and task lists.
iCloud also keeps your Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Google Chrome bookmarks on Windows in sync with your Safari bookmarks on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.
On OS X, however, Apple is keep to ensure we don’t use anything else. The iCloud Bookmarks extension for Chrome, allowing bookmark syncing with Safari, works only on the Windows version of Chrome. C’mon, Apple, make us want to use your software by making it better than anyone else’s, not by this kind of move …
Google has been adding Single Sign-On support to lots of its iOS apps in recent months, making it easier to sign into Google apps on their iPhone or iPad. With Single Sign-On, users can sign in once in any Google app supporting the feature and will automatically be signed into all the other apps. The idea is to eliminate having to sign-in multiple times to the same Google account for different apps. The latest app to get the update is Google Play Books, which was updated today to version 1.6.1 with support for Single Sign-On and copying selected text.
Google also recently added Single Sign-On support for its Chrome, YouTube, and AdSense iOS apps.
Added support for Google Single Sign-On, so that you only need to sign in once to access all of the Google apps on your device.
Added support for copying selected text, if copyright allows.
Stability improvements.
Google is rolling out an updated version of its iOS app for iPhone and iPad today that brings a few new features including faster search results. Google says after clicking back in Chrome to return to a search results page results will now “instantly appear, ready for you to choose the next one.”
The update also adds data cost savings features, rolling out to all users shortly, that provides a view of data savings in Bandwidth Management settings. Also new is voice search pronounce support:
Try queries like: “Who is the president of the United States?” followed by “Who is his wife?”
The updated version of Chrome for iOS also includes improvements to Single Sign On for other Google Apps, bug fixes, and other performance and security improvements.
According to Rapidus.se (via TechCrunch), Apple has purchased a Swedish firm called AlgoTrim for an undisclosed price. The small company specializes in image and video, specifically JPEG, compression techniques on mobile devices which allow faster processing of images on power-constrained mobile devices.
AlgoTrim™ develops advanced solutions for mobile devices within the fields of data compression, mobile imaging and video, and computer graphics.
These solutions are designed to excel in terms of high performance and small memory requirements, making them ideal for mobile devices. Many solutions offered by AlgoTrim are codecs that are the fastest on the market, for example, the lossless codec for general data compression and the imaging codecs.
Apple could use these codecs in its camera and image viewing and manipulation apps on iOS. It is probable that the cost of picking up the company and owning the technology outweighed the cost of licensing the technology over its hundreds of millions of devices. This also could be an “aquihire”.
Apple is no stranger to the Swedish technology market. It picked up Polar Rose in 2010, a face recognition company and C3 a Swedish 3D mapping company in the run up to its Maps product launch. Cupertino has been on a bit of a startup binge lately buying such companies as Embark and Matcha.tv.
Last year, AlgoTrim reported a revenue of 3.0 million USD, with an net income before taxes of EUR -1.1 million. Until now, AloTrim has been focused mostly on Android development.
Update: The acquisition has been confirmed to TechCrunch:
Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.
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Just a friendly reminder that 9to5Google will be covering Google’s yearly developer conference called Google I/O today. The 3 hour(!!) keynote starts at noon ET today and can be watched via live stream here.
9to5Google will be posting the announcements as they happen so check back often.
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Sigh. @googlechrome added untested jailbreak-specific code on iOS; if you have "send crash reports" off, it crashes. https://t.co/HyJnDmqezg
— Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) March 5, 2013
We heard reports that yesterday’s Chrome browser update is crashing on Jailbroken iPhones. It appears there was some code that detected jailbreaks in the browser and assumed that crash-reporting was enabled. The fix is unsurprisingly enabling crash reporting.
Google said a fix will be in the next update, but it doesn’t have a timeframe on that.
We have found a bug that affects jailbroken devices with crash reporting and metrics *disabled*. The fix will be in our next release (we can’t say when that will be, please don’t ask).
One workaround is to enable crash reporting. Open “Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Local State” and change the “reporting_enabled” flag to “true”. That will enable reporting without needing to reinstall the app. Mind you, we haven’t tested this ourselves. :-) If you do not wish to do this, or are not comfortable doing this, you’ll need to wait for the next release. The other workaround is to uninstall and re-install and enable crash reporting, but you might lose data if you don’t use sync.
For those who are hitting crashes with 3rd-party add-ons, this workaround is not sufficient and you will need to contact the 3rd-party developer directly and have them update their add-on to work with Chrome M25.
@googlechrome Your jailbreak detection code has a scheduling issue. Bet it's fun explaining to Apple why you need a fast update.
— phoenixdev (@phoenixdev) March 5, 2013
To fix via SSH:
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