Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe Hindy the android authority app guy and welcome back to another episode of Google Play weekly we have a whole bunch of news to get to this week so let's get to it first up this week we're going to talk about a huge update for google play services and a little bit about google fits let's do Google fit first because that's something that's been announced yet but it's not quite out yet with Google fit there will be a set of api's that let developers create more comprehensive fitness and health apps that work on phones tablets and wearables there will be fun features like heart rate monitor support on devices that support that and more but we won't know much more than that until it has been released oh and google owns a purified now so that's something that happened by far the bigger news is the google play services update to version 5.0 was a mammoth update that includes things like the ability to split payments between wallet and debit card app indexing wearable stuff mobile ads and in-app purchases updates google cast drive updates and a whole lot more arguably the biggest is the google play games update which now includes things like quests saved games and game profiles if you want to try out sailfish OS then maybe you should give Jolla launcher a try the application has begun alpha testing which means we can see a release sometime later this year if you have a nexus 4 or a nexus 5 you can get in on the ground floor of this all you have to do is email Jolla dash launcher at Jolla calm and they'll send you the link to try it out next week but you will have to submit bug reports and help out in return this could be really cool I'm one of those people who believes the more experiences that are available the better android is and if we get a sailfish OS experience than hell yeah why not at Google i/o this year a new standard design for applications was announced and it's called it material design and frankly it's pretty awesome some have said it looks a little too colorful and childish but frankly jelly bean and Ice Cream Sandwich had only two colors so a little extra color is nice the new design pays attention to the details a lot more and if you want a sneak peek as to what it'll look like just look at the Google+ app because that's pretty much the material design in action we're sure there will be more about material design as more apps get released so stay tuned because there will be more even though Google i/o is this week it did not get in the way of the usual Wednesday update for google apps and this week it was google search the update contained one glorious new feature and that's the ability to use the phrase ok Google on almost any screen you'll have to have google play services 5 point 0 which we talked about earlier but otherwise it seems to work well for those who have gotten it so far a nifty thing that was noticed was that there may be the ability to say ok Google with the screen off as long as the phone is plugged in and charging based on the wording of the instructions but that has not been confirmed yet in our last bit of news this week sid meier's civilization revolution 2 was announced and this time it's coming to android fans of the civilization games are currently jumping for joy because the first iteration made its way to iOS and even windows phone but not Android that will not be the case with the sequel is reportedly due out on july second on iOS and then according to reports soon afterward for android if you're a fan of the civilization games keep an eye out because we'll cover it when it lands so who wants to see some trending applications as usual if you want to check any of these applications out you can find the links in the briton companion which is in the video description below first up this week is the google cast receiver if you want a chromecast or you're someone who wants to cast to someone else's chromecast then you will need this application like i just said this allows you to cast your phone to a chromecast without being on the same Wi-Fi network as that chromecast it's free and that's always good next up is another application from google i/o and this time it's android TV remote app now this is fairly useless for right now until android TV becomes a thing that regular consumers can buy however if you do plan on getting an android TV or TV set-top box you'll probably want this application to turn your smartphone or tablet into a remote oh and it's also free hey it's about time Google slides finally came out with this the entire suite of Google powered office apps are now available if you use google drive to any extent you should probably have this app around just in case it's not a large download but you will need it to review presentations inside of Drive I've never been a big fan of turning one application that does everything into for single apps to do a lot of things but at least that process is now complete but we reviewed everything me launcher a while back and conclude it to be a competent and fun launcher not only has it received a recent update for things like stability improvements and events up for the World Cup but it's also now available worldwide if you live outside of the United States and you've been wanting to give this a try you can now get your hands on this free launcher speaking of launchers a v8 has finally left beta and it's been given a new branding as Yahoo a v8 launcher you no longer need an invite code to use the launcher and it's also been updated with some calendar add-ons and new favorite people feature and another new feature called daily delight which is sort of a sleep tracker it's free and it's finally available to all so go check it out once again I'm Joe Hindy from android authority calm don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow android authority myself or the rest of the video team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of Awesome videos for you to watch right over there including my review of everything me launcher as well as the google i/o keynote speech in under seven minutes finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below because that's where you're going to find all of the download links as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day