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One of the most annoying things when you install a new Google app in iOS is that you have to sign in. If you install Gmail, Google+, YouTube, Chrome and Google Maps, you'll have to enter your email address and password 5 times. Android's account manager solves this issue.

Somehow Google managed to bring shared accounts to iOS, although it's not exactly clear how. The latest version of the YouTube app and the new AdSense app bring the following features:

- support for multiple Google accounts
- quickly switching between accounts without entering your password
- the accounts are shared between Google apps.

If you enter the credentials of a Google account in the YouTube app and then open the AdSense app, you'll find the new account and you can sign in without entering the password. If you remove an account, it will be removed from the other Google apps that support this feature. I assume that most Google apps for iOS will be updated to use this brilliant feature.



YouTube's help center informs that "if you've signed in with another Google app on your iOS device, you may see this account listed." This means that the accounts are associated with your device, so maybe Google uses an unique ID for each device. iOS devices have unique IDs called UDIDs, but they can no longer be used in iOS 7. App developers can use vendor IDs, which are identical for the apps from the same developer and they "uniquely identify a device to the app's vendor". It's interesting to see that "the value changes when the user deletes all of that vendor's apps from the device and subsequently reinstalls one or more of them."

If you enable "Instant Extended API" in the recently released Chrome 29, you also get a new Google Search interface that hides the search box, has a new navigation menu and a new share button. This also enables the updated new tab page which is actually a simplified Google homepage.





To try the experimental new tab page and the new Google interface, paste this in Chrome's address bar: chrome://flags/, use Ctrl+F to search for "Enable Instant Extended API" and click "Enabled" in the drop-down below "Enable Instant Extended API". Then click "Relaunch now" at the bottom of the page to restart Chrome. To disable this feature, use the same instructions, but click "Disabled" instead of "Enabled".

YouTube's app for iOS has also been updated and added many of the features from the Android app. You can watch a video while searching for the next one, just like picture-in-picture, search for playlists and use the "play all" button.


There's something that only works in the iOS app for iPad: an Easter Egg. Open the YouTube app (make sure you have the latest version - 2.0), keep a finger on the left sidebar and use another finger to swipe right until the list of videos because almost empty. You'll see a funny cat with a play button.


{ Thanks, Jonah and Max. }

YouTube 5.0 for Android brings a lot of new features. There's a new card-style layout that's consistent with other Google apps:


The player has fewer buttons:


You can search YouTube, check your subscriptions or the video history, all while watching a video. It's quite clever: the video is minimized when you tap the arrow from the top-left corner or swipe down and it continues to play. You can go back to the video by tapping the small player or swiping up. Unfortunately, this only works in the YouTube app, so don't expect to see the minimized player when you close the app.


There's a new interface in the landscape mode, but only for tablets. Until now, the video played in full-screen when you switched to landscape, but now the YouTube app shows suggested videos, comments and more. You can tap the full-screen button in both the portrait and landscape mode.


Other changes: a new app icon, no more +1 button, HD and CC toggles when you tap the overflow button (a strange decision), playlist search, a new slide-out navigation and more.



The new version is gradually rolled out, but you can manually download the APK file from here.

Google tests an oversized sticky header. It's a lot bigger than the existing header and it has a fixed position, so you can quickly use the search box, upload videos or open a playlist even when you scroll down.


Unfortunately, it's way too big:


YouTube also experiments with relocating the share button next to the like/dislike buttons and adding sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

How to enable these experiments? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=JX5TVkqGL3I; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

In other related news, the channel cards seem to be publicly available.

{ via Techno-Net }

The latest major update of the Google Maps app for Android and iOS added incident reports and many people wondered if the data was obtained from Waze, a service acquired by Google in June. Google used other providers, but it now also uses Waze data.

"Users of Google Maps for Mobile will now benefit from real time incident reports from Waze users. This means when Wazers report accidents, construction, road closures and more on Waze, the updates will also appear on the Google Maps app for Android and iOS in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Switzerland, UK and the US," informs Google LatLong.

Google Maps only shows this message next to the traffic incident: "reported via Waze app".


Waze added some Google features: local search results powered by Google Maps, Google Street View and Google satellite imagery in Waze Map Editor.

"Waze users report millions of blockages and accidents per month. 'I think it will have a pretty big impact,' said Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps. 'A big fraction of GMM users will see these.' As McClendon described it in an interview Monday, Waze will continue to be focused on two core things: its community, and helping people who commute. As for Google Maps' perceived strengths? Those are search, exploring, finding businesses around you, and offering more imagery, according to McClendon," reports AllThingsD.

Will Waze continue to exist as a standalone app? That's obvious. Google could have easily added a "report incident" feature to Google Maps, but not many people would have used it. It takes a lot of time to foster a community of people that manually add data. Google usually obtains data automatically. For example, the Google Maps traffic feature uses aggregated data from users. "Your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you're moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions".

Panoramio is a similar service acquired by Google and it still exists after so many years. Panoramio's high-quality photos are added to Google Earth and Google Maps.

Google+ added translation links for posts and comments written in languages you may not understand. Click "Translate" and Google+ will translate the post and the comments. This only works for public posts and the feature is only available on the desktop Google+ site.


Here's what happens after clicking "Translate":



This feature is not that useful if you use Chrome, since the browser has a built-in translation feature that works in Google+ just like it works for any other site.


"The Google Translate team is always working to make information more accessible to individuals around the world. In Google+ this means bringing people together regardless of their written language, and breaking down language barriers that can limit the exchange of ideas," informs the Google Translate blog.