Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Android and Me

Android and Me

Google Plus update brings the web’s best new features to Android

Posted: 20 May 2013 12:46 PM PDT

Last night, Google’s Vic Gundotra took to Google Plus to write that he was having a hard time falling asleep because he was excited about something that was set to happen today. This morning, like clockwork, a huge update for the Google Plus Android app was released with photography, location and discovery enhancements, putting the app on par with the website which was revamped at Google I/O.

Probably the biggest changes in the new Google Plus app for Android are the photography features. At Google I/O, Google introduced several useful new utilities for Plus that made your photos look better, and made them easier to share. The new Android app focuses on three major areas of photography, and automates them all.

The first area is editing. Google Plus’ new auto enhance feature does just what it sounds like. By tweaking a few simple things, like contrast or adding some smoothing, your photos are automatically improved when uploaded to Google Plus. You don’t have to leave them auto-enhanced, but in my experience, Google Plus actually does a fantastic job. Also related to photo editing, the new Plus app includes built-in Snapseed editing, for those that want more control over the changes made to their photos.

The second photography related feature is auto highlight. After a long day of photo taking, Google Plus will go through the photographs that have been auto-uploaded to Plus, and find the best ones, making it easier to share highlights. Auto highlight is a neat feature, especially for those days when you’ve taken a ton of pictures, and don’t have anything in particular you want to share.

The last major photography feature is auto awesome. Auto awesome goes through your photos, and makes things like animations and panoramas, which Google apparently considers Awesome. Until we spend more time with auto awesome, we won’t know just how awesome it really is. It could certainly turn out to be a neat feature.

Outside of photography features, the new Google Plus app has made some changes to location sharing, and content discovery within the app. With the locations tab in the new Plus app, if users are sharing their location, you’ll see exactly where they are, in either a list view, or a handy map view. To bolster content discovery, Google has added auto-hashtags to posts from the Android app now. With posts being auto-tagged, more of Google Plus will be categorized, making it easier to find content relevant to your interests.

There have been some issues in rolling out the update to Google Plus, but rest assured, they are being worked on. Once you get your hands on the new update, let us know how you like it either in the comments, or on the Android and Me Google Plus page.

    

Hangouts is the the future of Google Voice, desktop calling will be back

Posted: 20 May 2013 12:39 PM PDT

Back when Hangouts was still a rumor, we were under the distinct impression that it would unify off all of Google’s messaging services. The cold hard truth is, Hangouts is merely a replacement for Google Talk. It didn’t do much to alleviate the confusion of Google’s various messaging apps, and has even stripped some well liked functionality, like desktop calling from Gmail.

Fortunately, Google isn’t even close to being finished with Hangouts. We’ve already heard that SMS integration is a high-priority for the Hangouts team, and now we know that not only is desktop calling making a comeback, but tight Google Voice integration is on the horizon.

In a Google Plus post from this morning, Google’s manager of real-time communication products, Nikhyl Singhal, explained the status of desktop calling from Gmail, which was lost in the move to Hangouts, and the future of Google Voice. According to Singhal, inbound and outbound calls are being worked on. For now, users can still take advantage of inbound calling in Voice, and stick with the old Talk in Gmail. Other than that, users are stuck playing the waiting game.

Singhal also took a moment to address Google Voice a little more in-depth, saying that, “Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls is just the beginning. Future versions of Hangouts will integrate Google Voice more seamlessly.”

Hangouts may not be the unified messaging service we were originally hoping for, but it’s being worked on. By the end of the year, I imagine Hangouts will finally combine Google Talk, Google Voice, Google Plus Hangouts, SMS and MMS messaging into one handy app. Until then, things may get little rough while everything is being ironed out.

    

HTC J One heads to Japan with microSD card support

Posted: 20 May 2013 08:32 AM PDT

The HTC One is one of the most respected Android devices on the planet. Yet, quite a few people seem to think the Galaxy S4 has a slight edge thanks to its removable battery and microSD card slot. The new HTC J One (KDDI’s variant of the HTC One for Japan) may not sport a removable battery, but HTC has managed to cram in a microSDXC card slot, which gives the 32GB device the ability to store an extra 64GB of data. Unfortunately, the hardware components needed to include microSD card support have forced HTC to chop up the aluminum frame of the HTC J One (note the back-panel latch in the image above). The thickness and weight of the device also had to be increased by 10% (69 x 138 x 10.5mm at 157g compared to 68.2 x 137.4x 9.3mm size at 143g).

A 10% bump in thickness and weight may not sound like much, but the difference is certainly noticeable. The HTC J One is 33% thicker than the Samsung Galaxy S4. How many of you would be willing to compromise the HTC One’s current size and weight in order to gain expandable storage?

    
Posted by at 7:36 AM

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