The Google app on iOS has today been updated to version 18.0, expanding support for 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. While the app first gained support for 3D Touch back in December, today’s update brings the feature to more aspects of the app.
Google’s official iOS app has supported AMP articles in search results since late May, and today Google is highlighting support for AMP articles in its Chrome browser for iPhone and iPad. Accelerated Mobile Pages appear in search results and load nearly instantly as these articles are optimized for faster load times.
It seems Apple isn’t going to be alone in offering a better deal to developers of subscription-based apps. The same day Phil Schiller revealed that developers will receive 85% of subscription revenue from year two, Re/code reports (and TNW confirms) that Google will be offering the same deal to Android developers – but with one big difference …
Google’s latest photography app — following behind others such as Google Photos and Snapseed — stabilizes iOS Live Photos and turns them into shareable GIFs and short movie clips. The app can create still images by freezing the background of a Live Photo and makes short videos that feature sweeping cinematic pans. The free Motion Stills app comes to us from Google Research and is only available on iOS…
Update: Jawbone says that the report is “unequivocally false”. Read the company’s update at its blog.
According to a report this evening from Tech Insider, Jawbone, the company once famous for its Bluetooth headsets and more recently known for its Jambox speakers and fitness wearables, has stopped making the UP line of fitness trackers. This includes three devices that the company has reportedly struggled to sell: the UP2, UP3, and UP4. Another report says that a clinical-grade wearable is coming soon…
Jason Snell has written an interesting piece at Macworld, berating Google for using its Material Design user-interface in iOS apps. In other words, Google ignores all the iOS conventions and instead makes its iPhone and iPad apps look exactly like Android ones. This can be seen in everything from the ‘white card on gray background’ overall design all the way down to small details like using vertical rather than horizontal dots as a menu icon.
He argues that Google is acting like Microsoft did back in the early 90s, suddenly making its Mac apps look and behave like Windows ones. It is, he suggests, arrogant …
Google kicked off its Google I/O developer conference today with the usual keynote address where executives showed off a number of upcoming hardware, software and developer tool products. It started off with its new voice controlled Siri competitor— Google Assistant— which also ties into its upcoming Amazon Echo-like device for the home called Google Home.
Update: The Spaces app is now live in the App Store and on the web.
Google can’t seem to stop making social networks and messaging apps. In fairness, the just announced Spaces app is referred to as a tool for small group sharing. While similar to the Communities feature that Google+ is now built around, the new app seems like a much more focused version of group messaging that better highlights content.
Google parent company Alphabet has once again surpassed Apple in terms of value based on market capitalization. CNBC points out that Alphabet (GOOG) saw its market cap around $498.56 billion during trading today, while Apple (AAPL) saw its market cap down around $496.69 billion.
Since iOS 8, Apple has supported third-party keyboards on iPhones and iPads with Microsoft and others offering their own unique options. Google, which has dozens of apps on iOS, is joining in on the action today with its new feature-packed ‘Gboard’ keyboard for iPhone. The final product lines up with what was reported a couple of months back.
According to a report from Fortune and her LinkedIn profile, Apple has recently hired former Nest executive and co-founder of Google X Yoky Matsuoka. At Nest, Matsuoka was the head of technology. According to the report, Matsuoka is joining Apple to help with its health initiatives, including ResearchKit, HealthKit, and CareKit. Matsuoka will report to chief operating officer Jeff Williams who oversees all of the company’s health projects.
The automotive industry is a capital-intensive industry. Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne knows it and that’s why he is open to work with Google or Apple:
“Google can buy every automaker out of petty cash. And Apple — they made a net profit of $24 billion in one quarter. This is nonsense. What are we defending? What?”
In a not yet released 2-hour interview with Automobile Mag‘s Georg Kache, Marchionne discusses the recent rumors of a FCA partnership with Google for self-driving cars and how the automaker wants to position itself in an industry disrupted by the likes of Apple, Google, Tesla and Uber.
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Google has released Hangouts version 9 for iPhone and iPad, bringing a native iOS share extension and new Low Power Mode functionality to the social app.
For both Google and Apple, the operations on their virtual stores are hugely important, as they account for millions of dollars. However, there has historically been a disparity between the number of downloaded applications and the actual money generated by them, a trend that seems to have peaked in the first quarter of this year.
According to App Annie‘s Index Market for Q1 of 2016, in fact, Google’s Play Store saw a number of downloads that roughly doubles that of the iOS App Store, which in turns represents the platform with the highest profitability, with over 90% more revenue generated over its counterpart…
[UPDATE: Apple has issued a statement on the passing of Bill Campbell, saying he “believed in Apple when few people did.” Via Daisuke Wakabayashi:
Bill Campbell was a coach and mentor to many of us at Apple, and a member of our family for decades as an executive, advisor, and ultimately a member of our board. He believed in Apple when few people did and his contributions to our company, through good times and bad, cannot be overstated. We will miss his wisdom, his friendship, his humor, and his love for life.]
https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/722137954257215488
Bill Campbell believed in Apple when few people did. We'll miss his wisdom,friendship,humor & his love for life. RIP pic.twitter.com/HA7hYgGxNM
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 18, 2016
Re/code today reports that Silicon Valley icon and longtime Apple board member Bill “The Coach” Campbell has passed away at age 75 after a long battle with cancer. The unfortunate news comes from “many prominent tech players,” following earlier unconfirmed reports. Campbell was a mentor to many tech leaders, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos.
Apple’s recently open-sourced programming language, Swift, may be seeing itself get adopted into Google’s Android platform in the future. Sources have told The Next Web that Google is “considering making Swift a ‘first class’ language for Android”.
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Apple alongside Amazon, Google and Microsoft today filed a joint amicus brief in support of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and President Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan that aims to introduce new emissions regulations. The EPA had some major pushback on the plan, so now Apple and the others are lending their support:
The Waze maps app— the one Google acquired a few years back to improve its own mapping services—today announced a new features that will warn drivers when they are driving over the speed limit.
Now when you’re using the Waze app to navigate, you’ll automatically see a visual warning (pictured above) if you go over the speed limit, and you can also manually set audio warnings for reaching the limit or hitting 5, 10 or 15% over.
Google is updating its Google Sheets and Slides apps for iOS today with new features that allow changing themes, filters and layouts on the fly from within the mobile apps.
For Google Sheets, the update brings the ability to view and change existing filters applied to a spreadsheet.
According to a report from The Verge, Google is building its own third-party keyboard for iOS and has been doing so for “months.” While it’s unclear when or if the keyboard will be released, the report notes of several features Google has been working to implement as employees test it.
It was reported yesterday that Apple was looking to move much of its iCloud business from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud Platform, but now it looks like that might be just the beginning of Apple’s long-term cloud plans. According to a report from VentureBeat, Apple has been working on something internally referred to as “Project McQueen” that could be a start to the company building its own data network and infrastructure…
Alphabet-owned Nest is best known for its smart thermostat, but the company works on a number of devices which, albeit being generally good at their given task, do not communicate with each other particularly well. And that’s mostly due to the fact that said devices have always had a hard time detecting whether you are actually at home or not.
With the upcoming implementation of GPS support via the Nest app, however, it looks like your house is about to become decidedly more efficient – and smart…
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.
Google surprised everyone earlier today with the very first preview release of Android N — the next operating system update for Android devices — which anyone savvy enough with the right hardware can try out now for free even before Google’s upcoming I/O developer conference. Included in the first preview version of Android N are many new features that catch Google’s mobile OS up with Apple’s iOS 9 like split-screen apps and picture-in-picture mode. Like Apple, Google’s even launching a public beta program for consumers soon. Check out the full details at 9to5Google and see how each feature compares between Android N and iOS 9 below: