Back when the desktop was king, Google used to be all about the Web and the browser. As mobile devices got more popular, browsers were no longer the most important application for many users. Specialized apps for music, video, photos, messaging, maps were much more popular because they were better suited for mobile.

Google pushed the boundaries of the mobile web with Chrome, but a few years ago it started to move on. New services like Inbox no longer have mobile web apps, Google Play Music no longer works from a mobile browser, the Google Docs mobile app no longer lets you edit documents etc. Google started to index mobile apps and link to the apps directly from Google Search. More and more sites push users to install their mobile apps, some of them display limited content and force users to install the apps to read the entire content (example: TripAdvisor).


Now Google announces a new Android feature that will make apps even more powerful. Android Instant Apps will let you launch apps without even installing them: your device will only download the required modules for displaying the content.

"With Instant Apps, a tap on a URL can open right in an Android app, even if the user doesn't have that app installed. As a developer, you won't need to build a new, separate app. (...) You modularize your app, and Google Play downloads only the parts that are needed, on the fly. And when you do upgrade, your app will be available to more than a billion users on Android devices going back to Jelly Bean," informs Google.


Right now, Google works with a small number of developers from BuzzFeed, B&H Photo, Medium, Hotel Tonight, Zumper and Disney to refine the experience. Instant Apps will be available later this year as part of a Google Play Services update.

Instant Apps will be limited to the content you want to display (a Medium article, a B&H camera), but you'll be able to install the full app if you like. It's like launching a personalized trial version of the app.

While the new feature is impressive and has many potential uses, I think it will make the mobile web even less important. If Apple launches a similar feature, developers will start to close their mobile sites and the mobile web will disappear. That's quite dangerous, since it will limit the mobile OS choice to Android and iOS. It's much easier to create a site than an app and many apps are completely unnecessary, not to mention that web apps use open standards, while mobile apps use proprietary APIs and have to rely on closed app stores. The open web ecosystem made Google what it is today.

Google Play Music is no longer only about music, now it also lets you listen to podcasts. The podcasts section is already available in the web interface and it's rolling out to the Android app in the US and Canada.

"We'll connect you with podcasts based on what you're doing, how you're feeling and what you're interested in. Similar to our contextual playlists for music, we want to make it easy to find the right podcast - whether you're a podcast aficionado or listening for the first time," informs Google.

Here are some podcasts that are available: "Freakonomics Radio", "The Nerdist", "Radiolab", "Stuff You Should Know", "TED Radio Hour", "This Week in Tech", "WTF with Marc Maron", "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!".




When you subscribe to a podcast, the Android app will automatically download the most recent episodes or notify you when there's a new episode.

I paused a video in YouTube's app for Android and got this message: "paused videos keep buffering if you leave the app". There's a background buffering feature and YouTube shows the how much data has been buffered. For example, "buffering 11.8/39 MB". YouTube videos are actually cached, so that's the reason why YouTube's cache can become huge.


When YouTube caches the entire video, you'll receive a notification which shows that the video is "ready to watch".


This is useful if you have a slow Internet connection: play a YouTube video, pause it, leave the app and wait until the video is cached. Then you can watch it.

An article from Indian Express mentioned in December that "Google will introduce pause buffer feature soon allowing users to pause video, leave it to buffer, even leave the app or site and let it continue buffering". Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered a keynote speech at a Google India event in New Delhi and announced a lot of interesting features: "tap to translate" will be released this year, "Google will crowd source the data for its translate feature", "1.4 billion Android users in the world", "free WiFi at 100 railway stations in India by December 2016", "Internet access to Indians in their own language is the focus for Google in India".

Android Police reported in December that YouTube was testing background buffering.

Gmail's app for Android is more than a mobile app for Gmail, it's also a general-purpose mail client. You can add IMAP, POP3 or Exchange accounts and use the Gmail app to read, compose and organize your mail. Now Google added the option to Gmailify your email accounts, which means bringing Gmail features without having to switch to a Gmail account.

"Gmailify links your existing account to Gmail so that you get all the bells and whistles — spam protection, inbox organization and even Google Now cards based on your mail — without having to leave your current address behind. All you need to do is open the Gmail app, sign in to your email account(s), and enable Gmailify," informs Google.


Which features are available? Spam protection, automatic categorization, labels, better search with support for advanced search operators, travel and hotel reservations appearing automatically in Google Now, better mobile notifications and all the other Gmail features.

How does it work? You can link your non-Gmail address (Yahoo Mail, Outlook.com, AOL Mail, etc.) to an existing Gmail account or to a new Gmail account. "When you sign in to the linked Gmail address, you'll see your messages from the other email provider in your mailbox. You'll be able to read, reply, and organize them just like you do in Gmail." The Gmail app keeps everything in sync, so a read email will be marked as read in the original account, archived messages will be added to a new Archive folder, while Gmail labels will be treated like folders.

Google redesigned the weather card to include more information and images. The new weather card is only available in the Google Search app for Android, at least for now. "When you search for 'weather' or ask Google, 'will it rain today?' in the Google app on your Android phone, you'll get a wealth of new information, including: hourly sky conditions and chance of rain, severe weather alerts, a detailed 10-day forecast, air quality, UV index, sunrise and sunset times, and more," informs Google.

Google's new UI has 3 tabs for "today", "tomorrow" and "10 days". There's also a "humidity, wind, sunrise, and more details" link at the bottom of the card which allows you to expand it. You can also tap anywhere inside the card.



Google added an option to add a location to the weather list. This way, you can search for "weather" and see a list of all the locations you've added and the corresponding weather information. The search bar is now optimized for finding locations, so it's easier and faster to switch to a different city.


The "today" tab now includes information about sunrise, sunset, solar noon, length of the day, remaining daylight, dawn, dusk, dew point, pressure, UV index and visibility.


For some cities in the US, Japan, South Korea, India and other countries, you can find air quality information and health messages like "it's a great today to be active outside" or "avoid prolonged or heavy exertion". The source is EPA AirNow.




The "10 day" shows weather forecast for today and the following 9 days. Tap a day to find more details, including hourly weather forecast, wind, humidity, UV index, sunrise and sunset.

I don't know about you, but my Google Maps for Android has just enabled the new offline features. Even if you have the latest version of the app, you still need to wait until these features are enabled because they're gradually rolled out.

My first disappointment is that the new features are still limited. The biggest size for an offline area you can download is 120,000 square kilometers and there are many countries that are bigger than that. I downloaded London's map and checked the size of the map: 332 MB. It also expires in 29 days (maps need to be updated at least every 30 days).



It looks like Google's maps include too much information, they take up too much space and there's no way to download some simplified maps.

Let's try one of the smallest countries in Europe: Liechtenstein, which has an area of only 160 square kilometers. The offline map has 62 MB. New York? 409 MB. Los Angeles? 356 MB. Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Bangkok? Not available because of licensing issues.


Forget about downloading the map for an entire country. Google Maps still can't replace the Here app or paid navigation apps.

Google Maps has a really cool mobile app for Android and iOS, but most of its features aren't available when you're offline. You can cache maps for small regions and that's pretty useful, but what if you want to cache the maps for an entire country or use navigation and driving directions when you're in a different country? The Here app offers this feature for free and now you can use it in Google Maps too.

"Now you can download an area of the world to your phone, and the next time you find there's no connectivity — whether it's a country road or an underground parking garage — Google Maps will continue to work seamlessly. Whereas before you could simply view an area of the map offline, now you can get turn-by-turn driving directions, search for specific destinations, and find useful information about places, like hours of operation, contact information or ratings," mentions Google.


"You can download an area by searching for a city, county or country, for instance, and tapping 'Download' on the resulting place sheet, or by going to 'Offline Areas' in the Google Maps menu and tapping on the + button. Once downloaded, Google Maps will move into offline mode automatically when it recognizes you're in a location with spotty service or no connectivity at all. When a connection is found, it will switch back online so you can easily access the full version of Maps, including live traffic conditions for your current route."


The new feature is gradually rolling out in the latest version of Google Maps for Android and it will soon be added to the iOS app. 6 years after launching turn-by-turn navigation, this feature works offline and Google Maps can finally replace paid navigation apps.

Update: Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's SVP for Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast says that Chrome OS is here to stay: "While we've been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS."

Original post:

Wall Street Journal reports that Google works on integrating Chrome OS into Android and will release a unified OS that runs on phones, tablets, laptops and more. "The company plans to unveil its new, single operating system in 2017, but expects to show off an early version next year."

So why kill Chrome OS and switch to Android? Chrome OS has a small desktop market share, while Android is the dominant mobile OS. There are a lot more apps in the Google Play Store than in the Chrome Web Store and Google had a hard time convincing developers to build Chrome apps. Google even ported the Android runtime to Chrome, so that you can run Android apps in Chrome OS.

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, has recently said that "mobile as a computing paradigm is eventually going to blend with what we think of as desktop today". Most likely, Google wants to bring Android to the desktop and provide a coherent experience. This solves some of the issues with Chrome OS (the lack of apps, low market share), but brings more challenges (Android is less secure than Chrome OS, it's updated less often, has a more complicated interface, it doesn't have a windowing system, apps aren't optimized for desktop).

I like Chromebooks because they're simple devices that require no maintenance. There are few things you can change, few things that can go wrong. It's easy to share them with other people, you don't have to worry about backups or saving your data.

Pixel C's announcement makes more sense now. It's an Android tablet developed by the Chromebook Pixel team. “We think the Pixel C’s tablet and keyboard experience really unlocks new ways to both play and be productive on one device,” mentioned Google.


Google has a lot of work to do. Android's tablet interface is pretty poor, there's no native multi-window support, Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions, apps and themes.

Chromebooks were all about the web, but native apps turned out to be more important for users. Better performance, better integration with the operating system, better interface - native apps trumped web apps and Chrome OS couldn't find a way to turn the tide.

{ Thanks, David. }

One of the best features from Android Marshmallow is auto backup for apps. Android used to have a backup feature that only worked for system settings and a few apps that enabled it. Now Google saves the settings and data for all the apps and backs it up to Google Drive, so you can quickly restore it when needed.

I've checked the Android section from Google Dashboard and noticed the difference between Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 and Nexus 5 running Android 6.0. While Nexus 7 only backed up system settings, the wallpaper and some data for Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Keyboard, Nexus 5 backed up the data for almost all the apps: from QuickPic Gallery to MyFitnessPal, from Firefox to Opera Mini and Angry Birds 2. There are still some apps that don't support auto backup, but at least the feature is now opt-out instead of opt-in.



The Android section from Google Dashboard shows a lot of useful information about your Android devices (IMEI number, registered date, last activity date, carrier) and it also lets you delete backup data. "Please note that new backup data will be created if backup is enabled on any of your Android devices," informs Google.

The list of apps backed up to Google Drive is also available in the Settings section of the Google Drive app for Android. You can enable or disable the backup feature, automatic restore, reset network settings, add backup accounts. The nice thing is that all this data doesn't use your Google Drive storage quota, but each app is limited to 25MB.

"Apps running on the new backup system aim to save their data every 24 hours, but there are a few requirements for the backup system to trigger automatically. The new backup system uses the JobScheduler API introduced in Lollipop and only triggers a backup if the device is connected to power, on Wi-Fi, and has been idle for at least an hour. The data then gets encrypted and uploaded to Google Drive," reports Ars Technica.

It's worth pointing out that reinstalling an app from the Play Store restores its settings and data. This way, you won't lose your data when you uninstall an app and you don't have to reconfigure an app you've previously used. In my opinion, this is a game-changing feature.



The new backup service is powered by Google Play Services, so it can be improved without updating the operating system. Hopefully, Google will allow users to disable backup for certain apps, remove the 25MB limitation and backup even more data.

With all this talk about Android and software updates, I realized that one of the biggest Android advantages is that you can install custom firmware or downgrade to an old Android version.

My old Nexus 7 tablet from 2012 doesn't support the latest Android release. Instead of installing custom firmware from some independent developers, I decided to go back to the smoothest Android version I can find. Asus skimped on quality storage and Nexus 7 was pretty slow and laggy, especially when using Android 5.x.

Google has a page with factory images for Nexus devices and it's pretty easy to install any Android version that's officially available. You have to backup your data, enable USB debugging and run some scripts.

I've installed Android 4.4.4 and Nexus 7 was much smoother, but there was still room for improvement. Android 4.3 was even better and I decided to keep it. It's like having a completely new device, even if it runs some outdated software released 2 years ago.


It's difficult to optimize new software for old hardware, especially if manufacturers don't care about quality, cut costs and ship poorly made devices with obvious design flaws. On there other hand, Google has its own issues with software optimization, memory leaks, battery draining software and other bugs. When properly optimised, Android runs well and users are happy, but this doesn't happen often. With so many devices to update, manufacturers and even Google take shortcuts when it comes to old phones and tablets. Some stop updating them, others release unfinished software, hoping to encourage users to buy new hardware, while others spend more time improving the software for the latest flagships.

Thankfully, you can downgrade and go back to a software that actually works well. Apple devices rarely allow you to downgrade and usually for a limited time, so you're stuck with phones and tablets that are suddenly slow, laggy and crashy.

This post was written on my Nexus 7 running Android 4.3.

Android started as an open platform that brought together many competing companies. iPhone's launch changed Android's development and was an important reason for Android's success. Phone manufacturers and carriers wanted an "iPhone killer" and Android was a good bet, but it still had a lot of rough edges and there were many missing features. This was a great opportunity for manufactures to fill in the gaps, create their own user interfaces and develop their own apps and widgets that brought value and differentiation.

Here's an image from Android's original SDK emulator:



Why did Google acquire Andy Rubin's company and invested in Android? One of the reasons was to make a better platform for developing mobile apps. Google already had a few mobile apps for feature phones, Symbian, Blackberry and it was very difficult to add new features and to test the applications because of the inconsistent APIs and their implementations. Android seemed like an interesting opportunity, but Google never anticipated that it will take over the world. It's obvious that Android became the dominant mobile OS because so many companies invested in Android, hoping to come up with better phones than Apple's iPhone.

While Android was open source, Google created a few proprietary apps that weren't part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The most important proprietary Google app was Android Market, which is now called Google Play Store, but Google developed other apps as well: Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps etc. Over time, many open source apps were replaced by proprietary Google apps: the music player became Google Play Music, the calendar app became Google Calendar, the browser became Chrome etc.



Android Market/Google Play is Google's own service and it was licensed to phone manufactures subject to confidential terms and conditions. According to the distribution agreements (MADA) revealed by companies like HTC and Motorola, Android Market was bundled with other Google apps and services, including Google Search and Network Location Provider, which had to be the default search and location services. "Devices may only be distributed if all Google Applications [listed elsewhere in the agreement] ... are pre-installed on the Device," mentions one of the distribution agreements.

The list of bundled Google apps increased over the years, as Google released more and more apps. Phone manufacturers were allowed to bundle competing apps from third-party companies and you'll find many phones that include Whatsapp and Hangouts, Microsoft OneDrive/Dropbox and Google Drive, Facebook and Google+. Here's a screenshot from Samsung Note 4, courtesy of Gsmarena, which shows that Samsung preinstalled Facebook and Google+, Hangouts, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Google Photos.


While many Android users complain that their phones have too much bloatware, some companies aren't happy that Google ties the Google Play Store with other Google apps and some default settings (Google = default search engine, Google Network Location Provider = default location provider).

Deutsche Telekom will file an anti-trust charge against Google, complaining that "Google uses its Android mobile operating system to unfairly promote its own products like Google Maps and online search over those of rivals". According to New York Times, "a number of large tech companies, including Oracle and Nokia, as well as small start-ups like Aptoide, a Portuguese online marketplace for smartphone applications, already have filed complaints to European officials connected to the Android investigation." The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Google's mobile operating system and the Federal Trade Commission started a similar investigation last month.

Is it fair for Google to bundle the Play Store with other apps and to dictate its own terms and conditions? It's obvious that the Play Store is the most important Android app and few people outside of China would buy an Android device that can't access the Play Store. By now, Google Play Store and the associated Google Play Services are hard to separate from Android, even if they're not technically part of Android. This is Google's play: it's holding the keys to more than 1 million apps and dictates its own terms to phone manufacturers. Many of Google's apps are actually useful and they are hard to beat by competitors (Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube), but some of the apps aren't the best in their category and Google uses distribution agreements to promote them (Hangouts, Keep, Play Books).

Back in 2008, Android Market was just another Android app store, but now it's the most important by far and it also comes with APIs that tie Android apps to the Google Play Store. I think it's not fair to tie Play Store licensing with bundling other Google apps and Google should use separate distribution agreements for them, just like Facebook and Microsoft.

While Google and Android OEMs still have issues with releasing timely updates that fix bugs and add new features, there's something they got right: adding built-in apps to the Play Store and updating them independently, without requiring OS updates.

Apple has released iOS 8.4 back in June and the main changes were a redesigned Music app with Apple Music support and some new iBooks features. Google would have simply updated Play Music and Play Books and all Android users would have gotten the new features without manually installing a new Android version.


The only way for Apple to add new features to Safari, Apple Maps, App Store, the music app, the calendar app, the mail app, iBooks and all the other built-in apps is to update the operating system. That's an outdated model and it's pretty inefficient.

Everytime you hear about a new release for Google's Android apps (Chrome, Play Store, Play Music, Play Books, Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube and more), that could be a new Android version. Some Android OEMs like Motorola, Sony and HTC moved core apps to the Play Store to update them faster.

It's worth pointing out that iOS updates include many security updates and other bug fixes. Right now, these updates can't be installed without an operating system update in Android, but that may change in the future. Google promised to release monthly security patches for Nexus devices, while Samsung and LG will also update their devices monthly.

Android's OEMs update their devices faster then a few years ago, but the process is still slow because of the carriers, custom user interfaces like TouchWiz and the number of devices released every year.

The latest version of the Google Keep app for Android lets you export your notes to Google Docs, just like the desktop site. Open a note, tap the menu button and pick "copy to Google Doc".


You can also select multiple notes and use the same feature to export your notes to a Google Docs document.

If you don't have the latest version of the Google Keep app yet (3.1.313), you can download the APK file from APK Mirror. According to Android Police, "the APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app".

The latest version of the Google Maps app for Android lets you add private names for places. Search for an address or drop a pin on the map, tap the 3-dot menu icon and pick "Edit name". You can add a name that lets you quickly find the place on the map, just like you can find "home" or "work". The private name is saved to your Google account and you're the only one who can see it.

Here's an example for a local business (this feature is even more useful for places that don't have a name in Google Maps):





To edit a name or delete it, open the side menu and tap "Your places". At the top of the section, you can find the named places, including "home" and "work".

Google Maps also has a new interface for location history: it's called "your timeline" and it's available on the web and in the Android app. "Your Timeline allows you to visualize your real-world routines, easily see the trips you've taken and get a glimpse of the places where you spend your time. And if you use Google Photos, we'll show the photos you took when viewing a specific day, to help resurface your memories," informs Google. You can customize the timeline by removing places or adding private names. This feature still requires Location History, which can be enabled or disabled from Google Maps, Google Settings or My Account.

Google Play Services brings an interesting feature: a Smart Lock for passwords and connected accounts. This feature is enabled by default and it allows the passwords of your apps and websites to be saved to your Google account. By default, Google automatically signs in to apps and websites connected to your account, but this feature can be disabled.


Chrome already has a syncing feature for passwords, so the new Smart Lock uses it to bring the same passwords to apps. For example, Google could save your Facebook password and it could use it to sign in to your account in the native Facebook app.

Android Police reports that Smart Lock works in the Netflix app and developers need to use a new API to add support. Other Android apps that support this feature: Eventbrite, Instacart, New York Times, Orbitz.



"Google Smart Lock for Passwords takes the hassle out of keeping your accounts safe for your favorite apps and websites. Smart Lock can save passwords to your Google Account and then help you use your passwords securely and conveniently on the websites you use in Chrome and the apps you use on your Android devices," informs Google.

There's also a page that shows your saved passwords: you can find it at passwords.google.com. "Your passwords from Chrome and Android are saved with Google Smart Lock and accessible to you across devices," explains Google. Unfortunately, this page doesn't show your passwords if you use a sync passphrase to encrypt your synced data in Chrome: "you can access your data within Chrome on your syncing devices, but not from this website." A help center page mentions that you can't use Smart Lock for Passwords on Android if you set a sync passphrase.


If you don't have a sync passphrase, the page shows your passwords and lets you delete them. Click the eye icon to see a password.


You can remove the sync passphrase from this page, but this also deletes your Chrome data from Google's servers. The good news is that this doesn't clear data from your devices, so you can sign in again to start syncing.

{ Thanks, Herin Maru. }

Android M was announced today and it's available as a preview for developers. It brings some new features and makes some radical changes that improve battery life and user privacy.



The most significant change is a new permission model that's also used by iOS. Until now, users could only install an app by granting all the permissions requested by the app and couldn't revoke permissions. In Android M, the app requests permissions as it needs them and users can always grant or revoke permissions from the settings.



Android's backup and restore feature has always been way behind iOS and that's about to change in Android M. Google used to save device settings and the list of apps you've installed, but not their data and settings. "Automatic backups are enabled for all apps installed on devices running the Android M Preview. No additional app code is required," informs Google. For now, users can store up to 25MB per Android app and "backups occur every 24 hours, when the device is idle, charging, and connected to a Wi-Fi network."


Doze is a new feature that saves battery life. "If a device is unplugged and left stationary with the screen off for a period of time, it goes into Doze mode where it attempts to keep the system in a sleep state. In this mode, devices periodically resume normal operations for brief periods of time so that app syncing can occur and the system can perform any pending operations," informs Google. A lot of features are disabled in the Doze mode: network access (except for high priority Google Cloud Messaging tickles), wake locks, WiFi scans, syncing.

Another power optimization feature is app standby. "The system may determine that apps are idle when they are not in active use. Your app is considered idle after a period of time, unless the system detects any of these signals: the app is explicitly launched by the user, the app has a process currently in the foreground, the app generates a notification that users see on the lock screen or in the notification tray or the user explicitly asks for the app to be exempt from optimizations, via Settings. If the device is unplugged, apps deemed idle will have their network access disabled and their syncs and jobs suspended."

Android Pay addresses Google Wallet's failure by creating an open platform for mobile payments. This time, Google partnered with 3 major US mobile carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon), in addition to banks, payment processors and retailers. After Softcard's demise, Android Pay will replace it. Google acquired Softcard technology a few months ago. It's worth pointing out that Android Pay is an app that requires Android KitKat or later, so it's not clear why it was announced as an Android M feature.

Google Now will also work inside Android apps. Tap and hold the home button and Google Now will show relevant information, including links to other useful apps. Say "OK Google" followed by a question and Google's answer will use the app's context. For example, you can ask "What's her latest album?" when listening to Mariah Carey in your favorite music app and Google will know that "her" refers to Mariah Carey.


Android M brings native support for fingerprint sensor, simplified volume controls, easy word selection with floating clipboard toolbar.


The updated launcher has an alphabetic app list and a search box that lets you quickly find an app. It also shows the most recently used apps at the top.


You cab change default apps from the settings, so it's easier to pick the default browser, phone app or SMS app.


Android M supports app link verification, so that links can open in an app without having to pick one first. You can disable app links in the settings.


There's also an updated memory stats section and you can find more information about apps.



Another improvement is that there's no longer an icon for Google Settings. This is now a section in the settings app.