Official Blog
News and notes from Android team
Introducing Magazines on Google Play for the UK
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Following hot on the heels of the recent launch of music on
Google Play
in the UK, we’re pleased to announce that from today, you’ll also be able to
buy digital versions of your favourite magazines for reading on the go
.
Popular titles from some of the world’s leading publishers such as Condé Nast UK, Dennis Publishing, Future, Haymarket, Hearst UK, Immediate Media and IPC Media are now available for purchase on your Android phone or tablet.
Get in shape with
Men’s Fitness
, cook up a storm with
olive
, work off all that turkey and Christmas pudding with
Slimming World
, catch up on the latest must-have gadgets with
T3
and read a preview of The Hobbit in this month’s edition of
Total Film
.
You can stay abreast of the week’s key events with
Hello!
,
New Statesman
and
The Spectator
and keep on top of the latest lifestyle news with
Cosmopolitan
,
Glamour
and
Tatler
. Petrolheads can pick out some new wheels with
What Car?
, while domestic goddesses can take their inspiration from
Good Housekeeping
.
Browse the Play Store to find your favourite magazines, discover new titles with a 30-day free trial, buy single issues or purchase a money-saving monthly or annual subscription to leading titles such as
Elle
,
Harper’s Bazaar
,
Vogue
and
Wired
. New Nexus devices even come pre-loaded with free issues of Men’s Fitness, .net and Vogue to get you started.
All your latest issues will be instantly available on your Android tablet or phone, or online, using our web reader, and organised in your collection in the cloud. You can flip through your magazine carousel to quickly decide what to read next or simply search for a specific title in your magazine collection.
Magazines are available today to enjoy on the sofa or on the go via your Android devices and on
play.google.com
, so please take a look.
Posted by Avi Yaar, Product Manager, Google Play
Sound Search for Google Play widget, now available on Google Play
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
“What's this song?” Starting today, the
Sound Search for Google Play
widget is available to download from the Play store, so you can start identifying music playing around you, directly from your Android device’s homescreen.
Sometimes, you hear a song you like while you’re out and about but don’t want to download it right at that moment. The Sound Search widget syncs across all of your devices, so that song you recognized with your phone in the coffee shop can be quickly purchased from your tablet at home.
For devices running Android 4.2, you can add the widget directly to your device’s lockscreen, letting you recognize songs without even unlocking your phone, making it even easier for you to catch that song at the club.
The Sound Search for Google Play widget is available on
Google Play
for devices in the U.S. running Android 4.0 and above. After you’ve installed it, go to the widget picker and drag the Sound Search widget onto your homescreen. You can click on the widget at any time to start recognizing music around you.
Posted by Annie Chen, Software Engineer
New in Google Currents: Scan through your favorite categories, editions and breaking news
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Keeping up on the news out there can be overwhelming. That's where Google Currents comes in—an app that allows you to discover, share and read your favorite news outlets, blogs and online magazines (what we together refer to as “editions”) on your smartphone or tablet—even when you’re offline. Currents is filled with great editions like
The Los Angeles Times
,
CBS Sports
,
Android Central
,
The Guardian
,
Shortlist
, and
Forbes
. Today, we’re revamping Currents to make it even easier to scan through all your favorite categories and specific editions with just the swipe of a finger. And, we’re using some of the technology behind Search to bring you breaking stories on those celebrity scandals, that fiscal cliff negotiation or hottest holiday gift.
Scan through categories
We’re now grouping editions into categories to help you keep track of your existing subscriptions and discover new ones. Check out editions related to your interests through categories like Entertainment, Sports, Lifestyle and more. All of your content will be grouped in these categories, accessible from a sidebar. And you can organize your editions in each category with favorites on top.
We’ve also made it easy to quickly browse through top articles from all your favorite editions in a category—just swipe horizontally. If you subscribe to more than a dozen News editions like
The Atlantic
,
ABC News
and
The Telegraph
, you can quickly swipe through the entire category and dive into editions with articles of interest.
Scan through editions
We’ve also made it easier to scan headlines in a particular edition—just swipe vertically. Want to see what’s new in
Popular Science
? Just swipe through through the headlines. After you view a story we’ll mark it as read, so it’s easier to see new content each time you use Currents.
Scan through breaking stories
To help you stay up-to-date with the latest news, Google Currents now uses some of the technology behind Search to deliver the hottest breaking stories in categories such as World, Entertainment, Sports, Science and more. You’ll find new articles from hot topics that interest you, while discovering existing Currents editions you can subscribe to. Breaking stories are customized to your country and language—so we’ll only show you relevant news.
Currents optimizes editions to look great on whatever type of device you're using. Now articles shine, with larger images and layouts that are intelligently optimized for your device, whether you're on a phone or a tablet. Check out some of our newest featured partners like
Cars.com
,
Voice of America News
and
New Scientist
.
Back in April we
expanded Google Currents internationally
. Since then millions of readers around the world have downloaded Currents, reading over
700 publisher editions
and tens of thousands of self-produced editions. The updated app is now available for
download
on Google Play and coming soon to iOS. We hope that today’s updates make keeping up with the latest news fast, easy and fun no matter where you are or what device you’re using.
Posted by Mussie Shore, Group Product Manager
New Google Now: the perfect travel companion for the holidays
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen! For Santa’s holiday travel this season,
Google Now
is just the prescription.
As you head off this holiday season, the latest update to Google Now makes it even more useful for traveling. Before you even leave your house, Google Now will tell you what the weather will be like at your destination (just in time to make sure you remember to pack those mittens). At the airport, your boarding pass is automatically pulled up, helping you breeze through to the gate (launching shortly for United Airlines, with more to come). And once you've arrived at your destination, Google Now can help you uncover some great activities, by showing you events happening around you, suggesting websites for you to explore as you research things to do, or allowing you to learn more about specific pieces while you’re at a museum (using Google Goggles).
All of this builds on top of some of the other cards designed for travel, like the currency conversion, translation, and flight status cards -- hopefully taking a little bit of the stress out of holiday travel so you can focus on family and fun.
We're also making Voice Search even more powerful: you can find out the name of the song that’s playing (“What’s this song?”), quickly find product info (“Scan this barcode”) and post updates to Google+ simply by using just your voice.
These goodies are waiting for you in the updated
Google Search
app, available on
Google Play
for devices running Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, or higher.
Posted by Baris Gultekin, Product Management Director
Edit spreadsheets on the go with the Drive mobile app
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
You’re making your list, you’re checking it twice -- and now you can do it from anywhere.
Just in time for this year’s holiday season, you can edit Google Sheets on your mobile device,
just like you can with Google Docs
. From the Drive app on your Android device, you can create a new spreadsheet or edit an existing one. You can switch fonts, resize columns, sort data, and more. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits in real time as they’re made.
Beyond spreadsheets, you may notice a few other tweaks to the Drive app, including better text formatting when you paste from one Google document to another. And from your Android device, you can edit text within tables in documents and add a shortcut on the homescreen of your device to any specific file in Drive.
Whether it’s holiday recipes, shopping lists, or just your family budget, the Drive app on your mobile device makes it easy to get stuff done wherever you are.
Get the Google Drive app today on
Google Play
.
Posted by Shrikant Shanbhag, Software Engineer
Google Shopper 3.0 - New features to help with your holiday shopping
Friday, November 9, 2012
As you hit the mall this holiday season, chances are you’ll be accompanied by a reliable personal shopping companion: your mobile phone.
Four out of five
mobile phone and tablet owners plan to use their device for holiday shopping - for comparing prices, locating nearby stores, and searching for coupons. Today, with the launch of Google Shopper 3.0 for
Android
, you can easily browse for gift ideas, research products, and locate great deals on the go.
Search for products and get gift ideas on the redesigned home page
The app’s redesigned home screen features a bigger search box for easier navigation. When you browse curated gift ideas and latest trends on the home page or search for apparel and accessories, larger photos let you view product designs in more detail.
Find great sales and special offers
Shopper now makes it quick and easy to find great deals at local and online stores. From the new Sales page, you can view weekly circulars from nearby stores, along with a handful of featured current promotions which you can redeem online or in person. Shopper also shows you store promotions, such as ‘30% off’ or ‘free shipping’, as you search for products in the app.
Use GoodGuide rating to Identify healthy, safe, and eco-friendly products
Whether you shop with a conscience or would like a reason to start, Shopper now features
GoodGuide
ratings, a rating system that indicates on a scale of one to ten whether a product is healthy, safe and environmentally friendly. When GoodGuide ratings are available for a product, you can view these by scrolling down the product detail screen, as shown below. You can learn more about the GoodGuide rating system
here
.
You can download Shopper 3.0 for your Android device from
Google Play
.
Posted by John Shriver-Blake, Product Manager, Google Shopper
Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes
Monday, October 29, 2012
People increasingly have more than one device, and they switch between them many times a day. Nexus—Google’s hardware line for Android devices—gets rid of the hassle. Just sign in with your Google Account and everything is there ready to go, whatever device you’re using: photos, emails, contacts, bookmarks, even your entertainment on Google Play.
Today, we’re excited to announce three great new Nexus devices … in small, medium and large. And they all run Android 4.2, a new flavor of Jelly Bean—which includes the latest version of Google Now and other great new features.
Nexus 4 with Google Now and Photo Sphere
Nexus 4 is our latest smartphone, developed together with LG. It has a quad-core processor which means it's super fast, a crisp 4.7" (320 ppi) display that's perfect for looking at photos and watching YouTube, and with wireless charging you just set the phone down on a charging surface to power it up, no wires needed. While Nexus 4 is incredibly powerful under the hood, it also features the latest version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.2—the simplest and smartest version of Android yet. Starting with the camera, we've reinvented the photo experience with
Photo Sphere
, which lets you capture images that are literally larger than life. Snap shots up, down and in every direction to create stunning 360-degree immersive experiences that you can share on Google+ with friends and family—or you can add your Photo Sphere to Google Maps for the world to see.
Android 4.2 brings other great goodies like Gesture Typing, which lets you glide your finger over the letters you want to type on the keyboard—it makes typing fast, fun and a whole lot simpler. Android 4.2 also adds support for wireless display so you can wirelessly watch movies, YouTube videos and play games right on your Miracast-compatible HDTV.
Learn more about all of the new features in Android 4.2, Jelly Bean,
here
.
Google Now—even more useful
We designed Google Now to make life simpler by giving you the right information at just the right time in easy to read cards, before you even ask. And the feedback has been awesome. So today we’re adding more cards that we hope you’ll find useful. Flight information, restaurant reservations, hotel confirmations and shipping details—how often have you found yourself wading through your email to get this information at the last moment? So next time you book a table for dinner, you’ll get a reminder with all the details without ever having to lift a finger. You’ll also get cards for nearby attractions, interesting photo spots, movies times at nearby theaters or concerts by your favorite artists.
Nexus 7: Thin, light and now even more portable
Nexus 7 brings you the best of Google–YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Maps–and all the great content from Google Play in a slim, portable package that fits perfectly in your hand. To give you more room for all that great content you can now get Nexus 7 with 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($249) of storage. But we also wanted to make this highly portable tablet even more mobile. So we added HSPA+ mobile data. Nexus 7 is now also available with 32GB and HSPA+ mobile ($299), which can operate on more than 200 GSM providers worldwide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US.
Nexus 10:
Powerful and shareable
Nexus 10 is the ultimate tablet for watching movies or reading magazines. We wanted to build a premium entertainment device, so we partnered with Samsung to do just that. Nexus 10 is the highest resolution tablet on the planet with a 10.055" display at 2560-by-1600 (300ppi), that's over 4 million pixels right in your hands. It comes with a powerful battery that will get you up to nine hours of video playback and more than 500 hours of standby time. With a set of front-facing stereo speakers, you can watch movies right from your Nexus 10 and they simply sound awesome. But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it's the first truly shareable tablet. With Android 4.2, you can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff -- email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone can have their own home screens, their own music, and even their own high scores.
Google Play: More entertainment, more countries
We’ve recently added a ton of great new entertainment to Google Play,
such as movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox. Earlier this
year we expanded our service beyond movie rentals and now you can
purchase movies and build a library of your favorites in Google Play.
Today we’re bringing movie purchasing to more countries - Canada, the
U.K., France, Spain and Australia.
We’re also excited to announce two new partnerships. We’re now working
with Time, Inc. to bring you even more magazines like InStyle, PEOPLE,
TIME and others. And we’ve partnered with Warner Music Group who will
be adding their full music catalog with new songs coming each day.
We’re now working with all of the major record labels globally, and
all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent
labels, artists and publishers.
On November 13, we're bringing music on Google Play to Europe. Those
of you in the U.K, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will be able to
purchase music from the Google Play store and add up to 20,000 songs—
for free—from your existing collection to the cloud for streaming to
your Android devices or web browser. We’re also launching our new
matching feature to streamline the process of uploading your personal
music to Google Play. We’ll scan your music collection and any song we
match against the Google Play catalog will be automatically added to
your online library without needing to upload it, saving you time.
This will be available in Europe at launch on November 13 and is
coming to the U.S. soon after. This will all be for free—free
storage of your music, free matching, free syncing across your devices
and free listening.
Great value
We’ve always focused on building great devices at great value. And we
think today’s devices offer the very best that money can buy.
Here
are
more details on when and where you can pick up your next Nexus device:
Nexus 4
:
8GB for $299; 16GB for $349; available unlocked and without a
contract on 11/13 on the Google Play store in U.S., U.K., Australia,
France, Germany, Spain and Canada. The 16GB version will also be
available through T-Mobile for $199, with a 2-year contract (check
here
for more details).
Nexus 7
:
16GB for $199 and 32GB for $249; available in U.S., U.K.,
Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan, and also through
our retail partners Gamestop, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples and
Walmart.
Nexus 7 with 32GB and mobile data
:
$299 and unlocked, on sale 11/13 in
the Google Play store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain
and Canada.
Nexus 10
:
16GB for $399; 32GB for $499; available on 11/13 in the
Google Play Store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain,
Canada and Japan. You'll also be able to purchase the 32GB version in over 2,000 Walmart stores in the U.S.
A Nexus device is much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your
connection to the best of Google—all of your stuff and entertainment,
everywhere you go with no hassle. Now you have three new Nexus
devices, a new improved version of Jelly Bean and more entertainment
than ever before—all available on Google Play. The playground is open.
Posted by Andy Rubin, SVP, Mobile and Digital Content
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