Android Oreo is Google's new mobile OS

We finally have a name for Google's latest mobile operating system: Android Oreo.

Android Oreo, previously codenamed Android O, was announced in March. The software has been in preview for a few months so developers could update their apps.
Android Oreo will first be available on Google devices, including the Pixel and Nexus lines. The launch date has not yet been announced.

The new operating system name continues Google's tradition of naming its Android updates after sweets. Previous names include Nougat, Marshmallow, and Lollipop.
This isn't the first time Google has partnered with a brand. It teamed up with Kit Kat in 2013 to launch a version of the same name.

Google unveiled the name Android Oreo to the public during the total solar eclipse on Monday.
The company also confirmed to CNN Tech that there will be a limited run of Android-themed cookies from Oreo.

The new OS will include updates to what Google (GOOG) calls "vitals," including battery and security improvements. For example, Google Play Protect is an anti-malware feature that alerts you when you have a malicious app on your phone.
App badging is also coming to Android Oreo so you can see pending notifications. The notification panel itself has received a slight redesign. New emoji will also be available with an updated look: It's tiny icons more in line with Apple's.

Meanwhile, you'll be able to watch videos while using other apps on your phone or tablet with its picture-in-picture feature.

There's no official date for when other Android-powered devices will receive the update. According to Google's numbers, most Android devices -- about 85% -- aren't even on Android Nougat, last year's release.

Android is notoriously slow at rolling out device updates because of the number of manufacturers, phone carries and other third-party companies involved in seeing through a new release. But Google said Android Oreo and future versions will get new updates faster.

Apple's latest mobile update -- iOS 11 -- is expected to launch this fall. It will feature peer-to-peer payments, upgrades to Siri, new Live Photo effects and a way to block notifications while driving.

Kotlin on Android. Now official

Today, at the Google I/O keynote, the Android team announced first-class support for Kotlin. We believe this is a great step for Kotlin, and fantastic news for Android developers as well as the rest of our community. We’re thrilled with the opportunities this opens up.

For Android developers, Kotlin support is a chance to use a modern and powerful language, helping solve common headaches such as runtime exceptions and source code verbosity. Kotlin is easy to get started with and can be gradually introduced into existing projects, which means that your existing skills and technology investments are preserved.

Starting now, Android Studio 3.0 ships with Kotlin out of the box, meaning Android developers no longer need to install any extras or worry about compatibility. It also means that moving forward, you can rest assured that both JetBrains and Google will be supporting Android development in Kotlin.

In case you are concerned about other platforms that Kotlin supports (Kotlin/JVM for server and desktop, Kotlin/JS and Kotlin/Native), please be sure that they are as important for us as ever. Our vision here is to make Kotlin a uniform tool for end-to-end development of various applications bridging multiple platforms with the same language. This includes full-stack web applications, Android and iOS clients, embedded/IoT and much more.

Programming languages are just like human ones: the more people speak a language, the better. First-class support on Android will likely bring more users to Kotlin, and we expect the community to grow significantly. This means more libraries and tools developed in/for Kotlin, more experience shared, more Kotlin job offerings, more learning materials published, and so on. We are excited to see the Kotlin ecosystem flourish!

We will be partnering with Google to create a non-profit foundation for Kotlin. Language development will continue to be sponsored by JetBrains, and the Kotlin team (over 40 people and second largest team at the company) will operate as usual. Andrey Breslav remains the Lead Language Designer, and Kotlin will be developed under the same principles as before. We’ll keep our design processes open, because your feedback is critical for us in moving Kotlin in the right direction.

If you’re at Google I/O, make sure you stop by one of the Kotlin talks on the schedule. And of course, don’t forget to register for KotlinConf in San Francisco in November. It will be an amazing event!

A Big Thank You!

When we started the journey with Kotlin over 6 years ago, we aimed at creating a language that would be in line with the same principles that drive our tools – create something that helps developers with the tedious and mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on what’s truly important. And of course make the process as enjoyable and fun as possible.

We want to thank Google and the Android team for their trust in Kotlin, but above all we want to thank you, our community, our users. Without you Kotlin wouldn’t be where it is today. Thank you for accompanying us during this journey and we hope you join us for the exciting road ahead.

Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve prepared answers to a series of questions that you may have in regard to this announcement. If your question is not covered, please feel free to ask us in the comments. If you are new to Kotlin, make sure you check out the FAQ on the web site where you can learn more about the basics.

Is Kotlin going to become primarily focused on Android?

One of Kotlin’s goals is to be a language that is available on multiple platforms and this will always be the case. We’ll keep supporting and actively developing Kotlin/JVM (server-side, desktop and other types of applications), and Kotlin/JS. We are working on Kotlin/Native for other platforms such as macOS, iOS and IoT/embedded systems.

How does this impact Kotlin’s release cycles?

Kotlin will continue to have its own independent release cycle from that of Android or Android Studio. The projects remain completely independent. Obviously there will be close collaboration between the product teams to make sure that Kotlin is always working correctly in Android Studio.

Who’s going to work on the Android Studio plugin?

JetBrains will continue to work on the Android Studio plugin, collaborating closely with the Android Studio team.

Will this affect the support for IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse or Netbeans?

No. Kotlin continues to be a language that targets multiple platforms and support for other IDE’s will continue to be provided as before. Obviously emphasis will be placed on IntelliJ IDEA with hopefully community contributions on the other ones.

Will this affect support for macOS or iOS?

No. We still have plans to support both of these systems with Kotlin/Native and nothing has changed in this regard.

Is JetBrains going to be acquired by Google?

No. JetBrains has no plans of being acquired by any company. JetBrains is and continues to be an independent tool vendor catering to developers regardless of their platform or language of choice.

3 TIPS FOR SECURING YOUR ANDROID DEVICE

Recently, we asked you, our valued readers, to tell us which topics you would like to see on AndroidPIT in the future. The results showed that about 90% of you were interested in learning more about security and privacy. With that in mind, here are three things you can do today to make your Android device more secure.

• Our review of the Telegram messenger
• Is antivirus software really necessary for Android? 

1. Encrypting your device

Encryption is a process which encodes your private data on a device, so that it can't be read by anyone unauthorized. Once you encrypt your Android smartphone, any new data becomes encrypted automatically. Decrypting takes place automatically for you as well.

Android has two methods for encrypting your device:

Full disk encryption on Android (5.0 and up)

According to Google, "full-disk encryption uses a single key—protected with the user’s device password—to protect the whole of a device’s userdata partition. Upon boot, the user must provide their credentials before any part of the disk is accessible." This is secure, but when you reboot your phone, your data isn't accessible until your credentials are entered. Which means, things like alarm notifications and phone calls can't take place.

File-based encryption on Android (7.0 and up)

For those who have Nougat already, Android's file-based encryption "allows different files to be encrypted with different keys that can be unlocked independently." With the Direct Boot function, devices can "boot straight to the lock screen, thus enabling quick access to important device features like accessibility services and alarms."

2. Secure messaging on Android

The Secure Messaging Scorecard by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a great resource for evaluating all the complex ways a messaging service can be secured or unsecured. There are a lot of factors to take into account, and if you're not a security expert, you may not have considered something like whether or not your messages were encrypted during transit. Nevertheless, these details are still very important. 

Their scorecard evaluates messengers based on the following criteria:

• Encrypted in transit?    
• Encrypted so the provider can’t read it?    
• Can you verify contacts’ identities?    
• Are past comms secure if your keys are stolen?    
• Is the code open to independent review?    
• Is security design properly documented?    
• Has there been any recent code audit?

With these factors in mind, there are many apps which meet all the criteria on the scorecard. Since security and usability are often at odds with each other, some apps which meet these criteria aren't the most user-friendly or widely adopted.

For both security and usability, I recommend the average person to try Signal for secure communications. It's user-friendly and popular among the security-conscious crowd.

3. Enable Two-factor Authentication on everything

Two-factor authentication, also called two-step verification, requires two authentication methods, like passwords, PIN numbers, fingerprints or physical access to your cell phone. This method of securing your accounts works on many services, and you may already have used it with your online banking platform. 2FA, as it is sometimes known, even works with various social media platforms to prevent other people from hijacking your online identity. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have the feature. Major payment platforms like PayPal and cloud storage services like Dropbox also usually support 2FA. And, very importantly, you should enable it on your Google Account as well.

What other security topics are you interested in? Have you tried any of the above methods before?

'Over 1 million Google accounts breached by Android malware Gooligan'

A new variant of an Android malware called "Gooligan" is believed to have breached the security of over one million Google accounts.

According to security firm Check Point Software Technologies, the malware roots Android devices and steals email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them.

This can give attackers access to users' sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite, it said.

"This theft of over a million Google account details is very alarming and represents the next stage of cyber- attacks. We are seeing a shift in the strategy of hackers, who are now targeting mobile devices in order to obtain the sensitive information that is stored on them," Check Point's head of mobile products Michael Shaulov said.

No immediate comment could be received from Google on the matter.

Check Point's report said the malware campaign infects 13,000 devices each day and that Gooligan targets devices on Android 4 (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and 5 (Lollipop), which represent nearly 74 per cent of Android devices in use today.

About 40 per cent of these devices are located in Asia and about 12 per cent are in Europe.

After attackers gain control over the device, they generate revenue by fraudulently installing apps from Google Play and rating them on behalf of the victim, the report said.

"Every day Gooligan installs at least 30,000 apps on breached devices, or over 2 million apps since the campaign began," it added.

The infection begins when a user downloads and installs a Gooligan-infected app on a vulnerable Android device, or by clicking on malicious links in phishing attack text messages.

Check Point said it has reached out to the Google security team immediately with information on this campaign.

"We appreciate Check Point's partnership as we've worked together to understand and take action on these issues. As part of our ongoing efforts to protect users from the Ghost Push family of malware, we've taken numerous steps to protect our users and improve the security of the Android ecosystem overall," Google's director of Android security Adrian Ludwig was quoted as saying.

Among other actions, Google has contacted affected users and revoked their tokens, removed apps associated with the Ghost Push family from Google Play, and added new protections to its Verify Apps technology.

Check Point?s Mobile Research Team first encountered Gooligan's code last year and in August this year, the malware reappeared with a new variant and has since infected at least 13,000 devices per day.

Check Point is offering a free online tool that allows users to check if their account has been breached.

"If your account has been breached, a clean installation of an operating system on your mobile device is required. For further assistance, you should contact your phone manufacturer or mobile service provider," Shaulov said.

New Google phone comes with suite of 'smart' technology

Google has unveiled its new smartphone along with a suite of new hardware products that work together and make use of the company's personal assistant software.

At a product launch in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company officially announced the Pixel phone, the Daydream View virtual reality headset, the Chromecast Ultra streaming device and the Google Home smart speaker.

None of these devices are unique to Google, and the tech giant faces stiff competition from established companies like Apple and Sony.

But Google is gambling that the deep well of data it has accumulated about people through its search engine and online software puts it in the best position to leverage emerging technologies for individual consumers.

"Our goal is to build a personal Google for each and every user," CEO Sundar Pichai said. "We want to build a Google for each user."

Pixel phones

The Pixel phone marks the company's most aggressive challenge yet to Apple and Samsung.


Google has released a series of its own phones, dubbed Nexus, since 2010. Those phones had limited distribution and were typically embraced by Google purists. Now, the company is casting aside the Nexus name as it aims to become an even more prominent player in the mobile market.

Described as "the first phone made by Google inside and out," it comes with a voice-activated, built-in personal assistant.

Assistant, Google's answer to Apple's Siri, listens to voice commands and performs tasks, such as playing music or making restaurant reservations. It links directly to a user's Google account so it can access things like email and calendars to provide a personalized experience. 

Pixel is available for preorder in Canada for $899 or $1,149 for the larger version.

Google Home

Google is ready to start selling its echo of Amazon's Echo.

Googe Home is an internet-connected speaker that uses Assistant to transform your abode into a smart home.

It will be able to perform many of the same tasks as Echo, including playing music and fielding questions about everything from the weather to what's playing at the local theatre.

But Google is betting that the knowledge that it has gained while running the world's dominant search engine will make the computer-powered assistant in Home smarter than Echo's Alexa, which has been on the market since 2014.

Amazon Echo challenges Toronto's Ubi voice assistant

Home will also be able to control lights, appliances and other devices around the house, assuming you've installed "smart" versions of them.

And like most of Google's new hardware, Home will work closely with other Google devices. For example, if you have a Chromecast streaming device, you can use Home to control video on your TV.

Home will cost $129 US ($170 Cdn).

Daydream View

The company also gave us a look at its virtual reality headset Daydream View, which comes with a small remote and slate of exclusive content.

The new wireless motion controller for Daydream can function like a fishing rod, a steering wheel or a pointer to permit more sophisticated VR experiences.

The headset is paired with any Daydream-ready phone. For the time being, that exclusively means Pixel, but Google says more compatible phones will roll out. 

Daydream is a challenge to more sophisticated systems from Facebook's Oculus business, HTC and Sony.

Google says 50 partners are bringing apps and games to Daydream, with more on the way. Google services such as photos, YouTube and Street View maps will also come to Daydream.

The Daydream View will hit shelves in November for $79 US ($104 Cdn).

Chromecast Ultra

Google is updating its Chromecast video-streaming device for watching Netflix and other online video on big screens.

The new device, Chromecast Ultra, will support a higher-resolution format called 4K and work in concert with Google Home. 

Google is facing competition with low-end devices. Roku just announced a $30 Express model that's about the size of a finger, while Amazon just updated its $40 Fire TV Stick. Both of those devices come with a remote, making them suitable stand-alone gadgets. But neither streams in 4K.

What you need to know about 4K TV

Wi-Fi router

The new Google Wi-Fi system will be modular — just add new components based on how your home and rooms are shaped. Software will help manage the various access points for you as you move around.

It will cost almost $130 ($171 Cdn) for the main device. A three-pack for larger homes will cost about $386 Cdn.

New devices could help Google keep its services front and centre in the battle for consumers' attention, said analyst Julie Ask at Forrester Research.

Unlike a new mobile app or other software, she noted, it can be an expensive gamble to build and ship new hardware products. "But if you're Google, you can't afford to stop placing bets."​

Everything you need to know about Google Allo

The very best by Google is here! If you have been jostling to find one resource that provides consolidated information about the newly launched Google Allo, Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered messaging app that was announced alongside Duo, during its annual I/O event in May, this year, here we are.

There are several apps connecting people to their contacts – ranging from the most popular, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, to Hike, Hangouts and Viber, to name a few, Google decided to enter the market with its revolutionary and more personalized new messaging app that boasts artificial intelligence system, as well as other new features such as end-to-end encryption, voice messages, and sticker packs.
So, what is the app all about and how it is different from existing messenger applications that you have on your smart devices? Let’s find out:

Google Allo signup and account creation

Just like our very own Whatsapp, the process to sign up on Allo is pretty simple. It uses your mobile number, so you can use it to send instant messages to anyone in your phonebook, along with other Allo users. You can also sync your Gmail account with the app, and keep track of mails and important meetings with built-in AL powered by Google Assistant, the assistive technology. This feature makes it unique.

App interface and design

Google is known to keep the interface of all their products user-friendly. Regular Google users would not take long to figure out app’s interface, settings and features. The overall interface is pretty basic and seamless for any user to get acquainted to.
"Allo is a smarter messaging app, with machine intelligence and our natural language processing advances from search," explains Fulay. "Smart reply – which we first built for Inbox gives real time suggestions to quickly reply to a message based on your responses, and it learns over time."

Security

You can also use Allo in incognito mode, where your text messages will not be logged and the chat gets fully encrypted. However, this also restricts some smart features. To combat this problem, Allo plans to keep only temporary message logs, in order to improve the Google Assistant and Smart reply features. Allo offers an Incognito Mode, which means you get to access not only end-to-end encrypted messages but also value added features like expiring chats and private notifications. Benefit? You can keep all yours messages safe, as well as control how and when to permanently delete them from your device. Basically, you get additional controls over the privacy of your chats.

Smart Reply

One of the well-noted, distinctive features of Allo is its ability to send smart replies. "I actually miss this when I'm not using Allo," adds Fulay. "If I use any other messaging app I miss this because it really keeps the conversation going."
However, smart replies can take a week of training for someone to make the most of this feature. Fulay also demonstrated smart replies to show how they work effectively. He shows us how it responds to a picture and a number of common messages by offering a suitable and quick response.

Google Assistant

Finally, Siri like experience for Android users! If you have used chat bots like Slack, it won’t take you much time to get acquainted with the in-built virtual assistant that Allo has to offer.  You can call on Google Assistant at any time just by typing "@google" in Allo. For example, if you and your friend are making plans to visit a Chinese restaurant in your area, you can simply type in your query in the chat window to bring up these results. Google Assistant will proactively suggest options to your queries at the bottom of the app's messaging window. That means you no longer have to leave your messaging app to do a quick Google search for your favourite restaurants, Coldplay concert details, movie time and so on. You can simply copy the information from the bottom window to your chat window and share it with your friends. Allo's Google Assistant can get everything done in the app itself. During the launch of the app in May, Sundar Pichai, Google CEO said, “Think of the assistant, we think of it as a conversational assistant, we want users to have an ongoing two-way dialogue.”

Why would you use Google Allo?

You might want to give it a try for the amazing set of new and powerful features that this messaging app has to offer. Most distinctive features have been described above…and all of it is available totally free of cost.

Google Glass 2.0 is real, and here are photos to prove it

The next generation of Google Glass, Google's head-mounted wearable display, is the real deal.

A filing to the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. government body that must review and approve personal electronics like phones and wearables, reveals photos of the device's external design, along with internal circuitry (see below) and also a basic user manual. The filing also includes a statement on company letterhead authorizing a third party to help get Google through the FCC's authorization process.

A new edition of Google Glass signals a possible new direction for the company's stalled and stagnant wearable, especially if it winds up in use as a business tool rather than as product for everyday buyers, as blog 9-to-5 Google reports.

Named as model GG1 on the FCC documents, the device appears to hew closely to the original Google Glass Explorer Edition. In other words, it will look like a set of eyeglass frames with a screen floating above your eye.

A previous patent from November depicts a version of Glass that looks like a squiggle of a device that would hug only half your head. Google apparently isn't ready for that future of Glass yet.

Unconfirmed rumors from 9-to-5 Google and The Wall Street Journal suggest that the new edition of Google Glass will have a larger prism, a sturdier design and include an Intel Atom processor. It could sell directly to businesses.

Google Glass has had a rough ride so far. Launched in 2012 for developers and then in 2013 for buyers, Google Glass was widely received as expensive and invasive, the latter because people feared they were being photographed or recorded without knowledge or permission. Google stopped selling its first Glass edition in January 2015.

Android N Developer Preview 2 Includes New Vulkan 3D Rendering API

Among the top new features of the recently released Android N Developer Preview 2 is Vulkan, a new 3D rendering API which Google helped to create as a member of the Khronos Group.  

Vulkan is a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in a wide variety of devices from PCs and consoles to mobile phones and embedded platforms. 

For developers, it offers a significant boost in performance for draw-call heavy applications. Vulkan’s reduction of CPU overhead allows some synthetic benchmarks to see as much as 10 times the draw-call throughput on a single core as compared to OpenGL ES. 

Combined with a threading-friendly API design, which allows multiple cores to be used in parallel with high efficiency, this offers a significant boost in performance for draw-call heavy applications.

Vulkan support is available now via the Android N Preview on devices which support it, including Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P.  According to a recent blog post, the Android team reports there are many similarities between OpenGL ES and Vulkan, but Vulkan offers these new features for developers:

- Application control of memory allocation: Vulkan provides mechanisms for fine-grained control of how and when memory is allocated on the GPU. This allows developers to use their own allocation and recycling policies to fit their application, ultimately reducing execution and memory overhead and allowing applications to control when expensive allocations occur.

- Asynchronous command generation: In OpenGL ES, draw calls are issued to the GPU as soon as the application calls them. In Vulkan, the application instead submits draw calls to command buffers, which allows the work of forming and recording the draw call to be separated from the act of issuing it to the GPU. By spreading command generation across several threads, applications can more effectively make use of multiple CPU cores. These command buffers can also be reused, reducing the overhead involved in command creation and issuance.

- No hidden work: One OpenGL ES pitfall is that some commands may trigger work at points which are not explicitly spelled out in the API specification or made obvious to the developer. Vulkan makes performance more predictable and consistent by specifying which commands will explicitly trigger work and which will not.

- Multithreaded design, from the ground up: All OpenGL ES applications must issue commands for a context only from a single thread in order to render predictably and correctly. By contrast, Vulkan doesn’t have this requirement, allowing applications to do work like command buffer generation in parallel -  but at the same time, it doesn’t make implicit guarantees about the safety of modifying and reading data from multiple threads at the same time. The power and responsibility of managing thread synchronization is in the hands of the application.

Mobile-friendly features: Vulkan includes features particularly helpful for achieving high performance on tiling GPUs, used by many mobile devices. Applications can provide information about the interaction between separate rendering passes, allowing tiling GPUs to make effective use of limited memory bandwidth, and avoid performing off-chip reads.

Offline shader compilation: Vulkan mandates support for SPIR-V, an intermediate language for shaders. This allows developers to compile shaders ahead of time, and ship SPIR-V binaries with their applications. These binaries are simpler to parse than high-level languages like GLSL, which means less variance in how drivers perform this parsing. SPIR-V also opens the door for third parties to provide compilers for specialized or cross-platform shading languages.

- Optional validation: OpenGL ES validates every command you call, checking that arguments are within expected ranges, and objects are in the correct state to be operated upon. Vulkan doesn’t perform any of this validation itself. Instead, developers can use optional debug tools to ensure their calls are correct, incurring no run-time overhead in the final product.

Other new functionality with the Android N Preview 2 include:

- Launcher shortcuts: Now, apps can define shortcuts which users can expose in the launcher to help them perform actions quicker. These shortcuts contain an Intent into specific points within your app (like sending a message to your best friend, navigating home in a mapping app, or playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app).

An application can publish shortcuts and launchers can be expected to show 3-5 shortcuts for a given app.

- Emoji Unicode 9 support: Google is introducing a new emoji design for people emoji that moves away from a generic look in favor of a more human-looking design. If you’re a keyboard or messaging app developer, you should start incorporating these emoji into your apps. The update also introduces support for skin tone variations and Unicode 9 glyphs, like the bacon, selfie and face palm.

API changes: This update includes API changes as Google continue to refine features such as multi-window support (you can now specify a separate minimum height and minimum width for an activity), notifications, and others.

Stable Release of Android Studio 2.1 Supports Android N Developer Preview

The stable release of Android Studio 2.1 is now available and includes updates to the platform’s IDE wizards, build system and Android Emulator. The Android Studio development team says that the latest release provides access to new features and APIs of the developer preview including the new Jack compiler and Java 8 language support. Android Studio 2.1 includes performance improvements to Instant Run which provides faster edit and deploy build speeds.

Highlights of the new features to Android Studio 2.1:



N Developer Preview Support

For developers who want test and validate an app with the Android N Developer Preview, Android Studio 2.1 is the suggested IDE to do so. Developers can access the latest versions of the preview SDK, learn the functionality of new Java 8 support, and utilize the official Android Emulator able to run N Developer Preview Emulator System Images to help in with testing.


The Android Studio 2.1 release includes support for the new Jack compiler and support for Java 8. With the Jack compiler, lambdas, method references, compile-time type annotations, intersection types and type inference are available on all versions of the Android platform. Default and static methods and repeatable annotations are available on Android N and higher. To use Java 8 language features when developing with the N Developer Preview, developers need to use the Jack compiler.

Instant Run

Developers can access fast edits, builds and deploy cycles with Android Studio 2.0 as Instant Run now can now update incremental changes to app code much faster. Instant Run and general build speed are now faster due to two new features - incremental Java compilation and in-process dex.

In previous versions of Android Studio, a single line of Java code change will cause all the Java sources in the module to be recompiled. Now in Android Studio 2.1, incremental Java compilation is enabled by default to reduce compilation time by compiling only what is needed.


Build times are now faster by using in-process dex, which converts class files to dex files within the Gradle daemon process. This avoids the processing operation of creating separate dex processes. To use this feature, developers will need to increase the amount of memory available to the Gradle daemon to at least 2GB (1 GB is the default). This feature will help speed up both incremental and full builds.

Read More: https://developer.android.com/studio/intro/index.html

YouTube for Android Testing New Comment UI With Likes, Dislikes and Replies

HIGHLIGHTS

• It also allows users to reply to a comment through the app
• The feature is still in the testing phase
• YouTube has also launched mobile live streaming recently

YouTube is looking to revamp the way comments look on its Android app. The company is testing a new UI, which will show likes, dislikes, replies, and even lets you sort them.

A few select users are seeing a new comment UI in YouTube for Android. The new interface now supports likes and dislikes. Essentially it supports all the features that are available on the desktop, including the number of replies a comment has got, and the ability to expand those replies on a separate page.

YouTube for Android currently only shows comments in the order of the time it was posted in - and that's about it. The only thing users could do was add their own comment to the video.

However, Android Police reports that few users are seeing an improved interactive comment UI. It also has a switch that sorts the newest comments on top. The new comment interface is not yet ready for general release, and is just in its initial server-side test phase. If testing is successful, we can expect it to become the norm for all YouTube for Android users.

Just to compare, YouTube for iOS supports likes, and replies. It doesn't have the option to dislike, but does have the sorting toggle to let users choose between newest comments and top comments.

YouTube recently also announced its plans to bring live streaming to Android and iOS. For starting a live video on the smartphone, users will have to tap the big red capture button in the corner, select an image to use as a thumbnail, and then broadcast live to followers. YouTube is already testing this with few YouTube channels like AIB, and plans to do a mass rollout soon.