Apps & Services
Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 5 get new Google Home update with Redesign, Favorites, media controls, & more
Google Home is one of Google’s applications that helps users to set up, manage, automate, and control various compatible devices in their homes. Last week, the company announced a big functionality update and redesign for its Google Home app for WearOS. Now, Big G started rolling out version 2.66 of the Google Home app. This newer version will bring changes to the app’s media controls, favorites, and more.
Informatively, as Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 & Galaxy Watch 5 are running on WearOS, the new Google Home update will be rolled out for them as well. Now, let’s know in-depth about the modifications this new version 2.66 is bringing to your Galaxy Watch’s Google Home app. These changes are listed below.
Google Home 2.66: What changes will it bring?
After updating your WearOS smartwatch’s Google Home app, the first change you will notice will be its Favorite feed; the application will directly lead you to a Favorites feed that will show you the content you’ve saved on Google Home for Android. Here, the app will show you up to five devices and automation/routines, along with a “View all” option.
Apart from the Favorite feed, at the bottom, you can see the Devices (It is a list that groups things by rooms and is basically the previous main feed), Automation, and Settings. Additionally, this update brings more control over lights and thermostats as well. The newer version has brought additional features as well.
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Besides adjusting the temperature, you can now switch between modes also. To adjust Temperature and Color, you just need to press long on a tile. The updated version also offers full media controls for content, like songs Cast to Nest Hub. It shows you the currently playing song, and it offers play/pause and next/back options.
Not only that, but the updated Google Home app will also let you lock or unlock any supported device. Nota bene, the Mountain View giant has started to distribute the Google Home 2.66 redesign today. If you want, you can download it through the Google Play Store. Besides, its “Preview” variant is also available. If you are a Galaxy Watch 4 or Watch 5 user, check if your watch received it, and install it to enjoy the advancements.
Thanks to “9to5google“
Google is continuously working towards the betterment of the Android ecosystem. It has brought several new features and innovations to its own designed applications, including Google Wallet, Google Maps, Google Messages, and many more. Now, with the latest development, the company is getting a new option in settings that lets you turn off the expressive animations.
Google Messages introduced expressive animation two months ago. Under this functionality, users get a cool animation feature that enables your still emoji to be expressed in an expressive way and makes the conversation more interesting. Now, with the latest development, if you don’t like this animation, you can also turn it off.
You can follow these simple steps to turn off the expressive animation: Navigate to the settings and then scroll down. Here you will find the new toggle option’show expressive animations’. Just tap it to turn it off.
The new option for turning off the animated expressiveness appeared with the latest Google Messenger beta 20240426_01_RC00, which indicates that the new changes are limited to those users who have already joined the beta program, while for other users it will take a while to expand this feature.
If you haven’t enrolled in the beta program and want to try this new option, you can apply for it now from the Google Play Store. Once you get registered, it will provide you with a new update immediately. Now you just need to install it and check for the option.
Apps & Services
ByteDance wants to kick off TikTok in the US market rather than selling it to an American firm
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, would have to shut down TikTok in the US market rather than sell it to an American firm. Following many assertions and statements for years, finally, it appears that ByteDance wants to ditch TikTok from the US market. Menahile, earlier reports significantly suggested that eventually TikTok will get banned in the US and was officially approved by the US House, Senate, and President of the US, Biden.
According to a source shared by Reuters via Android Police, ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok, seems looking up to ditching TikTok in the US completely rather than selling it to an American firm, while after the official approval, ByteDance was given the last 270-day deadline that either the company needs to release TikTok from its ownership forever or completely stop TikTok in the US market.
ByteDance counts a small part of TikTok’s revenue, though:
Meanwhile, the company is currently eyeing over some other legal options, but if all the legal options proved unsuccessful, then it’s quite clear that TikTok would be leaving the US market forever. On the flip side, some sources also reveal that the highly engaging properties of TikTok are due to its core algorithms, while these core algorithms are the most essential section of ByteDance’s technology. Moreover, this ditching of TikTok in the US will not really impact ByteDance’s current operations in the US market, as the company accounts for a small part of revenue through the app.
Sources further added that last year, TikTok gained about 25% of its revenue from the US market, which significantly means that it could be a sudden decrement within the revenue stream. However, ByteDance’s dedicated app, Douyin, which is certainly a Chinese version of TikTok, Also, no American firm is willing to pay billions to acquire TikTok without its core algorithms. Meanwhile, all these factors significantly indicate that if the legal efforts proved to be a failure, TikTok would have to leave the US market for sure.
Over the years, Google has made several improvements to its most crucial application, the Google Play Store, and it constantly provides new utility features and improvements. Now, with the latest development, the company is working on a new capability to handle multiple application downloads.
According to the information, Google is looking to bring a new capability to download multiple applications together. Previously, when you tap on the install button of the applications, it starts downloading them one by one. When one application fully downloads, it starts downloading the second application.
However, it is worth noticing that the phenomenon of multiple downloading is limited to only two applications, meaning if you tap on more than three applications to download, it will start downloading two applications while the third one is still pending.
Additionally, the simultaneous download is limited to the new installs, but it will not apply to the update section. We hope that Google may expand the multiple downloads to update phenomenon and may increase the number of downloads together in the next developments.
As per the information, the new change has already started working on several devices, at least for the Android 14 installed devices with the latest version of the Play Store (40.6.31).