Galaxy Nexus now on sale in Google Play

We started shipping Nexus phones more than two years ago to give you a pure Google experience and access to the latest Android updates. Today, we’ve started selling Galaxy Nexus (HSPA+) from a new Devices section in the Google Play web store, so you can quickly and easily purchase an unlocked version of the phone. We want to give you a place to purchase Nexus devices that work really well with your digital entertainment.

Galaxy Nexus by Samsung runs the latest Android software, Ice Cream Sandwich, with Google mobile services, Google Play and new features like Android Beam and Google+ mobile hangouts. It also offers a 4.65” HD Super AMOLED display that’s perfect for watching movies, playing games or reading books on the go.

First available in the U.S., Galaxy Nexus costs $399 and arrives at your door unlocked, without a carrier commitment or contract. You can use it on the GSM network of your choice, including T-Mobile and AT&T. It also comes pre-installed with the Google Wallet app which lets you easily make purchases and redeem offers with a tap of your phone. Best of all, we'll give you a $10 credit to get you started with your new mobile wallet.

We’ve come a long way since the first Android devices started hitting shelves three and a half years ago and since the launch of the first Nexus device. More than 300 million Android devices have been activated globally. We’ve worked with developers and content partners to launch Google Play, offering more than 500,000 apps, millions of songs and books, and thousands of movies. And we’ve implemented new customer support services to improve the purchasing experience on Google Play. We’ve taken all of this into consideration in designing Devices on Google Play. We hope to bring it to more countries soon.

Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

Chrome for Android Update

(Cross posted on the Google Chrome Blog)

Since we launched Chrome for Android Beta in February, we’ve been listening closely to all of your feedback (thank you!). It’s great to hear how so many of you love having the Chrome experience on your Android 4.0 phone or tablet.

With today’s update, Chrome for Android Beta is now available in 31 more languages and in all countries where Google Play is available. We’ve also added many much-requested features, including:

• You can now request the desktop version of a website, in case you would rather not view the mobile version.
• You can now add bookmarks as shortcuts on your home screen, so you can get to your favorite sites faster.
• Choose your favorite apps to handle links opened in Chrome.
• Have a proxy setup for Wi-Fi access? You can now use Chrome with the system proxy configured in Android settings.

If you build websites, you may want to take note of a change in the User-Agent specification for Chrome for Android.

If you haven’t already, you can install Chrome for Android Beta from Google Play on your Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) phone or tablet. As we're still in Beta, we look forward to your feedback so we can continue to improve Chrome for Android.

Posted by
Dan Alcantara and Oli Lan, Software Engineers on Chrome for Android

Google Currents goes international

In December we launched Google Currents, an app for Android and iOS devices that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger. We’re thrilled by how many readers and publishers are using the app in the U.S. -- nearly 400 publisher editions and over 14,000 self-produced editions are now available.

After the U.S. launch, the top features readers requested were to make the app available internationally and to allow content to sync quickly. We’ve heard you, and today we’re making Google Currents 1.1 available around the world. Hundreds of U.S. editions are now readable in your preferred language with a new publisher-selected translation feature, and local publishers can begin adding their content to the catalog through Google Currents Producer. Plus, a new dynamic sync feature improves your reading experience with fresh content wherever you are.

Whatever you’re interested in -- whether it’s science (Popular Science, Scientific American, Space.com), sports (Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, Surfer), business (Harvard Business Review, Inc.), celebrities (Celebuzz, HollywoodLife, Now magazine, TMZ), health & wellness (Men’s Health, Yoga Journal), design (Colossal, Dwell) or news (The Atlantic, PRI, Slate) -- it’s easy to find a great edition to read in Google Currents.

Read in more places

With this update, we’ve made Google Currents available globally, wherever apps are available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. International publishers, using Google Currents Producer, can now begin adding local content for an international audience, choosing where to make it available globally and whether to enable auto-translation. For example The Guardian in the UK, LaStampa in Italy, Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, ABC News in Australia, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland and Hindustan Times in India have already started publishing editions with local content. Readers can also add their favorite local blogs which are instantly converted into Currents editions.

Read in your favorite language

To help you enjoy content in your preferred language, we’ve integrated Google Translate into Google Currents. Just press the globe icon while reading an edition, and you can automatically translate that edition to one of 38 supported languages. So it’s easier than ever to keep up with Italian and German sports (Corriere dello Sport, kicker.de), or read Scientific American, in your preferred language.

Read fresh content, automatically

With our new dynamic sync feature, you’ll always have fresh content to read. As you open each edition, new content is dynamically delivered, using a minimum of your phone or tablet's battery, bandwidth and storage. Those of you who travel on planes and trains can choose which editions you would like fully packaged for offline reading, including images.

Learn more about what’s new in Currents here.

Google Currents is now available for download on Google Play and in the Apple App Store, wherever apps are available. Whether you’re a reader or a publisher, we hope that Google Currents helps you easily experience the best content on the web, now in even more languages.

Posted by Mussie Shore, Product Manager

Crossing the 50 billion km mark & giving Google Maps for Android a fresh look

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Every day, millions of people turn to Google Maps for Android for free, voice-guided GPS navigation to guide them to their destination. So far, Navigation on Google Maps for Android has provided 50 billion kilometers of turn-by-turn directions, the equivalent of 130,000 trips to the moon, 334 trips to the sun, 10 trips to Neptune or 0.005 light years! When getting to your destination matters most, Google Maps for Android will get you there:

A new look for Navigation on Android 4.0+ phones

In today’s release of Google Maps 6.5 for Android we’ve redesigned the Navigation home screen in Android 4.0+ to make it easier to enter a new destination or select from recent and favorite locations by swiping left or right.

Left: New Navigation home screen Right: Navigation in Google Maps for Android

Crisper, faster maps for high pixel density devices

If your device has a high pixel density screen, such as those on Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, Droid Razr and others, you’ll now get higher resolution map tiles that take better advantage of the pixels-per-inch on your screen. The result is a crisper, less cluttered map that is easier to read:

Left: Previous style Right:New style in Google Maps 6.5 for Android

Compare our new map on the right to the previous map on the left. The road network is easier to see, less obstructed by labels, and has more color contrast. At more zoomed-in levels, you’ll notice a more controlled amount of maps labels to avoid cluttering the map and blocking out street names. The new style also helps maps react faster to panning, zooming, and twisting.

You'll start seeing the new style as you navigate around new areas on the map; however, you can see these changes immediately by clearing your cache from the Maps settings.

Pick your preferred public transit mode and route option

Google Maps 6.5 for Android now lets you choose to prioritize a particular transit mode (such as the bus or subway) and route option (like taking the recommended route, one with fewer transfers or one with less walking). Whether you just need to get somewhere as fast as possible, or you want to avoid the risk of a missed connection or you prefer not to tire your legs, you can get the transit directions that best suit you. Transit directions and schedules are available for 475 cities around the world.

To start using Google Maps 6.5 for Android, download the update from Google Play. Learn more about how to use other great features of Google Maps for Android on the redesigned Google Maps YouTube channel that has 12 new videos available today.

Posted by Harlan Hile, Software Engineer

Google Voice for Android, now with Ice Cream Sandwich voicemail integration

(Cross posted on the Google Voice Blog)

Since we launched Google Voice back in 2009, we’ve supported visual voicemail so you could open the Google Voice app, see all your voicemails with text transcripts, and play them on-demand. But sometimes when I get a missed call, I don’t want to jump between my call log and the Google Voice app to see who has called me and what message they left.

So, today, we’re updating our mobile app so you can view and listen to your voicemails on demand directly from the call log on your Android phone. Your voicemails will appear alongside your outgoing, incoming, and missed calls in your phone’s call log and you can just simply touch them to play them. You can slow down the playback of the message which is great for when someone is telling you their callback number, or you even speed playback up, so you can quickly listen to longer messages.

To turn this feature on, download the latest app from Google Play and check “Voicemail display” under settings. This new feature requires Android 4.0+.

Posted by Yong-Hoon Choi, Software Engineer

A completely redesigned Google Search App for Windows 7.5 phones

(Cross posted on the Inside Search Blog)

Windows Phone owners can now get easy access to the Google Search App, available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Check out these features which help you get useful results fast:

• Google Autocomplete: As you type in your search, our autocomplete feature offers search predictions that often match your intended search term making search entry easier and faster.


• Voice Search: With our voice feature, you can avoid typing all together. Simply press the microphone and begin speaking your query.


• My Location: With your permission, Google can use your device location to provide nearby results easily and accurately. For instance, a search for “coffee shops” quickly displays the nearest places you can go to for a cup of coffee.

The new Google Search app now has Voice Search (left) as well as Google Autocomplete (right)

You can download the app from the Windows Marketplace and try it for yourself. It’s available worldwide in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Posted by Ryan Doherty, Software Engineer

Introducing Google Play: All your entertainment, anywhere you go

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Entertainment is supposed to be fun. But in reality, getting everything to work can be the exact opposite—moving files between your computers, endless syncing across your devices, and wires…lots of wires. Today we’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again.



With Google Play you can:

• Store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy millions of new tracks
• Download more than 450,000 Android apps and games
• Browse the world’s largest selection of eBooks
• Rent thousands of your favorite movies, including new releases and HD titles

Starting today, Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore will become part of Google Play. On your Android phone or tablet, we’ll be upgrading the Android Market app to the Google Play Store app over the coming days. Your videos, books and music apps (in countries where they are available) will also be upgraded to Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music apps. The music, movies, books and apps you’ve purchased will continue to be available to you through Google Play—simply log in with your Google account like always.

To celebrate, we’ll be offering a different album, book, video rental and Android app at a special price each day for the next week in our “7 Days to Play” sale. In the U.S., today’s titles include the collection of top 40 hits Now That's What I Call Music 41, the popular game Where's My Water, the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the movie Puncture for just 25 cents each. In addition, you'll find great collections of hip-hop, rock and country albums for $3.99 all week, detective novels from $2.99, some of our editorial team's favorite movies from 99 cents, and our favorite apps from 49 cents.

In the U.S., music, movies, books and Android apps are available in Google Play. In Canada and the U.K., we’ll offer movies, books and Android apps; in Australia, books and apps; and in Japan, movies and apps. Everywhere else, Google Play will be the new home for Android apps. Our long-term goal is to roll out as many different types of content as possible to people around the world, and we’ll keep adding new content to keep it fresh.

To learn more, head over to play.google.com/about or keep up with the latest on our Google+ page. If you’re headed to Austin later this week for South by Southwest, come to the Google Village to see Google Play in action. We can’t wait for you to try Google Play and experience a simpler way to manage your entertainment.

Posted by Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Digital Content