Articles by Michael Allison

Facebook’s cementing its status as a messaging king.

What you need to know

Facebook is improving its most interlinked messaging apps.
Facebook Messenger is gaining new themes, stickers to commemorate AAPI month, as well as tap-to-record.
For Instagram, the company is adding themes, a new read receipts feature, and new, more visual replies.

Facebook’s messaging apps are already best in class, and the company today announced new features to keep it that way for both Instagram and Messenger. It’s worth noting on the outset that some of these features may depend on whether you have Facebook’s new Instagram integration, while some are Messenger exclusive and others are universal.

When it comes to Messenger, this update adds a lot. Messenger is getting new themes and stickers. It may be too late for May the 4th, but there’s a new Star Wars sticker pack regardless. You’ll also find one for Selena The Series. The company is also rolling out new stickers for Asian and Pacific Islanders…

The iPad Pro is eating Google’s lunch, so where’s the Lenovo Duet Pro?

Google’s Chrome OS powers more than just laptops. From devices as large as desktops to small children’s tablets, the operating system is flexible enough to work on a variety of devices. While Chromebooks have been steadily creeping higher in price and specs over the past couple of years, the same can’t be said about Chrome tablets. Yes, we’ve seen some excellent ones like the Lenovo Duet, which perform well for their price. Still, it’s been a while since we’ve seen one that could take on the likes of the iPad Pro or Surface Pro and make a good argument for why you should pick it over those devices, and that’s a real shame.

The Pixel Slate was the first and last prosumer Chrome OS tablet.

Before Chrome tablets were a thing, Google once pushed Android tablets as iPad rivals. It had its own Nexus tablet line, and every other Android manufacturer had an Android tablet at one point. There’s an argument to be mad…

These new updates are available in the U.S.

What you need to know

Google Pay in the U.S now works better with local stores and transit systems.
The app can now highlight deals from Target and Safeway.
Google is also adding Chicago and the Bay Area to the list of supported transit systems.

Google today rolled out several new updates to the Google Pay app in the U.S., helping users with the best Android phones manage their money better.

First, the app now offers integration with Safeway and Target. It will surface deals from either store when a user searches for Safeway or Target in the app. Alternatively, enabling location access and passing by these stores should pop up a notification that’ll show off weekly deals.

Google’s Josh Woodward explained in a blog post:

We teamed up with Safeway to make it easy to find weekly grocery deals from the Google Pay app. You can find deals on thousands of items across more than 500 Safeway stores nationwide. You can also discover simila…

Chromebooks continue to develop a reputation as swiss-army knives.

What you need to know

Parallels today announced support for additional Chrome OS processors.
Now, you can run Parallels on as many as 21 Chrome OS devices, including Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.
The company also improved support for crucial apps such as Zoom and Webex.

Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS continues to improve, with a new rollout today including support for more processors and devices. The service now supports AMD Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 chips, which means even more new Chromebooks are supported. Alongside a selection of AMD devices, Parallels now supports 9 new Intel Chromebooks and Chromeboxes for a total of 12 new Chrome OS devices.

Here’s the list of newly supported Chromebooks:

HP Pro c645 Chromebook, AMD
Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook, AMD
Acer Chromebook Spin 514, AMD
Acer Chromebook 714, Intel
Acer Chromebook 715, Intel
Acer Chromebox CXI4, Intel
Dell Latitude 5300 2-in-1 Chromebook, Intel …

The Google Messages app had always been redesigned for the S21.

What you need to know

Samsung and Google have redesigned the Google Messages app on the S21 to match the aesthetic of other One UI apps even more.
It’s an extension of Google and Samsung’s messaging partnership and adds a new spaced out home page to the app.
Reports from users place this as a server-side upgrade, so it should appear on your phone once Google flips the switch.

Samsung earlier this year launched the Galaxy S21 with ‘native’ Google Messages integration and a new One UI-inspired design. It’s part of Google’s push to expand RCS (Google’s Chat service), and reposition Messages as an iMessage replacement on its most popular partner. Now, Google is redesigning the Messages app even more, making the home screen of Messages look a lot more like a One UI app (via XDA Developers. You’ll get the large bold text header with all interactive parts of the app being positioned a little bit below that and within thum…

Spotify isn’t just a music platform anymore.

What you need to know

Spotify today launched a new paid subscription service for podcasts.
It’ll enable podcasts to charge their listeners and keep their businesses sustainable.
Spotify will also let all podcasters keep 100% of their profits for the first two years.

Spotify is expanding its podcasting business today by actually turning it into a business. As had been expected, the company today announced that it would be launching support for paid subscriptions.

From today in the U.S., Spotify will be leveraging its Anchor ownership to extend monetization opportunities to creators. They’ll be able to upload subscriber-only episodes to Spotify and select other services. The company will sweeten the deal by allowing them to keep all their profits for the first two years, with a 5% take afterward.

You won’t be able to sign up in the app, however, with an external website being necessary to subscribe to your favorite creators.
Anchor…

These new settings are available now.

What you need to know

YouTube now offers new streaming settings on the mobile app.
The new settings include a high-quality setting, a data saver option, and an advanced option for defining your preferred resolution.
It’s widely available on Android via a server-side update.

Google is rolling out an update to the YouTube mobile app that’ll give you more control over the video quality (via Android Police). It’s a bit of a step-up from what users had before on phones, but it basically lets you decide how the YouTube app uses your mobile data.
Previously you could choose either “auto” or just choose the precise resolution you wanted, think 480p, 720p, or 1080p. Now, you have a more complex settings menu. This makes you able to choose auto, higher picture quality, data saver, or advanced. It’s a bit of a change, but it does put more power in the hand of the users, albeit needlessly complicating what used to be a simple thing.

Auto is the same…

Samsung lowers the bar, in a good way.

What you need to know

A new leak has revealed the Samsung Galaxy A22 5G, an upcoming phone from the South Korean company said to launch in June.
New renders show off a very familiar design.
While no pricing was shared, it is said to be positioned as Samsung’s cheapest 5G phone.

Samsung is preparing to launch yet another cheap phone, the Galaxy A22 5G. Set between the A21s and the A32, it’s rumored to be Samsung’s cheapest phone with 5G, so far. New renders from OnLeaks today give us a very good view of what could be one of the best cheap Android phones this year.

When it comes to looks, the design language will seem very familiar. It’ll have the same bezel-less Infinity V display that we’ve seen on the front of so many Samsung phones. On the rear, there’s a square camera bump housing what looks like three cameras. Samsung will slap a 3.5mm jack on the bottom and throw in a side-mounted fingerprint sensor for authentication, but that’s a…

It’s basically a Google Meet Lite on demand.

What you need to know

Google today rolled out a Google Meet update to its Android and iOS mobile apps.
The new update includes power and data saving measures to keep Meet light on your phone.
An earlier update this week saw the company redesign the web app to be more spacious.

Google today rolled out an update to Meet on Android phones and iOS devices that’s aimed at reducing data usage and power consumption when mobile. The company hinted at that upcoming update yesterday in a blog post alongside other broader improvements to Meet on the desktop including new video backgrounds, enhanced support for AI, and a more space conscious layout. While most of those updates will come over the coming months, the mobile release is available today.

Once this feature is engaged by flicking the new “Limit Data Usage” toggle, it’ll reduce data usage — probably by limiting resolution input and output. It’ll also free up your device’s CPU and RAM, …

Twitter is rolling this out to a limited number of people.

Update, Apr 21 (4 pm ET): 4K image support is rolling out for everyone

What you need to know

Twitter is testing two photo-related tweaks on mobile apps.
It’ll let users see how their photos will appear on the timeline as part of a change to the tweet composer.
The company will also enable higher quality uploads, allowing for the sharing of 4K pictures.

Twitter is testing out an improvement to how its mobile app handles photos on Android. In a limited test the company announced today, there’ll be changes made to both the tweet composer and image upload quality.

The composer will now display a more representative view of an image you plan to share pre-upload. That is to say, you’ll now see how it would appear in the timeline before you upload it.

The second is a small tweak that’ll let you see and view 4K pictures on Android and iOS. It’s a step up from the compressed images that users can share now, and it’ll presumabl…