Latest news with #AndroidUsers
CNET
28-07-2025
- CNET
Google Revises Android Earthquake Alerts After Major Miss in Turkey
Google says it has updated its Android Earthquake Alerts System after the tool failed to deliver its most urgent warnings to millions of people during the devastating earthquakes in Turkey in 2023. The system, which turns Android phones into "mini seismometers," is designed to detect earthquakes quickly and push alerts to people nearby seconds before strong shaking hits, according to Google. But when two massive quakes struck southern Turkey and Syria in February 2023, the alerts system didn't send out its highest-level "Take Action" notifications to around 10 million people in the region, Google told the BBC. Instead, Android users received lower-level "Be Aware" notifications or nothing at all. Google didn't immediately respond to a request for further comment. The 2023 earthquakes were among the deadliest in the region's modern history, killing more than 50,000 people and displacing millions. Over 70% of phones in Turkey use the company's Android operating system. Apple's competing iOS software does not have a comparable built-in earthquake alert, relying on government warnings. Read more: How to Set Up Emergency Alerts on Your Phone Now How Google is revising its alert system In a paper published earlier this month by the journal Science, Google said it found "limitations to the detection algorithms" during the event. According to the company, the system underestimated the severity of the earthquakes and failed to trigger the top-tier warnings that tell people to take immediate cover. Google says it has since improved the detection algorithm and has resimulated the first Turkey earthquake with improved response results. How Google's alert system works Android's Earthquake Alerts System is available in more than 90 countries and uses tiny vibrations picked up by a phone's accelerometer to spot seismic activity faster than traditional monitoring stations alone. When enough phones detect shaking, Google's system estimates the quake's location, magnitude and impact zone, and then pushes alerts directly to people's screens. The idea is to buy precious seconds before strong shaking starts, hopefully providing enough time for people to drop to the ground, take cover or move to safer locations. The system has been credited with delivering early warnings during quakes in California, Greece and Japan. But the Turkey miss in 2023 highlighted the challenges of building a global warning system that relies on millions of phones and the high stakes when it gets things wrong. The earthquakes in Turkey were unusually complex, involving multiple fault ruptures and powerful aftershocks. This likely made accurate detection harder, but also underscores why timely alerts are so crucial. Read more: Tornadoes, Floods, Wildfires, Intruders: 4 Ways Your Phone Can Help in an Emergency Google says it's continuing to refine its earthquake technology and encourages Android users to keep the feature turned on. Earthquake Alerts is enabled by default on many Android phones, and you can check it under Safety & Emergency settings. With climate and seismic risks rising, mobile-based early warning systems can be a way to reach people faster than traditional sirens or broadcasts. However, Google warns the alert system is meant to complement -- not replace -- national earthquake warning systems.
Forbes
10-07-2025
- Forbes
Google Confirms Android Update—Is Your Phone On This List?
New update is critical for 1 billion users. While the monthly security updates from Google, Samsung and others drive headlines, there is a quieter process in the background which is just as important. Google updates the core system services underpinning Android, which helps secure your phone. Until now, updating these services has been fairly sporadic, with frequent reports of delays and phones lagging behind. Now Google is about to fix this, and for a billion Android users in particular, that's critical. Per 9to5Google, 'Google is now adding a new 'System services' settings page to manage all the background services installed on your Android device and more easily update them. This new 'System services' page will list all the services/applications (with most not having user interfaces) from Google that help keep your phone or tablet running.' As Android Authority explains, while 'most of these services are updated monthly, distinct from routine Android firmware updates,' doing so requires 'downloading the latest updates for most of these apps or services through the Google Play Store.' That will now change with this central update dashboard, which will ensure phones are current even if automatic Play Store updates are disabled. The risk has always been that 'some of these updates may get overlooked despite being crucial,' and 'also addresses the fact that your Android device is never truly up to date.' New system services update Courtesy of 9to5Google, the services that will be updated include: Critically, as pointed out by Android Authority, 'the System services dashboard is rolling out to devices running Android 6 Marshmallow or later.' This comes as warnings continue for the billion Android users running Android 12 or older, given Google no longer provides monthly security updates. The company has also updated its Play Integrity API to further differentiate Android 13 or newer. The numbers are stark. Below is the list of Android OS versions and market share between Android 6 and Android 12, all of which need this latest update in lieu of upgrading their hardware, which in reality should be a priority. Per Composables, this could particularly impact as much as half of the current install base, not yet running Android 13 or newer: Android Authority advises that 'this new dashboard is expected to accompany the Google System Services update for July 2025. On your Android device, head over to Settings > Privacy & Security > System services to view the list of internal services that keep all the features of your Android phone running smoothly.'
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Yahoo
The new Google Drive video player is here
Google Drive's new video player for Android phones has a modern layout with playback controls for easy viewing. Android users will now enjoy a more user-friendly video player based on Material You. Google has drastically improved Drive's multimedia capabilities, making it a better platform for watching videos. Google Drive is one of the best file storage solutions for on-the-go, cloud-based setups, but it's been stuck in the Stone Age for quite a long time when it comes to watching videos on the service. While you can store multiple terabytes of family videos, old school projects, and whatever your heart desires on Drive, it has been a notoriously difficult-to-enjoy app to watch them on. To Google's credit, it has done a lot over the years to improve its multimedia capabilities, including making videos searchable with a transcript feature, adding DASH transcoders for videos to improve loading times, and letting users watch videos immediately after uploading them. The company knows what Drive's shortcomings are, and it has taken a massive step towards making it a palatable solution for Android users to enjoy all of their clips on. Back in October, Google announced that it was giving Drive's video player a major splash of Material You in the relatively near future on the web version of the storage solution. For mobile users, the future is now, old man; Google is rolling out a smoother, more modern video player for Android phones. The layout has three large buttons for playback controls in the middle of the screen, buttons for captions, full screen mode, playback speed, and loop in the top right, and the scrubber at the bottom. Material You looks good in this form, and leads us to wonder why it took so long to implement it here. As for timing of its rollout, it is already available to Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. Realistically, Google Drive users on iOS devices don't have to worry about any sort of subpar video player or a visual upgrade. That's because when users on iPhones and iPads watch clips on Drive, they get kicked into an iOS or iPadOS-specific layout. For Android users, it wasn't until a deep dive into a March-based beta version of the Google Drive app that we recognized the prospect of this new video player. While many Android power users probably prefer to open videos on their phones through external media players like VLC for Android and RealPlayer, this upgraded look on Drive may keep more people from leaving the app when watching videos. It was a great evolutionary change for Drive on the Web back in late 2024, when Google finally upgraded from the YouTube-esque layout that had plagued Drive's visuals for a while. As a side note, that isn't to say YouTube's player layout is bad — far from it — but on Google Drive, it looks way out of place. Funnily enough, even as Drive's video player is looking less like YouTube than ever before across all platforms, Google announced that it was adding YouTube-style analytics for Drive video files in late May. It began rolling out to everyone on June 9.
Phone Arena
24-06-2025
- Phone Arena
Google might be cooking up something that'll feel oddly familiar to iPhone users
Google seems to be working on a new ecosystem feature that could finally bring true cross-device syncing to Android. Android's answer to Handoff is getting closer to reality The back-and-forth between Android and iOS is nothing new and this time, it is Google's turn to borrow an idea from Apple. According to a new report, Google is working on a feature similar to Apple's Handoff – and it could be available across all Android phones that have Google Play Services. The updated feature is designed for syncing across multiple Android devices, letting you do more than just share files. You will reportedly be able to sync notifications between devices (yes, finally beyond just Pixel and Galaxy phones), share media and even access apps from your primary device remotely on your other Android devices. If this sounds familiar, it is because Apple users already have something similar called Handoff. It allows tasks started in compatible apps to be picked up on another Apple device, as long as everything is signed in to the same iCloud account. Samsung has also done something like this with its own App Continuity setup, allowing file sharing, call answering, hotspot toggling and more between Galaxy devices. That said, the rollout for such a feature on Android is naturally slower. Unlike iOS, which only runs on Apple devices, Android has to work across tons of different brands, so tweaking cross-device features to fit them all takes a bit longer. Cross-device syncing could finally go Android-wide Google Play Services v25.25.31 beta includes the code hinting at the Handoff feature. | Image credit – Android Authority Evidence for the new Handoff feature was found in Google Play Services, which is a big deal – because it means this could be an Android-wide feature, not just something limited to Pixels or Samsung phones. If Google gets this right, the feature could, in theory, let you link a OnePlus phone, a Samsung tablet and a Pixel Watch and have them all work together – regardless of brand. Notifications, apps, media and files might all sync across your devices without needing to stay locked into one company's ecosystem. I say in theory because, of course, it is still early days, and we will have to see exactly how this all works once it officially rolls out. And if it does roll out, because Google has a history of testing features that don't quite hit the mark and ending up scrapping them. However, I am pretty sure this one won't be one of those. This is the kind of upgrade Android really needs I think features like Handoff are the kind of quality-of-life upgrades we should be seeing more often from big tech – not just another wave of flashy AI features, which have been dominating the conversation for well over a year now. And Google is actually in a good position to make that happen – it is behind Android, after all, the OS powering around 70% of smartphones globally. And to be fair, the company is clearly working on making Android better in real, everyday ways. And with Apple recently announcing iOS 26 – filled with subtle but very welcome quality-of-life improvements – it makes total sense that Google would want to highlight its own upgrades. This is a smart moment to remind users that Android is moving forward, too. Secure your connection now at a bargain price! We may earn a commission if you make a purchase Check Out The Offer
Forbes
31-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
WhatsApp Issues Urgent iPhone Countdown: Chats Stop In 24 Hours On These Phones
WhatsApp is ending support for a series of Apple and Android devices, beginning on Sunday, June 1. It had been thought the change would come early in June, but the respite is over. Here's the list of iPhones affected and what it means. Apple iPhones with older software are about to lose access to WhatsApp. If you have an iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, then first of all congratulations for holding out against the pressure to upgrade. But, secondly, commiserations, because your phone won't work with WhatsApp any more. That's because you need to have an iPhone that runs iOS 15.1 and later, and those phones can't handle software newer than iOS 14. If you want to continue to use WhatsApp, you'll need a newer iPhone (or iPad, now it's finally arrived on Apple's tablets). Android users are fine, providing your phone can run Android OS 5.0 and newer. The new software requirements have been announced by WhatsApp and the explanation is that 'Devices and software change often, so we regularly review what operating systems we support and make updates. Every year we look at which devices and software are the oldest and have the fewest users. These devices also might not have the latest security updates, or might lack the functionality required to run WhatsApp,' it says. To be fair to WhatsApp, support is only vanishing for iPhones that first went on sale more than 10 years ago, and which weren't sold by Apple for the last six years. And note the phrase 'Every year,' which tells us that if you have any iPhone newer than that, you're safe until next year at least. As noted by 9to5Mac, it had been reported that other iPhones would also be struck off, namely iPhone 16s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone SE 1st generation. However, this doesn't seem to be the case, providing, of course, you have updated the phone's software to later than iOS 15.1. This shouldn't be a problem as those phones are compatible with every version of iOS 15, including the recent iOS 15.8.1, a security update released a few weeks ago on March 31, 2025.
