Google started rolling out voice search functionally for Chrome on the desktop earlier today, and now the company has revealed that the same feature is headed to iOS. Chrome for iOS will be receiving voice search in the App Store in the next few days.
Google has brought the new voice search features announced at Google I/O last week to its Google Chrome web browser for desktops. The latest version of the app (version 27) puts a little microphone icon alongside the search bar on Google.com which lets you find the things you’re looking for without touching your keyboard.
Apple began adding the Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement case against Samsung last week, and it has now specified five patents which it believes the device is breaching. The Cupertino company has also taken aim at Google Now, which allegedly infringes its unified search patent.
Despite increasing competition from the likes of Samsung and Google, Apple continues to be the world’s most valuable brand, according to the latest annual BrandZ report from Millward Brown.
The Cupertino company was one of three technology firms in the top five, with Google and IBM placed in second and third respectively.
Google Chrome’s app launcher, which lets Chrome users quickly find and launch their favorite web-based applications, is coming to Google Chrome for Mac OS X. Google has already begun work on porting the feature to Windows, but it’s also been found in the latest Chromium build for OS X.
Given that Google shows a lot of support for iOS with a number of popular apps, it’s quite a surprise that its new All Access music streaming service is only available on Android. That may change in the future, but for now, there is a third-party app that’ll let you use your All Access subscription on your iPhone.
It’s called gMusic, and it’s actually been around for just under 18 months. Until now, the app allowed users to access all the music they had uploaded to Google Music on their iPhone, but the app’s developer just submitted an update that’ll let you enjoy All Access, too.
It was just last Fall that Apple announced the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display but Apple is already facing some competition from the likes of Google’s Chromebook Pixel and now Samsung is getting in on the game.
This morning Samsung announced that it is manufacturing a 13.3-inch display that will have higher pixel densities than both the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and the Chromebook Pixel.
Turkey’s tablet loving Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been going on a tour of the U.S. in pursuit of the greatest tablet marker in the world to arm his students with. The prime minister visited Silicon Valley on May 18th to be briefed by the world’s best technology companies on their latest endeavors.
Erdoğan is looking to buy 10.6 million iPads for his country’s education new education project Faith. So far, Erdoğan was first greeted by Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, and then he paid visits to both Apple, Google.
Regarding his visit to the U.S., Erdoğan said:
There’s a lot of talk these days about Google Glass, Google’s new futuristic wearable computer that functions like a set of cyborg glasses, overlaying a HUD of Google products and search services over your life.
It certainly sounds impressive, and early reviews from the usual techno-nerds are positive. But what would Steve Jobs have thought of Google Glass?
He would have thought you were a dork for wearing one, and you needed to get laid.
This week on The CultCast: Google Maps gets prettier, smarter, and faster; Hangouts is a new chat app with some innovative features; Google Music is too late to party; Erfon eats H’orderves on a space jet with Tim Cook and Richard Branson; and Leander dons his powdered wig to judge an all new Faves ‘N Raves.
All that and more on this week’s CultCast! Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Show notes up next.
Earlier this week, Google beat Apple to the punch by launching a streaming subscription music service before Cuperino could unveil its own offering, iRadio.
How did Google managed to do it? Apple has all the music industry clout, so how could Google swing a deal first? Because Google Play Music All Access is essentially a clone of services like Rdio and Spotify, and the contract terms of services like that are easy to copy.
Apple’s iRadio? It’s a wholly different beast.
Well, we can’t say we’re too surprised with this one following this week’s leak, but it’s great to see Google Play game services has been officially confirmed at Google I/O this morning. The service will rival services like Game Center on iOS, and features will include cloud-based game syncing, online multiplayer, and more.
OK, so maybe not a huge surprise, but Google is said to launch a paid, subscription-based music service, like Rdio or Spotify, as soon as this week at the Google I/O conference, reports the Wall Street Journal.
According to “people familiar with the matter,” says the WSJ, the announcement of the new service could happen as soon as tomorrow, when Google hosts it’s annual I/O developer conference. The WSJ says that Google has previewed new music initiatives at I/O in the past, so it might just announce the streaming service there, as well.
Google I/O kicks off today, and one of the announcements you can look forward to is a new Google Maps service. Google accidentally teased major changes ahead of its official unveiling by opening up a new webpage that allowed users to request an invite to a new Maps service.
That page has now been pulled, but not before screenshots began making their way around the Internet.
Nearly three in every four smartphones sold during the first quarter of 2013 were running Android, according to the latest statistics from the analysts at Gartner. Google’s operating system grabbed a whopping 74% of the market share during the three-month period, while Apple’s iOS came in second with 18.2%.
Companies choosing to build Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Symbian powered devices might want to look away now.
The official SoundCloud apps for Android and iOS have today been updated to add support for Google+ Sign-In, allowing you to use your Google+ account in place of Facebook or Twitter. What’s more, there’s also support for Google+ sharing.
Google has been forced to hand over Android source code documents sought by Apple in an ongoing patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung.
The search giant initially argued that it was not required to give up the documents and that it would be too burdensome to collect them, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal in San Jose, California, has given the company two days to give them up.
Google Babel, the new communication service from Google, has been renamed Google Hangouts ahead of its public debut at Google I/O next week, according to an unnamed Google employee. Babel had been its name internally throughout the service’s development, but that moniker has now been dropped by Google.
Android doesn’t look like it’s about to lose any of its market share to competing platforms any time soon. During the first quarter of 2013, Google’s platform powered a whipping 59.9% of all smart mobile devices sold as total shipments hit 308.7 million units.
Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, was installed on just 19.3% of devices — despite the success of its iPhones and iPads.
An amicus curiae or amicus brief is when someone who is not a party in a lawsuit offers information that bears on the case but that has not been solicited by any of the parties. It’s used mostly as a way to make sure that various issues that wouldn’t otherwise come up are heard in court, in hopes against an overly broad legal ruling that might have widespread repercussions. Amicus curiae means “friend of the court.”
Got all that? Good. Maybe now you can understand Apple’s issue with Google trying to issue an amicus brief urging the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals to overrule Apple’s request for a sales ban on Samsung devices. Friend of the court? More like co-defendant.
Apple wants to see documents related to Android source code in its ongoing patent infringement suit against Samsung. The Cupertino company has asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal to force Google to hand over the information, which it is allegedly withholding improperly, Bloomberg reports.
Google has begun integrating its notification center into Chromium for Mac, paving the way for Google Now for OS X. The Chrome OS feature was first ported to Chromium and then Chrome Canary for Windows back in March, but this is the first time it has been spotted on Mac.
Despite being a bitter rival of Apple, Google still makes some of the best iOS apps on the planet. One of my biggest gripes against Google’s apps though has been if you click a link inside Gmail, it opens up a Safari browser version of YouTube or Google Maps rather than opening the app directly.
Google has finally fixed that big annoyance by adding link support to Gmail for YouTube, Google Maps, and Chrome. The free update was just pushed out to the App Store. Now when you click on those links, the corresponding app will open up. You can turn the feature off if you want, but users who live and die by Gmail will certainly appreciate this simple feature.
Here are the release notes on the update:
While Google Glass is already compatible with iPhone, some of its killer features — including turn-by-turn navigation and text messaging — require a companion app that’s currently only available on Android. But according to one Google employee, Glass will soon be able to offer these features no matter what device it’s connected to.
Google brought its intelligent Google Now service to iOS earlier this week with an update to the Google Search app, and for many, the feature works very well. For a lot of others, however, Google Now appears to be causing a significantly negative impact on battery life — as we reported on Wednesday.
Google has since responded to these reports, calling them “incorrect” and insisting that Google Now does not have a battery drain issue.