Apps & Services
Google Maps Gets New Interface on Android Auto, Becomes Smarter
Android Auto is not a normal utility software for cars, but it is equipped with entertainment and productive functions that bring a bunch of identical features that you see on your smartphones. Android Auto is specially designed to give convenience to the drivers and also provides some effective features that make them drive safely.
However, being one of the unique products of Google, it has received some extra care from the company. The big G brings two or three new updates for Android Auto almost every single week. With the new updates, the company aims to improve the functionality and also introduce some new features.
Google Maps interface improves on Android Auto
Google Maps is one of the main apps in Android Auto because it provides an important service of navigation. To bring more convenience to users, Google has already rolled out many updates for Google Maps. In these updates, the company has introduced several new enhancements, like the sidebars, where you get different controls, including Zoom, map orientation, adjusting direction, and settings access. Now, with the fresh update, these controls are getting a transparent bar, which will improve the appearance of the map on the display.
Android Auto 10.5 stable update available for everyone: download now
Google Maps on Android Auto also grabbed some more improvements for the application, making it work more smoothly. However, to keep the internal functions of Android Auto working, you should always update it to the latest version whenever available.
These latest changes come through new updates for Google Maps. It currently appears in several places; however, it is not confirmed how much it is expanded, but soon it will be available to more Android Auto users. If you haven’t updated Google Maps for some time, you may get the new update, and it is advised to update it to the latest version available on your device. Along with this, you should also install the new Android Auto version, i.e., v10.5.
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).