Official Blog
News and notes from Android team
A classic watch with Android Wear: LG G Watch R
Thursday, November 6, 2014
With
Android Wear
you can choose the watch that best fits your personal style, then add your favorite apps to customize even further. This ability to make your watch your own is made possible by an amazing community of manufacturers and developers. And today we’re welcoming another exciting addition to the family: the
LG G Watch R
.
With a matte black stainless steel bezel, a leather strap, and a fully circular screen that’s the first of its kind, the LG G Watch R combines the timeless design of a traditional watch with the sensor-rich experience of Android Wear. It also includes a range of watch face styles that display beautifully on its P-OLED screen.
The LG G Watch R is available to buy now for $299 from
Google Play
and
AT&T
.
Posted by Jeff Chang, Senior Product Manager, Android Wear
The NBA, live on Android TV
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
2014 is shaping up to be an awesome year for professional basketball. Cleveland gets The Homecoming. Charlotte welcomes back the Hornets. And San Antonio tries to repeat as it goes for its sixth Championship. With the season only a few days old, you can now watch live NBA games on
Nexus Player
.
Our friends at the National Basketball Association have just released the NBA Game Time app on
Google Play
. In the United States, you can now follow your favorite teams and catch every pick, roll, dunk and long-range three, live with an NBA League Pass. While you’re at it, grab the Android apps for your other devices so you can cheer on your team from your couch, on your tablet in bed, and on your phone under your desk at work.
MLB.TV is also now available for Android TV on
Google Play
. With an MLB.TV Premium subscription, you can catch up on full-game archives and recaps from every 2014 regular-season and postseason game. And on April 6, you can watch Opening Day and follow the 2015 MLB season live (subject to blackout restrictions).
NBA Game Time
and
MLB.TV
are now live in Google Play. Get them for
Nexus Player
and stay tuned as we continue to build out our live sports offering on Android TV.
Posted by Serge Kassardjian, Android Media Partnerships Lead
Designing the perfect Lollipop.
Monday, November 3, 2014
If you’re like me, you jump between a number of different devices throughout the day—reading a magazine on your tablet, checking the time on your watch, chatting with your friend on the phone, even plotting your route in the car. More and more, our screens work together, each helping make your life a little bit easier. But if design is the way they communicate with us, it often feels like each one is speaking a different language. That’s why we
unveiled material design
earlier this year: one consistent design language flexible enough to span devices across mobile, desktop, and beyond. Design is a major focus for
Lollipop
—the latest version of Android—which begins to roll out today.
Material design: tactile surfaces, bold graphic design, fluid motion
When you think about mobile, an important aspect is the feel of the devices in your hand. Because of this, touch is one of the primary elements of material design, which is inspired by real life materials like paper and ink.
With material design we also based our work on the foundations of good graphic design, using strong colors and bold typography to create clear hierarchy and focus attention on content.
Motion brings the material and the graphic together, explaining how the system works, and adding moments of delight that move you through the system, easily and fluidly.
Extending material design throughout the apps you love
A number of apps that you know and love have been working hard to build material design into their framework. It is important that every app be able to take on its own unique personality and experience while fitting in the larger system. A few of our favorites are launching updates shortly:
The Wall Street Journal, Tumblr and BuzzFeed with material design.
Bringing the design conversation to you
While we first introduced material design this summer, today’s updates are just the beginning of delivering a modern design language for the next wave of devices in your life. It’s a conversation we’d like to keep going. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be gathering some of the best design thinkers from around the industry at
FORM
, a cultural event for wide-angle design conversation. And we’ll be continuing the conversation with you online, on
Google+
and
Twitter
and at
google.com/design
. We look forward to working with you to help push the limits on what’s possible through design.
Posted by Nicholas Jitkoff, Designer
Browse, skim, study your favorite nonfiction books more easily with Google Play
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Have you ever had breakfast for dinner? Or checked the score of the big game before you watched it? Traditional ebook reading is great when you want to read books from start to finish—but what if you want to skim through recipes; jump between questions and answers, researching a topic; or read chapters out of order? Today we’re launching a new version of the Google Play Books app for Android phones and tablets with a redesigned reading experience that’s optimized for nonfiction books. This new reader lets you easily skim an entire book, browse all your notes and highlights, and quickly jump back and forth between different spots. And it’s still great for fiction ebook reading, too.
Imagine you’re cooking two recipes from the same cookbook— roast chicken and bruschetta from
Around the Table
. No problem. Take a peek at the new table of contents view to skip straight to the “Bountiful Tuscan Feast” chapter. Once you’ve found your recipes, you can easily jump between them using new Quick Bookmarks.
When you’re planning your next trip, pick up a
Fodor’s travel guide
and use Skim Mode to browse the whole book and get a sense of which destinations you want to be sure to visit. Bookmark your favorite spots for easy finding later.
If you’re a student, you can highlight text and take notes while you’re reading, then refer back to them later with Skim Mode—the perfect study buddy.
Of course, all the things you loved about Google Play Books before are still here:
Tap on any location name in a book to get a Geo Card with links to access Google Maps, Wikipedia or Web Search
Tap and press on any word to look it up in the dictionary
Select text to highlight in four colors, take notes or translate from any language
Don’t lose your place! Your reading position is synchronized across all your devices: phone, tablet and web
Ebook reading has always been great for getting lost in a well-crafted story (in the dark using night mode is my favorite!), but now it’s a good fit for any type of book. Visit the Google Play store to have a look for yourself—just add any free sample to your library to start reading. Plan a trip, prepare a meal, research a topic or study for an exam—we’ve got you covered with the new reader app for Google Play Books.
Posted by Scott Dougall, director of product management for Google Play Books
Movie night made better with the new Google Play Movies & TV app
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
After a long day, you want to sit back, kick up your feet and watch a hot new release. With today’s updated Google Play Movies & TV app for Android, your dinner and a movie—at home—is about to get a lot better.
Now when you cast your favorite movie or show to your TV using Chromecast or the new Nexus Player, you’ll get actor or soundtrack cards on your phone or tablet while you are watching, with extra information about what’s playing on screen. Next time you’re burning to know where you’ve seen that actress before, or want to remember a song for later, you don’t have to hit pause or fumble with your controller. It’s at your fingertips—just like your popcorn. Look for the Info Cards badge on the Google Play store to find movies and TV shows that offer this feature.
Google Play Movies also has a new look and feel inspired by Google’s
material design
with bigger images and smoother transitions. And the redesigned “Watch Now” tab makes the experience of finding a movie as pleasant as watching the movie itself. Now you’ll see more movie recommendations in Watch Now, and you’ll be able to watch a trailer directly in the app.
The new Android app will rollout to everyone over the next week. We hope this update helps make your living room closer to the at-home theater of your dreams. Cue the opening credits!
Posted by Ben Serridge, senior product manager for Google Play Movies & TV
Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
When it comes to improving our fitness, every little effort counts. That’s why we’ve created
Google Fit
– a fitness app that helps you to start tracking your activity effortlessly and become more active, aware and motivated.
Google Fit uses sensors already built in to your Android phone to automatically detect walking, biking and running. And you can set and monitor your fitness goals based on your activity levels. It’s a great tool to discover how active you are and check in on your progress as you work on your fitness goals. In fact, you can check in just about anywhere, including your
phone
,
the web
,
tablet
and Android Wear devices.
You can also connect your favorite fitness devices and apps like Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach to Google Fit and we’ll surface all of the relevant data in one spot, giving you a clear and complete view of your fitness. No need to check one app to see your weight and another to review a run – with Google Fit, that data will all be surfaced in one, simple place.
Just keep your Android phone with you and we’ll make sure your activity counts – whether you’re cycling up steep hills, going for a morning jog or walking the dog.
Google Fit is available starting today on
Google Play
for devices running Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich and above.
Sabrina Ellis, Director, Product Management, Android
A sweet Lollipop, with a kevlar wrapping: New security features in Android 5.0.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
With each new release of Android, we try to stay two steps ahead of the bad guys. When it comes to security, Lollipop is the biggest update for Android to date. From the moment you turn on a device running Android 5.0, you’ll have a wealth of new security features protecting you, like encryption by default and a lock screen that’s easier and more powerful than ever.
The simplest way to stay safe is now even easier
What’s the simplest way to keep the data safe and secure on your mobile device?
Use a screen lock!
Lost and stolen devices are the number-one security issue affecting smartphone users. Still, a lot of people using mobile devices don’t use a pin or password because it takes too long to unlock, dozens of times per day. We’re making it easier than ever with Smart Lock, which lets you tell your phone to unlock using Bluetooth pairing, NFC, or simply your smile—faster than before. Plus, you can allow certain notifications to be accessible from the lock screen, helping you quickly get at the information you need while still keeping your device protected.
More secure, from the first time you turn it on
People use safes and combination locks to protect their physical goods. With digital information, encryption acts like a safe to protect your information from thieves and snoops. That’s why we’ve worked hard to provide this added security for our users, which will now be the default from the moment you power on a new device running Lollipop, keeping your data safer without needing you to fiddle around in the settings. Full device encryption occurs at first boot, using a unique key that never leaves the device. This is the safest way to encrypt your device, which is why it’s how we’ve built encryption on Android since it first launched three years ago.
SELinux, making Android secure enough for the most demanding customers
Android has had a strong application sandbox since the very beginning; Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) pushes enforcement of the Android security model further into the core of the OS and makes it easier to audit and monitor so there's less room for an attack. With Android 5.0, SELinux Enforcing mode is required for all applications on all devices. Multiple vulnerabilities have been prevented since we first introduced SELinux last year; by strengthening it even more, Android becomes a top choice for enterprise customers that have really strict security standards, such as the government. This is a feature that the broader security community helped us build, and is an example of
how Android’s open nature helps make your device more secure every day
.
There are a number of other
features
that were added to the platform to keep your devices secure. So, not only is Lollipop is the sweetest update of Android to date, we also built in a rigid (security) Lollipop stick for the core and and kevlar wrapping on the outside—to keep you safe from the bad guys, inside and out. Posted by: Adrian Ludwig, Lead Security Engineer, Android
Update:
In September, we announced that all new Android Lollipop devices would be encrypted by default. Due to performance issues on some Android partner devices, we are not yet at encryption by default on every new Lollipop device. That said, our new Nexus devices are encrypted by default and Android users (Jelly Bean and above) have the option to encrypt the data on their device in Settings ---> Security ---> Encryption. We remain firmly committed to encryption because it helps keep users safe and secure on the web.
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