Greetings testers!
Google I/O brought us lot's of news around Android ecosystems but most of the things presented over there won't be available to everyone for quite a while. Some updates are scheduled for June while some things might not be released at all. Which feature are you waiting for the most?
What's new?
- 📲 Google I/O 2021 and what's coming next.
- 📲 Pinterest got a huge new feature available to everyone.
- 📲 Clubhouse is finally available on Android if you are still interested.
- 📲 A gaming-focused Opera GX browser beta becomes available on Mobile.
Google I/O 2021 and what's coming
This I/O was not the best one for me because I didn't manage to watch it fully. But at the same time, I collected a bunch of notes about Google apps highlighted during the presentation, that I will be waiting for to try.
Upcoming features to wait for 🔥
- Google Maps - Gonna have improved Live View features showing map object labels on physical places.
- Google Photos - will get a bunch of AI-based features that will cluster photos according to certain parameters so you will be able to take actions on them.
- Google Assistant - eventually will get an improved conversation model.
On another hand, there was a lot of news about Android 12 and its new theming feature. It is still not certain what kind of impact will it have on third party launchers but I would assume that a lot of them will implement new theming functionality and it will be better than the stock one.
Pinterest got a huge new feature available to everyone
The new Idea Pins feature is a big addition to this social platform. Being a mix of Instagram Stories and TikTok videos, it brings a new interesting user experience to this app.
A gaming-focused Opera GX browser beta becomes available on Mobile
I had to postpone sending this newsletter because I wanted to cover this story as well 🔥
If you are a hardcore Android gamer, you should give it a try. It seems that its discovery page is a bit focused on PC gaming but it looks acceptable. It seems that it is not possible to customise this section for now but probably it will change in future versions.
Clubhouse is finally available on Android if you are still interested
It is rolling out around the world and you very likely cat give it a try as well. It is still invite-only and it will take me a couple of minutes to invite myself from an iOS account but, I have much more interesting apps to test. Simply reply to this email if you are interested in a Clubhouse review so I can make it happen next time.
TestingCatalog Project
This week I was slightly revamping my news sourcing flow. The main point to experiment with is to focus on updates that were not covered anywhere else, before writing about things that I read about from other news sources.
In addition to this, I was trying to add more value to posts on the website with a tiny section called "How does it feel?". It is describing my personal experience in addition to feature description and how to test steps.
What do you think? 🤔
