Mailbox for Android version 2.0.1 update brings a Material Design refresh
If you’re a fan of the “inbox zero” mentality when it comes to managing email, odds are you’ve tried Mailbox for Android. The app, which was an iOS exclusive for some time, makes it easier than ever to delete, snooze and archive emails with just a few swipes. When the application launched on Android, there were few differences between the iOS and Android versions, at least aesthetically speaking. But today that changes, as Mailbox is receiving quite the update to version 2.0.1 which brings a Material Design refresh to the app.
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Once you update to the newest version, you’ll notice a few key additions in the user interface. Most notably, the Mailbox team has added in a floating compose button which makes it easier to create an email when you’re in your inbox. The slide-out navigation drawer now reaches to the top of the screen, though it’s still not a full-height drawer like we see in many other Google apps. The new update polishes up the entire app, making it look like a true Android application.
The update is rolling out as we speak, so be sure to head to the Play Store link below to grab the newest version. Mailbox users – how are you liking the new update?
Google+ Stories are starting to appear in Google Now
Last year, Google rolled out a feature to Google+ that would create a travelogue of your uploaded photos and videos based on your location. That tool is called Google+ Stories, and it generally does a great job at compiling your pictures into a nice slideshow. And according to a few Google+ users, Stories are beginning to make their way to Google Now. Once you have the proper settings enabled, you’ll start seeing a Google Now card appear when you have a new Story ready. When you see the card, tapping on it will launch you into Google+ where you can share it with your friends.
If you have yet to see this card, you may need to enable a few settings before it will start showing up. According to Google’s support page, you’ll need to:
- Turn on Google Location History
- If you store photos on Google Drive, show your Drive photos & videos in your photo library
- Use Auto Backup on your mobile device or computer
- Make sure Auto Awesome is on
- Add your home & work addresses in Google Maps
- Take a lot of pictures
If for some reason you’d like these cards to stop showing up, disabling the Auto Awesome feature will do the trick. Have you seen the preview card in your Now feed yet? If so, be sure to let us know!
Could Chrome OS ever become a dominant force in the PC industry?
This week we’ve seen a number of Chrome-related announcements including new Chromebooks, the Chromebit, a revamped Google Now-style UI, and a Google tool that makes it easier to test out Android apps on Chrome OS. It’s pretty obvious that Google has big ambitions for Chrome OS, and 2015 might be the biggest year for the platform yet. But exactly how big will things get for the cloud-centric OS?
For this week’s Friday Debate, we discuss Chromebook’s potential for mainstream success, and what Google needs to do to make it appeal to even more users. Could Chrome OS every become a dominant force in the PC industry? Should Google merge its Chrome OS and Android efforts under one roof?
We’ll first start by hearing from a few AA team members, and then we invite you to participate in the poll below, and sound off in the comments. Also remember that the Friday Debate Podcast should be coming later this evening, or sometime over the weekend.
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Gary Sims
I must admit that when I first heard about Chrome OS, back in 2009, I really didn’t think it was a good idea. However, that all changed when I got my first Chromebook a couple of years ago. Although I was skeptical at first, my Chromebook has become my main productivity device when I am away from home, especially when I am travelling and covering events for Android Authority. At home I still use my PC, but the point is that for everything except editing video or images, I basically use Chrome.
But Chrome OS isn’t yet perfect. Google is obviously experimenting with different aspects of the Chrome OS architecture. There is already some basic support for running Android apps on Chrome OS, and now Google has announced Chromebit. What does this all mean?
The biggest problem with Chrome OS is that all the apps need to be written in HTML5. Without getting into too much detail here, HTML5 has its drawbacks. In 2012, Facebook abandoned the HTML5 version of its mobile app and rebuilt it as a native app. The reason? Speed.
Organisationally Android and Chrome OS are part of the same group within Google. What Google needs to do is add full Android support to Chrome OS, while retaining the Chrome OS UI and approach.
The result will be a true alternative to Windows and OS X. In one sense it will be the vindication of Linux on the desktop. At the core of both Chrome OS and Android is Linux, but the problem with Linux is its diversity. There are too many desktop options, too many SDKs, too many UI libraries. Diversity is good, diversity allows dreamers to dreams and hackers to hack. But in the real world diversity isn’t called diversity, it is called fragmentation. And fragmentation is the death of any ecosystem.
If Google can produce a version of Chrome OS which allows traditional apps to be written via the Android SDK, while maintaining its core principles then Linux could become the dominant laptop OS over Windows and OS X. Why? Because it will be free. It will use a different business model, which doesn’t rely on licenses for revenue and it will be build around the way we work today, not the way we worked back in the 1990s.
So where does Chromebit come into all this. Simple, the more accessible Google can make Chrome OS, the more people will use it. The more people use it, the more the ecosystem will thrive. The more the ecosystem thrives, the more accessible it becomes. And so on.
However, for businesses the problem with a cloud-centric OS is really the word “cloud” means “someone else’s servers.” No organization should store its intellectual property on “someone else’s servers.” And that is where Google will need to work, to strike the balance between its vision to be the world’s largest provider of cloud services and the need of corporates to keep their data on their own servers.
Jimmy Westenberg
When Google announced the first Chromebook, I was instantly hooked. The opportunity to purchase a well-performing computer for around $250 was an idea I could get behind, so being a broke college student, I jumped onboard. I began using the first Samsung Chromebook as my daily computer. I used it for essays, web browsing and for writing tech news. I’ve lived in the Chrome OS world for a few years, and let me tell you, it’s easy. Sure there are a few sacrifices you might have to make, but it’s very possible.
Chrome OS still has a lot of progress to make and we’re just now seeing a turning point for the operating system. Oddly enough, Chrome OS and Android used to be entirely separate entities, and we’re finally seeing them come together. But Android apps running on Chromebooks is just the start of it all. There are people out there who just can’t sacrifice Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Adobe Photoshop, and that will always be a problem with the platform. If Google could somehow figure out a way to run the essential Windows and Mac applications in Chrome, we’d start seeing the Chrome OS adoption rate skyrocket.
The Chromebit is an interesting piece of tech, as well. For less than $100, people can run the OS on a television or an external computer monitor. That’s huge. If the success of the Chromecast is any indication as to how well the Chromebit will perform, college students who don’t have enough money to afford another computer will likely begin to adopt it in great numbers.
With all of that said, the problem with storing everything in the cloud is still a daunting idea for many consumers. Google is making big progress in the field, but like I said before, we’re still in the early stages of the platform.
So to answer the question, I don’t think Chrome OS will ever directly compete with Windows or Mac. But I do think there’s room for another OS that can fit into a niche market, whether that means strictly for education or just a budget-friendly alternative. I’m excited to see where Chrome OS is headed, and I have faith in Google that they can pull it off.
Bogdan Petrovan
I think Google is playing a very long game with Chrome OS, which seems to be moving at a snail’s pace and even stalling at times. But I think this deceptively slow pace hides Google’s ambition to make Chrome OS the operating system of tomorrow. And tomorrow will be all about the cloud, no matter how firmly we hold on to our microSD cards and local storage today.
I think Google is aiming to create a truly universal operating system. By turning the Chrome browser into a platform capable of running web apps that are very similar to native apps, Google is subverting conventional operating systems like Windows and OS X. Already, I can sign into Chrome with my Google account, and all my extensions, web apps, history, passwords, settings carry over. I can take my wife’s laptop and get my familiar setup from my own laptop in a matter of minutes. As someone who spends 75 percent of their workday in Chrome (and I could easily go up to 100 percent if I needed) this is a hugely valuable feature.
The convergence between the Chrome browser and Chrome OS is happening steadily; I can already switch from browser mode into Chrome OS mode with one click. And it’s only going to get easier and faster to do everything in Chrome, to the point that people will effectively forget what they need Windows for. When that happens, Chrome OS devices will be a tempting choice. Just today one top Microsoft engineer said that Windows could one day become open source. If this ever happens, I am pretty sure Google’s Chrome (and Android) will be a big part of the reason. While Google is working very slowly, the fact that it’s extending Chrome OS to all-in-one PCs and TVs (Chromebit) tells me that my hunch is correct.
And there’s the support for Android apps. Soon Google will be able to make a killer proposition to developers: apps that work on Android, Windows, OS X, or Linux, via Chrome, like magic. That should make the platform even more attractive.
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Amazon Prime Instant Video adds Android tablet support
Back in September Amazon finally gave Android users a way to access Amazon Prime Video content, after long holding out and keeping the functionality exclusive to Kindle Fire tablets, the Fire Phone, and various media streamers and smart TVs. Of course, they sure didn’t make things easy.
To play content, you needed to have the Amazon app, which would let you select video content. However, you also needed the Prime Instant Video app to actually play it back, which was available only through the Amazon AppStore. What’s worse than requiring you to install three different Amazon apps in order to simply watch your Prime Instant Video content? Amazon left tablets out of the fun.
Thankfully, Amazon has now released an update to the Prime Instant Video app that adds Android tablet support. With the update, you’ll be able to browse videos on Amazon.com through your favorite mobile web browser. Once you tap “Watch Now”, the Prime Instant Video app will then load up the movie or show of your choice. Still not exactly the most straightforward process, but better than nothing.
To grab the Prime Instant Video app, you’ll need to head on over to the Amazon AppStore.
SyFy picks up a ‘Nerdist News’ TV pilot
One day, TV will be all nerdy, all the time. Until then, Nerdist News is putting together a 30-minute pilot for SyFy, featuring its own brand of off-beat current events and silly gags. The Nerdist News TV show will air once a week, executive produced by Nerdist Industries CEO and @midnight host Chris Hardwick, alongside Talking Dead executive producer Brandon Monk. Nerdist News host Jessica Chobot announced the new initiative in a video, noting that the online version of the show isn’t going anywhere. “We can’t tell you too much more right now because there’s a lot of dark magic that needs to happen before it can get to your TVs and we have no idea of when it even would,” she says. Eagle-eyed observers will spot a familiar face covered by a Project Morpheus headset around 0:47 into the announcement video. (Hi, Joseph!)
Filed under: Misc, Gaming, Science, Alt
Source: Nerdist News
Google+ Photos now showing stories in Google Now
Google Now continues to add more features to its cards, the latest being Stories from your Google Photos. The stories are auto-generated by having the Auto Awesome feature turned on in photos with your location history as well. If you go on a trip, vacation, hike, etc. where you take lots of photos, Google photos will automatically put them into a “story” where you can see a slideshow of your photos from your recent adventure.
So now rather than having to go to your photo album to see your stories, the most recent one will show up in your Google Now cards.
The post Google+ Photos now showing stories in Google Now appeared first on AndroidGuys.
T-Mobile’s LG G3 to get Android 5.0 Lollipop April 7th
Looks like all that waiting you did with your LG G3 to get Android 5.0 Lollipop is about to pay off. A Tweet from Des has announced that the LG G3 on Magenta will be getting its taste of Lollipop beginning April 7th. OF course, if you have a PC and like to play the […]
The post T-Mobile’s LG G3 to get Android 5.0 Lollipop April 7th appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Mailbox for Android update brings Material Design
Dropbox is currently in the process pushing out an update for its official Mailbox application via the Play Store. This upgrade doesn’t deliver any new features to the app, but it does bring an appearance transformation that complies with Google’s recently-announced Material Design guidelines, as well as a multitude of bug fixes and speed enhancements.
For those unaware, Mailbox provides users with instant access to their Gmail and iCloud email accounts through an extremely simple, yet productive application and incorporates a revolutionary ‘Auto Swipe’ feature that lets users archive emails instantly.
The full changelog for the V2.0.1 update can be seen below:
- Material Design
- Tablet Support
- Bug Fixes
To install the update, simply open up the Play Store on your device, toggle the hamburger menu by swiping in from the left-hand side of the screen, select ‘My Apps’ and click on ‘Mailbox’. Next, hit the update button, and the application will instantly start to download and install the upgrade from the Google Play servers.
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How to Pre-Order the Apple Watch [iOS Blog]
Following several months of anticipation, the Apple Watch is almost in the hands of customers around the world. Apple will begin accepting Apple Watch pre-orders on Friday, April 10 ahead of an April 24 release date in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and United Kingdom. The wrist-worn device should have wider international availability in the near future.
Apple Watch starts at $349 for the entry-level Sport model, while the stainless steel model ranges from $549 to $1,099 and the 18-karat gold edition starts at $10,000. The exact pricing for the Apple Watch will depend on which model, size and bands a customer chooses to purchase. To help with the buying process, we’ve prepared a guide on how to pre-order the Apple Watch in stores and online.
How to Pre-Order the Apple Watch
Buy Online and Ship to Home
Apple will begin accepting pre-orders for the Apple Watch on April 10 through the Apple Online Store and Apple Store app at 12:01 AM Pacific Time. Pre-orders will go live in all first wave launch countries at the same time:
- U.S., Canada: 12:01 a.m. (Pacific Time), 3:01 a.m. (Eastern Time)
- U.K.: 8:01 a.m.
- Germany: 9:01 a.m.
- France: 9:01 a.m.
- Australia: 5:01 p.m. AEST
- Hong Kong: 3:01 p.m.
- China: 3:01 p.m.
- Japan 3:01 p.m.
If you are looking to pre-order the Apple Watch without trying on the device, you can purchase the exact model you want from either storefront and the product will be shipped to your home or a specified address for free with delivery beginning on April 24. Apple Watch Edition customers also have the exclusive option of shipping the gold watch to a local Apple Store via courier for pickup.
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Media Browser for Windows 8.1 gets rebranded as Emby with new features
The Media Browser app for Windows 8.1 has received a name change to Emby, along with a software update that adds some new features to the media player. So far, the new Emby name is not showing up on the app itself or on the Windows Store.
AIVAnet 